Buttercupchappati Chronicles

Feed the birds, the bees, the possums, and ...

Whoever is passing through really.

There are quite a lot of food plants on our half acre block, at least seven fruit trees, not counting the self sown plums, the horse chestnut, the various herbs and vegetables and the odd grasses here and there. (To be honest, only the cockatoos eat the chestnuts, and only in years where there is not much other food about.)

We don't actually get much of it.

I don't mind really, it's nice trade off to have the wild things come into your own garden. And the noise of the possum fights when the plums and the crab apples are ripe, are both terrifying and hilarious. Plus they have Olympic running events across our corrugated roof, wearing hobnail boots.

But I am feeling a bit cranky about the olive tree!

It was planted around 1998 I think, was growing slowly but steadily, until a bit of a setback. All the wood for building an extension on the house was delivered on top of it...

It did survive, olives are the survivors of the tree world! But then its timing was all wrong once it started to produce fruit, it was always fruiting at the wrong time of year. So that took a few years to re-set.

Now we actually get reasonable amounts, which the birds enjoy immensely.

Looking forward to a dish of home grown kalamatta olives one day, if I can only keep the Rosella's out! Heading off to the produce store for some netting, sorry guys, its my turn for the olives. Wonder if they also have an old Greek Grandmother who can teach me how to cure them properly?

 

How did I miss R2D2?

It's a different picture entirely when you download it onto the computer.

I had been entranced by this forlorn and clearly convention-ed out little figure (never did find out who or what they were portraying) at  Supernova in Melbourne yesterday. Geeking out and enjoying all the costumes, and the inspiration and sheer effort.

So how did I not see R2D2 going by??? sigh

Well, I did see K9 so it's not all bad! And was very entertained when a girl asked the "handler" if she could pat him!

It was a great day, got to hang out with Fred and George Weasley, and what's more I found my tribe ... I have only one word on that right now ... Akatsuki! Mathew may never recover.

 

A few more pictures of some of my favorites on the day here

 

 

walking towards me

I have made a deal with myself, a promise, that I will walk for an hour a day no matter what!

I have been building up to the hour as I've been a little sedentary for the last couple of months with health stuff, but today was the first full hour, yay me. It's a good time of year to begin, Woodend is delicious in the autum with lots of European trees and their lovely colours, and that kind of mild warm sunshine that is so so healing.

So far so good, but oh the excuses ...

My runners (which I have had for so long I don't remember where I bought them) are rubbing a hole in one foot.

My ipod is not charged.

It might rain.

I have to do that thing (insert thing of choice here) later.

I should be doing housework/paperwork/anything-except-walking-work.

Waiting for a phone call.

I ate too much.

I don't want to!

But I tell myself to shut up and just go, and when I get going I do love it. Everything works better when we walk. I feel more connected to my body, remember how it moves, remember that I have feet, have great conversations with myself - it's harder to be negative outdoors for some reason. Smile at people going by, and their dogs. Enjoy my play lists of walking music.

Best of all?

Feel so very smug when I get home and its all over!

 

word lace

because I haven't played this game for a while

 

courage, and her sister, courageous

Nimbin (say it slowly and out loud, it's addictive)

bumble bee (all the humming words today)

egalitarian (got to use it correctly at least twice last week!)

sorrowing    harrowing     forlorn     cessation

resolute

tapioca  (again slowly and out loud)

lotus

Tripitaka

divulge

Oloroso

promises promises promises promises promises (huh, say it often enough and it doesn't sound like anything)

staunch

pleasing

escapee

do it anyway

are all the planets retrograde this week?

there are lots of little challenges going on, aren't there ...

and the Easter full moon is making us all crazy as usual.

That's why we thank the divinities for the small graces, the little smiles and the occasional treats that fall from the sky into our laps and distract us from chocolate and self pity.

This week I am so very grateful for Lenny Kravitz in The Hunger Games, why wouldn't you be?

In fact we should all be more grateful for Lenny, more often.

And, I am also grateful for, no wait, Lenny is enough!

 

 

note to emo self

snap out of it

oh, okay, the allocated time allowed for feeling sorry for self has expired

But it's alright because I have watched all the Greys Anatomy it is possible to watch, eaten way too much sugar and actually logged some quality sleep hours which makes a whole new world emerge.

There is a plan, and no you can't just walk into Mordor.

(Life might be easier with a job type job, but I am built for other things, self-employment among them.)

The Arura web site will get a face-lift, that always makes me feel better and I am having a long serious conversation with the diary and the whole time management team over the easter break, they need firing. Also a few expectations, completely self-funded and developed, also need to be fired.

Of course as it is a work force of one, these redundancies will create some holes in the work place, but am looking to employ non-crazy people as replacements. Let's see how that works out for me!

And for a complete change of pace, a picture of the totally awesome Yorkshire pudding I cooked last night to go with a Kings Ransom of roast beef. Yes, wow.

 

 

I think I've given my journey away

How did I let that happen?

I was sitting at my computer working out the hours for the clinic over Easter, and all I could contend with was worrying about all the other people who might be angry, disapproving, disapointed - name a negative emotion they were all present - if I was not on tap and available for them over the short break.

I love working for myself. 

It's hard hard hard sometimes, and you are usually your best and only supporter.

I love what I do.

And the nature of that work means that sometimes I need to be available when the patients need me, not the other way around. That doesn't bother me one bit, but it does make me Robinson Crusoe.

And the really good bit is that if I had a "proper job", but one that involved shift work, there would be no questions, no problems about me being at work.

Interesting huh. When did I give away all that power, and why?

Easter is now officialy a Karen Think Tank. I need to get back on the map and away from the part that reads here be dragons ...

 

Motivate me

Every year, without fail, in January or thereabouts I get myself into a big self improvement frenzy. Perhaps I should do the new years resolution thing, it might use up some of that energy.

Anyway, what happens is a trawl about all the sites of motivators, inspirators (new words alert) and so on. I sign up for their newsletters, download their free pdf books on how to re-invent yourself, your life, your business, your dna ... And I go to the sites they personally recommend and do it all again there too. Gotta keep busy.

Sometimes I actually read the books.

And about half way through February heading on into March, I look at the hundreds of un-read emails waiting for me and I go into reverse and spend a few weeks un-subsrcribing.

This year there was a difference. Yes there is the usual cast of thousands who I am now removing from my electronic life. But this time I stumbled acrss Danielle LaPorte, thank you motivational gods! Her website was called White Hot Truth, which sang to me, but she has just changed it to her own name. And fair enough.

I Love This Woman.

I get excited when I see an email waiting. I go and look around the site, more than once. I did print some of the free stuff she sent, and I read it. She speaks from the heart, makes no bones about writing from her own experience, always.

She will pick you up from whatever dark little puddle you have parked yourself in and give you a hug, a kick up the bum, and some sound business advice all at the same time.

All colours of awesome.

This is one of my most favourite posts, (this week), go get inspired!

In praise of women

 

making lace in a throwaway world

Do you ever watch that movie Love Actually? I really like the voice over part at the beginning where the Hugh Grant character talks about how he feels much better about the state of the world when he thinks about the arrival hall at Heathrow, all that happiness and love right there.

My feel-good place? Spotlight.

You cannot go into a Spotlight store and not feel that everything will be okay. (For those who don't know, Spotlight is a large chain of stores that sell fabric, wool, sewing machines, buttons, curtains, everything you could ever need for making anything!)

These places are always busy, busy to the point of chaos. People, mostly women, are bustling about with arms laden with stuff! They are making curtains, deb dresses, baby clothes, knitting, making jewelry, you name it, it is going on. If there is a complex and time consuming craft that was only done by blind nuns in a remote convent on an island off the coast of a lost country, you can buy the stuff to do it here.

I adore it. No matter what the state of the nation, what terrible atrocities are happening in the world, what the banks are doing, what the government is not doing, women are still making sure everyone has a warm jumper and matching cushions for their curtains. We are still sitting in front of the tv at night making things, because we can and that's what we do.

I don't sew, I can but don't tell anyone. At high school in our compulsory sewing class I accidentally sewed up the leg holes of the phys ed pants we had to make, ummm ... And don't get me going on patchwork, why would you cut  up perfectly good fabric just to sew it back together? But I can knit and crochet and embroider with the best of them. Not to mention all the other crafts that have been big parts of my life over the years.  Lace making was one of the ones that I had admired from a distance but thought life was too short to embark on that particular journey.

Then in January, when in Sydney for an exciting visit to the Harry Potter exhibition (yes, geek out) we found ourselves in the Lace exhibition at the Powerhouse museum.

Wow.

Really, wow. Apart from an exhibition of the most beautiful collection of contemporary lace art works, there is a lace making lab where some truly gorgeous ladies will show you how lace is made, tell you everything your heart could desire to know about lace; and, take you through the permanent lace collection.

Here is drawer after drawer of exquisite pieces, crafted over so many hours its hard to imagine. Lace dating back to the 15th century. A panel of lace depicting the story of Judith and Holofernes, marginally bigger than a credit card, needing a magnifying glass to really see the detail, made in a time when the artificial light was a candle!

But the big excitement for the lovely lady who had taken me in hand was their collection of modern lace. Particularly lace made in eastern Europe after the second world war. There was nothing, absolutely nothing to be had anywhere in Europe at this time, forget about fine threads and the leisure for making lace. But these artisans needed to create again, that was their healing journey back to a place of sanity. So this amazing lace is constructed out of fine wires, synthetic fibres, whatever they could use, they did. The modern designs and stark shapes tell their own story of lives moved into a different paradigm. It was some of the most beautiful art I have ever seen, and the most moving.

My life does not have room for lace making, as much as I admire it, I will stay at a safe distance. But it makes me happy to think that all over the world people are still taking up their bobbins and threads and keeping this tradition alive - don't think for a minute that it is just old ladies either! This and so many other hand crafts might just be saving the world for us in ways we can't see or ever imagine.

 

Digital lace by Natalie Mcleod 

because some days I need to believe in the idea of love

And it's the poets, the singers, the writers, all the artists of the word, it is their job to rise as one and prove it to me.

Because I am a person of words.

Words aren't always safe, or true, or reliable, or quite what you have thought them to mean. But it is how I see the world, understand it, explain it , travel through it and experience it. It's how I measure out my life and record the things that matter to me. Mostly I never share those words with anyone. I leave that to the writing gods. Thank the muses for them, I do.

 

e.e.cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                  i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)