now a thirtysomething from Brisbane
Another layout! and I even have more stacked waiting to be scanned. This basic design and products for this layout come from one of the classes that Helen Williams taught at the Stitches and Craft shows this year. Everything apart from the letter stickers (MAMBI) and cardstock (Bazzill) are Heidi Grace. Isn’t the HG paper sweet? I coloured the heart with Ranger’s Adirondack Alcohol Ink so it wasn’t stark white.
I’ve been scrapbooking. You can get back up off the floor. Yes, you read right. I’ve been scrapbooking. It has been a while but I am back in the groove and having fun. It may have been slightly motivated by the fact that I am working at the Stitches and Craft Show this week for Fiskars again. It took me a little while to get into the groove again but I am enjoying it 🙂 Really looking forward to the next couple of days at the show, it is always great fun working on the stand, talking to people, doing demos and giving advice. Of course, checking out all the new products is always fun as well 😀
Last night was a blast and I can now Die Happy (incidentally a pretty cool German band I saw at the Pumpwerk in Wilhelmshaven. In terms of live music venues, the Pumpwerk stands out as one of the best for me. Just the right size. Just the right atmosphere. Just the right everything. I would love it if the Pumpwerk were in Brisbane). Back to the topic at hand which was Sam and Helen’s semi-big night out.
The highlight of my night was of course when Women in Docs pulled Sally Dastey up on stage near the end to do Tin Roof. It went off. In case you haven’t realised Tin Roof is pretty high up in that handful of songs that make up my all time favourites. It sits up there with Marrakesh Express by Crosby, Stills & Nash (who are playing in Brisbane in 3 weeks but the tickets are waaaay to pricey for me), Ice Cream by Sarah McLachlan, Safari by The Breeders, The Waitress by The Waifs, You Sound Like Louis Burdett by The Whitlams, The 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon and Garfunkel, Lady Madonna by The Beatles, Adelaide by Old 97’s, You or Your Memory by The Mountain Goats and a handful of other songs. Classic songs. Of course going to a concert and hearing one of your all time favourite songs is just top shelf stuff.
Last night with Sam was fantastic. So was the night before with Andrea. Though how could it not have been fantastic? Great music and good friends always equals fun times.
After the show was over we made our way down to Eagle St where Sam works to see Cory and to munch down some wedges and fold cutlery bundles for the next days trade. I have to say at the start of the night I didn’t think I would spend part of it wiping cutlery dry and giving it to Sam so she could wrap it up in a serviette. A couple of hours out on the town, dancing, drinking, chatting, walking and generally having a good time. Then we made our way home and that takes me to where we are now.
If you are going to be in Melbourne, Nowra or Canberra between March 14 and 23, I reckon you should check out the Gig Guide on the Women in Docs website and get a few friends or family and plan an easy night out with good music and lots of laughs 🙂
Well I have actually done a little scrapbooking recently. In that time when Mum is on the computer or I have just spent too much time doing nothing on the ‘net.
My life at the moment is geared around one objective and that is do get a job, a real job. Not that working at a grocery store isn’t a real job. It just isn’t the real job I want for me.
Matthew likes to bait me by repeatedly asking “Do you have job yet?” and other questions/comments in that idea. I don’t have a job yet. Not all of us can be like my brother who was given a pretty cushy job in Silicon Valley before he had graduated. Though he of course didn’t do an arts degree like me did but a much more revered degree, an engineering degree. I know the jobs I want. I know that I don’t have the experience for a fair few of them. It’s just a matter of getting that experience, that foot in the door.
School went back this week and that means that I now have to start paying board. 20% of what ever I bring home for the week goes into Mum’s hand until I find my own place. Which is the first thing on the list when I find a job.
Back though to the where this post was going in the start. Scrapbooking. I have about 10 pages scanned and on the computer which means I should be able to post a couple every couple of days or so 🙂
1)
6 of the things that very much defined Helen at this stage in life.
A familiar photo some of you. This would be how I look part of the time when “in the bush”/”in the great outdoors”. All purpose shorts made from colorful fabric which serve as PJ shorts in summer at home. Thermals (stripy of course) to either keep warm or to form a mozzie suit.
The hat I am wearing in the photo was actually retired just before the canoe trip the other week as it was getting a wee bit small. In my ten years as a Brownie/Guide/Ranger Guide I had two Guide hats. One is the one I got as young Brownie and way too small for my head now and now has all my various camp name tags and crafts pinned onto it. The second one is the one in this photo. I now have a hat though which used to belong to Grandmum, so go having hats that have a memory 🙂
2)
I don’t know about you but how I explore a new town is to just start walking and hopping on and off public transport on a whim. I did this in San Fran, London, Jever, Wilhelmshaven, Hohenkirchen. Just exploring. Seeing what you see and exploring what you find. I am lucky to have inherited a pretty darn fine sense of direction from Mum. I can sit down at the end of a day exploring a town and draw my route on a map and even now years later I can still draw where I have gone on maps by memory.
When I arrived in London of the morning of the 20th, I did what I have done in the past. I checked my baggage into a storage locker, picked up a travel pass and started walking down streets, roads and lanes, hopping on buses or the Underground if I passed a station and just generally wandering the streets of London town.
Sam and I are going out tonight. First up we are going to see Women in Docs and Sally Dastey (whom I also went to see last night with Andrea) and then well who knows where we will end up. 🙂
Yesterday marked the start of the 2nd week back at uni for me and I am getting used to new lecturers, doing my readings, going over notes and starting to plan my assesment pieces. I am a bit ticked off with one of my classes as the lecturer said at the first lecture last week, that he should have the reading brick put together in the next couple of weeks! Dude, based on the fact that reading bricks are designed to have the readings that accompany each weeks lecture, they should be ready for week 1, week 2 at the latest. grr.
These are three things that I am loving at the moment.
Strawberries. Fresh, sweet and flavoursome Queensland Strawberries. Strawberry season also means that the Ekka is fast approaching and that means strawberry sundaes and fireworks.
Hayseed Dixie. I am a big fan of the cover version and these guys with their “rockgrass” versions of classic rock songs produce some of the best covers I have heard in a while.
The Mountain Goats. Well I have loved these two guys for over a year now and in a mere 20 days their new album Get Lonely is released. I can’t wait to hear the other songs after listening to Wild Sage on NPR’s All Songs Considered.
And this is one thing that makes me so incredibly happy.
West Papuan David Wainggai is finally set to receive a TPV (Temporary Protection Visa) after the Refugee Review Tribunal overturned the original Department of Immigration ruling that granted visa’s to the 42 other West Papuan’s who landed on Cape York in January. I can’t describe how happy I was when I first heard it on the news and later read it in the paper. Justice Comes Ashore. Govt weighs appeal against Papuan visa decision.
After I had done my school work yesterday I sat down and had a little play.
Well no Iceland post for today as I have spent the day scrapbooking 🙂 This past week I have been helping a friend out with her entry in one of the major scrapbooking comps here in Australia and it started my fingers itching to play.
A couple were done a couple of weeks ago but most were done today or yesterday.
Mum and I went to Stick It tonight and loved it! It was a great movie however I think it will be/was pigeon holed by most as a teen girl movie however I think it had a couple of very good story lines and was very well produced and it also had a pretty kicking soundtrack.
As we were walking out of the cinema to go down to have supper the strangest thing happened. We were walking over to the lift and who do I see sitting near the cinema but one of my best friends from high school and her boyfriend, which was fine because they are quite the movie goers. Then as we walking to cafe area, a girl calls out to me and says “Hi Helen” and after a bit of chatting, I had no idea who she was at first but she said we had worked together and she was a year above me at school. Then after we parted I realised who she was and my jaw just kept on dropping. I had not seen her since June 2004 or so and she must have lost at least 30kg and was looking fantastic. I just kept on saying wow to Mum.
Then as we drew closer to the cafe, I walked past someone else I had worked with at a different store and had a chat to her as well that was not all one of the wait staff at the cafe we supped at was a couple of years below me in both primary and high school and we had played in band together. It was quite different.
I mean we were at our local shopping centre and pretty much everyone I have worked with or gone to school with would hang out, shop or work there but I have never run into that many people I have known in such a short space of time. I mean I work at this shopping centre and I might only see people I know once every fortnight or so.