Getting under my skin

Tattoos are not to be entered into lightly. They are one of those things that requires careful consideration and a clear decision making process - like buying a car, picking a career and choosing a Twitter handle. You can't rush into any of these things!

I have one tattoo. It is a green four leaf clover on my right hip. Jess, my best friend in the whole word has the exact mirror image on her left hip. This is because I am right handed and she is left handed. It's a beautiful perfect design that symbolizes different things to each of us - for me, it's my Irish heritage and the sacrifices my Protestant grandmother made to be with my Catholic grandfather.

I have thought of many tattoo designs I would love to get over time. Designs inspired by Alice in Wonderland, dinosaurs and The Nightmare Before Christmas and quotes from Edgar Allan Poe, Red Hot Chili Peppers and other songs that have spoken to me deeply.

The only two I ever thought about enough to really consider getting permanently inked into my flesh are the words 'Mi temor no soy yo' just below my left breast. This is Spanish for 'My fear is not me' - as in Yes, I have a fear (of death) but it does not define me. If I was partial to more ink coverage, I would get 'Es el alma temerosa de morir que nunca aprendío a vivir' or Spanish for 'It's the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.' I have been teaching myself to speak Spanish for years now & those words are very special to me.

The other tattoo is 'You'll never walk alone'. This is the Liverpool FC motto and was the song sang at my Grandfather's funeral. The lyrics inspire me and feel like they were written especially for my fear.

I had previously been debating fonts to use, wondering if I should stick true to the all caps design on the Shankly Gates or choose a favourite script. Tonight, I finally settled on a design. Dad wrote the words out in his own handwriting. They look simply beautiful and I can't wait to have them etched permanently onto me.

I am going to England (what? You hadn't heard?) in around three months and plan to get my tattoo done in Liverpool - birthplace of my grandfather and my father and home to my favourite football club. I've found a tattoo parlour and emailed them.

But this brings me to a problem in my process. I had always wanted my tattoo on the outside of my right foot (see pic) because this is my kicking foot (for football) and because... well because walk, foot, walk? See what I did there? But I've read this can either fade or smudge. Since my tattoo is 9cm long x 1 cm tall & the thickness of a ballpoint pen, the fine detail needs to remain.

Yes, others have similar tattoos. I don't care.

My design. It's in my dad's handwriting and in
lower case font (AKA: Santa's handwriting)

The other issue I have is a tattoo needs to remain uncovered for 2-3 weeks minimum and up to three months to truly preserve the artistry. I can't do that while traveling around England! I had planned to make a quick pitstop with my traveling companions on our UK toad trip (of which I am the sole driver). Perhaps I could trek out to Liverpool just before I return to Australia and let the healing happen here? I'm not sure.

I've emailed the tattooist asking for an opinion on all this. If it comes back in the negative (and I'm afraid it might) where else could I get this tattoo? I AM getting it and I AM getting this exact design. It is in an envelope labelled 'my tattoo' and is in my suitcase already (along with my Oyster card & its union jack holder). So, 9cm long x 1cm tall handwritten tattoo. Any ideas for placement if I can't get my foot?

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Surviving cooking 101

My cooking skills are legendary. I have had moments of sheer brilliance that have gone down in history.

There was the time I set fire to a frying pan. I don't know what I was cooking but it wasn't being deep fried, that's for sure. But somehow I started a grease fire. I screamed, Dad came running into the kitchen and I think threw the flaming oil into the sink or something.

One time with my mum, I was making popcorn. I wasn't used to her gas stove because Dad has... the other type... and I somehow set fire to a tea towel. Mum was on the phone as I ran screaming into the loungeroom waving a flaming tea towel.

The other running joke at my mum's place is blue food. "Mum, I'll cook dinner, don't worry." A few hours later, after using every dish in the kitchen I proudly presented a meat pie with peas, potatoes and carrots followed by Mum and my stepdad looking warily at each other. "Sam... why are the potatoes blue?" Because mashed potatoes are boring and I thought it would be fun to dye them blue, that's why! Apparently nobody else agrees with me. I have gone through so much blue dye at my mum's place because now anything that can be can be dyed blue, is dyed blue.

If nothing else, at least my meals are adventurous. When Dad told me I could add anything I wanted to a stew, I chose grapes and pineapple. Again, not my finest moment.

My brother is born on St Patrick's Day. He loves rum. So one year I baked a cake from a box that I promptly dyed green and added copious amounts of rum to. I mean, I made the icing with the packet mix and rum - no butter, no water, no milk. Just rum. It was foul.

I've made lamingtons that looked like brownies and tasted like raw pancake mix. I've made biscuits that could break teeth, cupcakes that were inedible, a damper that could be fired from a cannon and through walls and undercooked meals that if consumed would have been deadly.

Then of course we have my legendary attempt at burritos that resulted in a night spent in hospital, much intravenous morphine, second degree burns and three months as an outpatient.

But all that aside, sometimes I get something right! So without further ado, I'd like to present you with my patented recipe for

'Leftover Nachos'.

Step 1

Sit on the couch and watch Family Guy reruns and play around on Twitter while your Dad cooks a stew. This is actually really hard because the stew takes about four hours to prepare and cook but will start smelling awesome almost immediately. Try to avoid whining and demanding to know when dinner will be ready because you're hungry nooooooooow...

Step 2

Dad is one of those people who refuses to waste food so the giant pot of stew will actually last about a week. By the seventh night, you are really bored of stew with rice and stew with mashed potato. You will be so desperate for something other than stew but because you're saving money for England and swore you'd only eat out once a week with your best guy friend Simon, you have to finish the stew.

Step 3

Look in the cupboard wistfully. It is at this point you will find Doritos and develop a sudden and insatiable craving for nachos. Fear not because you are now poised to soon be devouring 'Leftover Nachos'.

Step 4

Preheat the oven. This step is optional right now. I sometimes do it somewhere between step 5 and putting the food into a cold oven.

Step 5

Spread a bed of nachos over a baking tray covered in al foil. Don't eat the al foil. It hurts. Just trust me on this one. On top of the nachos, drop dollops of leftover stew. Try not to make the blobs of stew too big or they might end up cold and uncooked. But I haven't killed myself yet, so you should be right.

Step 6

Spread some grated cheese over the top. If you don't have any, grate some block cheese instead. I'm too lazy to wash another plate later so I grate the cheese right over the baking tray. So I always end up missing and clumsily smashing my grater into my nachos. My food ends up delicious, so this probably adds to the flavour. Do this.

Step 7

Put the baking tray into the oven. Discover the oven is cold and realise you've forgotten to preheat the oven. Again. Do this now. Wait about two minutes. This isn't long enough to preheat an oven, but damn it, I'm hungry now.

Step 8

After... some amount of time... take the food out of the oven. It could be anywhere between slightly melted cheese and cold bits of carrot to black doritos and burnt cheese. Be sure to use the super, heavy duty, industrial strength cooking glove your family got you for Christmas after the last cooking incident.

'Leftover Nachos'

Step 9

Put the weekend's newspaper on the coffee table in front of the TV so you don't burn the wood and eat straight from the tray with your fingers. Burn your fingers on the hot tray at least once. Ta-daaahh! Leftover Nachos!

Step 10 Gentleman, I am single so if you could all form an orderly queue this would save some time.

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions

• What's your go to meal at home?
• What's the most creative thing you've done with leftovers?

What would you sacrifice to do something you love?

I am accident prone. This is no secret. I have blogged about this in my post, "And try not to hurt yourself".

Since then, my relationship broke up and my football season started up again. The football part is great news for me because I love my football - both playing and watching. It's terrible news for my boss because since the season started, I've limped into work almost every Monday morning. He's told me that if I was in the army, I would have been sanctioned for self-inflicting these wounds.

Now, to clarify, my boss is also my uncle. So he's kidding. Same as when he tells me I'm not the accident waiting to happen, I'm the accident that keeps on happening. He loves me dearly, I know that. And he only wants what is best for me - both personally and professionally. As my uncle he has, on numerous occasions, urged me to give up football. My aunty has insisted I do girl things. She wrote it on my whiteboard at work. "Sammy is a girl and must only do girlie things!" And upon hearing last week that both my knees were injured (strained ACL on my left and a bruise on my right) Mum's exact words were "You have to give up the football, kiddo." Where are these sentiments coming from?

Well today I didn't limp into the office. No, no. My dad drove me to work & carried my laptop in while I hobbled in on crutches. My team was 1-0 with only a few minutes to go in our game on Saturday. Desperate to not concede a goal, I went in for a challenge and while I did dispossess the attacker, I came off second best. I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow and I imagine I will be sent for an X-Ray &/or an MRI.

For months my uncle has insisted I will regret my decision to continue playing football. Now you can't be a Mawdsley without being passionate about football, so you must understand he has had a long involvement with the game - he and my dad were even foundation members of a local club, Rochedale Rovers. He played with my dad for many, many years. He was goalkeeper and he hurt his knee and back on numerous occasions. He continued to play. He regrets it now. He believes I will too.

My uncle has a lot of constant and very severe back and knee pain. It robs him of sleep, physical mobility, the ability to do much of the work he is capable of doing around his house and being able to play all rough and tumble with his granddaughter - the light of his life.

On the other hand, there is my dad. Now granted, he is a couple of years younger than my uncle, but only a couple. He plays football on Monday nights with a big group of men (& I play with him). On Wednesday nights he plays in a huge 35+ comp. I'm not old enough to play there. On Thursdays, he trains my team. Now when I say train, I don't mean stands around and yells instructions, I means gets in there and does everything we do. He plays in the game at the end of training and has been brought down in tackles on numerous occasions. He has had surgery on both knees, two shattered wrists, a broken ankle, a shattered cheek, numerous broken toes, memory loss and more strains, sprains and muscle tears than he could possibly count. But he still plays, he still loves it and he regrets absolutely nothing. He loves football - the light of his life.

So what do I do? I love football. I am still on a high from our 1-0 win on Saturday. In a way, I wear my knee bandage as a badge of honour. The only reason I got hurt is because I went in for a hard tackle to stop a goal. The only reason I cared so much about the result is because I love my football team. And the only reason I love my football team so much is because I have never met a group of 16 girls who are as accepting, fun-loving and supportive as my team.

Samantha, football star.

I played football when I was about six but I hated getting up early (see 'Ambition > Talent') so I gave it up for gymnastics which was on a weekday afternoon. I started up again when I was 12 and played on the boys team with three other girls. Those girls were all friends and were horrible to me. Absolutely horrible. At the end of the season, QSF told me I couldn't play with the boys anymore and would have to join a women's team. With those three bitches. So I quit again. In high school I wouldn't join the football teams because none of my friends would. I finally sucked it up and joined by myself in grade 11 and 12. I enjoyed it but the girls weren't that nice to me. Dad came to every single game when no other parent showed up to even a single one. That's just what football means to my family. At this time, I also played on a men's commercial league team with my dad. Each Friday night I would lace up my boots and march out there to play - the only girl - small for my age & inevitably with blonde pigtails. My team sent me out as captain. The general consensus was you had to be 17 and a male to play. I was 15 and a girl. But when someone finally challenged this, no definitive rule could be found & I was allowed to continue playing. I've played on men's six-a-side comps, men's indoor football comps and in other tournaments.

Last year, my cousin mentioned she was signing up for another season with her football team. She asked me why I didn't play with her. I told her I categorically refused to play with girls after my recent experiences. I was hesitant but she insisted they were absolutely lovely. Finally, I caved. Dad - ever the football fan - came to my first training session. By the end of the hour he'd been asked to be assistant coach. My cousin was right. The group of girls was amazing. Breathtaking. Lovely. Funny. Warm. There aren't enough adjectives. I love those girls - every one of them. As someone who has been judged, treated poorly and deemed 'weird' her whole life, I feel accepted. I've made friends. And I get to play football every week with my friends. And my dad. He's now our coach.

I think I just answered my own question, didn't I? I love my football team too much to quit. I love the time I spend each Monday night with my dad. I don't see me ever giving up the sport I love so much. Even if it means I won't be able to walk in 25 years time.

I have a football team.

I have friends.

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions:

• What do you love most in the world?
• What would you sacrifice to do that thing?

To heart, or not to heart, Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is tomorrow. Seriously, is there any worse faux-holiday? It causes me such anxiety whether I am single or not (which I am). But I love it all the same…

When I was a little girl, Dad used to get me a mini version of whatever he got Mum. Mum would normally get a bunch of flowers, a big heart shaped chocolate and a diamante encrusted heart shaped pin with her name engraved on it. I would get a little flower, a small heart shaped chocolate (or heart shaped lollipop) and a plain heart shaped pin with my name engraved on it. As much as I loved it, I felt I was intruding on their Valentine's Day.

When I was a little bit older, Mum left Dad. In the first week of February. Valentine's Day just made me so sad. Dad kept my brother and I. Just days after Mum left, Dad took us to a florist. He ordered a huge bunch of beautiful red roses to be delivered to Mum at her mother’s place. The florist asked my dad what he would like written in the card. He proceeded to recite one of the most beautiful poems I’ve ever heard. I asked where he got it. He told me he wrote it in his head a few nights prior and memorised it. I am certain that, collectively, all three of us held our breaths to see if this gesture, this last chance to be a family again, would work. It did not.

Years later I found the card she received from “the other man” that same Valentine's Day. It went with a bear that once replaced Puppy that time I forgot to bring him with me to Mum’s house. I threw that horrid bear out of my room and refused to let him ever come back in. No one ever asked why and I never found the card my dad sent her.

When I got to high school, there was a shame-inducing tradition of selling flowers to be delivered throughout the school. $2.50 got you a dying carnation with a small badly cut up tag tied on with cheap ribbon and your chosen sentiment hand-scrawled by a grade 12 girl who couldn’t care less. My first year there, my friend and I panicked at the horror of being the only girls not receiving flowers come Valentine's Day. Luckily we both received ‘From your secret admirer’ flowers. Turns out $2.50 can also buy insurance against being one of those girls who didn’t receive a flower.

I didn’t receive another flower until grade 12. That year I received one from a dear friend telling me “blonde becomes me” and another was one of the sweetest gestures I’ve ever received. My best guy friend (and technically ex-boyfriend) had a rose delivered to me asking me to be his date for the formal. Everyone in the grade knew I was getting this flower and when I looked up from reading it, every girl in the class was looking at me before one brave girl (funnily enough, the ex-friend who was in on the secret admirer scam from years prior) blurted out “Well, what are you going to say?” For the girl who was picked on mercilessly, the fact that I was the only girl to be asked to the formal through a flower and the first of all the girls (save the ones with boyfriends, I expect) to be asked to the formal meant the world to me. I had been dreading the formal for years, fully believing no one would ask me, purely thanks to the social stigma of being “the milk girl” (I worked on a milk run after school) but instead, I was the first girl to be snapped up!

That special moment was only a counter-balance for the fact that I had no way of stopping the crappy carnation that was winging its way to my ex-boyfriend who’d broken up with me on the 12th. That was just awkward for all involved. But my dad made it better by having big ugly plastic roses in the car for me ad my best friend when he picked us up that afternoon to drop us into the Brisbane Motor Show.

I had a boyfriend most Valentine's Days since then. But my heart still always breaks for my dad. I know that every Valentines Day he just remembers the last one he tried to share with my mum. He thinks of that poem, those roses and that desperate clinging to the family we once had before it slipped away forever. I always try to do something special for my dad. Ex-boyfriends of the past know that my dad is my main Valentine. Two years ago I bought him a black rose with a note that said “For the only one who can see the bright side of my dark side”. I don’t remember what I got my boyfriend at the time.

Last year I tried to kill myself just days before Valentine's Day. I say that bluntly, but a fact is a fact. It wasn't anything to do with Valentine's Day. My dad took me to a movie about life-after-life. I just cried and told him I wanted to die. This year, I need to make it up to Dad.

The boyfriends that I’ve had usually spoilt me. I have photos, teddies, cards, jewellery and fake flowers from many years and boys gone by.

This year is the first Valentine's Day I remember for a long time that I will be single (last year was a blur of suicide watch and therapy). I don’t know what to make of it. Obviously Dad will be my main Valentine again. But as a girl, its nice to know someone is thinking of me - thinking that I’m special, thinking that I’m beautiful, thinking that I’m worth something, anything, on Valentine's Day.

I know its a Hallmark holiday that isn’t even worth the cheap paper that all those cheesy, sappy, soon-to-be-thrown-out cards are printed on, but I still want to be part of it. Everyone says it’s just a gimmick and a poor excuse to make couples spend money and that’s totally true. But no one wants to be excluded. I could shout from the rooftops and use my blog as a stand and say “No to Valentine's Day” but I don’t want to. I like the sentiment. I like the feeling of being special, in some way, to somebody. Whatever reason that may be. I don’t want to just feel like the girl who is in the way, the girl who’s future with a live-in mother hangs on a poem, the girl who sends herself a “secret admirer” flower, the girl who feels the shame of giving an unwanted Valentine's day gift, the girl who spends Valentine's Day making sure her dad is ok… but I don’t need to be the girl who received an $80 dozen roses, the girl who wakes up to a serenade outside her window, the girl who sees a proposal hanging on the overpass on the way to work, the girl who is whisked away for a romantic dinner for two… I just want to be the girl who knows she is special… to somebody…

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions:

• Do you celebrate Valentine's Day?
• What does the holiday mean to you?

I'd like to wish a very happy Valentine's Day to some wonderful people who may be reading this.

Lori - who deserves all the love in the world

My best friend - who has been there for me every day for 21 years
Adam's mummy - who is spending her first Valentine's Day in 10 years as a fabulous single girl

Player - who sent me love purely for the sake of love

Simon - who is the best guy a girl could ever ask for

Someone - who has taken a tiny piece of my heart to a far off world. You damn well better bring it back one day! "I like you!" xx