Google Web Fonts

I love typography.  Fabulous fonts make me weak at the knees.  Isn't the new Google Web Fonts just delicious?

Learning New Stuff

Clipped from: www.elegantthemes.com (share this clip)

I luuuuurve learning new things.  Especially slightly techie things.

So I've been doing a bit of website creating ... so much fun!  So much to learn!

I am so thrilled to have discovered Elegant Themes.  Gorgeous, gorgeous themes for Wordpress.  Really easy to install and tweak - even for someone as inexperienced as me.  And the support is excellent!

Planet Earth!

Source: maluna.tumblr.com via Kristin on Pinterest

Autumn

Autumn in the Ashburton Domain

I think John Keats says it best:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

    Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

    With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

        To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

        For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

    Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

    Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

    Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

        Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

    Steady thy laden head across a brook;

    Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

        Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring?  Ay, where are they?

    Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

    And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

    Among the river sallows, borne aloft

        Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

    Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

    The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

        And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Llamas

Got something to say?  Why not say it in Llama?

Small Moments

Am loving this poem by Dallas Clayton ...

A SMALL MOMENT IN MY DAY

At the counter
inside the gas station
sits a bowl of apples
with a hand-written sign
which reads:
APPLES.

Beside the apples:
a bunch of bananas.

They have no sign.

“Did people have trouble identifying the apples by sight?”
I ask as the woman counts my change.

She stops
then looks over the fruit
perplexed
as if I have just asked the most important
question she has heard in
six months time.

She stares blankly for a long moment
then says

“I don’t know

I usually work on the weekends.”

Coffee and a Chat

Via Pinterest (of course)

This morning Z, my lovely 8 year old nephew, offered to make me a coffee.  I gave him instructions - which he followed - and after he had reassured himself that the coffee was to my liking he rushed off to make himself a Milo so we could sit at the kitchen table and chat.

What a truly fab way to start the day!!

A Good Pair of Boots

Source: freepeople.com via Anya on Pinterest

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

— Terry Pratchett (Men at Arms)

Pinterest

Source: juliasegal.tumblr.com via Dorothy on Pinterest

Because you find cool things like this there ... 

Soup

Source: simplesong.typepad.com via Whitney on Pinterest

At this end of the world summer is drawing to a close.   Yesterday we lit the fire for the first time this year and I made my first pot of soup (creamy lentil & vegetable - thanks Alison Holst!!) of the season.  Ahhhh, season of mist and mellow fruitfullness ...

Belonging

Source: knowledgeandspirit.tumblr.com via Lollie on Pinterest

There is nothing more comforting than knowing that this is where you are meant to be.

History

I am reading the most fascinating book at the moment, The Muslim Discovery of Europe. Its amazing how small accidents of history have come to make the world as it is today.  It could all have been so different.

In the course of the struggle for the succession between the Sultan Bayezid II and his brother Jem, the Ottoman troops were withdrawn from Otranto, and the plan to conquer Italy was postponed and eventually abandoned. The ease with which, a few years later in 1494-1495, the French were able to conquer the Italian states one after another, almost without resistance, suggests that had the Turks persisted in their plans they would have conquered most or all of Italy without undue difficulty.  A Turkish conquest of Italy in 1480, when the Renaissance was just beginning, would have transformed the history of the world.

Shelter

ShelterBox is an international disaster relief charity that delivers emergency shelter, warmth and dignity to people affected by disaster worldwide.  

Shelterboxes are currently deployed to help people affected by flooding in Peru & Bolivia, cyclone in Madagascar and also in Japan after the recent earthquake and tsunami.

Life Without TV

Ahhhh, life without TV.  More time to spend finding stuff I like on the internet.  Bliss!

You can find a copy of this awesome print at the Keep Calm Gallery.

Presents

Now this is fabulous ... and fun.  Its designed byFabio Milito and Francesca Guidotti.  I found it on DavidAirey.com.

Blankets

With winter looming just around the corner (we had our first snow on the hills last weekend) this pile of blankets looks incredibly inviting!  They were made by Lucy who blogs at Attic 24.  It is the most beautiful blog full of crocheted fabulousness!

Pi

Who'd have thought that maths could sound so totally awesome?  

Family

I love my family, and really, truly couldn't get by without them!

And now, they have blogs ...

Threads and Flowers
42 Paisley Place
Thinking Small

Please stop in and say "Hi"

Questions

Need to waste some time exercise your brain?  Check out "Questionaut", a totally gorgeous wee game from Amanita Design.  Journey through strange worlds and test your knowledge of English, Maths and Science on this magical mission to recover your friend's hat.  It just beautiful!

Science

The world is a mysterious and wonderful place.  Fake Science explains it all in a way the makes sense without letting the facts get in the way.

Timeless Wisdom

If you look to others for fulfillment,

you will never be truly fulfilled.

If your happiness depends on money,

you will never be happy with yourself.

Be content with what you have;

rejoice in the way things are.

When you realize there is nothing lacking,

the whole world belongs to you. 

I am finding this poem from the Tao Te Ching especially soothing at the moment. It helps to remember to celebrate life as it is, especially in the face of sudden, and somewhat unwelcome, change.

Candies for Your Eyes

Oh boy, if you thought Wordle was good, you will love what you can do with Tagxedo.  You can take the words from your twitter account, website, blog, a news article ... and turn them into a fabulous graphic like the one above (which is from my twitter account).

Go play - and share what you come up with in the comments below :)