My son is officially a fighter.....

....and I'm torn. While I'm excited and happy that Reece is enjoying this new direction...as a mother, I can't help but worry about his safety and also the safety of his opponents.

Last night, Reece had his first official MMA (mixed martial arts) fight in a Fight World Cup Tournament held at the south coast twice a year. His opponent tapped out (submitted) in the very first round and Reece brought home this huge trophy. We are all very proud of him!

However, I AM a pacifist and have never been a supporter of boxing/cage-fighting sports and now, my son is actually doing it....YIKES!!! As much as I am against these types of sports....as his mother, I feel the need to support Reece and just keep praying that all will be well.

I can sense A LOT of nervous, nail-biting moments coming up on fight nights in the future.

Love, light and peace

Still sorting the mess and bird-sitting.....

We had another very hot day but no storms yet. I pottered around in the garage still sorting through things to keep and things to go to the dump, or recycling. I listed the wood pieces and art magazines on Freecycle and I have people coming in the morning to pick them up. I was quite happy with the fast response. YAY!

Michelle and Alex came for dinner and also brought Annabelle over for me to bird-sit while they go on a mini-vacation to the Sunshine Coast until late Wednesday. I hope the weather stays nice for them.

Here is a pic of Miss Annabelle....pretending to be a snob.
She truly has a lovely temperament though.


It was hard to get a decent shot as she was busy flitting around the cage.


Love, light and peace

Parlour day

Today, Cody and Honey (my Mum's miniature poodle) had their day at the grooming parlour.

Honey - BEFORE


Honey - AFTER


Cody - BEFORE


Cody - AFTER

Okay, stop laughing! I think Cody looks so much cuter with his longer coat but, in this hot, humid climate, a shorter cut is a necessity...especially after his close call on Tuesday night. In two weeks time he will start to look cute again. He's getting to be quite the little tubby though and we really need to stop giving him so many treats but it's so hard to say no to those big, brown eyes pleading for just a morsel....and then another.....and then another.

Love, light and peace

My new art space so far....

Hi everyone,

Thank you all so much for your care and concern regarding Cody's ordeal. Thankfully he is doing much better. I have him booked in for a summer clip tomorrow so I'm sure he will feel a lot cooler after that is over with.

Michelle came over again today and we worked through more of the stuff in the garage sorting things to be recycled and things that need dumped. We made one trip to the local dump and recycling station already....and more to go. I'm hoping to give away a lot of unpainted wood pieces and decorative art magazines that I no longer use through Freecycle. I can't believe how much in the way of art supplies I have accumulated over the years!

Here is my new art space so far. Sorry that pics aren't that great. I took them late afternoon and the lighting wasn't the best indoors. I can't wait to get the garage finished so I can actually sit down and do some painting in my new space.

Remember you can click on any image to enlarge it.

A scary night....

Pigma Micron pen, graphite and markers in A5 sketchbook
Click on image to enlarge

After the unbearably hot day yesterday, we did end up getting a storm that hung around for nearly 3½ hours. Luckily for us, we didn't get the worst of it but poor Cody panted with anxiety for all that time. He seemed to settle after the storm moved on but, about an hour later, he let me know he wanted outside. However his behaviour was anything but normal.

He raced outside, pushed his face into the wet grass, raced back inside, and began frantically trying to rub himself all over the tiled floor. I picked him up and noticed his face was red and very hot under his furry coat and his nose felt dry and very hot too. He was extremely restless and panting again. The heat radiating from his body had me quite concerned so I took his temperature and it was 104.6°F! I immediately googled it and was quite frightened to read that this temperature meant a high fever and was quite dangerous in dogs. The normal temperature range for dogs is between 101°F to 102°F. All Cody's symptoms pointed towards heat-stroke, which made sense, given the terrible heat of the day and his continual panting for 3½ hours. He had become severely dehydrated though there had been no obvious sign until he started behaving erratically.

Cody's body was a mass of angry red splotches which were also very hot to the touch. He refused to drink water and even turned his nose up at ice-cubes. I was worried sick! It was midnight so I wet a towel and wrapped him in it making sure that I was continually moving the towel around so that his arm-pits and face were being soothed with fresh coolness. After 15 minutes, his temperature had dropped to 103.3°F which was a good sign so we (Brad & I) repeated the wet towel treatment for a while and eventually managed to get it down to 101°F. I was so relieved but I can tell you that I had very little sleep after that ordeal. I kept waking every half hour to make sure he wasn't over-heating again.

Now that I know Cody can be effected in this way, I will be keeping a very close eye on him during our hot, humid summer days, particularly when they are followed by a storm. He is doing much better today though a little worn out from the ordeal.

I was very grateful to be able to 'google' help which was invaluable to me in this particular instance.

On a positive note, Michelle came over today and we did a little more re-organising. My new studio area is pretty much set up apart from a couple of cosmetic details. I hope to share some pics with you tomorrow.

Love, light and peace