Tweetsgiving sets flight ...

Just a quick tweet for tweetsgiving. I'm so grateful for a million zillion things but right now, I'm grateful to all my workmates who are so lovely and fun to work with. We are so busy at the moment and everyone is pulling out all stops. You are all brilliant. Thank you all for helping to make it feel worthwhile!

Here's a pic that I think shows that lovely sentiment, gratitude ...

Jasper and Rufus, our rescue cats, soon after we brought them home. Happy little chappies in their new garden.

Join in and express your gratitude at www.TweetsGiving.org

Plus you can "Share whatever you're thankful for on Twitter, your blog, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, or blip.fm. Include the#tweetsgiving tag and a link to www.TweetsGiving.org "

What’s Hot + What’s Not Thursday

It's Thursday again and as usual, I'm stumped for an idea. Maybe it's because it's nearly the end of the week (but not quite) and inspiration hits a slump. It's not helped by the fact that I'm struggling to keep my eye's open but I am determined to keep up my daily post ... here goes :::

What's Hot

1. Target t shirts that are marked down to $5 when you get to the counter. I got two of them tonight. Woo Hoo!

2. Cold beer on hot nights. Enjoyed an Amber Ale with our Thursday night Thai takeaway tonight. Yum. (Watch them pour the glass of beer here ... very cute!)

3. Stripes. Marvellous invention.

 

 

 

from here

4. Weekends. I like how they come after weekdays. I especially like that after tomorrow, I get one.

5. This song :::

What's Not
1. Losing this tree.   :-(    Majorly sad to drive past it today and think that it's huge lemon scented presence, which has graced this spot for 100 years or so, will soon not be there anymore :(((


2. 1 is such a massive un-hot thing this week that I cannot think of anything else that warrants a mention.

On a lighter note, here's a couple of photos that I like :::

Fenec Foxes - aren't they sweeties

White lions - look who has a fan club!

Taken at Mogo Zoo

Mystery solved

My little man playing the maraca filled with tiny silver balls turned out to be ...

Cisco the Cicada!

He was doing a sound check in our bathroom ...

No wonder he was trying out all those different riffs!!

I was right though, he was a really little guy!

UV gently scooped him up and deposited him outside, well away from any furry avengers!

But look who else was lurking above ....

Harold the Huntsman

Can you see the glint of one of his many eyes that I picked up with my flash?

Quite amazing really!

Hmm, spiders are not my thing, really not good with them ... but our ceilings are 3.6 metres and he's away up there, minding his own business (namely catching bugs) so I weakened my natural inclination to run away screaming while at the same time imploring UV to get him outside, but don't kill him!!!

(cue rolled eye!)

It was raining last week and I think he took refuge inside - I couldn't blame him really.

He's hanging around the kitchen at the moment, and I kind of feel like he wants to be one of the gang so as long as he stays up there, he won't get moved on - for now ...

You can see we are in the habit of naming newcomers to our place ...

Other regular wild visitors include Boris the Fruit Bat and Priscilla the Possum (who wears steel capped boots and likes to dance in our roof space from time to time. We hear her carefully lifting the wood on the side of our eaves and creeping in, but then she leaps around noisily from beam to beam. We open up our attic hatch, flick on the light and she melts into the darkness, then slips away the way she came in. We really have to seal up that spot.)

Both Boris and Priscila make regular sorties around about the gardens in the neighbourhood, when there are berries or nectar about.

I'll finish my wildlife post with a couple of cute shots of the boys ...

More glinting eyes from Jasper (enjoying one of his favourite mats, freshly washed)

 

 

Licorice

 Rufus

Aren't these tulips gorgeous? Thank you dear friends!

 

 

 

I have to work out how to stop the white out that happens when I use the flash, especially in these macro shots. It drains much of the colour away. More things to practice.

Finding my eye

Photography seems to be creeping up on me surreptitiously. It's in the family you see, well, my 2 siblings both photograph. In fact, one exhibits his work. Mon pere has always been a bit of a photographer too so I guess it had to happen. Not a bad thing at all. It's nice to look at things and think about how you would shoot them. I find I'm looking more at colour and form, shapes and the relationship of things to each other. This part of it is from my mum who loved to paint and draw and taught me lots about observation. Seems this visual art stuff is kind of in the stars. Nice.

So, I find that I am photographing more and more and I'm looking at more and more photos in all sorts of lovely blogs. Like these >>>

Les contours du silence and My funny eye are just wonderful.

And here are some of my shots of late >>>

 Walnuts

 

 Bookendish

 

 Operation face washing

 

Fireworks at my place

 

My first agapanthus

For goodness sake ....!

I am happy to report that our internet service provider finally came through with the goods. The throttle is off! We are back to normal speed but only because we rang them to say that we were experiencing crazily slow response times. Seems we were on a really old  plan and were eligible for an upgrade for no extra cost. Hmmmm, nice to discover this but I think if it wasn't for my increased blogging activity with the wonderful blogtoberfest we would have been none the wiser ........ I can't help but say a small grrrrrrr!

Anyhow, here's a nice shot to make me feel better :::

My sweet Jasper.

I was attempting a homework closeup but he kept moving.

I quite like the effect of this shot - his eyebrow whiskers stand out beautifully and he looks quite thoughtful.

What’s Hot + What’s Not Thursday

Funny how my Thursday's often seem to be a little bereft of blog inspiration. I just posted some of my pictures thinking this was an easy way out and it was kind of fun but then I remembered this meme so I'll air it again and see what I can come up with ...

What's Hot

1. Preparing and eating delicious food :: particularly mushrooms, like those being cooked right now in Jamie at Home - a whole episode on mushrooms!! I have some lovely swiss browns in the fridge that I sort of forgot about. Bought them on Tuesday to have with steak but found a bag of mushrooms already waiting for me when I got home.

Might turn these ones into mushroom risotto tomorrow night.
And how about these scrummy sounding risotto recipes.
Mmmmm!

2. Festive lights. Looking forward to bringing out my twiggy lights from last year - will probably do this soon. But I spied some fairy lights out shopping the other day so might have to break out an buy another string of them for the deck and perhaps some icicle lights for the front porch.
Meanwhile, these are rather pretty ...

 by Hannahnunn

3. Writing - and the thought of writing in this journal is so appealing! Hot Cocoa Journal sounds very enticing, encouraging the putting of pen to paper. Even though we are edging closer to summer, the little cold snap we're in the midst of makes the concept of this journal fit in perfectly.

 

by nouveaudesigns

4. Catching up with old friends. Looking forward to a long overdue get together on Sunday. Planning afternoon tea and I think I will bake a nice old fashioned butter cake with lemon icing. Mmmmm.

5. As 3 out of 4 Hot items have been food related, here's one more:

Walnuts. Yum.

What's Not

1. Rain in November. Coolness is unwelcome, particularly when we had a taste of warmth two days ago. We had a v.hot Melbourne Cup day but by Wednesday it was back to sleeves and thinking about soup for lunch. And now I'm sitting here with icy fingers and toes!

2. Feeling like it should be Friday when it's only Thursday. That will teach us for having the Thursday night Thai takeaway on Wednesday night.

3. Fiendish villains that launch kamikaze raids to swipe leftover breakfast. Curse the jingling stealth bomber!
We like furry visitors here and welcome our neighbouring felines from either side - because they are nice, pleasant creatures.
But this Goth, or perhaps I should call him a Hun, leaves a calling card every time he scampers away - he turns his back, sticks up his tail and sprays the garden, the fence and even once, our table on the deck. Good thing Jasper and Licorice are such a great watch cats - they chase him off the premises every chance they get. Dastardly deviant! I shake my fist at you!!! Fiend!!!

4.  Discovering that yet again it's nearly midnight. Why are there not enough hours in the evening? I dream of a night that is as long as the day I spend at work, giving me time to do cute blog posts, write, make things, cook and eat a scrumptious dinner and still get to bed and have time to read my book and then get a good 7 - 8 hours sleep. This sort of existence must be in that parallel universe I keep imagining.

5. How about that, I cannot think of another un-hot thing. That has to be good!

Things that make me smile

My little sabre tooth tiger

Giraffe visiting the Blue Mountains .... !

How can all that cat fit into one little shoebox?

Licorice in the washing

Clean washing is the best!