It's so hard...

...to take a good photo of a black cat.





It's also incredibly hard to type while he's lying all over the keyboard. I think he just realised today that there's a new table to explore. He jumped up and sniffed around, stretched over the keyboard and went to sleep. He's now been pushed off the corner of the keyboard and is about to fall off the edge of the table. He can be so nice sometimes, letting my pat him and talk to him. Then other times he punches you in the nose (no kidding) and you end up bloodied and bruised.

I know I'm very neglectful of this blog. I make no apologies because I know I'll do the same thing again. I've been neglectful of most things so far in 2007. I haven't crafted a day in the last month. I've baked - a carrot cake here and there and today I'm attempting ice cream. Mostly it's too hot to do anything. I would love for summer to be over. Or at least, for it to cool down a few degrees. The last week has been much too warm. The sun is absolutely lethal and the only thing you can do inside is sit under and in front of (at the same time) a fan and sit still - ideal conditions for watching TV or being on the computer.

I have been hit by the decorating bug though. Big time. I decided the batchroom needed updating so went through past issues of Real Living to find inspiration. That resulted in a total of $7 spent and now a whole lot more bench space and overall cleaner, more open feeling. Just don't mention all the other money I spent at the recycle market when I was only looking for a silver tray and glass jars. Also went through and threw out everything that had expired and all the lotions I've never used and perfumes I made my mum buy me when I was about 16 and never wore.

Saturday we had a garage sale, all the proceeds of which I spent at the market and next door's garage sale. I thought I got a bargain when Dawn let me have a green tea cup and saucer and a few picks from her old silver cutlery set for $4. Then at the end of the day when the rest didn't sell she gave me the entire cutlery set, plus everything else that was in the box - silver sugar bowl and milk jug, random splades and parfait spoons. The silver service was a wedding gift, so is from 1969. It's Rodd silver too, and the design is Stardust. I spent the rest of the day cleaning it. Google was very helpful and found me a site that recommended lining a baking dish with alfoil and covering the cutlery with boiling hot water and sprinkling that with baking soda to make up a rather foul smelling concoction that wiped the tarnish right off. I'm now the very proud owner of my own dinner service, which lives in a drawer.


This was the second stage of my decorating over the weekend. I've always wanted a table for a computer desk, rather than the ugly old grey thing we had before that, while taking up a lot of room and looking bulky, actually gave you no room at all. I got the table from the recycle market. So yes, when I went for glass jars I came home with something much larger. I was a little disenchanted when I got the table in the room as I couldn't find a way to fill it or work out which side the monitor should go on. It worked out though. And doesn't look messy. It makes the room a lot more open and the white of the table top makes it a lot more attractive than the old yucky grey. The top is slightly curved on all sides too - it's not a wonky photo. So this is where I write to the world from.



On a final note, this is Simba quite a few weeks back when we took down the Christmas tree. He loves new boxes. Anything that he can get in will keep him entertained, even if it is just a new place to sleep. He's rather tuckered out today. He stayed out last night, just lying on the brick fence to catch whatever breeze crept by. So now he's sleeping here by the door, all spread out and feeling the heat, I'm sure.

P.S I've also applied to do a Graduate Certificate in Editing and Publishing from the University of Southern Queensland, through distance education. It only goes for a year and is two subjects a semester. I sent off all the documentation they needed today so hopefully will hear from them soon (and favourably) and start March 5.

How long?

I haven't posted in a while. The main reason is that everything I've made in the last few months have been for birthday and Christmas presents, so I couldn't put the photos up without the recipients seeing them and ruining their surprise. So now that at least the birthdays are over I can post.


I got the ideas for these from Real Living magazine. I actually only saw tiny letters painted blue with white polka dots spelling the name Ben. And somehow that grew into these. I picked the background (scrapbooking) paper first then worked with the letter designs from there. The "F" is for Fergus and the "P" for Pierce, my little cousins, for Christmas. I also made an "S" for Sharyn for her birthday at the end of November, along with a whole box of other things that I sent down to her. I hope you liked everything, Sharyn!

It seems that everything I love around town is being knocked down at the moment. The old court house across the road from my mum's work was shattered to a million pieces last week. I detest the way they knock things down now. They don't salvage anything, just get a giant machine claw and rip away. I loved the court house. It was very 70s I suppose - orange brick with tiled pilars and a big frangipani tree out the front. All last week people were taking branches from the frangipani to grow elsewhere. At least it will live on.


This house (it's flats actually) was sold at auction last Friday for $3.3 million. It's been on the list of places I will buy and rescue when I become a millionaire, but evidently I didn't get there fast enough. It's called "Harmony Lodge" and was owned by Ma and Pa Bendall, Coast surfing legends. Apparently there was another place called "Harmony Court" next door that was knocked down in 1981 (4 years before I was born), and the entire site used to have a tennis court and a windmill. It's the last site along Bulcock Beach, which is my family's favoured beach, that hasn't been demolished and replaced by units. Last summer the fish and chip shop went and the Salvation Army house was sold but it hasn't actually been turned into anything yet. I think the only old place in the whole of Caloundra that I love and hasn't been knocked down is the bathing shed at Kings Beach. Luckily it's heritage listed and is in the process of being done up. The new pool at Kings Beach open this weekend. It replaced the old lap pool, where I had so many childhood memories. Like cutting my toe when I stood on a piece of glass as I was about to dive in the show Mum how good I was. And being caught out in the rain with Aunty Debbie and Uncle Shane and Jodie and Luke and having to hide under the awnings of the surf club.

Trees and Things

I've been trying my hand at drawing. I'm not very good at it, and these are only copying from someone else's work. Now my niko pen has run out and I can't do anymore. Oh well, next project Christmas cards!

Long Time, No Write

I realise that I very rarely write in here anymore. I don't really write anywhere. Not in my blog, not in my livejournal, not in my TV blog that when I started I was very committed to. Either I'm very lazy or very busy. I think it's varying degrees of both.

Yes, I have actually been doing things that have made my life busy. I have even been leaving the house. Everything always happens at the same time, doesn't it? So one week not long ago all the mahem started and it hasn't stopped since. In that week I had two job interviews, to interviews at Cadet, and one appointment for the repair man to come and fix our TV ratings box. That meant I had something to do every day of the week, and for someone who rarely does one thing in an entire seven days this was very much a culture shock. It then continued last week when I started working at the Kawana Library two days a week and also spent a day applying to a local property and development group and talking to the human resource co-ordinator from there on the phone for the afternoon.

This week has probably been by far the worst, at least on myself physically. I had an in-person interview at this property group on Monday morning, for which I decided to wear horrendous shoes that never stay on. I knew this fact, but decided to wear them anyway. Big mistake. The interview was fine by the way, but then I had to work in the library for the rest of the day. In my horrendous shoes. I didn't get home until about 6 at night, dragging my shoes behind me as I finally walked up the driveway and was home. HOME! I was very much looking forward to doing nothing on Tuesday. I had planned to clean the house and start working on Sharyn's mobile and maybe watch The Breakfast Club or a few more episodes of Gilmore Girls. But then Nadia rang up, the lady I had an interview with the day before, and asked if I would like to come in as one of the receptionists was sick and I could help them out a little and watch what the other girls did and if see if I would like it. Only I ended up on the phone all day, answering a million and one calls and putting them through to 80 different people throughout the building. Have I ever mentioned how much I despise the telephone? I purposely avoid it in my home life and, though there are two in the house now, can only very rarely be found answering one (and when I do, it's only because I recognise the number on caller ID).

So a million and one phone calls and five and a half hours later I was finally given reprieve by being volunteered to help some girl from some other part of the building who had to open about a hundred already-sealed envelopes because a tax letter had been forgotten to be put in all of them. That was more to my liking. It was then 5 o'clock and I went in and spoke to Nadia and told her that this was not what I wanted to be doing and if it's all they have I don't want to be there. Riding the bus home I was very unsure about what I had done and whether I'd just made the biggest mistake ever. But the further the bus drove away from Maroochydore and towards home the more I knew it's the only thing I could do. It may have been the idealistic 21-year-old, 'won't waste my life doing someting I don't enjoy' in me, but I couldn't live in that hell 38 hours a week. Even at $17.02 an hour.

On Wednesday I worked at the library again, which I'm really enjoying. I even enjoy shelving, up until the point where not a single other book will fit on the shelf where it's suppose to be and you have to move a hundred other books down a shelf so that it will fit. I mostly do shelving and tidying and jobs for Trish, the librarian, and everyone there is pretty nice. Trish is the nicest - absolute heaven to work for and with. She gave me a lift home on my first day and let me off early on Wednesday because a giant storm was coming.

Now that it's the end of the week I've finally had two days in a row off to do nothing. I watched The Breakfast Club and Gilmore Girls, and have started Sharyn's mobile. I borrowed the Gilmore Girls DVDs from Renae. She even let me keep Season 5 the day she bought it while we were shopping together. It was very good to watch as only the first few episodes have been on TV here so it was a new and exciting experience. Watching Season 1 back though is weird. Kirk's name started out Mick or something and Luke's diner was all wrong. And Max Madina completely bores me. I'm glad Lorelai gave him the flick.

My cousins Kate and Tess our down at the moment with their mum, my aunty Lisa, and staying at my grandparents'. It was Tess's 10th birthday on Wednesday so we had dinner with them. It's always so lovely to see them and be a kid with Tess. Oh, to have an excuse to bash people up. But it's never fun when she sticks her finger in your ear. Ewe!

Here are Kate and Tess. This photo was taken last December at my 21st birthday dinner.