9 Moons Ago

  

Well, got the rest of the house-sitting pictures up for y’all. Things are flying for us.. can YOU believe it’s the middle of January already?! We can’t!

No lizards in this batch, I promise, Chhavy! Just Boids.

A few weeks ago I gave meself a new look, which I’d been contemplating for at least half a year. I have not had bangs (aka a fringe) since before I was a teenager. (We won’t count that brief early-1990′s fling with the fluffed-up wispy bangs that complimented my frizzy poodle perm. Blergh.)

Better self-portraits another time. I haven’t had much of a chance for photo ops!

I need a photo opportunity. I want a shot at redemption. Don’t want to end up a cartoon, in a cartoon graveyard. Bone digger, bone digger. Dogs in the moonlight. Far away in my well-lit room…
-P Simon.

Things are very good here. It’s so nice to be located near all our dearest folk -on this half of the world, anyway!

p.s. HAPPY B-DAY SARAH! Woot-woot!

  

Things are going well with both Cameron and myself, but since I might not post anything else till November, here’s an early “Halloween Postcard” from me to you! Trick or Treat!

  

Sooo… what have we been up to over the past couple of weeks?

Well, Daniel and Adrian came over to visit with us, and we went out to split servings of fish, veggies, chips (french fries), pizza, steak and oysters… topped off with champagne, tiramisu and hot chocolate! YUM!
Then we headed back to the house for more hot drinks by the fireside. What a lovely evening!

We stopped by Worco again, where I wrote letters to my family and drew Alastair at work on a harpsichord keyboard, as he is teaching Cameron a bit about the trade. Went out for lunch and dinner with the guys. Dinner was at my favourite Melbourne restaurant, Cafe Umut in Preston! Not a fancy place, but the food is amazing. It puts the Turkish food at South Street in Philly to shame!

I sold an illustration to someone who saw my work online and loved it. She’s going to send me a copy of the publication (a business brochure) and will add my name to it too. YAY! I sold artwork without even trying to! Great motivation at a time when I’m making preparations to set up an online shop -probably on Etsy- where I will sell some of my paintings!

I’ve been working on some website themes for friends, but they’ve been slow-going so that’s a bit frustrating. Lots of things are competing for my attention.
I haven’t let myself re-design my own website yet, either, so that is another thing I want to change!

Cameron and I caught a daytime movie and had the theatre to ourselves. Watched “The Simpsons” and loved it! “Spider pig, spider pig. Does whatever a Spiderpig does…”

Watched the lunar eclipse and took photos which were quite good, considering our camera wasn’t meant for such long distance shots.

After fully recovering from the tonsillitis and stress of dealing with health problems, I’m back to job searching and attended a job interview today. *Fingers crossed*

And every day the dogs and I are enjoying our walks in the fields. Sometimes they take a dip in the water, and sometimes we take apple and pear cores from my lunch to Leo, the horse. He’s rather anti-social. He comes up for pats rights away, but leaves after a minute or two (whether or not there is food) but sometimes he unexpectedly comes up and tries to eat my scarf or ear and it makes me laugh and squirm because it’s very “tickly”.

Have been seeing the return of the large water birds such as heron and ibis, and watching kookaburras sitting high in a bare-branched tree, laughing loudly, and seeing the little fairy wrens hop around as they create their nests and it’s all breathtaking! The weather is gorgeous, warm, sunny, slight breezes, there are colorful blossoms on the trees, red bottle brush appearing, and new green all over. Drinking it in….

And, I’ll continue the update another time…

  

And Happy Birthday, Aunt Beth! And to Chhavy, for the 9th!

Can’t believe how long it’s been since I last wrote an entry! We’ve just been having too much fun (and drama) this year, so I’ve got lots of pictures for entries that never got around to being written! They may still appear on the scene sometime in the future though.

This past weekend, we visited good friends at Worco, celebrated the birthday of Cameron’s niece, Melissa, and then we took Ebony on a 2 hours trip up to the Aussie bushland to visit Alastair and his wife at their cottage at “Bonnie Doon”. We hadn’t expected the invitation and didn’t have the camera with us that day, so no pictures – and it’s a shame because it was a stunning site! A whole new landscape of Australia that I’d never seen. (I will write more about it another time.)

For those of you whom I’ve already notified about my new flickr account, forget, for a moment, that rubbish I was saying about less photos on this site.
Here’s are some pictures of the Bonnie Doon area that I just snagged from the internet:

However, I took pictures for today’s entry personally, a couple of days ago!
After two years, I finally got some better shots of a local kangaroo. He’s part of the mob that has recently been grazing in our front yard!:

And, here are a few fun shots of me and my hound-y crew, taken by the lovely Cameron McCamster:

Well, it’s late and I’m tired, so I’ll save the rest for another time.
Have a wonderful weekend!