A good week!

Firstly, our "sister from another mother," PJ, came to visit for a few days this week.  We share a dad but we've mostly been either side of Australia for all our lives.  It's one of those funny tricks of genetics how someone you've hardly ever met can be so similar to you.  PJ is very like my other sister, Jen. She is vivacious, principled, very intelligent and charismatic.  Like us both, she loves art, animals (especially dogs), music, trees and the environment.

I think we share a nose too!

 So, we went and saw art together.

We visited my favorite trees.

Check out the face behind PJ in this pic I took of her with the King Jarrah that I call the Faraway tree!  Cthulu?  Green Man?  We didn't notice it when we were there.

And, she even managed to get me to play my lyre and guitar for her!   Check out my loyal book ends.  It was nearly dinnertime, though to be fair, they are usually to be found nearby. :)

PJ got some video of me playing too so we'll see what comes of that. If they aren't too execrable I will post some here.

She took home the original art I did for the cover of Chicken Soup for Satan and already has it framed and up.  Looks great, though I did wonder how she will explain having a picture of a dog looking at a bowl of soup on her wall!

With her lively ways, PJ got on with everyone, and she even managed to get us all silly enough to let her take these photos.  :)

 

She missed her own dog, little Zella, while she was here, but she gave all of ours so much love that they followed her around like... puppy dogs. :)  I like this pic she got of Rosie's eager face as we were on our way somewhere.  I have no idea what happened to Tuppy in the background though!  Mutant blob!  Argh!

Anyway PJ is back in Queensland all the way over the other side of our huge country now (probably having a big rest).

Another cool thing that happened this week was that I got to 102 000 words on my current novel, Freya and the Hairy Goddess, and we're over the highest plot peak and on the downhill run to the end of the book.  I've had a few extra days off writing this week but will be back into it on Monday.

In more writing news, my busy nieces and their mum finally got around to reading the tween book I wrote for them. It's called "Dog Slobber!" It gets full approval, in fact they loved it, so I will be able to move onto getting that into print soon.

And lastly but not leastly, this week I received my copy of the OBOD's 50th Anniversary Celebration book, The Golden Seed.

It is beautiful and I look forward to reading it and watching the DVD that came with it, but... even more exciting than that, two of my artworks made it into the book!  Woo hoo!

I nearly didn't bother to offer them up because the standard of art amongst the OBODies is bloody high, but am very glad I did.  I'm super proud to have had my works included!

What a week!  Think I might be having a bit of a quiet time next week, but the writing and other creativity will go on of course, if at a bit slower pace.