Tiger and the bells

I have four of these bells on my door in the study. I am not sure why. I do like hearing them jingle whenever I open the door. M doesn't though, he finds them rather annoying.
Tiger (of course) just a moment ago was getting agitated and wanted to go out of the room. I heard a jingle at the door. I turned around and there was Tiger on his hind legs ringing the bells trying to get my attention. It was so adorable. He really wants to go outside though. I'd better let him out.

Tiger and his quirks

I know I have posted this image before, but it suits the story

Tiger my cat is a funny cat. Usually he is friendly, cuddly and happy. However, he has his moments. Today was one of those moments.
I was in the study at my computer desk editing an essay, I took a break and brought Tiger inside. He was all over me, cuddling, purring, walking all over my desk, knocking stuff over, sitting on my journal articles for research and of course standing right in front of my computer screen. There goes my essay editing. After a few minutes of doing this, Tiger decides he is bored and jumps down. I continue editing my essay and get quite engrossed in it. I am brought back to reality by a pair of claws scratching the back of my chair. I reach out my arm to stop Tiger scratching and what do you know, he bites my arm (through my clothes so it didn't hurt). I pick him up and hold him, he continues to try and bite me. I tell him, "you are a naughty boy." I put him outside my study and close the door. I push the draft stopper snake against the door to stop the draft. It makes a banging noise when I do this. I hear a loud bang on the other side of the door. Tiger is expressing his annoyance. I finish arranging the draft stopper snake and am about to sit at my desk. I hear Tiger clawing outside the door and decide to bring him in. I open the door and pick him up. He is a different cat - purring, cuddling once again. What is it with cats? The whole process nearly happened again after I brought him in the second time except he didn't try to bite me. Cats...they're crazy!

A very weird dream

Last night I had the strangest dream. Actually I think it was closer to the early morning. Anyway...

My dream:

I was in a house, it was an odd house. It felt like home to me (in my dream that is but it was not my house at all) and there were these odd hippie type people. I think a man, woman and a child. They all had blonde hair and were into the normal health stuff that hippies are usually into. The house had no power at all. Every thing was either solar powered or just old school type stuff - hole toilet, hand washing type thing. I think there was a commune of hippies living there.
At first it was just me the weird couple, but we didn't talk.
Then more and more people appeared, none of which I knew. We were talking about how good it was to have a house with no power that was free. One person started saying how were we going to survive the hot summer. Someone else suggested solar powered fans which we set about trying to make. I remember trying to put a solar panel on a weird looking fan.
The scene kinda changed and my husband was there. I think we were still at the same commune house place. My parents were also there, but not much apart of the scene, just there. My husband had to drive and get supplies somewhere. I think he was buying food. He was gone a long time. I tried to ring his mobile to see where he was. The phone did not connect, it said the phone was out of range or something. Then a strange thing happened; whilst still on the phone, the call was put through to some woman. She told me that the person who owned this phone was out of range and that their car had a broken oil tube (or something like that). So I decided that my husband was lost and I had no idea where to find him. I talked to my parents about this and we decided to travel up to QLD (where they live) and I would live there. Whilst travelling there, I decided that I had better ring my Mother in law and tell her that M was lost and we couldn't find him. I remember I had the phone number list of family & friends that is actually on my fridge in real life. I was looking at her number and trying to remember it before dialling. I got the phone and tried to dial, then I realised I had forgotten the number and was dialing some random mobile number. I tried again and again to dial and I couldn't. It took me around half an hour to dial the phone number. When I finally got through I told her what had happened, I can't remember her reaction though. I soon woke up after this - I was very freaked out. My husband walked in the door (in real life) from having a shower and I was like I'm scared, hold my hand and I told him about the dream.

Other dreams of note:

I have had a recurring dream where I am climbing on a very steep and narrow cliff near the ocean. Then I fall and I'm fallling....falling....falling and then I hit the water. When I hit the water I wake up for real and sorta hit the ground/bed like I have been falling. It is a very weird feeling. I usually have this dream whilst I am semi-awake, like within 30 min of going to bed. I haven't had it for ages, but at least five times in my life.

Dreams are odd.

Update...

On Friday I received my practicum folder with my marks in it. I was utterly shocked when I saw the result - 98% a HD. I still am shocked. I don't know how/why I got such a high mark. I honestly believed that I hadn't done that well with the assignments and my prac also. I struggled through my prac (due to all the evacuating we had to do - fires). I struggled through the assignments in my prac folder - I felt I didn't do enough, couldn't get the words right and was still recovering from the shock of the fires and all the evacuating. What a crazy time and an unbelievable mark!
I am glad its all over for now and that something good did come out of the fires - for me personally anyway.

Right now; its raining and I have washing on the line. It was somewhat sunny/cloudy this morning and the forecast did say late rain - its not that late! At least we have a huge indoor line that I can hang up the washing and leave for a few days till its dry.

My parents were here for just under a week. I had a fantastic time with them and I miss them so much already. The weather was absolutely perfectly well behaved while they were here and now its gone onto being its normal self. The days were not really cold at all while they were here. I was so glad. My parents had only booked carry on luggage so that meant they couldn't bring much stuff. My Mum was rather worried it would be too cold and they wouldn't have enough warm clothes, but she needn't have worried.

I did a photoshoot with my parents, mainly to practice photographing people but it was also nice to get some lovely photos of my parents. Some of the photos will be posted on my photo blog at some stage.

Op-shop update

Remember when I posted about how I totally lost contact with L, the ex op-shop manager. My parents and I were driving along the main street of town and I saw L. I'm like "oh my goodness! We must turn around and I need to say hi." We turn around and go back, park and I jump out of the car. I walk up to L and we greet and hug. She had been meaning to catch up with me and tell me what happened. It turns out she didn't just randomly resign. She was fired! Fired for standing up against something she didn't agree with that the higher up manager people were doing. I can't believe that. Anyway she is suing them for how they treated her (good on her!). She said it's not about the money, but about the principle. We chatted a bit more about other stuff, how we're going to catch up and have each other over for meals etc. We swapped numbers and are going to catch up sometimes soon. I am so grateful that I didn't lose contact with her.
It's all about timing, the journey...it worked out right.
L is one of those people I really click well with.
I was so excited when I saw her and so glad that we could catch up.

Weekend update...

The weekend was fantastic. Alot happened. It is hard to keep track of and remember, but it was all very good and fun. Friday night; DH and I went to a friend's place for tea, that was lovely. The host cooked chickpea and tomato soup, very interesting flavour, but delicious. After this DH and went to another friend's place and played board games. M (DH) is very into board games and now he has gotten me into them. There are some fantastic board games out there - non mainstream of course. I will review some that I have played, later though.
Saturday, went to church like usual and that was great. Then we had an unusual fun experience. A married couple at our church invited us to their place for a meal to celebrate their 20th Anniversary - they wanted to "Pay it forward." There were around 10 other married couples around our age there also - from church so we knew them. On the table there was a list of questions about marriage, romance etc - conversation starters. It was interesting to hear other couples stories about their relationship, romance, and ideas about marriage. After this we watched a movie called Fireproof, a Christian movie about marriage. It was a reasonably good movie for a Christian movie, but a little over dramatised and cheesy in parts. It did get the message across though. The movie had in it a book called The Love Dare, which was used to enrich and work on the marriage in the movie. After the movie finished, the married couple celebrating their 20th anniversary challenged all the married couples there to take on the Love Dare and handed out Love Dare books to all couples who wanted to take on the challenge. Of course we took on the challenge. The book is a 40 day journey that couples take & read the book and make changes to improve their marriage. We are on day 3 and enjoying it. The first day: we had to try and practice patience, particularly trying not to say anything negative to each other. The second day: keep trying not to say anything negative to each other and do something unexpectedly kind for each other. The third day: still try not to say anything negative to each other and buy something for each other (a selfless gift). I am enjoying the journey of change in our marriage.
On Sunday I did a photoshoot of some lovely locations I found. I took over 300 photographs.
The weekend was relaxing and lovely.

Daily photo post

Daily photo posts have moved to here.
This blog is more for ideas, ramblings, creative ideas and whatever my mind comes up with.

New blog

I have created a new blog for my photography business. No information on it yet, but soon. I am sooo excited! I have taken my first step and now I'm gonna fly, cause these are my wings to fly through life.

Daily photo post - better late than never

I was feeling rather dejected today due to finding out that I will not be receiving my Ruddy money because I did earn enough. I earnt under the tax free threshold of $6,000 which means I cannot receive it. Such is life - the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
But alas I still have my photography and here are my daily photographs. This time of leaves and good ol' hills hoist full of clothes.

On another note, this lack of Ruddy money has forced me to think about my life, lack of money, etc. I am starting a business, yikes! Over the next few weeks I will be organising my Photography business. For a limited time I will be offering free, yes FREE photoshoots of people - family, individual, pets, themed...whatever. More information coming. Keep your eyes out.
I am excited but oh so nervous, this is my dream, to photograph people, families, life, pets, to capture their moments in life...

Stay tuned.

Funny Tshirts

I stumbled across this site that sells funny, random Tshirts for $6 USD. There are some hilarious tshirts on there. I want to get some of them, and for that price, I am not too worried about getting a few. I don't normally like slogan shirts (most are cheesy and over rated) but these are pretty good.
I have a few favourites already, but these two would have to be the ones I like the best.

Other sites that sell offbeat, funny and wrong tshirts: Tshirt Hell, Red Bubble clothing

The $6 site also has a mystry tshirt deal, where you can buy tshirts for $2.95, but you don't know what you will get.

Tiger and the tree

A stunning tree and of course the adorable Tiger.

Daily post of my photography adventures

It is truly amazing how delightful one's backyard can be for fantastic photograph opportunities. All one has to do is look, truly open's eyes and be prepared to be amazed!

Cold misty morning

It was another lovely fresh morning, the mountain was covered with a thick fog casting interesting lighting as the sun struggled to shine through. The fog looked so beautiful, fresh and cold. Tiger of course followed me as I took photos and I can never resist photographing him.

I am aiming to take photos everyday. At this very moment I am thinking of ideas for a self-portrait. I stumbled across this site that had an assignment to take a self-portrait in a weird, interesting way using a timer or remote. "It cannot be a generic self portrait of you sitting/standing and smiling (no senior portrait-type photos) It's gotta be strange, off the wall, your not-so-typical self portrait. Use your best judgement on this one." I have been thinking about ideas for a self-portrait that is odd, strange and looks interesting.

morning photos - experiments

I had a good time taking photos this morning as the sun was coming up over the mountain. The last two were kinda an accident. The swirly one, I was about to take a photo then moved my hand in circle whilst taking it and the result is the fun swirly thing. The second to last one I decided to try out zoom blur. This is done by half pressing to focus on something and then whilst taking the photo I zoomed in with the lens. I like the results. I have forgotten what it is called. It was inspiring to take photos on such a lovely cold morning.

Sunday exploration

My DH and I went on a driving tangent, I took these photos with his iphone (not bad for a small point and shoot). It was a beautiful day, fairly mild and lots of sun. We went for a long drive on this dirt road, we didn't get to the end as it was so long. We were getting hungry too, so we decided to turn around and go back home. It was very beautiful driving along in the bush with the sun shining through the trees sending soft rays of light across the road and patches of grass. The air was so fresh, and had this wonderous alive smell about it. It was beautiful to breathe in as we drove along this lovely country bush road.

Cirque Du Soleil

My DH and I went to see a matinee performance of Cirque Du Soleil on Friday afternoon. It was a fantastic performance. It was so amazingly performed and put together. The best show I have ever seen. The costumes and make up were fantastic, so detailed and intricate. The talent/ability of the performers was outstanding. There was one girl who did all these different acrobatic movements while holding herself up with one hand, it was amazing to watch. There were many other amazing acrobatics - the use of trampolines to run up walls and do flips and incorporate dancing. They even jumped from trampoline to trampoline.
I loved the clowns too. They really made the show, it was hilarious at the beginning there was this frightful but funny looking clown (he had black and white hair sticking up straight) walking around the audience and teasing people. Stealing their popcorn, their tickets, sitting in their laps, telling them to go to the wrong seat. It was so funny to watch. I was glad we had got there early to see the the funny happenings whilst people arrived.

I was very impressed with the two singers also. There was a male and a female singer in the show. The male singer was a soprano and he sang really high, it was amazing. The female singer at one point in the show sang whilst suspended in the air. I don't know how she did it. It's hard enough singing whilst standing on the ground let alone in mid air and trying to get support without one's feet on the ground.

Of course the music was very impressive, really amazing and all live too.
I could go on and on about how amazing it was. The lighting, sound, stage was also very impressive. It is definitely worth going to see.
I had a fantastic afternoon/evening with DH.

On another note; whilst at the Docklands (where Cirque was) I stumbled across a Mövenpick Ice cream franchise and was very excited about this. When I lived in NZ, my family used to buy Mövenpick ice cream on special occasions like my Dad's birthday. It is a Swiss ice cream. It was very expensive around $7 a litre but amazingly delicious. Since moving to Australia I had not been able to buy Mövenpick ice cream because it wasn't sold over here. However, it is now being introduced to Australia via ice cream franchise. I didn't get to buy any ice cream because the shop was closed after the Dralion show, but I will definitely be going back there for a visit. More info here. I can't wait to try some.

Placenta...what the...?

Upon reading this about the uses of placenta (human) I decided to research more about it. I found this article. Please read. It is the most disgusting thing I have ever read or heard of. I nearly threw up. It is that gross. I have no words...

Delightful dandelion

The Tree Prince

My lovely tree prince Tiger - following him around this afternoon as he climbed a tree and began to act playfully. It was so adorable.

Beautiful Autumnness...

A monstrous leaf - its bigger than my face.

Tiger

Arghhhh....just cannot resist posting photos of Tiger. I found these on my camera. I hadn't uploaded my camera for ages. I've been using my DH's Canon Digital SLR rather than my own. So here's the cute photos of Tiger.