Waiting For The Storm: & Prayer Wall [Week2]

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I’m in the mood for a good storm

The kind where the clouds roll in and the heavens open up and drench the earth with it’s cleansing rain. A good storm should also include some loud cracks of thunder coming in fast succession, closely followed by streaks of lightening splitting the sky. A good storm is like a dam of tension finally overflowing and bursting at the seams.

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Yep … I’m in the mood for a good storm

I’m also in the mood for some beauty in my life, so here is the Project Prayer Wall Week 2. As week 2 proved to be a little crazier than Week 1, little time was spent on the Prayer Wall, so I thought I’d supplement this post with some of my altered photos of Botany Bay.

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Prayer Wall [Week2]

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Happy Thanksgiving

Sorry I still haven’t managed to visit everyone’s blogs. Hopefully I’ll be back soon, but I want to send you all a big THANK YOU for your lovely comments and emails whilst I’ve been missing. Coming home to your comments and emails each night was like coming home to a home cooked meal and a big hug! Much appreciated. I'm thankful for all my new blogging friends !!!

IMAGE SOURCE:

#1 Botany Bay. Photo & editing [Being Ruby]. #1a Botany Bay: Photo & editing [Being Ruby]. #1b: Botany Bay: Photo & editing [Being Ruby]. 2#: Vintage Calvary: Vintage Family photo altered by [Being Ruby] . #3: Basilica di San Marco: Photo & editing [Being Ruby]

Sunday At The Coliseum: Ruby 1 – Lions 0

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Week One: Ruby 1 – Lions 0

Week 1 of my project implementation is almost over, 80+ hours later, hence no blogging this week. Still working today [Sunday] prepping for next week’s loads. At least I didn’t need to go in to the office which means I finally had a big sleep in!! Ruby style! Migrating data from one computer system to another is a bit like putting a square peg in a round hole. A bit of chipping away here, massaging and manipulating there and voila!! And if it doesn’t quite fit, then a big hammer! No.. only joking! I’m happy to say the hammer wasn’t required, I do though feel like it has been used on me!!

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Project Mascot

To get us all in a team mood, I created a Project Mascot. You remember my Blue Angel from two posts ago? [here]. Well I gave her a do-over with our Project Name and some words to protect us from Diseases and Big Buses [it was a little less polite than that but you get the drift]. It seems to have worked, although I forgot to mention not being hit by push bikes. Yep, right before our first production load I went to move my car and was hit by a bike. On the footpath! A huge slinging match ensued between the pushbike owner and another pedestrian. Seems the pushbike owner was intent on laying the blame on someone else and completely ignored me. Back at work I attempted to tell my colleagues the story ...

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Me: Hey Everyone I got hit by a pushbike!!!

Them: That’s nice .. Have you completed task xyz?

Me: Hello ???? I got hit by a bike!!

Them: Yes..That’s nice ..

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The Prayer Wall

The next day they seemed to realise that YES I actually did get hit and NO I wasn’t joking. We decided that although the Angel was working in our favour, more help was need for disasters not related to disease or buses. So each night when I finally get home around midnight, I pick out a new ‘Mascot’ to present at work the next day to inspire or protect. It also serves to give me a small window of creative time which I miss with no blogging. Here are Week One’s entries in what my colleague calls ...

‘The Prayer Wall’

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So that’s the status of my life right now [working and hot! it is 40c here]. Week Two will be more of the same but hopefully the hours will reduce. The good news is, by this time next week we should be finished, or very close to it, then it is just dealing with the aftermath.

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Take care everyone and I’ll see you next week, if not before!

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The Cat Came Back, She Couldn’t Stay Away

She Was Sitting On The Porch, The Very Next Day

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IMAGE SOURCE:

#1 Blue Angel: From the Pont Sant’Angelo in Rome. Photo & editing [Being Ruby]. #2 Anacapri: On the Isle of Capri, Italy. Photo & editing [Being Ruby]. #3: Sibyl of Delphi: From the Sistine Chapel Rome. Scan of poster. #4: Ancestors of Ruby: Vintage Family photo altered by [Being Ruby] . #5: the 14th Dalai Lama: Scan from postcard. #6: Blue Moon: Photo & editing [Being Ruby]. #7: Cat in Coliseum: Stray cat in the Roman Coliseum. Photo & editing [Being Ruby]

Black & White Sunday: On Angel Wings [again]

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Just a quick note to say I haven’t forgotten you all and thank you so much for all your lovely comments recently. I’m slowly making my way around to visit you all but again this week is going to be a doozie!!

As you can see I’ve become a little obsessed with my Angel here! [sorry everyone who has now seen this for the 3rd time]. She is one of ten Angels on the Pont Sant’Angelo in Roma. This bridge was built to accommodate the pilgrims making their way to the Vatican City. I myself walked this path on my way to the Vatican without ever knowing the relevance. My Angel here [official name ‘Angel With Cross’] must of spoken to me as she was the only one I stopped to photograph. I think she posed quite well and the clouds floating in didn’t hurt either.

I can’t stop looking at the movement of her gown and the way it drapes and folds around her feet, and thus the light and shade it creates [reminds me of Caravaggio]. Her face is one of compassion and looks upon you with care. The sculptor was Ercole Ferrata. A quick read of his background explains why I have become so obsessed. He was an ardent follower of Gian Lorenzo Bernini [i.e. the Four Rivers Fountain in Piazza Navona - here]. Both artists seem to have the ability to express raw emotion through their work. Well it certainly speaks to me.

Apparently this bridge was built to mark the end of the plague which was foretold by a angel visiting this spot. Well.. I think we could all do with a little of that. Seems there is a lot of sickness this year.. Swine Flu and other. Two of my colleagues from my project are out of the game now and hospitalized with ‘unknown causes’. Maybe my Angel will help us all get back to good health and good spirits.

Wishing you all good health, good cheer and a relaxing Sunday

Pop over to Anne Marie’s [Na-Da Farm Life] to see other B&W Sunday participants

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IMAGE SOURCE: Photo and editing by me [Being Ruby]

Black Friday 13th: Special Delivery

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Who said Friday 13th was unlucky … Certainly not these three lucky winners

Laura – 52 Flea [Inky Blue Paris Charm]

Julia – Drawn to the Sea [Blue Butterfly Charm]

Dzintra – Queen of the Armchair [Paris Chair]

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I’m a little sad I can’t give everyone a fabulous Cathy Penton Charm. I’m also a little sad I can’t keep them all for myself.. ha ha… but seriously, THANK YOU everyone for your kind and generous comments on my last post. I really can’t thank you enough for lifting my spirits with your kind words. Also, HELLO to a few new followers.

I’m sorry I’ve had no time to visit your blogs, nor reply to the many comments and emails I have received this week. We’ve been working around the clock to finalise and prepare for our project implementation and delivery which starts this coming Tuesday and will go live approx two long long weeks later. Although we’ve had twelve months of hard work and planning to prepare for this moment, a little help from the Angels wouldn’t hurt at this point. So wish me Luck!! I’m hoping for a Special Delivery of my own!!

Take Care Everyone and Thank You Again!!!

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IMAGE SOURCE: Taken by me in Rome 1996 and altered by me in Sydney 2009. ‘Angel with Cross’ One of ten Angels that can be found on the Ponte Sant'Angelo in Roma.

Art With Heart: A Talisman of Dreams

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Sometimes, we can’t remember how we first discovered a beloved hobby or passion and sometimes it stands firm in our memory as the moment a significant paradigm shift took place in our reality. For me it was a definitive shift and the shift started when I happened upon the Romantic Homes magazine in my local newsagent. This little magazine seemingly benign, had taken a long journey far from it’s home, traversed the Pacific Ocean, withstood the man-handling of dock workers, the hurry of the delivery trucks, the page flicking of the peruses, and stood silently on the magazine stand waiting for my arrival. Then one day, customer and product met and the journey began!! Feeling jaded with the everyday cookie cutter commercialism of many of the popular domestic magazines, my eye searched for something new and a little different from the crowd, and Romantic Homes promised to fill that need.

Home in it’s new environment I greedily raced through the pages, mesmerised by the childhood memories and emotions this magazine elicited. Then something miraculous happened. I came across an article about Cathy Penton and her lovingly handmade charms, and more to the point, the fact that there was a web address directing me to her blog ‘Simple Things Small Joys’. Her What? What’s a blog? Well fascinated by her charms and the whole new/old world I had stepped into, I went off in search of this ‘Blog' thingy. My Oh My what I discovered. Not only was she a fellow Australian, but her blog was filled with pages of her glorious creations, there were also links to other ‘blogs’ similarly overflowing with homewares, lifestyles and beauty. These new found pages were selling a dream to me. A dream of a life filled with nostalgia, beauty and simple comfort, where art, craft and beauty replaced the corporate world of my reality and a chance to step into the lives of others who have managed to ‘Live The Dream’.

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The first few months I blog hopped with a frenzy, a newly crazed addict determined to have more of this joy filled substance called nostalgia. Image after image that either reminded me of my childhood home and possessions, or fascinated me with glimpses into foreign lifestyles and cultures steeped with tradition. I would race through all the links every weekend and only stop when either my eyes were beginning to glaze over or my new favourites took a blogging break for the rest and pause of the weekend.

It soon became apparent my addiction was taking hold. Now my addiction was requiring a lot more blogging substance to bring me to that level of enthrallment I had previously found with just a few blog hits. Worse, my dirty little secret was starting to show! Cathy’s beautiful charms had come to represent this whole dream lifestyle and escape path from my corporate reality, so I started to buy my own little charms from Cathy’s wondrous blog as reminders of the change I needed in my life. When Australian Country Style Magazines [another favourite reality escape] featured not only Cathy’s charms, but her beautiful family and home, I was overcome with my ‘need’ to find a different life. To make some changes.

The most significant obstacle to this change has always been my lack of knowing what I want and where I want to go. I used to know, I used to be sure and was obsessed and fascinated by the world of IT. I can also mark the time when that obsession lost it’s lustre. After my first trip to Europe I knew my world had changed forever. The world within me. Unfortunately my outer world still presented the same duties and demands and my two worlds collided in a massive and quite inelegant thump. I’ve never really been the same since but had no idea how to change my reality.

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Now, armed with this new reminder, how was I to change this dissatisfaction? What makes me happy? What passions lurk in my subconscious? What forgotten childhood dreams need to be resurrected? Well I knew that blog reading had provided the itch so perhaps I should start my own blog and do a bit of scratching. So here I am six months later.

Strangely, these days I rarely post about the dreamy homes and interiors I have always been so fond of. Strangely my path took a different turn and blogging reminded me of my passion for travel, art and photographs. Lately, if you visit my blog that is what you will usually find, along with reminders of my other long standing passions for the Moon, the Sea and Italy, and sometimes my dream for a cottage. Even stranger I have now managed to acquire my own followers and finally reached that magic milestone of 100 posts [back here] and now 100 followers. I have also met some amazing people from various countries and walks of life, and acquired new friends who see something in me that I do not see myself.

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So today, whilst I am still stuck in the muck that is my working life, I am reminded to celebrate the beginning of this journey I am on. Today I am posting the sweet charms of Cathy’s Penton’s creation. Cathy and her equally talented friend Angela are broadening their horizons and opening a little shop of their own soon. I can imagine the wonders that will take residence in this little world they are creating. If you want to know more, head over to Cathy’s shop blog ‘Simple Things Small Joys’.

Today, I want to share with you this ‘talisman of my dreams’ [and thank you for sticking around whilst I am stuck in the trenches – and not visiting and commenting as much as I would like.]

I am giving away three of Cathy’s gorgeous charms, specially made by Cathy the mentor of my dream, this kind and generous soul who filled my world with beauty and hope. Specially made by Cathy for YOU .. MY FOLLOWERS and Cheer Squad, who inspire me to create and stretch my imagination. These three charms below were handmade by Cathy with all of you in mind. A little bit of Paris, a little bit of Interiors and a little bit of Inky Blue. I think a little bit of my journey too with the Butterfly that reminds me that blogging is the chrysalis of my growth and change.

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Each Little Charm comes packaged with Cathy’s signature style, pretty packaging and good intentions. Also enclosed are the hopes and fulfilment of having a dream!

If you would like a chance to share this passion of mine, the giveaway is open to all Followers of my blog who leave a comment on this post from now until midnight Friday 13th November [Sydney Time] Let me know in your comments which Charm you prefer as there will be a Giveaway of One Each to Three Winners.

Thank you everyone for welcoming me into your world and encouraging me to find my passion.

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I’d also like to mention two other bloggers who share my passion for photography and travel and I hope you will give them both a visit and the encouragement you’ve given me!

My 100th Follower – Michael Mattison from ‘Spice of Life’ and

My good friend Erin – from ‘Erin’s Art and Gardens’

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Charms: By ‘Cathy Penton’ and ‘Simple Things Small Joys’

Photography: All photos by me [Being Ruby]

To The Moon Alice: November 2009

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Busy Busy Busy … But never missed a Full Moon post … So here’s a fast post….

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You’ll have to provide your own thoughts, music, lyrics and whatever else should go with a full moon post!! [oooops!!!]

The moon was full at 5:15am Tuesday Nov 3 [Sydney time]

IMAGE SOURCE: Photo taken and altered by me [being Ruby] [apologies for giving you October's Full Moon with a makeover .. there were too many clouds here tonight]