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!

The visit to the vet

I had a day off today so had planned a visit to the vet for the annual shots for the menagerie.  Now, stupid as this sounds, we have always taken them to the vet 50km away.  Don't ask me why?  Well actually I do know.  We had a bad visit to the vet here in town a long time ago.  It was the Easter weekend, Molly had cut her paw, I guess we had caught the crabby old man vet at a bad time, he'd been out on some farm tending to a sick cow and then he was called in to see us.  He was so off-hand, no bedside manner, or kennel side manner (so to speak) and no personality and I took an instant dislike to him and never went back.

But he's long since gone and a young vet with his associates has taken over the clinic and well I guess time is nigh, Molly doesn't travel well, she gets very stressed in the car and when there's a vet only a block and a half's walk away it does seem a bit crazy to stress out driving 50km with the menagerie to see a different one.

So I bit the bullet and made an appointment, and I was honest, not about the crabby vet part, but that we'd been taking them into Warrnambool and it just seemed silly.  The lady on the phone was great, then she told me I'd get a discount if I had them all booked in together, could I bring them in at the same time?  To which I answered...

ARE YOU FREAKING CRAZY !!??!!?

She laughed and said if we could bring the two dogs, take them home and then bring the cat in straight after, it could be classed as the one visit and we'd get a sizeble discount.  I'm not going to sniff at over $30 discount, so we did just that.

Well the vet we saw was lovely, just LOVELY.  Lucky took an instant shine to her and she was all over him.  Molly is very reserved in vet visits, and I warned her that unless totally necessary please don't take her temperature because our mild mannered girl will turn into the she-devil and you'll have to muzzle her.  But Doctor Sarah said there was no need to take her temperature so that was one relief.   It was a good long vet visit too, she spoke to us at length about Molly's age and caring for a geriatric dog.

We weighed her too, last time she was weighed at the vets she was 42kg.  Ouch.  Yes, that's just over 92 pounds my friends.  She's big boned, truly!   Well I'm pleased to say she came in at 36.8kg.  That's 81 pounds.  Way to go Molly.  Okay so she was moving about on the scales and Mike just picked a number as it was jumping up and down all over the place.  But I think we'll go with 36.8.  It's a nice number.

One thing Doctor Sarah did say was that Molly looks as if her vision is starting to be impaired.  Not to the point of bumping into walls and the like, but it was something she noticed in her eyes.  She said that dogs have good "maps" in their mind of their surroundings so she will be fine in our home and yard.

It does kind of explain some things of late - the night Molly went wandering out of the gate after midnight into the darkness - the fact she gets agitated in the middle of the night and starts pacing in the dark - that one morning I woke up and she was sleeping in the passageway bathed in the light shining out from the bathroom that we had left on for her - and now that we are leaving a light on at night she has been completely content to sleep through the night.  Interesting.

Didn't mean to speak so much about the visit today, but it was a good visit and these are my babies.

Onward to last October's photos from the Book of Wisdom.

Credits Designer Digitals.


Mike is a bit miffed at the moment, no reply from His Holiness.  Err honey, did you really expect one?  And now we open the local newspaper today and find out that the really amazingly wonderful Catholic priest we have in town here is being moved to another Parish way up woop woop.  What a loss to the town.  Mike, I really REALLY hope your letter didn't have anything to do with it, annoying the big guy.

He's at it again

Mike that is.  After his correspondence with that head honcho from Telstra, he feels he had a victory, a $10 win at that.  So he's looking further afield.   The other day he announced to me that he was going to write to the Pope.

Righto.  Nothing surprises me any more.

So that he did.  After not being able to find an email address, which kind of didn't surprise me, he sat down and wrote a snail mail letter.  About Father Bob.  Well power to you Mike.  I guess if you are a member of the Catholic Club, you ought be able to write to the CEO of the organisation.  You are one of his flock after all.

Long story short to those not up with the story ... Father Bob is one of those priests you either love or hate.  Mike happens to think he's right up there with Bob Katter (okay, so I admit, there's no accounting for taste).  He loves that Father Bob tells it like it is.  The fact that the Catholic Church is forcing Father Bob to retire is a bit sad, he's obviously still vital in his role, I understand there's standing room only at his sermons.    There's a story about him here at The Age if you are interested.

So Mike decided to tell it like it is to the Pope in his letter, which he posted last week, and reminded His Holiness that he himself is actually older than Father Bob, and he hasn't yet been forced to retire.   Oh dear.  Mike darling, I fear you will not win your $10 here so easily!

So now I'm into September, spring has sprung, in showing you the Book of Wisdom pages.

Credits Designer Digitals.

 And with that, I'm off to bed. I have Friday off this week as an RDO, so tomorrow is my last day of work. Yay.

Rainy night

It's a rainy old night out there, dogs have been out and now settling down for the night.  Molly has been at odds of a night time lately, we had put it down to how hot it had been and she's wanted to go outside to sleep.  But I think we've finally worked it out.  Not sure if her eyesight is failing her, well she's not bumping into walls or anything like that, but I think she's becoming disoriented in the dark and then wanting to go outside where at least there's moonlight.   Not sure.

The last few nights we've keep the toilet light on with the door slightly ajar so it's letting some light into the passageway, and she's been quite content, one morning I got up to find her sleeping in the passageway, bathed in the light.  So that's what got me to thinking about her becoming disoriented in the dark.

So we'll put up with some higher than normal electricity bills for the old girl.  It's like she knows I'm writing about her here, she just came up, sat next to me and put her head on my lap as I'm sitting here typing.  Wish I knew what she was thinking.  I love this old girl with all my heart.

So onwards we go to the August pages I did for the Book of Wisdom.

Credits Designer Digitals

And so with that, it might be time to call it a night.

There's a moose loose in the hoose

And I am NOT impressed.  I hate mice with a passion.  I should have known.  Bo was sitting for ages looking intently at a corner of the kitchen and I thought then that she has seen something that I have missed.  Then yesterday morning out the corner of my eye I saw the scurrying.  Okay Bo girl, earn your keep.  But no, she hasn't caught it.   A few traps last night and this morning I woke to find a mouse.  Eeeeeeek.  Of course promptly disposed of by Mike, I wasn't touching it!  Yuck.

Shall set a few traps tonight in case it had a friend.  All's fair in love and war where mice are concerned I'm afraid.

Right, here we are knee deep in winter for the next lot of pages to show you.

Credits Designer Digitals.

I have sent this book away to be printed and am anxiously awaiting it's return, due any time they say between 16th and 26th January.  I'm so looking forward to it, so hopefully by the time I get through showing you all the pages up close like this, I'll be able to photograph the finished book in my hot little hands.

Oh dear, Molly is sitting on her haunches right next to me with her front paws on my lap and a pleading look on her face.  I do believe that is "Molly talk" for "hey can I have a treat please!"   

Well the tin man does have a heart!

One of my Christmas gifts from the menagerie, yes yes, we get a gift from Molly, Lucky and Bo, was the DVD of Red Dog.   Oh ... my ... God !   Talk about cry, I was sobbing buckets by the end.  It made me laugh, it made me cry, it even made His Lordship's eyes get all watery.  Okay so they didn't spill over, so he says technically he didn't cry, but there was leakage! ha.

Red Dog ... see it !  Iconic Australian movie (and yes, with the token American lead actor thrown in).  Although is he a lead actor, somehow I think Red Dog was!   There's a clip at the link.

So we're onto June now, here's the photos of the week that saw me through the start of winter.

Credits Designer Digitals.

And looking at those cookies, it reminds me that I have butter softening out on the bench because I need to make some this afternoon, Mike has to "take a plate" tomorrow.  Good arrangement huh?  He takes the plate, I do all the work.

And along came May ...

His Lordship came home last night, tired and dirty, after a camp out with some mates, and only finding one bit of gold, only a little bit, but it still floors me that out of the great expanse of the bushland, he can find an itty bitty little piece. Like looking for a needle in a haystack if you ask me. Did I say he was dirty? He was FILTHY! A combination of the dryness, the dustiness and the wind.

The lads not only found gold during the camp, they also found a big fat 2 metre long Copperhead snake and quickly hightailed it out of his area.

He was expecting to camp out a few nights and well, quite frankly, I was looking forward to having the house to myself for a few days solid, watch a few girly movies, do a lot of scrapping and knitting, but he came home after only one night. The other fellows had already camped out one or two nights and Mike had turned up late, so I am glad he came home, I don't like it when he's out in the bush on his own.

Continuing on this trip down memory lane, catching you up on the May pages I did for the Book of Wisdom.

Credits Designer Digitals.


Oh dear, the bagpipes have just started up in the loungeroom. Lucky will be singing his little heart out soon enough, he throws his head back and howls to the moon when Mike starts playing, funny little dog he is.

And onto April's photos of the week...

I've had a lovely evening scrapping my heart out! Gotta love that. I have a knitting project I want to finish but that can wait till another night. I'm hanging out for a cuppa and then bed, so without further ado, here's April's offerings.

Credits Designer Digitals.


And now my cuppa awaits me, followed closely by my bed!

Recap of March

Gaaaahhh! I've just had a TV night tonight, watched three TV shows straight, started out with Four Weddings and ended with Criminal Minds. Couldn't be further apart huh? Had a big cry in Criminal Minds, now I feel overwrought. I get so involved in storylines, what a sap.

So the weather, thank goodness, was cooler today. Relief! Lets hope this lasts for a while. Although about 3am last night there was a bit of an electric show outside, lightening coming from all sides, Molly was beside herself. I can't imagine feeling such fear, her eyes were wide, her ears were back, she was shaking, trembling, drooling, all I could do was hold the poor old girl. She eventually fell asleep in the hallway with the light on, where she couldn't see a window so in turn couldn't see the flash, and I stumbled back to bed. Wrecked today!

So onto the pages of my Book of Wisdom for March. Enjoy.

Credits Designer Digitals.


Off to bed, lets pray for no storms tonight!

Onto the next month...

But before I do, I must relay to you an email exchange my cheeky husband had last month with Telstra. Any Bigpond customers may remember a certain weekend in December where the system went haywire, you could send emails, you couldn't receive, or vice versa, and internet connections were all over the place. Of course with a big company things happen and glitches occur and you are understanding of that. But this particular night Mike received an email from Telstra and, well, he'd had a couple of after dinner drinks so decided on some tomfoolery.

Email from Telstra entitled "We are sorry we let you down this weekend" :

As you're aware some of our online services were unavailable from
late Friday 9th to late Saturday 10th December due to an earlier internal
systems issue.

I want to sincerely apologise for any inconvenience you may have
experienced this weekend because of the disruption.

Services are now back up again for the majority of our customers, and
your BigPond services should be working as normal.

The decision to temporarily reduce access to these services was not
taken lightly and I know that our actions resulted in a poor online
experience for you and was a source of frustration.

Once again, I apologise for the disruption to your service and thank
you for your patience.

Best regards,
Executive Director, Customer Service



Return email from Mike to the Executive Director:

No worries Peter, Apology accepted.

It was an inconvenience for me this weekend when it happened. What will you do to make it up to me ?

Cheers
Mike.



Email from Kylie from the Bigpond Team back to Mike:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your email, my name is Kylie and I appreciate you taking
the time to contact us. I understand that you are querying what Telstra will
do to make it up to you.

I sincerely apologise for any downtime you experienced with our online
services and for the inconvenience this has caused.

BigPond can provide a credit of $10 for the period of time your Internet was
down and as such I have applied this credit to your account.

Kind Regards,
The BigPond Team



Email from Mike to Kylie:

Thankyou Kylie, You have reconfirmed my faith in Telstra.

Cheers
Mike.

Thank goodness the email exchange ended there, I fear we would have ended up with shares in the company. So moral to this story is if you don't ask you won't get. Sure it's only $10, but imagine if they gave $10 to every customer the disastrous weekend affected. Another moral to the story, don't let your husband loose on the email if he's had a few tipples after dinner!

Continuing on with my Book of Wisdom, onto February:

Credits Designer Digitals.


Oh that photo of Rastaman ... I don't think I will ever forget that day as long as I live. I had been practicing panning but unfortunately Lucky was way too quick for me, so that was when Mike had the brilliant idea of running for me. But oh no, he couldn't do just any type of running, he had to do it in style, and that's how Rastaman was born! Except Rastaman nearly gave himself a heart attack running all round the front yard, to the obvious delight of the neighbours peering through their loungeroom curtains!

And I swear, when I was packing up the Christmas tree yesterday, Mike looked longingly at the red velvet Christmas tree skirt, before I dumped it in the laundry basket to be washed!