You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January, 2008.
I went out for salad for lunch. I bought these, too. I had them on my feet in the shop and who walked in? Peter.(Ratted out by a colleague, I was.)
I said, “I’m buying these.”
He said, “They’re great, aren’t they?”
Any questions about why he rocks?
We just had the Best Weekend EVER! Saturday was my birthday. I was 103. OK, 43. Peter took me and Ali to Cairns for a birthday weekend. I was very clever when I chose my husband - I made sure he was Australian. My birthday falls on Australia Day, so my husband never forgets my birthday and I get a long weekend.
We stayed here again (I love the bathrooms. And the soap.), ate out for every meal (Cairns is smothered in gelataria. I think we ate the best coffee icecream in the world) and bought new clothes and shoes(Ali got natural, I got red).
We saw two movies (how I love movies! I have promised myself that this year I will go to more movies). Ali and I are big Tim Burton fans and we had been hanging out to see Sweeney Todd. The music was a bit much in places (but that’s Steven Sondheim’s fault) but the costuming and Tim Burton’s dark and seething aesthetic was wonderful! Johnny Depp was eleven shades of brooding; Helena Bonham Carter was brilliant. Her character had lovely subtlety. If you haven’t seen it, go!
And then go to see Juno. I loved every single second of this one. Sweet, funny and full of love.
In case you think the whole weekend was Hedonism-Without-Ceasing, we also walked through the rainforest to see this…The Boulders at Babinda
These rocks are immense. It’s impossible to give you a sense of scale with this photo but they are huge. It’s quite a spooky place. Many people have died here swimming in the pools. There are warnings everywhere not to swim. Some bodies haven’t ever been recovered.
If you ever get to Kuranda, visit the Butterfly Sanctuary. Very hot and steamy inside, but full of butterflies. If you wear something light or bright they will land on you. And make sure you charge your camera battery before you go so that it doesn’t go flat after ten photos… grumble grumble…
That weekend was so good, I think I’ll have another birthday next month.
A little smackerel of something 
A morsel of chocolate for this month’s quilt for the twelveby12 challenge. The date of the Grand Reveal is 1 February, but I just finished today and had to give you a glimpse, at least.
I have a new category/set in my flickr photos. It’s called Blissed Out and it’s where I’m going to put all the photos I take that represent things that give me joy and happy and peace. Today it’s my tidy bookshelves.
ps: if you’re the pervy kind who has to study the titles closely, remember that there are two of us contributing to these shelves and we each have very different taste and we each have very eclectic taste. The Dan Brown/Robert Ludlum/Ben Elton stuff is NOT mine (not that I’m a snob or anything).
Added 21 Jan:
Just thought I’d explain this a little more - it’s not an original idea (wish I was that smart). It’s an idea from a guy called Chris Cobb who did this to the entire content of the Adobe Bookshop in San Francisco in 2004. The installation was called There Is Nothing Wrong in This Whole Wide World and people have been copying him ever since. I’ve had an obsession with colour-ordering stuff since I was a kid, but I’d never considered doing it to my books! I’m going to do the rest of them eventually. I thought Peter would hate it (being an engineer and all) but he just laughed!
Nobody wants to go outside. The rain that fell over the last week or so is now evaporating and the humidity is at suffocation level. A good excuse to stay inside and redecorate my blog.
And make more quick craft projects. This is very good for my soul.
This doll head (bought on etsy) is old and broken, found at the site of a doll factory in Germany. It’s remarkably satisfying to take something imperfect and discarded and give it another life. I’ve been reading Spirit Cloth for months now and Jude has been reminding me of the importance of old and worn things; of the need to value their imperfections and honour them.
By the way, if you click on my photos, they will take you to my flickr pages and you can see more photos! There is a flickr widget available for sidebars but I can’t figure out how to get the &$$*%&^(*#$$@ thing to work.
Ooh, that reminds me of a good joke.
How do you get a sweet 80 year old lady to say “FUCK!” ?
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Get another sweet 80 year old lady to say, “Bingo!”
I didn’t want Christmas 2007. I just didn’t feel like it… Until it was all over.
Around about January 2 I got all enthusiastic about Christmas and started making decorations. I prefer to think of it as being Super Prepared for Christmas 2008.
It started because I saw some beautiful decorations in a post-Christmas sale in this etsy shop and wanted to make some of my own. Mine have some of my Nanna’s buttons in the centre.
Although at night the lighting is lousy for photos, I think the yellowness of these shots suits the snowflakes and the low light does make them twinkle more than they would in a daytime shot.
What’s the bet that by December 20 I’ll have lost them??
You guys are too nice to me! Maddy gave me this
and Shirley gave me one of these
.
Thank you both so much for being thoughtful and making me feel good!
I’m going to roll them in together and give out “You’re Amazing & You Make My Day Awards” to Tracy at Prickly Pear Bloom. Oy vey, has that girl got talent!! Tracy, you are so full of style and flair, you do make my day!
And Miss LaLaLaLaLaeroport! Lori, you are an inspiration. How you manage to be so generous with your time when you have kids and work and everything is AMAZING!
Caity, you get one, too! I admire so much about you and the loving, happy life you and Mr Beloved have created for each other. Hmm, yes, you’ll have to share your award with Mr B.
It’s nice knowing y’all
Last week was nasty. It was hot. It was humid. It was FERAL.
Then it started to rain.
We have downpipes on our house that are 8″ in diameter. For 360 days of the year they are bone dry.
But not today. Today there is a Niagara Falls ripping through them.
There are frogs. Heaven only knows where they came from, but their voices are louder than the average two year old in a supermarket and they are shouting for lovers ALL night.
The main highway is cut by flood waters south of Townsville. That means that it’s time to race to the shops and buy milk. If you are too slow and don’t join in the Mass Supermarket Panic, you will miss out and be forced to suffer with UHT or even *blech* powdered milk. While you’re there, stock up on tinned baked beans, too, because by Wednesday there will only be the yucky flavours left. I can’t understand why, but rain seems to cause hysterical milk and bean hoarding.
This is the Wet Season.
Edited to add: I’m no longer the only Official Nutter in the house. Peter has been infected by Townsvillism and has turned into Manic Milk Man. There are three of us living here and it takes us about two days to consume a litre of milk. We now have eight litres in our fridge. BRING IT ON, RAIN! BRING IT ON!!
My poor, poor husband and daughter. They are watching, helpless, convinced that I am sliding further into madness.
I’ve made another scarf.
There were two balls of baby-fine merino wool in the chuck-out bin at the shop. For $1 a ball. In my favourite pale blue.
Well, what would you have done? I couldn’t leave it there!
And, my crochet skills are pretty limited, so I didn’t have too many options when it came to projects. In fact my crochet is so dodgy that even a rectangle of double crochet is a bit beyond me and I ended up with something with verrrry wobbly sides indeed. So, I bagged it out with a cotton fabric and put red picot sort of stuff on the edge.
Now all I need is a nice, snowy winter and I’m set.
I don’t bother with New Year’s resolutions. When January 8 comes around and I’ve broken nine out of ten promises, it’s just another large stick to beat myself with. So I don’t bother.
I have been thinking about stuff though. And one thing I’ve been thinking is that I need more Immediate Gratification in my life (yeah, like 200 gram blocks of chocolate aren’t enough!). What I mean is, I need more craft projects that can be finished in less than a year. Most of my endeavours are time-hungry beasts. That means they either engulf my life for whopping great chunks of weeks or I eventually have to put them aside when more pressing things arise and never return to them. I need some Quickies.
This is a good start to the year then. Sussanah’s post In Praise of the Tropical Goth struck such a chord with me. A - I have had the heart of a Goth for thirty years and B - I’ve just spent the first weeks of JANUARY in THE TROPICS crocheting myself a scarf. A woolly scarf. Well, why the hell not?
Not an original thought - I saw one here and loved it. How could I stop myself? I had to make one, even if it DID mean lowering the temperature on the air conditioning another two degrees.
There was even a huge bonus to finishing. I somehow managed to take a photo of myself that doesn’t make me squirm. 2008 is going quite well so far
Few things give me the endorphin rush that a Really Good Op Shop Find does…
Button Porn. Few understand it.
