being a home maker

I was emailed this cut out from the 50’s after I mentioned that I spent my weekend doing wholesome things; cleaning, baking, cooking, sewing and crafts. I may have also mentioned my love for ironing... probably not wise when working in an office...

My old flat mate and I use to joke about how we would love to be house wives, but only out of choice. If we were ever told we had to be we would through our iron’s aside and march into the work force J I can’t believe this kind of thing was actually in a magazine, it seems ridiculous.

see what i mean

When I think about one thing it surrounds me. The attack of the Macaroons! Maybe I need to venture out more and expand my social virtual groups... But it does make me think that I should start day dreaming more often! Starting with dreamy men who can pick me up and carry me away into the sunset, ahhh, a girl can dream

IMAGE SOURCE: the tea drinking English rose.

nice vs lovely

VS

Today I noticed that my saying at present is “yeah that would be nice”. Nice! Really... when did I start using that word on a daily bases to describe the things I want to do?

I use to hate the word, as I used it to describe girls that I went to High School with. People would ask you “what’s so and so like?” and you would say oh, she’s a nice girl. Meaning she has limited drive, goes along with everything, is everyone’s friend and does everything, just so. To me that = boring and bland.
So it got me pondering... Should I carry on with the use of this word, as it is kind of amusing to me that over a period of time my opinion hasn’t changed on the word but my liking for the word has grown due to context.
Or should I find a new word that is more descriptive to my true emotion. Which would require me actually thinking before I say things rather than just blurting them out.
Humm, I’m not sure.
For the mean time I will replace the word nice with the word lovely.

Nice is defined as; pleasing; agreeable; delightful.
Lovely is defined as; having a beauty that appeals to the heart or mind as well as to the eye, as a person or a face.
I think this is a much better word to express my emotion in most cases.

Well I’m glad I got that sorted!

SOURCE: weheartit

rebranding feminism

While flicking through my scrapes from the year I came across this article in some trashy woman’s magazine and found it rather interesting. I ripped it out and stuck it into my scrap book so I’m sorry I can’t make any acknowledgements because I don’t write it down, naughty. But I do know it was written in reference to the book Oh Baby... Birth, babies & Motherhood Uncensored by Kathy Fray- a kiwi author. Kathy says the old terms for feminism are out of date. We’re on to the fourth incarnation of the women’s movements and we need new ways to describe it.

1. Suffrage Sisters: The first wave of feminism was led by the 19th and 20th century suffragettes fighting to give women the right to vote. [New Zealand was the first country in the world allowing woman to vote.]

2. Bra Burners- The second wave was during the 60s and 70s with ‘women’s libbers’ and the sexual revolution. These revolutionaries used techniques of political solidarity to demand economic and reproductive rights for women.

3. Power Players- The third wave of feminism was far more clandestine, says Kathy. “Most women weren’t even concisely aware of it, as they weren’t marching parliament carrying playing cards.” She says Girl Power, epitomised by pop icons the Spice Girls started to emerge in the early 90s with the likes of Sigourney Weaver in Alien, Oprah and Roseanne Barr. Pop-culture girl power moments include a heavily pregnant Demi Moore nude on the cover of Vanity Fair, Edina and Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous, Sex And the City, and Eve Ensler’s provocative stage show. The Vagina Monologues.

4. Uterosexuals- Kathy says the world is now “aglow” with female leadership, such as our own Helen Clarke, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chile’s first female president Michelle Bachelet, Liberia’s Ellen Johson-Sirleaf (the first female president on the African content) and China’s Vice Premier Wu Yi.
“To describe this level of success as Girl Power is insulting” says Kathy. “Many of us are what the academics are defining as the ‘fourth wave’ of feminists, nicknamed ‘uterosexual’- strong women who are emancipated, educated, ambitious, feminine, intuitive, articulate and immensely proud of their almighty womanliness.” She says that utrosexuals are “feminine feminists” and believes they aren’t women trying to succeed in a man’s world- they’re woman who are succeeding in a unisex world. They don’t dislike metrosexual, heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual men; in fact they enjoy their company. Kathy has her own rallying cry for women. “The fourth wave of feminism has arrived. Welcome to the next generation.

I have thoughts on this but need to ponder and dabble with my thoughts...

What are your thoughts? Where are we to now? How will it all play out?

Image: 1899 Auckland, Lady voters approaching the polling booths/article from trashy mag.

a nice thought that has turned into a mad rant

With the Christmas season upon us there is always a rush to find gifts. As we get closer to Christmas stores become over crowded, the pressure is on to find that perfect gift and a lot of the time I find that I end up buying things that I think are good presents when they are really rubbish, so I have decided to cut back on gifts this year and buy early (some of you may think that it’s only 14 days till Christmas and this is indeed late, but for me this is early!) This leads me two things:

Firstly shopping on line is great! There are some great places to shop online. It allows you to browse, and compare gifts and prices rather than do a panic buy. One of my favourite sites to browse is etsy! If you haven’t heard of etsy yet you should check it out now! (that’s okay you can always come back and read the rest later, off you go). While a lot of sellers are from the U.S they are pretty pronto about delivery. But there are a few from New Zealand as well. Below are some lovely pieces from cleobelle. Ever so sweet as I’m sure would put a smile on a loved one’s face.


Secondly with this economic recession we are going into, it seems that I am not the only one cutting back on gifts. This year I have noticed loads of blogs are featuring DIY presents (sign of the styles ahead and that have already hit for you early adaptors). Also Christmas has come early this with businesses closing down and massive sales on stock (this doesn’t normally happen in New Zealand to boxing day). I think this is great of course, not because I get to buy over priced goods for a 1/3 of the price but because it means that businesses have to become a lot more smart * in order to survive.

What do I mean by this? Well, today there are so many stores that are alike (Wild Pair, Lippy & Dotti, Farmers, Kmart and The Warehouse) so in order for them to survive they really have to differentiate themselves from their competitors (The Warehouse does this well) and find something unique about themselves that consumers can relate to, yes that ugly word... Marketing.

This is another reason why places like etsy have become so popular, because they sell unique products that are in smaller quantities. This allows products and lines to be easily changed to suit the target audience and change with the market. Of course the big companies will stay as they have the finical stability to stay around, but it is the middle ground competitors that we will see disappear as they can’t afford to be reactive with their big bulk production approach.

With middle ground chain stores providing more crap, oh sorry choice, it means we feel pressurised to buy more. Some may argue that competition is good because everyone knows that a monopoly in the market place is unhealthy. But it is also know that if there are too many choices then no one will survive and consumers will be left feeling disillusioned and confused about their product/brand and rather than making a choice they will make no choice at all.


This leads me to another point, (which is more like a foot note than a point that is directly related to the original statement above.) Barry Schwartz puts it wonderfully in this talk on ted.



If you don't want to watch the video I have an example he uses below. I haven’t written it word for word but you will get the gist)

We go into the supermarket to buy a type of salad dressing. When we get to the salad dressing isle there is 154 different types of salad dressings, we are confused for a while deciding which one to pick, there are just so many. We know we want something with a creamy texture but do we want ranch, caesar, thousand island, garlic mayo, blue cheese.... there are just so many. We decide on ranch and are off to find some bread. At dinner that night we have the ranch dressing on our salad and are unsatisfied with our decision, we think we should have got caesar or maybe garlic mayo was the way to go, we are annoyed about our decision... hum.
When we go down to the 4 square to buy our salad dressing a week later there are only 3 to choose from; a vinaigrette, caesar and olive oil based one. We know we are after a creamy based one again so the caesar if the obvious choice. We have it that night the dressing is almost perfect. This is not because it’s a different brand or style but because there were less choices to be made at the 4 square, therefore there is no way you could have made a better decision.
When we are given more choices we subconsciously blame ourselves for making the wrong decision. This is because there are so many choices available that we believe there is no way we can make the right one. When there are less choices involved it is easier for us to believe that we have it right because there is a smaller chance of us getting it wrong.

Anyway what are your thoughts, I’m just off on my tangent horse now, but always good to through some ideas around.

*(I realise this is bad England but it is a long term joke between a friend and I)