Project 365: Weeks 23 and 24

These are weeks of mourning and extreme crankiness. No, nobody died or anything that dramatic. On Tuesday the 4th June at approximately 8.35 am in the morning a crazy out of control P plate driver in a big four wheel drive complete with excessive bull bar tried to take a corner on two wheels in the wet and slammed into my poor unsuspecting car and effectively ended its life. I'm emotionally attached to my car. I'll admit it. I knew the old dear was coming to the end of its life but it didn't deserve to be finished off so ignominiously, consigned to the scrap heap for an accident that wasn't even its fault. The cranky bit comes from ending up extremely out of pocket for an accident that was in no way my fault. It still makes my ears steam just thinking about the unfairness of it all (and yes everyone was properly insured).

So these two weeks were all about inconvenience, dealing with insurance companies and wreckers and the  budgeting for the gap between what the old car was deemed to be worth and what it was going to cost to replace it. I had to go to car yards and buy a new car which involved have to deal with a dreaded used car salesman. I do like my new car though. I has been christened the Tardis by the boy and I (both Doctor Who fans) as it is both blue and bigger on the inside (see the next weeks post for photos of it).

Day 152: The car is dead. I know this doesn't look like enough damage to say put it down but it is. There's more panel damage all down the driver's side. Photographs don't do true justice to the sheer amount of damage and lot of it is structural and underneath. It's not fair that you can be minding your own business and driving sensibly and get wiped out by an idiot who can drive safely and has only had his license for 6 months or so. I wasn't injured but it was shaky day.

Day 156: The Melbourne Museum. An extreme display of the art of taxidermy. When I was kid I remember all these specimens being displayed in glass cases. Now they are in a tiered room arranged by continent with giant touch screens so you can find about each animal. It's awesome and surreal.

Day 157: Stealing the hubby's car. At least he's not working this week and doesn't need it. I have to remember how to drive a manual though. I didn't stall too often though. I also borrowed the middle daughter's little pink Hyundai. That makes me feel like I'm 18 all over again.

Day 158: I think I'm breaking the rules of this whole photo a day thing here. This was taken on my camera but I didn't take it. My sister did. I needed new "action" shots of me a work for various official websites. So here I am in the middle of a mock stats lecture. You should see the outtakes. They are hilarious. I didn't realise just how many silly faces I pull when I'm teaching. I do think I look like I'm enjoying myself here though.

Day 163: Home made chicken, spinach and ricotta ravioli. The sauce was spectacular - creamy mushroom and wine. The bench was horrendous to clean. Dried on flour sets like cement. Every so often, I give myself a massive pat on the back for having the foresight to marry a professional chef (except when I get to clean up after him). When he's really bored he cooks for entertainment.

Day 164: My first batch of students that I instructed all by themselves graded two weeks ago. Today I got to hand out a pile on new yellow belts. I took a serious group photo but I'm mindful of their right to privacy. Here's the boy goofing around in his new black belt.

Day 165: The eldest daughter after a life time of classical dance, jazz and hip hop has decided that being a cheerleader is a perfectly legitimate way to keep fit. Her first comp is at the end of June and here she is showing off the uniform. We're all having a little bit of trouble taking the concept seriously.

Project 365: Weeks 21 and 22

The tail end of May and the beginning of June. The last two weeks of May were clearly not memorable. I only have two photos! The beginning of June is the beginning of  Winter here in the Southern hemisphere and nature delivered right on cue. Cold, crispy frosty weather with a side order of rain. We don't get snow where I live except for exceptional once of twice in a lifetime events but it can get quite cold (tops of 7 or 8 degrees Celsius only). Maybe that's why there's very few photos. I didn't want to immortalize the rain.

Day 142: In the night garden.There are lights under that blue glass. When twilight hits, they come on and glow softly. This just means I am at work too late if the lights are coming on!

Day 151: Bling compass. The middle daughter made this for one of the girls she is working with. The story is that this girl forgets to take her compass off when she goes into the supermarket after she has been out on field work all day. She then feels that people stare at her and judge her for needing a compass to navigate around the supermarket. Hence, bling compass was born, a still functional fashion statement that you wouldn't feel embarrassed to be caught wearing in public.

Day 152: The boys black belt grading. It's only taken 11 years of training! Our discipline doesn't have junior black belts. You have to be at least 16 and physically and mentally capable of all the techniques required to be a black belt. I'm so proud of him. He's now the third black belt in my family (and the other two of us are just one belt off). This is a successful elbow strike through two 12mm pine boards.

Day 153: Future Doctor daughter playing radiant hat model. When we went to the Sunday market at Camberwell a few weeks ago, she was wearing one of my knitted hats and looking at what was on sale suggested I knit some more to sell at her friend's clothing stall and hence turn my slight knitting obsession into some useful cash. So I have been turning my needles to creating a supply of marketable hats for sale. This is Barnaby the cloche who will go to new home some day soon

Project 365: Weeks 19 and 20

OK. It's the second last day of June in actuality and I am posting about the beginning of May. The wheels have sort of fallen off this photo a day gig in fairly spectacular fashion. Why? I think its a combination of the pressures of work and the overwhelming sameness of my life at this time of year! I have my standards. I could take a photo a day of the ending state of messiness that is my desk. I could capture the piles of marking or the computer screen opened to my uninteresting but overflowing email inbox, a riveting Excel spreadsheet or some esoteric stats program. I don't know how well that would go down. It wouldn't photograph well I think. I do see at least one cool thing I'd like to capture an image of each day but an application  of Murphy's law usually means I am: (a) driving and it would be dangerous to take said photo, (b) without my camera, (c) so immersed in the moment I only remember it would have been cool to photograph after it is gone (not necessarily a bad thing) or (d) I try to take the photo and it ends up a wonky blurry unidentifiable blob of pixels.

So I'll post the photos I have taken over the last few months in batches of a fortnight at a time till I catch back up.

Week 19. It was Mother's day. It was pleasant lazy hazy Sunday with  good food and good company. I even got a handmade Mother's card complete with cut out magazine pictures from my 22 year old. I also got the traditional mother's day dressing gown, and I was thrilled. There may have also been a book involved. My kids know me too well. Week 20 finished up with a spirited family outing to the local 10 pin bowling alley.

Day 127: Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! The morning chook chorus.

Day 128: It's an octagon. In a circle. And red poles! Now with added plants! And mulch.

Day 130: A random belated birthday present from my sister. I'm going to crochet this little amigurumi owl just as soon as all the marking is done for the semester. I had to resist this all day at work. Giving me a full kit including yarn and a crochet hook and the pattern at the beginning of a work day was a subtle form of torture. I keep eying it off and thinking, I could just open it up and maybe crochet just a little bit instead of this pile of boring marking. Be proud of me. I resisted.

Day 131: Sunrise. The beginning of a beautiful autumn Saturday

Day 132: Mother's lunch at The Courthouse. Good food, great ambiance and pleasant company.  Touching base with my Mum after she'd been interstate for a week and lucky enough to have the eldest daughter home from her hard work in the Big City hospital for the weekend.

Day 134: The addition of a "sculptural element" to the garden outside my office window. This is a circular ring hanging in the the middle of an ovoid spheroid. The shape of the outer sphere changes depending on the angle you view it from. Here it's looking like a ball or a globe. From different angles, it looks more egg like. This has been an impressive exercise in recycling too with both the red poles and the blue glass re-purposed for the the previous iteration of this garden space.

Day 136: A colorful cyclamen. This is in another of the garden spaces that brighten up our wing of the University. This one is almost like a giant outdoor terrarium, sandwiched between the walls of the building and giant glass windows. It is filled with flourishing tree ferns, bromealiads and a giant fossilized trunk of a tern fern that probably lived in the age of the dinosaurs dug up from one of our local open cut brown coal mines. You can see the end of this in the top right of the picture.

Day 137: Evening rush hour in the big city. Waiting at the Super Stop for the tram outside Melbourne's iconic Finder's Street Station. A day of meetings discussing the intricacies of marking 300+ literature reviews with about a dozen different markers consistently and with a tight two week turn around. Anticipating the pleasurable rush and well earned pain of a taekwondo training session with our Master. Meeting my better half and the boy for training in preparation for his impending black belt grading followed by a meal out in Chapel Street.

Day 138: Bowling shoes. Are they in fact the ugliest shoes in existence? Saturday afternoon ten pin bowling. I lost. This is not unusual. I can't bowl consistently. Its all or nothing - gutter balls or strikes. The head of the household won - also not surprising. He's the only one who does look like he knows how to bowl properly. It was a fun afternoon. Thanks to the middle daughter for making us go.

Day 139: Handmade pasta. The middle daughter making homemade lasagna from scratch to take to her friend's house as she disappears for a few day's sleepover. The lasagna was a work of art.

Project 365: Week 18

Catch up, Catch up, Catch up. It's the theme of the moment at the moment.

I'm frantically writing lists - looking at the tasks I need to do, the time frame I have to do them in and then quietly going crazily insane whilst attempting to scale the pile of marking and teach my class with my usual maniac enthusiasm. I'm OK as long as I don't think too deeply about what I should have done at any point of time.

So I'd like to give a small shout out to the landscaping team at work for brightening my days with their efforts outside my office window. They've kept me thoroughly intrigued with what was going to happen next in the massive garden redevelopment project. It has been a source of much joking speculation amongst my fellow office occupants. There's also the entertainment factor of watching other people undertake hard physical labour in adverse weather conditions whilst you are in your cosy office attempting hard intellectual labour.

Day 119: The end of the fire season. Washing and airing the daughter's fire-fighting after her last batch of controlled burning. They were is serious need of this. I swear they were so black with soot and stuff they almost stood up by themselves.

Day 121: I think this is in fact a close relative of the iconic artwork - Blue Poles. I here by give you - Red Poles. Aligning these suckers seemed to involve alternate intense periods of sweaty labour and silent contemplation by the work team.

Day 122: The gift basket for the new baby waiting for delivery. Due to a complicated series of misadventures, I had temporary custody of this in my office for a few days.

Day 123: Look the mushrooms have grown up now. They've flattened out and opened up. More disappointingly, they're now a boring brown instead of that cute yellow.

Day 124: I feel this photo may need a "This photo may distress a few viewers". I get a phone call from my little sister yesterday evening saying, "There's a mouse in my dishwasher!". "There's a WHAT in Your WHAT???!" I reply. "Fine. I'll come and deal with it in the morning". That's my role. I deal with vermin. She doesn't. When I go to remove said mouse, I find a dead rat face down in a wine glass. This leads to speculation about what type of wine a rat might drink - red or white? I remove said rat. Need to give her cat some severe re-education about how inappropriate it is to chase vermin into slightly open dishwashers. Cat feels no need to listen to any boring lectures suggesting its conduct may be lacking. We DID rewash the dishes! TWICE!!

Day 125: The coolest thing to do with old suitcases. The amplifiers / ipod speakers on steroids my son fell in love with at first sight. Sunday morning at the Camberwell market with my girls on a shopping mission. Success! One tailored long black wool coat for the giant European adventure for one daughter and a suitably pre-loved classic leather jacket for the other at $10 each. Looking longingly at old tailor's lasts (cos' who doesn't love a disembodied wooden foot) and hat forms but decided my taste in classic industrial decorating objects and my actual budget are worlds apart.

Day 126: Granny wants a Latte Machiato. An update on the great granny rug project. 140 squares completed of the 300 I need. It looks so cool though when you lay them out on the floor and see what you've got. 

Project 365: Weeks 16 and 17

Dear Blog,

Apologies. I have clearly neglected you. For a whole month! (Past experience with me should make you resigned to this state of affairs though).

OK. Here's the stage of the year when life seems to run away with you and one day blurs into the next and the weeks fly buy. I've officially dropped the ball on this photo a day thing. I've missed the odd day here and there before now but these two weeks I've nearly missed more than I've taken.

I think I'll just keep trying and post what I've got and attempt to do better for the rest of the year.

It's been a few weeks of constant classes and intense exam writing and proof reading and marking - none of which lends itself to pretty pictures (and then there's the privacy issues too).

Day 106: The owl hat in its natural habitat. I think wearing headphones on the top of your head is a fashion statement from the same styling school as wearing your sunglasses on the top of your head - possibly pointless.

Day 108: This was supposed to be titled 'Birds on the Wire'. However, the birds decided they didn't want their photos taken and flew away when they saw the camera. A cold grey frosty early Autumn morning.

Day 109: These mushrooms appeared virtually overnight in the work car-park. They're growing on the root system of tree that used to be there before it decided to fall over for no reason and kill a few cars that were quietly minding there own business. This one's for my middle daughter. Her area of scientific passion is Mycology - also known as the scientific study of mushrooms. She's even off to a fungi conference in a month or so.

Day 110: Knitting designer. One of my work colleagues is the proud parent of a new baby boy. She's an owl researcher. So I decided to make a toy owl for the new arrival. Here's the first stages of the design process, a sketch and the start of the body.

Day 111: Shades of red. I have decided that I possibly own a few too many red jumpers and cardigans. This is the current batch drying inside having all been worn over the last few days. It hasn't exactly been conducive weather to drying them outside. My eldest daughter has been known to go shopping with me and when I point something out to her, say "it's very you Mum, but you already have a [insert clothing item name here] exactly like that!" I fear she may be right...

Day 112: Happy birthday little sis. My sister had her birthday last week and we mutually agreed it was time for me to make her something for a change. So meet this cool garter stitch scarf. It only took a week and it's soooo soft. The yarn is 80% wool, and 20% soy protein! (I know - do you wear it or eat it?)

Day 114: Check out how much those mushrooms have grown! Maybe they're mutant mushrooms looking to take over the planet.

Day 115: Productive use of a public holiday. You know that owl I was designing? Well here's the finished toy. He turned out just how I wanted him too.

Day 116: Lunch with my middle daughter. A quiet interlude after some essential odd jobs involving banks.

Day 117: Matching beanies. After the the near incident of the great beanie kidnap attempt over Easter, I made the eldest daughter one of her own to discourage future attempts at beanie theft from her brother. I think they need to work on their synchronised modelling skills though.

Project 365: Week 15

Week 15. Just your standard daily grind with a fun family Sunday day out with the kids.  Oh, and my resident Chef has been cooking all manner of delicious things.

Day 99: Twilight / Sunset in the car park at work. Some quiet evening marking in my office whilst the boy plays ninja. Looking out over the water tower. This stores the water for the water engineering lab.

Day 100: It's time for a garden progress update. Today they build an octagonal something or other. Yesterday my entertainment was watching burly men manhandle heavy rocks. The consensus is it may be a raised garden bed, but a water feature would be cool too. The other occupants of my office think that it is highly appropriate that they built an Octagon outside the maths / stats peoples' office!

Day 101: Home-made Tortellini. My better half has been flexing his culinary muscles as he has some time at home. These were like beef and parmensan meatballs wrapped in pasta. Amazing!

Day 102: Authentic Dutch croquettes. The ugly ducklings of the Dutch Food world. They look even worse before they are crumbed. Imagine if you will a giant tray of these in my fridge last night pre-crumbing. A tray of brownish long things. Yes, there were toilet humour jokes galore from the boys. However, a couple of slices of fresh bread, some exotic mustard (sun dried tomato and garlic today) and a few hot croquettes squished in the middle. Sheer heaven. Going to give some to my sister as it's her birthday today.

Day 103: It should always look just as neat from the back. I'm on such a knitting hot streak at the moment. This is going to be an owl hat for middle daughter's European Adventure. Brushing up on my skills at intarsia knitting. This is just one evening's work! I started it last night whilst watching the footy. At hat in just a weekend is an achievable dream.

Day104 : End of a day immersed in a weird, weird world. We went to Melbourne Supanova to catch up with our favourite Aussie Fantasy author Kylie Chan and get our hands on a pre release copy of Book 7 in her magnificent series. We saw the Hoff in passing (twice) but I was more exited by seeing his car Kitt. Watched random people parade past dressed as half the cast of Star Wars, the men of the Night's Watch from Game of Thrones and a barrage of Disney Villanesses. Had lunch next to a group of random Sailor Scouts and watched a live Cos Play chess game where pretty much the entire pawns of one side were Doctor Who in his various incarnations. Oh and Kylie signed all our books and we chatted about the new season of Doctor Who.

Day 105: New artwork for my walls (Slightly squished after a day of being carried around. Kylie signed this for us yesterday. At the top it says, "The Larkins Rock". Thanks Kylie. You rock too. Mutual fan club!

Project 365: Week 14

Non-teaching week. Mid Semester Break. The tail end of the Easter Holiday. School holidays for the boy. Life is running at a different pace this week. Work, but no classes. Catch up, marking and some focused educational web design. No getting up kids up early and dragging them to the bus. Oh, and a lot of high quality knitting time!

Missed a few photo ops this week too... Lazy enough that I forgot to get the camera out.... (So I wish to formally apologise to Tuesday 2nd April, Friday 5th April  and Monday 8th April 2013. I'm sorry I didn't recognise your highlights this week.)

Day 93: Road tripping with the better half. The reason might be prosaic - medical appointments in 'the Big Smoke', but it's nice to spend time together. Half a new beanie knitted in the car and a romantic lunch in a shopping centre food court. Hey after 20+ years of marriage, romance is where you find it!

Day 94: I think I inadvertently collect statistics textbooks. If I wanted to be known as a mad collector of some sort or other, it definitely wouldn't be for this.... The pile of new and current textbooks on the floor of my office. Today I reviewed a book for a publisher to help plan for the new edition.

Day 96: Look a breeding pair of slouchy beanies! I made the one on the left for the boy as an Easter present. Future doctor daughter was home over Easter and took a shine to the beanie. We did have to search her bag when she left to make sure she hadn't quietly taken it home with her. So I made an identical one for her this week.

Day 97: I gave in. I made the jacket a vest... It looks OK but I miss the dream of the cardigan that wasn't meant to be...

Project 365: Week 13

It's Easter = a small break from the craziness of everyday life. A time for a deep breath and quality lazy time with family.

I missed a day this week. Wednesday was frantically busy and while I saw a scene worthy of a photo, a series of planned burns along the side of a country road at twilight as I was on my way to a tutoring job, I was on a tight timeline and it was too dark to photograph effectively by the time I returned home. So you'll just have to imagine black scorched earth with piles of glowing coals like a giant devil's campfire.

Day 85: The boy has a maths SAC tomorrow. We've been frantically cramming. No, I've been helping him learning how to use mathematical mapping for transformations of equations. The husky puppet was helping.

Day 87: The next chapter in the continuing saga of the garden outside my window. I think it is morphing into a rock garden. I'm sure there's more to come. This was the last day before the Easter break so it will be interesting to see what it looks like when I get back.

Day 88: We picked that pumpkin. It was about 9 kg. Today was Good Friday. This is traditionally a Pyjama day spent watching the telethon for the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday appeal. The resident chef made delicious home-made pumpkin (and odds and ends of leftover roast veggie) soup for our lunch. I did briefly consider posting a photo of the Pyjama party on the couch but decided against exposing my blog readers to that sight.

Day 89: Easter Saturday. Helping the boy pad up for a contact sparring session. Lacing up the chest guards makes me think of lacing up the back of a corset top like on a debutante or wedding dress. The big tough guys didn't appreciate me repeating this observation as I was tying up their laces. For the boy we have to lace as tight as we can go. For a few of the older guys, there almost isn't enough string left to tie a bow at the end (and they're wearing the largest size chest protection)!

Day 90: It's Easter morning. The traditional Easter Egg Hunt is on. Even though the children are now young adults, this tradition must be maintained. However, clearly chocolate for Easter breakfast still makes for hyperactivity. One of the kids when vetting this picture for blog worthiness claims that there is something Gollum-Like in my eldest daughter's regard of her cup of eggs. "My Precious!"

Day 91: Easter Monday at the footy at the MCG with 76,299 other people! Here are the two teams lined up for the National Anthem at the beginning of the game. Hawthorn vs. Geelong games are somewhat of a family Easter tradition. Once again Hawthorn stuck to tradition and got narrowly beaten by Geelong (7 points this time). The Geelong supporters in my family rubbed it in. It was still a great day even if I am an unhappy hawthorn supporter yet again.