Nets, and some other Nutty stuff ...

? apropos of Nothing ... or something like that ...
This is actually a post that I did NOT get around to posting back when I wrote it, so it is Not all New Now.

I Kind of didn't get around to a K post, for ABC Wednesday, and Lost the chance to do L in time ... Much the same for M ... so Now it is ... er - make that "was" ... N time (in fact it is Nearly too late for that!) ... lets hope this one doesn't end up as "Oops" ;-)
No - worse maybe - I was Naughty and "lost" it in among my draft posts for a year or so - LOL

The other day week month ... last year, I think I did take a photo of Nancy and her Nice, Nifty, Nets ... and she said she didn't mind if I used the photo on my blog ;-)

[ insert nancy net photo here if I can FIND it]

ok ... that might be easier said than done, but I am finding a few other N photos while I am looking:


a ?yabby Net that the dog fished out of a local dam 

... I think whoever left it there was probably a bit Naughty - as far as I know one is Not allowed to use that sort of Net in this area.

I also found a photo of some Nutrigrain:

... why was I playing with Nutrigrain at work? 
 - I was doing this:

 - setting up a rather odd science practical lesson ... the nutrigrain and beads and stuff were "prey" and the students got to use forks/spoons/skewers/etc to be different types of predators.


I also get to clean up the mess after science lessons ... and sometimes I get some odd things come back from the classroom ... something definitely looks Not quite right (in fact definitely wrong) here:

The brownish one is what it is meant to look like ... not sure what they did to the other one ... from the colour of it I would say one "delightful" student decided that it needed to be refilled with copper sulphate, or copper chloride ... sigh ... 


Something also looks a bit Not right with this beer label:

 ... or is it just me who thinks there is something a bit unfortunate with the placement of the dark tip on that Thylacine's ear? (if you click on the photo you should get a closer look ;-)


N is also for Nose:

... welll - Diesel's Nose kind of IS in the middle of this photo ;-)


More "Not right" - it may have been a Nice fence, before some Naughty Nutcase wrote on it with a spray can!

some more Nutty things:

 ... the results of me messing around with some dog hair at a friend's dog grooming salon ;-)

a Nice place to sleep?

 Spook seems to think I put that bunch of grass on the chair just so her head would be in the shade ;-)


Not right line markings? 

Nice view! - from on top of The Nut, at Stanley, Tasmania (while on holidays there a while back)

... and I finally found the photos of Nancy and her Nets! LOL

She also gave me a URL ... which she wrote (Neatly?) on a bit of paper ... I wonder where I put that? lol
actually I think I found that and went there, and the page didn't exist ... but I got the correct URL a bit later on - http://netwurks.wordpress.com/ ... a site which I never did get around to having a decent look at, but (looking at it quickly now) I think I could get lost on there for a rather long time - LOL
actually I think that was a newer URL ... I am sure the original one she gave me was on blogspot - ah - here it is http://www.netwurks.blogspot.com.au/ also interesting to look at (gives an explanation of what it was/is all about) but hasn't been posted to since last year.


Now ... for some other N related, and hopefully Not too Nasty, Nuttiness from the InterNet ...

I often go here - What Not to Crochet er ... now I have to go find that link - LOL 
- it can be found here: http://whatnot2crochet.com/wordpress/
(oh dear ... there are a few New things since I last looked, and some are downright Nasty! ;-)

there are also some what Not to knit sites too ... and I wonder how long before this - Knit Your Own Royal Wedding - will appear on those?! (er - that kind of gives away just how LONG ago I started writing this blog post! lol)
(or this, for that matter - Knit Your Own Dog: Easy-to-Follow Patterns for 25 Pedigree Pooches
... and I can Not leave out this Nutty crochet version - Ami Ami Dogs: Seriously Cute Crochet )
If they were going to, they probably have by Now, but I an Not going to go check ;-)
I suppose, before I post this mess, I should also check if those links still work? lol  
(yes - they do ... they are actually books one can buy on the Amazon website ;-)


I was probably going to add some more Nonsense in here, but I think this post is now more than long eNough ;-)


btw ... just an interesting thing I Noticed as I was checking for typos (some of which I am sure to have Not Noticed), and looking to make sure I had Not forgotten to add any URLs/etc - this post contains NO tweets - LOL
(although I am fairly sure I have posted at least one of these photos to Facebook at some stage ;-)


Now, it is time to post this, add my URL to the list of Nutty N stuff on http://abcwednesday-mrsnesbitt.blogspot.com.au/  and go and watch the News ...

Eventful Exhibitions and all the Fun of the (Craft and Quilt) Fair

ok ... so this looks suspiciously like an E post for ABC Wednesday, even though we are up to the letter F this week ... to be honest - that is Exactly what it was going to be, until the chunk of spare time I thought I was going to have to organise some photos and write it didn't actually Eventuate ... but that is Fine - because the subject of this post also quite nicely leads into a Few things that can also just as nicely work for the letter F  ;-)

A couple of weeks ago, was the annual Canberra Quilters Exhibition, which is now on during (and as part of) the Craft and Quilt Fair (organised by a mob called Expertise Events - lol).

As usual - I Entered a Few things ...

First (first finished in this case ;-) was the diary cover that I made back in January, and blogged about at the time - that post is here - http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2011/01/zzz-zen-and-art-of-stitching.html (yes ... another ABC Wednesday post - lol - scroll down past the couple of "doodles" I drew and you will find the diary cover ... and when I found this post to tell Mum where to find it so she could look - I also noticed that further down is a photo of another small quilt that I had sort of forgotten about - I probably could have entered it in the quilt show if I had remembered it at the time entries were due! ... next year will probably be too late, becuase it will have been made too long before the show to be allowed under the rules, unless they change them back to what they were a few years ago when it didn't matter when the item was made ;-)

Here is a photo of it hanging in the Exhibition:



... with the card for someone else's stuff, and the corners of a few other items "rubbed out" (using GIMP ;-) because I don't know if they really want photos of their stuff on my blog (or anywhere on the www for that matter)

and yes ... it seems the quilt judge actually liked it! (didn't come first/second/third - but I got this neat certificate saying it was "highly commended" ... which is more than I expected to get for anything I entered this year)

btw ... once I decided to enter it I took it off my diary, to keep it clean/new looking ... so my poor diary had to be naked again for a while ... it is back on my diary now - and I think I am the only person I know of who is using a diary with a cover that has been "highly commended" by a quilt judge - lol

Next is my challenge quilt (next photo, not next Finished - I Forget Exactly what order I Finished them in anyway - the last Few were done in an Extremely Fast rush - LOL)

The theme we had to follow, for the challenge, was "Home" ... as usual I had several ideas, most of them looked good in my head but I knew I probably wouldn't be able to make them look that good in fabric ... except for this idea - because I had actually done something that looks similar in the past - and that did look good (in fact I believe it is still getting admired whenever anyone sees it hanging up inside Mum and Dad's campervan ;-)

Anyway ... this is (a rather bad photo of) my challenge quilt - I can't take another one right now because I don't actually have it here at home (they become a travelling Exhibition for a year so it did not come home with me at the End of the Exhibition like the others did)



oh poop! ... I just realised, when I was fiddling with that photo - I Forgot to colour the lake in blue! LOL
(or draw on a few green tree symbols or something, for a bit of extra colour/interest/realism/whatever)
I came up with the idea of doing a map to Find my way home ... and got to thinking about how home is the place where one is at ... so this is kind of meant to depict where I am at, and the stuff that is happening around my life ... or something like that ... hopefully reading the place names on that map will help my Explanation make a bit more sense ... and it may help Explain why my blog posts are as weird as they are, and as sporadic as they are ;-)
(it is no co-incidence that the "here be dragons" is right near "procrastination plateau" at the bottom of "slippery slope" LOL)

My miniature quilt probably also explains a few things about me:



... there are definitely a lot of things about this that the "quilt police" would arrest me for - wobbly weird stitching and lumps and bumps and tucks and puckers and creases and wrinkles ... but I made it because I wanted to (the "Tiny Treasure" (miniature quilt) catagory does not have to be to any theme, but this quilt was actually another idea I had for the "home" theme - figured it was not that easy to make a good looking bigger version so I did a little one - and I like how it turned out ;-)

I only had 2 actuall QUILTS in the quilt show ... but they have catagories for creative clothing - which can be actual vests/coats/etc wearable things, and accessories. So ...

I entered this bag:



which was easy to make - machine quilted some grey fabric, hand stitched between the lines of machine quilting (which takes quite a while to do but I really enjoy doing that kind of stitching and stuff) and made it into a bag ;-)

I also found some green fabric that I had machine quilted with black thread (as an experiment for something or other that I ended up not needing for what it was originally done for) and I decided that seeing DH had just bought us an iPad - it needed a bag to keep it in (so it didn't rattle around in places like the car glove box when we took it somewhere) - so I did some gold hand stitching in between the black, and made it into an iPad sized pocket:



Trouble is ... I finished the bag in time to use it on the holiday we were taking the iPad on ... but the quilt show was AFTER the holiday - so I did not want to use the bag and get it dirty/scuffed/whatever before the quilt show (which could have easily happend while I was taking all those photos of food that I posted to Facebook - lol) - so I put it away, rather than using it, and then had to whip up another bag for the iPad!
(no photo here ... think I took one, but it is still on the camera - I might have to post that, and some better photos of some of this stuff, at a later date)

The other thing I made ... was for the creative clothing challenge - same theme as the quilt challenge ("Home") but had to be either clothing or an accessory ... so I kind of somehow came up with a rather weird idea ... and was in a bit of a contrary/cheeky mood - and figured that I would be a bit mischevous and enter something rather weird and wonderful ... I was kind of expecting to totally confuse the organisers and have them wonder what the heck it was and what to do with it ... because this is actually a HAT!



pity they didn't tell me they needed a "head" for it - I could have found/made something that would have worked (even a foam ball on a stick with fabric over it would have worked, had I known ... or been able to be there helping in the afternoon/evening on set up day like I usually do, but couldn't this year because I had a meeting to go to on the other side of town).
It does actually fit my  head - I made it so it would (no Mum - you don't have to walk beside me when I wear it - and yes - I DO intend to wear it ... somewhere - lol)
 ... it is meant to look like a hollow tree trunk, that is "home" to a bird (in a nest) and a whole pile of other creatures (worms and spiders made from yarn, plastic lizards, spiders, snakes ... etc).
(and the bird's body is a ball of yarn - because I ran out of time to crochet the body - although now I kind of prefer the idea of using a ball of yarn anyway ;-)

Funny thing is ... my weird idea kind of backfired on me - in a really nice way - lots of people actually liked it, including the quilt judge! - in fact she liked it so much that she awarded me that nice blue ribbon - yes - it came First! LOL
(and, I have not got it yet, because prizes are awarded at the next meeting - but according to the list in the catalogue - my First prize is a voucher to go and spend at a local quilt shop ... so I can go buy more Fabric to Fill up my sewing room ... or maybe I could spend it on some Fancy quilty gadgets/tools to Fiddle with?)

btw ... I Found the blog post where I wrote about the other quilt I made that looked like a map ... the post is at http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2007/07/magical-map-of-journey-of-life.html ... but now that I know when I posted it I can go and copy the html for the link and put it in this post so the same picture also shows up here:



... and so you don't have to go read all the other junk in that old post (although you can if you like - your keen stare will not wear the electrons off your computer screen ;-) I will explain what it is right here - I made this small quilt for Mum and Dad, and gave it to them for Christmas one year ... Mum made a LOT of quilts, and Dad used to work in a hardware store - so there is a "Quilt Town" and a "Hardware Hill" ... and a few other odd things ... lol
Both of those quilts are made from bits of the same peice of fabric - a length of calico that I rust dyed (by wrapping a whole pile of rusty junk, and dirt and stuff, in it and leaving it in a wet soggy heap for a day or 3 before I shook all the stuff off/out of it and washed it)

Anyway ... too bad if this blog post is not Finished ... because I have dedided it is ;-)
- I should be heading off to bed ... and even if I don't do that - I was meant to be doing other things this evening and still have not done them - and the main one was to Find some Fabric that I need to start making something that I want to have Finished For the textile art exhibition that is also coming up in a Few weeks time ... a Few too Few weeks ... as in I only have about 2 weeks to Finish the thing that I need that Fabric For!
(hopefully it will only take me a Few hours to make it ... providing I can Find a particular box of Fancy Fabric that I know I have hiding away ... somewhere ... !)

er ...

goodnight.

Crochet stuff and a few other things that start with C

I have been meaning to post some photos of some stuff I have Crocheted for ages ... so ... needing something for a C post for ABC Wednesday seems like a good excuse to actually to do it ;-)

... now I just have to find the photos I have taken ... and see what I don't have photos of, and actually FIND the items I don't yet have photos of so I can take some ... no wonder I drive myself Crazy!

ok ... I found some crochet photos, and some other C stuff ... now I just have to put them in here ... hopefully it won't take long - I spent too long finding and editing photos (some needed cropping and stuff) ... and I WAS going to be in bed by this time of night ...er ... morning ... because I have to get up for work in a few hours ...

I will start with the crochet ones ...
... and first - some shawls I actually made a couple of years ago, but didn't take photos of until late last year:

A green (wool) and black (who knows what sort of yarn it was) one:



with a rather cluttered background ... must take a better photo sometime ... or (even better but harder to organise) get someone to take a photo of me wearing the thing ...

A pinky purple/black/silver one:


done in a couple different fancy yarns.
And another one I actually made even earlier ... this thing is HUGE:



That is the top edge of the shawl stretched out down the passage - the but under the cat's tummy is the bit that goes on the back of my neck ... the bit that hangs down the back is actually draped over the dog's paws and he has his head on it - LOL
btw - the last few rows on this ended up so long that not only did it drive me mad, but each row took TWO balls of yarn!
(and it still drags on the ground after I wrap it around myself ... but it is nice and warm so I could probably use it as a snuggle rug or something ... or as my costume next time I am invited to a fancy dress party and want to go as a wookie ;-)

This is my "rainbow shawl" that I finised a year or 2 ago:


It is made from some fine wool I was given, and when I finished crocheting it this is what it looked like:


and yes that is asphalt under it - I spread it out beside my car, in the mostly empty car park at wiork, to take the photo.
This is what it looked like after I soaked it in some vinegar for a few minutes and then arranged it in the bottom of a large ice cream tub, attacked it with various colours of food dye, and zapped it in the microwave for a few minutes (until it was hot, so the dye would set):


hmmm - if you click on this to see it bigger you might see how clean the kitchen floor probably isn't - lol

This is something weird I crocheted last year:


it was for the Summer challenge for the textile art group I am in - we had to do a hand of some sort, on a stick - they were then displayed at the exhibition later last year. I crocheted a hand with long pointy fingers ... then I was mucking around and tied knots in the fingers ... and decided I liked it that way.

Some crochet vines I made for the textile art exhibition last year:


The light green one is some weird green wool I had in my yarn stash, and could be worn as a scarf if I want to. The darker one is some even stranger fuzzy yarn I got from the op shop, with flowers made from some fuzzy yarn (same sort as in that huge shawl) and the pods are made from felted dog hair - so maybe it is a dogwood vine? (hmmm I wonder what dogwood actually IS ... something I have seen mentioned in books I have read, but it isn't native to Australia ... I might have to "google" it sometime ;-)

This is a green cotton shawl I made last year ... in September/October - mostly in the car on the way to/from Queensland (and some of it in front of the tv/etc at Mum and Dad's place, and the last bit at a friend's place here in Canberra just after the trip to Qld.) ... so I call it my "travel shawl"



the danby bits were fun to make ;-)
this is the back of the same shawl:



I also made another (smaller) one in cream coloured cotton, but I have not taken a photo of it yet (I think i took these photos while I was still crocheting that one) I started the second one while i was part way through the green one, because I wanted something smaller (without such long rows as I was up to with the green one) to test out if the pattern I had in mind for the last few rows would work ok, and to work out how many stitches I needed to have in the row when I started the pattern bit ... so once I worked out the pattern and how many stitches in each repeat/etc - I had a miniature shawl - so I kept adding to it until I ran out of that particular yarn (in fact I did run out of yarn part of the way around the edging but I had something else that was similar enough to use for the last bit of the edging and not show up as different ;-)

These are some quilted fabric Coffee Cup Coasters I made in December:


I used 6 of them as part of the Christmas gifts I gave to the science teachers I work with (we seem to have a tradition where everyone puts a little something on each other's desks at the end of the school year ;-)
The other 3 are on our coffee table, but I am not sure they get used ... or even noticed ... lol
This is a beetle ... it wasn't in the B post, and it IS in this C post, because I took the photo during the Canberra Quilters meeting last week - I found it on the floor near my feet during the raffle draw (after which everyone gets up and stomps around packing the Chairs up) so I picked it up to save it from getting Crushed underfoot - and it Crawled around on my fingers and on my lap, making Chirping noises!


...  much to the amusement of the few people sitting Closest to me ...
(not a very Clear photo - it wouldn't stay still! ... so I Clicked about 8 photos then Chucked it out the door)

I found some Cloud photos too:


I often take photos of Clouds .. I think these are Cumulus, probably in the process of becoming Cumulo nimbus (those big tall thunderstorm clouds) Because we had a Crashing big thunderstorm not long after I took this photo last week.
This one was taken from very Close to the same place as the other one (a Couple of metres away probably)
but it was a Couple of days later ... and there was an even bigger storm even sooner afterwards ... with Crazy purple streaks of lightning and rain so heavy it was hard to see where I was driving ...



During the storm I just happened to be picking a friend up from work and driving us both to her place ... I live thunderstorms and she ... doesn't  ... so every big flash of purple lighting I would say "wow" and she would say "s..t" (or worse ;-)
And last (beCause I have well and truly enough photos in here already) 3 videos of a spider - Argiope sp. (not sure which one - but this is the genus the Saint Andrew's Cross spider is in) ... although it could be a Nephila sp. (which is another genus in the same family - the Golden Orb Weaver is in this genus) .
btw - yes I guess it is a long stretch for a C thing - but it was Creeping and Crawling around it's web, next to my Compost heap:











I know - too Creepy? lol

... and too late ... to make the Cut off for adding to the linky thingy, for the letter C posts, before it Closed ... oh well - I will just have to put the link in a Comment ...

hmmm - a C post and only one photo with the Cat in it (and she had to share that one with the dog!) but I am sure she will Cope ok with that.

I just won something!

... when I was least expecting it - LOL

no - not the lottery/lots of money or a car/house/etc  (I wish) ... seems I have won a "Zentangle" drawing ...

... oddly enough ... I was not trying to win this one (I didn't even know it was up for grabs) - I was trying to win a different one - this one ... and in the process of doing what had to be done to enter that, I had to become a follower of her blog (which I wanted to do anyway ;-) 
So I dived over there, and hit the "follow" button ... and went and walked the dog ... and came back to find a comment on Facebook to say that I was her 100th follower and had therefore won a Zentangle, just for being her 100th follower!

a what?

a Zentangle ... a kind of drawing/doodle thingy ... her blog explains it ... they seem to be the latest craze ... well actually they have been around for a while now I think ... oddly enough - the "doodles" I have been doing on and off ever since I remember (at least back in High School) look a bit similar ... seems I had already invented my own version? LOL

I should do some more doodles/drawings sometime ... actually ... I have done a couple recently (I kind of got inspired after seeing Zentangles on peoples blogs ;-)
... but I have not taken photos of them or scanned them yet.

hmmm ... I have not had a giveaway on my blog yet ... kind of missed/never got around to it at 100 posts ... and missed 200 and 250 ... maybe when I get to 300?  or maybe I should work out when I started blogging (er ... just looked at the date on my first post - oops - missed the 5 year aniversary too - lol)  ... and if I did have a giveaway - I am not sure what to give ... I might have to make something ... won't be anything huge or expensive though ... unless people start paying me 1000's of dollars for stuff I make or something ... which is about as likely as me finding out I really did have a rich cousin of a great uncle or somesuch, who I didn't know about, who has decided to leave his money to me, rather than anyone who is more closely related to him ...

pity I still have not got around to checking the crochet granny square patterns I used to have on my Geocities page (I know that some of them had a mistake or 5 in them) - I could put them up as a Celebration that I have been blogging for 5 years and 1 1/2 months ... gee ... it is THAT long?! LOL
(and - yes - feel free to ROTFLOL @ the fact that I have only posted about 260 posts ... plus a dozen or so on my other blogger blogs, and 4 or 5 on a few other blogging sites I tested out here and there).

Still Life?

I took this photo on my desk at work today:

well ... they say that "Life is a bowl of cherries" ... well Someone did (can't remember who ... maybe I should "google" it and see if I can find out? ... So - I just did that - aparently everyone and his dog said it, or Something Similar, and Some have even Sung Songs about it) ...

... and this bowl of cherries is not moving anywhere.

- so it is Still, and it is life, so does that make it a "still life"?  ... or am I supposed to actually draw or paint it before it is a "still life"?

Actually ... I can do an approximation of that with the "Art effects" in the photo editing software - LOL

not sure I am that fussed with that "work of art" I am sure I could do better, if I tried harder (funny - my school report cards used to say that ;-) ... but I didn't want to Spend too long Stuffing around with photos because it is almost "Stupid O'clock" and I probably Should go get Some Sleep Soon.

but ... Somehow I couldn't Stop myself - I had to have another fiddle:

That is a bit better ... but I Should Start with a photo that doesn't have a Strange looking Shadow that Stuffs things up.
(it would have been a bit hard to avoid the Shadow actually - I used the flash in this photo - the photo I took without it was blurry - and there is almost always a Shadow with the flash ... especially with close up - because the flash is to the Side of the lens ... So the angles are Slightly different - so the lens can See the Shadow to one Side ... or Something like that)

I guess I could do Something really Silly:

(and I Solved the "Strange bit where Shadow was" problem by cropping it out ;-)

hmmm - I think that last bowl of cherries could be MY life?

btw ... I did start typing a Q post for ABC Wednesday, but it kind of never got posted ... nor did an R post (which I think I started adding to the end of my Q post so it was going to be both) ... and my S post was going to be Something else, but I won't have time to organise the photos in time (in fact I just noticed that this is too late for an S post too - the linky list has closed already - hardly Surpising Seeing it is now Tuesday evening and Therefore Time to do a T post - Tut Tut Tut ... "Tempus Fugit" and all That ;-) ... so I might post this Shortly anyway (if I get around to putting the photo onto the computer once I have walked the dog and done all the other Stuff I have to do this evening) ... or maybe post it Tomorrow ... and just add it in the comments, and I will either just post about that other thing, that was originally planned as my S post, later/not for ABC Wednesday, or I might Save it for Some other letter I can make it Suitable for ...

Oh - btw - I am Still alive ... just been busy doing other things besides organising myself enough to get around to getting my photos on to the computer and blogging ... Sigh ...

[a bit later]
ok ... dog is walked, camera memory card is in the computer and camera software is having a look what is on there (it Seems to do that rather Slowly Sometimes) ready for me to transfer the photos to the computer, which I will do Shortly, and keep typing Some more of this post while that happens ... 
(It might be a Strange way to do things, but my posts don't get typed in the order they get read, which you might have noticed if you have been brave (mad?) enough to read Some of the posts where I have changed colours every time I have come back in later and added more stuff - I start typing then add bits in later at the top, bottom, middle, etc as I think of bits to add there ... so they sort of makes sense to read, but what you read first is not always what I typed first ... in this one I typed a bit at the top, and the bit about P and Q posts, then came back and typed the bit just above what you are reading now ... then I added the photos below here and typed the stuff to go with them ... then went back and added 2 more cherry photos and wrote some more Stuff to go with them ... then came back to this bit and am typing this ... and now I might add a few words/fix a few typos if I see them and then post this ... once I have gone and Said Something about Sunsets that I just remembered I was going to Say at the end of this post. ... are you confused yet? ... I think I am ;-)

This WAS going to be a post without all the usual Silly Stuff and Stupidity that I Seem to have been posting lately ... but ... Somehow I ended up with Some Silly Stuff to Say ... (and I took Some more photos, and then when I went Searching for those and the cherry one I found Several more photos - which is Several more than I thought I would be Sticking in this post - oops?)

... it Started when I realised that by the time I got out the door with the dog, it had Started to rain again ... So it was a rather Soggy walk, involving Several S words, like Slosh and Slippery and Sliding in the mud and Stuff ... although even if it had not Started to rain again - the ground/grass/etc was So wet the doggy would have been Soggy anyway ... Same with my Shoes ... actually I wore my Slippers (really a pair of moccasins, that I Sometimes use as Slippers, and that Sort of need a wash anyway so I wasn't bothered about them getting wet and Soggy) I wore them because I didn't want to get my Shoes that I usually wear to walk the dog even more Soggy and Saturated than they were, because I might want to wear them tomorrow (er ... make that "today" now that it is after Mindnight - lol). They were Still Slightly Soggy from when I took the dog for a rather long walk last night - it wasn't raining but it had been all day - and besides the fact that all the grass/etc was wet, I also stepped in what I thought was just some shallow water/a very wet patch of path - but it turned out it was a puddle to rival the one that poor "Dr Foster" Stepped in when he "... went to Glouscester, in a Shower of rain" ... Seems he "fell in a puddle, right up to his middle, and never was seen again." poor Sod ... lol
(hmmm I wonder who wrote that poem? [andrea "googles" it]  hmmm - it seems nobody knows who wrote it ... but the version on Wikipedia ends differently than the way I learnt it as a kid ... I think I like "my" version better ;-)

Anyway ... here is the Soggy doggy:

he was licking his feet dry, while I was busy messing around with the camera ...

... I was taking a photo of Something on my Slippers:

a Slug?  No ...

when I looked closer I noticed it was ...

- a fuzzy caterpillar, that decided to hitch a ride inside ...
(I guess it is lucky it Stayed on my Slipper, because if it fell off I may have Stood on it)

here is another photo, of the caterpillar curled into a circle in my hand, just before I put it outside (in a plant pot under the front porch).

This one might be worth clicking to see the big photo - its fuzz looks quite pretty because it has tiny droplets of water in it ... glistening like jewels - I guess the caterpillar was dressed up in its finery ready to go out for the evening?
(probably going out for dinner ... without realising that IT was probably the main item on the menu?)

... talking about Strange Slimy things like Slugs and Such - all sorts of things come crawling out in the wet weather - look what DD found on the bathroom window the other night:

 
ok ... the bottle is full of dog shampoo, but what are those things on the outside of the window?

- a Snail,

 and a slug

actually there was more than one Slug, the others did not show up in the photo (or they crawled onto the other window/the wall/etc before I took the photos - which I took from the inside)

Slugs and Snails like the rain (I have to look where I walk if I go outside - so I don't get Slimy Sticky Squishy Slug/Snail Slime on my Shoes or, if I am barefoot - which I often am, Squished on the Soles of my feet - ugh!)

This Snail was climbing the bush in the garden a day or 3 before I took the photos of the bathroom window.

(you might have to click to get the full size photo to see the snail ... although I can see where it is - but that is because I know where to look ;-)

There is one other S word that I don't think I will mention here - because I don't want to Start getting Scads of Spam comments ... and I don't want the Sort that I would be more likely to get if I mention THAT word on here ... So ... I will just have to describe this as Some beetles ... making more beetles:

and ... talking about ensuring the Survival of your genes ... I think that is what these 2 butterflies might have been trying to do:

They were down the bottom of Black Mountain somewhere - I have been walking there a few more times lately - I walk from work in to the middle of the city (which is just the other side of the mountain) and go to whatever I have decided to walk into town for, the DH meets me in there and we go out to tea ...
which kind of defeats the purpose of the excercise of walking in there - LOL
Yes I did say THEY - there are 2 of them - the Second one is below and to the left of the other one (about half way between it and the bottom left corner of the photo) - it has its wings folded up so you can't see the bright orange - it blends in with the Sticks rather well! There were actually Several (dozens even?) butterflies flying around chasing each other ... often in pairs, but sometimes there would be 3 ... 2 males chasing the same female maybe ...

Talking about bugglies and Stuff, and other Small items of wildlife ... the other day, I Saw Something in the bottom of the washing basket when I went outside to get it (to put more wet washing in to hang up):

hmmm ... there is definitely Something IN there ...

yes - did you really think I could write an "S" post without at least one Spider?!!!!

it Seems this Spider had Sorted out Some lunch ...
(and, i fI remember rightly, I even managed to tip the Spider out into the garden without it loosing its lunch)

Speaking of things that catch and eat flies and other Small insects ... I found (on the memory card of photos I have just put on the computer) Some more photos of whatever Species of Sundew (Drosera sp.)  this is:

this one has lots of Shiny droplets of whatever that Sticky Stuff is (the stuff that the insects get Stuck in) - this is another photo that looks really pretty if you click on it and look at the full size version. (well - I think it does ;-)

and talking about pretty things - one last, but not least, S thing:

Spook - curled up on the bed - with the Sole of one of her feet Showing - LOL
(one can also See a round black Spot too - she is a rather Spotty, Splotchy looking cat ;-)

wow ... an S post and no Sunset/Sky/Sundogs and Such ... there were a few Sunset and Sky photos on that memory card ... but nothing that really Stood out above anything else ... and I have lots of Sunsets and Skies in other posts so I figured I Should Stop Searching for Stuff  ... it is now well and truly "Stupid O'clock" ... time for me to Sneak in to the Shower and then Slide in to bed ... I guess one advantage of me being up So late - I Should be tired enough to go to Sleep quickly - which means less chance of being kept awake if DH Starts to Snore ...
(if he Starts Snoring when I am Sleeping, I Stay asleep ... but if I am awake ... it keeps me awake until he Stops for long enough for me to go to Sleep)

btw ... don't hold your breath, but - if I get time in the next few days, I might post most of that P/Q post, which doesn't have the photos in it yet (that is why it didn't get posted when we were up to P and/or Q and/or R) but I won't put the photos in that one - because I have only written some of what goes in between the photos, and I can put that, and the photos in another post ... if I have Time to find the photos and put them in there it can even be my T post (T for Textile art, rather than Q for Quilts and the other Stuff I was going to use for R but then decided to do for S, but Still didn't get it organised in Time)
Trouble is - I really Should be posting my T post Today (as in Wednesday ... which it now is, even though it was Tuesday when I came in here and Started Typing this post, and there was still a bit of Tuesday left when I came back and put some photos onto the computer and Typed the rest of this Strange Stuff) ... but I am not sure if That T post will happen or not - Some of the photos I want to use are not on the computer yet, and Some of them might not have even been Taken - Sigh ...

If I don't get Time to do a T post, then I will just have to find another letter to make it fit ... we should be up to W when things get a bit less busy for me - so I can post about "What I have been making all year" to cover all the quilts and crochet and other textile art stuff I have done and been meaning to blog about but not got around to it ...

btw ... I just took a couple of Stupid photos of the dog ... DD got up for a P and called out to me to turn around and look behind me - and there was the dog Sleeping in one of his favrouite Strange positions - Streatched out on his back, legs in the air Showing the whole world that he is a reall HE (he has not been "Snipped" So to Speak ;-)
No - I am not Sticking the memory card back in the computer and putting that photo here ... I do need to get Some Sleep!
(I have been having early nights for the last few days, but these days it only takes one Stupidly late one and I am Stuffed for the next couple of days ... Sigh ...)

goodnight ...

(I have read through most of this once, but still keep finding typos ... but if there are any more - then too bad - they can Stay ... LOL)