What is hanging on my wall

A couple of weeks ago Maggie Grey posed the question "What is hanging on your wall?" I have tried to put a link to the actual post with no success, but scroll back to 14th January to see it. I said I have a lot of my sister's lovely watercolours and I thought I would show you a couple of them - hard not to get reflections on the glass though.

Barb wasn't very happy with the waterlilly but I love it. I like this smaller painting of camellias as well. In fact, I am happy to have any of her paintings!

I have felt that I have been dithering for quite a while and need a challenge to keep me on my toes. I was reading the blog from Three Creative Studios and found this challenge called Cue. Each Sunday they will post a new word and you can do a sketch, photo, stitching or whatever to illustrate the word. This week's word was rolling. The first two ideas I had - ocean waves and rolling pastry were already done, so I thought of a kitten rolling (and unrolling) a ball of wool.

The next challenge is to work out how to put the Cue tag on my blogsite - watch this space, but it may take a while! I think it will take quite a while, I shall have to ask for assistance as nothing I am trying will work!

Should be wall hanging

Sorry, just had to correct my hasty typing.

A wall handing and some very large nuts

I have finally started catching up with some of the free online lessons from Maggie and Carol and Lynda. Somehow, I lost my motivation to do anything much after Christmas, think perhaps because everything was so hectic at the end of last year. Now school is almost due to start again and everyone is coming back to normal routines!
This wall hanging has a background of embellished glass organza in a lovely teal colour laid on top of a shot purple. I loved the end colour.

There has been a temporary fence erected around this tall Bunya Pine tree at the Botanic Gardens to keep anyone from sitting under it.

This is why - these nuts fall off at this time of the year and they each weigh about 2 kilos or even more!

This closeup photo shows you that as well as being very heavy they have very sharp points on them - I would not like to be underneath one of those! The nuts will eventually ripen with a very floury edible nut in each of the segments. They were a favourite food of the aborigines.

We are having a spot of fairly wild weather here at present, strong winds and heavy squalls. We are a long way south of the cyclone in North Queensland, but the forecast is saying gales will extend down here. I am never sure these days if the bureau is being over cautious or it the warning is really necessary. Sometimes the media creates such a beatup over almost nothing! I am glad to see some wind and rain anyway, much more pleasant than the previous muggy heat.

I can see my table again

I could not find some skeleton leaves which I know I bought while we were away for Christmas. That was enough to make me decide to bite the bullet and have a huge cleanup and sort out in my workroom!

These photos don't make it look nearly as bad as it really was! I finally persuaded Bill to take the cupboard doors off. He kept saying it would look dreadful, but I kept insisting it is far more practical - and if we do have anyone sleeping in there at times, they will be older than 5 and I won't need to put stuff out of reach. The only thief I need to worry about right now is Jock, who takes anything which falls on the floor, scrounging in the waste paper basket is his favourite occupation.

I realised I need lots more containers to hold stuff so off I went to the discount store. I had previously been to Officeworks who had a stack of drawers advertised in their catalogue sale. Much to my disgust, the shop assistant said the drawers would not be available for at least another ten days. That turned out to be a spot of luck for me, I found a much better set, pictured below, at a much cheaper price, yippee.

Several days later, I now have an almost tidy workroom, with plenty of space on the work table to start creating. I should clean out and tidy my yarns and threads, but I am getting impatient to do something creative, so they will have to wait.

Everything will have to wait till tomorrow, today was another injection day and I have a sore eye tonight. The last few have not bothered me at all and I suppose this is not really too bad. I expect after a good night's sleep it won't feel so scratchy. Another injection next month, then photos of my eye a month later, then hopefull I may be able to get some new glasses - I shall keep hoping anyway.

A very impatient patient

Jock was desexed yesterday and is supposed to wear this megaphone contraption for the next ten days - he is also supposed to stay very quiet and not run and jump!!!!! In the first picture he isstill finding his feet after recovering from the anaesthetic, but once he did..............

there was no holding him. He has learned to bash his way through the doggie door, and along the shrubbery inside the fence - and against our legs when he rushes up to say hullo. Either he will break the contraption or we will remove it soon to save ourselves from further injury.

He does look funny when he is eating or drinking or just picking something up. Last night he had a cane toad trapped inside the megaphone. Fortunately neither he nor the toad seemed to know what to do next so Bill was able to pull him away - cane toads are very poisonous and we often had to hose Jack's mouth out because he had a mouthful of the secretion. Hopefully Jock will have some more sense.

We now have puddles and cooler weather - we have had some glorious rain, still showers around this morning, but the forecast is for it to clear today, so no doubt we will be back to the hot weather. I think that is probably preferable to the extreme temperatures in the northern hemishpere.

Time for lunch, then back to the workroom to see what else I can find.

Back to the Gardens

Jock and I went walking in the Botanic Gardens today, the first time this year. Until today, I had found the weather far too hot and unpleasant to even think of going far - my feet definitely don't like the high humidity. Today was overcast and threatening to rain so off we went, and I took these photos, in no particular order. They should all enlarge if you click on them.

The pelicans were nearly all just resting, while the cormorants were drying out.

Thank goodness the pump has been repaired at long last so this waterfall is working again after having been dry for about three months.

These vitex melicopia berries are so bright. The bush is about two metres high and absolutely covered, making a great show.

The cassia fistula has made a lovely show of petals on the pavement underneath it.

And finally, I just liked the line of toadstools under one of the trees.

I have nothing creative to show at present. In fact, I need to take about a week to have a very large cleanout and sort out in my workroom. I have no more space in which to store anything, and I can't find the things I have stored in the last couple of months!!

I can hear raindrops on the roof, hopefully there will be a good fall overnight. Time for bed.

And there's more

I forgot to take a photo of the sole of my new Kumfs shoes - they will be put to other uses than just for walking!

The new Imelda Marcos

Well, not really, but I have bought FIVE new pairs of shoes in the last two weeks!!!!!!!!! Can't say they are particularly glamourous, but they fit me and they will take my orthotics. I was getting desperate, my old shoes were falling apart - so much so that when I found the bone lace-ups in Myers I walked out in the new ones and the old ones went in the bin there! Now I just need a new pair of boots before my toe wears through the top of my present pair and my shoe wardrobe will be complete again for anothe few years!

We had a very pleasant jaunt to Buderim, I like staying overnight and taking two days for the journey. These photos below are of the birds which wanted to share our lunch with us - the magpie and the noisy miner were right at my feet, and the Ibis wanted to jump up onto the table almost before we had packed up! They are quite a large bird and were intimidating some young children nearby. We don't ever feed birds in picnic areas for that reason, they become too aggressive.

This photo was taken on the way south when the countryside was looking very parched and droughtstricken. But..................... while we were away the rains came and look what happened. There was not a huge amount of rain, only about 15 mm I think, but the green grass started shooting so quickly.

These photos were taken from the car as we were driving - there had been quite a bad fire through this area in late November, hence the blackened trunks of the trees. Everywhere we saw cattle they all had their heads down enjoying the new shoots.

Now we are almost unpacked and sorted and back to normal(?) I hope to start playing tomorrow - all those Christmas goodies, especially my new sewing machine.

Happy New Year to everyone, may 2010 be a good one.