BlueRose

So you may have heard about the 7.5 earthquake that hit the South Island just after midnight (some 20 hours ago).

I am OK, the cats and the house are OK but I had to evacuate due to tsunami warning, and due to massive amounts of disorganisation on behalf of the Powers That Be it meant I had no where to go, so I turned up on the doorstep of a colleague at 2am unexpectedly.

Luckily she kindly took us in, and I had a bed for what remained of the night. Cognac spent the night under the bed, coming out for food. Taz however, thought it was a grand adventure :)

Up at 8am with roughly 3 hours sleep and about to head home once the tsunami warning was lifted and got a call from work, a really important conference was being held in CHCH and someone from work had pulled out, and did I want to go.

Actually I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so with the OK from my boss I went home, had my second shower of the day to try and wake up, did some emails, reassembled myself as vaguely human and headed out.

Its been a good day but..... I am unbelievably tired. While it was a big quake it wasn't centered here so the damage is further north, State Hwy 1 is closed due to major slips and road damage which will have huge impact, as thats not going to be fixed in time for the Xmas holidays.

So ..... tired.... but OK

I should have done it ages ago but this weekend I finally cut my ties to the LMB mailing list.

For a long time it hasn't been the place it used to be and with Lois vastly reducing her writing, its lost its focus.

I stuck around because there are lots of interesting people with excellent things to say but now I'm done.

I got bitten by my muse a few years ago and went through a brief but productive period of writing some fan fic. Something I hadn't done before, and once I got it out of my system,something I expected not to do again.

But then I discovered Longmire, and after absorbing all three seasons and during the long wait for S4, I went looking for some fanfic to help fill the void. And there is some good stuff out there.

But I started getting flashes of story appearing in my head, and if I gave it time and space they started turning into stories. And the pressure to write them to get them out on paper was undeniable. So about a year ago I started writing a story out in longhand and I am now on my ninth story having written around 80,000 words - yes folks eighty thousand words!

Sometimes a line in a song will trigger a flash, or sometimes a scene will just pop into my head. Annoyingly I seem to get the end of the story and have to fill in the blanks which is challenging. Sometimes my muse goes away, sometimes I have to turn her away because I really should be studying. So far she is coming back.

Is this how real writers exist? with a whole other world of people and places in their heads, plotting out scenes, working through dialogue, trying to figure out what to do next?

Its a special form of insanity, Im quite certain of it. I hear voices in my head, and I'm OK with that :)

Finally after 30 years I got old enough that they stopped expecting me to change my mind about not having kids and took me seriously and I have been accepted by the public system to have surgery and it appears I am severe enough to do it fairly quickly.

Good news is I have 8 weeks sick leave up my sleeve and doing it in Dec means I also get to relax over Xmas and Jan which is traditionally a very quiet month, and I will take ALL the time I need to feel 100% before going back to work cos I can, dammit!

Understandably not looking forward to the recovery period (have had two laps before so I have a fair idea of the unpleasantness and this will be 10x worse than those Im sure for the first week or so)

Cant drive for 4 weeks, but we have online supermarket deliveries and im stocking up on Ready to Eat meals so I wont starve.

THANK FUCKING GOD - I have a few years grace between now and menopause to actually enjoy life for a change!

I continue to spend most of my spare time on my computer, playing with photoshop and studying my photoshop courses. I like to think it is paying off, I can certainly do LOTS more with it now than I could at Xmas time when I first started studying. I am home sick today with a cold and realised its been a while since my last update :)

One pic to tempt you and the rest under the cut



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This was a composite of background, dancer image, elements, some texture layers and brushes and a LOT OF FAFFING ABOUT :)

This is classwork for Session 6 of my Awake course - Im not sure if its as done as it needs to be but after 3 hrs of work yesterday its as done as it can be right now :)

The Lady In The Lamp

I was good today and sat down and ruthlessly edited the files in my Tasmania folder - got it down from around 1900 to 1662 and then processed all the images for my Tessellated Pavement blog post - this was an amazing natural feature and I was incredibly lucky to get there at low tide with no planning on my behalf - I didn't realise it was right on the shore. Much fun was had with long exposures and ultra wide lenses and all the details with many more pix is here - Lensaddiction Blog

This now accounts for about half of Day 6 of my Great Tasmanian Roadtrip being processed and accounted for - a couple more posts for this day and then on to the next one!

A dear friend moved SEVEN HOURS DRIVE away to the stunningly gorgeous Lake Te Anau. I don't really mind because now it gives me an excuse to go visit even if it will probably only be once a year or so. Last weekend drove down on the Friday and back on the Monday - took another friend who is mates with her husband and it was nice to share the driving.

The weather for the first two days was awful, cold overcast and raining a bit but the second two days were glorious! One pic to whet your appetite and the rest under the cut - if you thought the LOTR movie scenery was amazing then check these out - I was in the area :)



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Its been an expensive couple of weeks, I had to pay $2300 for my CPIT course last week, and then my car needed a service at $335 and then ants needed to be killed at $325.

And my ipod died, I was going to get a refurb unit but through a series of fuckups I ended up getting a new one but got it for a slightly cheaper price than new and its all slurped its music over except for the stuff on my HD thats missing the original files and I have all the CD so I need to copy them over and then all will be good.

Im going away in a couple of weeks and have had to find a cheaper cat management options than the luxury cattery they usually go to but there is a pet sitter service for $19 a visit and once a day should be OK.

Please Universe, have mercy!