A New Year!

Happy New Year!

Yep, it's been a good few days for me.  My New Year's Eve Party was great... at the Brunswick Heads Bowls Club where we all ate a great meal, and the band was 'Neily Diamond'... yeah, a tribute to Neil Diamond, which wasn't great, but when the guy got out of the sparkly shirts, and into another set of outfits, his singing wasn't too bad when he did other cover songs.

I danced the night away... so did half the place!  Any of the kids there went to sleep on the chairs in the dining area and we all called in the New Year on a John Lennon song... not a bad way to call it in, is it?

The next day was very quiet, as most of the day was a siesta for most people... 

Yesterday, I tried to get a place on the bus to get home.  But on the Premier Buses site, it said there were no seats available.  Bummer!  So, today, we're going to call them and see what's happening with them for tomorrow... or even Monday (or if there's a seat on the weekend sometime, that'd be even better).

Anyway, I'm off to the Tweed Rivers Art Gallery to see if we can look in on the Margaret Otto House which is being built there.  If it's not finished, that's okay, but it'd be great to see it half-finished, and some of her worked there.  

Over the last few days, I've been learning how to work my new tablet that I got off Mum when she bought a Samsung tablet for herself.  She gave me her old one.  There's so many games, jig-saw puzzles and other great little things on it... and I downloaded an app for writing which I've been using too.  However, the battery is so easy to drain, it's not funny... so I'm plugging it in every night to recharge.

The weather has been nice, hot and sunny.  We did get a huge electrical storm the other day, which grumbled on throughout the night, and brought us a nice coolish, overcast day the next day... which was promptly followed by a hot, sunny one.
Unfortunately, unknown to a few of us, Brisbane was thrown a few really stinking hot days while we got the nice cool days.  Not something I wanted to know, seeing I'm heading off up there over the next few days to head home.

So, how did you go on New Year's Eve?  Did you go out and paint the town red?  Or was it a quiet affair for you and your family?  Until my next post, take care, keep safe and remember, I'm always here.

2013 - Not An Unlucky Year for Me.

Years are funny things.  You see them through, doing what you do in your life - be in a lot, or a little - but it's what you do.  Then before you know it, the next year has arrived. 

However, when you're young, you don't notice how much faster the years zip on by you.  They do seem to speed up as you age... I never believed that when I heard it as younger person, but now I do.

And this year, has zipped by faster than the speed of light leaving us wondering exactly what we've done with ourselves.

For me, I've been busy - really busy - and I'm happy about that.  But my busyness didn't start up until my folks took off overseas giving me permission to drive Mum's 'Green Beastie' Pajero, which usually sits in my driveway doing nothing when they're off overseas.  So, after three days of looking at it, and three hours of me talking myself into driving it, I finally got behind the wheel of the thing and drove it out of the front gate of the unit complex.  And instead of turning into a chicken and back-pedalling inside (like I usually do), I pulled the vehicle out on to Kingston Road and drove the car to Mum and Dad's place.  
After that, I just kept on driving it... I took it to Bunnings, shopping, the Logan Art Gallery, the fruit store down the road, the post office, back to Bunnings (actually they got to know me quite well)... and I got some long-left-on-the-back-burner plans organised, financed, started and finished before they returned home.
These included:  Fixing up my front garden, fixing up the back garden, organising and cleaning out my office, taking a lot of stuff to Life Line and then, I organised my art/craft area at the back door.  I wanted to start a small hobby home business - and did on Facebook!  Now, I have been working on Crafty Pegs as a small bit of income (well, it's really income just yet, it's just work right now) and I'm happy with what I've done.

And compared with what I did in the last six months, the first half of the year really didn't compare to anything.  I didn't seem to have do anything in the first half of the year, when you look at what I've done in the second half of the year... and it's strange how that happens when you get busy.

Now, I'm at Brunswick Heads, and I'm looking forward to getting back to work at home and sorting through my work again... it ought to be great to start on new things, be able to photograph them and organise them on the tablet Mum gave me... then I can take it to my craft group when it convenes again.

So, what has your year brought you?  Sadness?  Happiness?  A new life or something else you never expected?  Until my next post, take care, keep safe over the New Year period and - as always - I'm always here.  See you all here next year... which ironically is tomorrow!  

Nine Days In Brunswick Heads

Well, here I am in lovely Brunswick Heads.  It's a historical fishing village which nearly died quietly in the 1990's a little over a century after it was discovered, through nobody really knowing it was here.  But it's been a year since I've been here and a lot has happened.  
The town has been beautified.  Traffic islands have been put in, along with new corner curbs and rules about cycling and skateboarding along the footpaths - which include a $500 penalty - if the signs weren't warning enough!  
There's boutique stores and the same old Brunswick Bakery are still around, so is the century-old primary school and the very cool health store which is on the opposite corner from the primary school... and I love the place, it smells so darn delicious!

I've been photographing like crazy again, but because the wi-fi here is crapola, I'm going to have to wait until I get home to get the photographs up and onto the hard drive - even though I brought along the external hard drive with me.  

So far, I've been to 'Whatever' and bought 2 journals for $37 (and believe me when I say that they are BIG journals!) and then I went back today and bought a wall-hanging of Buddha under his Tree of Inspiration on a Lotus Flower... very lovely... it's got sequins on it and looks gorgeous for just $15.  Then, I had to find out how much it will cost me to get home by bus... as Mum and Dad aren't driving me home.  The lady at the information place didn't know, but she wouldn't look it up either, so she gave me the number for the bus company instead of calling them herself.  While there, I found a great book in their second-hand book pile for $8.00 called 'Freedom'.  I've wanted to read this book for a long time as one of my blogger friends in Chicago reviewed it and Greg Zimmerman said it was a good read.  So far, I like it and I'm only 10 pages in.

I'm halfway through my stay here and I've gotta say that the $100 I brought with me didn't go far... I will have to budget better next time.  I thought I had budgeted well this time, but I didn't.  Oh well, that's what I get for mis-judging my finances.  I didn't think I'd buy anything really.  Until my next post, take care, keep safe and warm and remember, I'm always here.  

Christmas At the Parker's

I tried to write a blog post on Christmas Day and to surprise you all with my first post on my Leader, Android Tablet... but that backfired faster than anything I've ever seen.  Within 5 hours of receiving the wonderful gift off Mum and Dad, the tablet malfunctioned and my cousin Kate advised us to return it for a new one.

But our Christmas was a 2-day affair.  

On Christmas Eve, Mum and Dad and I drove from their place to Everton Park to pick up Mum's Christmas Present at Anaconda (it's the only one there which had her particular style of present, all the other stores were out of stock).  Then, we drove to Gabe and Kat's place for Christmas Dinner.

Well!  Gabe had built a pizza oven... a real pizza oven from plans!  It was fantastic!  He made some dough and - as fate would have it - made the water too hot to make the dough rise.  Well, the oven wasn't dried out enough (as we were the first people he had cooked in it for) and so it took time to heat up.  And the dough didn't rise and rolled out really thin.  We made up our own personalised pizzas and by around 8:30pm we were all fed!  Yummo!  What a great meal!
Then, we had dessert of my home-made fruit salad and Mum brought around some cream... aaww... double-yummo!
Then, came the presents.  Riley was going to forego her present-opening until the next morning.  But when she saw us all ripping open our pressies, she folded and started on her presents... it was funny!  She loved everything she received.
Everyone loved what I bought them - from Mum and Dad loving the flat vase and Gabe enjoying that I got him 'Moonflower' by Santana on vinyl (which I had 2 copies of and so thought to give him one of the copies) and then Riley totally loved her tree earrings I bought from the Creative Markets at the stall which was across from me in November.  And finally, Kat adored the Magna-Pegs I gave her too.  

The next morning, we were all off after a gorgeous breakfast of eggs, ham and toast with coffee.  We packed up our stuff, hooked up the trailer and headed on home for Christmas Lunch... and that was the most relaxing time we had.  This was when Mum and Dad gave me the Leader Android Tablet.  I wasn't too sure about it, but then, I began reading the book and hooked it up to charge it properly and while it was charging, I fiddled with a few things to figure out how it worked - just to look at it - and this is when it began to stuff up.  
First it began to scroll on its own.  Then, during a blog post, it resized and stopped typing, wouldn't save and wouldn't let me do anything.  So I gave up on the blog post.  Then, I tried to download an app... nope, it didn't like me doing that and flipped out on me, scrolling, scrolling and changing the screens on the deskfront on me... grrr.  I sat there looking it feeling very fed up with it and wanting to just put it away and leave it.  But Mum and Aunty Helen said that my cousin Kate was going to be around and she'd help me out... and she did!  I signed in to Google and got a gmail account and Kate helped me pick out an app so  I could write on it, and then it began to take screen shots without me touching it.  At first nobody believed me because nobody saw it happen, until Aunty Helen watched and she said I didn't touch anything, that it was doing it when I had my hands nowhere near the screen.  Kate had gone home to check on their dog and get changed, and when she returned, we told her what was happening, and she said it was a sensitivity thing... so she looked at the tablet, and it began to take photos of the screen and flicker bright pink - strobe-like flickering, which really put me off - and I asked if she could turn it off for me.  She did that and told Mum to return it to the store and get another one as it wasn't going to work pretty soon; and it's not supposed to scroll.
Mum thought she was doing well by Australia by getting an Aussie made tablet... I did too. However, it seems as though I got a dud tablet by chance.

Now, I'm down at Brunswick Heads and rushing through this blog post as I have limited time on the net here... phew!... I hope I can post this!  Anyway, until my next post, take care, keep safe and warm and remember, I'm always here.