Last April I did Camp NaNo for the first time, my sister Jane joined me in a cabin and we both reached and exceeded our word count goals. Camp NaNo is fun because you can set an achievable word count and watch your stats go up each day as you write more (and add you word count in). I was always scared of NaNoWriMo (Still am) But Camp NaNo is a good amount of scary, while still being possible because you don't have to write 50,000 words in a month. That is not something I can even imagine myself doing, and I have a good imagination.

The point of this post though it that there is going to be another Camp NaNo next month. It starts the first of July. This time we have created our own cabin, lovingly dubbed The Fellowship of the Keyboards and we need more cabin members. There are limited spaces (like 12 in all, if I remember correctly) but if you would like to join our cabin head over to my sisters blog and leave a comment on her post about this telling us your Camp NaNo username, first in best dressed. 

So far there are four crazy people already in there hiding behind cover names and profile pics of our characters. 

If you have never done it before and are somewhat of a writer, have a go! Set yourself a small goal of a few thousand words, and even if we do run out of space you can hopefully find some other cool cabin to join, or make your own like we did!

Have you ever done Camp NaNo?

Are you one of those amazing people who have actually done the full NaNoWriMo?

A while ago my sister went over the Great Dividing Range to visit our cousin and a few days later I followed to get her back. Normally the trip is around 3 hours, I took over 6. For quite a simple reason really, I stopped almost every time I saw something I really wanted to photograph. I could have flooded you with a hundred photos but I have actually narrowed it down to about 15, so enjoy these shots I took on my trip there and back again.

The cotton paddocks got on my list of spectacular sights I have seen... not that I have a list or anything.

A lot, if not all of these (don't quite remember) were also accepted to Austockphoto, yay. 

Do you have a favourite?

We have new life in our saviour! What a blessed day, the day we remember how he defeated death. Easter is just a wonderful time of the year. It is also an excuse to take photos (not that I need excuses), so I did an Easter photo shoot of my littlest sister the other evening and she is just the cutest ever so I had to share the photos. 

I did a photo shoot of Ann last Easter with the same basket of chalk eggs, and since those eggs had survived a whole year without being used I decided we better do it again you can see last years post here. My photography and editing has improved since then. And of course I rarely took photos in RAW then, but all these were taken in RAW before I edited them and saved them as jpg. files. Sorry about all that technical talk for those of you who do not understand such things. You may now scroll down and enjoy the photos.

And for anyone who is interested in the photography side (technical talk) of these photos, as I said I took them all in RAW and then edited them in Lightroom. In these two last shots you can see the original shot in the corner and how it turned out after editing. 

You may have noticed that I took nearly all these photos with the camera facing towards the sun which would probably be a mistake if I was not taking them in RAW. But in a RAW file there is such a great range of information and I could bring back as much light as I wanted, and fix up the white balance to be nice and warm. And in this next shot actually make it look a bit hazy. RAW files always need editing, but the final result is so much better and they are much easier to edit without loosing any information than jpg. files are.

The main edits I have done to all these images were adding exposure, some to the whole photo and other parts just over Ann, also adding a little contrast and obviously sharpening them, as all RAW files need to be sharpened at least a little. Anyway I hope you enjoyed those photos, happy Easter!

Does your family have any Easter tradition?

Have you ever tried taking photos in RAW? or do you always shoot jpg. If you have not tried it you seriously should!

My sister Jane is rather fond of weapons, in particular medieval weapons. So I made her a few for Christmas, well at least a few to decorate her wall. They were very simple to make, but slightly difficult as I had nothing which would punch holes in the felt.

You need only a few things

• felt
• wool
• a needle that wool can be threaded through but is sharp enough to go through felt.
• glue and scissors
• sticks

First you will need some sticks, they could be the hardest to find. Living where we do around so many gum trees made it fairly easy. They could be of nay length but mine were around the size of a ruler. Trim off any other twigs. 

I just used my imagination when cutting the shapes out of the felt, you have to cut two of each shape though, one for each side. And you can see from the photos the kind of shape I went with. 

Getting the wool through the felt is the horrid part! It is really only for decoration, but so is the whole thing. Just push really hard. For the flights you will want to keep checking that you can slip the end of the stick in between the rows.

The next part is to glue the felt on. At least I did it in that order with some and I sewed the 'pretty' wool bits after with another. I don't suppose it really matters, except that you want to have the knots of the wool on the inside. Pour glue inside the hollow for the stick and just use lots... but not too much, I had to re-glue some because I had not used enough. 

Lastly snip the felt which is the 'flights' of the arrow. And if you want tie a bow with leftover wool near the head. Then wait for the glue to dry and you are done!

Have you ever made arrows of any kind?

Which colour is your favourite?

My sisters and I have always been Star Wars fans, so when we heard another movie was coming out there was no way we were going to miss it. Even if we had to drag our, at that time non Starwarsish cousin along.

Not so long a time ago in a town not so far away, three Jedi - One of whom looked remarkably like a Sith - Leia and two grownups one of which pretended to be Hans and the other who made no effort what so ever, made their way to a movie theater. Oddly enough they had no need to tell any one which movie they were going to see. And one of the staff almost bounced around asking to take a picture. Whispers started as they climbed to their seats. Children (what were they doing watching an M rated movie?) pointed and whispered to the parents, "Jedi, look there and Leia."

We like our Christmas trees live. So a few weeks before Christmas we go hunting, last year we caught one lurking beside the road, the year before it was a gum tree amongst a forest of others. This year we captures a sheoak tree.

Since everyone seemed to enjoy my post about the Sydney Youth Orchestra I thought you may also enjoy a few photos of the Town Band performing at their annual concert. This year I was asked to be official photographer. And I did get a lot of nice shots. These ones are just group photos because of privacy and permission stuff. Other than the amazing music at the concert, I really liked the shiny floor.... It made for cool reflections in the photos.

I saw this poem the other day and thought that I must never forget how to be a little girl, or at least not for a long time yet. I don't know who to credit this lovely poem to, because where I found it the name under it was Margaret Fishback Powers, but in another place Henry Alfred Dixon. Maybe it was another who really wrote it, I don't know. Most sources say Anonymous. But whoever it was that wrote it I am glad they did.

This poem made me think. We are so often in a rush, from one thing to another. We don't stop, we are not often still. God has given us so many things, small moments to enjoy. It is easy to grow to old and not stop to look at the world through the eyes of a little girl. But here is the poem, so you can read it before I continue.

It all started with a parcel in the mail. This parcel contained hundreds of eggs, and some tiny black specks that were already humping around, baby silkworms. Our tree had next to no leaves on it, so we had a dilemma. In the end a question on a local Facebook page fixed it. Someone told us off a huge mulberry tree that grew at the end of a fairly run down street and it did not belong to anyone. 

Another entry for the I Heart Faces "Holiday Fun" challenge. We had a lot of fun tubing on the holiday I took this on, though I personally just took photos of people trying not to fall of and inevitably falling off. I preferred to stay mostly dry... although if I had a waterproof camera...

Speed Sideways and Hold on Tight

Another entry for the I Heart Faces "Holiday Fun" Challenge. My beautiful sister Ann, having fun last Christmas... in a giant stocking.

When I saw this door first I knew I would have to return to use it as a backdrop for some photos, so next time I went to the mulberry tree next to it I took Jane and she modeled for me. The door is not quite so blue as this in real life, but I got a bit obsessed with the peeling paint texture of the door and wanted to bring that out. So enjoy the photos.

I bought a new lens for my camera the other week and I am so happy with it. To be exact it is a "Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS USM Lens" It rained the first few days after I got it, but finally the sun came out, as did all the spring flowers. I took Ann for a walk up the road.... and did a photo shoot of a kind, and got some smiles. (even though she was not in the best mood)

I have recently acquired a few more books, which could be accounted for by the time of year. At this time of year I get excited and wait and wait to find out which weekend the book fair is on. There are hundreds and hundreds of books there each year and I take a few home. This year I got... only three..... bags full. 

I have set mine eyes upon snow twice in my life. Just a week ago the second time came around. At the beginning of the day we were rather in doubt as to whether the weather would be horrid or not. The predictions spoke of rain, and we did not even know if there would be any snow left, from all the falls on the weekend when everything on Barrington Tops had got covered in a heavy shroud of snow. We set off despite all dire predictions, as we had planed... well rather spontaneously the night before.

I just finished listening to the audio book of Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

I really would not recommend reading the synopsis from Goodreads, it gives away way too much, here is the one I read. 

"An author whose previous, wildly successful novels have earned him a reputation as fantasy's master of magic, Brandon Sanderson continues to dazzle audiences with this tale of princesses and gods. In this extraordinary world, those who attain glory return as gods. And those who can master the essence known as breath can perform the most wondrous miracles - or unleash the most devastating havoc."

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads, but I possibly should have given it four.... there are no half stars though. Rating books is really hard.

Warning: there are a few minor spoilers in this review.

I have no photos of this event so you shall have to imagine it from my words, and really when it is as dark as the other night, even I can not take a really good photo. 

Motes of hay drift up, hay that has the slightest dampness to it. We leave our places, by the warm fire crackling behind us. We leave the orange glow and settle down on the hay and lean back against another bale. All along the trailer people talk, I am too far away to hear most of what is said. Wordless voices rise high and fall. 

Rumbles of the tractor engine drown out some of the voices. It lurches forward throwing us all sideways and against one another. Red taillights flash, the head lights cut a bright swathe through the grass as we turn and bounce on. We leave the flickering flames behind. Not a trace of their warmth is left. Chords, strummed on strings. Upon one of the topmost bales a shadow sits strumming her guitar. I reach out and touch her as she plays. 

Music wafts through the star spangled night. Overhead the Milky Way stretches, stars glow brighter as we leave other lights behind. The two pointers shine bright, I follow their pointing with my eyes and find the Southern Cross. It shines right overhead in the middle of the misty streak across the heavens, the  Milky Way. I wonder at the vastness of he who names the stars. His Glory is plain if we only but look. 

We rattle past round bales, fences, a dam. Six wallabies start up in surprise as we rumble towards them, fixing them in the tractors headlights. They flee in all directions, we give chase. "Kangaroos" comes the shout, "Look, there!" Voices exclaim, hands point. Some of the wallabies hop along a fence, trying desperately to get away. They bound through the grass and melt into the darkness.

The tractor and its heavy load rattle away to into the darkness. Back to the fire, back to warmth. As we go voices are raised in song from the rear of the trailer. As those in the middle can't make out the words we begin our own. Song, laughter, hay, starry skies, a beautiful memory, a beautiful world, a great God.

Yes I did used to be that cute! Since I turn ... ah lets say old today I thought I should post photos of me, as time passes. I don't know who all these photos were taken by, probably my parents, though with the really old ones I took photos of the photos since we didn't have any copies of them on the computer. 

I am not exactly sure if they are in the right order (the old ones) but they are close. There is also proof here that my hair was not always long and it has been cut short once.......

So in celebration on eighteen years, from the beginning, me. 

Yes this it taken at our place..... it was so different back then..... I remember this moment, watching the storm come in.

And I'm rather confused of the order of the photos around here....

I was once taller than my sisters too..... and Jane had longer hair than me.

I know this was taken at school some time.....

And now the lovely digital age! these photos are in the correct order. The photo below was taken in 2006. With the digital age also comes me not being able to chose which photos to put here so there are a few more for each year..... oh well... Look how many freckles I had! Well I still do, but not so obvious.

The massive flood of 2007

I have never had a horse but if there is one nearby I will probably go and pat it..... even climbing onto private property.... though this is in a paddock next door, and any one can walk there.

This chook is still alive even though she has tried to die numerous times.

Do you like to look back over old photos?

Have you ever counted back the years to see if you are really as old as you are meant to be?