Happy New Year!! Er...

 
Isn't it dreadful. This is my first post of the year. And it's April!!

So, multiple choice quiz!

Question - What will Tríona's excuse be today for why she hasn't been blogging?

a) She'd been too busy crafting?

b) The weather's been so awful that the light has been so dreadful so no good pictures could be taken?

c) She's a busy mammy of four who is also, when she's not crafting, writing two books simultaneously and has an ulcer to nurse?

d) The dog ate her homework?

e) All of the above?


And yes, indeed, it is answer e!

Well, except we don't have a dog.

But I have managed to find one solution to the problems outlined above, I've fallen madly in love with Instagram. Take a picture, and sure, if the light isn't quite good enough for it to be a great photo, just apply a filter. Hey presto, a rubbish picture is suddenly interesting and arty. So you may notice that a lot of the pictures I'm going to upload today are of a quirky, square Instagram kind.



Canvases. I've become obsessed with creating multimedia canvases. I don't really have anywhere to put them, so perhaps I'll have to give my Etsy shop a proper go and see if anyone else would like them!

More multimedia fun! Dylusions sprays, modelling paste, stencils, pearlescent medium, bleach, acrylic paints. At least this one has a home with me (even if it is in the downstairs loo!)

More original artwork for the downstairs toilet! A poem by a friend of mine about how men don't change the loo roll. Well, it's a bit more sophisticated than that :) I've had a lot of fun creating the stamped and inked frame around the poem. It got the rare husband seal of approval too.

And no prize for quessing what colour the downstairs loo is painted...

Okie dokie. Well, that wasn't too hard - I've finally kicked off my 2013 blogging. I hope I'll be back soon to tell you all about a giant scrapping project I've been undertaking.

Talk soon!

And there's more...

I kept forgetting to bring the poem with me.

Wallet?

Check.

Keys?

Check?

Poem to leave in a shop to be found by an unsuspecting shopper to brighten their day during the stressful Christmas season?

Forgotten :(


Thankfully I had the best Christmas present and met up with the lovely Various Cushions - IPYPIASM originator extraordinaire - for a coffee yesterday. And she suggested, why didn't I just transcribe the poem there and then and place it in a shop, immediately!

So I did!

The evidence -

It was more of a before Christmas day poem, but hey, better late than never.

I hashtagged again - for those unfamiliar with the hashtag, it makes your term searchable on Twitter - I've been tweeting about IPYPIASM - and been directing people back to the blogosphere...sure, maybe the cleaning lady is crumbling up my poem without a second thought, but, hey, I know if I found a poem, the curiosity would kill me :)

Anyway, here's the text of the poem - not my finest work, but hey, who cares, it's all part of the IPYPIASM spirit!

Don't Count

For now don't count
the calories
don't tot those pennies spent
just dose your liver
till it's all a quiver
and the last belt notch is rent
have that chocolate Kimberly
that tin of roses too
buy a gift, don't be spendthrift
Get yourself a treat this year!
And don't forget the booze
go buy a crate of beer,
a bottle or nine of a conducive wine
don't stint, don't stint, don't stint!
Cause remember that when it's January
we'll be thrust once more t' penury
so eat and drink and give
2013 is time enough for cold reality.

Multimedia IPYPIASM!

Yes, I've IPYPIASMed!

Finally.

Deposited in the pound (euro?) shop in The Square, Tallaght, this little ditty -

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I've been a little bit naughty

I've been a little bit nice

what say you still get me a pressie

and we'll go halvsies on the price.

I won't be troubling the Nobel Prize for Literature this year with that offering, but hopefully it brought a smile to someones face.

And below is the visual evidence of my guerrilla poetry attack.

For, what I suspect, is the first time, we have VIDEO footage of an IPYPIASM incident... In my panic to dump my effort and run, I somehow managed to set my phone to video and not camera. I scrambled madly at it, all the while imagining security guards raising an army, grabbing their mace and batons and being moments away from apprehending me...

(Quite the accidental Spielberg, no?)

It was fraught! I felt like my poem might explode at any moment. Anway, in the end I escaped unscathed and they probably sold my poem for a euro.

On an aside, I was telling my baby brother all about IPYPIASM. After he pretended to think me and my crazeeeee poetry chums were wacky and cool, he suggested adding a hastag to the abandoned poems. Maybe see if any of our messages in a bottle wash up anywhere. So, at the bottom of my print out, where I'd usually just have IPYPIASM, I instead had #IPYPIASM... and I sent a few tweets using it.

I thought it was a good idea - but chances are it'll just get me arrested ;)

I like living on the edge.

Ok. Until tomorrow - TK Maxx, watch out - I'm heading your way and I'm rhyming.

IPYPIASM!!! (Well, nearly)

Yay!!!

It's IPYPIASM!!!!

I've come to it all a bit late this year (- but you know, I always do...)

And really, this post is a tad premature... I haven't, as yet, put a poem in a shop. The main reason I haven't is because I have failed to write a poem. I have tried a good few times. Nowt.

I worry that along with killing off the h. pylori bacteria that was causing my stomach ulcer, my cocktail of drugs also killed off my writing mojo!! Who knew I kept it in my tummy! Though, seeing as all the best poetry comes from your gut, so maybe I should have realised...

What to do? I suspect I need some l. casei poetritas. Good writing bacteria.

I'm off to the library to drink me in some pro-biographies, some Reader bifidus digestivum, replenish my depleted muse.

Alright, enough, I go before Martine McCutcheon turns up and starts talking shite...

40 And Not Out...

Hello darlings,


So, I survived. I turned 40 and I didn't spontaneously combust. In fact everything has pretty much carried on as normal! Whodathunkit.

But, I have been making changes. I decided living my life at a pace where I didn't need botox for my wrinkles as the g-forces from rushing around were doing the job instead, just had to end. I am only one mortal woman.

The problem is two fold. A, I can't get rid of the children. Apparently now I've had them I've got to keep them. So, that means that b, some of the things I like to do away from the kids have got to go.

What to give up?

This has vexed me for weeks.

The writing? But I can't give that up cause I love it and it's going to make my fortune one of these days. (though I've been so shattered by my busy life I haven't even been writing that much.)

The scrapbooking? ah now no, that's my stress relief. If I can't cut up colouredy paper and attach photos to it that I just don't want to live!

The allotment? What, give up the one healthy outdoors activity I do? (Not that we've been able to get up there in six months... we grow weeds now. We're very good at it.)

Seeing friends? But I like my friends...

Pilates on a Tuesday night? Hmm, I'd happily give that up but I'm not allowed.

So, I'm stuck... what to do?

Just as fed up as her mammy

And it's important that I do. Cause I've been feeling icky. Not well. I was told by a lovely English doctor during the week that I do in fact have an ulcer. And yes, sure ulcers are caused these days by a bacteria, but the stress of my little middle class life hasn't been helping.

hmmm.

But I just can't decide!

Help!

(That was more of a rhetorical help as I know no one blogs anymore!)

Snuffleupagus

I've got a snuffle.

A sniffle.

And a bit of a cough :(

I'm feeling yucky.

This would normally be enough to send the D'Oub into a downward spiral of misery and self-pity. (I like to play to my strengths.) But, this time I'm worried. Because I'm having a party on Sunday.

Why am I having a party I hear you ask?

Because, this Sunday, D'Oub is officially over the hill. Old. Ancient. Ready to be carbon dated. Slated for obsolescence. Long past her Logan's Run sell by date.

I'm going to be 40.

Sigh.

How old I really feel

I know, I know, 40 is the new 30 etc, etc. But I'm not buying that. Cause I've got a touch of arthritis. And it's spread to my right big toe. And I'm off into the hospital for a test to see if I have an ulcer next week. I am only just over a very painful injured shoulder which I seem to have hurt opening a packet of biscuits or something. Basically, what I'm saying is, my body is shutting down. It's collapsing! Old age! I've fulfilled my reproductive role, produced an heir and a spare and a spare and a spare, so now I should be put on an ice floe and bid farewell to.

But, while raging against that dark night, I was convinced by my child groom husband to have a party. And I agreed even though I normally don't 'do' parties. So, this Sunday I'm having a shindig. And I'm hoping the shoulder stays ok. And that the ulcer keeps it's acid tongue to itself. The drink should dull the pain of my creaking joints. But a snuffle, and a sniffle and a bit of a cough. They're hard to ignore! They could diminish what little enjoyment I'll be able to squeeze out from such a shocking event as being 40.

Time to mainline some echinacea.

Overdose on oranges.

Take a long swim in some vitamin c.

And if anyone knows the way to the fountain of eternal youth, do let me know.

Or at the very least a good plastic surgeon.


See you on Monday, if I survive,

Anyone out there?

Where is everyone?

It's gone all quiet around here!

Once there was a vibrant blogging community and now everyone seems quite quiet.

Is it cause you missed me? You only had to say.

It's ten to midnight, so, even if there were people still on their blogs they wouldn't see this, they'd be in their beds right now.

Well, I just don't care!

I'm going to scream and shout and just generally lept about here in a wanton and carefree manner!

Fa, la, la, la, la.

Ah alright, here's a poem I wrote recently....



Rejuvenation

It's kinda kinky
paying for pain
My Torquemada turns the screw
I've nothing to confess
but much to repent
turn the screw to
close the chink
where we let in doom
were seduced by the
pleasures of the flesh
And as he stretches and
prods and counts and cajoles
I succumb and picture
that butterfly sleeping
in it's adipose cocoon
and imagine soon, she
might perhaps
emerge, recover, bloom.