Liebster Blog Award

Last week Carinè Müller from Le Butin made my day by nominating me for a Liebster Blog Award. Carinè is an incredibly cool person with a great blog, so it was quite an honour! (Every day Carinè shares her song for the day, from Nina Simone and The Beatles to Smoke City and Depeche Mode.)

The Liebster Award is a way for bloggers to promote the smaller blogs (ie with less than 200 followers) they find inspiring and entertaining. So when you receive one of these, you pass it on to your five favourite blogs. 

The rules

1. Thank the person who nominated you and link back to them. 
2. Copy and paste the award logo. 
3. Nominate five other bloggers you would like to pass the award on to. (Remember to let them know about it!)
4. Post ten random facts about yourself.

My nominations*

1. The Adventures of Ami. My friend Amelia is a whiz in the kitchen, and I love the recipes she posts.
2. 24 - Truth and Lies at 24fps. Good friend Chris knows his stuff when it comes to film - he's proven that on live TV - and he writes really good, in-depth and entertaining film reviews. 
3. Lines of Escape. A personal and fun glimpse into travelling, work, movies, TV, books and more. Plus some cool posts on Game of Thrones, which I very unexpectedly got into.
4. What Jacci did Next. I will always admire Jacci's perserverance in crocheting a whole granny square blanket. I've been threatening to do it for years, but can't see myself doing hundreds of squares anytime soon, alas.

Random things about me*

1. The first album I listened to was Sandra's Into a Secret Land (1988).
2. I share a birthday with Ernest Hemingway, Cat Stevens and Jon Lovitz.
3. My first crush was Jacques Rynhardt from the 1987 TV series Ballade vir 'n Enkelling.
4. I played piano for many many years - I even wanted to make a career out of it, until I realised I was far too lazy to practise every day.
5. I've been to both Red Square and Tiananmen Square.
6. At one stage my brother and I watched Wayne's World every Friday afternoon. Not sure for how long, but we saw the film a lot.
7. The first time I realised my husband and I may be soulmates was when I found out he has Portishead's Dummy in his CD collection.
8. I'm possibly the only person I know who's never been to England.

*Apologies for bending the rules with the number of nominations and random facts. Finding time to blog and surf the internet is a bit of treat with a 9-week-old baby!

xx

Knitting it up at Knead

Last week Me-a-Mama launched their Knit-a-Row-and-Go drive. Everyday, at a different Knead Bakery in town, you could pop in for a cup of tea and some cookies and cupcakes, pick up some needles and knit a few rows of the gorgeous wool provided. The rows will all eventually be sewn together to make 1000 blankets for orphaned babies.

Some of my fellow knitters.

Mother's Day wishlist

This month's edition of Good Housekeeping had some great ideas for Mother's Day gifts ("101 Treats for Mom", pages 23-31). Since this Sunday is my first Mother's Day, I got all inspired to come up with my own wishlist. I admit that Jamie is perhaps a tad young to be cooking up surprises for mommy, but there's always next year...

Bob Harris on having children

From one of my favourite films, Lost in Translation. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson) are talking about life, marriage and children.

Bob: It's the most terrifying day of your life, the day the first one is born.
Charlotte: Nobody ever tells you that.
Bob: Your life as you know it is gone, never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk, and - and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you'll ever meet in your life.

Lessons from my first month as a mother

Things I've learnt in my first month of motherhood:

✥ To follow my instincts. What a revelation when, on Day 3, I ignored what the nurses said, followed my own gut and it worked.

✥ Not to read too much. Alas, babies don't come with manuals. Yet I sometimes still grasp on to anything that has the faintest scent of a user guide, be it my Miriam Stoppard book, Baby Sense, or the Babycentre forums. Though these are great, they started to drown out my own instincts - especially in those first days when I was faced with this fully formed, needy little stranger and my anxieties about Getting It Right. I had to learn to hear my instincts first, so I put away the books for a while and just tried to look at and listen to Jamie.

I still turn to my quasi-Jamie-manuals every now and then, but I think my instincts are starting to guide me much better. Until next month, of course, when he changes again!

A boy named Jamie

This is a boy named Jamie.

Jamie likes sleeping, drinking milk, snuggling up with his dad and staring into his mom's face. When he grows up, he can play with his dog Poppy, run barefoot on the lawn, jump into rain puddles, fly kites with his dad or play drums on empty cans. He can walk around with his nose in a book, build things, or take them apart to see how they work. If his mom and dad have their way, he can be whatever he dreams to be.

Jamie was born with an extra little chromosome - which is just a fancy way of saying that he will never be quite like most other people. But then his parents always knew that he was going to be the most beautiful, most wonderful little person they'd ever known.

How right they were!

Wall ink

My homemade Totoro wall sticker 

When I fell pregnant I had such dreams and ambitions of the lovely things I'd make: baby quilts, nappy bags, knitted toys... Well. Nine months are apparently not as many as you'd think. I did use some of my crafting powers to decorate the baby room - especially after I found out how hard it is to get proper vinyl wall stickers at a reasonable price.

There are a couple of places in South Africa where you can buy wall tattoos, like here, here and here. But lovely as these designs are, I'm not quite prepared to befriend those price tags. Besides, we wanted some very specific designs, particularly Totoro and Moomin.

Challenge accepted.

Package Project: from me

Yesterday I shared the amazing package I got from Darelam in Singapore. (See it here.)

Here's what I sent Darelam: something handmade, something vintage, something South African, something fun and something for letter-writing.

Package from Singapore

What better way to kick off a weekend than getting a bumper package in the post? Last Friday I got my parcel from Package Project 2011 partner Darelam Veruz. And what a treasure trove it was! I couldn't decide whether I should open these delightful little packages slowly, savouring every second, or whether I should just rip it all open and roll in it. I opted for slow and steady, with some coffee and a box of chocolates for company.


So let's open it up, shall we?

Christmas koala

I just received my little gift from my Christmas Ornament Swap partner, Sarah from http://tearosesblog.blogspot.com/. I simply love it! It's nice and big and cheerful, and who can't love a koala in Christmas clothes?

Thanks so much Sarah!
xx