Dare I say ... heat wave!

I don't know if a couple of days in a row qualifies, but I feel like we're in the middle of a heat wave.  I really do sound like I'm whinging don't I?  Oh well, whinge away I say.    Man, it's suffocating out there.  It says 37.3 C (99 F)  on the Elders weather site, but if feels way hotter.  Probably because of the wind.  Mike has just come home from band practice this afternoon and he looks like he's done 3 rounds in a boxing ring!

And of course I planned on a roast tonight for dinner and have just popped a rolled beef it in the oven.  AM I NUTS?  Probably.

I had bought some plants on Friday after work, went to Bunnings and came home with a mega punnet of miniature snap dragons (have had great success with them in the past) and a lovely blue star kind of flower.   I bought five of them to plant at various intervals in the flower bed.   So pretty.   Just popped out to check the tag, they are called Astra Blue.    Although I'm keeping the plants watered in their pots, it's been to hot to actually plant them.    Once the sun goes down and the shade is on that side of the house I'll pop them in.  Don't want to kill them before I actually plant them!

I played along with the Saturday Scraplift at Designer Digitals this week and came up with a facing Boxing Day page for Miss T's future album I'll make for her.  I had to make the photograph B&W, we had a hot pink and a emerald green bon bon hat on our heads respectively, looked a bit off on the page.

Credits Designer Digitals.

Righto, now I've posted, I'm off to go pop my head in the fridge for a tick! ha.

Woah!

I swear I'm about to burst a foofer valve.  It's so hot today and we're just hanging around indoors with the AC on.  Both Molly and Lucky are completely out to it, sprawled on the slate floor as long and as wide as their bodies can go.  Mike is asleep on the couch with his feet up.  And I do believe there may be a nap in my very near future too.

Okay it's official, I'm completely OVER summer!

Australia Day.   The Muster.   OH MY!  It was spectacular.

The Muster Committee this year put on "The Drovers Return".  It was so incredibly good.  Three bushies sitting around a camp fire as Andy the Drover passed them by and went off to drove his cattle.  They told yarns, which span into plays and re-enactments and displays under spotlight on the equestrian field.   All the while the bushmen (including a crazy one named Whacka!) kept spinning their tales which went into the next act, and the next act.  They spoke of Clancy of the Overflow,   Mulga Bill and his bicycle,  the Geebung Polo Club, the Man from Snowy River, all acted superbly by local families and talent from around the south-west.

At the start when the stock riders came in and were riding around displaying their skills, okay, stupid as it sounds I burst into tears.  CRAZY STUFF !  I think I got so wound up that our little town, our little speck on the map, could put on something of this calibre.  Kudos to the organisers.

At one point when the bushmen settled down to sleep, Whacka woke up to see a horse riding around.  Honestly I've never seen such a sight.  The rider had I guess they were two long sticks with some sort of tie between the sticks, so imagine it as a big skipping rope.  Except the tie part of it connecting the sticks WAS ALIGHT WITH FLAME.   And as he rode he would basically skip with it and the horse jumped over the lit skipping rope, continuing right around the oval.  Of course by the time "Whacka" had woken the other bushies to tell of a horse skipping through fire, they thought he must be dreaming.

UN-FLIPPING-BELIEVABLE.

The skill of the riders was something to be believed.  I'm actually quite fearful of horses, I don't like being close to them at all, but my goodness they were an extension of the rider.   They did everything their rider told them to by movement or touch or spoken word.

My favourite part of the night was the dancing.  Imagine if you will bush dancing, you know how it is, a line of boys and a line of girls, you move to each other, bow, move back, move forward again, spin around, side step up and the top couple go skipping through the line of dancers.  Are you still with me?

Well they did that with a line of dancing people PLUS there was a line of  horses and riders dancing in time too, doing the same steps.  Two lines of horses, moved in, nodded their head, backed up, moved in, backed up, side stepped, and then the top two riders galloped their horses down the middle of the line of horses.   All in time with the dancers doing it too.   Like nothing I've ever seen before.

Because it was all done at night and under light my photos were blurry, so hoping our once a week newspaper has some photos in it next Thursday to show.

Onto the scrapping front...

Finally scrapped some photos from our Boxing Day evening with the kids.   I am gradually making each of them an album so they'll each get one of these in their albums with a facing page featuring themselves.

Credits Designer Digitals

And with that I do think I need a cup of tea, the only thing to quench my thirst on a hot day like today is a hot cup of tea strangely enough.  And there's scotch fillet steak and salad for dinner to be had.  So in that order.   Tea, nap, dinner !

Australians all let us rejoice

Australia day, the flag is flying high on our flagpole, it's a glorious day, sunny, not too hot, light breeze, it's going to be a beautiful balmy evening. Our town is putting on a muster and I'm so looking forward to it. They have a show called The Drovers Return and music, a BBQ, it will be loads of fun.

And that's it from me, Australia Day 2012.

Seriously freaky

And I mean SERIOUSLY !   I went to get a hanky out of the top drawer of my tallboy in the bedroom yesterday and I pulled out two $50 notes that had been tucked in there!  Am I having black outs and hiding money that I can't remember.  Honestly.  I'm starting to worry.   Now I'm another $100 up on unexpected money.

I'm really looking forward to what I'll find tomorrow now! ha.

Temperature has hit 35 C and it feels a lot more.  I'm flagging fast, as are the menagerie.  I took them out in the shade earlier and we played with the hose, spraying water on them in an effort to cool them down.  Now Lucky looks like a lion, he needs a good clipping and around his shoulder area is sitting up like a mane.  My little lion boy, he's so funny.

Last night we headed down to Collendina to watch my brother-in-law play in his band Skebang, plus it was my sister-in-law's birthday too.  A really fun night.  Last time I went to the Collendina would easily have been near on 20 years ago, watching James Reyne pump it out.   Although it wasn't a dancing type night, Mike decided to get Ann-Marie up on the dance floor, so fun.   Then he got me up with him dancing and started dancing like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.  Well what's a girl to do and I matched him back.  We looked outrageous I'm sure.  Much to the mirth of my brother-in-law up on stage playing the saxophone.

So last night, combined with a late night home, combined with a lazy sleep in this morning, combined with this heat that makes you not want to lift a finger, has made for a very unproductive day.

Onto the scrapping front ...

I think scrapbooking is a great way to tell our story because we scrapbookers do become the story tellers of our family.  I think also that scrapbooking is a great outlet for therapy, they call it scrap therapy.  Sometimes, even if we don't decide to print the page or include it in our family history, it's just enough to make a page and know it's made.  Much like writing the letter you never send.  This is one of those such pages explaining about the turmoil I felt on Christmas Day.

Credits Designer Digitals.

So right now I plan on putting the kettle on and making a very hot cup of tea.  I love drinking hot sweet tea on a hot day, I find it's the only thing that will quench my thirst.

Excitement plus!!!

Really need to talk with exclamation marks, there's no other way.  So the other day I opened my underwear drawer and got a huge shock.  Okay, so not about my underwear, although it could scare people I'm sure, it's a bit random.  But okay, lets rephrase, I opened the drawer and got a huge surprise.  There tucked in the corner was $60.

Three lovely $20 notes, happy as larry, sitting there just in view.    First thought was to jump around excited, did a little scream and clapped like a seal.  But then I realised it's obviously *MY* money, but I had just forgotten I'd put it there.  Hmmmm, scratching my head, could only put it down to just before Christmas, possibly had a bit extra money in my wallet, was going out to one of the various gatherings we went to and didn't want to take all the money so hid it in with my underwear.

Plausible.  Still jumping around Mike came in and saw what I was excited about, well he couldn't really help it, I was flapping the notes in his face.  So as I went to show him where I found the money, I found MORE MONEY!  Out came a few $50's, till in the end I'm standing there with $250 in my hands.

WHAT ON EARTH?!?!??!?!!!!!!  (see, I told you exclamation marks were needed in this post).

TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS !!!!!  How on earth had I forgotten about that, it kinda puts a bit of a dent into the fortnight's budget to forget about that kind of money.

Then it dawned, the penny dropped, or should I say the $250 dropped! ha.  I remembered in December that Mike had given me $250 to put towards the Christmas presents we were buying the kids and our families.  DOH!  Can't believe I had forgotten about it, probably due to the credit card society we now are.  What a fabulous and unexpected windfall !  Seriously putties up a hole in my savings account after Christmas.

Onto the scrapping front...

In my year of just scrapping the every day, no projects, no big commitments, just the joy of scrapping our stories, whether they be good, whether they be bad, whether they be happy or sad, the stories that make our lives here in our little home in the country, I scrapped the story about the visit to the vet, together with photographs I took that afternoon.

Molly looked just so sad, didn't she, like she knew we had been talking about her advanced years during the vet visit.

Credits Designer Digitals.

Can't tell you what a joy it is to just scrap some photos for the heck of it.  Whatever takes my fancy.  Whatever stories I want to tell.  I'm going to enjoy this year of just scrapping for scrap's sake.

And the best actor award goes to ...

After an early start this morning where we went across to Port Fairy as Mike was playing in the pipe band, we've come to a standstill this afternoon and had a bit of a cruisey one.  Mike has just finished watching a movie "Book of Eli" which got us talking about who we think is the best actor EVER.

That's a big ask.  Someone versatile, not typecast, someone who obviously is exacting with his/her craft, someone who strives for excellence, someone who you can really BELIEVE they are who they are portraying.  

So who would you nominate for the best actor ever?

For us, without a doubt, no ifs, buts or maybes, it's Denzel.  A man so amazingly brilliant in our minds, you don't even need to add the Washington at the end.  You know you've made it when someone can just utter your first name and you know who you are speaking of.  Except I guess I've never ever known anyone else named Denzel, but that's not the point.

Best actor ever vote from us = Denzel Washington.

Who is your pick?

And while I'm at it, how come we don't seem to use the word actress any more?  What's the deal with that?   I don't think it was derogatory, it was just a way of defining the gender.

So here we are onto the last month of last year.  My book of wisdom December pages. 

And a fitting finish, a last photograph of the two of us (taken by moi with my arm outstretched, shaking, holding my heavy big girl camera). A last photo for the last day of the year.

Credits Designer Digitals.

Hope you've enjoyed this trip through last year, moments that caught my eye, which made me want to grab my camera and record an image.  Esther asked from the last post whether I see my photography improving all the time.  This asked from the woman who does take a photo every day AND published them in a yearly album, one page one photo, and the albums are amazing.  As for me, not sure.  I guess with anything practice will always improve a skill or a craft.  I think I definitely see things differently now.  Look for odd angles.  Check backgrounds so that lamp posts don't look like martian feelers coming out of someone's head, that type of thing.  Although it still happens.

But having done this, I'm looking forward to a year with no specific projects, no album to complete.  I might do something at the end of the year, but I'm just looking forward to catching up with the photos I do have, and of course take a few more along the way!

Saturday night

What a boring blog post heading!  I sat here, fingers poised, ready to type and nothing came to mind, except ... Saturday night, cause that's what it is.   Mike is working on his website, I've been scrapping, dogs are snoozing on the floor beside both our chairs, the cat is curled up on the bed, and all is right with the world.

I've nearly finished showing you this trip through the last twelve months and what caught my fancy each week.  Here are November's offerings.

Credits Designer Digitals.


About that first page, the photograph of the clothesline.  I changed history there!  Hang on, I'll back up a bit.  There's a fellow I work with and he gets so mad when people photoshop photographs, enhance the colour, take out a powerline, make it brighter, make it darker, smooth skin tone, that kind of thing.  He gets irate that we change history.  A bit of overkill, don't you think?

But I did change history in that photograph.  I photoshopped out my knickers that were hanging on the other side of the line.  I don't think either this blog, my Gallery, or the world wide web were ready to see those bad girls!