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• Post #4468186

  Evening, Toots. My godmother, who was also my first cousin once removed, and who I called my Aunty, because my family is like that, died this arvo. She was nearly 90 and a firecracker to the last, went out on her own terms. Will be buried somewhere she chose, not near either of her two husbands. She smoked 100 cigarettes a day from the time she was about 16. When I was a kid, I thought she was impossibly glamorous, with her dyed hair, and her house full of shiny everything, and bright lippy....

• Post #4393184

  Feeling quite bleaggggh today. Very ugh. Not great. Decided dinner would be my first trial of @onekind 's recipe for rice cooker rice pudding. It's smelling pretty yum already.

• Post #4159651

  Just destroyed the rice cooker I give up

• Post #4120540

  @alexpsmith@beige.party Hey, you, 👋🏻 (Trying to think of a way to say "Where the bloody hell are ya?" that doesn't sound like a lame tourism ad. Failing. So "Hey, you. 👋🏻")

• Post #3953438

  Microwave oven carked it on the weekend, so we got a new microwave. But it was smaller than previous one (fiiiiiine) and didn't fit the microwave rice cooker (which I hated anyway) so after my very late mental health appointment today, we went shopping and bought a separate rice cooker. Smarter than I was going to buy, but it seduced me with promised auto settings for brown rice, crispy rice, sushi rice, steam, porridge, as well as white rice. Still not all that expensive, no Powerball win...

• Post #3858933

  How to solve your towering To Be Read pile in one easy step: Knock it off the edge of your bedside table into the spot you can't reach, because your back is out after a day of car travel. 🤣😂 Follow me for more simple life solutions!

• Post #3852310

  Arvo, Toots. Home from the second eye specialist down in Brisbane today. Step 1: dear optometrist, why are my less than 1 year old, very expensive multifocal glasses not working? "Oooh, that's odd ... " (I hate hearing that phrase, don't you?) Right, above my pay grade, I'm sending you to the Eye Institute in Brisbane. Step 2: 1st Eye Specialist: "Hmmmm yes. You have [ahem!] going wrong. I'd like you to come back and see my colleague. Step 3: (today) 2nd Eye S...

• Post #3773456

  Oooh this is sooooo up my Artists Books jam! If anyone is near Hawthorn Arts Centre, Victoria, hope you can see this! #melbourne #naarm #ArtistsBooks https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-13/slow-read-exhibition-hawthorn-arts-centre/106866534

• Post #3757212

  Streets around us are all blocked off so the nice train people can get the special machines that sound like groaning cellos to regrind the tracks again. They do this every so often, and then run a cute little inspection train along. Even though there have been signs warning of the closures up for weeks, we've seen grumpy bums still trying to do impossible turns to avoid the closure, and when Rosie the Red Cattle Dog was being walked this morning, there were several motorists who apparently...

• Post #3350325

  #ThreeGoodThings lately: 1. A donation of three large bags full of art materials from one of the Artists Books group on Wednesday arvo was immediately seized upon, rummaged through, and used at Art Therapy yesterday morning. Paper, wire craft mesh, beads, embroidery threads, old spools, lids, small cardboard boxes ... The joy these treasures brought. 2. Found a reasonably priced, second hand, single bed this arvo and got it home in the car, no problems. Himself and Rosie the Red Cattle Dog are...

• Post #3224320

  So today my mental health nurse and I sacked each other, how's your week going? (Captain, it's Tuesday.) No more funding after June 30 for her position anyway. And she decided I was "over serviced" since I see a psychiatrist, psychologist, and art therapist as well. The psychiatrist and psychologist I pay for privately. And the Art Therapy funding is always on a knife edge. I have multiple, long term, conditions that need these supports but don't qual...

• Post #2859456

  Arvo, Toots. Recovery day today. Hanging Day went well at the gallery yesterday. I had to leave before we were completely done, but the hanging committee were super helpful and so experienced, they made our group's job a lot easier. I mostly sat, sorted labels, and rolled small balls of blutack for the back of the labels - being a good little dung beetle, lol! Then matching labels to works was simple and fast. Hopefully I can share some gallery photos tomorrow. Today I'm trying out a ne...

• Post #2660915

  Currently being rewritten by CHAT GPT after writing volunteer newsletter email and yeah nah. Either you accept my writing style or nope. (I should point out, it is rather more formal than my writing here. Obviously.) #volunteerfeels

• Post #2636121

  Whoops! Went to get the dinner baked potatoes out of the air fryer. Handle and whole front of the basket came off in my hand, basket irretrievably dented. Spuds salvaged. Metaphor there somewhere, but I am too tired. Just going to eat my extra crunchy potatoes and go with it.

• Post #2281255

  Also, please congratulate me today because I kept my mouth shut ALL DURING an investment advisor's speech about how wonderful AI was and how "exposure to this market" was a good thing. Much adulting. Many exhausted. Goodnight!

• Post #2277010

  Arvo, Toots. Dad "very sleepy" after yesterday's surgery, results won't be known for about 6 weeks, although things should "settle down." He's able to go back to emergency at the same hospital if anything happens, so that's good. I'm off to the Art Society's Annual General Meeting, for my sins. Not least because the Artists Books group is still missing an opening speaker for our exhibition, and I have to ask a favour (or two) to try and make that happ...

• Post #2147437

  Dad's "investigative surgery" to see why he has blood in his urine (and a UTI) got moved up from next week to tomorrow morning. He's seeing the urologist who has been dealing with his prostate cancer - "the kind you die with, not of," was what we were told - although now, I dunno. Thing is, he's going to be 87 in September. He has Alzheimer's. Hospital won't be easy, even for a day. My brother has taken another day off work so he can be there for Mum an...

• Post #1947317

  Evening, Toots. Apparently there are mice in the rotten wood corner of the window the bathroom, and along under the floor. Rosie the Red Cattle Dog has become obsessed with that spot. She's taken to sitting there for hours, staring. Waiting. Once a cattle dog has the "eye" on, it's very difficult to break their concentration, and she is a very determined girl. We won't use baits (we have owls, quite apart from fearing that Miss Rosie might get one) so it's back to Hamm...

• Post #1941590

  Mum, very much feeling SIL being away, with Dad not well, has said "just a card" for Mother's Day. Which may not reach her in time because I am an idiot and forgot to post three weeks ago (thanks, AusPost). So now I'm hunting for a reliable florist, or will buy her some chocs from Haigh's, which I know she'll like, and they will deliver early. Very first world problems, I know. Just feeling quite inadequate today.

• Post #1936857

  Morning, Toots. Not sure I'm awake yet. Public holiday here today. (Labour Day. After this one, we don't get another one until October. We have them all in a bunch - Easter, the Show Holiday, Anzac Day, Labour Day-then nothing. People get very grumpy about it.) I could do with about 6 hours more sleep. Probably will need to stagger to the kitchen instead but right now, maybe more sleep. There are crumpets in the fridge. And soup made for later. Very tired of the (redacteds) today.

• Post #1657514

  Evening, Toots. Regular Saturday upsetting my Mother phone call achievement unlocked. Head desk. (Mentioned something related to family history, I think. Who knows. She hung up.) My SIL is going off to visit her family for five weeks starting Tuesday, and Mum has requested extra phone calls with me, because she will miss my SIL, who she usually sees pretty much every day. (Brother and SIL live over Mum and Dad's back fence, gate in between the yards. I live 1879 km away, according to the...

• Post #1490028

  Arvo, Toots! Second appointment with the exercise physiologist today - this was the one that counted, where we did initial testing and set my first few exercises to do at home. Very limited, body weight only, twice a week at first. Even the testing stuff today has left me a bit sore. I had better upper body strength than I expected, must be all the lugging art materials around! I am struggling with my portraiture drawing course homework. Hoping it will "click" into place, but so fa...

• Post #1122858

  Arvo, Toots! So far today: mental health nurse (sigh, discussion re some family stress stuff, and then a Self Care Plan - will it help? Maybe.) Lunch. Unlike the wankers in the newspaper who have their "day on a plate" analysed by a dietitian, I had considerably more than "half a dozen raspberries and some organic goat yoghurt." No, your correspondent unashamedly wolfed down half a bloody terrific avocado (because cheap and delicious), a fried egg, 4 thin slices of fried hal...

• Post #1121122

  Arvo, Toots. Bit of a food gripe for this post. I offered to make a cake for next week's portraits from life session, because it's someone's birthday. So I was asking "does anyone have any food allergies, etc" as you do, right? The birthday person doesn't do coffee. No problems. Other people, no gluten. Ok. I offered my almond, coconut, and lemon cake. One person bailed me up and said "Have you heard of a low FODMAP diet?" I said yes, I followed it myself....

• Post #1025849

  Arvo, Toots! Just ordered a Family History thing from NSW Births Deaths and Marriages. Guess which website, still, in 2026, cannot accommodate a name with a strange (not that strange) character in it? In other news, very tired today. Two hours of Portraiture Drawing Class, where we drew an initial reference drawing (so we'd be able to see how far we've gone by the end of the course) and did lots of learning to measure accurately, and it was very mentally draining. The teacher w...

• Post #686910

  BTW yesterday we learned that #RosieTheRedCattleDog can open doors by undoing the snib and pushing down on the handle. Doors key locked from now on. When we got her from the RSPCA she had really shut down. On one hand, I'm glad she's showing such engagement with her environment. On the other hand ... She's kinda scary smart at times.

• Post #638882

  Somebody (Rosie) didn't want to get off my chair. Was not impressed when I suggested we share. #RosieTheRedCattleDog #DogsOfFedi #DogsOfMastodon

• Post #626085

  I could have chosen so many objects to photograph at the National Museum of Australia, it was overwhelming. Wonderful. So democratic, the collections displayed were not about Lord this and Lady that - so many of the stories were about ordinary people. I loved that. Another tearful moment for me: it's the Arched Window! From Playschool! In real life!

• Post #445115

  Morning, Toots! Well, what do we have here? Is it Rosie the Red Cattle Dog, snuggle hound extraordinaire? Well, only before breakfast time. She would like you to know that after her delightful walk in the rain last night (housemate: soggy, grumble, not delightful!) she slept soundly, and was quite ready for a hearty breakfast. Anyone's breakfast. The birds', her own, the housemate's, mine ... (You'd think we don't feed her! She's almost down to the...

• Post #387311

  A DAY of frustration trying to set up a new phone. Still not right. Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Having some cheese. Late night cheese. Because gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!