MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK

This will be the last Photo Monday for 2009! I'm not too sure if Linda, our group leader, plans to continue with the Photo Monday group in 2010 but I'm kinda hoping she will. I have thoroughly enjoyed participating and getting to know our group members throughout the past year.

I thought I'd share a quick sketch I did today of the purple vacuum cleaner I bought at the Boxing Day sales. Yes, you read right.....it's PURPLE! I don't think I've ever seen a purple vacuum cleaner before but I LOVE IT!

Now, from vacuum cleaners to gardening......a few weeks ago, I noticed a sweet potato shooting sprouts so I sat it outside under the pergola. I didn't have the heart to throw it away so it went from this -

to this -

For seven years now, we have lugged around this potted avocado tree from house to house. It belongs to Beau and he grew it from seed.....it's huge and weighs a ton! Beau has begged me to put it in the ground on numerous occasions but, we have only lived in rental homes and, I seriously doubt that a landlord would want THIS type of tree in a small suburban back-yard. It would grow huge if it were planted in the ground! We have heard that potted avocado trees can take up to seven years before they start bearing fruit. It must be getting close.....

In recent months, Beau decided to plant yet another avocado seed and, as you can see from the pic below, it's doing quite well.



Of course, I'm certainly not looking forward to lugging TWO huge potted avocado trees around in the future.

I can only hope and pray that the mango seeds Beau potted a short time ago don't take....

Love, light and peace

PHOTO-A-WEEK.....am i lucky...or what?!!!

In the past couple of weeks, I've considered myself extremely lucky to have won, not one, but three blog giveaways! I was sooooo thrilled and thought that would have been the end of it as the old saying goes...things happen in threes, right? So, imagine my surprise when Michelle called me this afternoon and told me to go and check out Linda's latest post. I ask you.....what are the odds?????!!!!! I'm almost expecting the X-Files theme to start playing here......but Linda drew my name five times in a row! I'm stunned and me thinks I need to get my butt to a newsagent and buy myself a Lotto ticket ASAP!

I have decided to post about my giveaway wins as they arrive in the mail.....and lucky me!...because my first prize win arrived today from my dear blog friend, Vee. I LOVE visiting Vee's blog! Not only does Vee have a great sense of humour but this lady is TALENTED big-time! Check out her OH SO CUTE needle felted bears here and here. Vee's Flickr and Picturetrail sites are well worth a look-see too because she also creates the most gorgeous dolls. I have been a staunch admirer of her cute little bears for some time now and.....thanks to Vee.....I am now the proud owner of one! YEP...part of the mystery prize that I won on this post turned out to be PINKY! The most adorable, cutest, teeniest bear EVER!!! I love her to pieces! Vee also spoiled me with some of her handmade Christmas origami ornaments AND some gorgeous fabrics in my favourite colours of purple, greens and blues/aquas (as seen in the pic below).

....and a close up of Pinky.
Isn't she adorable?
click on any image to enlarge

Needless to say, I am a very happy, little vegemite
and feeling VERY spoiled!

Love, light and peace

MONDAY PHOTO A WEEK - 31s and Zilch

On Sunday, Brad, Aaron, and I went over to Mum and Dad's place. I had organised for them to come here initially but Sunday morning was muggy and hot so, as Mum and Dad have air-conditioning, we didn't need any convincing to change plans. I took all the salad fixings over there and Mum helped too. We had a lovely salad lunch which was just perfect considering the hot day.

Micron Pigma pen, graphite, and coloured pencil in A5 sketchbook
Click on any image to enlarge

During the afternoon, we played Zilch (a dice game) and 31s (a card game) and Mum was the winner on both counts.

My Mum - the Winner


Mum and Brad were in the final 31s showdown


Dad's help still wasn't enough for Brad to win the showdown


Mum and Dad's cockatiel - Charlie
Isn't he gorgeous?

We all had a lovely time at Mum and Dad's.....though, come Sunday night, it was a different story. Poor Aaron came down with a virus and was up all night vomiting. Naturally, that meant I was up all night too. He is doing a little better today.......and at least the vomiting has stopped.

Btw, did you catch the great giveaway on Michelle's blog? Michelle is hosting a giveaway for another artist who does such gorgeous work. If you haven't already checked it out, it is definitely worth a look-see and it's not too late to go into the draw. The winner will be chosen on December 17th.

So.....how was YOUR weekend?

Love, light and peace

CHRISTMAS TREE, MAGENTA BUDDHA AND TERMITES

Hi everyone!

I'm still here but have been a little preoccupied with other things this past week such as a little painting and sketching, some Christmas shopping, more clearing in the garage to make room for tradesmen to work, and watching DVDs with the kids. I also caught up with some blog reading which I always love to do. In fact, I probably spend way too much time doing that but hey, what can I say....I love reading blogs!

The heat has been absolutely horrible this past week and I feel like it zapped all my energy. It's truly sauna-like conditions here with the humidity so high. At 11pm last night, it hadn't changed which made for a very uncomfortable sleep. Forecasts say we may get a storm tonight so, hopefully, it won't cause any damage like the last one did but will cool things down instead.

On Monday, we finally put the Christmas tree up. It has always been our family tradition to put the tree up on December 1st and then take it down before the New Year enters. This year, we held off and waited for Beau to be available as he bought us the new tree last year and he's the only one who remembers how to fit it all together. It's one of those fibre-optic types with lights so there are electrical cords everywhere.

Pigma Micron pen, ZIG pen, & coloured pencil in A5 sketchbook
Click on any image to enlarge

More sketching.........Mum gave me a Buddha many years ago and I decided to give it a new look. Previously, this Buddha was the typical dark cherry red colour but I have now gone with a bold magenta. WOW! What a difference! I painted the frame of Michelle's print in a pale yellow-green and it sits beside the Buddha and they compliment each other perfectly.

Watercolour crayon, ZIG pen, & micron pigma pen in A5 sketchbook

OH, remember those termites we discovered way back in September? Well, it took the landlord/property manager three weeks to actually do anything about it which happened to be when I discovered a second area of termite presence, on top of my constant phone calls and emails. They finally had the termite control guy come out to check it out. Thankfully, he said the termites we had weren't the aggressive type. He then came back two days later and drilled tiny holes in the suspect areas and loaded the wall cavities with a pesticide of some sort. Now, two months later, they have come back to repair the damage. The repairs involved cutting out the wall area and removing the internal nest and damaged wood and plaster/gyprock. Each of the various tradesmen who have been dealing with us over this issue have said that we were very, very lucky that the termites only caused damage to two small areas. Someone up there must have been looking out for us. Mind you, the pic certainly doesn't look like it was small damage but I guess the tradesmen have seen a lot worse. All that nest you see in the pic was pulled out from inside the wall cavity. Incredible, huh?! That small section that is cut out in the pic was only cut out so they could remove the nest. They actually took away three feet of the wall in width, from cornice to skirting.

Today, the plasterer came and put up the gyrock sheeting ready for the painters who will hopefully finished the job early next week. I'm just so relieved that it will soon be over with and things can get back to normal around here.

How has your week been?

Love, light and peace

MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK - More storm pics

For my photos this week, I thought I'd share more pics I took this morning of the damage caused by the storm that passed through this area yesterday.

You can click any image to enlarge it.

This is just outside the fence-line of Aaron's school. It was like the trees had been knocked down like dominoes.



This was an area just inside the school grounds


Some form of framework/scaffolding at the local athletics club was all twisted around


This home had parts of its colourbond fence blown away


The clean-up crews will be kept busy for most of today, I would say


It's been another very hot and humid day so I'm just praying we don't get another storm.

Love, light and peace

MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK

I DID IT!!!! After at least two months of no painting, I actually picked up a paintbrush and did some painting in my new studio space today!! YAY!!! It wasn't much but I figured I needed to christen the new studio before Barb, my student, does when she comes for class tomorrow morning. As mentioned in previous posts, I'm changing colours in the lounge-room area and, as the studio now sits right alongside the lounge room, it gets the treatment too. My lounge-room colours have changed from orange, burnt red and cream to green, purple and splashes of turquoise which has been my favourite colour scheme for a while now. I'm keeping my kitchen and dining room in the chilli theme as I do like the accents of red but I'll be adding more green there too.

The canvas painting below was a very, VERY quick abstract I threw together some years back to urgently fill a blank wall space temporarily in our previous home. I'm not even sure if it could be called an abstract though an abstract artist did refer to it as such.

Funnily enough, I painted and finished it in just an afternoon and, over the past few years, have received a lot of positive comments on it. It's a pity that you can't see the texture in the squares because it's quite effective in reality. The crackled cross section has metallic gold in the cracks with a burnt umber painted over the top. Today, I changed the orange-streaked squares (you will have to use your imagination) to green-streaked squares so that it matches in better with the new colour scheme. That's what I LOVE about being an artist.....if I don't like something, I can just paint over it.

Love, light and peace

MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK

A very quick post because I think we have a storm moving in and I need to shut down the computer. It was a very hot and humid day so it doesn't surprise me that a storm has developed. Anywhoo, the other night I let Cody outside to do his business and, after about five minutes, I heard him barking at something. I went outside and there Cody sat facing the brick wall looking at this guy....I was so happy to see a green frog that I rushed inside for the camera. This would have been around 3AM.....am I keen or what?! I had to use the flash which accounts for all the shiny white spots.

MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK

Today, we took the bus to South Brisbane as Bradley had a specialist appointment. It threatened to rain most of the day but thankfully it didn't, however, the pictures turned out a little grey due to it being so overcast. I think we had the same type of day last time we visited Southbank. We arrived early at the hospital so we went for a nice walk down to the Southbank Parklands....the Bougainvillea trellis was in full bloom this time around.

click on any image to enlarge

On the other side of this trellis, the road was bordered with Poinciana trees in full bloom. Such a gorgeous burst of colour and they make fabulous shade trees in summer!

We walked across the Good Will Bridge which is a pedestrian/cyclist bridge. It opened in October of 2001 to coincide with the Good Will games held here in Brisbane.


A view of the Brisbane River from the Good Will Bridge.

This pigeon landed just below us as I took the photo above so I took a pic of him/her too. I loved the purple and green markings around its neck. It almost looks like he/she is contemplating jumping in, doesn't it?

When we arrived at the other side of the river, I spotted some Moreton Bay (Banyan) Fig trees. I've always loved their gianormous roots which have been known to break through city streets causing a bit of a dilemma in some cases. These trees are native to the Eastern coast of Australia though New Zealand and Hawaii cultivated them to the point where they are naturalised there now.

The Captain Cook Bridge crosses above the Good Will Bridge so I thought I'd grab a pic from underneath it.

Sadly, there was an ugly side too. I can't stand people who litter! There are rubbish bins everywhere and, even if there aren't, WHY do they think it's okay to throw their rubbish into parklands and rivers?!! The picture below was taken looking down at the river's edge from the Good Will Bridge. Litterbugs, please have some consideration for wildlife and nature......there is no excuse.....next time take your rubbish home with you! Shame on you!

Love, light and peace

MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK

Hey.....I'm actually on time with Photo Monday this week! YAY!

click on any image to enlarge

Cody is modelling a little beanie that Aaron made some time back....is he adorable or what???!!! Is it any wonder this furry little monster has me wrapped around his little paw? I love him to pieces!!!

Michelle, if you're reading this post, you may want to skip past the next pic as I know you have a serious phobia about.......GECKOS! This little guy was hanging out on the siding of our front foyer roof last night so, not one to miss a photo opportunity, I quickly ran for the camera. He was pretty high up so this was as close as I could reach....check out those teensy, weensy claws.

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Can you believe it's November already?!
I haven't even thought about Christmas shopping yet, have you?

Love, light and peace

MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK & NABLOPOMO

I've been taking things fairly easy as I'm still not 100%. I'm on my second course of antibiotics and I seem to have reached a plateau where I've stopped improving. Despite taking things easy, I've been feeling quite exhausted and fatigued by mid-afternoon too. I'm off to the doctor again later this morning so I guess I'll see what the next step will be.

For my photos this week, I thought I'd share some pics from the lovely Sunday we had at Michelle and Alex's place. Michelle rang up in the morning and invited us over for a barbecue and we all had a great time.

Michelle organised the table setting.....


....while Alex manned the barbecue and cooked up some home-made hamburger patties. As I don't eat meat, Michelle gave me some mushroom and asparagus quiche which she had made and it was DELICIOUS!!!


Bradley enjoying a cold lemonade


It was a bright, sunny day but the large umbrella provided the perfect canopy for shade


Alex's bonsai trees are thriving in the sun


It was a perfect Sunday!

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Expect to see a lot more posting from me in November because it's that time again! I have, once again, signed up for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) where participating bloggers will post daily for the month of November. I had so much fun participating last year and I'm seeing this as the perfect opportunity to get myself motivated and out of the slump I've been in lately. It has been mostly due to sickness but I refuse to wallow forever. If you're interested in signing up too just click on the badge above.

love, light and peace

MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK

Hi everyone,

Sorry I'm late with my Monday photos but I wasn't getting any better after taking my asthma medications for a week so went back to the doctor. I'm now battling a chest infection but, with antibiotics, I should hopefully notice a marked improvement very soon. Again, thanks so much for all your well wishes and concern.

As I haven't been well, I didn't get out to take pics but I grabbed an opportunity this morning when I noticed my frangipani (plumeria) starting to bloom. Not the best time of day to take pics as the sun was pretty darned bright but it will have to do.

then I noticed this little guy crawling around so went in for a closer pic
click on any image to enlarge

Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of
infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.
--- John Ruskin

I hope to post about my Artist's Way week tomorrow.

Love, light, good health, and peace to you all ~

MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK

yesterday (sunday), i woke early to do my morning pages despite the fact that i wasn't feeling well due to the asthmatic cough getting a good grip on me. it had seemed to improve last week but now it has relapsed. anywhoo, i was tickled to see this shadow heart on the dining room floor. i have no idea how the play of shadows formed it but it made me smile.

later in the morning, beau suggested we go for a drive despite the look of rain setting in. i wasn't feeling great but i thought a nice country drive would get me out of the house and take my mind off my ailment. it was raining when we arrived in beaudesert and i suggested we turn back and head for home but beau was confident the rain would subside by the time we reached our favourite destination - burgess park, lamington - and sure enough, it did.

the pics are a little on the dull side due to the rainy, overcast day but you can click on any of them to enlarge for a closer look.

on the way, i spotted these xanthorrhoea - a native grass tree of australia. these grass trees are very slow growing and it can take 100 years for them to reach only one metre in height. that would mean that some of the ones in this photo would be around 150 years old. if left in their natural habitat, these trees can live up to 600 years old. you can read more about xanthorrhoea here.

growing some distance in front of the xanthorrhoea were clumps of scottish thistle. you can read about how the scottish thistle became the emblem for scotland here.




further along the route, we came across this lovely little catholic church at christmas creek. it was established back in 1902.

at burgess park, we had a great time exploring the creek bed and banks. aaron loved wading in the water and didn't want to leave. lol we noticed the water had gone down a lot since our last visit. i'm not sure if it has been due to farmers tapping into it to irrigate crops or if it's due to the fact we've had very little rain.

a large group of fungi was growing on one of the trees near the creek bed



we had a lovely day and it felt so good to be out in nature.


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today (monday), i'm feeling absolutely miserable! my asthmatic cough is worse and my inhaler has not been helping. i had a terrible night.....couldn't sleep, tossed and turned, and ended up on the verge of a migraine from the constant dry coughing. can ya tell i'm feeling very sorry for myself right now? i've booked in to see my doctor first thing in the morning as i'm thinking i may need a different prescription for my inhaler. i just want to feel better!

love, light and peace