well I have made a start on the artwork blog

It has been slow going, but I am fine tuning it and once I get the hang of how I want it to look and how I want to organize it I should be able to power along.

I have enlisted Kt's help to decide which pictures she absolutely loves and wants me to keep a physical copy and which ones are OK to scan into the computer and keep recorded on disk or on screen only.

Surprisingly she has been very co-operative about this and understands that we have to make room for the new artworks she does and we can't keep paper copies of everything.

It has been fun scanning the smaller pieces of artwork into the computer. I usually do a batch of 10 or 12 in one sitting ... this takes about 30 minutes or so.

The scanner zooms in on the picture part and selects what it thinks you should crop and usually it is exactly right.

Some artworks are too big to fit on the scanner screen so I have been taking photos of these ones and will process them all together as one batch.

Although blogger is slow to download photos, I have found that it does not go too bad on a good day.

I just have to be prepared to do other things while I sit at my screen.

Tomorrow is bin day and the recycling bin is absolutely packed, and downstairs we also have several full boxes of more recycling ready to go into the bin as soon as it gets emptied.

I think this always happens in January while we deal with the extra wrappings and boxes that come with Xmas presents.

Hopefully there will also be some space in this bin for the artworks I have photographed or scanned.

Uni is working hard downstairs. He has finished painting the bulk of the office ... doing 2 coats of light blue paint.

The whole room looks 100% better than before ... I better take some more photos soon.

He will be painting an old wardrobe and the window sills a contrast colour and I'm not sure what is happening with the ceiling (will have to go and have a look!).

Next will be recovering the old carpet.

Then I will organize some new curtains (and maybe look into getting a fly screen for the window).

Before you know it there will be office stuff in there and we can start work on completely emptying and painting the baby's room.

... and then refilling it with baby furniture.

The new mirror wardrobe for our room arrives tomorrow and there is a good space waiting for it.

I will spend most of tomorrow and the next day filling it with our stuff.

I am also on track with the "fortnightly shopping" ... although I completely forgot to buy fish fingers which I don't think we can do without for the next two weeks. Kt's palate is limited and fish fingers are a bit of a staple of hers unfortunately.

The fridge and pantry are looking much fuller after my shopping efforts earlier in the week and I was pleased to discover that I did not go over budget at WW even though I was buying 2 weeks worth of stuff and some of those things were bulk items like 400g coffee etc and I also had to buy some fresh food after my hassles at the markets.... read on ...

After two weeks break from the markets mostly for the purposes of sleeping in, I woke up earlyish and went to the markets this Sunday only to discover they were not there! I think this may have been as a result of the Greek blessing of the waters ceremony.

We were so low on fresh food that I went to the showground markets and picked up a few things there. I was VERY THANKFUL for my wonderful, wonderful ... can not say this enough WONDERFUL market trolley!!!

I only spent $10 and got a huge bag of nectarines, a huge bag of grapes, a big bunch of bananas and a couple of cucumbers ... good value overall, but this was all I could find and I had to pick up eggs, lettuce, carrots, capsicum, potatoes, sweet potato and similar from WW (at their horrendous prices) so we would not go without.

This is why it is a miracle that I did not end up going over budget (that is of course 2 weeks budget not just one)... although maybe forgetting the fish fingers may have helped the cause.

In the afternoon we went for another swim at the beach ... this time at Margate!

The water was lovely and warm and this time around we got out earlier before we felt cold and changed into clothes on the beach. I did a complete change of clothes for kt and I half dressed myself on the beach and wrapped the remainder in a towel and headed for the change rooms.

Margate beach did have a lot of seaweed unfortunately so when I took off my swimsuit I was covered in bits of beach debris.

I knew we would shower and wash hair at home so I just dusted as much off as I could and got dressed anyway.

Was completely exhausted by evening and slept for a good 9 hours with few toilet breaks (unusual) and luckily none of the bad dreams that have plagued me the last two nights.

Phew enough typing I am worn out now.