It's the little things that make me so happy

 Five gorgeous little animal postcards from Ikea

I know that things aren't supposed to make me happy. I know that I should delight in the people and not the objects around me. And of course I do. But sometimes, a little acquisition or two can raise the spirits. And they don't even have to be very large.

A delightfully weird Japanese exercise book with a German cover from (the Japanese store) Daiso

Owl cushion cover from Ikea

Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs now have Smurfs in them (oh no, there are nine to collect...)

And two Bowie albums ("Low" and "Heroes") on sale from JB-Hi Fi...now in the CD player...

Musings

I have been working hard on my novel this last week or so, while also starting an online course on feature writing for newspapers and magazines. Phew! I must admit that my brain is now a little fried. On this, I am finding that I am not getting through my reading very quickly if at all. I am loving Young Bess by Margaret Irwin, but I open it up to have a read at night and I am asleep within half a dozen pages. Not good for an aspiring writer, or even for someone who just wants to finish a book! When do you do your reading?

Of course, I would probably be a lot better off if we threw out the telly. We have recently had a number of digital channels added to our tv schedule here in Australia, but the quality has certainly not improved. It reminds me now of the worst excesses of tv that I saw in Europe and the USA. Is my life being benefited by watching repeats of shows 40 years old or by a seemingly endless supply of reality shows about the American law enforcement system? I think not. And yet I watch and my books remain unread and my craft projects undone. How do you escape the tv trap? Perhaps you don't? Perhaps you love a bit of trash tv?

Having said that, I am in love with the comedy Arrested Development, which is re-screening on the ABC at the moment. Is anyone else watching it? And Downton Abbey? Don't get me started...

We made a pilgrimage to that great site of Scandinavianess - Ikea - on the weekend and bought ourselves a lovely new armchair which is both very elegant and very comfortable. Yet again I wondered if I should throw out all of our inherited, second-hand and just plain odd furniture and install a big dose of Swedish sleekness. Then I reminded myself that my life would not become sleek along with it as a result - despite what Ikea's image makers might like me to think - and that I do love all of our old and weird bits and pieces anyway. We did however also stock up on some culinary deliciousness, like the Swedish cookie(s) pictured above. The last one went down the red lane (as my grandmother would have said) with my morning coffee this morning. Love Ikea's foodie bits. Do you?

I may have posted a clip from this band - Dead Can Dance - before but their so very unique music has been wonderful for me at my desk lately as I try to keep my wee brainbox ticking over.

Enjoy.

What's Swedish for Retail Therapy?

In amongst a sudden and unexpected flurry of work stuff, I have been tinkering away on a few little crafty-cookingy type projects. Yesterday I made coconut ice. I don't know if this is an exclusively Australian confection? Essentially, it's a sugar-level-disrupting mix of coconut, condensed milk and icing sugar. So bad and yet so very good. I made this batch as a Christmas gift for a friend's little daughter and I am also planning some more for our Christmas Day stops, as well as brownies or perhaps rocky road.

I also stitched this brooch as a belated birthday gift for same said friend. Oh, vintage doilies, how I do love thee.

This morning I did one of my rare pilgrimages to Ikea. I have always liked Ikea but I have never been that excited by it. But today there were so many very good bits and pieces! I spent far more than I intended but I didn't buy anything I didn't really love or need (I think William Morris would approve).

On the fifth day before Christmas,
On a trip to Ikea I did buy,
Thirty birdy napkins,
Twelve fabric hearts,
Eight picture frames,
Four birdy placemats,
Three cooking pots,
Two scented candles,
Two nice prints,
Two jars of jam,
Two jars of mustard,
One bottle of glogg,
One packet of crispbread and
One packet of toff-ee!

Like a bear with a sore head

Ever woken up feeling like a bear with a sore head? (does this Australian expression translate elsewhere?) That's how I felt this morning. Sunshine disappeared behind cloud before 9 a.m., not feeling 100 %, mildly irksome news via email...blah! I have gradually eased my way out of it as the day has progressed, though...somehow. What do you do when you wake up feeling like this?

****

Have you see the 'Happy Inside' Ikea ad? I discovered it a couple of days ago and it's so beautiful! I tried to upload it but that didn't seem to work...so here's the link -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7vXP3tHzhA

Shopping

The Ektorp, courtesy of http://www.ikea.com/

We need a new couch. Our current couch was new circa 1975 and it belonged to my mother-in-law. Sadly, it is not retro chic. It is brown. With beige stripes. And it is made of a peculiar, nubby, thoroughly unidentifiable fabric. But for all this, it has served us well ever since we set up home together. And it's a good length so you can stretch out very comfortably for a post-dinner snooze. But its time has come. Its cushions have become flat and depleted and there's no getting away from the fact that it's just plain ugly.

So it's simple, right? Go out, find the one you like, buy it, bring it home, sit on it. No. Not. So. Simple. We went to Ikea on Sunday and also Freedom, another furniture store which we have here in Australia. Now, having done my Net research, my plan was to go in, buy a 2-seater 'Ektorp' at Ikea in a suitably goes-with-anything colour which wouldn't show every little mark and get out. But then we sat down on an 'Ektorp' stationed near the door. "What do you think?", "I don't know, what do you think?", "Is it comfortable?", "Let's try the 3-seater", "Oh, they have a 2.5 seater", "What about the 'Beddinge'?", "Oh no, it's a sofa-bed", "That one's too expensive", "Well, that one looks a bit wonky"...and so on and so on until we'd walked through the entire store and bought a wreath for the door, a scented candle, a jar of Lingonberry jam and a bottle of Elderflower cordial but no couch. Then my DH said "Let's go to Freedom..." and the whole process began again...

Having had my memory jogged by Crazy Aunt Purl's latest blog to tell my Ikea-and-the-couch story, I will now take up another of her themes and express my dislike of self-checkouts at the supermarket. We have used them a couple of times lately and they are really quite useless in my view. Every time we have ended up having to call for help when the machine decided we'd done something it didn't like the look of and terminated our transaction. So, remind me, how is this saving my time and the supermarket's workforce (and, more importantly, money)? Aside from this, though, it is just another way of disassociating people. Soon, there'll be no need to interact with other people at all. For some this may be a good thing, but for me, I think it's rather nice to say 'hello' to a number of people as I go through my day. Obviously, these are not hugely significant interactions but just for a moment it takes you out of your bubble, that little space you hum along in where you and yours are number one. How bizarre supermarkets today would be to the shopper of the 1920s or 1930s. My grandmother would often recount tales of going to the butcher for this, going to the grocer for that...now you grab something wrapped in plastic off the shelf and swipe it through a machine without having to talk to another soul. My DH is all for this brave-new-world streamlining and perhaps it will prove to have its merits one day - when we cannot remember it being any other way.