A DAY AT HOME

I  RODE INTO TOWN to get the paper this morning and stopped to take some pics in the cemetery. always nice to wander around the lovely old headstones and ceramic flowers, not to mention the artificial ones, all fallen over and blowing around the open spaces.  not one chipped or damaged china flower anywhere, and a lot of them are over 60 years old

p

picking up the mail from box 63,   bookmarks from my new picture book, great to give the kids at the workshop

I SPENT THE AFTERNOON working on my grant application while outside the window Steele Scaddings cast his ride-on mower magic over the front and back yard, thank god.   i was starting to feel hemmed in by the untidiness.   Slowly, things are getting back into a not quite tidy sort of order.

Dinner at the pub with anne and steve and family.  

CATCH UP DAY

AFTER TWO DAYS of rushing to the bus in the morning and being up way too late (last night 2.45) i had a day of trying to get the house in shape today. cleaned out half my wardrobe and put it in the storeroom and cleaned up, headed down to artback for a cuppa. tea.  i've stopped drinking coffee, suddenly one morning.  i'm hoping i can keep it up. and doing dry july without the sponsors. i figure i can't ask people to do it again but i'll just cut out the wine for my own wellbeing. feels good.
At Artback i was approached by a woman who turned out to be a friend of janet and bevan's,  Sue Cummings and we both have work in the current show at Tussock, i have my birds there thanks to bevan.  Anyway she and husband Jim (?) came up to see the house. i like having people up here to visit.

DRESSING UP

POOR 
LITTLE CAL

getting dressed up 
for i wasn't sure 
what - saw this pic
on facebook
yesterday

then today

rene sent

this, it was

cal's first

photo shoot

and as rene

said, he hated 

this suit.

no wonder

:0)
it looks 
very tight

i'll do a 

photo shoot

in october

OPENING NIGHT

WHAT A BUSY DAY - i almost missed the bus for the second day in a row! i was up late last night then couldn't sleep until about 1.30, woke at 5 and rolled over - next thing i knew it was 7.30 and the bus leaves at 7.50.    JUST made it, had to grab my makeup bag and do that at work.  
Tonight was the opening of the show of local work, and my show of the illustrations from 'Our Village in the Sky'.
It went well, stacks of people, i sold quite a few books and had dinner with sonja and helen, we ran into some of my wentworth friends and they gave me a lift home.  All good, it's late again but i can sleep in tomorrow :0)

ON THE BUS ON A LOVELY MISTY MORNING
 

   BOOK SIGNING TIME

 

big kev and ruth

julie chose her scarf to match the big painting by local dentist
paul nahkla

good old pizza cafe - always good and in good company

coming home along past lock 10, it's always beautiful at night, like a mirror

ON THE BUS TODAY

 I WORKED an extra day and travelled in on the bus, almost missed it - as i turned the corner it was already there so i tooted and jumped out of the car and waved and the dear man waited while i unloaded the car,  all the work for my show wrapped up and bulging out of a big Ikea bag.
There was  a terrible pain of a woman on the bus, only 4 passengers because it's school holidays and she talked VERY loudly about herself all the way then gave her number to one of the men as he got off. 'in case you want to have a drink or something'.
'oh it's ok' he said as he backed down the stairs.  then she proceeded, for the rest of the trip, to talk about how men just think you want something and she was way too fussy for that.  a wrinkly old druggy scrubber.  am i being unkind?  no, she was awful.
AND i copped her on the way back too   groan    heard all the same stories all over again.
roll on term 3.

CALSTER LAST MONTH

THAT DAMN DUMMY!

FRESH AIR

NO ARTWORK TODAY,  no grant writing, no mounting of work or editing of pics - i spent the day outside, painting the pinboard in my print studio white, and cleaning up around the garden. it was a lovely sunny day. i went for a bike ride up to Thegoa Lagoon and into town for the paper and did a bit more work removing raised slate tiles from the kitchen floor.  Sawed off some more of the branches of the fallen tree, trimmed back the wisteria, took some frangipani cuttings, weeded, filled in the holes left by terry and brendan who have been digging looking for a leak.   A satisfying day.
More pump trouble though, poor terry had to go in the river twice trying to find the problem.  as he was about to go in the second time, after some swearing, i escaped to yoga.


down along the river

CHILLY SUNDAY

IT'S BEEN GREY AND COLD so another indoor day.  i must get out and really clean up the yard though.  tomorrow.  hopefully it'll be a bit sunny.  this weather makes my gloomy.
All the work's mounted for the show so i'll have an outdoor day tomorrow.


bringing in the washing at sunset, this was the view over the fence

BRRRRR

JUST BEEN LISTENING to the weather on the radio, gusty strong winds, low temperatures, maybe rain (hope so).   sounds like an indoor day to me,  i've got to finish mounting my work and hopefully i'll finish it today so i can get back to the 'ted' book tomorrow.  I do worry about branches falling on the house in this weather, it's not good to hear those trees blowing around.  :0+

END OF THE WEEK

YESTERDAY  was a crappy day - cold, windy, i was grumpy and feeling housebound and stressed  - trying to get everything done for the exhibition of  'village' artwork, contacting press,  getting confused by the three separate dates, july 2 -  exhibition opens,  july 19 - official book launch and july 20 - workshop.  AND worrying that i didn't have enough matte board to actually cut mattes for and mount all the 17 pieces.  and no car to get any more back to wentworth.

TODAY - everything's ok, it's still cold and windy, but i got a lot of mattes cut last night and realised i had enough board, got all the rest of the graphic work done and spent today in mildura doing a radio interview this afternoon (big plug for the show, workshop etc) and delivered invitations around town, plus had a catch up with the artvault crew, a great trip in and out on the good old bus and now i'm cookin' up a storm in the oven.  dropped in to see michael at the library to make sure he can do the launch, he can.  and called in to collins booksellers to check that they'll have books in for the launch.  

phew, time for some time on the couch with the telly.

walking around mildura today - fabulous clouds 

on the way to the bus this morning     wood ducks at the lock

ON THE BUS  another good trip, last day of school and one of the kids got on dressed as a super hero - Bee?? great mask that looked like a yellow transformer, and matching 3D vest.  all the kids were buzzy, getting ready for the holidays

best value around

      coming home tonight, the sky's always amazing

i've just joined a website where we observe bird activity in our birdbath for a month, reporting species of bird, what they do and add a photo if we get one.  today's bird - a crested pigeon, such cute birds.  no pic though

Mildura arts identity Helen Vivian, director of Palimpsest, the
biennial arts festival.   she came in an bought one of Mahdi Chandler's
beautiful hand dyed scarves.  i lust after these in the art vault, but
they're $230 each :0{

HOORAY I'M BACK

GOOGLE!    GRRRR   i had a 'phishy' email and google disabled my email and my blog. i felt like both arms were cut off.  now it's back but i still can't receive emails into my own mail inbox, have not idea how to restore that.  i hate all this stuff.  
anyway, that was tuesday, this is thursday

yesterday my trip on the bus was a ripper - i was doing the 9 letter word in the age and the little boy next to me, about 8 y.o. said 'we do those at school' so he - kenny - and his friend shaniah and i spent the whole tripping trying to get to 'good'. didn't quite make it and couldn't get the 9 letter word but it was fun.

 working madly to finish my current book, it's getting there.  i made a tiny dummy, it's only about 4cm high.
also studying aboriginal faces for the boy, i'm not happy with what i've done so far, so i'll do him again - i know what i want him to look like, it's just an unfamiliar face for me to be painting.  
and ted's been going through hell modelling for the rest of the book, he's very patient though

FOGGY MORNING

I CAN'T SEE the opposite bank at 8a.m. this sunday morning.

TERMITES

TERMITES are rife up here - it's one of the worst areas in australia. it was time for a check and i was dreading the result, but after watching Peter do a thorough room to room and also check the trees and outbuildings, i got the thumbs up, all fine.   AND he got under the house and said the stumps are all in A1 condition too.   how good is that?

i've heard horror stories from friends who've had whole walls replaced so it was with a huge sigh of relief that i received peter's final comments.