climbing boys, (Jack and the Beanstalk urban style)
calm within the morning chaos
chasing leaves
and ginger pear treats…
shades of autumn in her many ways.
Autumn or Spring? Where are you at in the seasons and what have you been up to this week?
Chasing light, building ideas
and wearing boots.
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Busy weeks followed by a busy mind. Things have been a jumble of ideas, thoughts and words round here, I’m swimming through them, trying to work out what works and what doesn’t, (I’ve also been wearing boots.)
For a long time I thought being creative was fairly indulgent and something you did in your spare time. Then I realised I was wrong. So wrong.
For me being creative is like breathing. I need it. There aren’t massive chunks of creative time, so I squeeze it into the cracks of the day, in different ways, whenever I can.
Somedays it’s simply a different kind of slash on a sourdough. Another day it might be scribbled words in a notebook standing up at the kitchen bench. This week, I was chasing light with the camera. The kids didn’t need a second asking to be running outside, grabbing their scooters, as they flew out the door.
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What have you been up to this week?
A recent morning at one of Sydney’s beautiful beaches.
What was different about this one though, I was meeting two others there to take pictures. Who else would be eager to get up in the dark part of the morning to take some snaps? These two rockin’ women- Jerusha and Rachael. I give a thousand thanks to social media for connecting me with others who also enjoy the lure of the shutter.
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If you are in Sydney and also enjoy the click of a shutter, Head On is currently running throughout May. If you haven’t been to see anything yet, I’d say hop skip and jump to your nearest gallery. The pictures are bloody amazing.
ps. This is what happens when a wave catches you by surprise…whoosh!
We almost went camping these school holidays. Almost.
Everything was packed, sleeping bags dragged out. The tent dusted off and enthusiasm sat at the door like an impatient puppy.
It wasn’t to be though. It seemed a virus also sat at the door the night before we were to go. Three kiddo’s with fevered heads. Three kiddo’s with glassy eyes. Three kiddo’s with limp, suddenly very small looking little bodies.
Camping in the bush was going to have to wait.
While this post could easily be a sad tale of sick small kids, there are a few brighter sides to the sorry tale.
loving… long hugs that come with unwell kids. There will be a time when they will no longer want to rest heavy hot heads on my shoulder. Even though unwell, I’ll take those long draped body hugs while I still can.
loving… quiet. It was brief, but there was a moment there they were all asleep. During the day and I had a cup of hot coffee by my side. That, doesn’t happen too often.
loving… a cancelled weekend, which means all the usual rules, needs, requirements don’t apply. In my head, this means whatever we all want kind of goes as we weren’t going to be here at home anyway. Nonsensical logic, but I run with it.
Tarty apple crumble with hot runny custard for dinner? Why yes.
Long couch sessions with successive movie watching? Of course.
Sneaky second coffees to get you through another possible night of jack-in-the-box parenting? A given.
A day trip away to somewhere new, which is almost like mini camping. Almost.
So while this post isn’t full of some of the usual loving things, it does have its upsides. The virus that sat by the front door has slunk away into the shadows. My small ones have replaced aching limbs with some of their usual crazy energy, and plans for another camping trip will be mapped out once more. And I’m certainly loving that.
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“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE]
What are you loving at the moment?
Easter long weekend,
and everything is slipping into ‘go slow’.
I’m not hurrying, I’m not clock watching and I may well dissolve completely into those magazine pages at some point.
Spelt hot cross buns have been made,
the beach is whispering,
and if someone offers to make me a second coffee? Well I might just say yes.
That’s how this weekend is rolling, and everything else in life?
…is on pause.
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When the Night Comes- by Favel Parrett: wonderful, wonderful book if you are looking for a new book to read.
I said farewell to Summer holidays and reluctantly got out school lunch boxes again. New school shoes made the transition entirely acceptable for the school ones…large cups of gulped tea made it acceptable for me.
This week…
I said hello again to a friend I hadn’t seen for a couple of years. For 34 years we have known each other, (that’s rather magnificent really.)
This week,
I said Happy 85th birthday to my Grandma, that is also completely magnificent, (just like her beautiful flower filled garden.)
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What have you been up to this week?
An invitation from Olympus for an afternoon of food and photography….it could never ever (ever ever) go wrong now could it.
Where…The School
Who… Megan Morton, Delicious Magazine, Olympus
Food… Kitchen by Mike
…and now I get to practise all that I learnt. 
What have you been up to lately?
Last weekend I did a one day course on stingless bees (or native bees) with Tim Heard, through the wonderful Milkwood.
Tim Heard is an expert on all things native bees and along with his friend Tony Goodrich presented a course that I haven’t stopped talking about since.
Stingless Bees are amazingly wonderful and I am so looking forward to going further with this. My courtyard, local school, friends…yes, this is definitely going to happen.
Watch this space I reckon. Stingless bees, let’s do this.
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How about you? Are you doing any courses at the moment? Got any experience with bees, native or otherwise? Or would you also like to get a stingless bee hive?
Sugarbag.com for a cracking start to understanding what they are all about.
Jump across to Milkwood for more awesome courses to do.
While last weeks post was definitely in the city, this week it was about stepping out.
Way out.
It was a long weekend,
and always one to jump on an opportunity to skip the usual day to day stuff,
we were out of there for a few days.
After far too many weeks of far too many illnesses,
too much busy and one broken arm.
It was time for
breathing in and breathing out…
felt good.
Tell me what you’ve been up to lately.
What’s going on in your world at the moment?
Today a bit more city,
than the hippy and the farm.
Big city
Sydney city
at night city
and Luna Park in a puddle
(a city puddle.)
I wrote a little while ago on how I could easily start another blog on all things of the sea. All those salty thoughts? Yes, they are still piling up and for this post, I have nothing but inspiration come from it.
Utterly inspired.
(I’ve written before of two of these links before, but indulge me, it’s so very worth it.)
Emily Richmond, solo sailor, making her way around the world in a tiny yacht since 2010. C grade media celebrities be damned, this is a woman worthy of looking up to… Bobbie Rounds the World.
Mother Tongue Knowledge: Sri Lanka- A beautiful truly inspiring adventure of a life time, oh yes indeed. He’s just finished (and reached!) a crowd funding project.
Great Ocean Quarterly– where adventures can be taken in your favourite seat, looking out at your favourite view. Bliss.
Tell me about some of your salty thoughts or wanders lately.
This is a post that celebrates…colour.
This is a post that celebrates, macarons, puddles, sunsets, pink skirts, cumquats and shadows.
You see, this is a post that is wholeheartedly celebrating those teeny tiny everyday moments,
that so many of our lives are made up of.
Celebrating those moments, and sharing the every day…
in a photo kind of way.
Partying dinosaurs that can’t help but bring a little celebration to the table,
and weekend muddy puddle seeking, because…well they can.
A celebration of tea- that first sip of tea while it’s still hot, utter bliss, (tepid tea just doesn’t compare.)
And invitations to constant tiny tea parties.
The magic of a flower that holds all the colours of a winter sunset.
Followed by a real sunset… and that will never get old.
Celebrating small hands that still slip easily into our own.
For the desire to run and the freedom felt that goes along with it. He doesn’t have to explain it to me, I can see it.
Celebrating foraged cumquats in a country valley, that turn into delicious marmalade, on home made sourdough, on a sunny Saturday morning.
For winter days when I get to wear knitted socks that were made with love by my nana. Celebrating afternoon light that barely looks real, and that brings on all kinds of games purely because of the shadows and highlights it creates.
These are not big, large, life changing things. But they are some of our simple happy moments in what are often chaotic and seemingly far too busy days.
These are some tiny snapshots of life, that I am wholeheartedly celebrating.
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This is the last of my posts using the loaned Olympus camera- I had borrowed an OM-D E-M10 as part of the Voices of 2014 competition. As I’ve mentioned in my last couple of posts (here and here) it’s a rather nifty little camera that as a keen taker of pictures I’ve been really happy to have had the chance to play with.
As a last hoorah, I’m going to mention some of the bits I really liked. (See my previous two posts for some of the other trickster bits I might have mentioned before.)
Bits of the camera that I whole heartedly celebrated
Compact- weighing in at about 400g, it’s a camera that isn’t going to drag your neck or shoulder down carrying it about. I’ve done it for hours on end and haven’t even noticed it, except to take photos of course.
Post picture taking and one of the stand out things is the wifi. I do use instagram, FB and email. The wifi is pretty much gold for switching photos from your camera to your phone. Effortless I tell you. No adaptors, no bluetooth, no cords, no dropbox, no emailing yourself a picture. It’s all there in your phone and I still say it’s a magical Wifi-the-Fairy type kinda way.
You can also use your phone as a live camera remote, which is how I took the knitted socks shot- camera in position, adjust ALL camera settings via phone (that still blows my mind a little) and snap, picture taken.
The Art Filters and different Scenes you can choose from are all there to create photo master pieces from too. Either within the camera or afterwards in the phone app. You can also use the Art Filters when shooting video, (yep, that’s a bit cool I know.)
Quality- For a little camera I was really surprised. Lots of oooh kind of moments after I’d taken a pic. I’d love to play with some of their other lens but the kit lens the camera comes with (14-42mm) it does the job, yes it does. None of these photos were edited, not even a whisker, (except the coffee pictures above which were done using the Pin Hole Filter as mentioned) I actually really enjoyed the challenge of finding the camera’s happy spots*, (turns out it as lots.)
* I also celebrated the fact that I had a different camera at my disposal with lots of different buttons. So ahem… I set out to fiddle with every little button and see what they all did- this photo and the earlier five shot colourful umbrella picture uses the template function, where you can join photos together in various ways.
Photo Geek Talk
All photos in this post were unedited using the 14-42mm lens, (except for the above shots in this section as mentioned.) ISO I used varied a little, but generally was set at 400 for most of these shots. I find shooting in manual gives me more scope to play with the effects of the picture but if I’m having trouble getting it all, the auto option is pretty damn easy along with the Scenes settings, (depending on what I’m taking the picture of.)
Thank you Olympus. For the return of your gear, you may now try and pry my fingers from the camera.
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Tell me, what are you celebrating at the moment?
cityhippyfarmgirl 
