Last Sunday I spent the day reading Rhonda Hetzel's blog after my friend Ngaire posted a book review of Rhonda's book on her blog. Who would have thought something so simple would have changed my outlook and recharged me!
Since the anniversary of my car accident last month I've been feeling quite useless. After doing two hours of "work" (facing up screws) at Bunnings my back spasmed for 4 days, which I really wasn't expecting, and physically it took me back to pre-back rehab. The most frustrating thing for me is that even though I can't stand or sit for more than 30 minutes without severe repercusions later (and the next day) I'm quite fit and still very flexible. Those are the two things that have gone against me (believe it or not!!) when seeing specialists to assess my condition. They see that I can almost touch my toes and think "wow she doesn't really have a problem", even after explaining that I used to be able to place my whole palm on the floor, they go by what they see, this was cemented when I was seeing an Exercise Physiologist last year. After I'd been seeing him for a couple of months he'd still exclaim "you really are very flexible!"... um yes I have been saying that all along! Thankfully, I have a great GP who does listen, and has known me for 14 years, so understands me a lot better than the specialist who's seen me for 15 minutes!
Due to lack of energy my veggie patch became very overgrown and the only things still growing were the self seeded pumpkin (which has an impressive vine with fruit that drops off too early), two tomato plants and an eggplant. With Isaac's help last week we tidied it up a bit and I decided to replant. I have a stack of seeds and a lot of them were past their useby dates but after reading this post on Rhonda's blog I decided to see if they were all really past it.
Varied results with them but lots of them haven't done anything yet so I watered them and put them back on top of microwave in their greenhouse (plastic shopping bag). To help my back I'm going to plant my seeds into empty toilet rolls then transplant into the garden with Isaac's help. It will lessen the chance of root damage by little fingers and save them from being landfill!
Yesterday, I was very lucky to be able to do a workshop with Rachel Richter. I haven't used my dSLR for years. It was covered in a thick layer of dust even though it was securely in my camera bag. The workshop was all about understanding how to shoot manually and then practicing on models that she'd organised. Now I do prefer to shoot buildings, wildlife and generally things that sit still lol, so I did find people hard, but for the first time I understand what the settings on my camera mean. I read the instruction book that came with my camera once in a vein attempt to understand but no... didn't help! Rachel explained in English (yes I did read the English part of the manual but it still didn't help) lay terms that I finally understood, and answered all of the silly questions I had. This morning when I took the above photos I used my camera on manual settings instead of grabbing my iPhone which is a major step for me. If you want to learn how to use your camera I can't recommend a workshop with Rachel enough!
Photo of a softie owl I made a little while ago. He was made out of a lot of fabric scraps and recycled jeans. I have another one ready to sew up and stuff for a friend but I have so many little 'feathers' cut out I may make a few more while I'm at it!
Thanks for reading. Happy Sunday!!
