A few weeks ago, classes come to a close and it was time for the final folio review for my visual arts course. We had worked all year towards this point, and it was wonderful to look back on the body of work created over the year and take in what we had accomplished. There was such a diversity in the student work - you could really tell that each person had travelled their own path in their own way.



For my part, when I saw my selected pieces displayed together, I could finally see what others ...
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Thanks to Kate for the idea behind this post :)

Seven things I’m loving right now:

1) School holidays. Two weeks of no classes, and I'm so glad to have some time off without the constant pressure of assignments. I'm not going away, as travel usually costs more when so many people are taking leave at the same time, but that's okay as I have heaps of things I want to catch up on during the break.

2) My personal cheer squad. I simply can't say enough how much I have appreciated people's support t...
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Wow, time has really flown this year! All of a sudden #blogjune has come around again and it's time to dust off all the draft blog posts that I've been cogitating on (sometimes in writing, but mostly in my head) and hit that publish button again and again. But before that starts, I just wanted to share some long overdue news properly ...

This year I've taken a year off work to study visual arts full-time :)

As many of my friends will know, I love creating and making. Although for many years I'v...
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Our beautiful girl Roxy has passed away after a sudden illness.

Her last day was a beautiful, sunshiney day. Tim and I both stayed home with her, and had lots of cuddles and pats.



It was such a privilege that Roxy chose to share her life with us. She had such a friendly nature, and we loved her to bits. She was our first and only pet, and her absence is felt deeply every day.



Tim built a beautiful little wooden box for her, and I wrote a long letter which we both signed and buried with her. She'...
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For the most part, my 2014 was awful. My Mum passed away at the end of June. She's now with my Dad, who passed away in 2008. It was both expected and unexpected - we thought we would have her with us for much longer. I'm very grateful, though, to have my two sisters. Our family is small now, but still very close.

I hope that 2015 is a good year for all of us. There will be sad memories, as my sisters and I continue to do what we need to do with my parents' estate. There will be new memories to...
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Tim and I both took a big step today. We delivered our analog televisions to the local e-waste recovery centre and said goodbye.

Why was this a big deal? Because we have trouble letting go. I've blogged before about my struggle to overcome a collecting habit that's been ingrained since my childhood. I also have difficulty dealing effectively with things that might come in handy one day, and anything that has a sentimental attachment.

My little black and white TV was a gift from my parents on my...
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A lot has happened since my last blog update, and life has been stupidly busy. But a little bit of breathing space has finally opened up again, and I'm finding my way back towards a (hopefully) manageable routine.

My sisters and I have been working really hard to prepare the family home for sale. It's sad for all of us to part with this house that has been in the family for nearly 80 years and is full of memories. We also haven't had much time to work with, as we need to raise the bond for the...
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Long time, no blog.

We arrived back in Melbourne in July last year (gosh, 'last year' makes it sound so long ago!) after an amazing holiday in the Kimberley. We're now back in our own lovely home, and have enjoyed settling back in to the house and working in our garden. Melbourne's predictably unpredictable weather is certainly a change that takes some getting used to, but it's nice not to be hot all the time (although it's very hot some of the time!).

I've been on a hiatus from work, taking so...
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Well, we are on the move once more! This is a short post for a lot of news, but time is limited so here goes ...

Just after Easter, I submitted my resignation at the university I've worked at for the last 3 years. It was both a hard and easy decision. Hard because I loved my job and the team I worked with. Easy because I miss my family, and as time went on I struggled more and more with the Darwin climate.


So we're returning to Melbourne (again). My last day at work was a couple of weeks ago, a...
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Another year begins, and I'm hoping that 2013 will be a good one! 2012 was a challenging year in many respects, but of course there were plenty of highs to balance out the lows. Mostly it just felt really busy - moving interstate (again!), lots of visitors, lots of work. The year seemed to pass in a flash.

My blogging frequency dropped off a cliff after the #blogeverydayofjune challenge, as per usual. My PC was out of action for much of the year, and I don't really enjoy blogging with my netbo...
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Sally sets forth = sallysetsforth

I started using 'sallysetsforth' as my username for all things social and online in early 2009. Where did it come from? Well, ever since I first went online back in the '90s I've been calling myself sallyforth or a variation thereof. Usually a variation, because someone always seemed to snatch it up first!

I've always loved the term 'to sally forth'. I first heard it in a song from one of my all-time favourite musicals, The Pirates of Penzance, and was immediat...
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Oops, it looks like I've let a couple of months pass by between blog posts again ...

We had a tough start to the year. I still haven't decided whether I want to talk about it here, so for now I won't.

Then came the lead-up to the University first semester at both of my workplaces. My workload was (too) intense. I'm not sure if I want to talk about that here either.

Thanks to the professional development money from our team's Vice-Chancellor's Award, I was able to attend VALA2012. I also attended...

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Wow. What a crazy couple of months it's been.

Sometime it's seemed like a string of disasters ... but there have been highs as well as lows. I haven't blogged (and probably won't blog) in detail about some of the things that stressed me out at the time - partly because I'm a bit of a slack blogger (did you notice?), but mostly because I prefer not to vent on my blog. So I've waited until I've got a bit of distance on recent events, and can now provide you with a brief summary of the ups and do...

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I've made a few veiled references lately to being busy and making plans, but have been keeping the details under wraps until things were a bit more solid. Well, I think it's pretty well confirmed now, to the point where I feel comfortable talking about it online ...

For family reasons, we're coming back to Melbourne for about six months.

We're already in the middle of packing the house up and arranging the move, which is why we've both been so under the hammer lately. I'm flying out next week, ...
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Isn't it funny how a flurry of blogging activity (a la #blogeverydayofjune) is always followed by an extended burnout-induced hiatus :)

My energy levels have been at an all time low this year (possibly the topic of another blog post), and blogging has fallen to the bottom of the to-do list. In fact, a whole lot of things fell off my to-do list. But lately I've started to regain a bit of my former vim, and have been making an effort to get re-involved in the things I love - both online and offl...
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I really need to write the sequel to my last post about the tropical low that became Tropical Cyclone Carlos on 15-17 February, but I felt like writing this post today instead.

It's kind of a gratitude post I guess, but really I just wanted to write about some of the things that were good about today. It hasn't been a perfect day by any means. I started the day dog-tired, I'm finishing it dog-tired, and it was crazy-busy in between. But it was good too.

Good things about today:

• Rain. We got a th...

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Thanks to a intriguing invitation from Kathryn Greenhill, I've started off the year by participating in the Daily Image 2011 challenge on Flickr.

Daily Image 2011 involves posting a photo or video of yourself each day for 365 days, or however many days you can manage. You, or part of you, must appear in each day's picture. The details are on the Librarians Matter blog, and on the Daily Image 2011 Flickr group page.

I'm a sucker for a challenge it seems, although I try to keep it realistic ;) Da...
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My best wishes to all of you for a happy and healthy 2011!

The last few months of 2010 were pretty tough for me, for a variety of reasons that I won't go into here. And I'm pretty sure that 2011 will also throw a few challenges my way.  I generally try to blog in a positive frame of mind, so posts have been few and far between while I've been in struggle-mode. But it's a new year, and I'm ready to get back on board :)

I've got plenty of blog posts in draft mode, just waiting to be polished and ...
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Just a few days ago I was talking about plans on this blog. Well, Tim and I were pretty set on our latest plan, and excitedly looking forward to putting it into action.

And then ... I saw a job advertisement in my inbox. All of a sudden, we're looking at a completely different possible future - also an exciting one.

So instead of all the things that I expected to be doing tonight, we ended up hashing out the pros and cons of our two options, which included doing sums to figure out what we could...
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Sometimes I joke that collecting is in my genes - after all, both of my parents were avid collectors. But really, I was *taught* to collect from an early age. I learnt from the example set by my parents, and I was also encouraged to begin my own collections.

As a child, I collected:

• stickers
• anything related to Snoopy
• badges and pins
• Avon perfume bottles
• novelty erasers
• Princess Di memorabilia

At University I got hooked on science fiction and Star Trek, and began collecting bas...

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Man, oh man, oh man! It really has been ages since I last blogged!

Whilst I won't go into all the reasons why I've been a bit quiet online lately (let's just say I tend to withdraw from the world when I'm under stress), there have been a few changes in my life lately ...

Our long-anticipated move north is on hold (again), this time due to family circumstances. We may still be looking at moving in July/August, but it will very much depend on what else is happening at the time. We'll just have to...
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Woohoo! I spent a good-sized chunk of the last few months working on my e-portfolio for a Uni subject, and today I received my marks - a High Distinction! The lecturer's feedback was great too: "Excellent portfolio, well done, the best by far". Squee!

Alright, I'll stop showing off about it now ;). But it was great to hear that the work that I put into the e-portfolio paid off. Unlike most other Uni assignments, the e-portfolio involved a great deal of self-reflection about my past and present...
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Ahem ... it's been a little while between blog posts, hasn't it? I can't believe it's October already! The time has been flying, but what have I been up to?

Well, at the end of July I went straight from work into full-time study. Surprise, surprise (not) I struggled to get back into the swing of it. Full-time distance study requires motivation and discipline, and I was lacking both.

One of the big differences between this time studying (to complete the Masters) and the last time (for the Grad D...
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Tim and I are now planning to move to Darwin early next year (probably February) rather than late this year. The reason is a mixture of finances, renovations required to rent out our house, and an aversion to moving to the tropics in the middle of the build up.

At the end of July I'll finish work at the beautiful library where I'm currently employed. Rather than do temp work until the move, I decided that this seems like a pretty great opportunity to re-enrol in my Masters in Library and Info...

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The main reason that I'm starting a blog is to help me to communicate with family, friends and colleagues when I move to Darwin. But I don't just want to keep an online diary.

I'd thought about setting up a website and/or writing a blog for a long time, but I felt that it should be 'about' something. That's partly why it's taken me so long to get started. But now I've realised that I can't maintain a blog on just one (or two) subjects for an extended period of time, because that's not how my ...

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Righto, I'll start with some information about myself...

I currently live in Melbourne (Victoria), Australia. I've lived there for most of my life, with the exception of four years spent in sunny Canberra (Australian Capital Territory). Later this year, my partner, Tim, and I will be moving to tropical Darwin (Northern Territory) - a place we've always loved.

I work as a librarian, and think it's a terrific profession to be a part of. I really enjoy helping others find information and resourc...

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