Summer in Sydney

The crepe myrtle spreads a pink carpet on the ground and we wake in the morning to the strong sweetly cloying perfume of the murraya.

The temperatures are in the high 30C and the southern states have severe to catastrophic fire warnings for the next few days, meantime the northern part of NSW has had so much rain the rivers have broken their banks and flooded. Who would be a farmer in Australia, if your stock are not burning to death, they are drowning.





Anyone in the northern hemisphere want to swap some heat for a little snow? - we don't want it ALL thank you, but a just a couple of inches would be nice

hand problems

They say that it only takes 21 days to develop a habit.

I don't know what 'they' have to say about dropping a habit, especially the habit of regular blogging, you just find that life keeps getting in the way, you have nothing creative happening and you have nothing for the "show 'n tell" aspect of blogging.



One of the main reasons for the lack of creativity has been problems with my hands, both thumbs have been giving me increasing pain which I originally put down to some sort of RSI injury after a very intense crochet session at the end of last year.
I eased off, gave it rest, hot and cold treatments, various rubs and lotions.
I am having pain when I try to hold a pencil or a needle so anything requiring fine handwork has just been too hard.

Then we started helping daughter with some house renovations which involved lots of rubbing back woodwork and walls and painting, this seemed to freshen up the pain, I finally went to the doctor, had x rays done which shows I have degeneration and cysts in the base of both thumbs.

I was not happy with my doc who didn't even bother to look at the x rays and just said "oh that's part of the aging process" When I said "but it happened so quickly" the smart B... laughed and said "what?? 60 years??"

I asked if cortisone injections would help, non committal from him, but he did give me a referral, so now I have to decide for myself whether to go ahead and have the injections. I've also discovered via google that there are 'hand' doctors who specialise so I think I'll also pester doc for a referral to one of them.

Meantime, daughter (who was staying with us during the house renovations, with boxes and belongings ad infinitum in my living room) has bought the house and moved back and taken all her boxes with her....phew....
...and her house looks amazing... I never believed a brown wall would look so good

really cute

Want to see something really cute - these photos are not mine but have been circulating around my friends and their friends - we have been having incredible heatwave conditions, it's our turn in NSW this weekend but the southern states of Victoria and South Australia have really been hit hard the past week.

This little koala wandered onto someone's verandah trying to escape the heat, so she put out a basin of water for it.

Summertime!!

I've swapped a husband for a grandchild for two days - they are doing father/son bonding/fishing - we are swimming (well one of us is!)

decor

I've been unwell, it seems to be winter lurgy time in Sydney, so haven't felt like doing much but cruise blogs.

Since the tiles fell off the kitchen wall (oh about a month ago now...) I've been thinking new kitchen/renovations... and have become totally hooked on decorating blogs.

I think it's just the natural sticky beak in me - I love looking at other people's houses, driving at night I peer into uncurtained windows, not wanting to catch anyone 'in flagrante' as it were, but just to look at their rooms, keeping in mind that apart from distracting the driver, you can be probably be arrested for things like that, I should just stick to the decor blogs.

One of my favourites is Desire to Inspire a joint effort between Jo in Australia and Kim in Canada (I hope I've got that right) They are very prolific posters and there is always something new to see, as well as their links list.

At the moment I'm torn between basic white (check out the white tag on their blog)




which is all very clean and fresh and nordic looking (not at all like my own cross between Victorian clutter and objet d'craft)

or colour


wild coloured upholstery from Squint

or white and colour



or maybe just all colour

Le Temps des Gitans a flickr find from eclectic gipsyland.

and the little girl in me wants this from Kidsfactory

in a fog

I’ve been in a fog the last few months, deep heavy fog – I’ve emerged now and then to do what needed doing but not long enough to get anything really good happening.

This year I’ve been trying to take part in the 366 group on Flickr, taking a photo a day for the whole year – that’s not been easy, wasting so much time setting up still life things, then downloading and I hate the photos, they are fuzzy, blurry, out of focus, wrong light wrong everything.

So then I set up yet another blog just for the daily photos, problems happen
when I post a week of photos together and blogger puts them all under the one day, then I have to log in and separate them, anal I know, but I have to have them ‘right’ then that’s all too hard, so I scrub that blog.

I wander the halls of Flickr, peering into doors which lead me to other doors and other halls and everyone is SO smart, so artistic, so creative. I spend so much time there that I have no time for anything else.

Flickr leads me to blogs where I spend more time….and they lead me to groups that I join, which means more internet, more more more.

I leave my real life groups because their days come around so fast and I can’t rouse myself to make the effort to leave the house and go to them.

My days are counted now not by what I’ve achieved but by how many hours I sit in front of the computer

My friend says I’ve caught her depression, maybe, don’t know, I’ve never had it before.

I know about the Blogging without Obligation thing, but I do feel an obligation (The Blog has been a small part of my life since I started on LJ in 2002) and I feel a need to apologise when I disappear.
Especially when I come back and find that Annica and Paula have both been to visit and have very sweetly given me the Sweet Home blogger award - thank you both.

So I'll give myself a good shake, stop whining, brush out some cobwebs (or maybe spray them silver) and try to get moving again

what's been happening

Has it really been that long since I made an entry?
I've wasted so much time this last month, not content with joining just one photo a day group on flickr, I've also joined a monthly scavenger hunt group.
I've spent weeks wandering around with camera in hand, looking at everything as a photo opportunity, then downloading the 50 photos I've taken of the one thing and worrying which I should post.....it's all getting out of hand.

here's one from my scavenger hunt - we had to find onion photos - do you know how hard it is to stand in the supermarket, whip out the camera and take a photo of the onions.....I'm fast becoming the eccentric old lady I always wanted to be.
I'm also trying to teach myself to use photoshop, so I've added some layers to this.



What's been happening in sunny Sydney these past couple of weeks....rain, that's what, this is our driveway, with the water nicely dammed (damned!) by our neighbours lawn.

the kitchen dresser

#23/366 A photo a day - kitchen dresser, originally uploaded by gramarye.

I've finally managed to rub back and varnish the doors on the old kitchen dresser I'm using for storage in my sewing room.

I started this little restoration project right in the middle of moving into my new sewing room back here
Still need to rub back the drawers, but at least for now all the mess is hidden.
whoops, did I say mess.....meant to say Vital Craft Supplies

I inherited this from my aunt.
It holds some very special memories of staying at her house as a child in the summer holidays, and setting the table for lunch with dishes from here.

photography - jungle scene

#18/366 A photo a day - jungle, originally uploaded by gramarye.

Grand daughter made a jungle scene which involved much chopping up of green crepe paper and frequent visits to the loo to empty the toilet rolls.




the hippo tried to warn the cows (in the jungle??)
but did they listen.....??

Camping out indoors

#17/366 for Project 365+1, originally uploaded by gramarye.

Camping out in the living room.
We made a tent over a card table, the small person decorated the side and added the welcome sign - her intention was to sleep in it last night, but decided the living room was far too dark and spooky once the lights were out (even with the dog for company)

dracaena/cabinet

I wondered what the strong perfume was when I opened the front door - it was my poor long suffering dracaena (it grows so well that it keeps hitting the roof of the awning and I keep chopping it back)
Beats me how it found time in between the chopping and growing back to flower but it has.
I didn't even know they flowered but then I guess when you think about it, every plant must flower sometime, somehow.
A quick google search tells me it is a Dracaena fragrans *Synonym: Dracaena deremensis, so it pretty obvious why it has fragrans in the name - very overpoweringly sweet perfume.



We are cleaning out my father in law's shed - I haven't posted much about it here, but my mother in law passed away in November - father in law has been gone for about 20 years but the family weren't allowed to touch the shed, so now there is the heartbreaking job of sorting through tools and remembering all over again the lovely man and picturing him in here amongst them.

Today I helped SIL bottle up enough nuts and bolts, screws and washers to sink a ship, (or maybe build one!) and when it had been emptied look what I got to bring home...

found a new toy

I hardly use picturetrail now that I am on flickr, but they have some new toys, here's Betty in her new bandana from Can Teen (she buys one every year with her pocket money)

Summer hail

We were having a lovely day, the sun was shining, lots of friends relaxing in the garden,

we had some toys to play with, and our insect repellant:



we had lots of inspiring show and tell: Chris with her beaded bag


and Rosies embroidered collage:



a gingerbread christmas tree, that we made short work of:



and then with a flash and a rumble, we were HAMMERED with the biggest hailstorm I think I've ever seen:





small child but still a VERY big hailstone:


We drove home in our very dented cars, one with a smashed windscreen and mine with a broken rear view mirror.

No can say The Ladies Who Lunch don't have memorable parties.

Friendship

Friendship, originally uploaded by gramarye.

last easter, instead of chocolate, one of my friends gave us all a gladioli bulb called "Friendship" - yesterday, in the middle of a raging thunderstorm, it flowered

elections over

...and I'm reading jubilation on all the Australian blogs I follow - had no idea I was hanging out with such a big group of lefties! isn't anyone owning up to voting liberal..

the opposite of minimalist?

my attempts at decluttering have me thinking that I would never be a happy living the life of a minimalist so when I found the ACBD Design blog, I fell for her description "A maximallist of sorts - never messy. Just full. Very very full."
yup, maximalist....I'll go with that...

One of the neighbours....

meeting the neighbours...., originally uploaded by gramarye.

...at son's new digs

In the middle of the move....

...no, I haven't even reached the middle yet. What an enormous job to move all my craft things out of one room into another. I'm sure it has all been quietly breeding in the dark recesses.

I have a couple of sets of drawers and shelf units and desks and a lovely old kitchen dresser which holds a ton of goods.

Everything involved emptying a unit..moving said unit then filling it again before I had room to empty the next one.

This was NOT the original plan, I was going to slowly go through everything before it was stored in the new room, but I simply have NO ROOM to do it that way.

Then in the middle of all this, I decided that because the kitchen dresser will be the first thing anyone sees when they walk in, it might be nice to touch up the scratches on the side with some fresh varnish.

As I started to rub them back, the old varnish just began flaking away, it is over 60 years old because it was in my aunts' kitchen all the years I was growing up, so I guess after that time you can expect to be a bit flakey (works for me!)

I finished up doing a little detour in the move, sandpapering all the old varnish off and giving it a couple of fresh coats...I am aching all over!



still have to finish the doors, but I'm not tackling them til next week.

Back ... with blankets

I've been in a slump - don't know why, and I won't go into it, but it's nothing we haven't all been through - just ...things.... and, most thankfully, as my husband pointed out, nothing life threatening..

so let's get the show on the road again -

I've been clearing up a few UFO's that have sat around forever and as a result I have some nice throws for the lounge made from upholstery samples I picked up from Reverse Garbage




then I did a couple of slip covers for some very old Ikea chairs that had seen better days



and finished with a couple of cosy rugs made from scraps of wool fabric that I've had forever, they were nice to snuggle into for TV watching in the last weeks of winter



and looking at my stash, you wouldn't even notice where I took the fabric from...

you talkin' to me???

Taking some pics in my sewing room (good light under the skylight) and accidentally snapped this:



......well, we all need to hear it sometimes!!