Day 2 Challenge....Amongst other things

When I decided yesterday to jump in the deep end and take part in the Kids Clothes Week Challenge, I really had no idea it would take me to such a place of frustration!  Yesterday, day one, piece of p*ss!  I tackled the Scooby Doo pj's with a flurry of excitement!  I decided not only to make them for my son, but for the two girls too, and am putting them away for Christmas.  So I finished the shorts of the pj's and will do the tops another day....

Apologies for the crappy photo!  It's almost 10pm and I couldn't be fagged finding my camera.....

I will also say that along with these three pairs of pj pants, was another five!  I had orders for Scooby pj's, so they got done in the line up too!   Psst......If you would like to order some for your own kids, there's still plenty of fabric available and the pj sets I make are HERE!

So in the excitement of getting Day One's project done, I decided last night to tackle a new pattern, that I could just whip together today.......fail.  I printed off the pattern and spent the following hour scratching my head trying to figure out how the hell it all went together....and eventually gave up and went to bed.  Cue 1pm today, when I got it out again and was determined to wrap my head around it.  Approximately one hour later I literally said to myself "I'm just going to wing it and see if it turns out"!  This is how far I've gotten....

SO far - SO good!  It's a new playsuit/romper pattern, and upon trying it on Chloe - it seems to be working!  Hooray!  I'll be finishing this baby off tomorrow.  It's a Christmas present for my gorgeous little niece.  What do you think so far??


In other Breaking News -

Me thinks these carrots are past their best by date?

I decided whilst watching X Factor last night that I need to grow my hair.  And given that my hairdresser appointment is next week, I paused and captured Nat's hair......that top pic shows she DOES indeed think!!!!

I've had a lovely day, with a couple of good news stories - but nothing I can share right now!  Let's just say things are looking up in the world!

Do your kids know who Scooby Doo is?  Do you take photos of hairstyles you like to take to your hairdresser?  Or am I strange??

Another Manic Monday - with a Challenge

Good afternoon!  What a fantabulous day I've had so far - here's a run-through......

Woke up feeling like the massive gross knot that had been in my throat for a few days had finally left - hooray!

Found Chelsea and Cadyn were downstairs already in their school uniforms - hi-fived myself upon realisation that the two weeks of school holidays had ceased!!  Woohoo!

Rounded them up and took them to school very happily.  Not so happy to get to Cadyn's bag hook and find several piles of crap that had been left there for TWO WEEKS.  Including a bag of sopping wet swimming clothes from the last day of school (just savour the thought of that smell), a random pink jumper from their "pink day" AND the piece de resistance (said with French accent) - THIS:

Mmmmmm......nothing like cheese and crackers with a good dose of penicillin......this beats the wet clothes smell.

Dropped Chloe's kindergarten forms in and worded up the kinda teacher that I NEEDED the two longer sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays due to work - she seemed lovely enough, and will hopefully remember my cheerful disposition when allocating Chloe's kinda sessions next year!

Swimming - same, same.

Took seven of the ten smoke detectors I bought from Masters back for a refund.  Yep, I was kind of cajoled by a salesman that we NEEDED to have a smoke detector in every single room of our house.  Andrew did not concur.  Refund done.

Rang the concrete dude and confirmed we would be getting our new driveway ASAP! Yippee!  No more freakin mud being trawled through the house.

Remembered to email the basketball club about a uniform for Cadyn.  Figuring he can't really play naked next season?  Although it would be amusing....

Remembered to cut off the electricity at the old house.  Yep, it's been left on whilst they were selling it. But now it's SOLD.  Got grumpy at the guy on the other end of the phone who told me I would be charged $43 just for some sod to read the farking meter.  Greedy.  

And this was all done and dusted by midday!

Now I'm off to my sewing room.  FINALLY Cadyn has asked me to make him something.  Well, I lie, a year or so ago he asked me to make him some shorts, which I did. And he refused to wear them.  Couldn't give me a reason, just wouldn't.  So I sold them.  Win win.  This time round, he's claimed some Scooby Doo fabric I bought a shit load of, and wants pj's.  So, I'm joining in a bit of a challenge over at Elsie Marley - KIDS CLOTHES WEEK CHALLENGE.  Pj's today, who knows what else I'm going to get made over the coming week?

How's your day going?  Do you sew for your kids - and do they wear what you sew??

Saturday Night Boogey - The Wedding Edition

Good evening!  I still feel like shit and have been plodding around home all day feeling sorry for myself.  I feel like I have run a marathon and each and every muscle in my body is aching because of it.  Unfortunately I do not run marathons, so cannot use that excuse.  It's a stoopid virus.  So, instead of being at work tonight as was scheduled, I'm surfing the net.  And I've just come across the Saturday Night Bloggers Boogey over at Little White Dove!  


Tonight, in my boogey debut, I bring you MY Wedding Edition.....

My now big boy Lochie walked me across the lawn to Andrew, at the tender age of 5, and gave me away!  All to the tunes of Fro-boy Guy.... Remember Australian Idol?

I actually heard this song on The Today Show one morning when they put on a whole wedding for a young couple on a boat!  Fell in love with it, so had it as one of the songs playing whilst we signed our marriage certificates.  Nice.

Our first dance.  Under a gorgeous white marquee with ivy and fairy lights, in our backyard.  I have the most beautiful photo from that dance.

I can't remember if this was actually played at our wedding......it was New Year's Eve after all.  But - this song was HUGE when I first met Andrew and it was a bit of an awkward song to have playing loudly in the car, sitting next to a guy you'd just met!  Couldn't really sing out loud......

Look how young Joel and Benji are!!!  I still love this song, it was big in 2003 when we got married, and once again - the vodka haze doesn't help my memory - but I'm certain we would have rocked out to this tune too!


So there's my wedding tunes in a nutshell!  What I love most about these songs is that I do actually remember the three most important of them!!  And I love that Andrew and I chose all three for good reason.  An interesting but useless fact is that the song my ex-husband and I danced to at our wedding back in the 1990's was chosen spare of the moment because we basically had no "special" song of significance!  I can't even remember the name of it - was sort of a sign really wasn't it?

What were your wedding songs?  Or if you were to get married, which songs would you choose?

Gonna Make You Sweat!

I had no intention on writing a blog post tonight.  I have worked all day, then gone straight to the Season Opener for Junior Cricket......................................   Sorry, that is a big long line of dots because the excitement that cricket brings to my life is just that, like a long line of dots.    And now that I'm home and have make a hot chocolate, put on my pj pants and started popping the immune system boosting tablets I bought from the chemist on the way home, I decided it was a good time to catch up on all the blogs I read.

UNTIL

I logged in and found that Blogger wanted to tell me:

"You are currently not following any blogs"

WTF?!?!?!?  Not normally one to panic, I felt my heart pick up pace and my finger clicking the mouse, trying to figure out what kind of cruel game Blogger was playing with me??  I diverted the mouse back to FB, to my handy-dandy-blogging-library-friends, where I put out my anxiety ridden call to help.  And thankfully, a lovely level headed blogger calmed me by saying it had happened to her and to refresh or go out and back in to Blogger.    PHEW.  (Thanks Carmel).

So in a bizarre roundabout way, it made me think of some of the things that make me sweat.  The things that raise my blood pressure or peels anxiety out of its hiding place.  So here are a few.....

*  Meeting new people - namely Mothers whom I've never met before.  This should not worry me, but it does.  I can't help wondering what they think of me?  Don't talk too much.  Don't not talk enough.  Don't get too friendly.  Sad I know.

*  Watching my kids hurt.  Like, really hurt.  The hurt that produces tears.  Each of my four kids have done damage enough to themselves to reduce me to a mess.  And I'm pretty sure there will be more.

*  Expecting visitors and looking around to see my house resembles a literal bomb site.  Happens all too often.  Although I go into a tizz over it - it's also the best remedy to a messy house.  Never do I clean as well as when I am expecting people!

*  Big sporting events.  Strange.  11 years ago, before I met Andrew, I had never really watched sport.  Never participated in sport (well, apart from my famous season of soccer when I got the trophy for most improved).  Never had family members participating in sport.  Now I find myself at Cricket finals.  Basketball finals (remember THIS final?).  And bloody AFL Grand Finals!  It's all too much....

Ok.  I could go on and on.  But it's now 10.30pm and I need to walk back down the freaking stairs (I now FULLY understand why my pleas for a house with stairs when I was younger fell on my parents' deaf ears) and get another fancy Immune-boosting tablet, before traipsing back up here to curl up in bed and hopefully be cured of this lurgy by morn.

Tell me - what makes you sweat?  Well, apart from the obvious??

Night night!

Blah....blah blah!

I've been a busy little beaver (so childish that every time I hear that word I laugh?) this last week or so!  Apart from the fact that it's school holidays here, which itself is enough to generally send me in to a spin - I've also well and truly got my Sew-jo back!    The last few months have been mind-blowingly maniacal, and I'm still recovering.  But our renovations are ALMOST finished - just one bloody toilet door to be hung!  Our house is feeling like a home - mostly due to the amount of crap that everyone feels comfortable leaving lying around.  My Dad is recuperating from his generous stint in hospital and scaring the shit out of us all.  The sun has been shining at least a few days a week, lulling us Melbournians into a false sense of Spring.

Things are looking up in the world.

I took my two working week-days off work last week, and spent it hanging out with my two primary school kids.  It was actually refreshingly lovely.  I also took Saturday off work, for the AFL grand final.  But we won't talk about that........bloody Swans.

When Chelsea asked me yesterday if we could go and watch "Hotel Transylvania" at the movies, I said yes (if you've seen it, you will now understand the post title!).  I sms'd her bestie's Mum, who also happens to be my friend, and arranged a weeknight date.  Unheard of.  We took Lochie along too.  Had a fabulous laugh at a really great film, and was later introduced to HARRAJUKU CREPES!!!  What rock have I been hiding under????  FAR OUT!  I didn't order one because I really wasn't sure what on earth they were all about.  But I made sure to help both Chelsea and Lochie (and my friend) to eat theirs.  Now all I can think about is a return trip.  Nom nom nom......

I've also been chatting to the girls at The Handmade Library!  And just yesterday they unveiled an Amaze-balls give-away!  Which you can check out AND ENTER HERE.  I am very happy to be a sponsor of the give-away - so head on over and tell them I sent you!

And today?  Well, today I'm having another chat, and a cuppa, with Clare from Clare's Craftroom.  Clare is running a series of morning teas with a bunch of lovely crafters - so I'm wrapt to be included!

Oh - and I'm off to work!  So that's it for now.  I will leave you with some of the results of my return to the sewing machines.......

All of these goodies can be purchased from Thursday 18th October when I hold my Out To Sea Market Night!  HERE is where you will find the details.

What have you all been up to in my absence??

I Don't "Get" Smoking?

There.  I've said it.  I've said it before, to many people, but am just going to put it out there here - I just don't "get" the appeal of smoking.  I don't understand why people start.  I don't understand why they continue.  And I mostly don't understand why they don't give up when their health has been jeopardised.

The reason I am now making these statements on a public forum is because my dear old Dad is still sitting up in a hospital ward, waiting for approval to have a triple bypass.  He has been smoking for over 55 years.  He had a stroke about ten years ago, which obviously wasn't a big enough scare for him to quit - but this week's health problems have him throwing away his tobacco and plastering himself in nicotine patches.  But really, isn't it just too late now?

Not only is his heart in dire straights from all the smoking, his kidneys are up shit creek too - which he seems to think is against him being a good candidate for the surgery.  Now, obviously I am not in Queensland with him, so getting a clear picture of how things are going is not an easy task.  There's only so much the nursing staff can explain over the phone, but the general picture is that they have done all their assessments and sent them to the specialist hospital in the city to await their answer.  What happens if they say no?  

I was talking to my sister the other day, giving her the run down on where things were at with Dad's condition, when we nearly got in to another philosophical conversation.  Only nearly because I was at work, and really couldn't spare the three hours the conversation could have taken!  We do like a chat.  But basically, the crux of my argument always leads me back to:

Why would you willingly do something to your body that you know will more than likely kill you?

Why?  I need people to explain this to me.  Yes, I understand it's an addiction.  Yes, I understand that kicking a habit is hard work.  But why?  Why not kick it to the curb?

My sister has been living with half her lung capacity for years now.  And I have no doubt that the sorry state of those said lungs will be what takes her from this world.  And I don't get it.  I hate knowing that she, my brother and my Dad's health has been shot just because of a choice to take up something they KNEW was dangerous.  Well, Ok, I'll give my Dad a semi-leave pass because the 50's loved glamorising smoking!

It's not too late.  This is my mantra.  My Mum gave up smoking years ago and her health has been so much better.  My late Nanna gave up at age 80!!!!  NEVER. TOO. LATE.

Soooooo......wait a tick whilst I climb down off my soap box.......

Now feel free to bombard me.  Tell me WHY?  Why do you smoke?  Why don't you give up?  And if you have given up - what was the catalyst?  I really would like to understand!

**** Disclaimer - Ok, so I'm not perfect.  I have been known over the years to get wildly drunk and shove a cigarette in my mouth.  But I have certainly regretted it every.  single.  time.  Lucky I don't get wildly drunk any more!!

On A Brighter Note....

I like to take photos on my iPhone.   In fact, some days I wonder what the hell we all did before we had cameras on our phones?  Anyway, it's great to be able to look back through your photos and see what the past few weeks have brought.....

I took this photo because I wonder if anyone actually makes stroganoff from scratch - you know, without a packet mix?

Something super yummy I whipped up for our staff meeting!  A pumpkin and spinach frittata - Yummo!

Wouldn't it be great to be able to sleep so well, so uncomfortably?

Chloe has discovered the little garden area down the side of the house...

And the following day claimed it as her fairy garden.....

This photo was sent to me by Andrew.....Cadyn out with his Dad, Uncles and Pop at the pub before the footy.  DISCLAIMER - the cider was NOT drunk by him!

One of the easiest but most effective birthday cakes I have ever made!

What to do with a 13 year old's day off school?  Send them out to rip out a garden...

My very exciting purchase...

The new baby!  Which I still have to learn to use to its full potential...

New range of handmade goodness at Ms Midge

What to do whilst waiting for stitches in emergency?  Dance!

And watch dvd's...

All glued up and ready to go home!

A divine custom order - made on the new machine !

The "after" shot of the garden bed above.

Who else whips out their phone at random opportunities?  And are you surprised sometimes by what you have captured?