The view over my kitchen sink

Actually, I took this shot through the fence just outside my kitchen window, a metre in front of where Sam was floating a Lego boat in our kitchen sink.The canal next door has been steadily filling this winter, unlike last, when there was not enough rain to raise the ground water table sufficiently. Since yesterday, for the first time, the canal has stayed looking Full even after the rain has stopped, rather than like a snaky line of water between puddles. Over summer it is completely dry.

I noticed this morning that the small lake at the end of our street is looking Full as well. Hooray for rain in WA!

Did you know you can find out how full the dams around Perth are? Just head on over to the Water Corp's site. And there are a few graphs and other information to help understand what is happening in our dams here.It seems we are still well below the average for the past 8 years, but climbing out of the dry hold that last year's lack of rain left us in, with a sudden upswing in the last week. Last year was the dark blue line; this year is the black line.

Again I say, Hooray for rain in WA!

Boxing Kangaroos

Granny shot this video from her kitchen window:

Aah... Spring is here!

I love Spring.

I think Spring is my favourite season in the south. It reminds me of the Dry season in Darwin.

Here are five things I like about Spring:
(1) Finding a pansy flowering between the pavers in our back yard:
(2) Finding a gigantic ladybird enjoying Abigail's flannel sheets on the washing line:
(3) The kids using lots of energy riding their bikes and scooting their scooters and swinging on the swings ... etc ... so at night they sleep well and soundly:
(4) The sun rising early enough that there is time for the kids to read or draw at the breakfast table before we have to leave for school or church:(But not rising so early that we are woken before 6am by children who are cheerfully and loudly awake, declaring, "Sun's up, Mummy!".)

(5) Mostly, I like Spring because I can hang out the washing on the line and get it dry without:
(a) worrying that it will be rained on before I get an entire load hung up (as in the Winter); or
(b) getting so hot hanging it on the line that I need to wash myself when I'm done (as in the Summer).
My fourth load for today is currently drying on the line. The rest are already picked in, folded and put away. Now I'm off to hang out the fifth load.

Post #555

Ahem... This post is Number 555. It was going to be #500 but that just didn't happen. So in honour of the occasion, I am revealing five things about me that you probably didn't know and may never have guessed. Here we go:

First Thing About Me
I once liked eating mud.
Second Thing About Me
I wrote poetry as a teenager, and one of my poems was published in real poetry anthology, which was even named after my poem! Mind you, it was published a dozen years ago now and I can't find it for sale anywhere online... I can only find it on ISBNDB. Very disappointing. Well, someone has it for sale on ebay, if you want a copy. I have one already, gratis.Just in case you'd like a teaser... I Like Doing Bombers off the Jetty is a "breath length poem", so you need to take a deep breath and read the first stanza all at once without pausing to take a breath, if you can. Here are the first two stanzas, my favourites:

I like doing bombers off the jetty when the tide's right & the day's hot & the water's cold & a small school of white bait has just swum under the jetty & into the sun so I can land on top of them & scatter all the fish & when I bob up all I can see through lids closed to keep out the salt sea sting is white froth & bubbles everywhere.
I also like the minister's son.

Third Thing About Me
I caught the bouquet at a wedding where I was chief bridesmaid (thanks Inara!) and was married within nine months to a man I had never met before catching the bouquet. Sometimes old wives' tales do come true!Err... just in case you are wondering, that new man in my life was Jeff, the father of our four children, to whom I have now been married for nine years.This photo was taken shortly after we were engaged, seven weeks after we met.
(And in a pleasant addition to this memory, I now wear this same dress to church, since having lost so much weight over the last year, it now fits me again for the first time in most of our marriage.)

Fourth Thing About Me
I have a Graduate Diploma of Education.I worked teaching kids maths, science and even IT in secondary school for six years before I "retired" to mother my own class-ful.

Fifth Thing About Me
I also have a tattoo. When my father first saw it - on the day of my wedding - his first comment was, "Good thing you're going to be his problem from now on!" And I once had my tongue pierced. Now you know why my father made that comment!For the record, I took the stud out shortly before Jeff and I were married. Three reasons:
(1) In playing with the stud, I found that I was knocking it against my teeth a lot, and eventually I managed to chip one or two.
(2) Having something large and rigid stuck through the middle of your tongue changes the way you speak. I found that I was developing a somewhat physiologically-, somewhat psychologically-influenced stutter, which was getting worse. I have had the stud out for ten times longer than I had it in now, but I still stutter once in a blue moon, and I never did before I had it in.
(3) Since Jeff was the only person I'd be kissing (or at least, to use a word I learnt in the schoolyard, "pashing") from now on, I asked him whether he preferred it in or out. Jeff voted for out. So it went.
The tattoo remains.

When I am stressed

I like to sort things.

It doesn't matter whether it is the books on a bookcase (during every examination period I ever sorted studied through), toys in the play room (after a long and tiring day with the kids), or, in this case, buttons.

Sorting things into nice standard categories helps me to feel like things are under control.I did this one afternoon last week.Looking back, I think it is a strong possibility I was mildly stressed. But thanks to an afternoon of button sorting with Abigail, I have no idea why.

{Relaxed Sigh} It was better than a bubble bath.

"The Crocodile in the Bedroom", a story in Arnold Lobel's Fables, might have something for me to learn from.