Crafty Tuesday

 Well, I always meant to post about Crafty Tuesday, so here are some pics I dug up.

I often used to go round to my friend Jodi's place, who is a mad keen sewer, and has an open house on a Tuesday for whoever wants to come do art/craft/hangout. [You should check out her blog! http://tickleandhide.blogspot.com/]
I can't go anymore because I'm on placement, but it was always a fun time - regardless of the level of productivity!

On this particular occasion Baby stole the show a little bit, as you may have noticed..

Here is my embroidery lying neglected:

The lovely Jo with one of her little dresses:

Backyard looking so mellow in the sunlight..

of Quidditch & Kites

Yesterday was a pretty cool day. I got to hang out with three different groups of people that I don't usually, and it was great. 
First was the Kite Party 350, organised by a friend and her climate change club. We were joining in with groups all over the world, simultaneously having some fun in the sun & raising awareness about climate-y stuff. I borrowed two kites from a friend, and after nearly an hour untangling them, had some awesome flying fun. One of them required a bit of resourcefulness to get going (a stick for a new spine), and behaved like a particularly swoopy magpie the whole time, but that just added to the excitement. It was cool meeting some of Em's AYCC friends.
Someone did take photos, but I don't have any, so you'll have to accept this one of another Kite Party:

Emily also baked cupcakes. yum :)


Then I ran off to play Quidditch. We had lots of fun racing about in a couple of muckaround games. Less competitive didn't equal less injuries, however, as I still gathered a few scratches, a lump on the head, and a bludger to the face. My neck also made an interesting crunching sound when one of my own teammates sailed into me (he was aiming for the guy I was blocking :P) - but it seems to be ok today.


Then we just hung out and talked about Quidditch and the obvious fact that the only quantity in which to purchase bacon is "shitloads", and where all of the closest maccas are - all interspersed with lashings of pop culture references (most of which I'm sure went straight over my head) and sydney accents. Happy days.


Then it was off to help the Miskos move house. I was rather late by now (yes I did say I got caught up playing Quidditch - how fun that it's actually true!!) but at 4pm they were still eating lunch so the timing wasn't so bad, really ;).
So we packed and moved and swept and unpacked - all with the entertaining presences of the lovely Pip and many tall young men with booming voices. 
[Jo: "What appears to be me helping my parents move is in actual fact me obtaining a new desk, bookshelf, guitar, books, jigsaw puzzles, bed, keyboard and piano accordion"].


Most of them kept going into the night but I made my escape in the downpour around 10.

Good work guys!!


ps. Photo update:

The Tale of the Travelling Cake

Last night I made a cake. It looked like this:

(well, one piece of it did).

I took it to lunch with these girlies, to celebrate Ailie's Birthday.

However being only four of us, there was still a sizeable amount left.

So we picnicked on it outside the art gallery later:

But there was still this much left:

 So I sent it home with this lovely lady after we'd hung out:

 to share with her family.

But wait, there's more!! Literally.

I'd actually baked another little cake with the extra mix, so finally we had fun housie cake times:

Which brings us to: The End. 

(Of the Cake at least.)

:)

kid time

This afternoon I entertained a couple of kids for a couple of hours while their mum was seeing one of the family workers.
We played with playdough, ate vast quantities of vegemite sandwiches (well, one of us did), played popping frogs, jumped on a little trampoline, rolled around in a giant plastic ball with holes.. I tried to tip Mr.6yrold out. A lot. He found that very exciting.

The soccer ball only went out of bounds four times:
-once playing soccer (I kicked it out)
-once by the 12yrold throwing it as high as she could
-once playing piggy-in-the-middle (6yrold)
-again by Mr 6, over the fence.

Managed to retrieve all balls (except for the one I kicked out, oops). The most interesting retrieval involved me standing on the giant plastic ball waving a broom around the roof, being directed by the children standing on the other side of the yard (they could see it, I couldn't). Teamwork, that's what I like to call it (shh don't tell the OH&S people, pleeease.)

Day 1 of my now-busy life

First day of prac today!
It began rather early (3am), as I was paranoid I'd sleep in and miss the bus.. so kept being jolted out of sleep in a panic, checking the time, then dozing off once again.. Finally it was 6:30, so I got up. I got to the bus stop 15min early - mostly because I was ready and couldn't think of anything else to do!
Caught the bus.
Caught the next bus.
We drove into town, and I was looking out for the BP station which 131-500 told me the bus stopped at. All of a sudden the street I was meant to walk down went flying past! Thankfully the driver was nice enough to let me off when I realised.. Still don't know what happened to the BP.

Anyway, arrived half an hour early, but discovered a gorgeous bit of wilderness opposite the service HQ, so I hung there gazing at the trees & spying on the little wrens hopping about, till it was time to go in.

Finally, the time came and I stepped through the door. Next thing I knew I was out again! Helped run a couple of mobile playgroups - painting and cutting and glueing and puzzling and chatting and watching and playing games and hearing stories.

Then back for lunch, a tour of the premises, some reading, and some data entry.

It all went pretty quickly really. I think I'm going to enjoy it :) The staff are great and they seem to do a lot of great stuff there!

Ooh and I was waiting for the bus after finishing when who should pull up but a lovely friend from class to offer me a lift home! sah-weet.

And tonight: zumba with mandible, roast by embutt, and icecreams :D

Goodnight!

feelin' the love

Something about tonight just felt so sacred. People sitting and talking, being real, being passionate, wanting to really love and help out and share life and goodness with others..

I feel so lucky to have found this God, adventure, community of faith.

It's not about rules and regulations and structures.

It's about grace, trust, freedom, relationship.
Working for something bigger than yourself.

Discovering Raya

A couple of us got invited along a to a Raya open house thing tonight with some malaysian friends. What happened is that Ramadan, the muslim month of fasting has come to an end, so now they spend time celebrating! People go around to lots of other people's houses, eat and catch up and drink tea and take photos of everyone..

So we came to this friend-of-a-friend's place, and ate delicious chicken sate skewers with real sate sauce, and amazing beef rendang and soup and tea and other good things.. Everyone knelt around on the floor to eat and talk. The women wore pretty dresses, some of them headscarves too; and the men pants and shirts with traditional skirts over the top! There was a lot of malay talk but some english chatter as well, thankfully!

Whenever more people came in everyone would ask where they had just been and how many people were there and what food they had, to gauge whether or not it was a good time to go and visit there also! One of our friends had been around to 6 different houses already that day, and so this was number 7!!

It's cool to picture these little circles of homes scattered through the suburbs, people trotting from one to the next, eating and laughing together (and maybe even watching Fast & Furious #5 in the background, as they were at ours).

Had another food win this morning in class. We were doing a group presentation which was a promotion event or activity on a mental health disorder. We did a community walk, to encourage social inclusion, awareness, and general health & wellbeing. We had personal stories, pictures, a mythbusters section, and even tai chi! Then we met back in the classroom for a great morning tea :)

The other groups were cool too. One gave little goody bags with info, a homemade stress-relief ball (mine's called Henry) and sweets. Nice job.