Tangent: Award Day

I am soooooo chuffed to get this award from my good friend Lolo (as a birthday present).

What a thrill, from someone so artistic, sensitive, warm and caring. Thanx and lotsa 'warm fuzzies' sent your way tonight.

I have to choose 5 people to pass this on to.

Drum roll please everyone.......drrrrruuuuuuummmmmm roooooolllllllllll

It gives me great pleasure to present this award (in no particular order) to some of my blogging friends for giving me so much pleasure in my life.

humanbeing
teric
lynn_gettingyourfeetwet
piercing the veil
auntie mim's
beam me up scotty

You all make my day!

ps: Oops I can't count.

Tangent: The Daffodil Principle

You know how you are just meant to read/see certain things at a certain time.

I am in such a 'tizz' about my 60th coming up soon....

Then I read this truly beautiful story about the 'Daffodil Principle' which touched me very deeply.

So I rushed outside to take a photo of my daffs straining to bloom despite the weather. Of course, Snuffles came with me to see what was so important in the garden at 9pm. (Look how small she is, all 4.8 kgs of fluff and scruff.)

Hope you don't mind Cris, if I send others to your site to read this wonderful piece.

My 60th birthday is that 'first' day.....of the rest of my life.....

Tangent: Hidden messages

It is an interesting week for me, leading up to my 60th birthday.
I am so keenly aware of everyone and everything around me.
All that I have been, all that I am and all that I could still become,
Swirling round in my brain like hidden messages!
Monday Artday: Hidden messages

Tangent: Senita's dream

Senita sat dreaming in the sun this week
thinking longingly of the flower she may have
some day!

Happy Cactus Monday!

Tangent: Thought for the Day

Handle every situation like a dog.

If you can't Eat it, Chew it, or Hump it.

PISS ON IT AND WALK AWAY!

Tangent: Tales and Legends

This is the world I live in

A teacher for nearly 40 years

Jack and the Beanstalk

Wizards and flying horses,

Castles, dragons and frogs

The little mermaid,

Greek legends

African legends

All part of this world

And I do love it so.

IF: Tales and Legends

Tangent: Good Morning London

Sunrise this morning

Crisp

Cold

London

Glorious London!

First daffs

Not from my garden (yet)

Bright

Yellow

Cheerful

Spring will come!

Tangent: Jamming

I have joined Auntie Mim and Heartful Blogger with their 'jam' idea. Each of us starts a 2.5x3.5 card (red), do whatever we want to, then send it on to the next person,they add something to it, then send it on to the third person, who finishes it off and sends it back to the original person (me for this one.) And I get to keep it. Wonderful, isn't it? getting some original art from your fellow -bloggers.
I used the two scans that I have seen recently of 12 week fetuses, as my starting point.

I will definitely put the finished product on my blog.

Tangent: Sweet Chocs

Let me explain...................

I received a belated Xmas present from a kiddie I taught last year.
When I saw the wrapping paper, I wondered whether mom had made a mistake giving this gift to me.
The family is Roumanian, newly arrived in London, so having little English expertise................ OR mom just loved this paper!

Inside was a box of chocolates.................................

Yes, there WERE two layers of yummy Cadbury's chocs............

Where are they now?

Inside the tummies of the class of Year 6 boys and girls that I was teaching today. I gave them a special treat at the end of the day, and they were so excited, you would've thought I'd given them a piece of the moon!

Aren't kids amazing? Just when you thought they'd seen it all and done it all and had it all, they flip over a sweet choc! Bless them!

Tangent: Transition

This is my contribution for Monday Artday: Transition.

All the stages of life flit by so rapidly we hardly notice them.

Value each and every moment, each and every day, each and every new experience, for all too soon it's gone.

Tangent: Abo Senita

I was fascinated by Aboriginal Art while in Oz, so decided to do an 'Abo Senita' for today.

Happy Cactus Monday everyone.

Tangent: Oz Holiday

Wedding - intimate, personal, beautiful, loving, memorable

Wild beaches - wet, rough, grey, white, crashing

Weather - wild, warm, sweaty, cool, humid, wet, wet, wet

Statues - interesting, large, modern

Koalas and kangaroos - cuddly, warm, firm, woolly, cute

New memories - wedding, koala, beaches, rain, flight, cities, airports, people...

Tangent: Plain

It's plain to see that while other things change in our lives, we start and end with family!

I painted this with different dilutions of coffee, an experiment that I thoroughly enjoyed, but was 'high' on coffee fumes for hours (as I don't drink anything except bottled water- ever!)
IF: Plain

Tangent: Precious Life

This is the scan of my friend's baby.
It is a reminder of how precious life is.
At 22 weeks pregnant, this new person is already 'half-cooked'.....waiting to enter our world and become a wonderful human being.
No matter what scientists do, attempting cloning etc etc....no matter how modern technology keeps evolving, this is still the most miraculous creation of all kind.
(Of course, I couldn't decipher which blob was the eye, nose, kneee or elbow.)

I drew this while on holiday, as 'family' and 'motherhood' was very much on my mind.

If you think of an ocean liner, consider fathers to be the rudder and mothers to be the engine.

To a woman, her family and motherhood are like the whole 'body' while her career and friends are like the 'tail'.

To a man, his life and career and having fun are like the 'body' while his family is like the 'tail'.

Treasure that little baby, Jaimie, nestling inside your womb, protected under your arms, and close to your heart, as that's where he/she will always stay till the day you die.

Tangent|: Gorilla Ocean

hahahahahahahahahaha, this one is soooooo funnnnnyyyyyyy.....

While in Oz, I saw a postcard of a magnificent ocean sort of melding into the surrounding areas of trees and sand, so decided to copy it in my own inimitable way (okay, okay bold way!)

Imagine my surprise when this huge gorilla eating a banana emerged?

Well, I just couldn't stop giggling, and my 'gorilla ocean' painting was born!

TGIF: Thank God it's Friday!

Tangent: Meet Avon

This is Avon. She was handed to me, and pissed all over my dress. Luckily she only eats eucalyptus leaves, so I smelt quite fragrant.
They apologised most profusely, and after cleaning myself up she was handed to me again for a cuddle. This is her in my arms. Isn't she too precious for words? Her two thumbs are very strong, yet she holds on very tenderly.
I left a bit of my heart with little Avon back in Australia.

Sixty: Learn to accept

God

Grant me the

Serenity

to accept the things I cannot change

Courage

to change the things I can

and

Wisdom

to know the difference

This is how I see our little family now.

I need to accept the changes within it - with the sure knowledge that I've always done my best, and know with certainty that: 'what will be will be'.

Now I will review all 60 things I was determined to do before 60 (in 3 weeks time), and see which I have achieved, which I can still do, which are ongoing and which I may never do.

Tangent: Stitches

While in Australia on holiday I became fascinated with Aboriginal Art.

A lot of it is bold, scatty, rigid, patterned, smudgy and sometimes just weird (mmmm, a lot like me I guess!)

I copied this one for IF as it reminds me of a stitched piece of fabric.

Tangent: Holiday Senita

'Hello everyone. Thank goodness FY is back from her trip to Australia for her son's wedding. I was beginning to feel slightly neglected. This is a painting of my thoughts while she was gone! It's me on the beach with all my friends.'

(Senita is a cactus that Steve gave me a few months ago and I have joined TeriC in her Monday postings about cacti.) Of course Senita loves all the attention.

I painted it at 3am when the 'jet lurgy' got me and I was wide awake after collapsing into bed before 9pm last night. This reminds me of all beach scenes the world over where people flock to the sea edge like sheep and then all flock out again dripping wet, looking for a dry towel, a cool drink and some more of that too - hot sunshine that is killing most of them! And they call this fun!

Happy Cactus Monday everyone!

Tangent: I AM BACK

Arrived home with a sigh of relief.

This pencil drawing took quite a few attempts. The Opera House is tricky, looks so straightforward, but I found it hard to draw.

THIS is how my holiday actually felt (to me). Don't know if I will ever be able to explain it all. Maybe it's just jet lag?....

Enough said for now.

Happy 2008 to you all in blogland.

Watch this space for my final 60b460 posts, as the birthday is drawing near now!

Tangent: Happy New Year from Oz

I just had to come and say 'HI' and Happy new Year to you all from Oz.

The wedding was amazingly and surprisingly wonderful.

With the sand between our toes,the wind in our hair, surfers strolling past and the crashing waves, it was natural, personal, intimate and touching. I truly never expected to feel like this at all. If I could go back 30/40 years and have my life over, this is exactly the wedding I would choose for myself.

The rest of this experience has been a total 'mindfuck'.

From doctors, cancelled tickets, fevers, more doctors, decisions, decisions, decisions, changed tickets, travel insurance, non-refundable money, fevers, doctors, we both eventually made it, coming on seperate flights, arriving where we wanted to be in the end.

Since the wedding on the 29th, it has literally rained and rained and rained. 'Most unusual for this time of year here in New South Wales' we get told over and over, it's tropical, humid, and just sheets of it....

We are in a lovely lodge overlooking green fields, with cows and calves grazing, and it could be England, except for the sound of the kookaburras in the mornings. And still it rains.

A very confusing time it has all been and continues to be.

We are here till the 11th January and are relaxing, reading and I'm painting, so all in all a forced rest.

But in time I will no doubt make some sense of it all and what it all has meant..ot maybe I won't even bother!