little monsters pulling faces

i love their impersonations of rockstars - amazing

Night Photos

Bobby and I creeped around "the 'stanes" late one night, freezing our boobies off and playing with my new camera. I love blur, i love low light, i have in the past been my photography teachers worst nightmare. Although he did advise us to steal from the best, know tradition, add yourself. so im stealing from impressionist painters ok.

Cheapskate Olympics - update no.1

Cheapskate Olympics
is a way of making competitive the act of being stingy or miserly or a 'cheapskate'. It involves participants creating new ways to save money or create activities that are enjoyable AND most importantly cheaper than what you are normally used to.

My first Cheapskate Olympics activity - one of my biggest weaknesses is buying myself presents when im not feeling great, another big weakness is books. So i gradually built a wishlist on amazon, got around ten books delivered and then wrapped them in old newspaper (see picture above). So each fortnight i get to unwrap a new book.
- i get a little present every fortnight which will keep me sane whilst trying to save money
- i usually don't get through a book a fortnight, so it will probably last even longer than originally anticipated
- the gift in turn presents me with an activity that does not cost me money - i can relax with a cup of tea and my new book under a blanky
- AND i saved money buying the books off amazon! - i'm all for supporting local bookstores, but my wallet is not. One of the books is Learning to Love you more by Miranda July and Harell M. Fletcher, in a local bookstore it retails at around $50-$55, on amazon it is $13.57 US, with postage to Australia it still cost less than $25! So on that book alone i saved nearly $30. With all the books i bought to last me the next 6 months or more i saved at least $200
i definitely earned some cheapskate stars.

A friend of mine - Kara- has implemented her own first Cheapskate Olympics activity - she bought a box of chai tea from the supermarket and instead of purchasing chai tea every morning before work she makes her own and takes it with her - saving her $4 dollars a day!
gold stars for you lady!

Our efforts shame in comparison to Cara who vowed to not buy anything new in 2008! Check out her facebook group here and see if your up for the challenge.

and why is there a nun in the photo? i saw her for sale at my local vinnies and was strangely compelled to buy her.

Reading tea leaves and trying to find balance in my life

so my tea leaves are trying to tell me something. And i'm really trying.

last night we made plans to all meet in Denmark. See a little bit of europe and the middle east, then take the trans-siberian railway from moscow, through mongolia to china and come home through japan. hopefully it will provide the balance to another year of working for money and not for fun.

It has led me to create the highly competitive 'fun minus money' game, or maybe it should be called 'cheap-skate olympics'. You compete to see who can come up with more activities that are fun and cost very very little. it would work well except i have no one to compete with, competing with myself is not going to work - both parties will agree to give up and that they really deserve those clothes/chocolate/wine/camera.