It's the Perth Royal Show soon!

2 days to go!
 
And I still get excited like a little girl at the thought!
 
Here are a few of my favorite things ...

Show bags

Bertie Beetle showbags would still have to be my favorites.  They cost $3 (which is still the cheapest bag at the show) and are filled with delicious nougat bits covered in chocolate and shaped like a beetle.  Doesn't get better than that!
 

 
 
Horses

Always a passion and I could easily spend days just sitting on the side of the main arena and watch every horse event there is. The smell of horses and hay and manure ... bliss

 
 
Warm days

In Perth, the Royal Show is always at the end of September, beginning of October.  Winter is over and Spring has Sprung.  It's normally sunny and hot and people generally get their first dose of sunburn for the year while walking about.  Bring on the vitamin D!



Rides

Even at my age, I still love the thrill of scaring myself on a fast and furious sideshow alley ride. At night is even better

 

 
Chooks

Can, and do, spend hours in the Pigeon and Poultry Pavilion.  Oohing and Aahhhing over all the beautiful breeds of chooks and ducks and geese.

Lacewing Wyandotte

 

Light Sussex

  
Sheep Dogs

Love to watch these clever dogs do the sheep dog trials, but most of all the agility.  They have HUGE personalities!  Our own dog, Tommy, is a handsome and clever border collie and I wish I had the time to train him like these dogs.

Fireworks

If we stay all day, we go and find a nice patch of grass, get some dinner and watch the free fireworks.

Are you going this year?  I am :-)

 

Photography .. baby steps

I know nothing about photography, except I know when I like a really great photo.  The subject is like a very dark science to me and when I have asked some experienced (and some hobby ones) photographers about the 'basics' they launch into enthusiastic talk about exposure and ISO and f-stops and triangles and the rule of 3 and I nod and smile like I know exactly what the hell they are talking about and to myself think this all sounds like an algebra or science class to me and my mind glazes over.  I normally give up at this point and decide that photography is another thing that I just can't do, like be a size 0 model, or a rock star, or a princess.

But never a quitter, I very quietly decided that I would try and teach myself the really basic, basics of taking a good photograph.  I thought reading the Dummies Guide to Photography would be a good place to start, but even that was a bit advanced.  So I went online and searched in google - 'the really dumb persons beginning photography lessons' -  and I found this website - 13 Lessons to Teach Your Child About Digital Photography Here.  By lesson 4 I was lost! 

Rather than embarrass myself further, I took our little Panasonic Lumix and began experimenting.  I did not worry about anything technical, but just played about with the automatic settings and light and angles.  I have been looking closely at pictures I like and trying to understand what it is I like about them, then trying to copy these.  I can see its going to be a LONG journey, but I have time and I have started.

Now, I dont want what I have to say next to be taken as me being at all ungrateful - but Mr K has gone ahead and ordered me a DSLR (and I think I know what that stands for, so I am learning a bit!) as a surprise present and its terrifying me.  Next week I will have in my trembling little hand this

 

and I feel all my family/friends will be expecting amazing and wonderful photos.  I am not very good with technology at all, give me a pile of compost anyday, or some chooks, or orphan lambs and I will be in my element.  But a big, scary, complex thing like this

and I am a mess.  I think I will open the box and just look at it for a while.  Just let it get to know me.  Move about it slowly, not putting any pressure on it, but letting it come to me when it feels safe and is ready.  It works for nervous horses, so why not a camera?  Right? 

Wonder if I will ever get to be a Nikon Whisperer?

PS: If any of you ARE adept with your camera's you might like this website Mr K found for me.  I LIKE this guy ALOT ... he says ...

"Women are better photographers than men as a whole because women worry about their pictures, and not about their cameras. Men spend lifetimes researching and talking about cameras, which does nothing to advance their photography"

Ken Rockwell Photographer

Isn't that always the case?  Men worry about their equipment and women worry about how they look?

PPS: Mr K?  Thank you ... I think :-)

The cats at it again

My Mum and Dad have been staying with me the last two weeks.  They stayed in the newly renovated guest wing.  The Cat tried to get in that room everyday - the more we closed doors and shushed him out - the harder he tried to get it. 

Everyday he tried and some days (when Dad would forget and leave a door open) he succeeded.  There are plenty of other places he could sleep (as we have seen in other posts - see below) but for some reason it was the forbidden that he wanted most.  Who says cats don't have character!

So, the room was vacated this morning.  I stood out the front of my house waving goodbye to my folks.  I walked back into the house, went to strip the sheets and found this ... the pictures say it all!

What????

Other Cat posts

Read 'The Cat who Sleeps Around'

Read about the Bad Cat here

I am a perfectionist!

Which sounds lovely and you would imagine that I looked neat as a pin, with a house to match, a neat and tidy garden, children, husband, life!

BUT

I am also a 'all-or-nothing' which when blended with perfectionism is a recipe for chaos and disorder and certainly nothing near me is neat!  Its been the albatross around my neck since I was a child, and despite years of therapy prompting huge to-do lists (that as we know hardly ever get done) I am yet to tame this monster.

I blame two people for this gene.  One is my Grandma Brown.  She too was a perfectionist, but she missed the all-or-nothing add-on.  She set a standard of perfectionism that I have yet to see rivalled.  She was always neat and clean and tidy.  Never a hair out of place, her tweed skirts always perfect, the house neat ... picture Mrs Bucket Bouquet and you have my Grandma.  (they even look a little alike)

Grandma and me about 1967 ... I would imagine the fact the grass was not mown would have been a great annoyance to her.

Then the other person to blame is my mother.  A product of her upbringing, Mum too is a perfectionist.  She has a little of the all-or-nothing gene but has managed to override this with energy, drive and bloody mindedness.  Mum is a clean freak - you could eat off every floor in her house, including the toilet floor!  She washes dishes BEFORE they go into the dishwasher - and I don't mean she scrapes off food and does a quick rinse under the tap - no they are washed first!  She meets every child who enters the house with a wet flannel to the face and hands (she would do this to the adults too if she could get away with it).  Wearing shoes in the house is a hangable offence.

Under this generational weight, when I first moved out and had my own home, I found myself one day, on hands and knees vacuuming with the nozzle of the cleaner as I wanted the carpet super clean and perfect.  I remember this day like yesterday as it was the day I had a very clear thought "what the hell am I doing - I have become my mother and grandmother!!!"

From this day on, my brain had wars - I wanted to clean my house perfectly, but I would not let myself do it, I would NOT conform to the perfectionist in my DNA.  I wanted to, badly.  So I would do things like clean the bathroom perfectly but leave the toilet dirty.  Or leave cleaning the bathroom at all for days past when it really did need cleaning (the nothing) and then be so disgusted in myself that I would scrub it with 3 times the amount of bleach that it needed and wear through a new scrubbing brush.  It would take me hours but it would sparkle within an inch of its life (the all). 

And so went on this pattern, all my married life, through having kids, building new houses, building a business, right up to today where I still have this damned curse.  I wish I could just go and wash the windows.  What stops me is the thought process of - I will need all day to do them they are so bad.  I will need to sweep them all over with a broom, then vacuum them.  Then pre-wash them to get the bulk of the dirt off.  Then another really good wash with lots of hot water and soap and cloths.  Then a normal wash followed by a polishing.  I know they would look perfect and shiny but I don't have the time to commit to all day window washing.  So I don't do them at all as I can't do them perfectly.  Leaving windows that are so dirty and dusty and cobwebby that you would think the house was abandoned (except for the spiders*)

My dining room window spider display - pretty impressive huh!

I am trying hard to overcome this curse.  Tricking myself into doing things less than perfect.  I just tell myself that I will do a preliminary wash of the windows, and go back when I have time and do them perfectly.  Same with cleaning my bathroom, I tell my silly mind that I will just wipe over the bench and come back on the weekend with bleach and cloths and hot water and do it properly then.  Of course this seldom happens but I have at least cleaned - albeit not perfectly.

* I do allow spiders to live in my house - its another weird family trait.  I love to watch them closely and observe their little, hairy lives.  If I could, I would have a tarantula as a pet!

Another post on Spiders .. if you dare!

Being fat and fit

Since I had my children, I have always had a battle with my weight.  Up until the age of 23 I could eat what I wanted, do little to no exercise and never get bigger than a size 10.  AB (after birth) all that changed. I went on my first ever diet, Jenny Craig (and have ever since been a lifetime member!) to lose the baby weight.
 
Heaven knows how I put on so much weight, I vomited for 9 straight months (well 9 months and 2 weeks actually, he went over) and could barely keep down a glass of water.  I should have seen this as a sign that the skinny gods were not on my side - from this time on its been a roller coaster yo-yo ride of get fat, hate myself, go on a diet, lose the weight, get fed up with dieting, put all the weight back on plus a good handful more for good measure and to teach me to mess with skinny gods, hate myself, go on a diet ...... well you see where this is heading.
 
The last round was when I was on Jenny Craig for a whole 12 months - 12 freakin months of microwaved dinners, tiny packages of cereal and snacks, and weekly weigh ins.  I was running 5km 3 times a week, seeing a personal trainer for an hour and half session 3 times a week, and walking home from work 12km twice a week.
 
Net result of all that?  Still fat (by modern magazine terms - size 14) but fit as hell.  Then I ran the 12km City to Surf and after giving myself a hearty high five found I had damaged my knee so badly I was unable to run anymore.  I needed an operation, but this has not fixed the pain and damage and so now I need a knee replacement.  Brilliant!  Who says exercising is good for you!

In true form, I have put back on all the weight plus another handful or two chucked in - but worse than that I have stopped doing any exercise and am very unfit and unhealthy.  Its always such a huge mental feat to drag myself up to start again, but I know I must for my health.

I have just watched my wonderful mother have a hip replacement that went so well and she is recovering so quickly as she is fit and strong and healthy.  I don't want to go the way of my mother in law (who I see everyday as she lives with us) and be fat and ill and so very unhealthy. 

I eat good food (mostly - says she who just had a Turkish Delight!)- wholesome and largely unprocessed - but probably too much of it.  But more than diet I need to get out and move my body.  I don't like structured exercise, its such a waste of energy.  Rather I like to work and move my body naturally.  Digging in the garden, feeding the horses, sweeping, raking, weeding.  Walking around the paddocks.  I would rather do this anyday than run on a treadmill in the gym. 

Until I can live on my farm, I am doomed to be a rat in a cage :-) But this fat rat needs to get on the wheel and start running about!

Been a bit AWOL

I never wanted my blog to become a chore, something that I had to wedge into a day already filled with chores and 'must do's' and 'should do's'.

I keep having little blog thoughts, starting to write them in my head, but not being in a position to write properly.  (Really must get a waterproof computer in the shower!)  Started a few emails on my phone, but seem to have fat fingers at the moment and writing anything longer than a quick Facebook post on the phone infuriates me. Boldly Bloody pre-hemp preemptive sext text. 

My Mum is still in hospital after her hip replacement operation and doing so well.  Its been 4 days since they operated, and she is up walking on crutches and doing stair exercises with her physio.  She is such a fit lady, puts me to shame.  But I know its driving her nuts being stuck in hospital - the tea is a grey colour and she says all she wants is a good quality basic meal with steamed veggies.  Even in a private hospital, the food is awful.

I am looking forward to her coming back here to stay for a while.  I can spoil her and cook for her and look after her how she always does for everyone else.  I will make the family traditional vegetable soup - three generations have made this same soup recipe - My Grandma, my Mum and me.  Its wholesome and thick and is a meal all on its own and when you have it you can't help but feel better.

My Dad has been given 'jobs' to do.  Anyone who is idle or says the evil words "I'm Bored" got jobs to do when I was a kid.  So far he has weeded my driveway, done shopping, dishes, helped my son put retic in.  I have other jobs for him, but between you and me - I am letting him watch hours of golf on the TV and listen to Neal Diamond on the stereo REALLY LOUD!  Shh don't tell my Mum.

Had a little meltdown on Sunday - it came out of the blue and surprised me as I thought I had a better grip on my emotions.  We got a call from the tenants of my  beloved property on the Saturday - they wanted to learn how to set up the Kreepy Krawler in the pool and for Mr K to start up the bore pump.  I tried to shove aside the anxiety at this, carry on and keep doing my thang!  Had it all suppressed but come Sunday, Mr K suggests that I come out with him and we take the Tom Dog for a run.  That's all it took. 

I felt sick, shakey, light headed.  Stomach pain, anxious and needing to move and keep busy.  I cleaned the stove so hard and fast that the once dull stainless steel now looked like polished silver!  I could not answer for a while, but I felt this awful pull in two opposing directions.  My dad was in the kitchen with me - and when I said I could not go to the property as it upset me too much - he said yes he could tell that right away - one minute you were happy and singing while you made pancakes, the next you were quiet and visibly shaken. 

That's all it takes. The anxiety genie was out of the bottle and running amok.  To outsiders it must seem very trivial and silly and immature - but this feeling of dread is real and uncontrollable.  At the moment, seeing my beautiful house and property belong to another, albeit just tenanted, while I have to wait (and wait and wait) to live there is too much to bear. Seeing my young, 22 year old, tenant with her horses and chickens, and my gardens and stables and birds .. just makes me weep. I am very happy for her, as she is doing a great job of caring for everything - but 3 years after we bought my dream (after so many setbacks and heartaches - this was to be my refuge) I still have to live in suburbia in a place that just kills my soul.  It will be at least 2 more years, maybe more before I get to be there.

OK.  I am over the pity party drama now.  I must be grateful that the tenants are doing such a great job of looking after the place (as opposed to the previous ones who trashed it).   My family are all well, Spring has sprung, the gardens are calling me to go potter, work is under control .... but words are hollow and they can't force me to feel anything other than frustration.

Thus my journey ... to contentment.

My journey's destination .. my beautiful homestead on my beautiful rural property

I hate it when I make silly mistakes

I get this call today from the credit controller of one of our major (and most hated!) suppliers.  She asked me to send her a remittance advice for a payment I made to them last week.  Silly billy I think of her, I always send my remittance advices – what is she talking about.  Then she tells me the amount and I think, hang on I didn’t pay that amount to them, I paid …that …. to  … oh dear I didn’t do what I think I did?

 

Yep.  Turns out that I did.  I paid the wrong supplier.  I am kicking myself as usually I am ever so careful and rarely make these mistakes.  I am like a very good carpenter – I always measure twice and cut once – or in my case check twice and pay once.  I don’t know what happened this day, but obviously I was not thinking right.

 

Never mind, it’s happened to me before, but the other way around.  A customer pays me when they should have paid someone else and it’s no biggy, we have a laugh, they give me their bank account details and I send them the refund.  It wasn’t my money at all.

 

BUT.  This supplier is, excuse the French, is a branleur … a great big branleur (look it up if you don’t know French!) 

 

This is their reply to me :

 

Unfortunately, we do not process refund for our terms account.

I suggest that you use this payment to pay the open invoices in your account and whatever is left can also be used for forthcoming invoices.

 

This was my response.(well not my first response. My first one had a lot of grown-up words about telling them to go forth and multiply – in a very loud voice that scared the dog)

 

That’s not good at all.  I need that payment for another supplier. 

So you are telling me that if I make an incorrect payment to your account in error it’s just too bad?

 

To which she bravely responded:

 

I understand your situation.

Let me get back to you, I will talk to my Boss if we can accommodate the refund since this was intended for a different company.

 

Also, our refund takes 2 weeks or more to be processed. Not sure if you can wait that  long..

 

The dog (and all the neighbours dogs), is still cowering under the desk after my second outburst.  Now if this was a few hundred dollars, no big deal, even a few thousand I could cope with.  But we are talking $19K.

 

I feel so bad.  So silly and bad and cross!

 

On the plus side, the supplier who I was supposed to pay is being very understanding.  She had a laugh with/at me and I promised to pay as soon as I could. 

 

Now, at the risk of being ‘racist’ as the PC police call you these days when you say anything like I am about to say, the difference between the branleur supplier and all my other suppliers is that the branleur one is based in the Philippines and all the others are Aussie.  These companies that operate offshore are always so hard, and annoying to do business with.  I hate them. 

 

If I had my way, I would tell the branleur company to go branleur itself.

 

Ok, sorry, my rant is over, but I feel a little better.  Thanks Blog (and Blog People)

 

 

 

 

Men and Scatter Cushions

I googled 'men and scatter cushions' today, thinking that a million blog posts would come up and there would be women all over the world with wide eyes and bewildered looks as to why men have such a hatred of these scraps of material that 'pull everything together' (that's interior design speak!).  After all - scatter cushions have single handedly taken the interior decorating world by storm.  I thought I would find funny and amusing blog posts about how their man reacts when she brings home another cushion for the collection.  Or how he carries on like a pork chop when he has to move them off the bed, in order to get into bed. Or maybe hit the blogger's jackpot and find a man who writes about scatter cushions...
 
But all I could find were links that :

• sell cushions to men,
• or men who sell cushions
• or scatter cushions with men on them,
• 'his and hers' scatter cushions (from the queen of daytime - Kerri-Anne.  what the?)
• some bizarre thing called Scatter Cushion Computing

The subject got a mention in the 10 household things men get annoyed about women - but it only came 7th on the list (below the TV remote? and bikes?) and I think 'annoyed' is an understatement.  At least in my house.

 

Actually, in the name of married bliss, I have avoided the scatter cushion trap for most of our married life.  It made a brief appearance in the early days of marriage, when he was a little more 'tolerant' and he had made the connection between happy wife and happy 'getting-laid' husband.  Now he is neither tolerant or getting laid so the scatter cushions are the target of frustration.  In the honeymoon phase, we had just a couple of little frilly cushions on the bed.  They did not have free reign over the house.  In fact I don't think the bed ever got made long enough to even place them, so they kind of permanently lived on the floor.

I guess I should have been on notice of his hatred of the SC when I would find them thrown increasingly farther from the bed (out into the hallway was one incident, into the good Sammie's bag was another).  This was the 80's and SC had yet to find their place in the interior world.  During the 90's I avoided them and the whole subject - yet I would catch morsels of his loud and (lets face it inelegant) ramblings with the boys at a BBQ or at a pub.  It seemed to always unite the lads, the common enemy, and they all had their own SC war story to tell - usually with great garawfs and slaps on the back.

I know Mr K felt nothing but pity for one mate, lets call him Under the Thumb Joe, as that was what all his mates called him, whose wife was the Imelda Marcos of Scatter Cushions.  Even us ladies thought it was a bit OTT (but I think we just were envious).  When the boys talked about him, they all fell quiet and somber, like he had died, or got cancer or something.  There was deep pity for Joe, and maybe even a tear would be shed when they thought of Joe and having to move 237 cushions off the bed everynight, or not being allowed to put his feet up on the couch in case he messed up the carefully arranged SC collection.

I also gave up the whole notion of SC love when my sons were at home.  Well trained by their father, they had little respect for the whole art form and would throw them, sit on them and fart, use them to support ramps for their cars, use them to suffocate each other when rough and tumbling.  I just put them away, sad but resigned that my home would never grace the cover of  Home Beautiful. 

But now the odds are even.  It's just him and me left in the house.  And I have a whole end of the house to decorate as I see fit.  Years and years of pent up SC love have burst forward into an addiction.  I need to go to SC anonymous and confess that I have bought 8 SC in the last month.  I am giddy and on a high, I keep wanting to buy more, breathless when I learnt target has 20% off all cushions today, seeking that perfect little square that will complete the 'look'.  I have even been practising that little flourish when you 'plump' them and then karate chop a V shaped wedge in the top. 

So, the question today is - if there is this great divide between men, women and scatter cushions, why is there no-one writing about it?  Is this the great unspoken between a man and a woman?

Little spending spree on the weekend

It started off Saturday afternoon, Mr K and I were both looking for something to do other than housework.  We had done the basics, and while there are a million things to clean and fix and attend to around here, neither of us had any motivation to tackle them.

So we went shopping.  The great 21st century pastime. 

To buy a CD.  The new Jack White CD to be precise - Blunderbuss.
(awesome IMHO)

Off to JB's, which where I live is located at the end of a very long line of large shops, never counted them but there would have to be at least 30 shops all in a row.  We parked at the opposite end to JB's so we could have a nice long walk in the sun.  Past all the shops .... (insert scary music here)

 

 

Mr K just casually mentioned that he wanted to pop into the HiFi showroom - in his words - 'just to check out what is new in there'.  Two alarming thoughts -

1. He must be awfully familiar with what was 'old' in there to know what was new?  Meaning he goes in there an awful lot!
2. Mr K never window shops for no reason.  I can feel a sales pitch coming from him about why we need a new speaker/amp/whatever.

Time to use tactic - well don't take long honey, I will just pop into Kitchenwarehouse and have a look while I am waiting for you to use. This would put him in a quandary - but have the desired effect of making him hurry up.  Poor man didn't stand a chance, I can snatch and grab kitchen stuff and be at the counter with my Visa card out quicker than he could cross the threshold of HIFI planet!

 

But I only bought necessary things - a white salad bowl and 2 white creme brule ramekins.  Oh and some cupcake cases, some really cute storage label thingies, a cookie cutter in the shape of clouds, ummm, think that's all.  Like I said the necessities of life - this was a cooking shop - we all have to eat!

 

The car was parked this end, so into the boot with the goods, when I noticed that the lighting store was having a 50% sale!  50%.  Wow.  So I asked Mr K if he is still looking for a floor lamp for his office - good time to look I say!  We walked out of there with no floor lamp - but with the following:

1. A very nice light for the dining room
2. A chandelier (fake - of course!) for our bedroom
3. 3 shades for the hallway batten lights
4. 2 shades and hanging kits for the guest rooms

My excuse was that they were on sale and we had only lived in our house for 11 years with NO light fittings at all (except for the bare batten holders the builders put in)  Not sure why Mr K was starting to look tired, maybe it was the thought of putting all these up when we got home - they all said D.I.Y

 

Back to the car, unload goodies.  Our walk continues.  Next was Freedom.  We always pop in here, to see whats new and hope that they bring back our favorite lounge - The Barcelona. I have also been undecided about a 2 seater lounge for the reading room.  Didn't want to spend too much on it, but still liked it enough to keep looking out for it on sale.  The minute we walk in, Mr K spies a new leather office chair - perfect for his office.  I leave him swiveling and checking out the airlift features and go and sit in the Ashbury - yep still like it.  The lovely saleslady who has got to know us by now, tells me that its still on back order and still $899. 

 

I am chatting to her and looking around, Mr K has got bored with his Astor and has made himself at home on the Townhouse.  He asks me if I have considered this one?  Nah, its not the right style.  It's very comfortable he says.  I go try it and yes, it is very comfortable.  Right colour, and the style is actually rather nice, not old fashioned like the Ashbury, but could blend very well in any environment.  The saleslady, lets call her Janet, because that's her name, tells me that all the staff go sit in that lounge as its so comfy. 

 

Janet, being the great saleslady she is, runs off to the computer and comes back beaming as the 2 seater Townhouse in Maine Stone is available.  I wont have to wait.  AND its only $699 AND there is a promotion that if you spend $1000 you get a gift voucher of $100!   The planets had all lined up and the furniture gods were smiling.  Or was that Janet thinking of her commission?  For she knew she had me.  1 hour later we left Freedom. 

 

With:

1. The Townhouse being delivered this Friday
2. 2 x Astor on back order but delivered 1 October - yep we fell for the old buy one get one half price trick.
3. 3 cushions - now that's a whole new post right there
4. 2 curtains
5. 1 curtain rod
6. 2 x candles in glass jars - don't ask
7. A very happy Janet

NOW we can go buy a CD.  But you know?  Neither of us had our hearts in it and I didn't even take it out of its wrapper and play it until Sunday evening. 

 

Shopping is exhausting.  Physically but most of all, mentally.

 



The Townhouse



The Astor

 

 

 

 

 



 



The Cat who sleeps around

The story of the cat continues ...

Does this cat have no morals?  Or is sleeping around ok these days :-)

Caught sleeping in my In Tray

 

Caught sleeping in the dogs bed

 

Tom Dog had to be comforted when he found the cat in his bed

 

Caught taking up a chair on the deck

 

Caught in the little dogs bed

We are going to rename him GOLDILOCKS!

Spring and Photography

Happy, Sunshiny First Day of Spring Everybody!!

Even though its a little overcast here in Perth, it still feels like spring - there is a balmy breeze and a hint of summer in the air.

Spring always reminds me of my Dad's saying ..

 

Spring is Sprung

 

The Grass has ris'

 

I wonder where the

 

Birdies is?

 

 

My garden is a pretty bad state, having been neglected the whole of winter.  As most things are in pots (in preparation for moving to Wattle Grove - 3 years ago!) plants don't do very well and need a lot more TLC.

Going to have an overhaul of the whole garden this Spring and while I am doing that I will use it as a subject to develop my photography skills.

BIG learning curve ahead of me as I am (a) not very artistic  (b) not at all photogenic myself and (c) clueless when it comes to this whole subject.  But we all have to start somewhere and this is where I start to learn and experiment about the art of taking better photo's.