Week 29 • Over My Head Photo Challenge i heart faces

 

This week over at i heart faces, the challed is 'over my head'. Here's a shot I took of Bee, obviously breaking the law and standing in a 'no standing' zone!

Edited to add: A No Standing sign such as this is not actually for pedestrians like Bee but for cars. If there is a No Standing sign, it means that you are not allowed to stop your vehicle or park in that area. Do you have this kind of signage in your part of the world?

Please head on over to i heart faces and check out all the shots that go 'over my head'!

My amazing 'girls' weekend & lunch dining experience....

This weekend was fabulous. I went away with 7 women to Point Londsale - a gorgeous seaside town here in Victoria. 

It was a last minute decision to go and I am so so glad I did. Some of these women I have known for 11 or so years - a couple were just new to me. I went with the expectation of having a 'rest' from my family and maybe a laugh or two. Can I just say, I don't believe I have talked or laughed so much since oh another weekend away I had a few years ago now Sydney with a completely different group of women who were equally as fun. What is it about women and freedom I wonder?

Anyway, we rented a most gorgeous house in Point Lonsdale called Illoura. It was stunning!

Friday night, we stayed up chatting, giggling, guffawing, drinking until about 2.30am. Saturday morning some of the women made a gorgeous hot breakfast then we all went out to explore the town. Some went to a Day Spa and others (like me) wandered the town, had coffee and shoppped.

Back to the house and we prepared dinner - I had already prepared a Chicken Curry, another woman cooked us Tandoori Chicken and Spinach Pizzas. We had Vegetable Curry and rotis. We were stuffed full by the end but not too stuffed that we couldn't enjoy the delicious Apple Crumble and icecream that another friend made.

We laughed and shared.

We left our lovely rental home and on the way back to the real world stopped at a superb restaurant called Loam. An amazing and wonderful dining experience. 

Loam is not a 'normal' restaurant where the menu has a list of meals from which you choose. In fact, the 'menu' is a list of ingredients. The waiter, instead of asking you what you want, asks you to look at the list and tell what you don't want to eat. I opted to not have Roe, Beef Tongue, Mussels and Squab.

Our wonderful waiter told us to treat this as a dining experience and as if we were going to dine at a friends place - you get a surprise in what you are served. Great idea!

We had delicious sour dough bread supplied by Zeally Bay Sourdough from a local town, Torquay, accompanied by burnt, twice whipped home made butter. So, so delicious!

First up was fresh, whole radish served with coffee 'soil'. The coffee 'soil' was made up of coffee grounds, sugar and salt I think. Certainly something I would never ever select to order but it really was amazingly delicious!!! Who woulda thunk it? lol

Next was a selection of fresh pine mushrooms. Lightly sauteed with fresh garden silverbeet laid on a bed of pine needle yoghurt. Can you imagine? Again, no way I would order such an item but so tasty. 

Next, all but two of us had Veal Rump, Spinach, Pearl Onion, Wakame and Black Garlic. I loved loved loved this!

Two of the others had the Beef Tongue, garlic puree, tomato and quinoa and they said it was delicious but I was having none of that! (It did look so yummy though)

Finally, dessert - Quince Parfait and oh my goodness!

Ingredients were Quince, Honey, Lemon, Spices such as ginger, coriander, nutmeg and cinnamon. So unusual yet absolutely sublime! Crunchy, home made honeycomb - yum!

We finished our meal, 3 hours later. The service was amazing. The food was stunning. It was a terrific experience.

So, I arrived back home after 6pm - a wonderful, fun and food filled weekend. Tired but relaxed.

Facebook: July Challenge - Deterioration: first 6 submissions

The theme for July is DETERIORATION - meaning: anything that has worsened in condition or quality over time. Some examples you might like to consider are - rusted items, objects needing repair, abandoned buildings/cars or even old age!!!

I have joined in the above challenge and it means that I have to take one photo a day to represent the above.   

Below are my first 6 days submissions:

1. My daughter's bicycle that sometimes gets left out in the rain...

2. Our upright piano that lives on our patio....the ivory is lifting off the keys but gosh, it still sounds great!

3. An old bottle collection that sits out in the unused cubby house

4. Old Wheel Barrow sitting in our backyard - rusting away but still gets used.

5. Tarpaulin Shelter that has frayed to shreds - this is meant to be protecting a couple of lawnmowers. I think our cats had something to do with the way this looks!

6. An old fence experiment around our little vegetable patch. When our dog was very young she was a super digger. She would dig everywhere, we couldn't stop her and she most loved to dig in the lovely soft dirt amongst our vegetables. My engineer husband came up with the idea of mildly electrifying the top wire of the fence. So he attached a car battery to the wires. He failed to take into account that in order for it to shock, she needed to touch it with her nose as her fur acted as a marvellous insulation. Needless to say she continued to dig and there was no shock to be had! 

(Side Note: Our gorgeous dog Kiah, lived to the ripe old age of 15 and this fence was installed before she turned 1 - she passed away in 2007 so that means this is around 17 years old!)

Week 26 - "Pets" over at I Heart Faces

Well, looks like I am on a roll! I posted an entry in I Heart Faces last week and now another this week - don't faint now!

Pets, (read any kind of animal), is the feature this time and while you I know that we have the most gorgeous looking cat in. the. whole. wide. world. I am sure that there will be many almost as cute moggies entered - so I have decided to enter this shot I took about a month ago at the Melbourne Zoo.

Mr. Gorilla (as he will now be known as he is a massive beast and deserves a LARGE amount of respect) was just lounging in the winter sun with his foot up against the glass window, eyes closed, arms folded. I'm sure he was saying that he was bored of us and that we were of no consequence. That's how I felt anyway.

You really do need to click on this image to view it larger - the detail in his foot is just wonderful - plus you also get to see the lovely scratches and scrapes on the glass in their full glory.

After you have finished viewing here, please head on over to the I Heart Faces Blog and share your commenting love - we all love to get comments - plus you will get to see some seriously gorgeous and funny animals and some seriously gorgeous and talented photogs!

ahem - here I am - back to I Heart Faces week 25

I have lost my photo mojo or as some say my phojo.

Lots of things have been happening over the past few months besides the fact that I treated myself to an iPhone and have been taking most of my photos with that using the Hipstamatic App (see how cool I can be using the word app? ;P )

Anyway, my fav photography blog, i heart faces has the theme of TEEN this week so, after prompting from my gorgeous friend Hayley from over at Heller Ritz Photography, I took my one teen left (the other is on a school camp to the centre of Australia!!) and shot him! lol

When I asked this said teen, my 14 year old Zed, if I could please take photos of him over at our park because the theme this week is teen - do you know what he said? He said 'just take a photo of me here, lying on the couch because that is what us teens do'

Well yes, it is exactly what he is good at but it is not what I wanted! and I only had 10 minutes of that divine late afternoon golden sun left and I was having none of his teenage silliness! I got my own way and in the end it wasn't painful for him or for me. I love him for being so un-teenlike and doing this for me - he truly is a gorgeous boy inside and out.

(you can click on the image to view the larger version - you know you want to!)

Don't forget to head on over to iheartfaces and check out all of the wonderful teens there are!

Dobbin Squared!

Walking around my neighbourhood the other day, I found these two rocking horses on the nature strip as it is Hard Rubbish Collection time. These two, having served their purpose for who knows how long, were abandoned on the side of the road. I saw a photo opportunity!

So Dobbin and Dobbin came home to our place. They sat outside on our patio for a few weeks. Then, late yesterday afternoon - the light was beautiful!

I quickly organised my oldest and youngest children to carry them over the road to 'our' park and started to take photos.

While snapping away, a little boy, aged about 4, came over and just hopped on Wooden Dobbin. How cute is that? See the photo down below.

Then, of course, Sam and Bronte got in the act - now that is cute right there. Big kids on little rocking horses. Sad in a way too as it shows just how grown they are now. So, here are my photographic offerings. Hope you enjoy!

Week 17 - “Smiles” at i heart faces

Another great challenge over at i heart faces for Week 17 - this time the theme is Smiles. 

Well, fortunately I have tonnes of smiling shots - the hardest part was choosing which to use. Then I remembered this one that I took of my very good friend Simone's two sons.

I love these boys. They have been through a lot over the past two years and have not had a lot to smile about. 

You see, Simone, at the age of 41, was diagnosed with breast cancer. I will never forget the day that she found out. It almost blew my mind and turned her whole family's (and my family) lives upside down.

These two boys had to deal with stuff that boys of 11 and 14 should never, ever have to deal with. Hard enough for us adults let alone kids. 

Thankfully, they have all come through the other side - not unscathed - but there is now laughter being heard from them all again. 

When I took this shot, they were uncontrollable in their giggling - so while not a technically perfect shot - when I see this I see so so much.

I see love, laughter, good times, bad times, weakness, strength, knowledge, bewilderment, fear and courage. I see life and light.

Processed using the following actions:

Totally Rad Actions - P.O.S. Lens, Dirty Lovin Texture, Dirty & Used Up Texture - all tweaked to my liking.

Eye Candy Actions by Sheye Rosemeyer - Toy Camera - twisted and tweaked. 


Don't forget to pop over to i heart faces - it is sure to bring a smile to your dial!