Why?

A friend of mine recently asked me why I blog. "Is it just to vent? Is it because you like having an audience? Is it to hang shit on other parents, especially helicopter parents? Is it just for fun? Why bother with blogging? Doesn't it take up a bunch of time? What's the point?"

When I started this blog, I intended it to be an uber-cool food blog like the cast of thousands which make up the rest of the Melbourne food blogging community. I was going to have cool recipes and restaurant reviews and extreme close up pictures of orgasmically good chocolate. I think I might have written a post or two like that and then came some crushing realisations: blogging about food is really, really boring, AND I'm not any good at it, AND I spend all day with food already. So without my really realising it my food blog became a mommy blog and then a talk-about-coping with life-blog and then a "whatever occurs to me to blog about" blog and there it's stayed. (Even with attempts at giving it a theme and all.)

So it begs the question, if my initial purpose for blogging was to be like all the uber cool kids (and let me tell you, in this I have failed spectacularly), why do I still do it?

Hmmm.

The truth is, I'm not entirely sure, other than I just kinda like it. I always fancied myself as a bit of a writer and this is my way of releasing my inner frustrated journalist. Plus it is cheaper than therapy and a lot more socially acceptable than, say, mud wrestling in Nutella. If that's not enough, the occasional kind (or funny as hell) comment I get reminds me that I'm not alone in this whole parenting-is-only-for-crazies business. So that's why I blog.

And now you know. And I am wanting to know - why do YOU blog?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

The previously mentioned clean-our-shit-up experience at Casa Verde continues apace and so I thought it was time I gave you all an update! (Not that you care, but then I don't see you volunteering loads of good blog post ideas, now do I? So suffer in your proverbials.)

• The new shower doors are in and working - hooray! What freedom, to shower without anyone else home. The really weird thing is that both DH and I have noticed that the showers have suddenly become bigger. I'm assuming this has something to do with the thickness of the old doors versus the new ones - but in my mind I'm chalking it up to shower door magic. New door, suddenly 1 foot of space in which to run around. Okay, maybe not a foot. More like 3 inches. But it FEELS like loads more space and therefore I am an all around much happier showering person.
• The decking/porch renovation was going great guns, until DH decided he had enough of it and stopped. All that's left is to clean and paint the balustrade. Even the motivation of his shiny spankin' new BBQ does not seem to motivate him to finish the job. Any ideas for encouraging DH's most welcome.
• The new carpet is coming on Friday - which means most of my house is all over the rest of the most of the house (including that sentence.) I'm actually typing this from our kitchen table, where the computer has been temporarily relocated to. Major bonus of moving all your crap around - you find crap you don't need which you had forgotten you lost and then you get to chuck it out.
• The garden guy is supposed to be coming tomorrow to begin the great Garden Destruction of 2010. Basically I've told him to raze the damn thing to the ground. I'll be surprised if a) he actually shows up to do it and b) I don't regret it later as I stare at a wasteland of garden.
• The major spanner in my works was the discovery that the fence which time forgot has now fallen down... and is being held up by the very same trees which are getting axed down tomorrow. So it's another $1300 which has now been diverted from the "cool crap I want" fund to the "boring shit I don't want to pay for" fund. This is leaving me very grumpy.
• I've still got to find some funds to get a couch and two chairs recovered, a cane chair fixed, 10 dining chairs repaired and recovered, a new entertainment unit, a coffee table, some artwork for the walls of our lounge room and various other sundry items. The official budget has about $4.78 left in it. I am now seriously considering stealing milk crates from Safeway to use as furniture. I'm going to call it "urban seating."
• Aforementioned fence is being serviced by "fence guy" who a) showed up when I wasn't expecting him to, and b) told me I could ask for him to come and repair said fence at a certain time but really it's a case of "don't call me, I'll call you." I am now left debating my career as a fence guy. Or make that fence gal.
  

Let's face it, people. House clean ups SUCK the big one...and while I'm beyond happy with the results so far, I'm also beyond frustrated at how long this takes, how much money it sucks up, and how desperately I now need MORE time and patience to finish the job properly.

...and for those who follow this blog (all 2 of you), fixing the upstairs bathroom door is now officially off the budget (...and my Mom is arriving in Australia in almost exactly one month from today.)

Back to Basics

It seems like I've not devoted too much of my blogging time this month to my official topic - that of coping when one has a very full life. So I thought it best if I bring that topic back to the fore for a minute or two. Today's topic is all about going back to basics as a coping mechanism.

My world is overwhelmed with noise. Noise in the literal sense, and noise in the mechanical sense. Everyone always seems to be talking, computers are beeping, I've got too many mobile and facebook and whatever else distractions, and stuff is just constantly happening in my life. I've already told you how the best way I know to deal with this is the micro mini vay-kay. On a more minute-to-minute basis, I resort to the basics. Today's basic lesson: Don't underestimate the power of a paper and pen.

I always have paper and pen handy - ALWAYS. Which means that when I get reminders to do something from someone else, or I need to write down a phone number, or I do a 'mental note' - I make it a REAL note. In my handbag I've got a little spiral notebook and a selection of pens and pencils. Nothing fancy. Not only does it serve as my constant reminder list, my shopping list, and my "wait, what was I supposed to do this week?" paper, it's also entertainment. Stuck in a long line with the kids? Ask them to draw a picture, play hangman, tic-tac-toe, or play the scribble game. You would be surprised how easily kids can get distracted with paper and pen.

In my notebook I'll write - ideas of blog posts. Phone numbers I've seen on trucks for tradesmen I think I might need. Reminders of what I wanted to buy at the shops, who I meant to call, whatever. I might even write down something funny I heard on the radio, or a good quote I see on a blog somewhere.

The key to this working for you is also knowing how to edit and reference. So if you're writing down miles and miles of just 'stuff' and never taking the time to read it... all you're doing is cluttering your life up. So every other day or so, I'll pull out my spiral book and read what I've written. I might move the phone number I jotted down to my mobile, or send myself an email with a web address I wanted to check out. Mostly, I either use the information I've got written down, or I decide I no longer need it. AND THEN - brace yourselves - I THROW OUT (okay, recycle) the piece of paper. The beauty of spiral notebooks is the noise they make when you rrriiippp out a page. Very satisfying. That way, too, I don't have to sift past loads of useless pages to find the most relevant information to me.

You would be amazed at the things which I've completely forgotten ten seconds after I wrote a mental note, but so too amazed at what I've remembered just because I jotted down a word or two to act as a reminder to my brain.

So sometimes - telling the computer, the laptop, the PDA and the mobile phone to take a hike - is the best way to actually manage your life. Return to basics. Make your life EASIER. If it takes 5 minutes to work out how to get to the right app in your iPhone, that's five minutes too long. It would take less than 5 seconds to use the pen-and-paper app. Try it. Go write yourself a note to buy a spiral notebook. (And in it, remind yourself to comment on this post about how much easier it is to remember stuff.)

Adult Education

In my earlier discussion about failed businesses, one of the things I did not mention was the importance of continuing education. Let's face it, nobody is the ultimate authority on anything (or at least, they only THINK they are.) I firmly believe that we can always be learning something new - either a refresher of our existing skills, learning some totally new ones, or taking the time to learn about how things could be done differently.

I often hear business owners claim that "all of a sudden" things went downhill. Orders stopped coming, people suddenly did not want to pay as much as they once did, or business has just slowed down. It's a scary time when that happens - the cash flow dries up, you start to panic about paying the bills, you do a whole lot of negative talk - "I can't do this" "I'll never succeed" and so on. I know this, of course, because I've DONE all of it. I'm particularly skilled at self-doubt. The very second something goes pear shaped, in my head I am suddenly a complete failure.

Every once in a while, when I'm feeling worried about the biz, or feeling overwhelmed by mountains of paperwork, I 'treat' myself to some adult education. More often than not it IS business related - a cake decorating class, a small business management class, going to listen to a speaker on a topic I'm interested in, going to check out some new machinery or ingredients, whatever. Without fail, I worry about the money I'm going to spend on that experience. The time I will be "wasting." The inconvenience to my family. The supposedly wasteful nature of time spent in just researching.

...and without fail, I walk out of those experiences thinking, "I CAN do this." "I WON'T fail." "Now I remember WHY I did this in the first place." and the future just seems that little bit brighter. As business owners, I think we get so close to the action - the 'action' being the bottom line - that we sometimes forget why we started in the first place. We also forget the old adage that says, "If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got." In other words if you never make the effort to change and grow, while the world (your customers) are changing and growing... well, it's no wonder you'll find yourself discounting and letting people go and cutting your advertising spend.

So - here's my two cents. Go out there. See what there is to learn. I promise you'll find it's very much worth it.

Because My Life is Exciting

Today I had a woman from a dairy company come and interview me about how the businesses uses dairy products - how much, how often, what suppliers, etc. I'm actually one of those geeks who is happy to do that kind of survey because I believe that ultimately, we are all better served by "big business" knowing what it is that little business wants. I actually believe this across the board - so when those survey guys call at home I don't hang up on them. I've been in focus groups, done 'vox pop' interviews on the street and so on.

I'd like to believe I do this because I am a concerned, involved citizen. In reality I do it because I have an inflated sense of self and think everyone should hear my opinion.

That, and usually I get free stuff for doing it. Today was a $60 gift card to a local department store. I *should* go and buy myself some clothes. Instead, I'm going to buy my daughters some undies. Because I can't handle seeing their little butt cracks anymore.

Yes, my life is really that exciting.

A Blogger's Gripe

Stuff I hate about other people's blogs, in no particular order:

- Endless blog rolls or link lists which never get updated or are so long as to be annoying. My own blog list (over there on the right) verges on being too long, but at least it gets updated once in a while.

- Too much visual crap cluttering up the page so you have to hunt for the actual post content. Counters, etc are fun but you do not need to count down to your next bathroom stop as well as days to Xmas and also have fifteen flashing widgets.

- Music. Your blog is not so fabulous that it needs a musical introduction every time I open the page.

- Award lists: I like getting blog awards, I just don't feel I need to clutter my page up with them. Acknowledge them in a post, pass them on, and that's it. In 5 minutes from now we won't care if you got the "E is for Excellent" award.

- Blogs who do not let you read the entire post in a reader. Why is this so?

- Blogs that used to be about parenthood and funny stuff but are now all about the cool people they met at BlogHer and all the secret cool people's business that went on there

- Blogs that used to be great to read until the author got a book deal. Jealous much? Yes. But also annoyed much ... because it used to be all fun and games until someone got a book deal, and then it got all boring and forced and not interesting to read at all.

- I'm more of a lurker than a commenter, but if someone takes the time to visit me and comment, you can bet I'll be doing the same in return (where possible, some of you choose to be Anon E. Mouse.)

- Food blogs which have now become food porn blogs to an extreme degree, as it's now suddenly all become about the EIGHTEEN close up photos of chocolate chip cookies. Why do you need to many pics when one or two will do?

... and that's all I can think of for now. Who wants to join in on my complaints about blogs free for all?

Sweet Eye Candy

It's been a while since I've posted any cake photos, so I thought I'd amuse you all with some sweet treats. All of these were done in the last couple of weeks:

A really simple design which looks lovely (IMHO anyway!). This is the one we delivered to Mt Dandenong.


This is the INSIDE of the luau cake below - the customer wanted something with WOW factor so we gave her a rainbow cake. I thought it was just stunning - and tasted good, too. I'm debating if I should add this to our list of regular flavours.

Luau cake - for a 13 year old, so we wanted something fun and yet a little bit grown up.

Mountain climber cake - supposedly where this guy hikes it's green all year round and yet snows... when we finished it, the top had a giant Hawthorn Hawks flag on top (which you can't see in this pic.)

Farmyard scene - for a grandfather and granddaughter sharing a party. The haystacks are cupcakes and the animals are all marzipan. My favourite are the little royal icing ducks in the pond and the pigs playing in the mud. :)

Three Sweeties Radio

This morning I had the immense thrill of being on the radio! The Breakfast Show on VEGA 91.5FM here in Melbourne wrote some hilariously funny radio ads for us. You can hear all the fun here:

http://www.vegafm.com.au/vega915/Audio_The-DDC-Ad-Agency-gets-sweet_95074

Enjoy! :) (and how horrible do our voices sound when we hear ourselves? Eek!)

Obsession

You know that your family has been playing Farmville too much when:

1) You're driving through bushland Victoria and your kids look out the window and say, "Hey, Mum, this looks just like Farmville!"

and

2) This is the series of texts you swap with your husband (who often plays the game at night):

Me: Not to be kinky or anything, but did you harvest my farm last night?
Him: Um, no. Should I have? I did plough your furrow a couple of times though. Does that count?

I think we need to find a new hobby.

I Can See Clearly Now

Today, there is a window cleaner working on our house - cleaning windows which have not been done in at least 8 years (since we moved in) but possibly never cleaned at all. It's a nice(ish) Melbourne day so I commented how lucky he is to be working outside today. He replied that he loved it and it "beat the heck" out of his old job.

His old job? (Because you know nosy ol' me had to ask.) He was an architect with a major city architecture firm.

Yes. An architect of 20+ years experience is cleaning my filthy windows. What's more, he seems pretty darn happy to be doing it. Ecstatic, even. He said he just could not take one more day sitting in front of a computer in a big office.

Today, I re-read an email from my little brother which questioned the "take anything" job versus the "career move" job. When I came to Australia, I took the "take anything" job, and eventually one of those morphed (without my really noticing it) into the "career" job. I had an entire career going in university administration without even realising that what I was doing was carving out a career. And then one day, I realised that the career I'd fallen into wasn't one I particularly liked, and so I jumped ship and went to culinary school. A story most readers of this blog would be familiar with, so I won't re-hash it again. Suffice it to say I don't think I could have achieved that leap without several 'take anything' jobs - all of which were useful in their own way.

When I was working at the cafe from hell a few months ago, I mentioned to someone in passing that I took the job because of what it might teach me. Not because of the pay, the location, the job itself (although all of those were contributing factors). I took it mostly because of what I thought I could learn from it. It wasn't the career job, not really - it was more like the take anything job - but it was also a job at which I thought I could learn something. So in a way while I knew it was temporary, and would not advance my career at all - I saw it as a chance to ADD to my career knowledge.

I can understand the dilemma, though - when you're not sure what you want to do, how do you know which career job to look for? Would you potentially be "wasting" your time in a take anything job? My answer to my brother was basically that he should do the 'take anything' job because frankly, having money in the bank gives you the freedom of TIME to think more about the career job you might want.

And then I realised that maybe there are people who would disagree with this opinion, namely my Dad who would say the take anything job is a waste of time and effort.

So - suppose you're nearing 30. You have no wife (but you do have a serious partner), no kids, no mortgage. You do have some living expenses, but you have no defined career either. The career you started has basically tanked (hey, thanks economy!) but you do have a whole load of skills and abilities. Armed with only that information - which do you choose? The take anything or the career?

Enquiring minds want to know.

About Scubs and Dogs

We had a pretty busy weekend here at Case Verde... on Friday DS went off to his first cub scout camp (or "scub camp"... in DS-speak, scouts+cubs=scubs). It's also the first time he's been separated from his sisters for any reasonable length of time - other than the odd sleepover at Nana's or something. I was none too happy about this, but I was interested to notice that I was MORE upset at the idea of them not sleeping in the same house than I was about him being away from home. Hmmm. I've never really bought into the whole "triplets as a unit" thing so I found that feeling rather curious. I would even say I've gone to great lengths to ensure that my kiddos are separate entities, so why the heck would I care if they had the chance to do something fabulous and yet separate? In the end I decided it's more about my being sad that they are growing up (and therefore a bit apart in activities) than it is about anything else.

The girls did not share my sentiment in the slightest. In fact one of them wished his bus would get stuck in traffic so he could never come home. I did laugh when we asked DD2 if she missed her brother at all, and she laughed and said, "NO WAY! A whole WEEKEND without boy cooties in the house is awesome! Well, except for yours, Dad. But your cooties are old so it's okay."

So this begs the question - the older the cooties, the less potent?

So while my little scub was doing things like finding dragons down a mine, and sliding down a water and deterget slippery slip into a pile of tan bark, the girls and DH and I had a weekend of adventures. On Saturday we went up Mount Dandenong to deliver a wedding cake. The venue was in the middle of an Edna Walling garden so we pottered around there, browsed through Olinda, and in general enjoyed that part of Melbourne (which is a favourite of mine.) On the way there I sent out a, "Who is up for a barbie?" text to some friends which meant we also had dinner at home with friends and cheese and sausages and noise (all favourites of mine.) Sunday we slept in, thanks to no basketball date with DS to get to (yay).

Today was spent in a paddock in a town called Seymour, home to the Victorian Greyhound Adoption Program - where we got Teddy from. It was their Xmas party and it was really amazing to see how many greys there were, what a nice feeling to think that many dogs have been saved! I, of course, wandered around wanting all the cute little small ones... while saying to DH, "NO, we cannot have another dog. NO, we cannot have another dog. NO, we cannot have another dog!" all while pining for some of the little cuties who needed a home.

We picked DS up from the bus and it's fair to say he was triumphant - managed to get home in one piece, totally filthy, and brimming over with excitement about his weekend in the woods. Really, what more can a parent ask for than happy, excited kids? (Except maybe kids who clean their rooms and do their chores without complaint.)

I love these kinds of weekends - filled with all sorts of stuff I love doing, with people I adore, and in a place I love. What did you get up to this weekend?

Epic Food Fail

I recently read somewhere that most food businesses fail within 2 years, and then something like 75% of the remaining ones fail in the third year. Scary, scary stuff when you consider the amount of time, emotional energy, and general blood/sweat/tears which goes into food businesses. There's just a huge amount of financial and administrative start-up when it comes to food - staggering, really when you consider too the emotional nature of food. Makes you wonder why anyone would start a food business in the first place.

I've recently met someone who has been trying to get a food business off the ground for about a year. For blogging's sake we'll call this guy Hercules. Hercules has paid an enormous sum for a food technologist to help him develop the recipes for his product. In a way I understand that - he didn't have the food skills so he outsourced. Once he got the recipe, he's spent months and months and months "in development." So creating labels, trying to secure a commercial kitchen, trying to secure some large equipment for mass-production and so on and so forth. In all this time he hasn't found a way to standardise his method and so for now, it's all pretty labour-intensive.

In chatting with Hercules a few weeks ago, I asked him a simple question. "So," says I, "have you got any existing customers? How are you getting this product out there?"

Hercules had no answer for me. He'd managed to sell a couple of boxes worth of product, but that's it. He was so hung up on HOW he was going to produce thousands of these things, he'd forgotten that someone needed to actually BUY thousands of these things. The feedback he had gotten thus far is that a) the product had too much sugar (it's a 'health food' product) and b) it was priced far too high to be viable for most shops to stock. In the months since he'd gotten that feedback, he'd made no effort to alter the recipe or re-cost to see if he could lower the price. What he DID do was stress out a lot, research equipment a lot, make a lot of phone calls, and work himself into a lather.

Here's the kicker. The product has a 9 MONTH shelf life. So theoretically he could hire a friend or two, bust out thousands of his products, and then go out and sell, sell, sell - in the hopes that selling would lead to more orders and so on and so forth. That idea did not occur to him.

I then met another couple embarking on their own food business adventure. They both quit their (lucrative) jobs in IT at the same time - after the female half of the partnership had spent ONE YEAR researching this scheme. They then had a) no income for either of them and b) no places to sell their product. The very first time I met them (and this is after a YEAR of research, remember) the male partner said to me, "What is this about a registered kitchen? Everywhere we go the people tell us we need a registered kitchen!"

I then met a third couple, who also had spent a YEAR researching and developing their business. By the time I met them they were 6 months, spent over $100k and basically desperate to find clients and customers. They had done no formal advertising (that I knew of) to get their business going. Instead the 100K was spent on very beautiful packaging, a super-whizz-bang website, and god knows what else. They never made it past the 9 month mark, and as far as I know (over a year and a few months later) have yet to even sell the remaining assets of the business.

Now I'm not going to sit here and say I've got it all right - because believe me, I haven't. I've made some pretty MAJOR mistakes along the way - including not allowing for the provision of a salary for me right from the beginning, not having a realistic advertising budget, and so on. But, I also DID NOT spend a year "researching," I also didn't spend any money on ultra-glam packaging, and while I DID spend money on a website, it doesn't also have the functionality of making my dinner and doing my kids' homework.

Here, then, are a couple of common mistakes I have noticed that novice food business owners make:

1. They believe their friends when they say, "OMG! This tastes awesome! You could totally sell these and make money!" Your friends are lovely people. They want to please you. They probably DO think your product tastes great, but they are NOT the people you will be selling to in the long term.

2. They start spending a boat load of money they do not have on stuff they do not need, at least initially. Hint: Your business cards do not need to have a voice-activated microchip in them for you to seem legit.

3. They forget about the importance of having customers. Actually getting people INTO their business - to buy the stuff they're making.

4. They make no financial, emotional, or time allowance for the lag time between when you set up the business and when it might actually start to make you some money you can keep.

5. They forget what business they are actually in. I actually learned this lesson in culinary school - that a business owner should wake up every morning and say, "What business am I in?" and if the answer is convoluted - "I run a cafe slash cooking school slash wholesale business slash apron company" then they have no REAL idea of what their core business is. If their reply is simple - "I make and sell artisan bread," then chances are they have a much clearer idea of their business and their strengths.

6. They don't 'research' what is involved in a food business beyond just making something tasty - the permits, the infrastructure, the customers, the demands on your money and time. The 'romance' of owning a food business makes them forget stuff like needing to pay for overheads. Simply being able to MAKE a yummy item does not make you able to sell that product to the general public.

7. They have delusions of grandeur and this clouds the real issues. In the case of Hercules, he believes in his product SO much, he's not listening to the real feedback he's getting from potential customers. He's so convinced his product is the best ever (and healthy faith IS a good thing, to a point) that he cannot actually see his real problem in getting it off the ground: customers.

8. They either a) give over every living breathing moment to the business, to the detriment of all else, or b) they decide they NEED to have XYZ amount of time off every week and so they don't devote enough time to it. Also known as working too much IN your business versus ON your business, or not working either IN or ON enough.

9. They get desperate and start to discount, offer free stuff, and basically whore either themselves or their product around in a desperate bid to make some short-term cash flow. All this does it make your customers aware that a) you're cheap and b) you're negotiable.

10. Food businesses are NOT about flavour, colour, feeding people, promoting a certain region, 'helping' people with food issues, happiness, education or pushing a certain philosophy (eg Slow Food). Food businesses are about one thing and one thing only: money. Everyone goes INTO food businesses for the love. The ones that come OUT of it do so because of money. Basically it doesn't matter if your cupcakes bring on instant orgasm or your bread makes people fall in love. If it's not earning you any money (or at least paying it's own bills after a reasonable amount of time), you need to get out and save yourself.

I realise all of this sounds kinda negative. Of course there are some wildly successful food businesses that started right on someone's kitchen table. Businesses that made NO money for several months or years. Businesses that were the owner's ideal dream and that dream now employs 300 people across 6 states. But those businesses are rare. Very rare.

So if I had one bit of advice to give any potential food business owner, it's this: Do it with the love, but for the money. Because without the money, your love will only last so long.

And, for anyone reading this and wondering about my own food business - I did it for the love, and hoped the money would follow. It hasn't quite followed as much or as quickly as I'd like, but in the space of 2 years the business is doing pretty darn well, thanks very much. :) Hey, it's still around - and not in the red - so this in itself is an achievement.

Jeff-Fuh-Fuh

On Monday night DH and I went to a live performance of the American comedian Jeff Dunham. It's been a while since he and I have had a night out (which did not involve movies or children or both) so it was a real treat. I felt like a proper grown up since we had to shlep all the way into the city, walk to the Arts Centre and in general behave like normal people. (Shock horror, I had to wear something kinda decent, too.) Anyway Jeff was freakin' HILARIOUS and both of us laughed so much that my jaw literally hurt afterward. Great fun.

So here's the part I find pretty interesting (well, other than the guy at the end of the row, who has a ZZ Top style beard which went below his belly button...). At this show there were quite a few KIDS. Jeff's shows are great fun, yes, and they involve fun characters which kids would probably enjoy (if you've never heard of him, he's a ventriloquist). However, there is a lot of cursing, a fair amount of mention of sex and drugs, a splash of racism, and basically it's just that little bit off-colour. To be fair my kids have seen some of his videos... and they understand that it's humour and one should not run around screaming, "I KEEEL YOU!" in a vaguely Middle Eastern accent.

Now that said, it wasn't just the content which isn't kid-friendly. These kids were there on a MONDAY night. At 8pm. At a show which cost $80 PER TICKET.

Call me old fashioned, but I don't see the point of this. Just like I don't see the point of taking kids to really expensive shows late at night (although mind you, it was ME who fell asleep at the Lion King Broadway production.) Am I being a total stick in the mud here? I just don't think these kinds of places need kids at them - and it wouldn't occur to me to take my kids in the first place (although when they heard we were going, they were most annoyed at not being invited along.)

I'm not saying kids should not attend musical, comedy or cultural events. Next May is the trio's 9th birthday. As a family we decided not to do the party thing and instead to treat all of them to a showing of Mamma Mia! which is returning to Melbourne around that time.

It's going to cost me a small fortune. But it isn't late at night (matinee) on a school night (weekend) and it's not all about sex and drugs and rock and roll (okay, but maybe only the tiniest bit.) As DH said, it's kinda a whole different thing. Last night, though - was really just a seedy comedy club but on a grander scale. Not a kid place at all.

Opinions? Am I really just being unreasonable? Or maybe I'm just pissed off at having spent a fortune to escape my kids for the night... only to have to be around other people's kids...

Purchase Power

I recently read this post by The Neighbour's Wife where she laments the loss of a friend to the wonderful world of pyramid selling. Okay maybe nothing as dramatic as that, but basically her friend is now spending a whole lot of time pushing product, and a whole lot less time just being a friend.

Involving my friends in my business is something I sometimes struggle with - because while I know and love them, I don't want to abuse the relationship. So once in a while I'll ask for an opinion on a product, or on an idea I have. I might even get them to pack some cookies for me (notably Poppet's Mum, who was bagging cookies the day before she went into labour with 2nd Poppet.) Mostly I keep these requests very few and far between, and I'm fortunate that most of my friends are very willing and able to lend their opinion or professional advice.

I have NEVER asked a friend to buy something from me. NEVER. Sure, I might occasionally suggest that sending cupcakes is WAY COOLER than sending flowers - but I would never in a million years outright ask a friend to buy something of mine, no matter how good I know it is. Some friends choose to buy stuff regularly, and I'm grateful for the support. Others might buy only occasionally as budget or timing permits. Let's face it, I sell a luxury, expensive item and it's just not always in the budget. I don't take this personally AT ALL. If you want to support me and can afford to, great! If not, not. I still love you.

This whole friends-as-salespeople has come to the fore recently when DH told me he went to lunch with a former work colleague. Not to catch up on industry gossip, but to basically recruit DH and I to an Amway style of buying supermarket products. What amazed me is how DH was able to come home spewing all the facts. "We could be potentially earning thousands a year!" "Our groceries could be free!" and so on and so forth. Apparently he told this guy that we are skeptics (because we are) but then DH spent a good 10 minutes telling me how this scheme seems really good and we should at least listen to what they have to say (Um, NO.)

Anyone else ever had this whole friend-as-salesman thing? On the one hand I think it's great that companies like Avon and Tupperware and the like are empowering people to earn a living, work part-time, and basically carve out a career in between other commitments. On the other hand, they really rely on people 'farming' their friends and loved ones, and in some cases the salesperson chooses to continually farm the same people.

What say you? Tupperware lady - friend or foe?