Sundays

I love Sunday mornings. I like to get up (relatively) early, before my housemates have emerged, and read or write in the muted light of my bedroom. Oftentimes I’ll have a cup of tea.

Sunday mornings, I’ve decided, are a good time for me to get things done. Uni things; writing things. I’ve just finished my first week of the new semester, and I’m feeling excited about the two subjects I’m doing. I’m looking forward to writing a screenplay for one of the subjects; and challenging myself to use the other subject to take another story I’m writing in a vaguely experimental direction.

Part of the second story I’ll share with you tomorrow — I’ve written it as my response to the Storybook theme. Looking forward to seeing some other responses!

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Garden update

Our garden is growing!

We’ve had a fair bit of rain in Sydney in the last little while and our little vegies are coming up nicely. It’s a pleasure to look at each morning as I leave for work; and even more lovely to potter in when I’m looking for herbs to cook with in the evening.

I’ll post some pictures of the produce when it’s harvestable.

Pie Chart

After a very relaxing (if somewhat wetter than I would have liked from a week at the beach) holiday where I could focus on a very short list of things, I have returned home only to discover that my brain has almost immediately returned to its previous state. My mind is a pie chart.

Sometimes I feel like all the sections of the pie somehow add up to more than a whole pie. I feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of things on my mental Creative To Do list (not to mention other To Do lists).

But the time away cleared my head enough for me to realise that maybe I can’t keep my To Do lists in my head. I have to write them down.

I’m vaguely pedantic about how things are organised in my life, so I will probably have multiple To Do lists, all with different headings. I will probably pigeon hole my life in order to write simpler lists. I will probably have a List Book.

My List Book will probably include an Ultimate To Do List, like the one that Miss Maybel keeps. But it will also have a Boring Jobs To Do List, and a Places To Visit List. Oh the list-possibilities!

Most importantly, though, it will have a Creative Projects List, where I can write my story ideas, along with any sewing, painting, sound recording or cooking things I would like to do.

I think I’m turning into my father. I too am becoming a List Maniac.

Thanks Dad.

PS. Please excuse my terrible pie chart image — it’s a bad photo of a bad drawing done one-handed while on the phone to one of my brothers. But I’m sure you get the idea.

PPS. The deadline for the current project is this coming Monday, 2 March. Can’t wait to see a few submissions!

a sad story

First submission for storybook is in! I’ll be putting up the link again with mine and Sophie’s and anyone elses at the month but I couldn’t resist sharing this one already. Its beautiful and sad. Head over to Miss Maybel to check it out.

A new day begins.

Today has been a great day. A brand new day.

It was the first day of the rest of my life. Or however the saying goes. Recently I decided it was time I went part-time. I’ve cut my working days back to three, and now I have much more time to be playing and experimenting, and getting back to why I wanted to make jewellery in the first place. I’d found that doing it all day everyday, making what everyone else tells me to really drained me of any creative need. And it was time I did something about it.

So…. today was the first day! And it was lovely! Just a small sleep in (9am – but come on it was my first day….) and then I got to work. Cleared out the garage and got my work space back into some kind of working order, and then went to it! I’ve got lots of great ideas, and finally I feel like I have some time to explore them all.

I’m very excited about my future once again, and it’s a very nice feeling.

image by visuellegedanken

you are remarkable

So this evening I was browsing here and found this.

In short, this is the idea:

“let’s create miniature pieces of art & love & wisdom & send them to strangers from all over. sometimes someone needs to hear from a complete stranger miles & miles away that they are special, or loved, or appreciated”

You can nominate people that you think are special and are needing to be told so, and they will be sent something in the post. Alternatively, you can volunteer your time to send some love out to those who need to hear it. This is brilliant!

You are remarkable is such a beautiful blog, and this is just one more of the amazing things they have going on over there, along with interviews, lists and photos. I love the idea of spreading love and happiness in small unexpected ways. I’ve only just begun reading it (as of about half an hour ago), there is so many things to read and do, but I need to post it up here straight away, so everyone could hurry on over and get involved!

image from you are remarkable

fruits

A few cross-sections of fruits I’ve been drawing some inpsiration from lately…

pomegranate

apples

annatto

orange

kiwi fruit

How beautiful are they? Things we see all the time but rarely stop to take a closer look….

Holidays!

I’ll be away on holidays all next week, on the beach, with no internet connection and very little mobile phone service. I can’t wait! I’m in desperate need of some sustained relaxation.

See you when I get back.

Gonzo

Last night I went to see Gonzo, the documentary about Hunter S. Thompson. The man had a chaotic life of drugs, drink, fame and words. But those words, those words.

It reminded me how much power words can have; how they can unite people, alienate people, reveal people for who they are.

If only I could put some words together on a page in a way that had that much power. Something to aspire to.

market treasure…

I love love LOVE markets. I do admit I like the idea of them more than the doing – I start with good intentions but then when I get there and there is so many people and piles of trash often it is far too overwhelming for me. But this weekend I ventured out to the market of all markets – Camberwell Market. Its so exciting when you bother to have a proper search and come up with some good finds.

On Sunday I was searching for old postcards for a project/idea that I’m currently working on. I found some great ones. I especially love the ones with the letters on the back. One that I found from 1908 says:

Dear Kathleen,
Tell Mother that Aunty Alice was over to see us on Sunday and stayed to tea. I hope you have not got the measles. Tell Dad not to get them or else I will be frightened to come up.
With Love, Gret.

I love the old stories and wondering whatever happened to those people! One of them actually has a Melbourne address and name, I would love to track her family down. What an exciting mystery.

Also I found some 1940’s black and white photo’s from Egypt. I wonder where these people are! To be honest, the environment and the people and their clothes don’t look too different from how I would imagine it to be now. I wonder about that…..