Scatterday H(uh?)

Ok ... it is still Friday (or at least it was when I started writing this), but I am tired and I won't be here all day (or night) on Saturday ... well I will be here from midnight until when I get up early in the morning, but then I will be off 4WDriving and BBQing, then home for a few minutes before I head off to "sleep over" at a friend's place (she is organising a surprise birthday party for her partner ;-) ... then I am leaving her place after lunch on Sunday and going to an evening BBQ with some people from work (some who still work there and some who used to) so if I don't blog scatterday now, it won't get done until ... probably Monday or maybe even Tuesday night!
... which is probably when I will post the other half typed thing I have saved as a draft.

anyway ...

This week is brought to you by the Letter H and Colour, Games, Pointy Things


Ok ... what sort of a colour begins with a H?! ... time for a "Google" - LOL
hmmm - found a page of HTML colour names:
http://www.cryer.co.uk/resources/javascript/html2.htm
ok - "Hot pink" or "Honeydew" ... how boring ...

This site looks more interesting:
http://chir.ag/phernalia/name-that-color/
- it has LOTS of "H" colours!
see:

... I can honestly say that until I found this website, I didn't know there was a colour called "Horses Neck"!

... there are more H colours too - they wouldn't all fit on the scroll bar thingy at once ... how about "Hippie Green"? lol



Ok ... enough silly colour names - now I need to find a "H" game - I was going to grab a bit of chalk and draw and photograph a hopscotch thingy on the road outside (unless the kids in the street had already done one lately, in which case I would have just needed to take the photo) ... but I forgot to go outside and do anything like that before it got dark ... I also don't own a hockey stick, or one of those "Hungry Hippos" games, and I have never even seen a game of Hurling, and I never thought of taking a photo of someone Hitting a ball, or saw anyone doing that this week anyway... so I had to settle for a "Hangman"


Now I need a pointy thing?
I thought about taking another photo of the computer screen, showing this -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasta_%28spear%29
... hasta la vista, enemy of Rome ...?

and I also did a search and found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
and was thinking of taking a photo of the sign langauge for H, because it is 2 pointy fingers (and maybe also the coloured semaphore flag for H for a H colour ;-)
or I could have just taken a picture of my pointing Hand? LOL

but then I remembered I have heaps of these:

- pointy crochet Hooks!
(and a few other pointy and not so pointy things - the lid, at the top, is full of all the other stuff that was in with the hooks - pencils, pens, scissors, bigger hooks, etc) if you click on the photo to see the bigger version, you might also notice that one of the crochet hooks has a pointy other end! ... I am not sure why though ...

I guess that lot will do? - I am feeling too lazy to do something weird like take a photo of a pointy Hot skewer or something more creative ...

... but I did find this photo while I was waiting for the others to upload onto the computer:

DH thinks this POINTY plant is Horrible ... but the dog seems to find it interesting - actually I think he could smell something living under it ... but I was not GAME to go poking around under there because the prickles Hurt ...

S is for ... Scatterday

Hi people ... yes there actually IS someone else reading this ... there must be - a few of you are leaving comments - LOL - I am glad you like this weird stuff I post/write! LOL

This week, for Scatterday, we are supposed to do:
Letter - S
Categories - Fruit, Things that make you itch, Gold

Yay - that was a lot of fun! ... but I guess I should really put the photos onto the computer so that I can post them here - LOL

... I was going to do that about 2 hours ago, but I kind of got lost here - http://canuvworms.blogspot.com/ (it was one of the "blogs of note" on the main page of blogger, when I went there to sign in to write this blog post ... so of course I had to check it out ... and I am very glad I did!)

anyway ... time to upload those scatteerday photos and put them in here ...

< andrea grabs memory card and starts uploading photos, and "looses" another 3 or 4 hours! >

(I wonder if those pointy brackets will vanish too? ... had to do funny things to make them show up like that ... otherwise they just vanish - because they are used to put html code inside ... so I have to type something in html that makes them show up as pointy brackets, instead of just typing in a pointy bracket ... no wonder us nerds/geeks/whatever are such odd people - LOL)



First, I had a (much needed) haircut on tuesday, so here is something that makes me itch - Short Sharp Spiky hairs Stuck in my Shirt and Sticking into my neck!

well - you can sort of see them in the photo ...


for Fruit, I was hoping to find what is a common sight at the high school I work at - squashed bananas ... but there were none this week ... so I had to Settle for Some Squashed Sultanas on a Skewer:

actually I am not sure these are sultanas (Dh did the shopping) but they look the same anyway (just didn't taste as nice as the last lot of sultanas I bought)


For gold, I figured i could photograph my gold and white Socks:

... on the floor in the shower - LOL



I also had a few other ideas that either didn't "cut the mustard" or were extras, that I didn't realy need because I already have 3 ... like this one - I found this Spider at work this week, but at the time i couldn't remember exactly what the catagories were, so I took a photo just in case it would fit into one (besides - who cares if it didn't fit into a scattagory - this Small Spider was rather cute! ;-)


When I went to get the camera (to take a couple more photos, then put them on the computer) our cat - Spook - decided to wander into the Shower ...

not that she fits in any of the catagories ... except maybe she is a FRUIT cake! lol
(actually she goes in there to drink the water off the floor!)


I also snapped a photo of the Stuff I bought on Special at the Shop that was having a closing down Sale ... some of it (braid on bottom right) Has GOLD in it ... LOL




Before I remembered about the sultanas in the fridge, I was thinking maybe I could get DD to make herself a banana smoothie so I could take a photo ... then DH mentioned that there was some other fruit in the freezer ... what a great excuse to have some desert!

- a "berry" nice smoothie - LOL - I like blackeberry/etc smoothies, but not banana ones ... btw - the pinkish bag (that has the spare camera memory cards and batteries in it, and the card reader and computer cord) and DD's purple jumper sleeve match my fruit smoothie rather well - lol

There was also a bowl,with some potatos, on the bench next to it -

... they look kind of GOLD (they tasted yummy too!)



While I was in the kitchen, I suddenly remembered the GOLD Spoons/etc that DH and I inherited from his mum:

- a teaspoon, a tablespoon, and a desert spoon.

... and while digging them out of the drawer, I found this weird banana Slicer!


... then I turned around and found a Swimming carnival certificate Still Stuck to the fridge!

it is DD's, from primary school ... she is now in her 4th year of high school! ... time to sort out the junk stuck up on the fridge? LOL
- it looks a bit greenish in the photo, but it is printed on GOLD paper ... and, for some odd reason, DH sometimes calls a certificate a "Siffticate" ... actually I do too ... probably some stupid ARMY slang we both picked up?

Then I found a yellow/gold "Something" in these shelves (next to the fridge) ... actually a bit of some kind of construction set (like a plastic version of Mechano) ... and when I was lining up the photo I realised that the Sodastream gas clyinders have GOLD tops on them!


... and it didn't stop there! - walking back past the TV, I realised that the cricket might be able to be used for scatterday too -

GOLD Stumps in front of a GOLD Sign, while the Green and GOLD Aussies are playing against Sri Lanka

and - perfect timing? - a Spectacular catch?! in the "golden" hands of one of our team ... lol

yes - that is getting a bit tenuous - LOL

but surely a GOLD Sunset isn't?

I found this in the photos I was putting on the computer - I took it a couple of days ago - not becaue of scatterday - becuase we get a lot of good sunsets and i like taking photos!

and I took this one just before I put the photos onto the computer -

a Scratch (on my arm) ... which made me ITCH - that is the only reason I noticed it was there! ... it was probably a result of a rather rough game I had just been playing, with our cat, Spook!


taking photos, of my right arm, left handed - is not that easy ... maybe I should have just taken this one - another scratch, on my left arm!

actually that is a worse photo than the other one! LOL
... but it also shows a Scab - and they also ITCH.
(which is why I tend to Scratch them)

Just before I pulled the card out of the camera (to put it in the card reader thingy) I realised I was drinking some wine (made frome grapes = fruit - LOL) that starts with an S

a Sangiovase Shiraz
... actually it is a Shiraz Cabernet in the glass, but when I went and grabbed that (empty) bottle - DH noticed what I was doing (I had told him about the scattagories thing while I was taking those other photos in the kitchen) and he went and got this bottle instead ... ok - sort of cheating ... but it looks the same and I am drinking some of that bottle now! ... well - my other glass got empty, and DH DID leave the other bottle in here ... LOL

The other funny thing is - the description on the bottle of wine kind of fits me! - "An enigma I am, straight forward I am not, my make up a mystery that shall never be got" - LOL
Yep - sounds just like me!!!

also sounds like Diesel - our GOLDen Retriever, Seen here (on the floor beside me, while I was taking photos of the bottle of wine!) Scavenging/Scrounging a Snotty tissue! - he likes to eat used tissues! (yuck!)

I was originally thinking of including a photo of him wet - a Soggy GOLDen Retriever ... if u want to see that one - look Here - a Soggy GOLDen dog with a big Stick - LOL



and now ...

... it is time for this Slightly Sozzled FRUITcake (me!) to go to bed ... lol

btw, DD had a brilliant idea ... but I don't have one to take a photo of ... a Mango ... the Skin/Sap makes me itch (I think I am allergic to it), they are fruit, and the flesh is gold ...
... and now I feel like some mango! LOL
(I can eat them ok ... just need to be careful peeling them ... or get someone else to do it! ... if I touch the mango skin, then any sensitive part of my skin (face, arms, etc) then I come out in a swollen exzema type rash ... very itchy and yuck ... and it is not a good thing to discover that fact by handling a pile of mangos and then scratching/rubbing your face ... very itchy and not a pretty sight! LOL


yawn ...


goodnight


but b4 I go ... better check out http://michellewatters.blogspot.com/ and see if the boss has posted hers yet ... oooh yes - she has ... and posted the next weeks Scattergories - now I have to start thinking of things for the letter H, and Colour, Games and Pointy Things ... that could be a bit of a challenge (hmmm - can I get some students at the school I work at to play "hangman" on the whiteboard, with coloured, pointy pens? LOL)

I think I need to sleep on that one ...

... well ... I know I need to sleep! - and i think had better go to bed before I go to sleep on the keyboard! LOL

Sorry

Sometime in the not so distant past some Australians did some pretty horrible things to some other Australians ... I wasn't born yet, but it is possible that some of those who did those things were my ancestors ... things were different back then, and I guess they had their reasons, and they may or may not have known (or cared) what effect it would end up having, but either way, those who had those things done to them have been asking, for several years now, for our government to say Sorry ...

It needed to be said.

It has now (finally) been said.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/kevin-rudd-says-sorry/2008/02/13/1202760342960.html

Now let's move on ...

and by that, I don't mean lets do nothing/forget about it, I mean lets keep going and fix what needs to/can be fixed (if anyone knows how?) and help our nation move on to greater things ... in other words, I hope today's "sorry" isn't just an empty word - hopefully we can all make it mean something ...

and, no, I am not talking about just throwing some money around and hoping it will all go away - that hasn't worked yet, so why would it start working now?

I had better stop before I start sounding political or something - I am not particularly political - I know next to nothing about most of the stuff that goes on in politics ... but I do know that politics seems to get tangled up with a few more things than it probably should ...

Andrea,
probably "thinking out loud" here ... and probably putting my foot in my mouth or something, knowing me ...

Scatter 2 days late ...

I didn't forget that it was Scatterday on Saturday - I didn't post this because I wasn't near a computer!
(I was here - http://www.4wdspectacular.org.au/ - I am a member of one of the clubs that run the thing, so I was out there helping (for some of the time) and having fun (for most of the time) all weekend, and I even slept out there - in my swag in the club's display tent! ... anyway - I can tell you more about that later - probably in my next post sometime in the next day or 5 - because I don't want to be 3 days late with my scatterday post! LOL)

btw, I am pretending I am not posting this a day or 3 late - I have not looked at what everyone else has posted yet, because that way I won't accidentally get any inspiration/ideas from them before I have posted this lot.

This week was: the letter I - Yellow, Australian, Something you would find in the air ...
... and I had already thought of (and taken photos of a lot of) stuff for most of it by about tea time on Sunday!

So ... what did I come up with?

I was hoping to find a yellow fly - then it would have done all 3 things - been an Insect that was yellow, Australian and often found buzzing around in the air ... but I didn't fine one so I had to make do with this lot:

If this was a contest and/or I had to just do 3 things - I would have chosen these first 3 ...

Yellow:

Indicator paper ...

The same stuff that has the Interesting Instructions on it - see this post.

Australian:

Indigo - an Indiginous plant ... on the Internet - LOL (in case you can't read the URL on the photo ... or you want to click on it rather than type it - it's here - http://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/gnp1/indigofera-australis.html - the "anbg" stands for Australian National Botanic Gardens - which are here in Canberra ;-)

Found in the Air:

Insects ... 2 different moths (or maybe at least one is a butterfly?) on the lawn ... one of them had yellow underneath, that showed up when it was flying - but it was kind of impossible to get a photo when it was flying in the air!

I also had a few more ideas:

Inflorescence (which is a fancy word for flowers ;-) with YELLOW middles.

I could also call it "Infusion" - because I think this is Chamomile - which is used to make tea (which is an infusion)

In the bin ... with a yellow lid ... but using something like that is kind of cheating a bit though - LOL

A "yellow" dog Investigating (well he is sort of yellow - he is a GOLDEN Retriever after all ;-)

I am not sure what he was sniffing/looking at ... possibly the yappy dog in the next yard, or a "present" the cat left buried in the garden ...

I kind of got a bit weird with this one ... the peg is yellow, the Hills Hoist (clothesline - Ingeniously Invented In Australia) is Aussie and the undies are In the air ... I know ... a bit silly ... lol

More Insects ... not yellow though ... but they are Australian

and I could get really technical and say that because they are not mature adults yet that means the stage of development they are at is one of the several "instars" they go through (an instar is the technical name for a stage of development in an insect that hatches from an egg in an Immature (another I word ;-) form and then goes through a number of moults before the final one where it comes out as an adult). These are a species of Praying Mantis (or is that Preying? ... I probably should look that up sometime - lol) ... and from their small size I would guess they have at least a couple more moults to go before they grow up.

They are related to stick insects - which is what I used to keep as pets for a while ... the stick insects ate gum leaves, but these things eat ... stick insects! (and whatever else they can catch) ... how do I know? well, apart from the fact that I learnt that in science lesons/on tv shows/etc - I have also seen one catch and eat a rather pretty moth that I WAS trying to take a photo of until it flew away ... and landed in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time! I also found an even smaller one of these 2 or 3 years ago, and at the time I happened to have a similar sized stick insect that was not looking too healthy (sometimes they would loose a few too many legs and not be able to crawl out of their skin properly the next time they moulted) so I put the 2 of them next to each other and watched nature do what nature does - "eat or be eaten" - LOL (yes - one ate and one was eaten ... no prizes for guessing which one was the "winner")

can't see them in the above photo?

- here they are:

now you can see how small they are ...

I took 2 more photos, that I can use for this scatterday, on Saturday:

a yellow sign, In the air ...

... with Information In the tent underneath (info about the Land Rover Club - which I am a member of - which is why I was out there - this club, and 2 others in the ACT run this show every 2 years!

It is also Australian too I guess - all these pictures are, because they were taken in Australia and are of stuff we have/do here - even the one I cheated with and took a photo of a web page - it is an Australian website!

BTW - see that white picket fence - on Friday night I parked the Land Rover next to it, moved the table, and rolled out my swag inside my own little "yard" - LOL (I slept outside the main tent because the snorers were sleeping Inside it!) ... on Saturday night I didn't have the LandRover there (DS took it home because he needed to borrow it to get somewhere) and there was a snorer inside (again) - and the snoring was coming from right near the white fence, so I rolled out my sway a bit further away (out of the photo to the left, still just under the awning so I would not get rained on, but far enough away from the snorer that I couldn't hear him - luckily he wasn't very loud or I might have had to go find a vacant awning on an exhibitor's stand nearby! lol)

I also took this photo late on Saturday evening:

the slide is yellow, and the top end if fairly high up in the air, but it doesn't start with I ... but Inebriated does - and the people at the bottom, who had just gone down it, most likely were! ... I was too ... only slightly though (it's a bit hard to get too drunk on 3 or 4 light beers), but I went down the slide a few times too - and I would have done the same thing totally sober. We were also probably doing something slightly Illegal (and some might say Idiotic?) - we kind of snuck on there after the owner had gone for the night - it was a few hours after the show had closed! btw - the funnly bright white bits are reflective strips on people's overalls (the SES people who were there doing security patrols/etc overnight) - the reflective strips were Illuminated by the lights.

anyway ... it has taken me ages to do all that, and it is now way after "bed time" ... so I had better go and get some sleep ... perchance to dream ... of some good ideas for this week's Scatterggory - "... things that start with the letter S. Not just anything - the categories are Fruit, Things that make you itch and Gold." I wonder if there is a gold, itchy, fruit that starts with an S ... there IS one that, for me at least, ends in an S - Mangoes ... although it is actually not the yellow/gold inside that does it - it is the green skin on the outside - or rather the sap in the skin ... I can eat mangos ... just can't touch them! (well - is ok on my fingers for a short time, but if i touch one then touch my face or something that area will come up in a puffy, itchy, red rash!) ... which was not a good thing to have happen the first time I peeled and ate mangos in the bath with the (then toddler age) kids and we played boats with the skins!)

ahrgh ... I am itching just thinking about it ... LOL

... actually I was itching before I thought of that - I think there is a mozzie in here! - which is all the more reason to hurry up and post this and head off to bed ...

goodnight!

H2O

I'm not sure if it looks right in the post title from your end, but it looks right here - H₂O - LOL (I had to use html tags to get it to say H₂O instead of H2O, and I am not sure if they work in the post title ... although when I look at the "Preview" it seems to be ok ;-)

Anyway ... why do I need to be able to type H₂O?
... well - it could be handy for all sorts of things, but at the moment it is because I want to post about my entry for a quilt challenge - and the theme was "H₂O"!

Anyway - here is the quilt partly finished:



This was before I put the black tulle on top and stitched all over it ...

It is for a challenge being run by a quilt group in Tasmania ... I think I found out about it via a yahoogroup I am on ... and the quilt had to be A3 sized, and include some or all of the 2 scraps of fabric we were sent, and fit the theme of "H₂O"
So I came up with one of my usual weird ideas, and made this quilt, which I have called "H₂O" - Elixir of Life"

I fiddled around and did this to show what fabrics were the ones I was sent to use:

I have a little bit of the "water" fabric left (another bit about the same size as the 2 bits on the quilt) and the original bit of "snail" fabric was a smaller bit (about the same size as one of the 3 bits I cut the other fabric into) and I now have a bit with 2 snail shaped holes in it left over - lol
(we didn't have to use all of each bit, just had to use at least some of it)

Here is the finished quilt:


The quilts that we all sent in for this are going to be exhibited and probably travel around to a few places for up to a year, then they will either go into a community wall hanging or be sent back to their owner (we were given a choice - I chose to have this quilt sent back to me at the end - because I like it! ... and I am not part of the "community" where they are going to hang, and I am not even sure I would ever get down there to see the quilts hanging in it )

btw, for those wondering how to do the "H₂O" thing, I had to actually go into the html editor and type " H < sub > 2 < / sub > O " (but without the spaces - had to put those in there so it didn't do odd things!)

aaahhrrgghhh ... that did say what it was meant to, but it changed itself and doesn't want to show up with a <> in it! ... I think I finally fixed it ... for now ... who knows what it will decide to change itself to by the time I post this! ... the joys of swapping back and forth between a html editor and a wysiwyg editor and a preview thingy ...

and, because blog posts are written in html - to type a "<" and a ">" and have it show up as that in here, I have to type "&lt" and "&gt" (I learnt that one a year or so ago ;-)
and then I had to do &quot for the " in one place because the ampersand (&) symbol is used in html code and that was messing things up too!

... just thought u might like to know that - amazing what one learns while trying to do odd/silly things in blog posts and/or e-mails ( - stuff like this)

...

Z is for Scatterday ?!

Oooo ... I just remembered this ... it is Saturday today - time to drag this post out of the "drafts" (where it has been waiting since I typed it almost a week ago :-) and post it -

Ok ... I couldn't resist joining in ... MW is posting weekly letters and categories on her blog and a group of people are then spending the week finding things to take photos of, that fit the letter and those 3 categories ... (I think she explains it better on her blog - lol)

Anyway ... earlier in the evening I read someone's blog and she had posted her Scatagories photos, so I got curious (again - I was too busy to do it when I first saw it last year) and I followed the link and found out that this week is the letter Z (and because not many things start with a z there are no catagories - just have to find 3 things starting with z ;-)

so ... a few hours later - here I am writing a blog post, and putting in the pictures (of my 3 z things) that I have just taken and put onto the computer ... and at the same time I am e-mailing MW to say that I am joining in ... LOL

Anyway ... these are my Z pictures:

A pile of zips ... only some of the large assortment I have in my sewing room.

and ...

Some ZigZag stitch that I just sewed onto a scrap of fabric, to use for the photo ...

and ...

The word "Zoonoses" in my blog profile! LOL
(no I did not just put that there - it has been there for at least 2 years!)
I circled it in green on the photo, so it is easier to find.

I wanted to stand a toy zebra next to the zig zag on my sewing machine, but I don't think I have one ...






and now ... 'tis time to go and ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

(actually it is DH who does that - he says I do too, but he must be wrong - I have never heard myself snore yet!)

Actually it isn't bed time yet (but it was when I typed most of this blog post almost a week ago).

I suppose I could have found/taken some more Zzzzzz photos too ... like the dog and the cat and the kids sleeping ... or maybe I could have taken a photo of one of the jars of zinc granules in the chemical store at work yesterday ... or taken the camera when we went out to tea this evening and snapped a photo as we went past the National ZOO and Aquarium ... but then I am happy enough with my zips, zigzag and zoonoses .... lol

Now I have to start thinking of what to take pictures of for the Letter I and "Yellow, Australian, Something you would find in the air." hmmm ... I think I might have a yellow balloon at work (is it cheating to write an "I" on it with a permanent marker?), and if I am lucky the "fridge fairys" won't have eaten all the yellow ones form the packet of ice blocks that we had in the freezer ...
(anyone else have fairys who steal yummy stuff from the fridge/pantry? ... DH bought a 24 pack of fruit ice blocks, and nobody was told they were allowed to have any ... DS says he had one, and gave one to each of the 2 friends he had visiting, DD swears she never touched them ... but there are only 9 left in the packet ... I may be bad at maths, but I am not THAT bad ... LOL)