What does your workspace look like?

What does your workspace look like? Do you like it clean and organised, or do you thrive on creative chaos?

I love those pictures of great writers sitting at their antique desks, all slumped and drowning under mountains of paper, with pictures in scraps pinned all over the walls, and old coffee cups, stacks of yellowed airmail correspondence bound in old string, desiccated red wine in dirty glasses, dusty armchairs, and dying, drying flowers… and they are invariably writing one or another of the world's literary masterpieces, you know? That would drive me CRAZY. Which is perhaps one reason why I haven't written any of the world's literary masterpieces lately. I can't even start to work until my desk is clear and my office tidy.

I'm the same in the rest of my living and working space. I can't stand it when the house gets too messy: suddenly everything feels like it's crowding in on top of me, I feel out of control and claustrophobic. Which seems a rather melodramatic sentence when I write it out like that, but it's true. That's just me.  First world problems, I know!

Anyway, all this is a lead-up to explain why things might be looking a little different on this website lately, if you've happened to have popped in to take a look. I've been having an autumn clean. I felt like my blog was starting to get a bit cluttered, a bit old and tired. I was uninspired. Like a dingy, messy old office, my blog needed a fresh coat of paint and some creative storage solutions. Some white space to make it feel clean and fresh. And some nice pictures on the walls to inspire me when the fog of creative block descends.

What do you think? Do you like it? I renamed the blog "Naomi Loves," because this space is all about the things I love. I painted a new header in bright patterns and colours, because they make me happy. My enormously talented friend Brandi Bernoskie tweaked these things to make it all work. I've made it much easier for you to subscribe to receive updates via email, if that's your thing, with a simple box on the sidebar. And there is some exciting content in the works, not the least of which that book I was telling you about!

Now, tell me about your workspace (online or offline). How do you make it somewhere you want to be?

ps. Photos are old Instagram ones (remember when we all went beserk with the filters and the frames after it first came out?) of my home office in Adelaide. That was the most amazing workspace. I wish there was a way to replicate it everywhere I go!

Taking stock - 2

It's time for a little life stock-take, while I busily work on some other projects in the background. Here's what I have been...

Making: A little watercolour picture for my new blog header. I can't wait to show it to you! Cooking: This super-tangy lemon slice, with the lemons Madeleine helped pick from our tree this week Drinking: Tea, tea, tea Reading: The latest Inside Out magazine. Too many pretty ideas, too little cash! Wanting: A little more cash (see above!) Looking: A little odd, to be honest. I tried colouring my hair myself and, well, let's just say I wasn't going for chutney orange but we must all get used to disappointment Playing: The "baby bird game," which Madeleine made up, at every meal time. Essentially, it means putting food into her mouth whenever she says "tweet tweet." It gets old. Deciding: To cut back on the sugar in my diet Wishing: That week-long headache would just give up already Enjoying: Tamarillo season! Waiting: For the next week's worth of lessons in my Blog With Pip course by Pip Lincolne Liking: A lazy weekend with nothing much on and no deadlines Wondering: How I will ever get everything done Loving: The Blog With Pip course Pondering: Whether there is a way I could better structure and live my life, to somehow get everything done and be a better wife, mother and friend Watching: Masterchef Considering: Starting to run again Hoping: The execs at Channel 10 bring back Junior Masterchef Marvelling: At all the new words my daughter is using Needing: A decent night's sleep Smelling: My baby boy's skin. He is heavenly! Wearing: Baby spit-up. Over everything. Following: Almost 150 blogs, according to Feedly. Yikes! Noticing: Every changing leaf. Autumn is just glorious, isn't it? Knowing: I am loved Thinking: About my next book Feeling: Excited and time-poor! Admiring: My husband. He is a very smart, very funny, very GOOD person Sorting: Ideas, sections and chapters for my book Buying: Little bits and pieces for Madeleine's birthday party Getting: Up. Too early, and too many times in the night Bookmarking: This collaboration Disliking: Sleep deprivation Opening: A new box of tea bags Giggling: When Madeleine mimics me, and the reflection is NOT flattering Feeling: Grateful Snacking: On tamarillos! Coveting: This mid-century side-board (actually and the painting, and the little tableau on top. Basically coveting everything in this picture) Wishing: There were more hours in the day to get things done, and more hours of sleep in the night Helping: A friend celebrate. We should give ourselves permission to celebrate! Hearing: The cutest-ever baby-gurgles from the mat next to me on the floor

Do you want to take stock, too? It's actually quite challenging, and kind of helpful to slow down enough to think properly about where you are at, what you are doing, and where you want to be. If you make your own list, do let me know so I can pop over and see how you're doing! Here was my previous stock-take (a week before Harry was born - so bizarre to think there ever was a time BH!).

The swing

This is Madeleine, flying. The swing is her favourite thing in the world to do right now. She can stay on there for hours. Sometimes in silence. At other times, the park echoes to her jubilant shouts of joy: "Weeeeee!" she yells, mimicking Peppa Pig, as her funny little baby-mullet lifts in the wind and her knuckles turn white to my "Hold on tight!"

"More high? More high?" she begs, and I really  put my back into pushing her. "Do you feel like you're flying?" I ask. She grins. "YES!"

I am swinging, too. Up: I am trying new things and I am taking the Blog With Pip course from Pip Lincoln and I am mapping out the beginnings of a new book... I am high and I am flying. Down: Harry is waking and staying awake throughout the night, I'm getting less than three hours of sleep in every 24 hours, and I ache with weariness. Sometimes my eyes can't focus. Sometimes it physically hurts to sit up. But still I have to care and play and nurture and manage tantrums and comfort fevers and meet those pesky work deadlines... I am low and I am motion-sick. I am probably just one more sleepless night away from administering tea intravenously.

The swing is why things have gone a little quiet around here of late. I'm giving myself permission to focus on other things. Like survival! Yes, survival, but also very exciting changes to happen on this blog. I can't wait to share them with you when I get them finished. Oh and that new book. Not the I've-been-working-on-it-forever novel, which will still happen ONE DAY, but something a little closer to the contents of this blog and I really hope you like it!

Way to be all circumspect, Naomi. I think on Facebook they call this "vaguebooking," don't they? I'm sorry, I just have to clarify everything in my mind and plot everything down on paper (I'm old-fashioned like that) before I will know how to share it with you. I can't wait!

In the meantime, I hope you are well. Tell me what you have been doing! What have you been dreaming / planning / wishing for? Fill this space with your lovely words while mine take a back seat!

Yours truly, Naomi xo

Beautiful, Renaissance colour charts

I saw this on SwissMiss recently and it absolutely blew me away. More than 300 years ago (in 1692), a Dutch artist created an incredible, beautiful, hand-painted book containing 800 pages of guides to colours and hues in watercolours. It was the Pantone Color Guide of the Renaissance, except that only one copy was ever made. The book is held at the Bibliothèque Méjanes in France, and you can see every beautiful page (and practice your centuries-old Dutch) here.

Food legacy

This is the sort of thing you see in overly-sentimental movies, like The Notebook, or read about in books like Anne of Green Gables. And it is beautiful. Sarah of The Yellow House, a foodie blogger living in rural Virginia, recently became the recipient of a rather emotional bounty from the women of her fiance's family.

A bundle of yellowed, dog-eared, food-splattered recipes, stretching through the generations, hand in hand, across more than a hundred years.

There were several recipes for nut bread and other popular dishes from the 50s and 60s. Thrift-inspired preserves and pickles from the Depression and War eras. And turn-of-the-century recipes, made immensely and timelessly personal for being embedded in letters written from a mother to a daughter.

When I cook my mother and my grandmother's salmon rissole recipe, I think about them, and the times they taught me to cook these rissoles, and our many, many family meals together. I can still picture the oil spitting in the pan in Nanna's tiny kitchen. It was not much bigger than my pantry is today.

What an extraordinary gift these pages must be to Sarah. A chance to absorb, through food and words, something beautiful of her new family.

Little things - marbles

Little things in my home... A couple of months ago, our lovely friend Pascale gave Madeleine this simple wooden toy, that her own almost 15-year-old daughter (who happens to share the same birthday as Madeleine) had played with when she was little.

Already, that made it a special and rather lovely gift.

I wasn't sure how safe it would be to give Madeleine marbles but, during this heatwave I struggled to find enough things to keep her entertained inside day after day, so I pulled it out one afternoon.

Instant hit, my friends! Seems the tactile pleasure of cold, coloured glass in the hand, and of watching something make its way along tunnel or tracks, is timeless. I've long had a thing for marbles, ever since my father gave me three he had kept from his childhood. They became the key symbolic component of my novella Airmail.

It was so lovely to see Madeleine develop a fascination for these pretty little glass beauties, too. Of course, she wasn't exactly happy when it was time to pack the toy away.

“Little Things” is an occasional series about the stories behind some of the little things you’ll find around my home. Are there stories behind the little things in your home? I’d love you to tell me about them! Or if you’d like to join in and write a post like this of your own, don’t forget to share a link to it so I can read it.

ps. Another reader of this blog, Ailsa from Topaz Magpie, wrote the sweetest things about Airmail last week. You can read her words here, if you're interested.

ps2. If you'd like a copy of Airmail I'd be happy to send one to you for free. More details on this page.

Fan girl

Sometimes I really love how the Internet works. For example: A London-based actress by the name of Kate has a bit of a love for snail mail, and she stumbles across my Airmail board on Pinterest. This leads her to my blog, which leads her to my Instagram, where she leaves a lovely comment. That leads me to her Instagram, which leads me to her blog, which leads me to these very funny "Fan Girl" mock documentaries, that she made. And whammo, my breastfeeding entertainment for the afternoon is set.

Kate's idea for the spoofs came from a similar one that she made as an entry for a competition to bang the gong like the guy (you know the one?) at the beginning of the Rank Organisation movies. She won it.

So now, in case you're in need of a random little giggle too, I thought I'd share that original "gong" spoof with you here. And if the mood takes you, watch your way through the cute little Fan Girl episodes. I'm still smiling from my afternoon foray.

Meanwhile, I'm typing this post with my thumb on my iPhone during the 11pm feed. It will go live at around breakfast tomorrow morning, less than 24 hours after Kate first popped by to say hi. Shazam, speedy Internet.

(And now we will return to our more leisurely paced snail mail activities, which is how this all started in the first place).

~ Photograph of 1888 autograph book via Playing With Brushes, licensed under Creative Commons

Meals on Wheels - Let's Do Yum Cha

Sometimes ideas come at you and you can't think where they came from or why they decided to show up but, what the hey, you figure you might as well go with them anyway. That is the story of our night picnic. The Let's Do Yum Cha food truck parks outside our local park every Sunday. Last weekend Madeleine slept extra late during her afternoon nap, so we figured she could have a late night and we'd head on over for a picnic in the dark.

It didn't seem like that big a deal when I suggested it but, as our family was walking along the empty street by just the light of the street-lamps, bundled up to the nines against the icy autumn wind, with Madeleine exclaiming an astonished "Night! Night!" every few steps, the strangeness of the outing began to seep in.

Then as we turned into our friendly, much-used and oh-so-familiar park, it felt positively eerie. The park was not bathed in soft moonlight, nor lit by elegantly-placed garden lamps. It was a well of black and deeper black, the shifting leaves above alive with the wind and the squeak of fruit bats. A ring-tail possum ran ahead of us as we searched for a place in the grass to lay our rug. In the end, we chose a spot right next to the road, to take advantage of the nearby street light and avoid having to walk too far with our dumplings.

So, the Let's Do Yum Cha food truck: think steamed dumplings and dim sum, pork buns and spring rolls. We bought about six different styles, because none of us is good at editing when it comes to food choices! It was super fresh and super delicious and I will definitely be stopping by this truck again, but next time I'll do it in the day time… or take it back to my cosy and well-lit home.

Seasons pass

As I write this, Mr B, Emily and I are sitting on couches in our lounge room re-watching Notting Hill and dreaming about moving to London. This is one of Mr B's favourite movies, but I am ambivalent. It's Hugh Grant at his floppy, bumbling best and a fantastically quirky supporting cast, but I never could buy into the Julia Roberts character and how they fell in love. She is such an awful character! Anyway, if you have somehow missed seeing this movie during the past 15 years, it's worth a gander for the hilarity and love and community of the sweet little friendship group, and, Oh! London! What a city, huh?

Anyway, there is a "time passing" scene in the movie and I think it's one of the best I've ever seen so I thought I'd share it with you. Look out for all the tiny details that indicate change and stability co-existing.

Melbourne dispatch - Das T-Shirt Automat

Do you like my new shopping bag? I sure do! If the design looks familiar, that's because it's a picture of my old typewriter that I once drew on a napkin, which later became the logo I use on this website (and elsewhere around the traps). I got the bag at Das T-Shirt Automat on Johnston Street in Fitzroy, my new go-to place for unique and thoughtful gifts (you have been warned). You can get pretty much anything you like printed here: they have bags, t-shirts, hoodies, baby onesies, cushions and all kinds of other things, but you can also bring along anything of your own and they'll do their best to print on it. Likewise you can bring your own design, or choose from the rather awesome illustrations in their books. It's all printed while you wait and the quality is fantastic! They'll even help tweak your design for you. Here's how it works:

Step 1. Just stop off at the t-shirt window on Johnston Street and choose a design or give the man your own...

Step 2. Wait patiently while the man prints what you've asked for. He will also manage any design tweaks you need while he's at it (he deep etched mine, and placed it properly on the bag)...

Step 3. Et voila: your new bag, T-shirt, cushion or whatever else you ordered is ready! (FYI the bag was $20)

Also I can't wait to try out their other printing service: records! You can bring along a recording for them to press, or record something on the spot. I think it would be pretty special to send a spoken message to someone I love, on vinyl. Yes?

And another thing I love about this place? The "Das Vending Machine" looks like a gigantic bubble-gum machine. It costs $2 to have a go, and down will pop a big plastic ball. Madeleine loved it! Much more fun than those moving toy cars at the shopping centre.

Twist the ball open to discover if you've won something to be printed for free. If not, don't worry: there's a consolation prize in every every ball. Madeleine was given the choice of a plastic banana or bubbles, which was a tough one for her until I explained that the plastic banana could not be eaten. Bubbles it was.

A big thanks to Live North for sponsoring our little jaunt down Das Automat lane! Just another reason why I love living in Melbourne's Inner North.