SPIRAL TIE DYE!

Yep. We dye and wear tie dyes.  PROUDLY!

A length of plain calico (quilter's muslin) now forever hippy-fied

This is probably going to be the new doorway curtain between the lounge and bedroom.

Grooovy, maaaan

Due to excess fabric stash and “not enough bread” we will be making clothes from this book soon.  (Well, the whole sewing room clean up thing has to happen first, and I don’t have the energy for that yet, but we have PLANS.)

And we have mung bean seeds just waiting to be sprouted.  Mmmmmm, mung bean sprouts!  I love them! Not least because they bring back memories of my childhood, when mung beans sprouted in a jar in a cupboard under the sink.  We don’t have a cupboard under the sink so I’ll probably keep them in a dark space in the bathroom.

So what have I been doing instead?  Ummm…

Well, today we went to the doctor – our GP is BRILLIANT and if she ever leaves her current practice we may have to follow her (ewwww, that sounded kinda stalky, didn’t it?)  She is so helpful and sensible and even like the same tv programmes we do (we joked about needing the ‘traditionally built” blood pressure cuff, since we are fans of the books and now the wonderful TV version of Alexander McCall Smith’s “Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”) and what an utter perfectly played bastard the neurosurgeon Monroe is.

Jill Scott and Desmond Dube in a scene from The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency... I covet her teaset!

(I LOVE the dresses Jill Scott wears as Precious Ramotswe – and I desperately want her tea set, if anyone knows the pattern! I’ve left the photo HUGE so we can all admire the tea set – the cups are different colours, there’s a pink, blue, and yellow one as well as the green in this picture. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)

In other news: I’m walking!  As the pain management specialist wanted me to.  At a pace where I get puffed but can still talk (just!) I am now up to 24 minutes every day. (My last post I was doing 10 minutes – so a big improvement there!)  WOOOOT!  I’m not actually *enjoying* it yet, but I do know that I am coping with the back pain much better – and if I don’t walk, the pain is worse.

Our local library here has just started lending e-audio books!  I’ve “borrowed” (downloaded onto my little MP3 player) Kerry Greenwood’s “Away With The Fairies” to listen to while I walk – BEING VERY CONSCIOUS of keeping the volume low enough to still hear traffic and also BEING AWARE as I cross roads – no “iPod Oblivion” for me – sadly, a young girl was killed in Melbourne just this week while listening to her iPod – didn’t hear the train.

And now it’s time for my walk – arrrgh, where did the day go?

[as always, clicky for biggy]

in 2002, I lived in a PO Box in Canberra..., (not really!)

It was from a secret Valentine Swap in 2002!  COOOL!

Postcards and yarn and things, oh my!

(Including a postcard of the New York skyline back when the twin towers were still there…)

The included card

I have NO IDEA who sent it to me – that info has been lost.  It was someone in the NY/ New Jersey area, though, going by the postcards and little goodies…

Yesterday as I was going through the envelope, I noticed a bookplate:

which I have stuck in the front of one of my current art journals.  And I thought to myself “Hmmm, I recognise that illustration!”  and this made me Very Happy.

Yep, in teeeeeeny little writing on the bookplate is  “Tuesday ©1991 David Wiesner Clarion Books”.  AHA!  It’s from another kid’s book I own – another Caldecott Medal winner , no less.

(In 1992.  He also won the Caldecott in 2007 for Flotsam, which I want to get. He’s the only person to win the Caldecott THREE times!)

And then I looked up David Wiesner’s web site and  YAY he has a new book out!!  It’s called Art and Max and I really really want it *sigh*… maybe when it comes out in paperback.  How could you not love a story about a lizard learning to paint?! Be sure to watch the video (click on the book picture to get the link) where David Wiesner explains the ideas he had in exploring various media to get to the characters – brilliant!

Art and Max

Anyway, if by some remote chance the person who sent me the Secret Valentines Swap in 2002 happens to be reading this – thank you for the goodies and for prompting me to look at David Wiesner’s work again!

Read the *friendly* manual

ResMed, who make my CPAP machine, are a clever mob.  They generally design components so that they can only go together one way (by cutting one corner off a square humidifier and making the insert match, for example.)  I noticed this  glyph on the rear of my brand new S9 series machine and it made me laugh.

RTFM!!

My order from jetpens.com

(click for bigger if you need to!)

I’m off to play….

So I’ve been inside a lot this week.

Not that I’ve got much done.  The psychiatrist has agreed that I can reduce the amount of the new drug (Seroquel) from 300mg to 200mg but as it’s stored in body fat (of which I have a lot!) it’s going to be 6 weeks before we can expect any change.  I’m hoping that the reduced dose will help with the severe dry mouth and anger.

Although the psychiatrist says anger is a good sign, that depression is anger turned inwards, and that being angry means I’m getting better.  I don’t buy that: I don’t actually feel angry at anyone or about anything, it’s just this horrible low grade grump non-stop.  “What else can you turn that energy towards?” asks the psych.  ARRRRRGHH!  There’s always housework but I’m SO not in the mood for scrubbing walls.

I’m very happy my parents are coming to visit.  (I know I’ve mentioned this before.) But they know how we really live anyway – so even though the house will be cleaner than usual in honour of their visit, it’s not fooling anyone.

Whinge whinge whinge.

Here’s something:

Habitat

Now, you might think these are just the Wildflower  Emblem of Our Suburb, and you’d be right: the abandoned car is just that.  But it’s also something else.

{clicky biggy}

It’s habitat.

This Superb Fairy Wren (Malurus-cyaneus) has decided that it must spend HOURS every day shaping up against that other bloke in the mirror.  The poor little jenny-wren hops about on top of the roof rack on the same car, ignored!

(apologies for poor quality, these are little birds and I had to use a lot of zoom on my point and shoot camera!)

(There is also something VERY WEIRD going on with this same car in the last two days with strange people getting in and out of it and bedding and food being put in.  We can see this because it’s parked under our kitchen window.  The street side windows of the car have been covered with newspaper. Suspicious much? Yeah, we think so, too.  Especially since before this weekend that car has been just sitting in the yard for well over a year, untouched except by birds….)

So, apart from that – not much going on. I made cards this week at Social Cre8te instead of doing any art journal pages.  Just not really in the mood for much.  Seems to be the song of this blog lately.  I’m just not feeling very interesting.

Oh and a fun book I  recently read:

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding: Sky pirates!

The one exhibition I really wanted to see was well worth seeing – but alas, due to the fragile nature of the objects, no photography was allowed – and I didn’t want to spend $10 on a booklet (I would have bought 2 or three postcards, had any been available, but ten dollars is just too much.  AH, the life of the pov!)

Maybe I’ve just been at home too much, but I found the hoards of screaming children utterly exhausting.  After 20 minutes (which felt like an hour!) I had to retreat to the cafe for a cold drink.  I’m glad we avoided school holidays, I can only imagine what hell that must be.

I thought that the museum was very … empty.  Mr Beloved was also quite disappointed.  It was as though the entire centre was set up purely for small kids.  Fair enough as far as that goes, but not the Museum experience we were after.  I strongly suspect that the days of quiet contemplation of exhibits in cases are gone for good, more’s the pity.  Interaction schminteraction. (And you kids, get off my lawn!)

We then wandered outside for lunch (mmm, love that zucchini slice – it’s even good cold!) then down to the Queensland Art Gallery.  I’m very pleased I got to see the “Hats: an Anthology by Stephen Jones” exhibition,  even though that was quite busy too.  Mr Beloved noted that Stephen Jones’s own designs were very skillfully and beautifully made – often the best thing in the case.

By the time we left the Queensland Art Gallery and headed over to the Gallery Of Modern Art  I was getting reeeeaaaaallly tired.  We didn’t bother with the Ron Mueck exhibition because even the concession tickets were $10 each – and to be quite frank, his work totally creeps me out anyway.

I think we really tried to do too much in one day – about half an hour after this photo was taken (it’s at the end of GOMA, looking out onto the river) I just Could.Not.Go.On  and so even though we were about an hour early for meeting the friends, we decided to go to the cafe and just sit.

Mr Beloved was wearing a recognisable hat – and was recognised (it was the first face to face meeting with online friends).

We made quite good time out of the city, and got home around 6 pm.  On Sunday night the police came knocking on the door at about 20 to 9 – the business over the road had been broken into some time on the weekend, a big safe had been removed (probably with the aid of a circular saw) and had we heard anything?

Well, the neighbourhood dogs pretty much bark non-stop, every night,  so the barking I heard on Friday night might have been relevant – or not.  Talk about crying wolf…

Maybe now the business will invest in some proper security (although I doubt it.) As I remarked to the nice policemen, we get all sorts of cars and stray people down the end of the street because there’s no street light.

I called Mum and Dad at their new Adelaide house last night, too.  Week one, so they’re still trying to unpack, but they seem to be going ok.

I’m still trying to get rid of STUFF – there WILL be books leaving via Bookcrossing this week!

Remember travelling as a kids, and stopping at the various town parks for lunch/loo break/parent sanity break?  I’m sure there used to be one of these rockets in every second or third park (the others having an old steam train or traction engine parked in the concrete, possibly with signs asking”Keep off” but inevitably climbed all over).

I knew there was one in Toowoomba! I even have a (very) vague memory of stopping here as a kid… the rope climbing structure in the background wouldn’t have been there, of course.

Sadly, the bottom of the rocket is welded shut – I guess climbing into confined spaces is considered too dangerous these days.

Mum and Dad are mid way through The Big Move.  By this time next week they will have started to settle into their Adelaide house…

As you can see from the clear blue sky, it’s not a terrible day here – provided you can keep out of the wind. But at just on three thirty in the afternoon, it’s about time to start shutting up the house to keep the warmth in ….

(washi tape frame from Kitschy Digitals kit, recoloured)

One of Mr Beloved’s dear friends sent a care package today, (thanks, Prote!) which included two coffee mugs from the recent Atheist Convention.  Also lots of computery geekery bits and pieces which have made Mr Beloved very happy.  So here am I, in the middle of a hot flush (just looooove that red faced look, NOT!) in our kitchen.  On the left of the photo you can see that the kitchen table has been completely taken over by art supplies; on the right of the photo you can just see the laundry, complete with the unemptied recycling box perched on top of the washer.  It’s just non-stop glamour around here, let me tell ya!

Speaking of glamour – I won a gift voucher to iSUBSCRiBE, thanks to the wonderful Girl With A Satchel.  I read GWAS blog every day because she saves us money: I wait and see her review of magazines before I buy them, especially if they’ve been wrapped in plastic (ooh, anyone else just hear the Twin Peaks theme?!).   I’m trying to decide between getting 12 months of Vogue Australia (which I buy maybe every 2nd or third month, it’s pure fantasy) and  Country Style magazine (which is also pure fantasy, but with expensive kitchens instead of expensive clothes.) So far I can’t make up my mind.

You’d think having hot flushes would be useful in the colder weather we’ve been having, but sadly my face is the only part that gets hot.  I find myself lying in bed at night with a damp facewasher on my cheek while my feet rest on the hot water bottle.  Very odd. I’m not sure if the flushes are physical or psychological (or both, since can you really separate the two?) but I DO NOT LIKE THEM.

Not much else to report here: it’s cold, I hate my medicine, we’re trying to get more things done each day (Mr Beloved is currently building pelmets for the lounge and bedroom windows, to try and keep some heat in); my nose is still very sore and swollen, and my throat still hurts when I yawn.  I’m slowly recovering from the surgeries – s- l-o–w—l—y.  And I’m continuing to work with the psychologist and psychiatrist and GP to try and manage my anxiety and panic attacks.  Not getting much reading done.

Right, getting too cold here, back to the house to do the dishes so my hands warm up!

There is actually a reason for this.  It’s a special tree and Toowoomba seems to have more than its fair share of stupid vandals.

Connie took me for another walk in the park today.  I am finding that I get very sore from this, but sleep well – although for about 14 hours at a stretch.   Which is ok but kind of cuts into the day a bit.  I try to keep busy so I’m not getting too anxious – sometimes it’s take each MINUTE at a time, not even each hour.

Here’s another pic of the mystery tree that I though might be a Rose of Sharon tree.  Susan suggested this could be a Tree Peony – I can’t tell from the pictures I’ve found online.

sorry for the darkish picture, it was around 3:45 this arvo.    So it’s kind of a shrubby tree with lots of trunks… hmm.  not that I have room for one in  my yard anyway, I’m just curious about what it really is!

And tonight on tele: Dr Who and Winston Churchill and Daleks – woo hooo!