B

B is for ... Behind ... or should that be Belated? ... well it is only a Bit late for ABC Wednesday ... lol
- I was Busy last night ... or maybe just feeling ... er this is a NICE website so I won't use that other word that a lot of Aussies use ... so I will just say Bushed ... maybe because I am now Back at work after the Christmas Break.

But now I am here to ?Bore you with ?Boundless Beastly and/or Beautiful ... or are they just Bothersome? ... B words/etc ...

Yesterday I wasn't actually at my usual (Boring?) workplace ... I was off at a course for high school science assistants (which is what I am) and the course was called "Bending glass" ... not sure how useful it was, but it was interesting, and fun ... except that I touched the wrong Bit of glass (the hot one I had just put down - oops) and Burnt my finger and gave myself a Blister ... lol



(I know that hot glass looks the same as cold glass, but I forgot that I had just put that bit down a minute earlier - lol)

Unfortunately the Bunsen Burners were not hot enough to do any glass Blowing, but we learnt how to do some glass Bending and joining and made some interesting curly whirly thingys ... But I forgot to take a photo of the ones I took in to work today ... and now they are there and I am here ... B#%^#%& ...

The ones I took to work were a couple bits of leftover coloured glass that I was going to play with on the bunsen burner there (one lunch time or something) and a pretty green coloured twisty curly thingy that I made from a bit of glass rod ... but one end fell off so I was going to melt the sharp bit where it fell off from, and make the end into a bead (seeing it was a loopy bit with a hole in it) ... but the clear bits of bent/etc tubing are still here at home ...

So I just took a photo of those:



the top 2 are some leftover Bits I had not finished doing anything with, the next couple are flared out at one end and sealed at the other ... like if I wanted to make a test tube or something ... (as if I would actually have time to do that at work - lol) ... then there is a Big curly thing in the middle - had to Be Bent a little Bit at a time because the Bunsen flame only heated up a bit at a time ... and because it wouldn't work trying to bend it all at once anyway ... the next one has a loop bent into it and then one end is twisted then folded over into a kind of flat loop (so I can hang it up if I want to - lol) ... and the Bottom one has a flange at one end and a twist in the middle and a twisty point at the other ... I was mucking around to see what I ended up with ... I quite like that Bottom one, so of course that is the one that Broke.

Actually it is amazing that more of them didn't Break - seeing I went there and back on a motorBike, and I had to put my stuff in the Bag on the Back!
(Better than if I had been on a Bicycle though ... and a Bus would have been just as Bad ... or worse ... )

The Bloke who was teaching us about glass has a studio in a nearby town, called Binalong ... lol
(he also handed out Buisness cards, with the link to his website - here - which I am going to go and have a look at sometime when I am not Busy trying to write a Blog post)

btw, he also teaches Bead making ... I do not need another hobby, I do not need another hobby, I do ... er ... actually I probably can't afford it anyway ... sigh ... lol

(I already use quite a lot of Beads in my textile/etc stuff, and tend to buy them here and there when I find them at the right price or I reall like them - lol)

I also took a photo of this crochet Bag that I made in the car on the way to/from Melbourne the other week (we went down for a BBQ at DH's Brother's place ... )



hmmm ... more B words (I am finding Bazillions of them - lol) - the Bag is Brown and a Blueish/greenish colour ... (the zip is green)

Today at work I got to spend most of the day By myself ... all the teachers were off doing some course or something and only one of them came Back to work after it finished ... so no Boss looking over my shoulder - lol (not that the head science teacher is officially my boss anyway - but the person who is my official supervisor has her office in another building and does not have a lot to do with what I do ... so the person I get my "orders" from (who tells me what to do and what not to do and when) is actually the head science teacher ... and we don't actually have one at the moment - he just moved to another school and they have not had time to replace him)

Anyway ... I got to catch up on a few things, and unpack some Boxes of stuff I had ordered from a Big supplier in Queensland ... there are a lot of jokes going around about how Queensland is not just an hour different in time (which it is in Summer because they don't have daylight saving) it is 20 years behind the rest of Australia - LOL ... well - I think today I have found proof! - one of the things I unpacked from the Box was wrapped in a page of newspaper ... and have a look at the date!




(for those who can't read it/don't want to click on it and go to the full size image - it says "August 27th 1992! ... that was Before my teenage daughter was Born ...)

and yes ... that is an article about tractor sales figures - lol (country Bumpkins?)

also - no - those glass things are vacuum flasks, not Bongs!

I really should put that last photo on my Huh? Blog!
(seeing that is where all those silly sorts of things go ... eventually, when I get around to putting them there ... lol)

talking about silly Billy stuff ... maybe I should type in bold ?

I think this post is already long enough, so I don't have to go hunting for a photo of a Bee ...
(I have a few of those) ... and I am sure somebody else will have mentioned Beer ... and if you want something Bizarre then most of my textile art stuff, and most of my blog posts, probably qualify for that one ... LOL

But I do want to mention something called BOINC ... which I think stands for something odd like Berkely Open INfrastructure Computing ... it is where you can set up you computer(s) so that when it is not busy it can do number crunching/etc type work on various projects that are on there ... and one of those projects is SETI@home (Search for Extra Terrestrial Inteligence - where your computer helps them process the data for their search for Aliens - lol) ... which has actually been around for longer than boinc has (and has Been in the media/on movies/etc quite a bit over the years) ... DH has various BOINC stuff running on all the computers in the house (and seeing DH is into computers, we have a few).

Now, I started typing this blog post early in the evening, but I went and did other things for an hour or 3 and then came back, so now it is rather late ... so I really should go to Bed ...

Bye ...

Some Australian Wildlife and Sunsets and Storms ...

... well - sunsets and storms mainly - lol

but first - the "wildlife" photo I took today, while sorting out junk/boxes of fabric/whatever that I have stored under the pergola ...
(yes - boring way to spend Australia Day ... but DH was at work, and I wasn't one of the 50% of Canberra people who nick off down to the coast for the weekend, or one of the other almost 50% who either have a BBQ or go to one, and drink beer/etc while they enjoy their public holiday (actually neither of those % figures are that correct - there are probably quite a few people who don't do anything special for Australia Day - some because they are at work and others because they have stuff to do at home and/or just don't happen to be doing anything/going anywhere that day ... er ... like me ... LOL)

... anyway ... here is one of our wonderful Aussie creatures:



I took the photo after DD came out and saw it sitting there at the top of the kitchen window frame ... that is where it ended up after I found it an hour or so earlier - when it crawled out from under one of the flaps of a cardboard box of my fabric! And here is an Aussie sunset:



actually the sunset is off to the left ... almost behind me ... in this photo - this is looking NorthEast (roughly) over the Dunlop Grasslands - and the dog is in the bottom left corner (he wasn't in the origianl photo but the left hand side was just some boring house/etc beside the path so I cropped the photo) This was taken a week or 2 ago...

... and this was taken a few minutes later:



yes - the sky really WAS that colour!

... it also really was this odd greyish green colour a few days later:



This was a few days ago when we had some big thunderstorms - this was when the biggest one that we had here in Dunlop was coming - the sideways rain and wild wind gusts hit about 2 minutes after I took this photo - this was the same day that a few houses in Canberra lost their roof!
... and the next day, I noticed that my pile of boxes of dried plants, collected for making baskets/etc, had also lost it's "roof" - the sheet of plywood that I had over the top of it (the pile of boxes/etc was against the wall at the side of the house next to the fence where nobody goes except the dog and I, and I had made a sort of "lean to" to keep the rain off) the "roof" ended up a few feet away in the bush in the front yard - I am glad the bush was there to stop it - else it may have ended up in someone's front yard across the street!) ... the pile of plants were a bit wet, but the ones I still wanted dried out ok in the sun ... I have now sorted the pile out and thrown some of it out, and now the rest is in a couple of boxes under the pergola ... next to the boxes of fabric - lol

btw, I was going to do a separate blog post about the storm ... but once I decided to put those first 2 sunset photos in, and went looking for more photos of different colourd sky, I realised it kind of fits in here now - lol

So ... here is another photo of the storm coming



This was actually taken about 4 minutes before the one above - ominous green clouds above the pointy brown hills ...

... and this one was taken 1 minute before it (ie 3 minutes later)



Oh Oh! - where have the hills gone?! - LOL
about 2 minutes after this is when the rain squall hit - yes - of course I was standing out IN it! lol
(very handy thing this waterproof camera ;-)

- well - I had to stand out in it to watch the lightning and take photos/video of the storm clouds ... ... hmmm - seems the dog was watching the storm coming too:



... or maybe he was just looking to see what I was looking at - lol

There is a laneway beside the house on the left in that photo - when the rain and wind hit I suddenly realised that there might be hailstones or something and maybe I had better get a bit closer to some shelter in case the dog and I needed to dive under someones verandah or something ... so we ran down the laneway ... taking a video at the same time - lol - but it was a bit bumpy and blurry so I won't put that one here - I took another one as the dog and I walked down the street (we live several houses down from that laneway) ... as you can see - he didn't seem to care if it was raining sideways ... lol



This photo was taken 10 minutes after that first storm photo
(the camera puts some kind of time "stamp" in the image files so the software I use to look at/edit my photos knows what time they were taken ... it actually seemed longer than 10 minutes at the time - lol)



and yes - the sky really was that odd olive green colour.

It was also this colour about 24 minutes later:



- yes - after walking around in the storm I got changed into dry clothing and took the dog for the rest of his walk - LOL and took even more sunset/cloud/etc photos



(this one was about 10 minutes after the last one)

The next evening the dog and I went for another walk - and I took photos of this storm:



There is a bit of a hill where I walk the dog - has a great view of clouds/storms/whatever over the city!

In fact this one (same storm a few minutes later, with camera zoomed in) looks like it was right over the city



- the "hill" in the foreground is Black Mountain - and the tower on top of it is a prominent landmark that can be seen from a lot of places in and around Canberra.

Last but not least (well it was going to be the last one until I found another one while waiting for the video to not upload!) - sometimes we get sunsets like this!



this was tonight's sunset - with a rather smokey sky (the smoke has blown over from some bushfires down near the coast - which shows up really well on this satellite image ... if you want to have a look at what other images/etc you can get on that handy website, the home page is here ... the image I linked to is one of the "near real time subsets" (scroll about half way down the page and you should see that) ... but if that sounds like too much digging around then have a look at the "gallery" (the link is on the top of the page) - that is where they put the interesting looking ones.
btw ... downloading too many of those images is probably not recomended for those on dial up internet ... then again ... neither is looking at blogs with lots of photos and videos on them - lol

... talking about video ... I decided to try out the video uploading thingy on blogger (instead of using youtube/etc and linking, like I have done for the other videos I have put in blog posts - in fact I think the first one of 2 videos I posted - that was the only way to do it at the time)
hmmm ... the first one worked fine ... but the second one took half an hour ... er make that an hour ... and it took all that time to do ... nothing ... lol
but I found this while I was waiting, and decided to see if trying to upload it would kick start the video thingy ... photo uploaded fine ... video upload seems to be dead ... grrr ...



yes - another thunderstorm photo - taken in Feb. 2007 - I managed to catch some lightning lighting up the clouds (the yellowish colour on the clouds in the foreground is probably light reflected from the streetlights/city/whatever), and you can also see the southern cross (a constellation of stars that you can see from here in Australia, but not from the Northern Hemisphere) in the sky above the clouds! ... I was probably going to try and remember to post this photo for Australia Day last year, but I didn't ... LOL

hmmm ... if the video thingy still hasn't worked by the time I have gone and got a drink and come back (er ... it looks dead and I have not gone yet - think I might kill it now and then get my drink on the way to bed) - this blog post can get posted without it and I will try and add the video to it when I get up in the morning ... or should I say later in the morning, or even afternoon - seeing it IS morning ... in fact if I stay here much longer I could wander out to where I took those storm/sunset photos and get a photo of the sunRISE - LOL

[later edit, the next evening (was going to be earlier but someone else was using the computer at the time) ... re the video uploading problem last night (well early hours of this morning actually) methinks I will blame microstuffed windoze/internet exploder ... it turns out the video had uploaded, but some of the other stuff that was supposed to then happen in this post editor thingy didn't happen at this end, then the web browser totally froze when I hit the "publish post" button ... but thanks to blogger saving all this stuff as I write it so it is all there at that end anyway, it did publish the post ok ... minus the second video ... and when I just came in here expecting to have to upload it again I noticed it had put in the enclosure link up the top, but not the bit of html code it should have put where the video is in the post - so I had a fiddle around with the html and copy and pasted some stuff and now the video shows up where it should be ... (which is how I have learnt to do most of the little bit of html stuff I know - have a look at how it seems to work and fiddle with it to make something do what I want - lol)
anyway ... now this is fixed, off to do the other stuff I was going to do on the computer while the video uploaded ... like look up a map of where I am supposed to go for the work course I am doing tomorrow, so I know where I am going and can find the place, and read/answer e-mails and stuff ... and try not to get too "lost in cyberspace" while I am doing it ... lol]

The other 4 Journal Quilts

Another "better late than never" thing?

- I WAS going to do one Journal Quilt for each month this year - we even had a list of themes and techniques that was posted to the Art quilt yahoogroup I am on ( the Aus_NZartquilters yahoogroup) I knew I would probably be too busy to do many/any of them in the first half - 2/3 of the year (too busy doing stuff for the quilt exhibition and the textile art exhibition) but I was hoping I would maybe get 2 or 3 done and then have plenty of time do the others in the last few months of the year - er ... the first one I made was my September Journal quilt! ... but I did have it finished in the first week of October ... then I kind of came to a standstill again ... sigh ... but I did manage to finish 4 more in time to deliver my 5 to the person who was collecting them - so they can be part of our travelling exhibition - about 26 of us have sent in 5 journal quilts each, and a sheet of "blurbs" about them - they go to the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne (at the end of February) and then to all the other craft/quilt shows that the same mob of people organise ... and possibly to a few other quilt shows/etc if people want to have them there ...

Anyway ... I already posted about the September one here ... but I might include it again in this post anyway - lol

So ... here are photos of the 5 journal quilts, and what I wrote for the "blurbs" about them
(btw - they WERE sort of supposed to be for particular months, but they don't really have to be ... and because I made the last 4 all around the same time and they were all sort of about stuff that happened throughout the year but not nescessarily in any particular month, I decided to number them 2, 3, 4 and 5 (in sort of the order I started making them and finished them ... and the order they seemed to want to be in).



1. “Of Black Holes And Froot Loops” - In September, CERN turned on their Large Hadron Collider, despite the fact that some “froot loops” tried to take legal action to stop them from “creating black holes and destroying the Earth”. The “beads” are bits of drinking straw, cut up and ironed flat.




2. “Going Green” - The green background was a “clean up rag” from a fabric painting session, stamped with leftover paint. Machine and hand quilted in spirals (“what goes around comes around”) and decorated with beads and stitching (using mostly recycled/second hand thread).




3. “Into The Blue” - Machine quilted from the back (with silver thread in bobbin) and embellished with leftover strips from trimming quilt fabric (some, including edges of quilt, were rolled up and couched on) and other threads, beads, etc.




4. “The Odd Eyes Of The Artist” - Background cut from an old Marilyn Manson T-shirt (from one of my “heavy metal mad” teenagers). Machine quilted with a tattoo like design that “fell out of the needle” (I made it up as I sewed it ;-) and then hand stitched with crochet yarn/thread.




5. “Mad Dogs And Englishmen (Go Out In The Midday Sun, To Have Tea And Play On The Lawn)” - tea bags, paper towel, jute fibres, fluffy yarn and dog hair, needle felted onto green painted fabric. Edges were folded to make border and sewn to backing. Hand quilted with used tea bag strings.



btw, there is actually more meaning in some of these than I wrote in the "blurb" - we were limited to 4 lines each so it all fitted on the A4 page that hangs up beside them ... but if we had more room to write more I am not sure if I could really have described much more about the meaning behind them and made any sense anyway - lol (although I possibly could have explained a bit more about the materials and techiques I used to make them - especially with that last one, where the title I gave it was so long I had trouble fitting in any sort of understandable explanation of what it was made of and how! ... I guess I could have given it a shorter name - but that is the name it wanted to have! ;-)

I guess it isn't that hard to see how I made them - mostly stuff sewn on/quilting/whatever like the "blurb" says ... and the name sort of explains what the quilt decided it meant/was about - lol
... the bits of "leftover" fabric in "into the blue" were bits I trimmed off when I was cutting out the fabrics for the mystery quilt ... the one a group of us did last year and I still have not sewn my blocks together yet - LOL (mind you - I have other mystery quilts from the same yahoogroup, that we did several years ago - and some of those are not sewn together yet either ... and some are together but not quilted ... although there are a few that I did finish)
... "The Odd Eyes Of The Artist" just kind of happened when I decided to see what I could do with the old dead t-shirt ... I did the machine sewing and then thought I might have to do a lot more sewing to kind of hide the face outline/etc ... but then a couple of people saw it and said it looked great ... so I decided to leave it mostly like it was and just add the hand stitching.
I think my very short description of the last one kind of makes sense?

A

... better late than never? ... I started typing this early ... but finished it late ...

A ...

... is for ... me! LOL

Ahhhh - what a great oportunity to introduce myself to those who come here and find me via the ABC Wednesday thing ( Here and Here ... I am only listed on the second one though) and to anyone who tripped and fell over my blog/found it some other way - lol

A is for Aykayem, and Also for Andrea - my real name!

... although Aykayem is sort of a real name too - it is a pen name that I invented when I was about 15 years old, and then used for my online name when I discovered the internet/www - I think the first online thing I used it for was my yahoo ID ... and since then I have used it for a heap of other things too - because it is made up, it usually isn't already used when I sign up for something ... so I don't have to be "Andrea30057" or "anotherAndreaDownunder" or "XxX-Andrea62-XxX" or whatever - I can just be "Aykayem" - LOL
(btw - none of those other names are me, just in case anyone goes looking and someone is actually using them ... although I did manage to get in early enough with one free web-based email and get my own name! ... which reminds me - I really should log in and check it one day - in case someone has actually sent me something important - LOL)

So how did I come up with the name "Aykayem" ... well - back then (before I got married) my initials were A.K.M. ... so if one says the letters - Ay Kay eM ... one comes up with AyKayeM ... it was easy to say, and sounded a bit exotic ... and I liked it - LOL

A is also for Awful and/or Awesome ... not sure which one I am though ;-)
... funny how aweSOME means totally great, yet awFULL is actually worse ... maybe it is better to only have some of whatever it is? ... but how come full of awe is what those looking at something awsome are ... and is totally different to awfull ... maybe the e makes a difference?
(the english language is weird!)

A is also for:
Alpabet and ABC Wednesday ... such a fun game to play - LOL

Amazing ... er ... I probably have heaps of photos that someone would say that about ... but not that many that everyone would say it about - LOL

And ... now that this is so late - I can also mention the Amazing thunderstorm we had here this Afternoon ... but I will put some photos/etc in Another post ...

Antelope ... er ... yes ... I have a pink knitted antelope ... actually I think it was probably a horse, but when I was at uni, someone "invented" something called "Antelope day" ... the first year all that happened was a few posters went up saying that some particular date was "antelope day" ... the next year they actually had an "antelope day" party ... I think I won the prize for "the biggest antlers" - some that I made using a couple of peacock feathers ... the next year I kind of just added to them and made them bigger - and won the prize for "least original antlers" - LOL ... and the pink knitted "antelope" ... which was probably a horse but had sticks for antlers ... was my prize for one of those ... I can't remember which one now ... it was back in the early 80s ... longer ago than yesterday - LOL
(I would have put a photo in here, but I kept forgetting to go and FIND the thing and take one)

hmmmm what else? ...

Advetising (that google stuff down the side doesn't seem to have made me any money yet - lol)

Attic (one of those would be handy to store junk in, but I don't have one)

Alopeccia (no thanks - I want to keep my hair on ... although I would probably shave my head if someone paid me, or paid enough money to that cancer charity that does that head shaving fundraiser thingy )

Algernon Pithington Watson (some ficticious name that someone put on his name tag at a scout leader's course that my dad went to once)

Alpacca - there are 2 of those that sometimes live in the local patch of grassland - they are there when the mob of sheep are in there - yes - they are gaurd alpacca! ... and they do a good job at it too. I wonder if there is something about them on the www still? ... drats - couldn't find it.

Ant ... er ... I think I have a photo of one somewhere ... I wonder where?
actually - this post is about ants - http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-u-should-not-buy-coffee-from.html (and has a photo with quite a few ants in it)

Although ... there is Also an Ant in this photo of a flower from the Asteraceae family ... er ... then again ... maybe pig face isn't a daisy (didn't think it quite looked right, but not having the actual flower to poke around at I couldnt tell, so I just looked it up on the www) ... Ah ha - it is actually in the Aizoaceae family ... well - they say "you learn something new every day" ...



There are a few more pictures, of Australian Aizoaceae here.
(it looks like it is actually part of an instect website ... I might have to go and have another look there sometime ;-)

Abacus ... I have one of those ... somewhere ... only a miniature one, think it may have been some souvenir from somewhere ... I think it is in the wooden trunk that we use as a coffee table and I can't be bothered moving all the junk off the top.

hmmmm ... maybe I can find an A plant or 3? and/or an A insect/etc (maybe one of the spiders I have taken photos of is a genus/species that starts with a?) ...
... Actually, I won't bother looking for any more photos now - because I have so much other A stuff in here now - LOL

Android - this one is kind of cute - if he were real (rather than a character played by an actor) I would love to meet him.

and ... Astronomy ... can't forget that one, seeing 2009 IS the International Year of Astronomy

It is also the year of natural fibres or something too ...
... which is why I have the ?Astronomical task of trying to work out what to make, for a textile exhibiton, that fits the theme of "Heaven and Earth" - LOL
(actually I think the problem will be my usual one - too many ideas and not enough time to do them! ... sigh)

And ... one more A thing that one of my kids just happened to mention to me today (the kid who didn't know I did silly posts about letters of the Alphabet on my blog) - both my kids know different members of a new band called Ashton Skies ... and my son told me I should go and listen to them on their myspace page and tell everyone about them ... Actually they don't sound too bad - LOL
(a lot better than some of the other stuff they listen to - lol - although oddly enough, there is some music that everyone in the family likes ... and some that the kids and I both like ... and there is also some stuff that I like and nobody else does - lol)

oh drats - it got the better of me - I can't do an A post without at least one Arachnid in it!



... I cheated with this photo, and rather than uploading another one (which tends to mess up all the formatting of whatever text I already have in here) I used one I had already uploaded when I posted it to Spot, The Blog - which is Actually a good place to go if you want to see lots of photos of the Animals I share this house with, and a few other odd ones too.
(yes Data, the Android, has a cat called spot - and I have a blog called Spot ... I know - I am weird - but my weird mind just had to see if I could have a spot blog on blog spot ... or something like that ... )

Anyway ... I can still think of more A words ... but I am sure nobody really wants to see too much Anatomy or some of the others I thought of (I will Abstain from posting anything too Awkward or Awful - lol) ... and there are plenty of pictures of Apples and Avocados and stuff on the www ... so I had better post this before it is time for B ...

(hmmmm time for B? ... or time for A BEER? LOL ... I could drink one of those now ... if I wasn't about to go get some sleep - lol ... and I could have put a photo of it here too - seeing it is referred to as Amber Ale - LOL)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh?

Z zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz?

Ok ... ABC Wednesday time again ... what do I write about/take photos of for Z?

zzzzzzzzzz? - because I usually post stuff here when I should be sleeping.

Zany? ... because that word does describe me rather well sometimes.

I wanted to post about Zoonoses, because that word is actually in my blogger profile - but I don't have any of my own photos of ringworm or scabies, or any other diseases one can catch from animals ... and I already cheated and posted a screen shot of my blog with the word zoonoses in the profile back when I was doing the "Scatterday" thing ...
(hmmmm - I just noticed something - my FIRST Scatterday post was my Z one! ... we didn't do the letters in order - we got a random one each week and usually had 3 things that we had to take photos of ... but we were allowed to do what we liked for Z becuase the person running it thought that Z might be too hard if we had to do it the usual way - lol)

... so I did a google search for "Z" (and didn't find a lot) ... and then one for "Z words" ... and I found a few lists of unusual z words (a good one was here - I think that might be where I found a few good X words for that scatterday x post I did), and I also found a pile of odd things to use to help win scrabble games, and an education website that has a thingy where you can create a word search ... so - I chose a whole pile of Z words and created ...

Aykayem's Zany Z Word Search

so - if you are game/mad enough to try it - see if you can find each of the following words:
(note - they go forwards backwards, up and down, diagonal ... every which way they can, as long as it is a straight line, ... just to make it a real challenge - lol
and - you can click on it to get a bigger version of the bit you find the words in ... I probably should have put the words as part of the image, so you could print it out and have it all together ... oops?)


ZOETROPE
ZAP
ZYGOCACTUS
ZONE
ZEBRA
ZERO
ZOOPHYTE
ZITHER
ZOO
ZODIAC
ZAFTIG
ZABAGLIONI
ZEBU
ZOOTOXIN
ZYMOSIS
ZIGZAG
ZINNIA
ZYGOMA
ZIP
ZOOCEPHALIC
ZYGODACTYLIC
ZEALOT
ZINC
ZOONOSES
ZOOLOGY

Oh OK - it got the better of me - I just went back to my original screen shot of the word search web page and made another image (hopefully a reasonably printable one) with the list of words beside it ... click on this one and you should get a bigger version ... which you can print as is, or make it landscape and fit to paper or whatever ...)




You might even find some extra (not z) words that found their way in there by chance (I saw "bat" in there somewhere) ... and I have found at least 6 extra "Zoo"s in there too - something to do with all those z's and o's it seems to have put in there, I guess ... (and I didn't count the ones that are part of words like zoology)

Here are the answers:



... if you want it to actually be big enough to see - click on it for the full size version ;-)
(I didn' want you to see the answers unless you actually WANTED to)

btw - there are lots of websites where you can create word searches/crosswords/sodoku/etc puzzles with your choice of words (the teachers at the school I work at use them a lot) ... I found the one I used to make this word search at http://www.edhelper.com/wordfind_free.htm

Your other challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to go find a dictionary (online or a real one) and look up the meanings of all those words ... LOL
(or if we go around the alphabet again I might have to do that for my z post next time - lol)

btw, I was wondering what the plant I got given a couple of weeks ago was ... yes - it is a Zygocactus! ... but I have not taken a photo of it and it isn't in flower or anything so I can't be bothered taking one right now ... lol

anyway ... I was going to set this to publish at 1 minute past midnight (because I typed most of it during the afternoon), but I didn't get around to coming back in here and doing that ... and when I did come back in here - it was already midnight - LOL

Y

Y?

- Y not?

actually - Y is for Yesterday ... which is when I should have posted my "Y" post for ABC Wednesday

(I could cheat and back date this post, but I am not going to ...)

hmmm I now have a particular song going around in my head ... The Beatles song -"Yesterday" - LOL ... and, talking about Beatles songs - I notice someone actually FOUND a yellow submarine ... lol

Now ... I wonder what photos I can put in here for Y?

[andrea goes and rummages around in her folders of photos]

I found something Yellow, but I have already posted about it here

I know I have a pile of photos of things that are Yucky ...

ah - this one is perfect - how about a Yucky Yellow dog:



yes - he is all wet and Yucky, and he has been rolling in and shredding something Yucky - a dead sheep! ... he is also a golden retriver, so his fur colour is sometimes refered to as Yellow.

[Andrea gets called away from computer and does a pile of other stuff]

a few hours later:

I was going to go find some more yucky stuff - like photos of sheep and cow poo and mouldy things, and half disected eyeballs and bones etc, and something the dog rolled in one night on a walk, and a probably a few other horrible things like that ...

but I got interrupted by DS (Dear Son) - who is 18 Years old today ... and, for his birthday present, he just did his motorcycle learners course yesterday and got his learners permit today
(he already has his car licence) ... and so of course he wanted to take my new bike for a lap (or 5) around the block ...

... and I noticed that gives me a few more Y words to put in this blog post ... LOL

I said Yes ... he didn't say, but probably thought something along the lines of, "Yippee!" or "Yaaaaaaay" ... and I thought Yikes! ... this is my son ... who I am sure was still a Young kid just Yesterday, now old enough to go out and legally drink alcohol, and riding off (not quite "into the sunset" - lol) on a motorcycle ...



... where have the last few Years gone??!!!


[another few hours pass, while I watch a couple of TV shows with DH, then fiddle around with a photo, etc]

so Y was I fiddling with photos in the middle of typing up a blog post?

well ... because I was busy fiddling with this particular photo:



(this is the copy which I have rotated and re-sized to put it here, but not done anything else to yet)

The one that is the result of an hour or 2 worth of fiddling is now my blog background (until I have another fiddle/find a better one/whatever and change it - LOL - in which case you will have to go and find it here ... on the blog post (on one of my other blogs) that I just spent another hour or 2 typing/etc! LOL) [later edit: this is a "how to" post for this background - which Lindi just asked me to do ... I probably should have mentioned that the "other post" I had been typing IS a "how to" one, when I wrote this post - but I forgot - LOL]

Yes ... it is now "tomorrow" ... I started typing this blog post YesterdaY ... which is why I am Yawning - LOL
(I have not spent the whole time doing this though - there were all those interruptions where I left the computer for an hour or 5 and did other things, and me doing a lot of fiddling with html/etc and putting the background onto a couple of blogs, and also getting up and down to let the dog in/out, put on another load of washing, etc)
I have left the time on this post as it was - the time I started it - but it is now almost 5am the next day!!!

Y do I always seem to get lost in here for so long?!? LOL

Good thing I don't have to get up early in the morning ...
(but the one after I do ... sigh ... but it is because we will be driving down to Melbourne to visit DHs family ;-)

[Andrea Yawns and hopefully heads off to bed]

hmmm, etc ... and a new background image.

I just did some silly online quiz and at the bottom, after what sort of person it said I was, it said "0% of the 40956 people who have taken this quiz are like you."

yes - I know that! LOL

The quiz was supposed to tell me what kind of person I am - said I was a "romantic reinventing builder" ... whatever that is ... maybe I am supposed to buy the book? ( the quiz is here - http://www.43things.com/ - the idea of the website is to make your list of goals and share them with the world ... interesting idea actually ... but I have joined enough weird online things in the last few days - I don't need another one! lol)

Talking about joining things ... I just found Where The Blog Are You? ... and left my comment/URL there and put the button on my blog ... it seemed like a good idea at the time - lol

... and I have told the Yearquilt list I am on what ideas I have for a yearquilt this year ... but I will have to run with a fairly small idea because I think I am going to be too busy to do anything too ambitious there ... maybe I should just stick to the re-run of TAST (that Take A Stitch Tuesday that I did a while ago, and called that my "year quilt" for that year) the re-run of it is now happening over on http://stitchinfingers.ning.com/group/TAST ... might be a good chance to re-visit the stitches I wanted to do more of than I had time to ... and re-learn the ones that I did not already know, did once, and promptly forgot again ... LOL

(if you want to read my blog posts about TAST and see the photos of my stitching just look for the "TakeAStitchTuesday" label in the list in my side-bar and click on it)

now ... I really should do what I was going to do when I first came in here (to the computer) about 6 hours ago (I have been in and out a few times during the evening ... but spent more time IN here than out - I tend to get "lost in cyberspace" rather easily - lol) ... and that is to finish something I started doing at "stupid o'clock" last night (and am now finishing at about the same time tonight!)

ok ... my blog should now (unless you are reading this post a day or 200 after I posted it and I have changed things again) have the full size version of this

as a static background image behind all the rest of it ...

... and you should be able to see my blog sitting neatly in the grey bit in the middle ...

(if not - oops - feel free to tell me - it looks fine at this end! ... but I have not tested it in a variety of different browsers/on other computers/etc, and I don't really know what I am doing with all this stuff - I just see things I like, and work out how to do them, if I can - so sometimes anything could happen!)

so ... you want one too? ... I guess if you really want to have your blog looking like mine, with the same background then I don't mind ... LOL

Someone has already asked how I did it, (sort of, when she saw my first failed attempt, with the wrong sized image, on http://messing-around-with-stuff.blogspot.com/ ) ... so maybe the other person who reads my blog (well - there might be someone else who reads it - lol) may want to know too ...

I fell over a blog that had a background that came from here - http://www.backgroundfairy.com/search/label/About%20The%20Backgrounds ... but I didn't want to use someone else's background - so I decided to do things the hard way and work out how to do my own! ... so I read the instructions for how to put the backgrounds from her site onto a blog, and did a google search for some more instructions about making backgrounds on blogger blogs ... and kind of put 2 and 2 together (and got 22? ... LOL) and worked out roughly what I would have to do ... then I sort of half followed some instructions, for creating background images for blogs, on a digital scrapbooking site ( http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/secret.php?id=2 ) ... in the hope that if I did what they said for the image size etc it would be the right size (it actually was ok ... once I had reduced it to 50% - LOL ... which is actually not that bad seeing I was using a totally different bit of image editing software and my own photo instead of whatever scrapbooking "elements" they were using)

I fiddled around and put the code into my blog, and worked out that it didn't work if I tried to have the image saved in a post on blogger (that worked fine for the pictures on my blog titles and a few other places ... just didn't work for the background image for some odd reason) ... so I created an account on photobucket (where the scrapbooking page suggested, and had instructions for how to do it so it works) and put the image there ... then created the smaller one and put that there when I realised the big one was too big and re-sizing it on the photobucket site didn't work if I wanted to use it as a background (because it changes some size setting that needs to not be changed for it to work on my blog) ... then I decided that seeing the html code it needs has to live in a widget on my side bar, then I could also include some text and even a link in there ... so I figured I may as well share it with all one of the people who read my blog(s) ... lol

Anyway ... I have just written some instructions here ... I was going to add them in here on this post, but I decided that seeing I am putting a link to those instructions on my sidebar in whatever blogs I am using the background on (where the code that adds the background actually lives) and I am also putting the same link in the HTML code that I am giving them to put on their blog, then it might be a bit neater if it is all in it's own blog post somewhere, rather than in the middle of this long rambly mess ... and my "messing around with stuff" blog seemed like a good place to put stuff like that, because that is what that blog is all about ... (I actually created it so I did have a blog I could mess around with and try stuff out on without messing this one up ... but I decided to post about some of it, and a few other odd things, on there too).

er ... I started typing this blog post several hours ago (but I have got up and done a few other things in the middle of it and then come back again later - lol) but it is now well and truly the next day ... and I still have to go edit that other post to put it's own URL in the html code I have put on there, and put that URL in the background thingy on my blogs so that they link there too ... which I couldn't do until I had actually posted the post and got a URL for it - LOL

... and the dog still has not had the walk I promised to take him for before I went to bed ... I guess it will be a short one ... at least it is safe enough around here to walk the dog in the middle of the night ... besides - what mugger/axe murderer is still going to be up and about, and expecting to find any victims walking around the streets, after midnight?! LOL

(and what will they get if they mug me? - maybe a dog lead? ... and I will even give them my sandals that have holes in the soles ... )

A Meme about me.

Like the person whose blog I found this on, I don't usually do these either ... but this is an Aussie flavoured one, and took my fancy ...

( I found it here JMcK Crafts: A Meme about me. )

It didn't have a big list of rules ... just join in if you want, and she highlighted the ones she had done, but I got fancy and did colours and added comments

- done, have not done, not sure/depends how you interpret it, and my comments (if any) that I added to it ... makes it a bit harder to copy it and join in - but you can always go where I got if from and copy it from there - LOL

1. Started your own blog. several, but this is the main one ... and this and the other blogger ones are the only ones I post much to (the others were just ones I created to see if I liked how they worked/what they looked like - and I didn't - lol)
2. Slept under the stars. lots of times.
3. Played in a band. does a pretend one count? - I was in the school musical the year we did "76Trombones" and I was in the chorus - we were all meant to be the members of a marching band or somesuch ...
4. Visited The Great Barrier Reef.
5. Stood under the stars in the outback, the real outback – think Uluru. stood, walked, slept ... even worked up there as a Jillaroo for a while ... and I stood on top of Uluru and watched the sun set once too ...
6. Given more than you can afford to charity.
7. Been to the Gold Coast’s theme parks – anyone, you take your pick. went to one, once ...
8. Climbed a mountain. (not the high snowy sort you need a Sherpa for ... but some of the hills I have walked up have names and are officially mountains (not hard for a hill to be high enough to be a mountain when the whole area is already fairly high above sea level ;-)
9. Held a praying mantis. (I have even let them walk around ON my face - lol) I even had a baby one in my hand once, while it caught and ate the half dead stick insect that I put on my hand with it - lol (the mantis came from the garden (I often find them out there), and the stick insect was one of the ones I was keeping as pets - but it had got stuck while moulting and wasn't going to live more than a few hours more anyway)
10. Sung a solo. does singing in the shower count? (if I sing where anyone can hear me I get told to stop!)
11. Bungee jumped, jumped out of plane, been paragliding or hang-gliding, hot air ballooning – you get the idea, you’ve been hundreds of metres about earth in a seemingly flimsy contraption.
(been ballooning, and I want to go skydiving, hang gliding, paragliding, fly ultra-lights, etc ... bungee jumping sounds a bit painful - that can't be good for one's back ... but I might do it if someone pays me to - lol)
12. Visited Melbourne. I lived there for a few years - got married there, had a child there ... them moved up here ...
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea. (the storm was at sea, but I wasn't ...)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch. most of the quilty/crafty things I do are self taught (read stuff on the net, talk to others who do it, etc ... there are also some things I have been "taught" by other members of craft groups I was in at the time)
15. Had a child. Raised a child. Worked with children. (I have 2 teenage kids and work at a high school - LOL)
16. Had food poisoning. (I thought I did once, but it only lasted an hour or so, then the same thing happened a week later when I ate the same thing from the same place, and DH ate it both times and was ok - so it must have been an allergy to something in whatever it was ... some weird spice or something maybe - I never did work out what it was)
17. Been to the Snowy Mountains. even went camping in them.
18. Grown your own vegetables. have tomato plants just outside the front door at the moment! ... have also grown radishes and pumpkins and parsley and stuff ... and the spuds (potatos) just keep popping up all over the veggetable garden every year becasue I never find them all from the one before ...
19. Visited the Brett Whitely studio in Surry Hills, Sydney.
20. Slept on an overnight train or bus. and it wasn't a sleeper berth on the train either! (I think they make the seats uncomfortable on purpose, so you will pay for a sleeper next time - lol)
21. Had a pillow fight.
22. Been backpacking. the overnight bushwalking sort, not the around the world sort ... yet ... lol
23. Taken a mental health day.
24. Been buried in sand with just your head and toes sticking out. there may have been a few other bits poking out too - it was the kids, when they were little - burying "Mummy" while she is lying on the beach is fun - lol
25. Held a possum, kangaroo or koala – or any other native Australian animal. all of those, and various lizards, birds, etc and a wombat too I think ...
26. Gone skinny dipping.
27. Been in a fun run.
28. Been on the Blue Mountain cableway.
29. Seen a total eclipse. (in South Australia back in the 70's)
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset. I have sat and watched a few ... ones over the sea are good (seen sunrise and sunset over the sea) and I often walk the dog while the sun is setting - and if it is a pretty one I take lots of photos - lol ... I have seen more sunsets than sun rises ... something to do with the fact that I usually stay up late and don't get up that early very often - lol
31. Played, or watched, summer cricket. does watching it on TV count? (although I think I may have watched a bit of a match my brother was playing in once)
32. Sailed, kayaked or canoed our beautiful waterways. Had a catamaran and sailed in a few lakes and stuff, was even a member of a yacht club for a while. I have kayaked and canoed on a few rivers lakes/etc too ... and I actually learnt to sail a catamaran in the sea (at the beach not offshore) ... all a few years ago now - time I did some more of that sort of stuff! - although I did paddle a couple of canoes/kayaks/surf skis etc around in Sydney Harbour with a group of Scouts about this time last year ...
33. Seen the Daintree.
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors. (yes if you count my parents - I was born in the same city as they were ... but have not been back to where my more distant ones originally came from)
35. Visited an Aboriginal settlement or mission.
36. Learned a new language. Is morse code a "language"? - if it is - then my answer is yes! I also did a year or 2 of German at High School ... but then had to drop it to do another subject I needed ... and have learnt a few words/etc of a few other languages ... but have never learnt enough of one to actually understand people talking it/etc
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied. only when I was a little kid and a dollar was a lot of money - lol
8. Toured the Sydney Opera House. I have been there, but can't remember if I ever did a tour of it.
39. Tried rock climbing (indoor or outdoor), abseiling or just simple bush walking. I have even been abseiling IN a cave - lol
40. Visit Queensland’s Gallery of Modern Art.
41. Been to the Tamworth Country Music Festival. been to Tamworth a few times, just not while the festival was on.
42. Sunbaked at Bondi. been to Bondi, but have not sunbaked there - I prefer to swim or walk or build sand castles rather than just lie and do nothing while I get sunburnt!
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant.
44. Visited Broome.
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight. and by starlight/the glow of the atmosphere - it was a moonless night but the sky was bright and full of a zillion stars!
46. Been transported in an ambulance. I have been in one but I wasn't the patient, my son was (he broke his arm) and I went to the hospital with him.
47. Had your portrait painted. I think someone did a pencil sketch of me once ...
48. Gone fishing. DH and I even did that for our honeymoon! (it was what we both wanted to do ... well - our first choice out of the list of the stuff we COULD afford - lol)
49. Seen Tasmania’s old growth forests. if there are any near the road from Hobart to Port Arthur I may have seen them from the bus as it went past ... lol
50. Been to the top of Q1, on the Gold Coast.
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling. too long ago ... sigh
52. Kissed in the rain.
53. Played in the mud. did that lots as a kid ... and a few times since ... the dog and I play in the mud when it rains - I throw rocks into puddles and he fetches them! ... or if they are too big to pick up he drags them out with his feet!
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre. when I was a teenager that was the ONLY sort of movie theater in town! (the nearest cinema was an hour down the road in the next town)
55. Been in a movie. ... unless a "home movie" counts - lol
56. Driven the Great Ocean Road. can't remember if I was ever actually the one doing the driving there, but I have been along it as a passenger lots of times.
57. Started a business.
58. Taken a martial arts class. did Aikido for a couple of years, and a class or 2 of a few other ones here and there.
59. Visited Norfolk Island. only in cyberspace (via someone's blog - lol)
60. Served at a soup kitchen.
61. Sold Girl Guide biscuits.
2. Gone whale watching. have never gone to the coast/beach specifically to do that, but I have seen whales from the shore a few times when I have been at the beach/coast anyway.
63. Got flowers for no reason. DD used to pick flowers and then give them to me when she was a kid - but there was always a reason - because she wanted to pick them, but then got sick of carrying them!
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma.
65. Gone jet boating. I did go on one of those "James Bond boats" - kind of like a canoe with an outboard motor, with the propeller on the big long pole, when I was in Thailand a long time ago.
66. Visited Port Arthur. I stayed there for 3 weeks and did some volunteer archeaological stuff, back in the early 80's
67. Bounced a cheque. not intentionally but I think one that DH and I wrote did bounce once, when the bank made a mistake (didn't transfer money they should have or somesuch)
68. Flown in a helicopter.
69. Saved a favourite childhood toy. I tried to once, but Mum wouldn't let me (it was a dirty falling apart teddy bear and Mum decided that it was getting chucked out no matter what and I was too little to have any say in the matter)
70. Visited the Australian War Memorial.
71. Eaten Caviar. it was called caviar but I am not sure if it was the real stuff or just some other sort of fish roe ... it all tastes yummy though
72. Pieced a quilt. several - lol and quilted some and designed a few too ... even the dog has one
73. Stood in Federation Square. which one? (there is one here in Canberra - has a few crafty/touristy shops around it ... )
74. Been on the Murray River. been IN it too ... and over it on a bridge and "punt" (what they call the ferries that take cars across it in a few places in South Australia)
75. Been fired from a job. got a better one a day or 5 later ... lol
76. Travelled, or climbed, over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. been over it in cars/etc and have walked across it too, but have not done the bridge climb tour.
77. Broken a bone. (my nose, and I only knew it was broken because I had an x-ray ... was just a hairline crack so nothing needed to be done to fix it)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle. breaking the speed limit? - I think DH might have done that once or twice while I was on the back - he generally doesn't do that. Going fast - lots of times on the back with DH ... and did 100km/hour myself the other day when I picked up MY new one from the shop! (yes - I have just got my motorcycle learners permit)
79. Seen the Three Sisters at Echo Point, Katoomba. I think I saw those once - I vaguely remember going for a drive up there with someone once years ago
80. Published a book. I have published a lot of blog posts - probably enough for a book - lol ... and when I was off at uni I wrote a 25 page letter to Mum once or twice! (I didn't write a short one every week like normal people - I kept adding bits to the same one and never getting around to finishing it and posting it until I had been adding bits for a few weeks!)
81. Visited St Mary’s Cathedral, in Sydney.
82. Bought a brand new car.
83. Been to Hermannsburg. the one near Alice Springs, not the one overseas ...
84. Had your picture in the newspaper. Years ago, on the back page of the Adelaide Sunday paper, holding an albatross! ... and recently I was in the social pages of the Sunday Canberra Times - wearing a weird crochet outfit I made and modelled at a textile exhibition ...
85. Read the entire Bible. read quite a few bits of it but not the whole thing
86. Visited Parliament House.
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating.
88. Had chickenpox. yes ... when I was 31! LOL
89. Saved someone’s life. not that I know about - but sometimes a seemingly small action/word/etc can save a life without the person who said/did it ever knowing that it did ... and who knows how many lives are saved by people sticking to OH&S rules at work/road rules/etc and preventing what could have been a nasty accident?
90. Sat on a jury.
91. Met someone famous.
92. Joined a book club.
93. Lost a loved one. grandparents and in laws ...
94. Saved a pet. does catching an escaped stick instect and putting it back in the box where it's food (gum leaves) and water are count? ... or taking the cat to the vet when she has an abscess/etc that might have killed her if not treated?
95. Been to the site of the Eureka Stockade. We went to Ballarat a few times when I was a kid, so we probably went there ... but I don't remember for sure ...
96. Swum in The Whitsundays.
97. Been involved in a lawsuit.
98. Owned a mobile phone.
99. Been stung by a bee. a few as a kid, and even got stung by a dead one once! (I was swishing water around in a paddle pool and there was a dead bee floating in there and I brushed my finger against it before I saw it - and must have touched the "pointy end" - because I felt the sting prick me but it didn't stay stuck in and only itched a little bit rather than the usual very itchy for a few days thing)
100. Read an entire book in one day. lots of times - that is how I prefer to read books - all at once!

hmmmm - that was a fun trip down memory lane!
... a few things there I have not done and want to do, a few I don't want to do (those are pretty obvious - the hobbible ones like getting food poisoning etc) and quite a few i have done and want to do again!

oops - I was going to walk the dog during sunset this evening - but I think the sun might have set already! ... I had better go while it is still a bit light and not too cold (not that the dog cares about either, or I really mind if it is dark - but if I don't go now I won't get back in time to go get DD from work ... )

(the time on my posts is usually the time I start them, unless I change it - I just changed this one to the time it is now)

btw - Happy New Year!