Addicted to the tinterweb ...

So here I am in France, and I find myself craving the instant gratification of information I normally have access to when I am at home . . . You just boot up the computer, and there is a whole world of information at your fingertips ...It has really surprised me that it's got such a hold on me . . . My first brush with the world wide web was sending an email to a friend who was traveling around after uni . . . Before then it's was a complex system of post restraints across the world, and sitting and waiting for the next instalment of news ... From that moment on, I was hooked . . . And this was the time of dial up connections that would take forever, and kick you out whenever . . . For me, the web has opened up worlds that I never knew existed, stalls arguments mid-flow (long live Goolge!) and has connected me with friend new and old. It also enables me to write these random, rambling blogs ;) So, without much further ado, and having got my fix for the day, here's to the power of the world wide web! Cheers!

Burning that Bra . . .

When I step back and look at my life, I must admit I am happy with it. Great husband, lovely house (well I think so anyway), okish job . . . but realistically, I still want more. I still want to be able to hold down that job, have a family and be home in time to cook a dinner . . . isn’t that what being a woman is all about? The never ending run of multi-tasking?

Isn’t that what women burnt their bras for, campaigned for the pill and the vote for? For more equality, independence and choice as women?

In essence, we have so much more in our lives, but to what cost, and to what effect? We still see cases of discrimination in the workplace, and up until last year (when I experienced my first case of sexual discrimination), I had lived in a bubble, where I truly believed I was equal to any man (completely down to my fantastic upbringing) . . . It’s not until you have first-hand experience of this antiquated way of thinking that it really makes you consider it. . . I was honestly shocked that someone still thought that way . . . it shook me to my core . . .

However, as well as feeling equal, and completely in charge of my career and body, I do have that feeling of guilty pleasure in home making – at Christmas I was so excited about getting a Kenwood mixer, that I could audibly here feminists of times gone by turning over in their graves . . .

But why should I feel this way . . . they gave me the ability to have this life where I could choose to do what I wished and when, to be financially independent, and in control of my reproductive system. Surely that’s no bad thing . . . I thank them for that!

That is until you read an article like the one in today’s Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2114842/Death-Domestic-Goddess-Traditional-baking-sewing-homemaking-skills-dying-new-mothers-busy-learn.html  (yes I appreciate that it is in the Daily Mail, but realistically the argument here is that they still obviously think that there is a market for this kind of article!)

It focusses on the fact that nowadays many women cannot perform simple household tasks, and that they aren’t being passed down to the next generation. Based on the list of skills I was glad to say that I can do most of them (starching a shirt still eludes me, but hey ho, Mr Seeded can whistle for that . . .)

I do think it’s bad that I will throw away a pair of socks, rather than darn them, and perhaps buy pre-made pastry if I run out of time . . . but actually that is of little consequence . . .

Because I am able to work, and have financial independence, I have so much more to offer the community I live in as a whole, and gives me the opportunity to explore areas of interest to me i.e. crafts, travel, books etc.  simultaneously feeding the economy in a recession . . .

If buying pastry is a bad thing, well so be it . . . I am not going to be a slave to a 1950s view of home (although I reserve the right to wear a chichi pinni if I so choose), just because a group of researchers say that certain skills are being lost. If people really needed these skills, they would make time to learn them, but realistically there are other alternatives avalaible now.

Articles like this highlight the clashes in many women’s lives (in that they feel they can’t do it all, although they really want to), thus highlighting our potential short comings as home makers and carers, and thus degrading us further . . .

Instead of an article highlighting our failings, how about one which looks at what men can now do, and the drive towards equality in everything . . . Mr Seeded loves to cook, is not too bad about popping on a wash, and could sew on a button if push came to shove . . .

Wouldn’t that be a better way of highlighting what society has gained, rather than what we are losing?

And if Mr Seeded and I are lucky enough to have a family, it will be down to both of us to pass these learnt skills on to future Seedlings, as a joint family unit.

Rant over ;) Thanks for sticking with it, if you did . . . ;)

Much love, Ax

Matryoshka . . .

A Matryoshka doll is a Russian nesting doll, where the largest is the outside doll (traditionally dressed in a Sarafan, a Russian pinafore dress), and the smallest is the final baby doll in the centre made from a single piece of wood. I love these brightly and intricately painted dolls, as you might have seen from my Etsy Treasury today . . . http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTY1MzcxNDV8MjM2Nzc1NTk2Mg/matryoshka

I still have mine from when I was little – I found them in the bottom of my stocking one Christmas (which one I cannot remember) and not only loved their design, but the tactile smoothness of their highly lacquered shape. I would spend hours arranging them and rearranging them.

This morning though, I began to look at them in a different way – it had never even occurred to me that by opening one, you were stripping away a layer to reveal another one . . . not quite sure why I had never thought of this, as I’m very aware of the ‘Onion’ analogy.

I also began to think of them in another way too . . . at the moment, I feel a bit like that little baby doll, right in the very middle, on the start of a journey . . . I’m busy trying to build up my layers, not only in experience, but in emotional armour and stamina, so that soon I will be back to being the outside doll, with all these experiences and layers to fall back on . . . It’s a very exciting time for me . . . but it has also been rather frustrating, as I’m not sure if I’m coming or going . . .

Thanks for hanging in there with me – it’s great to have you along for the journey too.

Much love, Ax