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Thursday, December 31, 2009

X ... is for ...?

The great unknown?

or X marks the spot - but what spot should I put the x on - the spot where the cat was asleep in the middle of the floor beside me, or the spot where she is now asleep, under the desk next to my feet? LOL

I guess the cat IS "the great unknown" sometimes - especially when one wonders why she does what she does, when she does/where she does - LOL

I raved on about all sorts of x words the last 2 times we were up to the letter X for ABC Wednesday ... including posting a whole pile of photos of Xanthorrea and other eXciting? things ... like Xylem and Xenolith etc - most of which can be found by searching the www and/or looking in a dictionary ...

There are not a lot of well known words starting with X - so I am sure someone else can post about X rays and Xylophones and stuff

... and a few ppl might resort to mentioning "The X Files" or somesuch ...

and others may even resort to stuff where x is the second letter of a word (eXciting eh?) ...

or maybe even words like "Xmas" etc where X stands for something else (like in Xmas where X is short for Christ because it looks like a cross ... or something like that)

... although what is really odd is where X gets used to fill up a space because someone decides that something has to be there - like DH's work e-addy - and that of a lot of other people (mostly government employees) who don't have middle names, but their IT people decide that e-addys need to have first and second initial and last name ... so if poor old Fred Nerk has no middle name his e-addy ends up being fxnerk @ wherever (and yes I did put spaces in there - so someone won't click it and accidentally send an e-mail to the somebody who probably DOES have that for an e-addy ... then again ... if someone was mad enough to have that as an e-addy they probably did it to be silly and therefore deserve every silly e-mail they get! LOL ... unless of course there IS a family who have the surname "Nerk"? ... I feel sorry for them if there is!)

Then ... there are those, often artists or musicians and the like, who want to put an X in their name for whatever reason - most because they think it sounds mysterious or like they are some kind of unknown entity or superhero or somesuch ... oddly enough - I even know a musician who is not famous yet (so he is still an "x" - unknown), but he quite possibly will be famous sometime soonish, who goes by a name with an x in the middle - Miki X Deus ... I have known him for a few years (but only by his first name - he is a friend of some friends of mine - and he often visits them at the same time as I do) but had not heard his music (it was an x - unknown - to me - lol) - he released his first CD a few weeks back and I listened to it the other day (he gave me a copy too - hmmm - I might have to get him to sign it next time I see him ;-) ... odd thing is - the stuff on his CD is nothing like what I imagined his music might sound like - but I really like it!

(btw ... I think his music also sounds better than his website looks too ... but maybe I am just fussy about what websites look like? ... or worried that some of the people reading this might be? ... lol ... I think what I am trying to say is if you don't like the look of the website (it does look a bit like a weird heavy metal/etc website) go listen to his music anyway - you might be surprised at how good it sounds ;-)

now ... where was I?

actually ... I was sitting in front of the computer ... still here from when I posted my (late) W post (in Which I said I was about to go Walk the dog) ... I decided to start writing the X stuff while I had a few things in mind, before I forgot some of them ... but now I am going to leave this saved as a draft and see what happens ... I eXpect to post this in the neXt day or 2 ... but we will see ...

X marks the spot I was up to when I eXited this and went to walk the dog?

(and if/when I do post this later you will know that I walked the dog at 3am and came back ok without becoming a story line for an episode of The X Files or somesuch - lol)

X


ok ... it is now the next night ...
and ... actually ... it was about 4am before I got out the door to walk the dog ... and the way he dogged my footsteps as soon as I got up from the computer I am sure he must have known what I was planning to do and was making sure I didn't forget/change my mind or something - LOL
(he also took me a bit further than I was going to go too - we got to the lane way that I was going to go up and he decided that we were going to keep going a bit further down the street before we headed back toward home - LOL - but it was only another 5 minutes or so longer that way ... although I think he would have kept going even further if I had let him!)

... methinks I might go to bed a bit earlier tonight though ... lol

(not that it is early even now ... but it is not as late as I was in here last night, and the dog has already had his walk this evening)

Now ... are there any other X things I should mention? ... maybe XML? - which is what you get if you subscribe to this blog as a feed (using your web browser, a feed reader, or via one of the buttons way down at the bottom of my rather long side bar ... lol)

hmmm another x - as in another unknown factor - I was just fiddling around and noticed that there is a new version of this editor thingy ... that one can choose to use, or leave it as the old one (I think I saw that a month or 2 ago but didn't change it at the time, then forgot about it) ...  I just read what blogger says about it and it says it does a few things better ... and a couple of those things it does better/differently are things I figured would be handy - like how I can add photos ... so what better excuse to add one or 2 in here than wanting to mess around and try it out - eXperimenting - LOL

... I guess I had better FIND a photo or 3 to add ...

er ... oops - I forgot to add this Water dragon to my w post! LOL



... it was at the botanic gardens when I was there a week or 3 ago ... I Went somehere nearby and Was early, so I Went for a Walk in the garden for a While ... and took lots of photos - LOL

now ... back to X?

I have been searching the www while writing this post ... looking for any interesting x things I didn't know about ... and trying to work out if I went to any places that start with an X when I was overseas earlier in the year ... I may have been at or near Xanthos ... but I am not sure ... lol

but ... I did find an interesting Australian plant called Xanthosia rotundifolia - also known by the common name of "Southern Cross" - LOL

hmmm ... this newer version of the text editor works eXtremely well, btw ...
(well I hope it does - I guess the real test is when I post this and make sure it really does work ok - and u will see what time I actually post it, rather than the time I started writing it, or the time I changed it to, like it did with the old one ... although I can still change what time shows up if I want to, but I am not sure if I can backdate it or just schedule it for future posting ... I will probably find out if I do some eXperimenting - lol)

ok ... one more picture - also not really an x ... but it is time I went and got some sleep!
















ok ... a bit weird? ... I was actually at the art gallery at the ANU School of Art (looking at their graduating artists exhibition) ... and I noticed that this collection of cleaning stuff, tucked away in full view under the stairs, looked a bit like a work or art too - LOL
(hmmm nice contrast between the white and the primary colours, pleasing composition ... whatever ...?)
I didn't notice those plastic wine glasses on top of the fire hose box when I took the photo! - looks like someone was having a good time at some time ... (probably at the opening of the exhibition in the gallery a few days earlier maybe ... which possibly means that the cleaners are better at tastefully arranging their buckets and stuff than at noticing the rubbish that needs cleaning up? ... then again - they may only be paid to do floors, not things like benches and the tops of tables and fire hose boxes ;-)

er ... now it is nearly as eXtremely late as last night ... but don't plan to walk the dog this time so if I go to bed now I will still be an hour earlier than I got there last night - lol

so ... in case I am not in here actually posting something at midnight tomorrow ...

Happy New Year ... and all that stuff ... lol

and, seeing this is an "X" post (about the letter x, not an x rated one ;-) I will even sign off like I do in my e-mails to Mum and Dad (and used to do in my letters, back in the dim dark ages before e-mail) with some kisses - XXXXXXXX

(note: these are "peck on the cheek" type kisses, like one does when greeting people etc, not sloppy romantic ones - I AM happily married after all!)

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

W ... is for Where have I been and Why have I not posted for a few Weeks?

What? ... actually I have not been anywhere ... but I have been busy ...

Anyone who actually reads this blog (there are one of 2 of you I think ;-) is probably wondering Where I am ... especially seeing I Was supposed to be posting something every Week, for Wednesday ABC ... in Which We just happen to be up to the letter W this Week - LOL

The second last thing I posted here (besides the post on Christmas day) was a few Weeks ago, back in November, when I cheated and posted about the letters Q and R at the same time. I did start writing a post that covered the letters S and T ... but I didn't have time to put the photos in at the time, and I kind of never got time to do that ... I might do that sometime soon, or maybe I should save it for the next time we get up to the letters S and T, if Wednesday ABC keeps going for another round. (if it doesn't, maybe I should just work my way through the alphabet again anyway? ... then I could do U for Up too late, and V for very busy/Very disorganised or somesuch?)

Anyway ... What else should I Write about for W?

Water?

yes - Why not ... how about a link to a Weird TV advert, which is currently airing here in Canberra, about saving (not Wasting ;-) Water - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxW8oRuimdM

Why Would I Want to post about a TV commercial?

Well ... becuase I am IN it!

... somewhere ... lol

It was filmed about 12 weeks ago, during the last lot of school holidays, and I got to jump on a mini bus With a few other people and go and be part of it all (then I Went for a Wander around Floriade, and Walked to a resteraunt Where I met up with DH, Who drove there, and W had a Wonderful meal).

When I Watched the ad I couldn't see any close up shots of myself (those must have ended up "on the cutting room floor ;-) but there are at least a couple of shots of lots of people pouring Water that I know I would have been in ... I think I can see someone that looks like it might be me in at least one of those ... that is if I remember correctly What I Was Wearing that day ... LOL

btw, there is one other Weird thing about that TV ad - there was/is also a bit of controversy about it - seems that some other group is upset because this lot stole their idea of using blue buckets - http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/11/2768455.htm
- I don't see What the problem is myself - they are both after the same thing - trying to get people to save Water - seems some people Will argue about anything - LOL

W is also for Weird ... if you want an example of something Weird - just read any one (or more) of my blog posts! LOL
(or even just this one - I think it definitely qualifies as Weird!)

A While ago, I think I Was thinking of posting something about Wool for W ... probably the thing I Was talking about maybe posting for R, but didn't ... and Was then going to post for S becuase I could have also done that, but then I got busy and decided to do S and T together instead ... I kind of Want the Wooly one to have a post all of its own, and I don't think I have ever got around to taking any good photos of it eiher, so that one might have to Wait until We get up to another letter I can use it for (possibly C, for crochet/colour, ... but most likely D for dying, because that Would Work better, and I have other crochet stuff I can, and Want to, post about for C - lol)

Of course I also Want to say W is for Wishing you all a Wonderful Whatever it is you celebrate at this time of year - Merry Christmas/happy holiday/Hanukah/etc or Whatever, ... and a happy New Year if I am not in here again before then to say that - lol

er ... yes I was here again before Christmas - but I posted a short Season's Greetings one on Christmas Day and WAS planning to finish and post this one the day after ... but I kind of didn't get around to that until now ... oops ... as usual - lol

hmmm - I Wonder Why I didn't just post this at the time that I Wrote most of it? ... probably because I Was called away from the computer in the middle of it and never got around to coming back (blogger has this really handy thing where it automatically saves stuff as one is Working on it ;-) ... then I didn't get around to logging in and editing it because I was thinking I probably needed to add some photos ... hmmm ... but What photos Was I going to add? ... probably the one I posted on Christmas Day actually - the "Christmas Card" one that I had not actually created yet - lol - yes that Would be it ... LOL

hmmm ... methinks I might just not bother With adding any photos to this post - seeing I missed being able to add my link to the ABC Wednesday Mcklinky thingumybob anyway ... maybe I should just date this post as being yesterday - seeing that is only about 2 1/4 hours ago ... and then start working on my X post ... then again ... my X post can probably Wait a little While (as long as it isn't a Week late like this one is!) - because I kind of Want to Walk the dog before I go to sleep ... yes I know it is nearly half past 2 in the morning - the dog Won't care What time it is! ... and I have been sitting down for the last hour or 2 in here, and an hour or so before that in front of the TV with DH (and I have been inside most of the day sorting out some junk that got put in a pile in the lounge room "just for now" and stayed there for Way too long) - so I feel like I need a bit of fresh air (it is summer here and not cold outside tonight) and excercise - half an hour Walking the dog before I go to bed is probably healthier than going to bed and then lying awake for an extra half an hour (or more) While feeling Wide awake and Wondering if I should have Walked the dog before I came to bed - LOL

yes ... this post is definitely Weird, as usual ...

well - it could have been Worse - I could have posted all about Wee, or Weevils or Weeds or Wiggly bits of anatomy or Whatever that you Weally don't Want to know about ...

Friday, December 25, 2009

Seasons Greetings


Chrismas Day is almost over here so this post is sort of a bit late ... but better late than never?

Merry Christmas

... or if Christmas isn't your thing then happy whatever else you might happen to celebrate at this time of year ...




yes ... I messed around with a photo I took the other day ... I didn't do much messing around with it though (scribbled on it so the street lights became Christmas trees, added the words and re-sized it smaller)... this new(ish) computer has a slightly different lot of photo editing software on it and I can't find some of the weird stuff I used to use in the other one and don't want to spend all night looking for it/fiddling with it (and if I did do more stuff I would probably go too far and make it look worse, knowing me - lol)

btw - the reason I took that photo is because I like how the moon looked.
(you should be able to click on the photo for a bigger version if u can't see it properly)
... it also reminds me of a song I like - "The Whole Of The Moon" by the Waterboys - which will now probably end up going around and around in my head for ages ... probably while I am trying to go to sleep or something - LOL

Monday, November 23, 2009

Quilt Retreat ...

I was going to post about Quilts for the letter Q for Wednesday ABC ... but I kind of never got there ... in fact it is almost time for the letter S (I notice I have also just missed out on being in the linky list for R ... I Really should get myself more oganised - LOL)

But while thinking, the other day, about what I could post for the letter R I Realised I could cheat and post something about the Recent Quilt Retreat I went to.

It was the Canberra Quilters Annual retreat, and a great time was had by all ... and of course I took a whole pile of photos ... the first one was of some angels someone had made from some fringy stuff - I won't include that one because they are not my work, and I only took the photo so I would remember to have a go at making something similar (I have some of the same fringy stuff and the photo is all I need to remind me how she made them ;-)
The second photo I took was of some food, with my "block of the weekend" that I was sewing - the Retreat theme was "spots and stripes pyjama party" and the block was stripey and spotty stars ... and I just happened to notice that my slice of ... slice - lol ... that we had for supper just happened to have stripes on it!

stripey bit of slice next to a stripey star appliqued on some fabric

(hmmm all those S words - Should I make this my "s" post as well? ... tempting ... but I am hoping to maybe post about something I did at a place that the name starts with an S ... although I might Save that idea to use for the letter T because it also involves Textile art, and/or I might find/take some pictures of some of my stitching, and/or at least I should be able to throw together a few Sunset photos if I don't get organised enough to do one of the first 2 ideas ;-)

I also took some photos of people ... but I won't put them here because I didn't ask any of them if they minded being on my blog ... and some of them might mind - especally the pictures I took while we were all dressed up in our spotty/striped PJs (and/or silly slippers - lol)
Drats ... I should have handed someone my camera to get a photo of me - I dressed up as a banana in pyjamas - LOL
(then again ... my costume wasn't a very good likeness of either B1 or B2 so it might frighten any kids who saw that photo!)

The Quilt Retreat was out of town, in a place with lots of bush/trees and stuff ... so ...

I also took some photos of Rocks

patch of ground with pretty coloured rocks

and Rabbit poo!

a strangely pretty picture of a rocky patch of ground covered with rabbit droppings

... on some rocks - lol

and some 'Roos (Kangaroos)

Mum kangaroo and her Joey with sunset sky behind them

with Red clouds behind them ... I then went around the other side of the building and noticed the bright orange sunset, which then faded to a bright Red one:

wonderful red sunset

... and then it Quietly faded to grey ... lol

(by which time it was getting Quite dark ;-)


Quick - Run away - before I get too ... Silly ...

Monday, November 09, 2009

Peeling Paint ... etc.

After much thinking and wondering, and some Procrastinating (which I am very good at hence the fact that I am now finishing and posting this last weeks ABC Wednesday post more than a few days late!), and noticing that although I have a few unfinished Posts, saved as drafts, that would Probably be quite good P ones for ABC Wednesday, they already have titles that suit them way better, but don't have anything to do with P ... so I have spent the last few days Pondering about a few other Possibilities ... "Playing with bleach" was one of the things I was thinking of Possibly Posting for P ... but it already has a better title ... so I got to thinking ... it really is time I Posted about something else I have actually Produced, rather than just raving on about stuff ... I can use Crochet for a C post, and Quilts are always good for Q ... but what about P ... I have not done any Painting lately ... but ... then I remembered that I have been taking photos of Paint ... Peeling Paint ... on my friend's Laundry ceiling mostly!

... there is actually a flicker Pool for Photos of Peeling Paint ... Perhaps I should Put these Pictures there?

[photos of peeling paint ... preferably from a few different years, in chronological order?]


er yes that was about where I saved this post ready to come back later and Put the Photos in ... but I Procrastinated a bit ... so now this Post is a bit late Perhaps?

now ... where about on the 'Puter did I Put those Photos?

- all over the Place actually - there have been several different occaisions where I have ended up taking photos of that same lot of Peeling Paint!

The Problem is not so much where the photos are - they are in folders filed under the dates they were taken ... Problem is - when DID I take the Photos of Peeling Paint?! LOL

I found a Preying mantis and some Prickly Plants - which I have Probably Put on this blog already, some time in the Past. I also found a Photo of DHs ripped Pants - but I would not be Popular if I Put that here becuase he was still IN them!

... no, not in that folder - that was some Primary school Play the kids were in ...

hmmm ... here is one of Pixel (the other cat we used to have) on a Pink and green mystery quilt



- yes I chose pink and green fabrics to do a mystery quilt ... and I was actually Pretty Pleased with how it came out! - in fact it was Perfect!

er ... here is the "brag photo" I got someone to take - the finished quilt hanging in the quilt show, with me standing beside it ... I don't usually bother to do that any more (unless someone comes up and says they want to take the photo for me ;-)
this was taken [andrea looks at date on photos] ... eeek - 9 years ago ...



a Pink sunset:


I took that one from the top of some mountain - a Pile of us from the Land Rover Club went up there and had a Picnic tea together ... the we all drove back in the dark and I took a Pile of Photos of People, when someone got a Puncture and we had to stop while they changed the tyre ...


[a night and most of a day Passes - I was feeling a bit Peculiar, and it was getting rather late, so I went to bed (I felt really tired, which is unusual for me at that time of the night when I have had enough sleep the few days before, which I had done - think I was fighting off some cold/bug which I seem to have fought off ok because I feel fine today)]

ok ... back to Perusing folders of old Photos ...

I just found this Purrrrfectly cute Pottery Pussy Cat that DD made when she was quite little



(I think she made it at school or somewhere - it is clay, but it kind of never actually got fired in the kiln so it is probably rather fragile ... and one ear kind of fell off too ... but I still have that so I could probably stick it back on with a bit of "waterglass" and maybe get it fired sometime ...)

ok ... right Place ... but no Peeling Paint in this lot - however this photo shows some Peeling wall Paper!



... and 2 people doing Peculiar things! LOL ...


The house we used to rent, a couple of streets away from this person's place, also had Peeling wall Paper ... and both had been done without Putting any kind of Primer onto the Plasterboard/whatever that the walls were made of ... and both have/had bodgy/dodgy elecrical wiring and other DIY stuff done to them ... I wonder if the same idiot built both of them? ... or maybe there were just a lot of idiots building houses when that area of Canberra was built on ...

oh btw - I am not sure what Peculiar thing we were doing to Poor "Mungo" (the fabric creature in that Photo) ... I ended up taking quite a few Peculiar Photos at that Party, and someone else took a few more Peculiar Photos with my camera - I think were were Probably getting Particularly P... er ... tiddly - as one tends to do when Participating in the consumption of Port and/or other alcoholic beverages, at Parties ... and I think that one was a Particularly Pleasant Party too.
(and yes that is me in the Photo ... and the top of the head of the Person whose house we were at ;-)

ah ha ... found the Peeling Paint ones I was looking for ... back in 2001 (a month or 3 after the Party ones)



Does that laundry ceiling need re-painting?


no - why re-paint it - it looks too interesting - it takes years to make a "work of art" like that! LOL

... but it doesn't take long to make a "work of art" like this one:

(this was part of one of my photos of the Peeling Paint - but I fiddled around with the colours in a Photo editing Program ... one with a P title - Paint Shop Pro - lol)

I was starting to wonder if I had been imagining that I had a Pile of Peeling Paint Photos, except for the fact that I remembered creating that blue one ...

... but I had forgotten all about this one:

Particulary silly isn't it? - I think I did that to send to my Dad or someone - lol

ok ... I am sure I had some other Peeling Paint Photos ... but I don't know when I took those either ... and I really should Post this Post before it is time to do Q ... which it will be in a day or 2 - oops?

I suppose if I find some more Peeling Paint Photos while I am looking for Q ones (I might see if I can find a few Quilt photos ;-) then I can always do P.S. for this Post before I Post the Q one ...

Yes - I am a bit Peculiar ...




Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Oh No, Missed ...


... a couple of weeks of Wednesday ABC ... again ...

I Must have been too busy?

My M was possibly going to be some Musings on a few things, and was definitely Meant to Mainly be Me Mumbling on about My adventures with Making a Multicoloured crochet shawl using some leftover wool (Maybe Merino?) and turning it into a rainbow with vinegar and food dye in the Microwave oven ... I guess I Might be able to use that for R or S - lol

N was going to be all about how Naughty I was to miss my M post ... and possibly I was going to find photos of a few Not so Nice (and maybe even Nasty looking?) things which I guess you are spared from ... for Now ... LOL

Oh well ... I guess it is now time to ramble On with some O things ...

Oh dear ... I wonder what I should post about?

(maybe it is a good thing that I didn't get a good video of something that someone else who was watching the same thing did get one of, and e-mailed it around to his friends with the title "Oh Dear" ... lets just say that if one is going to decorate one's house and yard like a Christmas tree, complete with lit up model reindeer on your front lawn, then one is sure to attract a bit of attention, and there is at least some likelyhood that some of that attention is the sort of attention one would not want, which upon seeing the security video the next day, might lead one to come knocking at the door of the house where the party was and ask them to make sure their guests please refrain from doing THAT sort of thing in their yard ... what sort of thing? - well, the guy who did it was a "Kiwi", and was rather drunk, and it was the sort of joke that some people consider to be (even more than?) a little bit "Off" so you will just have to do what he did and use your imagination)

Ok ... ?

... oh?

that was not ok?

oh well ... oops? LOL

sorry

I guess I will have to think of some Other things to put in here:

hmmm ... there must be some Odds and sods that I can post about?

I wonder if I took a photo of the Orange bag that I made?

[andrea saves post and logs out, goes to bed (it is rather late ... almost "stupid O'clock"), gets up, goes to work ... and hopefully comes back in here sometime b4 this has to be posted, and goes looking for photo]

A day or 2 later:

... I didn't get around to comeing in here last night, but I did happen to find (and put somewhere where I could get it if need be) that orange bag ... just in case I can't find the photo of it that I am fairly sure I did take ...

I also just decided to have a look at how many posts there are on my blog ... and thought I was getting quite close to the 250 mark ... until I noticed that I actually have 19 posts saved as drafts! LOL
(one or 3 of them are Wednesday ABC ones too ... including one called "O etc" that actually Only has a couple of ideas for P and S typed in there ... and there is also an N and an M one, each with a few ideas "jotted down" in there, that I didn't actually post LAST time we were up to those letters - so I guess I have missed those 2 letters twice around now - lol)

Anyway ... I guess I should see if I can find the photo of that Orange bag ...

but first ... if I want to call it "Oh" instead of "Zero" - O is how many friends I have on facebook ... LOL
(yes ... I sort of got side-tracked and ended up signing up to faceblerk ... somehow I can't seemyself actually using it much ... lol ... I had to do it though - because DD told me not to ... but I didn't bother to send her a friend request, I know she would only say no)

[another day passes]

... it is now Wednesday evening - I was going to finish this and post this last night, but I was still working on it (well - more like getting side-tracked with other stuff) when Tea was ready, then I went to a meeting, and didn't come back in here when I got home (because it was rather late) ... so now it actually IS Wednesday ... which means I had better finish writing this and actually pOst it.
(actually it is more finding and adding photos and stuff that I need to do - I don't think the last 2 or 3 posts had any pictures in them at all so this one needs at least one)

btw ... Facebook is stupid ... seems that if I want to have a user name (well why wouldn't I want to be "Aykayem" there, same as I am almost everywhere else online?) I have to "verify" my account ... I thought I did that ... but no - I have to put in my mobile phone number and do it via SMS ... now why would I want to do that? - I don't intend to actually USE facebook on my phone ... what if i didn't even have a mobile phone? ... and why the heck should I need to give them MY phone number (and probably access to then send me junk I don't want to be sent) just so I can call myself by my online name?! ... yet another of the many reasons why I am blogging here on blogger, rather than one of those other places - LOL

Ok ... now that I have told Facebook Off ...

Oh - I found that Orange bag photo ... found it faster than I found where the photos are on this computer (it's new, and I wasn't sure which letter the external hard drive that had them on was - there were 3 of them listed - DH likes his technology, which is fine by me because I like using it - lol) ... the photo was actually in the 6th folder I looked in ... one I almost didn't look in, and kind of only did look in there because I looked in the one before it by accident - they were both folders of 4WD trip photos ... but there were one or 2 other odd Orange O photos in there, because I took them last year when I was doing a post for some other Odd alphabetical blog thingy that used to happen (it kind of stopped because the person doing it got rather busy and was finding it a bit too Onerous a task thinking up random letters and catagories of stuff to post - we were sort of playing blog scattergories - lol)

here is the bag:

>


and the O post it was part of is here (so I didn't even need to find the photo to upload - all I had to do was what I did, and go and copy the link from that post - why put it up on blogger twice? LOL)

and ... like I said in that post - it was 3 O things in one photo - an Orange bag, an Orange crochet Ornament ... and an Odd one out (isn't a textile item, and I didn't make it) - an Orange carrot ...

I know - I am Odd



At least I didn't write all of this post in Orange!

But I did find another Odd Organge photo:



an Odd photo of Orange street lights shining Orange light Onto the road, with an Orange sunset in the background.
(I wasn't quite On my Own when I took the photo though - the dog was with me ;-)

Ok ... I think I have finished this post ... time to say "Over and Out" ...

(before I get tempted to compose an Ode to the letter O Or some Other Odd thing?)




Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Lost In Cyberspace

I often end up getting "lost in cyberspace" ... my excuse? - well - usually something along the Lines of "I was Looking at someone's blog/a Link someone posted to the quilting List I am on and I found a Link, which Led me to another Link ... " and it sometimes even continues along the Lines of "... I found another Link where I ended up Looking at something that I Liked ... then I found that page I had seen before and Lost ... " or "and I found that stuff I had fogotten that I wanted to go Looking for ... " and of course I kind of end up Loosing several hours of the day/evening, usually when I should have been doing something else instead!

Actually that is sort of how I ended up finding our about ABC Wednesday (well - I guess I could have ignored it and not joined in ... but ... it Looked like fun ;-)
... and as you might be able to guess from the fact that the title of this post starts with an L, and most of the L words in this post have a capital L - this week we are up to the Letter L ... LOL
(and I am acutally typing this a Little bit early - it is Sunday ... so I will probably Leave this saved as a draft and finish it Later ... or if I finish it before it is time to post it I might Let blogger post it for me when it is time - Like I have done for a few of my other posts - including that rather Loopy K post)

it was Like that today ... I was Looking at a blog post (one I am subscribed to - it gets sent to me in a daily e-mail, along with anything that is posted on any of the others I am also subscribed to that way) ... and it had a Link to this Little article that someone had in a new quilting magazine, and has posted to her blog - the article is at http://quiltinggallery.com/VirtualQuiltingBee.pdf (the blog post is here - http://quiltinggallery.com/2009/09/30/the-virtual-quilting-bee-how-quilters-connect-online/ )
and there was one of those "you also might like" links on the bottom of the post and one of them looked interesting - so of course I had to go there ... "365 Days of free motion quilting designs" sounded way too interesting to miss!
... she is up to about day 50 something ... I think I had worked my way back to about day 9 when she mentioned a website about henna designs ... which reminded me that I had been meaning to Look that up and maybe use them for quilting or embroidery designs sometime (not sure what Life I am going to have time to do that in ... probably not this one, seeing I already have a Lot of ideas and not much time to do them all ... )

hmmm - seems there is a Lot one can do with Lines ... I Like these Lines - http://www.hennapage.com/henna/what/gallery/twiddle18/
(when I work out how to find an extra 50 hours in each day I might have to print some of these ideas out and use them for inspiration for quilts/etc.)

[an hour or 2 passes]

oops ... I got lost again ...

there are Lots of Lines in these photos -
http://www.highton-ridley.co.uk/monochrome/index.html
... for some reason black and white photos often work better than if one had used colour (lines, texture, contrast etc all stand out and make thinks look different than they do in colour) ... but the colour ones are nice too.

I found that site because I folowed a Link there from his blog ... the Link to that was on another blog - becuase he has a contest on his blog, which I am in the process of entering ... to win one of his photos one has to comment on his blog post about it (here - http://www.highton-ridley.co.uk/blog/2009/10/october-freebie-prize-draw-now-open.html ), post about his contest (oh drats - now you will all enter and I will have less chance of winning ... then again ... there are only about 3 people who read my blog so I guess that is ok - LOL) with the links to his contest and gallery, and go to his gallery at http://www.highton-ridley.co.uk/ and reccomend one of his photos.

so ... I will leave him a comment once I have a URL for this blog post, I have now posted about his contest here (with the links to his blog/gallery), and I have been and recomended a photo ... I have also added to the ever growing list of blogs I "follow" on blogger - that sort of happened as part of the process of recomending a photo - LOL ... I found quite a few photos I like, but I ended up choosing one which would make a great Christmas present to Mum and Dad - I found one that I think Mum might like ... if I win it then hopefully Dad will too ... lol)
this one - http://www.highton-ridley.co.uk/colour/pages/pebble-beach-front.html - which actually isn't black and white - LOL ... in fact what I Like about that one is that the colours in it kind or work really well (er ... spot the textile artist/quilter? lol)
hmmm ... I might go and recomend a black and white one too ... I Like this one - it has Lots of interesting Lines in it -
http://www.highton-ridley.co.uk/monochrome/pages/fencing-in-the-dunes.html
oh ... I think it said we also need to be his friend ... er ... OK - I will be friends with anyone who wants to give me free stuff that I want - LOL

er ... I have kind of Lost half an afternoon and half of an evening ... and the dog would have Liked me to take him for a Long walk ... oh well ... might not be a Long one, but I had better go take him for one now (Luckily neither of us mind walking in the dark).

If I think of any more L stuff , or get Lost in cyberspace and find some more, I will add it here Later ... otherwise this will (all things working ok/etc) post itself in the wee small hours of the morning on Tuesday.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

it doesn't add up ...

The other day, I was reading some blog or another ... and there was a photo of something that looked like a snake, but the person called it a "slow worm" ... so ... "curiosity killed the cat" and all that - I googled it ... no it isn't a snake, or a worm ... it is actually a legless lizard (and quite an interesting creature) - so I am now happy in the knowledge that the person who took the photo/wrote that blog post does know what she/he was holding in their hand, and I know it isn't a snake, and he/she isn't about to remove themself from the gene pool because they thought that all long brown things in the garden were worms ...

but ... when I read the entry on Wikipedia - here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anguis_fragilis

I got a bit worried about this bit ...

"it has been said that a slow-worm is the longest living lizard, living about thirty years in the wild and up to fifty-four years in captivity (this record is held by a male slow worm that lived at the Copenhagen Zoo from 1962 to 2009) "

er ... ok ... so the one at that zoo lived for 54 years? No I am not worried that a lizard can live that long, but ... it was born in 1962 - the same year I was ... and is either still alive or died this year ... either way it has been alive for about the same time I have ... eek! - am I THAT old?!!!!! ... have I lost a few years? ... have I actually been older than I thought I was all this time? ... I might feel like I am 54 sometimes ... but I am NOT - LOL
Methinks someone can't add up ... or can't coun't ... or made a typo or something.

Yes - a very good reminder that even though you find something on the www, even on a site with a good reputation/etc - it isn't always a totally accurate source of information.
(but try telling a high school student that! LOL)

... and now that you know what year I was born - you can do the maths and work out how old I am (or how old I will be when I have my birthday later in the year - lol)

hmmm what a pity I live in the wrong country to find slow worms in MY vegetable garden ... they look so interesting ...

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Keeping Up

... more like NOT keeping up actually - I seem to have missed quite a few letters for ABC Wednesday ... and that isn't the only thing that I seem to have got behind with ... sigh ...

Is it just me, or does life seem to rush by faster these days?

I thought about doing a late post for J ... but I am not sure you really want to read a post about Junk - lol (I could probably find a few pictures of rubbish to put here, or I guess I could have posted pictures of my sewing/etc stash - I collect all sorts of stuff and DH says that most of it is junk!) but the next letter is due in a few days so I decided I may as well start writing a K post a bit early - then I might actually be able to put one up on time ... if I remember to finish writing it ... I guess I could set it to post automatically anyway ... but last time I did that I never came back and finished it so this time probably wouldn't be any different - LOL

I guess I could still put some photos of my junk here and call it "Keeping things" ... LOL

(probably easier than finding photos of my Knitting - seeing I don't do much of that - I prefer to crochet ;-)

hmmm - I actually DID post a J post last time around (where I did mention my Junk) ... but without pictures - so I guess I could put them in here instead - LOL

I wonder what I would have posted for the letters I have missed?

G for gee I am disorganised? or goodness me where has the time gone?

H for how did I get behind again?

I for I don't know where the last few weeks have gone/I don't seem to ever have time to get all the things done that I want to.

... and J for just another boring blog post? LOL

but if you Keep reading ... I might eventually get to the point ... if there is one ...

maybe I should post about what I have Kept up with ... just ...

I did manage to finish some stuff for that ACTTAA exhibition that I mentioned in my last post
(yes - not just that quilt, but some other stuff too)

I finished this rather odd crochet rug (could it be a Knee rug? lol) for the exhibition:



It was meant to look like paddocks seen from above ... it does to me ... and to the person who told me it made her home sick for the area of farmland where she grew up ...

I also made this bag:



it is made from some odd fabric I found in my stash (I think it is linen ... looks/feels like linen ... could be anything - my fabric has come from all sorts of odd places). I machine quilted a few wiggly lines on it then hand stitched/etc in between them ... and added a few dangly/etc bits. The light green yarn is some from a ball of acrylic yarn that I bought at a farmers market in some town in the middle of Turkey! (it cost me the equivalent of a dollar, and I wish I had bought more than one ball! ... I used it to crochet a silly beanie - which I did on the tour bus the day after I bought it! ... if I had realised how good it looked used for embroidery/stitching, I would have bought more ... I guess when the half a ball I have left is gone ... I will have to use something else instead ... )

Those 2 things (the rug and the bag) and the black hole quilt I just posted about (and yes I did just write that post ... I am trying to get this one done BEFORE it is time to post my K post ... in fact I started writing this post yesterday) ... those 3 things were what I had on display in the gallery section of that exhibition.

I also made some stuff for the fashion parade ... I also modelled the stuff I made in the fashion parade ... people took photos of me modelling it, but I never got around to taking any photos of the stuff myself ... if I do that (or get sent any photos someone else took) in the couple of days before I post this (or it posts itself if I decide to set it to do that ;-) then I will put them in here ... but if not, I won't - LOL

The other section of that exhibition is the bazaar ... and I made some stuff for that too.
I also had a pile of stuff left over that didn't sell last year ...

I made these 4 phone thingys just before the exhibition, and the ear rings are actually some I made quite a few years ago!



I also finished this scarf that has been sitting almost finished for a while ...



... and I added it to the pile of a few others that were left over from last year.

and I decided to sell this plastic bag and beanies that are made from ... plastic bags!



and I had an idea and made up a few packets of bits of interesting yarn to sell:



I don't think much of it sold though ... I guess I probably should have put a bit more effort into it? LOL

I had a few more things for sale, but I either don't have photos of them or already had photos but not recent ones that I found when I dug these out - I took these last few photos on the lawn (or the fence!) next to the car park at the place I went to before dropping my bazaar stuff off on the way home, because I kind of didn't get around to doing it any earlier!

I did sell a few things ... have not sorted it out and worked out exactly what sold, but I noticed that someone did buy a fabric bowl that I made a few years ago, it was one that didn't sell last year or the year before ... my things are probably a bit odd, and therefore have a limited appeal ... LOL
(and there are a few very talented and quite professional people in that group - so there were a lot of lovely items for sale for people to choose from)

btw ... the clothing I made for the fashion parade is rather unusual too ... a crochet shawl dyed with food dye and vinegar (and a weird hippy dress I made to match it but will probably only ever wear as a nightie or fancy dress), an outfit made from 3 of DH's old business shirts (which actually ended up looking way better than I expected so I might have to wear that somewhere), and a skirt made from a too small around the middle skirt I got from an op shop and bleached and altered/added bits to ... which I might also wear ... sometime ... on one of the few ocasions where I actually wear a skirt instead of just wearing jeans/pants - LOL

oh - and the thing I mentioned that I went to on my way to delivering the bazaar stuff - was actually the trade display part of a green energy/etc conference, where they had a sort of a workshop thingy run by some people who are getting into making re-cycled clothing - like the stuff we have already been doing in the ACTTAA group ... I didn't have a lot of time to organise much but I took along a pair of old jeans and a pretty old green cotton dress (that I think I may have bought at an op shop because I liked the lace on it and the colour of it and was thinking of making it into something else) ... I ended up doing some slicing and dicing and started yet another UFO (Un Finished Object) - hopefully when I finish it, it will become an interesting skirt ... and I might have enough fabric/lace/etc left to maybe make a bag or something to match it ... but (like this blog post ;-) who knows when/if I will ever get around to finishing it ...

(yes ... I am putting a future time/date on it so it will be scheduled to post itself when that time/date comes around ... and if I get around to taking photos of that clothing I can still add them in here before it gets posted ... but somehow I don't see that happening - lol)

hmmm ... seems there is a glitch in blogger or this poor old computer ... or something ... I just hit the post button and it changed the date/time back to today, all by itself, and posted it ... then it let me edit it and change the time and date ... but it is showing up on my blog with Tuesdays date on it ... wow - time travel - LOL (or - really scary thought - did I just loose to days and it IS Tuesday?! ... hope not ... the time on the computer screen still says it is Sunday evening ... even if my blog does appear to think it is Tuesday already ... )

ok ... I think I fixed it ... so if anyone was subscribed to my blog they may have got this post early ... or if anyone just happend to be looking during the 5 minutes this post was up there early then they may have seen it ... I hit the "save as draft" button after I added the other purple edit and it is now NOT showing up again ... but it isn't listed as "scheduled" either ... sigh ... but ... "nothing ventured nothing gained" - now that the date/time seems to be staying how I set it, and showing up as one minute past midnight on Tuesday (which is what I did change it to before it changed itself back, and what I again changed it to when it then still showed up on my blog, but as being posted on Tuesday) ... I might just see what happens and hit the "post" button again ... and if it shows up early then it shows up early - it will "fix" itself when it actually IS Tuesday - because nobody who didn't look this evening or tomorrow will know any different - LOL
(well ... you wouldn't have if you had not read this - LOL)

Monday, September 28, 2009

Exciting Stuff?

... or just plain boring?

You can decide that - I just write the stuff - LOL

... if you can call this "writing" LOL
(which is probaly why I have decided to do a weird little Experiment with this post - it is explained in the other bit of red writing further down the page - which I actually wrote after all the blue stuff, but before this bit ... lol)

er ... this Ended up being an Even weirder Experiment than I planned (and probably not very Exciting at all) - seeing I am now typing this black writing several weeks after I typed all the other stuff! - ABC Wednesday is now up to the letter K!
(I posted something for F, and missed G, H, I and J ... and have a K post scheduled to post itself in a couple of days time when it is due) ... I wrote my F post early (probably in between writing the first few bits of this one) and I scheduled it to post itself when it was due ... which it did ... then I kind of got busy ... oops? or should that be Eek!?



I was thinking of doing my E post a bit Early, but I Didn't finish my D post Early Enough to Do that - LOL

I could post something about my DD, Erin - but I am not sure the sort of people who would find that Exciting are the sort of people I have (or even want to have) reading this blog - LOL
(Er ... that whole concept of people getting ... er ... Excited by looking at pictures of children/minors is just a little disturbing - lets not go there?)


Evening I figured, when I wrote the blue bits last night, that this would be a good place to start when I came back this Evening ... [so - start here!] ok ok - I am (eek - I am also talking to myself!) ... and I am also cheating and actually writing this bit last night - LOL

(which is why it is a blueish green ... or is teal a greenish blue?)

Anyway ...

er ... ok ... considering how little sense this blog post is going to make - do I bother writing about these things or just leave them as jotted down ideas and post about them next time around?


Eggs

eggsamples of eggs even?

I do have a good egg photo ... I took it yesterday ... but I think it deserves a post all of it's own - so I will do that later ... if not soon, then maybe I can save it for later in the year when we get around to the letter E again?!
(or if ABC Wednesday stops, I might just work my way through the alphabet again anyway ... it is a good excuse to TRY and post every week ... but as you can see - it doesn't always work!)

and, of course, I did say in my D post that I could put some photos of Egypt in here ... if I had the time I could put Even more than "some" - I took an Extremely large quantity of photos on my overseas trip.

Even Eastern Turkey ?

Energy

Entropy

Existential?

Existance

Exit

Extra

Extreme

External

Entry

E=MC2

Extraterrestrials ... terrestrials - Earthlings

Earth

Earth wires?!

Exhibition
(er ... I did just post about that ... well I just wrote it ... it will post itself the day after tomorrow)

[er ... that kind of gets complicated ... one thing leads to another ... or more than one other ... and it all goes pear shaped because it isn't linear!]

(maybe I need to re-draw these notes as a kind of diagramy thingy? with arrows and lines and circles and stuff ... [do that, scan it, and stick it in here?!]

ah ... here (in red, below) is the other bit that explains what weird thing I am doing with this blog post (and why it doesn't really make any sense at all ;-)

maybe I should put the stuff I wrote tonight (quick jottings of the few ideas I had already thought of while doing my D post, and a pile of other weird stuff I thought of as I jotted ...) in blue ... then when I come back later (tomorrow I hope) to finish this I should just add to it in a different colour (and if it takes longer than one "session" of sitting here typing, then change to yet another colour) so Everyone can get all Excited about seeing what my posts start with and how they Evolve and then how they Eventually End up looking?! ... now that could be an interesting Experiment! [and this yellow can be the equivalent of highlighter/post it notes?!]
[ then I can get down to buisness and write most of it in grey green then do my adding/edditing/putting more bits in stuff in purple ?]
er yeah ... and come back several weeks later, and take 5 minutes to find a colour I like that I have not already used for something else, and finish this poor Excuse for a blog post!

I guess this Experiment is a bit different to the ones the students do at the school I work at ... talking about work - I have work tomorrow - so why am I still UP?! (yes this is a bit darker blue because I actually added it after the red bits - but I did it tonight, before saving this and logging out, which I am now about to do).

Hmmm - this post is going to be a bit more all over the place/Everywhere than usual - it could End up being Extremely hard to follow. I guess you will just have to concentrate Extra hard? LOL

ok, now where was I? (out of my mind maybe?)
ear
earwig

End

endoscope

(does it Ever End at the end?

or is it Endless?

erk! - an endless endoscope?!

eeeeewwwww!

on that note ... I probably should just give up?!

[and set this to post itself tomorrow or sometime, and hope nobody notices? ... or put a date that is about a year ago so nobody actually finds it? lol]

... I would put the time/date on this for right now, except that I just posted something a little while ago and want this on a different day ... but it will be tomorrow in a few hours time, so I might set it to go out just after midnight ...

so how come I suddenly have time to do 3 blog posts all at once? ... well ... the quilt show is over, the ACTTAA exhibition is over ... and it is school holidays for the next 2 weeks ... and I don't have a deadline for something that has to be made/done tomorrow (although I do have some red inchies to make and post sometime in the next few days ... but I do have the next few days to make them in ;-)

I wonder if the date will change itself and do silly things on this one (it did with the next one, so it ended up showing up on my blog, but after some Editing/fiddling I managed to fix it so it vanished/hid itself again, and is scheduled to appear again on Tuesday)
but then I had to spend ages and ages fiddling with html tags that seem to have ended up all over the place and caused an error message (and not letting me post it until I manage to fix whatever one of the (not sure how many but it seems like more than 50) of those particular pairs of html tags had a missing "partner" - aaaaaahhhhrrrgggghhhhh!)

hmmm - this has probably got to be my weirdest (and worst?) blog post Ever!

btw ... I just noticed I still have most of a Z post, and part of a post about N and some ideas for O/etc, saved as drafts - from last time around - I guess I will have to try to use them when we get up to those letters this time - LOL

Sunday, September 27, 2009

odd socks ... and other things ...

... Ever noticed how you put 2 socks in the wash ... and one seems to go missing?

I have heard many people complain about that, and about the same thing happening to pens and teaspoons and tools and stuff ... yet wire coat hangers seem to multiply in numbers that indicate they must be breeding with each other or something ...

If you don't know what I am talking about you have probably never read the right blog posts, or been on an e-mail list/forum/yahoogroup for long enough to see the subject come up ... because the subject has come up several times on the newsgroups and yahoogroups I have been active on. (in fact the moderators on the scquilters yahoogroup recently had to tell everyone to stop going on about it because it was generating too much off topic e-mail - lol).

I decided to do a quick google search to see if I could find an example ... funny how the first result that came up in the search was this one - http://www.universetoday.com/2009/08/21/if-you-dont-have-an-lhc-heres-how-to-create-your-own-black-hole/
... hmmm - I think the reason for that might have been MY comment on there! (you should be able to find it not quite half way down the page ... or further down in this blog post if I remember to copy it here (I did - further down in this post) ;-)

the second thing that came up was this perfect example - http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=78511 ... change all the references to woodworking/screws/etc to quilting/pins/etc and it is almost exactly the same conversation as what I have seen on the quilting lists I am on - lol

hmmm - some rather odd results come up when one types "odd socks wire coathangers pens black holes" into the google search box - lol
(I found and had a read of a couple or really weird but quite interesting blogs and a rather strange, but interesting, short story ;-)

so why am I posting about odd socks/etc NOW?

er ... 2 reasons - the main one is because I just found a photo that reminded me of it.

I took the photo a few weeks ago ... after I took the washing off the line, and carefully put all the socks in pairs as I put them in the basket
(well - all those that were pairs - DS's socks never have pairs - they never get put in the wash in pairs because he usually just gathers up the first armload of dirty washing off his bedroom floor when he has a clean up of his room, and chucks it in the laundry ... and ... he doesn't usually wear them in pairs anyway! - he just grabs 2 socks that are near enough ... or the first ... or even the only ... 2 socks he can find in the mess on his bedroom floor and wears them.)

... anyway ... I DO usually wash mine in pairs
(except for the "pair" I have been wearing lately where one is pink and the other green - because they are the same type of sock, bought at the same time from the same place, and the other pink and green sock both have holes in them!)

but ... I only had ONE red sock ... and I knew I had hung 2 on the line the day before - becuase I actually remembered doing it!

The other one wasn't still on the line ... however it had been windy that day, so I had a look around under the line/around the yard to see if it had fallen/been blown off ... but there was no red sock lying on the lawn or anywhere I could see ... so I took the rest of the stuff off the line (no - the red sock wasn't IN something else - I checked - becuase our washing machine likes to play that game - it even stuffs shirts and things inside doona covers) and then I had a potter around and pulled up some weeds from the garden/lawn and picked up some other stuff that was lying around under the pergola (where the washing line that had the socks on is) ... when I just happened to glance INTO the bucket of water that was beside me ...



yep - found the red sock! LOL

... which ended up becoming one of the few examples of when one of my socks goes into the wash alone - becuase it went in with the next load of washing I did before it re-joined it's partner - lol
(well ... who knows what is in those buckets - probably a mix of whatever was in the bucket before I found it in the rubbish pile on a nearby building site, rain water collected as it ran off the side of the pergola roof, dust, dog slobber, and whatever insects/etc may have drowned in there)

btw ... this is the comment I left on that Universe Today post (which was about making tiny black holes without needing to use the LHC to do it):
aykayem Says: August 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 am
yes – let them make those black holes and do their research – before I lose any more socks! Black hole type phenomena have also been observed (by both myself and other members of various newsgroups/e-mail lists I have been active on) in relation to wire coat hangers and pens – there seem to be black holes which swallow up and/or spit out those items – and in some kind of pattern/proportion that results in this equation/rule – the number of wire coat hangers/pens/odd socks/etc that can be found in a location near one of these black holes is inversely proportional to the need one has for said item. I also seem to have a black hole in my sewing room (although I think it, or another one, may also sometimes be active in other areas of the house too) – and it seems to swallow things up and then spit them out again when I am no longer looking for them (usually when I have given up trying to find them, and used something else instead).btw – I have even made a (small ;-) quilt with a black hole on it – the photo is on my blog ( in this post – http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2009/01/other-4-journal-quilts.html )

hmmm on my comment on that post the ;-) shows up as a smiley face - I didn't know it would do that else I would have put another ) after it :-)

anyway ... that quilt leads on to the other reason I am posting all this weird stuff about odd socks, wire coathangers and black holes ...

well - not that quilt exactly - as you can see from that comment, and the link I put in there - I have already posted about that one ...

but ...

I have made another black hole quilt! LOL

and ... I have already posted a photo of that one too ... but only part of it ... in the post before this one - so now you get to find out WHY there is cat hair on my event horizon ...

The reason there is cat hair on my event horizon is because we have a cat, who likes to "help" me sew - so there is cat hair on all of my quilts (and on everything else I make) ... including this one:



(as usual - if you click on it you should get a bigger version)

I made it for the ACTTAA exhibition, which was last weekend ... which is why, in my usual manner of working to deadlines - I made the quilt the weekend before that!
... even though I have known for ages (almost a year) that the theme/title of the exhibition was "Heaven And Earth" ...

btw, the title of the quilt is "Good Heavens, Where Did All These Coat Hangers Come From? … and Where On Earth Have All My Biros/Keys/Teaspoons Gone?!"

oh - and for those who might be wondering where I got all those teeny tiny coathangers from - I made them out of paperclips!
(it created a bit of interest at work - me sitting at my desk, in my lunch break, bending paperclips with a pair of pliers - lol ... I did it at work because I knew where a pair of pliers were there ... I have a pair here at home too ... but they are "lost" somewhere in the pile of mess in my sewing room ... probably hiding in a box of bits for some half finished project or another ... )

hmmm ... talking about black holes - time seems to vanish into them too - it seems to have taken me just over 3 hours to write this blog post ... but I did eat my tea in the middle of it, and uploaded some photos, and read a few e-mails/etc ...


Thursday, September 17, 2009

There is cat hair on my event horizon ...

They say nothing can be seen inside a black hole, and nothing can exist there in any recognisable form ... but I guess cat hair can exist anywhere ...




so what exactly IS this?

... well ... it is part of a quilt, which I finished on Tuesday night, and delivered Wednesday morning - for the ACTTAA exhibition that opened this evening, and is on tomorrow/this weekend ... I will post a picture of the whole quilt later, along with photos of the other stuff I have in the exhibition, and maybe a few other photos of stuff that I have done and not posted about ... but I am not sure exactly when "later" will actually be - LOL

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Cloud 9?

... or #9 dream?

(well - getting all the stuff I want to do - done ... that is a dream ... LOL)

is this cloud 9?



or this?


or one of these?


or maybe this one?


or any of these?






Those were all around here ... mostly in the suburb I live in (while walking the dog) ... but the second one was near lake Burley Griffin, in the middle of Canberra.

This one wasn't in Canberra though ... it was somewhere on the way flying back to Canberra from Mum and Dad's place in Queensland



and these 2 were somewhere this side of Singapore, flying back from Dubai ...





I guess one could say I like taking photos of clouds? LOL



actually - the reason for this blog post is that I just had to have one go out at 09:09am on 09/09/09

(well - it seemed like a good idea when I thought of it earlier today ;-)

... but I will be at work at the time, and probably won't be anywhere near a computer (or if I am - I will be logged on to one to do some stuff I need to do for work, and won't have time to mess around blogging ... I have to type up some order forms, which I have wanted/needed to do for a while, seeing we have totally run out of some of the stuff I am ordering - but it is hard to do stuff on the computer if I don't actually have one on my desk! - I have to get some one else to log off theirs and use that ... ah the joys of working at a public school - no money to have all the things we would like to have ... sigh ... )

I probably should have done some reasearch and posted something interesting about the number 9 or something ... ?

Then again - that is what google search is for - lol

hmmm seems there is a movie coming out soon, with that title - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472033/ ... and I bet my DD will go and see it ... (she is mad about anything that Tim Burton has anything to do with - lol)
There are also a few bands and songs and games and stuff ...
... and there USED to be 9 planets in the solar system, until the powers that be decided that one of them wasn't big enough to be a planet.
and Wikipedia has the usual page of interesting stuff about the number 9 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_(number)

but I don't really have time to be doing all this (so why am I?! ... er ... because it is fun? LOL)

I really should be out getting some stuff ready for the textile art meeting I am going to tomorrow evening - it starts early so I am going straight there from work (via a shop or 3 and maybe an other place) ... and I should have been doing some sewing this evening ... but that kind of didn't really happen ... something to do with going out and having Italian food for tea (with some Lambrusco - mmmmm - lol) and then the evening just kind of didn't seem to have much of it left after that ... sigh ...

btw ... nothing much to do with the rest of this post - but I found the photo below when I was looking for some clouds - someone I know used to write "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade" at the bottom of her e-mails ... life?/someone/thing "handed" me some lemon colourd organza fabric, so I made a lemon quilt! - I found the bit of fabric in the op shop near work - the day before I needed to make a quilt if I was to have it to deliver the next evening for the Canberra Quilters meeting - for the recipe book (the chose the best ones to go in the book, then the rest of the entries went on the back cover as tiny little pictures ... mine was one of those - but that is ok - I like the quilt, and that is all that really matters to me ;-)




oh - one other quirky thing about 9:
I was born 9 months and 3 days after my parents got married!
(but I was actually conceived after the honeymoon and born 2 weeks early ... but apparently it really had the neighbours talking - lol)

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

fe fi fo fun

... or is that Phi Phi Pho thumb?
why phi twice - well - it can be pronounced as "fee" or "fi" (rhyming with eye) ... pho is Vietnamese soup ... and my thumb is one of Five digits on my hand ...
F is for Five, but what has phi got to do with Five? ... quite a bit apparently - http://goldennumber.net/five(5).htm

my mind is prone to Flights of Fancy ... LOL

I could have some Fun with Fibbonacci [or however one spells that]

I have started this ABC Wednesday F post almost a Fortnight early ... I happened to "Fink" of a Few ideas ... so I will File this away For now ...

hmmm - should I be Funny and set this to post automatically - so people will Find it here, Finished or not?

or do I want to wait a while and have another Fiddle with it (I might Find something else Fancy to Fascinate you all with?)

I guess I could have the good Fortune to "Fink" of or Find something else and Finish this beFore the date it is meant to go out ... maybe even a "Foto" or Four?

and if it goes out un Finished I could always Fiddle with it later ... if I Felt like it ...

so if I File it under "post later" or whatever (set so it should go out at Five past Five in the morning ;-) - then it will either go out un Finished ... or I might come back and rave on about Fabric or Feathers or Fur or Felt or Fibre or somesuch ...
(I Find all of those things Fascinating! ... and I use them all to make things, some Fine and/or Fantastic and some just plain Feral)
... and I have not even mentioned Fairys and Fae and Flying things (like Fruit bats and Flying Foxes)

hmmm - I wonder if this will go online before I write my E post? LOL ... actually it might even go live before my D post if I forget to log back in and Finish that tomorrow!
(I was going to do that now but it kind of got late and I still have to Find all the photos For it and probably Fiddle with a Few of them)

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

D4 ...

... is an even bigger explosion than you get with C4?

(or maybe one of R2D2's or C3PO's mob?)

No! - it is the Daft title I came up with when I logged in to blogger (where the first place I get taken to is my "Dashboard") and noticed that I called last year's D post "D" so that meant I would have to come up with something else ...

so what Dopey stuff can I Divulge about the letter D for ABC Wednesday?

I Definitely have to mention the Dog! (he Doesn't like to be left out of whatever is going on;-)

- I have lots of photos of our Dog, Diesel, on this blog - http://spot-theblog.blogspot.com/

(and a few on here as well - I knew labels were useful for something - )http://aykayem.blogspot.com/search/label/dog and/or http://aykayem.blogspot.com/search/label/Diesel ... another D word comes up at the top of that one - "Don't touch" - LOL - I Did enjoy writing that post ;-)

and D is Definitely for Desert - a rather Delicious part of Dinner to Devour ... oh Drats - I Don't think I have any ice cream in the freezer ... what a Disaster! LOL

(hmmm - Does anyone remember this Delightful (Disgusting?) concoction? - http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2008/01/sticky-bananas-and-other-stuff.html )

maybe I should talk about Devilled Kidneys instead (which I think are rather Delightful Do Dads to munch on, even if Dozens of people I know think they are rather Disgusting - even to the point of them Divesting themselves of whatever they were currently Digesting, and producing something Diabolical that seems to always contain Diced carrots ... oh - sorry - Did you just Do that too?)

D is also for Digress - which I tend to Do way to often - and you probably wish I Didn't after reading that last paragraph!

I probably Do that because I am Disorganised ... I am not even sure where to start Dealing with that topic of conversation - just read my whole blog and you will probably get the idea - lol

(you will also notice that this is not the only post that mentions, and/or has photos of, yucky/goopy/icky stuff that looks/sounds Disgusting - I tend to Delight in Doing that - I guess some people might find it Disturbing, and maybe they might think I have some weird Disease or Disorder? but who would Dare to Diagnose something like that? ;-)

Dictionary is one D word that I Don't need to actually go and use - I seem to be thinking of enough Darn D words as it is!

D is also for Dunlop Environment Volunteers - which is the Landcare group I belong to.
http://www.ginninderralandcare.org.au/category.php?id=26

... and for Distilled/De-ionised water ... not quite the same thing as each other but near enough for the "bucket chemistry" they do in high school science classes ... which is why they get the Dodgy De-ionised stuff whenever they ask for either one - because that is what we have ...

It is also what I Dissolve stuff in when I make up chemical solutions and stuff for the science classes to use ... but I had better stop talking about my work before I bore you all to Death - LOL

but - talking about science - DNA also starts with D ... and stands for DeoxyriboNucleicAcid or somesuch ... and is the stuff that gets Decoded to Define what we look like ... but just before I logged in here I found a rather Different page about DNA - http://goldennumber.net/dna.htm - it mentions the geometry of the Double helix and Decagons and Diagonals and Degrees and stuff - and could be Decidedly exciting for those who like to Delve into the mysteries of geometry and fractals and other weird stuff like that ... (a much more exciting part of maths than times tables and long Division!)

D is also for Dubai, which I WAS going to do most of this post about ... until I thought of a whole pile of other stuff before I even got around to opening my image editing software and finding some of my Digital photos that I took in Dubai earlier this year ...

I also just (when I first came in here and Decided to check my e-mail first) got sent a link that led me to this interesting blog written by someone who lives in Dubai - http://sonenskadu.blogspot.com/ (Definitely one I must remember to go back to another Day - and oddly enough, it was also her site that led me to the thing about DNA)

- you can Dally there for a moment or 50, while I go dig around and find MY photos of Dubai - lol


oh yes - I have Definitely got to include this rather Different one! ...



- some Daft cat ... Probably trying to lie Doggo in the Drainpipe until it felt that the Danger had passed. I Don't think it was stuck (but I wasn't about to touch it and risk having it Dive out and Dig it's teeth and/or claws into me or somesuch - not in some other country where they have horrible Diseases like rabies and stuff! ... and definitely not on the first Day of my month long overseas holiday! any kind of Disease or infection could be Dangerous when in a place where it can be Difficult to find a Decent English speaking Doctor)
I never Did see it's head - lol
but - Did you notice the Designs on the Drain cover (or whatever it is) ... a geometric Design ... and a Diamond - LOL


Mum and I also Did some walking Down at the Docks, on Dubai Creek - and we took Digital photos of Dhows (I think that is how it is spelt - they are the boats that were traditionally used for trade in these parts - and many still are) and watched the men unloading and loading stuff, and sitting around talking, and staring at us because we were female and female tourists probably don't usually wander around that area taking photos while it is getting Dark! LOL


... if you look at the horizon/buildings in the Distance (you can sort of just see them through the Desert Dusty haze) you can see some of Dubai's Distinctive buildings ... the tall skinny one on the right is the Burj Dubai ... which is probably going to become the world's tallest building (if they ever actually get it finished).

I took lots of photos of Doors:



single Doors

and Double Doors



... because I liked the interesting Designs.

I also like these Designs:



... this was part of the wall of a rather large (and rather blue) Mosque.

I am not sure what they are building here - but it also has some interesting Designs on it:



... but what on earth are those workers Doing?! (in orange clothing, on the scaffolding on the right) ... I wonder if there was a reason for them being all lined up one under/over the other like that? - maybe if was just so us tourists could take a Different photo - lol ... actually - they all look like part of one of those old "platform" computer games - like "lemmings" or something! LOL

ok ... just to prove that Dubai has/is Desert, and I went there:



not that this photo proves anything - tourist camels could probably be found anywhere - Desert or not - LOL
... I wonder if those thingys on their faces are crochet? ... could this be "Camel Crochet"?!
(yes there is a type of crochet called that - the stitches are done a bit differently than normal crochet)

The camels were where we went for our Dubai "Dune Dinner" tour (yes - we had to to the tourist thing at least once - lol) ... we went for a 4WD over some Dunes, stopped for a few desert photos, but we only stayed for a few minutes at the stop they usually use for the "Sunset photo" - because it was too Dusty and there wasn't anything spectacular to see in the way of a sunset ... it just kind of gradually got darker until it was night time ... lol
I think I did go for a camel "ride" (if you can call sitting on one and being led around in a small circle "riding" - lol - I guess that is what kids do for "pony rides" too ... but it was all pretty tame for a person like me - who has actually ridden a camel in a camel race! ... it was a long time ago ... back in "another life" - before I met DH, when I lived in Alice Springs for 3 years ... but I would ride in a camel race again now if the opportunity presented itself - LOL)

While the tourists were still fighting over the camel rides and getting henna tattoos and stuff, I went for a walk up a very big sand Dune:


... every time I thought I was nearly at the top ... another, even higher, Dune would appear behind it! I gave up when there was still at least one more much higher Dune behind the one I was standing on to take this photo - that is the Dinner "camp" Down in the Distance. Boy was I Darn puffed out when I got up there ... it probably took me 10 minutes to walk up there (I kind of needed the couple of "photo stops" I had on the way up - so I could catch my breath!) ... but it only took about 2 minutes or less to get Down - because I ran down - what fun - wheeeeeeeeee! LOL

After Dining on a Delightful Desert Dinner, while we were eating our Desert, we got to watch the belly Dancer Do her stuff:



she was actually quite good ... pity my photo wasn't!

After the show was over we got to spend a while sitting around and have a smoke on the water pipes (no - not opium or some other Deadly Drug ... just what was probably a little bit of tobacco with a pile of spices and apple and stuff mixed with it) ... then we piled back in to the vehicles for a nice Drive, in the Dark, back to our hotel in Deira City (one of the suburbs/whatever of Dubai).

Another tour we did was a Drive, in a bus, around a few of the other emirates (Sharjah, Fujira etc, and some weird little part of the country of Oman that is inside the UAE - the borders/etc do some odd things over there!)
I Didn't put a photo of it in here, but we got to take a Dip in a Different ocean Durning our lunch stop (hmmm I might have to do a whole blog post about all the different places I have been swimming - lol).

I think we were still in Fujira when I took this photo:



I actually took this out the window of the bus as we drove past! - I noticed how amazing the sun looked through the clouds, and I was taking a few photos of it over the craggy mountains beside us, when I noticed that this Minaret was up ahead ... and I did the usual thing I do on moving vehicles that are not about to stop just so I can take a weird photo - I lined it up and clicked when I thought would be about right, and hoped for the best - and in this case it wasn't "Did I get it? ... Drats, I Didn't" it was "Did I get it? - oh wow! yes I Did!" LOL
... and no - I have not Done anything to this photo, other than made it a bit smaller size so it wasn't too big for uploading - this is how the camera saw it - and how I saw it as well ... (kind of eirie, eh?)
Don't forget you can click on these photos to see them bigger (and if you want to see them bigger than that I guess you will have to ask me to e-mail them to you in their original size - lol - I doubt that anyone really wants to Do that though ...)

I actually got a few other good photos on that trip (to Dubai, etc) ... and quite a few of those "Drats I missed it" ones ... but that is enough for now - especially seeing DH got home from work while I was typing most of this last night (Monday evening), but I still had not added the photos - so I Decided to Do it "tomorrow" (Tuesday) ... which I Did ... but now it has got rather late again - in fact it is just past Midnight (so now it is actually Wednesday, but I might leave Tuesdays Date on here - lol - and the time I have just put on here is the time I was actually having my Dinner! - I kind of Didn't get around to it earlier because DH was at work and I was in here messing around finding/fixing the photos to put on here!)


The reason that the stuff about Dubai was only going to be "most" of a post is because I was also going to mention the other Deserts I have been to ... like the ones here in Australia (hmmm - maybe I should just let you google that? lol), and the other Deserts I ended up in while on the same trip that took me to Dubai - like the corner of the Sahara Desert that is in Egypt ... which had some areas that were quite Desolate, and some that were Delightfully Different (like the Black and White Deserts)

but ... seeing those were in Egypt, and, because the letter E comes immediately after the letter D, I could actually now be posting my E post - I might have to put some photos of that Desert in there!

but I Do have one for you to go on with ...



and I Didn't have to Dodge trees whizzing past a bus window to take this one ... we were camping for the night in the White Desert, and while the guide and driver were setting up camp I Decided to go for a walk - so I just had to Dash around to the right places to get the right angles to line up what I thought might make interesting photos as the sun set and Darknes Descended upon the White Desert ...
(and Mum started to wonder how much longer I was going to be as the guide and Driver had Dinner almost ready and apparently they were starting to look Decidedly worried about the fact that I was not back from my walk yet - Mum wasn't that worried because she knows me, but they Didn't know that I am me and I Do that sort of stuff all the time ... they also Didn't realise that even though I had Disapeared into the Distance, and had Ducked in and out from behind a few large rock formations, I could see exactly where the camp was and I knew it would only take me a few minutes to Dash back if it started getting too Dark - LOL)

oh Dear! - I hope you liked my (Decidedly Different? Disturbing? or just plain Daggy?) Dally into the Delights of all sorts of things to Do with stuff that starts with the letter D ...

(and I hope you Didn't find it too Disturbing? ;-)

btw - yes - D is also for Delivering this stuff Decidedly late! - oops! LOL




Note: the following paragraph probably makes no sense - feel free to Decide it is too Dopey and ignore it - I originally wrote it when I first started typing up this post ... then added the red bits later. (then I added this blue bit because it still didn't make sense anyway - LOL)
(yep - been too busy Doing other things ... maybe I should just post my E post at the same time - LOL ... nah - I Don't want to be a Day or 2 Early er ... no chance of that seeing I wrote this bit on Monday and it now IS the Day my E post is Due ! (just) ... so this whole paragraph probably Doesn't make any sense now - lol ... then again ... Early does start with an E ... but tomorrow is Early Enough - if I feel Energetic about it tomorrow Evening Energetic - maybe, but did that Eventuate? no - not when I didn't Even finish this post! ... or if I Even remember! I guess what I now need to remember is to come in here tomorrow Evening and DO my E post while there is still Enough of a chance that it will be posted in time for me to be able to add it to their silly linky thingy before it stops letting people add any more links)

wow - this post is a Doozy!