My November

November seemed to go by very slowly for me. It was a typical late Spring / early Summer month, perhaps a little more rainy than usual. There were a couple of really cool thunderstorms, and only one very hot day. I was feeling better health-wise than I have been, and I managed to get out to see a couple of exhibitions and do some shopping for some things I needed (art supplies) and things I already have a lot of (books!).

I tried to do NaNoWriMo, vowing to write a short story every day, but I didn't get very far unfortunately. I think I wrote 6 before I ran out of steam. I think I will have to actually crack on and write a novel one day though, just to prove to myself that I can do it.

What I've been growing ...
Here is our cherry harvest for 2019! It doesn't seem like much, but it's more than last year. The tree itself has grown quite a bit too -- not taller but wider. We decided to try picking the cherries while they were still unripe, to prevent them being ravaged by birds. It worked very well. They ripened up in about 3 days sitting on the kitchen bench, and we ate them for dessert last night.

The larger fruits are coming along nicely too. They take a bit longer to ripen up -- the apricots here should be ready at the end of December. I really want to be ready to harvest them and process them properly this year.

The roses are blooming strongly this year, too. They seem to be in larger clumps (as opposed to single flowers). Perhaps it's because we've had slightly more rain? They smell divine, too, and when I leave the side door open, the smell wafts into the house.

What I've been planting ...
The garden bed I showed in last month's update post is coming along nicely. It's taken a long time because it kept raining, and we needed a few sunny days near the weekend so Husband and I could lay the concrete base, let it dry, and then later lay the bricks and let them dry. After that was achieved, things went much faster. We bought some bags of garden soil and filled up the bed with them, then put in the lemon tree. The final steps to go are adding a layer of pebbles over the soil, and planting some smaller decorative plants around it. I already have some chosen out. Stay tuned for the final result!

What I've been painting ...
I've been having fun with watercolour painting lately, and also drawing human people, which is different for me. I had a dream that I painted this, and then I turned it into reality. There are a few more too, and I'll show them in a separate post soon. P.S. the painting is still attached to the stretcher board in this photo.

Where I've been shopping ...
I finally visited a Melbourne institution -- City Basement Books. It was pretty overwhelming at first, but after browsing the whole shop I felt settled in, and I think it's become my happy place! I only bought 8 books on my first visit, and I'm resisting going back again too soon. It's one of the few bookshops I've been too (new or secondhand) where you can go in with a shopping list of books by certain authors or on certain topics and have a reasonable chance of finding most of them.

What I've been designing ...
I created a meme, and yes, this is really happening to me tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Bonus pic ...
I dressed up for a fancy birthday brunch for a friend earlier in the month, in my fancy dress in a fancy pose, against a fancy background. Excuse the fancy look on my face! I've let my fringe grow out in the last few months, which you can see quite well in this photo. I like how it looks.

2018 in Review

Firstly, I'd like to make a small announcement. My blog used to be hosted on a different site (Live Journal), but over the course of this year I've been transferring all of the posts over to this site. You can now see my entire blog right from the beginning, in one spot! Just go to the 'Archives' section in the right-hand sidebar. There are over 700 posts going back to 2004, so it's quite an achievement. And yes, here is the obligatory link to the first post, though I doubt it will make any sense to anyone!

Now, on to my review of 2018!

There were a few firsts -- and seconds -- this year. I finished my first magazine-style zine, Intensely Introverted #1, and took it to the Festival of the Photocopier Zine Fair.

I've written zines before, but this was the first one that I want to turn into a series, like a magazine. Work has started on Intensely Introverted #2, but you know what, I'm not sure that I'll return to the zine fair. The amount of anxiety and stress I experienced before and during the Fair wasn't really worth it. I just can't be in a room that full of people for that long. Or perhaps I'll skip a year and only do it every second year.


I went in three (!) art exhibitions, all at NOIR Darkroom: their first anniversary exhibition, Stay Safe, and A Very NOIR Christmas. I feel incredibly lucky to have had these opportunities, and I hope I'll have more in 2019!

(Mine is the one at the top.)Also at NOIR Darkroom, I did two workshops: Painting with Bob Ross and Screenprinting. Both are highly recommended! Since then, Husband and I have started watching Bob Ross' The Joy of Painting on Netflix when we want to relax. Though we now know that creating those paintings isn't quite as easy as he makes it seem!

Early in the year, Husband and I became re-acquainted with a foodie friend, and we decided to have a monthly lunch date together. I've been to many places that I wouldn't have gone to otherwise, and had a chance to dress up (Or even just get dressed at all quite frankly. Leaving the house voluntarily isn't really my thing!)

In June, I finished my first 101 Things in 1,001 Days cycle and started my second one. I did NaNoWriMo, went to the Melbourne Planner Market, and spent much more time outside.

Last but not least, in April I got to wear the Birthday Hat:

Now for the customary stats (last year's stat in brackets):

Books finished:
full-length: 19 (19) . . . . It's not a typo, they're the same!
short & manga: 16 (13)
currently reading as of today: 10 (14)

Blog posts: 46 (57)
Instagram posts: 285 (284) . . . . There may be more this evening!

Craft items started: 2 (2) . . . . (It seems like I never do any craft, but I've been working on my blanket a lot!)
Craft items finished: 4 (4)
Craft projects in progress as of today: 42 (42)

Zines started: 0 (1)
Zines finished: 2 (1) . . . . (if mini zines count! harhar)
Zines in progress as of today: 1 (1)

I hope everyone had a good 2018 and will have an even better 2019! I'll be back soon with my plans for the coming year!

Instagram "Best Nine" for 2018 and What's Important

This is the second year that I've participated in the Instagram "Best Nine" phenomenon. By plugging your Instagram name into this website, you can retrieve the 9 photos with the most 'likes' for the year, packaged up into a handy mosaic. While it seems vacuous, I found last year's exercise to be thought-provoking and even a little inspiring.

Here is this year's result, with thoughts below:

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that my art features in my most-liked photos. Middle-left was an entry for Tara Leaver's 21 Days in My Art World challenge (which I'm pleased to see will be happening again in 2019), so that explains its popularity. Top-left was done for the Art Maker Circle challenge by Nicole Piar. Unfortunately I never finished that challenge.

I have to scratch my head as to why a barely-started painting (bottom-centre) was so popular, though.

I posted very few photos of myself this year, but two managed to make it into the top. I'd like to explore my style more in the future, so this result is encouraging.

And as for the food ... I really don't know! Perhaps there was something about the composition or the filtering that was appealing to people? I'll probably never know. Social media is, in the end, a mystery.

The thing that strikes me about this year's collage is that it's basically a summary of what I'd like to do more of in my life. What's good for my soul. Making art, having meals and spending time with friends, and expressing myself through fashion and (admittedly overly-filtered!) selfies. May there be more of the merry stuff in 2019!

End of 101 Things in 1,001 Days

A couple of days ago, I finished my first 101 Things in 1,001 Days. Like with many things, the last two-and-three-quarter years has seemed like a very long time and also hardly any time at all. My life has changed tremendously since it began, but I'll save that for another blog post.

I ended up finishing 35 things on the list -- approximately one-third. And that's even with reviewing the list every 6 months to take out things I was no longer interested in and adding in new ones. I'm trying not to see it as a dismal failure rate, but in just that it just reflects my personality as a person loves novelty and whose interests can change pretty quickly. I also have a feeling it probably says a lot about the lack of time and energy I have to devote to my hobbies. Perhaps the experience will give me motivation to look at the way I spend my spare time.

I always knew that I'd start a second 1,001 Days well before I finished the first one. I love the concept of (slightly!) longer term planning. Sometimes I want to plan further ahead than a year, but 5 years is a bit too long and daunting! A time period about half that length just seems right to me. I rolled over some of the things I'd completed and enjoyed from my last list. I also re-added others that I didn't complete, because I'm still interested in doing them. Others are new.


Here's the full list (there's also a tab at the top of my blog), and here are a couple of the highlights:

✦ finish KonMariing my house -- well, it's still not finished, even after 2.75 years ... a little outside of the 6 months that KonMari recommends! But I'm determined to finish one day.

✦ write a "reverse bucket list" -- as much as I hate the term bucket list, I think it's a good idea to remind myself of the things I've achieved so far in my life, big and small.

✦ hang all my art -- this was uncompleted from my last list, but it's important to me. Tara Leaver recommends hanging your own art in your studio to help inspire you, and it just makes sense to decorate the house with it instead of it sitting stacked up in a corner somewhere.

✦ watch 50 new movies -- I finished this one way early too, and now that we have Netflix, Husband and I watch a lot more movies. So I've increased it from 30 to 50.

✦ go to 15 art/craft exhibitions -- increased from 10 on the last list.

✦ create a gluten-free flour mix for bread -- I've been meaning to do this for a while. Gluten-free flour mixes are available from my local supermarkets, but they're expensive and only come in small packages. I want to experiment with different blends until I can make the perfect bread. (And perhaps pizza dough, cakes and biscuits too!) Since I've been unable to eat gluten, I've baked a lot less and I've missed it. This item will be a great excuse to take it up again.

✦ have a Harry Potter themed feast -- because who wouldn't want to do that?

✦ write 30 reviews on my blogs -- this item was a lot of fun, and I finished it about a year early last time, so I've increased it from 20 to 30.

✦ read A Christmas Carol every Christmas -- I had this on my list to do once, and I loved it so much that I've decided to do it every year. The message of goodwill and generosity in the book is so wonderful that I want to remind myself of it regularly.

✦ learn 5 songs on ocarina -- I didn't have any music-related items on my old list, as I only took up playing the ocarina late last year. I've been sadly slack with my practice and would really like some motivation to do it more regularly.

Anxiety and Being an Artist

This post could be about anxiety and doing/being anything, really.

Seeing Hedgefairy's latest vlog about her insecurities inspired me to write about it, too. I think it's important to talk about all the parts of our lives, not just the shiny or exciting parts.

I've had anxiety all my life, and I think I will probably have it for the rest of my life. I didn't know what was wrong with me until I was about 25 and was talking to a friend one day about her experiences. They were eerily similar to mine. I finally knew what was wrong. I went to my doctor and a counsellor, and things started to get better from there. Even still, I've missed out on so much because of it: things I've lost, never had nor never tried for, all because of anxiety.

Many other people have talked about what it's like to have an anxiety disorder much more eloquently than I could. To me, it's like when someone comes up behind you and scares the willies out of you. For a split second, your heart is pounding, you feel hot and sweaty, you're terrified, you think you're going to die. You want to jump up and run away. Imagine that feeling lasting for 20 minutes or more, and there's no reason why it's happening. There's no-one behind you -- it's the thoughts in your head that are scaring you. You learn, like Pavlov's dog, what situations might trigger that feeling, and you instinctively avoid them.

So what does this have to do with being an artist, or any other kind of creative? Or even a small business owner?

You need to get out there, sell yourself, promote your business, be on social media. You need to believe in what you do. You have to be able to face any problems that arise.You need to have resiliance and be prepared for failure or rejection. You need to ignore the haters. Anxiety makes all of these prospects so much more difficult and frightening than they might be otherwise. Anxiety is like a hater in your own head.

Drawing attention to myself is the last thing I want to do -- because I know it will lead to situations where my anxiety will rear its ugly head. When I posted on my blog and facebook page about my upcoming exhibition, I winced throughout the entire thing. I've told a few people I'm an artist, but not many. I'm absolutely dreading going to the opening night. Yet these are the kinds of things I will have to do if I want to live a creative life.

I've tried to arrange things so I don't feel too much stress and can go at my own pace. I made a deliberate decision not to give up my day job, so that I'm not under pressure to have an income from my art. I don't have to open an online shop straight away if I don't want to ... or at all. If I don't make art that people like and buy, it doesn't matter. And if, because of that, people don't think I'm a 'real' artist, it doesn't worry me. It just takes the pressure off even more. I also like being an archivist and don't want to give that up.

Lately I've been trying to act on my impulses more and do things before anxiety takes over and shuts down my plans. I try to think things through logically and decide if it's feasible or not based on objective reasons rather than just whether it's too scary. I'll announce some of these things soon, when they're ready (when I'm ready!).

If you're struggling with anxiety or depression, know that you're not alone. Please talk to someone about it. It will get better.

My DNA Analysis -- Part 3

See Part 1 of this series to find out what I knew about my
family background before having a DNA test done. See Part 2 of this series for the results of my first test.

As I mentioned in my previous post in this series, I eventually decided to get my DNA tested again through a different company. It was a difficult decision to make -- the cost was even higher and, to be frank, I think Husband thought I was a little mad. But I had to know.

The second analysis was done through 23andMe, a company based in the U.S. The process was exactly the same as the other test. Because the kit was sent to me and sent back via courier, it was actually much faster than through AncestryDNA. The kit arrived at their lab within 3 days, and I had my results 3 weeks later. The analysis from 23andMe has reports from 4 different areas, not just my ancestry analysis, so I was interested to see what those were, too. (U.S. customers have access to health reports too, but these are not available for Australian customers. Some kind of annoying legal thing, typical...)

Here is my summary result:

And my detailed result:

EUROPEAN:
British & Irish: 55.5% (includes U.K., Irish)
French & German: 15.2% (includes Austrian, French, German, Belgian, Dutch, Swiss)
Scandinavian: 0.8% (includes Danish, Norwegian, Swedish)
Broadly Northwestern European: 27.8%
Broadly European: 0.6%

MIDDLE EASTERN & NORTH AFRICAN:
North African: < 0.1% (includes Algerian, Bahrani, Bedouin, Egyptian, Jordanian, Kuwaiti, Moroccan, Mozabite, Palestinian, Saudi Arabian, Tunisian, Emirati, Yemeni)

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN:
Broadly Sub-Saharan African: < 0.1%

ASIAN & NATIVE AMERICAN:
Native American: < 0.1% (includes Colombian, Karitiana, Maya, Pima, Surui)

If you've read my previous post about my results from AncestryDNA, you'll notice a few differences!

There is no Caucasian or South Asian DNA in this set of results. There's a lot less British, and barely any Scandinavian. There is no trace of Finnish or Russian in this set. However, there is African and -- a huge surprise -- Native American. However, remembering what I learned from my previous test, I reminded myself that these results are all probabilites, not definites.

The way the analysis is done is different too. My DNA is compared to samples from 31 regions, rather than 26 with AncestryDNA. The regions are split up differently, too -- British and Irish are one entity in this set. "French and German" is broadly equivalent to Western European in the other set, but the boundaries are different. My DNA was compared with 10,000 samples, which is more than Ancestry's sample size of 3,000, and of course the sample set comes from different people, so therefore the results could be different.

When I started looking deeper into these results, I saw that the way probability was handled is different. My data is displayed in the form of a 'Chromosome Painting.' I can choose the probability certainty of the results using a slider: from 50% through to 90%. 50% is the default, and this is what was displayed when I first saw my results. It means that for every piece of DNA examined, there was a 50% chance that it matched with a specific regional group. Actually, 50% doesn't seem a very high percentage to me! When I played with the slider, things looked very different.

Here is the slider set to 80%:

Now, the percentage of British & Irish DNA has dropped to 16.1%. The broader categories have risen. All of the lower-ranked regions have been relegated to the 'Unassigned' basket. Even with the slider set to 60%, the Native American portion of my DNA was shunted over to 'Unassigned'. It took a little while for this to sink in, but eventually this fact clicked in my brain:

Less than 1% of my DNA could be Native American, and
of that less-than-1%, there's a 40-50% chance it's from somewhere else.

And where that 'somewhere else' is, nobody knows. Perhaps I should be upset by this vague and unlikely result, but I'm not. It just confirms how difficult it is to pin down our DNA heritage.


This series of posts isn't meant to be a review or comparison of the two different tests. Both have different criteria, and different ways of displaying the results, neither of which is better than the other, I think. This website has a very comprehensive page on all the companies that offer genetic testing (currently 5). All offer slightly different services, so it's up to the individual to decide which one to choose. Apparently some hardcore genealogy fans have had tests done through all five!

Having a DNA analysis done is an experience that's hard to describe. It's a very emotional experience. Perhaps the emotions are different depending on whether you get along with your family or not, but they're there nevertheless. There's a chance that your DNA heritage could be different from your cultural heritage, and this could impact on your relationship with your family. There's also a financial component -- the test costs between $180 and $250, depending on the company. It's a big investment, and you want it to be worth it.

If you're thinking of having a DNA analysis done, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

* Decide what kind of results you are looking for first: genetic testing, genealogy research, getting in touch with relatives, etc. and choose your service based on this.
* Don't expect precise results. DNA technology can't (and probably won't ever) be able to give you answers beyond a certain probability.
* Let go of any expectations. You may not be what you thought you were. Treat the analysis as a fact-finding mission, not a confirmation of what you think you know.


I, according to the results, am more Neanderthal than most people:

My DNA Analysis -- Part 2

See Part 1 of this series to find out what I knew about my family background before having the DNA test done.

Last year, individual ancestry reports via DNA analysis became available in Australia through AncestryDNA. I don't know very much about my ancestry and have always wanted to know more, so as soon as I heard about them, I very much wanted to have the report done.

The details of collecting the sample are slightly unsavoury, so I didn't take any photos. I received a kit with a tube in it, which I had to spit into until it reached a certain level. Then I sealed the tube into a bag and sent it back using the provided post satchel. After approximately 5 weeks, I received an email notifying me that my results were available and ready to see on the ancestry.com website.

WHAT THE REPORT SHOWED

Here is the summary graph of my DNA analysis:

Looking at the summary results, I could only come to the conclusion that I'm not what I thought I was. When I emailed the results to my Mum, I think she was a little shocked. She responded "after all you are 50% Dutch and as far as I know, the only mix on that side is some German and Swedish." (I didn't even know about the Swedish part before reading that email!) Surely then, my ancestry should have more Dutch in it and less British? It left me feeling very confused. When I looked further into the results however, I saw that things were much more complicated.

The AncestryDNA test compared my DNA to that of 3,000 samples from 26 regions in the world, and these were the results (most likely result is in brackets):

EUROPE: 98%
Great Britain: 40-96% (67%)
Ireland: 0-30% (14%)
Scandinavia: 0-25% (9%)

(The following were listed under "low confidence regions")

EUROPE: cont.
European Jewish: 0-5% (2%)
Italy/Greece: 0-5% (2%)
Western Europe: 0-9% (< 1%)

Finland/Northwest Russia: 0-3% (< 1%)

Iberian Peninsula: 0-2% (< 1%)

Eastern Europe: 0-3% (< 1%)




WEST ASIA: Caucasus: 0-3% (< 1%)




SOUTH ASIA: India and Surrounds: 0-1% (< 1%)

As you can see from the percentages above, the results are both very vague and very specific at the same time. Many of the results have a range starting from zero. This happens because my DNA is chopped into 40 pieces and each piece is analysed separately. So, for example, some pieces had anywhere up to 96% Great British DNA, but none had less than 40%. At least one piece had zero Scandinavian DNA, and the rest anywhere up to 25%, but the average amount was 9%.

Any region that has less than 15% maximum and 4.5% average is listed under "low confidence". This means that I am much less likely to have DNA from these groups than I do from the higher-percentage groups. These regions are shown on the map as a ring rather than a solid circle:

In my report, extensive information about each region can be found by clicking on it. There is a map, and illustrated information about the history of the area, similar to a Wikipedia page. Probability is also plotted on these maps in the form of concentric rings. For example, here is the map for the Great Britain region:

There are 3 concentric circles on the map, reflecting the area that people from this region come from. The probability is highest that people in this DNA group come from the central area. The probability is lower the further out you go. Note that the second ring on the Great Britain map covers the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France.

The map for Western Europe (above) also covers the Netherlands area. So, there's a possibility that I could have Dutch DNA heritage from either of these regions ... or none. And where did the Caucasus and South Asian DNA come from? Did I have an ancestor that travelled to Europe along the Silk Road? It was an exciting thought, but I'll never know the answer.

Other, more sobering thoughts came to me as well. What if I don't have as much Dutch heritage as I thought? Are my Dutch ancestors migrants that came from somewhere else relatively recently? And if so, where did they come from? I never really related to Irish culture much, but I could be up to 30% Irish -- how do I reconcile that? As the website explains, a person can inherit more DNA from one parent than the other ... would I have to acknowledge that more of my DNA comes from the side of my family I don't get along with?

That's the frustrating thing about getting a DNA analysis done. I'll never know for sure. All of the statistics are just probabilities, and statistics can't tell the story of human lives. It niggled at me for a long time. I wondered if the results were correct, if the 40 pieces of DNA were a representative sample. I even wondered if the sample had been contaminated. That's why I eventually decided to get a second opinion.

In the next post, I'll talk about my experience with getting a second test done through a different company: 23andMe.

My DNA Analysis -- Part 1

This post ended up being extremely long, so I've split it up into three parts. Today, I'll be talking about what I knew (or thought I knew...) before having the test done. Part Two will look at the results of my AncestryDNA test and why I decided to get a second test done. Part Three details the results of the 23andMe test and some final thoughts.

WHAT I KNEW BEFORE

I don't know that much about my ancestry. Many of my family members are out of touch, and of the others, mental illness and other factors have led to confusion about what is actually correct. My grandparents on my mother's side never liked to talk about the past because of the bad experiences they went through in World War II, and I always respected that and didn't press them.

{Picture Source}
This is the sum total of what I knew (or thought I knew!) about my ancestry before sending away for the report.

On my father's side, the family comes from England and there was a Scottish connection, and possibly Welsh. I can't remember the details very well as I was told them when I was a small child and possibly remember the details wrongly. The first ancestor on that side of the family to come to Australia was a policeman; he arrived here in the 1850s.

On a side note, this caused some embarrassment to me as a child! In 1988, at the time of the 200-year anniversary of the 'discovery'/invasion of Australia, interest in ancestry surged. A list of the convicts on the First Fleet, the first Europeans to settle in Australia, was released, allowing people to trace their ancestry back to these original founders. It was 'cool' to have a convict ancestor. In that atmosphere, I was almost ashamed at having a policeman as an ancestor!

This isn't my actual ancestor: just for illustration purposes!

{Picture Source}
On my mother's side, my family come from the Netherlands. My mother was born there and travelled to Australia with her family as a baby, arriving in 1956. (I remember that detail precisely because it was the same year the Olympics were in Melbourne!) This makes me a second-generation migrant on one side. I know that my family come from the southern area of the Netherlands, and I still keep in touch with some of my maternal grandmother's family there. I've been told that some of my ancestors were from Belgium and I apparently had an Italian great-auntie, but she wasn't in the direct line of my ancestry.

From these snippets passed on from my family, I would expect my ancestry to be entirely European -- mostly Western and Northern European.

I do have to admit, I've always related to the Dutch side of my ancestry much more than the British side. I'm not in contact with anyone from my father's side and, growing up, I spent a lot more time with my Dutch relatives than my British ones. I was exposed to Dutch customs, food, music and even interior decoration to such an extant that I started thinking of myself as a 'Dutch-Australian' rather than 'half-Dutch Australian'. Even though I knew my DNA would only be half-Dutch at most, I have to confess, I did have a hope going into this adventure that my bias would be confirmed.

In my next post, we'll find out!

{Picture Source}

My Hogwarts House

Yesterday, I finally created an account at Pottermore and found out my official Hogwarts House! I don't know why it took me so long to get around to it. I first started reading the books after the third one came out, so that makes it 1999. At the time, I was instantly drawn to Ravenclaw -- it fit my personality perfectly.

When the online quizzes and tests appeared, I did a couple and the result was always Ravenclaw, too. I was a dyed-in-the-wool Ravenclaw! Or was I? When chatting with Husband and some friends earlier this year, they said I struck them as being more of a Hufflepuff. Were the tests wrong, or perhaps I've changed?

About a month ago, I came across a sorting system based on personality psychology. It's quite complicated, and there's no quiz -- you have to read through the desciptions and decide which one fits you best. The site is here and I would recommend it as an interesting exercise if you're interested in psychology. The system is two-tiered. Your Primary sort is based on your value system: why you do the things you do. Your Secondary sort is your methods: how you achieve the things you want to do. It also explains the concepts of Modelling and Performing.

Choosing my House for the Secondary sort was easy: it was Ravenclaw far and away above the others. I had a very hard time choosing a House for the Primary sort, however. In the end, I tentatively chose Hufflepuff first, with Ravenclaw a close second.

While this exercise and learning more about the psychology-based sorting system was very interesting, it left me even more confused than before. Can you be a RavenclawxHufflepuff? That's why I decided to join Pottermore, do the sorting quiz there and get the 'official' truth. Which is: I'm a proud Hufflepuff!

It wasn't much of a surprise actually, when I think back on the last 15 years. I've changed in many ways. Learning and knowledge are still very important to me, but so is community and supporting others. (The rise of the internet is probably partly the reason for that.) In the last 3 years especially, since buying our house, gardening and plants have become a new and passionate hobby for me. That, more than anything else, is probably the reason my friends now think of me as a Hufflepuff!

I am very happy to be a Hufflepuff, as I think it suits my personality the way it is now. And who knows, perhaps I would have been the student to build bridges between the Houses and show that Hufflepuffs aren't "duffers" after all! There's only one drawback to being a Hufflepuff. The House colours -- yellow and black -- are the same as a football team here in Melbourne. None of the other House's colours suffer from that problem. I suppose that if I ever want to deck myself out in Hufflepuff regalia, I will have to make sure the crest with the badger is clearly visible. I don't mind though, because the badger is the most adorable and foresty of all the animals!

I actually think that if I lived in the Harry Potter universe, I would have been a Ravenclaw. If I'd been admitted to Hogwarts at the age of 11, where would the Sorting Hat have put me? I was such a strong Ravenclaw back then. If the hat had given me a choice between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, I would certainly have chosen Ravenclaw. Now, I would choose Hufflepuff. And J. K. Rowling agrees.


TL;DR I'm a Hufflepuff!

If I Were....

Thanks to Tiny Adventures for the inspiration...

a month, i would be: April
a day of the week, i would be: Thursday
a time of day, i would be: about 10am
a planet, i would be: Neptune
a sea animal, i would be: a seahorse
a direction, i would be: North
a piece of furniture, i would be: a bookcase
a sin, i would be: gluttony
a liquid, i would be: tingly spring water collected directly from the source
a stone, i would be: an amethyst
a tree, i would be: a Monkey Puzzle Tree
a bird, i would be: a kākāpō
a tool, i would be: hedge trimmer
a flower/plant, i would be: the rose
a kind of weather, i would be: cold and clear
a mythical creature, i would be: a unicorn
a musical instrument, i would be: a theremin
an animal, i would be: a giant Galapagos tortoise
a colour, i would be: pine green
a vegetable, i would be: corn
a sound, i would be: ducks landing on water
an element, i would be: earth
a car, i would be: a Goggomobil
a song, i would be: Dream Girl by SHINee
a movie, i would be directed by: Miyazaki Hayao
a book, i would be written by: Tom Cho
a food, i would be: Scotch eggs
a place, i would be: home
a material, i would be: paua shell
a taste, i would be: melted cheese
a scent, i would be: Dutch 4-spice mix
a religion, i would be: the Old Custom
a word, i would be: flâneur
an object, i would be: a snuggly crocheted blanket
a body part, i would be: nape of the neck
a facial expression, i would be: wonder
a subject in school, i would be: Ceramics
a cartoon character, i would be: Aang (though I've only seen the first season so far...)
a shape, i would be: curved
a number, i would be: 17

Boo!

Hi, everyone! I'm back!
I told you that as soon as the weather got cooler, I'd feel like knitting again. This is really a seasonal blog.
I don't have anything to show you at the moment, so here's a picture of me!

I just happen to be wearing my skinny scarf that I made a few months ago, though. See, not totally irrelevant!