All Good

Well PJ was a champion. He was in and out very quickly and we were home within hours. Still a bit sore and will be for a day or two. I am very impressed with my little boy.

PJ’s Turn

Well now we have hubby home and safe, our youngest P is having a cyst off his tongue and a tooth out under general anaesthetic this morning. The fun never ends at our house.
I am sitting in the coffee lounge of the same hospital only 8 days later waiting for another beloved to come through. This time I am much more relaxed about it. They let me go right in with him until he was asleep. I know they are taking great care of my baby and I will be with him when he wakes up.

Out of Surgery

I am quickly posting to say that hubby has his bypass yesterday and is doing well. He is still in ICU and I will be visiting him in a few hours. Thanks for the well wishing messages. We appreciate them very much.

I love technology

I am posting this from my iTouch. This is just amazing to me! I have ordered an iphone and should get it next week. I need it asap. We found out today that my DH is having cardiac bypass surgery next week and I am going to be blogging about his progress on my itouch or iphone for family and friends to follow. Not here, I have set up a different blog for him. If you know me, please email me for the link.

As this is going to be a difficult time for me, I will probably not be here too much. This news has been a shock to us even though he has been unwell recently he has been quite asymptomatic of this problem and we could have lost him at any time. It is complicated but we are thankful that we did not find out the wrong (most difficult of all) way.
I don’t know how I feel right now.

Catch Up

It has been a busy few months. I have been quilting quite a lot and baking in my new kitchen. I love it.

I made ANZAC biscuits for Anzac Day. They were nice and chewy. Apparently, you either like these biscuits chewy or crunchy. I like them chewy. This recipe is from Exclusively Food blog. Yum. This is a good recipe to have so that you can whip up a batch of biscuits from your pantry. Good for me because I often find we have nothing to eat, but I can make these up and keep everone happy until I do the groceries (BTW, I dislike grocery shopping)

My favourite parts of my kitchen, my stove and the glass tile wall. Hubby installed lots of lights under the cupboards so it is nice and bright for seeing my cooking. I think they are fantastic.

Abby is growing up and now has a “big girl” haircut. She just loves being right near me and watching everything I do.

We took another road trip, even packing the kitchen sink!!! Ha Ha. I sold my kitchen cupboards (and the sink) to a client of mine and we delivered the last lot on our service run to the greater west of NSW. If you didn’t know, I am the NSW/Qld sales and service rep for A1 Quilting Machines. We took a service run for some of the girls who needed a going over on their machines. It was a 1000km round trip.

This sign was funny to me. It was taken just west of Parkes NSW. A bogan is like a redneck, but I am not sure if the gate keeps ‘em out or keeps ‘em in!

It is a long and dusty drive when the asphalt runs out. You know you are out in the boonies when you run out of road.

More dirt road.

Dust as far as you can see. For my US readers, this was taken from the passenger side, the driver is on the right hand side of the car. No dangerous driving for me!

The next day and 300 km away….more dirt road.

Yet more….but we made it back home without any problems.

 

Youngest son turned 8. His cake is a pavlova. It is what he wanted! I made it and he didn’t want any fruit or cream with it, “just the meringue thanks Mum!”

All he wanted for is birthday was an iTunes voucher and a Guinea Pig. Meet Honey. She is our newest (and last) Guinea Pig. We got her via petrescue.com.au. She was a neglected guinea pig taken in by the Animal Welfare League and nursed back to health by a carer who looked after her until she was adopted by a loving home (us!) She is such a cutie and very nice to handle, but she sheds a lot.

Our guinea pigs live in this custom built (by Hubby) palace so they have plenty of room to run around. They trim all the grass in there for us so we move the palace around on our lawn. We call this our strip mowing system!

Into June and more Birthdays!!!

My daughter and I have our birthdays 3 days apart in June, with me going first. She was 10 this year and we had a joint family celebration and she also had a tea party for her friends.

We cut the cake together, watched by my Grandmother, who also celebrated her 90th birthday in May.

My daughter had a party for her milestone birthday. It was the ‘old-fashioned’ kind of party that we used to have at home when we were kids – before the days of out-sourcing party entertainment. I must say that the girls had a good time too.

We had the kind of food my Mum used to make for our birthday parties.

Fairy cupcakes…

…and mushroom tarts, pastry cases filled with a spoonful of jam and mock cream, sprinkled with cinamon sugar and a pastry stalk. I made these from scratch and they are very, very bad for you.. But oh so yummy! Mock cream is made by beating butter with heavy sugar syrup. My brother in law loved these.

We also had new favourites like Mars Bar Slice. We also had some chips and lollies and fruit punch to drink.

For one activity I got the girls to make name bracelets to take home. They loved it and it was a different activity for them to do at a party. They also passed the parcel and played other games.

Bracelets finished!

These cupcakes were easy to do. I just rolled out white fondant and cut discs for topping the cakes, then coloured some more fondant with colouring and cut out shapes and put them on top. Easy and elegant!

My son playing with the left over party hats!

It has not been all fun and games. Hubby has been unwell as he is suffering from an onset of visual migraines. They are currently ongoing. I had 2 full weeks in June/July where there was at least one kid home from school sick each day. Stuff like that is what life is about, but you take the ups with the downs, don’t you?

Abby had another haircut today. My daughter took this picture this morning and I only just found it when I uploaded the photos. That is why it is blurry. I have been grooming Abby myself and I am very slowly getting the hang of it. She is a wonderful little dog, 7 months old now. She was desexed in late May. She is a fantastic companion, always nearby and very well behaved. She is so settled, which is a word I would never have used to describe Kira. I am amazed how good she is. She stood for 2 hours today getting blow dried, brushed, clipped and snipped, no whining or anything – she is a typical girl – loves the beauty parlour, LOL. Right now she is on my lap with her chin resting on my arm, keeping me warm.

I have participated in this workshop making this quilt in the last 2 months. It is called Bloomin Logs and was designed by a local designer, Katrina Hadjimichael. It is a gorgeous quilt (I quilted her original and my hubby loved it) so when she taught the workshop, I had to do it! There is a lot of piecing in this quilt, this is only one section. Don’t worry, I will be showing it off when I am done.

Some more good news - I got first place at the NSW Quilters Guild Show in Sydney in June in the Professional Traditional Category for my quilt “Deluxe“. Just this weekend, it was shown in Melbourne and the Australian Machine Quilting Exhibition (AMQE) as part of the Victorian Quilters Showcase. It placed first in Traditional Category and also got a Master Quilter Award. I am thrilled!

I also quilted a Dear Jane quilt for the first (but not last) time. Whilst it was on the machine, another one was booked in by a new client. I finished off Jane so fast after that so ’she’ would not attract any more like her to my studio. Jane was a huge, but enjoyable, challenge to quilt. However, one every 6 months is plenty often enough to quilt.

 

Final picture – this was my daughters bagel from Saturdays breakfast. She was laughing because of the smiley face that was burnt onto the bottom. It was pretty funny how that happened.

More Abby Pix

I forgot to include these photos

I have trained Abby to lay on her mat when I am in the kitchen. She always stands right by me and I was in fear of falling over her, so I put a mat down and taught her to lay there. That way, I know where she is and we hopefully will not have an accident. She is so danged cute!

I also was not feeling very well last night and it was cold, so Abby and I snuggled up on the lounge under the quilt together. Can’t blame me for the blurry picture, I didn’t take it.

Isn’t this a picture of contentment? A snuggle, a warm quilt and a scratch behind the ears.

FYI, this quilt was made from old mens cotton shirts from the op shop (thrift store to my US people). LOL, the shirts were old, I don’t know how old the men were! The most expensive part of the quilt was the batting, a cotton/wool blend that is nice and warm and soft. It is our favourite couch quilt for winter. I only wish I had used flannel for the backing…

AbbyPie

Isn’t Abby a cutie? She has been clipped, not by me – I chickened out. I had her breeder do it for me. Instead of being a ball of fluff, she now has a waistline and is looking more and more like a big girl every day.

We went up the coast last weekend to install a new A1 Longarm. While I worked, hubby took the kids for a drive and they had a great time. He hijacked my camera and took some pictures.

 Some rugged country.

What a cool letterbox!

I wish I had seen this…

We have to go away this weekend too. This time we can’t take Abby with us. She has gone to board with her breeder for the weekend. I have already dropped her off and I miss her being around. I will pick her up Monday morning. Last weekend she travelled very well in the car. She was in her crate and we stopped often enough for her to get out , have a wee and stretch her legs. We are going much further this weekend and i think it will be too long to keep her in the crate in any case.

I thought I had taken a picture of the kitchen all finished, but as it turns out, I can’t find the picture on my camera – either that or I imagined the whole thing.

To end off, here is a picture my son took with his DSi. A leaf fell onto the back of my car and landed like this!

Procrastination Queen

Yep. That’s me. Always thinking I should be doing things, rather than actually doing them. I have been working hard to try and change that about myself. I think for the first time in my business life I have my financial paper work up to date, filed and I know exactly where everything is. Still, things are seemingly in disarray in my home and it is a constant battle to keep up. I am ever so slowly learning that wishing it was better doesn’t MAKE it better. You actually have to work at it. Maybe I am maturing after all…

 

Well, it has been a tumultuous few months. We brought this little angel into our lives. This is Abby, our Miniature Poodle. She is 8 weeks old in this picture and she came to us the Monday after those horrible bushfires in Victoria.

Isn’t she gorgeous? She learned to sit on command the very first day she came here.

Kira liked Abby and Abby like Kira. I think Abby liked Kira the most and after a few minutes Kira had an expresson on her face that kinda said…Ok, take this baby away from me now. I have had enough.

This is my favourite photo of Kira.

 

Sadly Kira had been developing symptoms of paralysis in her hindquarters and one evening, she had a very swollen painful tummy. Due to her age and declining health, we decided it was better for her to have a peaceful ending to her life. There was nothing the vet could do to help her long term health and she was in some pain. She was one week away from turning 14. Labradors have a 10-12 year life span on average, so we did really well to keep her so well for so long. This was her last day with us.

Son number 2 made this floral tribute to Kira. One of the shrubs in our yard blossomed overnight the very same night that Kira left us. It was lovely.

Thank you Kira for being our little mate.

Just to liven things up a little, we renovated out kitchen. It was not as functional as we liked and as we are heading towards having 4 teenagers in the next 5 years, now was the time for us to do it. We have partially demolished the old kitchen here.

We, well, we as in Hubby, did a lot of the work. I have never seen him spend so much time in the kitchen.

He pulled out the old tiles – it is more efficient to cut out the plasterboard to do this. Less messy and it would have had to be replaced in any case.

All plastered up.

We went grape – picking and my friend’s winery. We are de-stalking the grapes before they are pressed and then put into the vats. That is about the extent of my winemaking knowledge.

But it is hard work pushing those grapes down.

Day 1 of the kitchen rebuild. I love my massive new pantry.

More cupboards in. The island bench is different than the original kitchen where there was a benchtop all the way across there.

Getting there. Waiting for the new benchtops.

Tileing is done. We love love love these tiles. They are glass and beeyoooteeefull. We (well, OK, he) laid the floor ourselves. There was no way we could match the old floor up. And we tried, we really did. This was the best match. I wanted it laid perpendicular to the original so it would at least look like we meant to have it that way.

No, I did not think this was the TV. I had just set the clock on the stove and could not get up. I had fallen down the front stairs the day before and my ankle was very sore and I was waiting for DH to help me up. Instead he grabbed the camera. Evil man.

The bad thing about this ventilation is that it is letting in the wildlife.

Aargh, it’s scary!!!

This is scary too. I am now the mother of a teenager. Yikes, where did all of those years go?

Abby has discovered the grass clipping pile.

And rolled in it.

I have been quilting as well. Honest.

My domestic duties now include being personal hygeine assistant to Kendra the guinea pig. Ahhh Guinea Pig Day Spa heaven! A nice warm shower. We (OK, he)  installed this shower hose in the laundry for bathing Abby (and other small mammals, obviously)

She really did like it. I also clip their nails. Did you know that guinea pigs have 3 toes on their hind legs and four toes on their front legs? No? Well, store this info away for trivia night then.

Abby has a new grooming table. This is the before shot. There is no after shot as I have not clipped her yet. That is my first job for tomorrow.

Are we sitting down? I actually qulted my own quilt this week. And attached the front of the binding. And I have hand stitched 1/4 of the binding down already. Impressive, huh? According to my records, it has been ready to quilt since August 2008.

I used the pantograph Fantasia by Lorien Quilting. I love this panto. Ooh, looks like Hermione has re-done her site. Looks good!

And here is one last shot of my little shadow, my new little mate, my trusty assistant, Abby. She is sitting  next to me at my desk on my spare chair. I love her and she loves me.

RIP Kira

March 5, 1995 – February 26, 2009

I Took a Break

Christmas came and went. January has gone by. Tomorrow I am ‘officially’ back to work (quilting work that is - a mother’s work is NEVER done). I have a ton of pictures to upload and some of the best pictures and our exciting news is at the end. It was great to have a long break from quilting – I think I was starting to burn out a little bit. I had planned to make a show quilt for 2009, but in the end, I didn’t want to do it without putting in 100%, so it will have to wait for next year as I have a rather full schedule at the moment.

We had a great summer holiday and did lots around the house and also had a day or two out and some visitors as well, so very nice.

The chooks are doing well. here they are sharing the nest. They all lay in the one nest and I guess one cannot wait when the other has it occupied. luckily my chooks all get along and can share. Even when one has her head pressed against the wall.

 

My dog Kira.

Kira is ‘helping’ me with the laundry. She is holding a sock for me. She is so smart…it fell on to the ground and she just knew I would be re-washing it once she picked it up for me. Never mind the slobber.

Here are the mystery gifts I was talking about in my last post. They are Schmerpis. You can buy the patterns from Helen at Pattern Press. Mine are naked…they are supposed to have clothes, but I think they looked good au naturale. The recipients LOVED them and they were a lot of fun to make. Hubby cut them all out for me and the kids all helped me turn them out and stuff them. A real family effort. They are made from polarfleece and make a great gift.

Here is the new Schmerpi family posing under the Christmas tree.

Of course, the month would not be complete without at least one kitchen disaster. This is what happens when you try to tip 12.5kg (about 30 pounds) of flour into a bucket, but instead you miss the bucket.

Major messiness all over yourself, the benchtop, the floor….

Over your brand new digital photo frame that you got for Christmas…. On your handbag….IN your handbag…not that you find that out until later…in the mixing bowl…yep, it went all over the place.

A new look for the discerning cook.

Mission finally accomplished. Next time, I will make my hubby do this so I can have a good laugh at him instead!

We had some really HOT weather. This is a local hotel in my town where it measured 47 degrees celcius. That is 117 degrees on the ‘old’ scale. Not that I was born when they used to use Fahrenheit for temperature. I digress….

We took the kids to the zoo. We parked the car under the Opera House and caught the Ferry across to the Zoo. This is a really nice way to start and end the day trip.

The view from the Zoo, looking back the the city. It is a beautiul place to visit for locals and tourists alike.

Some pretty birds, you actually walk through the enclosure, it is like a rainforest walk. Very nice.

 

PJ loved the penguins.

Everyone loves Koalas.

This may be our last Zoo trip for a while. Last time we went, the eldest was sick in the car on the way home. This time the second eldest was sick in the car on the way home…can you see the pattern emerging? We have two more kids….let’s not tempt fate shall we?

While the kids were home, I thought I would train them up to take over the business…just kidding, but they had a lot of fun quilting on a practice piece I had on there. Who knows, maybe they will be involved later on, but only if they want to.

And now for our big news.

This is Abby. She is 6 weeks old in this photo that I took last week. Next week, she comes to live with us forever. We are so excited to have this new puppy. She is a Miniature Poodle.  I have been taking grooming lessons from her breeder for the last few Mondays. I grew up with a poodle and love them. Now I am over the ‘baby’ stage of raising children, I feel that I can take on the comitment of grooming and caring for this little gorgeous girl. I know I can do a better job training this little one than I did with Kira, now that I have a little more life experience. Oh, and I am not 22 this time ’round. Looking back, at that age, you don’t even know what you don’t know! I am still no expert now, but I know a lot more than I did back then.

Of course our old girl Kira is still doing well for her age, but I need to face facts that she will not be here forever so this is the right time (for us) to adpot a puppy. I will be going grooming again tomorrow and I will find out exactly which day she is coming home with us the following week. I can’t wait!

She is just so cute!

Look at these feet!

 

So that…..is that.

This’n'That

So. I have finished quilting my customers quilts! Yippee. I have to bind one for a customer (no hurry) and quilt another for a friend (again, no hurry), so I have kept this week for me. On Monday I went to the gym and then came home and cleaned the house. Boy did it need it. I have been sadly neglectful of my home the last month or so, keeping busy working and ignoring the fact that some jobs (mostly vacuuming) need doing, but making them wait. Well, it feels great to have a clean home and now I am trying my best to keep it up. We had the daughter of one of my online friends over for dinner on Monday night. She was a very nice girl and after dinner, we took her to the city and drove over the Harbour Bridge and back again. It was fun.

I had a haircut yesterday and lunch out with a friend. Came home and vegged out for a bit until the kids came home with their school reports. All reports are great and the youngest kid won an award at Presentation Day for Academic Achievement. I am very proud of him. My eldest also came 6th out of his entire school grade (about 200 kids) in a Spelling Bee this week. I thought that was fantastic of him considering that he was out there in front of all of them spelling out loud. That is a big achievement for him.

Today I went out for lunch (again) with my friends from school – all the Mums. It was a nice lunch and a good catch up before the school holidays start. Tomorrow is the last day of school for 6 weeks. It is pretty hot today and we are expecting a storm this afternoon. It is getting windy. We are having a roof put on out the back over the paved area. Otherwise we have no outside shelter. We will even be able to BBQ in the rain unless it is horizontal rain from the east (unlikely). The frame is all up and the builder will be completing the roof tomorrow. Weather permitting.

These are the before shots of the side of the house…

Looking back the other way.

And this afternoon after 4 days, we have the frame up and the roofing will go on tomorrow. In the second photo below, part of it is done and this is how all of the roofing will look.

Now. About the Guinea Pigs. Lara was hastily re-named Seth and we have decided to have him desexed. They are now separated until he is big enough to do the operation. We cannot in good conscience return him to the store and ask for another. They are living things and I believe that once you adopt them, they are yours, come what may. OTOH I think it is quite extravagant to fork out the $$$ for guinea pig desexing in a world where children starve for want of food. However, this is my life and my decision to do the best with what I have. I do have a conscience about these things and there are many factors to consider. The most overriding factor for me in this case is the responsibility for me to set the best example to my children. I cannot teach them that animals are disposable. I also cannot teach them that it is OK to bring unwanted animals into the world by recklessly allowing them to breed. I do believe that the pet store made a simple error sexing the animals. It is hard to tell when they are so little. Seth is rapidly maturing and now the difference is blatantly obvious. So that is the story of the guinea pigs.

My dog, Kira, will be 14 in March. She is a labrador (you can see her in the above photos) and is now showing obvious signs of ageing. 3 weeks ago she got an ear infection and was miserable. She got haematomas in both her ears and her ear canals were swollen practically shut. This happenend very suddenly. She has been on eardrops and anti-inflammatories and the ear infection has almost cleared up. To the vet’s amazement, the haematomas have all but disappeared as well. We didn’t think they would go away, but they have. I was very upset the day I took her to the vets as I thought it was all over for her. She has now taken on a new lease on life and is doing very well. She is, however, very old for a labrador and I am very aware she will not be with us forever. I have had her most of my adult life  – since I was 22 and had no children. Initially I thought I would not get another doggy for a few more years, but I have changed my mind. I have my name down for a poodle puppy, which is due to be born in the next 10 days or so. I want a poodle as I grew up having one and they are gorgeous dogs. I would like the puppy to be more of a house dog. Kira lives in the backyard. Poodles do not shed and they are much cleaner to have around. I will have to spend a lot more time grooming, and I can do that for sure. I am really excited about the puppy. She will be coming to live with us in February. Now I have to think of a name for her…

My garden is going gangbusters and tonight we are having stir fry with home grown bok choy. Yum. The tomatoes are starting to fruit, the corn is growing and we have 3 melons on the vine. The first strawberries are also forming too. It is very exciting. The plants seem to grow slowly and then, bam, they take off and are growing almost out of control.

This was this afternoon, above. And below is a mere 18 days ago.

We have lots of things growing…

Heirloom yellow pear tomatoes (and other types too)

Rockmelon, another heirloom variety

 We had a gorgeous sunset last week. It was just beautiful. This is taken from out the front of my house.

My Gardenias are flowering. They smell absolutely gorgeous. I wish I could share their fragrance.

Now, what do you do with an egg that has a feather stuck to it???? You draw a face on it, of course. My 11yo son drew this onto the egg yesterday. It is hilarious. That is eggsactly how the feather was stuck onto the egg. You can’t think these things up, you know.

That is what I have been up to. I have been working on the Chrissie gifts I was talking about. I will reveal them when they are all done, hopefully early next week!