My Georgie Boy

has been missing now for about 8 weeks. I am so, so, so  devastated, I miss him so much. We are not sure if he has been kept in by a neighbour where he was last seen several times the first week he was missing or hes been done by a snake. We have searched all over the place,wading through thigh high grass etc being aware of snakes as we went, calling and calling including going to the house about 5 times and asking, but never allowed to go inside etc I think if he had been bitten by a snake he would have come home sick and we could have taken him to the vet for the snake anecdote.  Most stories I hear about cats is that they are too quick for the snake, jumping up or away, a lady here told me her cat plays with them all the time, so I am more than upset that he may be being kept by the lady who said she would bring him home if she saw him,

He was booked into the the vet for a "weight loss" the day after he went missing so had to cancel that..... He was starting to wander far too much so decided to get him fixed up after all.  But then he may be out there with a girlfriend somewhere and may come home some day. But in the meantime, I miss his cuddles and smooches and the kids miss him badly too. 
Anyway............ onto the next post..........

Update on the previous post

Seperation Creek, near Wye River  on Christmas Day (Picture: Peter Mayberry).

The fires in the hills above Wye River. 

It is so sad to let everyone know that the area we fell in love with around Kennets River and the Wye River on the Great Ocean Road has been destroyed by fires last week. There was at least 116 homes destroyed in the blazes. Total disaster. I feel for those folk. Living bush ourselves we are on constant high alert here at this time of the year for fires. Tonight there was a huge storm with lightning etc that could have easily started a fire anywhere.
Pic above: Copied from Age website...........This is the area along the coast The fires in the hills above Wye Rive on December 28. Authorities are still inspecting........  Such a shame, but it will regrow in the bush, and hopefully the homes lost will get their insurance payouts urgently, not like Black Saturday of whom some are still waiting and that was back in 2008.

Catching up

Ok, so here I am catching up, but guess as I'm the only one who looks at it and comments, what really is the point, except that I enjoy the blogging.

OK. We went off to the Great Ocean Road for 7 days early October, it was so lovely to be at the coast again I so miss the smell of sea air..
We went to Geelong on the Tuesday, saw these bollards at The Pier  Entrance.

Bollards at The Pier

Kennetts River

This one above was at a great place called Kennets River, just past Wye River, we loved this place so much we went back the next day for the day, that is after we (kids) played at skate park etc etc.. And of course you can guess what had happened prior to this photo being taken, yep the wave was huge and knocked kids off their feet LOL, We hope to go to this place again and camp there for a few days.  Toria loved getting the shells and the cuttlefish that were washed up.

Torias shells and cuttlefish

 

Aroha

Aroha loved to bury herself in the sand.. She was not too keen on the rolling waves, but will eventually get used to it we hope. Toria is still much the same as this but loves a swimming pool at home.

Okey dokey, back soon with more of the last month.

Fotochallenge Week 13 Spring Blooms

Week 13 on the Fotochallenge is Spring Blooms.
Mind you I dont know why I bother actually as nobody leaves me any comments to say its good, its bad etc etc, or let me know they've even looked.  Remind me again why we started this challenge!!!!

Anyway...... Here is pic taken in Wangaratta during the week of some lovely Flowering Gums. They were the only ones on the tree.

Flowering Gum

We are off to the beach this week for 7 nights to a time share on the Great Ocean Road. Will be lovely as I love the coast, can't wait to smell the sea air again. When we first moved inland to Australia from NZ, our noses were so dry from dry air instead of lovely coastal air.

Hope there's lots of photo opportunities and that I get the hang of the camera I have upgraded to. Its a Canon 7D. I still have to get a good zoom for it though. One of our next challenges is Beaches so I will go exploring I hope. Also we have never been on the Great Ocean Road so lets hope it lives up to the lovely Ocean Roads in NZ.

Week 12 FotoChallenge TRANSPORT

Week 12 FotoChallenge TRANSPORT.
This is a bit hard for me living in the boonies to get some good transport pics. But as we were in Melbourne this week I tried to capture the busyness of the freeways etc.

So here we go..........

Transport Melbourne Freeway.

The cars in front and to the side of us on our side of the freeway.  A busy day for us is about 10 cars the whole day LOL..............  But thank goodness for Transport, that we can get about this beautiful country we live in and for great roads that can take the amount of transport that Melbourne generates..

Week 11 Portrait in our FotoChallenge

Week 11  in our FotoChallenge Bevlea and Jan  and others on our Face-Book FotoChallenge page is Portrait.

Portrait of Toria and friends at school end of term 3.

 This was taken at Paul & Torias end of term day. They were in favourite sports team colors.
Obviously the teacher had said something, the other kids were looking there, not Toria as usual, looking at everything else.  Sorry about the alien bits on kids, also could'nt figure out how to put a better cover on the faces,  but I have not asked parents if it's ok to post their kids on my blog etc.

You can see the tiredness in all the kids at end of term3.  I would love to have been able to get out and about and take better portraits of people, but time this week as usual has escaped me.  BUT! I do like the composition of 4 looking one way and 1 the opposite.

Nest weeks theme is: Transport. Come join us.................Hoping to find some old transport round this district..............

Week 10 Landscape in our Foto Challenge

Week 10 Landscape in our FotoChallenge Bevlea and Jan  is Landscape.

This photo I took of Geoff cleaning up the landscape when a tree had fallen and hit the bridge railing etc.
I didnt get a chance to get out and about and find some nice landscape round here, we have been so busy the last week or so here at the camp.

Clearing the landscapes...

Will try and get another one done during the week...

Week 9 on our FotoChallenge

This weeks challenge for our FotoChallenge Bevlea and Jan was Juxtsposition, now that I had to look up :-)

It is  Juxtaposition definition, an act or instance of placing close together or side by
side, especially for comparison or contrast.

So this week, a perfect situation (I think) arose, Geoff was burning off rubbish etc around the wood shed, we came home for a cuppa and I notice black smoke rising so we jumped on our push bikes and rushed back over there.
The old fashioned water tank had caught fire, so we pulled it away from the main fire. So then the kids get home from school and Toria rushes off to get a bucket of water, bless her.  So this contrast is the fire on the water tank side by side
 It only burnt the tire so no problem, and the tank was under a heap of junk anyway.

Fire and Water.

So come join us on your blog or the FotoChallenge Facebook page and share your pics too. We would love to see them.

FotoChallenge Week 8 Textures

This weeks FotoChallenge prompt with Bevlea and Jan was Textures.
the photo was taken on AV on my Canon, when I had it on Auto it showed up quite grey, but this is actually the correct color. It is by the camp kitchen where there is a very large tree stump and the  bits at he bottom are a hard growth on  it.

Texture.

I love it and will probably use it as a piece in some of my artwork at some stage. Hope you like it and please do leave me a comment. I love seeing what you have to say. Inspires me to keep going. See you next week with Juxtaposition ( now that I will need to look up LOL)

FotoChallenge Week 7 and 8 to follow

This weeks FotoChallenge prompt with Bevlea and Jan was Still Life, well actually it was meant to be posted by last Sunday night. But I have had internet issues for many days. Like none available, then when I got it back, couldn't load anything. Grrrr  It was caused by the provider of the Satelite upgrading the Satelite and they lost all the clients settings, so only told us if you rang them to say hey I have no internet It got sorted, but then crashed out again about 2 hrs later   Come along and join us. you don't need a blog as Bevlea has started a face book page "Fotochallenge" that we can share our artistic photos on, and if you have a blog then they can be put there as well. Let me know if you want an invite.
So here is last weeks post.

Still Life.
I looked round and didn't find anything really exciting to post, so took a pic of this old bike that Geoff painted for me to put in the garden, the grass has since been mowed :-)

Still Life (left in the old girl)

I would have been as adventurous as the links Bevlea put up as examples, there were some great ones.
Anyway, back in a few minutes with this weeks post "Textures".............cheers Gxxx

FOTOCHALLENGE week 6 ANIMALS

This weeks FotoChallenge prompt with Bevlea and Jan was Animals.   Come along and join us. you dont need a blog as Bevlea will start a facebook page that we can share our artistic photos on, and if you have a blog then they can be put there as well.

I missed last weeks which was Shallow DOF (Depth of Focus) I had great difficulty getting the background of my pictures to be blurry with my camera, despite heaps of advice from Bevlea. loads of try out photos  and several tutorials online, I think it may be my camera as I have done it before. So I missed that one, but will persevere with it over the next week or so.

Anyway......... for those who haven't met Georgie, he is our 8 month old beautiful Ragdoll Cat. I have always loved the ragdolls as my wonderful Sister in law Maureen had a couple over a number of years, so my decison many years ago now, just before we left NZ was that if we ever got another cat it was going to be a ragdoll.

So meet Georgie. (Named for Georgie Porgie Puddnin Pie, kissed the girls and made them cry :-) )

He loves to roam the camp, he thinks he owns it,  and follows us down to the river, may be a problem come wriggly season. So last week after a big walk we took, with Aroha as well, he had climbed or raced up a tree  and I managed to capture his front as he turned around. He is a delight and loves being out and about with us. He stalks the ducks, stalks the kids, and loves to play and jump on Zaccy..............  Ok, cute story over.

I have been keeping busy at night with some knitting needles :-) A long time since I played with them for no real reason. But  below is what it looked like first off.

 Next with some stuffing etc, this is what Henny looks like now. LOL.. Still got to find the eyes in my stash somewhere to finish it off.
Well , it is an animal LOL....

Week 4 FotoChallenge FOOD

Yummy yummy, This weeks FotoChallenge prompt with Bevlea and Jan was Food.
I, unlike my townie friends couldn't go to a shopping centre and get anything nice from a bakery LOL, so had to make my own.
I made for desert, Little Lemon puddings, so yummy. Made with Lemon Honey (homemade) or Lemon Butter (curd) as its called over here, with a sponge topping in ramekins, then tipped upside down when cooked. They are meant to be served with custard, but I prefer cream.  And to top the pic off, a Jonquil picked from my garden today.

Please join with us and take a photo of the week, post it to your blog and leave a link here in my comments so we can go and leave you a comment too.

I did have another photo of food, we had some guests in camp who got a deer the other night while out hunting and they left us some of it. Geoff was cutting it up for the freezer when Aroha decided to help him, when I rescued the Stanley knife from her and gave her an ice-cream stick to work with. It was so cute, but I am mindful of sqeamish tummies and some people don't like to see animals killed, but we have to eat :-)  so for now I won't post that pic. :-)  But she's learning early where food comes from, not the supermarket butchers etc

FotoChallenge Week 3

FotoChallenge is a weekly prompt started between myself and the wonderful photographer/artist Bevlea  to inspire and challenge ourselves to shoot regularly, and extend our skills.
Our FotoChallenge is to take an image, based on the weekly theme and upload it to our blogs by midnight Sunday of each week. We invite you to play along, take a pic using our weekly theme, add it to your blog and leave a link to your image in the comments section.

Week 3 is Leading Lines.
For me, the leading line is :The Way To Town"  The road going the other way leads off to town from the camp.We are 50 minutes from a local town centre. This way leads up to the lake.  This week has been wet and miserable so not good photography weather.

So come along and join us. I would love to see your challenge.

Week 2 of our FotoChallenge Black and White

Well here it is nearly Sunday night over and I am just starting to do something about my FotoChallenge for the Week.
This weeks is BLACK AND WHITE  I have been having a bit of trouble with my Photoshop so for now am going to just post the pic as it is.

Easy enough. Black and white, Yep, it snowed here during the week, so took some photos of the fun round here.

Across to camp from house

I am going to get to the lesson regarding last weeks pic of the lemons and yummy lemon butter during the week. I am going to remove the handles off the cupboard to make it a better looking picture.  Also Bevlea has given me some other tips as well to take some good photos.

So til during the week, have a good one.. Please join us in this challenge and link your efforts in our comments.

FotoChallenge Thirds

Well, here I am again, and Bevlea and I have decided to do a weekly FotoChallenge. We have a list of different challenges that will also help, particularly me, with taking good photos (fingers crossed).

Anyway.
Week 1 is The Rule of Thirds. Using a household Item.Please play along with us and leave a link to your photo in the comments so we can take a look at yours as well.

This one I am not that happy with, due to not having somewhere good to take the photos.
Geoff made some lemon Honey today with some of our fruit from the overloaded lemon tree.
So household item is the fruit squeezer. Electric even. I still have and use the old glass squeezer that was my Mums. I got it when we were newly married, she gave it to me Sharon LOL.....

I am not sure which I like best. I couldn't get the handles out of the way on the cabinet behind :-).  Please leave me some comments so I may learn to be better at taking photos etc.  :-)

Mid Years Resolution

Well, I have decided that I MUST blog more often. I am going to take a picture a day (fingers crossed) and try and post at least two or three of them once a week. You know the best laid plans etc. Hopefully one of my BGF Bevlea will give me a kick up the pants if I stray from it.

We are a little over the art stuff at this stage (for now for me, forever methinks for Bevlea and Lucy)  so it will be random stuff along with whatever art I do make. I want to get back into making replica teddies and some cloth dolls, not your run of the mill "country dolls" but more like Pam Grosse etc type dolls So lets see how it all goes. I will update on Facebook when I have done a post.

So here are the first photo's, taken on Thursday before we left for town and in town at lunchtime.
.
First is Aroha having her hair brushed, she sure still hates it LOL. No matter how I do it she performs. (Part of the autism)

Second is Paul, Toria and Aroha on the slide after lunch in the park.

Then third photo, the kids were given a voucher each for Christmas from a friend who we have met since being up here. We finally got to town with them to have enough time to browse and spend.
Aroha chose an electronic guitar and microphone etc. She just loves it and is a real little pop star.
Paul bought a large remote control monster truck and Toria chose a LeapPad, a bit like an Ipad which we are having trouble getting it started and the apps loaded on this satellite internet, We will get there with a little help from some friends :-)  Thank you Kel. you're a treasure. 

So there we are, first weeks post. Hope you enjoy..................See you next week.

Marions Postage People and more

OMG OMG, its been 13months since I have been on here, and noticed that the header is changed LOL Don't know when my GF Bevlea did that for me LOL.............. Shes a treasure.

Anyway, lots happened over the year. We are flat out here at camp and that keeps me very busy and not a lot of time for arting etc. I am so over Facebook that I think I will resurrect my time on Blogger and start doing this a bit more, even if its just family updates etc.  On that note the kids have grown so much, Paul is now 8 years old. Toria will be 7 on 26th July and Aroha will turn 4 in September.  They are little treasures (mostly)

Anyway, wont bore you any more on this post as I know Marion is "waiting patiently" for the pics of my ATCS.
So here goes......  They were fun to make.

Bride to Be

Belle Jardiniere

HMS Block 27 Warden

Madam Lilou

I hope the recipients like them...........
This one is one of two that I made also. One for me and one for Bevlea who was doing the swap but had to pull out :-)  

Mr Hobbit

Next one, Textured tags and more.

I have been in a swap in NZ for Textured Tags......
I have been very slack and haven't kept up with swaps as I just don't seem to find much time at the moment.
Previous house moves have seen me sorted and set up within a few days, but this time with 3 children, plus the work that was needed here for the job etc has held me up to the point of still having boxes of my craft room stuff out in the shed waiting to be unpacked. I go out and hunt it down when I need something.
But here is the tags for the year so far that are ready to be posted to NZ and on the the lovely participants who are patiently ( I hope) waiting for them.

January Texture Paste

February Tissue Paper

March String.

April Crackle Stamp & Lumieres

May Altered Acetate

They will be postal in next couple of days.  My apologies again to those waiting.

I have been a bit lost since moving up here as the Internet connection has been very poor. What was provided was not enuf to do anything let alone what I used to do from Melbourne. It has been upgraded now, but still not enough to really spend time online with my friends, which is really a life saver for me as we are so isolated now.. 

Next is an altered Paint Brush that we did for Paperarts group mixed media swap.

Miss Merpaint

Took me quite a while to sort this one out. I just lost my mojo completely.

Here is the one I received  from Sharon Fozard.

From Sharon.

It is quite sad that the Paperarts group is going to close at the end of the year as we are just not getting the participants in swaps any more. Don't know why, apart from everybody is so busy and the postal costs are horrific these days. It will be a sad day when the group is finally closed. Altho Bevlea has opened up ArtQueens to anybody from Paperarts that would like to continue swapping.

Well here I am again,

promises, promises. I better stop it :-)  I was reading my friend Barbs blog and it has prompted me to hurry up and get something new in here.I promise I will be back and life and family etc gets in the way. Along with moving house and town and job. I also needed to post for Marions (from Germany) International swap so she can direct the participants to see what they are in for :-).
So first up here are my three Bird people.

Mother Goose had been at it again.

Reminded me of Dr Suess books

A sweet little girl, waiting to fly off to where-ever.

I love Marion's swaps. Along with a few other swaps too. That I will post in a few minutes.

Road trip to Wagga Wagga January 2013

In the first week of January, Bevlea, Lucy and I went up to Wagga Wagga to visit our other BFF Barb T. Such a long time since we had got together to play.

Originally we had been planning a weekend away with all four of us together - but Barb's family and  health issues, along with Lucy's recent auto accident which has left her with a badly injured leg, put paid to that and it was cancelled. Bevlea, Lucy and I decided to rent a unit in Wagga for a few days, drive up and surprise her.

To ensure that it all went smoothly we secretly co-ordinated it with her hubby. We should have known better... never involve a man in planning says Bevlea LOL....... Barb had a day procedure scheduled for day two of our three day visit - and with the first day taken up largely by traveling our time together was briefer than we would have liked - but that made our time together all the more important. The weather was very kind to us, sunny and warm without being too hot.

 We headed up on the Monday morning - stopped off in Culcairn and had a light lunch at the fabulous bakery there that Bevlea and Lucy had partaken of on a previous visit.   Photo courtesy of Bevlea's blog...

 

While Barb was having her surgery on Tuesday we took a side trip up to Gundagai, I had never been there, but can now say I have visited and seen the Tucker Box. Bevlea took a pic of the three of us there...

We had morning tea in Gundagai itself before this pic and also Bevlea and I took some photos of the old bridges there.

The  heritage railway station is a fantastic place for pics, really old fashioned, just imagine the years of passengers that has come and go here..

 Might do this in Black and white like Bevlea has as it sure looks great, go and have a look at her Rusty Ramblers Blog.

While I was away My DH did some renovations to our kitchen as we are moving to a new job, with a house provided in the country. It is Managing a Christian Camp in Cheshunt, so altho it is a less stressful job than we have had it will keep us busy with lots of renovtions etc, as its quite old fashioned looking and needs an update.

Here is the bench he upgraded with a paint product that makes your bench look like formica etc. Very good and very easy. He also put new vinyl tiles on the floor too. He is a good man :-) A keeper......

I am going to miss my kitchen as the house we are going to has a "very small" kitchen/dining /lounge area, oh dear, Us in our 60s and 3 little children, hmmmmmmmmm might need some renovations methinks....

Anyway. I better go pack some more.

Oh BTW, we finally got custody of the other grandchild Aroha, Toria and I went to NZ and bought her back last week, she is a real cutie, but has some routine issues she needs to learn...... 

Morning hair look :-)

First morning back, and Paul was keen to help her with breakfast, he is so pleased to have her here at long last, as is Toria and Geoff and I too.......... Jared and Pauline are thrilled too, as it was what they wanted all along, until they can get themselves together properly.
anyway, MUST get and pack another box or two.