The 22Q Adventure

When my son was 18 months old we were introduced to VCFS aka 22Q.dil.11. Now that was a big shock!!!! He was born with a soft cleft palate that was repaired at 6 months and a heart murmur was detected. Never would I have thought that there would be anything else to come up and bite us in the bum. Ouch!!! What the heck is VCFS????? 

He is now eight and life had been an unexpected adventure. These are some of the highlights

Orr look at him receiving an award when he was in kindergarten

 

Oh look, this is a painting that I did in response to being thrust into the VCFS journey 

Awww look at him hugging the washing machine.

Such a sweet photo of my son and his Grandma behind him….notice how he is reaching his hand behind him so that he can have Grandma hold his hand.

I just love this picture

Us in the paper creating awareness

Looking quite dashing in his specs

Here he is picking up all of the cigarette butts from the ground. It became an obsession.

Getting rather excited with the fireworks set up!!!

Cheeky face

Too exciting…a train trip!!!!

Arh, the happiness……army clothes, a toy grenade and a trip on the elevator.

Life is good for a child with Q22

I have written a lot about VCFS and if you would like to read more of our journey here is the link 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Letters

I’m quite fond of text within art.

Letters are beautiful.

Words and letters alone can stand to be art.

Train Date

Today I took my little man for a train date and it was a lovely and enjoyable experience. Every holidays he asks about going on the train so this holiday I put it in my diary to make sure it happened.

I decided that Thirroul would be a nice place to venture.

When we arrived we walked to the beach and my son played at this super-duper park

And to my surprise, Thirroul has an Olympic sized salt water pool…..and what a lovely looking pool it is indeed.

Thirroul beach also has moments where one can practice their parkour if one so chooses to do so.

We then went for a walk to Austinmer beach, with some more parkour along the way.

The Austie beach rock pools were rocking today and I was impressed with the committed swimmers that I witnessed today bobbing about out there.

I love how the dressing room building reflected the ocean. It was all harmonious and music to my eyes.

After our walking excursion to Austinmer we headed back to Thirroul for some refreshments before the trip home. We entered one cafe and asked if they served ham sandwiches. No they didn’t, but they served toast. I was thinking, You could just serve the bread pre-toasted? I took a moment to ponder this question and thought, I don’t think that they deserve my intelligence nor money so we went somewhere else.

Yeah for people who serve sandwiches. Tin Shed Cafe

The food and service were great and I’ll be going back there again for sure. We had lunch, used the elevators at the station (a new obsession) and enjoyed the train ride back home. A lovely successful day if you ask me.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument

This monument is a Sydney icon

Where this monument is local to the Barrack Heights Community Garden (it’s a work in progress)

 

Free Speech

I’m not one who usually writes about Australian politics and get on the “I hate the Government” bandwagon, however there are times when one has to talk and highlight some things that ruffles ones feathers.

Oh dear!!…..What has Tamar all riled up and ready to talk about such matters???

It started when I read these two articles. Wow, if you have a government job you are urged to dob those in if you see them criticizing our current government on any social media. Um gosh, I read something like this in 1984 by George Orwell and oh, lets not forget what the go is in North Korea.

Now some could say that this is all a distraction from what the government is really up to which could be correct BUT, isn’t free speech an important part of being in a democratic county??? Could it be that freedom to express oneself is a foundation of a healthy government system???

Maybe I’m just naive and need some big important person to tell me how to think and all will be well with the world?

Sure, the previous government were a joke with their disunity and “who’s the Prime Minister this week”….It was a circus really, but how much media control was involved in that. Think about it people of Australia, we were constantly blasted with ridiculous attacks on Julia Gillard’s small breasts and other sexist remarks and we were shown what a control freak that Kevin Rudd was (which he probably was). It was all such a shamozzle.

With our current government, I’m not seeing that same type of circus. Okay, there probably is unity within the ranks and better management but my suspicious little brain is thinking that Tony could be a puppet and the media is playing us all.

Just a free thought. (I can have that can’t I?)

Of course I can, I’m living in Australia.

A land where one can express themselves freely without any nasty repercussions.

A culture where people are encouraged to empower freedom of speech from each other and where disagreeing is okay.

Lets keep it that way peeps

Sketching Excursion

Today I decided to take my sketch book to the lake to see if I can do some preliminary drawings. I firstly tea stained the pages of my sketch book to get a different effect.

As a painter I have been very frustrated with the works that I have been producing of late and it’s obvious that I need to take a different look or approach to art making.

I’ve been inspiring myself by looking at works of art that make my insides sing; such artist include

• Richard Diebenkorn
•  Ben Quilty
• Philip Wolfhagen
• Ian Fairweather
• Rosalie Gascoigne
• Wayne Thiebaud
• Colin McCahon
• Dennis Hare
• Andrew Wyeth
• Liza Hirst
• Sandy Ostrau
• Giorgio Morandi
• Wendy mcwilliams
• De kooning

It has been such a feast to my eyes and soul to ponder upon such works and I want to go and produce something that equally satisfies my soul rather than paint a whole bunch of stuff that annoys me.

Of course, I’m sure most artists go through these frustrating times and that’s where one needs to just keep pressing on.

Here is some images through photography that I captured on my drawing excursion.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Threshold

I felt very loved when I found these girls at the threshold of my back door