Resting up

This week for me has meant hours and hours and hours with my leg elevated up in bed. Lets just say it has been quite an adjustment for everyone. The kids have just brought all their meals, books and games  in to my bed to keep me company. They  also brought  a good share of dirty feet, crumbs and whinges  in here too.

The kitchen company finally reappeared ( six weeks after we moved home) with the range hood box cover to be installed. They seemed to have completely forgotten about the two missing drawers that have still not reappeared and left with vague mutterings of coming back with the rest next week. Now I have heard that before, say about six times, so we'll see.

Still, even a little progress is exciting when there is not much else going on. There is still shelving to be installed above the window and a final coat of paint but it is slowly getting there.

In the meantime I have been distracting myself from the state of the house with well placed floral arrangements from my mum. I call this one "Still life with gladioli and yellow painting trestle".

I made a start on some crochet  triangle bunting, which I plan to embellish with  some daisies from a  Mollie Makes pattern.

I finished the hand sewing for my foxy pillow and  am itching to be able to sit up at the sewing machine, but am trying very hard to be patient.

The kids have been busy too. An animal research station (heavily inspired by the Octopod) from the boy. Each animal has its own habitat and food supply. Always sensible when you have carnivores in the mix.

 A camera from my kindy girl ( she'll be wanting her own blog next).

And is that bunting I spy in a new drawing? I did have grand plans to sew some before a certain five year old birthday, in only a few weeks. This time of year everything seems to speed up, meanwhile I'm just here snailing my way along, writing long lists and trying not to get panicky.

Finally after eight days, I can actually walk without it being a major problem. This week I have realised how grateful I am for my legs. While they are not long or slender, and neither are my feet I might add, they generally do their job very well of getting me around and about, on my bike, or a scooter, up ladders painting and bouncing around on the trampoline with my kids. I had been a bit dismissive of these  good, sensible, reliable friends and I will never take them for granted again.

Woolly winter wanderings, the Warwick way

So, last weekend I escaped for the inaugural annual sanity sewing circle girls weekend. My sewing group (which kind of fell apart this year due to my reno and general domestic hoo-ha for the other girls)  were all still very keen to take some time out to recharge our worn out mama batteries.

It had dawned on me that while renovations are exciting (in a nausea inducing kind of way) they are also very, well BROWN. As in brown mud, brown timber, brown sawdust, and brown dirt and dust everywhere. And whilst I like the colour brown (it's black I'm not friends with) one can have too much brown. Especially in winter, when the days are equally grey.

 For a colour lover like me, all that brown is a big ask. And a weekend of riotous colour was just what the doctor ordered for my cranky pants mood.

With two of us able to crochet in a basic fashion and one keen to learn we headed west for the Jumpers and Jazz festival in Warwick. We booked into an all day crochet class and had grand plans to go op shopping (regional are always the best), sleep in, wear coats, scarves and boots, slurp hot chocolates, stay up late chatting and soak up eyefuls of glorious yarnbombing. It exceeded all our expectations and the drive home late on Sunday was filled with plans to go back next year.

For me, it was the perfect combination of gorgeous architecture and colourful woolly goodness.

The deciduous trees dotted either side of the main town street had each been claimed (by either groups or individuals) and had been adorned by either crochet,

or knitting,

or paper,

or felt

or fabric,

or recycled plastic.

Several had been done solely by children.

And some were just, ahem, interesting.

There were some gorgeous little shops to explore.

And pretty things to covet, (but not purchase as unfortunately I have other  porcelain items to throw wads of money at, you know the white vitreous china versions essential to a functional bathroom).

There were tiny details everywhere. Some required you to look up high.

Some were down at your feet.

Roboboy declares this his personal favourite, after spending an eternity trawling through all my photos.

And Liongirl predictably chose this one.

And I have to admit, this little yarny badger was pretty darn cute.

Me, I'm not sure I can choose a favourite, but I do have a few more to share in another post.

Running away to crochet

I have hit a bit of a reno hump. Or maybe it's a slump. That point in a renovation where you feels like it is never going to end and why on earth would a sane person choose to do this? I could whinge and moan about the endless unforseen problems that have cropped up and the extra money that somehow we need to scratch up. I could complain  that living in a rental house with no landline and no mobile reception except outside on the front porch (in winter) sucks, and discovering that the camera charger is packed somewhere in one of the 78 boxes under the house is not ideal for photo documenting a renovation.

 I could also add that moving house with a neurotic cat creates the added bonus of needing to wake up at 449, 458 and 512 daily to let the cat out, then in, then out again. This is instead of the cat deciding to urinate on a whole box of important papers like rental contracts, builders contracts and tax documents which you may or may not discover for several weeks. And lastly, if I was choosing to head more towards a rant, I could add that discovering that both your children are infested with nits, can only be topped by the growing awareness of your own very itchy scalp.

So instead of burdening you all with these renovation woes, I will leave you with this glorious colourful yarny image. Yes, I have indeed run away for the weekend for a spot of therapeutic crochet. To the Jumpers and Jazz festival in Warwick no less. Back soon with some colour, some crochet and hopefully a better personal demeanor and a louse free scalp.

School holiday snapshots

Betsy has an old fashioned wind up doorbell, with every wind it lets out a shrill tring tring tring, for as long as the children keep winding. And the children do so love to keep winding. The other morning, early, that tring tring tring dragged me away from the porridge. I was about to rouse, when I opened the door to discover miss Liongirl clutching this crepe myrtle branch in her grubby paws. For me, as a gift, the little monkey had scaled the tree herself to get it. She insisted on a vase and lucky I have so much milk glass lying around.

Now that I have actually crocheted something to completion, I feel completely justified in starting something new, a stripy cushion for the girl this time. Must say, I do feel like a lunatic sitting around doing this in the sweltering summer heat but it gives me something to do while I supervise the kids when they swim. Now just need to work out where I am going wrong on the ends when some rows are just a bit shorter than others.

This is what happens when very clever people crochet- an iced vovo replica. I found this recently at Handmade High Street, looking forward to wearing my iced vovo on my lapel when it cools down enough to wear something requiring a lapel. For anyone unfamiliar with an iced vovo, they have been around for decades and consist of biscuit, pink icing, strawberry jam and coconut.

And look what my mother in law turned up with. A replica of our burmese Bella. So that when Roboboy has a sleepover he can bring his cat with him for company. I think it is an uncanny resemblance. They are also the only ones in the house lucky enough to be getting holiday naps I might add.

Instead we have been doing pretty much daily bouts of hosing on the trampoline.

Visiting our neighbours for swims, we have open slather on their pool as most of their children are all grown up at uni, sometimes if we are lucky their nine year old is home to play.

When it's too hot and the sun burns in the middle of the day we crank up the aircon and fall back on our old faithful friend mobilo,

and dig out old games for another try.

Sometimes I go to the beauty parlour and get extreme makeovers involving yellow eyeshadow and multiple lip glosses. Roboboy made up a menu for me, so I can order from miss Liongirl's extensive range of options.

and later when it cools off, it's time for a ride. i.e. Roboboy and I ride while miss Liongirl sits in her chariot and stuffs herself with snacks. Ah school holidays, we love you and we also just a little bit love that there is only a week to go.

Crochet cushions and holiday musings

I learnt to crochet at a class nearly two years ago. I was a very slow learner and of course did not manage to finish the class cushion during the three sessions. By that time I decided that I did not actually like the colours I had selected and could not force myself to finish it. Then I fluffed around making bits and bobs but not really starting anything that could be termed a project. I went to Spotlight and was not overwhelmed by the wool colour options there either. Finally I found a pattern for a cushion cover that was not too holey as I didn't really want to see the cushion through the crochet and chose some colours that seemed more me.

And then it just took another year or so to finish it. The back is crocheted too, same pattern, slightly different combination of the same colours. (And somehow with about 20 extra stitches per edge). I  had no idea how to actually join it and ended up just chain stitching the sides together ( with a bit of leapfrogging over those extra stitches, hence the puckering). To be honest I'm still not totally sure about this colour combination. I think it's the egg yolk orange that is giving me pause. Although it does rather compliment the bird house. And it is actually finished, woohoo!



Meanwhile I have been letting the kids loose on the deck with the paints.

And with home made slushies. (Anything to counter these hot hot days we are having).

I stumbled across this lost art work done about  18 months ago  in prep and popped it in a frame.

And we managed a quick holiday trip to Ikea and came home with these two glorious duck egg blue velvet cushions. Velvet + duck egg blue + Ikea are three words I would never had put in a sentence but look at that for just $36 for both including the inserts. Love love love.

In other news, our plans had the engineering completed just before Christmas. Now we are just waiting on certification and unfortunately we just found out that the certifier is away until the end of the month. The builder has  seen the plans and given us the option to continue to live in the house or move out and we are completely in two minds about whether to stay or go.

And of course we are counting down the months left using our dogs breakfast of a kitchen.

Nurse Nancy essentials

Liongirl has completely been swept up in the love for her favourite Little Golden book about Nurse Nancy. It has been given pride of place on her bedside table for weeks. It appears to actually be a reference book for nurse-hairdressers (she plans to do a double degree) in training. She has been bugging me for a little shelf just like Nurse Nancy has for weeks.

See Mama, Nancy has a tea set and bandages and a little red phone......

Since we had most of the accessories already, all we needed was a little shelf. Look what popped up at the oppie for $12 when I was dropping off bags of declutterings. Well, this is after a good clean and some undercoat.

A sample pot of a new Dulux colour called Tapioca and a little organising and voila. Apparently all we need now is  a little red phone.

All the goodies on the top two shelves are op shop finds, the little toadstool money box turned up the same time as the shelf. This baby doll has already received her full quota of  bandaids, needles and wet nappies. I am getting daily blood pressure checks and applications of yellow eyeshadow and glittery lip gloss.

Meanwhile the boy has been doing quite a bit of this,

and I have been spending my spare time trying to finish this two year cushion (oh the mortification). Can I add that crocheting in 30 degree summer heat is completely bonkers. At least it's not a blanket.

Aside from the de cluttering, I am on a project finishing frenzy. Watch this space.