The saga of the house continues. We have found a house, it is a pretty house a few more suburbs away. The new landlord will allow both our pets and seem willing to do anything to help us. Meanwhile, our daughter is in the middle of her exams when our old landlord wants us to move out, so we email her to ask for an extension of a few more days so that her exams would be over. The answer came back that she would not consider letting us do that, so much, for appealing to her better nature. So the only thing that we can do is just go over time rather than put Jess under additional stress. You know it would be better if we listened to people, when we moved into our present house the tenants at the time warned us that the owners were ‘the landlords from hell’. We thought we would be OK, maybe next time we would take more notice and heed warnings.
When I wake up each morning standing at the back door is our two black animals. This particular morning the cat was missing, so only Molly got included in the illustration. The first thing that I do each day is feed Molly and Affie. It part of my routine and I love having her there to greet the day with.
I have been asked how I did this drawing. I first collected photos of Molly and then also went looking on the web for additional photos. I have the ones that I am going to use displayed on ‘Photoshop’ and I draw a rough outline in a new document, I then take it into Illustrator and block out the shape with washes of colour. Then comes the fun part I draw and fill in detail, this usually takes many an hour and is usually done in Photoshop. This is the part that I enjoy.
That is a harsh title but that is how I am feeling at the moment …….. stressed by some-one’s uncaring attitude. We have lived in our present home (rented) for two years, we are good tenants, the place is kept looking well and we will often get things repaired ourselves as we don’t want to wait on the landlord. There has been a shortage of rental places in the whole of Australia and things are very competitive, our landlord believes that she can get an extra $120 to $150 per week. Because our laws do not allow landlords to put rents up an unreasonable amount they could not do that to us. We have been told that our lease will not be renewed, so we have to leave. That allows them to charge the new tenants the higher amount. We have offered to pay a lot extra just to stay until the end of the year, Jess is doing her final year of school and we are desperately trying to keep the world calm and stress-free for her and Graham is in the middle of a large contract that will continue to the end of October so he has very little time to himself. It is strange but at the same time that this is happening to us, Graham’s brother is going through the same thing. Their rent is going up by $60 per week and then they will be on a two month’s lease so that the owner can put the rent again in two months time.
This was an easy one to do, I think to a certain degree every mother, parent or person does it. When things become too stressful you try very hard to detach yourself. One of these times in a parent’s case it is saying ‘goodbye’ to your children as they go off on their adventures or saying ‘goodbye’ to grandchildren or aged parents. I think to keep your sanity you have to have those moments of detachment , of turning off. In my case it is often daydreaming or watching people.
I hope that this works. I sat here smiling watching this, it is just wonderful.
No drawing this week, I have been watching the Olympics, this time I have made a conscience decision to watch as much as I can. Why? First they are enjoyable to watch, some sports I like more than others but I watched for the first time beach volleyball, it was great, the tactics were amazing. Although I don’t agree with the lack of human rights in China and what has happened and is still happening in Tibet, I remember how we were so incredibly proud when we had the Olympics in Sydney and how much we wanted everything to go well. So I feel for the Chinese people I am sure that they feel the same way that we did, they would be proud of the good job that has been done in the setting up the facilities and how smoothly things are running. Besides it is a great time to catch up on my embroidery.
This involved a lot of thought. Then I had a great idea, my baby is turning eighteen next Wednesday. The years have gone by so quickly; to me, one moment she was a sweet little baby and now she is a mature, intellegent young lady. So therefore ‘POOF’ has gone the time. I really wish that the time had not passed so quickly.
