Blog Prompt - Today is Wiggler Your Toes Day. Where do you like to wiggle your toes?
I love to wiggle my toes when I get into bed - a big stretch and then wiggle them. Ah bliss.

Today I posted a photo of a Pink & Grey Galah that visited our backyard. He was screeching at us as if to ask where was his food. These are the birds that ate the TV cable on our TV antenna. After replaving it twice, we now have the cable inside a plastic pipe so these birds can find a different diet.

Blog Prompt - do you remember when we landed on the moon?

I remember I was nearly married and my first husband and I were working on a farm as a married couple. We didnt have TV in those days. On the day of the moon landing the owner of the farm invited all the workers into his home to watch the landing on the small black & white TV.

A lot of people didnt have TV's as a licence was required to own a TV. A lot of people would have a TV but use an indoor antenna so as not to attract the licence inspectors.

I havent posted a photo today as I thought I would show you a digi scrapping kit I made. I am placing my kits on Artscow.com, the site where you can make photobooks and heaps of other things. this kit is free on Artscow until the end of the week. Here is the link. I like playing with Photoshop, using filters, actions, styles etc. I am designing under the name JoanT.

Yesterday I received my new Tamron 18-270 lens from the people in Hong Kong where I pourchased this lens. I saved over $300 by purchasing like this and now cant wait to use the lens. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some new photos to show, using this lens.

Blog Prompt for today: Tell about a day in your life that was utter pandemonium.

I cant really remember such a day but for the owner of this dog, I think it was pandemonium.

Friends and I were walking along the waterfront at Mandurah, Western Australian when we saw this dog with his lead in his mouth, playing in the water. His owner got hold of the lead but the dog had it in his mouth and wouldn't let go. We watched for some time as he enjoyed the winter sun.

What is your favorite chocolate and when was the last time you had it? This blog prompt is so timely as we visited the Margaret River Chocolate Factory. They make every conceivable type of chocolate and the problem is making a choice. I have missed the chocolate we got while in Italy in 2005 and here in Western Australia have not found great chocolate until we went to Margaret River, a 3 hour drive from our home. Margaret River is a premier wine growing region and also has marron farms,cheese factories as well.

Above is a selection of chocolates available at The Chocolate Factory. I like any type of chocolate but prefer dark.

My absence has been quite long. I was made redundant in February this year which came as a shock and was unexpected. As I was 60 I decided to "retire". My absence here has been due to coming to terms with no longer working after 40 years of study and work.

Blog Prompt - If I had 24 hours to evacuate my home before it was to be destroyed by a hurricane, what 10 things would I grab. This is so topical at the moment with the dreaful death toll from those bushfires in Victoria. My uncle lives at Yarra Junction which is now a town that may be in danger if the winds start coming from the north.
I have often thought about this and my list would be, in priority order and if I had time:

• my bag with my purse in it - its always on the table
• my camera which is almost always in my bag
• my external hard drive - it has so many photos on it
• my laptop
• my baby photo
• my photo box with hundreds of photos in it.
• my jewllery - might need to sell it for money
• my file that contains birth certificates, marriage certificates - it is easy to grab
• the large box containg old photo albums
• my husbands cricketing momentoes.

The photo above has appeared in many newspapers around the world - it is a scene from the Victorian bushfires.

Prompt for today: Can you survive without e-mail? How has it changed your life?
Email has changed my life as it helps me to be in contact with people from around the word in an instant. For example our neice got married 4 days ago and we had photos within 24 hours. Her family live in Western Australia. She got married in Scotland.
Email has changed my life - I can answer quickly any queries, people can send me reminders as my dementia seems to sometimes appear publicly. My Admin officer at work can send me reminders that I can read when I have the time to digest her reminder.
I have always had penfriends up until I had children in my mid twenties. Email lets me to continue to have that.

Go Email!!!!!

Photo for today is of the apple orchards that make Donnybrook famous. I love the apple blossum.

Todays prompt is:Today is National Inane Answering Message Day. What would you really like to say on your answering machine?
I thought about this as we were discussing at the office some of the messages you can leave on your answering machine.I would like to say something like "if you are selling, telling me I have won, want my opinion, want me to do a survey - - - get lost but if you are a friend please leave a message" .
In Australia we have a "DO NOT CALL REGISTER" where I have registered our phone number. But it doesn't cover political parties fund raising, political surveys, my telco asking me to upgrade my "plan", my bank trying to sell me more credit. I find I have become quite rude when I get this sort of call, usually because they ring while we are eating.
There is proably a Google Street View vehicle outside the house emailing someone to let them know we have started eating.

My photo was taken in the Swan Valley which is one of Western Australias premier grape growing regions. We drove here to buy grapes from the growers and rockmelons straight off the bush. They actually taste like the real thing, unlike what we buy in the supermarket.

Today is Fruitcake Toss Day. Have you ever eaten fruitcake?

To me this is a strange question. I have been eating fruitcake ever since I can remember. When at boarding school, food was very boring. Mum used to make pumpkin fruitcake and send to me at school. My roommate & I often ate it while studying.

It was considered good nourishing food for morning tea for shearers. And all the mystery about the Christmas fruit cake - - sherry in it to keep it moist - check every week to see how it was coming on- and then on Christmas day we finally got to eat it.

New years resolutions: try to laugh each day.

Try to take better photos.

This photo was taken of one of my roses - i used the tripod to try to get a sharper photo.

"What is the best day you have had without spending any money.?"`This was so many years ago with two young children at ages of around 6 & 8. It was school holidays and we had so little money to spend. I packed up the children and took them to the Japanese section of the main cemetry in Perth, Western Australia. They spent ages looking at all the unusual headstones of the Japanese graves and other religions and still talk about this. Another time I took them to an old cemetry, now closed. They were so excited to see an ancester of theirs buried in the cemetry.

A bridge near my home taken at twilight.

Blog Prompt - "If I were a superhero, I would be..." - now this is going to take some thinking - when I was a young child many many years ago I used to tie a tea towel around my shoulders and called myself Mighty Mouse, after a comic book hero.
These days the thought of changing into a super hero costume in a phone box turns me right off - I mean where are these phone booths these days???? With the advent of mobile phones it is a rare site to see a phone booth, and they are mainly glass when you see them. Can you imagine being caught with one foot in a blue tights leg and hopping on the other foot. ?????
I think I will give the super hero thingie a miss - just couldn't cope with all that changing into tight clingy costumes.
Flower today is of a red grevillea.

If you planned a field trip for you, your family or group where would you go, why, and what would you do?
My husband and I recently did a trip to the north western wheatbelt of western 'Australia to see the spectacular wildflower display in the bush. This trip followed the so called Everlasting Trail of Western australia. Why did we go????? I wanted to take photos and hadn't been in this areafor over 40 years. Above is a photo taken of the landscape at Coal Seam National Park.
What did I do there???? I took heaps of photos.

Blog Prompt: The microwave oven was introduced by The Tappan Company on October 25, 1955. Do you use your microwave - I didn't realise how old microwave ovens were> I can remember wanting one back in the '80's and bought one when I sold my first home whilst working as a real estate agent.

I dont really use it much except for heating up leftovers and cooking rice. I recently was not thinking properly and put the rice cooker into the microwave without any water - it just had the dry rice in it. 15 minutes later I could smell the smell of disaster. I opened the door of the oven to be confronted with a brown melted rice cooker with a darker brown blog in it. It was melted onto the revolving plate and the smell of burning was right through the oven - there was nothing to do but carry out the oven and its contents and place in the garbage can. Don't want to do that again in a hurry.LOL.

By the way all photos on my blog are for sale if anyone is ever interested.just email me. Todays flower is the flower of one of our eucalyptus trees. I find this native flower to be so beautiful.

Blog Prompt: Sometimes it is our little nicks, dents, and imperfections - yes it is these little nicks, dents and imperfections that make us are who we are today. School wasn't the happiest place for me - I needed to grow confidence in myself to be able to stand up and say who I am.

Over the years I have strived to achieve. At the age of 60 I think I have the right to say "yes it is those nick and imperfections that have made me who I am 60 years on".

Photos have been a little slow as I have been ill with a chest infection for the past 3 weeks. However I am posting a photo taken in september when we drove to the wildflower centre of Western australia, Minegnew.

Blog Prompt for the day: Why do you work?
Easy answer to this is that I have just a few more bits of equipement I want to buy before retirement. I mean, look at this beautiful Western Australian wildflower I found. It is called "Peaches & cream " Grevillea. It is so beautiful. who wouldn't want to buy more equipment to get a fantastic photo of this flower.
Spring is here in Western Australia and the wildflowers are blooming. So many flower to photograph and such little time available.

Prompt for the day:Would you want to take a ride on the Space Shuttle? Why or why not?
Had to have a think about this one - hmmm. I think i would leave it to the younger ones while I visited exciting places on earth first. I would like to go to Patagonia in Argentina, Alaska, Norway to the north pole, All of Europe and Canada for a start.
Why? its a bit like knowing your own country before you know others.
And talking of knowing our own, the weather has turned colder here and my zygo cactus (Christmas cactus) are flowering. Unlike the rose, they only flower for a very short time. They are very difficult to photograph due to the various different planes the petals are on.Here is one about to bloom.

Our blog prompt for today is: what activities you would do if we had a blackout tonight. Here in western Australia we seem to get a few of these. TV and computers are gone - its dark and we find the candles yet again. It seems the best activity is to catch up on some sleep so bed it is.
The photo is of one of my roses in the garden.

Describe your favorite pair of shoes. A quick one tonight - not sure which shoes are favourite but I think it would be my ankle boots. A lot of my shoes are now uncomfortable since I broke two bones in my left foot 18 months ago - still that may be a good excuse to buy more.
Still trying to get a good photo of my zygo cactus flowers - this white has just bloomed.

On May 19, 1896, the fiirst automobile (Benz) arrived in Netherlands. Describe the first automobile you ever owned. This is easy - what sort of a vehicle would any self respecting girl have back in the 60's? A VW Beetle!!!!!. Of course I am telling my age.
I turned 60 on the 18 May and enjoyed my first ever birthday party since I was a child. My husband surprised me with a party of family and friends. But of course back to the car.
It was a second hand white Beetle with that was 5 years old and cost $500. I drove home to the country town where my parent lived to show off my new car.
Later in the evening I parked it in the machinery shed and went to bed. The next morning to my horror I discovered that the donkey we owned, had tried to eat the car by chewing on the door handles. I had parked the car where the donkey slept at night.!!
My photo is of a red zygo cactus today.

Biographers Day is today. Who would you like to write or read a biography about?

This is the prompt for today from DSP. This is an interesting thought as there are so many people I could think of. Certainly not the politicians of the country. I would like to write the biography of a person who has had to fight adversity to survive - maybe someone with a disability who has achieved so much in their personal lives.

Recently I heard a talk by a man whose wife had recently died of motor neurone disease. In her last months her and her husband set up a Foundation to raise funds to provide specialised transport for people such as herself. A biography of her fight for live is one I would like to write.

Winter is approaching here in Western Australia and my Zygo Cactus are flowering. I am taking many photos to try to get the perfect photo. Here are two I took today.

A quarter of the year has gone since my last post and interests turn more to photography. Yesterday was our ANZAC day holiday. We went to our local Dawn Service. The photo is of the Mandurah War Memorial, taken late afternoon.

My favourite saying: "A dog is man's best friend because a cat doesn't want the responsibility"

On the twenty eighth day of December I will time-travel back to the time when Agro was just a pup. Why??? Because yesterday I had to take her to the vet for her final visit. She went to doggy heaven. At 17.5 years, Agro ( a female) had just worn out. Stubborn to the end, she was unable to walk any longer and had no idea where she was.

I got Agro when she was just 6 weeks old. She was so cute. One time when she was about 18 months old we had bought a heap of shopping to take camping. We left the tins etc in the bags and went out. When we returned she had emptied the shopping bags and piled all the tins etc into her basket and was sitting on top of the food.

I cant count how many left shoes she buried. She never buried both shoes, only the left. What about the slippers she took which I found in my husbands walk in robe.

I remember the time she would only eat human food with tomato sauce. I tried to break her of this habit by giving her dry food for only 15 minutes then picking up the bowl. When I stoppped doing it, she started eating the dry food.

She tried to chase a seagull in the boat - she ran right into the water and we had to pull her back into the boat.

The photo above was taken 12 months ago. I had just returned from a business trip and left my case open on the floor. This is how I found her.

Rest In Peace Agro.

I heard someone on the radio saying we shouldnt be putting up Christmas lights because of global warming. We have just driven around tonight with our grandson looking at the christmas lights on display, especially the ones on the canals. The house in this photo is on the canal and has the most magnificant display of lights. We parked on a vacant lot opposite and people in the car next to us wished us a Merry Christmas - thats the spirit of lights and of Christmas - people wishing others well, even though they are perfect strangers.

On the twenty first day of December I would love to see some sanity returned in my community - the traffic is horrific, I cant get parking at the shopping centre, and it is like a feeding frenzy. Today I had a work Christmas party on the foreshore in Mandurah, Western Australia. Normally it is 10 minutes by car from my office. Today it was 1/2 and hour!!!!. The old bridge was right beside where we were having the party. This photo is taken under the bridge.

On the twelfth day of December I remembered my favorite dream and it was being introduced to Sean Connery, the actor. That voice of his makes my knees go to jelly everytime I hear it.

On the twelth day of Christmas I went to the old bridge at Mandurah, Western Australia to practise taking low light photos. This is the result above.

I haven't posted since October and thought abut why - one reason is that I have been developing my interest further in photography and trying to master the manual settings on my DSLR Canon.

I have two more Christmas parties to go to and tomorrow the grandson comes to stay for a week. He attends a vacation programme for kids while I am at work.

Fill in the blank to make this old quote fit you: 'I _____; therefore I am.

i am thinking about this one - "I love photography;therefore I am"

Maybe it means I need to take photos to be who I am. anyway enjoy the western Australian wild orchid that I photographed last month.Its called a spider Orchid.

Tell us--in glorious detail--about something you're embarrassed to admit you like...

This one gave me pause for thought. I must admit I do not admit to too many people of my love of science fiction and the TV series "Dr Who". Another TV series from the early '80's was a science fiction called "Blakes Seven". What about the "X Files"? and then there was the original Star Trek series with Captain Kirk.

Going back further with my love of science fiction were the Dune series, The Day of the Triffords, Farenheight 451, 1984 and so on.

My husband just does not GET why I like them.

Ahhhh well back to my Mills and Boons novels - now there is something I would like no one to know about - sssh-dont tell anyone.

On another note, I have been taking some photography courses and finally think I understand the M button on my camera - m = manual. Above is one of the photos I took on the weekend.

Simplify life. We all have them, those household items that we purchase for one thing and then end up using them for another. What items do you have that serve double duty?

Thought about this for a while as I have been using some things on double duty for years. It just seems natural and sensible now.

Lets see - the wok. A wok is a sort of frying pan that is used in asian cooking - which all aussies do these days. Well why buy a fry pan, or a stew dish. I cook stew in it, fry in it, stir fry food, do spaghetti meatballs in it, chilli chicken etc. One wok saves on about three other kitchen implements in my view - saves water and storage - must also help prevent climate warming in some way. I mean - its a universal kitchen implement.

Same as the kangaroos that live around us - if I cant find a photo to take for the "Photo a Day" challenge at DSP, I drive around and find a kangaroo to photograph. Have a look at this young one - he is about 9 months old. I have photographed himbefore drinking from his mothers pouch.Isn't he beautiful.

Now that school has started back here, the big issue is the dress code. Do you agree with having a dress code and if so, who should determine what it should be? Should it be the principal, the school board, the students, the parents, the state dept. of ed or someone else?

We have this issue also in Australia and in fact it drew a lot of attention in our local community newspaper when a girl refused to comply with the dress code.

It is a hard one - when I was 10 years old I was sent to Boarding School in the city where the unform policy was strict. (I still find wearing green uncomfortable). I like the idea of uniformity for all students and noticed today how nice the children from the local Catholic College looked while in the shopping centre.

My children went to a private school from 2 to 12 years with a uniform which they had no problem with. I remember my son wearing the school uniform in high school as it was easy to get dressed each day. Hmmmmmm - the jury's still out on this one.

So to lighten things up thought I would show you a photo I took today whiloe visitng a Botanic parks display of tulips.

Name 5 things in your freezer right now.

Wow - I went and checked but my freezer is not yet the "House of Frozen Terrors" . This is because I have a brand new frig/freezer combo. I have the obligitory pastry sheets (in case I want to do some baking, but who I am fooling), frozen peas, frozen chicken soup from last Sunday nights tea, frozen passionfruit pulp from my vine and some frozen meat which I dont have the energy to de-frost. I have a love/ hate relationship with my passion fruit vine as last year I was picking up the passionfruit in my backyard when I stepped on one and broke two bones in my foot.

All my energy has gone into taking photos of our wonderful wild flowers out in full bloom.

Tonight I have a photo of our beautiful Everlastings.

Describe the most serious illness you have ever had.

As a five year old living on a farm I was used to going anywhere I liked. One day I was outside when I found myself unable to walk. My screaming brought my mother running out to me. She picked me up and carried me to our neighbours farm 2 miles away. My father had the only vehicle and so my mother had to walk, carrying me.

I found myself in hospital - I had rheumatic fever. I spent a long time in the hospital receiving needles in my nether region twice a day. 54 years ago since this illness. The last time I was in hospital was to give birth to my two children 30 odd years ago..

I have been blessed with good health to which I am grateful. this is allowing me to indulge in my passion, photography. Have a look at my photo today of a Western Australian wildflower which is also the floral emblem of Western Australia - the Kamgaroo Paw.