A Little Spring

On Monday it's spring!!  

Hopefully it will start to get a little warmer, a little sunnier, a little lighter a little earlier so that it's a little easier to get up in the mornings.  The little flowers have come out a little bit early and the trees already have little buds.  I'll be able to wear a little less clothing and sit out side a little more.  The light will be a little better for taking photo's of little people and little animals.  I might feel a little more like being social (I get the winter blues a little) and I might be little more motivated to exercise outside.

I'm looking forward to a lovely spring - a little!

Done

It's done.

I handed in my resignation today. My last day of work will be December the 12th. A friday. A week after Joel is ordained. I had about it last night. I'm not sure how I feel about it it today. I guess I'l have many changing emotions about it over the next few months. Until then I need to try to focus on doing the work that still needs to be done here - at least a bit. 5 years. Nearly over.

In other 'breaking news' (!!!) I smashed a piece of wood in half with my fist today! Oh Yeah! Power to me! It was part of the yar 9 class that I go to every thursday so the 10 girls have some female back up in a class with 20 boys and a male teacher. It's awesome. Especially when I hear them say "Is Rach coming today?" and them bouncing over to sit with me when I get there. Love it. And I'm so glad I broke the wood - I was heaps nervous that the 13/14 year olds would do it and not me - but my repuation is still intact!

Shameless

I'm sure you know this already that being the creative type I get easily addicted to things. But only for a short while. Here's what I'm addicted to on some level at the moment:

• Jacquelyn Mitchard Novels
• Etsy - on all levels
  
• Looking at baby rooms/furniture websites (I know, not pregnant & not trying. Still - this is my honest addiction list)
  
• Converting pictures into vectors (it's a new skill of mine and I'm making sure I perfect it before I forget it)
• Imaginging where I'll be living next year
• My hair (it's getting long and I think it's lovely)
• My new camera and all things photographic
• Mocha's
• Mocha's
  
• ahhh... Mocha's. I don't care that they're not super healthy. I love them and I order them everywhere and I nicely ask Joel to make them for me because he makes them better than me
• Writing things in my diary with pretty colours. I used to be a 'black pen only' girl but then I got the 10 pack of these and now it's happy days and rainbows. And having just looked for a picture of them to show you have discovered that they come in 10 more colours than I ever thought - oh - I need me some more pens!! Can't breath. Too excited!!
• Pens!
• Squash. Believe it or not, the sport not the vegetable. Was a time and day when I would've found the vegetable more apealing but now completely love smashing that little black ball around the room.
• Widgets on my mac. Can't get enough of clicking that little button that makes them come up and tell me how cold it it, what time it is, how much weight I haven't lost, how my Aussie dollars look next to the Rupiah, how many days until ordination and if it really is still only Wednesday
  
• Snuggling on the couch in my pj's with Joel

That might be all.

Yesterday a lovely man told me I have 'an artistic chic' about me. I think that's a wonderful thing to be told and I'm going to use it as my reason for being so temporarily addicted to things and as quirky as I feel like.

What are you addicted to at the moment? What's your 'chic'?

Two

Is it completely too nerdy for me to have two computers going at once next to each other for different reasons??

I have cracked open the doorstop (poor old HP Lappy!) to do our tax returns because all previous files are on there.  On Beautiful imac - everything else!

I think it's ok.  But then I would.

Question:  Who is the complimentary anonymous number 2 who commented on my new post?  thanks!

Diary of the Trees

Hahndorf:  Nikon D60

An art instillation in Hahndorf.  So ethereal and beautiful.  The instillation was chronicling the story of trees through climate change.  This is only a small view of the whole but you can kind of catch the way it makes you feel.  Might show more pictures later - maybe not!

Spare some time

If you can spare a few hours and can find a cinema that's showing it go and see Femmes de l'ombre, Les (Female Agents).  I went to see it on whim a week ago with two close girlfriends of mine.  We had planned on seeing a band but it turned out they didn't start until 11pm and for a Thursday night we just felt that was a bit much so we found a cinema and picked a movie.  And I am still, over week later, reeling from the impact of it.  What those women did for their country and for each other completely blows my mind and I hope the message of their courage and sacrifice stays with me forever.

If you can spare a bit more time find yourself a copy of  'A Theory of Relativity' by Jacquelyn Mitchard.  No, it's not about physics - why on earth would I, who barely struggled through the subject at school, recommend a book about physics?!  This novel has has given me completely fresh eyes about the way I view family.  I am pretty sure I only put it down to eat dinner (I didn't show the same courtesy for breakfast!).  Be prepared to cry.  Be prepared to not want to put it down until you are done - you will have to know how it ends.

That's what I've been watching and reading lately!

New

Botanic Gardens : Nikon D60

We have a new toy!  I have delicately rejected watching football as something for us to share and he has repeatedly declined my offer to teach him to knit but now we have something to share.  A very lovely thing indeed!  We have had it about a month now and it has been raining for about the same amount of time so this last monday was one of the first real spins we have given it together.  We were a little frustrated at times not knowing everything that it can do but have decided to just chill out about it and give ourselves a break!  After all, most skills can't be learnt in 15 minutes.

Perhaps one of the best things was that we are both interested in taking different pictures.  Very rarely did we both want to take a shot of the same thing in the same way so we are really able to enjoy each others style and share nicely! (we did wonder how we would cope with this and floated the idea of two camera bodies for about a minute but decided that was silly - we can learn to share like good boys and girls!!)

I am completely loving it.  And I'm completely loving editing my shots with my other new toys.  I have recently had some desk real estate taken over by the 24 inch version of  this and some of the space on that taken up with this!  I have been very spoilt lately!!

What do you think of my shots?

What to say?

Sometime in the next two weeks I have to write my resignation. I've never had to write a resignation before and I'm not really sure what to say. I've always been on contract positions that come to a natural, peaceful end - this is strange.

I've known for the last three years that this would be my last year. At least I figured that when Joel is assigned a congregation after graduation he'll want me to come with him - he gets a bit lonely without me (not to mention I get pretty mopey when he's not around!). There have certainly been times in the last three years that I was ready to walk out and never come back. But now that the time has come to make it official, put it down on paper and hand it in -I'm feeling some reluctance. Not that my reluctance really matters as I'm not coming back on way or the other but still - I seem to be putting it off.

The other odd thing about it is that I want to hand my resignation in person to the principal - who is new this term and whom I haven't actually even had a conversation with yet! Can you imagine that:

"Hi, You must be the youth worker? How are you?"
"Yep, that's me. I'm good. You must be the new principal. How's that working out for you? Oh, and I Quit."

You see the problem here?

What would you do?

Too Tasty

I made these to take to dinner at friends place last night.  They were a hit!  I am so completely proud of them that I couldn't resist sharing their loveliness.  I have to say a big thank you to Emmylu who posted them on Jamie Oliver's forum. These one's are: dark chocolate, Port and Craisin's;  dark chocolate and ginger; and white chocolate, coconut (shredded and cream), lime and lemon.  Try them out!  Too easy, too tasty.

I told you she was gorgeous!

More than nice

Thea Humphrey : 6 weeks old : Nikon Coolpix 4600

Sometimes when you look at your photos properly for the first time you are disappointed - it didn't catch what you saw.  

Sometimes you are excited - that was just what you had hoped for.  

And sometimes, just sometimes, when you look at your photo's for the first time after taking them, your breathe catches in your throat and your heart skips a beat - an image, more perfect than you had planned, more beautiful than you had anticipated has been captured.   You don't need to crop it, colour it, or alter it in any way.  It perfectly catches how you felt, what you saw, what you experienced.  You wonder how but then you stop.  You just look, absorb, enjoy.  

And you just know you have to share it.