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Life is keeping me rather busy still - that is why I've not been on here with any updates...

My Mum is still waiting to go into a permanent aged care facility... the hold-up now being that she has now had to be re-accessed & is no longer 'low care' but 'high care'... not too good on her pins now so needs someone with her whenever she moves around & of course that's not much now. She is very sad & still quite crabby all the time but to cheer her up we keep taking some of her long-lost possessions that we are finding at her house so she can tell us the stories.

When we meet on Thursdays to do more on her house we can all share the stories she has told us so we are bonding again as grown-up children now collecting our valuable family history. Many are the things we are finding & ohhh so interesting... They[my parents] have had a wonderful life even if hard at times I think that makes for a more appreciative life.

Here is a drawing I had done of our old farm house some years back...

I have allotted myself to be the photo collector so have all the photos I can find so I can scan them & put them on USB sticks or discs to share with the family with names etc so it makes sense to the younger ones coming up the family ranks. You can't believe how many photos I have here to scan - I think every box of letters [some dating back to 1940] contained some photos - it will take me a month of Sundays for sure but I'll get there as they are too precious to lose. I guess this is the bane of photographers in the family....

In the meantime our eldest daughter got put into hospital with pneumonia so we had a quick dash to their home to help the family & spent a week there... Y. still wasn't the best when we left but there was just too much happening at home to be away longer...

Also been keeping my fingers busy with some crochet but need to concentrate on some items now as with-in 10days my sister & I are off to Japan to visit with her son & his family & I have presents I wish to complete to take with us. Sadly we have not had anytime to get organised or excited about this trip as Mum is filling all our thoughts, worrying about her welfare...

Thankfully we have now finished sorting the house... now it's time to get everyone to take what they want so we can see what is left... sad to see your old home in such a state of dishevelment as I lived there for a few years before going out & getting married myself, but my older sister & brother have never lived at this house so it doesn't have the same memories for them... A bit like our home here as we moved here since all our kids have made homes of their own so this home doesn't hold those special memories.

I did do something this week that I've had planned for sometime now & that was to fly to Sydney with my girlfriend Lucy to visit the Sydney PowerHouse Museum to see the Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. We only went for the day but it was so well worth it... I think between us we took something like 300 - 400 photos & we still didn't get everything. The lighting was very dramatic so it made it somewhat hard to focus on the coral & strangely we found the red coral very hard to photograph. I would say we loved it as we spent nearly 5 hours there & I did get to meet three other artists plus Michaela who was one of the organisers... The girls did a fabulous job of putting the display together & it was very exciting to see my name in lights on the wall along with the other 343 participants.

I have culled the photos down to about 200 so there are way too many photos to show here, I'm loading them into my flicker account so do pop on over & have a looksee. Please also check out the Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef set too... Please, let your friends know too... Here is the blog site as well...

This is me with my first piece that I found... it sure was a thrill to find one of my pieces up there, front & centre, on one of the displays & I recognised some other folks work as well - if only we could of all been there together to meet one another... can you imagine the hum-ding we would of made... lol This was a very BIG bright spot in my week... thanks Lucy for sharing it with me & always encouraging me to do my 'thing'...

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Woo what a day... for that matter what a week... Today I see the world has lost a great entertainer whether you liked Micheal Jackson or not he gave so much to the world with his music... we also see the passing of Farrah Fawcett after her very public & brave battle with cancer - I don't think there would be many who didn't know her smile, her teeth & her 'hair'... there are rumors flying around that other greats have pasted today as well but time will tell...

I have also had a rather hectic week myself with my dear old 93 year old Mum having fallen again the day before her birthday last week & ending up in hospital over the weekend. She is fighting to stay with us but we thought she was going to go & be with Dad the other day. I've had my youngest daughter's birthday over the w/e, mine this week as well, but no one feeling at all like celebrating. Our eldest daughter arrived with her boys to visit with Nanna[Mum] but they have had to go, so we are to follow them now & stay bush for a few days over stocktake time.

Can anyone tell me if life ever settles to a lesser pace??? On the brighter side of things I have been to the doctors/hospital myself to have treatment on my shoulder so am anxious to get out there into our garden & trim a few shrubs, do some gardening & finish off some outside projects while my injected shoulder has little pain but I also have the weather against me[raining so often] so must not be meant to be... yet.

Eldest Grandie took this photo of me through a wet/rainy window...

I've been keeping my hands busy with crochet & I've made/crocheted my little mate, Gilly[our toy poodle] a cute jacket that looks like a singlet top & her mate Snowy a frilly jacket so they are looking rather smick at present. Sorry the photos aren't the clearest but these girls don't like to keep still for long...

And here's that thing... So what do you think it looks like???

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Well I'm over it ... I've been feeling rather sad, forlorn & just plain 'Old'... but there is nothing I can do about it so I'm moving on with life...

What am I over??? ... over having our beautiful eldest child turned 40, yes 40, I'll say it again 40 ... now I'm over it ... think she is a bit too ... lol

The time has gone far to quickly since she was this gorgeous little baby ... but she has grown into a beautiful woman that we are so proud of, with two wonderful sons that we so love. While looking for this photo I found so many more & have spent several days going through them all & re-living wonderful memories, even DH enjoyed the trip back in time. After doing this post I have to go back into the spare room & put everything back in the cupboard ... never mind it was fun.

It's amazing how many photos I have of those times but also how many photos I have that I really don't need anymore so many double-ups - I think I should add it to my 'to do list' & that's to spend a week going through these photos & deciding what stays & what goes ... scanning is always a great option as so many have gone such dreadful colours ... When we shifted here I brought 4 large plastic boxes full of photos & photo albums - they were the one thing I didn't want to loose ... our poor southern- state fire victims & our northern-flood victims lost it all - but they still have the memories within themselves but I'm sure as time goes on they will have such moments of sadness for these past-memories lost, no matter how 'blessed' they feel to have themselves & loved ones saved, it will still be a fleeting sadness.

Not much action has been happening in the Gyrlie Shed this week but I did manage to make a couple of dozen PostCards for my PostCrossing so that should see me through for a couple of weeks. I had a great day at the CraftFest yesterday with my friend L & we even entered the Apron Challenge - what fun that was ... apparently we will be in the photo gallery of CraftFest next week.

Thankful for having ways of keeping our memories in visual ways...