Day 93: Where do I start?

The main moving day, 42 degrees, it could have been worse it could've rained.

Day 92: Packing

Day 91: The clean up

That grass is long and wet. I stopped when smoke started pouring out of my poor little mower, I don't think that's supposed to happen.

Day 90: Of course I can fit all the boxes I need in one trip

There's a small boy somewhere under all those boxes, I could hear him, he was fine.

Day 89: My cars fixed!

And after weeks of rain it's the most perfect sunny day! Happy happy happy.

Day 88: Sweeping the cobwebs...

off my wheels before I took them to the mechanic.

Day 87: Celebrating in my new home

Day 86ish: Yaaaaaay!!!!!!

My poor blog has been neglected because...Yaaaay! I've moved and have been without internet but this is the day I got the keys to my new house.

Day 85: Dammit!

My car has been off the road so long it's got cobwebs, sigh.

And yeah I know I missed a few days, ya get that.

Day 84: Acting my shoe size

Oops I've missed a couple of days, oh well it's my blog so there are no stuffy rules and I'll catch up soon.

Day 83: Floating in bubbles

Day 82: And still more rain

No major drama just too much rain too fast for the drains to cope, this was about as deep as it got. It was about 20 cm's from flooding the house but uncomfortably close to flooding the car.

Day 81: Just tired

Day 80: Funky shadows

It's still raining so there's clothes hanging all over the house drying, I just love the weird shadows they cast.

Day 79: Troll

This was the only dry patch to take a break from racing bark boats with chaos but there's something nice about under bridges, peaceful, hidden, trollish.

Day 78: Another rainy day

Day77: Sick and tired...

...of always being sick and tired. I tried to remember the last time I didn't feel tired and nauseous, there was a couple of weeks in January 2007 or was it 2006, I'm not sure. Oh! there was a couple of weeks between the old neighbours from hell moving out and the new ones moving in when there was peace in my little world. I slept like a normal person and had energy, I remember laughter and neighbourhood chats, we went outside. It was nice, but that was few months ago. I really do have to figure out a way to cope better with those people.

Day 76: Not today

I don't want to take my photo today, I'm not in the mood. But having done it I must say I'm quite liking the "stigmata" lighting effect.

Day 75: Rain

Rain feels so wonderfully sensual on the skin, walking in the rain is truly one of the best simple pleasures in life.

Day 74: I love cosmetics

Day 73:

Day 72: Shadow

Day 71: Acidulated abstract

Day 70: Pretty ,shiny things

Day 69: Under southern skies

Day 68: Bus stop

Waiting to fetch Noise from the bus stop. The bus pulled in just at the end of the 30 second exposure it was perfect timing for some cool effects.

Day 67: A quiet moment

Day 66: Sadie

Day 65: A return to colour

Well I seem to have ground to a halt on the Sepia series, which is probably a good thing. So it's back to colour and the everydayness of life. And just for fun one that I took with the camera at arms length. there's nothing quite like holding a camera close and setting the flash of to do weird thing to your face, it's kinda fun.

Day 64: Cigar

Some things just make life a richer experience.

Day 63: Curves

Day 62: A little bit of bling

Day 61: Sheer

Day 60: A side of myself that I've not often seen

I've only ever glanced at the back of neck in a mirror, generally to see if my hair is OK, I haven't even done that for a long time because I've accepted that my hair will do as it will. It's interesting seeing a part of myself that other people are more familiar with than I am.

Day 59: Black strap

Hmmm I seem to be stuck in a sepia, somewhat minimalistic stage, it's quite fun.

Day 58: Touch

Day 57: Wicked eyelashes

Yeah I admit it they're fake, but fun.

Day 56: Pinstripes and lace

Day 55: Favourite shoes

Day 54: Someday my prince will come..

..and if this is him too bad, I'm done kissing frogs. He is very handsome though, he's been hanging around a couple of days. He comes at night looking dehydrated and sorry for himself and knocks on the window for us to go out and pour water on him. When he feels better he leaves. I guess he wandered too far from home during our weeks of rain and I'm not sure what to do with him. I could take him down to the creek but it gets very polluted in between rains, that wouldn't be good for him. He seems to like it here and he's friendly, I may have to dig him a pond.

Day 53: One fine day

The simple monotony of life. After two weeks of rain and more forecast for tomorrow, today was the catching up on washing day, there was no time to take a photo of anything else. It might stop raining for long enough soon to get the lawn mowed...I love rain it prevents so many boring jobs and is the perfect excuse to read instead.

Day 52: Rain, rain and more rain

Day 51: Candles

Day 50: It's nice to hide away some days

Day 49: Mums Taxi

It's cold, it's wet and it's late and I'm out picking up the teenager from whatever social event she had on tonight. I love the reflections at night when it's raining though and there was good music on the radio so it's not so bad.

Day 48: How lucky I am

Day 47: It's still raining

It's been raining for days but unfortunately it's not raining hard enough for one of those lovely pouring rain shots so this bit of a shower will have to do.

Day 46: Goodbye 2007

Hmmm yet another hand shot, this one reminds me of Thing. My New Year ritual, a pretty new journal and I start it on the 31st as a kind of debriefing of the old year. The idea is that I write all the odd little and sometimes big things that I was proud of n the past year. Often I can fill pages with that stuff but this year I don't have much to write...damn... I'll fix that next year. Bugger that sounded ominously like a resolution. Roll in 2008!

Day 45: Coastal Wind Warning

The only thing to do when there's a wind warning in place is to get out there and have a look, we're a little sheltered here in the Bay but it's still pretty wild. I think wind is my favorite kind of weather.

Day 44: Aaaahhhhh

After a day shopping in the city with Noise and Chaos this feels wonderful.

Day 43: Clean for a change

Day 42: Fruit salad

Hmmm a weird mix of tropical and stone fruits but it was yummy and Dragon fruit is so pretty I had to take a photo.

Day 41: This bit goes....

Woot! Flat pack furniture, happy day. I love flat pack stuff, it's such fun. I find the precision of it a delight, just the right number of screws and things and everything fits just so, lovely. It's like a jigsaw puzzle only useful.

Day 40: Yaaaay

Ya gotta love party poppers! The floor is still covered in confetti, I'll leave it a couple of days just because I like it and we still have another popper to pop tomorrow. It was a lovely day, Chaos was away until lunchtime and Noise got a lift to work and snuck out quietly so I got to sleep in! On Christmas morning! Woot! I don't think I've ever done that before. The usual thing, pressies, lotsa food, visiting friends, it was nice.

I hate those harsh shadows, maybe I should have asked for lights for Christmas...

Day 39: We must have a tree

I loath fake snow and artificial cold climate trees so the kids challenge each year is to come up with a tree that we can all live with. We started the tradition when Noise was little and we didn't have money for Christmas, she painted a huge picture of a tree so we stuck it one the wall and sticky taped decorations to it. This year time has been short with Noise and I working and Chaos away, he was home for the day to Christmas shop and he tried all day to convince me to get a tree of some sort as we didn't have time to make one. Unfortunately we ran out of time and he went to his Fathers place for the night with no tree up at our house, but lucky me, a friend from Woolworths picked up one of their superbly tacky cardboard Christmas promotional trees on his way out the door and here it is! Yaaaay, this is the best tree ever, I feel the whole Christmas experience is complete now...I'm immersed so far into the whole commercialised retail driven crap that I even have a retail promotional tree. I love it!

Day 38: Knackered

Ahhh the joy of Christmas in retail, now I remember why I hate Christmas. It should be renamed Retailfest and it's about time we all admitted that the only thing really being celebrated here is rampant consumerism. I know everyone goes on about what a wonderful day of family togetherness it is but is it really? Honestly? So far most of the shoppers I have seen looked resigned and exhausted more than joyful as they struggle through the aisles trying to get everything they're expected to have for a Christmas feast and keep to some sort of budget, the kids tired and demanding , mothers saying "no" for the hundredth time to something they can't afford. And then there's the workers that keeping this show going, I spent the day with people so exhausted that they can barely move, they're just looking forward to one day off. I spoke to a man that's on his 7th day straight, he's working until midnight tomorrow night, Christmas eve, and will be back at work early boxing day morning. He's missing his 4 year old, he won't get to spend Christmas eve with his child, will spend Christmas day exhausted and for what? He has decided it's not worth it, his resignation will be handed in tomorrow morning. Another in so much pain she could barely move, she has to go home and prepare for the Christmas festivities but she's lucky, she has boxing day off. The mention of Christmas brings the response "fucking bloody Christmas!". Even the store Santas looked weary this year. Seriously isn't it time we stopped buying in to the retail propaganda, just stop. And admit that it really isn't fun, it's stressful, exhausting and expensive and we're over it. Oh I forgot the ones that have to work Christmas day...Noise is working Christmas eve, Christmas day and boxing day just so people can have their Pavlovas. Yep family time, although we're over Christmas, we've decided it's meaningless so we'll do something together when the insanity dies down and we can have fun together without it being mandatory.

Happy fucking bloody Christmas to all!

Day 37: It's a beautiful night out

It's hot and sticky in the house but there's a lovely cool breeze outside, this is the rather creepy little walkway that leads into a very creepy little park tucked away behind the units. It's the way we walk to the shop but at night it's dark and mysterious, I like it but I never stay long, it doesn't feel safe. It's mostly used by my neighbours to escape the cops when they come.

Day 36: mmmmmmmm Tiramisu Torte

How on earth am I going to lose weight when Noise brings me home things like this? Oh well. I'm the only one that eats Tiramisu so it's aaaaaaall mine, that's just so wicked. It was a nice thing to cheer me up on a tough day though. I shall have some with coffee while I ponder how to break it to Chaos that we're not moving to his perfect house.

Day 35: On the flip of a coin

I just know that one of the thousands of deities is nearly falling off his throne laughing at me today, bastard.

Now that the saga of hedge is over I've been offered another house, I had a look at it today and have until tomorrow morning to decide whether to move. Chaos was excited, Noise was very quiet (yeah that's a worry) and I managed not to cry in front of them. So down to the decision, unfortunately it's not a case of which place we like more but which one we hate less, which house will we be less miserable at as a family? We did the pros and cons lists, they were even. One house is better for Noise the other is better for Chaos. So it comes down to me and I just don't know. Usually a flip of the coin reveals what I really want but this time it didn't work. *sigh* I'll sleep on it.

Day 34: It's finished!

Planted , fertilised, mulched and watered, now to see if it survives the ordeal. I have some hope for it. It doesn't look any more wilted today, actually I'm sure some plants are looking a little perkier...that could be my imagination.

Day 33: Just diggin' a ditch

It seemed simple enough, dig a ditch with my pissy little shovel and shove the hedge in it. Heh, luckily I have a neighbour that gardens and kindly lent me some real tools. So the roots were finally negotiated, well hacked off, I guess I'll find out what they belonged to when it dies. About 20 cm of clay dug out and...I hit rock. Yippey yay. I remember as a Christian singing a song about building your house on rock, we sang it like it was a good thing. But in spite of it all the hole got dug, the plants shoved in, kind of, they didn't all get planted quite deep enough so tomorrow I move to plan B. Chaos amazed me, he worked alongside me all day, the kid's my hero today. OK so he dug up 10 cents early on and I handed him the pick and told him to keep digging and he might find more, never underestimate the avarice of a small boy.

Day 32: I found a hedge!

I have been wanting a hedge between myself and my trashy neighbours but hedges take so long to grow, I'm still researching varieties because I need it to grow to 2 meters in about a week. But today as I was driving past the house down the road that has a hedge that I admire with envy every time I drive past it I saw there was no hedge, the hedge was gone, well not completely it was lying all over the front yard. I didn't even stop to ponder what kind of idiot pulls out such a stunning hedge I just bolted to their front door to enquire about their intentions for the hedge. Nine car trips later I have most of their hedge lying all over my backyard...happy dance, happy dance!

It has occurred to me that maybe I'm more of a Ute kind of woman and I should take that into account next time I buy a car. Only because I'm growing weary of those conversation with men that go "do you have a Ute to get that home in?" "no". "Do you have a trailer?" "no". "Do you have someone (obviously someone implies a male someone) that can help you?" "no I'll just shove it in the car somewhere, it'll be fine". "It won't fit in a car!" "Sure it well, everything fits in my car just watch me".

So now I have acquired a hedge the next issue is how do I plant it and keep it alive? I priced hiring a machine to dig a trench, then I went and purchased a pissy little shovel. The ground, it turns out, is like concrete, of course. Yay, go me and my little shovel, I only need to dig a trench about 50cm x 50cm x10m, tomorrow.

Day 31: Too tired even to drink

Day 30: Hot, tired and dirty

After work, hot sweaty, smelly, dirty and trying to figure out how to get home from where I ended up. The nice part of it is that I do get to go for nice little drives in the country.

Day 29: Thank you Chaos

My boy child picked a bunch of Agapanthus for me today, one of the stems broke on the way to me but he says that one is to wear in my hair. I love it when he brings me flowers for my hair, well I love the bunches of boy-picked specially chosen flowers too. I feel very spoiled today.

Day 28: Feeling trapped

Day 27: Catch up day

Quite a few sleepless nights lately so today was a catch up on much needed sleep day...until after 11 pm when I remembered I hadn't taken a photo today. Back to bed.

Day 26: A walk on the wild side

I had job training today, I was going to take my photo at the shopping center but I wasn't that brave, it's in the seediest suburb in town. So the next best thing seemed the overpass that took me ages to find so I could get out of there. The sky was stunning but a few minutes after this I was on that highway in one of those white out rain storms. I tucked myself in behind a semi and just followed his lights and hoped he was going my way because I couldn't even see the side of the road. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of some white lines so I knew I was in a lane. It was interesting, I couldn't see the signs and it's an area I'm not familiar with so I had no idea where I was. I love that sort of rain, it's a bit stressful to drive in but kinda fun in an intense concentration sort of way.

Day :25 Coffee

Whew, I remembered about 11 that I hadn't taken a photo today, it's late, I'm tired, it's the time of night for a quiet cuppa.

Day 24: Happy Birthday Dave

Have a good one!

Day 23: Elvis

Everyone should have one embarrassing thing they like, mine is Elvis. I don't watch TV very often but there was an Elvis special on today, happy , happy. I had to leave in the middle of it to pick Noise up from work, what a choice Elvis or my child...tough one. I picked her up after she promised me an Elvis dvd for Christmas. Hehe I won't hold her to it though.

Day 22: Where I spend my time