Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Random Book Cover

I couldn't help but take the Random Album Cover idea to the book realm. I love books as reading material, but I also love them as objects, so I love a good cover. I wrote up a plan slightly different to the Random Album Cover idea (Good idea to whoever invented it). Here it is.

To Do This...

1 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Choose any photo from the first three.

2- Generate a fake name for your author using
http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/

3 - Go to http://math.furman.edu/cgi-bin/randquote.pl
The last two to five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your book.

4 - Go to http://randomquotes.org/
The first or last sentence of the first quote of the 5 random quotes is the tagline for your book.

5 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

Here are two I did today...


This was a beautiful photo so I tried not to mess with it too much. The only change bar the type, the white line and the cross hairs, was to give the greyscale photo some coloured sky.


This pic was actually of three birds sitting on a cactus, but it wasn't working for me. This was much better.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Random Album Cover

Ooh, I could do a gazillion of these. Here are two.




To Do This...

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit "random" or click
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first random wikipedia
article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations" or click
http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four or five words of
the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on "explore the last seven days" or click
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days Third picture, no matter
what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Subscription

The blog is now a feed, so you can subscribe to it to get updated content as it comes in. This is just for me to play with at the moment, but someone might use it somewhere down the track.

I suppose an update is in order

Well, in the last year lot has happened: I returned to work a couple of days a week, Shawn got his Permanent Residency Visa and the family moved to the Upper North Shore of Sydney to be closer to family and to find some affordable childcare, but the major event is that Ivy was born on the 25th January, 2008. I was 17 days overdue (not a typo). I spent three days in pre-labour, no sleep and had ten hours hard-core syntocynon induced labour. My temperature rose as my body worked overtime and Ivy's heart rate started showing a few blips in response to the physical pressure I was under. So the pregnancy ended in an emergency c-section, but resulted in a smart, strong, well-adjusted, beautiful girl that I love more than I knew I could.

Christmas Illustration

The good thing about my job is that I can spend my in between times working on skills. Thus this little Christmas Landscape was born. It's also a product of my new home which is a little closer to nature... and it's fire season at this time of year. Although I have to say that I've only smelled bush fires the once so far. Let's hope it stays that way.

Back

... although I'm quite sure no one is tuning in anymore. I keep trying to remember this or that thing that happened and can't remember (Extended baby-brain or the early onset of senility?) or want to have somewhere to post scribbles. I've been starting to feel a little more creatively inclined of late as well, so maybe that will factor in. Now that I'm a mother I'm finding there are a lot of questions I'd like to ask my mum if she was still around. I'm think that Ivy might have questions when she's older too, things that I'll have long forgotten or won't be there to answer, so this might be good for that.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Big

I'm really quite big now and am not entirely fond of the idea that I still have another two months of expansion ahead. How much room does a baby need... really? We should evolve to lay eggs instead.... small ones. Then maybe tying shoe laces or getting a decent night's sleep wouldn't be so hard. I really need to buy a body pillow or something very soon.

On the upside, I really enjoy Shawn's reaction when he feels her moving around and I like feeling her moving around... mostly... when she's not being aggressive about it.

p.s. Today is my birthday.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

7 Months

I have exactly ZERO photos of my pregnant self. Due to my first five to six months of shocking morning sickness, I don't think anyone would have dared come near me with a camera. Now I don't get nauseous unless I'm really sleep deprived. I should make sure I get at least one before this time is over.

I quite like having a big belly since for the first part of the pregnancy you tend to just look fatter, not pregnant. At 7 months there's not much mistaking that you are actually pregnant, except for people on public transport, as they have a particular blindness to these things. It also makes it far more real. Many weeks have passed without us thinking about the reality of it too much so that now, all of a sudden, you can't not pay attention. The funniest thing that I'm prone to doing at the moment is going to close the wardrobe door and it being blocked by my belly. All of a sudden it's really out there. Neither of us can quite grasp that there's any more room in there, but I still have another two months of expansion.

I was telling Shawn that when I feel her moving around or kicking, I want to take her out, cuddle her, play with her for a bit, then put her back in again... except without all the blood and surgery that would involve. We imagine opening a little hatch on my belly and lifting her out of a snug, red velvet lined pod.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Road Trip

It's been a week and a half since Shawn and I got back from our little road trip. It went something like this.

On Saturday we drove to Canberra and stayed for two nights. I haven't been there since I was 12 so it was kind of all new (again). First impressions: very quiet, very leafy, very suburban. Dinner on our first night was at Alto, the restaurant at the revolving Black Mountain Tower. Yummy. Dessert was my favourite. A type of chocolate pudding with a mandarin salad that was warm and spicy. Really good. Next time we'll go for lunch so we can actually see the city design a little better.



We managed to wander around Floriade at Commonwealth Park for a while, but I probably wouldn't bother again. The highlight was seeing varieties of strange-shaped tulips I hadn't seen before. The lowlights were all the people and the rather boring displays. The park itself was far more pleasant to me.

From Floriade we walked down to Lake Burley Griffin and got a half hour boat ride, which at $5 each was worth well worth it. It gave my pregnant self a chance to rest while taking a look at a lot of different landmarks and getting a commentary on them.



We also took a guided tour at the War Memorial. Guided tours in general are great. You hear a lot of interesting stories that aren't always written on the little white cards next to exhibits and tend to take in a lot more as a result. Some stories are best not heard when you have pregnancy emotions though.



We were going to drive on to Wagga to see family, but we had a call from my Aunt saying the farm was pretty much under lock-down due to Equine Influenza. Another time.

So from Canberra we drove on to Melbourne, arriving at Narelle's place, where we stayed for three nights before staying at a serviced apartment in the city for a week.



It was weird being back in Melbourne after being away so long. If Melbourne could be relocated to Sydney, I'd be very happy. I really love Melbourne, but I think the weather is better up here and it's closer to family.

Melbourne activities included:
- spending an inordinate amount of money at The Chocolate Shop
- catching up with friends (sad that I have more friends in Melbourne than in Sydney)
- a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria to see the Guggenheim exhibition
- eating great pub food in Brunswick
- driving around old neighbourhoods
- making very good use of our weekly tram tickets
- visiting the Botanical Gardens
- buying treats from the cake shops on Acland Street in St Kilda
- pointing out The Esplanade Hotel to Shawn so he could see where RocKwiz is made
- Visiting Queen Victoria Markets and buying a new wallet in a great shade of green
- Melbourne zoo
- walked along the Yarra for a bit



We did one day trip out of Melbourne to Phillip Island to see the Little Penguins. We booked a ranger talk beforehand as well. It was cold and wet, but it was very cool to see them all hurrying to their burrows in the sand. Extremely cute.

It was sad leaving Melbourne, we'd almost convinced ourselves that we lived in the apartment.


(Crappy pic, but it was a challenge getting a good shot from the car.)

We drove back up the Princes Highway. A lot prettier than the Hume. Lots of green hills, Canola fields and happy looking cows (a very different experience to seeing how cows are kept in the US).

We stopped in Merimbula overnight and by a total accident, looking for food, we happened upon the Zanzibar Cafe, just when we were thinking we'd be stuck with fish and chips. This worked out perfectly because we'd planned to have at least two high quality dinners on our trip, but after Alto in Canberra, we just didn't seem to get around to it, then we hit this place. Given a 14/20 by The 2007 Good Food Guide. We have a tendency to agree with them.

On our last day of travel we stopped at Bateman's Bay for Lunch. Fairly uneventful, except for the high winds and my fear that the poor little echo was going to end up with something punctured by the branches and twigs strewn all over the road... Did I say uneventful?



It was, right up until we hit the highway that is. We rounded a bend, to see a tree laying across the road. It must have only just come down because we were the first car on our side to come across and people coming from the other direction had just gotten out of their cars. Thankfully, one of them had one of those fluorescent road workers vests and started running past our car waving it around so no one ran up the back of us. Lots of nearby men shoved fruitlessly at the tree (which I could have told them was not going anywhere in one piece), while the slightly more practical started trying to get through to SES or the RTA. After a very short time (with the arrival of the sixth car back) a man drove up and got out of his car with a chainsaw!



What luck!.. or do a lot of people around there carrying a chainsaw with them? So the tree was dismantled and the pieces pushed off the road in no time. Interesting experience.

During all our driving we stopped approximately every two hours so I could stretch and I have to say that on the way back it was definitely needed. My growing uterus is now pushing up against my ribs causing me a lot of discomfort. By the time we got to Nowra my ribs were killing me so we stopped at this park. We happened to have some bread in the car so we spent some time sprawled on the grass and feeding ducks.

We arrived home and enjoyed a 3 day weekend before work again on Monday. I was even relatively chipper on my first day back at work... weird.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

21 weeks

And I still have morning sickness. Mostly I just feel sick, but I'm still throwing up on the odd occasion as well. Hurrah.

A few days ago I felt the baby's kick with my hand on my belly, not just from the inside as usual.

Today is supposed to reach 27c. Which is a shock. I think it's time to go buy a maternity skirt or something. Actually, it's time to buy some maternity clothes regardless. I need a belly band to extend my t-shirts and hide the belly belts that have been extending my jeans and trousers.