fe fi fo fun

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

D4 ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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



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


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


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

I took lots of photos of Doors:



single Doors

and Double Doors



... because I liked the interesting Designs.

I also like these Designs:



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

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



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

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



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

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

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


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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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


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

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

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



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

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

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

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




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

wow - this post is a Doozy!

Challenging?

hmmm - it is Wednesday again already ... time to post about the letter C for ABC Wednesday!

C is for ...

Crochet - which I was going to post about last time we were up to C, but I had not got around to organising the photos I wanted to take ... hmmm - I still have not done that - so maybe Crochet will have to be next time we get around to the letter C? LOL

(besides - 2 other reasons not to do it this time - 1: I have a Couple of other C things I can post about and 2: I don't have time to write the big long post that I want to write about Crochet ... lol)

so ...

what else is C for?

Comments on people's blogs - I tend to write some odd things on other peoples blog posts - lol

... like when someone mentioned about how her guests did not eat the chocolate slice because the chocolate was "too dark" (aparently it was milk chocolate, good quality stuff) so I wrote this:

"I would have eaten the chocky slice!... light, dark, whatever - if it is chocolate I like it - LOL

In fact the only time I ever don't eat chocolate is if some silly person puts MINT in it!- mint goes on lamb roast, or maybe in mint tea or somesuch, NOT with chocolate!"

and yes - Chocolate is another thing that starts with C - LOL

hmmm - I have often thought - what a pity one can't e-mail real stuff like chocolate slice ... sigh ... (actually there was once that I made some chocolate truffle thingys for supper for some meeting, and the person whose house the meeting was meant to be at had to cancel it - so I took a photo of the chocolate thingys and e-mailed her a picture of what she missed out on ;-) ... then I made her some more and took them next time I went to visit her)

C is also for cheating - I wrote the first part of this blog post (the bit above this line) last night while I was in here posting my B post (a Bit late - lol)

C is also for Creative - which is what a lot of members of Canberra Quilters are - this afternoon I was helping hang up the quilts for the quilt show (which is part of the Craft show) that is on, here in Canberra, for the next 4 days - and, judging by the number of wonderful quilts we have this year, there are a lot of very Clever people in Canberra Quilters.

... I entered things in a few Catagories ... including a Couple of bags in the Creative Clothing Catagory ... (how Cunning of me to find all these C words - lol).

I didn't make a "Crazy quilt" - but most people probably think my quilts are pretty Crazy ... I know I am rather Crazy ... lol

hmmm - maybe I should include a photo of my Challenge quilt ... the theme was "In Your Dreams" ... most people made quilts depicting things they dream of - but I decided to be Completely different and do one depictiong what I dream WITH - brain Cells!

... trouble is ... the aforementioned photo of my Challenge quilt is still on the memory Card in the Camera ... and the Couple of USB ports on the front of the Computer seem to have external hard drives Connected to them, and I am not sure if I can be bothered unplugging stuff/etc ... nor can I be bothered walking down to the bedroom to get the Camera, and the Cable for it ... lol

er ... I posted about last year's Challenge quilt - http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2008/08/wiggly-worms.html ... and there IS a photo (or 4) in that post - lol

but - I am not sure if I ever posted photos of any of my other Challenge quilts (they have the challenge every year, and I have made quite a few of them ... probably done one each year since the first time I did one - I kind of Can't resist a Challenge - at least not a Creative one - LOL)

ok ok ok ... I went and got the Camera and the Cable ...

jeepers Creepers! - there are a LOT of photos on that memory Card!

I uploaded August first (I also have some from June and July on it - there were only a Couple of hundred photos for each month! ... the joys of having a 2GB memory card in there - lol)

Anyway ... this is my 2009 Challenge quilt:



it is also a rather Cruddy photo ... lol

(I will have to try and take a better one on the weekend, if I Can find time in between all the rostered shifts I am doing, and the bit of shopping/whatever I want to go and do down among the Craft stalls - I probably don't have enough Cash to buy too much ... but then I don't need to buy much so if I don't spend more than a few dollars then I won't need to put anything on the Credit Card - lol)

Crikey I have some odd photos on that memory Card ... I forgot about all the ones I took when some of the male staff at the school I work at let some students give them a hair Cut! - actually it was a shave rather than a Cut - one of those shave your head to raise money for someone with Cancer thingys ...

Oh ... and I also should include at least one Crochet photo - this one:



Actually, most of it is knitting, but some of it is crochet ... it is on the poles at the front enterance of the National Gallery of Australia (the one that has "Blue Poles" hanging in it) ... and one of the bits of crochet stuff on the poles (marked with the bright green arrow) is mine! - well - of course I had to contribute something for that! - how could I resist it? - the chance to have something of mine exhibited at the National Gallery ... we don't need to mention that it is ON the gallery, not actually IN the gallery (but it is only a few metres from a Monet painting, and not much further from Blue Poles ;-)



btw there are a few more pictures of those poles etc here and here

(and there are a few other related posts on her blog as well)


Anyway ... I think I have probably Covered the letter C fairly well now?



I Could include a photo of the Cat ... but I won't - lol

(there are a pile on my blog already, and probably even more here ;-)



btw ... my surname starts with a C ... just thought you might want to know that ... lol

But ... I was Busy ...

... so this B post is just a little Bit late.

(er ... it is Belated? ... such an odd word that one - usually only seen on Birthday cards for those who forgot to send the card earlier ... and it looks stupid there too ... lol)

I could probably have thought of Bazillions of B things to post about, for ABC Wednesday, if I had not Been too Busy to post this sooner (actually there probably was a couple of times I may have had time to post something a Bit sooner ... But at the time I didn't Bother, Because I was going to do it "later" - lol)

But ... seeing I mentioned it last week (well - the week before last probably, seeing I was meant to post this last week - lol) ... I had better Bore you all with what I said I would say about Black h0les ...

B is for the Big Bang theory and how the Big Bang resulted in the creation of a Bazillion galaxies (some Big and some small) ... galaxies that astrophysicists tell us each have a Black hole in the middle of them ... and which also contain Bucket loads of Big stars that have died/collapesed and formed even more Black holes ...
But ... the Big question is - where ARE all these Black holes, and what is going to Become of them in the future - will the universe just keep getting Bigger until everything is too far away from anything else for anyone to care? or will some/all the stars become black holes and eat up everything else? If that happens, then what will the universe Be like?- what will happen once the Black holes are all that is left? - will they just keep eating each other up (due to Being attacted to each other's gravitational pull) until there is one Big Black hole? ... That is where my thoughts were going when I started to wonder - where does all that stuff go?! - maybe that is when it becomes too Big to fit in so little a space and we get another Big Bang? or maybe our Big Bang (the one that created our universe) is just the other side of some small Black hole in the Backwaters of some other universe?

hmmmm ... what if our whole universe is just some weird little Blob in some scientist's Bottle?

maybe I had better stop writing all about what comes out when my Brain goes Beserk, before I drive you all Bonkers!

btw ... B is also for Boo Boo - like the Bag of tools that was lost by that astronaut working on the ISS - I just found out it was supposed to have been going to re-enter the atmosphere yesterday - http://www.universetoday.com/2009/08/02/orbiting-toolbag-will-enter-atmosphere-aug-3/ ... I wonder if it is Back yet? - actually it won't/didn't come "Back" anywhere - it will/did Burn up on re-entry - lol

(unless it gets swallowed up by that Black hole that comes and visits my place - the one that eats one sock out of each pair I put in the wash, and swallows up all the Biros/pens and spits out wire coat hangers ... )

Before I go ... I can't not say that B is for BLOG ... lol

... which reminds me (just after I actually posted it!) that I should mention that I am still trying to Blog my way to Antarctica ... hey - I even have 1 vote! - someBody has actually gone there and voted for me!
(... now that I have more than 0 votes I won't get the Booby prize? - another few thousand votes and I might actually Be able to win this - lol)

A is for ... ABC ... Again ...

A is for ...

Alphabet! ... and All the letters in it! LOL
yes - ABC Wednesday is now starting it's 5th round ... so - let's see how well I can keep up this time ... lol (it is a wonderful excuse to try and post at least once each week - lol)

A is Also for All that stuff I posted about last time (Arachnids and Aykayem and All sorts of other Amazing ... or was it Awful? ... stuff)

And ... er ... And! - that word that one should NOT start a sentence with - lol

A is for Antarctica!
... An Amazingly Awesome place that I really want to go to ... which is why I decided to try and blog my way to Antarctica ... trouble is ... I will need more than 2000 votes to win (someone else already has 2002 votes, and a few others are not far behind) ... And I don't think I have Any yet ... sigh ...
(maybe I need to change that Awful profile picture? ... or do some Advertising ... maybe I should tell the ABC radio people About it? - I could tell them that they need to help me, by doing an interview/publicity/etc, because it should be an Australian who wins? - LOL)

A is also for Astronomy ... which is Also Apt - not just because 2009 is the International Year Of Astronomy (As I mentioned in the other A post) but it is Also for the Aniversary of the first Moon landing - 40 years ago this week (I could have said "Today" if I had posted this on time - lol) and Apollo 11 and the Astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who were the first to set foot on the moon. (First humans, and first Americans ... much to Russia's disgust ... hmmm - I wonder if humankind would have made more/greater advances, or made less progress, if America and Russia had been working with each other rather than against each other?)

A is also for ACTTAA - the ACT Textile Arts Association (which I am a member of) ... and the theme for our exhibition (in a couple of months time) is partly to do with it being the year of Astronomy - the theme is "Heaven And Earth" (the other thing is the fact that it is also the year of natural fibres)
... I guess that theme kind of covers everything ... well Almost Anything Anyway ... it could be possible that there might be some where/thing that is not part of Heaven or Earth? lol
I Assume one would have to ask an Astrophysicist about that one?

I Actually had an Amazing and Awesomely odd thought About Astrophysics last night ... (it was to do with Black holes and the Big Bang theory - But that can wait for next week ... or whenever I get around to doing my "B" post - lol)

hmmm A is also for the Absence of Any images ...

... In order to make this post more Attractive, I might have to Add one:



This is from my Geocities page (the one that is about to be Absent because it will not exist any more once yahoo "flick the off switch" sometime soon) in fact I just went and copied this one from the geocities page because I can't remember where on the computer I put the original (bigger) copy of it!
(it is Also possible that it is Absent All together ... As in ... it isn't where I put it Anyway ... the likelyhood of that Awful fact being Applicable is dependant on where I Actually put it in the first place ... And ... it is possible that the image IS where I put it, but where I put it is not in Any of the places where I think I ought to have put it - it could be in Another folder Alltogether ... maybe even the other "Andrea" folder, which is on Another computer ... Ahhhhrrrrgggghhhh ...)

So ... what is it? ... well - this is what I have written under it on my geocities page:

This picture is actually an image of gaseous pillars in the Eagle Nebula, M16. It was Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, on April 1st (!) 1995 .
The image is courtesy of the Space Telescope Science Institute (ST Sci), operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., for NASA., and NASA.Material created with support to AURA/ST ScI from NASA contract NAS5-26555 is reproduced here was reproduced on my geocities page with permission.
I drew in the fuzzy bit at the top right hand corner (because it had nothing there, just black squares - the image is actually made up of several smaller ones, and there were a couple missing in the corner).

I still think there is something kind of weird and eerie about that image ... that tallest pillar on the left kind of looks like someone got a whole zoo of animals (both real and imaginary) and kind of squidged it all up together ...

... maybe some Aliens did that to it, just to drive us nuts?

A is Also for the Awfull smell of whatever DD just cooked herself for a Midnight snack (toast I think) which would probably smell ok if I was hungry and I wasn't half alseep, and hadn't had black pudding for supper A little while Ago ... hmmm - DD should be in bed - she has school in the morning ... then again - so should I, because I also have school in the morning! (actually I have to go to work in the morning ... but ... I work at a school - lol)

I can think of At least one other A word ... but that could be a bit Awkward (As it is a bit Awfull) because I want to try and keep this blog "family friendly" ... or at least not too bad mostly - lol

so .. I will bid you Adieu (or however u spell that word) ... and I could say a goodbye/goodnight/etc in a couple of other languages that have words for it that start with A, but I can't be bothered looking up how to spell them ...

Alas Poor Geocites, I Knew It Well ...

Yes ... I just found out that Yahoo are closing down Geocities, and deleting all the Geocities websites (well the ones that don't move to PAID web hosting and get the URL re-directed), in late October ...

Which is a bit dissapointing seeing I HAVE a Geocites website!
... not that I used it any more - LOL
but ... it IS the first website I ever had, so it sort of has a bit of sentimental value ...

... which is why I was happy to see that, because Yahoo were good/clever enough to tell them, the nice people at the Wayback Machine are busily archiving as much of geocites as they can before it goes offline, and I am also pleased to notice that they have already (as part of their normal crawling around the www over the last several years) archived a couple of older versions of my geocites home page, and some of the stuff on it (the photos don't work, nor do half the links ... but that is not surprising - some of the links and photos don't work anymore on my geocities site itself).
What they have archived for my site can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9279/ (well it could 10 minutes ago, but now they seem to be having "technical dificulties" ... hopefully that is just temporary ... hopefully it could be because they are adding to it already - I just submitted my URL for archiving again - the nice folks at yahoo geocites provided the link to a page on the wayback machine site where we can do that ;-)

The only bit if my geocities site that I really wanted to keep, and have it at it's original URL, was this - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9279/sigscquiltpic.jpg ... because the URL, and my name, was mentioned in an article in a magazine! (in Down Under Quilts magazine ... who now have digital copies of their magazine online ... but not the one my URL was mentioned in - that was 5 or 10 years ago!)

hmmm ... I guess I should just print out all the pages on my website and stick them in a folder to probably never get around to looking at in my old age ... because I don't think anybody else will really care/be interested in looking at what I had there ... LOL
but ... just in case I am wrong/you are curious (and happen to be reading this before those yahooligans delete it) the URL for my Geocities page is http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9279/ ... or http://www.geocities.com/aykayem/ (they came up with those shorter URLs later on, so those of us with the original longer ones ended up with 2)

btw ... I do also have a few crochet patterns on my geocites site ... but I already had plans to move them to my blog (either this one or one of the others, with a link in the side bar of this one) anyway ... once I have printed them out, crocheted them again so I can find/correct all the mistakes (I know there are at least a few mistakes in there, and will probably find more) and maybe tidied them up a bit so they look/work ok when they are printed ...
(of course, me being me, and considering the fact that I have been meaning to do that ever since I started this blog - it may take me a few weeks/months/years to actually get around to DOING it ...)

Hmmm ... This post doesn't have any photos, and nor did the last one I wrote (which is now not the last one I posted - lol) - I wonder if I can find photos, of the things I wrote patterns for, on the computer?

... er ... maybe not quickly ... but I found a few photos of some other stuff I have crocheted, from way back in 2002 (which was about when I wrote those crochet square patterns that I have on geocities).

In fact I found a heap of other stuff, and I put a whole pile of photos in here ... and it made the post rather long, and disjointed (seeing it was about 2 different things - lol) - so I have just decided to cut and paste all the other stuff into a different post - and post that one before this one ... so it still appears on my blog with this bit on top of the page, and then all the weird photos under it ...
- so if you want to pretend that I left them all in here as one big long blog post, then you should be able to just scroll down a bit, skip the short paragraph that explains what they are (for anyone who just finds the post by itself somewhere/somehow without reading this first) and keep reading ... or just look ... or whatever ...

ok ... the photos are now in their own post ... and DH is waiting for me to finish this so we can go and get fish and chips for tea - LOL

A pile of old photos of crochet and stuff ...

I found all these while I was typing a blog post about how Geocities was closing down - which will now be posted shortly AFTER this one (so that for those who want to keep reading it like it was one post can just keep reading down the page to this one - lol) - most of them didn't really relate to the first part of that post, so I decided to put them in their own post instead - LOL

Anyway ...

... snip snip ... where is the glue? ... oh there ...

here are all those photos I just found:


I am not sure what this is ...

... or why I crocheted it.

This one is a discloth (or could be used as a face washer or doily or whatever)

I crocheted it for a swap/exchange I was doing on the Australiacrochet yahoogroup.
(and I made the design up as I went, so there is no pattern for this one anywhere ... yet ...)

This is one of a pile of little bears I crocheted ...

... I am not sure if this was one I swapped, or just one of the many I made because I was having fun making them at the time ... lol
(I got the idea from a bear pattern that a friend wrote, but I changed just about everything in the pattern so it isn't the same pattern any more ... but I have never actually written the "pattern" down ... I might do that one year ... )

This is a milk jug cover I made

the tassel is because I ended up with a different number of stitches around the outside than I needed for the pattern of the edging (last 2 rows) to work out evenly - so I did my usual and fudged something - which I actually like - lol
(hmmm, I think I used someone's else's pattern for this, or at least for the middle bit, but I can't remember what pattern it was or where I got it ... somewhere on the www I think ... not really helpful eh?)

This is a small bowl I made ...

... and beside it is the rest of the roll of the garden string that I crocheted it with!
(if something can be tied in a knot - I will have a go at crocheting with it!)
I think I used a coaster pattern as the basic idea, but changed it so it doesn't lie flat like the coaster did.

This is not crochet

it is a tiny quilt I made for a friend, for her birthday. I think it was also my first bit of "stipple quilting" ... but not my last ...
(I can't remember where I got that foundation peiced cat block design from - I probably got given a copy of it at a craft group I used to go to about 15 years ago, but I have seen it a lot of times, in a lot of places (books, websites, quilts, etc) since then).

here is a bookmark I crocheted

I think I made that one up as I went.

but I used a pattern for these 2 drink coasters

but again ... not sure offhand what pattern I used (one I found free on the www, probably when I did a google search for "free crochet coaster patterns" or somesuch)

This is a Christmas quilt I made ...

using quilt blocks that other people made - I went in a swap that we had on a quilty yahoogroup I am on ... I have actually been in several swaps on that group, but I think this is the only one where I have actually made a quilt out of the blocks ... in fact this was the blocks from 3 Christmas swaps, from 3 different years! (an angel block swap, and 2 different Christmas star/tree block swaps)

I tend not to go in many swaps now ... well not block swaps ... but I did just join in and do an "inchie" swap on an art quilt list ... if I have not done so sooner, I will try to remember to post about the "inchies" when we get up to the letter I again for that ABC Wednesday thing ... if we do another round that is (we are up to Z this week, not sure if it is starting at A again or not)

Ah ... found a couple of what I was looking for - those crochet squares that I wrote patterns for, and posted on my geocities page

This one is "Within"


and this one is "from big things, little things grow"

(I think, when I named this one, I was feeling inspired by a song with that same title - lol)

and these are a pile of other squares I crocheted around the same time as I designed those 2

the last 2 are the ones I designed, the rest are all from patterns found on the www and the URLs posted to the Australiacrochet yahoogroup
- we were doing a weekly mystery square at the time ... and, at the time, I was the person who was finding the URLs and posting them ... so I have a huge collection of granny square URLs ... somewhere ... lol
... if anyone reading this (IS anyone reading this?! lol) actually wants the URL for the pattern for any of these - leave a comment telling me which one (they all have numbers on them in the photo) and provided the pattern is still up at the same place it was back in 2002 (some of them are not), I can look up the URL for it in the list I have.

er ... I probably should stop looking for photos now - seeing this post has got rather long - LOL

but first ... a quick peek in the other couple of folders of photos from that year, to see if any other names jump out at me (I am just browsing the file names as I upload them, rather than opening up any photo software - because doing that seems to be what this poor old computer doesn't like ... and it also takes longer to find photos if I do that because I always get lost/side-tracked in there doing other stuff - lol)

hmmm ... a log cabin quilt block I made

I am not sure if this is the one I made into a pin cushion for a swap, or if this is the other one, that I still have not made into anything (I made 2 blocks almost the same, using the same fabrics - the idea was so i could make 2 pincushions - one for the swap and one for me ... the swap one got finished at the last minute so I could swap it ... and the other one didn't ... lol)

and ... probably a good photo to end with - 2 more crochet squares - another "pattern" that I made up

... I gave it a name, but I am not sure if I ever wrote this one out as a pattern. (I probably should one day - because I like it ... lol)

now ... back to that other post - lol

Yes

Yes ... I am having fun doing Wednesday ABC posts ... when I get around to it ... lol

... so this one is my Y post.

and Yes - I would like Wednesday ABC to keep going for another round ... then I can post about how I want to go to Antarctica when we start at A - LOL

... and I will probably also post about the other A things I probably didn't cover last time ... LOL

Y?

Y not?

(I think I actually did that for my post last time we did Y ;-)



Yes I want to blog my way to Antarctica http://www.blogyourwaytoantarctica.com/blogs/view/281

Y should you vote for me?

- Y not?!

you can read my post about it here - http://thebestblogintheentireworld.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-want-to-go-to-antarctica-i-want-to-go.html ... or you can read much the same stuff at the site where you will need to go to vote for me!

cool URL I have for that blog eh?!

one day I went to go there (there used to be something else there I think) and I saw it was vacant and so I took the opportunity and signed up for it!

Y?

Y not?! LOL

so ...
Y am I still UP at this late hour of night?

well ... because when DH went to bed I was wide awake (probably due to having been up even later last night ... er ... as in getting fairly close to sunrise this morning actually ... so I slept in until lunch time today) and then I kind of got side-tracked in here ... and joined twitter ... which I had been kind of meaning to do for ages ... but hadn't got around to because I couldn't decide on a good user name - I wanted to use aykayem (which is a name I invented for myself way back in about 1978 ... before cyberspace had even been invented!) - but ... after years and years of signing up for all sorts of stuff/junk/whatever online, and it always being available ... I tried to use it for twitter and it was TAKEN ... aaaahhhrrrggghhhh! (I wonder if he/she knows that he/she isn't the only "aykayem" hanging around in cyberspace? lol

Y is also for Yellow ... which is the colour of the lid on a jar of Vegemite ... and with both Vegemite and yellow - "a little goes a long way" ... LOL
(I briefly thought about making the text in this post a nice bright yellow, but thought the better of it and spared you - it probably would have been almost totally unreadable anyway - but yellow IS a very useful colour to put just a little bit of in a quilt that needs a little something to give it a bit of a lift/some oomph/whatever - lol)

"Yellow" is also the title of a song I rather like ... but I am not going to add music to this blog ... it has enough stuff to load as it is ... (I do have a music thingy on this blog and that song is actually already ON there! ... I think it is about half way down the list ... I just went and looked to see if it was there and still working ok (it was), but I closed it again because this poor old computer is acting up, which it has been doing a lot lately, and if I had left that window open while it was doing what it was doing, it probaly would have resulted in a blue screen of death or something ... and it doesn't want me to re-start it right now - I tried to do that a little while ago but it told me to try again later because the automatic virus scan is still going! ... besides ... very shortly I am going to hit the post button on this and go to bed - LOL
(I just need to do couple things first - like add labels, and put the current date and time on there - because I actually started typing this post a couple of days ago so it has that date/time on there until I change it)

btw ... I didn't get around to doing an X post last week ... but I probably more than covered it all last time we were up to the letter X - with all my Xanthorreas and other X words ... LOL
(oddly enough, because I happened to be at the botanic gardens and saw some nice ones, I did take several more photos of Xanthorreas a couple of weeks ago!)

Actually - I just looked at that X post and realised that it was also my FIRST post for ABC Wednesday! LOL
(but ... it wasn't my first post about the letter X/X words! - but I won't bore you with the details of that here - it is all explained in the Wednesday ABC one if you are really that interested - lol)

hmmm ... if I hadn't missed most of the letters in the middle of the alphabet I would have been a full circle ... so maybe we HAVE to do it again so I can have another go and see if I can at least fill in the gaps and do the letters I didn't do this time - LOL

anyway ... it is now even later than it was when I changed the time on this post (it is now 10 past 2 rather than 10 to 2 ... lol) so I had better post this before I fall asleep on the keyboard or something (or before this poor old computer decides that the one thing I am still doing on here is still too much for it, and totally crashes on me ... )

btw ... the name I decided to use on Twitter? - UTLAU
... which is what someone started calling me when a group of us used to chat on ICQ a few years back - UTLAU stands for Up Too Late As Usual ... and as you can see by the title of this blog - I liked it - LOL

... and as you can see from the times on most of my blog posts ... it still kind of suits me!
(although back then I was up in the wee small hours of the morning more often than not, and on any night of the week ... these days I am only up this late sometimes, and usually only when I don't have to get up for work or something the next day ... )

btw ... I could also say that it stands for Up Too Late . au - because I am up too late, in Australia - lol
(which is kind of another reason why I decided I like it, and decided to use it for Twitter)

er ...

goodnight!

W is for weird

I am sure people think I am weird ... but that is ok - I like weird ...

so - of course I have to do a W post for Wednesday ABC

W is for Weird, and for Wednesday ABC and also for Wrong ... very wrong - which is what describes what I am listening to at the moment ... which just happened to be some sound file I found on the WWW (more W s) ... I was actually finding and adding some songs to that playlist thing on the bottom of one of my other blogs

(I kind of got side-tracked while trying to work out why it wasn't playing "Poles Apart" any more) ... and I have just found some weird Star Trek parody thingy that happened to be about Kirk and Spock doing ... er ... well ... being gay together ...
(so - NO - I DIDN'T add that!)
but I did find a few different versions of "Stairway to Heaven" and a few theme songs, and some other stuff I like, and that wonderfully weird "Star Trekkin'" song by The Firm ... yes - my tastes in music are rather weird too!
The stuff on that particular blog is rather weird too ... which is probably why I put it there - I think I actually called that blog "Huh?" before I put anything on there - I created that blog to test out the new google version of blogger back when google first took over blogger and we didn't have to move our blogs from the old blogger yet ... then later on I decided to actually USE if for something ... so the "something" is a collection of photos of/posts about the kind of things that when one sees them, the first thought that comes to mind is "huh?"

The other weird thing is that DD (teenage Dear Daughter) came in here and is now "helping" me ... so - the really weird part - on her "orders" we are now listening to "Star Trekkin'" for the 3rd time in a row ... lol

W is also for washing ... which DD also Wants me to do some of (actually I have washed what needs to be washed - her Work uniform - but it is still sitting in the Washing basket Waiting until I get around to hanging it out!)

yes - w is also for Whenever ... Which seems to be the time a lot of things get done around here ...

W is also for water ... which reminds me ... I Was going to go get a drink (and some dinner!) a While ago but got lot on the WWW instead ... Water is also What lakes and rivers and oceans are made of ... and what one can swim in and float boats on ... and in the case of the sea - what has Waves to surf on ... I like messing about in/on/near the sea ... or even any other nice body of water (so Why do I live so far from the beach?!)

W is also for Work ... and DH is just about to finish work (he Works Weird hours) and if I don't hurry up with this he Will find me still here When he gets home ... lol

hmmm - my thoughts got Way laid ... I Was talking about Weird still ...

Weird also describes a lot of the quilty and crochet stuff I make ... some of which is on this blog, and some more of which will (might?) eventually get put on here When I get around to it ...

Sometimes I also blog about other weird stuff I do, and weird stuff I see, and weird stuff I find on the Weird, Wild and Wonderful World Wide Web ...

W is also for Words ... which there seem to be rather a lot of in this post ... and no pictures ...

I Wonder What I can find ...

somewhere I have some photos of Worms - but because I can't be bothered looking for those right now I will spare you those ...

hmmm some weird song comes to mind ... something I used to sing at school, and mum used to sing at school ... and probably her mum too ... but I am not sure I remember the exact words ... or if it even has EXACT words - most of those things have a few different versions ...

"nobody loves me,
everybody hates me,
I think I will go and eat worms

big fat slimy ones,
little short skinny ones,
see how the squiggles and squirms

nobody knows
how well you can live
on worms 3 times a day"

ahh ... found a Weird photo ... a good "What is this?" one:



yes ... Weird, but rather pretty ... Which is often the case With some of the odd things I have at Work ... Which is Where this is.

so .. what is it?



- a pile of glass rods, lying (drying) on a couple of cleaning cloths (the sort made from recycled rag/threads of some sort) after I washed the messy globs of Wax off them (which had been put on there by students as part of the science practical lesson they were using them for).

anyway ... time to do some house Work ... the Washing Won't hang itself up ... sigh ...

"Build it, and they will come"

... the title of this post is a quote from some movie I saw once ... quite a weird movie, but also one I liked, if I remember rightly ... I think it was called "Field Of Dreams" ... anyway ... it seemed like a good title for this blog post, which isn't about the movie, or what the movie was about, or anything to do with the movie ... except for the bit where someone says "Build it, and they will come". (actually I just looked it up here and it says the quote is "If you build it, he will come" ... but I am sure I have heard it quoted (and/or mis-quoted) all sorts of ways, for all sorts of things).

What ... I am typing a blog post?! ...

shock! horror! - yes - I am actually POSTING something on my blog!!! - LOL

A few weeks ago I went to the National Gallery to have a look at an exhibition (called Soft Sculpture) ... and to "suss out" the poles to see where my bit of crocheting (if I finish it in time) is going to be hung - yes - I am going to have something on exhibit at the National Gallery ... but not IN the gallery - it will be ON the gallery! - as part of this installation that is happening in ... eek! - a couple weeks time. (hmmm - I had better get a wiggle on and finish my weird bit of crochet)

Anyway ... I took this photo:



no the ball shaped thingy isn't a UFO floating by ... it is actually a metal sculpture, and it is hanging from several wires between a couple of buildings, high up, right over the middle of a road.

I think it has been there for years, but I was taking photos and thought this would be an interesting one ... then I noticed something IN the ball - which made an even more interesting photo:



yes - a bird's nest! ... probably a magpie, from the size and messy appearance it has.
What a great "penthouse appartment" for a bird - high up, almost impossible to get to if you don't have wings, 360 degree views, stable place to build the nest on with a protective screen around the outside - perfect! LOL

"Beam me up Scotty - there's no intelligent life down here"

Yes ... I am one of those weird people who like Star Trek ...

... which is probably why I end up doing strange things like this - lol

It is the result of me messing around with an already strange photo (of me with all my hair standing on end, because I had my hands on a Van de Graaff generator at the time) and noticing that when I did whatever it was I did to the photo it made me look a bit like a Klingon ... so I did a few more things to make the photo look even more like one - lol

this (below) was the original one ... doesn't look much better, does it? LOL

anyway ... where was I?

oh yes ... I was here typing a blog post actually ... lol

but, a few minutes ago (actually about 10 days ago now - I kind of copied something else to the "clipboard" before I pasted the comment in here so I had to wait until it appeard on the site, and then wait even longer until I remembered to go and look for it and copy it again and come back and finish this blog post - lol)

anyway ... doesn't really matter exactly when it was ... I was here reading this article - http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4319637.html

and ... me being me ... I just had to leave a comment - LOL

This is what I said:

here we go again ... everyone arguing around in circles about UFOs and aliens and cover ups etc etc etc ... yes, there are a lot of fake/out of context bits of "evidence" ... and there are also a few things that are not fake/etc but nobody can explain ... yet ... - I guess we will eventually find out one way or the other then the crackpots and the devout skeptics will have to find something else to argue with each other about. hmmm ... if there are any aliens out there watching, and if said aliens are anything like us - I can just imagine the arguments as they email/twitter/whatever each other over the subspace communication network (or whatever) ... "yes they are intelligent" "no they are too primative lets hunt them for food" "maybe they are intelligent but they could be a threat to us, lets wipe them out now" "no - everything has a right to live, lets leave them alone" "but if we do that the bipeds will blow up the whole planet and all the other species will die out and/or we won't be able to use what is left" etc ... I hope that either they don't exist, or that if they do - then let's hope they are a lot more intelligent than us ... then again ... if they don't spend ages arguing about it they might just decide we are worthless vermin/too ratty/argumentative to be worth even making contact with and wipe us all out without even bothering to talk to us ... [aykayem ducks, and runs for cover]

btw ... this computer is searching for aliens too (running SETI when it isn't doing other stuff ... although some of the other stuff is actually other stuff like SETI - things like protien folding and other "projects" than one can donate computer time to ... not sure which ones are running right now - the ones we have running are whatever takes DH's fancy at the time - LOL)
... I wonder if SETI will actually find anything?
I wonder if I will actually post something a bit less weird/silly here sometime soon?

or should I post something more silly?

... hmmm ... I wonder ...?

Hyperbolic bloom (and btw - I am back from my trip)

... in fact I have been back for about 5 weeks - LOL
But I kind of hit the ground running ... went back to work, went to a heap of meetings, did a pile of stuff, and did a fair bit of doing nothing much in front of the TV with DH as well (but I did do some sewing and crocheting while I did that).

Basically I have been doing just about anything and everything except blogging!

Anyway ... I guess I really should mention the thing that the title of this post refers to ...

which is, sort of, this:



and this is the other side of it:



... with the hook I used to crochet it ... the "yarn" I used was actually cut up loops of plastic shopping bags.

Believe it or not, I actually paid money to take my own "yarn"/etc and sit and crochet that thing!
(but we did get to drink lots of coffe and eat a rather yummy afternoon tea ;-)

So why did I go and sit and crochet that?

- because it is now going to be part of this - http://www.sydneyreef.blogspot.com/

A group of us went to a workshop that was part of it - in fact I notice there is a sort of short blog post about it too - http://sydneyreef.blogspot.com/2009/05/anca-hyperbolic-bloom.html (I possibly in that top photo ... just ... I think ... although I can't see/zoom in enough to be sure if it isn't someone else who was beside me ... all you can see is a bit of the side of ?my head and shoulder in the distance behind someone else in the other group in the foreground - LOL)

I am also planning to crochet something for this - http://dneese.blogspot.com/2009/05/you-can-help.html
and I have just found out about another one I might have to do something for as well - http://theknittedconvenience.blogspot.com/

... hmmm ... not forgetting that somewhere in there I have about 2 weeks to decide what to enter in the Canberra Quilters exhibition and submit my entry forms (including photo of finished or at least partly completed items! ... which could be a bit hard if I have not actually even started them!) ... and then I have to finish entered items in time to deliver them a week or 2 before the exhibition (in August) ... and then ... after these crochet things have happened, thank goodness - I will probably only have a few weeks to decide what to make and enter in the ACTTAA exhibition which happens at bit later in the year ...
And I also have a few other odd things to make - like a few sets of green "inchies" for a swap on a yahoogroup I am on, and a baby gift or 2 ... and who knows what else I have forgotten about right now ...

I wonder when I will find time to sort out my sewing/etc room?

Tryıng to type on a Turkısh keyboard

... ıs not very easy when you are not Turkısh, don´t speak Turkısh, don´t lıve here, and have never been here before - lol

yes - İ had to do ıt - The hotel İ am stayıng in tonıght has free internet (well it is free for those of us on the tour İ am on ...) so İ just had to see what ıt was lıke to post stuff to my blog from Turkey - LOL

btw - İ am in Canakkale, not far from Gelibolu (a town near Anzac Cove)... half an hour on a ferry and then half an hour down the road - but a whole contınent away - LOL (Anzac Cove etc, ıs on one sıde of the Dardanelles, and ıs part of Europe, but Canakkale ... and most of Turkey ... is on the other sıde of that bit of water, in Asıa... whıch ıs the name of a town near Anzac Cove)

I am stıll tryıng to work out whıch letter I İ should use ... there are TWO on the keyboard! ... and the one ın the rıght place (the one I just used here) ıs actually not the one that works ın e-addys even though ıt looks more lıke an I when İ use a capıtal i ... at least ıt does at thıs end ... LOL
Some of the other keys are in dıfferent places too ... and there ıs an extra key that works lıke the shıft key but for some thıngs the shıft key doesn´t ... lıke the @ - it took me a whıle to fınd that one when İ was ın here sendıng a couple of e-maıls earlier in the evening - lol
The , (comma) key ıs over on the sıde ... under the backspace key ... there seems to be a ö and a ç down where İ went lookıng for the comma ... and the ~ ıs one of those thıngs lıke the @ - where u need the Alt Gr key ... İ was goıng to put that key name ın quotatıon marks - but İ can,t FIND them! LOL

btw,
Mum and İ are having a wonderful tıme ... I have taken LOTS of photos, both here ın Turkey (thıs ıs our 2nd day here) and ın Dubaı (and a couple other parts of the Unıted Arab Emırates that we went to one day) ... but at thıs hour of nıght İ wasn,t goıng to dıg around ın my suıtcase and fınd my card reader thıngy and try and work out ıf I could put photos from there onto here - I only came ın here at thıs late hour of nıght - ıt ıs after 11pm here ... (and ıt ıs last nıght, for those of you ın Australıa stıll - lol) - I dıdn,t have tıme to mess around wıth my blog when İ was ın here sendıng e-maıl earlıer because ıt was a few mınutes to tea tıme, and there were also a whole heap of people wantıng to get on here and send theır e-maıls too ... but most of them are probably sound asleep and snorıng by now (Mum ıs ... asleep ... and snorıng - that ıs why İ came down here - LOL)

Anyway - I had better go back to the room and get some sleep - before İ fall asleep on thıs keyboard and make ıt look even more weırd - LOL

Goodnıght ... good mornıng ... whatever ...

J

J is for journey ... I head off in a few days for my big Journey - I fly up to Qld to Mum and Dad's place, then later that same day Mum and I fly overseas on our big adventure ... LOL

Actually - I have already left! ... I am up at Mum and Dads place in Qeensland (I flew up this morning) and we head off to the airport late this evening, ready to fly off at "stupid 0'clock" (in the middle of the night ... you know - that time when I am often still UP posting to my blog - lol)
... although by the time you read this (if scheduling the post for 2 days time actually works), I will be in Dubai ... lol

if I have got organised, I will have posts for the letters k, l, m, n, and o, for ABC Wednesday, scheduled to post themselves for the weeks I am away ... or I may run out of time and not get there (or I may stuff it up and they won't post themselves at the right times or something - lol) ... but I probably won't be near a computer/the internet to check if they work, or add them to the "Mr Linky" page ...

(I ran out if time, but I might see what I can do now while I have use of this computer at the community centre, while Mum and Dad are at a meeting there ;-)
... on second thoughts - no - I won't schedule any more after this one - because I just went and looked at what I had saved as drafts and I have not put any photos in any of them, and they make for pretty boring reading without any photos - lol ... so they might all get posted in a bunch when I get back ... or saved for next year if we keep doing ABC Wednesday again ;-)


J is also for Junk ... DH thinks most of my sewing/crafty/etc stuff is junk ... some probably is, even to me - lol

- I tend to collect "stuff" ... and a lot if it is junk, but I intend to use at least some of it eventually ... just not sure which part I will use, so I don't want to chuck it all out quite yet ... sigh ... but I have thrown some junk out ... and I will do more sorting out/chucking stuff this year - after I get back from the big Journey - lol

[b4 and after photos of pergola that now looks like a pergola again?]

er ... sorry - you miss out for now - I didn't put them in here while I was still at home - LOL
(so this post can be an example of how boring a blog post is when I don't have the photos to go with it - lol)

up up and away ...

... oh hang on - the airline that had that slogan doesn't exist any more ... but the one I flew up here to Queensland on does.

I had to get up before sunrise to catch my early morning flight from Canberra (where I live) ...



yes ... this is me I am talking about and I did mention sunRISE - lol
- usually I see (and take lots of photos of ;-) sunSET ... so this is a bit different for me ... my sense of direction got all confused seeing the red glow of the sun behind the top of the hills and told me I was looking West when I was looking East - LOL

It was worth only having (er dare I say it ... yes why not ... Mum never reads my blog anyway - about 2 hours sleep) to get to fly over the clouds and see views like this:


and this:


and this:


and


and


and this:


and these:



















hmmm - the colour of those clouds, and the sea ... is there such a colour as "steely indigo"?

Anyway ... why am I posting to my blog right now ... well ... Mum and Dad live at one of those places that has a community centre with a pool and a bowling green and and a bar/etc and also a library with a computer that is connected to the www (which is where I am right now) ... and tonight is darts night ... but I am not really into darts ... lol ... so I decided to test drive photobucket and upload the 35 pictures I took on the flight up here, and post this blog post - lol

After the darts finish, we go back to Mum and Dads place for an hour or so, then we have to leave to go down to Brisbane airport so Dad can drop Mum and I off to catch our "stupid 0'clock" (as in it leaves just before 3am!) flight to Dubai ... and my blog will probably go very very quiet for a few weeks - lol
(well, apart from this week's ABC Wednesday post that should post itself just after Midnight on Wednesday, because I set it up to do that when I was in here earlier this afternoon while Mum and Dad were at some social club comittee meeting ;-)

ok ... pile of photos are there ... photobucket seems to be a good way to add them actually ... but Darts is almost finished and they will want to lock up ...

Time to go back to Mum and Dad's unit (well it is called a unit but it is bigger than their last house was!), and get ready to fly off on our big adventure ...

... as some kid in the seat behind me said when the plane took off - wheeeee!