You Don't Have To Be A Nana To Scrap

Ok. An hour to kill, so never one to waste things, here I am, tapping away at keys. Tap tap taperoo.

So last post, the grand final. Two days after that Kat and I travelled to Canberra to visit my sister, her husband, baby and poodle. I always get very excited about these trips, because as the years have rolled by, my sisters and I have become increasingly close. Now, I'm going to admit something here that I really don't want to, but such is my commitment to having an honest blog. I craft. yes, me. I'll explain: years ago my sisters started crafting. As a girl, Michi used to do quilling, which is where you curl up tiny thin pieces of paper into coils and stick it on shit. Make cards, you know. She was very good at it. I tried: fail. Ugly unfurled scraps hanging off a bit of crookedly cut cardboard. I gave up. Then my older sister Snowy got into stamping. She has like 1000 stamps or maybe hundreds, I really don't know. Again, I tried, again I was less than impressive.

As the years passed, they both got into jewellery making. When we all visited each other, we would take a trip down to the bead store and get supplies. they'd spend ages choosing pretty baubles and the like, I'd grab a handful of plastic beads in the colours of the gay pride flag and a bit of cord.

So, imagine my surprise when I started to take a liking to it. I think it was Kat's influence. I wanted to make her gifts (gagging on the sugary soppiness of this).

Then, this last visit, Snowy called me to ask what I had planned for our crafternoons. My inner self detached and watched, mouth agape as the prissy little crafter holding the phone gushed about scrapbooking a page with a photo of her beautiful nephew.

So, there you have it. I craft. I'm actually not too bad at it. I really didn't want it to get out, fearing it's bad for my rep, but then I remembered I'm a nerdy writer wannabe and I loosened up about it.

So there was that. There was also our plans to travel to Batemans Bay and spend a few nights there. It's east of Canberra and very pretty. We had the holiday unit all to ourselves and it was suh-weet. Went for a walk on the beach the first day and watched Shmoo (the poodle) tell everyone to get off her beach. Side note: yes, my sister is aware that 'shmoo' means something else, but she doesn't care.

So there we were, crafting in our little beach place. Unfortunately Kat fell ill so she just rested. Snowy and I got hard core. In the end, I made this:

That's me, Kat, my nephew and Shmoo in there. Look, I'm not saying it's genius, but for a non-crafter? Pretty proud of myself.

After being there one night, Snowy's husband Dean arrived. He's a good egg and is usually the one raising an eyebrow at me or Kat when we say something dumb without thinking. The tables turned:

D: 'So Kat, what've you been up to?'

K: 'Nothing much, derby and I've also gotten into Bikram yoga.'

D: 'What's that?'

K: 'It's doing yoga in a 40 degree room.'

D: 'What, like the floor's on a slant?'

................blank looks all round followed by a good dose of ROFLing...

On further thought, I don't know what would be harder, the heat or having to balance on that angle.

The saturday night we all played board games. I love them. A lot. We played one called Smart Ass. I guess it's kinda like Sale Of The Century without the blonde chick revealing what face had the money. So, if you answer incorrectly, you can't answer again. This is a great example of what a douche I am. The question was 'Where is mount Kilimanjaro'. I was already out, I guessed China. That's how good at geography I am. It gets worse. I was trying to help my sister get it so I looked at her, put my hands together as if to pray, closed my eyes, nodded my head and hands and said 'ah, mount Kiramunjaro'. Taking my cue, she guessed Japan. She was wrong. It's in Africa! She was like 'but you made me think it was somewhere asian!' Hahaha and my reply was 'well it sounded asian to me'.

So, we had a great time, left the coast on the Monday and spent the last night in Canberra. Monday night we all got into a discussion about In The Night Garden ( http://www.inthenightgarden.co.uk/au/ ). It's a freaky little show to get kids to go to sleep, and it has weird characters like IgglePiggle, MaccaPacca, Upsy Daisy etc. They all prance around and eventually have to go to bed although IgglePiggle is a bit of a bastard about it and always needs encouragement and in my opinion, a smack. I'm pretty sure IgglePiggle and Upsy Daisy are in an interracial relationship, which is nice to see. That's why he carries a blanket around, I think. Anyway, Snowy thought that it was people in costumes, Dean thought it was cgi, and I agreed with Snowy, but I couldn't decide if I thought it was kids in there or midgets. So, I googled it (thank you iphone). Turns out it's adults in the costumes, with really big sets! There is some cgi as well though. The chick that creates it also did TeleTubbies and that seemingly drug-induced BooBah. It was a little difficult to find out who was in each costume, cos they don't really want people to know, but I hit the jackpot when I finally found a pic of IgglePiggle. Behold:

I showed it to a friend of mine who has a love affair with IgglePiggle and she was most upset, as I had ruined her image of him, from cuddly lil blue guy to asian rocker dude (he's in a band). I wanted to find out who's in MaccaPacca, cos he's my fave, but I couldn't. I like him cos he goes around with soap and a sponge and washes people. We could use more of that in our society. He really only washes their faces, but I can see potential for a whole lot more.

So, Tuesday we went home, but not before going to Floriade. it's a tulip festival thingy that Canberra has at the same time each year. It's free. One year they tried to charge admission, but nobody went. I mean it's nice and all, but I'm not gunna pay money to see flowers. I can walk by a florist any day of the week. Nothing eventful really happened, it was just really pretty. See?

Ok, well that's about it for me. Sorry I don't have much news, it's assignment time so I shouldn't really be writing this anyway... but it's so much more fun:)

Keepin it real since yesterday,

Tx

P.S. I apologise for the clumsy layout of this post. This uni computer is on the fritz and won't let me edit it :-/