Yoga and pancakes

I always feel invigorated after yoga, and it has, along with meditation become an essential part of my daily life.

So, with my soul fed, I need to feed my body. I always try to choose healthy foods but on Sundays I often prepare a special treat for breakfast... such as banana pancakes. I almost always use fresh home grown herbs in my cooking, and my choice of topping for pancakes varies between home made apple and cinnamon sauce, maple syrup, or strawberry jam. That may not sound quite so healthy, but it's an occasional treat only which I think I deserve.

My pot of French Tarragon - great with fish, perfect with chicken!

Inspiring views

The inspiring views from my balcony are one of the things that quickly endeared me to my little house on the hillside. So it's no wonder I can't wait to start each day there. Tasty breakfasts on the balcony often follow my morning yoga sessions. And when the weather is good, I spend most of my creative time on the balcony where I am surrounded by nature.

Today I chose to be creative... again.

Dawn view of 'Straddie' about 10 minutes before sunrise.

I love thunderstorms!

There's nothing like a good thunderstorm to freshen the air... last night's storm was a real ripper, and great weather for catching up on reading the pile of books I recently borrowed from the local library.

As I sat down, thunder shook the whole house. The delay between the flash and deafening rumble was almost imperceptible, so no doubt the lighting strike was very close by.

Then down came the rain... in buckets! I don't have a water tank here, so I always take advantage of the rain to fill whatever I can for later use on my veggie and herb gardens, which is a good thing because we've been on water restrictions for ages. Another good thing about the rain is that the frogs in my garden love it too.

Temporary frog pond made from recycled wok.

So anyway, I was out on the balcony putting out several buckets, which all filled within 2 minutes. All of a sudden there was a another blinding flash, immediately followed by an ear-splitting thunderclap... I almost jumped out of my skin!

Well that was good enough reason to have a drink. Well, that's my excuse and I'll stick to it... I rarely drink, so it's no biggie. I settled again into my favourite seat, with a glass of merlot in hand. The storm raged for what seemed like 2 hours, it poured rain for over 6 hours, and I enjoyed a relaxing evening of reading.

This morning when I woke, the rain clouds were rolling in low across Straddie, although they didn't quite make it back over here.

Om!

Sunrise over "Straddie" (North Stradbroke Island), viewed from my balcony.

It's set to be another very busy day, but it's off to a beautiful start. The sun is rising and will warm my yoga spot on the balcony. I am so thankful for being introduced to Qi yoga... it's a dynamic, flowing style of yoga that really gets my day off to a good start.

Here are close-ups of the two mosaics I made for this yoga & meditation space.

"Naquada"
- recycled coloured glass on clear
glass tea light candle holder.

"Om"
- hand painted glass, vitreous glass
and  ceramic on craft wood substrate.

Crazy days!

First it was the crazy weather. I had packed away everything that could've blown away or gotten damaged, so I got out of it without losing too much apart from 2 trees, a potted plant and a ceramic pot... and a lot of flooding at the bottom of the 'mountain', as seen in the pic below.

Any more of this weather and I'll be trading the car in for a boat!

Then it was all the craziness with web hosting. I've employed a professional web designer to get my website back online, so it's currently undergoing a major rebuild since its last incarnation... there's not much to do now except fix a few script bugs and add more content, including pics of my artwork which is the main reason for the website. I'll post a link on here when that's done.

A sign of things to come...

It's break time, then back into some mosaic work if I remember how...

Birdbath mosaic during construction (detail).

I'm in a creative flow... it's a choice!

Hey, hey, it's a beautiful day!

I was woken shortly before 6.30 this morning by the sun shining through my bedroom window. It was such a welcome sight after all the rain.

The weather bureau has cancelled the severe weather warning, however more rain is on the way. I'm looking forward to being able to set up my work area out on the balcony again, as it's my favourite work location with inspiring views over the water to North Stradbroke Island.

"Fallen from HEAVEN" mosaic, which overlooks my outdoor work area.

The above mosaic wall plaque was inspired by the many green tree frogs which ventured onto my balcony from a nearby tree. They often appeared unexpectedly, as if they had fallen from the sky. The tree itself was very sick when I first moved in, but made a speedy recovery after I removed the grubs around the trunk and roots before pruning and feeding it.

Batten down the hatches!

Wow, that phrase brings back some memories from my seafaring days! I've never actually seen any hatches battened down... that practice was replaced by 'modern' technology, but I do recall running wires from winches to hatches on an old rust bucket of a ship that has long gone to the great shipyard in the sky. And if I never see another derrick again, it will be too soon!

What a wet and wild few days we've had here with rain and gale force winds, and there's more rain on the way!

Yes, that's right... more! The weather bureau says more rain and damaging winds are on the way.

Although the winds failed to worsen as forecast for yesterday, unfortunately two trees had their trunks snapped near the base. The smaller of the trees blew off somewhere into the neighbouring bushland, possibly never to be seen by human eyes again. One of my potted trees was uprooted, and another stripped of all leaves, and a smallish ceramic planter pot blew off my balcony work table before the 'bad' weather even hit.

The weather bureau issued another severe weather warning this morning...

TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE BROADCAST
SEVERE WEATHER WARNING
Dangerous Beach and Surf Conditions
For people in the Southeast Coast district.

Issued at 4:25 am on Tuesday 12 October 2010

Synoptic Situation:
An intense high over the southern Tasman Sea is weakening with easing winds and
deceasing precipitation on the SE coast.

Should we be worried about the 'deceasing' precipitation? It sounds like some nasty rain is on the way! Sounds just like the weather though, it's so out of kilter that even when it's easing, it's a killer.

Now for the clean-up. Any volunteers?

What do you get when you recycle some discarded items, and add water? A water feature, of course!

This project began with my first attempt at building a garden fountain to add some movement to what was a barren garden when I moved here a few months before. It received many positive comments, but to me as a new artist, it seemed like a failure, albeit one in which I could learn from the mistakes I had made. Using recycled bamboo, a discarded broken birdbath bowl, white pebbles and an assortment of recycled materials to create the structure, it didn't seem lacking in character and set the desired atmosphere in my garden... the tranquil sound of a gentle waterfall, as well as being an attraction for the local birdlife.

Recycled materials used for fountain include: bamboo, broken cement
bird bath, plastic tubing, plastic bags, reinforcing mesh.

The only problem was that the pump just wasn't up to the job it was designed for, even though it was operating way under its stated capacity. The pump was still under warranty, so I promptly returned it to the store and received a properly working replacement.

Newbie

This is my very first blog... so keep an eye out for updates and pictures of my current art projects.