My Christmas Party

Every year, a gaggle of my friends (and now it's used as the Wednesday Club Christmas Party) get together for Furnace and the Fundamentals Christmas show.

It gets weirder and weirder in the best possible way and never stops being the most fun you can have at Christmas.

We sang and danced after a lovely dinner and catch up, then bounced merrily all the way home with exuberance.

So I wish you all a very merry Christmas if you celebrate and happy holidays if you don't.

Enjoy your break if you have one, and thanks for working through if you are.

May there be food on your table, friendly faces at your door and most of all,

may you feel happy and loved.

(And make sure you are one of the people that makes people feel happy and loved).

The #XmasLinky is for Christmas themed posts, open Friday until Sunday night. You can share two posts, but please then comment on as many.  This will obviously be the last one until December next year. So thank you to everyone who participated.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Blog is closed until after Christmas....

Is this necessary?

 

This cracked me up while parking at the supermarket. Is anyone missing the big brick fence?

A reminder, this linky is for photos over 2 years old. When commenting, you are not required to read the post - feel free to just look at the photos.

If linking up, dig out your best photos (or favourite photos) from past years....For me, I've gone back in the time machine to 2016

Linky open Friday to Monday

The #FavouriteFoto linky will be back late Jan (around the 20th)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Christmas Season

 

This is the last #Allseasons for the year. I'll be shutting the blog until the 20th of January, so #Allseasons will be back after that.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday break, no matter what your beliefs.

I wish you all, and the world, a peaceful and happy new year.

Here's to much improvement in ourselves and around the globe in 2025.

#Allseasons linky runs from Thursday to Wednesday each week. (Except won't be back until after Jan 20)

Link one post that shows something seasonal. Traditional weather wise, a seasonal nature marker or a seasonal celebration. 

Make sure you link back to this  #AllSeasons post. 

Please comment on the post before yours and the host. Don't dump and run.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 Leaving you with a cheery Furnace Christmas tune 

Linking with #HappyNow  to wish you a merry Christmas & a happy New Year!

Art Walk

I'm not talking about the kind of organised art walk, like the Mosman Art Trail or the sculpture ramble at Gibbs farm.

I was walking to the Belvoir Theatre from my home and passed these gems by Scottie Marsh, too good not to stop and snap.(above and left)

And of course the inclusive welcome of an inner city Sydney theatre. (As an aside, I'm a fan of the now huge unisex toilets mainly because it's solved the problem of the far too long line every interval in the Women's bathroom! For the first time ever I zipped through and still had time to chat with my friends.) If there are still tickets to August Osage County, get them. It's so good, and very funny.

On the weekend, we parked and walked to STC for Celia Pacquola (if they televise that show, all new mothers should watch it. I thought it was great on that new born experience, as well as being just hilarious - My husband also liked it, so it's not a female exclusive experience).

This one was walking to see Rumours in the cinema (I thought it was very funny but it won't be for everyone). We think there might be only one day where the light hits it to reflect on the footpath (I'm not sure that's correct but we had an impromptu discussion on art which is always lovely). This work is by Pipilotti Rist (the Swiss artist whose work was exhibited at the MCA a few years ago).

This was on my morning walk - I had to investigate further and I love that the trees reflected look like they are growing from these ornate trunks....

“Art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind.”  ~Louise Nevelson

Linking with #WeekendReflection  #WordlessWednesday #MuralMondays #TalkaboutitTuesday

"Behind the clouds is the sun still shining"

 

I'd just finished my walk when I saw this crazy blanket of clouds. Strange but beautiful.

I just love the texture in these skies.

Linking with #WWOAT #GaleriaHimmelsblick #Skywatch

Tidings of comfort and joy

Everywhere you look, Christmas is creeping up on you. 

In the shops, in the street, and in our home.

The food traditions are underway.

I am on the search for a good dessert to take  - yule log or something (not Xmas pud cos only Mum likes it - need something for all of us) so if you have a good Sydney suggestion, let me know. Currently looking at The Grounds (would like to pay less) or Tokyo Lamington (but we did that last year).

And then other than wrapping and cards, I'm sorted. The problem with the cards is I ordered special ones and they've yet to arrive. Curse you Bottas!

Are you feeling happy this Christmas period? I'm remarkably stress free, which probably means I've forgotten something. Or someone.

Linking with #Sognafaret  #WWOT #SeniorSalonPitstop  #TalkaboutitTUesday

The #XmasLinky is for Christmas themed posts, open Friday until Sunday night. You can share two posts, but please then comment on as many. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Busy season

It's the Christmas season and the party season.

For me there's a birthday and a graduation.

There's the annual spotify wrapped day (I don't listen to Murder on the Dancefloor so I'm questioning that got in there??). Note if you can, buy the digital album of small bands you like or buy their merch. Stream on spotify but know they get almost no money for that. 

But in the moments of quiet, there's the Spring planting sprouting season. I am trying to grow ice plants. Wish me luck!

Linking with #HappyTuesday because the banana skin still makes me chuckle...

#Allseasons linky runs from Thursday to Wednesday each week.

Link one post that shows something seasonal. Traditional weather wise, a seasonal nature marker or a seasonal celebration. 

Make sure you link back to this  #AllSeasons post. 

Please comment on the post before yours and the host. Don't dump and run. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Charlie Brown

I grew up loving Charlie Brown. Weirdly as a kid, I think you process it differently. While looking for quotes this morning, I wondered if Charlie Brown was depressed?  A lot of the quotes listed are really quite bleak, or at list down on himself. I wonder why I didn't pick that up as a kid?

My kids never really got into it, but I wonder if it's still has huge as it was, seeing all the anxiety out there in youth. It sort of should be.

I did love this one "In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back."

My holiday homework is to re read a Charlie Brown book. I can compare with how it hits as an adult. I shall return, no doubt with something to say on the matter.

I do think this sums up perfectly the ridiculous frenzy of extra work and deadlines we give ourselves as we scramble around at Christmas time, so that we are stressed over things that REALLY don't matter. I've been reading all these Elf on the Shelf complaints where parents are stressed or opting out mid way and fighting about who should be doing it. I am 100% thankful that idea didn't exist when my kids were growing up. The advent calendar was the every day countdown excitement enough, and some years finding time to visit Santa in the city got tricky (though always done). And I'm sure I've mentioned our tooth fairy often got so overworked that they had to come to our house the next day...

"Grownups are the ones who puzzle me at Christmastime… Who, but a grownup, would ruin a beautiful holiday season for himself by suddenly attempting to correspond with four hundred people he doesn’t see all year?"

Anyway, this was on a bin near us and I just loved it. It made me smile.

"Happiness is anyone and anything at all that’s loved by you."

Linking with #MuralMondays #TalkaboutitTuesday  #HappyNow and #WWOAT

December Reading

I picked this book because I liked the title and the cover. It's junk crime but I really liked it. It has a slight feminist edge to it (about shame among other things, so it made it really interesting on top of the crime story). There is sex act that keeps getting referred to so it's maybe not for people who like the prim murder mysteries. It's clever in the way the narrator was black out drunk at the time so she doesn't know what happened either as we move with her in real time....I read it in two days so definitely enjoyed it. Well worth a fun read.

I didn't like this book. Not really a fault with the writing, just the subject matter. I didn't want to read it but my kid wanted it for Christmas (having watched the movie) and I thought I needed to check the content first.

I get where he was going but i just didn't feel it paid off for me - as a mother or as a female. I didn't like the male lens on it all, which I also understand why but I just didn't like it. Skilled writer but not for me.

Night before Christmas. This popped up while I was looking to borrow a different book so I borrowed it as it was only 45 minutes. It's a short story, odd little crime and Christmas themed mystery, a sort of modern Sam Spade. It is what it is. I guess good for him getting it out into libraries...

I went to see Jon Ronson, because I adore his books, as you may have noticed - given I've read and reviewed them all....) and one of his guests was Mary Turner Thomson. She's very delightful but told such an incomprehensible tale, I needed to know more. So I picked one of the books at random, though I will see out the Bigamist too and read that shortly....

This book touches on what happened to her, but more on the aftermath, and his victims that came after. She outlines psychopathic behavior, the red flags and how to interact with one.

She talks also of an aspect of child sex abuse that never seems to get mentioned and has some good attitude to both child rearing and living - making the most out of life. So there is a lot of interesting aspects to the book beyond her personal story.

Because I didn't like the Anne Tyler book last month, I decided to listen to these audio versions. I didn't like the Homesick diner (too bleak) but I did really enjoy the Ladder of Years and The Amateur Marriage. So I feel like I probably would like other Anne Tyler books if I chose the right ones.

I am going early with this month's reading as I feel I was very negative in my choices and reviews last month. 

What have you been reading?

Linking with #WOYB #Bookdate #StackingtheShelves #TheSundaySalon #SundayPost #SeniorSalonPitstop #TalkaboutitTuesday #WowonWednesday #TrafficJamReboot