flowers – helenthura.com

October 11, 2012October 11, 2012

The Hippeastrums say hello

Well I must say I hadn’t planned on it to be over two months between posts but such it is.

In that time uni has been well uni. It’s my last semester and and the two subjects I’m doing are ones that require a lot of brain wrangling.

I had a birthday. I’m now 27. Gosh, it’s hard to think that this time ten years ago Â I was busy decorating my formal dress, having fun and looking forward the two and a half months I was having going round the world instead of going to schoolies.

The girls at work made my desk into a “winter wonderland” aka filling my drawers and covering my desk with very finely shredded paper and then wrapping it all up in bubble wrap and presenting the above tim-tam wrapped berry and cream pikelet stack to me as my cake.

Mum sent me a bunch of flowers to work which was very nice.

My birthday presents to myself was a tablet (Google Nexus 7) which I love and would be more handy that I imagined in the past few weeks, a pair of new shoes and nose surgery.

These are my shoes. They’re silver. Oh so pretty. Oh so comfy. They Spin in silver from Ecco.

For the last couple of years I’ve pumped drugs up nose on and off in a bid to clear it. I’ve not really smelt or tasted things very well. One reason, why I’m always slightly paranoid about people’s response to the food that I make; does it taste ok? That all came to head earlier this year when I got sinus pain whilst flying. A change of nose drugs didn’t really do much so it was time to consider other options. I had a septoplasty andÂ turbinectomy at the start of the uni mid-semester break.

Gosh, I’m still in recovery and if it wasn’t for those who I’ve spoken to who’ve had the the surgery previously I would seriously be questioning why I undertook it. Imagine a tap on your nose that you can’t turn off and splurts out rubbish down your nasal passage and your throat all day long. Â I work in the medical field, I’ve seen, read and heard enough gory surgical tales that 99.9% of it is water off my back. Facial surgery though is that .1% that makes me go argh. I do though get a kick out of the fact though that I can now say I’ve legally usedÂ cocaine. Â Yep, it’s commonly used during nasal surgery as a localÂ anesthetic.

Work sent me these lovely pink roses (I can sort of smell them) and no, they didn’t see the irony in sending me roses as they came from head office and not my office. We got a laugh out of it though. I also finally picked up the Figgjo Flint Lotte water jug that I’ve had my eye on for some time.

Now it’s time to have a little nap before I venture off to uni this afternoon. I’m not using four pillows anymore but am down to two pillows. The blanket came from the farm, the pillow andÂ sÃ¦ng cover are from Ikea, love those dots.

And here is another photo from the garden to sign off with. I’m so happy it’s finally raining! Not only to settle the dust so it doesn’t irritate my nose but to water the garden and to give the tank a good fill. Not sure about you but my water tank has been empty for almost two months. A Pale-headed RosellaÂ (Platycercus adscitus) enjoying the Grevillea.

June 2, 2012

Chrysanthemum still life

One thing I will miss about my current work place when I leave next year is the half price chrysanthemums I pick up from the Woolies across the back. Chrysanthemums are the cut flowers I remember most of my childhood and there is something lovely in their simple petals and colours.

At the moment there is chryssies throughout the house. There is a vase on my duchess, a jam jar on the counter in the bathroom, some jam jars on the shelf above the steps (as seen above), a vase on the sideboard in the living room, another vase and some jam jars on the counter in the kitchen and lastly a single bloom in a BrennivÃn shot glass beside the kitchen sink.

September 25, 2011September 25, 2011

Sun-day

I’m about to head off to spend the day at Uni working on a group assignment. I’m hoping though that I’ll be able to meander through the old botanic gardens this afternoon as the spring flowers in there at the moment are divine.

On spring flowers, here are mine. I planted primulas in the front bed and oh it is so lovely to have flowers in the garden again. As a kid we used pick the flowers and spin the stalks round and round between our palms pretending they were Catherine wheels.

I didn’t plant the clover but looks almost as pretty.

When I mowed the lawn, I couldn’t stand the thought of mowing down all those pretty clover flowers so I left a square of flowering clover in the front lawn 🙂

Now for a collection of links and the likes.

Ten People Who Observe Birthdays on 9/11 – Whilst American based, I can certainly attest to quite a number of statements made.

I can’t stop listening to this cover of Back in Black by Will Shine
Will Shine â€“ Back in Black (AC/DC cover) by the3penguins

The Iceland AFL team recently hosted Norway in the first ever international game in the country, my brother was of course there to capture all the action. I particularry liked how they rigged the goal posts up.

Shiney Flaggy Purse also available with more Union Jack and less stars.

Now I’m off to spend the day with my head buried in the AASBs.

March 19, 2011

home again

Well, we arrived home on Wednesday morning and boy were we relieved to be home. I’m slowly going through all my goodies (about 22 different Kit-Kat flavours just for starters) and even more slowly going through photos. I’m starting to catch up on the 2.5 weeks of Uni I missed as well as work. I’ve found it extremely difficult to read/watch/listen to any more news about what is happening in Japan. I almost burst into tears whilst reading a news article about people waiting for lost loved ones to hopefully be found alive whilst on the bus home the other day. Whilst we we were nowhere near any of the devastation it was just so heavy in the air across Japan during our last few days.

We ended up seeing a lot of places, doing a lot of shopping (oh the shopping), eating all sorts of things (Kobe beef!!! OMG), talking to a random mix of people and most of all enjoying the plum blossoms. We did see some cherry blossoms but personally we prefer the perfume from the plum blossoms (we were talking to a volunteer guide at the Osaka Castle Gardens and he said that that preference is quite common amongst westerners).

Plum Blossoms in the Osaka Castle Plum Orchard.

November 2, 2008

a little flower

Since shifting out, I have bought myself more flowers. I don’t go buying flowers every week (my money doesn’t stretch that far!) but maybe once every six weeks or so something will grab my eye at the market and I will walk past it a few times thinking “yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, YES”. Last week it was these Waratahs. The flowerman said they would last two weeks or so. I have had these now a week and they hare now a lot less full of colour and they are taking on this interesting grey colour. When I told Mum that I have picked up these Waratahs, she told me of a scheme for next year to go see the Red Waratahs in flower. I think that sounds like the most delightful idea 🙂

Just living is not enough… One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
– Hans Christian Andersen

March 10, 2008

slightly bigger impact

I was walking home from the bus stop today for the first time in weeks (I have been getting picked up since I did my ankle), as I was walking past one house I looked up over the tiled roof to the blue sky and though to myself it really is a prefect day. I am walking home from the bus stop, the cake box under my arm is empty, my hair is down, I walked out of work at 4pm and my desk was clear, the sky is blue after it was washed this morning and the temperature is just right. Oh and I was also listening/singing along to This Year. That last bit might have had a slightly bigger impact on me realising that today is a perfect day than say the empty cake box.

It also wasn’t just any This Year that I was listening to either it was from the show at Bottom of the Hill in San Fran last week. One thing I have noticed from listening to the recent shows on archive.org and reading blog reviews is that the shows are becoming more and more a big singalong. Am I complaining? No. Incidentally the Mountain Goats are one of two artists who I have never felt uncomfortable singing along to at gigs, the other is Peter Combe, he is/was a children’s artist, that is expected. A ‘Goats show is really just one big family reunion or perhaps it is the growth of a cult, we all look at this man on stage (JD) and his disciples and we say those words along with them. Saying those words from the bottom of our heart. Where it is ok to say those words, not those gigs where people around you look at you and start “bumping” into you if you start singing along at any level above a whisper. Saying those words like they are going to deliver you from salvation. mmmm perhaps I should just put The Mountain Goats in the religion box on facebook.

Which leads me to the The ‘Goats and their upcoming tour. In just about a month exactly I am going to flex off early from work on Friday and fly down to Newcastle see them play and then go to Sydney for the Saturday night show before coming back to Brisbane on Sunday, catching their Tuesday show at the Zoo before going up to the Sunny Coast on Thursday for the last show. Crazy perhaps but as Mum tells me I am footloose, fancy free and working the 8-4. I haven’t bought my plane tickets or show tickets yet but I will be doing that in the next few days.

This is a photo I took on the way home today. A little lost shoe.

And two from the farm yesterday.