My bicycle adventure

Yesterday my boyfriend and I borrowed some bikes and decided to go on a big ride, 20km all the way to my work. And back. Up and down hills. Quite a feat in my opinion considering I havent ridden a bike in about 12 years, and even then it was only up and down the driveway. It was so beautiful, most of the way along the river through lovely green parks. I feel so lucky to live where I live!

I am so sore today, and it probably didnt help that I wasn't told until over half way that if you lift yourself OFF the seat going over the bumps that it hurts a lot less. I can hardly sit.

None the less it was a whole lot of fun and eventually I made it all the way home. I'm going to buy a bike, and then I will be as awesome as this girl. Girls on old bikes in dresses always look so cool.

(Image via Lost in the Absurd)

On being Quiet

I have realised this week just how important being quiet is to my writing. Obviously it helps with concentration, but it's more than that. I need to be still and quiet to observe what's going on around me, because that's where I find the 'Ahah!' moments that set me scribbling in my notebook.

So here I sit, in my new room, listening to my new neighbourhood. Despite the planes overhead (isn't it lovely living under a flight path?), it is quiet. Quiet enough for me to hear the birds, the breeze in the leaves outside my window, the cars on the road a block away that sound like someone blowing on the surface of water.

This morning there were children playing in the backyard under my window. If I hadn't been half asleep, I would have liked to listen more carefully to their conversation. Children have yet to learn to ignore the world around them as a way of getting things like grocery shopping and paying bills done. I love to listen to what they observe in their environment because I think my particular type of creative pursuit relies so heavily on noticing a sound, sight, smell or taste that other people might be too busy to.

As such, my creative aim for the rest of this year is to learn to better be quiet.

new favourites

Here is my new favourite photographer.

Here is my new favourite flickr set.

Here is my new favourite thing to waste time on.

1. Untitled, 2. Untitled, 3. Untitled, 4. Untitled

On my desk

I'm jumping on the on my desk bandwagon brought to us all from kootoyoo. I've been hanging out for Wednesday just so I could get involved! So here it is:

Quite a mess but to be honest it is rarely any other way! My desk is a BEAUTIFUL wooden bench made for me by my boyfriends father and it has taken me about a year to finally use it as a workbench because it is just too lovely to get dirty!

I have an assortment of tools and several half finished projects the go. Some that have been sitting there for awhile while I decide how exactly I am going to finish them off and others I have just started for our new project.

Also you can see my favorite journal which is from rebound books. I'm very excited to be nearing the end of this one because I have a new one ready to go! These are the best journals ever. They use the cutest hardcovered books, replace the pages with 100% recycled denim paper...and there you have it, brand new, fun journal!

(this one even has its library card still!)

Musings

I'm not sure what exactly it is that keeps me coming back to Claire's blog but I find I'm always disappointed if I head there and she hasn't posted anything new. Given that I visit it just about every day I might be expecting a little too much. Her latest post talks once more about Mondays.

For me there is definitely something about a Monday that gets me thinking afresh about things I'm working on creatively. In fact, it will probably be a Monday when I work on my response to our latest project.

Is there a particular day when you find you're more inspired, even vaguely, than others?

Image by Ramonah.

and then there were three

So the monday project has been a little interrupted over the last few months due to both of us moving between homes and being without any space of our own. We are back in action with lots of new things on the way, starting today with the new project. The idea that we will be working on for this month is:

"and then there were three"

Feel free to get involved if you like! Link back to your own blog in the comments or send in photos, stories, paintings, collages, jewellery, drawings etc etc... whatever you can think of, that you have created to do with something along the lines or this idea, or whatever it makes you think of.

(Photo from AtomicP)

Homework

I've started a short course on magazine feature writing at UTS. I thought I'd post up here some of the 'homework' we have to do.

This is an exercise in description from last week's class:

There is an empty glove on the footpath that runs along one side of a small park. The abandoned hand-warming accessory has been shrivelled by the near-constant drizzle from the gloomy sky. Around its water-logged leather puddles form in wells that are otherwise undetectable wells in the large grey pavers. The road running along the other side of the path looks like a large shiny lake with water running over it in sheets. The trees hanging over the path give the illusion of shelter, but really they just work to convert the sleet-like rain into fat, heavy drops; the kind that shock and almost hurt when they land right on the part in your hair.

This evening neatly pressed business shirts and carefully-creased pants, kept crisp all day, have become damp and slightly dishevelled as the people wearing them negotiate the puddle-riddled path, and fight to keep their umbrellas from turning inside out. The people who brave the rain to get home from their offices today will spend part of the evening on a bus or train feeling sweaty, even though they are not hot. Public transport everywhere will be steamy as the combined body heat of many people slowly evaporates the damp from people's clothes and hair.