Trudie Trewin
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Why Australia Day should be changed to November 30th

24/1/2016

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I love Australia, and I love a day off to celebrate living in this bloody marvellous country. But celebrating it on January 26th is becoming increasingly controversial. Whether you agree with the reasons for this or not, you have to admit that commemorating the day that a bunch of Poms sailed into Sydney to off-load their unwanted is quite frankly, un-Australian.
So let's choose another day. And what could be a more Australian way of doing this than finding a period in the calendar that needs a public holiday.
The last Friday in November.
~The second half of the year is a bit light-on for public holidays.
~The weather's nice at that time of year.
~End of year exams and assessments have finished and there's not much happening at school.
~It shortens the Christmas build-up to just December.
~It commemorates nothing, so it would upset nobody.
How great would that be? A day off (long weekend, no less!) with its only purpose being to celebrate living in Australia, that absolutely every single person in our wonderful country could enjoy. Kind of an Aussie Thanksgiving.


Any way they want, even dressed as a Hills Hoist
(Interesting side note - the inventor of the Hills Hoist just happened to be my Great Uncle, Lance Hill - no wonder I wear it well! ;)

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A slice of history

23/8/2015

2 Comments

 
I woke up this morning plagued by a question than I'm sure had troubled almost everyone at some stage... 'Why has no-one combined cake and popcorn in the one dish before?'

Well, people - wonder no more! I give you the world's first Choc-caramel butter popcorn cake....
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To clarify - I'm showing you what it looks like, and I'm telling you it tasted bloody good - but I'm not sharing the recipe on the triple w's.
Oh no, if you want me to give you the recipe for this cross snack-group treat, you'll have to prove your worthiness - by showering me with compliments, or buying one of my books, or telling me how I can stop the popcorn from sinking to the bottom!


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10 reasons to rock

9/7/2015

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Well, I've been a devotee of rocking for a bit over a week now, and I can already  see why rocking chairs have, throughout history, been the favoured chair of many great minds. (eg Abe Lincoln, Pablo Picasso, Mark Twain, JFK and Dwight Eisenhower** were all enthusiasts of rocking.) 
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   It's amazing - the minute I sit on my chair and settle into a genteel rocking motion I can feel myself transforming into a wise and perceptive being –  capable of complex thoughts and profound utterings, with quite the serene demeanor.


As you can see.

**While many American presidents were fans of sitting on a rocking chair, George W Bush was almost always off his rocker.


Anyway, with a  bit of research, I've discovered many other, more believable, benefits of rocking chairs. The following list is a combination of Google Facts (GF) and Trudie Facts (TF). Some of them might even be true – although probably not the TF.

1.The rhythmic rocking motion releases endorphins, which reduces anxiety. (GF)

2. It improves the flexibility and strength of knees, especially helpful after knee surgery. (GF)

3. You can burn up to 150 calories per hour rocking. (GF) Which means eating a Tim Tam an hour while you rock is a calorie-neutral activity! (TF)

4. It engages the core muscles. Rocking for one hour gives the same abdominal benefits as a 2 minute plank, or 100 situps.  It also works the calf muscles , and if you've read 'My Dot Points' you'll know how important that is to me.(TF)

5. Improved circulation helps prevent varicose veins. (GF)

6. Rocking increases creativity. The constant motion, combined with the sudden changes of direction of rocking mean that the synapses in the brain are jolted into making unexpected neurotransmission connections. (TF)

7. The negative effects of sitting and being sedentary are not applicable in a rocking chair. (GF)

8. Kids (even teens) will do previously ignored jobs in exchange for a turn on the rocker . (TF)

9.Students with ADD and ADHD focus better because the rocking motion satisfies their need for movement, meaning they can stay alert in the learning environment. (GF)

10. It's just bloody good fun! (TF)

So there you have it. Get yourself a chair because rocking rocks!


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Keeping ducks - not all it's quacked up to be

18/6/2015

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This is Mac.
Small.
Craps a lot.
Noisy.
But damn cute.

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This is the old night-time coop in the duck pen. Phoebe and Mike are in the foreground. Mike is a girl. (This is a gender statement,  not a comment on Mike's throwing ability,)

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This is the flash new coop my husband built. He even varnished it.

It opens into the fenced pen, but the back of it is in the general yard.

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This is the back. On Mac's first night in the coop one of the beagles dug a hole here. Not so big a beagle could climb into the coop. But big enough for a curious duckling to wriggle out. (Can you guess where this story is going yet?)

We searched. And called. The clever beagle knew just what we were looking for., and proudly retrieved him from where he'd left him.

(The hole has now been filled and concrete is setting.)

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This is where Mac is now. And before you put your judgy hat on... no, we didn't bury him a nice resting place in the garden, because  a) if we did that the damn beagle would dig him up again, and b) he was a duck, not a great-aunt.

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This is the beagle.
Tried.
Found guilty.
Jailed.

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This is us.

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Write your way to a tighter butt and killer abs!

9/4/2015

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Writing – good.

Sitting – bad.

Being sedentary is bad for our longevity, it increases our risk of dying from heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, pretty much every disease except Fatal Familial Insomnia*(with 9 cases worldwide, ever – getting FFI would be just exceptionally bad luck).

But writing usually involves long periods of sitting and typing, so how can a writer get that manuscript written, and still live long enough to see it through to publication, reprints, and the gold-embossed 25th anniversary edition? (Exceptionally good luck notwithstanding)

Happily, research has found that regular interruptions from sitting can reduce the risk. If you think your sitting time is getting dangerously long, try these 'writing exercises':

Stuck for the next word/sentence/plot development?

Get down on the floor and plank until you come up with something. This cures writer's block in a maximum of 90 seconds – if you can do it for longer, maybe you should be in the fitness industry instead of writing!

In the 'zone' and churning out the words?

Stop at the end of each page and do 10 shuttle runs (short and fast – don't lose writing momentum!)

Editing?

At the end of each page, do one squat for each lame/boring word or adverb you get rid of. (Be ruthless, and count each word in any sentences you chop - you'll end up with stronger writing AND a tighter butt – win/win!)

Setting targets?

Give yourself a set number of words to write in an hour (or timeframe of your choosing). Do 10 burpees if you meet the target. 15 burpees with push-ups if you don't.

Replace these exercises with others of your choosing if you like, although walking to the fridge for a piece of chocolate doesn't cut it – unless you live in a 10 story house and your fridge is 8+ floors away, and you take the stairs. Then go for it - you have the perfect balance of writing, eating chocolate and exercising.

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Best option - a treadmill with a plank to rest your laptop on. A gentle stroll through your writing session means guilt-free sedentary reading time!
*Real disease, bullshit facts. Remember, I am not a doctor, I'm a maker-upperer. In all likelihood, sitting also increases your risk of dying from FFI. If you haven't slept at all for more than 5 days in a row, you may have FFI.  Don't sit down. See your doctor.
But FFI really is incredibly rare, so don't panic, you've probably got some other disease. 
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Is creativity in kids ALWAYS a good thing?

4/3/2015

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One of my sons based his biographical essay assignment on me.  I'm honoured!

His teacher loves it. I'm proud!

He wrote that I had an epiphany in 2008 and realised I was a lesbian. I'm gonna kill him!

Apparently, my life needed a smidge more excitement.

'Couldn't I have had a wildly inappropriate affair with Ryan Reynolds, instead of becoming a lesbian?' I asked.

'<Snort>, it's got to be believable,' he answered, (effectively signing the shave order for his eyebrows as soon as he's in a deep sleep.)

There's an ongoing joke within my family that I'm a lesbian. This is based on the fact that I wear my hair short, my shoes sensible, and my patience thin from stereotypical husband complaints (which result in occasional comments of how nice it would be to live with a woman, instead of a man.)

The son in question has promised to set the matter straight (no pun intended) with his teacher, but I'm imagining a few uncomfortable moments at the parent /teacher interviews!





Think I'm going to wear my most un-sensible shoes.



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February 25th, 2015

25/2/2015

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Giving the gift of speech

21/1/2015

2 Comments

 
I don't want to brag, but this week I imparted the gift of speech on someone. Pretty cool huh? Not every day you get to do things like that. But before I get inundated with requests to hand out more gifts - like sight, bladder control, and the ability to transfer contacts, photos and music from an iPhone to a Samsung Galaxy, I'd better clarify this rather lofty statement.

The someone I referred to was in fact Roscoe, my ventriloquist doll. The mechanism that controls his mouth movement had been broken for months, and opening and shutting it by hand was detracting from my already poor act. So I fixed it.

And... while I'm making clarifications, I should also mention that the 'mechanism' was actually a piece of string.

So I'm not really a miracle worker, just a chick with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. (Sorry! But let's face it - you wouldn't have clicked through for a 'I fixed my doll' headline, would you?)

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Mildly disturbing picture of Roscoe laid out, waiting for me to get to work.

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Why do I have a ventriloquist doll, when at best I'm a ventrilomumblist?
  He sometimes comes on school visits with me, to demonstrate how listening to your 'inner critic' helps to make your writing better, and luckily, the kids don't seem to notice that I'm not very good!

Why 'Roscoe'? Firstly, because it's the sort of name that wants to be a 'cool dude', but is still guided by the rules (just what I need in an editor). And secondly, because it's easy to say without moving your lips!  -  You tried it, didn't you? Comment below if you did!

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Ta daa! Roscoe can open his mouth again. And I need to learn to shut mine!
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Dedicated to the Dedicators

14/1/2015

1 Comment

 
'To Alistair Frisby who told me I would never have a book published and advised me to get a job selling jellied eels. SUCKS TO YOU, FRISBY.' - PG Wodehouse (His 1957 autobiography, Over Seventy)
*
'For Colin Firth, you're a really great guy, but I'm married, so I think we should just be friends.' -Shannon Hale (Austenland)
*
'To my wife Marganit, and my children Ella Rose and Daniel Adam, without whom this book would have been completed two years earlier.' - Joseph J Rotman (An Introduction to Algebraic Topology) **And my agent tells me there's no market for a picture book about fun things to do with Nana's chin hairs - go figure.**
*
'What can I say about a man who knows how I think, and still sleeps next to me with the light off?' - Gillian Flynn
*
'I dedicate this book to George W Bush, my Commander-in-Chief, whose impressive career advancement despite remedial language skills inspired me to believe that I was capable of authoring a book.' - Pedram Amini. (Fuzzing: Brute Force Vulnerability Discovery)
*
'For everyone who was ever mean to me in High School. Suck it.' - Sherry Ficklin (Losing Logan)
*
'For my parents, even though they never bought me a robot.' - Prudence Shen (Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong)
*
'Dedicated to two distracting little daughters, Pricilla, 4 years old, and Nancy, aged 2, who were no help in writing this book.' - Hillis Lory (Japan's Military Masters: The Army in Japanese Life)

***

'Dedicated to the voices in my head - No, I flat out refuse to do that first thing.... and quit nagging about the second thing, I'll do it when the time's right and the place is perfect.' - Me (A yet-to-be-written (not-for-children) book)

Have you come across any great dedications?

I love dedications. Before you even start Chapter One, there's a whole other story to discover. Who is important to the writer, and why?

I dedicated my first book to my kids.  'To Daniel, Andy and Adam - the best kissers in the world.' When I wrote that dedication they were little, and more than happy to lay one on me. Now they're teenagers and have declared that my dedication is, well, distasteful is probably the nicest word they have used. Mwa haa haa - Payback for all those public shopping centre tantrums. I win - I've embarrassed them in perpetuity!

While my dedication is funny only to me, some dedications are so funny, creative and clever they deserve be collated into a book of their own. Here are a few of my favourites:


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I'm the butt of their laughter again - and I love it.

5/1/2015

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An incredibly wise and beautiful person once said, 'When you laugh at others, you make wrinkles. When you laugh at yourself, you make friends. And wrinkles.' 


Nah, it was me, I said it, just a minute ago. But it sounds like something a wise person would say, doesn't it? That's because it's true, people who can laugh at themselves DO get wrinkles.

In every family there is usually one member who gets laughed at more than the others. In my family, it's me. Having three boys only 3 1/2 years apart makes for a lot, and I do mean a lot, of fights. So anything that gets them laughing is welcome. Even if it's at my expense. In fact, they are at their brotherly closest when it's at my expense. Luckily, over the years I have managed to rack up an impressive list of mishaps, mistakes and general dumb things. And they tend to get laid out with the tablecloth for every special occasion and gathering.

The favourite is my run-in with a roadworks stop/go man several years ago. With each re-telling the story has been embellished until it now has enough action for a Hollywood blockbuster.* By the way, Steven Spielberg,
if you're reading this, I think Sandra Bullock  would be great for my part, and Ryan Reynolds would make the prefect stop/go man. (Although that would change the ending, because if a Ryan Reynolds stop go man was running after me, I would have chucked a U-ey, kicked the kids out of the car, and surrendered myself to him.)

So anyway, when the 'Remember when Mum....' tales begin, and I am once again the butt of my family and friends' laughter, I happily join in (hence the wrinkles). Firstly, because they are pretty funny stories, and secondly, I look around and see how happy everyone is, and hear the warmth in their voices and weirdly, I never feel more loved.

*For the record, I did NOT mow the poor stop/go man down, he did NOT then use a bazooka to try to 'take me out' and the throng of cars I mildly inconvenienced were not full of hungry zombies. There was a slight issue with the grader, but it was NOT driven by Kim Jong-Un.



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    Trudisms

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