Friday, May 22, 2009

The Flight of the Bumblebee

Imagine Sir James Galway playing 'The Flight of the Bumblebee' on his golden flute and well, that's how this month has been feeling; busy as that very fast, very eratic song. As much as I love that piece, I also feel very exhausted by the time it finishes as well. I remember the first time I placed the needle upon the vinyl and heard it scare the daylights out of me with the first notes. Then, when I was thirteen for only two weeks in 1986, I heard the piece live in Brisbane City watching in awe with James Galway up on stage with that golden flute shining in the spotlight.... I held my breath the whole time and didn't even realise it. It wasn't until I met the man that I realised how wonderfully nice and attentive he was to his fans. And he hasn't come back to Australia since; but I'm watching his tour schedule online waiting so that I can meet him again and show him the photo of when we last met.

But I digress.

This month has been busy. Just in the last two weeks, I've seen my artwork on the television on the '9am with David and Kim' show last Wednesday. It occurred so fast, I didn't have time to let you guys knows. Jim Chambliss and another lady from Epilepsy Victoria had their ten-minutes on that show to let everyone know Epilepsy Week this week and show one piece of my art along with a few others. It was brilliant; but the interview was at the end of the show.
In one of my other blogs - 'My Reading List' - I've had success with the book reviews. A couple of authors have been impressed with how I've written up their books and left a comment on the books I've reviewed. One was for 'Blood Calls' and the other 'Exclusive'. I'm absoluted chuffed about it!

Then, this week, I got to see 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' on the big screen with Mum at Garden City... so cool! I love Hugh Jackman looking like that comic book character! Mum loved it too. What a movie. By the end of the credits, I wanted to see the whole thing again straight away! Mum wanted to see the X-Men trilogy; which I fortunately have on dvd. So, that was great. But I feel there's another movie between the Wolverine one and the first X-Men one... there were too many questions left unanswered and many more that were posed.
We went for lunch at 'The Book Cafe' and I found two copies of 'Duma Key' by Stephen King and bought the cheaper copy. I can't wait to get into it once I finish 'Thief of Words' by Jack Jaffe. On the way through doing our errands, we ran into some friends and had a chat and then took off into the wet, cool day again.

After that day, it poured rain through Wednesday and Thursday... they were pretty bad. There was flooding and a lot of damage done around Brisbane. I even called Hannah, friend of mine, in the UK to let her know that if they heard anything about wild weather and floods on the East Coast of Queensland that my family and I were okay and not flooded. Our phone call was a great catch up and we talked and laughed about everything and she googled a lot of the places I talked about and she was amazed that Brisbane had changed so much. Hannah is a singer and is recording a new record for export; and so she's hoping to come out to tour. I hope to see her when she comes over here.

On Wednesday, I did my volunteer work, and one of my friends said they'd come in. However, I tried to get them to stay home. However, they showed up anyway and were stuck there for an hour or so until the weather settled enough for them to take off to the train station. It wasn't a busy day at all that day... even the phone was quiet. The lights flickered a few times while the other volunteer I was with and I chatted, read and knitted, otherwise I decided to take off early at 4:30pm because the weather was just really that bad that nobody was going to come in and I didn't want to be stuck there another minute.

Yesterday, I was offered an interview for Epilepsy Queensland. I'm hoping that it works out. Wish me luck with it and I'll keep you posted. Otherwise, this is what has been happening in that last two weeks.... lots, eh?


Monday, May 11, 2009

Art Vandals and Job Offers

Okay, I've had the most extra-ordinary month... well, half month. Work on another blog of mine has been vandalised and it really ticked me off something bad! And I've had a job offer and I've begun another blog! Yes, I've been busier than usual.

My most recent work on 'A Natural Background' was vandalised in the last month. It's a pretty little brown and beige piece put up in Logan Central and I got photos of it and it was brilliant! Then I walked off to my volunteer work that day; thinking it was would be a great plug for the Logan Art Gallery. Not five hours later, I came back to find my tag I used for it had been ripped off there! Not cut or undone but ripped! Some small-minded idiot who never even thought of coming into the gallery and asking if we knew about the art (or that the artist may have been working nearby) thought the tag was just for them! Idiots! Didn't they think that their phone has a camera on it for a reason? There aren't many phones that don't have them now! I was so peeved that I nearly screamed my anger on that blog... but I didn't. Instead, I was nice and pleasant and said that 'I wish' and 'please don't do that'. Hhmph! Next time, I will not be putting anything in Logan Central.

During the last few weeks, I was offered a job on FlashlightWorthy.com. There's no pay packet, just the joy of sharing what I've read... and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with it. It's been a little while since I hear back from Peter... however I'll see what happens. I'll be reviewing books that I've read that I think are FlashlightWorthy and I get do to my own blog too... that's where my third blog comes into it.
The new blog is called 'My Reading List' and that's exactly what it's about. I've been reading lots of books since I was young; and thus when I was offered this gig at FlashlightWorthy.com, I thought it would do me a lot of good to get myself a reputation as a reviewer with a difference. So, I've attached my blog's url (www.continuousreader.blogspot.com) to the FlashlightWorthy.com listings I was offered. So far, I've done around 10 or so books in the last week or so with book covers, a review, when I read the book and what the author's up to now. So, enjoy it when you look into my profile and find it.

Otherwise, I'm working tooth and nail through my third Fry Nelson novel... all short stories just like the other two and it's getting very interesting. So is the other books I've been doing. I'll have to get into looking at them again too! The stories in this Fry Nelson are longer than the previous novel; I don't know why, but they are just are.

Anyway, Mother's Day has just past here. I went to my Mum's house and dug up a tea chest full of my brother's and mine old childhood books from the late 1970's and 1980's! Wow! Talk about walking down memory lane! It was so good to find all my Enid Blyton books and 'The Neverending Story' by Michael Ende that I knew I had but I never knew what happened to it! So, I collected together all my books that I wanted and the ones I never wanted to get rid of and I took two 'green bags' (they are green synthetic bags with recyclable plastic bottoms in them) home with me! There are so many books I have now that are printed in the UK and I have two that are made in Japan; and you imagine that! Japan! I'm definately not letting them out of my sight! They are most definitely collecter's items.
While I was in the mood to look at the books, Mum and I got on the computer and looked up some of the books on Bookfound.com to see which ones were worth how much. Mum was absolutely astounded at the prices we could get for them if we sold them at auction. She said that I knew which sites to use and loved it that we could e-mail Bookfound.com and get them to help us when they weren't there too.
For her special day, I bought her two packets of TimTams and gave her a card from my Claude Monet stationery kit. She loved them and even gave me four before I went home... I didn't want them, but she insisted. I had made them breakfast with scrambled eggs (with cream, milk, paprika and seasoning) and cooked up some bacon, tomato and mushrooms. They both enjoyed breakfast - even though it was Mother's Day. Dad forgets that I don't get to cook for people very often; just a cute little budgie, and and even then, it's a matter of just changing her seed from budgie seed to finch seed for some variety...hahaha.

Well, this is my blog for now. Take care until next month. Who knows what's going to happen? Only the Universe in its infinte wisdom! And Happy Birthday Buddah!