Hello, my name is Sandy. I'm an artist in Perth, Western Australia.

This is the egg of a Guinea Fowl, poached and drizzled with soy sauce. It tastes like a normal chicken egg with the added novelty of eating an egg produced by another game bird. The guineafowl diet covers a very wide range of insects, which includes mosquitoes (my archnemeses!) and evil, evil wasps.

I feel like the $4 spent on a half-dozen at the Subi Farmer’s Market has gone towards a worthy cause.

In case you’re interested, the Subi Farmer’s Market runs every Saturday from 8:30am to noon. It’s not huge, as far as markets go, but I like the casualness and open-air-ness of it and that you can get stuff like organic produce, homemade snacks, homemade cat & dog treats, and of course, these little eggs.

Permalink. Posted 30 October, 2011. Tagged: eggs, food, guineafowl, markets.

Lovely dog at the Farmer’s Market. I didn’t catch his name. He loves dog chocolate. :)

Permalink. Posted 29 October, 2011. Tagged: dogs, market.

Slugs are eating my watermelons and I’m not impressed.

The internet said to try used coffee grounds so yesterday, gentleman Funko furnished me with the goods from his weekend caffeination, carefully dried for optimum sprinklage. Outlook not so good thus far, as I arrived home from work to find 3 fat slugs in and around my potted plants.

So we laid down a beer trap full of Amsterdam Mariner, figuring if the salty captain couldn’t sort this out, there’d be little hope for humanity and watermelons would be the least of our worries. An hour later, we found 2 slugs going for the trusty brew. What becomes of them by tomorrow remains to be seen…

Permalink. Posted 26 October, 2011. Tagged: gardening, hobbies, pests, slugs.

The Artifactory had their ‘Dark Science’ gathering last night, full of electronic music and lasers. No joke, one of the members built a totally sick laser that does awesome pretty things in time to music. I had no idea you could make a laser light flat like a ribbon. So cool.

This is a picture. Not the best, but all my phone could muster in the dark. I got some video too – will pop that up on youtube once I figure how to take the sound out.

EDIT: Video is here.

Permalink. Posted 24 October, 2011. Tagged: artifactory.

Like many, I try to cope with stress by listening to my body. I’ve heard a theory that says depression or anxiety is your body’s way of nudging you in a particular direction. I don’t know how this translates to wandering into Jackson’s, but in any case, who can stay gloomy after buying brand new art supplies?

This is my first charcoal drawing ever. Sort of – the first was a tiny cat in a corner of the page not shown here. This makes time at the laundromat pass quickly. Pretty sure I’ve done it wrong; will have to read some internets on it.

Permalink. Posted 17 October, 2011. Tagged: art stuff, charcoal, drawing.

I laugh at the phenomenon on sites like Twitter and Facebook where people have nothing of value to say, but will say something anyway. Of course, I won’t criticise too loudly because I sometimes do it too. There’s a sense of validity that comes from expressing a thought in a tangible way. It doesn’t have to be witnessed by anyone, but having it out in public often feels… good.

That’s not exhibitionism, is it? It’s not like I’ve made a point of doing it where others can’t help but look, or have I? For me, it feels like erecting a fence to mark the border of a property – like if people get to know me, they have a better understanding of my boundaries so it’s easier for us to get along. Maybe technically it could be considered exhibitionism because there’s an intent to exhibit a part of oneself.

When reading other people’s tweets and blogs, I’m interested mostly in 2 things – the feeling of “oh me too!” and the feeling of “how interesting!” Is this voyeuristic? (And would it be the flipside of being exhibitionistic?)  I like the thought of someone out in internet land looking for those two feelings too, and maybe finding them on my blogs.

Some years ago, I blogged about a rough patch and spent a lot of time wondering if it was the right thing to do. It felt weird to share, and I had several unrelated conversations that leaned towards sharing being bad. But what kept me doing it was thinking of a friend on the other side of the world, who is like a younger sister to me, and who might be able to benefit from my mistakes. I didn’t know if she read my entries, but we had been mutually linking for a long time. Earlier this year I received a letter from her, saying that the things I had written did help her through some troubles in her own life. That was nice.

It was nice to learn that something I do for myself happens to be good for someone else too. And really validating to know that my thinking of her was the right thing to do. I don’t mean to romanticise this – it was probably just a lucky coincidence. I do get a lot out of blogging and this ‘social media’ thing – it’s more than noise and participation.

I try to make the things I share count for something, but you can’t always know whether it actually does. I could just as easily be part of the noise cluttering somebody’s feed.

Permalink. Posted 14 October, 2011. Tagged: blogging, thinking too much.

We have a rent inspection next week and the house is a mess. An extra Saturday for cleaning would be grouse this time around. I don’t mind housekeeping/home-making so long as my mind is ready for it. It’s nice to watch dirt and grime come off grubby surfaces.

What I’m really looking forward to comes after: I’m going to redecorate my study. It’s looked like a dump ever since we moved in, and only gets mildly respectable just before a rent inspection. Early on in our tenancy, I got drunk and bought a daybed, not realising how much room it would take up or how little I’d use it as a bed.

Last week, Apartment Therapy posted about crafting in small spaces, which got me thinking about how to make better use of space. Reckon I might try dismantling the bed and salvaging the parts for other things. I’m pretty convinced this plan will work, and got as far as taking out the Phillips-head screwdriver and lying under the bed for 5 minutes, daydreaming about what to do. Then I got hungry and made a bowl of noodles, but I feel this is still a good start.

Permalink. Posted 7 October, 2011. Tagged: hobbies, interior design, redecorating my study.

I have a lovely weekend of doing stuff. I’m so excited, it’s hard to sleep. I’m going to play in the garden, make yummy snacks, listen to the Kimbra album I just bought and all around enjoy not being sick like last weekend.

The blood test came back clear and I got treated for giardia, just in case. Turns out the culprit was campylobacter – a bug you can get from eating something that should be cooked more. I think it might have been the chicken wings at a work bbq. Those delicious, evil wings.

Arg. Time for bed… TO BED. FOR TOMORROW, WE RISE AT 9ISH.

Permalink. Posted 1 October, 2011. Tagged: health, hobbies, sick.