Tagged from 8,608 miles away!

I had just about convinced myself to stay away from blogging for at least a couple of days and along comes Octamom and tags me......now if I remember correctly the last time I was tagged was.........no I don't remember!



As I live alone (except for the 2 cats who I am sure if they spoke English would be very pleased to help me out with 7 quirky facts) I will have to do a little lateral thinking and see what I can come up with.

1. I normally lock the front door about 10 minutes before I leave the house via the back door. I have to say out loud 'I am locking the door' because if I don't I have to go back and check if I have locked it......obviously my attention span is shorter than 10 minutes!

2. I take off my seat belt as I round the corner to my house.....you would think I do this to get out of the car quickly when I am in my carport, but no that's not the reason, I haven't figured it out yet!

3. Straighten and puff the cushions on the couch before going to bed, and have to make the bed before leaving the house, even if I am late for work.....I think I must be a neat freak.

4. I always have muesli, yogurt, prunes, banana and a dash of skim milk for breakfast......sounds boring but I just love that combination.....(breakfast is always after I have turned on the computer and checked my email and blog).

5. When my favourite TV shows are on - Criminal Minds, Dr Who, Wire in the Blood - I put the answer machine on and pretend I am not at home......I tell my friends this, so alot of my messages are 'pick up Peggy we know you are at home'.

6. Before blogging and scrapblogging I used to play freecell for hours on the computer. I started at number 1 and to date I am up to 10,920....I would not move onto the next number until I had solved the one I was on. This particular quirk did worry me a bit so I encouraged some of my friends to try it and they got addicted as well so now I don't feel so weird!!

7. Eleven Eleven (11:11): I don't normally mention this phonomen to many people but hey when you are tagged all must be devulged!
I started seeing 11:11 on digital clocks in the 1980's. It made me smile when I saw it but kept it to myself until 1995 when I mentioned it to a close friend.....well she almost fell over and said she had been seeing the same thing and didn't understand the meaning. So we got on the computer and here is what we learned.
11:11 is a wake-up call for lightworkers. Lightworkers are people who signed up for a "green beret" type of mission when they were on the spirit plane (before being incarnated on Earth). What the mission is, in short, is to hold as much Light as possible, as strongly as possible, on this planet.

8. I know I was supposed to list 7 but I am on a roll now and quite enjoying this.......so my final quirky thing is studying Philosophy. I started 2 years ago because I have always been interested in Philosophy and thought if I gain a bit of wisdom along the way that would be a bonus. It has been a wonderful journey and I hope to continue along this road for a long time to come.

My next duty is to tag 7 lovely bloggers but as I only know 6 and rules are made to be broken, here they are:

Annemarie - So I Was Just Thinking
Roban - Moments in Time
AVT COACH
Jan - The Saga of Our Home
Sharmaine - 4 Squirts and A Dollop of Cream
Letti - My Adventures in the US of A

Music that warms my soul

Each week I am going to feature a CD that has touched me in some way.



My first album is Beauty & Crime released in July 2007 by Suzanne Vega

I have been enjoying her music for the past 20 years for it's storytelling, lovely melodies and her distinctive voice. I have downloaded 5 songs from this album and put them at the top of the music 'thingo', if anyone would like to have a listen.

Suzanne has made the following comments on the album's songs:

1. Zephyr & I: a conversation between the graffiti artist Zephyr and myself, West End Avenue remembered.
2. Ludlow Street: for my brother Tim who lived there, memories of parties and rehab.
3. New York is a Woman: NY personified as a woman who has had a hard time but is still beautiful.
4. Pornographer’s Dream: what would he really desire?
5. Frank & Ava: a couple who gets along in bed but not out.
6. Edith Wharton's Figurines: women past and present, how we suffer for beauty.
7. Bound: a love song to my husband.
8. Unbound: a spiritual song about a plant.
9. As You Are Now: to my daughter who is a natural treasure.
10.Angel’s Doorway: A cop is stationed at Ground Zero and his wife wants him to leave his clothes at the door. Also about troops returning home.
11.Anniversary: The anniversary week of 9/11 a year later in NYC.

As I was doing a bit of research on Suzanne I was surprised to find she had a BLOG......I am now a bigger fan, if that is possible, than I was before.

Twilight Zone Revisited Vintage 1960

'There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call......The Twilight Zone!'



You may well ask why I am blogging the Twilight Zone!!
Well it all started with avt coach and flygirl sharing the same birthday and each commenting on many serendipitous likenesses they share.
As the list grew avt coach mentioned 'the Twilight Zone music was getting pretty loud'. From then on we all started commenting on the imaginary 'twilight zone music' playing in the background!

My theory is the 'Six Degrees of Separation' angle.....but that is another subject for another time.

Lastly but not least octamom joined in the conversation and said 'cue the Twilight Zone music!!!'.....so that was 'the straw that broke the camels back'.......I HAD TO BLOG IT!

Postscript: avt coach, flygirl and octamom were not born when the Twilight Zone show first appeared on television.......I WAS!

Feed the World and Feed your knowledge!!

On the rare occasion of sitting down and reading a newspaper (I spend way too much time of the computer) I came across an article about FreeRice.
The photo in the article caught my attention first, then upon reading it I thought wow what a great concept.
FreeRice has two goals:
Provide education to everyone for free.
Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

Here are a few excerpts about the organisation:
“FreeRice.com is one of the most ingenious websites of 2007. In the best spirit of the Internet, it offers education, entertainment and a way to change the world ― all for free.”
- Los Angeles Times

“What type of computer game could get kids excited about learning vocabulary words? One that also helps feed hungry people around the world!”
- Scholastic News Magazine

“A simple way to bring kids to the Internet for a good reason, a way to feed their minds and . . . to feed a whole lot of people . . . helping fight world hunger, one grain of rice at a time. ”
- NBC Evening News

I know I will be testing my knowledge and learning as well, by regularly visiting this website.

Please click on now to FreeRice.com and join in and share the site around your blogs.

THINK

I have just finished my Philosophy class for this term, so I am feeling all energised and profound.....it will be interesting to see what I post next week!!

Here is a little ditti for all to ponder upon:

If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't;
If you'd like to win but you think you can't,
You can almost be certain you won't.
If you think that you'll lose, you are lost,
For out in the world you will find
Success begins with a person's will;
It's all in the state of the mind.
If you think you're outclassed you are;
You've got to think high to rise.
You've just got to be sure of yourself
Before you can win the prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To a stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the person who wins
Is the person that THINKS they can.
- Anon.

Journey to Rwanda

This new header is a photo I took when I travelled to Rwanda, Africa in November 2006. Jessen and I were there for 5 weeks teaching photography at an orphanage.
We took with us 10 digital cameras, a printer and some photographic paper.
The children aged between 15 and 20 had never seen a digital camera before but it didn't take them long to learn to take some fabulous photos.
Just before we left we helped the kids put on a photographic exhibition at the orphanage and invited the whole village....it was a huge success.
The latest exciting news is at the beginning of 2008 the lady that runs the orphanage set up a photographic studio in the village which the students run and it pays their wages as well as some money going back to the orphanage.
I'd love to return to Rwanda to see the beautiful countryside again and catch up with those lovely young people.
I also made a scrapblog of the time we spent there, so at the click of a button I can be transported back in time.

I was in the right place at the right time for this photo
One of my favourite photos
Some of the orphans we taught photography

Children watching footage of themselves in the video camera

Jessen and Amiee at the photo exhibition the kids put on

My Mosaic courtesy of Flickr

Credits for photos:
1. Peggy Style Stripe, 2. Indian Curry, 3. Chatswood, 4. Deep Purple, 5. Colin Firth revisited, 6. a cup of tea, 7. anywhere, 8. A Slice of Lemon Meringue Pie, 9. Wise, 10. Freedom, 11. content, 12. mirus

McMGrad89 (Annemarie) kindly gave the instructions on how to create this mosaic:

Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search, using only the first page, choose your favorite image, copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker (4 columns, 3 rows).

The questions:

1. What is your first name? (Peggy)
2. What is your favorite food? (Indian Curry)
3. What high school did you attend? (Chatswood, NSW, Australia)
4. What is your favorite color? (Purple)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (Colin Firth)
6. Favorite drink? (Tea)
7. Dream vacation? (Anywhere)
8. Favorite dessert? (Lemon Meringue Pie)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (Wise)
10.What do you love most in life? (Freedom)
11. One word to describe you. (Content)
12. Your Flickr name. (Don't have one - I used Mirus)

The Five Love Languages

A very close friend recommended I read a book called 'The Five Love Languages' by Gary Chapman. I was so impressed by the information in the book I thought I would write about it in my blog.
It is one of those books that can change a persons outlook about the people that are important in their lives.....parents, children, lovers, friends, husbands, wives, partners.

The Five Love Languages are:
Word of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch

My love language is Quality Time and reading this book has helped me understand myself and the people close to me much better.

Do yourself a favour and click on the link below and if you are suitably impressed buy the book!

http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/learn.html

Big Bang Experiment

I'm excited to be witnessing this event (via television), what a age we live in!

Scientists in Switzerland have been trying to decode this for the last two decades and will finally begin a historic Big Bang experiment late Wednesday in an effort to learn more about how the universe began.

At The European Organisation for Nuclear Research - better known by its French acronym Cern, engineers will attempt to circulate a beam of particles around the 27 kilometre-long underground tunnel that houses the Large Hadron Collider. The $US10 billion machine is designed to smash particles together with cataclysmic force.
It will push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel, which is 150 to 500 feet under the Geneva countryside.

This will re-create conditions in the Universe moments after the Big Bang. But some critics fear that this collision could create "black holes" that would endanger the planet.

The project has attracted researchers from 80 countries.

Update 23 September 2008
CERN officials said the Large Hadron Collider was shut down after nine days of operation when the meltdown of a small electrical connection caused the release of a large amount of liquid helium into the 27-kilometre long tunnel, near the Franco-Swiss border. This electrical failure will delay a series of physics experiments until spring 2009.

So close yet so far....remember patience is a virtue!

New Header Picture

I was trying to decide what header photo to use and how to make it fit on the page.
So after much fiddling around I got the photo to fit the layout by changing my template, which I think is easier to read than the original one I had.
I have decided I am going to change my header photo regularly to highlight some of my favourite photos.

I took this photo at Sculpture by the Sea in Bondi, Sydney in November 2007.
The artist Dan Steward-Moore called it 'The mollusc that ate the harbour bridge' and the statement he said about it was 'For me, Sydney's connection to the sea is what makes it so special. But is it also Sydney's nemesis.'

A Cats Life

These two little darlings (well not so little anymore, but still darlings) are totally spoiled (as every cat should be) and lead a very busy life.
At 5am they are either playing tag up and over my bed or if I have locked them out of the bedroom they will scratch on the door, or if they are outside they will meow outside my bedroom window until I open the door.
I gave up months ago trying to change their habit.....has anyone ever tried to tell a cat what to do!!
As long as I feed them they will let me go back to bed until 7am, which I think is very generous of them.
For the next 9 hours the photographs below tell the story of their busy day!
All said and done, life would be very dull without them and the antics they get up to when they are playing and when they invite the 2 cats next door for a romp up and down my hallway is great fun to watch.

Ellie & Wilson leading a busy life!!!