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?)

X

I should be eXiting stuff like this and Xing things off my "to do" list ... not joining in more stuff ... but when I found This I couldn't resist joining in (how could I resist something like "Wednesday ABC? lol) ... even if I only keep it up for a while until I get busy or whatever ...

hmmmm ... If I understand how this thing works, we should be posting something about the letter X ... er ... I picked an easy week to join didn't I?

Actually ... X is not that hard ... not when you know that you have photos of an Australian plant that just happens to be called a Xanthorrea ;-)

... and yes - it is a real plant - if you don't believe me check it out here - http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1145455.htm

(not that the picture is that great or anything, but it does prove they exist and I am not making the name up!)

Now ... where did I put those photos? ... or ... more importantly - because my photos are sorted out according to when they were taken - when did I take take those photos? LOL

I don't know when I took the photos I was thinking of ...

- they were some that I know I have taken at several different times, mostly in the bush around this area - in the hills near here and in some areas a bit further away while on Land Rover Club trips/etc - and I have even put some of them on my blog a year or 2 ago - here

... and yes - it was for a similar reason I am posting X things here now!
so ... to save repeating myself here - if Xanthorreas are not enough X stuff - then go to that post and see some more X things ... none are X-rated, but there are pictures of Xylem, Xylol, an XS650, Xanthorreas, "chemical X", X-rays AND an X-ray machine! ... no picture of xanthan gum, but there is a link to my Xanga blog (that I never post to) and a picture of some xylophagous xylophiles ... and a few other odd things ... lol

... but, when I went looking for those Xanthorrea photos, I found these photos instead - I had forgotten about these!

I took these photos in April 2007, up in some hills near Mum and Dad's place on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland ...

The Xanthorreas are the spiky things - the trees in the background are gum trees (Eucalyptus)

here are some more - this time showing the trunks that some of the species have:

... now you can see why they are also known as "grass trees" - lol

and here is a scribbly gum ("the scribbles" on the bark are actually caused by an insect that attacks this particular species of gum tree) and some more Xanthorreas:

and no - the tall spikes are not garden stakes or poles - they are the Xanthorrea's flower spikes!

... these ones have finished flowering - the spikes will probably all end up falling over/get broken off/etc before the next flowering season - each time they flower they grow a tall spike which is covered in buds which open up into white flowers as the spike finishes growing (and if the spike is in the middle of growing and there is a really hot day they can wilt and end up bent over or even all twisted/curly instead of straight - I used to like finding the weird shaped ones in the scrub when I was a kid!

Talking about finding photos ...
(and this also kind of fits in with X - and it being an "unknown")

... while getting lost in cyberspace, and finding out about this ABC thingy, I looked at a few other blogs of people who are doing it and found this blog post (about what the cat dragged in - lol)

and I left a comment on it ... and I also spent half an hour searching for the photos of a particular B%&%^ grasshopper we get around here, so I could stick one of them on to my previous blog post and link to it ... but do you think I could find it? - no - so now here I am looking for something else and what do I find instead ... yes - the grasshopper!



problem was ... I remembered taking these photos, and I remembered seeing these grasshoppers while on a nature walk (with a group of people) in the local grasslands ... trouble is ... turns out I actually took these photos in the back yard on a different day than the one the nature walk was on! LOL


The amazing thing is ... I think the grasshopper on that blog was in Italy ... the link that said what someone had identified it as showed a similar one that is found in America and this one here is similar too (in fact this one looks more like the Italian one than the American one does ... but looks can be decieving) ... of all the thousands (millions?) of grasshopper species around the world ... or even just how many there are in each country - and there end up being some that are so darn similar but are at opposite ends of the Earth!

anyway ... X is also what one does against a WRONG answer when marking a test/etc ... or to cross out a mistake ... and I think deciding to go blog surfing last night was a mistake - because I am still here - and it is not last night any more! (it is after 5am and the sun is coming up!) oops?

My oh My - it is Scatterday already!

Actually it isn't Saturday yet [ it is now ] ... I am starting to type this at about 5 past Midnight last Sunday, just after posting the last one! ... because I just thought of something several things already and I don't want to forget!
[I am adding the stuff that I am writing now, in the wee small hours of Saturday Morning, in Mauve ... actually it is probably technically lavender, but so what? - lol]

This Scatterday is the letter M and Music, Dangerous, Cold Things.

Music:
... DD (Dear Daughter) has put a heap of band posters on her wall - but is any of it music? ... maybe she has one of Metallica? [ DD sugests Marilyn Manson ... "he is musical and Dangerous" or Motley Crue's lead guitarist - Mick Mars]

I decided to take a photo of the Marilyn Manson posters in the corner of DS (Dear Son)'s room -



Marilyn Manson probably satisfies all 3 things - cold, dangerous and musical! LOL

maybe a Moog synthesiser (I remember hearing about them on the radio as a kid and being fascinated ... now they are old technology ... then again ... just looked here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moog_synthesizer - seems they are popular again! ... along with other weird things like theremins - pity I don't have one of those - I could have used it last week for a T thing - lol)


Mould can be rather dangerous:

hmmm do I have a photo of some? [don't think so ... at least not that I can find easily] ... OR ... where can I hide something so it can go mouldy for a few days until I remember it next Saturday when I realise I need the photo?! LOL
[ oops - forgot to hide something ... lol ... I am sure there is something just perfect in the fridge at work - very mouldy and probably quite dangerous - the somebodys mouldy lunch that I saw in there on the last Friday of the school term, before we all went on "school holidays" ... but I was not going in to work in my time off just in case it is still there!]


Maybe Mungo is dangerous? (he sure looks dangerous in the photo DD took!)
... but she didn't e-mail/share the photo - it is still on HER computer
However I do have a photo of Mungo being Musical!



(anyone who has been reading my other scatterday posts might notice that I also posted this picture for scatterday "T" a few weeks back - lol)

DD said I should take a photo of "My daughter with scissors"


so here is My daughter being dangerous and running with scissors - lol
and ...
several photos later ...
we now also have "My Mad daughter Murdering the pink panther"





Eating the wrong species of Mushrooms can be dangerous - I don't have a photo of a dangerous mushroom species, but here is a link: http://www.anbg.gov.au/fungi/deathcap.html

hmmm - now what else is dangerous?

Maybe a Moggy?


she was rolling in the dirt on the back "lawn" (well it WAS a lawn before we had a drought!)

Maybe a Mutt?


"Mutt in the Mist"? LOL
I was facing into the sun when I took the photo and it came out all weird and misty like this - and I kind of like the effect!


Midnight snacks can be dangerous!



actually it wasn't quite midnight - it was just after 11pm last night ... DD came in here (I was messing around with e-mail or something) and asked me if I had a pancake recipe that we had the ingredients for ... in other words what she wanted was for ME to Make her some pancakes - lol
(so what's the dangerous part? - the fact that at or near Midnight one tends to do silly stuff like make smiley faces with the pancake mixture ;-)



MMMMM - this one tastes even better - the other one had golden syrup and margerine on it, this one has brown sugar and lemon juice!

Another possibly dangerous thing is Messing about with Marking pens and Metho:



I did this today - was experimenting to see if doing this worked with Metho instead of the Isopropyl alcohol that someone, on the art quilt yahoogroup I am on, saw in a magazine ... not sure if this was what they were trying to do ... but the website I found, that had instructions for doing this, also said to use Isopropyl alcohol ... but I had an idea Metho might work ok for what I wanted ... now all I have to do is see if it washes out or not (because I want it to NOT - lol)

I also did this weird circle:


I did circles of dots, and some hearts, with the markers then dropped drips of metho into the middle until it had spread out to the edges.
and I did some poppies - the ones on yesterday's blog post (that I posted a little while ago - just before I dragged this one out of the drafts folder and put the photos/this text in)

Another dangerous thing is "Mad person with camera"

I took this photo while walking the dog along the edge of the lake this evening, then played around with "highlight/midtone/shadow" in the photo editing software we have (because the sky was a bit darker and the willow tree was way to bright) ... this actually looks like it could lead to an interesting idea for a quilt ... one more to add to the hundreds I have already thought up and will never have time to make most of, unless I live to be a million years old or something!

btw - "MadPersonWithCamera" is also my name on one of my flickr accounts (I ended up with 2 when yahoo photos died and gave us the option to move to flickr - and I had 2 yahoo accounts with phtos on them - lol) ... but it is the one with hardly any photos on it ... lol
Most of my flickr photos are here (there are a few photos of crochet and quilty stuff I have made, and a few of family/friends/etc ... and I think they were all taken at least a few years ago) ... and the "mad person with camera" ones are here , but you won't see any photos there (unless I put some more there at some stage after writing this blog post ;-) because the few that are on there at the moment are in a "private" album (most of them were photos I took for DD's scout troop, and I didn't want to put them in a public album because they are other people's kids) .
The only photos I have recently put online are the ones I put here in my blog! (or the odd few I put in my other blogs, if I ever get around to posting to those)

er ... I am getting a bit off track there - lol - back to Scatterday:

Cold things:

er ... now that the nights are not so warm, My toes could be getting cold when I am in here posting this? [nope - got my nice warm slippers on ;-) ] ... or maybe I could google for "glacial Morraine"? lol - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moraine

DD says "Monday Morning at the 'goonbag'"
but I didn't go there on Monday Morning to take a photo ... in fact I have never actually seen the thing ... but from what DD has told me, it is some sculpture thingy in the middle of the city (it has only been there a year or 2 and I never go up that end of the mall it is in) apparently it is designed to sit on, and is shaped like a big silver cushion ... but those who hang around there say it looks like a bag of goon (ie the silver bag out of a wine cask!) - so they call it the goonbag - LOL

[?find a nice picture of McMurdo station, Antarctica ? ... borrow one of these? or just link here? - http://jasonsolis.blogspot.com/ (he has some good pictures on his blog) ... or google some other cold place starting with M? ... the Mars polar ice cap?]

I might have to google for the Martian ice cap ... I found a really pretty picture of it a few weeks ago and printed it - because I am thinking of using it for a journal quilt that I want to do - the one where we are supposed to do a quilt from/based on a photo ...

hmmm can't find the photo quickly ... but the top picture on this page is rather cool - http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/science_paper/f6a/ (it is the Martian South pole ... and it is another one that I have seen before and thought it would be a good quilt design ... lol

... in fact most of these images would make interesting quilts/etc and they are rather spectacular - I must remember to go back and have a good look sometime when I am not supposed to be sleeping! LOL

yes - it is 5am already ... where did my "evening" go?!

(the hours seem to vanish into thin air when I come in here and do blog posts at the same time as reading/sending e-mail and/or googling for stuff ... especially if I also end up fiddling around with photos, blog templates, or whatever as well ... which I also did ... but not this blog - this one)

This isn't Sunrise:

it was Sunset last night, next to the cold Murky lake where I walked the dog, so "Murky lake" can be my cold thing photo.
(unless you want to count one of the Markers and Metho ones - Metho is cold when you get it on your skin - something to do with the evaporative cooling as it rapidly evaporates)

I think I have enough musical, dangerous and cold M things in that lot ... too bad if I don't - I am going to post this now, and go to bed!

T time (Scatterday)

Hmmm ... I started typing this post (then saved it as a draft) several days ago - when I gave it the title I must have known that I was going to be posting it in the evening! LOL (although I have actually had my tea ... sort of ... had a largeish lunch out so tea was just some "fries" from the fast food place DD works - I picked her up on my way home from where I was all day and we shared a "stunner" deal (burger, drink, chips and one of those ice creams they do in a cup with stuff mixed in) ... anyway - Scatterday time:

(btw ... I have not looked at what anyone else has posted yet - I will do that once I have finished doing this one ... which mainly involves puting the photos in ...

[later]

... and a lot of fiddling around and fussing with formatting and so on ... grrrr ...

I only look at what next week is when I am just about to publish the post and I want to put the link and next weeks letter/catagories at the bottom :-)

now where was I? LOL

ok - I couldn't resist this ...

I made a Tiny Square box out of Blue paper, and put it out in my neighbourhood! - on the ground in front of our "street tree" ... so that fits all 3 catagories in one go!

but ... somehow I don't think that is really good enough - if I was being assessed it would probably get a big red "poor effort" written on it ... lol

so ...

I found some lots more stuff:

A blue Tea bag Tag

which isn't quite square ... neither is the T bag ... but the box almost is ...

... same with this Blue Tissue box end

... to bad if it isn't quite square - it looks pretty.

how about the Turkish pizza box?

- oops - it got thrown out before I remembered to take the photo, and I am not going out and digging around in the rubbish/recycling when I have other photos I can use instead! LOL

btw, the Turkish pizza came from a Turkish restaurant that has a blue and orange front wall! (but it was more orange than blue so I didn't take a photo ... it is also the one that sells the Kusbasili that I didn't take a photo of for K ... this pizza wasn't Kusbasili either - we decided to try something else ;-)

hmmm - I wonder if any of it started with a T?

oh well - Too bad if it did - it has all been eaten now ...

Ah - this chai Teabag is square!

so that covers the sqaure T thing.

but what can I find that is blue?

Ah - here is some blue "Transport" ?

our blue Barina ... which one of our teenagers is now driving a lot - I think that was why he was cleaning it when I took this photo earlier this year - this was just after he had fixed the broken window, and just before we got it registered again so he could drive it)
- it is also in my neighbourhood (in our driveway, unless being driven somewhere)

The front of DH's Subaru is also in the corner of the photo (more blue Transport)

Now what else can I find?

a Tangled Twisted doona cover Tossed on a Teenagers bed ...

... well it does have blue squares on it ... lol

some blue "Tote bags"

(not that I ever call them that any other time except for when I need something blue that starts with a T - lol)

oh look! - more blue Tissue boxes!

pretty eh? ... so how come the one next to my side of the bed has a boring picture of pears on it?

and next to the tissue boxes I noticed I had a Blue Square Tunisian crochet cushion

yes - the one on the right is done in "Tunisian crochet" (also known as "Afghan crochet" or "Tricot") ... which is done with a different hook/techniqe than "normal" crochet (which the one of the left is) ... my Toes are also in the neighbourhood of the cushions (in the bottom of the photo - lol) ... and you can also see that on our floor we have square blue tiles! (well mostly blue - actually a sort of mix of mainly light blueish with some brown and whiteish colours mixed in)

btw, yes - I made both the cushions ... my friend wrote the patterns, but the cross stitch design on the Tunisian one was my own (I used one of her desings on the other side, but that one wasn't square and mine was ;-)

another blue square:

where does the T come in? ... er ... Toes and tiles again? lol ... and you can decide if this quilt is a Terrible or a Terrific quilt!

... it is actually made out of second hand fabric (from old sheets and old shorts and shirts!) and I made it for the dog!

I did also have a couple other ideas for stuff, but I think I already have enough in here, and I never got around to taking photos of this lot while it was still daylight ... lol

can I find some blue flowers that start with T?

[I probably could if I cheated and googled ... lol]

a T street name?

[that one is down the other end of a long laneway ... Too bad I am Too lazy to go walk there - the street is at the end of the laneway but the nearest sign is even further]

a torana/etc car starting with t?

- yes - I do have a photo for that one ... as they say in the cooking/"how to" shows on TV - "here's one I prepared earlier" ... lol

an old Toyota that belongs to one of our Teenagers - one of our Neighbours gave it to him! ... but it doesn't go ... although it is fixable with a lot of mechanical work and body work and stuff - which the Teenager will probably enjoy doing. (he wants to be a Mechanic!)

a trailer ... hmmm - that is a blue T thing!

yes we do have a blue trailer!

[er ... if you look at the "transport" picture, you can just see the front of it in front of the Landrover - it has a Tarpaulin hanging on the front and onto the spare tyre]

a Telstra/telephone/transformer box/thingy?

[yes there are a few odd ugly boxes in our neighbourhood ... not in our yard thank goodness ... and I am not walking down the laneway to find one now!]

blue "tickertape"? (if I can find a roll of blue streamer ... or a photo?)

[That photo could be taken inside now, but I probably don't actually have any to take the photo of, so I am not even going to look]

someone's blue letterbox (if it is number Ten/Twenty/Thirty something) ?
[I can't be bothered with that one at This late Time either ... lol]

a blue house? - if it has a number Ten/Twenty/Thirty something on it to make it a T thing

[ditto.]

but (last but not least) I do have a nice photo of a nearby TREE:

The big looking Tree (which is actually fairly small) is less than Two minutes walk away (about Two hundred metres away actually) ... the big tree, that looks Tiny in the photo - in the middle of the photo ... which I just cut out and put here so u can see it:

is on a nearby hill ... and I have taken quite a few other photos with the same Tree in them, and I have also seen other people's photos of the same Tree on the WWW

There is also a TV antenna in the photo too ... so that is another T thing in my neighbourhood!

This post has taken Too long to write Type ... it doesn't help that I had to stop what I was doing and go and collect a Teenager from where she had been out to Tea and it took ages to Transfer photos to the computer and even longer to Transfer them To blogger ... methinks one or the other Teenager has been downloading Too much stuff and used up all the bandwidth (meaning our connection gets slowed down until the end of the "billing period" ... grrrr ... hopefully that is not Too far away!) ... and it doesn't help that blogger puts The photos I Transfer there onto The Top of by blog and I have to move Them To wherever I want to put Them ...

ok ... who stole my evening?????!!!!!!!!

(it was about 8:30 when I came in here to finish typing this and post it ... but now, after a few interruptions and a lot of fiddling around, it is almost Sunday!)

next week's Scatterday is [Andrea goes and looks] ...

Letter M
Categories - Music, Dangerous, Cold Things

Oh K - it's Scatterday.

Scatterday this week is brought to you by the letter K and Something You Like The Smell Of, Hobby and Office Things

I like the smell (and taste!) of Kusbasili (I think that is roughly how they spell it - not sure where the menu is to go look - it is a Turkish pizza that they sell at the restaurant near where I work) but I have not had one this week to take a photo of, and I didn't think they would want me in there taking a photo of one today if I wasn't actually buying anything - lol (I already had lunch so I didn't need more)

so ... [Andrea opens up pantry to see what I can find] - ah this stuff smells pretty good (especially when it is in whatever else one puts this stuff in when cooking, or with the dim sims/etc one is eating it with)

Kikkoman soy sauce.

Much better than Kellogs corn flakes, which is what I thought of the other day - and which I probably do have in the pantry but they don't really smell like much at all (but they taste ok ;-) ... and definitely better than the other kind of "special K" - the one the band Placebo have a song about - and which I don't have a clue what smells like and don't intend to ever sniff it - even though some people have been known to do that (well - more like snort than sniff - lol)

... and I don't have any Kecap Manis or Kebabs or Kirsch etc either ...

A hobby is easy - I am sure a lot of us thought of Knitting:

I can sort of knit, but it isn't really my hobby - I would rather crochet!
but - due to having a teenage daughter who was sort of "into" knitting for a whole couple of months before she gave me back my needles, with 2 half finished scarves on them! - I happened to have some knitting handy (and much easier to find than the little bit of my knitting - I did some "magic squares" last year but, like most things in my sewing room, I am not sure where they are at the moment).

I guess I could include a photo of some Knotting?

This is actually a macrame lion I made rather a lot of years ago (I was quite possibly still a teenager at the time! ... I was probably not much older than my daughter is now ... she doesn't like the lion - says it looks creepy - which strikes me as rather odd for someone who picks up big hairy spiders with her bare hands, and dresses in black shirts with skulls on them! - LOL)

If I could be bothered finding a kite (there is at least one little one somewhere in the house, just not sure where) I could call kite flying a hobby too ... but I couldn't be bothered going and looking for the kite.

Now for office things - I didn't even think of taking a photo of my keyboard until I saw it on Michelle's blog a couple of minutes ago! (I went there to copy and past the categories at the top of this post) - but I don't need to do that - at work I have some office Knives:

These are in the store room at work (but there are also pictures of them in the office supply catalogues so they are office things)

Actually I tend to use this sort of knife as an "office knife"

that is why it was in one of those tins of pens, scissors and other office things on my workbench - comes in handy for cutting up cardboard/boxes, opening boxes, etc ...
(at home I use one of the steak knives if I need to cut up a cardboard box ;-)

anyway ... less photos than usual, but if you also followed the links and read what was there, then you have probably been "lost in cyberspace" for long enough (and probably know more than you ever thought you wanted to know about "special K" LOL) so this is probably enough for this week ... LOL

I guess I had better go back to MW's blog and look at what I have to find for next week ...

ah - the Letter T - Square Things, Blue, In My Neighbourhood.
(hmmm ... maybe I could make a Tiny little Square box out of Blue paper, to cover the first 2, and then I could hang it from the little streetTree in front of our house?)

A dark turquoise restaurant?

Scatterday this week was the letter A, and the categories were restaurant, something you find in the dark and turquoise ... and although I do have a rather large collection of my own junk, and access to an even bigger collection of odd stuff at work, I do NOT happen to have a "dark turquoise restaurant in my back shed" - even though MW thinks I do!

hmmmm ... Restaurant ... I have not been to one for a week or 3 ... although I think the last one I went to was an "All you can eat" one - does that count? There are probably are plenty of them with an A in their name (I know of a couple in the area, and there could even be an Auntie someone's kitchen or whatever - lol) but taking a photo of the name on the window/door of some restaurant is a bit boring anyway ... so I didn't bother to go hunting around and do it - lol

I thought about a photo of something one typically finds or eats in a restaurant, but I don't have any Antipasto or Artichokes or Asparagus handy ...

maybe a google search?

I don't think I want to eat at one of these! - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

but this place in Astipalea (a Greek Island) would be a rather nice place to eat out - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Greek_restaurant.JPG

... and - a bonus - it even has Turquoise paint on the gate/fence beside it, and the lights are on so it is probably still open when it is dark.

Actually ... one of the best places I have eaten (and probably the only one I have a photo of that starts with an A) is "At the side of the road" LOL

I think this one was Afternoon tea ... on a Land Rover Club trip back in 1999 - what more could one want - good company, good scenery, and good food (if there is any left in the fridge - yes we have a fridge in the back of the 4WD - way easier than using an esky)

This one was when we stopped for lunch - but it was a bit cold!

This was in June 2000 - up in the hills near here - and we were not expecting to be eating our lunch in a blizzard!

(I have never seen this much snow before or since - it was an amazing day!)

... it even snowed ON my lunch!

and I discovered that if you leave nice crusty bread rolls in the snow while you take a photo of the snow on them, and then eat them - they go SOGGY ... aaaahhhhrrggghhh! (I don't like soggy rolls much, but I guess it was worth it for the photo ;-)

"At the beach" is also a great place to eat, but I don't think I have a photo of that ...

(hmmm - sounds like a good excuse to go to the beach - pity it is so far away from here)

Something you find in the dark is easy ... I am not sure that many people would want to find these in the dark - but here is one anyway:

an Arachnid! (arachnid is the fancy scientific name for spiders, and scorpions, and a few other related 8 legged creepy crawly things - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnid ) ... actually a lot of spiders (and other arachnids) are nocturnal (come out at night).

strangely enough - I think it actually WAS dark when I took that photo - LOL (it was on the wall of the hut that a group of us were camping in for the weekend, a few weeks ago - luckily we all like spiders so this one got photographed and then left to do it's own thing)

hmmm Turquoise ... is Aqua close enough? (most people can't tell the difference ;-)

I don't think I have any bits of the mineral Turquoise (and it doesn't start with A anyway) so maybe another google search?

I don't know anyone who has a pet Turquoise-fronted Amazon (a type of parrot).

Maybe I should write in turquoise?

or maybe not ... lol

How about some Azure and Turquoise sky?

This was taken on a recent 4WD trip, a day trip in what used to be the local forest until the fires in 2003 burnt it (that is why there are black dead sticks there - but as you can see, a lot of stuff is growing back now)

or maybe some Turquoise Attire?

it's a sarong I bought at the op shop - because I love the colour and I love the fish/etc design - and I am glad DD didn't want to wear it (it is kid size - too small for me) because I want to use it to make a bag or something.

maybe a Turquoise (and blue and purple and green) "party Animal"?

I am not sure what kind of Animal he is (I made him a few years ago) but he seems to be enjoying himself at the party! (btw - the wall behind him is actually where that spider was)

Will that do?

did I pass?

or do I get an F for fail or an E for "more effort required" ?

... or do I get totally surprised and get an A+?

btw - this isn't one of the catagories but I had to include it anyway, just because I found it in a folder of old pictures -

some (digital) Art?:

This was one of the weird things I did when I first started playing around with some of the fun image editing software on the computer ... back when we had only just recently purchased our first digital camera ... the photo I used to do this to was actually the first one in this blog post.

(and I still love the colours in it ;-)

I remember that all I had to do whas choose something out of a menu and maybe select a couple of options for how curly it came out or something ... I don't think the newer version of that program still has this effect (which is a pity - I liked it, and the nearest thing I could find in there just now was not as good)

btw ... next week we have the letter K and Something You Like The Smell Of, Hobby and Office Things ...

... that doesn't sound too easy either!

(especially since the only one I can think of for now is Knitting for a hobby - and that is about one of the few crafty things I DON'T do! ... although I have and I can, so will be able to take/find pictures fo that if I have to)

X marks the spot?

This week's scatterday is things starting with X
(and no catagories - just take photos of stuff starting with x)

What a pity I don't have a treasure map with an x on it ... I could go dig up the gold/etc and get rich - LOL

(and if I had a treasure map it might be because I was a pirate and I might be sailing a
xebec - which is a small three-masted pirate ship)

x rated is probably not a good idea for a photo on this blog either ...
(unless you consider my belly button to be x-rated! LOL)

btw, interesting? trivia time: it was interesting to find out (after a bit of google searching) that Winkipop beach (where they have the surfing contest if the surf isn't ok next door at Bells beach, near Melbourne) was actually named after a code word/euphamism for an X-rated activity! - see http://www.winkipopsurf.com.au/main.asp?_=The%20name )

anyway ... I guess I need some X photos ...

which I guess is not meant to be easy - especially seeing that, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X - "No words in the Basic English vocabulary begin with X"

... yes sure ... lol - luckily most of us have more than a basic understanding of English - LOL (or know some other language or can find some other creative way to find x things - lol)

how about:

Xylem

it's a bit small to see, but it is on there - the label says so - LOL
The xylem is the bit of the plant that transports water up from the roots to the rest of the plant.

(it comes in handy working in the science area of a high school - I can find all sorts of interesting things for blog photos/etc ;-)

Actually ... seeing that xylem is what actually what wood is made of - I guess I can find/take another photo of some xylem -

not only is it Xylem - it is a X-section - of a tree trunk.

Now what else have I got lying around at work?

ah - the chemical store is a good place to look - I found some Xanthydrol (whatever that is ... actually I think it is used to test for Urea) and some Xylol (goodnes knows why that stuff is in there either)

and possibly some Xylene if one can believe that crossed out and re-written label (actually I think Xylene is just another name for Xylol anyway) ... that label, and the fact that the bottles are so old they are in ounces and pints, and the fact that it is rather toxic, is the reason the Xylol (and/or xylene ;-) is being disposed of (along with a pile of other old/nasty stuff I found in there).

but I didn't find any Xanthan gum or any Xanthomonas campestris (the bacteria they use to make the stuff)

so what else can I find?

how about an XS650 ?

DH and I were at some motorbike races at Eastern Creek (in Sydney) on Sunday, so I figured that there might be some sort of bike that had a name starting with an x ... and I found one - a Yamaha xs650. I think the owner was a bit confused when I told him why I was taking the photo - lol

That is definitely 3 x things - "but wait - there's more"

Xanthorrhoea
(yes I said XANThorrhoea not DIAhorrhoea - lol)

... I saw a few of these on the way home on Sunday (on the hill just after going past Lake George) but DH was driving and I don't think he would have stopped for me to take a photo even if I had asked him to ... and there probably wasn't anywhere safe to stop on the side of the road there anyway) ... so ... "here is one I prepared earlier"? - actually I found a couple photos I have taken in the last few years

This one

was ... er ... somewhere ... probably East of Canberra - it was on a Land Rover Club trip back in May 2000.

I took this photo in April 2002

another couple of Xanthorrhoeas
... on a Scout hike in the Pierce's creek forest ... which now looks nothing like it did back then, because most of it was burnt in the bushfires in January 2003

(although it is amazing just how much stuff is now growing back)

There is one thing I wish I did have a photo (or even better - a video) of - and that was when I was a kid, and we lived on a farm, and Dad used to take me driving in the farm vehicle (which we used to call "the jeep" even though I think it was probablly an old Land Rover that looked like the army Jeeps on TV shows like "Mash") and one day he was driving me around in the "regrowth paddock" which used to have a lot of these plants in it - not tall ones on black trunks, just short wide ones with lots of spiky leaves coming up from fairly close to the ground - just the right height so that this particular day Dad managed to get us "bogged" on top of one of them with all 4 wheels off the ground! LOL (getting unbogged was relatively easy - Dad just got out and pushed and the "jeep" slid off enough so that a wheel was on the ground and could get some grip ... in fact knowing Dad - he probably got us "stuck" on purpose ;-)

btw - for those who don't know much about them - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthorrhoea has some info about these weird and wonderful looking plants.

Surely I can find a few more X things ...

I am not the FBI so I don't have any "X files"

I (hopefully) have 2 X chromasomes in each of my cells (except the egg cells in my ovaries I guess - if I remember rightly those should only have one) ... but I don't have a photo of those - LOL (if you want to see one - "google" it yourself - lol)

I am not even sure what the X factor is, and ditto for "chemical x" (one of the ingredients that the "Power Puff Girls" were made of ... gee there are some weird cartoons on TV)

Hmmm - maybe this is "chemical x"?

at least this one does have a label to say what it is (I found a few things, in the chemical store at work, that didn't! ... this one is some spray cleaner that was used as an "unknown" for a lesson where the students tested the pH of a few household chemicals and then had to work out what ones "x" and "y" and "z" were likely to be - the "x" was over the label when the students did the practical lesson - I wonder how many cheated and looked underneath the "x"? LOL)

I also found some X-Ray film hanging around in a store room at work (I have some here at home too, but I was already in the store room getting a photo of the tree X-sections so I grabbed the X-rays and took a photo of them too)

and I even took a photo of an old X-ray machine a couple weeks ago ... it was part of that old dentist surgery display I posted a photo of recently ( http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2008/03/25-challenge-when.html )

here is the bit of the photo that shows the X-ray machine:

eek! - it looks like a manic robotic vacuum cleaner or something!

I wonder what else I can find?

I don't have an X - plane ... but I would love to fly in one!

and I don't want any xtc/x (those are both nicknames 4 the drug Extacy)

I can't include a photo of me, because I am not a "10" (X is 10 in Roman Numerals)

I have a sneaking suspicion that the photocopier at work isn't a Xerox

(so I didn't bother to go up and take a photo of it)

and I wouldn't have a clue if this computer uses the "X Window system" or even what it is ...

... but I do know what usually happens when I hit the x on a (computer) window - LOL

I have a blog on Xanga ( http://weblog.xanga.com/aykayem ... I think) ... not that I ever post anything to it (I only created it so I could see how well it worked and if I liked it (I didn't - I like blogger - that is why I am still blogging here)

I don't want to go to Xtube ... apparently it is kind of like Youtube ... but with X (rated) stuff instead of you (and me) type stuff - LOL

I didn't ever take any photos of the Xeriscape garden here in Canberra ... and it has now closed down ... which is a bit odd seeing we now have a drought/water shortage and people really could do with a few ideas/lessons on how to grow stuff that doesn't need much water ...

and I have not been near a railway xing .
and I don't have a poster of the x (times) tables.

this is eXtremely good fun ...

I did a google search for X

and found the Wiki page for X ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X )

... and a few other odd things ... including a punk band called "X" - lol - and a couple of links to medical stuff about X-linked genetic diseases ... and

... ooooooh - lots more ideas here! - http://phrontistery.info/x.html

(that is where I found out about that small 3 masted pirate ship - lol)

a woodlouse (slater) is both of these:
xylophagous - wood-eating
xylophilous - fond of wood; living in or on wood

so I just took a photo of 3 woodlice ... otherwise known as slaters ... - 3 xylophagous Xylophiles!

- yes - I had to bring them in and put them on the floor inside - it was too dark outside! (but not too dark to find some - I thought I was going to have to go digging around at the edge where the lawn meets the garden beds, but these were under a cushion at the edge of the pergola! ... and to think I nearly didn't bother to lift it up and look under it - lol) ... and I had to put them on the floor because they kept crawling OFF my hand before I could even think about pointing the camera at them ... they kept crawling apart/out of my photo on the floor too ... and the cat kept standing on top of them - she wasn't particularly interested in the slaters - she just wanted to be right in the middle of whatever it was that I was doing!

ok I have eXhausted most of the x words (well there are some left, but I am eXhausted - lol)

so lets have something that looks like an X:

- here (actually it was in Sydney, in January) is a spider trying to look like an X

sorry - it is a bit blurry and I didn't get a better photo ... I think it might be a Saint Andrew's Cross spider ... or it might just be doing a good job of looking like one ... (I can see part of the X that they usually do on their webs on this one ... in the bottom left corner of the picture ... but I am not sure if they are the only sort of spider that does that)

and here are some spiders who are not pretending to be the letter X

- Charlotte and Henry:

yes - the same ones I posted about a week or 2 ago ( http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2008/03/hello-hairylegs.html )

hmmm ... Henry seems to have lost a couple of legs somewhere.
(dd named the big one "Charlotte" the day we first saw them ... so I decided that the other one could be "Henry" ... Henry hairylegs - lol ... or if he keeps loosing legs he will have to be Henry hoppalong ...)

anyway ... where was I?

oh yes - X
am I an eXpert?

have I eXcelled myself?
or have I gone to eXcess?
or am I just being eXtremely eXasperating?

maybe I should be eXpecting to be eXpelled from the challenge after this lot?!

X marks the spot where I should stop!

Y am I still up at this late hour? (it is now just after 3am!)

Zzzzzz is what I should be off doing.

and that brings us back to A

... which I just noticed (AFTER typing the xyz stuff!) is the next Letter we are doing!

- yes next Saturday we have to post pictures of things starting with the letter A, and the catagories are Restaurant, Something you find in the dark, Turquoise. (hmmm ... at first glance, that lot looks harder than X was!)