Christmas cheer

So, I had planned on wishing you all well ... festive tidings and all...
but then i was overcome by the last day in the office, tidying the house, switching to holiday mode, hoping all the presents were sorted, trying to chat to the ten year old about why he changed his Santa wish list 2 weeks out (his suggestion was that Santa could 'drop his other gifts to kids in Cambodia').. and WHAT ON EARTH WERE WE EATING FOR CHRISTMAS LUNCH? (which did throw me into a bit of a spin). It's the realisation of the catering baton being passed from grandmother to mother to ME!
Anyway - I hope you all had a lovely few days that were hitch free.. here's how the last few days went:
I managed to whip up some decorations with some fresh flowers and some paper cut outs into butterflies and a garland.. the photo above is from my 2009 calendar... our lovely local butcher let me drop in some pistachio + pumpkin stuffing which he put into some turkey.. we had been putting words into envelopes so we had a game of charades on hand for Christmas afternoon...people dropped in.. baking occured.. the grass had been delivered and was settling in.. so it all went very well, no fuss, no excess..
BUT am quite happy to move onto just having a holiday, now.
Best Wishes for the New Year to you all... may your year be creative and bright!

Family Album

So after yesterday's balmy summer temperatures of 35 degrees, today was a lot cooler and more suited to play time. Ten year-old Miss R and I got out our toys and took some photos... I had been looking at various calendar designs, but hadn't decided - always the 'not enough room to write' or 'yes, but not quite right' or " i should do my own - but don't want to type all the dates'. So ready to paste my discount coupon into the cart i stayed home and clicked on Snapfish digital printing - before i knew where i was i had ordered myself a calendar for 2009 for $20.

Finders, and well, keepers...

Last weekend on my travels i braved storms and torrents (well, about 30cm of water gushing really fast along the gutter).. to go to our local second hand book fair. One of my bargains was a 1957 edition of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff in Japanese!!! for $2. WOW - featuring my favourite muted colour palette.
Also for 50 cents Panda at the Seaside was also mine (seen here top right).. published in 1982 by Oda Taro it features wonderful (ie: cutesy, bold and graphic) illustrations.
This weekend also saw the Finders Keepers market in Sydney, now I'm sorry that my neck hurt and i couldn't carry my camera to show you the new space - which was excellent - high ceilings, not toooo squishy. But here is a list of who was there. One of the pieces that caught my eye was the red typewriter above from Lino Creative. But to make up for no photos here is a link to her colourful work here and some more here.

Dust bowl

Hello! sometime earlier this weekend i realised that i missed last weeks blog post. Hhhhm. Then i remembered: the surprise weekend we had for my mother's 65th birthday... then some Dudley that had to be posted off.. THEN there was the digger... in the garden (the internet cable was taken up for a few days) - creating the dirt you see before you. 7 trips to the tip later we have a blank horticultural canvas.
I'll keep you updated...!