Here Be Dragons ...

Drats ... I have missed quite a few ABC Wednesday posts, but I have just Decided that, Despite the fact that I am Dead tired and I already have less than 8 hours in which to sleep before I have to get up and Dash off to work, I might Duck in here and do a D post (before the linky thingy closes in a few hours time ;-) after all - I Did take a couple of photos, a few Days ago, just for this post!

I took a photo of a Duo of Dragons!

water dragons ;-)

and then I took a (blurry) photo of another lizard - Drinking 

this is a stumpy tailed lizard, also known as a sleepy lizard (which is what I grew up calling them)

this is a better photo of a sleepy lizard, and 3 blue toungue lizards

All these are native to Australia, and I have seen all of them in the wild (well the sleepy and blue tounges definitely ... the water dragons I often see in the botanic gardens are probably not totally wild ... but they are not fenced in or anything either). These photos were taken at a reptile exhibit at the CSIRO Discovery Centre - they had an open weekend as part of Science Week.

I also took a video of the sleepy lizard Drinking


hmmm ... reminds me of that saying "flat out like a lizard drinking" lol

and now ... on a Different subject - a couple of photos I took last month:

who needs a cat when you have a Dog who Does this?


and this:

I am glad this is DHs pillow and not mine! ... he slobbers so the pillow was a bit Damp (er ... probably a LOT damp actually ;-)
(ok ... some might think that is Disgusting - lol - but Diesel (the Dog) is part of the family - we are probably already sharing his germs anyway ... and I think humans probably have more germs than Dogs Do ... except maybe if the Dog has just been rolling in or eating some "Doo Doo", or Dead things, or some other Disgusting stuff ... lol)

D is also for Div tags ... which this Darn blog editor insists on putting in, even though I keep changing the settings to try and stop it Doing that (although the reason it doesn't work could be that I probably Don't know what I am Doing) - when it adds Div tags it seems to stuff up the formatting and make it Difficult (or Downright impossible!) to put the text where I wanted it to go ... so I have to Dive into the "edit html" mode and Delete them all and that seems to make things work ok - lol

D is also for Drawing Doodles ... I have Done a few of those lately, but I have not taken photos of them or scanned them yet ... I will Do that later ... (I guess I could post them under L for public Lectures - because that is where/when I did them! LOL)

oh good ... the video uploading is Done ... now all I have to Do is publish this, and I can head off and Dive under the Doona, and Drift off to "sleep, perchance to Dream" ... (I Don't remember what that is a quote from - one of Shakespears plays I think)

btw ... I have something perfect planned for my E post ... (just happens to be the right timing for something I want to post about anyway ;-) that is if I Do get around to Doing my E post (rather than just Doing some of it and saving it as a Draft, and then finding it, still unpublished, a year or 3 later when I am Digging around in blogger) if it Does get Done - it is Definitely going to be Delightful ... well ... maybe not? lol ... but I Definitely Do want to share it with you ... (all 2 or 3 people who read my blog - my MUM doesn't even read it, unless I e-mail it to her ... lol)

oh ... I just realised - I Didn't post anything about my crochet Dragon!

... I Did it for an online Exhibition - so I will try to remember to add it to my E post ... which, if I actually Do it this week, will be about another Exhibition or 2 anyway ;-)

but I Decided I just had to put at least one photo of my crochet Dragon in here - in my Dragon post! lol


I also found this:

- an interesting example of a "what  not to Do" - when out walking the Dog in the Dark, it is a good idea not to try and take a photo, in the Dark, when one is still wearing a pair of fluffy blue gloves - LOL
(it is a good thing I take Digital photos ... so I am not wasting film when I Do Dopey stuff like that ... DH would argue that I am wasting space on the hard Drive on the computer - because even if the photo is a "failure" I still tend to keep them, rather than Do what Mum does and Delete the Dodgy ones  ... I guess that is because I think I might find a use for them one day - and see - with this one I DID ;-)

A Little bit of this and a Little bit of that ...

"... and you wiggle your ..."  oh hang on ... that is the chicken dance - and I am not doing that right now - lol
(I am not sure it has any official lyrics ... but there seem to be lots of different ones that come up in a search ... but I just remember what Mum and Dad - who have been known to get up and do the chicken dance in public without even having to have their grandkids around at the time sometimes sing - "With a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and you wiggle your bum" actually it was Dad who would sing it and Mum would pretend to be a bit shocked at him being a bit rude - lol)

but ... to get to the point (if there ever IS any point to most of my blog posts?) ... I have been sitting here getting Lost in cyberspace while uplaoding a pile of photos onto the computer (and the darn camera software seems to be having a go slow lately ... even re-starting the computer did not fix it)  and I thought maybe while I am here I probably should post something to my blog, seeing I have not done my L post for ABC Wednesday yet (and in a couple days it will be time for the Letter M)

... and while I am here I will maybe even do something I have been meaning to do for months and Lose that Light coloured background - which is   was  a nice Light blue with a Lovely sky picture, but, for a few people at Least (possibly even Lots of people?) it is not the easiest thing to read my blog on top of ...

but what should I put there instead? LOL

I think my text (and everything else for that matter!) would get Lost among these Leaves:

The weird brown flower is a Banksia ... still in the process of flowering. There were Lots of them growing along the paths near Mum and Dad's place when I was up there visiting them (that is where I have been for the last couple of weeks - up in Queensland ;-)

These weird pink and green Leaves were also up near my parents place:

... somewhere in a garden in their street, I think.

these sunflowers were also nearby:

There is not much Left of the one on the Left - Mum has a similar photo to this, but the bird (I think it was a parrot) was still on there eating the seeds from it ... it has Left a weird, but rather cute, heart shaped patch of seeds in the middle (maybe it Left those for Later?)

I Like the Legs on this Lovely spider:

The spider was a Little way away from where I took the Leafy photo.

btw - you should (if things work like they normally do) be able to click the photo (and any other photo in this blog post) for a Larger one if you Like - LOL (but I bet most people don't click the spider one!)

To me, the veins on this Leaf (not Lettuce - it was cauliflower - lol) look more gruesome than spiders Legs:

 ... but that didn't stop me eating it ;-)
(the veins kind of Look all Lumpy - like on some creature in a B grade sci fi movie or something ... but I actually ate that leaf just after I took the photo, and it tasted Lovely ... so did the thing Mum cooked with some of the cauliflower in it, when we ate it Later)

I also took this photo of a Lily and its Leaf - in Mum and Dad's new fish pond

 a very Little fish pond actually ... but it was the deepest one they could find at the time (their garden is only Little so they couldn't really build a huge great Lake or anything).

Mum and I went walking along a beach one morning and found some pelicans waiting for some Lunch

the table thingy is where the fishermen clean their fish (there is a boat ramp just to the Left) - the pelicans know where to come and wait for some Lunch ;-)

I Love the colours on this Little beasty - not something many people Like - a Bluebottle - which has a nasty sting!

I also Like the Little holes in the sand (from where air bubbles were as the waves washed up the beach and back - and Left this poor Little creature high and dry, where it won't Live for Long)

"Leave only footprints"?

yes - my footprint, and some more weird bubbly marks where the waves had been.

Let's get a bit more? "arty farty"?

I had to Lie down on the beach to get the right camera angle!
(I am sure anyone who was Looking would have been Laughing at me)
I think a storm is Looming? (actually it was just a very light shower of rain that came - and it was not as big as I had hoped it would be - I Like swimming in the rain!)

I also Like the colours I got in this photo:

"quick - Let's dive under the water so we don't get rained on ..."?

I seem to have a Lot of watery photos - but I guess water IS a Liquid ...

I think this ship got a bit Lost:

it is the wreck of the ship that the beach is named after - Dicky Beach  - "Dicky" is a weird name for a ship - lol

there is not much Left of it now ...

I took this photo (and the ones after it) a couple days Later:

it is amazing what a difference one can get with different Light for one's photos

I also Like to get right into what I am doing:

(yes those are my toes - and yes - I was IN the water for a Lot of these photos - I Like my clever Little waterproof camera!)

I also Like the fact that the Lifesavers are there to Look after those Lunatic tourists (and possibly a few odd Locals) who Like to Leap into the water on days Like this!

it was getting Late in the day when I took those Last few photos - soon after this the Life savers packed up and Left for the day ... and I Left too ... not swimming once the Lifesavers had taken their flags and gone was one of the things in the List on that sign, and also - I figured DH (who was reading a book in the car) might Like to go back to my parents place in time for tea!

and ... this is now a rather Long post (maybe I should have called it a Lot of stuff, rather than a little bit ...)  

Maybe I should Leave it as it is and go do something useful?

... except I am still Loading photos onto the computer, and I don't want to Lose track of where I am up to - LOL

(and I might find another good L one?! ;-)

ok ... now the only photos not on the computer are the ones on the card in the camera ... I was going to do those but I have other things to do before I go to bed, so that Lot will have to wait until tomorrow, or sometime.

- for some odd reason DH wants me to actually take up the hems on the 2 new pairs of jeans he bought, so he can wear them to work instead of his old worn out ones with holes in the pockets ... not sure what the rush is - they have only been sitting waiting for me to do it for about 5 weeks - LOL

(yes - I guess I sometimes Like to Leave things for Later - lol)

but ... one thing I did do while I was in here was to Loose that Light background on my blog ... well, it is not actally Lost as such - I just replaced the Link (to the background image) with a different one, and I could find and put the other one back if I really wanted to ... I threw some other photo up online (on the same photo website the other one was on) and stuck a link to that one in the widget thingy instead ... my original plan was to do something similar to what was here (if you want to know what that was, and how I did it, this post on one of my other blogs describes how I did it, and that blog still has the same background that this one did have until today), but I was going to do it with a different coloured and hopefully more interesting photo and a darker background behind the text, but it could take me a while to work out exactly how I did it and make an image that was the right size/etc again (having different image editing software than I used back then doesn't help!) - so for now you will have to live with what is there - which for most people will probably be the same as I get - the top bit of a bigger than it needed to be photo of the dark sky that was above the sea when I took those photos of my swim in the surf.

anyway - I have to go back to work in the morning, and I still have those jeans to hem ... and it is getting has got rather Late ...

but ... here is one more photo that I almost forgot to add  - Last (but not Least) is the Lizard I almost stepped on yesterday morning!

Looks like he/she is Looking at me ... I kind of don't blame it for keeping an eye on me - it was probably happily minding its own buisness at the bottom of Black Mountain, when this whole Lot of Lunatics came tramping along the track on an annual wildflower walk ... and one Lunatic with a camera (me ;-) Lunged off into the bush and almost stood on it! ... Luckily I was sort of looking to make sure I didn't step on any rare orchids or other such thing (there were rather a lot - that was what we were walking around looking at - lol) so I did not quite step on it ... but I must have almost - because the first thing I noticed was when I heard it rustle as it ran out from the bunch of grassy stuff I was stepping over ... it probably stayed where it was in the photo until everyone had gone past - it stayed there looking at me for a few minutes while I took some photos of it, and the red flowers on a nearby grevillia plant, and it was still there when I walked off to take photos of some orchids and a whole heap of other things ... at least one of which has a name that starts with an L ... but I might have to do a whole other post about wildflowers and put some of the photos in there.
- I think I took a few ... HUNDRED ... photos on that walk!!!
(there was room for over a hundred photos on the memory card that I had in the camera, and I filled that up fairly quickly and then took a lot more photos on the card that is now in the camera!)

oops - time to stop getting  Lost in cyberspace and go do those jeans hems ... Luckily that should not take too Long to do. (I seem to have had a Lot of practice at taking up jeans hems - sigh)

btw - anyone actually reading this stuff will probably think I have Lost my mind and belong in a Lunatic assylum ... hmmm - a lovely holiday in a nice soft room - I could Live with that ... for a Little while ... until I find out they won't Let me have my crochet hooks or sewing stuff in there ...


 

I have been Involved In something Incredible!!!

I started typing this post a couple of days ago (with a different title, which I didn't like so I thought of a way better one - so If this one Is bad think how bad the other one must have been!) ... I came back to finish It now so I can post It In time for It to be my I post for ABC Wednesday - LOL
(If I post It now, It will be able to be added to the linky thingy ... but If I was to wait until tomorrow It would be too late ... and I can't think of a good/clever way to make all this stuff fit the letter J or K and I want to post something to my blog now anyway - lol)

Tonight the other night was the opening night for the ACT textile arts association's "Garden Tea Party" exhibition ... OMG - it looks ed amazing!!! ... I got DH to drop me off at work thisat morning, so I could partake of some wine and not have to worry about driving home ($4 bus fare vs DUI/killing someone/etc - not a hard choice - LOL)
If u live in/near  Canberra you HAVE to go see it ... if not .... I will get around to posting some photos ... eventually ...

I decided not to worry about posting anything right then - It would have been a long and Involved task to stick photos on the computer, and a boring post without them ... and I had to go to work the next day and I was rather tired - gee I wonder why? LOL (all the late nights during the last few weeks - some from getting "lost in cyberspace" or watching TV with DH on nights when he was on days off and didn't have to get up for work in the morning, and some (most?) from staying up late finishing stuff at the last minute - lol)


I don't think I have anyone who reads my blog who also lives in Canberra, who wouldn't already know about it ... at least I hope you already knew about it - because if you missed it - you missed something amazing! It was such an Inspiration to be Involved with something so Imaginative and Incredible as this exhibition ... when one went Inside the gallery it was like being In a garden tea party ... but a rather Interesting garden tea party with Interesting Insects and Interesting (stuffed) people and oh I so wish that I had been able to hear the music that the green man looked like he was playing on his violin. Yes - someone made a musician, with a needle felted face/head and hands, who looks like the "green man" ... it was kind of funny watching some little girl getting a bit freaked out by his gnarly toes ... but she loved all the other stuff like the flowers and butterflies and stuff, and the amazingly eccentric lady with a weird feathery dog and a bunch of ducks on leads! (there are some Incridibly creative people in our association!)


Anyway ... DH and I are about to go out for tea, but when I get home I might have time to stick my photos onto the computer so I can show you the bits of it that I did (and maybe some other stuff ... depends if I have any photos that show what it was like but that I can post without worrying about Infringing anyone's copyright/etc. - we allowed photography at the exhibition - but only for personal use, which probably means not for sticking up stuff that shows the details of peoples work all over the internet or whatever ;-)


ok ... DH and I have been and eaten (Leong Kitchen in Campbell - yummy - one of our favourite spots to go for tea ;-)


then we watched some tv, and while we did that I finished off some weird tree branchy thingy with fabric leaves and copper wire - was something I was going to put in the exhibition but I ran out of time ... had the "leaves" and the wire so I figured I may as well finish the thing and see if it turned out ok (yes ... it is ... ok ... but nothing fancy - it might get used for something, sometime).


anyway ...


These are not the greatest of photos - the light was a bit bad when I took most of them, and/or I was in a hurry, and I have not even cropped any of them or anything, let alone doing anything else to fix them up a bit - they are just uploaded from the camera and thrown in here as is (I WAS going to have an early night, and it is already getting late - sigh).


So ... what did I make? - I made a mess:

... which the cat seems to like sleeping in!    (yes those are legs on the right ... they belong to "Mary" and now have feet, but they didn't when I took that photo - lol)


This is taken (late in the afternoon) from inside the door of the building we were in:

Quite an interesting place for an art/etc exhibition - they have a few other ones (for other groups/people/etc) there during the year too - it is actually part of the CSIRO - downstairs (under the ramp/etc in this photo) is an education place for families/school students/etc and beside me on the left, but not in the photo, are a whole pile of offices/min labs where one can look in the window and see some of the scientists working/whatever ... and on the right, but also not in the photo (you have to go along the ramp and around the corner to get in) is a lecture theatre and a function room - the function room is where the exhibition is ... there is also a sales area next to it - behind the red screens in the photo, and sort of straight ahead (you do have to veer right a bit or you will fall over the rail into the garden below - lol) is a cafe/eating area - where we ate and drank on opening night, and also sold tea/coffee and cakes all weekend (well - it WAS a TEA party after all!)


This is a general view of part of the exhibition

Hopefully nobody will mind this one being posted here - the only thing where any real detail can be seen (the table of stuff) was photographed and published in Saturday's paper. My stuff is not in this photo (except for a small caterpillar which I know is on top of something I can see in the photo, but I doubt that it would show up even if you clicked to get the full size version, and part of my nest is visible in the top of the tree ... but probably a bit hard to see if you don't know what you are looking for - lol). Some of my stuff is out of sight in the back corner (off to the left behind that bird cage) , some is beside where I stood to take the photo and "Lizzie" is standing with a few other "people" off to the right somewhere ...


This is "Lizzie"

she was going to be more royal (hence the name) but then things didn't work out that way when I threw her together (besides - I didn't have time to make a corgi or 3 ... )


This ...

is the back corner of the garden - my compost heap which is made from a cardboard box with some of my crochet shawls/etc int it and fabric scraps and crochet mushrooms and stuff on top, and a wooden box with more crochet fungus/etc in it, with "Bill" the gardener leaning on the wooden box having a cup of tea and donut (crocheted ones - must taste a bit wooly - lol) - brought to him by "Mary" the cook/house maid - who is standing there with a carrot, which I actually made as a pin cushion, in her hand, and wearing an apron I made from 2 cheap tea towels  ... pity about that weird person standing between them - LOL (yes - me! - wearing some strange thing I made to wear as a "tea gown" and an even stranger hat - an old felt one recycled - with beads and crocheting and lizards and spiders and stuff on it - I will have to take a better photo of it sometime I guess). "Bill" also seems to have been adopted by a bird (I made that from sticks and grass and string, at some open day/workshop type thingy I went to last Summer) I also made the tall plant in a pot ... which is now standing in the passage waiting to see how long before DH asks me to hurry up and "put it away" - trouble is - I have decided the spot it is standing in IS it's "away" - lol


This is my table and chairs - The chairs are a pair of old directors chairs I have had for years (since before I met and married DH actually) but the back bits (the fabric part you lean back on) were old and tatty hessian stuff that had gone brown and were a bit torn, and the chairs were a bit grotty looking so I slapped a coat of paint on them and made some new backs with applique' flowers on them. (one day I might make some nice cushions or something to go over the seats (to cover the paint splots - I did say I "slapped" on that coat of paint! lol) - I sort of wanted to do matching seat cushions for the exhibition but I didn't have time, but oddly enough the chairs actually looked fine as they were ... )

The table is actually made from bits of 2 tables - the legs off some table I found on a rubbish pile on the side of the road near here (the glass top was missing - it probably broke when someone drove a car through the wall of the yard where the table used to live - the rubbish pile was all the old bricks and broken table - they left the junk outside the fence/wall when the re-built it and then forgot about it for a couple of months ("out of sight out of mind" - lol). The top of the table came from a friend (who is also in the textile art group but was too busy with work and other stuff happening in her life to have time to make stuff to exhibit this year) she was throwing it out and I was going to use it on top of something to make a round corner table but it was too big for the space I had to put it in - but it was perfect for this! It was also the perfect size for the table cloth - which was also made from a bit of crocheting the same person gave to me - she crocheted the doily (the part that is on the top of the table) many years ago, then added the corners (the pink and purple bits) later when she made it into some huge beadspread or somesuch, then she unpicked whatever else was around it and re-used the yarn, and decided to give me the middle bit because I liked it - so I added the white bit with beads around the edge - so she DID have something in the exhibition after all (hmmm - a collaberative work? LOL).






Here is a closer view of the stuff ON the table:

... and the weird crochet vase with blue and orange flowers - yes I made that too - and all that other strange stuff on the table (well - except for the stuff I obviously didn't make, like the "tea set" that is actually laboratory glassware I borrowed from work). There are some doilys and milk jug covers etc, and a tea light holder which I probably wouldn't actually use as one because it is crocheted from garden string (stiffened with a mix of water and woodwork glue) - the "candle" in it is actually a metal bit from the bottom of a tea light candle, with a toy "troll" standing in it - it's bright orange hair looks like a candle flame - lol. At the back is a "Garden Tea Pot Party" - a party in a garden in a tea pot - lol  - one way to find a use for a teapot without a lid ?! Some of the stuff in it is crocheted, some is yarn wrapped around wire, and there are some fabric flowers ... and the people are wire stick figures with yarn wrapped around them and their clothing is made from tea bags (ones I had used for my cups of tea at work - kind of handy that I don't take milk in my tea else the tea bags would be a bit too smelly to use for stuff like this - lol)


This is a basket I threw together (made from grass, shredded paper, red fabric scraps and string) last Summer

- I thought it looked like a bird nest and might fit in nicely somewhere - so I named it "nest" and took it along - and it was perfect as a bird's nest in the top of the big tree in the middle of the room ... I took a photo of it when we were packing up because the tree and a pile of the other things (vines, leaves, bugs, flowers, etc etc etc) from the exhibition are being donated to a good cause and the nest went so well in the tree that I decided it had to stay with it (I didn't really need it for anything else right now anyway - and if I do decide I want a grass basket for something else, then I can go weed the garden, dry out the weeds, and make another one - lol)



I will try to get around to taking some more/better/close up/etc photos later - photos of some of this stuff, and the stuff I made (and modeled) for the fashion parade part of the exhibition (2 hats and some clothing made from other old clothing and a vest crocheted from strips of plastic supermarket bag) and I also need/want to take photos of some of the other stuff I have made this year ... not sure when though ... I have other things to do this week too ... and then I am off to Queensland for a couple of weeks ... then I am going to a weekend quilt retreat a week after that ... but I do have to sort out/pack up/put away the stuffed people and the other stuff sometime, so hopefully I will remember to take the photos while I am at it - LOL


er ... who stole my evening?! ... it isn't meant to be "Tomorrow" already!


If the photos are all skew wiff or something then I guess that is too bad - the putting photos in posts seems to be working better than it used to so maybe it will be ok anyway (they used to end up with a pile of extra gaps between some of the photos and text, which I had to fix by going in and deleting a pile of extra bits it had put into the html code ... I noticed that it still puts the "div" tags in there, but what used to mess things up was it put even more in when I had to move photos down from where it put them at the top of the post - but things seem to have been improved and it has let me put the photos into the post exactly where I wanted them to be - yaaaay!  (I wonder if it was something google/blogger fixed, or just that it works bettwer with the newer version of the web browser that I don't think was on here last time I put photos into a blog post? ... either way - I am happy ;-)


Anyway ... it is past bed time, and I have to go to work in the morning ... methinks I will be tired tomorrow night - lol (if not from the late night now, then from walking home from work - I don't have to walk home, but I want to - I have been trying to organise things so I get dropped off to work and walk home at least one night a week - because I kind of want to be a bit fitter and healthier and I think that helps - seeing it actually takes me a couple of hours to actually walk home (it takes a good 15 or 20 minutes to drive there - so it is a fairly long walk, and in Winter it is still dark when I get home ... but I enjoy the walk and I don't feel cold because I am walking ... now it is Spring here it is not totally dark when I get home ... so I end up taking even more Sunset photos on my way home - LOL (there is a better veiw to the West closer to home than near work)


er ... I was supposed to be posting this not still raving on about stuff - oops? ;-)

but one two more things B4 I go ... I can't help but noticing something - with the stuff I did for this exhibition - which was a new and different thing for this group - where instead of everyone submitting their own stuff and someone having to put it all together - it was done as an installation and largely worked on as a collaberative effort (where a lot of people worked on the various bits/things in groups and most of it was all coordinated/put together as one big thing ... sort of ... lol)  ... but for most of my stuff I seem to have ended up doing what I used to often do with stuff we were meant to do in groups at school - I worked on things as a group of one! ... kind of weird that ... it wasn't because I didn't want to work with others ... it is just that it kind of didn't work that way - I only had time to work on stuff at odd times here and there, and ideas often came to me late in the evening while I was doing the stuff, and if I had tried to work with a group for most of what I eventually did half of it never would have got done ... which ... is also kind of how it used to happen at school ... LOL
Yes - I guess one can still call me an Individual ;-)
But I did also do some stuff with groups of people - I was part of 2 or 3 very productive days where a group of us got together and made things like bugs and creepy crawlies and other stuff one day, and vines and leaves another day, and we all had a great time working on stuff together ...

hmmmm ... that reminds me - I still have not had a chance to find my coffee cup (which was old but I liked it, and is now probably totally lost/claimed by someone else) after I left it behind at the last one of those days - we met (on weekends) at a primary school on the other side of town, so me being down there when someone is AT the school kind of never happens, because I am usually at work - at a different school on the other side of town! - LOL

oh well ... it was originally an old un-claimed one that I got from the staff room at the school I work at (they were left out on a bench for 2 weeks for owners to claim, then word was sent out that if anyone wanted to come "shopping" for a "new" cup/mug to come and help themsleves before those that were still left were then put in a box destined for the op shop) so I guess my mug decided it was time for it to move on to the next owner? lol



goodnight ...

X ... is for ...?

The great unknown?

or X marks the spot - but what spot should I put the x on - the spot where the cat was asleep in the middle of the floor beside me, or the spot where she is now asleep, under the desk next to my feet? LOL

I guess the cat IS "the great unknown" sometimes - especially when one wonders why she does what she does, when she does/where she does - LOL

I raved on about all sorts of x words the last 2 times we were up to the letter X for ABC Wednesday ... including posting a whole pile of photos of Xanthorrea and other eXciting? things ... like Xylem and Xenolith etc - most of which can be found by searching the www and/or looking in a dictionary ...

There are not a lot of well known words starting with X - so I am sure someone else can post about X rays and Xylophones and stuff

... and a few ppl might resort to mentioning "The X Files" or somesuch ...

and others may even resort to stuff where x is the second letter of a word (eXciting eh?) ...

or maybe even words like "Xmas" etc where X stands for something else (like in Xmas where X is short for Christ because it looks like a cross ... or something like that)

... although what is really odd is where X gets used to fill up a space because someone decides that something has to be there - like DH's work e-addy - and that of a lot of other people (mostly government employees) who don't have middle names, but their IT people decide that e-addys need to have first and second initial and last name ... so if poor old Fred Nerk has no middle name his e-addy ends up being fxnerk @ wherever (and yes I did put spaces in there - so someone won't click it and accidentally send an e-mail to the somebody who probably DOES have that for an e-addy ... then again ... if someone was mad enough to have that as an e-addy they probably did it to be silly and therefore deserve every silly e-mail they get! LOL ... unless of course there IS a family who have the surname "Nerk"? ... I feel sorry for them if there is!)

Then ... there are those, often artists or musicians and the like, who want to put an X in their name for whatever reason - most because they think it sounds mysterious or like they are some kind of unknown entity or superhero or somesuch ... oddly enough - I even know a musician who is not famous yet (so he is still an "x" - unknown), but he quite possibly will be famous sometime soonish, who goes by a name with an x in the middle - Miki X Deus ... I have known him for a few years (but only by his first name - he is a friend of some friends of mine - and he often visits them at the same time as I do) but had not heard his music (it was an x - unknown - to me - lol) - he released his first CD a few weeks back and I listened to it the other day (he gave me a copy too - hmmm - I might have to get him to sign it next time I see him ;-) ... odd thing is - the stuff on his CD is nothing like what I imagined his music might sound like - but I really like it!

(btw ... I think his music also sounds better than his website looks too ... but maybe I am just fussy about what websites look like? ... or worried that some of the people reading this might be? ... lol ... I think what I am trying to say is if you don't like the look of the website (it does look a bit like a weird heavy metal/etc website) go listen to his music anyway - you might be surprised at how good it sounds ;-)

now ... where was I?

actually ... I was sitting in front of the computer ... still here from when I posted my (late) W post (in Which I said I was about to go Walk the dog) ... I decided to start writing the X stuff while I had a few things in mind, before I forgot some of them ... but now I am going to leave this saved as a draft and see what happens ... I eXpect to post this in the neXt day or 2 ... but we will see ...

X marks the spot I was up to when I eXited this and went to walk the dog?

(and if/when I do post this later you will know that I walked the dog at 3am and came back ok without becoming a story line for an episode of The X Files or somesuch - lol)

X

ok ... it is now the next night ...
and ... actually ... it was about 4am before I got out the door to walk the dog ... and the way he dogged my footsteps as soon as I got up from the computer I am sure he must have known what I was planning to do and was making sure I didn't forget/change my mind or something - LOL
(he also took me a bit further than I was going to go too - we got to the lane way that I was going to go up and he decided that we were going to keep going a bit further down the street before we headed back toward home - LOL - but it was only another 5 minutes or so longer that way ... although I think he would have kept going even further if I had let him!)

... methinks I might go to bed a bit earlier tonight though ... lol

(not that it is early even now ... but it is not as late as I was in here last night, and the dog has already had his walk this evening)

Now ... are there any other X things I should mention? ... maybe XML? - which is what you get if you subscribe to this blog as a feed (using your web browser, a feed reader, or via one of the buttons way down at the bottom of my rather long side bar ... lol)

hmmm another x - as in another unknown factor - I was just fiddling around and noticed that there is a new version of this editor thingy ... that one can choose to use, or leave it as the old one (I think I saw that a month or 2 ago but didn't change it at the time, then forgot about it) ...  I just read what blogger says about it and it says it does a few things better ... and a couple of those things it does better/differently are things I figured would be handy - like how I can add photos ... so what better excuse to add one or 2 in here than wanting to mess around and try it out - eXperimenting - LOL

... I guess I had better FIND a photo or 3 to add ...

er ... oops - I forgot to add this Water dragon to my w post! LOL

... it was at the botanic gardens when I was there a week or 3 ago ... I Went somehere nearby and Was early, so I Went for a Walk in the garden for a While ... and took lots of photos - LOL

now ... back to X?

I have been searching the www while writing this post ... looking for any interesting x things I didn't know about ... and trying to work out if I went to any places that start with an X when I was overseas earlier in the year ... I may have been at or near Xanthos ... but I am not sure ... lol

but ... I did find an interesting Australian plant called Xanthosia rotundifolia - also known by the common name of "Southern Cross" - LOL

hmmm ... this newer version of the text editor works eXtremely well, btw ...
(well I hope it does - I guess the real test is when I post this and make sure it really does work ok - and u will see what time I actually post it, rather than the time I started writing it, or the time I changed it to, like it did with the old one ... although I can still change what time shows up if I want to, but I am not sure if I can backdate it or just schedule it for future posting ... I will probably find out if I do some eXperimenting - lol)

ok ... one more picture - also not really an x ... but it is time I went and got some sleep!

ok ... a bit weird? ... I was actually at the art gallery at the ANU School of Art (looking at their graduating artists exhibition) ... and I noticed that this collection of cleaning stuff, tucked away in full view under the stairs, looked a bit like a work or art too - LOL
(hmmm nice contrast between the white and the primary colours, pleasing composition ... whatever ...?)
I didn't notice those plastic wine glasses on top of the fire hose box when I took the photo! - looks like someone was having a good time at some time ... (probably at the opening of the exhibition in the gallery a few days earlier maybe ... which possibly means that the cleaners are better at tastefully arranging their buckets and stuff than at noticing the rubbish that needs cleaning up? ... then again - they may only be paid to do floors, not things like benches and the tops of tables and fire hose boxes ;-)

er ... now it is nearly as eXtremely late as last night ... but don't plan to walk the dog this time so if I go to bed now I will still be an hour earlier than I got there last night - lol

so ... in case I am not in here actually posting something at midnight tomorrow ...

Happy New Year ... and all that stuff ... lol

and, seeing this is an "X" post (about the letter x, not an x rated one ;-) I will even sign off like I do in my e-mails to Mum and Dad (and used to do in my letters, back in the dim dark ages before e-mail) with some kisses - XXXXXXXX

(note: these are "peck on the cheek" type kisses, like one does when greeting people etc, not sloppy romantic ones - I AM happily married after all!)