in small doses

For about 6 years in a row my Dad and Stepmum gave me self-help books every birthday and Christmas. I'm not sure if they thought I liked them, or they thought I needed them, either way I built up quite a library which required some fast talking to explain to new flatmates. The majority remained unread, and now have moved on to more grateful owners.

With one of the books came a pack of affirmation cards. You know the kind, those self help, positive affirmation, fortune type cards. You're suppose to hold them in your hand, let your "energy" seep into them then select one at random, and the divine powers that be make sure that card holds the answer you need. (Note all of this is in a seriously sarcastic tone, for which I apologise if anyone really values this kind of stuff. It's not that I don't think there is value in it, it's just that after 6 years of unchanging gifts I became rather peeved by the whole stupid thing. There's a more to it, obviously, which has created this contempt, but "6 years" is my explanation for today).

Anyway (end sarcasm, seriously) the books have long gone but I really like these cards. The illustrations are quirky and warm, and maybe the pictures speak more to me than the words. But every now and then when I need a little help'n I reach in, do the divine shuffle, and pull a card out. The small doses of card-sized self help are about as much as I can take, but the pretty pictures help me to swallow it. I must admit I do cheat though, I keep reading through them one at a time, until I find one that I like. I guess my sarcasm has caused transmission interference with the divine powers that be. In any case I like the cards, and that's a start.

lazy or diseased?

Tuesday night saw us be diligent little citizens and fill out our national census form. There were a few pages to it, but it was simple enough, or so I thought…

Question 48 asked how much housework we’d each done in the past week.

Keep in mind I had been buried under a blanket on the lounge suffering from the Winter Flu most of last week, so the truth of the matter was I had done very little (if any) housework. I added up how many minutes I had accumulated making cups of tea, and wondered if filling up a hot water bottle counted.

I begged Mr You to let me fudge it a little and pretend I’d done more, because I had a cold, and that’s not fair. Eventually we came to a compromise (5-14hrs), but he teased me so much about lying to the government that I got up early one day this week and scrubbed the bejesus out of the loo, just to ease my guilt.

Question 39 asked us to describe the main duties we perform in our jobs. Mr You had trouble, as he’s always doing something unique, none of which are easily summarised in 54 little boxes.
(For example the 2 projects he’s been working on for the past few months are now on exhibit, one was programming a GPS drawing artwork where members of the public borrow a handheld GPS unit for a couple of hours, return it, the data is downloaded, combined with others and turned into an artwork.

The other was programming an interactive wall, which is essentially an artwork projected on a wall that responds to it’s surroundings and can also display images sent to it by the public. But then he also does screen graphics for the occasional movie. It varies greatly. It’s hard to describe to people, which is why most of the folk in his home town think he’s a graphic designer for an ad agency. It’s easier to let them think that than try to explain what he does and why.

…see more than 54 boxes.

At this point he gave up and broke his answer into the most basic description possible.


When Mr You read my answer to Question 21, which asks if you need assistance with body movement “for example, getting out of bed”, (in other words do you have bad arthritis, or paralysation of any sort, etc) he pointed at me accusingly and announced “I have to push you out of bed every single day!”


This IS true, but it’s not because I’m incapacitated, it’s because I’m lazy and hate getting up. They should have included another question…

Question 21b – Is this because you are:
A) medically incapacitated in some way
B) OR a big old lazy bum

r soles

Last night Mr You took me out on a date! You know, the full dinner, followed by a slow stroll, stopping to share an icecream sunday, and then letting me perve on Johnny Depp for two and a half hours... yeah, that kind of a night. It was sweeeet.

Had a few laughs along the way...

Did you now there is a movie coming out called "Snakes on a Plane"?!!!! I'll give you three guesses what it's about!

I didn't have my camera on me, but as I was doubled over laughing, Mr You managed to get a shot of this shop for me on his phone.
Yes, that's right; "R Soles"! R Soles Branded European Designer Lables, on sale no less.
Either this shop owner has a cheeky sense of humour, or a HUGE chip on their shoulder.

(p.s. just realised this may not be so funny if you're reading it in an american or canadian accent, so you'll have to read this one in an aussie or english accent - go on try it! But by-crikey please don't make it a Crocodile Hunter accent, think more Sandra Dee in Grease - "Oh Danny!" Yeah, sweeet).

capture your imagination

My Illustration Friday attempt for "capture".

Ran out of time on this one, had to colour it digitally.

lable me chuffed

TaaDaaaa! Today I finished Shoofly's bag for the swap we are doing. The swap was postponed for a bit while my sewing machine was on the blink and she was on her amazing well-timed pre-war trip to Lebanon.
But now it's aaalll finished, and I'm so excited to be posting it this week.

I can't wait to show you all the finished bag, but I'm not going to until it's safely in the hands of it's new owner. I'd hate to ruin the surprise. I hope she likes it. I've got the 'too familiar syndrome', you know the thing where you work on something for so long you can no longer tell if it's any good or not. That sounds really bad, I'm pretty sure it's nice.

Anyway, the one bit I am going to show is the lable! (Yes, a lable of my very own!) I was so happy that these arrived in time to add one on Shoofly's bag. Now I'm going to get busy stitching them on all of the bags I've been stock piling.

a bland discovery

I've got the flu, so I've been off work for the past few days. When I arrived home from work early the other day, Mr You was just making himself some lunch (he's one of those lucky freelancers who works from home).

"What are you having for lunch?" I asked as I came into the kitchen
"Oh, just some staples"
I peered into the bowl, burst out laughing and dashed off to grab my camera as quickly as my sick little body would allow, hearing him call after me...
"It's not finished yet! There's going be topping!"
I managed to get a snap before the "topping" of SAUSAGES was added!!!

(I just want to add at this point that Mr You is a grown man who usually cooks very nice meals for us. Clearly the lunches are his time to be more "experimental")

clean

My Illustration Friday attempt for "clean".

Come dirty, tired, cold, sad, sick or just bored, standing under a nice hot shower magically drains it all away.