Smaggle

When you were a little kid, did your parents have a scary video that you weren’t allowed to watch? A video that was so awful, so horrifying, that they warned you implicitly NEVER to watch it? My parents had one. It was a recorded off the TV, VHS tape of The Silence of the Lambs. They hid it at the back of the video cupboard. They needn’t have bothered. I had no intention of EVER watching that video. Even looking at my father’s neatly penciled handwriting on the label gave me the heebie jeebies. I didn’t even like touching it when it was resting next to my Grease video.

One dark and stormy afternoon my parents went out, leaving my brother and I at home alone for a few hours. My brother suggested that we watch a video.

‘Which one?‘ I innocently asked.

‘An awesome one that my friend gave me…‘ He answered in a steady voice. ‘It’s already in the VCR… just hit play.’

So I did.

It wasn’t until Hannibal was eating the doctor’s liver with fava beans and nice Chianti that I realised what had happened. I had watched the forbidden video. My parents were right. It was fucking terrifying. I had to sleep with the lights on for months afterwards. Every time my bedroom was plunged into darkness, I could hear Buffalo Bill screaming from beneath my bed ‘IT PUTS THE LOTION ON IT’S SKIN! IT PUTS THE LOTION ON IT’S SKIN!‘

Being alone in your terror is all consuming. It’s isolating and insidious. It eats away at you until you are rigid with pure fear. You can’t un-see what you’ve seen. You can’t remove it from your brain. There’s only one solution. You must share the terror. For me, it didn’t matter that most of the adult western world had seen Clarice Starling have her face almost mauled by a human organ eating, psychopathic killer. Unless I personally passed on the terror, then Lecter would be forever standing on the doorstep of my brain. In his muzzle. With a bottle of Vaseline Intensive care in his hands. When you are THAT terrified, you need to make someone else equally as terrified to make it all better again.

Which is precisely why my brother made me watch it. Which is precisely why I made my best friend watch it. We all know that misery loves company… yeah well, so does insomnia inducing fright. If you think we out grow this as adults then you are mistaken, my friend. Put your hands up if you’ve watched  a certain internet video involving two girls and a cup. I rest my case.

And it’s on that note, that I hand you Salad Fingers, a little animated short that the mister passed on to me. Please watch it. So I can sleep again.

What about you? Have you ever knowingly passed on the fear? Or had the fear passed on to you? Do share!

Facebook and Twitter comments are mostly welcome!

Bellamumma shares her Barely There make-up tips. Beautiful.

This is what I plan on looking like all summer. From the Sartorialist.

A Beautiful Mess shows us how to DIY a bridal bouquet.

My Edit is my new favourite style blogger. Why? She’s a landscaper. And she looks like this. Awesome.

Move over Zara, Topshop is in town. From Sassybella.

Fancy  a week full of simple happiness from Kyla Roma?

Interior inspiration from Desire to Inspire.

If I had a bath, I’d be making my own bubble bath.

Fat Mum Slim’s cake in a jar is scary cool.

And finally, I wasted about two hours this afternoon checking out The Burning House.

Enjoy!

Remember when Sarah and I asked you guys for questions for our podcast?

We sat down, wrote a list, drank tea and answered all your queries in our fancy little recording, which is now available for download here.

If you can’t wait for it to download, then just crank the volume in your office and listen to it right now. I’m sure your colleagues will love it.

Type A Radio with Sarah Von Bargen and Carly Jacobs by Smaggle

We also answered the questions that were asked on Facebook and Twitter, because we are like, totes social media savvy.

Thank you so much for taking the time to ask questions, we had a little too much fun planning and recording. We both send massive and inappropriately sloppy kisses in your general direction.

Please let us know what you think!

Don’t worry. This isn’t a sob story about how my parents never hugged me. It’s a list of random material items that I would have sold my tiny soul for as a child but for some reason never got, inspired by Lady Melbourne’s twitter conversation yesterday. I’m pretty sure it’s because my parents realised these things were useless and just ignored me until I stopped asking for them.

A Yoho Diablo

I was the kid that was jealously eyeing the other kids in the playground who had one. God knows why. I’ve never seen a human in real life actually do anything impressive with a Yoho Diablo (not including YouTube videos), and I’ve never seen a child get above the ‘gently rolling the spinny bit along the rope’ level of expertise. They were dangerous too. I once saw a kid accidentally fling the spinny bit at another kid, and the kid that got hit, poked him really hard with one of the stick handles. True story. Two thumbs up to my parents for not buying me one.

Spokey Dokes

And a bike with streamers on the handles. I think my mum inherently knew that consistent flapping and clicking whilst cycling would make a movement phobic, voluntarily house bound child, even less likely to ride her bike.

A Makeup Barbie Head

I have no idea why I wanted one of these (I’m slightly terrified of mannequins) but I always resented the fact that I didn’t have one. Perhaps I just wanted the cakey makeup palettes and hair curlers that came with it. Truthfully though, if by some miracle I did get given one of these as a child, I would be forever filled with rage that I didn’t get given this one instead.

A Hypercolour T-shirt

My brother and I used to run around Big W leaving our sweaty handprints on the racks of Hypercolour t-shirts, while our mother shopped. My brother got one for his birthday, as did most of his friends, and the general consensus was that they stopped working after the first wash. It didn’t matter. I still wanted one. Part of me still does.

A Tamagotchi

A friend of mine in primary school got given one by her business man father, who had returned from Japan. For about a week, it was all I could think about. We little school girls crowded around the tiny screen and watched as she fed the Tamagotchi, gave water to the Tamagotchi and cleaned up the poo of the Tamagotchi. We then watched it slowly die, as she got bored with tending to the constant beeping of the bastard Tamagotchi. It’s lifeless body lay on the flat lined ground with little crosses where it’s eyes should have been. I was traumatised and desperately wanted to prove that I was not the type of evil child that would lead a poor little Tamagotchi to an early grave.

There were also a lot of things that I DID have as a child like  slap bands, Tazos, Pop Rocks and a Pogo Ball. I also had both a My Child and a Cabbage Patch Doll.

What highly covetable item did you want as a child? Conversely, which covetable items did you have?

My man and I both travel quite frequently with our careers. He’s been interstate for the last week and I admit, I always get a teensy bit excited when this happens, because I get to indulge in my Lame Defiant Behaviours. These are not the same as Secret Single Behaviours, the things we would never want our boyfriends to see us do. Lame Defiant Behaviours are little things that I seem to only do when the Mr is away, and I get really smug and self-congratulatory about them despite the fact that a) he wouldn’t give a shit if I did these things when he was around, and b) none of them are even remotely cool enough to warrant any kind of secrecy from him.

I just get utterly delighted when I do these things, living in a temporary solo situation.

* Eat porridge for dinner every night.

* Eat said porridge for dinner at 4pm.

* Use his pillow, and sleep starfish style, smack in the centre of the bed.

* Use all his man products in the shower. I shave under my arms using his fancy facial foam and wash my hair with his minty man shampoo.

* Keep the house utterly spotless.

* Go to bed early and watch TV shows on my laptop.

* Go grocery shopping and return with only yoghurt and a magazine.

* Buy weird stuff at the service station on my way home. Like chocolate milk or liquorice.

* Put sauce on everything.

* Watch movies that I’ve seen dozens of times, like Dirty Dancing or Pretty Woman.

* Wear socks to bed.

What are your Lame Defiant Behaviours? Do you wear your pyjamas all day? Live off purely processed foods? Listen to your favourite music at ear-splitting volume?

Feel free to comment on twitter or facebook too if that’s your bag.

Have you all met MsCritique? She’s my newest blogging buddy, we randomly started following each other on twitter, and now we are totally BFF. I’ve been scrolling through her archives and I’m all, girl, you HAVE to guest post for me. Being a proud survivour of a long distance relationship I loved this sweet piece that she wrote for her Silver Fox.

For about two weeks of every month, SilverFox and I are in different cities doing our own thang. We are, I guess what you would call a modern couple. (But not keys in a fruit bowl modern, if you know what I mean!)

The thing about SilverFox is that he is complete romantic. But the last thing he’d do is propose in Paris or send me red roses. No clichés here. Uh-uh. Nope. For instance, I’ll hop out of the shower to find a present waiting on my pillow. Or say he’ll drive 12 hours to surprise me when I’m in a different state. And just to show off, he’ll prepare an incredible mezze plate, complete with music and chilled Sav waiting for me and my girls after a big shopping spree.

But I’ve come to realise, it really is the small things that count. Like always giving me the fluffy towel, or the last scallop in his pasta. Or even something as simple as a cute card or a photobooth pic.

Can you remember the last time you sent someone a cute picture? Go’n, do it now. Just don’t send it to your boss and then have to get everyone to keep watch while you delete it from his email.

You heard the woman. Go. Feel free to tweet me or MsCritique a cute picture too. We love all that shit.

MsCritique is the internet baby of former advertising Art Director, wannabe baker and one half of accessories label LOLA&BAILEY, Cheri. MsCritique aims to bring you honest and (hopefully) entertaining reviews on new and interesting places and products. So, if that new shampoo smells like dirty socks, if that overpriced Japanese restaurant has a rude snooty French waiter and if your bum really does look big in that – she’ll tell you!

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I went to yoga yesterday. Not the Les Mills Tai Chi/Ballet/Pilates combo, backed by a trendy soundtrack kind of yoga, I mean the real deal. 90 minutes of breathing, harnessing my chi and trying not to giggle when the teacher said I needed to unclench my braha. I think she said braha. Yoga teachers talk weird.

We ohmed. We breathed heavily. We were told quite seriously that it’s okay to pass wind. At the end of the class the teacher actually sang us into the meditation pose. I shit you not.

‘Now breathe your hands above your heeeeeeeeead… stetch your legs out, point your tooooooooes… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh……‘

I won’t be going back. The other ladies in the class were loving it. Hard. I felt like I was clogging the room with my negative chakra. Truth be told, I don’t actually think I need yoga or meditation. I’m perfectly happy with my consistently buzzing brain. It stops talking to me when I sleep or read and I feel like that’s enough. I actually quite enjoy the sitting still part of meditation, but then the teacher says that if you’re thinking about what you need to buy at the shops on the way home, then you aren’t doing it right. I’m almost always thinking about what I have to buy at the shops on the way home. Or weddings. Fight Club. Gerri Halliwell (every time). What I’m going to wear to a party on Saturday night. I’m a bad, bad meditator but after years of trying, I’m just going to accept it. I think it’s slightly dangerous trying to turn off your brain anyway. It controls your entire body. I want it functioning at full capacity at all times, thank you. Also, my Type A personality thinks it’s a total waste  of time to spend 90 minutes at the gym and not break a sweat.

My question to you is… do you meditate? Or do yoga? Or participate in a similar calming activity? Did it take a lot of practice? What do you think of meditation?

Feel free to comment via Facebook or Twitter!

Today is Mama Smaggle’s birthday.

She’s a total fruit loop, and in honour of her getting older and battier I’m going to publicly list her finest qualities.

* She manages to say ‘vagina’ at least once during every dinner party.

* When she disappears during one of her nephew’s 18th birthday celebrations, you’ll usually find her in the kitchen doing body shots off their friend’s chests.

* If there’s a reality medical show on like RPA, she can guess without error, whether or not the patient is going to die. It totally ruins the show.

* Similarly if there’s a non-reality medical show on like Grey’s Anatomy, she screams panicked, emergency instructions at the actors because clearly, they are doing it wrong. She’s a nurse, by the way.

* She makes amazing food. Then asks you twenty times whether or not you enjoyed it.

* If I am wearing white around her, she WILL spill some kind of red drink on me. Wine and strawberry daiquiri are her favourites.

On top of all of this she sneakily edits Smaggle every day and has done so for almost four years.

So raise your glasses of red drink and be sure to spill it on someone else! To Mama Smaggle!

Happy Birthday!!!

Feel free to lavish love on her in the comments. Don’t go too overboard though. She has a nasty habit of stealing my friends.

Last week was insane. Sarah from Yes and Yes touched down on Monday, on the only flight out of Wellington (or anywhere!) that made it through the ash cloud into Melbourne. From the moment she arrived we pretty much didn’t stop talking unless we were eating, sleeping or working insanely side by side.

We recorded a podcast answering all your questions, which will be available shortly. In the mean time, here are a few choice phrases I learned from Miss Von that I’m adding to my vocabulary.

That totally kills my lady boner – Refers to a quality or behaviour in a man, that results in a woman losing her sense of arousal. Such as being arrogant or ‘forgetting’ their wallet on a date.

Oh stink! – Like ‘That sucks!’

Totes inapprops – Totally inappropriate.

Cute! – Anything and everything that is pleasing.

I know! – Like ‘Me too!’

We also had the fabulous blogger/reader dinner on Friday night which was crazy fun. I got to meet the gorgeous Nessbow after we’ve been reading each other’s blogs for years and hung out with the beautiful Clare of Checks and Spots.

It was a mad week but totally awesome.

And Sarah is correct. We are nose twins. See above for photographic evidence.

Follow me on Twitter or like me Facebook for podcast updates!

I’m a shocker. Every winter I refer back to my standard ballet-style wardrobe. It’s such a simple and beautiful way to keep warm.

Try…

* Dark denim jeans with a roll neck mohair sweater and black ballet flats.

* Grey, loose fitting, over-the-knee socks worn with ballet tights and a bandage skirt.

* A sleek bun in your hair, simple hoop earrings and a knotted, fringed scarf.

* Anything that wraps.

* Minimal make-up. A touch of light foundation, a swipe of lip tint and a tiny dab of blush. Nothing else.

* Exposing one shoulder.

* Giant knits with long sleeves.

* Blush, cream and the palest of pink.

* Head bands.

* Opaque tights and mary janes.

* French manicures.

What about you? Do you have a fall back winter style that you drag out when the temperature drops?

Oh and this post is for one of my readers, Nadist. She’s a ballet teacher from New Zealand! xxx

Images via Felecia Dunson at Pinterest.