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The Southern Sky

Hello Sky 🙂

Many of the plans we had for this holiday were ripped from the bud when Mum fractured her leg so for something things it is about finding a new way to do what you had planned.

So I decided to embrace the light pollution that comes with living in a city and take star trail photos anyway. Matthew and his “Grove Street Brother” went up to Bundy last week to spend some time with friends up their and just be bums for a week and not have to work. So whilst he was away I had free reign over his balcony so the one night we had with less clounds than all the others I set up my tripod, tripped the shutter and walked away to let magic happen. 26 minutes later and this is what the camera blessed me with 🙂
The Southern Sky

Font is Franklin Gothic Medium.
Papers are all from Tracy Ann Designs
Orange – Basics Olinda
Green – Scrolls Brush Set
Purple – Artlines Duets Bridge Road
Cream – Artlines 5 Alice

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No means a comedy

One more exam over and it wasn’t as hard as I thought but I am still only aiming for 28/50 which will give me a credit for the course, now I just have the last one on Monday morning which is going to be a tough one as whilst I enjoy learning about contemporary Chinese politics I am not the best at remembering the names and dates. I did these two layouts when I came home from the exam as a wee break from the books. Who has been scrapping long enough to remember that Kangaroo and Joey paper on the first layout? I bought that sheet of paper back in early 2003 and I know it was released a while before then.

this is what I Love! Wollemi Pine

After dropping Matthew at a friend’s house this evening I pulled into the video store on the way home and picked up a couple of movies to watch with Mum as she can’t sit in the seats at the cinema yet and there was nothing on TV. The movie we watched tonight was a French movie called Me and My Sister (Les Soeurs Fâchées), the reviews on the back said it was “Delicious, an enjoyable bitchy comedy”, whilst it certainly had its bitchy factor it was by no means a comedy, so that was bit of a let down. It was an interesting movie but going into it thinking it was going to be a comedy meant that our expectations were let down a bit.

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O Fairy, Where Art Thou?

O Fairy, Where Art Thou?
I was not studying the other night and came across this photo as I was sorting through some files and the idea that a fairy should be there came into my mind. Then as I thought more I thought of O Brother, Where Art Thou? I haven’t actually seen the movie but have heard the soundtrack a couple of times. This was taken back in March when we had a couple days of rain, not though it fell where our dams are. The dams that feed the Brisbane area have just fallen to 30% capacity, this means that we move into level 3 water restrictions. Level 3 restrictions means that we have to now use a bucket or watering can for watering or washing of cars. Brisbane is in a serious drought and the rain is rarely falling in the catchment areas for the dams 🙁 Want to read more? Water Forever – SEQ Water Saving Initiative. Back to the layout though, maybe I should have called O Rain, Where Art Thou? instead 🙂
The last couple of days I have:
  • Gone to the Lifeline Bookfest today, picked up two books and three magazines for $2
  • Listened to an interesting talk by Francis Fukuyama of The End of History fame on why he is moving away from the US government and the neo-cons, he drew attention done to some work done in comparing the Christian Reformation with the events in the Islamic world today, all really interesting stuff. The talk was given at the Philadelphia Free Library and you can go here to listen to it – Background Briefing
  • Studied some and then bludged some, need to do more of the study – First exam is on Tuesday
  • I have baked two times in the last three days – more on that to come later
  • Scrapbooked the above layout
  • Worked on Saturday as usual and head off to work at 5am in the morning like usual

This weekend is a long weekend for the Queen’s Birthday so Mum went away walking for the weekend, so we were not expecting a call this evening saying that she would be coming home early. She has had quite a serious accident, she did the proverbial broken leg in a rabbit hole, though she hasn’t broken her leg just stuffed up her knee something horrid and it wasn’t a rabbit hole either, just a hole. On our way back from picking her up from the house of the lady who drove her back to Brisbane we picked up a pair of crutches! No one in our house has ever needed crutches before! She has two weeks left of school left before the winter holidays and she has already called her boss to tell her what has happened. She also won’t be going walking anytime in the next couple of months so luckily we had decided not to the Mackay Highlands Great Walk in the holidays or that she had decided a couple of months ago to postpone her next walking trip to California to do part of the Sierra High Route from this July to next July because there is no way that would be going ahead now.
I just got this quote in my ThinkExist daily email and I quite like it 🙂

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending” – Maria Robinson

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dance better at parties mixtape

I don’t know about you but I love making mixtapes (ok cds), picking a theme, choosing the songs, deciding on the order and then designing the case.

This was one I made last week for the birthday of a friend. I had a few different ideas for the mix but then it morphed into this idea of 22 songs that will help you dance better at parties, if you can dance to the 22 different songs listed you will be the life of the party, although you probably are already but that is not the point.

dance better at parties


The front cover is made from advertising material and some Making Memories wordfetti stickers. As can be seen from the back cover the entire thing is in a vellum slip case but I can’t show you the front because that would give away the secret of who is receiving it :). The back cover is made from flattened out cocktail umbrellas (I bought a box of 100 a while ago because they are so cool :D). The note on the bottom says that this CD is designed to be played one song at a time. Pick your mood and learn how to dance. 🙂
Song list is as follows

  1. Repeat it (Eric Prydz vs Retarded Phunk – Callin’)
  2. Have Some Praise (B(If)teck – We Think You’re Dishy)
  3. Sing it (Ute Lemper – Don’t Tell Mama)
  4. Shake it (unknown artist – typcial belly dancing song)
  5. Grab the Hairbrush (The Beu Sisters – You Make Me Feel Like A Star)
  6. Swing it (Acker Bilk – White Cliffs of Dover)
  7. Skank it (Reel Big Fish – Sell Out)
  8. Croon it (Rúnar Freyr Gíslason og Selma Björnsdóttir – Sumarnótt)
  9. Whip it (Devo – Whip It)
  10. Articulate it (Luciano Pavarotti – Le Donna E. Mobile)
  11. Bend it (Panjabi MC – Mudian to Bach Ke)
  12. Remember it (The Mountain Goats – Dance Music)
  13. Stamp it (James Last – Hava Nagila)
  14. Drag Queen (ABBA – Dancing Queen)
  15. Beat it, Break it (The Herd – I Was Only 19)
  16. Funk it (Michael Franti and Spearhead – Rock the Nation)
  17. Trance it (Air – Sexy Boy)
  18. Line it (Ike and Tina Turner – Nutbush City Limits)
  19. Get Down (Black Eyed Peas – Dirty Dancing)
  20. Chill it (Bernard Fanning – Wish You Well)
  21. Hunt it (Karen Kamon – Manhunt)
  22. Love it (Beyonce – Crazy in Love)

That is it.
I am feeling so much better today :D, less coughs, less snot and less phlegm. Yeah!

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as young as we act

only as young as you actI handed in my last essay yesterday. Now I just have classes today and tomorrow, swotvac (study week) next week and then four exams in the two week exam block that follows.So between catching up on some TV (McLeod’s Daughters, ER and The Glass House) and working on a little surprise I did a page which ended up been so much simpler than I had planned. As you can probably tell it is only 1 photo, 1 piece of “paper”, a font and a little dose of Helen.

These are two of my sweet nieces, like every day I spent in Iceland I can play this day out on the TV in my head but this day something very special happened. Birta, Silja and I were waiting in the car whilst my brother went to get something, which meant we were just going crazy singing along to Icelandic Pop. Then my brother came back and said a few sentences, which left the girls in shock. They had just made the connection between me been their father’s sister and that meaning I was their aunt. It was classic.

We then met up with my sister-in-law and then spent the rest of the day at the Reykjavik Children’s Zoo and Park. This meant that big kids and little kids alike got to have fun watching animals and playing in one big and very cool adventure playground. 🙂

If someone came up to me tomorrow and said “here is a ticket to Iceland”, I would take it and run!

I have four nieces, five nephews, two sisters, four brothers and a scores and scores of aunts, uncles, cousins and the like in Iceland. Who are all in my mind each and every day.

If I was magical I would pick Iceland up and move it to just off the coast from Brisbane and then I would put a magical dome over it so it would retain all its Icelandic weather and stuff. Then Iceland would just be a short trip from Brisbane. How much would that rock?

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helen in red

I was unable to play on (inter)national scrapbooking day over the weekend due to that thing called Uni, actually I have not been able to play much at all recently due to Uni. It is now Tuesday of Week 10, two essays and a presentation left until Exams start after Week 13. When I came home yesterday after a day at uni and handing in an essay. I decided to make a paper layout as I just a had a total ball of fun making the tag for EK (success) the other week.

When I learnt that there was a St Helens in Tasmania, it became like number 3 on the places I had to visit.

When I placed the photos down on the paper, the song, Lady in Red came into my mind which influenced my title 🙂
These photos are actually all from the same day so it isn’t much of a coincidence that I am in red a red shirt in the photos and the jumper I took on the trip was red as well (I only own two jumpers, I live in Brisbane! – one is red and one is orange :))

helen in red in tasmania