Curly Girl arrived!

Colour me happy! I ordered some cards, a magnet and a 2008 calendar from http://www.curlygirldesign.com/ and it finally arrived. The style is wonderfully whimsical and the graphics remind me of Lauren Child (Charlie and Lola). I can't wait for next year so that I can hang my calendar up! Thanks, JoJo for sharing the link!

Another UFO

This is the "Twelve Days of Christmas" quilt that I started 2 years ago..... It will probably not be finished by this Christmas, but I shall give it a good try. A small matter of a gazillion hollyleaves and suffolk puff holly berries to go on the border...... I am now working on the 2 French hens block and then I'll have to do the 9 Ladies Dancing block before tackling the border.

Cricket season has started

First game of the season today.... Jake's team lost by 4 runs but a good time was had by all.

Jake put in some good hits but felt the absence of The Box that his cricket ignorant mother had failed to kit him out with......

You know you are a quilter if.......

There's more Fabric in the House than Food
"Fat Quarters" are not the heaviest part of your body
Your ironing board is always set up but you never iron clothes
You think of your job as an interruption of your quilting time
You pet Fabric
People are always picking threads off you
You can measure a scant 1/4 by eye
"Featherweight" Doesn't mean Boxer
Your "UFO's" are not from outer space
You clean up your sewing room & they think you are leaving

Simply grateful........

Grateful for good health and grateful for the beautiful sunny day. Grateful for those lovely hugs I get from my boys when they return from school and for the little Possum who loves to crawl into my lap.

Musical Lucky Dip

My music library on Media Player is set to random shuffle. This means that I never know what I am going to get next, and I also end up with some interesting combos. I thought I would just list the first 10 songs that played today and here they are:

1. "Back to work" Martina McBride
2. "Blowing in the wind" Blue Note
3. "Blue Eden" Neil Young
4. "Lipstick Vogue" Elvis Costello
5. "Read me to sleep" from the soundtrack of The English Patient
6. "I won" The Sundays
7. " Amarilli" Cecilia Bartoli
8. "Take me to the river" the Commitments
9. "Comfortably numb" Pink Floyd
10. "A pair of brown eyes" the Pogues

What list would you come up with?

UFO's and WIP's

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I will not allow myself to start a new project until I have finished my UFO's/WIP's. Here they are:

The "I spy" attic windows just needs binding.... should take me a couple of evenings.

The Australia All Over quilt is being handquilted but I'm over the halfway mark. Should be done by Christmas (sounds long? This has been a WIP for almost 3 years)

Leanne's House...... started almost 3 years ago, has been lingering for a year now. Just put the border on today and sandwiched it ready for quilting. Haven't quite worked out the style of quilting yet.


My longest standing UFO which I converted back to WIP last week. Started almost 4 years ago. Need to finish this before Little Possum decides princesses are no longer The Best.

My superpower............

I saw this quiz on Candace Salima's blog and thought I'd give it a go just for fun.... I must say I am pleased with this superpower, and I exercise it all the time in my parenting. Mothering does require a certain ability to read my children's minds.... At a younger and slightly more gullible age, my children believed me when I told them I had an extra eye in the back of my head. Now I'll just share the real reason I am on to their little tricks....

Your Superpower Should Be Mind Reading

You are brilliant, insightful, and intuitive. You understand people better than they would like to be understood. Highly sensitive, you are good at putting together seemingly irrelevant details. You figure out what's going on before anyone knows that anything is going on! Why you would be a good superhero: You don't care what people think, and you'd do whatever needed to be done Your biggest problem as a superhero: Feeling even more isolated than you do now

What Should Your Superpower Be?

Sunflowers

I love sunflowers. They make me feel all happy and cheerful. I particularly love the way they turn their heads to follow the sunlight. Bit of a reminder to me of how I should live my life. With that in mind I think I need to better remember the happy things, the things I am being blessed with. So I will start listing them. And on Monday I shall go buy some sunflower seeds and plant a row in our garden!

Gratitudes: This evening I am grateful for my family especially my children who are the little sunflowers in my life.

40% normal

I found a website where you can take all sorts of quirky quizzes, and I opted to find out how normal I am. Apparently the results can be either flattering or downright disturbing depending on who I was being compared to..... The illustration below is a little psycho though. Not quite me, I feel. (I hope.)

You Are 40% Normal

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

Too much Enid Blyton?

Our little Possum was instructing me on the right way to make us a fizzy ginger drink using ginger cordial and soda water. She then urged me to have a taste saying "it'll taste splendid, mummy!" . I was trying to work out where she'd picked that up, but Peter had the answer. It is all down to Enid Blyton. We have been reading "The Enchanted Forest"and its sequels to her at bedtime for the last few months. Splendid, indeed!

My first vegetable garden....

I am feeling very accomplished.... My first vegetable garden is on its way thanks to a lot of advice and help from Suzi. Since I have no idea what I am doing I really appreciate Suzi's Gardening Helpline. She even provides on site support... :)
Hopefully I will manage to keep it growing and then we will have tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant (aubergine), silverbeet, onion, carrots (in the polystyrene box), and lettuce. My herb garden is well established with mint, flatleaf parsley, rosemary and now some basil. I need to add some chives, and then I think I'll be happy.

25 yrs of singing out loud....

When did I get old? When did that happen? Not that I feel particularly old, but when I saw a list of hits from the past 25 yrs ago I was startled to see that 25 yrs ago started in 1982 and not 1962......

So, I present: 25 years of songs, som of which I have sung along to out loud (at least when alone......)

1982: “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” - Love that one!
1983: “Every Breath You Take” Will always be known to me as the "stalker song".
1984: “Against All Odds” ....mmm.. "take a look at me noooooow...."
1985:”Money For Nothing” Ahh, the year I started watching MTV.
1986:”That’s What Friends Are For” am embarrassed to say I know this one...
1987:”I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”
1988: "Don’t Worry, Be Happy” cue cheerful whistling
1989:”Like a Prayer” Hated the video for this.
1990:”Ice, Ice Baby” Made me gain weight... "Vanilla Ice?..mmm let me check the freezer..."
1991:”Everything I Do I Do it For You” Loved it then, love it now.
1992:” Jump” Always liked a bit of Van Halen
1993:”I Will Always Love You”
1994:”I Swear” I'll pass on the Boyz ll Men, thank-you.
1995:”Have You Really Ever Loved a Woman” Can't remember (the SONG)
1996:”Macarena” danced to this on my hen's night
1997:”Candle In the Wind” sorry Marilyn - Diana hi-jacked this one.
1998:”I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” Fave Aerosmith song by default since it's the only one I know
1999:” Livin’ La Vida Loca” If you don't know this one, it was popular while you were on that deserted island. Personally, I was looking for an island so deserted that I wouldn't hear this.
2000:”Say My Name”
2001:”Bootylicious” And this is where we lose me. Apparently I turned off my radio in 2001 and never went back. Possibly because I had little children?
2002:”Lose Yourself” I did....... more children!
2003:”Crazy in Love”- What?
2004:”Yeah” Huh?
2005″We Belong Together” Sounds nice, couldn't place it.
2006:”Bad Day”-?? Probably had a couple that year.....
2007:”Umbrella” Really? A number one hit this year? Wishful thinking for a country in drought..

How did you go?

Spiderman's apprentices

The boys are demonstrating one of the many uses of their new BMX gloves...

Julian Beever - chalk artist

Julian Beever is an English pavement artist who does the most amazing chalk drawings. His pictures take on a 3D effect, and the ones I have posted here are just a selection.

Batman and Robin to the rescue!
Seal.....

Hole in the ground - people are actually walking around it to avoid stepping in the hole....

My next project?

This quilt is called Annie's Garden and the pattern is made by Material Obsession. I think it would be a perfect bedspread for Lucie's room. So, now all I have to do to justify starting it is to finish all my UFO's....

quilting humour

Yep.... this just about sums it up :)

The Travelogue is ready!!!

We arrived home late Wed evening and Thursday disappeared in a bit of a blur of emptying suitcases and wandering around in a post-travel haze. The flight home was looooooong, but the children were amazing again. We went from a jam-packed flight Helsinki-Hong Kong to a very roomy Cathay Pacific flight HK-Sydney. We had 2 middle rows to ourselves and so the children were able to spread out and sleep. Thomas slept for a full 6 hours, while Jake whole-heartedly embraced the on flight personal entertainment system and watched movies, played games, listened to music etc. Lucie played happily with her new Polly Pocket toys. These are her latest favourite and a very handy size for travelling as the name might indicate. Although...... it was a bit of a stinker to crawl around the floor between the seats hunting for the pieces that fell down.

I have given our travelling experience some thought and decided that travelling around the world with my children can be made easier by - a good supply of biscuits, snacks, toys, friendly cabin-crew and favourite cuddly toys. Note to self - next time wear tomato pasta sauce coloured top since this will better hide the splodges of airplane food...

Anyway - I found myself sleepless on the 2nd night home, and since the boys both woke up at 3am to keep me company, I decided to make good use of the time. First I tucked the boys up in the sofa in front of the TV for a bit of DVD watching. Then I made a call to Serena in London (lovely to talk to you!!!!) before finally settling down with a mug of hot chocolate (failed to make me sleepy) and a bit of blogging. I decided to present most of our holiday in a travelogue. Because I could only post 4 photos at a time due to the size (should probably downsize next time), the travelogue is spread over multiple posts - but easily identifiable by their titles. Hope you enjoy living our experience vicariously!

Norway experience - our house....

This house was built by my great-grandfather in the late 1800's and it was modernised somewhat after WWII. My great uncle lived here and when widowed his sister moved here. She was a keen gardener and the house was famous for having the most spectacular garden in the area. It was full of flowers from spring until late autumn. There was also an abundance of fruits, berries and vegetables.
My great-uncle used to fish in the fjord, and provided them and visitors with a seemingly endless supply of fresh salmon which was enjoyed in the traditional Norwegian way..... poached and served with potatoes and vegetables.

This photo and the next one were taken at 9.30pm... so as you can see, a month after midsummer it is already starting to get dark early..............

The boatshed/woodshed with our little vegepatch in front. It was great to pull out fresh potatoes out of the ground for dinner.

Here is the bigger view with the barn on the left. It is complete with a 3-seater outhouse. This amused the children no end.

Norway experience - conquering the mountain

The children desperately wanted to go up one of the mountains surrounding us. We thought we had better pick a small one for starters. But I needn't have worried. The boys raced up the hillside like little mountain goats (must be the Norwegian genes) and Lucie followed at a slightly slower pace due to shorter legs and frequent stops to pick and eat blueberries - Lucie's new favourite berry.


On the way up we found the dam for the little hydroelectricity plant that serves the local area.

Here are the children at the top enjoying a well-earned snack of the best chocolate on earth. (No, not Lindt or Valrhona but FREIA!)
Our house is down by the sea, a little to the right of where Jake is sitting.

On the way back to the house we came across the biggest sandpile ever. It just had to be scaled, of course!
Here is Jake making his way down (note the hand sticking up at the top of the pile - this is Thomas making his way up...)

And here is Thomas..... This method of descent was purely accidental and his face was a picture! He had to shake a bit of sand out of his daks afterwards and was lucky not to have lost his shorts on the way down. That would probably have been uncomfortable.....