YELLOW LENTIL SOUP A few years ago, Mr Shannon had to go to Dubai for work. A friend came to visit while he was gone and she said, ‘Wow! Dubai! That’s the land of luxury! I wonder what present he’ll bring you home?’ Oh yeahhhhhhh, I thought excitedly. I imagined him...

If you’ve been around the block more than once, you’ve probably encountered a hairy man and the medical condition that ensues after relating sexually to that fuzzy individual: rugburnitis. It’s like pash-rash, except it’s all over your breasts, abdomen and inner thigh...

In a quest to become a skinny, dong-juggling bitch I once committed to a low carb diet. Like a sicko, I put pasta in the naughty corner and I turned bread into a social pariah. Eating potatoes? Never. You see, I thought cutting carbs would give me a tight rig and...

Herbie turned 4 a couple of weeks ago and the little champ wanted a rainbow cake. Birthday cakes have escalated since the good old Women's Weekly cake days and many children's parties now feature an extravagant custom $200 cake. If you can afford it, good for you! if...

Parenthood is a real ride and there have been some surprises for me. I didn’t expect applying sunscreen to a toddler to be more difficult than rubbing lotion on an angry snake. I didn’t expect my nipples to look like sad emojis after breastfeeding. I didn’t expect...

Being a nurse really takes over your life. For a start, everyone you know asks you for medical advice, ‘Hey, Shannon, I have this cut, do you think it’s infected?’ And sympathy? Gone. You find it really hard to muster compassion for people with a cold after you just...

Chocolate cake: it's one of life’s winners. But with a fuckload of sugar, flour and oil, it's not exactly the most healthful shit so, if you'd rather take your health risks in the form of binge drinking, fries and pingers, then making your chocolate cake more...

Sometimes we get sick and we just bloody want a bloody cuddle from our mums and some goddamn chicken soup. When my second child was born he had to be sliced out. When the surgeon lifted him skyward like Simba from The Lion King, I expected the ‘Circle of Life’ song to...

So, what we have here is pretty much butter and sugar which is why it tastes so goddamn excellent. There’s a time and a place to pull our dicks about nutritious foods but baking brownies is not that time. I was once health focused enough to try a famous blogger’s...

I used to be a morning person. An early riser? Haha, fuck no, but I was fairly cheerful and functional on waking. As a child it meant creeping out of a cosy bed to feed and cuddle my pony, Finn. That little porker didn’t like being made to wait for his chaff and hay,...