So, in the middle of a crazy normal week here, *skip* announces as I am putting on my shoes this morning…. there’s a turtle in the backyard.

Yeah, right.

Oh, hang on. There’s a turtle trundling earnestly across the backyard.

We have NO idea where he came from, but he was heading towards our neighbour’s place. They have a couple of annoying terrier type dogs who would have thought he was a wonderful toy, so we sidetracked him. Actually, we turtle-napped him for the day. We first wanted to find out if one of the other neighbours had lost him in the storm last night. Failing that, *skip* rang the local vet. No lost turtles.

We kept him in a basin with some water for the day, and in the evening, let him out for a walk on the lawn. He got quite tame by the end, wasn’t scared of us at all.

It turns out that these clever, long-lived creatures ocassionally just go walk-about on their own. Looking for a new pond, a new hip happening scene. Sadly many of them fall victim to cars on their journey, so we decided to turn my car into a turtle taxi and deliver him safely to the local wetland. Lots of fish and ducks and reeds for him to flollop around in.

We’re going to miss that cheeky guy though

I just thought I’d share some lovely links that I found whilst blurfing today. We’re in the middle of a totally unheard of November Heatwave, and very uncomfortable. The only thing to do is keep the house closed up during the day, and ride it out.

One of my regular blog reads, from Queensland, Australia is this site…

mondo cherry

Which led me to this site

Swish and swanky

And somehow I ended up on the following blogs

Selvedge House

petalplum

craft laboratory

and finally

edward and lilly

All of them are worth a visit for some gorgeous handmade inspiration, and lots of yummy things to look at. Makes my fingers itchy to get my sewing machine out just looking at them all. Or the camera, as the case may be.

Peace and love everyone!

Just thought I’d give this a workout from my iPhone. Although the teeny tiny keys are frustrating me. It’s been another wild and crazy week around here. The boss and I finally made it to sydney after the disaster of September. Which meant getting up at 3.15am again. Blech. On the road to the airport just after 4, on the right plane to the right destination at 6. Lunch back at the airport at 3pm. Heading back to Adelaide 4.30, dropped off home again at 7pm. Which is fine until you have to work at 9.30 the next morning!!

I have rewarded myself with a new toy – a wii fit to complete the wii we surprised the boys with a couple of weeks ago. I’m loving it so far (day two) we will see how long I last. On the up side, I can do a workout when it fits into my schedule, and that is very important around here when it means about 10pm.

I have also treated myself to going to the movies 3 count them!! 3 times. Saw fame (good fun but a little light on plot!). Julie and Julia was awesome. Loved Meryl Streep. She totally made it for me. And also mao’s last dancer, of which I had read the book a couple if years ago. Had read very mixed reviews about this one, but was glad I saw it. My test of a movie, especially one I see away from my family, is if I can’t wait for *skip* to see it. Julie and Julia and mao’s definitely fit the bill on that one. Fame, not so much. :p

I have also been busy learning new skills at work – creating dye sublimation work. Eg putting photos onto mousemats, coffee mugs etc. Which has entailed me learning Corel. Eeek! Things are going fairly smoothly so far, although printing is one thing heat pressing is another challenge altogether!

Ok time for lights out.

Night!!

At least I would if I could remember what it looks like! Adelaide is still having, on the whole, grey, miserable days. Wet, dull and dreary. So we’ll turn to face the sun metaphorically speaking, pull our socks up and move onwards.

The past week has been emotionally, and physically horrendous. Extreme stress to the point that it has made me sick. I walked into work on Thursday morning, and my boss greeted me with, “Good morning – why do you look like crap?” Oh well, hardly having slept for 4 or 5 nights in a row and that’s just for starters.

However, today I managed to get something creative done. I finished a couple of layouts, one of which I’ll show you today, another one is an old one from last week. I’ve had such a dry spell, but this afternoon, the work just flowed off the end of my mouse. It was so easy! It felt good.

On the home front, this week mission successful to 1) rearrange our lounge room, including getting a new bookcase for dvd’s and games. 2) Tyson’s room makeover is complete with a small bookcase for him as well. 3) operation shed cleanout is continuing with 4 boxes of books donated to a local community 2nd hand book shed and 2 boxes dropped off at the local opshop. 4) I have broken down into the recycling a few more empty boxes from the shed, but the recycling bin is only emptied every 2 weeks, and I do need to leave room for things like bottles and jars. Unfortunately. So I have to stockpile the boxes. I think I’ll still be recycling them next year!

Next on the list of things to do is get some more framed pictures hung up in the bedroom, and organise some prints for newly freed up wall space in the lounge room. I know what I want and I know where, I just have to organise it!

So what projects are you all up to over the spring cleaning/autumn organising period?

My greatest fear was realised. Something that I have dreaded my whole life.

It has been both a short and a very long year, but it still hurts. Every. Single. Day. Today it has been hourly, and tomorrow isn’t looking much better.

Miss you Dad…

Thanks everyone for your nice words of congratulation and encouragement. And yes, it’s that easy and more of you lovely people should give it a try!!

I discovered this little treasure trying to get my scrapping back into gear. I created it last month, and can you believe, never uploaded it!?! Well, you can bet I have now! Now lets see if I can create a new layout as well

I’ve even got the Beethoven Sonatas going to try to get some creativity flowing. Although I have to admit, I’ve been a lot more creative in my photography of recent.

I am taking this chance to work hard on preparing for my very own Etsy shop, selling my images. I love them, many visitors comment on them, and I think that the world is ready to share them too! So stay tuned. I need to organise sizes, prints etc, and then I’ll launch on a gloriously unsuspecting public!

Now it’s time to go to bed Work tomorrow. Saving the world, one photograph at a time

That noise you can hear is my life whistling past my ears! Term 3 at school is over, and in the last couple of weeks we have been insanely busy with various commitments. I did another full-time week at work, the same week that Tyson and Sam had their school drama performance, the culmination of months of rehearsals! I also had an almost trip to Sydney, and I have just got home from the Murray Bridge Show. So lets take it one at a time, ok?

Alice in Wonderland.

Our school kids were amazing, all due to their marvellous teacher, Penny. What a lot of work she, and many mothers, put in. Sadly I couldn’t join in as rehearsals were on work nights, but they did just fine without me. At the last minute I did cast and performance photos, which came out really well. Here are my 2 actors. Tyson was officially stage manager, and kept Penny sane. For the first of 2 performances, he had to fill in a role, but the second night, he just worked his butt off behind the scenes. Sammy was the March Hare, who also did the work of the White Rabbit. He had a lot of lines, and did so well. We were EXTREMELY proud of them both – their hard work and commitment.

Almost Sydney.

My boss and I were scheduled for some special training in Sydney last Wednesday. After arriving at the airport at 5am, we discovered our plane was cancelled due to engineering difficulties. We were re-routed via Melbourne, but then Mother Nature had the last say, and we just didn’t get there. At about 2.30pm, our plane was about to take off from Melbourne to Sydney, we didn’t go. We had no guarantee that a flight would get OUT of Sydney to get us home, so we took our chances on the travel agent who got us on the next plane home to Adelaide. So, we spent 8 hours in Melbourne airport, and about 2 in Adelaide before that.

HERE are the best pictures I’ve found on the internet of the dust storm that blew across Sydney. Apparently it was 7 times worse than what is officially classed as a SEVERE dust storm. Now sadly, it was a tragic train of circumstances that was disappointing at best, and extremely frustrating at worst. Especially when they boarded us and then made us sit on the plane at the gate for an hour and a half. I never realised how truly exhausting sitting doing nothing really was. And I’ll never take for granted my smooth flights again. Even travel insurance looks like a good idea as hopefully we will get enough back so that we can afford to try again!

Murray Bridge Show.

I work in Murray Bridge, and was very excited/nervous to get hold of an entry form for the photographic section at the show. I have NEVER entered any photography competition in my life. I don’t even play that sort of thing in forums eg, Digital Photography School. I don’t have time sadly for a camera club, so I never get any outside opinions on my work, and it’s something that I’ve always wanted. Some people I know, I don’t even ask anymore as they just can’t see past the end of their noses, and other people would just say it was great because they really don’t know any better. So the upshot of all this rambling, is that I took a great deal of courage into 2 hands, printed off 6 8×12 photos, mounted them on black cardboard, carefully filled out the entry form and paid my 60c per photo entry fee. This was all a couple of weeks ago, and I didn’t even tell anyone apart from work (where I did the photos) and *skip* who helped me pick them out.

This weekend was the show, which was unfortunate, as the weather has been foul. It hailed on and off all day yesterday, today wasn’t so bad, but the wind was off ice and sooooo cold….. We got brave, loaded up with coats, and made the 40min drive up there to collect my entries. We gave ourselves a bit of time to have a look at the show… that didn’t take long but we also wanted to see the photography section before they pulled all the entries down to be collected. To see the competition, as it were. Although the judges provide no commentary, it is still valuable to see what you are competing against.

The enlargement category wasn’t very full. I have to admit that. Out of 4 sections, I had 2 entries in each of 3 sections. There was also an Album print category, with a lot more sub-categories, and the Juniors. There were lots and lots of prints in the Album prints. So I can’t say I had MAJOR competition.  This is just a country show. But I was still blown away when I came around the corner to the exhibit, and found my first images…. 2 in People. I won First and Second. Moving down the wall, I spotted one of my “Any Other Subject” with a First, and my second with a Certificate of Merit. And finally I spotted my last 2 prints, in landscape. One didn’t have anything attached to it, but the second print won First in Landscape, with an additional First in Enlargements and then in the middle, was Grand Champion of the show.

My First in Enlargements won me a trophy and a ribbon, and a $10 voucher to a local Computer Store, Grand Champion exhibit won a $25 voucher to the same store, and I also received prize money to the value of $8.50.

To say that I was blown away is really an understatement. I started shaking when I realised what I had actually achieved. *skip* and the boys are so proud of me, and I really would love to think that Dad would have been proud of me too. Photography was his passion, he was the one that always pushed me to work on my skills and my “eye” and he is the creator of this finished product.

I had to be subtle taking this photo, as I know people might think it a bit funny taking pictures there, but I had to record what it looked like!

The funny thing is that this image is one of the only ones I have put on a canvas – it’s 20×30″ and it hangs in my lounge room. It’s always a favourite with visitors. The black and white photo you can see in the top right corner is another of mine, the People category 1st place. – and a copy of this one lives on my fridge. It’s an old one of *skip* with Miss Madi.

So, again, all I can say is WOW. Because the weather was so terrible, we weren’t even sure if we’d go. We sure are glad we did.

Now, I have to come down to earth, as it’s the school holidays, and next week I’m working 4 days out of 5. Life goes on, but I have a spectacular blue plastic trophy to come home too!!!

While I was blurfing yesterday, I came across these 2 articles and wanted to share them.

I love photography. I love everything about it, from the shooting, to post-processing, to hanging on the wall the final product. Unlike my father, I have many albums. All our holidays go in them, and we all love going through them and enjoying the trip long after we got home.

However, the part of photography I struggle with is inspiration. Keeping it fresh. Hopefully these links will help me, and everyone else out there who is also looking for inspiration…..

Dps, (digital photography school), I have subscribed to their blog for ages. Lots of great information, challenges etc…

7 Photography projects to Jump start your Creativity.

Following that article, I ended up at the Epic Edits site, which was new to me. This article caught my attention, as I love to photograph flowers, but they had lots more to offer as well. Well worth a look. Everything is illustrated with stunning photograph examples!

13 Alternative Flower Photography tips

I have also been busy scrapping, which I need to share with you.

I’m very excited to be a Pixel Sprite, back scrapbooking for Michelle Godin, aka Pixelworks again. She has her own store, but mainly sells through Scrapartist. It’s a total dream to be working for a designer there, as it was my first real digi-site when I began, back in the day.

She’s got some great stuff out, and coming out…. here’s what I’ve created so far.

Using Funky Junky Old School

Using Big City Boy

Using the brand new No Place Like Home with Heaven’s Gate Designs

Shen, and others, have been keeping me busy as well, but you’ll have to check back for the layouts for them!

Let me know if you found the links useful, and I’ll share some more! And maybe even my results from trying them!

My little whine and cheese party is over! I got to catch up on a little sleep, and I feel less freaked out. I have also had a couple of productive days off this week which makes everything better too! Got some weeding done out the front, got some stuff tidied up inside, and the biggest news of all, was moving out the washing machine to make room for my new baby!!

It’s arriving tomorrow and *skip* has very kindly swapped his work days around to make sure he’s home for me. Thankyou honey! But he’s not allowed to play with it without me. Work is going to be especially long tomorrow, I can tell. Isn’t it tragic when I can get SO excited about a household appliance!

I had a bit of fun this weekend with some of our fabulous trip photos. I will share more, but meanwhile, here’s a collage I made of many of our reef pictures. I have printed this out 8×12″ and framed it. Currently propped up in the office next to me! It looks like we’ll be in this house for another year or so at the moment, so I’m planning more wall decorating.

This photo of one of the spectacular displays would have to be my favourite though.

All I can say camera wise is that I’m incredibly grateful I had my “Nifty Fifty” lens with me, as it was the fast speed I needed for the light conditions. And I shot in RAW which is a must if you want to fix up all the nasty colour casts quickly and easily. *skip* was blown away by the before and after’s I showed him when the editing was done.

I also have some exciting scrapping news to share, come back soon to have a look. There might even be Layouts!!

Which is not what I wanted to be saying straight after 2 weeks in Sunny Queensland. We got back last week and straight back into crazy normal life at home.

No, the worn and weak is a reference to this previous episode in my life…

http://cassandramadge.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/when-disaster-strikes/

I CANNOT believe that is was almost 2 years ago. It feels like only last month. Seriously. But Adelaide is currently experiencing a nasty weather pattern of winter storm… mainly lots and lots of howling wind. And it’s a bit traumatic. And I’m not sleeping.

But on the up-side, I got 4 of my drawers all sorted and refolded! I found many MANY clothes that I had forgotten I had!

I also have a new blogging buddy.

http://magginoodles.wordpress.com/

So if you want the short version of our trip, as posted via his iPhone, then there it is. I will be uploading photos soon. I hope.

I also have something good to look forward to this week hopefully. If all goes according to plan, I will have a brand new washing machine! Long overdue. Using my in-laws machines when we were away was enough. I spat the dummy and announced that we were getting a new one! And he said ‘Yes!’ It’s supposed to be delivered Tuesday. Oh, I hope I hope!

But I’m going to finish my little glass of port and go to bed. With a pillow over my head.

G’night all.