Tropical Christmas 2010

Georgias Graduation

My home on Near Map

My SIL told me about this great new site which has aerial photos of all over Australia.
They are so clear!

http://www.nearmap.com/

This is my house, with my sheets on the clothes line!
I am sure it is only in Australia at the moment, but it is much cleared than Google Earth.
Have fun stalking your neighbourhood!

Heart stopping terror at home

THIS SNAKE WAS IN MY HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Twitter and Facebook friends have all heard me shouting out in horror about finding this critter in the toy room draped over the kids TV and DVD/etc machines while I was preparing the room ready for  Georgia's birthday sleep over party.

Yes, a big HUGE (to me) snake, inside my house.

Luckily my favourite snake handler still lives next door and was able to save the day and remove this beast back to his special enclosure before releasing into the wild...along way from here.

Words can not express the fear I felt, or the speed I ran up the street to next door. I'm sure you can all imagine what it would be like to be home alone with a slithering reptile...uggh! GJ was at work an hour away and his advice was to shoo it out with a broom...yeah right, as if that was ever going to happen.

Unfortunately there are a lot of nasty critters in Australia; and they all seem to want to come and live with me, here are but a few of my terror experiences.

GJ also had a bad experience last week, he had to scrap a rotting dead very large rat out of our roof......yes the joys of Australian acreage living!

Moroccan light fittings have been installed!

 

Our electrician has just spent his 4th full day here, he still has at least another 2 days worth of work to do....I'm planning on signing over GJ's entire pay-check to him this month.....

We have had rats chewing out wiring and the dirty filthy tenants (DFT) smashed a lot of the outside lighting which allowed water to get in and rust and fuse all the wiring. We also found burnt out light fittings (so bad it had burnt and cracked the plaster in places) due to too hot bulbs being installed.

The electrician hired a HUGE ladder to replace all the bulbs in our glorious high ceiling (6m / 20ft.). The ladder has gone back, but one of the lights at the highest point is faulty and flickers and hisses....mmmmmm oh the joys of a money pit/dream home!

But on the bright side, I love my Moroccan light fittings which have just been installed on the decks. 

We had Friday night drinks and dinner on the deck admiring their beauty.

We got the lights in Jakarta (here is the original post) and now I wish I bought many many more!!!!!!!!!!

GJ and I trialled every single piece of art, in every conceivable combination, in our bedroom until we ended up with this arrangement which I love. The muted reds match so well with the green gold walls. These are all antique Sumatran (Indonesian) ceremonial cloths. The two on the right hand side are Sumatran kain selandang songket (supplemental weft gold thread)

Slowly the walls are being filled.....

The hall way in the kids area.
I love seeing all my photos on a wall.

It felt like an early Christmas

GJ opened up some of the crates containing our art yesterday; they have been boxed up for nearly 10 months.

I fell in love with all the pieces all over again.

Now to find spare wall space...which will be hard as our home is more than half glass!

Fathers day 2010

Fathers day this year was on the second day of Spring.......
There is no way any one could convince me it was warm enough for swimming...I'll wait for December when the water is tepid!

sneak peak....

The new paint is helping remove the stench of filthy pigs and wet dogs.......
Ben chose this wonderful flame red colour for his room, I have the cool green gold and the girls have off white.
Carpet is next week and then it will be our turn.
The house is still filthy; the real estate agency is working on getting all of the bond to cover it and the garden maintenance.

The before, before.......

We have just received the keys back to our home........the tenants now have 48 hours to rectify all noted problems.

Of course they won't be able to, a professional cleaning crew would take 5 days to clean it. The walls can't be cleaned: they are too far gone, the painters will need 3+ days.
All the carpet needs to be replaced (on Friday!).
All the curtains are going in the bin.

Hopefully with cleaning, new paint, carpet and curtains the foul stench will go.......
The gardens will probably take at least a year to repair (its 1.5 acres)

The bright side is that it can only get better, as it has hit rock bottom......

Hopefully it will all be fixed in the next week and a half so we can move back in!

Ron Meuck Exhibition

We all went and saw the Ron Meuck exhibition recently; it was just as amazing as I thought it would be, even the kids were impressed!
Ron Mueck (born 1958) is an Australian hyper realist sculptor working in the United Kingdom. Mueck's sculptures faithfully reproduce the minute detail of the human body, but play with scale to produce disconcertingly visual images (via wikki 2010). The images are so life like, there is an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch the sculptures, but of course it is not allowed. There was no flash photography permitted so my photos aren't as good as I would of liked, however I did purchase the book of his work which is very interesting. 

These images highlight some of his other work in other galleries around the world (from google images)

The exhibition finished this weekend: http://qag.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/ron_mueck

A lovely winters day in Brisbane

We recently had a wonderful day catching up with Lisa and her gorgeous new baby boy Beau. The weather was absolutely glorious; warm, balmy and perfect for socialising on the deck. Usually when we visit, Ben strips off and runs down the steps and jumps straight into the pool......As he is not use to Brisbane's winter (Jakarta has no winter, it is always hot on the equator ) he had no idea how cold the water would be...and we didn't think to mention it either.

He dived in and came up spluttering in shock........he even refused to get back in for me to take a photo lol.

Welcome Beau

 

Georgia and I had the pleasure of loving all over this gorgeous 3.5 week old baby last weekend.

Newborns are divine!

Indonesia, the colours and wonder

I made this presentation for an arts uni course and thought I would share. The slide share program has distorted the fonts slightly , but it is still readable. I hope you enjoy it!

Indonesia, the colours and wonder

I took all the photos.

What a year.....

We are now four weeks away from stopping the Gypsy lifestyle, moving from one spot to another and moving into our own home. We have had 5 moves since December last year, that is a lot of moving and living out of suitcases and boxes. We have racked up a lot of flying hours too!

It's is no wonder I haven't had time to blog!

I've also had to leave GJ and the kiddies behind and do a mammoth 4 week stint in Perth, Australia for uni, in addition to the monthly trips to Sydney, Australia I need to do to help care for my Mum who has Alzheimers disease.

I have also been in denial about moving and did not want to talk about it, hence no blogging.

The global financial crisis has had a big effect on our lives, even though it hasn't impacted on Australia or Indonesia nearly as much as elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately GJ worked for a German company who were once the market leader in their industry...but not any more.
The share price has gone from a 2006/2007 peak of 41.58 Euro to a low of 2.81 Euro and at that rate there is no room for family expat packages. We had 6 months notice to find another job or leave the country.....We had to leave, which was devastating to us all as we LOVED living in Indonesia. But all good things must end so it is on to the next adventure.......


I have also just found a heap of comments awaiting moderation, even though I don't have comment moderation on.............

Now I have explained my absence, I will have to keep up the momentum and get back to semi regular blogging.I have though kept up my Face Booking......I am now addicted to it lol.

Every uni assignment this year so far a High Distinction ***

I am nearly ready to snap out of my funk and denial and start to post again.......soon I promise lol.

GJ and the kids are all well, as I am; I'm snowed under with uni assignments (as per usual) and an upcoming prac in Perth...which means 4 weeks away from the family...

I've never, EVER left them for that long before!

I was recently offered a special program for honours students. It was for a post Grad. degree; a Masters of Business Management to be completed concurrently with my main degree.

I would graduated with a Bachelor of Education with a Minor in Science Communication as well as a Masters of Business. I would love to do this....slowly of course.

Unfortunately you can only do it internally, on site in Perth.....hopefully this will change in the future as I would love to do this! I can't see us moving to Perth in the near future!


**** in order to achieve so well I over do it and the consequence....my eyebrows are falling out, I look like a ravenous moth/silverfish has been at them.....TMI?

A clear day in Bandung

 

We had an over night visit to Bandung a few weeks ago and were very pleased to wake up to this great view. It is not often that you get to see the surrounding mountains, usually the pollution and tropical haze obscures them.

The kids were excited when a helicopter flew right towards our room windows before landing on on the helipad next to the pool. After seeing more than ten trucks rolled over, smashed and in the ditches on the way there and back, as well as getting stuck in horrific traffic, I would think it would be a great way to travel to Bandung in the future.

Movie star kids........