Happy New Year!

Come on 2016, it is going to be an exciting year. Love to all near and far, may 2016 bring you joys, triumphs and many many laughs.

A very quiet night here, I was the only member of the household still awake for 12 local.

I used to really like NYE. I have many times stayed up for the dawn of the new year, particularly so when at the Woodford festival. This is not so easy or desirable with small children in the house and as I’m on morning duty I’ll keep it brief tonight.

We are going out to the farm tomorrow for a big family gathering.

N was laid low with a migraine for much of the day, the boys were their usual delightful little whirlwinds of emotions. One moment paralysed with laughter, the next incandescent with fury. I didn’t accomplish as much ad I otherwise might have liked to, though the day had its moments. Like F curling up on me and falling straight to sleep having declined bed moments before.

Made a card for my stepfathers birthday today. Which would have arrived late anyway but I blew it at the last minute so I can share that one. I’ll have to make another to send in the morning.

 

 

some other images of the day

 

Expressive #Pareidolia in children’s chalk scribbles.

A photo posted by @liatach on

Pareidolia

 

Mummified mud dauber wasp. Approx. 45mm in total length

A photo posted by @liatach on

Also finished a few more card thumbnails. Almost ready for the next phase.

 

20 more visits to the pool

The weather in Cobar has been surprisingly mild, we have even had a cool night or two.

It won’t last, 40 degree brain melting dry heat is bound to reappear at some point. Today we bought a season pass to the pool for a cool $240. That makes about twenty more visits before April for it to be worth it. It shouldn’t be hard to do really.

Window cleaning, moping, paving and a bit of drawing took up the rest of the day. Drawing rough thumbnails of each evolution card is now almost complete. I have also begun thumbnailing the terrain cards as well. The printed templates I made yesterday are working well. 

Possible we will be at the farm tomorrow night and it being New Years Eve an evening post is unlikely. Where ever you are welcoming in 2016 I hope you have a lovely night.

 

 

 

Dust

I have inherited an unfortunate allergy to dust, cat dander, some pollens and mould spores. Consequently I have spent far to much of my life with a runny nose and or itchy eyes. Life before cheap and readily available antihistamines was pretty miserable.

The dust of unpacking has at times gotten to N or I even so and when it does not even a timely dose of loratadine will stop the misery for at least 20 minutes.

Today marked the first time we have managed to get the rooms set up and floors clear enough to vacuum completely. Mopping up the fine dust that makes hands and feet feel like the very moisture of your soul is being wicked away will happen tomorrow. Today we finally have a home again. A hundred dollars’ worth of cardboard boxes is wrapped in plastic in the laundry and the rest of the cardboard is piled outside ready for soaking and weed control. Not everything has found its place yet, but rooms have taken shape and surfaces are reappearing, art is hung.

Internet is likely going to take more than three weeks. A new physical phone line needs connected to the house as the old had been dug up and coiled around the water meter by the previous tenant. This is going to take a while and involve co-operation, heaven help us, between Telstra, iiNet and a Telstra sub-contractor. It’s also not going to be cheap.

No creative output today, I’m stewing on a few things and focusing on getting the house done.

Instead here are a couple of pics of one of my first big sculpting projects. Discarded in this last move as he has sat unfinished for six plus years and is irreparably broken in a variety of ways.

My favourite little megalomaniacal alien, Invader Zim

 

 

zim1

zim2

zim3

Edit: Fixed images not loading.

 

I can’t spend the data to verify that this is indeed what it claims to be, but trusting that it is, the fantastic line

“In the event of, say, a full scale alien invasion, how prepared do you think this planet’s defenses would be?……… Tell Me!”

should appear in part two of this episode.

 

 

Marking lambs

Today involved some hot and bloody work. Marking lambs with ear notches, ear tags, tail and testicle bands and plenty of vivid pink ‘Click’ anti-fly spray. N’s family farm runs meat sheep of a ‘Dorper’ variety, which do not have the skin folds characteristic of the wool sheep like ‘Merino’ and thus, thankfully do not need ‘mulesing’. Most of the lambs we worked with today will end up on plates over the next 6 months. Tail and testicle banding clearly hurts the lambs after a time, but the ear piercing and notch cutting is obviously immediately excruciating. I’m grateful that the farm’s notch only requires a single cut.

I eat meat and I am generally quite comfortable with being involved in its production from time to time. I wouldn’t be a farmer for quids though.

The moment these lovely ladies were reunited with their freshly marked lambs.

A photo posted by @liatach on

It occurred to me that the English onomatopoeia for sheep ‘Baaa’ is completely inaccurate. I think Arabic get’s it better according to the list here anyway (under subheading sheep bleating).

I spent what remained of the afternoon tidying, unpacking and beginning to create card template sheets in Illustrator which I will draw card roughs onto over the comming days and weeks.

 

Edit:

Found something wonderful care of a friend. John Malcovich being awesome.

Prickly Pointy Things

As mentioned yesterday the dominant species in my new back garden is catheads. Every activity in the garden is fraught with periodic winces of pain and barb removal. Horrible beastly things. Our first major backyard project has dual purposes. A. we can use the washing line and any dropped items will no longer be rendered immediately unusable by contact with the ground and B.  We are rapidly removing the threat posed to curious infants by precarious walls of crushing brick death.

I’ve spent way too long figuring out how to share this. But I haven’t managed to get it to embed properly. Click through for a photo sphere of the garden pre cleanup.

Beginning paving. Bricks are now past the base of the Hill’s Hoist.

A photo posted by @liatach on

Our paving project looks good so far. The piles of bricks are diminishing but the work has not been without its hazards. Each of us has been pricked by catheads repeatedly on the hands and many other sensitive places besides. This afternoon I trod on a rusty nail, it went straight through my boot. Hurts a great deal but is totally fine.  After cleaning it up properly I did go and check out the local hospital and get a tetanus booster to be safe.

Phone problems continue. For a moment this morning I thought I had a fix for the optus network at least. It was not to be. Something is very wrong with my phone and I cannot fix it. However thanks to the social efforts of my cousin Caitlin I will at some point in the future be moving to the ios dark side.

Tonight’s post is written and shared from my computer by tethering to N’s phone with my sim inserted.

Today’s creative energies have been focused on visualising the chook tractor construction.

 

 

 

Well that was certainly a long day or two now wasn’t it.

Since my last post, my family and I have loaded a truck and driven in convoy to our new home eleven hundred kilometres distant from the first. We have unpacked and shifted,  drilled, hung and assembled from morning until late at night for days on end.

We have celebrated Christmas with two ecstatic little boys and N’s very welcoming family.

During all of this I have been effectively offline. My phone which I transfered to Telstra in the days prior to the move decided the day before the big event that it would not like to play nicely with the Telstra network and has refused to do so 99% the time since. Late this afternoon after trying everything including dissembling the phone and inserting pieces of foam between the circuit boards, performing factory resets, purchasing cheap competitors sims and scouring forum posts on Ns’ phone I found what appeared to be a fix.  My delight was shortlived as I am now inexplicably unable to raise a single bar of signal with any sim and I fear there must be some fault with the phone itself. I neither want to nor can afford to purchase a new phone which compounds my distress and frustration. This post is being written on the tablet tethered to N’s phone. Home Internet will be connected at some time in the next 4 weeks. This being dependant on my burying the phone line in conduit and reattaching it to the house in coming days.

Almost all energy has been going into the unpack and setup and no small amount has already been spent on the garden in which the dominant species of ground cover is currently ‘Cathead’ burrs. We have constructed compost heaps and begun paving critical areas for the comfort and safety of both ours and our children’s feet. Two large raised garden beds made of tank rings have been positioned and partially filled and plans have been drawn up for a chook tractor. The chook tractor will have to wait for the hardware store to reopen.

I had hoped to include a bunch of pictures with this post butthey’ll have to wait. Back to daily posts as of today anyway.

Looking forward to getting stuck in to roughing out a lot of game cards over coming weeks.

Merry Christmas everybody,  with love from Cobar.

 

 

Likely no further posts for a day or two

I saw Star Wars today. Way too overwhelmed to give a reasoned review now. Midnight local and the pack is ostensibly finished. Cold stuff to go in the esky in the AM mattresses to roll up and many, many loads to be done into the truck before the long drive south commences.

Until the drive is done and unpacking is underway, I’m making no promises about daily posts.

Until then.

Peace.

 

Still packing

So much stuff. The Tyler Durden line ‘Things you own end up owning you’  has never felt more true. We got rid of a skip full of junk in May after the flood and we have another load piled beneath the house ready for the tip. Even so despite giving away as much as people are willing to take, we still have So Much Stuff.

The yard and under the house are complete. The living rooms, bedrooms and office are complete. The kitchen is still not done despite N’s heroic efforts today. Of course there is still a litter of odd items strewn between rooms yet to find their way into a convenient box. Tomorrow will mostly be cleaning except that:

We have a big day on tomorrow. Birthday breakfast with my mother, packing and droping stuff to friends. Seeing Star Wars and yet more packing & cleaning. We will make it… just.

 

Had to invest some energy in finger splint design as the previous version wasn’t cutting it. Another modification or two away from perfect. I can use the finger but I mustn’t bend it at the first join until the bone can knit. Ligament will probably require surgery and I’ve begun the work cover lodgement to help with that. Probably not going to be easy to find an orthopedic surgeon west of Dubbo though.

 

 

Filth, not the fun kind.

Up to my eyeballs is disgusting under the house dust, leaves and detritus. The end of the pack is in sight, the clean remains. Today N did the oven while I took the boys out, hunting boxes and mulch for the garden. although we have a cleaner booked to do some there are a number of jobs they won’t have time for or won’t do to our standards. Lots of things accomplished, lots still remain.

I’ve begun thumbnailing the 46 ability/evolution cards required for the game. Now too tired to think.

 

Boxes and bad news

teeth-1

 

A very productive day. With the help of my father many a cupboard and wall mount were taken down and holes in the walls filled. Whole rooms have been consumed by hungry cardboard box monsters, who now tower engorged in great heaps around the house.

The image above is a very rough style demo for the game project I discussed yesterday. This image is for the card I thought of as ‘teeth’, looking again it should be ‘fangs’ and thus the revised version will be a whole lot greater bigger and pointier.  The style I’m going for will be quite jagged and geometric and be heavy on the black with solid colours and occasional gradients underneath.

The bad news is my finger will likely need surgery, according to the GP the chip of bone that has disconnected is the ligament attachment point. I have been instructed to splint the finger indefinitely and seek the advice of an orthopedic surgeon. This is not very likely to happen in the two business days left prior to our departure to regional NSW. I’m going to try for a last minute appointment all the same as it is not going to be easy to find specialists in Cobar and this finger splint is already annoying. I will also have to do a work-cover claim which is  a pain in the bum for everyone now that holidays have begun.

Exhausted now.