Just back from Holidays

Returned home late yesterday from Far North Queensland, hence the reason I've not posted for a couple of weeks. Found both good news and bad news sitting in my email in box.

Received a very nice email from "Burkes Backyard Magazine" here in Australia after submitting a little story and accompanying photo of Izzy Liz.

Here's what I said in my original email to them

"Hi there Don. Just thought I'd send you a pic of our friendly backyard eastern waterdragon "Izzy Liz". Sadly she is no longer with us, but as you can see she wasn't to be trusted around food and her table manners were a little lacking... ie...foot in the bowl. She loved to raid leftovers off the table on our back deck and not too long ago I found her sitting amongst upturned tea cups helping herself to the biscuit crumbs after I returned from seeing my guests off at the front gate.

I snapped this particular pic one morning a couple of years back after my husband Michael left his cereal unattended whilst he made coffee. She loved grapes, cherries and strawberries and the odd painted toenail...lol. I learnt really quickly not to paint my toenails orange and sit barefoot at the table.... ouch!!

She became very friendly around 4 years ago when Michael was digging and levelling an area in our garden which was to be paved. He kept throwing her earth worms that he dug up as he came across them. From that moment on, she hung about the back veranda and would sleep in one of our hanging orchard baskets till the end of April each year and then would disappear till the beginning of Spring. Occasionally she would come into the kitchen via the back door and one day I even found her investigating the corridor off the kitchen. She became so friendly that I could just call her by name and she'd appear from the back garden, often getting up on the chair beside me and resting on the back of it whilst I read or made jewellery. I occasionally fed her worms from the pet shop, these she would take straight out of my upturned hand, plus she would also let me stroke her neck."

Here's the magazine's response

"What a great story, sounds like you had a wonderful relationship with Izzy Liz. Your photo really captures that cheeky side of her that you described so well :)

I have sent your photo off to the shortlist for possible publication.

Good luck!"

I won't write about the bad news as I'm still digesting it as well as coming up with an apt response to the nutter who sent it.

Another thing I really hate is the amount of junk mail that hits my in box. I arrived home to find about 300 time wasting emails. You've won the Lottery!! We want to give you USD24,000,000 as we've found a long lost relative of yours!! Can we launder money in your bank account and then clean you out of house and home!! Please tell us you user name, password and birthdate so we can clean up your email account!!

Time I got a new email address which only my friends will be privy to.

To all those fraudsters, I hope the long arm of the law eventually catches up with you and you get what you fully deserve. A nice long holiday without your own set of keys!

Some very sad news

Am very sad to have to write this post. Yesterday I found Izzy Liz had died out in the garden near the pool, not really sure how it happened, but her little body was limp and lifeless, her eyes shut tight.

I will really miss all her crazy little antics and the fact that she'll now longer be around to sit on the back of my chair when I'm out on the veranda.

RIP Miss Izz, you will always be remembered with great fondness.

Izzy Liz Pics

For those of you who know Izzy Liz, my friendly backyead Eastern Water Dragon, she had an accident recently and lost most of her tail.

These pics are for the lovely folk on Aussiepython.com forum who have helped answer some questions for me regarding her recovery.

Thanks very much for all your help guys it is very much appreciated

Cool Bananas - I'm offically a Photographer....lol

Recently after some prompting I forwarded a few of my better pics to an online photography site, kind of like someone hosting your stock photos on their site and you may op to sell them.
Well they got accepted and are now available for viewing only (pics won't reproduce very well at the size they've been uploaded at) and sale at http://www.photoreview.com.au/ click on the words "Photo Gallery" above the pic on the first page then use the drop down list of names.

It would be great if a cereal company picked up the one of Izz, my friendly Eastern Water Dragon indulging in a bowl of muesli. Am sure their associated advertising company would come up with a great slogan, can think of a few very apt ones myself. You can also vote for Izzy's Pic on Picture.com or see the link on my front page.

Speaking of Izz, she's finally come out of hybernation. I found her asleep in the pot plant on the front verandah last Saturday night when we arrived home from our latest camping trip. She usually disappears from about the end of May thru to mid September, then suddenly appears on the back verandah out of nowhere. I thought it odd, that she was asleep on the front verandah, but perhaps she'd been basking in the sun during the day and just curled up in the pot because it was there. Normally during the day she spends her time on the back verandah perched on the back of a chair waiting for a feed of fruit or what ever else is available. Her fav's are green grapes, pitted cherries, strawberries and sometimes I buy live worms from the pet shop for her, and.... believe it or not she comes when she's called.

Am a little concerned about how she and Rem are going to get on, as he's already chased her once this week. Rem's not at all like my other Border Collie, Jet, who would sit patiently beside Izz waiting for a titbit too; but then he was alot older and not a silly pup. Mind you Jet had his moments when he was a pup, I found him with a little eastern water dragon in his month once and told him to drop it, which he promptly did... smart boy. I always suspected that lizard was Izz, cause she might have lost her toe when Jet grabbed her. Now I always know Izz from any other dragons that appear in the garden, she's minus a toe.

Looking for Mr. Motivation... where are ya

Since I've been back from holidays, I feel totally un-motivated. I've been suffering from Mondayitas all week and I expect it to last well into next week. Hate it when I feel like this.

I did force myself to clean out the hallway cupboard today though and what a haul of junk I found. Anyway, I felt slightly better that I have at least accomplished one small task this week.

Working on details for the next Xmas get together now, gee am running short of Saturdays and October is already looming. Where did this year go? Heck was I asleep for most of it? Looks like the next function will be the first weekend of Dec as I have to make some new goodies yet. Invites are underway....I've got Rem working on them.

Yep I'm with Miss Izz.