A smile to AIM for

This is a C1 post: MG received discounted treatment.

#C1 for full details please see my disclosure policy

If you've been around these parts for a while you'd know MG was involved in a bike crash in 2015 that led to me picking his teeth up off the road (and finding them in my pocket a week later). He had some major dental work done and I was blogging for the amazing Perth dentist who did it for him. I had published two of the three posts when I had my massive breakdown. So this got pushed back. Each time I tried to re-visit it, it would remind me of why I had pushed it back and I'd have a panic attack. So here we are, one whole year after it was due to be published and I'm in a position to actually do it without rocking in the corner. Recovery takes a long time. 

We owe a debt of gratitude to the wonderful team at Aim Dental Group, and their logo will sit on my sidebar for as long as this blog exists. They have taken care of us so well and made sure we got the best treatment and then gave me time to recover from my own health dramas to get to this point. We all get our regular check ups there, and Tricky got his fissures sealed there a few months ago. I simply cannot recommend them enough. 

For now, over to Map Guy:

The Crash 

Like many new-leafers late in the Winter of 2015 I was considering my fitness options as the weather warmed. I felt unfit, wasn’t regularly playing sport and walking with the dog and kids wasn’t really giving me the boost I felt I needed. Enter cycling. My employer upgraded the daggy old showers and change rooms at our office to one of the best in WA a few years earlier. Ever since my cycle crazy boss has been trying to attract other would be pedallos in our team to his favourite sport. So sprucing up the bike, strapping on a helmet and getting moving wasn’t a hard sell on the work side, I just had to will myself out of a heated bus and into a breezy cold saddle for pre-7am starts…

I started slowly in the first week. Day 1 I rode the 3.2km to the train station locked up my bike then rode home again. That wasn’t too hard, so far so good. Feeling a little stiff in those rarely used muscles the next day I rested and returned to my walking/bus/train/walk routine.

Day 3 I tested myself and decided to go for it. I live 12km from work as the crow flies, but my first attempt at using the best cycleways available to me was a 17km trip with what seemed like the breakaway pack from Le Tour on a hill climb. You know you aren’t going to be the fittest cyclist out there but I seriously felt like I must have been frozen in stone the way I was swiftly left behind. Strangely it takes a lot of will power to convince yourself to ride your own race and not try to give chase. Shattered, but pleasantly surprised I arrived at work some 58 minutes after leaving home.

I worked up to my eventual routine and refined my route as I became more confident around traffic. The 14km route would get faster and I was so proud of myself the first week I managed to ride every single day. I stuck at it for 2 whole months until one day I didn’t make it home…

By early November I had replaced my mountain bike tyres with less knobbly road tyres, had added new cleats to keep my toes on the pedals and some grippy new handlebars kept me heading in the right direction. Confidence was high. I knew my route, was edging my way up the Strava leaderboard along my route and no longer felt like I was hideously unfit keeping up with the cycle heroes on the road.

10km into my journey home I was traversing one of the trickier sections of the ride. A long, fast downhill quickly followed by a major road crossing with older style raised islands for pedestrians and cyclists. After managing to traverse the major road crossing I was making my way slowly from the final island to the adjoining cycle path when something went wrong.

As my front wheel rolled from the islands to the road I hit something. Or maybe something hit me. Maybe my bike broke. We will probably never really know, but what did happen was the front of the bike went from under me. The wheel buckled, the brakes broke free and I went tumbling over the handlebars in what seemed like slow motion thinking to myself “maybe this is it?”

It felt like it could have been game over. My head, body, bike all cascaded to the ground in between cars waiting to turn between two busy roads, and I was knocked out.

I woke up on the ground and I could taste blood; I could feel broken teeth. My body was sore, grazed, bruised, but still able to function. I tried to get up and someone came up to me and said “are you alright?”

For what seems the first time in my life I thought about this briefly then answered “no” to a complete stranger. I wanted to say “please help me”, but the blood was flooding my mouth and the best I could do was wobble to my feet and take their hand. Another helpful person shuffled my buckled bike off the road and I was sat up against the fence as an ambulance was called. Ambulances come really quick when you’re near a major road in a city and this one was no exception. The Samaritan bystander had helped by calling Glow after I typed her details in my phone and held it up to him. In fact with a mouth full of blood, busted teeth and a blood filled riding glove trying to keep it all in there the smartphone was an invaluable communication device in close quarters even though I was struggling to think straight and wasn’t actually using the network.

The ambulance arrived then my frazzled but comforting wife. She’d shuffled the kids to a neighbour and raced from home following the sirens and flashing lights. Seeing the damage on my face, but relief that I was conscious and okay she had another kind stranger help load the broken bike into our car to take it home before driving on to the hospital.

Ambulances are a strangely intimate place to be in the back of. Much like taxis you feel like you should be saying something or this is going to be one awkward drive across town. So when asked I was trying to tell this amazing paramedic how I was feeling, but really all she wanted was a thumbs up or thumbs down and kept telling me to stop trying to speak. Her number one goal was to stop me from passing out, or at least to have some indication that I was about to.

20 minutes later I was in hospital. On an ambulance stretcher in amongst returning heart patients, elderly people struggling for breath and one guy with a nasty looking broken leg. I must have spent another 20 minutes waiting there with gauze in my mouth, blood still pouring everywhere when a triage nurse decided I was bleeding too much and he had to get me out of there.

I was shipped off to the fast track procedures room where Glow and my sister then caught up with me. My sister works at a public hospital (not this one) and immediately started asking all the right questions. The doctors weren’t too sure where to start with my injuries and when discovering that I’d blacked out during the accident (I couldn’t exactly go into much detail at that stage) shuffled me down the corridor into the Emergency Department proper.

Here every few minutes someone was now coming up to me asking how many fingers they were holding up (which was annoying as I had to find my glasses again which were increasingly uncomfortable), what day of the week it was and my full name and address. Thankfully the bleeding was starting to cease so I could tell them what they needed to hear, albeit with a toothless lisp.

Some 4 hours after the worst bike crash of my life my face was being stitched up (my chin split and both top and bottom lips badly split apart). The amazing young doctor could even recommend seeing his dentist sister at an inner city dental surgery that worked on many trauma cases.

My dental journey would start there the next day but for now, with much relief I was alive, very tired and ready to go home.

On arriving home, I asked to see my helmet. I’d always been told no helmet, no riding and I’ve instilled this in my kids since they rolled out on trainer wheels. So much so that they show equal bewilderment in seeing grown adults ride by at speed with wind blowing in the breeze.
Save to say, my helmet didn’t survive this crash. In fact it was split from the edge to the centre of the outer shell and closer inspection showed the inner foam had almost cracked through entirely.

On this day a lifetime of helmet wearing meant my children would wake up the next day and still have (a sore and sorry) father, my wife her husband and my worried parents many miles away would still hear from their son. If you’re considering taking up cycling, no matter how or where you intend on doing it make sure you have a certified Australian Standard bike helmet. It may be the one piece of equipment you maintain on your bike that stops you becoming another road death statistic.

Left: in hospital in a gown catching blood in a sick bag, dried blood covering his neck. Top right: what was left of his front teeth after having his upper lip (which was hanging off), lower lip (which was almost split in two from the inside), and chin stitched up. Bottom right: the outside view of the helmet - the inside was cracked through too, and it's not until you realize that would have been skull and brain that you go woah.

The recoveryThe day following my bike crash was literally the first day of the rest of my life. I had a stitched up face and many broken, mostly missing teeth.

The first thing that needed to happen was a trip into town to see a dentist and get X-Rays done and any immediate fixes they could do. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like crying quite so much as I did that day holding an icecream container to catch any blood and spit that was swelling in mymouth (I couldn’t swallow for fear of swallowing teeth fragments) and walking through from a crowded train station car park to the dental surgery.

The visit mainly consisted of removing bits of broken teeth as my jaw and gums were still swollen after the impact. They did some really complicated 3D imaging x-rays which involved chomping down on a bit and staying still for over a minute (not exactly comfortable when you’re missing most of your front top teeth!) then we proceeded with the first of many necessary root canals.

I went home shaken, restless and tired; still wanting to sob after running the second gauntlet across the train station bridge and seeing the estimated cost of just one tooth being $10,000 to fix.

In the following days as the swelling started to recede something amazing happened. Whether from my Glow's Facebook posts or sheer coincidence with their own social media campaign, she was contacted by a local dentist with amazing specialist experience looking to work with local social media identities.

It seems like hours between hearing about this and meeting for a consult with Aim Dental Group's Principal dentist Dr David Beecham, and business manager Christina Claridge on a Saturday of all days. He had his young kids in the room, we had ours and all were being entertained by screens and iPads while the bright lights lit up my empty mouth and he weighed up my options.

David put my mind at ease. He took my hospital and dentist x-rays, did a couple of his own then took his time over the next week or so thinking over solutions.

Two root-canal visits later and I was expecting to come in for a rather painful and invasive procedure to have a screw put in my jaw to hold one fake front tooth and a cap to be placed on what remained of the other. After spinning the 3D images a few more times (it’s awesome, you never get to see your mouth from this angle) he changed his mind and saved me thousands of dollars in the process. What happened next was amazing.

I was asked to wait in the waiting room. Why? Because my new front teeth were being optimised by the computer model, then were sent to the diamond lathe out the back where they were hewn to exacting specifications to fit over precisely what remained of my teeth and gums.

I’m sure I scared the bejeezus out of the kids sitting opposite me in that waiting room. I gave them a toothy smile (how many times in your life do you get to shock kids with a busted up mouth?) and sat reading a holiday magazine for the next half an hour. I sent Glow an SMS saying that my new teeth were being printed and I’d be finished soon, which elicited a very confused response.

Then, half an hour later I hopped back onto the dentist’s chair (complete with the US version of The Office playing on his ceiling mount TV screen as it always is) and was shown two brand new front teeth complete with matching colour to my existing teeth ready to be polished before insertion.

By this stage I’d had so many anaesthetic needles in my mouth I’d gotten past all fear of that pain and was just anxious to have my smile, my bite and lisp-free speech back. Incredibly I walked out of Aim Dental on that day with a full set of teeth and a very grateful family.

The transformation! Smash face to brace face to smiley face. You'd never know he'd smashed those four front teeth!

David and his team did an amazing job helping my recovery. He made every effort to charge the costs to my health provider where possible and in turn every member of my immediate family has been back in the intervening months for general check-ups, scale and cleans.

Today I have my appetite for steak back, I’m not afraid to bite into an apple without cutting it up first and I’m even considering returning to cycling as my transport to work. No matter where you live or what type of bike you ride I implore you to ride with a helmet strapped on firmly. My story involved repairable broken teeth, if you ever have a crash story to tell I’d like to think a helmet will have saved your brain and you’ll have the rest of your life to share it.

The Vicious Cycle

MapGuy has been riding his bike the 26km round trip to and from work lately. He usually starts doing it in Spring when the weather is fining up and lasts until the scorching Perth summer mornings where we bake at 35 degrees before 8am, and the lure of an airconditioned train becomes too much.

When he leaves work he activates an app called Glypmse, a GPS tracker, that allows me to see where he is. On the bus, on the train, on a cycle path, crossing the park down the road, or about to walk in the front door. It's great because I can do the little dance that is "shit, the house looks horrible let's hide some crap before Dad gets home". Or start dinner. Or count down the metres until there is an adult to talk to or handball children to. Whatever works on the day.

A few weeks ago mid way through his ride it stopped working and I was quietly freaking out that he'd had a crash. As is the way, as soon as I shared my worry with a friend, he rode up the driveway making me look like I was a bit of a dick. But I do worry when he's riding because have you seen Perth drivers? Shocking stuff. No one knows how to merge, use roundabouts or watch for cyclists (or motorcyclists). It's one of my biggest fears and the morbid movie reel that is my mind has played me a few scenarios that would easily slot in to the plot line of Grey's Anatomy.

Yesterday MG sent me the Glympse as usual as I was figuring out what to cook for dinner. Tricky was playing cars in his room and Bobbin was on the couch "reading" Room on the Broom (for the millionth time). Then my phone rang and MG's smiling face flashed up on the screen.

"Yellooooo" I said.

No one replied and I could hear traffic noises so I thought he'd somehow butt dialed me.

"Hello?" I asked again to be sure.

"Hi, my name's Richard, I'm here with your husband, he's come off his bike. He's OK, he's awake now, but he's bleeding a lot and an ambulance is coming. We're at the corner of [gigantic road] and [major road], do you know where that is?". Of course I did, I had the app, showing me he was not moving at the intersection. My stomach lurched.

Richard, who neither of us had met before, was a good man to have around in an emergency. He and his wife/partner/female person in the car whose name I've forgotten, had seen MG come off (the front wheel fell off as he came down a kerb) and pulled over to help, then used his phone to contact me.

I took the kids straight to my neighbours house, much to their delight, and as they got out of the car (yeah, I drove two doors down - I thought it was quicker than walking them down and running back) she asked if they'd eaten. No. She took them by the hand, told me she'd make them dinner, bath them and put them in her kids PJs. What a legend. I pulled out and headed to the scene, absolutely petrified about what I'd see when I got there.

I arrived at the same time as the ambulance and couldn't see MG, but I could see his bike in two pieces. Richard and the woman (I can't believe I forgot her name!) came straight up to me and took me to the sign he was sitting next to. There was blood pouring out of his mouth and he had bloodied knees and a few scrapes on his arms. Next to him was his helmet with big crack in it, the plastic pushed in to the underlying foam. That could have been his skull. Dear lord, that could have been his skull!

The ambos were looking him over and I got the first look at his mouth. Teeth going in every direction, some half missing. Another man who had stopped, Jeff, started looking for MG's teeth on the road, but we were told not to bother because they'd been broken off, not come out whole. At this point I found out that MG had hit the back of Jeff's car as he went over the handlebars.

While I was sitting with MG, Richard and the woman (her name started with a vowel, dammit!) loaded up the broken bike in to the back of the car, which took quite a bit of manoeuvring because I had a leaf blower and a pram in there. They came back and stayed with me until they were sure I was OK, letting me know that they thought he'd briefly lost consciousness - so important to know! Such lovely people.

At some point as MG sat on the grass, he was bitten on the leg by a bug. Because smashing your face in to the ground isn't enough for this family. You have to hit a car and get bitten, too. Go hard or go home.

MG went off in the ambulance and Jeff made sure I was OK and told me not to worry about the damage to his car - but we swapped business cards anyway (and a lovely email checking up on MG was in my inbox the next morning). I dropped the bike home, grabbed Tricky's ventolin and some spare clothes and dropped them at the neighbour's house, then drove to the hospital. On the way I called my parents to pick up the kids for a sleep over, and MG's sister, Kitty. She works with people with brain injuries so it was a double whammy of letting his family know and getting some advice with what to ask the hospital.

At the hospital, they wouldn't let me see him. He'd been placed in 'fast track' which is for people who aren't badly hurt and will be shoved out the door soon, and they don't like visitors back there. That seemed like a good sign, but I was concerned they didn't know he'd been knocked out.

Kitty arrived to keep me company and we were finally allowed through, about an hour after he'd arrived. He was holding a spew bag to catch all the blood that was still coming from his mouth. When the doctor came in he said he'd stitch him up and he could go because the xray showed no fracture of the jaw.

I told the doctor that MG had been knocked out and sure enough, they weren't aware. Because of course MG can't remember it. I was really concerned though that they would have just sent him away after an hour when he's had a bike crash and hit his head. A bruise was forming over his entire forehead as we stood by, so it was obvious he'd hit hard, plus his helmet really showed the force of the hit. I looked back at Kitty and she gave me the universal "you said the right thing" micro nod.

He was transferred to the main emergency department and had neurological obs taken every hour which made me feel so much better. He remained alert, so with each set of obs they became less and less concerned about a possible bleed in his brain and the need for a CT.

The game plan changed a few times as the night progressed. For a while the maxillofacial surgeons were going take a look at him under general anaesthetic, but then they decided that a dentist would be the better option.

But he had to be stitched up before anything else happened. He had a chunk of skin hanging from his chin, part of his top lip hanging off, and the inside of his bottom lip was deeply lacerated from the top all the way to the gum.

The main doctor numbed him up and started suturing his chin. I'm so in to gory stuff - I watch real life medical shows, autopsy shows, and always watch any procedure I have done. I'm fascinated by it and have never felt squeamish... until then.

I was holding MG's hand, trying to be the loving, supportive wife and the room started to go black. I couldn't hear and vomit was rising up in my throat. I turned to Kitty... "I'm going to faint" and I stepped to the bottom of the bed and sat down. On the filthy floor. I was helped in to a chair and told to put my head between my legs, then proceeded to throw my guts up in to a bag. Niiiice.

The other doctor, Dr Anthony - awesome guy - sutured up the rest of MG's face while I sat just outside his cubicle drinking sugar water and being told I looked green. I was listening in to some of it, hearing the doc say how it was an impressive injury and that MG was doing well.

I rejoined the bedside party after all the gory stuff was over and was so disappointed I had to miss it. The mouth wound was epic and I only got to see it once. Boo. It's all about me, obviously.

Kitty and I had been cracking awful jokes the whole time, because joking about inappropriate things at inappropriate times is a talent we both possess. It reached a new low when, almost crying with laughter, we high fived after a particularly hilarious tooth fairy gag over him as he lay, still bleeding, in the bed. Ahhh, stress does great things. Nothing was safe - grills, Harrison Ford scars, Indiana Jones whips, Smashmouth, and even "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". We are terrible, terrible people, and will no doubt go to hell.

Some morphine, a failed albeit valiant attempt at a splint made from a scalpel packet, and some paperwork later, MG was discharged with instructions to see the dentist the next day.

He got an emergency appointment in the city and the dentist was a bit excited he got to do something cool instead of just a boring old filling. The xrays showed that four teeth were smashed - two could be built up, one was exposing the nerve and needed a root canal started, and the other was too damaged will have to be extracted once the area heals a little.

For now he has had two teeth capped, one temporarily capped, and one of his front teeth just smoothed off at half height, and they're braced together for support. He never had braces as a teen because he had perfectly straight teeth - but now he has them to stop the bastards falling out.

He says it wasn't too painful, that his mouth is still quite numb, but when the dentist had to lean on the stitches and use a bit of oomph, you could see it was agony.

Because I'm horrible, I went and bought MG a really inappropriate present while the main drilling bits were being done. I presented it to him saying it was the only bike he was allowed to ride from now on.

His teeth won't be fully fixed until next year, likely February, because of all the time needed for the bone to re grow around the roots where they have shifted, and for some stability to hopefully return. If it doesn't, he'll have two implants instead of one.

He's swollen. He can't eat anything but puree for a while, and looks exactly how you'd expect someone to look when they stop a fall with their face. But we don't care. He doesn't have a brain injury, he doesn't have two broken arms, he doesn't have a broken neck. He's alive. A smashed up mouth is nothing compared to the what ifs that have been running through our heads.

Now to prepare for the pain of the dental bills.

I'm with the band

After eleven years together, you'd think I'd know all there is to know about my husband. 

I know his favourite bands, foods, drinks, activities, sports, and yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. Well, most of the time I do. I think. Let's not test me on it, OK?

So it came as a HUGE shock to me to find out that MapGuy was in a band when he was in highschool. I knew he was in the school band, but he also rocked out, the way hormonal teenage boys do, in a grunge band.

"This totally ups your street cred. How did you play trumpet in a rock band though?"

"I was the lead singer"

"Oooh that's a bit sexy. Until I remember you were underage at the time. Yeah, not sexy any more. At least you weren't the bass player. What was your band called?"

"Lesbian Sumo."

"Wait. What?"

"Lesbian Sumo."

"BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I had so many questions, but all I could do was laugh and mock him mercilessly. Which is what marriage is all about, isn't it?

Any surprises from your partner?

The sword of (employment) Damocles

One of the reasons I'm in a funk lately - and not the cool kinda uptown funk you up, dancing with rollers in my hair kinda funk -  is because MapGuy's work is laying off around 300 people.

The sword of employment Damocles is hanging over my head
And I've got a feelin' someone's gonna be cuttin' the thread
Oh, woe is me!
My life is a misery
Oh, can't you see
That I'm at the start of a pretty big downer

But life isn't the Rocky Horror Picture Show and I'm not wearing gold hot pants, because sadly, I don't own any.

We first heard of the cuts just before we went on holiday. Our paid for months ago, non refundable holiday. I was optimistic, though, and didn't get overly worried.

We were about to head away when his bosses made sure he could check his work email on holiday because all staff had to know if they did or didn't have a job at the same time.

I panicked. Surely they'd only double check with you if you're one of the ones getting the chop, right? It sure put a dampener on the first few days of our time in Malaysia (which I still haven't blogged about because STRESS! SICKNESS! PROCRASTINATION!). Then, he checked his email on the day he was told and PHEW he still had a job to go to! Up until then I hadn't bought anything on holiday except food. I went clothes shopping for the kids after that!

On his return to work, the atmosphere was very different. Morale was very low. The first round of cuts had been done and dusted - people had already gone and MG never got a chance to say seeya.

I still have some confidence that he'll be fine in the second and third round of cuts, but there is this voice in the back of my head. It's a bitch of a voice, I tell ya. It's saying all sorts of awful things - made more awful by the fact that at least some of them are true. Not many though, because my brain makes up the vast majority of my problems.

It's a tough climate to get a job in. (true)

I'll have to sell my computer. (highly unlikely)

Not many companies are hiring. (true)

The kids won't get new clothes for summer. (umm, hello, grandparents!)

OMG the mortgage. (yes, you have one)

We'll starve. (no, don't be a dick)

If they got rid of the guy who had been there 13 years, MG with his 8 years doesn't stand a chance. (well, fuck)

We'll be fine. No, really. I honestly believe that (most of the time). But I just can't get these doubts out of my head. They swirl and flip and before I know it, it's 2am and I've been laying here for hours clenching my teeth so tight I need the jaws of life to open it up again.

My doctor asked me recently if I wanted to try coming off my anti anxiety meds. Normally, I'd be all for moving on up and seeing what happens. But right now? Nope! I will keep my little psychotropic security blanket snuggly tucked around me, thankyouverymuch.

So we wait. And hope for the best. And don't spend too much money. And take Ativan.

A his and hers review of the XC60 R-Design

This is a S3 post. I drove the Volvo for a week.

For full details please see my disclosure policy

Driving a car for the specific purpose of reviewing it made it glaringly obvious that MG and I look for very different features in a vehicle. I'm all about the dashboard and ease of use, while he is all about handling, and whatever it is that is under the hood. Engine thingies?

We took this role very seriously so we could present a his and hers review. And oh look, I am such a blatant stereotype it makes me sick. Also, MG writes like he's about to start working for an auto mag, and I'm all conversation and swearing. Dude makes me look bad.

HIS REVIEW - Map Guy takes the XC60 for a country drive

Volvo is a European marque with a history of making premium cars for over 80 years. The XC60 is the company’s second foray into the SUV market and a 2014 update means this car is dripping with the latest in automotive technologies.

Volvo conjures visions of comfort, safety and practicality and more recently - speed. The model I tested was the XC60 D5 R-Design; which means Volvo finished a perfectly good D5 Luxury model and handed it over to the mad racing scientists at Polestar.

What they do with this car is find an extra 11kW of power and 30Nm of torque over the standard D5 and knock the 0-100km/h time down to 8.1 seconds. The twin turbo 2.4L 5 cylinder diesel isn’t silky smooth like others in the luxury SUV class and it’s raspy note is something Polestar have done a great job of enhancing with an excellent dual exhaust set up. While not winning ¼ mile drags, the roll-on acceleration is certainly addictive and many times I found myself having to rein in a speedy right boot.

Don’t get thinking the extra tuning made this diesel thirsty either, its 70L tank is more than capable of returning over 800km and we averaged 7.8L/100km on a hilly highway drive.

I’ve never heard a Volvo owner complain after a long drive and I can attest that the R-Design seats are the most comfortable I’ve tested in a car. The leather is of a high quality and the dash and interior fit and finish are up with the best. The back seats offer a unique Volvo feature with two-stage temporary booster cushions and a centre armrest that contains cup holders and a fold out storage area. This proved invaluable on a country drive with Tricky arranging his lunch box and colouring materials in the middle for easy access.

When you need to get work done the XC60’s rear bench folds completely flat making it ideal for hauling large items. Made even easier with a high opening button activated tailgate. It’s no slouch with a trailer either; 2000kg tow rating making it an ideal family solution. The full height taillights are a handy feature in the car park with a light button on the key fob illuminating these and the day-time running lights to help me find my way back with a full trolley.

The XC60 R-Design tops the XC60 range and as such features many of Volvo’s state of the art active and passive safety technology. City safety technology prevents the car colliding in low-speed traffic, two rear parking cameras made it so easy to reverse park and bi-xenon headlights use GPS and steering inputs to turn up to 15° to help see around the next bend. Combining this with state-of-the-art ABS, Traction Control and optional extras like lane departure warning and blind-spot information systems you will make no mistake, this is a 5 star safety rated car.

Unfortunately not all R-Design extras impressed. Like the flappy paddles – well placed and beautiful they don’t work particularly well with a diesel engine and I found myself instead using ‘S+’ with the gear leaver rather than manually working through the 6 gears. The tachometer is entirely digital which means you can change the display to suit your tastes; I’d have liked to see more than the 3 options and was amused by an “Eco” mode that showed a speedo reaching 260km/h!

Infotainment systems have quickly become a make or break item for new car buyers. The XC60 R-Design comes equipped standard with a 5 inch LCD screen and is controlled by a dial in the central binnacle. Reaching over to adjust settings became an occasional frustration as this was one of 4 dials arranged around no less than 31 buttons! The voice and steering wheel controls however are very handy options (have a car reading you a shorthand text message is hilarious).

All in all the Volvo XC60 R-Design impressed all who came near it. Stunning looks (it really is handsome with the optional 20 inch wheels), a quick and economical diesel engine and some of the most comfortable surroundings a travelling family could ask for. I would have liked the entertainment system to join the Android Auto or Apple CarPlay revolution, probably a victim of timing rather than any other constraints during the latest update.

This is the type of model a small family should shop for when opting for a single car. Sporty, luxurious, practical; plenty here for everyone to enjoy.

(MG has entered his half of the review in a competition, if you'd like to vote for him click on over here - it's not related to this in any way)

HER REVIEW - Glow does the school run and heads to the shops. Over and over again. When I jumped in to the XC60 and inhaled that new car smell deep in to my lungs, I felt a sensation somewhere between exhilaration - were they really going to let me just drive out of here? Didn't they hear me say "the faster the better" during my hot lap? - and sheer terror. An expensive car that I have to give back in one piece? Bring on the granny driving and jokes about being a "bloody Volvo driver".

I headed out of the Cannington Volvo lot and by the time I was on the highway I'd already turned the wipers on three times attempting to indicate, and fallen in love with the leather seats. With the hug like hold of a racing seat (but with support and padding) and seat warmers cranked, my tooshie was loving it.

Tricks thought the in-built booster in the XC60 was the bomb. It was his first experience without a five point harness and the thought of being a "big boy" was very appealing to him. A fabulous concept which worked great for us, though I'd be concerned that on long journeys a child could fall asleep and lean in to the wrong position affording them little protection in the event of a collision. Though this is a concern with any child in a booster without a five point harness and isn't specific to the Volvo.

I used the car mainly for school pick ups and grocery shopping, and I tell ya, I felt a bit posh! Sleek lines and the throaty rumble of a diesel, the XC60 definitely turned heads. Shopping was a breeze with the automated tailgate and I found myself wanting to show it off "Oh, you have a handbag? Let me open the boot for you" *press* "You want to keep it on your lap? No problem, I'll just close it" *press*. Speaking of the boot, it's pretty massive and passed my gigantic-pram-the-size-of-a-boat test with flying colours. I'm disappointed they didn't keep the cool opening and closing function going on all the way around and have keyless entry - that is a godsend when you've got your hands full with kids and groceries in the middle of a busy car park.

Just look at that boot space

But I'm afraid the XC60 didn't make me fall in love with it the way it won over MG. I found the dashboard to be way too busy with OMG SO MANY BUTTONS. The interface didn't seem very intuitive to me and even using the steering wheel mounted control wheel it felt almost like a clunky afterthought. The voice activation alleviated some of the issues at times, but there was still a lot of looking down to figure things out and twiddling of dials to enter information, effectively taking my eyes off the road for longer than I felt was safe.

I felt it could have been much improved by a touchscreen (which would get rid of about two thirds of those bloody buttons to start with) and a better GPS system. As it stands it would beep if there was an upcoming speed camera but had no information on current speed limits or if you're exceeding them - I'm quite used to my current car telling me "You are over the speed limit" if my speed starts to creep up and it even adjusts for school zones and road works, so there was a high benchmark to meet there and it just didn't stack up like I expected it to.

The XC60 was a joy to drive (S+ mode is brilliant!), and it really is absolutely beautiful to look at, but it fell short for me. As someone who is in and out of the car a lot throughout the day, keyless entry and a more sophisticated console would be needed before I could consider shelling out for it to be my main ride, no matter how pretty it is.

Of Man And Machine

This is a guest post by the one and only Map Guy. An unsolicited blog post. I know, I couldn't believe it either. And now you will all know that not only does the guy make maps, but he writes, too. And he writes well. None of the sweary, ranty stuff that I do. He needs a blog.

So we did it. We bought a new (to us) car. As I sit hear smiling at our shiny new set of wheels and pour over feature lists for hidden goodies from those talented engineers I can’t help but shed a small tear for the great lump of metal that carried our family around for the last 4 years.

That’s right, our big red Territory is the only car Tricky remembers as a family ride and it’s just a little bit special that we were all in there the day Bobbin triumphantly arrived home.

It makes me stop and think. Which car was I brought home in? What did mum use to drop me at school on that very first day? What underpowered machine was I lucky enough to learn how to drive in? Funny enough I remember that Toyota Corona station wagon; and if you were a kid growing up in suburban or regional Australia I bet you remember your milestone cars too.

The schoolyards were awash with badge-snob divisions. Kids riding in Camry sedans, Falcon station wagons and I’m sure I can remember playing a lengthy game of eye-spy with my brother on opposite seats in a Land Cruiser troop carrier on a 20 hour overnight trip.

We remember the clunky three speed manuals, the rattly non-turbo diesels and the lucky kids with their Bathurst loving V8 driving folks (ah, if only).

I miss my family cars. I miss my own motley collection of Aussie built Fords that have seen me through these first 14 years of adulthood. Taking a memory-walk past the Coronas, Cruisers and Falcons that peppered my life-shaping events I took a little time to just sit in the Territory. I soaked up a little of what we left in those seats and consider just what a hunk of rolling metal might mean to the little boy and girl in my life who don’t remember looking out from anything else.

Sometimes cars have more to tell us than their tiny scrapes, dents and lengthy odometer readings can attest.

Perhaps we all have an emotional connection to our first childhood cars? What do you remember about your family’s cars?

Glow: I remember being dropped at school in an orange Datsun Stanza with a tan roof. Retro, baby!

Milestones for everybody!

Today is the day.

The BIG day.

In the grand scheme of things, there is nothing particularly special happening, yet for me it is huge.

Today is the first time I will be home alone in charge of two children for a full day. A mama milestone, if you will. And whilst it is a little bit daunting (read: shitting myself), I'm quietly confident both will be fed at some point.

I have had the massive luxury of having Map Guy home for six weeks (thank you, long service leave) and in that time I've been spoiled rotten. The transition to mama of one to mama of two has been slow and relatively painless thanks to that man. In between doing the overhwhelming majority of the cooking, cleaning and being constantly bombarded with questions and requests from the Trickster, MG has researched,ordered and installed skylights and rain sensors, fixed leaky taps, arranged all for all our tiles, light fittings and fans for the build and probably much more that I'm forgetting thanks to baby brain. Needless to say, he rocks my socks.

Single and solo mums, I take my hat off to you. SO MUCH.

To start off on the right foot we blitzed the house yesterday - or though that might have had something to do with the fact that we had dinner guests last night (which mid-build with furniture everywhere meant a picnic on the floor). And to make it even better BOTH of the kids slept through the night.

I cannot tell you how amazing this milestone is.

Tricky slept through the night for the first time EVER last week. Yes, it took three years and four months for him to reach that milestone. That's forty looooong months. He did follow it up with two horrible nights but that one night was a shiny beacon of hope for me.

Last night he did it again. Waking at 6:30am he excitedly came in to our bedroom and declared he woke up after the sun came up and didn't need anyone to sleep with him in the night because he was a big boy. He was so proud of himself. If I didn't have Bobbin on the boob at the time I would have jumped up and danced with him. Instead he had to accept knuckle bumps and gigantic cuddles.

And, in her six short weeks earthside, the little miss has also slept through the night (or most of it) twice. She woke at 5:00am today, smiling up at me and cooing. Unfortunately my boobs woke me up at 4:00am demanding to feed a child. But I've had close to five hours sleep and feel like a new woman. Perfect conditions for my milestone!

Let's keep these milestones rolling... next will be venturing to the shops alone with two children! SHOCK, HORROR!!

What mama milestones did you find daunting?

An Ode to Map Guy on our 5th Wedding Anniversary

You’re my tantrum tag teamer extraordinaire,
The ever patient stroker of my hair,
A tight jar opener and heavy thing lifter,
My wonderful Mother’s Day bacon rose gifter.

A cockroach hunter and scary spider killer,
My super awesome bedroom thriller!
With fabulous hands, you’re a top masseuse,
Plus you’re scrummier than a pfeffernusse.

My friend, my lover, my BFF,
Handy with the vac and a bloody good chef.
The dad that puts Mike Brady to shame,
And the man that sets my heart aflame.

The only one to whom I can tell all my stuff,
And the one who got me up the duff!
To find anyone better I’d be hard pressed,
Because these last five years have been the best!

My Mother's Day present involved destroying baking ware...

If you're on the 'Book and follow Where's My Glow? on there you may have seen this little snippet from yesterday:

I knew that Tricks had made me a handprint magnet and a bookmark at Day Care - because they were presented to me on Thursday along with some iced biscuits with a joyful "Happy Mother's Day. Can I eat them?". I died from all the cute. My first hand crafted Mother's Day presents were divine! But I had no clue what on earth could involve the destroying of a muffin tin.

Last night Map Guy tried to sneak his way to the shed, muffin tin in hand. It is impossible to sneak to the shed when I know there are presents involved.  My hearing becomes cat-like. I could have heard that shed key being picked up half a kilometre away.

I listened. There was banging around. Then... there was a drill. What the actual fuck?

I had visions of some bizarre art piece that would represent the trials and tribulations of motherhood. Or even a take on consumerism. Anything but what I actually received this morning when I was woken up for the best god damn breakfast in bed I've ever had:

A bowl of BACON ROSES, PEOPLE!!!! It does not get much better than that!

Here's how he made them:

• Buy a cheap muffin tin. Drill a small hole in the bottom of each section then wash thoroughly - metal filings don't go down so well
• Preheat oven to 190 degrees
• Roll up middle rasher bacon from the thin end to the fat end
• Place in the muffin tin and then in a baking dish - this allows the fat to leak out otherwise you'll just have a bacon rose sitting in a puddle of fat. Ick
• Cook for 40 minutes (allowing a gooooood sleep in!)
• Place on stems from fake flowers, or if you can't get to the $2 shop in time arrange them in a bowl
• Serve and receive the biggest brownie points of your life!

Thank you, Map Guy. Om nom nom nom nom. I declare it the Best Mother's Day Present Ever!

What did you get?

The Homecoming

A dramatic scene unfolded at Casa de Glow yesterday afternoon. Like a lot of important events in my life (such as my own engagement) it started with me being woken up from a nap. What? Isn’t everyone woken up from a nap to be proposed to? No? Awkward. Righty-o, moving on.

“Glow, there’s an injured bird in the yard. I need your help so Sprocket doesn’t eat it”

Map Guy produced a big black shoe box and told me the bird was inside. I peeked in. It was so small and fragile. It had long scrawny legs and fluffy grey wings that stood out at awkward angles.

But it wasn't injured, it was just a baby. Something inside me stirred. It was only a bird, sure, but I felt an intense urge to protect it. To make sure it got home safe. Reunited with its family.

We put the dog inside and placed the baby bird on our weedy lawn with a lid of water in front of it and stood back to see if it would try to move. It didn’t.

I thought it might already be too late.

But then it blinked, opened its mouth wide and cheeped.

What we can only assume were the parents started flitting around anxiously watching us. The Google Gods tell me they were White-cheeked Honeyeaters. After a few minutes the mama bird swooped down to feed it. I wanted to take a photo but I didn’t want to go any closer and scare it. Plus I’ve not had much luck with wild animals recently and had visions of the mama bird swooping me and becoming lodged in my eyeball. So I stayed well back.

Image: Ralph Green

She flew off and landed on the fence near her peers, all of them watching closely, never straying far from the baby. My heart broke and I cursed evolution for not giving them arms or hands or an Ergo.

We studied the trees around us and the five or six other identical birds swooping in and out of our neighbour’s tree that overhangs our fence provided a useful clue as to the whereabouts of the nest though we couldn’t actually see through the dense branches.

I ducked inside to call to the vet to find out exactly what we should do while MG kept guard. The receptionist said as long as the parents were still fretting and trying to feed it then we could put it on any branch in the tree and it would be helped back. If they weren’t? Well it was likely the little dude had been pushed and would just be pushed out again. Darwinism at it's finest.

By the time I came back the previously motionless bird had flapped it’s wings and managed to half fly half jump a few metres. A definite improvement on its previous movement record of blinking. We took it as an excellent sign that it was in fact not on death's door.

Map Guy put the bird back in the shoebox, made all the more difficult now that it had decided to attempt this ass-bumping half fly half jump routine and lifted it in to the tree. Then the most amazing thing happened... the whole tree, full of Honeyeaters we hadn't even seen, erupted in tweets.

As in the cheep cheep kind, not the @MamaHoneyeater: “OMG @BabyHoneyeater is being lifted in to the tree by @MapGuy83 while @Glowless looks on holding that kid with the cheeks” kind.

Now it might be my hormones or the fact that my rellies are here from interstate for their own reunion to see their dying mum, my Nanna, but the loud and frenzied cheeping heralding his homecoming pulled at my heartstrings with its unmistakably triumphant chorus. They were overjoyed at the little guy's return and all I could think about was how my Nanna would have felt that same joy in these last few days, seeing her five children at her bedside.

We stood and watched the baby bird hop from branch to branch until he was deep inside the protective arms of the tree. He was home. Safe and sound.

And it was all I could do not to weep.

Postscript: I wrote this at 4pm on the 7th of October and set it to publish for the morning. Just after 9pm my Nanna died after a long illness. I'm sure she chose to go then because she was finally secure in the knowledge that her five children were home. Safe and sound.

The Glow Family Road Trip, now with bonus map

On Sunday, I'm heading out on a 1200km road trip. One thousand, two hundred kilometers.When I spell it out it seems so much longer and all of a sudden I'm wondering what the hell I've gotten myself in to. 1200km of being cooped up in a car, singing endless renditions of Old MacDonald, passing innumerable snacks to the back seat before capitulating and handing over the iPad.

For most of it, there will just be the three of us. One husband. One wife. One child. Unlike our other road trips, this one will be sans farting dog who is staying home with a sitter. Already, it's ten times better than any previous car trip.

Like any family holiday, a bit of planning goes in to it. And if you're Map Guy and have wanted to create maps since you were seven years old and asked your dad what the person who makes the maps is called, a little bit of mapping goes in to it too.

Behold, the Glow Family Road Trip Infographic:

That's not just a squiggle, that's our actual route. And those icons? Exactly what we'll be doing or seeing at each stop. The man has too much time on his hands is a genius.

I'm looking forward to visiting the biggest free entry playground in Australia, a winery, an Alpaca farm, a winery, a lavender and berry farm, a winery, The Cidery, a winery, a "hands-on-feed-the-animals" farm, a winery, the home of the best steak sandwich in country WA and visiting a few wineries. 

I'm looking forward to it being just us with nothing to interrupt our time together (1,2,3, nawww). And, though it's hard to believe, I'm actually looking forward to the severely restricted mobile internet coverage in regional WA.

So if you don't hear from me for a week, don't worry. If you don't hear from me in two weeks, print out this map and give it to the police - we'll be somewhere along it.

I've got some lovely bloggers guest posting for me while I'm away, so show them some lovin' and if you're feeling particularly generous share their posts - because I won't be able to!

Do you do giant road trips? Are there wineries involved?

So Long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Goodbye...

If you're here looking for FlogYoBlog Friday, it's on holiday at Tis The Life this week! Thanks to everyone who volunteered to host it!

Where's My Glow? is shutting down.

Wow, that was a bit melodramatic, wasn't it? But it is kinda true, and hey, it got your attention, didn't it?

I'm going on holiday to Kota Kinabalu and rather than posting four times a week I will be swimming, playing at the water park (inside the resort), drinking cocktails, having massages and manicures and basically being a dumb white tourist for eight glorious days at the Tajung Aru Resort and Spa. Yes, spa.

Cocktail at sunset? YES PLEASE!

On top of that I will NOT be washing, cooking, cleaning, folding or scrubbing (or procrastinating instead of doing them which is actually what happens most of the time) for eight days. EIGHT DAYS! What a fantastic 30th birthday present (not til next month, but hey, close enough)!

I can see you turning green with envy through your screen (check your webcam is off, maybe I'm stalking you).

The last time I went on a relaxing holiday was my honeymoon. Now, three years later we're taking a toddler to a resort with a kid's club he's too young to go to... we may just be mad. Seeya!

So give me your trips for traveling in Asia with a toddler!

100 Round the Bends: My V8 Hot Lap Experience

There's a Missy Higgins song (don't hate me) that says "we'll go 100 round the bends" and every time I hear her sing it I think "What? 100? Are you in a race car or just extremely irresponsible? Your car is going to get impounded young missy Missy and you're not doing a thing to bust the young stupid driver stereotype" at which point I realize it's just a song, no one cares and people are starting to look at the crazy lady having an animated conversation with herself at the traffic lights.

On the weekend I actually did go 100 round the bends (and it happened to be entirely legal) and I could not get that bloody song out of my head. I jumped in a V8 Supercar and did four hot laps, oooh yeah. My inner bogan rev head felt the need for speed and a sudden urge to smoke Winnie Blues and wear flannelette and thongs.

I bought Map Guy a double pass from one of those online voucher places and actually got around to using it before it lapsed like the last one I bought. He chose to take me and I was actually pretty surprised... I assumed (yes, ass:you:me, I know) that he'd take a mate or one of his car club buddies he's been around the track with before. But he chose me and I spent the morning saying "You choo choo choose me" because even though I was mixing up my modes of transportation I can't miss an opportunity to be annoying.

We rocked up at Barbagallo Raceway and suited up - in case you're wondering, it's really hard to pull on a firesuit when your back is so sunburned that you can't put your arms back. And so we're clear, firesuits are unattractive unless you're an actual V8 Supercar driver.

Needed a firesuit because I'm so hot

A non-action shot of Map Guy the scarecrow

Bogan couple in matching outfits

Last time I had a back seat bonus I didn't need a lanyard

There was a bit of waiting around for "photo's" because bogans can't spell

Then posing for "photo's" that they wanted to charge us $50 for when I could just take my own...

Then a bit more waiting at Stig School

Go for launch with my massive head in a tiny helmet

Jumping in for Step 8 "drive" - hard to see, but the brakes were on fire

We did four laps and reached over 220km/h down the back straight and did indeed do 100 round the bends. The heady smell of petrol and being subjected to massive G Forces (now called Glow Forces) meant that at the three and a half lap mark I was thinking less of Australian singer songwriters and more of the trajectory of my spew under Glow Forces.

Climbing out of the car all I wanted to do was get as far away from the fumes as possible, but I'd promised my shoes to some chick who had rocked up wearing thongs *coughbogancough* and wasn't allowed in the cars unless she found some closed in shoes. So we waited; me going slightly green and Map Guy thinking all his Christmases had come at once being in pitt lane for such a long time.

I felt sick for the remainder of the day but it was definitely worth it. Four hot laps for me, eight for my shoes. An awesome experience.

Are you a rev head? Would you do a hot lap? Would you lend your shoes to a bogan?

Idiot Box

We're not big TV watchers at Casa de Glow. Well, we weren't. Now we are because Map Guy bought a 42 inch LCD screen with his tax return, so it is literally a big TV, and we're going through that honeymoon phase that you get with all new appliances and are glued to the idiot box most nights watching ABC or SBS (because we're smarmy and like to think we're smart by shunning commercial stations).

Even old TV shows and DVDs we've watched 100 times before are getting another go just to check out the sound and picture quality. It has Map Guy foaming at the mouth.

The magic of the moving pictures has not been lost on Tricky either. He's allowed to watch a bit of TV in the morning (or a lot if it's one of those days). He casts his eyes upwards and sees Iggle Piggle or Big Bird or Peppa Pig towering over him. His eyes boggle and you can see his brain switch off.

But there is one show that sucks him in like no other; it makes him giggle and clap his hands whilst dancing... and I'm ashamed to admit, it has me sucked in too. The animation, the voices, the feel good stories, you name it, I love it. The theme song gets stuck in my head for days at a time and I go around the house singing it, sounding like a moron (but hey, at least it keeps Tricky still at change times).

So to spread the ear-wormy goodness of Tricky's favourite song, we recorded this (quite blurry video) really really early yesterday morning while Map Guy was having his Father's Day sleep in. Enjoy!






Do you have a favourite kid's show? Do you know all the words to the theme song?

FlogYoBlog Friday: The Father's Day Edition

Howdy once again Floggers!

This Sunday is Father's Day in Australia which means at this very moment there are kids everywhere making really awful beautiful hand made cards.

It's Map Guy's second Father's Day so on one hand it's slightly less special than last year, but on the other hand, Tricky will be able to wake his Dada up this year with snuggly morning cuddles (aka jumping up and down on his head).

Map Guy (who subscribes to the blog but doesn't actually read it) is getting this gorgeous photo of himself and Tricky on the beach at Cervantes in Western Australia, in a nice frame.

Nawww, so cute. It's prolly the best photo I've ever taken and it's completely raw, no Instagram filters for once. Enough schmaltzy photos, let's Flog, baby!

How to FlogYoBlog

(The shortened version!)

1. Follow Where's My Glow? (yep, I like seeing the numbers go up, sue me)
2. Bow down at the alter of Mummy Time; Blog-goddess, all round groovy gal and creator of FYBF
3. Grab the FYBF button and post it on your sidebar or in the post you're linking up
4. Link in your favourite/best post from the week (don't just put your homepage URL)
5. Follow at least 1 linkyer/blogger then be nice and spread the comment love

<center><a href=" http://www.wheresmyglow.com/search/label/FlogYoBlog "><img src=" http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv316/mummy-time/FlogYoBlog/flogyoblog-1.jpg " border="0" alt="FYBF" /></a> </center>
get the InLinkz code
P.S. Eloise Verlaque, you won the Typo voucher for your awesome haiku, but you haven't responded to the email. You've got til the end of the day to do so - check your spam filter :)

Highway Etiquette

When you upload a Vlog to YouTube it automatically chooses a still shot to be your thumbnail image.

Without fail mine is always a sneeze face. It's the height of attractiveness, the sneeze face.

You can go in and change the thumbnail, and being the completely vain person that I am, I swapped it for the least unattractive one there was. But it takes 36 hours for it to register apparently. So, for the next 36 hours... achoooo!





Do you wave to other drivers on the highway? Is it a fully fledged wave, a finger wave or snob nod?

Fag Hag

This is a sponsored post. Writing it gets me on a plane to Melbourne for Blogopolis.

I had my first cigarette when I was 14. I thought I was so cool, sitting alone at the bus stop before school, having half a puff of the mildest cigarette ever made and coughing my severely asthmatic lungs up to the point where my eyes watered. It doesn't get much cooler than that, right? How were the boys not falling over themselves to get to me?

Afraid my dirty little secret would be found out, I would shove an entire packet of mints in my mouth and douse myself with deodorant just as the bus pulled up. Instead of smelling like a stinky ashtray, I smelled like a stinky ashtray dipped in mint and berries. My apologies to the bus driver, who nearly choked one morning after a particularly thorough dousing.

I didn't really touch them again until I was 18, when I became a Friday night Fag Hag (smoking an entire packet on the one and only night a week that you smoke) and I only graduated to full blown smoker when I went through a bit of a crisis. Or rather, crises.

I ended up smoking an entire pack a day. 30 cigarettes, in 18 waking hours. Every. Single. Day.

Like many youngens, I wasn't concerned with the health effects. Which is really surprising since it was my constant whingeing and nagging insistence that got my grandmother to quit many years prior. Oh how the mighty did fall.

At the time I didn't really care about the cost either. When I look back at it now and see how much money I wasted (about $8000 over four years) I cringe. Do you know how many shoes, handbags and iThings that could buy???

Apparently there are many levels of addiction, and for some reason or another, nicotine and I were friends, but we weren't inseparable soulmates (I scored a 3 on the nicotine addiction test). So one day, I just decided to quit... though having a hunky new anti-smoking boyfriend may have had something to do with it. I still had a pack in the cupboard and I didn't touch them. Didn't want to touch them.

Apparently my Dad did it the exact same way. Kept a packet in his top pocket to prove to himself he could resist temptation. Freak.

I do find myself flirting with my old nicotine friend from time to time, normally when I'm having a few loud quiet ones with other smokers, but I'm lucky that for me, it doesn't mean being dragged back in to that expensive habit... just a stern reprimand from Map Guy (who was the hunky new boyfriend).

If you'd like to find out the benefits of quitting smoking, how much money you're wasting, and some tools to help you quit, visit http://www.doortoquitting.com.au. Maybe I should too so I can kick the habit once and for all.

Schmaltzy Husband Lovin

Recently Map Guy and I had a romantic night together. It doesn’t happen often, so when it does, he goes to a lot of effort to make it special.

He cranked the romantic tunes on the stereo. So cliché, but hey, I like it.

One of my faves, Claire de Lune came on. For those of you playing along at home it’s played during the fountain scene of Ocean’s Eleven.

I leaned over and kissed Map Guy, saying “Is it bad that I’m thinking of Matt Damon while I’m kissing you?”

To which he replied, “It’s OK, I am too.”

And that right there, is why I love this man. He can make me laugh like no one else.

The ongoing joke of Map Guy’s ManCrush started when we saw this video of comedian Sarah Silverman singing to her comedian boyfriend, Jimmy Kimmel (be warned, the title of the video kinda gives away that you might not wanna have your kiddies in ear shot when you play this, there is quite a bit of swearing though the worst of it is bleeped) and it’s most definitely not safe for work:

Skip to 2:13 :)

Since that clip first came out, we’ve randomly thrown it in to our daily conversations, for example:

Me: “I need to go to the hairdresser on Saturday, what are you doing?”

Map Guy: “I’m fucking Matt Damon”

Or

Map Guy: “Are you going to Mothers’ Group tomorrow?”

Me: “No, I’m too busy fucking Matt Damon”

Strange, I know. He is the chocolate sprinkles on my icecream; the bubbles in my bath tub; the hashtag in my tweet. 

Who’s your celebrity crush?

Check out Jimmy’s awesome video response with every single celebrity in the world in it - again, it’s “for mature audiences” which really means I shouldn’t have watched it because we all know I’m not mature. 

Mappy Anniversary

On this day three years ago, Map Guy and I became Mr and Mrs GlowMap or MapGlow. Or something.

We didn't have the traditional type of wedding because we're not traditional type of people. It started with having three bright yellow Ford GTs as our wedding cars and continued from there.

I wasn't walked down the isle by my Dad... I didn't want to be. It was not something I had dreamed of since I was a little girl; I had not imagined myself in a giant puffy dress, walking next to my Dad while he held back tears as he proudly escorted me to my waiting beau. No matter how much mainstream media told me I should want for it, I didn't. Not even once.

It didn't sit well with me to be given away as property - even if it is just a silly tradition that holds no weight any more, that's what it felt like for me. I would be a possession. An object. There was no way it was going to happen.

So instead, Map Guy waited at the bottom (or is it the top?) of the aisle for me to arrive, and we walked up (or is it down?) together, to symbolize to our friends and family in attendance that we had chosen to "give ourselves away" to each other.

Because I was acutely aware that my Dad might have dreamed of giving his daughter away, but would never have voiced his disappointment, a few minutes in to the ceremony BOTH sets of parents were asked to stand and "give away" their child - If I had to be given away then he bloody had to as well!

We continued on with the non-traditional by having a somewhat unusual choice of song for our bridal waltz, "Shut Up and Kiss Me" by Fiona Horne and Paul McDermott (yep the guy on Good News Week who always sings),  then the bridal party joined us and "Icecream" by Sarah McLachland played. It was definitely very "us". As was the fairy bread the bridal party had between ceremony and reception. What? You know all the best parties have fairy bread!

Photo by the divine Jen Regan of Anna Rose Photography

Happy anniversary, Map Guy. Because we always seem to gravitate towards music, I will quote Spiral Staircase when I say  "I love you more today than yesterday, but only half as much as tomorrow ". The past year has been amazing and I would be nowhere without you. I love you xxx

Did you do anything different to the norm at your wedding? Would you do anything differently if you had the chance?

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Glowless rocked the Aussie Bloggers Conference thanks to

HealthyChart and Baby Goes Retro and Simply Colors

He Did What? Wednesday

Welcome, Glowing ones, to the first ever installment of 'He Did What? Wednesday' - Hooray! High five!

Ah but I hear you whisper, "G-lady, what exactly is 'He Did What? Wednesday' and why must you always put question marks mid-sentence? Doesn't it make your spell checker go funny?"

Well, my pretties, the answer (to the first bit) is simple:

Every Wednesday I'll be featuring a story from a different blogger lamenting the annoying yet strangely endearing tales of their husbands/partners/boyfriends/brothers/fathers/sons' monumental screw ups that make us roll our eyes and say "He did what?!".

I'm gonna point out right off the bat that this isn't about man-bashing. I will more than happily take a 'She Did What!?', I'll even edit my little button. This is about exposing face palm moments, not having a bitch session.

What little button? This little button:

I'm gonna kick things off by sharing a little snippet of Map Guy's most recent shenanigans that left me reeling and thinking "He did WHAT!?"

A few weeks ago, my darling, lovely, talented (OK I'll stop sucking up) Map Guy was washing the Glow-mobile. When this guy says he's going to wash the car you can pretty much guarantee you won't see him for the rest of the day. Hours upon hours of washing, drying, polishing, buffing, dusting, spraying and oiling. I'm tired just thinking about it.

But he enjoys doing it and I enjoy having a car that could be mistaken for a mirror on wheels.

So he comes in, after SIX HOURS of work and throws something in the kitchen sink to be washed. It was black and almost unrecognizable... he'd used my bloody pastry brush to detail the inside of the car, then used it to clean the rims!

When questioned as to why he had used something that is used on food on the dusty, dirty car, he responded; "We didn't have any other brushes. What? It was the right size and everything. Did the job."

Thanks, Map Guy. I'd send him an invoice for the new pastry brush but somehow I think next time he'll send me an invoice for six hours of car detailing!

Send your 'He Did What?' (or 'She Did What!?') submissions to glowless@wheresmyglow.com and you too could get your hands on that funky button.

Next week: Parental Parody wonders if husbands and makeup mix

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Meet Glowless at the Aussie Bloggers Conference thanks to

HealthyChart and Baby Goes Retro and Simply Colors