I’m on leave, so this is a in-case-you-missed-it post. I asked right-hand chick Jo to highlight her favourite posts from the year. Here they are:

(PS. this pic above is one Jo took from her flat…she sits here to think each morning…)

1. I love this post: The best reason I’ve ever found for backing the f*ck off. Yeah! Basically because of the title . But also because it talks about pacing yourself, slowing down, ‘smelling the roses’, and focusing on making choices to do life well. “The clear message: just choose to start stressing less. Be gentle. Choose wellness.” Which is something I have on my radar. I’m determined to attempt to do life well. Also, I made some key decisions around the time of this post, and applied for my job with Sarah four days later (on my brother’s 30th birthday  – which is why I know the date).

2. I like spending time on my own, checking in with my inside people (I’ve never had such a fun way to describe it before). That’s why I love this post. The ocean is my favourite place to refuel. And while I’m refueling, I’m checking in on myself. My soul sorts through stuff when I create the space for it. I’ve LOVED Uge since I read this post (I think it’s been a year or so now). I recently met him and he was everything I expected him to be and more… GENUINE GOOD PERSON. Love him. Love this concept.

So I’m having a little break for a few days. Digesting Christmas lunch!

In my absence, a little rundown of posts you might’ve missed, especially if you’re new to this site. They’re the posts that attracted the most comments from everyone. I’m guessing that makes them the most controversial or annoying, not necessarily the most liked!

1. This one – healing auto immune disease: from someone who’s been there – continues to attract thoughts and ideas and share-ins. It’s my original rundown of how I manage my thyroid disease.

2. This post on why I don’t wear a bike helmet and this guide to hot bike helmets got many folk around the world passionately engaged in the topic.

3. This blog about the  secret to happiness was a hit.  Grethen Rubin shares her ONE, fail-safe tip (it’s incredibly simple).

4. And this guide to how to detox your beauty cupboard…makeup and beauty products that don’t contain toxins…I’m going to write more on this in the New Year…

Dearest Readers of this Blog,

A little note to say this: I’ve so appreciated all the care and engagement you’ve extended to me (virtually) over the year. I’ve loved the way we humans have found a new way to “have the chat over the back fence” our grandmothers used to have. Mostly, most of us just want to know we’re not alone. Really. And to know that we’re not getting life completely wrong.

The comments on this blog over the year have done that for me.

Also, a note to say this: Happy Christmas!

Christmas is a powerful time. I find it hard. Lots of water gets muddied cos we all arrive on the day trampling around with our old hurt as well as stress from the year – getting shitty that no one else is picking up the wrapping paper and so on. It can be a lonely time. Even if you have loved ones around you.

I’m just saying…in case you feel the same…and wouldn’t mind knowing others could also be heading off to the kitchen under the pretense of going to get more turkey but really to take a moment and to fight back a few overwhelmed tears.

Anyway. I do hope you all have a wonderful festive break. I’m filming 7pm Project tonight. Then I fly to Canberra tomorrow morning for a loud, shambolic romp with my family. With a wrestle after lunch on the familyroom floor. You, too??

Much love and light,

sx

PS If you’re feeling love for your Twitter followers, I just found this service - Gift a Follower – that allows you to by presents for your faves.

PPS The picture above is one of those DAGGY family pics you get done in malls that Dad got all excited about and had turned into Christmas cards. They didn’t have enough costumes for us, so I’m kind of kneeling down, wrapped in the Queen’s cloak. Very unimpressed. Very daggy. Very Christmas!!

Bike fans, there’s a new bike mag out and it’s called Treadlie. It’s very cute and is on sale now in newsagents.

It’s got a guide to building your own fixie, and features hot bike looks and other hot bike bits and pieces. Oh, and my beautiful single-speed gets its own spread. If you’re keen to enter the world of SS’s and fixies, here’s a good launch pad.

And if you subscribe now you go in the draw to win that very sweet Gazelle Toer below.

I wrote about giving this week. So, then, the very committed Julie Cowdroy, an activist and academic and ambassador for Opportunity International Australia and the Global Poverty Project alerted me to a post she’s just put up ABC’s The Drum about how to give goats for Christmas.

Or, more to the point, how to give a charity gift, instead of something consumerable. She kindly offered to provide a bit of a guide to the gifting charities she rates… handy for any of you out there who Just Can’t Face Buying Crap In A Mall this Christmas. Or Have Left Shopping To The Last Minute. Or who Want to Care More.

I’ve also posted her ABC piece below.

1. OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL AUSTRALIA
Buffaloan: $50
Help sustain the source of livelihood for a poor entrepreneur in India by investing in the buffaloan. For just $50, you can feed this valuable creature for a month, keeping a buffalo full, healthy and ready to produce the milk that provides a regular income for a number of the rural poor in India.

Peas on Earth: $96
This gift helps entrepreneurs in Indonesia plough through poverty, allowing them to start a small vegetable farm – be it cabbage or carrots, beans or broccoli. Once it’s harvest season, they can collect their crop and sell the fresh produce at their own market stall for a profit, using the money to provide the basics for their families. Makes you wonder about money not growing on trees…

This is worth a read: Jaclyn Friedman v Naomi Wolf, feminists debate the Assange rape allegations, on Democracy Now. The preamble transcript gives a good overview of the facts, if you’re a little in the dark still (and confirms no charges have been pressed, they’re allegations only).

Jaclyn Friedman argues the sexual assault allegations shouldn’t be dismissed just because they’re politically motivated, while Naomi Wolf says by going after Assange, the state is not embracing feminism, it’s “pimping” it. Friedmans says:

Rape is a very serious crime, and it’s also one of the most underreported crimes across the globe. And one of the reasons is because every time the issue comes up in the media, people come out of the woodwork to blame the victims and to minimize the crime. And unfortunately, when we see someone who is a progressive hero, like Assange is, those critics, those people who are doing that minimization and that victim blaming often come from the left, as well as the right. And we’ve seen that across the board. Unfortunately, with—Naomi Wolf has participated in that, as well as Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck—of course, plenty of people on the right are participating, as well.

Wolf rebukes by pointing out that there was consent from the two Swedish women. But also that the allegations will never get off the ground:

So, because I take rape seriously, because I’m aware that in 23 years, you know, in Sweden, which has been criticized by Amnesty International for disregarding rape, for letting rapists go free, because you have a better chance in Sweden, if you’re a rape victim, of, you know, dying in an accident or getting breast cancer than having a serious rape allegation prosecuted or getting any kind of legal hearing, according to Amnesty International’s report “Case Closed”—it’s because of that that I know that these charges are utterly, utterly atypically handled. In 23 years, I’ve never seen any man in any situation this ambiguous, involving this much consent, have any kind of legal process whatsoever.

I think they both miss a point. And it’s one a lot of people are scared to say. And that is that these charges ruin it for women with what I consider far more authentic and serious charges to lay. Rape cases can’t afford to be treated with rolls of eyes around the world. Sad. But true. It’s unfortunate this case has been knotted up in the broader political issues. Wolf’s argument speaks to this. But weirdly she doesn’t quite say it as such.

What do you think?

Over the weekend I was handed some Christmas cake at a friend’s barbecue. I don’t like Christmas cake. But such was my overness with having to say no to festive food, I asked if I could eat some of the left-over ingredients – the walnuts and apricots – to feel part of the action.

So I figured it might be good to source me some “bubble-kid” Christmassy gluten-free treats. So I can go armed into this festive week. With a plate.

As an aside, the people I’ve met “virtually” over the course of this year via my gluten-free networks have proved some of my favourite people. Something about having an auto-immune disease, I think. It forces you to get real. And connect. And share. Perhaps.

Anyway, wrap your laughing gear around these….

1. Pear and Hazlenut Frangipane Tart

The glorious Aran from Cannelle Vanille shared this one. That’s her pretty pic above.
Gluten Free Pie Dough

1 cup (140 grams) superfine brown rice flour
2 Tbs (20 grams) potato starch
2 Tbs (20 grams) tapioca starch
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (115 grams) unsalted butter, cold and diced
1/2 cup (125 ml) ice cold water

Place the first five ingredients in the food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Add the cold, diced butter and pulse 10 times until the butter is cut into the flours. Add the ice water while pulsing. You might not need all of it so reserve a couple of Tbs until mixed. The dough should stick together when pressed but not be too wet.

Form the dough into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap and flatten it a bit with your hand. Refrigerate the dough for about 1 hour.

Roll out the dough to about 1/4″-1/8″ thickness and fill the tart mold with it. If the dough cracks, don’t worry, just pinch it back together. It might happen if it’s too cold. Return the tart mold to the refrigerator for another 20 minutes or so while preparing the filling.

Roll the leftover scraps and cut shapes with star cookie cutters. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment and bake at 375F for about 8 minutes. Reserve.

Pear and Hazelnut Frangipane Filling

1/2 cup (115 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup (110 grams) cane sugar
1 egg
1 cup (110 grams) hazelnut flour
1 Tbs (10 grams) tapioca starch
pinch of salt
1 Tbs dark rum, optional
7 forelle pears, halved and core removed

I found this read really very inspiring – about a Melbourne-born guy who earns $47,000 a year, one-third of which he gives away to charity. He’s also set up a movement Giving What We Can encouraging people to give 10 per cent of their earnings away. Could you do this? Could you take the plunge and just….give? It’s a good time of year to think about this.

It’s got me thinking about how tightly I hold on to “my” stuff. I get scared things will run out. I accumulate like a squirrel, mostly due to my upbringing of scarcity. Although also because I get sucked into the messages of our culture – to acquire and accumulate. But it’s dumb. I don’t need or want any of it. Eventually it shits me and I do a massive give away. One’s brewing at the moment….

It’s all or nothing, generosity. Once you’re in the space of giving, it’s effortless. But if you hold on, it’s hard to give 20 cents to a busker. We’re encouraged to grip. It takes a certain firm, conscious elan to slide into generous flow. But once you’re in it, EVERYTHING feels breezier. I think you just have to start. By giving away your lunch. Or handing out stuff you were going to sell on ebay to friends instead. It feels good. So on you go.

This week I’m awesomely skeptical

I don’t know if you’ve ever had an ontological debate about what gives a squirrel’s life meaning with an 82-year-old skeptic… who also happens to be one of the world’s most famous magicians and escapologists, who broke Houdini’s record for remaining sealed in a metal coffin under water for 104 minutes, and who toured with Alice Cooper in the ‘70s performing the “guillotine routine” on stage?

It’s pretty fun.

I met Canadian James Randi, known in his magician days as The Amazing Randi, on Friday while he was here attending the Australian Skeptics’ annual Amazing Meeting (that’s seriously the name). In a moment of the kind of synchronicity that skeptics frown upon, it was the day after celebrity psychic John Edwards, a target of skeptical thinkers, spoke in the same room. Amazing!

The whole experience was rendered more surreal by the fact Randi looks like he’s stepped from warlock central casting – stooped and coming up to my ribcage he sports a long white beard, wireframe spectacles and a comically cocked eyebrow. And is delightfully enthusiastic.

James Randi and me

I just got this pic sent to me from Tito Media, one of the paparazzi photo companies. The shot sums up my week.

1. I saw Oprah. I loved that a few of her “ultimate guests” read my blog and contacted me to say hi. A shout out to Jocelyn xxx

2. I got talked into getting Love Those Lashes lash extensions. Not usually my thing. I’m not an extension/fussy/lie-down-and-have-a-beauty-treatment kind of lady. But it’s saved me wearing makeup all week. I’m sans slap in this pic…but it doesn’t look it. Marvellous.

3. I rode to Oprah, at the Opera House, which was very handy given the rest of the 6000-strong crowd had to queue to get cabs afterwards. This is a fave bike riding outfit – stretch Gstar jeans (high enough in waist so plumber’s crack not divulged to traffic behind me), singlets (for breathability) and my sling over shoulder bag (holds my laptop; from Country Road). Anyway, this week saw a very large number of passionate bike helmet comments flood to my blog. Read up here.

4. I got good news. Which is why I’m smiling. I’d just found out I’m hosting 7pm Project – filling in for Carrie – later in the month. Very, very excited.

Have a smooth Friday!

xxx

PS You might’ve heard me mention Jo, my assistant. Jo doesn’t know I’m about to put this pic up. She will soon. This is Jo: