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How Do You Do Pocket Money?

March 14, 2013 in Children, Finance, Lifestyle, Money, Parenting

Way back in the Christmas holidays, I started pondering the subject of pocket money. I have two boys, 5 and 8, and the subject of pocket money had come up now and then, but never seriously. As my youngest was about to start school for the first time, and my older child got old enough to be able to save for things, I resolved to make a decision on the subject before school started. I thought I’d share my thinking process with you all, as some of my friends found it helpful to think about too. I opened up the [...]

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Telemarketers, Charity Muggers and the Fall of Polite Society

March 5, 2013 in Health, Home, Lifestyle, Money, Work

I am on the no call list which means these days if I get a telemarketing call it is either from a charity or a scam. I love telling some criminal phone call worker that I have an Apple when he tells me he got a distress call from my windows computer. But the fact that most telemarketers these days are criminals is not why I hate them, I hate them for what they were before that, and how they made me, and I am sure countless others, ruder. First, they invade the sanctity of your home. I am sitting [...]

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Give Back This Christmas

December 10, 2012 in Entertainment, Family, Friendship, Lifestyle, Money, People, Relationships, Society

At this time of year we are reminded more than ever that there are so many people out there with very little. No presents under a tree, no family to visit them in nursing homes, people with nowhere to live, people who struggle to make ends meet on a daily basis are surrounded by advertisements of happy families eating, drinking and ‘being merry’ to excess. Every year in November my mailbox starts to fill with letters from various charities asking for financial donations to support their cause over the holiday season. And I feel bad. I do what I can. [...]

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Why I Support National Bandanna Day

October 26, 2012 in Anecdotes, Friendship, Health, People, Relationships, Society, Stories

I remember the evening so clearly. I had a phone call from my best friend, and I was in the kitchen raiding the pantry for a snack. She told me she had been suffering depression, and I was shocked. She was always so confident, so loving, so happy. But she didn’t stop there, she said there was something wrong with her, she’d been tired all the time, so she had some tests. It was then she burst into tears and exclaimed “Tam, I’ve got cancer!” I was in shock. I lost all of my ability to speak beyond stutter “what?” [...]

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Materialistic? Drowning in Fashion Excess?

August 8, 2012 in Fashion, Finance, Human Rights, Lifestyle, Money, News, People, Self, Society, Style

Are you materialistic? Drowning in fashion excess? Here lies the cure. I have stayed in touch with some of my former students after they have left school. I have done this with the aid of Facebook, and recently noticed something that interested me . One of these students, a bright and thoughtful young woman was taking part in an activity called ‘Project 333’.  I was intrigued and through chatting with her, I found out that ‘Project 333’ is exactly the kind of experiment our society needs. For 3 months, you may wear 33 pieces of clothing, which includes shoes, hats, [...]

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Charity Pays for Plastic Surgery for Bullying Victim

July 31, 2012 in Body Image, Current Affairs, Health, News, People, Self, Society

Everyone seems to get judged on their appearance at some point. You can be too tall, or too short, too skinny or too fat, blonde or brunette or somewhere in between. You can have braces or glasses or pimples or a big nose. Or, like one American teenager Nadia Isle, you can have big ears. I think everyone has been bullied because of their appearance, and some get it worse than others. For those already insecure, this kind of bullying can be overwhelming. Nadia was called “Dumbo” and “elephant ears” by her peers which lead to increasingly low self esteem. [...]

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“He’s Dead” She Said

June 29, 2012 in Children, Health, Mothers, Parenting, People, Pregnancy & Birth, Stories

I was walking to my car after finishing for the day when my phone rang. It was my best friend. She was crying. “It’s Chris*” she sobbed “He’s dead.” It took a while for me to register what she was saying. Her nephew, only just born, had passed away during the night. “Oh my God” was about as eloquent response as I could muster, as she cried and we were both lost in shock and despair. We drove down to the funeral, my mother and I, a couple of hours south of here. We arrived early, we bought a bunch [...]

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The Ignored Cancers

June 25, 2012 in Current Affairs, Health, News

When I opened The Sun Herald to have my usual Sunday read, I found an article called “Denial worsens danger of cancer“. It said, in part: Cancer survival rates have increased across NSW, a new report shows, but an attitude of denial about the symptoms is still causing many people to die unnecessarily. The Cancer Institute NSW report, Cancer Survival in NSW 2002-06, to be released today, has found that patients diagnosed with cancer now have a 64.4 per cent chance of beating the disease over five years. Just 30 years ago, cancer patients had less than a 50-50 chance of survival after [...]

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Fighting Depression: This Place is Yours

June 21, 2012 in Health, Lifestyle, Mental Health, People, Society

One of the things we’re most proud of at KiKi & Tea is giving voice to people who suffer from mental illness, especially depression. Many of our writers and readers have had direct experience with the consequences of living with “the black dog.” By sharing our stories and being open and honest about our problems, we lessen the stigma of mental illness and encourage others to talk about their experiences instead of keeping it to themselves in a bubble of isolation and self-doubt. That’s why we are proud to support the This Place Is Yours project. This Place Is Yours [...]

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If I Won the Lotto

June 19, 2012 in Lifestyle, Money, People, Self

How much money is enough to be filthy rich? A million? Pfft, pocket change these days!  $20 million? $50 million? Anything over about $3-4 million, I would say, equates to being rich. Anything over $10 million would be filthy rich, I think. Of course, everyone’s take on what is “rich” and what is “filthy rich”are different. But, let’s play a game. Let’s imagine that the lotto was $50 million and YOU WON THE ENTIRE LOT. What would you do? What WOULDN’T you do? Here is my list of 5 things I WOULDN’T do: Tell anyone, except Mr W and our [...]

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