Crochet Rocks! Man!

I have just gotten back from a holiday in Adelaide for the week, and had a wonderful time roaming around the place munching on cheese and sipping wine. We also were 'forced' to sample quite a few sweets and even went as far as buying a few jars of the nicest ones (I'll post a photo once it arrives, it was too large to take home in my luggage).

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On getting home and going through my emails after neglecting them for a while I found a fantastic message from my aunt- with a new crochet challenge. Crochet rocks! The picture to the left is from Designsponge, and has inspired me to give it a go. I could use some paperweights to stop all the crap sliding off my desk at work (some people would say to tidy up the desk into neat little piles, I would say those people lack depth and imagination).

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You can buy them online (actually you can buy a photo of a pile of crochet rocks), but I thought 'piffle, I could make that' and found some great instructions from A Foothill Home Companion. I already have the yarn and a crochet hook, I just have to find a suitable rock... I may have to settle for a lumpy piece of bauxite or a bessa block up here. I don't think we have these lovely smooth beach rocks, although a whole boat did turn up after a storm once. But someone set fire to it and the burnt out husk is still there. I'll have to take Jack for more walks along the beach as part of a rock hunt...

Happy Financial New Year

Its the first of July and everyone in the NT are letting off fireworks and scaring the crap out of every dog for miles around. I was particularly embarrassed when Jack gave a girly sook and leaped into my lap while a small spoodle barely paid it any attention. I have a large red hairy bag of jelly for a dog.

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Here is a hastily snapped photo of a firework being let off next to my bedroom window. Needless to say Jack didn't know where to squirm, and settled for knocking my feet out under me and scampering off.

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I was asked about 'firecracker night' and what it was all about. Stupidly I started off by telling them it was Independence Day... Doh! That's a movie (although it does sometimes resemble scenes from this movie), no its Territory Day where an independent NT Government is celebrated. Ironically by blowing stuff up. Brilliant!

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Remember remember the... arh... 1st of July

James the baby bird

A baby bird fell out of its nest and was handed in to our department at work. It was named James after the guy that found it.

James is totally mad, but then most birds are a bit mental in their own way. I feel a bit odd about the fact a wild bird will purch on my hand but my pet budgies go crazy and flap about the cage when I try to hang out with them.

Now I know how Jack feels when he can't fly around the room with them...

Champagne tomorrow... sigh

Despite being incredibly slack and not posting anything for the better part of the month, I have finally managed to vacuum out the car. It is something I havent done since October last year and it was getting pretty scary in there. Even with the dreaded uni report hanging over my head, procrastination never reached a point where I felt it was incredibly urgent to grab the vacuum cleaner, haul it down two flights of stairs and across the carpark. Eventually I did (last weekend) and now, less than a week later, the mystery gravel has returned. ARGH! Damn mystery gravel!

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Anyway, I was told yesterday that the dreded uni report passed and I have now finished uni for good. So I was ready to break out the champagne, which has been chilling in the fridge since Janurary in anticipation of this wonderful day, only to find that I may have to go in to work over the weekend thanks to a crisis. So no Champagne for me. Reminds me of a song... champagne tomorrow, champagne yesterday, but never ever champagne today...

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I also, quite stupidly, left the cable for my camera at work so I can't upload any photos I took during the last couple of weeks while I was in Brisbane. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I was in Brisbane the week before last. On my way there I stopped off in Darwin (its kind of on the way... a bit) to see what my husband looks like and got to see the new machines we recently bought. I was pretty impressed.

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I will upload some of the photos I took in Brisbane when I get my camera cable back and give a few highlights from my trip.

Hearts (not the squishy kind)

A nice person parked me in this morning, so while I was waiting for them to move their tank of a car I had a go at making a crochet heart (I had an idea to roll it back a little but remembered the scene from Charlie and Boots where they roll a ute down a hill, and though 'perhaps not') . This is a picture of my second attempt and it worked out fairly well. I had been pondering over this for a while, well since I posted a link to it a few days ago. I am really pleased with how it worked out, and now have to see if it was a fluke or if I can do it again...

How to sell your house

Sometimes I really wonder about real estate agents. I am sure there are many people out there who would probably agree. I was looking through one of the real estate websites and came across a place that looked nice... hideously expensive, but nice to look at anyway. Seeing there were about 20 photos of the property for sale, I stupidly thought they would be of the property. How silly! One was, the rest were of tree bark, reflections on a puddle, a bird perched on a railing and flowers in the garden. The one on the left is just an example of someones amateur photography portfolio being disguised as a means of selling a house.

Now don't get me wrong, I am sure they were lovely photos. But really are they trying to sell a house or do they have delusions of being discovered as an amateur nature photographer?

Surely they teach young undergraduate real estate agents in real estate agent school that people buying a house want to see the house, not blades of grass with stick insects. Clearly that is where I went wrong when we bought our house, I was looking at the house and thinking of what work needed to be done and whether it was worth buying. I never once stopped to consider the possible angles I could take of the top edge of the fence with an interesting cloud formation in the background.

The ugliest skirt in the world

It seems without uni to give me cause to procrastinate, I have no motivation to do all the little things I previously found necessary to do. So, I am a little late in posting this...

I call it the ugliest skirt in the whole world. Although to be fair they are made out of some fairly ugly work pants, so they didn't really have a chance. Whats that saying... you can't make a silk skirt out of a crappy pair of drill work pants?