Mama's got a brand new bag...

I was looking through some new craft books in the local craft shop the other day, and was actually inspired to try making a bag. This is highly unusual for me because, if I can get away with it, I do not carry a bag. I know, I know, you're all thinking "but she's female!" But there it is. I have a wallet that is small enough to fit in my pocket, and my keys and mobile and hanky go in the other pocket. (Yes I am also a traditional non-tissue using, hanky carrying kind of girl - you're just learning so much more about me in this post.)

Anyway, back to the bag. So I got some material, committed most of the design (with guesses on the dimensions) to memory, as I was too cheap to spring $40 for a new book, and went home, drew the pattern pieces up, cut them out, and made the bag.

For a first attempt I think it has turned out alright, though is a little flimsy - it needs a stiffer interfacing. It is also quite (impractically) small - would only fit a small mobile, a hanky, and a small wallet. I do like the shape though, and should I get the itch to make another bag, would probably make one on the same theme, with some modifications.

News to me

I discovered yesterday, to my absolute surprise, that Christmas is just around the corner. Well, at least according to one of the major department stores at my local shops: they were putting out the Christmas decorations for sale yesterday. Oooh, quick! We only have 111 days to go!

Random facts meme #2

Simone R. tagged me for the random facts meme, and considering I have only recently done it, I am going to flout the rules, totally disregard them (visit Simone's blog if you want to see them, complete with unnecessary exclamation marks - who writes these things?!) and come up with six random facts about anything. Enjoy the trivia.

1. All penguin species are restricted to the Southern Hemisphere.

2. On August 24, 2006, Pluto ceased to be a planet.

3. Cows do not have upper front teeth.

4. Robert Pershing Wadlow was the world's tallest man. He was 2.72m (8' 11.1") before he died, at the age of 22.

5. Igloos are built with blocks of snow placed in a spiral, not row upon row.

6. Pompeii was not buried by lava from the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD but rather by pumice and ash.

Rainforests and echidnas

This conversation occurred this evening over dinner, during discussion of what the Aviator had learnt at preschool today.

The Aviator: Do you know what a spiny anteater is?
Me: Yes. [turns out that it is the same as an echidna. I had forgotten that.] Do you know?
The Aviator: Yes. They live in rainforests. [True, but they also live in many other habitats as well.]
Me: Do they? I didn't know that. [This was before I googled "rainforest" and "spiny anteater" and discovered they are actually echidnas.]
The Aviator: Yes. [...pause to eat something...] Do you know what a rainforest is?
Me: Yes. [That's certainly something I do know about.] Do you?
The Aviator: Yes. It's somewhere where it rains.
Me: Yes, and there's lots of plants. [I know about them!]
The Aviator: Yes, and it's very wet. [...another eating pause...] Do you know what a tropical rainforest is?
Me: Yes. [testing his knowledge] What is it?
The Aviator: It's somewhere where they cut down trees.
Me: [...trying to hide my alarm, raising my eyebrows...]
The Aviator: Beavers do that job.
Me: [Quite relieved we didn't need to have a discussion about the plight of the rainforests that a four and a half year old would need to understand.]

At the park

I haven't posted any photos of my kids for a while. You must be having withdrawal symptoms by now, surely!

We went to the park with some friends the other day, and I took some photos there.

It's very hard to get photos of the Aviator these days - he has a complete aversion to the camera, so all photos of him are generally surreptitious. He was playing on the swing here, and one of his friends is in the background looking back at him.

The youngest member of the family is showing no signs of walking yet. She is cruising furniture, but still very unsure of the whole idea of standing by herself, let alone moving upright by herself!

If they had day jobs...

Apparently the Queen wants Kate Middleton to get a job, instead of sitting around, waiting for Prince William to ask her to marry him. She wants her to do some charity work, but I think she would be more suited to working in a shop, selling women's shoes. And if he wasn't a prince and in the armed services, I think Prince William would be an architect. And Prince Harry would work in a surf shop and spend the rest of his time in the pub or surfing. And I tried to think what the Queen would be doing, but all I could picture was one of those telephone operators that you always see listening in on phone calls in war dramas.

So I started to think about world leaders and what they would be doing if they weren't in politics (and this has nothing to do with what they may or may not be good at - I'm just going on the look of them). I reckon George W Bush would be a children's party entertainer, and not a very good one - the type the kids would run rings around. And Barack Obama would be a civil engineer - can't you just picture him with a hard hat and a roll of plans under his arm? And McCain would be a business man of some type - a bit non-descript but that's the best I can do for him.

And Gordon Brown would be an actuary. And Tony Blair would be a perpetual eager to please school-boy "Oh MISS! Pick me, PICK ME! I know the answer!", and Maggie Thatcher would either be a school headmistress or the head of a tuck shop, in the same vein as the Soup Nazi.

And Angela Merkel would be a nursing unit manager, and Nicolas Sarkozy would be a shady businessman who runs a gentleman's club, and Vladimir Putin would be the head of a security firm, and Kim Jong-il would be retired (it's really irrelevant what he retired from), and living in a upper-class retirement home, spending his time in the spa, having his nails done.

And John Howard would be a physics teacher who would have absolutely no class control skills whatsoever, and Kevin Rudd would be the owner of a pool supplies shop.

Can anyone think of any others?

A charmed audience

Although it was not my original intention, I had to take the youngest member of the family with me today when I gave the judges comments and the awards for the botanical art exhibition, as her brother and father were sick again today. As the time for the speeches was right about the time she was supposed to be going to bed, I was a little worried that she would be in a whingey, wriggly and disagreeable mood, just when I needed to 'perform'.

I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised. Though I had to cower in the background and try to keep her from crawling away and shrieking at the top of her voice in the speech before mine, when it came time for me to speak, I took her with me, apologised to the audience for appearing with my child, put her on the floor in front of me and proceeded with my comments (having arranged for someone to take charge of her if she misbehaved). To my complete surprise she sat in the spot where I put her down and just looked and smiled at everyone. When people applauded the prize winners, she politely joined in the clapping. I kept hearing things such as "Oooh, look, she's clapping!" "Oh, how gorgeous!" "Isn't she cute!"

One member of the audience asked me afterwards if I had taught her to clap when the prizes were given out!

Anyone else ever afflicted by this?

If I have spent time on the computer typing before I go to bed at night I usually find that as I wind down to sleep, everything I think in my head is typed in my head. It's like two little hands in my mind touch type every single letter of every single word I think. It can slow the thought process down a good deal (it's much slower typing your thoughts compared to just thinking them), and really can be quite infuriating.

Does anyone else find this happens with them, or is it just my weird brain?

...and considering the time now, it's probably going to happen again tonight...sigh.

Shaping the botanical art landscape in Australia?

This morning I had the honour of being one of three judges for the Botanical Art Society of Australia's annual members exhibition, Flora: The Art and Science of the Plant. This is the second year they have asked me to be a judge, and this year (probably because I did it last year) I felt less of a fraud! Afterall, I am an artist who has exhibited a little, won a couple of prizes, sold some paintings, taught Botanical Art at a well-known (in Sydney) community art centre, I have been on the committee of the Botanical Art Society of Australia (BASA), and I also have botanical expertise. Does that qualify me to judge Botanical Art? The current committee of BASA is kind enough to think so!

As I was driving home from the city (the exhibition is being held in the Botanic Gardens) it occurred to me that as a judge I can help to shape the botanical art landscape in Australia. While Flora is not the foremost botanical art exhibition in Australia (that honour goes to Botanica and The Art of Botanical Illustration), it attracts a wide variety of botanical artists from across Australia, some professional, many amateur. In the choices we make as judges we are able to shape the style and type of botanical art that is produced in Australia because we hold up the winners as examples of great botanical art. Many who exhibit in Flora, as they master the art form, then move on to exhibit in Botanica and The Art of Botanical Illustration.

Once we had made our choices today, a committee member reviewed our decisions and announced that we had made very traditional choices. I'm not sure if I would view our choices as traditional, but the winning entries all had great composition, a good painting technique and were botanically accurate. So this year, that is what is important in botanical art. Of course, next year, different judges may pursue a different approach, but just for a little while at least that's the mark I have made on the botanical art landscape in Australia.

So if you are interested, Flora: The Art and Science of the Plant is being held at The Palm House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney from today until Monday 8th September, 10am-4pm daily. The official opening is this Saturday, starting at 2pm, where I get to speak about the winning entries and the judges comments in general. And you'll get to see some beautiful artworks.

Where is that knight in shining armour?

There are crappy days when you just wish someone would come and rescue you. Days when the kids are sick and so are you, you put the washing out and it gets rained on, the youngest member of the family refuses to sleep but then is extremely grumpy when she is up, the Aviator picks on her because he is bored because he's sick of being stuck at home sick, and there's no one you can call on to come and be another adult with you. That's my day today.

I have to try and remember that although I wish someone would come and rescue me, I have Jesus right here with me. I need to remember that the next time I growl at the kids. I need to pray for kindness and an overload of patience. And I need to trust that God will help me through it.

Update: She finally went to sleep on the third attempt and slept for a while. And I managed to keep my grumpiness under slightly better control. : ) Thankyou God.

Update 2: My husband came home from work early.... with gastro.

Spring wildflowers

As promised, here are some photos of the wildflowers from our trip to Muogamarra Nature Reserve yesterday.

The first is of the state flower of New South Wales, the waratah (Telopea speciosissima).

This one is of Conospermum longifolium subspecies longifolium. A number of species in this genus were used medicinally by the Australian Aborigines.

This is of a plant that I had never seen before, Comesperma volubile, a climber, which was draped over a Christmas bush, flowering profusely.

This is Zieria laevigata, which is actually in the same plant family as oranges and lemons.

Rust

Today we went to Muogamarra Nature Reserve, just north of Sydney near the Hawkesbury River, which is only open to the public 6 weeks of the year. The rest of the time it is used for scientific and education purposes by National Parks, and is kept in its natural state. There are a few structures retained from the early days of settlement, before the area was made a nature reserve, including stone walls, building foundations and assorted iron tanks.

A fire went through the area a few years ago, and being the Australian bush, really helped to regenerate the vegetation. Because of this the spring flowers were in great abundance this year. I took lots of photos of them for work, and I'll probably post a few in the next few days. For now though, you'll have to settle for rusty tanks.