Friday 31 October 2008

Multi-focal joy

My new glasses. After my dental implant is done in a couple of weeks I shall be a new woman.

Tuesday 28 October 2008

Tap without a handle

How would one go about getting water out of this tap?

Monday 27 October 2008

Going, going, gone, with bonus bird

So this morning before I left for work I checked the tree and only the bare piece of string was left. As I was sadly taking a photo, a bird flew across the field of view, and I captured it in flight. It's that blurry thing just to the right of the letter box over the road (to the right of the tree). You may have to click on the picture to actually see it. Somehow the picture of the bird softened the blow of the mobile being pulled down, and all is right in my world.

Sunday 26 October 2008

Now you see it, now you don't

I'm a bit bummed at the moment. I made a mobile out of old CDs and shrinky dinks (photographed in a previous post) and hung it in a tree outside my house this morning at about 8:30am. The shrinky dinks had the words Peace, Love, Unity, Respect and Cupcakes on them and they were tied together with string, with little bows in between and old CDs at the bottom. It looked nice hanging from the tree.

By lunchtime someone had broken it. All that is left of it is the Peace shrinky dink and a red bow. I will leave it there and hope that everyone who goes past will still like it and see the word Peace.



Derek and Neville have a new friend, Margaret. She arrived with her little parasol and handbag and is very ladylike, but her eyes give away an inner confusion. She has also made friends with Rufus.

Friday 24 October 2008

Blue


I'm not a big fan of the colour blue as a rule, unless it is fairly bright. I suppose that's no big surprise :-) - I'm not sure why my colour preferences are so strong. The blue I love best is a kind of sky blue, an almost turquoise, zappy, happy kind of blue, and this is the colour that I chose to paint the room that used to be my bedroom (currently my craft/computer room). So I was delighted to get a beautiful handmade postcard from a new friend I have made on Swap-bot, which has that same blue on it. Thank you Evey!

Tuesday 21 October 2008

Derek Frolics

Derek was born last night after a few weeks of labour, and early this morning he wanted to get his picture taken in the garden.

Sunday 19 October 2008

Positive words


I'm cheating today as the pic is not a photo but a scan of a work in progress. I made these little discs out of shrink plastic and am planning to hang them from the tree in front of my house when I figure out how to put them together. It is part of the Guerilla Style Random Acts of Kindness swap. More about that later. I have some wacky ideas but I don't want to write about them until they are fully formed.

Here comes summer! From the Bureau of Meteorology site:
Forecast for Monday
A warm to hot day with a possible shower or thunderstorm. Moderate to fresh NE winds easing in the afternoon.
Precis: Possible shower or thunderstorm.
City: Min 17 Max 34

Saturday 18 October 2008

Garage Sale

I'm glad I got up and did my grocery shopping early today - I was home by 9am in time for the start of a garage sale just up the road. I picked up some super bargains:
Brand new tea infuser - $5
Three brand new canvas bags - $2 each
Breakfast tray - $2
Beautiful red and gold Indian sari - $2
Teddy bear - $1
Glass jug - 50c
Egg separator - 10c
Cheese slicer - 10c
Knife for chopping herbs - 5c
Bright orange melamine jug/stirrer - $1


The egg separator is fantastic and I celebrated by making poached yolks on toast with grilled mushrooms for a nice brunchie snack. Mmmm - even better than usual now I can chuck out those horrid egg whites.

Then I finished doing my tax return. I should be getting a decent refund soonish. I'm kicking myself for taking so long to do it. Normally I do it in July as soon as all the paperwork comes in, but I think I shall blame Swap-bot for my procrastination and distraction this year. :-)

Friday 17 October 2008

Lantana

I'm bemused that this plant, which has one of the most beautiful, intricate, delicate flowers I've ever seen, is considered a weed in Western Australia. Its bloom is like a posy of smaller flowers. This one is a bit ragged at the edges but lovely still. If you click on this picture to view it in close up you'll see what I mean.

A film of the same name came out a few years ago, and it's one of my favourites, too.

Thursday 16 October 2008

Poppy Petal



I didn't post yesterday - I totally forgot! I was finishing off four swaps which I mailed out today. Did you hear the loud sigh as I clicked on "Sent"?

I need to start cutting back on swapping as I have just been given the go-ahead by work to select a training course and work towards another certification. And they are footing the bill, which will run into the thousands of dollars. The cost of a five-day course, multiplied by three (for airfares, accommodation, etc., as none of them are run in Perth) with the prospect of an expensive six-hour exam at the end of it. I estimate that for every hour in the classroom, I will need to spend at least five hours in home study. I am already quaking in my boots.

Breathe, and focus on the flower above.

Tuesday 14 October 2008

Nesting

The temperature reached 30 Celsius or thereabouts today, not a bad time for me to take an enforced break from walking (my hip bursitis has kicked in once again).

I got good mail today: no swaps, but one double CD (the latest of the John Eliot Gardiner Bach Cantata series). I can't wait to listen to it! It lifted my spirits after a mopey, dull day spent feeling glum about my visit to the optometrist. I have just ordered multi-focals after discovering my eyesight has deteriorated quite badly over the past year (the probable cause of my recent slight headaches). But I picked out some nice purple frames (at least I *thought* they were nice as I squinted nose-to-nose with myself in the mirror). I was told to expect deteriorating eyesight now that I'm in my mid-forties. Thanks a lot :-(

I found a bird's nest on the pavement right in front of my house on the way back from checking my post office box. It is now nesting in the dust on my bookcase with the other nests I have collected. So here are some nicer pictures than the ones I have posted the last couple of days:


Monday 13 October 2008

Is this house really vacant?

More photos of the abandoned house - since I was on my own I trod carefully. Broken bottles, paint cans, girly mags and assorted other discarded items littered the floor and in some rooms the rubbish was knee deep. A couple of the walls provided a canvas for the graffiti artists to practice their skills, but really I was surprised at the lack of graffiti:




This Ole House

Sunday 12 October 2008

Photography Overload

I've taken so many pictures this weekend that I don't know which ones to post. My walk by the river was uneventful today but it was the most beautiful spring day. I wish we had scratch&sniff computers, and then I could post the scent of the air. Just gorgeous. I have taken to walking without my MP3 player - somehow it sharpens my other senses if I'm not plugged in - and I hear the music in my head anyway.

My walk yesterday was much more adventurous as I went and explored an old vacant house that I've been meaning to check out for a long time.


This amused me. I wonder where these steps once led?


The old dunny. I didn't want to get too close, in case there was a snake in there!


I'll post more pics tomorrow, of the inside of the house.

One last photo for today, which suggests that the next project I work on should be a needlebook for myself.

For FarStarr



This is my living room. It contains a fridge that should be in the kitchen, and a buffet that should be in the dining room. I had to move them into the living room when I got my floorboards polished, but I need to borrow some man power to move them back and none is available right now.

I'm sort of used to it now.

In the foreground to the right is an Ikea storage unit still in its packaging. I will build it when I'm good and ready :-) but right now it is handy to put things on.

Saturday 11 October 2008

New (Old) Bicycle

Today as I was heading off for my usual walk by the river, I noticed that a new bike shop is opening up on a corner not far from my house. I had a little pang of regret that I'd gotten rid of my old bike because it was such a pain to maintain (I never even got the hang of pumping up the tyres) and the nearest place I could take it to for all the little repairs was miles away.

A little while later I passed by a skip bin with a perfectly good (if a little rusty) bike propped up next to it. I wasn't able to ride off into the sunset on it, because the back tyre was flat (and it was the middle of the day), but I wheeled it home. I'm now waiting impatiently for the bike shop to open its doors so that my adopted treadlie can be fixed up for carefree pedalling adventures in the summer.

A true story.



And here's a picture of some lovely flowers in another shop around the corner.

Friday 10 October 2008

New goodies from Big Bubble

I got a call the other day from the boss at my volunteer job at the Cancer Council to go replace a collection tin at Big Bubble. I'd never heard of this place before and I drove out there yesterday afternoon to find - yippee - a fantastic craft shop!!! So much nicer and more friendly than Spotlight. I couldn't resist buying a few pieces of gorgeous ribbon and some other little bits and pieces. Here's the ribbon I bought, looking fabulous against a backdrop of fun fur:

Thursday 9 October 2008

The Hiding Spider

I must apologise for today's picture which is a bit crap.

There's a permanent spider web across the driver's side mirror of my car. I thought quite an arty photo could be made if I sprayed a light mist of water from my ironing spray bottle, and captured the sunlight glinting on the water droplets that would land gracefully on the web.

However when I sprayed, a fairly large black spider crawled out from behind the mirror looking very cross that I'd disturbed her home. She was a bit shy when she saw the camera, and retreated back inside. In the meantime I had pressed the nozzle a bit too hard in my fright, resulting in more of a downpour than the light mist that I had intended.

Wednesday 8 October 2008

Daily photo

I'm going to try and take at least one interesting photo each day and post them here. Actually I have two today, as I started this little plan yesterday but didn't actually get around to blogging last night.
Yesterday's pic is a mural I only noticed for the first time on my walk yesterday. It is just above the side of the Oxfam office down the road from me! Wow, street art in Bayswater!!!

Today's pic is of Sid's chicken who was visiting my garden in search of herbs (which she found. Grrr). As I rushed inside to get the camera, Eddie made a swift escape, but as soon as he got out he came face to face with the chicken. He has never seen one before and I think I managed to capture his puzzled expression quite well. In the picture you will also see a traffic bollard which turned up in my garden a few weeks ago. All sorts of things seem to turn up in my garden lately!


P.S. I think the chicken has been hanging around for a while, because the other day I found a poo next to my bin that made me think that the pigeons were stealing too much birdseed from the feeder.

Sunday 5 October 2008

Updates

I've just re-read some of my blog entries from a couple of months ago, and I feel the need to report on a couple of things:

I completed the City to Surf (a 12km fun run which I walked) with no pain and no problems. I'm not sure how long it took, but I think it was about three hours or so. I got a nice purple polo shirt and a sausage in a bun afterwards, then I went home and drank wine :-) Yay me.

Jury duty was a non-event. I managed to get into two courtrooms but the first time my number didn't come up for the actual jury (thankfully, since it was a very dull-sounding "holding funds" case). The second time, we were taken to the Supreme Court but the accused pleaded guilty at the last minute to assaulting four people and a car (but strangely he pleaded not guilty to being armed with scissors) during a robbery. (Should it be "pleaded" or the word that sounds like "pled"? I don't know, but I like the way the word "pled" rolls off the tongue.)

Most of the time I sat and waited for hours and hours for my number to be called out. I almost finished the cryptic crossword on one day, and I met some interesting people including one lady who had brought her needlepoint project. She said to me that Security had confiscated her scissors when she had entered the building, but she was allowed to keep her needle.

The whole experience was like checking in at the airport, only to find that your flight has been cancelled. Every day for a week.

I'm back......

...after quite a long break from blogging.

I've been feeling a bit down lately. I'm noticing a lot of inhumanity, disrespect and just plain rudeness among people, be they strangers (like the hit and run I witnessed at the bottom of the street last week) or friends/acquaintances (gossip and slander). I'm not sure whether these things are making me depressed or I'm more affected by them because I'm depressed.

Either way I hope it shall pass soon.

I've been trying to cheer myself up by cooking nice meals, listening to music and doing creative things, but I'm in a bit of a funk. I have swaps to make but I'm procrastinating and I just can't be bothered right this minute. Luckily they aren't due for another couple of weeks so I have plenty of time.

It's 3:30pm on Sunday afternoon and I have just put a casserole in the oven since it's still rather chilly.


I've tidied up the house and done a little bit of gardening. That sheep manure I put down last month has done wonders for the weeds!

And I have made a couple of postcards today for a swap, even though I'm not 100% happy with them. I almost dropped out of the swap but then I stayed in because I thought it would stretch me creatively. I guess I'm feeling inadequate because the lady I'm sending them to is an art teacher and very talented and interesting.
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