Moonee Moonee River Markets

Less than an hour from home, we drove North to the Moonee Moonee Workers Club and met up with my sister Patti for the new river markets. We browsed around the stalls of jewellery, textiles, crafts, art, organic produce, toys and hats; had coffee and cake on this balcony overlooking a bend in the beautiful Hawkesbury River; peeked over the balcony to see belly dancers, drummers and ribbon twirlers, and went home with: a bunch of irises, a punnet of jersey "Over the Moon" cream, a cornflower blue hat, a rainbow coloured scarf, a pot of mango chutney and a bowl made from an LP record (Fame!) between us. A good day in the Autumn sunshine!

Lest We Forget

They shall grow not old,

as we that are left grow old;

age shall not weary them,

nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun,

and in the morning,

we will remember them.

In memory of Lt.Cdr Philip Paull Stilwell, RAN

w00t!!

Yay! Somewhere to leave my stuff out AND somewhere to leave the ironing board up. Even if I end up working in the house, (for warmth) I don't have to pack it all up, just move it back to the "studio"/garage.

People who know the before before garage will be amazed at the transformation. Sorry, kids, if you come back home you'll need to get a storage unit for your stuff!

I'll need somewhere to leave things now that I've ventured into oil paints. Yesterday another teacher and I hired the art studio in Newtown for the day, and I played with oils for the first time. I love the way they merge and mix, and the depth of colour and light is fantastic. Of course they take days/weeks to dry and I need industrial soap to clean my hands....

I fixed up the splotches on the floor from my footprints, but I'm kind of wishing I'd left the pussy paw prints - we now have a curious black and white cat with primrose pads!

Work in Progress...

(Pics in reverse order!)

Watch this space - lazy Sunday, putting first and second coat on garage/studio floor. Locked myself out of the house, and had to step on wet paint to get back in!

Feng Shui?

I've spent a lot of this holiday week cleaning out cupboards, taking stuff to the charity shop, sorting, boxing, chucking out, fixing things, paying tradespeople to fix things - and maybe it is feng-shui, but the house feels good and I feel organised and revitalised. I've lived here for nine years come September - which is the LONGEST I have ever lived anywhere, in my whole life! I absolutely love my little hobbit-house, but without a move to force a clean-up, things were piling up in the garage and back of cupboards. NO MORE! It's gone. Now, to turn the garage into a studio........

Loving YouTube

Lazy holiday Monday, huge list of "things to do" for school, ignoring that. Trying to get my creative "mojo" back - it was last seen about six weeks ago being slowly buried by demands of work. SO I'm looking at art lessons on YouTube, which is a very interesting experience. Everything from cheesy landscapes, to one-minute paintings, to time-lapse photography painting - and I found this amazing artist by the name of Will Pope. His videos are fascinating discourses on how and why he paints as he does, with some philosophy thrown in. Check him out - his works are rich and colourful and he is also a talented writer and film maker.

Six Words

My sister Patti has tagged me and five others for the challenge of summing up our philosophy on life in six words. Fortunately for me. my favourite quote to live by is - SIX words!!!!!! With thanks to Bill Shakespeare, it is:

"To thine own self be true"

The full quote - from Hamlet - which I love, is:

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

What are your 6 words?

Self-Portrait Challenge

This is a cool site, check it out: Self Portrait Challenge . I'm still learning about it, but basically, they have a theme each month, and this month's theme is "absurd". I've taken a web-cam shot of me taking a digi-cam shot, which is absurd, I think, but probably not terribly original!

Rules for Life

I began to watch a TV movie the other night, not expecting much - the "Ron Clark Story" - a true story about an inspirational teacher who turns around a difficult class in Harlem. Sure, I thought, blah, blah, blah........but the classroom was very realistically portrayed, the attitude, the lack of manners - I began to see that this was, in fact, a true story. This made me very interested in what he was doing to teach them the rules for life. He has made very explicit rules regarding expected behaviour, right down to greeting teachers by name, using eye contact and applauding with both hands for 30 seconds! It's done with humour and intelligence. He not only turned a rabble of a class into a cohesive, well-behaved group, he also raised their SAT scores to equal the best in the area. Now, my class is not that bad, but they do have their moments......so I devised a "Bill of Rights" and listed several explicit expectations including some of Ron Clark's. The change in the class already has been noticeable - "Yes, Miss" sounds so much nicer than "Yeah" , for example. Kids seem to actually need and want this explicit direction - the class has had a much friendlier feel this week. Ron is a truly inspirational character.