Spring Cleaning

It is Spring here in the Beautiful Adelaide Hills. Time to tidy up the studio.
I didn't have to clean the floor. It's been covered with stuff for so long that it didn't have the chance to get dirty. No 2 son has come home to live with us for a while so I had to move all, OK most, of my stuff out of his room back into the studio.
I have seen a lot of signs saying "I can't be tidy and creative". I can't. I do notice that my creativity reduces when the studio is a mess, so I like to have a tidy studio.

So here is my tidy studio, Greg helped me.

Don't ask me about the dining room though.
Greg helped by pulling out all the stuff that was on the floor and putting it on the trestle in the dining room.

I lost my enthusiasm and creativity earlier in the year, I am sure it is in here somewhere.

Spring is sprung

It's a beautiful Spring day here in the Adelaide Hills. The weather is a balmy whatever it is. Greg and I started the day late. We had breakfast and then slothed around until our local nursery opened. We still had the voucher he got for Christmas so off we went to spend it. Greg recently finished this arbor, which Granddaughter No 2 tells me we have to plant lots of flowers to grow over the top so fairies will come and live in it.

When we bought our house in 2000 the previous owner told me not to walk on the ground inside the sleepers he had in the backyard because there was an old well underneath. He said he had walked through the top of it and gone into the hole up to his knee. He then told me that he looked inside and it was an old well. So he chucked a bit of tin over the hole and put the sleepers down so we'd know where it was. I didn't realise until recently that he must have been on drugs.

For the 11 years we've lived in this house there has been a great deal of vague talk of opening the top of the well and using the water on our garden. While the vague talking has been going on the top has been sinking and then sinking some more until I threatened my darling husband with bodily damage if one of our darling grandchildren fell through the top of said 'Well' because he couldn't be bothered to fix it.
So Greg opened it up, and it was a two foot deep hole in the top of an old septic pit. It was full of dirt, really good dirt. So rather than just fill it in Greg built an arbor over the top.
Today we (and that is the royal we because he did most all of it while I was making a loaf of bread) planted two jasmines and a climbing iceberg rose at three of the corners.
I wanted two yellow climbers similar if not the same as the nursery around the corner had growing over a huge stand, so off we went today only to find that not only don't they sell roses anymore but the heathens had taken out the most beautiful yellow climbing rose that I had ever seen. It used to cover about 6 meters of wall with a mass of huge beautiful golden yellow 'Celebration' by David Austen.
As I have my heart set on that particular rose I am going to have to go hunting for it. An adventure for me. I shall, no doubt, bore people silly with my obsession until I find one.

The berries that we planted last year are doing great

Here's our veggie garden. We also bought some veggie seedlings that Greg planted. Here is where Greg told me to go away and stop taking his photo. I told him to shut up and freaking smile for once when he's getting his photo taken or I'll bury him in that garden bed. Which I have been told is a really bad spot to bury a body cause it's the first place the police will look.

Greg

pinched a nerve in his neck last week and couldn't move his whole left side, talk or hear for about 20 minutes. We thought he had had a stroke. Really scarey, I am so relieved he is alright.
He is supposed to be taking it easy until he goes back to the doctor. He doesn't do well with taking it easy. I am tempted to duct tape him to the wall but this wouldn't do much good and he'd be really cranky when he got loose so I'll save that for another time.
Being a typical male he argued with the doctor over taking medication for a week in case it was a little blood clot. I had to remind him that until he has his own medical degree he will shut up and do as he is told.
Still we had a lovely day today and these are to be treasured. I hope your Spring or Autumn depending on where you are is just a beautiful.

Daylight Saving

Daylight saving is on us. Yes it is Spring here in the Great South Land or Land of the Long Weekend as it is affectionately called. We have one this weekend, I can't remember if it is Labour Day or Queens Birthday or whatever any way it is a 3 day weekend. I thought I would take the oppportunity to show a photo of what I was working on this time last year

Both pieces are finished but the landscape still isn't framed.
Well I am off to bed I am loosing an hour tonight and I hate that. I do like getting up in the dark though and having a bit of extra time in the daylight at night. Even if it is only to sit on the verandah or in the sunroom and have a little glass of wine with the husband.

2725

Stitched Up

My stiff neck has been giving my grief, I am not sure if this is my subconscious trying to give me a message or just the result of sleeping in an awkward position a few weeks ago or a bit of both.
I have been trying to stitch and I've finally found the right position courtesy of this great folding table I bought at OfficeWorks. It was only $20 on special. It is just the right size to hold my hoop and a variety of bits and pieces including the remote. It is light enough to move around and sturdy enough not to wobble. I am stitching again despite my lack of enthusiasm to do anything. I shall endeavour to do more stitching and less obsessing. I make no promises.

The Devil is in the Detail and DNA gets you everytime.

I have some big decisions to make in the next couple of weeks and I am humming and hahing and generally boring everyone stupid trying to make a decision on my future in my job.
I work for the government. For quite a while you would hear lots of jokes about disgruntled workers after there was a series of workers resigning via a gun. There is even a saying 'going postal' in American English slang, means becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of shooting people dead, usually in a workplace environment. I really understand how they would want to do that.
Who hasn't imagined that. It would be satisfying, in an only imagined and never followed through on way, to just take a gun and pop one into the head of your manager. Not that I want to do that because I don't have a gun and I changed workplaces and I didn't want to shoot anybody anyway. All though I did seriously consider for about 5 seconds running someone over but what can I say. It was my new car and I didn't want to get blood on it although there were quite a few other people in my workplace who would have helped me dispose of the body cause all you really need is a roll of chicken wire and some heavy weights so no embarrasing bits float off when you throw it in the river. Not that I've given it a lot of thought. They would have helped me clean my car but I watch NCIS and Abbey can always find a skerrick of blood and bang my ass is grass.
Those little details get you everytime. I quite like little details in my art life, I am going to get back to them soon. Life gets in the way though.
I am seriously thinking about demoting myself. I have been on a contract for the last year and the time is coming when I will have to bite the bullet and decide
if I stay at a lower level in a place where I am really comfortable or go back to the place I left last year.
I have been neglecting my creative side and I don't like that either. A Quandry indeed, my gut is saying one thing and my head is saying another. In the past my gut is usually right because sometimes my head is an idiot. I just need to get on with it. My neck is playing up too. Stiff necked isn't that another way of saying to stubborn for my own good. Maybe my body is trying to tell me something.
I need a little project that I will finish easily and quickly. Finish being the optimal word.

Multipotentiality

Multipotentiality

“An educational and psychological term referring to a pattern found among intellectually gifted individuals. [Multipotentialites] generally have diverse interests across numerous domains and may be capable of success in many endeavors or professions, they are confronted with unique decisions as a result of these choices.”

I can almost hear you thinking 'What the f... has that got to do with chickens?'

At last an affirming term for me and my life. I just found this website PuttyLike. I haven't read much of it but it seems to be calling to me. I've been sitting on my butt waiting for some divine guidance and where else would I find it than on the web. Oh and here is an awesome photo of a couple of chickens. Why a chicken...? Well since you ask that seems to be the method for my whole life. I scratch around looking for something and then when I find it I am off scratching around for something else.
But that is OK because I have a Multipotentiality personality. I am a Multipotentialite.
Try and say that 5 times fast.

The Bibliomaniac's Prayer

Eugene Field. 1850–1895

The Bibliomaniac's Prayer

KEEP me, I pray, in wisdom's way
That I may truths eternal seek;
I need protecting care to-day,—
My purse is light, my flesh is weak.
So banish from my erring heart
All baleful appetites and hints
Of Satan's fascinating art,
Of first editions, and of prints.
Direct me in some godly walk
Which leads away from bookish strife,
That I with pious deed and talk
May extra-illustrate my life.

But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee
To keep me in temptation's way,
I humbly ask that I may be
Most notably beset to-day;
Let my temptation be a book,
Which I shall purchase, hold, and keep,
Whereon when other men shall look,
They 'll wail to know I got it cheap.
Oh, let it such a volume be
As in rare copperplates abounds,
Large paper, clean, and fair to see,
Uncut, unique, unknown to Lowndes.