wordful wednesday: freaky people

i think the fact that i had the ISO set all wrong on my camera and i had to photoshop the crap out of it to make it look halfway decent just adds to the 'flavour' of the photo - don't you?

i love that they were happy to pose for me too

they are WELL used to me pointing a camera in their faces by now!

this photo was taken outside a cute little nic nac shop in moolooaba

for more wordful wednesday visit angie over @ seven clown circus

photostory friday: this blog post has 3 titles

"IT STARTED INNOCENTLY ENOUGH" (blog title #1)

or

"APPARENTLY YOU CAN HAVE TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING
(blog title #2)

or

"THE POD PEOPLE ARE HAPPY" (blog title #3)

this photo works for blog title #1

so the iphone 4 came out here today.

after a royal F$%^^&&*UP between vodafone the contract distributor, the iphone 4 finally arrived at lunchtime.

mr scrappy was #9 in line.  (i guess when you're in line you have time to count).

[this is is happy face].  when being photographed, he's mostly concerned with not looking like a crazed drug addict; so this is a good day for him.

there's a very long money chain in play here, so try to keep up :)

mr scrappy HAD a iphone 3GS

miss 18 had an iphone 3G

her bestie had a [recently purchased] ipod 'touch'

miss 12 WANTS an ipod touch

now that mr scrappy has his precious iphone 4, he will sell his 3GS to miss 18

SHE will in turn sell her 3G to her bestie

and

miss 12 will become the proud owner of a nearly new ipod touch

in the meantime...

you have to WAIT for it to sync!!!

insert blog title #3 here

...and insert blog title #2 here

Hosted by Cecily and Caitlin

i heart faces: purple photo challenge

this is my first time participating in i heart faces, and bless my 18 year old daughter for being my willing subject.

she'd just got out of bed and came into the kitchen for her breakfast.

as soon as i saw that she was wearing purple, i dragged her outside (into the cold - it's winter here!) to take her picture.

i've played around a little in photoshop and here's the result:

wordful wednesday: my daughter's a frikkin' genius

...s'all i'm sayin...

well, of course that's not all i'm sayin', coz i'm NEVER short of a word or three, and it IS wordFUL wednesday

this is miss 18's stop motion project for her rapid visualisation class at uni (college)

it's over 400 photos and hours and hours of work

ISN'T SHE CLEVER???!!!

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus

EDITED: she got an A for this!!!

wordful wednesday: she's in the money

i get the feeling i've talked about our $50 note before, but anytime's a good time for trivia, so here we go!

this is miss 18 with her 'earnings' from drumming tuition

i love that after learning the drums herself for the past 9 years, she's passing on her talents, AND making money in the process!

note the crisp clear, close-in photo - care of my fabby new portrait lens

- i just can't get enough of it!

so, sir apirana ngata is on our $50 note

he was a prominent new zealand lawyer and politican of maori decent, who lived from 1874 unti 1950

he was the first maori to complete a degree at a new zealand university, AND the first new zealander (of any ethnicity) to complete a double degree

on the countdown front:

29 sleeps til i finish at work

31 sleeps to oz and tara

miss 13 earning plenty and going without her cellphone this month all in the quest to have plenty of spending money

miss 12 on track for her stay at the 'i have no money' hotel in flat broke city

 for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus

photostory friday - belles of the ball and adventurous kiwi teens

i'm pretty sure i won't ever tire of seeing these two dressed up, heading off to celebrate yet another milestone of their teenage years.

sunday was their year 13 leavers' dinner. these two have now left college (high school) and start university (college) here in town next february, studying design innovation and textiles and business.

i'm reminded to tell you also, that miss 20 is responsible for the fabulous hair and make up you see before you...

these two MADE their dresses
the one on the left is having a gap year next year and will be working at camp america in texas - keep an eye out for her ok!

this dress belonged to her GRANDMOTHER!
how cool is that and how gorgeous does she look

full length goodness

in this shot, they're making room for this chicka

she's in venezuela studying for a year

...and this one's in austria on an exchange

that's austria EUROPE, not australia, our nearest neighbour!

..and THIS dude (who's now a rake thin 6 foot 3) is teaching kids to ski near lake louise in canada

yep - when kiwi kids spread their wings and take off, they spread them far and wide.

Hosted by Cecily

saturday randomness and a tease

can't wait to get dressed up tonight! dress rehearsal at tara's this arvy - and i'm 92.7% convinced there's going to be a wardrobe malfunction tonight. for this reason i'm wearing brand spankin' new lacy underwear. no wait, that's not why...who cares - new undies are cool, right?

i mean on a scale of 1 to 10 of cool things, i wouldn't put undies right up there in the top 5, but when matched with a new bra (which they are), they're definitely in the top 10. ESPECIALLY when that new bra is a different size to the old one (and in a good way). ok, too much information.

did your mother ever tell you (when you were getting ready to leave the house) to make sure you were wearing matching underwear? what's with that? i have NEVER, in my approaching 19 years of motherhood, EVER said that to my kids.

i mean, what a waste of time. they don't even wear matching SOX, not that i care. my mother's reasoning behind this was to avoid humiliation at the emergency room when they're cutting my clothes off me after i've been run down after leaving the movie theatre with my girlfriends.

did i mention i'm only 14 when she's asking me this question? but let's face it, there's no hope.

i'm 45 now and she STILL asks me if i have a coat when i'm leaving the house. i say no, she says, what if i rains, i say 'i'll get wet' (which is technically true). i don't know why i feel the need to say technically. it might have something to do with being married to a man of science. (should i have put quotes around 'man of science'?) don't worry, i already did.

so on with tease and the randomness! i should point out the polar fleece is NOT part of the fancy dress. my beehive is COOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!! saw this sign on the side of building. way to confuse the punters people!

man, that was some party last night. i feel so drained!

i like to call this one 'organised and legless'. can you even use those two words in a sentence together? i guess this is the girl equivalent of lining up all your matchbox cars

help! i've fallen down (AND lost my feet?)

hey you...yes you! with the spade! can ya dig me out of this mess?

saw this one on our scrappy weekend. you know when you're driving along and that meat pie you were eating got cold...well, this handy dandy microwave, situated conveniently in this 'middle of nowhere' letter box, IS the answer to that luke warm problem.

i call this one 'phiddling with photoshop'

here's the SOTC shot (straight out the camera)

hands up all those who just tilted their heads to the right

this one is filed under 'children are disgusting' - i mean, did they get any spread on the actual SANDWICH???

errrrrrrrrrrrr...

video's up tomorrow people - wish me luck!

Intention+Action=Reality

2 weeks into a 4-year degree and she's already exhausted. loving it but exhausted.you know the days when you're so proud you think you're going to burst? today is one of those days. it just is.

Free money, cupckes and new shoes

bought these today -sooooooo comfy. on sale (which makes them instantly more comfy than if i had paid full price). shoppers code: rule 3.78-imadethisup.

In my quest to save the planet one shopping bag at a time, i usually reject these...

but miss 18 insisted she would ‘re-use’ (and therefore recycle) so i relented.

it IS kinda funky.

didn’t draw this (but sort of pleased i can be responsible for some of her creative DNA).

miss 18 started a Bachelor of Design degree this week at Massey University. One of her first assignments is to capture the culture of Cuba Street. it's one of those cool pedestrian only areas in town where you can watch the world go by, and it's home to all kinds of weird and wonderful folks.

her degree will take 4 years at a cost of $4400 every year (plus books'n'stuff). as a generation x-er, she is able to make use of a national student loan scheme, whereby the government pays her course fees directly. this is perfect for today's teenager: invisible money that doesn't have to be paid until - well, not today so who cares?

this wasn’t the case ‘back in the day (last century and beyond) when i was a polytechnic student. In ‘those’ days, the government paid YOU! i was paid the princely sum of $16 per week, $4 of which my mother held out her hand for in return for room and board. she was of course trying to teach me the value of money. At the time i did not appreciate this valuable lesson. I simply thought my mother was the meanest mum in the whole wide world. No wait, that’s me!!! I know, i think there might be more than one ‘mean mummy’ in the universe.

Anyway, the kids of today, they just don’t appreciate the value of money! And you try to tell the young people of today that - and they won’t believe you! (name that movie)

Paying back invisible money is BORING.

Here’s something that’s not boring. Watching your 10-year-old make cupcakes. Well, watching her make half a pint of runny purple icing. I actually think the cupcakes were an after-thought.

Maybe i made the icing too runny?

Yep, but i don’t care

I love you...

Who says sugar makes ya crazy?

It’s just not TRUE!

in other news, stick insect fired for failing to correctly camoflauge.....

that's all folks!!!