Six Word Saturday - May 28th, 2011

Some problems are not easily fixed. 

As is so often the case, I could mean a variety of things with the six words I choose for Six Word Saturday. I am certainly aware of the truth in these words. Some problems are big, some little and some are not just difficult to fix but impossible. The one I am referring to today concerns a vision difficulty endured by my fourteen year old daughter. 

On Wednesday afternoon we visited the optometrist to have her vision checked. She has been complaining recently about not being able to see clearly and I have noticed her squinting to read the scoreboard during netball games. I was fairly sure she needed a new prescription even though it has been less than a year since she started wearing glasses. It turns out that her short-sightedness has gotten significantly worse in a short period of time. The optometrist was surprised by the amount of change. So a new pair of glasses is in order. The optometrist also advised her to wear them all of the time. Until now she has only used them to read the board at school and to watch TV or at the movies. The short-sightedness is fairly easily fixed. A new pair of glasses and she will be able to see clearly again. Apart from when she plays sport, her clarity of vision can be fairly easily fixed. As far as netball goes we are just going to see how she goes and the optometrist said that single use disposable contacts may be an option. So even that is fairly easily fixed. 

What is more concerning is a problem that she has with the muscles in her eyes working together. Her eyes both naturally want to turn outwards. I think the left is slightly worse. This problem was first picked up when she was about 7. She began complaining of double vision sometimes. Lately it has been causing headaches and difficulties with concentrating. The treatment (which I think is really more management now) is to do some regular eye exercises to strengthen the muscles. The difficulty being that these cause discomfort and headaches. The optometrist and I have both stressed the importance of doing the exercises and the optometrist used some scare tactics and showed her the prism he would need to put in the glasses to fix the problem. It was very thick, definitely not what a teenager would want.  


I will do my best to encourage and remind her and make sure she attends her monthly optometrist appointments but ultimately it is up to her. There is no quick fix and I am proud of how well she generally manages the difficulties without complaint. 

Penguin pocket for a phone

Three hours on a Sunday afternoon. 

Hmm, what to do? 

Housework or make a penguin phone pocket? 

Guess which I chose? 

Alysha has some gorgeous penguin earphones. I decided to make a matching cover for her phone. 

The back view

Six Word Saturday - May 21st, 2011

A frog made out of Fimo. 

Last week my sister bought some Fimo. Remember that stuff? I didn't use it as a child but my sister is 12 years younger than I am and used it quite a bit when she was young. She was surprised it was still around. 

This evening a few of us enjoyed creating with Fimo. I wasn't going to make anything but can't seem to resist having a go myself when others start creating! 

Here is my frog: 

and a few of our other creations: 

By Emily, age 9

By Teya, age 4 

By Alysha 

By Kate

By Brianna, age 10 

Trish the fish - a limerick

A limerick for the Monday's Child picture prompt this week. 

Illustration by: Carmen L. Browne - 1917

Trish the fish 

On a warm but very cloudy day 

To the waters edge I went to play 

Out of the water popped a fish 

"Hello," she said, "My name is Trish"

And I just didn't know what to say 

Sunday Scribblings - May 15th, 2011

The prompt this week for Sunday Scribblings: Surrender. 


Do you use Blogger? Even if you don't you have probably read through your internet travels that Blogger was not working for quite a while last week. How did you cope with Blogger being down for rather a long time? How long did you keep trying before surrendering to the idea that Blogger wasn't working and probably wouldn't be for a while. How did you accept being unable to post when you wanted to? Did you, like me, try many, many times to log in and become very familiar with that message 'Blogger is currently unavailable". Did any of your posts or comments disappear? It really made me wonder what was going on when a post I was sure I had published just wasn't there. For a moment I did question my memory. Did I really press 'publish'? 


All of this got me thinking about surrendering. Yes, it was frustrating to not be able to post when I want to. I didn't accept it really easily. I did keep trying. On my blog Pausing to pick up small stones I post a small piece of writing every day. I have managed to post something every day for the whole year. That is, until the Blogger outage. Now there is one day that I failed to post. That is disappointing and got me thinking about failure. Sometimes we fail due to circumstances completely out of our control. Or maybe it's not really a failure but a change of plans. The idea behind writing small stones is to take some time to really notice a small moment and to write that down. Posting those moments has increased my accountability to myself to actually notice and record the small moments. But really I don't need the blog at all. I still wrote a small stone. I was just unable to post it at the time that I wanted to. Often we rely on others to complete tasks and achieve goals. Sometimes we will be let down. We can choose to struggle with that or surrender. For me how much I struggle and surrender (or both) varies rather a lot. It can be very difficult to accept limitations either within myself or placed on me by others. It often feels good though when I do surrender and accept that I cannot do something, even if that means just taking a break and doing something else for a while. An example of this has been the times when the car has broken down suddenly and I have found myself needing to walk to places a lot more. At first I really struggle against doing so but when I do surrender to the idea of walking I find some positives in that. There is more time to notice when walking compared to driving! 


The Blogger outage also got me thinking about appreciation. I do take the availability of Blogger for granted. It was a shock when it wasn't there. Now that it is back I find myself feeling a little more appreciative. How amazing it is really that we are able to write something and people from all over the world are then able to read it instantly. The ability to communicate with others in this way was virtually unimaginable not so very long ago. The ability to do so is due to the work of a lot of people who I really don't think about very much. Thank you everyone who helps Blogger to function so smoothly most of the time! It is similar with the car situation. After going without a car for a while, during those first few trips I am very appreciative. 


Concerning the Blogger outage, as many others have written, I did find other things to do after a while and enjoyed doing them. I am glad Blogger is back and working now though! 

Six Word Saturday - May 14th, 2011

Magic Harvest babies in the garden. 

I am excited to be part of the second batch of Magic Harvest participants. Magic Harvest is a program which encourages people to grow their own vegetables at home and increase both their gardening and cooking skills. Last week I attended a workshop where we received seedlings and compost. Yesterday I planted the baby seedlings in the garden. It will be interesting to see how they go. There is broccoli, cabbage, spring onions, lettuce and others. I have been gardening for around a year now and have enjoyed some success but am particularly looking forward to the sharing of ideas and experiences with others as part of the Magic Harvest Program. I think I will particularly benefit from the cooking workshops later. It's always possible to learn from reading books and from the internet but there is something great about being with other people and learning together. Cooking is not really a strong point of mine so I'm hoping for some ideas and motivation.

Here's the babies as well as some carrots in the front.

I have already learnt a lot from my involvement in the program. One thing we talked about was a way to discourage white cabbage moths from laying their eggs on the plants. Their was some debate about whether it actually worked but I figure it can't hurt to try. It was suggested to make pretend butterflies and put them near the plants. As the moths are territorial creatures it is suggested that they will not land on the plants as they will think another moth is already there. I thought I might tie some white material to sticks so they will flutter in the breeze. Can't hurt to try. I think it is the white moth caterpillars that have been enjoying quite a feast recently. 

Something has been feasting!

Six Word Saturday - May 7th, 2011

Remembered to wash the paintbrushes today! 

I have been attempting to paint a cherry blossom tree for Alysha. Her middle name, Hana, means flower or blossom in Japanese and she has asked for a large cherry blossom tree painting for her room. I thought I would practise on a smaller scale. 

I was quite pleased with the first attempt. Unfortunately though, I ran out of blue paint and needed to go over some where it had smudged. Actually, I attempted to add the Japanese characters for Hana and it didn't work. I had mixed blue and white for the background and didn't get it quite the same. 

Today I bought another canvas, some more paint and some paintbrushes and tried again. I am pleased with this attempt but not entirely happy with the background colour. The photo doesn't really show it that well but it is a bit dark I think. 

I remembered to wash the paintbrushes afterwards. I have a bad habit of forgetting to do so. They end up with paint caked on them or I leave them in water too long and they go rather disgusting. It's a good thing I mostly use very cheap brushes from Cheap as Chips. That can be a bit frustrating though as I have to often pick loose bits of hair from the painting. Perhaps I will invest in some better brushes sometime and then remember to wash them after use. 

Fairy fun for Three Word Wednesday

The words for Three Word Wednesday this week are Grace, Jitter and Thin. My poem this week is also in response to Monday's Child...fair of face picture prompt: 

Illustration by: Cicely Mary Barker

Fairy shoes 

It was nearly time for the Springtime ball 

In the distance she heard her mother's call 

From leaf to leaf she did flitter 

Inside herself she was all a jitter 

Fairy had looked but could not find her shoes 

She spotted Bee and hoped for good news 

With grace she waited until she could say 

"Mr Bee, have you seen my shoes today?" 

Barefoot and poised on that leaf so thin 

Bumblebee's answer caused her to grin 

The A to Z blogging challenge - my reflections

A big thank you to all of the hosts of this challenge: 


Arlee Bird's Tossing It Out
Jeffrey Beesler's World of the Scribe
Alex J. Cavanaugh Alex J. Cavanaugh
Jen Daiker's Unedited 
Candace Ganger's The Misadventures in Candyland
Karen J Gowen at Coming Down the Mountain Talli Roland
Stephen Tremp's Breakthrough Blogs 


and also to Elizabeth Mueller for the badge she made for participants in the challenge. It is so gorgeous! 

I enjoyed participating in the challenge. It was great to have some extra visitors to my blog and I enjoyed visiting other blogs. My approach to the challenge changed halfway through. I started off making an alphabet card each day. I did enjoy doing that but after a while it started to feel a bit cumbersome. I pushed myself to keep going for a while but then decided to change my approach. I then chose words for each letter and wrote about them for the rest of the challenge, like many others did. I think too I really wanted to write a bit more each day after visiting other blogs and reading all the different posts. 


I missed a few days and combined them with later days but I made it to the end! 
What I particularly liked about the challenge was visiting other blogs and seeing the different approaches to the challenge. I haven't had as much time to do this as I would like so I'm going to keep visiting in May. I have come across a few blogs that I will definitely keep following. I really liked how some people had a theme such as books, recipes, education ideas, movies, songs, etc as well as the letters A to Z. Well, I have almost a year now to contemplate my own approach for next year. And in the meantime I may finish off those alphabet cards at a more leisurely pace.