by MIA FREEDMAN
What were the Best & Worst bits for you this past week? The high and low point?
My best was this:
Having incredibly accomplished, powerful and influential red-headed woman coming into the Mamamia office is becoming like a regular Wednesday thing. It’s how we roll. Last week it was Julia Gillard who came to live blog at our sister site ivillage.com.au
This week we welcomed Leigh Sales with open arms, open mouths (our interns, one of whom is doing as essay on Leigh’s kick-arse iconic interview with Tony Abbott last month on ABCTV’s 7:30) and many many baked goods.
It was Leigh’s idea. I actually met her through Twitter after being a massive admirer for many years. The woman has a Walkley award (for her book on David Hicks and Guantanamo Bay), she’s worked for radio, commercial TV and the ABC, been a foreign correspondant, print journalist and eight months ago she had a baby son called Daniel.
Some people are just LAZY I tell you.
So I’ve known Leigh for a couple of years and watched her this year hit her stride as a journalist, an interviewer, a presenter and a woman. She’s just in her zone and it’s a beautiful thing to watch. She reads Mamamia and has always been very supportive of what we do. We in turn rate her as one of the women we admire most in Australia and beyond.
We sat on the balcony on Wednesday morning and what was meant to be a bit of an informal Q&A turned accidentally into me interviewing Leigh. Tables turned.
She left full of cake and probably hoarse from answering my questions and it has sparked an idea to bring back our video posts where I interview amazing women (which I used to do on the floor, like when I chatted with Jess Rudd, Lisa Wilkinson, Charlotte Dawson, Stella Young, Justine Clarke, Jane Kennedy etc). Who would you like to see interviewed? Do you like video posts?
WORST: Coughing. There’s far too much of it at my house and it’s causing people to fight. There is much “Can you STOP COUGHING PLEASE” and “GO OUTSIDE IF YOU HAVE TO COUGH AND STOP SPREADING YOUR GERMS!” etc etc. I am both the shouter and the object of shouts so it kind of balances out.
My actual worst of course is the shocking storm that has decimated parts of the US. Thoughts with everyone affected…..
Whats been happening in your world this week? Share your best and worst’s below.
Top Comments
I'll start with worst because I can't think of a best yet..
Worst: having to make the decision to move back in with my mum. Our investment property has been up for sale since June. We have dropped the price 30k below what we owe the bank and still have no interest. And our tenants moved out last month which means we are covering our mortgage payment plus our rent payment plus all the expenses that comes with having two homes and one wage. A month ago we were financially comfortable. Today we are selling everything we own and moving in with my mum. We have no savings left from covering the mortgage for the last 6 months because our tenants found something new for us to repair each month and we have no prospect of new tenants because of the crazy neighbour. And.. Had to ask the check out chick at woolies to stop scanning at $50. I put all the fresh food through first and had baby wipes and infant formula left to scan at the $50 mark. so now I'm wiping my 9 month old sons bum with face washers and feeding him more solid food in liue of formula in order to make the current formula last for another two weeks. Also went to centrelink to see if they could help and they tell me that we earn over the threshold to be eligible for any benefits! WTF! We are on the poverty line right now! How can we earn too much when I can't even feed my child! All our bills have literally just hit us at once and we Realised we have no means to pay them this month. Sucks. Big time. Ok whinge over..
Best: I got my period after missing it for two months. Apparently it was stress that scared my monthlies off. I've never felt more stressed in my life than the past 5 days so not entirely sure how that worked out. Even so - I'm happy to have them back. :-)
The best part about my week was turning eighteen! Of course with that comes the inevitable rite of passage for the wonderful youngsters of today - drinking. Which leads me to my WORST bit of the week - finding out that I am horrendously unable to hold my liquer, and as such, after just a mere three sips (yes, three!) of vodka mixed with lemonade and sparkling (don't ask, I thought it would taste nice), ended up with a splitting headache, wobbliness, and an inablilty to form coherent sentences ("I can't get understand why alcococohol' - yes, I really said that - 'strong tastes yucky huh').
Another highlight of my week was getting Mia Freedman's memoir and recieving a reply from her on Twitter after I mentioned how much I love it! (And I'm only two chapters in). You know someone is awesome when you find yourself reading certain things and thinking 'oh my gosh, I thought I was the only person who did that!'. Mia Freedman should have a fan page. Seriously, someone needs to get on to that!