July 2008

‘Canned’, this was a hard one. Tried two /three different things but eventually went with canned sardines. I saw  chocolate sardines in the local deli the other day and thought that would be an interesting thing to buy, but didn’t. We have many cans of real  sardines in our pantry as we mix half a can in the dog’s dried food each day, as the vet said that it was good for her coat. I know she is one very spoilt dog; who is the ‘dog house’ tonight as she stole the sausages.

‘Today I sit here a little melancholy and homesick for my family. Distance between people that love each other, always feels like a waste. It’s like having a million dollars, but not being able to access it’.

I just read the most beautiful post in the Shutter Sisters blog and she described exactly how I feel. I know as you get older and your children make their own way you are to be happy for them and their independence. But you know it is hard, you just miss them, you don’t really know what is going on in the lives….. the day to day things. There is much excitement when we receive an email from the girls and we talk about it for days. I got a message from Penny on my blog this morning and I am so curious to know why it took 10 hours for a round trip to the markets.

My older girls have promised when they stop travelling the world that Canberra will be their home, Adam and his beautiful wife Suzy talk about going back to Canberra and my beloved is in Canberra today and he rang me to describe the frost on the ground, the crisp air and the snow on the mountain. I felt ‘homesick’ but am I hankering for a life that does not exist anymore, our three older children grew up there and we did not leave until they went to high school. I know that the city has changed but I think that it is still bascially ‘Canberra’, where people talk about politics, where there are things to do every weekend, where wonderful old friends live, where you have the four seasons of the year and where you don’t have to worry if you to the shop in your ‘ugg’ boots. Do you think that I am kidding myself?

The mosaic in front of parliament house.

When we first moved to Queensland i could hear a ‘banging’  in the room just off the kitchen in the middle of the night. I crept down to the kitchen to have a look, my heart was pounding and I was shaking. I didn’t turn any lights on. It took a while for my eyes to get use to the dark. I then could work out a shape sitting on the bench. A possum. The culprit was a possum eating a apple out of the fruit bowl, he had come through the open window.

We had a really busy weekend,the highlight was my nephew’s engagement party held in a bush park need their house. It was lovely, we saw people that we had not seen for a long time and I got to cuddle the new babies. Our two little grand-daughters played very happily with their cousins and they were very busy. Liv (my grand-daughter) is showing a strong interest in digital scrap-booking and has done some very lovely layouts. She now wants to learn how to use the camera and to take her own photos. Both Suzy’s and my cameras had flat batteries, so she took photos with my iPhone, they weren’t too bad.

Back to school this week and I have been flat out. The beginning of term is always a really busy time working on units of work for each of the classes. The Olympics is a big topic this term; a industrious librarian from our area has spent a lot of time over the holidays tracking down links to both China and the Olympics so that part of the job is so much easier this time around.

I have always love looking at the photos of what is on people’s desk. So I took a photo of my messy desk at school with my iPhone, I am not leaving school tomorrow until it is cleaned up. The photo is blurry, sorry.

I found this topic hard but saying them we have been having a lot of fogs this winter. Driving to school through the fog makes the journey a little more interesting. It usually closes down the airport for a few hours as well. The fogs don’t hang around and are usually gone by eight o’clock. I remember as a child growing up in Wagga Wagga we use to have very thick fogs (pea-soupers), that would not clear until lunch time. It used to be great fun playing at morning tea time and not being able to see the end of the playground. I love the effect that fogs have on the world, everything seems detached not real.

photo credit: My Alternative Photos

What a day! I have been waiting for over a year or more for the iPhone to be released in Australia, my phone basically died about six months ago and I have a lend of one from school while waiting. I was down at the phone store at seven o’clock this morning, they did not open until after eight and there was already about 30 odd people there. The people that had put down their $100 deposit got first priority. Because two of the carriers did not announce their plans until last night, I had not decided who I was going to go with until this morning, so I was in the non-priority queue. They did not even start to look at our queue until ten thirty. I had already accepted the fact that there was going to be none leave by the time I got served but I was wrong, there were 8GB ones left. So I am now a proud owner of an iPhone and it has already lived up to my expectations.

I am stretching the point this week. We have a lot of crows around, in fact we have a lot of crows around all the time. You see them eating all the time. I don’t know if they would attack ‘lemons’ or not. They hang around where ever there is food, like picnic grounds, school yards and paddocks.Hence the crow, picnic pattern and plate of lemon.

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I just found this link on Sharon’s blog ‘Just a minute Ago’, it is a link to making many different needlecases. It would be helpful for anyone taking part on the swap on ‘Down—to—-Earth’

Photo by whiterabbit21