Monthly Archive

I do have an excuse for not posting. I have been shopping. Yee ha! It is soooo good to be Home in Aotearoa, where women are Broad of both Foot and Thigh. Here, in the Land of the Yummiest Shoes, I can find funky footwear for my hobbit feet, and I don’t feel like a monster when I walk through the Mall - all us Kiwi chicks have legs like All Blacks. But I digress, check out these puppies…And op-shopping. I have single-handedly purchased every pair of 1950’s knitting needles in every thrift shop in Hamilton. And about 5 kg of buttons, some old wool blankies and a yellow chenille bedspread which will make the cutest ducklings. Ooh, and a cute fairy tale book.How is this for funny? As I sat in the shoe shop looking down at pair No. 2 caressing my foot, a young man sat beside me so close that we were touching down the whole of the right side of my body. He simultaneously pushed a diamante-studded sandal under my face and said,” Excuse me, Madam, I’m a cross-dresser - can you tell me if these suit me?” I glanced at his face (very very handsome, indeed), then back at the sandal, then back to his face - ha!! Recognition! My cousin (who I probably haven’t seen for ten years). He’d seen Peter outside the shop and told him, “Watch this. I’ll get her!”

Yes, he did. But only because I was genuinely assessing the sandal’s suitability for his delicate hoof. I’m just too nice.

ps Sorry for lack of emailing. I can get my email, but cannot for the life of me send any. It just won’t work and I don’t know why

Hello, Chickadees! I’ve missed you SOOO much!! I tried to get online as soon as I got here, but Teenage Son had immediately absconded for his girlfriend’s house, was away for four days and I needed his help to change the settings on my computer (oh the shame).
So here we are! And so is The Beautiful Miss Izzy…
And the World’s Most Revolting Cat (who has a new fan)…

I have a new haircut that I love (and it makes up for La Haircut de Tragedie from a month or two ago)…
we have eaten Potato Salad By G…
and there are FLOWERS…

FLOWERS FLOWERS FLOWERS!!!!! I cannot tell you how excited I am. Flowers.
Oh. And rain. And it’s cold. Ish.

Busy busy busy. Shopping shopping shopping. Mother and Daughter Waxing Trips (man, she can fuss OW OW OW OW OW). Oh, and eating take out food and watching dvds - so maybe not that busy after all Last night I watched Memoirs of a Geisha (very pretty! I really enjoyed it, but it didn’t pack the emotional punch that the book did) then The Virgin Suicides by Sophie Coppola. Been meaning to watch that one for ages and ages. It was damn good, I tell ya! Kirsten Dunst did a fine job, I thought, but Kathleen Turner was great! Then in the morning I watched Brokeback Mountain (living in the Boonies means I miss so many movies and then have to catch up on dvd). I LOVED this movie. It was SOOOO sad. Now I have a traumatised teenager (he had a pillow over his head for all the sex scenes but kept saying, “I can hear it! I can hear it!!” Quite a performance. Nearly better than the movie.
We are leaving Townsville for New Zealand tomorrow morning, so we have laundry and clothes strewn everywhere and I am stressing out about excess baggage (had a dream last night that I had to pay $400 extra) and missing Peter already. That is a bad sign - he only went back to Hughenden two nights ago. I won’t see him for another ten days. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but we have had our years of too many months apart and these days I cope with it less and less well. Sad now

Thanks for all the input on the Best Place for a Blog to Live. I’ve decided. Next year I’m moving to WordPress. I read heaps of their forums and tried to get as much user-info as I could. The general consensus from users seemed to be that they liked the user-format and were impressed with the high level of technical support. One person mentioned that in two years of blogging on WordPress , he’d only been aware of it going down on one occasion.

So this is where the story gets funny. I went to the sign up page. “Get a blog in seconds!” it said. Very easy, straight forward process. Did it. First email came within seconds. Very good. Second email (with password) took a couple of hours (grumble).
But then… no dashboard access. Naddah. Can not do Thing One. Send email to Technical Support. VERY fast reply - “We have a bug. Fixing it as we speak.” (or something along those lines!) Email included link to forum discussing bug. Wow, this is great communication! Something IS wrong, but there’s no Dumb Plumber looking at me with a “WTF do you want ME to do about it?” expression, instead there’s a COMMUNICATION BOARD. Yes.
Several hours later, still nothing. Check board. “Problem fixed. If you still have a problem, let us know.” Let them know, including “moving over from Blogger. Now I’ve jinxed you guys, too.”
Email back says :
“Hi,
That should be fixed now.
Jinx us? Not a chance
Sorry it took so long.”

I am in love. It even had a human being’s name at the bottom.

So, during the holidays, I’ll be packing up my stuff and moving to http://twolimeleaves.wordpress.com
There’s nothing there yet, but I’ll let you know when the housewarming party is!
And now I must away! Time for more of this… (this is my son, driving the Landcruiser at 110 km and saying “Holy Crap! I’m driving the Big Boy Car!” As opposed to my little sedan.)
…so that we can do this again (Doesn’t everyone’s Dad dress up as Santa on Christmas Day?)
See you in New Zealand!

I ask your advice, dear bloggers. I am thinking about switching from blogger to another Blog Thing. I am considering WordPress or Typepad.
What I don’t like about blogger:
1. Annoying things like hassles uploading photos, drafts being stored (and then published) in date order.
2. Template limitations caused by my feeble html skills.
3. Constantly having problems not being able to leave comments on other peoples blogs because… it just… I don’t know… it just doesn’t work sometimes!!!
4. I have a snit because I still haven’t been invited to be a beta blogger. What’s wrong with me??? Why don’t I get invited to parties????
5. Blogger just feels clumsy sometimes.

So. Am I just complaining about nothing? Am I just wanting change for changes sake? Or should I See the Light and go elsewhere?

Wherever I go, I want to be able to take my whole blog and comments with me.

What do you think? Should I do it? Where should I go?
What hassles will I create if I do move?

Here are my Year of Color pics for the week. And, in keeping with the gray theme…

Yesterday the heat well and truly broke. On Saturday night we had a big electrical storm. Lots of spectacular lightning and thunder, but the rain was paltry. Even I could probably have dodged the raindrops. But yesterday afternoon the clouds built… and got darker… and darker… and we got a cracker! So much rain that I started to worry about flooding and being unable to get out of town on Friday. The wind was screaming, the rain was horizontal and we (and a number of other people in town) discovered that our houses are not waterproof! We don’t have any damage at all (just water that poured under the front door and some leaking windows) but several buildings in town were de-roofed and there are broken trees everywhere.
But at least it’s cooler now.

Shame. Less.

Shameless, shameless grovelling.

Excellent. Well done.

And now that my pathetic Need for Validation has been sated, I hereby announce the winners of the Slightly Sticky and Clumsily Executed Christmas Decorations to be:

*drumroll*
Isabelle from In This Life
Little Miss Meshell
Dani from Pyglet Whispers
Tracey from Peppermint Patcher
Cathy from Knitting Caboodle
*cheer cheer hoot hoot*

The draw was independently operated by the Daughter and Husband, who were both very Professional and Unbiased (they didn’t snigger even ONCE). The Brownie Points promised for Praise Lavishing were sadly wasted, but will certainly stand you in good stead.

So now I need real names and addresses. Email them to me at
fl10481 at bigpond dot net dot au

And, dear sweet Velcro, I shall not abandon you! I plan to lug my 20 kg laptop to New Zealand and continue harassing you from there. After Christmas I’m hanging around til the end of January when I’ll be teaching at New Zealand’s biennial Quilt Symposium. I’m actually going for two months. I couldn’t go that long without blogging!

We are counting down! Only a few more days til blast off and we head to New Zealand for Christmas with my family.The worst aspect of a bi-cultural marriage (I’m a New Zealander and he’s an Australian) is that you are doomed to be torn between two places forever. Small price to pay for waking up every morning next to The Love of My Life, but there you go…

So, here I sit, procrastinating on the Packing and Organizing and Quilt Finishing (no, Flora ISN’T finished yet. Thank you very much for reminding me!). Yesterday I prepared some hand sewing projects to take with me, for moments when I need something to do……and started sewing them. ahem
The delaying tactics have come to an end - this morning Peter hauled the suitcases out of the garden shed. He had to do it. There are mice in that shed, so I am scared that there will also be snakes (infinitely possible!). Now I really, really need to get my butt out of this chair, clean the suitcase and pack it.

Plans for New Zealand:
1. Have deep and meaningful moments with parents, siblings, siblings spouses and offspring.
2. Ditto with assorted friends.
3. Hit the op shops (thrift stores) for wool for felting, buttons, children’s books and any other junk that I can’t live without and Peter will wince over.
4. Cart it all home to Australia.
5. Continue to Eat Sensibly, even if G makes his “I Am Dead Because This Must Be Heaven Potato Salad”.
6. Go to a Pick Your Own berry farm. Pitch tent in Raspberry Canes and only leave when forcibly removed (you may see this on the news - look for me. I’ll be the one with the Reddest Lips and stained fingers).
7. Avoid World’s Most Revolting Cat, who lives at my parents house - bites and dribbles on people.
8. Sit on grass.

(there is grass in New Zealand, it is green, it is soft, it does NOT have Vicious, Nasty, Take a Chunk Out of You Ants living in it)

See? I’m a simple soul. I don’t want much. cough

The draw for the Christmas decorations will be TONIGHT! Even I am excited

Wow! Wow! Wow! CHECK THIS OUT!!! I wasn’t going to post anything today, but how could I not share this?? Can you even imagine carving a crayon? The guy’s name is Pete Goldlust.

I am Officially a Slack Bum. Self Declared. I won’t even begin to document The Great List Of Slack-Bumness, but amongst many, many Slack Arse items is “Never have had a Bloggie Competition or Give Away” (didn’t even celebrate 100 th post).

Stomper Girl was the burr that irritated me to action last night (Go, S-G!! You’re a burr!). She whined for a prize. You got one! I love to reward cheek. Besides, she’d had a crappy day and I laughed at her

So, I made these Christmas Decorations and, I warn you now, I had problems with the paint drying out too fast under the air conditioning and I should have bought the expensive glaze instead of the Tight Wad Special, but here they are… … AND everyone who leaves me a comment between n… n… n… (wait for it!)… NOW and Tuesday night (Australian time) (don’t ask me what that is in UK/USA/Wherever time. I wouldn’t have a clue) will have their name put in a draw for the five that are left over after I send one to Stomper Girl.

I’m incredibly vain and needy, so you’ll probably get bonus points for sucking up and telling me how fabulous I am.
Don’t thank me, thank Whiner Stomper Girl.

OK, this is going to be interesting! Q is for:

Quince: It must be good to be a quince. You’d never be the wrong shape.
Quiet: I need lots of quiet in my life . My kids were never allowed to be noisy inside (Noisy Games Outside) because nothing, and I mean NO THING, stresses me out more than noise(which is kind of ironic because someone who didn’t know my name once called me “That Noisy Girl”). I had a blissful experience once. I got to go inside an anechoic chamber. Apparently most people can’t stand it for more than a few minutes. I didn’t want to leave.
Quilts: well, duh.
Don Quixote: I didn’t just put this in here because I’m desperately scratching for Q words. This book is actually significant to my family. We all seem to like it and, quite frankly, it makes me cry. (No, not everything makes me cry. Just most things.)
Quills: wouldn’t it be nice to write with these sometimes? Just sometimes. I made some when I was a kid, but they didn’t work very well. I didn’t have the right kind of feathers.
String Quartets: nothing says,”Civilized Occasion” quite as well as a string quartet.
Earthquakes: I think I’m the only person I know who likes being in earthquakes. It’s kind of like being on an amusement park ride. On the other hand, I’ve never been in a nasty one
Quicksilver: The Superior Person’s word for mercury. I remember playing with mercury in the science lab at high school. Yes, Little Miss Obvious, that does explain everything!
Suzi Quatro: Remember her? Coolness personified. Didn’t she even do a guest spot on Happy Days??
Quantum Physics: I’m not going to even TRY to convince you (or myself) that I understand it, but I do find quantum physics a very interesting subject. When I’m reading about it, I GET it. As soon as I close the book, I can’t remember a single thing I read.

I think I’m at the end of my Q list already…
… I do like to say quasi, quiver and quintessential…