CouchSurfers are doing my hair!

Thank you Oxford dictionary of names =)

Cara ♀ 20th-century coinage, from the Italian term of endearment cara 'beloved' or the Irish Gaelic vocabulary word cara 'friend'. MEANWHILE..... Kara ♀ Variant spelling of Cara. So we need not be confused on which spelling to use People =) Ah ha! If only I had known this before. I could have been pompous and annoying about my name to all those haughty Karas!

when stomache bugs attack!

I will never complain again about the common cold! Never I say! And I also won't elaborate about what an externally uneventful but internally eventful weekend I had! But onwards and upwards...

Now, I am lifeguarding for the next 3 days,

sorting photos as usual (one day there will be none left I tell you),

reading a great new book!,

showing a CSer/ConFester/friend the beach tomorrow,

retail on Saturday,

house sitting in Cheltenham starting Friday

(pet free, big house all to myself- 1 quiet cat doesn't count as a pet when you live in a Zoo!),

and Sunday I will start doing Still Photography for a short film

Patrick has returned from Yuko's wedding in Japan!

...and he had a wonderful time surrounded by food and hospitality.

CS Asian Dinner night at Andrew's.

Fun faces everyone!

Sewing projects

Look Ma! Look what I made from recycling garments....

From a skirt to a handbag. Im going to add red buttons to the tops of the bows.

I also converted a baggy shapeless shirt into... a nicer one. It's purple. It's fun.

Daily disorganized life

Nothing too exciting happening. Daily disorganized life. Cheeky kitten, cold weather, ducted heating, over thinking, exercising, habit changing, chocolate eating, reading, procrastinating.

Slept in this morning as I had a migraine last night. I worked today at the pool and went for a workout in the gym afterwards so I feel great and tired which is wonderful. Now I am preparing to go to a CS Girls night I have planned in St Kilda. My car is piled with bags of clothes from a clothing exchange party a friend of mine took me too last Sunday so it will be nice to empty my car.

Girls night photos soon =)

CS Girls' Night

The RESULT:

The IDEA:

Hey ladies!

I want to share skills and info with one another!

I'd like to paint nails (I have paint I never use!), learn more about make up (a bit clueless really), make some recipes (see below), learn how to braid hair, mud mask...ya know, anything like that. We can share what we know how to do and help each other.

I have a great book with all kinds of natural recipes called 'Naturally Beautiful- earth's secrets and recipes for skin, body and spirit'. Right now I have covered my hair in olive oil trying to coax it into recovery after confest conditions...it's interestingly fun!

PS. Patricipating men will have their nails (can be toes) painted =)

25/04/10

midsummer night

Midsummer night by John Atkinson Grimshaw

I am now a Certified Lifeguard!

Last Wednesday I went for an interview to lifeguard for the pool I swim at regularly, 5 mins from my house on foot! By Friday I had the job and compliments on my interviewee techniques! Hooray, if only everyone wanted to give me a job! Roll Up, Roll Up!

Over the weekend I did the Lifeguard course (yes, I got a job before having the qualifications which makes me feel pretty savvy). I attended the course which ran Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday in Maribyrnong (what a hike! other side of the city). Friday night was theory and I stayed the night in Moone Ponds with my Confest/CS friend Jarrod, great to see him again! Saturday was CPR, swim test, towing test after which I went to visit Jarrod and say farewell as he flew to Italy Saturday night. After that it was more farewells as my step-Dad Patrick is off to Japan for 2 weeks to attend the traditional Japanese wedding of his ex-exchange student Yuko who is a temple masters daughter. What an amazing insight into Japanese Culture! My travel feet are a little itchy with so many people flying about!

In the course on Sunday we practiced scenarios or 'initiatives' as they called them. We were then tested on initiatives and were also tested on removing someone from the water who is unconscious and removing someone who has a spinal injury (strapping them to a board whist immobilizing their neck). My favourite part of the course was learning how to turn someone over with the vice grip who is face down in the water with a suspected spinal injury! I was demonstrating it to anyone who I talked to about the course over the weekend. Sunday evening I met up with my friend Sally, signed her up to CS and went home exhausted! That may hours in the pool dries out your skin and makes your hair angry. We ate gourmet pizza and hid from the cold!

This Wednesday I will go for my Induction at the Centre! I will also sign up so I can use the gym and pool facilities for free! Fitness here I come which is great because just now I need a little motivation!

Rain

Emotional emails

Stuffy nose

Job Interview

Excessive dental visits

Cat, cats, cats and whiney dogs

Ducted heating

Doing everything and nothing

Chocolate for everyone

A petit voyage to Sydney...

Last weekend, Patrick's company needed someone to help drive to Sydney...and who more qualified and experienced then I...and had extra time? So Alex (Promotions Director) and I drove the ~11 hours to Sydney alternating driving.

The Land Rover, that we affectionately called Beast, that took us to Sydney...so loud, so wide.

Ahoy from atop the Holbrook submarine- 390km inland of course the place for a submarine.

The computer stall all set up and looking good. Keith the owner on the left, Alex on the right.

I took the train to North Sydney to my CS host' house. I told where the spare key was so I could get in but I arrived to find the house alive. There were 3 other surfers staying and oh what fun we had. There was Hanna (Germany), Alissa and Laure (France). We chatted and then Mark arrived with 2 friends and he made healthy leftovers for dinner. After that we listened to music, played cards, did yoga dancing with feather dusters...you know, all the normal stuff.

We played spoons, one of my favourites!

The skyscrapers of Sydney as seen from Mark's balcony! He had a great view!

The benefits of the balcony abound! Morning visitors eating sunflower seeds out of my hand!

I met up with my friend Sam who is doing Med in Sydney and we wandered the city. He took me to the rocks and the Observatory which had great views of the Harbor Bridge.

It was a lovely day! Still so warm in Sydney.

After the Rocks Sam and I walked back to the CBD to the Park and met up with Couch Surfers. It started off as a few and then more and more came until we had a picnic party! I left the party to get my suitcase and head to the airport, it was hard to leave my old and new friends!

the matrix lego! wonderful!

Food flags! Clever clever!

Playing with photography =)

The Comedy Festival ends...

I am proud of myself. This year I actually went to some shows! Comedy is under rated! I wrangled the program, searched out comedians at random and watched the gala, all to find out who to see and the list goes as follows:

-Josh Thomas (test audience)

-Peter Hellier (CS tickets)

-David O'Doherty- GREAT!

-Sarah Millican

-Hannah Gadsby

-Eddie Ifft- GREAT!

-Jeff Green

-Justin Hamilton (CS tickets)

Pixel Invasion...so fun!

If this link doesnt work it is at the bottom of the page below:

http://cyanatrendland.com/

Pinhole camera image of the Sun’s path

A beautiful image taken by a pinhole camera, showing the Sun’s path over six months:

"The picture clearly shows the path of the sun through the sky over the last six months. I believe you can see we didn’t have a great summer by the broken lines at the top. More sun shone in the month of October."

From: http://benfry.com/writing/archives/652

New phone

My friends will be much relieved to know I have a new phone (the last worked...some of the time) and not just any new phone. I am a lucky girl...I have an iphone....

I had to YouTube how to put in the SIM card....oh the joys if technology. I need one piece of technology to tell me how to use the other.

My favourite line of the Info Guide is the following warning:

"Do not drop, disassemble, open, crush, bend, deform, puncture, shred, microwave, incinerate, paint or insert foreign objects into iPhone"...what a pity. And I wanted to make a smoothie out of mine! They wonder why people don't waste more time reading manuals?

Another of my favourites is:

Turn off iPhone when in any area with a potentially explosive atmosphere....I try to avoid those atmospheres mostly, but I'll keep it in mind.

PS. Mine does not look like this...I was looking for an interesting picture and though this one was pretty impressive! "Look ma! Inside Out!"

Activities of late...

Departure

Cakes and poses at the Beechworth Bakery.

Cooking! Thank you Mari for a beautiful curry.

Dining with friends!

Yes, you guessed it, that is a monkey on my forehead (drawn by a talented 6 year old).

Happy happy, joy, joy.

Ahahaha! Big trouble in a big fish...swim away, swim away!

Why have one milk shake when you can have three =)

Goodbye smiles =)

Think about what your list would be...

Gallup's List of Widely Admired People, a poll of United States citizens to volunteer the names of the individuals whom they most admire. In December 1999, they concatenated this information with their final survey for the 20th century, producing a list of 18 people from the 20th century who are "most admired":

1. Mother Teresa
2. Martin Luther King, Jr.
3. John F. Kennedy
4. Albert Einstein
5. Helen Keller
6. Franklin D. Roosevelt
7. Billy Graham
8. Pope John Paul II
9. Eleanor Roosevelt
10. Winston Churchill
11. Dwight D. Eisenhower
12. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
13. Mohandas Gandhi
14. Nelson Mandela
15. Ronald Reagan
16. Henry Ford
17. Bill Clinton
18. Margaret Thatcher

Its an interesting mix....