Thursday Themes this week -- handbags

Handbags.
Long the brunt of mens' jokes and complaints, although they'll still hand you assorted junk and ask you to 'just put that in your bag, please, love?'

This week, show us your handbag(s) -- maybe you have a favourite? or you might like to show us what's IN your bag. Maybe you're not a 'handbag' kinda girl, and you have a backpack or a nappybag instead.

You can write your post or just put some pictures up.

Anyone can join in, the more the merrier in fact! I know at least one of the regulars is off at the Aussie Bloggers Conference this week (HI RIVER! *waves*) so it would be nice to have someone else join in.

Just post your story on your blog on Thursday, and come back here to link up. See how easy it is?

knitting and voodoo

I love the idea of knitting but I'm not so good on the actual DOING of it.

I'm slow, and my technique drives 'real' knitters mad. Also, I can't knit without my tongue poking out and I swear and mutter a lot, as I drop stitches and add in new ones arbitrarily, lose count of rows and try (in vain) to tell the difference between the 'front' and the 'back'.

I'm most attracted to small projects that don't require a lot of thought, like scarves, although this doesn't always work out so well, as you'll see if you follow that link back.

However.
For some time now, I've been wanting to make myself a voodoo doll. And so I did.

NOW RELAX, PEOPLE.

Obviously, I can't do real voodoo, or there would be a few less Problem People in the world.
Also, I know there will be at least one of my own hairs knitted into him, so it would be kind of stupid to invest him with magical, painful powers, yes?

(And, if you feel the need to turn me from my certain slide into hell, how about you pray for me instead of sending me hate mail, k?)

For the rest of us, he needs a little 'something'. I'm thinking, a red felt heart.... but I'm not quite sure. Any suggestions?

what have we done to deserve this?

I've had another post brewing in my head (or fermenting, possibly) for some time, but after the hideous events in Japan yesterday, I dropped all ideas and sat glued to the tv for as long as I could.

Watching the tsunamis roll in was one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life.
The image that sticks now is the one of cars, fleeing along roads with the water and debris chasing them down, moving faster than a car ever could and gaining on them so fast, and then you just see a couple of the cars being swept away before the camera moves away.

I keep thinking, what would that be like? Driving as fast as you can, to save yourself and your family, knowing there's nothing you can do, no-where you can go... glancing over your shoulder and seeing the water bearing down on you... looking around at your wife and kids, and knowing you can't save them, and all you can do is hope....

I watched that with tears pouring down my face, feeling utterly helpless and very very tiny.

I keep seeing people now asking "Why? Why is this happening? Is Mother Earth angry at us? What have we done to deserve this?"

The answer is -- nothing.

This planet is not a safe known quantity, under our control.
We barely understand the basic workings of climate, weather, and geological events.
The Earth has always been in a state of constant change, and it's a little foolish to assume that it would stop all it's rumblings and lie quietly just for us.

Whether or not you believe that man-made climate change is affecting us, our Earth goes on in exactly the same way as it always has. Events may be strengthening, and becoming more frequent, and there may be reasons for that which have nothing to do with us. I'm no scientist and I'm not pretending to be.

What I do know is this.

You can't take anything for granted in this life.

You can wake up in the morning, happily married, and by that night, be a widow.

Your house can burn down, be washed away, or blown apart by a cyclone.

You can lose your job, your livelihood, your life savings, in an instant.

Your ducks-in-a-row-life is an illusion.

When my son died, so suddenly, I felt like everything I'd ever taken for granted was a lie.
It was like having the rug pulled out from under my feet.
That's a metaphor we use without thinking about it, but take a moment to imagine what that's like, when things are so unstable that the things you take for granted can't be trusted.

Flooding, cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis -- they happen. They've always happened. They will continue to happen.

I'm not dismissing them or their effects on people.

My mum and sister were in Cyclone Yasi.
I have friends in Christchurch.
I have a friend in Japan and I don't know if he's alive.

These were horrific events, each of them, and they devastated people, countries, economies.

All I'm saying is, we can't take it personally. The Earth is a planet, not a pet.

time to start using that aging cream.

Today, on some cartoon the kids love, a talking crab told a penguin that it was his birthday and he was 100 years old.

The Princess scoffed.

"You would DIE if you were 100 years old!" she said.

"Well, people can sometimes be 100 years old," I told her. "There's even someone who's 104."

"Hmmm." She thought about that for a moment. "That's probably you, Mum."

Thursday Themes -- Home

Home. Such a little word, with so much meaning attached to it.

I asked Fabio what 'home' means to him. He said, it's wherever I am.
Same for the kids; it's 'where mum is'.

Because Fabio is head of the home here, but I am the heart. I'm the one who makes our home comfortable. I clean the floors and wash the clothes and fill the pantry and find the remote and sort the toys and scrub the toilets.

And though I'm not a born housekeeper, I do love being a homemaker.

I love baking with an apron on, fluffing the cushions and curtains to get them just so, and arranging the pictures on the walls.
I love Howards' Storage World and paint charts and I have an Ikea catalogue coming in the mail that I will pore over time and again.

***

With my husbands' job, we've moved a lot. We've lived in the middle of no-where, in a city, in small country towns.... all in rented houses or supplied accomodation. Some of those places I've been desperately unhappy, all the while trying hard to fit in and get on with it.
I guess the plus side is that I've ruled out a lot of places where I know I definitely don't want to live!

If my husband needed it, I would go anywhere with him. Being his wife is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, and he is the most important thing in my life.
So, in a way, home is wherever he is, or wants me to be.

But in another way, 'home' means 'my own place'. The place where I'm glad to come to, the place I've had a hand in making into a home.
And the ultimate in that would be to own my own home. To have a say in what the laminate in the kitchen looks like, to have the cupboards set up to suit me, to pick my own curtains and paint colours, to plan a garden from scratch, to throw out the carpet and lay down something that doesn't stink from other peoples' dogs....

.... that's my Big Dream.

***

My husband is working hard to provide for our future. He had to start all over again after his first marriage ended, and he only has a few years left doing the work he does now, because it's so physically hard.
We have to make sure that when he has to stop, we can survive.
And I get that... sacrifice now, so we can live later. I support him in his choices.

But.

This year I'll be 46. I'm no closer now to owning my own home, than I was when I was 26.
All I can do for now is dream. And when the dreaming gets too painful, I try and convince myself that renting is wonderful, and I can live anywhere

because home really is where Fabio, my heart, is.

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Want to join in? Write a related post, and be as creative as you like.
Make sure to link back to me in your post, and make sure to leave some love on at least one other persons' post. The link should be open till midnight Sunday.

Dear Investment Property Owner....

Firstly, I need to give you some credentials here.

We've been renting for many many years, and in that time, we've accrued a staggering number of glowing references.

Our current property manager loves us. We have people asking us if we'll consider renting their properties. (sadly, none of them have so far been in a place where we want to live)

When we live in your house, we will keep the rent paid up well in advance (by months, in fact).

We will re-plant, prune, fertilise, mulch, weed and mow.

We will patch old nail-holes, repair and replace torn curtains, clean the light-fittings, scrub funny marks off the walls, mend the fly-screens, re-stain those water-marked window ledges, re-lay the lumpy pavers, and clean those grotty stickers off the windows.
We'll leave your property in better condition than when we moved into it.
We'll even do these things out of our own pocket most of the time.

UNTIL -- you respond by putting our rent up by $10 a week and only granting us 6 month leases, when you agreed to 12.
For your measly $260 odd you have lost our goodwill.
From now on, everything that was damaged when we moved in here, will stay that way unless YOU pay for it.
And we will vacate this property as soon as our current lease is up, no matter how much we love living here.
If this house is untenanted for even one week, you've lost all the gains from the rent increase.

Dumb move.

***

This is what I think every investment property owner should know.

1. it is not your tenants' job to pay your property off. I know this is the attraction that draws most people into the property market, but if YOU can't service your mortgage yourself, you shouldn't be investing in it. You shouldn't charge rent based on what you need to ask for in order to service the debt.

2. while your tenants are living in the house, it is their home. If they are keeping it in a reasonable condition, and keeping up with the rent, cut them some slack. Make sure your Property Manager knows that you can live with a dusty aircon vent or a handmark on the lightswitch. Don't become so pedantic that you lose your tenants.

3. you need to keep up with repairs to hot water systems, air cons, plumbing, electrics, the stove, tree-pruning etc.
The house will eventually need to be re-painted. Blinds will eventually need to be re-placed.
You can't ask people to pay for living with a non-working stove, or a fire hazard of junk piled behind the shed, or faulty lights. Be prepared to spend money (lots of money) when it's necessary. If you can't afford to replace or repair as necessary, you shouldn't have an investment property

4. if you have good tenants, look after them. They're rare.

Are you a tenant? or an owner? have you had a terrible owner, or a terrible tenant? tell us about it.

Sunday Selections 9 - the olden days

Today I'm joining in on Kims' Sunday Selections. Kim gives us the opportunity to show photos that might otherwise sit in the computer and never be seen.
These photos were all taken in Herberton, NQld; mostly in the Herberton Historic Village, which is well worth a visit.

Pure heaven for a font junkie, this set of typesetters' drawers is set up in a 'newspaper office' and still contains the original letters.

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For some reason, I love old typewriters as well.

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Details on an old farmhouse. Aren't they too beautiful?

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The butchers' shop.
A sign on the wall warns against smoking and expectorating.

***

I walked past this fence a million times as a kid and never before noticed this stile. The kids were fascinated by it and wanted to climb over it. Into someones' garden. Yeah, nah. But I think if we ever own our own home, there is a good chance we might build a stile someplace.

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Detail on the old School of Arts building. I'm not sure that the blue works.

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In other news today -- if you want a laugh this morning, head on over to The Fish Cave

and read Starfish's hilarious Fake Tidy post. You'll be glad you did.

next weeks Thursday Theme - home is where the heart is.

So next week, let's talk about HOME.

Where's your home? is it the house where you live? or are you living somewhere else, and waiting for the day when you can go home?
What makes your home, 'home'? is it the people who live there, the memories you have, the things you own?

Tell us about it. Don't forget to link up HERE on Thursday morning, and this week I'll be leaving the linky open all weekend.

Thursday Themes - Textures

I love old timber and rusted metal.

Lichens, fungi and bark do it for me, too.

I always want to touch them, and sometimes even looking at these photos I'll find myself rubbing my fingertips together.

Want to join in on this weeks' theme? simply do a post about textures, link back here, and leave some comment love on at least one other blog.