Zoom - you are a star.

This weekend was a very special day for my daughter. She sent this short email to us, celebrating a special agility competition.
Hey Mum,
Zoomy was a star on Saturday night. She got 2 more agility qualis with a win and a second against some top notch dogs. I was very proud of her. It was also the last leg needed for her MAAD and her AAC.
Here's the one run that we got on the new video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neJHRv9jPRA

What is special about this is that Zoom, the youngest of her three agility dogs, has been suffering from many varied diseases, some genetic, and others caused by medication prescribed to treat the first - thyroid problems, Addisons disease and others. So to deal with these illnesses, manipulate medication to achieve an acceptable balance, and then to compete so well is an achievement for Zoom, and of course Tracey and Glenn.

Credits: Sultry Summer by Julie ItIs (JSouthern) at Plain Digital Wrapper

A busy day with family history puzzles today.

My puzzles: Who was Samuel Hallam? where was he born and when did he die?

I know he married Hannah Hadfield in Bradfield, Yks 12 Feb 1810. I know he had at least three sons Alfred 1814-15, Edric Hallam 1817-1861, Reuben Hallam 1819-1908- also known as Wadsworth Jack.

Reuben spent his life in entertaining others- musician, singer, author, newspaper columnist, portrait artist, boxer, actor, cutler, cricket player, publican- the list seems endless.
Of Edric, Reuben's brother and my ancestor, little is known- other than birth, marriage, death, a child and a trade (cutler). He married young and died in his middle age, and almost certainly did not enjoy similar exploits to his brother. Of parents Samuel Hallam and Hannah Hatfield even less is known.
So this is my current puzzle to solve -who was Samuel Hallam? and what did he do in life?

Oct 24 Starting a new blog at Blogspot

It's almost the year's end and I have just transferred my blog from Podbean to Blogspot, so lots of posts, but all are out of date. I don't think I am able to post podcasts and moving gifs on this new site, although I am sure I can find a way to link these.

2008 has been an interesting year in many ways.
Some highlights: holiday in Europe;
Tracey competing at World Championships in Dog Agility;
Rob building a Taj Mahal shed in our backyard;
Sandie meeting with new cousins in England.

Some lowlights: Tracey's first and most devoted dog, Billy, died at age 15. We will miss him so much, as he has been our grand-dog since he was just a puppy;
Sandie's ankle injury took over 6 months to mend;
Rob once again practised pushing a wheelchair.

(Layout credits: Throw Me a Bone Scrapbook Kit created by Courtney Warren of Come Together Cards& Susan L. Gabriel of SueAngel Designs)

Jan 2007 New Year Resolutions

Jan 2007
One of my major interests is in family history and current family. So this year, 2007, I am keeping a picture log of my family, friends and community, for future generations to enjoy.
My resolution is to take a photo a day, then I am attempting to digitally scrap these into layouts, using Photoshop. Some I may post to this site. Time will be against me- seven scrap pages a week- almost Mission Impossible, unless I make the designs quick and simple.
One of the pages from January- storm season means gutters need regular cleaning. I used vellum overlays, one textured in a brick pattern, to frame the central figure.

April 2007 Two naughty girls...

April-May 2007

Tracey's horses enjoying a dip in the dam.

Vista: My dislikes so far:
· no MOVE menu feature for moving files from one folder to another (at present, using COPY-PASTE, then delete the file)
· No FIND tool, only SEARCH - and you need to know where to search - a blanket search for a specific gif file did not work for me. I needed to visually search all my folders to find the file
· difficult to find way around the organisational structure (eg get into Windows to look at setups etc)
· Help is non-existent as the computer cannot find it or connect to on-line pages . Will need to find out why.
Looks like a few tutorials are needed
MY Likes:
· Folder display size
· Slide show of images
· Analogue clock face on sidebar
I hope Vista grows on me. (and I hope not too many of my school teacher co-workers invest in it yet as I'm certainly not up to speed to answer any questions.)
Ipod: this week saw me convert a PhotoStory movie tutorial to play on the Ipod. Tutorial was made from screen captures for images. worked fine.
No podcast this week, but aiming for a videocast next week. This week is a more vibrant animation series. (my lost gif file)

I spent today playing with Adobe Photoshop 6 & Adobe Image Ready. My aim was to follow a tutorial and create a simple scrapbook layout with animation. The result is not bad, but rather dull, as the tutorial suggested using muted colours, black and white photos (gif images have limited colours). I will experiment to see which colours and how bright I can make this.
I used a series of photos of family members for this first -trial- layout. Now I know the technical aspects, I'll become more creative, with different place and space changes.I may even make a podcasts - video of how to make this item. (future).

Sep 2007 Snow 98 years old

Sep 2007
We wondered about whether Snow would be well enough to celebrate his 98th birthday in September. In the weeks before his birthday, his health had been of concern - a tumble resulted in black eye, head gash and numerous bruises. He wasn't able to get around unaided- and refused a walking stick or walker.
Luckily on his birthday he was relatively clear in mind and fit in body, so we drove him to Clem's home for a gathering of all his children . Snow dozed most of the day, but was alert for the cake cutting- a red Kombie van just like the one he drove in the 1960s.
Jayne and Mark, Rob and I are still busy looking after the gardens and clearing the house and Snow's tool collection. Some surprise finds include about 100 drill bits in only 2 sizes, about 500 sheets of sandpaper and emery paper, and millions of rusty bits and bobs.

Rob and I still visit Snow every fortnight and Jean, CLem's wife, visits on Friday afternoons. Many days Snow is not very aware of our presence, and now wants to doze off a lot, often only awake for 10 minutes at a time.
Some days he talks about the past- travelling in the sulky, the old life in Gayndah and Monto, the hard times in Southern Cross and at Richmond, about the jobs he has had - building a church at Jambin, painting the Richmond Station, Biloela hospital, his sign writing and glass painting.

Sadly Snow departed this life 4 weeks after his 98th birthday. Unusually, Rob saw the need to visit with Snow on a Friday, instead of our usual Sunday. Snow was lucid and in very good spirits and Rob had a most enjoyable visit. Snow died about 36 hours later- just did not wake up one morning.

(Layout Credits: Watch element by Tina Williams)

Jan 2007 Personal Challenges

JAN 2007 Personal Challenges
The start of my New Year - a ride in a 1925 Whippet- bright yellow. This was such an unexpected and most unusual event for me that it prompted me to think of other ways to make other days and my life a little bit different.
One is to start this blog to be filled with my thoughts, reflections and experiences in my work, genealogy and craft pursuits.
My second is to explore new technologies - podcasts, powerpoints and ipods, wireless networking, a photo-a-day.
Another is to solve a puzzle a day (Logic puzzle, Soduko, Pixel Puzzle, Cryptic Crossword) or learn a new word each day.
The last was to keep a daily diary of everyday events.

Aug 2007 Sad Times

August 2007 Sad times.
No blogs for quite some time. In late May we sadly and swiftly lost Joyce, my mother-in-law aged 84, to a virulent, aggressive cancer. She lasted only 40 days from diagnosis to death, and we are so relieved to know she is at peace. An avid gardener, Joyce will love to share her garden with you.

Snow, my father-in-law celebrates his 98th birthday in a few weeks. He is frail in mind with limited mobility, but continues to fire along. Recently we found a new photo of him in his late teens. I have overlaid this with the last one of him (with a moustache- his first ever) to create an animated gif of him aging before our eyes.

Apr 2007 Computer trials

Beautiful Australian birds hanfing round at home.

What a week Apr 2007

What a week! My computer trials!!
First, I was creating a new user profile to trial some accessibility settings and profiles for one of my students when I lost my personal (admin) profile from the computer. My documents and email just disappeared into oblivion and couldn't be found anywhere on the computer. "That's fine", I thought. "My backups are only 2 days old so at least I won't have lost too much." And my documents were fine, but all my email backups were corrupt (Obviously not doing something right) so my next best address book was over 12 months old - better than nothing I guess.
So a new user profile was created and documents were added from background. I set up my old address book, and re-created email user profiles, folders and email rules. Now the computer was feeling more like mine again. But when I checked a few different places I found that a huge chunk of used disc space was unaccounted for ( and surprise - it equalled my "My Documents" file in size). Also in user profiles, my old profile was still registering, but not showing up on the Welcome Screen. It seemed the profile had just disappeared into a parallel world rather like odd socks and missing keys.
This reminds me of the children's book for years 7-11, written by Emily Rodda called "Finder's Keepers" where all these lost objects disappear through cracks and breaches into a parallel world, only to be pushed back at a later time. Emily Rodda is an Australian, award winning, children's author. She is very prolific and creates many books and series in the fantasy genre, both contemporary fantasy, and quest-based fantasy. She also has created a detective series for children. And children love her writings.
Back to the computer. Straight to the internet to solve the mystery of the invisible user profile occupying so much space on the computer. The answer was simple in the end. When creating my new test user, I had created an admin user (that's all the computer would allow me to do) and that took precedence over my old profile, banishing the old one to a parallel invisible world. The fix was also simple- Control Panel/ User Accounts/change settings/ clear "use Welcome Screen" /Apply OK and a standard windows log on allows me to choose my log on profile.
At the same time I am also struggling with my new laptop. Touch mouse screens are not easy for my arthritic fingers ( I am too heavy-handed and not very flexible). Plus the new mouse is a very different shape to any other mouse I have used- higher palm curve and longer shape mean my fingers are really stretched to reach the roller button, and my wrist is at a strange angle. I guess the next shopping day in town will mean a purchase of a more comfortable mouse.

Mar 11 2007 Katie

11 Mar 2007 A Sad Day for All.

Today, Tracey and Glenn had to sadly farewell their oldest sheltie, Katie, who was almost 18 years of age. She had been part of our family for about 15 years, but had been slowly aging for several years and her arthritis among other things made life very difficult for her.
She will be greatly missed by us all - and especially by Missy and Billy. (Billy's picture is at the left of this page.
My tribute to Katie - my last photo of her, taken at Christmas time, waiting patiently(and impatiently) to go home.

Mar 2007 My local area- Celebration time

Mar 2007
Happy Easter to everyone.
Easter is a relaxing time for us, with evening celebrations and a seafood feast with friends planned. Our nearest town, Gladstone, celebrates Easter with a week long festival centred around the off-shore yachting race from Brisbane to Gladstone. The celebrations include a parade of floats, fun-fair, free night time concerts at the Marina, many displays and other activities. The festival culminates with the Yacht Race Prize Presentations- for single hulls and multi hull vessels. This year, no records were broken although the first monohull covered the 308 nautical miles in well under 24 hours. Big winds helped the yachts to speed along. Although two boats were capsized, all crew were safe and one member was taken by helicopter to hospital. Ichi Ban won line honours in the monohull section, with a local entry taking fourth place. (photos from Gladstone Yacht Club site
(Ian Grant) from "Sail World" site tells about one of our local entries, 42 year old sloop "Wistari".
Wistari a four time Gladstone race winner blew out spinnakers was wiped out in a wild sideway broach down a rogue wave and despite finishing with her favoured heavy wind spinnaker in the rag-bag still managed to fill fourth place. 'We had our moments and broaching down the wave with the mast tip wind gear in the water was something that the crew would not like to experience again'. Skipper Scott Patrick said.
But there was a nice end to their race with Wistari winning the Noel Patrick Memorial, 4th overall in the Grand Prix IRC class, 3rd in Performance Handicap and 2nd to Saltash II in the Veterans class.

Jan 2007 Books to compare, first podcast

17 Jan 2007

My first Podcast
"Alexander's Outing" by Pamela Allen (Puffin, 1994) tells the tale of Alexander who wandered along with his head in the air, not looking where he was going ...and of course disaster befell him.
This is a wonderful children's literature example involving the reader/ listener using higher order thinking skills (HOTS), including predicting, problem solving and reflection.
Why do I feel like Alexander? Getting my head around this blogging and podcasting technology I could be on the road to a similar disaster.


Feb 2007
More books to compare for similarities
With my year 2 students, we have found many similar/parallel stories in the folk stories we have been reading. Notably, lots of different versions of City Mouse - Country Mouse (seven in our school library). Our favourite (girls) was "The Mouse with the Daisy Hat" - with a hint of romance.
An interesting pair was the Russian story "The Magic Gifts" and the Scandinavian folkstory "Peter and the North Wind" with many different features, but enough parallels for the students to predict the next event.
I hope to record (using my ipod) the next storyreading with the students' discussions after, edit using Audacity, then use this as audio for a PhotoStory3 movie (illustrations by the students).

Mar 2007
Comparing stories with year 2 students
Today I read the second in a pairing of books with Year 2 students. We were looking and listening for similarities and differences. It's always so interesting to watch faces as the students realise that these stories are about to follow similar paths and they can predict what may happen next.

The books of choice, within a folk-lore theme, were Nonny Hogrogian's "One Fine Day" (Caldecott Medal winner in 1971) and a book (anonymous) called "Cat and Mouse".
The parallels in the story were (1) the main character/ animal initially lost its tail, (2) this character then spent time trying to please numerous other persons in the chain while trying to get its tail returned (3) each person wanted a favour/payback in return for doing a good turn (4) the chain turned about when one person unselfishly gave without asking a return favour. One child called this a "pass-on" story like the game we play at parties. We are now out looking for similar types of story - "The Old Woman and the Pig" comes to mind.

May 2007 More favourites- books updated
One of my favourite story books is by American Author Bill Peet. "Big Bad Bruce" is a rollicking tale of a troublesome bear and a wily witch, with magic and trickery and lots of humour and much loved by my year 2 students. Sadly, Bruce is a bully, and even a wily witch cannot make him change his ways.
In my school library I also have another "Big Bad Bruce" picture book by an Australian author, Dianne Bates. This one tells the story of rough, tough Bruce the bikie and his weekend jaunts with his gang (of bikies) and his gang (family)- softly coloured, flowing illustrations yet with a touch of sharpness plus a surprise ending to this tale.
Now I have purchased a third "Big Bad Bruce", still by Dianne Bates (author) but a new illustrator, Cheryl Johns - and a very different feel to the illustrations- more modern and edgy, sharp, cluttered and powerful, tied by colour and design elements to the Harley bike image. How wonderful to be able to view two interpretations of the same story - great for visual literacy components of our English program.

Jan 2007 Birthday girl

Jan 25 2007
Our darling daughter has a birthday today (somewhere between 30 and 40- we don't say how many).
Her dad and I just want her to know how loved and precious she is, and what light she brings to our lives. She is the most caring and considerate person - helpful, trustworthy, industrious, lively and a great friend.
Dad and I created a simple audio podcast for her .
So, our darling daughter, happy birthday to you.
Mum and Dad
The Birthday card was a scraplift copied from a template Quickpage freebie by Dreamweaver (couldn't make the template work for me).