Miss Shailer Park...

Things tend to get in the way...

This last little while I've been distracted by a job that I foolishly agreed to do for the junior school musical. It's been a mad dash to make 25 latex insect hats. It's my own fault that I didn't just make em out of cardboard though... I'm such a mug!

Here's some pics of the workshop blathered with them.







They all had different expressions...

Last night when I was out life drawing and Daile was out at work... the baby sitter (Louise) was up to her tinker like behaviour again with the girls. She's a bit of a dark horse this one. Anyway, when I got home she was keen to show me a little video that she took of Matilda dressed up in a tutu... doing a beauty queen thing!!!! Phoebe had bribed her with a purse that got to 13 dollars! (You can imagine the haggling can't you). When we saw it, Daile and I decided to help Phoebe out on the grounds that it was a noble thing that she'd done.. and pitched in to $5 each ha ha. Louise was filming it, and Feeb was showing Matilda what to do! (Sorry that the vid goes on it's side... she turned the camera to portrait and I don't have software to sort that out).

I give you..(with Matilda's permission) .....the evidence!

Catharsis...

We've got a 'system' on a Saturday morning. We attempt to get the house tidy at least once a week. The girls play up, but hey it's part of growing up, so they have to do it. It quite often takes them all morning, or even sometimes all day to tidy up their rooms. It's a bit of a waste of time, but sooner or later they'll get the idea that they could do it in an hour or less I'm sure.

Anyway, today as I was sorting out the study, and was trying to find spaces for all the books, I said (as I've said several times before) to Daile, that we need another shelving unit to take the overflow. It occured to me at that now that I've decided not to be a manager any more point that it might be a good idea to lose some of the books that relate to that. (I wasn't thinking of throwing them away, but it could be an idea to sell some on eBay or give them to those people who still think they should be reading that kind of thing...)

So I started to sort through the shelves. It was really cathartic, and I realised that having these books there has been making me feel like a failure. They're all about stuff that I've finally realised I'm not able to do, nor will EVER be able to do. Accounting! Investing! Money management! Human resources management! What was I thinking of? In fact, why did I ever do an MBA at all? I can't really see how I went there now to be honest, I really can't!

Anyway, in deference to all the hours that went into it, and all the sacrifices that Daile made for me to be able to do it, I've kept all the books related to it, and quite a lot of other management books that actually have something worthwhile to say... but I've pulled out quite a few that I'm either never going to read again, or that are actually completely useless.

This is what the pile looks like! It's almost as tall as Matilda! It was like squeezing a spot to be honest! Ha ha.

I'm an 'artist' now!

It's been a while... and quite a bit has happened since the last blogging... not least of which is that I've given up working for the company I was with, and have taken the plunge into being 'an artist' which sounds very scary and ethereal to say.

What's prompted this is the recent brush with prostate cancer, coupled with a difficult boss... and a very boring and frustrating job. The other tipping element was the Stanford speech that was given by Steve Jobs a few years ago, that I saw on the TED site the day after he pegged it. In it he says that if you wake up for too many days in a row and can't answer the question ' if this was the last day of my life, would I be doing what I'm about to do today?' in the affirmative, then you probably should have the courage to change what you're doing. As Wayne said, 'it's easy for HIM to say that!' .. but it kinda ate away at my already weak propensity to stick with the job, and then events conspired so that I was going to be getting a disciplining and orientation meeting to straighten out my crap performance. I just made it easy for them instead.

So I've leapt into the void... again!

This time though, it's for something that makes some sense to me... rather than being a half cocked idea. If I blow this, I'll feel that it's unfortunate rather than that I made a mistake.

I'm working on my first commission this week. It's only a small and not very expensive portrait of the wife of an ex work colleague. It's a bit of a struggle though as the picture that I'm painting from is poor.

I'm also doing life drawing twice a week if I can, and once a week for sure. The for sure one is a class that I'm involved in the running of, so that happens every week, and the other one only happens if I can get out of the house in the evening which largely depends on Daile's schedule.

Daile is super flat out right now, so it's me and the girls a lot more than it used to be, and my being around is a great thing for them - not having to go to after school care and that kind of thing. I also got collared to make some masks/hats that look like grasshoppers for the school play, (Phoebe's class). There's 25 of them to make!

Not only that, but when they asked me to make some stands to put some 'grass' props against, I asked them what they meant and said 'you don't want to do it like that you want to do it like this....' and then they all reckoned they couldn't so I've ended up making the grass too. Like below but 6 off all together...

We had Halloween since the last blog too.. Here's the Feeb helping me make the pumpkin and Matilda playing the part of a zombie. (just before losing the cast!)

We got the cast off last week, and then they took another X-ray...

...Matilda's exuberance at getting her arm back was short lived as the X-ray showed that there was still a significant gap between the broken bones. There was the growth around the outside of the break, which is holding it together but inside, surprisingly, looks so much the same as it did, that I had to look closely to see the difference between the 'then and now' images. Matilda saw it and got it straight away. She was upset as she'd been looking forward to returning to her life as a surrogate Bear Grills... and asked if we could postpone our family trip to Fraser Island until it's fully restored to outback strength. Bless her.

Finally, here's a picture of the Feeb... with the beginnings of 'attitude'. :-(

You talkin' to me?

Molly just sent me this. Remember that blog I did a while back with animals that reminded me of people, well this one, well spotted by Molly I reckon... is Matilda. Ha ha.

Here's a link to the original post:

http://livingwithshackledraggers.blogspot.com/2007/11/seeing-things.html

Phoebe's birthday and stuff

Hello peeps!

Well yesterday was Phoebe's birthday as many of you will know. Here's a few pics as promised.

She was awake at 5.30am of course, and rather sneakily I'd fallen asleep in the spare room, so I had a lie in until she was un-containable at around 7am.

So, here she is opening some of her doll's house stuff from Gilly, Bill and Holly,

...her dress from Gannie and Grandpa,

one of the shirts from Molly....

and an outfit from Joe, Sarah, Sam and Eddie.

Later, as if she hadn't had enough, we went off to the shops to buy some stuff with the money that Carlene had given her. She bought this hat, some sunnies and a little handbag, all coordinated with her blue stripey dress and shoes from Joe and Sarah.

Here's Phoebe showing us how it's done...

Matilda couldn't figure it out....

we thought she should try... but she didn't get it as you can see!

Nor (really) did Daile....

so... I felt I just HAD to show them how you're supposed to do it! I'm the best at it don't you think?

Been speaking to Molly this week about her first week at Falmouth Art College. Woohoo!

She's going well, and has been stacked up with lots of really interesting sounding tasks. The people in her shared house are apparently good value too, so that's a bonus. We really miss Molly and Josh. Phoebe's been in training for 'Australia's got talent' and she's been practicing with some of Molly's songs that we've got on our computer, plus one called 'broken record' that she put onto myspace a few years ago.

Thought you might like to see some stuff that I cut out fairly recently. Some stuff for a lovely bloke that makes accordions and banjos and some chairs/stools/tables that slot together for a Japanese architectural company in the West End. This was one of three 8' x 4' sheets worth.

An enigmatic pic of the Feeb...

an embarrassed one of the Tild holding her robotics trophy...

...note she's wearing her 'escape from the wilderness' home made parachute chord bracelet. This is stuff we had specially flown over from Perth!

Since then of course, she's broken her arm (see pics above) falling off the rope bridge from the tree house to the platform on an adjacent tree. She's never fallen off anything before, so I'm under some moral pressure about the bridge... I personally reckon that you've got to let kids fall off stuff, trip up, bloody up now and again, to learn.

It's starting to be a bit hotter now and the flies are coming here and there... so I've dug out my new tennis racket fly swatter. I had one of these in the UK but get this... it was confiscated at customs on the way in. We were all bemused. Presumably it was because they thought the dead flies would be carrying mad cow disease or something. Did I ever mention that I went to give some blood last year? I was walking down the street in central Brisbane and I saw a sign for it, so I thought I would you know... public spirited person that I am. They gave me a form, i filled it in and handed it over, to be told very curtly that they didn't want MY blood! I asked why, indignantly, to be told it was because I was British! I ask you! Bloody convicts! Ha ha. Seriously though, it was because of mad cow! Makes you wonder doesn't it!

Anyway, this one's better, it's got a torch on it?!

Daile's not here... she's at work. Always at work these days. Poor girl. Don't know how she's keeping going.