I know we haven't posted responses (more on that soon) but for now

This is Manisha from Nepal, who I have recently sponsored to attend school for this year. I realise this is not really monday project news, but I feel it is important news none the less!

My sister Amanda has recently travelled to Nepal, and upon her return to Australia has started a website and a charity that will support a Nepalese orphanage she spent most of her time at.

The website is newly launched (you can check it out here) and is currently seeking sponsors for the children to be able to attend the school this year. Amanda has done a fantastic job of raising enough money for 9 of the 12 kids, and with only 3 kids remaining any spare dollars you throw towards this great cause would be greatly appreciated! It makes me terribly sad to think of the 3 kids not yet sponsored who will not be attending, so please, take a look.

You can also check out Amanda's story and her plans for her imminent return to Nepal at the blog.

(also posted here)

I didn’t mean to go silent. I guess it’s just that for someone who’s only sporadically employed, I’m really very busy.

I’ve been quiet here because I’ve started my yoga teacher training, and it’s forced so much introspection that I’m not quite sure I’ll come out the other end of it with my head intact. I won’t say much about it now, mainly because I don’t think I’ll do the teachings much justice at the moment. But I will say that the philosophy behind yoga practice has moved me slightly — that is, I feel like I’m looking at the world from a standing point a few metres to the right of where I was before.

The other reason, though, that I haven’t been here much is more writerly. I’ve been writing and writing and writing. I’m still working on the food writing that had me posting up recipes and pictures of what I was cooking a month or so ago, so I thought I’d give you another food picture. I went grocery shopping today, and here’s what I’m going to eat for the rest of this week (with the addition of some staples like pasta). Yum!

Other than that essay (well, it’s quickly turning into multiple essays), I’ve got a few other writing-related projects on the go at the moment. It’s really very exciting to have the time to give to these things I love doing. I’m very poor, but I don’t mind in the slightest!

Hopefully more on some of the other projects sometime soon; and maybe one day something about what I’m learning at yoga teacher training. But for now, I’m off to make some more bread.

PS. This month’s Monday Project is due in a week — if you’re playing along, send your response through to Kate and I sometime before Monday 29 March is over.

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Cross posted at avocadoandlemon.

advice to writers - or any creative really...

I saw this over on swissmiss and thought it was worth sharing. Even though it's titled advice for writers I think its applies to anyone really, and its definitly something I can relate to.

Even if it keeps you up all night,
wash down the walls and scrub the floor
of your study before composing a syllable.

Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.

The more you clean, the more brilliant
your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
to the open fields to scour the undersides
of rocks or swab in the dark forest
upper branches, nests full of eggs.

When you find your way back home
and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.

From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants
that followed you in from the woods.

By Billy Collins via swissmiss via bobulate

Quote

“It’s not your expertise that counts [as a writer]; it’s the quality of your wondering.”
- Mark Tredinnick, The Little Red Writing Book

Made my day.

Reading inspiration

This last weekend I’ve been in Canberra for my brother’s 21st (it was a dress-up party; I may put up some pictures when I get them from Mum — I did my usual trick of forgetting to take any). To get to Canberra from Sydney, there’s a three and a half hour bus trip each way, which I often look forward to. I love staring out the window, musing over things in my life, making plans or just playing make-believe. I also often use the time to catch up on my podcast listening.

I subscribe to a few, but hardly ever listen to them. I’ve probably got about fifty episodes of the Book Show left to listen to, for example.

So on the trip back yesterday I got through a couple of them. In one episode Ramona Koval was talking to Sarah Waters, who is known for her novels set in the Victorian era, usually with some kind of lesbian storyline. They were speaking about her then-new (the episode was six months old) book, The Little Stranger. I’ve not read the book, but its gothic nature appealed to me and I suddenly remembered the books I devoured as a teenager: Frankenstein, The Turn of the Screw, Northanger Abbey, Dracula, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

I loved gothic literature. As Waters mentioned in the interview, the supernatural is a wonderful space to explore anxieties and uncertainties, dysfunction and, possibly, mental illness. Of course, these are things I am obsessed with in my own fiction, albeit in a more realist way.

But as a teen I wrote creepy little gothic stories, which were probably really very bad. Unexpectedly empty houses with all the lights on, stormy nights, taps turning on by themselves, steep hills to walk up in the dark, footsteps coming from nowhere. All these things appeared in my stories. And they were fun!

I feel a return to the gothic coming on, at least in my reading. Now if I could just find my copy of The Woman in White…

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Cross-posted at avocadoandlemon.

Dinner

Okay, in an effort to be more active here, I'm going to try to post here, and on avocadoandlemon at the same time. Sometimes these will be simple cross-posts, but I will try to make them unique as much as possible.

Today, however, I'm going to post a slightly modified version of what I've got over there at the moment.

Last night I was really looking forward to a night in, and it ended up being a lovely one. All my housemates were away for the weekend, or out for the night, so it was just me and Astro the monkey-cat. I put on a podcast and my apron and cooked away.

Tomato, lentil and vegetable soup seemed like the perfect dinner on a rainy Saturday night. I made this from a recipe out of my favourite cook book, and added a few things here and there. I love it when I modify a recipe and it works!

The only way this could have been better was with some home-made bread. One of my favourite bloggers, Claire, tentatively tried this recipe and had great results, so I’ve been inspired to give it a go myself tonight…

I’ll probably be writing a whole lot more about my cooking adventures on here for the next little while, because I’m researching a food essay I’m writing. If anyone’s interested, I can start posting up recipes for these things I’m making.

Oh! Please check out the latest theme here. Which reminds me, I really should send out the email that’s supposed to accompany new themes…

(PS. I have no idea why I included the peeler in that shot. It’s not like it was all that important in cooking this… let’s hope my food-photography improves.)

Still alive and kicking!

So, here we are.... back again... can't get rid of us that easily! Sorry to have been away so long but alas we have returned!

Both Soph and I have had some big exciting changes in our lives over the last couple of months which have kept us pretty busy - we've both cut back or left our jobs, we've both travelled overseas for awhile, and we are both starting some new study this year!

It will be an interesting and exciting year for both of us, but we are both excited and ready to get back into The Monday Project type projects, and see what interesting and different responses everyone can come up with.

Also this year we are thinking we would love to get some people playing along to come up with some ideas for monthly themes, so let us know if you are interested!

The first project for the year is going to be finishing on the 29th of March, so all photo's, stories, sketches, jewellery, drawings, songs, and interpretative dances will be due in then! As always, submissions can be emailed through to us at themondayproject85@gmail.com for us to put up, or just post it on your link and let us know so we can link back to it!

The theme is..... (drumroll) ........

"She looked at the pile of books and wondered how she would ever fit them inside her head."

image by life spirit1