Getting ready for a trip...

So graceful...

Day 039: the eyes have it

Day 37: beanie, baby

Next up, a pair of booties (and possibly a pair of mittens, and maaaaaybe a bib...we'll see how long the yarn lasts)!

Day 036: paint

Day 034: I can spin a rainbow

Day 033: Lughnasadh shona!

Blessed Lughnasadh to all celebrating pagans of whichever stripe living in those parts of the Southern Hemisphere (that have seasons that align with the harvest festivals)! And blessed Imbolc to all celebrating pagans of whichever stripe living in those parts of the Northern Hemisphere (that ditto)!

Day 032: Start of the Month Selfies - February

Happy February 1st! Here's this month's Start of the Month Selfie; in the backgroun is the spinning wheel I've rented from my Spinners and Weavers group while I refurbish my own wheel. Today was the first day I've spun in over a month, and I have half a bobbin of rainbow-coloured blue-faced leicester and merino/silk blend that will become a set of beanies and booties and mittens for my friend Kate. :)

Day 031: drums by the dark of the moon

Day 030: silly kitty

Lea thinks my braids are her playthings.

Day 029: Alby

This is Alby. His name is taken from the initials LB, for Little Bear. Although it looks like he's towering tall, Alby is only two-and-a-half inches from the tips of his ears to the flats of his feet.

Alby is a very much belated present for my latest secound cousin once removed, the great-grandchild of my grandfather's younger half-brother Tommy and his wife Carole (just...take a moment; it'll make sense after a while). The baby was born back in late August/early September, a little boy (another LB!).

I know Alby's a bit small for an infant, but I though he'd make a nice gesture, and a placeholder until I can gift him with a decent size bear in August/September for his birthday. :)

Day 028: what sort of time do you call this?

Day 027: four ply

Day 025: on the fringes

I've been trimming my own fringe lately...not too bad, if I do say so myself.  :)

Day 023: practice makes perfect...ish?

Working on my four-ply braiding skills...much better than yesterday's attempts!

Day 022: I see fire

Guess what arrived for me from Weta this morning?

Day 021: sweet dreams are made of this

Circadin and pillows deep...

Day 020: drychotomy

The green circles are where the sprinklers reach to. Eeep.

Day 019: cuddle bum

Lea has resigned herself to having to wear the collar of shame, but if she's going to bear this burden then by Bast, she'll be compensated with cuddles.

Day 018: getting it together

Aw yeah... :)

Day 017: here we go 'round the mulberry bush

A handful of mulberries from our very own mulberry bush, which you can see in the background of the photo, framed by one of our pine trees and my fingertips.

Day 016: knit your booties

I know, I didn't post a picture yesterday...terrible! Eventually I will go back and post a picture and backdate it - maybe make a specific day each month to do it? I'll likely forget again at some point... :\ - but not right now.

Yesterday was kind of hectic: I didn't get to sleep until three in the morning, so I was running on three hours of sleep, and instead of staying home and sleeping it off, I had my first day back at spinning in the morning and a therapy session in the afternoon. I was so tired by the time I got home at 6.30pm that I went almost straight to bed. The almost is where I did in fact make it into bed, but didn't actually go to sleep until 10.30pm; I stayed awake knitting most of the little bootie in the picture. I finished the little sucker off today, and started on its mate, which will be finished tomorrow at some point.

The booties are prototypes for the booties I'm making for the expectant mothers I know. My friend Kate and her husband Craig have requested rainbow coloured (Kate) and green (Craig) beanies for their sprog (gender neutral ftw!), and I'm throwing in the booties because reasons (I may throw in a blanket, too, again because reasons). For my boss Tennille, I am making a beanie, bib, mittens and booties set in the colours of a ginger tuxedo tabby (the beanie will have kitten ears, the bib will be white linen edged with orange, and the mittens and booties will have kitten paw pads in pink mulberry silk embroidered onto them). Tennille once told me she had a soft spot for ginger tabbies, a soft spot I share, so I think she'll appreciate the set.

Well, I am super-exhausted, so I'm going to sign off. Nighty-night!

C xoxo

Day 014: depressed kitten is depressed

I swear this isn't just for the LOLs...Lea hurt her chin last Friday, and the cone is to stop her from scratching it.

.

..

...

But it was funny when we put it on her...my abs still ache from laughing so hard.

Day 013: like a bomb's gone off

Gotta get it together...

Day 012: FINALLY

Cliffhangers suck, oh my gods. *hands*

And since I was a little late on the posting - it's been a long day, shhh... - have my retouched version of the poster...:

Thorin has his crown, Fíli has his goodness sparkle, and Kíli has a plaster - two, even! - for his leg and his Morgul wound-induced second sight sparkle.

Day 011: Caturday - Luki

Today is Saturday...sorry, did I type that with an S? What I meant was Caturday!

Henceforth, (at least) one Saturday a month will be devoted to the things that my foster kitties get up to. My aim is to raise awareness for cat rescue, shine a light on cat behaviour, and promote appropriate care and handling of our feline friends.

As I've said before, I am a feline foster carer. I currently work for Brisbane Valley Cat Rescue. I got into animal fostering in October 2009, after returning to Australia from Vancouver. I began as a foster carer for the Animal Welfare League, before moving to Little Paws Kitten Rescue in December 2009, and then finally to Brisbane Valley in mid-2013. It was at Little Paws that I met my then coordinator and current "boss", Tennille, who now works with Louise, the head of Brisbane Valley.

Today's photo is of my foster kittens, Luc and Lea. Luc is the one standing on his hind-legs with his face buried in the food bowl; Lea is the one sitting sedately beside him. 

Y'know, I don't think I've ever had a more mischievous kitten than Luc. One of his nicknames - as you may have already guessed - is Luki, a play on the name of the Norse God Loki, because Luc enjoys promoting chaos, panic, and disorder. One of his favourite pastime is to find the nearest high surface with items near the edge and to push them off; I caught him knocking his sister's collar off the table this afternoon, and interrupted him in the process of sending my iPad cleaning cloth and styluses to join the collar. He does not do this because he enjoys the sound of things crashing to the floor; he is, as mentioned in a previous post, deaf. He does it because he is not content for a system (i.e. the house) to reach its natural state (i.e. disorder) in its own time; he wants to give it a helping paw.

Tonight, my mum and I were feeding the cats, and apparently we were not moving fast enough for Luc. He climbed over me and out the window in an attempt to help Mitzie finish her second course (Mitzie is fed at the dining room window, as she prefers to dine al fresco); when I brought the bowl inside, he stood on his hind-legs and grabbed a hold of the food bowl so he could eat, not being content to wait the three seconds it would take for me to lower the bowl to the floor.

Each and every cat has their own distinct personality. People tend to generalise when it comes to cats (as we do with so many things): cats are all aloof, cats are all independent, &c. &c. But cats are as unique and individual as humans: some are aloof and some are affectionate; some are independent and some will meow outside your door until you let them in for a snuggle. Some are sweet, some are cheeky, some are hunters, some are lazy, and so on and so on until infinity plus one. My cat, Mitzie, is independent and only likes occasional cuddles, but will potter around with me when I go out to the garden or down to the forest. Luc is, as we know, mischievous; his twin sister Lea is sweetness and light. Wendy is affectionate, but skittish with a wild streak; Cody loves a good belly-rub or head-scritch, but detests being picked up and cuddled.

The point of this treatise is, I suppose, to tell people an important part of feline adoption: don't just consider colour and age when adopting a cat or kitten; consider temperament and personality, too. That may seem like redundant advice, but temperament and personality are two key points that a lot of people forget to consider when adopting a cat. They have in their head an image of what a cat will be like, based either on stereotypes or their past experience with cats, and assume that all cats will match up with that image...but not every cat will. 

I've typed enough for one night...time to hit the hay, I think. Night night for now...until tomorrow! 

C xoxo

Day 010: Fibre Art Friday! - Operation Albino Sand Mongoose

From here on out, every second Friday will be Fibre Art Friday. Fibre Art Friday posts will feature photographs of crocheted, knitted, or woven creations made from spun fibres from sheep, alpaca, the cocoons of silkworms, bamboo or wood or corn pulp, and so on.

This week's creation is what I called Operation Albino Sand Mongoose whilst it was in progress: a stuffed toy meerkat.

For Christmas, I received a few books, one of which was the book Knitted Meerkats by Sue Stratford. This little guy started out as a sort of dare to myself: could I actually make something like this, despite being an absolute beginner knitter?

Turns out the answer is yes. :)

Since I didn't have the beige yarn the instructions called for, I knitted this guy from white commercial wool and some of my own handspun brown-toned Blue-faced Leicester (for the contrasting features). Once I had all the parts knitted, I sewed most of him together, stuffed him with hypoallergenic acrylic stuffing, gave a rose petal heart, and weighted down with 40c in his bum to make him stand upright, and finishdd sewing him up. His head and back legs are fixed, but his forelegs are movable, and his tail can be shaped to a certain extent.

I'm pretty happy with how he's turned out, although next time I'll use a fuzzier yarn: when his "skin" was pulled taut as I gave him his stuffing, some of the stitches pulled and you could see the stuffing underneath. This guy still isn't a quite finished; I need to find some beads to serve as his eyes. Since he is white, I think I'll give him one gold and one blue eye, in honour of my foster kittens Lea and Luc.

Next time on Fibre Art Friday: hopefully pictures of my completed hooded capelet!

A domani!

C xoxo

Day 009: nighty-night

The last thing I see of a night-time: paper lanterns, printed with cherry blossoms, glowing in the dark.

Day 008: Reptile at the end of the line, oh yeah

When I was a student at Pt Chevalier Primary School, we would sing songs at our school assembly...the New Zealand national anthem was one of them, naturally, but the others were folk songs like Mrs Murphy's chowder or popular classics like The Beatles' Here comes the sun. A song that's been on my mind a lot lately is the New Zealand folk song Tuatara Blues, a song whose lyrics I'm not 100% confident I know exactly, as I was short-sighted and could not see the OHP of the lyrics properly.

The lizard in today's photograph is not a tuatara; tuataras are native to New Zealand, and can only be found outside of New Zealand in zoos or reptile houses.  The pictured lizard is instead a water dragon, one of the many that roam the grounds of my university's campus. But the sight of him chilling out today was enough to get me thinking about the Tuatara Blues, which made for a pleasant afternoon of singing and humming as the tune insinuated itself in my psyche.

Day 007: Clouds in motion; Golden calm

Today was a slow day for photography...I spent the day catching up on TV, working on a knitting project (photographs of which will debut on the upcoming Fibre Arts Friday!), and playing Plants vs. Zombies 2. In penance I have, therefore, uploaded not one but 44 photographs, in the form of a short - four whole seconds! - video of the movement of the clouds that passed overhead yesterday, as well as the beautiful golden light that filled the sky following the storm.

Day 006: Breaking the spell

This afternoon I heard the wind pick up after a week of still air and sigh-like breezes; I glanced out the window and watched as the golden cane palms by the pool bent their heads before the gale that swept across the property. Clouds black as thunder stretched across the sky, masking the sun and casting an eerie stormish glow.

As I called my mum at work to warn her of the approaching storm, I hastened to shut the doors and windows, then ran down to the forest to collect the candles from the dark moon ritual last night, the ones that had been too hot to carry up to the houss and instead had been left in safe-keeping to one of the grand old pines. Raindrops that had been a sparse pitter-pat on my trip down began to fall more quickly as I raced back to the house; lightning and thunder stirred the sky, and I anxiously thought of the woman who had been struck by lightning while listening to her iPod while watching a storm from her deck, and resolved not to be the woman who was struck by lightning while on her phone as she ran to her house.

Once safely in the house, I traded my phone for my Canon G9 Powershot and exited the house, standing on my deck and taking picture after picture of the storm clouds as they raced overhead (neing the woman struck by lightning while photographing the storm from her deck worried me, but not enough to stop).

Eventually, I noticed that the light in my room had gone dark; we had lost power. Since my camera lacks internet capability, this post will feature a phone photo of the viewscreen of my camera. Tomorrow, I'll upload a proper photo.

Day 005: (not-so-)Tiny Weaver

Tonight was the dark moon...well, it was actually a waxing crescent, but tonight was the night OakSun Grove celebrated the dark moon. A couple of the ladies came over to my place, we had some food and ice-blocks and discussed coven business, then had an awesome ritual in my pine forest.

While we were discussing coven business, I discovered a spider on my wall. And, well, I used to have arachnophobia, which I conquered when I was in high school, but my lack of practice in handling large arachnids has let the fear start creeping back in. He was big, but not insanely so...I've seen Huntsman spiders in the house with a leg span of 20 centimetres (eight inches for the Imperialists). But He was big enough to freak me out and send me running for a plastic container to scoop it into.

The spider was either ill or in the process of shedding his old exoskeleton...he moved slowly and was quite clumsy. After taking a photo as evidence, I released the spider under the possum tree.*

* Actually a large shrub with pink flowers similar to large wattle flowers...I don't know the actual name, put possums love to eat the flowers.

Day 004: Pomegranate

It was too, too hot today. The mercury hit 42° (Celsius; I live in a metric country). It has only just gotten cool enough to think, let alone do anything. This morning I cracked open a pomegranate I had been hoarding and froze the seeds, then consumed them. It was a wonderful moment of refreshment in the middle of a blazing hot day.

Day 003: Sunset through pines

I live with my mum on a one-and-a-quarter acre block in a semi-rural area in South-East Queensland. We have a pool, the beginnings of an orchard, garden beds ready for planting, and our very own pine forest. I have lived on this property, on and off, for over 11 years: the longest I've ever called one place home.

I can't really call this place "home", though; not in the truest sense of the term, not given how uncomfortable it makes me, living in this land of sweltering summers and maudlin memories. But the sun setting through the pine trees sparks a feeling of contentment and warm familiarity that allows me to call this place home(-for-right-now).

Day 002: Cody Bear

Cody is one of my foster cats. He is almost three years old, with pure white fur and ice-blue eyes. He's a domestic medium hair, which means his fur is longer than your standard moggy's but slightly shorter than a Persian's...although you wouldn't know it thanks to the rocking haircut I gave him on Christmas Eve. ;P

Like many blue-eyed white cats, Cody is deaf. He really enjoyed his haircut, to be honest...he kept wanting me to shave his head. He also likes to be vacuumed. Since he can't hear the buzz of the clippers or the roar of the vacuum cleaner, he doesn't get scared. Instead, he just enjoys the vibrations from the clippers or vacuum...I suspect they feel like a big purr he can wrap himself up in.

I am a foster carer for Brisbane Valley Cat Rescue (via the Cat Rescue Network).  Besides Cody, I currently have another three foster cats in my care: another nearly three-year-old named Wendy (commonly referred to as Wendy Darling), and two 10-month-old kittens, a brother-and-sister pair called Luc and Lea. I also have a cat of my own, 15-year-old Mitzie.

Like Cody, Luc - a white domestic short hair with a golden right eye and an azure left eye - is deaf. Lea, however, is not, despite being almost identical to her brother in appearance. The incidence of deafness in white cats breaks down thusly: if the cat has two blue eyes, there is a 65-85% chance they will be deaf; if the cat has one blue eye and another coloured eye, the odds of deafness go down to 40%; if the cat has two non-blue eyes, they have only a 17-22% chance of deafness. These numbers apply to pure white cats; if there is another colour present in their coat, their chances of deafness decreases.

The picture for today is of Cody cuddling on my lap. Cody grew quite ill just before Christmas and had to go to the vet on Boxing Day. Since he came home, he's mostly returned to normal, except for the occasional bout of skitziness and a new-found tendency to actually sit on people's laps for cuddle-time. Cody is very affectionate, but pre-Christmas Cody restricted himself to tummy-rubs and head-scritches; now, it seems, he's a lap-cat. :)

Until tomorrow!

C xoxo

A year in photographs - Day 001: Happy new year.

First day of 2014...a new year in which to live new experiences, make new mistakes, discover new places, meet new people. My New Year's Eve was pretty crappy, to be honest: after having a row with my mother, I shut myself in my room and watched episodes of Grimm until I passed out at around 11pm. No fireworks (unfortunately), no New Year kiss (par for the course, really), and no drinkies (alcohol + anti-depressants = bad mix).

2013 was another rough year for me. I failed all but one of my classes at university. I was finally clinically diagnosed with depression after living with it for over five years. I started on anti-depressants...and when those had unwelcome side effects, I tried a second type, and then a third, which is my current medication. I started letting out my anger, which had been bottled up for so long out of fear of conflict and reprisal.

As a way of documenting both 2014 and my journey out of depression, I've decided to resurrect this photography blog I began nearly five years ago. I'll post a photo a day, sometimes with an accompanying commentary and sometimes not, of things that hold meaning for me, for this year, and for the depression I'm escaping.

The first picture is a Start of the Month Selfie! I received a fantastic new phone for Christmas - a Samsung Galaxy S4, yay! - and I thought I'd put it to use. Not only was the selfie taken with my mobile, but this post was written and posted from the Blogger app. :)

Well, that's it for today...stay tuned for the next thrilling installment, tomorrow at some point!

C xoxo