On how to be unproductive and procrastinate lots...

Feeling unmotivated and generally irritable. Possibly hormones, possibly because I've been unproductive and am shitty with myself for procrastinating via very important things like twitter, facebook, and msn chats with my cousin. Because, you know, that's how I roll.

And here I am writing a blog post. Constructive, no?

Recently, I professed my dislike for cupcakes on twitter, and the 'muffin revival'. Hence, I have been scouring the interwebs looking for tasty bran muffin recipes. Bran muffins, you say? How can these possibly be tasty?!
Isn't tasty and bran muffins kind of the same as:

from Huffington Post

Cooking with Poo(h)?

No shit, (pun not intended!) I'd really think twice about a book titled - somewhat unfortunately - "Cooking with Pooh". I mean, it really means something completely different to me than it might to a three year old (not that mine ever had a fecal food fetish, but, you know, still. Kids these days...)

Also on my journeys around the interwebs, I found this (actually, I was emailed it via Huffington Post but that sounds so boring and much less intrepid):

A question that no doubt many cold hearted (and perhaps...dare I say, pro-private/anti-public health care) people have echoed:

from Amazon, via Huffington Post.

Because I often ask this question - who cares about disabled peopled!

...actually, on a much more serious note, I can't help but notice that my sister, who is eleven and has Down Syndrome, is being failed at some level by the state's education system, where she is in a class with other special needs children whose needs are...very different to her own. Her class consists of other kids of varying levels of global delay, including some that are autism spectrum, and others with more generalised (and less easily defined) delayed. These kids stress my sister out - often. Many are noisy, violent, and generally in my sister's personal space too much of the time. Which isn't to say that the teacher isn't doing a bang up job with the resources and class that he has, but rather, that this environment, as it currently stands, is not appropriate for my sister, and not conducive to warm-fuzzy-I-had-a-great-day-at-school-Mum stories, let alone actual learning.

While my parents try to enrol her in another school (a private school, or another state school that is not walking distance away -fail again education system) my sister has received at-home support from my mother, so that my sister's education isn't as compromised as it could be. Basically, my mother keeps my sister home if the teacher isn't going to be there, or if the other kids are particularly rowdy. Substitute teachers are nice and helpful, but nice and helpful doesn't always cut through the enduring bullying that my sister often endures. This is fine... but only in the respect that my sister does actually receive at-home education, but not in so much that she is denied the social experience of school, an important aspect of her developing as an adult, and becoming a productive member of society.

All of which are just as important for my sister-with Downs Syndrome- as it is for any other person.

So there.

Not what I intended to blog about, but c'est la vie.

Also, dress is being sewn, cousins are booking flights, and N has been busy sewing bunting. This particular string of bunting he's sewing strips of cotton between some cute vintage (? Are they vintage? At least vintage looking) that I bought in an op-shop. It looks similar to this:

from Craft Gossip

So cute!

I didn't get my idea from here- rather, I got my idea while looking at the hankies in the op shop. This picture I found just now - because every awesome idea I have, someone, somewhere else has had it too. And posted pictures on the internet! Awesome!

Wedding plans, ahoy!