Dave's off to Perth...again

He left this morning for yet more screwing around with our healthcare system. He's hoping to drive back on Wednesday at this stage, but we'll have to see how it all goes with juggling last minute appointments and what not. Stay tuned. Neither of us are impressed with this spur of the moment trip, but at least the doglets will get their food supply topped up so we don't have to fool with having that shipped up. Trying to see the silver lining here, really.

The past few days have kept on with the crazy. Dave has been in the dive shop most of the time and I've been frantically trying to clear all of the editing and processing from my backlog. I am thrilled to say that everything bar processing a few orders is done and dusted and those few orders remaining will be sent off to the printer before noon tomorrow. Yippppeee!!

I've had enough time to toss up a few bits & bobs, including some random personal just for fun stuff, on my Exmouth photography blog and hopefully I'll have images from the last two weddings up there early next week. You'll have to go there to see my feelings on mushrooms and you know you don't want to miss that! Please remember to leave a little note over there as each and every time you do it raises a little more money to help make Christmases jollier for someone who needs a little HO-HO-HO this season!

We took the Girls to the beach to have a big romp & check out another dead whale. Dora and Tilly settle right in on their car mat before we even leave the driveway.

But as soon as we are wheels up, Tilly's right there - eagerly drooling over the front seat, anxiously waiting to see what's coming up

This new dead whale looks pretty small and I don't have any idea how long it's been there or how it died. I just know that it's become something of a locals outing

Yes, those are camping chairs staked out on the rocks LOL I can't imagine sitting up there as it's decidedly whiffy when the wind blows a certain direction! The decomposing whale has brought in a ton of small fishes and those have brought in some bigger predators. Most of those standing around while we were there were watching three tiger sharks patrolling. None of them were very big - max about 7 feet probably - but friends of ours swear there was a 15+ foot guy there at one stage.

This kid was throwing pebbles into the holes despite his mom shrilly insisting he stop. I know the whale is dead and all, but behaviour like that just feels so disrespectful to me.

After hanging out watching the sharks for a few minutes we cruised along the beach well away from the action and other humans so we could get on with the walk. Dave found a big stick and that held their attention for about 20 seconds.

Dora ended the game by taking the stick out and dropping it in the water then leaving. Tilly was torn between finding the stick again and trailing after her Sister. Dora was supremely pleased with herself.

The weather here has been blowy again in the mornings and that sucks. It then gets HOT mid-afternoon and the Gulf glasses off. Hopefully tomorrow and Monday will be gorgeous as we have good boatloads of divers and everyone is itching to get a few good dives under their belts. I will be in the dive shop.

Hello? Hello? Is thing on?

Haven't I been the bad Keeperer in Toucher lately?!  October has been a little more nutso than is usual even for our household and I haven't had much Me Time at all.  And that means the blog suffers, personal emails languish in my inbox & the phone gathers dust.

But I'm almost caught up with at least the really important things, so hopefully - cross fingers here - I won't get so snowed under again. I'm very much looking forward to having some time to do something that isn't work related!

Dave finally got home on Wednesday but is still sick, sick, sick. Today is the first day he's felt even remotely well enough to do anything and he's struggled to make it through the day even so. It's been frustrating to have him home when he's so sick as I'm trying to avoid him so I don't catch his lurgie!

I'm giving myself a little pat on the back for keeping on. My usual pattern when my life gets out of control is to say "Stuff it" and dose up on Coke, snack on Doritos, go the quick route with takeaways, have a beer or three in the evening, lay on the couch in a stupor, fret the night away with insomnia. This month I've been eating well, drinking plenty of water, getting out for at least a little walk most days and sleeping more nights than not - just generally taking care of myself. It's amazing what choosing these little things does for my overall attitude - instead of getting really snarky, I'm pretty mellow about having a To Do List that looks like Santa's Naughty List for the years 1909-2009 inclusive!
mmm stirfry

mmm early morning walkies


I've been at the dive shop most days this month but we've been quiet. Hopefully the end of the year will see a return of the divers so we can be more active. I've also been pretty danged busy with photo stuff with three weddings, newborn & baby shoots, toddler & family shoots plus fielding lots of enquiries for 2010. I love it! I wish I was crazy busy with photo stuff every day, in fact. I'm so happy I took the plunge and started this business - I'm truly happy when I'm shooting, editing, talking with my fabulous clients. Pretty much everything about my photography business is bringing me joy.

You can always check out what's happening by clicking the link on the right as it takes you straight to my Exmouth photography blog or you can look at individual things I've been up to here:
Newborn Faith
Bec & Craig's awesome Exmouth beach wedding
Cheeky Stephanie
There's more to come this week, too, so make sure to stop back!

Also, please jump in with comments over there. Not only do I love to hear what you have to say, but it's for a great cause - the more comments you leave (on my photography blog), the happier the holiday season will be for some who need a little cheer this year.

Of course, a blog post from me wouldn't be complete without at least a few words and photos of the furkids. They do keep me entertained, day in and day out. They've been lifesavers again this month, always there with a cuddle or a goofy antic. Tilly has resumed her position in the car - she leans WAY into the front, big ol' goofybutt grin on her face as we drive.

For those of you who believe the old wives' tale that Rhodesian Ridgebacks and cats can never get along just have a gander at what I walked in on this morning

They all looked so snuggly it was hard to resist the temptation to climb back in for a few more z's, but I did resist...and my Monday 19 item To Do List now only has three things left on it.

Go me!!

A happy Friday morning

Despite having been up since 3am this morning, I'm having a great day!  The doglets and I were on the beach before 0530 and we just had one of those perfect walks where you finish feeling totally happy & like nothing in the world could weigh you down.  They were both wound up for some reason and did the bezerker thing most of the time - they are such a hoot to watch, though Tilly makes me tired just watching her at some points! Dora is much more sedate but today she ran & ran, chased Tilly, swam, romped through the water, snuffled under the bushes, thought about running up a dune but then decided that was just taking things too far and came back to trot in front of me.



Back at the house the three of us had a game of Chasey in our bedroom - me trying to shoo them out since they were still a bit wet and sandy and them trying to get hunkered in on one of their mats (or the bed, they weren't being fussy) before I could push them out the door. Not a lot of extra space in our room so it was a little comical :)

I jumped on our Wii for my weekly record keeping (which I've been sucking at - did it last week for the first time in a month so this is a big two weeks in a row now LOL) and almost did myself a damage falling off it when I saw the result. Luckily, I'm *that* coordinated and I recovered quickly then did a little happy dance instead! Somehow I've dropped a huge 1.6kgs in a week and I'm officially well under the weight I was on my cruise this January. I wasn't stupidly overweight for the cruise, but I was carrying a few more pounds than I like to. I also managed to put on an extra 3kgs after getting back so getting below that starting point was somewhat of a goal for me. I'm still not at my fit goal, but at least I'm a little bit along the path finally.

The being better to myself is paying off, not only in weight, but also in just feeling overall better physically, mentally & emotionally. I still have moments where I start to get overwhelmed or beaten down but for the past few months I've been handling it differently, for the better. Those who have known me for a while know that this is a huge deal as for the past two or so years coping has really been a struggle (hence the unfitness as that's how I torture myself).

I talked with Dave last night and it looks like he could be home on Monday - only a short few more days away YIPPEEE!

So, today is a happy day...although I'm getting my hair cut later so it's bound to end tragically...wish me luck!

Help me spread some Happy!

Head on over to my Exmouth photography blog and check out the easy way you can help make someone's holiday season a little brighter this year.

You could pick up some nifty gifties, too!

Suddenly Sunday

I'm beginning to think I should just have an stock "Gee, I don't know how a whole week has slipped by me again" post because it sure seems that the days fly by without any news or even happy snaps from me.

Part of it is because I have no life, but the other part is because what little life I do actually have gets to insanely crazy with this, that and the other I don't have time or energy to keep up to date here. So here's another catch up post.

Dave is still on his way to Perth in SeaZone. He just called and they were meant to leave Geraldton today but they've turned back because of the weather & high seas. I don't know when they will try again as the weather isn't supposed to be better tomorrow, but we'll just have to wait it out. Crossing fingers for him to get there soon so he can come home!

I've been busy this week with spending every day in the dive shop and squeezing in a couple of photo sessions, too. I'll have some sneak peeks up this week and hopefully I'll also have a full post of images from Beck & Craig's wedding last Saturday. I have a ton of shooting coming up starting Friday so must get all of early October's finished before I get completely snowed under.

Tilly has tried to lighten my work load, albeit slightly misguidedly -> Lucky she's cute.

The early mornings here have been lovely most of the week so the Girls and I have been heading out before sunrise to get in a nice long walk before the world starts to stir. I love early mornings, best part of my day, really. And how's this for coincidence? Both of these images were taken at 0557 - Oct 9th & Oct 10th!


I love how different it can be from day to day.

It's been low tide early so we've been spending a lot of our walks out on the sand flats.

Dora loves the small puddles of water - walking through them, keenly watching the small fish or just hanging with her sister. She'll veer off our course by miles if it means she can romp through 1 inch of water.

The patterns in the sand are so cool I could spend all day just taking photos of them. Even our footprints and those of the little birds that tease MatildaLily are pretty nifty

We've also found some cool stuff: crabs, big broken baler shells, tiny worms, various bits of random stuff the tide has left behind


Yup, I love my early mornings all to myself out on the beach

I really appreciate those of you who have checked in with me to see how my Big Changes are coming along since I haven't been very good about keeping up the reporting! I am now almost seven weeks without Coke and I'm not missing it at all. I've had a few days here and there where I thought that the acid burn & tingle would feel so awesome, but it's never been more than a passing thought. Nice money saver, too, since bottles here are stupidly expensive...I'm up over $300!

I'm also doing great on hitting my 9 fruit/veg serves per day. I got stuck in a rut of 4-6/day which isn't bad, but I truly do feel better when I eat more than that. So the past couple of weeks I've been happily averaging 8 or 9 and it's good.

I'm still culling things out of my physical space, though a lot of that has been cleaning and organizing my hard drives. I have to admit to being bad about just saving everything since I do have a lot of storage available. But I pared over 100GBs the other day and it was strangely satisfying. I'm no where close to being done with that project but it's good to have job security, right?

Still with me? Good :)

Other than on our beach walks, my cameras have only been doing work and not much frivolous stuff this week. I did grab one the other day when we had a neat visitor to our front yard, though. I am assured it is some sort of ibis. All I know is it's a bird and he talks to me. Not in a "I'm crazy coz a bird speaks English to me" way, but in a "Hey, lady, you're annoying me honk honk" way. Very vocal and not a little pissy that I was out there.


The cats didn't even bother to check him out.

Well, that's pretty much my week so far. Today is windy and a little chilly so I doubt the dive shop will be very busy, but I'm here to handle the rush if it happens!

Please keep an eye out on my Exmouth photography blog this week. Not only do I hope to have lots of new photos up, but I am also going to announce what I hope will be a cool event and also some exciting news!

And I will try to add some vaguely interesting stuff here, too :)

Beach walkin'!

Finally!  Light wind, early daylight, no hustling to work early.  The Girls and I hit the beach just before the sun rose this morning and it was so great to be out there again.  We were a little later than I'd like to be, but at least we finally had a morning suitable for a big romp.

I tried to get a shot of Dora & Tilly sitting pretty, but they were most uncooperative. What a shocker. And Til gave me about 7 seconds before deciding that was enough cooperation altogether. Once again Cesar would have a cow.

It may appear that Ms D has, ahem, put on a few pounds. I'm thinking the camera isn't lying as when I hoisted her posterior into the car my back screamed in protest. (Why is it that she is perfectly capable of getting all the way in when we GO to the beach, but coming home can only hoik that front half up? Cesar would have a whole HERD of cows with our family.)

Today Dave loaded up SeaZone to take her to Perth for the summer season. He'll be gone about a week or so, we think. So I'm on my own again. Seems like I've been on my own a lot this year, but that's just how things go. Happily I have a ton of stuff this week to keep me occupied so I'm sure the time will fly!

I had a very busy weekend to ease me into a crazy week. Shot a lovely wedding on Saturday and you can see a sneak peek of one of the fun shots I got of the bride & groom over at my Exmouth photography blog. You'll also see the damage I did myself. Looks like I'll be shopping for a total coverage shirt in the very near future!

Sunday Dave ended up having to go out on the dive boat...as a GUIDE! LOL He hasn't had to guide divers in, oh, I don't know, ten years? And there's a funny story:

When we discovered that one of us needed to go, he suggested we flip a coin and hauled out a $2 coin for the task. He said "you call it". I declined and told him it was his coin & idea, he could call it. "Tails!" says he.

Flip.

It's heads.

But wait. There's more. I start to walk into the dive shop and he pulls me back.

"You won't believe this," he says. "I knew it and I forgot and called "tails". It's a two headed coin!!"

ROFL - he was going to cheat but he mucked it up, how totally sweet is that?!?

Catch up Friday

Another busy week is heading into an even busier weekend.  Here's some of the stuff that I've been amusing myself with recently - you know, just in case you are one of *those* people who doesn't see my Exmouth photography blog link over there on the right or don't remember to live vicariously with our underwater exploits over on Exmouth Diving Centre's blog!

Here are some individual posts from this week in case you missed the links to the main pages above :)

I'm so thankful for my life here in Exmouth.

I've been playing with fire and photography at the Novotel Ningaloo.

I adore photographing little babies - can't get enough of them!

Eloping for your wedding in Exmouth is pretty romantic.

Kitteh update: the new owners took him to the vet on Wednesday and he's fighting fit. And he's definitely a he. The vet also determined that he will keep his blue eyes forever - yay! - and that he is only 5 weeks old! That means that Kitteh was only about 3 weeks old when he came to us. So BABY!

Fresh news - MatildaLily is now afraid of the wind...during the day. So the other day it starts to howl mid-afternoon and clickety clickety click BANG OOMPH Tilly comes charging into my office for reassurance. She will not leave me alone. Leaning, whining, pushing, crying, standing head lowered & tail tucked between legs. Pitiful, I tell you, just pitiful.

And, yes, those are Cookie Monster pjs I'm wearing. One day I'll have a little story featuring these that you won't want to miss!