How I know it's nearly holidays

Earlier this week:

1. Other people are talking about putting up trees. I have one. It's in a box. It's new and doesn't lean precariously to the right. Its under the house with the possums and the dust.

2. My old friend, Murphy, has come to visit. After waxing lyrical about our marvelous dishwasher last Tuesday, we came home to find it on repeat pump- the dishwasher version of a cracked record.

3. The clock stopped and not because I looked at it. Just stopped because all the appliances here are in a conspiracy and like to break down at the same time (which is permanently three o'clock). Please just be the battery.

4. Dinner is served. That would be sausages with potato bake and gravy. Dang- it is salt reduced so now I have to salt it. Two hungry diners just want them on buns. I don't care. Take it and eat it and begone.

5. If you want something green, there are new bananas or an old rubber coin purse. Your choice.

6. The beverage of the hour. It is a complete food so that will do me for dinner. I'll only be half way through before I hit the hay at about 8pm.

7. They are watching Home and Away. They are not allowed to watch Home and Away. This is not because it is bad for them but because I hate it with a venomous hate that can only be provoked by the direst of dire soaps. I just tell them it is bad for them like Coke. It is the final episode. The offspring have promised me the show will blow up tonight. They are so desperate for viewers they have taken to advertising this pap at the cinema invading my quality cinematic experience as well. Begone Home and Away!

8. I  keep painting cow skulls- big canvases of pretty coloured giant cow skulls. What does this say about me? It is time to stop. What will I do with them? Sell them to a butcher? Deep breath. Two more days and it is holidays. Then the Christmas thing begins….

9. They keep promising it will blow up. Blow up, blow up, blow up…..

10. I drove to one school four times today, the other school twice, the third once. I have been transporting offspring and other stuff that I've made as demos with students through the year. There have been a couple of clay busts. Whenever I put one in a box to travel it whispers, "Seven…." in my self chatting ear. This one IS a little bit Gwyneth.

11. The dog has taken to sucking the window glass making her look like a scary, zombie dog.

12. The best little mother in law in the Western suburbs is coming to change the sheets with me today. She takes them away to wash them and then stores them in her linen cupboard like a sheet squirrel. By keeping the sheets, she has to be present to change the sheets with me next time. I find this odd but am prepared to go with it. Yet there are still sheets missing in action. I may need to launch a covert linen retrieval.

Today:

The car and back stairs have joined the Murphy's Law of conspiracy.
Home and Away only blew up a little bit and will be back next season.
It was just the clock battery.

'Allo, Sunshine

The very elegant and organised Bron from Baby Space has passed on this Sunshine Award to me. Being still quite new to Blogdom I am unsure about bloggy etiquette so I will answer the same questions she did. We could do with a little more sunshine around here! I've included a few links to older posts in case you're new so you can see who was here before the big 'C' turned up.

Favourite Colours:

I love them all but have a core set of the ol' red, turquoise and yellow. They just feel cheerful!
Favourite animals:

I am strangely irritated and enchanted by our chooks although I have not been spending as much time with them as I once did. If they could just wear little frilly poo pants and self launder they would be the best critters ever. They are entertaining, greedy, rude, a bit simple, ungainly and endearing and they pay their way with lots of eggs. I also love the seals who pop their heads up and look at you as you pass in Scotland and aardvarks because I love the word, 'aardvark', and how they look like a Lewis Carole invented species.
Favourite Non-alcoholic Drink:

Bickford's Ginger Beer Cordial. On a really stinking hot Brisbania day when water just isn't cutting it, this is a champion thirst quencher plus the kids don't like it so there is always some left for me. Of course there is always tea. Love it, couldn't bear to live without it. Tea was the first thing I asked for after the surgery and my babies' births and every other occasion as well. English Breakfast, white and half a sugar. Thank you. Now you'll be ready.
Facebook or Twitter:

Haven't got time for either. I occasionally flick a look at Facebook but it doesn't engage me like a good blog. Twitter is a thing I look at to see where my son's cricket matches are on. Enough!

Favourite number:

I have always loved '7' and really didn't intend to be in a family of seven. I just find even numbers a bit too tidy. Prime numbers have a little more anarchy about them. They will not be divided up and that is it! I also like how seven is tall and proud. Chest out, shoulders back, it's a brave and perky number.

Day of the week:

Wednesday has always been my favourite. It has the least commitments to sport and school. I have recovered from the week end and don't need to get ready for the next one yet. It is the hump, the breather, the island of quiet in the week although that may change now with chemo being booked for Tuesdays. That's why I chose Tuesdays though so I could be sick and quietly at home alone on Happy Hump Wednesday.

My Passions:

My family (immediate and extended), making things, late afternoon light on my kids on the beach, newborns (save me!), taking photos, early dawn light on my kids on the beach, blogging, teaching art to kids who are passionate about making it, op shop treasure hunting, GOMA loitering, looking at the sea from the beach any time of day, baking on rainy days,
the colour of the sky in this part of the world.
Getting or Giving presents:

I will say I love to give presents because you are supposed to. It's especially nice giving a gift when you know it is something they have waited for and wanted and I've made it myself. I made a few paintings for my godson and Lala's best friends one year and Lala was hinting and commenting about how she didn't have one. I painted one based on a picture she had seen and liked. That gift felt good. Having said that, I love receiving gifts when they just nail you and make you realise how well the giver knows you. I have received some beauties in the last weeks. I'll do a post on them because they deserve a whole dedicated bunch of their very own words.

Favourite Pattern:

I love that big flowery Marimekko print that looks like it was drawn with fat blue nikko. It is called Siirlolapuutarha Blue. No I can't even say it. I looked it up to see what it was called. I also like Warwick's Darjeeling in Spring and wish I had covered my gossip chair with it when I was last pregnant. I was going through a Betty Beige phase related, I'm sure, to being hormonally rendered a non-risk taker. Usually I just end up with red spotty patterns on everything though. It may be from living in the farmhouse but it is very cheerful- like the sunflowers.
Which brings me nicely to...

My Favourite Flowers: At the moment they are sunflowers. My beautiful sister Kath turned up with these amazing double sunflowers the day after my surgery and they lasted the full nine days I was in. They are stunners and I am going to try and propagate the seeds. There have also been the delightful red gerberas, red cyclamen, lilac tulips, roses, strylitzias, it's been a riot of colour and love. Never have I had so much pleasure from flowers as in the last weeks.
That all seemed a tad narcissistic and boring but if you got this far I'll pass this Sunshine torch onto two women who have sent a lot of sunshine my way of late. They are two of my chilluns godmother's and old dear friends. One is Julie from Boulevade of Bumps who is a newby blogger/ adventurer, living a sea change in Samoa with her young family. The other is my blog guru, Anna, from Shiny Happy Art, the curator of the rainbow toenail collection and artist and domestic goddess extraordinaire. They live in happy places and will make you feel good when you visit.

See you there.