Brass Monkeys ...

Anyone who knows me knows I prefer cold weather to hot weather. Winter is my default season. However, this is totally absurd. It is so cold these nights that I just want to crawl into bed and keep warm. My feet get cold unless I wear sox, and that is not good. If my feet are cold my whole body feels cold. We only have bar radiators here and they are expensive to run. It isn't even May yet! I can recall this time of year when there have been bushfires. Yeah, it's chilly. Brrr ...

I went over to the Scrapbook shop at Leumeah today to cut out some lettering for a friend's scrapbook she is doing for a friend of hers. She was inspired by the Wedding Album I did for another lady where we work. I have loaned her this and that to help her and another lady at work has loaned her stuff as well.

While I was there, one of the shop people gave me the Calender for May. There are a couple of good classes on offer and a Stamp Club one Saturday that I am very tempted to do. They have knocked the class cost down to $5.00 plus materials. Materials are rarely over $20 so it would be a good way to do something productive and some time out from home.

My own scrapbooking that I have done lately has been rather uninspired. Of course, now I use different techniques to what they taught us at Scrapbook University, but even so, the pages are pretty boring. Maybe a few classes would remotivate me.

I joined a Yahoo group a few years ago of local scrapbookers (i.e. in Oz) but it got to the stage where it was a couple of people doing all the threads, mostly on upcoming weekends away they were promoting or their own line of scrapbook stuff. There were a few swaps, but nothing of grand interest, so I finally left. I didn't joing another group for ages, but there is a US based group who use stamps from After Midnight, which I own a couple of, and Krafty Lady moulds of which I own several and will be buying more later this year. They have swaps, if you want to join, you can promote your blog/webpage, so I follow some of the blogs. Also they have tutorials and video tutorials which are really useful. It is all run by the people in the group, so it isn't a professional set up by any means. The people seem very nice, too. One Australian lady is on it whose art I have admired for a long time. She lives at Humpty Doo in the Northern Territory. Her work is a bit eclectic, but I love it anyhow. So little by little I am learning new techniques for my own art and hopefully in the near future will have some interesting things to post. Like all my stuff, it is a big maybe.

Her Ladyship finally managed to go down the back to live with the stables and a bath and tub for water, long grass, the sand in the round yard she looooves to roll in and the smell of the boy must have finally gone. The grandsons had set the stables up as a cubby house, so I felt a bit bad asking them to put it all away. They had built some clever stuff there and very imaginative problem solving for their ages. They are alot smarter than they let on. Both of them could be engineers.

Well, I must be off, my nice warm bed beckons me, and I have to go earn the pennies tomorrow. Till again we blog ...

Surrey with a fringe ...

After Ben Hur, I thought the barrel bottom had finally been reached, and from there it could only be up, right? Hahar. Now, the old person found Okalahoma! with all the song and dance of the original - heck it is a video not a DVD. Why hasn't the law changed? So I sang away the afternoon much to the annoyance of both the old person who went to bed before they got up to singing Poor Judd, and the daughter who does not care if it is a classic, I hate musicals that old, please don't sing and why do you want to watch it? okay, then give me back my computer.



Truth to tell, the songs are singable if you know the words, which I have done for what seems like all my life, but the story itself is a bit trite. The costuming, even for those days was cheap, and some of the acting was sloppy. They would churn them out in those days, so I guess it is only to be expected. Rod Steiger was far better as the Illustrated Man than Judd Fry.



I fell over the other night and banged my head on the ground. Not hard, not even enough to bruise me, because having rained there was mud and it was soft (lol) but it gave me a nasty fright nevertheless. My glasses fell off and I was lucky I found them in the dark. Neither the old person or the daughter heard me calling out, because for a few moments I seriously could not get up. But my trusty old Her Ladyship wandered up and had a smell to see if I was okay. She just stood there waiting. I have fallen in the past and when I have not got up, she has started neighing, so I knew I would be okay one way or the other. Still no one came, I got back up finally and went and gave her her hay. When I got back inside I was a bit grumpy from hitting my head, the leg on my glasses had been bent and still isn't quite right. I yelled at the old person and the daughter, changed and checked for cuts and bruises. Since then the old person has found where he left the torch and has been coming out with me. Hahar.

The sister and Sunnyboy came out yesterday afternoon while the old person was away at the races. She brought some eggs with her and bread, so we made scrambled eggs for lunch. Usually I put on lunch for us, which is usually sandwiches with a variety of fillings. Sometimes, too, we have hot dogs. Yum. It was a nice treat. We chatted about this and that, and I lent her some punches to punch out some shapes so that she can make some Artist Trading Cards and maybe a little scrap booking. I showed her how to make concertina books and a box to hold it in and a maze book which is folded in a certain way and then cut and folded again to form sixteen mini pages. (When I think about it, I haven't photographed the couple I have made, so it is a note to self to do so).

I gave her some inkpads and a stamp and a couple of punches for herself. I let her have some paper for the scrapbooking and some card stock. I also gave her some precut bland Artist Trading Cards so she has no excuses not to do it. I previously gave her a small sticker machine with a spare cartridge. She says she has some glue. I also said she was to photo graph the results and e-mail them to me. When she does I will post some, so you can see what she does.

So I am still working in flux to sort, cull and pack all my gear. Must get back to it ...

Thinking ...

I spend much time thinking of all the fabulous things I could say about current events, but by the time I get around to actually blogging, much of it seems pretty trite, and I forego the writing. Hence it sometimes looks like I am not all that interested. Spending time thinking is not sharing my thoughts and I have been wondering if I should perhaps, just for the heck of it.

We are in a sort of state of flux at the moment, and are likely to be for a while. I have lived in Sydney since 1995, and in that time I have collected a huge amount of stuff. You couldn't really call it much else in polite society. So I have decided it needs to be culled to a more manageable amount. It is not a rapid process with me, and much of it falls outside my fetish for lists. So I am starting with my art and craft stuff. I have on lay-by two portable drawer units and I will pack all my arts and crafts stuff (i.e. not my sewing stuff) into these two units and whatever does not fit into them will have to be either sold at a garage sale or put into the recycle bins. Some of my bigger items will come as I kept all the boxes, but the paper, embellishments, rubber stamps etc., will have to fit or go.

Then there are my magazines. When I finally decided to leave Whyalla, I had a collection of over 10 years of several magazines, including the weekly issues of New Scientist. There were over 10,000 individual magazines. Luckily for me, I was able to rid most of them at my garage sale at about $5 per 100. This is not ROI but then, I never had them for investment, just for the information they contained. I kept all my Arabian Horse News mags and some of my craft mags, about 500 in all. I have probably got about 3000 now, of the AHN, Scrapbooking and other arts and craft mags. So again, I will have to cull and sell some.

I hadn't intended on moving for quite a while when we first moved here or I would have curtailed. However, the house here is not being maintained as it would by a private landlord and the rain has caused much land deterioration from having had over 30 horses prior to our coming here. We have had one horse and have had to suppliment her feed as the grass, while it exists now, is not really all that nutritious and the land is very, very weedy. Herladyship will not eat weeds, and really, I can't expect her to.

Work wasn't bad last week, because I only worked for two days, Friday being a Public Holiday. A few people were off on leave anyhow, being the second week of the holidays. In fact, by Thursday afternoon there was only myself and one other person. As she is a temp, I got to be boss.

The boss himself had asked me to do a project which entailed making a small table, cutting out about 10 from an A4 sheet, laminating these and then cutting from an A4 laminated sheet. Then I had to get double sided tape and put a little onto each one. Each of these had to be stuck onto every single telephone on Campus. There were well over 100. It was a fun thing to do, workwise, but afterwards my legs were aching. Partly because instead of taking lifts to the second floor I took the stairs, thinking it would be better for me, and the lift is often out of the way, anyhow. I have been doing alot of walking lately, so I didn't think my legs would be so bad. Mind you for all the walking and eating good food, I don't seem to be loosing much weight. Wouldn't have anything to do with the chocolate, would it? lol.

Well, I am going to be disconnected soon, so I had better sign off. Trah ....

Greater than Ben Hur ...

So tonight's movie that the old person borrowed is Ben Hur. It's up to the horse racing scene. Ben Hur's boss said they were the finest horses from Arabia. Alas, not so. Apparently they were actually Lippizzaners - the horses that the use at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. The Americans rescued the herd at the end of World War II, and kept some to take breed back in the USA. Anyhow, Lippizzaners are always white horses, so they had to use boot polish to make the chestnuts, bays and blacks in the movie. Also, the four abreast chariots were not used. Only two horses, and later only one horse.



There were a few Hippodromes scattered through the Roman Empire, but horse racing wasn't all that popular. The horses, far from being the 15 and 16 hand Thoroughbreds we see today, were more like ponies up to 14 hands. Even the Arabians back then were not as tall as you see today - the original imports in the 19th Century were only ever as tall as 14.5 hands. So speed factors only improved when the Arabians were crossed with more modern Trotters.



I could easily sit here all night talking about the history of modern horses, but I would probably bore you to tears.



My interesting news is that I have joined Second Life. I have an avatar called Anika Bondar. Anika is the feminie of Anikin, who of course was the Jedi warrior before he became Darth Vader. The daughter thought this was apt. Of course, for the true trivia buff, Anika is also the human name of Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager.



I have joined Second Life to participate in some of the education programmes offered there, but also to see if I can't set up some sort of business. Experiment on line to see the reaction for the real world, so to speak. But it is taking a bit of a while to get used to controlling the avatar and someone actually called me a Dag. Moi? I guess a cybergoth fatty would only be described as a dag if I am really honest. I tried to capture a picture of her, but alas it didn't work. Once I get the hang of things, I will upload a picture and you can decide if I am a dag or not.

bye ...

Not alone ...

Reading my RSS feed this morning I find I am not alone in my concerns about the Gay Lobby and children. If hetero's were to do some things gay people do around children, we would be dragged off to jail and branded as pedophiles, yet because "dad and dad" are gay, it is okay to do those things around children. Yetch.

Look I don't approve of other cultures that do honor killings of women/girls either, does that make me a racist?

Why can't people just let children be children. Time enough to find out about all that sex stuff when they are old enough to understand it. When they actually have "hormones". Imposing it on them before then is just sick. Call me whatever horrible label you like but that is how I feel and I know many people feel the same. Some even feel "worse", like killing and bashing. I don't think those things really solve problems, nor does writing a bog entry about it, but at least it is here in the Public Domain.

Now that the communists are in power in Canberra, it will only get worse. It is the kids I feel sorry for, because they have to carry the consequences into their adult years and support us oldies in our old age.

I had two issues when my children were growing up. One was blatant racism, because my children where not "white". The other issue was that the feminazis decided that girls were not getting a fair deal in the education system, and the way to solve this problem was to blatantly discriminate against boys. Having two sons and two daughters stuck me between a rock and a hard place. I spent many a long hour going up to the various schools my kids attended and point out to the most senior person and the school counsellor the blantant discriminations and asking what the fnck they were going to do about it. Which usually ended up - not much.

On top of that, one of the teachers decided that violence was a good way to solve some problems. He broke one kid's arm (not mine) and pushed one of my sons into a brick wall. When he was supposed to be reprimanded, the Teacher's Union stepped in and prevented this from happening.

Fortune smiled on me, in the end. I was on a high school council a few years later, and this teacher had come up for appointment as a Deputy Head Teacher. The two students on the council had expressed concern about this - one knew first hand of the incidents above and knew of others as well. My mother was also on the council, and so the four of us spoke to the other parental representatives who also had heard and expressed concern. When the vote came, the teachers were pretty pyst about it, but had to live with our vote to not let him be Deputy Head. The chairman of the council was also the Teacher's Union rep for the city, and also my teacher at TAFE. Later I asked her if it would affect my results at TAFE and she said it wouldn't. To her credit it did not. She knew I was the instigator of this event, and once we had had the opportunity to fully explain, she understood, as she also had a child at that school. There was much taking to task with other teachers, but the majority, once they understood the reasoning were okay with the vote.

Unionism has overstepped its mark in some respects. They should just be worker advocates, not politicians. (ooops. lol). (Insert Capitalist diatribe of choice in this spot).

I told you that story to emphasise the point that the Teachers Union carries much weight in what kids actually get taught. Whether it is in the classroom or not. Somewhere along the way a line has to be drawn in the sand and we say, just teach the kids the academic stuff they need to know and leave the rest of life stuff to parents. You may not think we are doing a good job, but lets not get into a points arguement on who does a better job with our kids, shall we? Hmmm?

Yeah, there are some bratty kids out there, but maybe if you busibodies had let us keep our ability to smack our kids some of them would be less bratty than they are. One quick reprimand will save a lifetime of grief for a kid any day. Argue all you like, with me it falls on deaf ears.

Till again we meet, dear reader ...

News headlines ..

Sydney is a strange place if you live here any length of time. I should probably have never come here, but it is too late now.

Today's news in the Daily Telegraph was about how schools are going to have to drop references to mothers and fathers, boyfriends and girlfriends, etc., as gay people are offended by these sorts of references.

Now call me homophobic if you like but this is seriously getting out of hand. Maybe it could be pointed out to someone that gay people are not the only minority group in schools these days. How is this going to go down in Church sponsored schools and muslim schools? What do you think the consequences are going to be in these situations?

I find it offensive because of this. My daughter has two school aged sons. Their father did not bother making himself responsible for raising those boys and so she is a single mother. To those two boys she is their life and their security. How can they not be allowed to call her "mother"? I mean are we talking stupid or what?

What do Lesbian children call their parents? Most that I know call their parents "mummy" or "mum"; likewise with homosexual raised children, it is "Daddy" or "Dad". So where is the discrimination? What are you going to call them? You can't refer to your spouse as a husband or wife, but as a partner. Married couples are not "partners", they are much deeper than that, particularly ones with children.

Furthermore, I do not know any primary school age children that actually describe themselves as gay or not gay (heterosexual). Sexuality is not really an issue with little children. People who make it an issue have something seriously wrong with them (hmm... let me see, in other areas they are called pedophiles). Even gender issue do not rise with little kids. It usually goes that little girls think little boys are yuk and vice versa. However, even at quite a young age a little girl knows that the other person is not a little girl and likewise a little boy knows she is not a boy, and that is about as far as they think about it. Bringing gender issue into children's lives, no matter how you look at it is sick. Psychologically sick.

Maybe you could take a page from the Christians and Muslims and start your own schools. Leave those of us who want our children and grandchildren to maintain their innocence as long as possible alone. You would never have to worry about a shortage of teachers, which I am sure you know.

But then you are the same groobers who are holding this talkfest in Canberra this weekend, aren't you? If my sister and her family didn't live there, I would strongly urge someone to drop a bomb on the place and rid us of these freaks in one go. If only ...

Not without my ...

...lunch! How about that, I forgot the canteen was closed for the holidays and had no lunch with me at work. I ended up buying a packet of chips from the vending machine and having that. Yuk. Had the munchies all afternoon. Way to go, dopey.

I will have to remember to make something before I leave in the morning.

Long days with very little work. There weren't enough desks for everyone, but since it was my day on the Switchboard, I got to sit at my normal desk. The two part timers are off tomorrow and Friday, so it will be okay. I think when my time is up in September I will go back full time till the end of the year break and finish up then. I will have about ten days leave due and my long service entitlement, should get me through till I can either start my own business or find another job. Whatever.

When the days are long with little work, I find I look forward to the weekend. Especially when I know I have things I can be doing at home. So full time work will be frustrating again, but at least I will have something to look forward to at the end.

I have run out of glue and can't get any till tomorrow night. Why I am finding this so annoying I have no idea but it is really bugging me. I guess I take my glues so much for granted. I use glue in almost everything I do, and as I expand my mixed media arts I will use even more, but I think there I can use liquid PVA glue and not have to worry so much.

I am thinking about packing all my "junk" and it will be a logisitical nightmare without throwing away much of what I have. (sob). So I will be allocating one of my four days off to culling and sorting all my things until it is all done. I will also begin my lists. I cannot travel without a list, so if I have them prepared it will make things easier. It is about the only time I keep a list, and it is silly, because I would probably be alot more organised in my life if I kept lists all the time. I also need to start journalling because I think journalling is good for organisation as well. If I force myself to do it to start off with it will become a habit pretty quickly.

I am getting tired now so I shall bid you a fond adieu. cheers ....