Found... my discarded art... in an antique shop. QUE the?

Good grief, I just saw a piece of my own discarded art ceramic in an Antique Shop.  ECCCH.  An Antique Shop.  I know I'm growing older by the day but hey, an antique shop!  And they had a lot of money on it - so this is a memo to myself...

Stop discarding your artwork.

This particular Antique Shop seems to have a few funny little coincidences for me.  A friend gave me a candle holder years ago for a birthday present, and he could only afford to buy one.  I wanted to buy another to match it for a table setting.  I had never seen them anywhere, and then one night I had a dream that I was talking to my Aunty Harlein who passed away many years ago.  In the dream, she told me that I could find it in the Antique Shop. 

A few days later I was driving past the shop, and low and behold, it was in their window. 

This Antique Shop would make a great film set, I imagine that you could disappear into another dimension in there.  It's one of those places where you just wouldn't be surprised if a goblin jumped out in front of you.

The World's Largest Number of Dancers Doing a Hairspray Choreography

We just received this email this morning... here's a copy below... if you are a dancer in Sydney, or can get to Sydney, think about joining in.


The Australian Dance Festival has some exciting news! We are making a World Record Attempt in order to raise funds for Father Chris Riley's Youth Off The Streets!! As Jason Coleman is the Patron of the Australian Dance Festival, and also choreographer for the upcoming "Hairspray, The Musical", it's only fitting that the world record should be "The World's Largest Number of Dancers Doing a Hairspray Choreography", led by Jason Coleman himself!Not only will you be learning and performing a dance number choreographed by Jason Coleman, but you will also be helping us raise funds for Youth Off The Streets. Every dancer and school will register and donate $1 each in order to help those in our charity.


Not to mention each school that registers will get one free day pass to the event worth $130 !!!
When: Saturday Morning the 4th of September, 7.30am – 8.30am


Where: Sydney Square (Open space between Sydney Town Hall & St Andrews Cathedral)


If you're an individual, please register on-line: What's involved:






Click Here For Step One




Step 2: Learn the Hairspray Choreography by Jason Coleman via YouTube (we will be filming Jason on Thursday 29th July, and the video will be uploaded by Monday 2nd August)


Step 3: Show up at Sydney Square at 7.30am on Saturday 4th September. Registration will take place between 7.30am - 8.30am. The registration process involves us ticking off your name, and collecting your $1 donation for Youth Off The Streets. We are expecting large numbers, so please come early.


Step 4: Jason will lead some practice runs of the choreography from 8.30am.


Step 5: At 8.45am SHARP we will attempt our world record.

Having a five minute fantasy trip to Le Vieux Couvent in France

Picture from Le Vieux Couvent Blog

I have just been having a lovely artist fantasy trip around the Le Vieux Couvent in the south west of France... "Come to our setting in rural southwest France and create a memory. We offer a range of artistic holidays, or you can choose to just be independently indolent (with an occasional gourmet meal al fresco)." 

How good does that sound?  Ah yes... that's definitely one for my vision board. 

Love this artwork... Prosperity Painting by Angelina Marino

The Difference Between Men and Women...

Found on... Designing Your Dream Home Blog

The Difference between Men and Women

Let’s say a guy named William is attracted to a woman named Julie. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asked her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly and after awhile neither one is seeing anybody else. And then, one evening when they’re driving home, a thought occurs to Julie and without really thinking, she says out loud: “Do you realize that as of tonight, we’ve been seeing each other exactly for six months?”

And then there is silence in the car.

To Julie, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: “Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he’s been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I’m trying to push into some kind of commitment that he doesn’t want, or isn’t sure of it.

And William is thinking: Gosh, six months.

And Julie is thinking: But hey, I’m not sure I want this kind of relationship either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space so I’d have time to think about whether I really want to us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward…I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Do I really know this person?

And William is thinking: …so that means it was… let’s see… February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer’s which means…lemme check the odometer…whoa! I am overdue for an oil change here.

 And Julie is thinking: He’s upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I ‘m reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment, maybe he has sensed-even before I sense it-that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that’s it. That’s why he’s so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He’s afraid of being rejected.


And William is thinking: And I’m gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don’t care what those morons say, it’s still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It’s 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.


And Julie is thinking: He’s angry. And I don’t blame him. I’d be angry, too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can’t help the way I feel. I’m just not sure.


And William is thinking: They’ll probably say it’s only a 90-day warranty…scumballs.


And Julie is thinking: Maybe I’m just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I’m sitting next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems truly to care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.


And William is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I’ll give them a warranty. I’ll take their warranty and ….


“William,” Julie says out loud.


“What?” says William, startled.


“Please don’t torture yourself like this,” says Julie, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. “Maybe I should never have… Oh God, I feel so…” as she begins to sob.


“What?” says William.


“I am such a fool,” Julie sobs. “I mean, I know there’s no knight. I really know that. It’s silly. There’s no knight, and there’s no horse.”


“There’s no horse?” says William, wondering what she means.


“You think I’m a fool don’t you? Julie says.


“No!” says William, glad to finally know the correct answer.


“It’s just that… it’s that I… I need some time,” Julie says.


(There is a 15-second pause while William, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally, he comes up with one that he thinks might work.) “Yes,” he says.


(Julie, deeply moved, touches his hand.) “Oh William, do you really feel that way?” she says.


“What way?” says William.


“That way about time,” says Julie.


“Oh,” says William,. “Yes.”


(Julie turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a white horse. At last she speaks.) “Thank you, William,” she says.


Then, he takes her home and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul and weeps until dawn whereas when William gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what so he figures he is better off if he doesn’t even think about it.


The next day Julie will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours in painstaking detail. They will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, and possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks and maybe even months never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it either.


Meanwhile, William, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Julie’s, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: “Norm, did Julie ever own a horse?” 

Original writer Unknown

Polynesian Beauty

I love this artwork by Jennifer Cook...

The Last Lecture - Achieving your childhood dreams

I was searching images on Google and came across the following video on  Sheree Rensel's Art Blog...
Professor Randy Pausch gives 'The Last Lecture - achieving your childhood dreams'. 

Have you ever felt as though you have run into a dead end... a brick wall?  Then watch this...

Augustina and Rodrigo dance Tango

How fortunate we were to watch these two amazing young performers in person at The Carrington in The Blue Mountains... here's a snippet of them dancing at White Knights Tango 2010

The Fairmont Resort Leura - our room was complete with bird droppings

The Fairmont Resort in Leura - looky looky what we had outside our room. 

If I had gone online to see what the reviews were prior to travelling, I might have come across this article from The Blue Mountains Gazette on The Tourism Chief's fury at The Fairmont Resort... or even The Sydney Morning Herald's report More than a little bit Fawlty or even anyone of a lot of customer review sites on The Fairmont Resort... such as Trip Advisor  but ahhh... I didn't.  And herein lies the lesson readers. 

So we arrived at The Fairmont Resort gosh it looked nice driving up to it.  And I have to say it is in an absolutely gorgeous spot.  HOWEVER, that was the end of the fantasy weekend.  I thought I had booked my hubby and I into a gorgeous resort.  Silly me.  From booking.com I saw some gorgeous photos of a deluxe room, so like the unaware book buyer who buys a book by it's cover, I booked a room going on the pictures on the site.  I went into the http://www.fairmontresort.com.au/ site to see if the rooms were the same, and sure enough here is a lovely picture of a deluxe room. 

Sadly I have to report not the rooms we were given.  I was absolutely livid.  I think I was spitting chips to put it mildly over the dusty, dirty, stained, disgusting room we were given.  My room on my booking slip from http://www.booking.com/ showed me a deluxe room with King Bed and room for extra people to stay even.  Not that I was interested in others staying with me, but when we checked into the room, to find that 2 single beds had been shoved together, and dust all over the place, water stained lights and pubic hairs in the bath I knew I was in trouble.  We even had a flashing light over our bed when the lights were turned out... a smoke alarm that had been installed directly over the top of the bed.  Try to sleep with that little sucker working busily over you.

 

After much whining and complaining we were moved.  To a superior room... one that had a pigeon infestation outside our window.  The picture above shows some of the bird poop.  A nice addition to a room don't you think?  Picture this, sunrise, the sound of a bird cooing outside, lovely hey?  Now picture another bird or so joining in the cooing... But now picture a LOT of birds cooing outside your window, now picture rats scrambling on the roof as well, then add more pigeons, now loud and starting to squabble with one another, then add some more scratching and scurring sounds.... not so great now... and so now we are well and truly awake

saying to one another...'what the _ _ _ _?'

So the moral to this story is... prior to travel, do yourself a favour, Google reviews on the place you want to go to, and for your wellbeing and health's sake, Google the reports from the local Tourism before you go to stay somewhere.  If I had taken the time to review the reports on The Fairmont Leura, I would have been forwarned, and not gone. 

I give them a ten out of ten died off, brown, decaying, wrinkled frangipani rating.

Tango and Football

As if Tango isn't hard enough to learn as is...

Testing your observation

The Power of Observation
from www.MountainWings.com:

A lecturer teaching medicine was tutoring a class on observation. He took out a jar of yellow-colored liquid. "This", he explained, "is urine. To be a doctor, you have to be observant to color, smell, sight, and taste."


After saying this, he dipped his finger into the jar and put it into his mouth. His class watched on in amazement, most, in disgust. But being the good students that they were, the jar was passed, and one by one, they dipped one finger into the jar and then put it into their mouth.


After the last student was done, the lecturer shook his head: "If any of you had been observant, you would have noticed that I put my second finger into the jar and my third finger into my mouth."

from The Mountain:  Careful observation of the truth will keep you from many distasteful situations.  Forward this issue to a friend or click the Share Link below to Print, Share by Email, Facebook, Blog or many other services:
http://www.mountainwings.com/