Look UP ( I am "spaced out"?)

Funny how once upon a time, it used to be a real big thing if humankind launched something into space - look at all the fuss they made about Sputnik! (the year before I was born I think!) .... and then the even bigger fuss when Yuri Gargarin orbited the Earth (I think that was a few months before I was born) ... these days a whole spaceship full of several people can head of into orbit and most people are blissfully unaware of that fact ... unless it explodes and kills them all or something (fingers crossed that won't happen again) ...

At the moment, there is a space shuttle in orbit ... and it is currently docked to the International Space Station ... I went outside earlier this evening and watched them fly overhead - gee they are really bright now! ... if you want to go and look when you can see them fly over wherever you are - go to http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/ and type in your country, then "follow the bouncing ball" - type in your state/etc, and have a look ... that is how I knew when to dash outside and look - it was supposed to be "wander outside" and look, but DH and I were watching something on TV and (because I knew how forgetful I could be) I had mentioned to Dh that I wanted to go outside and look for the ISS/shuttle at "about 10 past 8" (because that website said they would be passing overhead at 8:14pm) ... and it was at exactly 8:14 that DH said "oops - it is just AFTER 10 past 8!" ... so I dashed outside - and there they were! - exactly where the website said they would be - passing overhead in the south ... they flew right between the southern cross and the pointers - wish I had got the camera ready and taken a photo ... oh well ... maybe another time ... but it probably won't be in the same interesting place in the sky ... sigh ...
(Monday may be ok for a photo - but I will be at a meeting! lol ... then again - the ISS/shuttle fly over at about 7:45pm and the meeting starts later then usual this Month - at 8pm (rather than the usual 7:30) ... so I might have to try and remember to stop at the side of the road on the way and take a photo )

If I somehow managed to become "filthy rich" and could afford to pay for a space shuttle/etc flight as a "tourist" - I would be in it without a second thought! - I would so LOVE to see our plantet from "upstairs"!
... I would even go for a ride in the "Vomit comet" if I could afford it!
If i bumped into Spock or someone and found out that the Starship Enterprise was in orbit - my response would be - "beam me up Scotty!" ... the only thing I might hesitate for would be to ask if I could tell DH and the kids, and my parents, where I was going and see if they wanted to come with me ...

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

(some Mad magazine sticker I saw many years ago)

Why would someone ...

... give away a perfectly good quilt?

yes - if you go to http://oldredbarnco.blogspot.com/2008/03/giving-away-quilt.html you will notice that this mad person is going to do a random draw (this coming Wednesday) and give away a very nice quilt that she spent a long time making ... why? I don't know - but if she picks my name out of the hat I won't say no!

("pick me pick me pick me" ... lol)

btw, her blog is actually quite interesting too ;-)

7 weird things about one weird person (me)

It seems I have been tagged by Lindi!

Here are the rules:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you
2. Post THE RULES on your blog
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog
4. Tag 7 people and link to them
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

Ok ... done the 1st 2 - Lindi's name is a link to her blog, and the rules are here.
3rd one (my 7 weird/random facts) is here:

7 weird/random things about me:

1. This is the first time I have ever been "tagged"

2. I collect stuff - when I am out and about I pick up rocks and leaves and feathers and stuff, and I can't walk along a beach without picking up a pile of shells/etc - when I was a kid I used to drive my Mum nuts, because my pockets were always full of feathers and/or rocks and/or bits of wire and/or string ... and I have also been known to find "useful" stuff in rubbish skips on building sites (although DH never seems to understand that I might have a use for that 6 foot length of timber or the half used roll of builder's string or whatever ;-)

3. I dabble in all sorts of creative things ... from "normal" quilting and crocheting to art quilts and weird cloth dolls, to basket making (with stuff that grows in the garden/etc or that I collect from people's piles of prunings - lol) and I have dabbled in various other fabric, yarn and paper crafts ... and I used to do quite a bit of pottery back when I had somewhere to go and do it and get it fired (I used to do classes once a week for a year or so - the class went for about 2 hours, then I would stay back working on stuff for another 2 or 3 hours and lock up when I left!) ... so of course I have also collected a huge stash of fabric/yarn/etc craft stuff ... most of it is either stuff I buy on special (like when a range of yarn gets reduced to a 1 or 2 dollars a ball when it used to be $20 last Winter!) or at Op shops (comes in handy having a Salvos store a stone's throw from my desk at work ... well, not sure I could throw a stone that far, but anyone on the Aussie cricket team could probably do it easily) ...

4. I am not very good at throwing stuff out - "it might come in useful one day" ... #4 would probably not be a problem if it wasn't for #2 and #3!

5. I like the taste of beer and coke ... together ...

6. When I was a teenager, the other girls used to be interested in boys and movie stars and makeup, and spend most of their time talking to each other about it all ... I used to be interested in space and nature and stuff, and spend most of my time climbing trees and watching ants crawl down their holes with the bits of bread and stuff I put there for them.

7. I had never changed a baby's nappy or anything like that until I had my own kids ... I was never "clucky" or into cuddling my baby cousins or anything like that, but I kind of knew that when I eventually had kids I would be at least an ok Mum ... not sure about now, but I think I was a good Mum when the kids were small ... now that they are teenagers, it depends who you ask - LOL

8. I never know when to stop ... LOL

(sorry - couldn't resist that one -
9. I have a very strange sense of humour ... )


... now the hard part - thinking of 7 people who won't mind being tagged, and have not already been tagged ... the 5th thing (a comment on their blog) will happen once I hit the "post" button on this.

I am glad the rules don't say WHEN one has to do all this stuff by! - I got tagged a week or 3 ago, but have been too busy to check who has not already been tagged and tag them ... but I did write my 7 things within a day or 2 of being tagged - lol

ok I will tag Jasmine, Sharonb, Birdwomanau, Thequiltingb, JennyBowker, and Miss Audrey Fotherington ...

... I don't know if any of these people "DO" tags ... so I will not be upset if nobody I tag keeps it going ... but there are a couple names in there who might need an excuse to catch up on blogging (and a couple of prolific posters who don't ;-)

and yes, there are only 6 names/links there - that is because the 7th one is whoever I missed, who would love to consider themselves tagged!

... now I just have to go and leave comments on 6 different (and wonderful) blogs! LOL

but

b4 I go ... we have had the weird facts - here is the weird person:

This was taken in January (by one of the Scouts I was on camp with - they decided it was time I was on the other side of my camera for once ... messy, salty "beach" hair and all )

Coffee

Coffee ...

... is always better when you drink it with someone!

12 of us, on Land Rover Club trip.

The dog was sad when we left!

[ Yes ... something else to post silly stuff for - http://lgfns.blogspot.com/2008/03/wednesday-challenge-coffee.html ]

Another V photo ...

Yes - posted my scatterday stuff late on Friday evening (actually it was the small hours of Saturday by the time I got around to it) then went away for the weekend and found something else to take a photo of ... I figure I can still sort of count it, because it was on Saturday I found it/took the picture, and I didn't know what the next letter/etc was yet (we left home just before it was posted ... not that I came in here and looked for it anyway - lol)

So ... what did I find?

it is Big and Pink and it has a Sign on it ... an ice cream Van!:

The double "choc coated" was rather yummy too ... LOL

(yes - that is DH buying us one each :-)

btw, I also took a picture of a doozy of a tool for next Scatterday (letter L - Household Items, Things That Are Round, Tools) and I already have the post mostly written and am just about to take a whole pile of photos for it (one in here, one in the lounge room, a couple in the garage, and one more I just thought of, that is in the kitchen, and a couple that I have to hunt around and find where I put them) and throw them in there too - then I can save it as a draft and see if I actually remember to post the thing on Saturday! lol

... now if only doing all the quilty/textile challenges in time was so easy!

- I just remembered that now that it is March, there is another topic for the chooseday challenge and also for the Take It Further Challenge, and of course there is my March journal quilt to do too ... not that I have done my Febuary one of any of those! (in fact for the second 2 I have not even done January!

So why did I just go look at this - http://lgfns.blogspot.com/2008/03/wednesday-challenge-coffee.html - and start thinking about ideas? LOL

... and I kind of also want to join in with this - http://roostingrobin.blogspot.com/ - too! ... seeing it is something being run on/for a yahoogroup that I am actually a member of, even though I never seem to have time to read all the e-mails on it (which is probably why I only just (tonight) found out about this round robin thingy that they have been doing since the start of the year!)

btw, while putting photos onto the computer (the van one and the others I took this weekend) I also found one that would have been really good if we were still back doing H ... one of the catagories was pointy things - and the Hairs on this spiders legs sure qualify for that!

scary eh?

(click on picture to go to full size version)

... actually I think it is gorgeous!

Very Scatty Day?

Very fast running out of silly ideas for the subject lines of my Scatterday posts? LOL

I actually started typing this post the same day as I posted last week's scatterday stuff - I typed a few ideas I had for what to take/find photos of ...

The letter/catagories for this week are:

V - big, pink, signs

and the ideas I typed in here were:

Vulcan salute (done with a pink hand)?

(Vulcan as in that Spock bloke, with the pointy ears, from Star Trek)

victory sign (ditto)? ... a big pink victory/some other V sign would be handy

big volcano?

Voyager (that spaceship (on Star Trek) is big ... so is the US Navy ship of the same name ... a photo of it with pink primer on it and a sign would be perfect)

pink violets/violas?

big vegetable (possibly find a tall bean plant with a sign on it in lab 5 or somewhere?)

("lab 5" is one of the science labs at the school I work at - there a a whole heap of pots of bean plants that the students are growing in there!)

big glass of very nice wine?

vroooom - a big pink car speeding past a sign?

but ... I didn't see any big pink cars whizzing past, or any volcanos or big v signs/etc ... didn't even get around to driving down a street where the name started with a V ... or finding any gardens with Violets or Violas in them. I could have "googled" for pictures of Vulcans and Voyager/etc, but I decided not to bother, and I forgot to take a photo of my own (pink) hand doing a Vulcan salute

... but ...

while I was at work today, I did take a photo of this:

A Very popular (or is that Very boring or Very silly?) science experiment - a BIG beaker of water with a bit of potassium permanganate ("condy's crystals") in the bottom - so that when I heated it (the bunsen burner is off in the photo but I did light it and heat the beaker for long enough to see the effect I wanted in the photo) there was a nice PINK swirl - a sure SIGN that there are convection currents happening in there.

Yes, I know, it's a bit lame ... LOL

maybe I should have just used this photo (taken in January) that I just found while the convection one was uploading onto the computer:

A BIG PINK V shaped cloud that is a SIGN that the weather will be ok the next day ("red sky at night, sheepherds delight ...") ... or a sign that there have been jets flying overhead (I am sure at least that skinny line on the left side of the v is a jet trail).

I almost missed another V thing in that first photo - the Volume of the beaker (800ml) is written on there! LOL ... and they are Very pretty Pink swirls ... and if I had taken the photo from a different angle you would have been able to see the sign on the door behind the beaker (I think it is just out of the photo above the beaker).

but I did take a photo of this pink sign on the staff room door:

actually it is more purple than pink ... but close enough? LOL

The real reason I took that photo is because I thought the yellow sign was Very funny. (as if students are going to read all that, understand it, and actually DO it? lol)

anyway ...

the Very big yawn I just did is a SIGN that I am tired! ... and I have a BIG day tomorrow (getting up early and going away for the weekend) ... so I ought to take my tired PINK body to bed ...

btw - count yourselves lucky that I didn't find and photograph a Big Pink rat (Vermin ;-) or something ... LOL

(or put pink food dye in some Vermicelli and dangle it from a big sign ... lol)

drats ... the next week's letter has not been posted yet (it might be by the time I get up in the morning, but I doubt I will be awake enough to remember to come in and look before I walk out the door) ... I guess I will just have to take lots of photos of stuff on the weekend, in case I can use some of them for next scatterday ... lol

TUE late for Scatterday?

... well it was still Tuesday a few minutes ago ... I am a bit late this week - I was away on Saturday, "out bush" with no internet access, so I couldn't post then ... couldn't post (early) on Friday night like I did last time because I was already out bush (same place as Saturday) ... and Thursday was just a bit early. I didn't post when I got back on Sunday because I was busy sorting out blackberries early in the evening (hopefully there will be a post about those later, if I get around to it) and I was tired and went to bed early, thinking I would post on Monday night ... but then DH and I went to a Land Rover Club meeting ... then I took the dog for a very long walk ... lol ... so I came in here to post this while it was still Tuesday ... but I got lost in my e-mail and stuff for 2 or 3 hours! (but I consider this to still sort of be part of my Tuesday anyway, because I have not been to bed yet - lol)

anyway ...

what did I come up with for "the letter O - Something you would find in a library, Sweet Things, Hawaiian"?

well ...

I work at a school, which has a library, so I went for a wander in there to see what I could find ...

The O section of the fiction books, and the computers so students can do stuff Online ;-)

(and some Overhead lights on the ceiling too!)

and ...

the Opening hours (On an Orange sign Outside the Office ... and probably Out of date because they are for 'O7).

Then I went home and found some nice SWEET Orange juice

... On the bench, slightly Out of focus - lol.

I also went to the Op shop recently, and bought a sarong/skirt thingy with a Hawiian(?) print ... so I guess I can get away with calling it a Hawiian Outfit? ... or is it safer to just say that it is an Op shop item that is an Old Hawiian print skirt - because it is rather Old and tattered - has been torn and mended in at least one place on the bottom.

... DD snaffled it, and I had to find it in her bedroom to take the photo, which is ok because that is half the reason I bought it ... the other half the reason is that if she didn't like it, or when she doesn't want it any more/grows out of it - I will get it to use the fabric to make something out of ;-)

It's a pity she liked it actually - I already came up with an idea for using about half of it to make a shoulder bag!

I also came up with a way to do the 3 "O"s in one photo:

A SWEET Orange carrot, and Odd looking Orange carrot bookmark (surely one would find a bookmark in a library) and an Orange bag I made from a Hawiian print fabric ... well it looks Hawiian to me anyway ... I also decided, while taking the photo, that maybe I should use that bag as a book bag for my Canberra Quilters/etc library books!

I know, that is kind of cheating a bit ... and this week was a bit of a lazy effort on my part ... I guess if you don't like it you will just have to get Over it ... LOL

Oh well ... time I went Off to bed (perchance to have sweet dreams of a trip Over to Hawaii, where my "One and Only" (not sure if DH would like being called "sweet" but he must be - he does most of the cooking!) and I will find some strange hidden treasure we read about in an Old book in a library ... Or something Odd like that ... )

... knowing me I will probably start thinking about what I can find for this week (V - pink, big, signs) and have some Very weird dream about being chased up a volcano by a big pink "victory" sign or something ... lol

Scatterday H(uh?)

Ok ... it is still Friday (or at least it was when I started writing this), but I am tired and I won't be here all day (or night) on Saturday ... well I will be here from midnight until when I get up early in the morning, but then I will be off 4WDriving and BBQing, then home for a few minutes before I head off to "sleep over" at a friend's place (she is organising a surprise birthday party for her partner ;-) ... then I am leaving her place after lunch on Sunday and going to an evening BBQ with some people from work (some who still work there and some who used to) so if I don't blog scatterday now, it won't get done until ... probably Monday or maybe even Tuesday night!
... which is probably when I will post the other half typed thing I have saved as a draft.

anyway ...

This week is brought to you by the Letter H and Colour, Games, Pointy Things


Ok ... what sort of a colour begins with a H?! ... time for a "Google" - LOL
hmmm - found a page of HTML colour names:
http://www.cryer.co.uk/resources/javascript/html2.htm
ok - "Hot pink" or "Honeydew" ... how boring ...

This site looks more interesting:
http://chir.ag/phernalia/name-that-color/
- it has LOTS of "H" colours!
see:

... I can honestly say that until I found this website, I didn't know there was a colour called "Horses Neck"!

... there are more H colours too - they wouldn't all fit on the scroll bar thingy at once ... how about "Hippie Green"? lol



Ok ... enough silly colour names - now I need to find a "H" game - I was going to grab a bit of chalk and draw and photograph a hopscotch thingy on the road outside (unless the kids in the street had already done one lately, in which case I would have just needed to take the photo) ... but I forgot to go outside and do anything like that before it got dark ... I also don't own a hockey stick, or one of those "Hungry Hippos" games, and I have never even seen a game of Hurling, and I never thought of taking a photo of someone Hitting a ball, or saw anyone doing that this week anyway... so I had to settle for a "Hangman"


Now I need a pointy thing?
I thought about taking another photo of the computer screen, showing this -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasta_%28spear%29
... hasta la vista, enemy of Rome ...?

and I also did a search and found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
and was thinking of taking a photo of the sign langauge for H, because it is 2 pointy fingers (and maybe also the coloured semaphore flag for H for a H colour ;-)
or I could have just taken a picture of my pointing Hand? LOL

but then I remembered I have heaps of these:

- pointy crochet Hooks!
(and a few other pointy and not so pointy things - the lid, at the top, is full of all the other stuff that was in with the hooks - pencils, pens, scissors, bigger hooks, etc) if you click on the photo to see the bigger version, you might also notice that one of the crochet hooks has a pointy other end! ... I am not sure why though ...

I guess that lot will do? - I am feeling too lazy to do something weird like take a photo of a pointy Hot skewer or something more creative ...

... but I did find this photo while I was waiting for the others to upload onto the computer:

DH thinks this POINTY plant is Horrible ... but the dog seems to find it interesting - actually I think he could smell something living under it ... but I was not GAME to go poking around under there because the prickles Hurt ...

S is for ... Scatterday

Hi people ... yes there actually IS someone else reading this ... there must be - a few of you are leaving comments - LOL - I am glad you like this weird stuff I post/write! LOL

This week, for Scatterday, we are supposed to do:
Letter - S
Categories - Fruit, Things that make you itch, Gold

Yay - that was a lot of fun! ... but I guess I should really put the photos onto the computer so that I can post them here - LOL

... I was going to do that about 2 hours ago, but I kind of got lost here - http://canuvworms.blogspot.com/ (it was one of the "blogs of note" on the main page of blogger, when I went there to sign in to write this blog post ... so of course I had to check it out ... and I am very glad I did!)

anyway ... time to upload those scatteerday photos and put them in here ...

< andrea grabs memory card and starts uploading photos, and "looses" another 3 or 4 hours! >

(I wonder if those pointy brackets will vanish too? ... had to do funny things to make them show up like that ... otherwise they just vanish - because they are used to put html code inside ... so I have to type something in html that makes them show up as pointy brackets, instead of just typing in a pointy bracket ... no wonder us nerds/geeks/whatever are such odd people - LOL)



First, I had a (much needed) haircut on tuesday, so here is something that makes me itch - Short Sharp Spiky hairs Stuck in my Shirt and Sticking into my neck!

well - you can sort of see them in the photo ...


for Fruit, I was hoping to find what is a common sight at the high school I work at - squashed bananas ... but there were none this week ... so I had to Settle for Some Squashed Sultanas on a Skewer:

actually I am not sure these are sultanas (Dh did the shopping) but they look the same anyway (just didn't taste as nice as the last lot of sultanas I bought)


For gold, I figured i could photograph my gold and white Socks:

... on the floor in the shower - LOL



I also had a few other ideas that either didn't "cut the mustard" or were extras, that I didn't realy need because I already have 3 ... like this one - I found this Spider at work this week, but at the time i couldn't remember exactly what the catagories were, so I took a photo just in case it would fit into one (besides - who cares if it didn't fit into a scattagory - this Small Spider was rather cute! ;-)


When I went to get the camera (to take a couple more photos, then put them on the computer) our cat - Spook - decided to wander into the Shower ...

not that she fits in any of the catagories ... except maybe she is a FRUIT cake! lol
(actually she goes in there to drink the water off the floor!)


I also snapped a photo of the Stuff I bought on Special at the Shop that was having a closing down Sale ... some of it (braid on bottom right) Has GOLD in it ... LOL




Before I remembered about the sultanas in the fridge, I was thinking maybe I could get DD to make herself a banana smoothie so I could take a photo ... then DH mentioned that there was some other fruit in the freezer ... what a great excuse to have some desert!

- a "berry" nice smoothie - LOL - I like blackeberry/etc smoothies, but not banana ones ... btw - the pinkish bag (that has the spare camera memory cards and batteries in it, and the card reader and computer cord) and DD's purple jumper sleeve match my fruit smoothie rather well - lol

There was also a bowl,with some potatos, on the bench next to it -

... they look kind of GOLD (they tasted yummy too!)



While I was in the kitchen, I suddenly remembered the GOLD Spoons/etc that DH and I inherited from his mum:

- a teaspoon, a tablespoon, and a desert spoon.

... and while digging them out of the drawer, I found this weird banana Slicer!


... then I turned around and found a Swimming carnival certificate Still Stuck to the fridge!

it is DD's, from primary school ... she is now in her 4th year of high school! ... time to sort out the junk stuck up on the fridge? LOL
- it looks a bit greenish in the photo, but it is printed on GOLD paper ... and, for some odd reason, DH sometimes calls a certificate a "Siffticate" ... actually I do too ... probably some stupid ARMY slang we both picked up?

Then I found a yellow/gold "Something" in these shelves (next to the fridge) ... actually a bit of some kind of construction set (like a plastic version of Mechano) ... and when I was lining up the photo I realised that the Sodastream gas clyinders have GOLD tops on them!


... and it didn't stop there! - walking back past the TV, I realised that the cricket might be able to be used for scatterday too -

GOLD Stumps in front of a GOLD Sign, while the Green and GOLD Aussies are playing against Sri Lanka

and - perfect timing? - a Spectacular catch?! in the "golden" hands of one of our team ... lol

yes - that is getting a bit tenuous - LOL

but surely a GOLD Sunset isn't?

I found this in the photos I was putting on the computer - I took it a couple of days ago - not becaue of scatterday - becuase we get a lot of good sunsets and i like taking photos!

and I took this one just before I put the photos onto the computer -

a Scratch (on my arm) ... which made me ITCH - that is the only reason I noticed it was there! ... it was probably a result of a rather rough game I had just been playing, with our cat, Spook!


taking photos, of my right arm, left handed - is not that easy ... maybe I should have just taken this one - another scratch, on my left arm!

actually that is a worse photo than the other one! LOL
... but it also shows a Scab - and they also ITCH.
(which is why I tend to Scratch them)

Just before I pulled the card out of the camera (to put it in the card reader thingy) I realised I was drinking some wine (made frome grapes = fruit - LOL) that starts with an S

a Sangiovase Shiraz
... actually it is a Shiraz Cabernet in the glass, but when I went and grabbed that (empty) bottle - DH noticed what I was doing (I had told him about the scattagories thing while I was taking those other photos in the kitchen) and he went and got this bottle instead ... ok - sort of cheating ... but it looks the same and I am drinking some of that bottle now! ... well - my other glass got empty, and DH DID leave the other bottle in here ... LOL

The other funny thing is - the description on the bottle of wine kind of fits me! - "An enigma I am, straight forward I am not, my make up a mystery that shall never be got" - LOL
Yep - sounds just like me!!!

also sounds like Diesel - our GOLDen Retriever, Seen here (on the floor beside me, while I was taking photos of the bottle of wine!) Scavenging/Scrounging a Snotty tissue! - he likes to eat used tissues! (yuck!)

I was originally thinking of including a photo of him wet - a Soggy GOLDen Retriever ... if u want to see that one - look Here - a Soggy GOLDen dog with a big Stick - LOL



and now ...

... it is time for this Slightly Sozzled FRUITcake (me!) to go to bed ... lol

btw, DD had a brilliant idea ... but I don't have one to take a photo of ... a Mango ... the Skin/Sap makes me itch (I think I am allergic to it), they are fruit, and the flesh is gold ...
... and now I feel like some mango! LOL
(I can eat them ok ... just need to be careful peeling them ... or get someone else to do it! ... if I touch the mango skin, then any sensitive part of my skin (face, arms, etc) then I come out in a swollen exzema type rash ... very itchy and yuck ... and it is not a good thing to discover that fact by handling a pile of mangos and then scratching/rubbing your face ... very itchy and not a pretty sight! LOL


yawn ...


goodnight


but b4 I go ... better check out http://michellewatters.blogspot.com/ and see if the boss has posted hers yet ... oooh yes - she has ... and posted the next weeks Scattergories - now I have to start thinking of things for the letter H, and Colour, Games and Pointy Things ... that could be a bit of a challenge (hmmm - can I get some students at the school I work at to play "hangman" on the whiteboard, with coloured, pointy pens? LOL)

I think I need to sleep on that one ...

... well ... I know I need to sleep! - and i think had better go to bed before I go to sleep on the keyboard! LOL

Sorry

Sometime in the not so distant past some Australians did some pretty horrible things to some other Australians ... I wasn't born yet, but it is possible that some of those who did those things were my ancestors ... things were different back then, and I guess they had their reasons, and they may or may not have known (or cared) what effect it would end up having, but either way, those who had those things done to them have been asking, for several years now, for our government to say Sorry ...

It needed to be said.

It has now (finally) been said.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/kevin-rudd-says-sorry/2008/02/13/1202760342960.html

Now let's move on ...

and by that, I don't mean lets do nothing/forget about it, I mean lets keep going and fix what needs to/can be fixed (if anyone knows how?) and help our nation move on to greater things ... in other words, I hope today's "sorry" isn't just an empty word - hopefully we can all make it mean something ...

and, no, I am not talking about just throwing some money around and hoping it will all go away - that hasn't worked yet, so why would it start working now?

I had better stop before I start sounding political or something - I am not particularly political - I know next to nothing about most of the stuff that goes on in politics ... but I do know that politics seems to get tangled up with a few more things than it probably should ...

Andrea,
probably "thinking out loud" here ... and probably putting my foot in my mouth or something, knowing me ...

Scatter 2 days late ...

I didn't forget that it was Scatterday on Saturday - I didn't post this because I wasn't near a computer!
(I was here - http://www.4wdspectacular.org.au/ - I am a member of one of the clubs that run the thing, so I was out there helping (for some of the time) and having fun (for most of the time) all weekend, and I even slept out there - in my swag in the club's display tent! ... anyway - I can tell you more about that later - probably in my next post sometime in the next day or 5 - because I don't want to be 3 days late with my scatterday post! LOL)

btw, I am pretending I am not posting this a day or 3 late - I have not looked at what everyone else has posted yet, because that way I won't accidentally get any inspiration/ideas from them before I have posted this lot.

This week was: the letter I - Yellow, Australian, Something you would find in the air ...
... and I had already thought of (and taken photos of a lot of) stuff for most of it by about tea time on Sunday!

So ... what did I come up with?

I was hoping to find a yellow fly - then it would have done all 3 things - been an Insect that was yellow, Australian and often found buzzing around in the air ... but I didn't fine one so I had to make do with this lot:

If this was a contest and/or I had to just do 3 things - I would have chosen these first 3 ...

Yellow:

Indicator paper ...

The same stuff that has the Interesting Instructions on it - see this post.

Australian:

Indigo - an Indiginous plant ... on the Internet - LOL (in case you can't read the URL on the photo ... or you want to click on it rather than type it - it's here - http://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/gnp1/indigofera-australis.html - the "anbg" stands for Australian National Botanic Gardens - which are here in Canberra ;-)

Found in the Air:

Insects ... 2 different moths (or maybe at least one is a butterfly?) on the lawn ... one of them had yellow underneath, that showed up when it was flying - but it was kind of impossible to get a photo when it was flying in the air!

I also had a few more ideas:

Inflorescence (which is a fancy word for flowers ;-) with YELLOW middles.

I could also call it "Infusion" - because I think this is Chamomile - which is used to make tea (which is an infusion)

In the bin ... with a yellow lid ... but using something like that is kind of cheating a bit though - LOL

A "yellow" dog Investigating (well he is sort of yellow - he is a GOLDEN Retriever after all ;-)

I am not sure what he was sniffing/looking at ... possibly the yappy dog in the next yard, or a "present" the cat left buried in the garden ...

I kind of got a bit weird with this one ... the peg is yellow, the Hills Hoist (clothesline - Ingeniously Invented In Australia) is Aussie and the undies are In the air ... I know ... a bit silly ... lol

More Insects ... not yellow though ... but they are Australian

and I could get really technical and say that because they are not mature adults yet that means the stage of development they are at is one of the several "instars" they go through (an instar is the technical name for a stage of development in an insect that hatches from an egg in an Immature (another I word ;-) form and then goes through a number of moults before the final one where it comes out as an adult). These are a species of Praying Mantis (or is that Preying? ... I probably should look that up sometime - lol) ... and from their small size I would guess they have at least a couple more moults to go before they grow up.

They are related to stick insects - which is what I used to keep as pets for a while ... the stick insects ate gum leaves, but these things eat ... stick insects! (and whatever else they can catch) ... how do I know? well, apart from the fact that I learnt that in science lesons/on tv shows/etc - I have also seen one catch and eat a rather pretty moth that I WAS trying to take a photo of until it flew away ... and landed in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time! I also found an even smaller one of these 2 or 3 years ago, and at the time I happened to have a similar sized stick insect that was not looking too healthy (sometimes they would loose a few too many legs and not be able to crawl out of their skin properly the next time they moulted) so I put the 2 of them next to each other and watched nature do what nature does - "eat or be eaten" - LOL (yes - one ate and one was eaten ... no prizes for guessing which one was the "winner")

can't see them in the above photo?

- here they are:

now you can see how small they are ...

I took 2 more photos, that I can use for this scatterday, on Saturday:

a yellow sign, In the air ...

... with Information In the tent underneath (info about the Land Rover Club - which I am a member of - which is why I was out there - this club, and 2 others in the ACT run this show every 2 years!

It is also Australian too I guess - all these pictures are, because they were taken in Australia and are of stuff we have/do here - even the one I cheated with and took a photo of a web page - it is an Australian website!

BTW - see that white picket fence - on Friday night I parked the Land Rover next to it, moved the table, and rolled out my swag inside my own little "yard" - LOL (I slept outside the main tent because the snorers were sleeping Inside it!) ... on Saturday night I didn't have the LandRover there (DS took it home because he needed to borrow it to get somewhere) and there was a snorer inside (again) - and the snoring was coming from right near the white fence, so I rolled out my sway a bit further away (out of the photo to the left, still just under the awning so I would not get rained on, but far enough away from the snorer that I couldn't hear him - luckily he wasn't very loud or I might have had to go find a vacant awning on an exhibitor's stand nearby! lol)

I also took this photo late on Saturday evening:

the slide is yellow, and the top end if fairly high up in the air, but it doesn't start with I ... but Inebriated does - and the people at the bottom, who had just gone down it, most likely were! ... I was too ... only slightly though (it's a bit hard to get too drunk on 3 or 4 light beers), but I went down the slide a few times too - and I would have done the same thing totally sober. We were also probably doing something slightly Illegal (and some might say Idiotic?) - we kind of snuck on there after the owner had gone for the night - it was a few hours after the show had closed! btw - the funnly bright white bits are reflective strips on people's overalls (the SES people who were there doing security patrols/etc overnight) - the reflective strips were Illuminated by the lights.

anyway ... it has taken me ages to do all that, and it is now way after "bed time" ... so I had better go and get some sleep ... perchance to dream ... of some good ideas for this week's Scatterggory - "... things that start with the letter S. Not just anything - the categories are Fruit, Things that make you itch and Gold." I wonder if there is a gold, itchy, fruit that starts with an S ... there IS one that, for me at least, ends in an S - Mangoes ... although it is actually not the yellow/gold inside that does it - it is the green skin on the outside - or rather the sap in the skin ... I can eat mangos ... just can't touch them! (well - is ok on my fingers for a short time, but if i touch one then touch my face or something that area will come up in a puffy, itchy, red rash!) ... which was not a good thing to have happen the first time I peeled and ate mangos in the bath with the (then toddler age) kids and we played boats with the skins!)

ahrgh ... I am itching just thinking about it ... LOL

... actually I was itching before I thought of that - I think there is a mozzie in here! - which is all the more reason to hurry up and post this and head off to bed ...

goodnight!

H2O

I'm not sure if it looks right in the post title from your end, but it looks right here - H₂O - LOL (I had to use html tags to get it to say H₂O instead of H2O, and I am not sure if they work in the post title ... although when I look at the "Preview" it seems to be ok ;-)

Anyway ... why do I need to be able to type H₂O?
... well - it could be handy for all sorts of things, but at the moment it is because I want to post about my entry for a quilt challenge - and the theme was "H₂O"!

Anyway - here is the quilt partly finished:



This was before I put the black tulle on top and stitched all over it ...

It is for a challenge being run by a quilt group in Tasmania ... I think I found out about it via a yahoogroup I am on ... and the quilt had to be A3 sized, and include some or all of the 2 scraps of fabric we were sent, and fit the theme of "H₂O"
So I came up with one of my usual weird ideas, and made this quilt, which I have called "H₂O" - Elixir of Life"

I fiddled around and did this to show what fabrics were the ones I was sent to use:

I have a little bit of the "water" fabric left (another bit about the same size as the 2 bits on the quilt) and the original bit of "snail" fabric was a smaller bit (about the same size as one of the 3 bits I cut the other fabric into) and I now have a bit with 2 snail shaped holes in it left over - lol
(we didn't have to use all of each bit, just had to use at least some of it)

Here is the finished quilt:


The quilts that we all sent in for this are going to be exhibited and probably travel around to a few places for up to a year, then they will either go into a community wall hanging or be sent back to their owner (we were given a choice - I chose to have this quilt sent back to me at the end - because I like it! ... and I am not part of the "community" where they are going to hang, and I am not even sure I would ever get down there to see the quilts hanging in it )

btw, for those wondering how to do the "H₂O" thing, I had to actually go into the html editor and type " H < sub > 2 < / sub > O " (but without the spaces - had to put those in there so it didn't do odd things!)

aaahhrrgghhh ... that did say what it was meant to, but it changed itself and doesn't want to show up with a <> in it! ... I think I finally fixed it ... for now ... who knows what it will decide to change itself to by the time I post this! ... the joys of swapping back and forth between a html editor and a wysiwyg editor and a preview thingy ...

and, because blog posts are written in html - to type a "<" and a ">" and have it show up as that in here, I have to type "&lt" and "&gt" (I learnt that one a year or so ago ;-)
and then I had to do &quot for the " in one place because the ampersand (&) symbol is used in html code and that was messing things up too!

... just thought u might like to know that - amazing what one learns while trying to do odd/silly things in blog posts and/or e-mails ( - stuff like this)

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