What were your high school colors? Team names? Clubs you belong too? Did you graduate? What do you remember most about your graduation day?

My high school was Methodist Ladies' College (MLC) with the apotrophe after the s in ladies as we were always reminded. School colours were green, a light green for summer and a dark bottle green for our winter skirt. I attended this school for 7 years and after 40 years, I still cannot wear green.

The school students were divided into "houses", named after ancient Greek cities. Athens, Troy rome and Spartagus. The school houses competed against each other in school sports events and singing competitions. I was in Troy.

No clubs for me - I graduated.Don't remeber much about graduation.

another piece of information is MLC is celebrating its 100 years centennial. I am visiting my old school in a few months.

A Cook Island photo tonight

What typical evening meals did you eat as a teenager? Did your mother or father prepare them or did you? What was your favorite? Least favorite?

While at Boarding school we ate what was in front of us - no choice. I do hate brussel sprouts with a passion though. The cook must have had a cheap supply.

After school I lived in a flat with some other girls - cheap was the order of the day which means a lot of spaghetti and visitng other people when the money ran out. Cant remember much about food for those days but Green Ginger wine was the in drink in the mid 60's.

I have been saving for a Macro lens for my new Canon EOS 400d camera (rebel XTi). got it yesterday and here is a macro photo of the centre of the gerbra I showed a few days ago. Not perfect but exciting to see what the lens can do.

Did you listen to a lot of music as a teenager? Did you have a stereo, radio, cd player or reel to reel? Who was your favorite music artist? Favorite song? Which one still moves you today?

I seem to remember listening to the portable radio my mother gave me to take to boarding school. It was the hot 60's and the Beatles were BIG!!!!!. Hermans Hermits, Cilla Black, Manfred Mann, Rolling Stones (Mum would not have approved of them), Gerry and the Pacemakers, Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon, The Troggs, The Kinks, and that really "deep and meaningful" song - 'The House Of The Rising Sun' by the Animals. We all thought it was really a cool song.

I can remember singing along to this in my blue 'shift' over a black turtle neck jumper, thick black stockings and my beatle haircut.

Goodness, the worst part is that I still listen to 60's music, on now they are copied onto my computer so I listen as I write in my blog. (Then it was writing into my secret diary).

Someone last night commented about the Mouseketeers - I remeber Annette Funicello, and I think there was one called Bobby - anyone remember the others?

I have finally saved up to buy a macro lens for my Cannon EOS 400D (Rebel XTi). so of course my photo tonight is of a flower's stamens.

Television.... Where would we be without television? Seriously though. Did you have a tv set while you were growing up? If not, did your neighbors or friends? If you did, what were some of the shows that were on and what were your favorites?

In Western Australia TV did not arrive until 1959. Until then it was listening to the radio while we did embroidery - from 5.30 to 7 there were the childrens serials, then the adult shows came on. My grandmother used to love the quiz shows.

In 1959 black & white TV arrived and my grandparents bought a set. There were 2 channels and my favourite show was the mouseketeers, annette Funicello being my favourite mouseketeer.

My photo today is of a gerbra flower which is part of a floral arrangement given to me on the weekend.

Did you have an after school job as a teenager? What kind of job was it? What were you paid? What is your best and worst memory of the job?

I was a teenager in the early '60's here in Western Australia - we didnt have fast food outlets like MacDonalds etc and so the opportunity was fairly limited in those days. I went to Boarding School in Perth, our captial city as there were no high schools at that time in the country town where I grew up.Life was very strict with lots of rules.

We finished school at 3.30and had until 6 pm to practise the piano, have a shower, write letters or do homework. From 6 to 7 pm it was meal time and washing up and then it was homework until late.

Saturday was for going out to the movies etc and Ssunday was for doing our own washing and ironing, then more homework. This is pretty much it for the time I was in high school from 13 to 17. School holidays for me was back to the farm where I helped my parents. Reading it now it sounds pretty boring but it was what shaped me for the future.

My first year out of school I studied Architecture for a year but gave it up to sell books door to door - my first job. I was very good at it until someone met me at the door with a shotgun in their hand. I resigned that day.

I must show you this photo I took today as I walked by the foreshore of the estuary at Mandurah. There were about 50 pelicans feeding off a school of fish. This is just a few of them.

Exciting news also - the cold weather (for a west aussie lass its cold) has given me a brain freeze that caused me to put ALL my kits on sale for $2.50 each at The Scrapping Garden until 30th June. Get any kits you want now as I am retiring all the kits I made in 2006. I know - the cold weather has affected me this winter.LOL

Moving on in life, as a teenager what do you feel were your greatest achievements and worse mistakes? Have these achievements and/or mistakes helped to make you a better person? Or did they hinder you as you proceeded into adulthood?

gosh this is a hard one - hmmmmmm. I think 13 to 17 were not my best years. Self doubt, lack of confidence, lack of self esteem, too many pimples, not very popular, my figure was at odds with bikinis - they both went in different directions.

My greates achievement was that I survived my school teens relatively intact. Worst mistake was not believing in myself.

Today I can look back on those years and sigh with relief - no way would I want to relive them. I know too much now to want to go back into the past.

My photo of the day is a Layout of my recent New Zealand trip.

As a child did you have any exotic (i.e. those not indigenous to your area) or unusual pets? If not, did you have any pets at all? What kind? Did you give them standard pet names or come up with unusual and unique names?

As I have previously mentioned I grew up on a wheat and sheep farm in Western Australia. During my years before I went to Boarding School I had lambs, calves, chickens, puppies, canaries, dogs and a donkey to name a few. I was not allowed to play with the sheep dogs as they were working dogs, but we had inside dogs as well.

Once I caught some baby rabbits and brought them home which upset my Grandfather, as rabbits were considered vermin at that time.

I had a joey as a pet for a while (baby kangaroo) which had been found in the pouch of a dead kangaroo. We placed an old wheat bag over the back of a chair and placed the joey in it near the wood fire.

Small calves became pets when we had to hand rear them. I remember them trying to suck my fingers. My photo of the day is one I took in New Zealand recently.

Did your mother and father work outside the home when you were a child?

I love this blog prompt - its about time I recorded some memories from the early 1950's. I grew up on a wheat and sheep farm in Western Australia. Mum and Dad both shared the farm work. My grandparents also had a farm next door to us and my uncle had a farm across the main road.

I often used to pack my "case" and run away to my grandparents. It was 2 paddocks away and was safe unless the bull was in the paddcok. He frightened me.

I spent many hours of my early childhood riding in the farm vehicles (the 'ute') with my grandfather. I slept when I got tired on the seat and drank water from the canvas waterbag my grandfather always carried.

We checked the sheep, chased the sheep and counted the sheep. We opened gated, we closed gates, we checked the water and the levels in the tanks.

I also spent hours on the tractor with my father or chasing sheep with my mother. I chased rabbits down their burrows and put my hand in the burrow to get the babies - once a snake was in there and I jumped in fright.

During shearing time, if not at school, I was in the shearing shed, chasing sheep into the pens, counting sheep, sweeping up the bits of wool lying around. I was driving when I was 10 years old around the farm which came in handy during a huge bushfire once when the only people left to move the sheep away from the fire was me (driving the car, aged 12), my non driving grandmother telling me what to do and my 5 year old brother. That was just the way life on the farm was.

My photo tonight is another one of the beach on the Cook Islands

Did you collect anything as a child? Why or why not? What was the significance of your collection and where did you procure it? Do you still have any or all of the collection now?

wow - where did May go? Two weeks were spent in the Cook Islands and New Zealand, then back to the daily grind of a job (and a funeral).

This prompt is timely as I was recently lamenting the fact that so many people do not send letters any more but use email instead. As a child I collected stamps and was so pleased to gain penfriends from around the world so I could get more stamps. We used to swap stamps of our own countries in letters full of information about life in another place. The letter was airmailed (more stamps) and there were letters flowing across the oceans monthly. this hobby continued well into my '20s. I have remnants of the collection remaining, other parts have gone to other avid collectors when my time and interest waned.

My photo tonight is of the view from the deck of our bungalow on the Cook Islands.