Frog and Dizzle

Is there anything so funny as a slip of the tongue? When you know what you want to say, but it comes out the wrong way.

Last night in the news the lady reading weather said that we could expect frog and dizzle this morning.

We were concerned, but shouldn’t have been. This is what the sky looks like today…

and there is nothing froggy or dizzly about that!

Email

I like email.

Especially when they say this:

hi there,

 

Just letting you know that your Documents are ready to collect for your trip to Paris.

 

If you have any queries please let me know.

Fellow grammarians please let me know – is email the plural as well as the singular? I think it is…

Never Wake a Sleeping Baby

This was considered a rule when Ashleigh was first born.

I have not spoken to or had contact with Ashleigh for almost three weeks while she has been touring Europe. I know that she is back in France now. I know that she went partying with other exchange students until late last night, her final night of the bus trip. I know it is nine o’clock in the morning in France.

I am just about to text her so that she will have to wake up and talk to me. She may not be as delighted to hear from me as I will be to hear from her…

too bad!

Designing

I have been commissioned to design and make a quilt for a magazine. I always enjoy the process of design. I am certain that there are as many ways to approach designing as there are designers in this world. I would never advocate that the design process should be formulaic, nor that one way is better than another. Whichever way it works for you is the right way to go about it. I approach it as a process of problem solving.

I draw and re-draw. I trace what I have drawn and make little changes. I look for lines that are too straight or without character and try to get rid of them. If I want symmetry I draw half the shape, flip it and draw over the reversed shape, then trace the two sides as one shape.

I like to work at the finished size and will use large sheets of paper when I can get them. (This is the real reason I married an architect, they have lots of big sheets of paper that they don’t need any more.) I use lots of paper, lead pencils, permanent marker, scissors and sticky tape as I try to get the shapes exactly as I want them.

This process is made easier with the new purchase we made.

 

Our fancy new printer with seven individual ink pots. It scans and copies, it reduces and enlarges. It lets me crop, add a frame or take away a border right there on its built in screen. It will preview what it is about to print so that I can check that it looks right.

I’m in love with my printer…

Sleep Well?

A conversation you don’t really want to have:

My Pete: Man, I just saw the biggest huntsman ever!

Me: Did you get it?

My Pete: I think I managed to spray it.

Me: Well, where is it now?

My Pete: I don’t know. It disappeared into our bedroom.

Note: the spider in this picture is not a huntsman. I think it is an orb spider. I took the photo near Innisfail. This spider was bigger than my hand, but thankfully its web was high up in the trees and not in my bedroom!

Narnia

knock knock

who’s there?

narinia

narnia who?

narnia business…

The boys went off to see the new Narnia movie. I did not go. I have decided that I am against all sword movies. There seems to be a proliferation of sword fights on a grand scale in movies. Frankly, I blame Lord of the Rings. Since that first movie there are so many involving crowds of people with swords held aloft, running toward each other making a noise somewhere between a scream and a grunt. I find it incredibly repetitive and boring.

So they went, I stayed home and made four-patches…

and shiny silver star appliques…

and listened to beautiful music.

Not a bad way to spend the evening, actually…

Artist of Precision

Today Pip went off to art to finish his masterpiece. This is his first ever painting.

It had to be finished today so that it could be entered into the local show competition.

He works incredibly slowly. Imagine the slowest person you know and slow them down by half and you’ll have the idea. My Pete and I are not speedy people. We work at a pace that would frustrate a multitude of people, but even my Pete wanted Pip to hurry up.

Pip can’t be sped up though. He’ll be finished when he’s ready.

This Little Quilt…

went travelling, while this little quilter stayed home.

I sent it off to the Down Under Quilts 2008 calendar competition more than a year ago. 

It was successfully selected and features in the calendar.

This week it came home.

It has been exhibited in Mittagong and in Japan during its long sabbatical.

I’d like to visit those places one day…

We Went Walking

My Pete and I went for a walk.

While we were gone Pip noticed that the sunset was making the most amazing colour in the backyard tree.

He hurried to get the tripod to take a better shot, but when he returned the sunlight had shifted and the colour was gone.

He has the eye of an artist and the wonder of a child. Man, I love that!

Infinity of Uniqueness

I watched an episode of the ABC TV show compass last week. The focus of the episode was the poet Barbara Blackman. In my ignorance, I had not heard of her before, but she was an immensely interesting subject who has led a fascinating, passionate life.

One of the things she said that really struck me was that the whole universe was an infinity of uniqueness. No two leaves were the same, no two people were the same. What an incredible thought. When I deeply reflected on it and considered how many people there are, how many fish in the sea, how many trees on the land, how many leaves on all of the trees… it is almost too difficult to imagine.

But it is a truly beautiful thought…