Category Archive

…you make a public arse of yourself?

And no one tells you? In case you’ve been waiting and wondering why I haven’t posted photos of the quilt I finished a few days ago, the Twelve by Twelve reveal isn’t for another few weeks. I was thirty days early.
Holy cow, there’s a first for you!
Thanks for the heads-up, O Fair Weather Friends

Not that I can talk about being a good mate. My emailing has been negligent for a while.There has been sadness on the Interweb lately, people, and it’s affecting me more than it should. And March 2 would have been my sweet boy’s 21st birthday. And I’ve been busy doing this…

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m wallowing, because I’m not. Just lacking a little spark and needing lots of thinking time.
Normal contact will resume shortly.

I’m just not ready for Christmas. It’s worrying and fretful-making. I usually love Christmas passionately but it’s starting to feel like *whispering now* Too Much Trouble.
Instead of putting up my decorations (was it really only seven years ago that I was teased mercilessly for having more than ten Christmas trees in the house?), I’m selling them on etsy.

Well, not all of them. Just this garland that I made this year. I think it’s great (being a yoyo lover and all) but the kids have given me grief about it (Damn kids. Who said they could have opinions?), so I’m hoping to send it to a home where it is loved and wanted.

Yay! Good news! It IS going to live in a house where it will be loved and petted and folded up nicely on December 31st! Thanks, Michelle :-*

And then there’s this doll I made. I actually made three (they are all different) and I’m asking myself, “Self? Do you even need ONE rag doll at your age, let alone three?” So I’m selling her, too. It’s not her fault that she drew the LONG straw (a ticket out of this mad house is not to be sneezed at!). She just happened to be handy and the other two were hiding.

Maybe as the house clears out a bit, I’ll start to feel calmer? Or maybe I’ll just hide,too, until it’s all over.

Yeah, well you’re a big doody head

I have been eaten. I have been attacked and bitten in HUNDREDS of places, some of which rarely see daylight. Our fabulous new office is overrun by fleas. BLOODY FLEAS!!!

It is an old building and, at the back, there is a weird storage section that has a bare earth floor. The plumbers have been scrambling about in there and have disturbed all of the earth. In this part of the world, bare, dry earth means fleas. And disturbing the eggs means that they hatch and go looking for food. They found me.

We have flea-bombed, we have sprayed the carpet. I have literally hundreds of bites all over me. I am covered from head-to-toe in Stingose to try and stop the itching. It dries to a white powder on the skin so I now look leprous. Very attractive.

And it gets worse. We found a litter of feral kittens in a drain in our garage at the office. They were dying so we collected them and took them to the RSPCA. They had fleas. They over-nighted at our house. SO NOW WE HAVE FLEAS AT HOME AS WELL!!!!!!!!!!!

Excuse me, it’s time for another coating of Stingose.

I’ll be back soon. I’m just exhausted and need to think about nothing for a while. Peter will be home in less than 48 hours and we are going away for a weekend to recover. I don’t remember anyone telling me that being a grown-up was soooo tiring.

I’ve been MIA for a while, I know. We have been planning on opening the business on 1 October (two days after Peter gets home!) so I’ve been wrangling sub-contractors at the office. Oh. My. Goodness. They are a scary bunch. As two-faced as the 14 yr old Queen Bitch at any girls’ school.

First Contact -
Me: I need you to come on ___day and do ____. Can you do it and how much will it cost?
Large Intimidating Criminal-Looking Smelly Subbie: Yeah, of course, Love. No worries! I can pull some guys off the Other Job down the road and be here and gone in one day. It’ll cost $732580235.00 on completion, “through the books”. (NB: this is an ACTUAL quote - “through the books”. Am I supposed to be impressed by his honesty???)
Me (hyperventilating over price but desperate enough to crush own feelings of Being RIPPED Off): Great. I need a firm commitment from you on this because I have other guys to organise too.
LICLSS: She’s right, Love. We’ll be here. In fact, you tell us the day - we can do it any day you want this week.

Third/Fourth/Fifth/Sixth/Seventh (you get the picture) contact -
Me (firmly but calmly): You said, “blah blah blah but now you are telling me blech blech blech”.
LICLSS (leaning over me in ever-so-slightly threatening manner): Now just a minute, Love. I made it very clear that jwegrt9p814615t9[#@G(*^_&T$. I said we’ll be here June 2008 and we will be. By the way, Where’s the 98% deposit we asked for?

I can now see that employing these guys is like having a pet lion. They may act like big kittens when you first meet, but turn your back and they’ll tear you apart. Then claim that it’s what you asked for in the first place.

Thanks everyone for the wonderful, enthusiastic messages of support and encouragement! And, thanks too, for the great discussion on my last post. I love you all, too

butterfly4, originally uploaded by twolimeleaves.

…finished. Yes! Can you tell that I get tetchy when I’m sewing class samples?? I’m sorry I snapped yesterday, but talking to you guys and checking out what you are all up to is so appealing when I’m trying to make myself sew. This is what it is - a sample for my students to make in class. I’ve been thinking that it really does need to manifest itself in a full-size quilt (along with a whole cluster of butterfly buddies), but it makes me feel just a little bit sick when I think of the amount of sewing it will need.
Thanks for all the Good Lovin’ comments (except YOU Sussanah, pretty , jealous thing that you are )

There is never a better way to make yourself feel OLD than to try something new and preferably technological. Like a mobile phone.

stop laughing

I said, STOP laughing!

It’s just so sad. I had a phone for years, decided it was a waste of time and stopped using it. But a few weeks ago I realised that I really need one again.
So, I bought the cheapest prepaid I could find. And it has taken me ALL day to get the damn thing going. And I STILL haven’t got it to do what I want.It must have 3752 different menus and NONE of them look like the ones in the handbook.

My kids have phones and THEY figured theirs out (in two seconds). Peter has one that cost a fortune and does everything except make it’s own payments and HE figured his out (although it took him much much longer than the kids).
I feel somewhat defeated. All I have to do is tell it which five numbers I want to be able to call for free. And I can’t.

I should have bought an expensive one, then the little boy in the shop would have done it for me. They don’t provide service to tightwads. Or is it that they assume that only an idiot wouldn’t be able to work out how to use a $100 phone?

My car is old. And somewhat crappy. It’s probably worth about $4000.00 on a good day. That doesn’t bother me. I don’t particularly value cars and as long as the thing starts when I want it to and doesn’t break down I’m happy.

BUT… (you knew that was coming)

Last week, new tires $600.00

This week, new idle bearings $370.00

Oh and the following quote from the repair dude:

Fix airconditioning system $1200.00 (non-urgent)
New cooling system $1100.00 (URGENT!!! FIX NOW OR ENGINE MAY SEIZE!!!!!)

I think I’m going to get a bus timetable tomorrow.

I thought when I left Blogger behind that that would be the end of my Issues with it. Not a bloody chance. It’s still causing me grief!! Am I the only person out there who has problems signing in to google/blogger? EVERYTIME I try to sign in it refuses my password and/or tells me that my email address doesn’t exist. When I try to get a “reset password” email it sends the email (to my non-existent email address!!) with a link to reset the password. The link takes me to the reset page which sends me and email with a link which sends me to the reset page which sends me an email with a link which sends me to the reset page which…makes me scream and swear and curse and yell, “THIS is why I hate you, blogger/google!! THIS is why I abandoned you!”

So why, you ask, am I still trying to sign in? Because some of my favourite bloggers use Bloody Blogger and have their comment options set so that I can only comment if I am signed in to that WHACKED BLOODY SYSTEM.

If you are one of those bloggers, know that I try. Most days I try to leave a comment on one of these blogs. Most days I scream and yell. I am about to give up. But know that I DO love you and if you had your “anonymous comments allowed” option selected I would be able to tell you in person.

All you kiwis out there are going to be ashamed of me. I’M ashamed of me. I have become a wuss. This morning at 8:15 a.m., in fact.
I stepped outside to take my daughter to school and immediately said, “Brrrr! It’s cold!!”
I had goosebumps and wanted a jumper.

It is 17 Degrees Celsius.

I think I have acclimatised to a tropical climate.

My crochet obsession is waning. I am trying to keep enough steam up to finish this ripple…

This is ripple No.2 (Son of Ripple) (or Ripple: The Sequel). I think this one is more of a slog because the pattern is repeat and I need the uncertainty of what’s coming next to keep me interested.The only thing that’s keeping me going right now is that I’m going to have red pom poms on the points (I love red pom poms just as much as I love red buttons, red ric rac and red prairie points). I tried a blue stripe
and then chocolate brown
before settling on slime green (it’s quite a bit yellower than it looks in this photo). I do love red and green together, but all my greens need to be lime or frog pond or acid green or grass or apple. I don’t like pine, Hunter, forest or other such blech greens.

I had a great day yesterday! I went to Sussanah’s house and did scrapbooking. It was terrific. I whined and was needy (Sussanah, I don’t know what to dooooooo! Whyyyyyyy isn’t this workiiiing??), she gave me advice and supplies, she was kind and encouraging and NICE (heh heh, beige chick, heh heh), I used all of her stuff, drank her diet coke and then she even drove me home. I’m not sure what I contributed. Maybe she won’t invite me again.

Shula and Syko have both tagged me for the Random Things about me meme. Well, I did this once before but you know how I just LOVE to talk about myself so this is hardly a challenge. Sit back, relax and prepare to be enthralled…

1. I don’t swear very often. But when I do swear, you can know for sure that I have chosen to use those words and I mean it. I also quite like the horrified look on my daughter’s face when I do. Parents should appall their children from time to time. I remember as a ten year old being shocked when my mother broke a casserole dish with that night’s dinner in it and exclaimed, “Oh damn!!” (Yes, that was Extreme Language for my mother)

2.For twenty years I have been overweight and, quite frankly, it pisses me off. I think I know why I gained weight in the first place, but I can’t seem to shake it now. I’ve had a couple of good attempts in the past few years. Twice I’ve lost ten kilos. Twice I’ve put it back on. I hate it. H.A.T.E. IT!!!! I need to lose about thirty five kilos. That is a crap-load of fat. I don’t talk about it much because people who whine about needing to lose weight annoy me.

3.I’m a total hypocrite. I say that plastic surgery is shallow and terrible. But if it was offered to me free, I’d be horizontal on that gurney before you could say “Sharpen the blade, Nurse.”

4.I put a lot of energy into biting my razor tongue. My anger usually comes out as bitey sarcasm. Not very attractive, but there you go. It takes a hell of a lot of effort to be Nice and, as I get older, I’m giving in to my snarky side more and more often. I’ll probably end up one of those nasty old women with more opinions than friends. Seriously, though, I feel as if I’ve spent my whole life being NICE and I’ve used up all of my Nice Quota.

5.My house is always a mess. But then if you’ve known me for more than an hour, you knew that already. I’m too busy to clean. I resent spending time on temporary stuff. Like cleaning stuff that will be dirty again tomorrow. Or putting away things that someone else will take out again in ten minutes time. There are books to be read and films to watch and there’s love to be made, people!!!

6.The older I get, the fussier I get about material stuff (like having down pillows and Egyptian cotton sheets) and the less I care about what other people do. I don’t care if you are into rubbing a budgie over your stomach while you have elevator sex with a stranger, just as long as I can have a cashmere throw for my sofa because polyester is just nasty. I’m not sure what that’s all about but I think it’s like when geriatrics don’t care about war erupting in Eastern Europe because they are busy eating a chocolate biscuit right now and, man, that chocolate tastes good. Besides, maybe my morals are sliding south or something, but what is so bad about elevator sex with a stranger? It could turn out to be Ralph Fiennes and how many of us would boot him out at the second floor? (Yes, Mother, I know you would!)

7. I have a very black sense of humour and often I will be the only person laughing, surrounded by people who can not believe that anyone would find THAT funny.

8. I’ve felt out of step with most of the world for my entire life. It’s like I live in another dimension and I just visit the real world sometimes. My interactions with people often feel very shallow and superficial to me. I LOATHE small talk. Hate parties and balls and dinners. My close friends are the ones I can just be with; the people who don’t demand anything of me. Fortunately for me, I feel understood by my immediate family and my husband. Occasionally Peter will shake his head, but usually he just smiles.

I can’t remember how many things I was supposed to write about. Probably less than eight, but 6 and 8 don’t make much sense anyway so they don’t really count (if you figure out what they mean, let me know).

I don’t usually tag people for memes but some of you don’t reveal much about yourselves and the curiosity is killing the rest of us. So spill ya guts, Rooruu, Dy and Anina. And Sussanah, you, too, because you’re new-ish and
we haven’t got enough to hold over you yet.

I moved. On Friday night I moved to Townsville. The weekend has been spent sorting, unpacking, cleaning and shoving stuff in cupboards. It feels so good it must be right (why does that sound like some lame-ass 1970’s one hit wonder?).

It felt great right up until yesterday morning at about ten minutes past ten when Peter left to go back to Hughenden. He won’t be back for two weeks. Then this morning I dropped Ali off at her new school - and said goodbye to her until Friday!! Her first day of school and she’s off on a four day retreat!!! It will be a good way for her to get to know the other girls…

Navel-gazing now complete. Here is my mosaic for Mosaic Monday…

Amethyst, originally uploaded by twolimeleaves.

Here’s a question for you. Would you rather live here (A) Outback Queensland…
…or here (B) The BEACH (North Queensland)?

Strangely enough, I don’t find that difficult to answer. So this coming weekend I’m packing up my stuff and my daughter and moving to (B) The Beach (my son is already there, at university). It is fraught with grief and pain, however, because my darling husband has to stay in (A) for work. So for a while to come we will be living in two different places and seeing each other on weekends (waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!! *sniff*). We hope that it won’t be for too long.
This isn’t an easy decision to make. But, ultimately it seems the better choice for both of our children (although the Boy Who Will be Giving Up His Freedom would beg to differ!!) and I am nearing the end of my rope living in the bush. I like the community out here very much, but I find the remoteness and smallness gets me down. I said I’d come for two years and those were obviously powerful words - I was fine for two years but since February I have been restless and wriggling. It was soooo hard to leave Sydney when I went to stay with my friend, Robyn, in March. To be in the city and then have to come back here was just an agony…
So this week is all about packing things up and wondering how on earth we are all going to squeeze into our little townhouse in Townsville! A shoe horn may be in order…

ps Thank you all very much for The Birthday Wishes

Drowning in Failure - 7 Days: day 4, originally uploaded by twolimeleaves.

Trying to join in the Ripple Obsession sweeping the crafty blogging world and failing. Crochet, you suck.

I WILL nail this. I am determined.

I think.

waiting….waiting….

…STILL no baby….

…not really due for another week, but his Daddy is only home for another two (before heading back to the Netherlands where they will all be living soon), so Baby had better not dawdle!

Come on, Baby! We all want to meet you!! We have toys and cuddles and a big brother and cats…

I’ve just been told that today’s temperature is expected to be 45 degrees C.

Take me now, Lord.

In honour of yesterday’s 44 degrees Celsius (Officially measured at the airport, which is less than two kilometres from our house) , and with thanks to Katja who emailed it to me, I publish this:

Diary of a Mount Isa Spring (by a Pom) (Mt Isa is about 5 hours further west than us!)

August 31st
Just got transferred with work into our new home in Mount Isa, Queensland!!
Now this is a city that knows how to live!! Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. What a place!I watched the sunset from a deck chair on the verandah It was beautiful.I’ve finally found my home. I love it here.

September 13th:
Really heating up. Got to 35 today. Not a problem. Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I’m turning into a sun
worshipper.

September 30th:
Had the backyard landscaped with tropical plants today. Lots of palms and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing lawn for me. Another scorcher today, but I love it here.

October 10th
The temperature hasn’t been below 35 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least today it’s kind of windy though. But getting used to the heat is taking longer than I expected.

October 15th:
Fell asleep by the pool. Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body. Missed 3 days of work. What a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson though. Got to respect the ol’ sun in a climate like this.

October 20th:
I missed Kitty (our cat) sneaking into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got to the hot car for lunch, Kitty had died and swollen up to the size of a shopping bag and stank up the $3,000 leather upholstery. I told the kids that she ran away. The car now smells like Wiskettes and cat sh*t. I learned my lesson though. No more pets in this heat.

October 25th:
The wind sucks. It feels like a giant f**kin blow dryer!! And it’s hot as hell. The home air-conditioner is on the blink and the AC repairman charged $200 just to drive over and tell me he needed to order parts.

October 30th:
Been sleeping outside by the pool for 3 nights now. Bloody $300,000 house and we can’t even go inside. Why did I ever come here?

November 4th:
It’s 38 degrees. Finally got the ol’ air-conditioner fixed today. It cost $500 and gets the temperature down to 25, but the bloody humidity makes the house feel like it’s about 30. Stupid
repairman. I hate this stupid f**kin place.

November 8th:
If another wise arse cracks, “Hot enough for you today?” I’m going to f**kin throttle him. F**kin heat! By the time I get to work the car’s radiator was boiling over, my clothes are soakin f**kin wet, and I smell like baked cat!!

November 9th:
Tried to run some messages after work. Wore shorts, and sat on the black leather seats in the ol’ car. I thought my f**kin arse was on fire. I lost 2 layers of flesh and all the hair on the back
of my legs and my f**kin a*se. Now my car smells like burnt hair, fried a*se, and baked cat.

November 10th:
The weather report might as well be a f**kin recording. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. Hot and f**kin sunny. It’s been too hot to do anything for 2 damn months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Doesn’t it ever rain in this damn f**kin place? Water rationing will be next, so my $2,000 worth of palms just might dry up and blow into the f**kin pool. Even the palms can’t live in this f**kin heat.

November 14th:
Welcome to HELL!!! Temperature got to 41 today. Now the air-conditioner’s gone in my car. The repairman came to fix it and said, “Hot enough for you today?” My wife had to spend the $2,500 mortgage payment to bail my a*se out of jail for assaulting the stupid f**ker. F**k Mount Isa! What kind of a sick demented f**kin idiot would want to live here?

December 1st:
WHAT????? This is the first day of Summer???? You are f**kin kiddin!

I’m trying SO hard not to WANT right now. But my Want List is getting longer, in spite of my best efforts.

I want laser surgery so I can throw my much-loathed glasses away. I try to remedy this by being GRATEFUL that
* I can afford glasses.
*With my glasses I can see to do everything I need to do.
*Men couldn’t care less about girls wearing glasses.

I want a new computer. Mine is OLD and SLOW and INADEQUATE. I try to be GRATEFUL that at least it
*works (most of the time).
*does 95% of what I ask it to do.
*is owned.

I want to buy another house. In a suburb that I just KNOW is about to explode and is full of cute run-down cottages just SCREAMING to be renovated. I WILL try to be GRATEFUL that
* I have a beautiful home already.
*Some people don’t even have shelter.

I really really really want to start a business that has been in my head for years. All I need is a location and capital

Today I have had a gutfull of trying to be grateful. Today I just WANT STUFF.

Yes, another update. I said I wouldn’t, but this thing is consuming all of my time. Here are a few detail shots. Now you can see the sequins. Oh the treachery!This is by no means finished. You can see that the bigger flowers don’t have centres yet. It is starting to BORE ME RIGID.
Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

Thank you, thank you for all the comfort and reassurance after yesterday’s Quilter’s Crisis! You guys really are the best. I’ve been feeling lots of bloggy mushiness today. How can one even begin to describe to non-blog-types just how amazing this community is? I can whine in a post and instantly I have cyber-love heading my way from all around the world. I’m starting to understand how it is that people fall in love online!

OK, just so you know, I’m not entirely deluded about the “depth” of these relationships, but over the past few days I have become aware of the genuine support we can provide each other. Several of you are going through really hard times right now. Serious, life-changing challenges. Almost all of us have these moments in our lives that we would rather not experience. Some of us have ongoing difficulties that last for years.

I have been so impressed by the concern and loving care that these hurt bloggers are receiving from us all. Far from being disconnected from the Real World, I’m realising that we are people who have very strong connections and empathy with others. My bloggy buddies, WE ROCK!

We’ve just been in Townsville for a week and a half, now I’m home for two days and then we are off to Brisbane and Coolum for a week. We had a relaxing break in Townsville. Lots of eating out, cruising the shops, walks on the Strand and a number of visitors, including this guy…

This is a goanna right outside our lounge window. Ugh. They are a type of monitor lizard. He’s more than a metre long but they can get much bigger (maybe 2 1/2-3 metres??). They give me the creeps BIG TIME because they can run very fast and they have a tendency to run UP things (including your legs). But they do eat snakes, so I suppose all God’s chillun got a place.
The Boys had to come back to Hughenden earlier than the Girls because Son had his driving test (he passed. yay.) so we had a couple of girly days without them. We saw The Devil Wears Prada. Laugh? You bet. It was pretty funny. Light and entertaining. Not a kmart label to be seen.

So we leave for Brisbane at 4:00 am tomorrow. It’s a l o o o n g drive from here (about 1400 km). Pete has an engineering conference at Coolum (gorgeous beach just north of Brisbane) and when he mentioned beach-front apartments with 180 degree ocean views, I said,”Oh YES. We are coming with you!” We will only have a couple of days in Brisbane but it will give us a chance to catch up with family and maybe do some shopping. Then five days of conference. The worst part of these things is always the dinners; I hate them. A whole room of people in designer clothes (that they paid for with credit cards) trying to impress each other, while I stand there without a single intelligent thing to say wondering if my kmart label is showing. Phooey.

You know how I said I’d post from the coast? I went to an i-cafe. I had my lap top with me. This is what happened.
Me: Hello. Can I plug my handy dandy lap top into your modem?
12 yr old boy i-cafe manager: Certainly, madam. Follow me. (”Madam”??? Am I THAT old????)

walk walk walk

Boy: Put it here on this desk and I’ll connect it up.

I open bag and remove lap top.

Boy, mouth gaping: How OLD is that?
Me: Um, probably older than you.

I turn the now Proven Antique on.

Boy (four seconds later): Does it always take this long to start?
Me (lying): It’s usually a lot faster than this. It must be sick or something.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, after lots of wire-checking, lead-poking and software manipulation by Boy Genius Manager.

Boy: I don’t think this is going to work. Have you thought about updating? (indicates toward the emaciated, greasy university student sitting next to me who is staring dully out of the window while his fingers frantically attack the keyboard of a lap top so thin you could slice cheese with it) One like this is only about $4 grand these days.
Me: Hmmm. (thinking: yeah, let’s see-Mortgage. Food. Car. Kids. Or new lap top? And who paid for that spotty kid’s $4000 computer anyway? I bet it was his MOTHER, who still has a laptop that weighs 15 kg and takes 5 minutes to boot.)

By now want to crawl out of i-cafe backwards, yelling “But really, I AM cool! Honestly! Well, I used to be… In 1987 I was… um… well, when I was a teenager…I…I…”
Decided not to humiliate Teenaged Offspring who were gaming in the Same Room (fortunately wearing headsets so they didn’t hear the Whole Sad Thing).

So, that’s why you haven’t heard from me. I ran very fast in the opposite direction and went for a walk on the beach instead.
This is Rowes Bay, which is just down the road a bit from our townhouse. I love it there. It’s a beautiful beach, in town and there’s hardly ever anyone there!

Hey everybody ! (”hey, Dr Nick!”) I’ll only have internet access intermittently for the next three weeks (on holiday, flitting here and there, hither and yon). So, while I’ll still post every couple of days, my email replies will be s l o w …
On my way here, oh yes I am!

…speaking of replies, if you have left comments for me and not received a reply, please know that it wasn’t for want of trying! You know how blogger has this lame system of not letting us just click on reply? It doesn’t show the senders email address Anyway, sometimes I track people down through their blogs, sometimes I reply in the comments, sometimes I get confused about who I’ve replied to (refer to post about Flakiness).

I lOVE COMMENTS! All of us sad, needy types do! I’ve noticed something really interesting - the more traffic I get, the fewer comments there are. How does that work??

Anyway, did I mention that I have six minutes left to clean the kitchen, bathroom and pack?

Before I show you ANY of the cool photos I’ve been taking, answer me this - WHY AREN”T YOU TALKING TO ME????? I know you’re there. I’ve got the stats to prove it. It seems that when I went away on holiday you got the snitch with me and now I’m getting the silent treatment. Well, I’m going to be the bigger blogger and not pout anymore. Here are my White photos for A Year of Color (dang, I keep wanting to put a “u” in “colour” ). Thank you, Happy Things for this cool fun!

Last night Pete was washing the dishes and I was about to make Afghans (yummy chocolate cookies) when I dropped the mixmaster bowl. Well. Halle-doodah-luia. It was UNBELIEVABLE. The thing exploded. I mean E X P L O D E D !!!! The kitchen was wall to wall glass fragments. And none of them was bigger than a fingernail. Some of the shards were so fine they were like fibreglass fibres.
So, we’re standing there, no part of the floor is without glass and we both have bare feet. The tops of my feet were covered in little crumbs of glass…
so, I partially lifted my foot to wipe it off…
yes, dumb! I know that now!
So now I have tiny cuts on my foot and I can’t put it fully back down on the floor because THERE’S GLASS EVERYWHERE!
We called out to the kids. “HELP! HELP!”
We must’ve raised ‘em right - they actually came running!
“Bring the vacum cleaner!” we cried.
And they did, and we vacumed, and here we are today with no injuries and a plate full of Afghans.

These aren’t the most wonderful photos but I thought you might like to see the quilting on the fossil quilt. Most of the quilting is a combination of the linear stippling (like little interlocking and overlapping boxes) and wavy lines. The thread is hand dyed in colours ranging from cream to chocolate brown, with terracotta in between.
I have reached the “get it away from me” stage, with this project. When will I learn to stop accepting commissions??? I find the whole process so stressful.
For me, all the joy of making a quilt lies in the development of the idea - watching the thing grow and evolve, wondering what it will become. Once the point of revelation has been reached, it’s just a grind to finish it. And if I don’t LIKE the quilt, it becomes a nightmare and so, so hard to make myself keep going.
Enough complaining for one day. There’s binding to be done!

Nobody likes to think that they are a snob, but I think I’ve reached a point in my Maturing as an Adult where I can admit some of my nastier traits publicly (I kid myself that it’s cleansing, but I suspect it’s just self-indulgent and quite probably mean). Here goes…
…I am a major pronunciation snob. When I read this post at visual chronicles, my heart skipped a beat. I’m not alone, there are others! There are others who cringe and twist their hands when someone says pacifically for specifically (or, as Sharon asked on “Kath and Kim“, “And pacifically where in the Specific is your cruise going, Mrs D.?”). It would appear that the further North one ventures in Australia, the richer the pickings. In Sydney, you can watch a film, but if you are a North Queenslander, you watch fillims. Sorry, that should be youse watch fillims. Or you just watch the footy instead. Especially if Norse are playing Souse.
Sadly I have passed the same affliction on to my offspring, who run the risk of becoming sarcastic, derisive teenagers. Whoops! Tautology - sorry!
On a friendlier, happy, happy, joy, joy note, I made a cool shirt yesterday (yes, when I should have been quilting, blah, blah, blah). Oxford collar, French cuffs, freezer paper stencil (again!).

And here’s the Boy, starting his 17th birthday by reading a Playstation Mag before school. Happy Birthday, gorgeous. xxx

Jealousy is unbecoming. I know that. But (and you know what Dr Phil says about But) don’t you think that there are occasions where it’s understandable, if not justified? Alicia has PEONIES growing in her garden. Peonies don’t grow in peoples gardens, peonies are made in heaven and fall from the clouds into the salons of rich people whose homes are being photographed for Architectural Digest.
This is my garden -

And this is after two serious dumps of rain. Usually it isn’t green. Usually it’s brown, sandy dirt with a few prickle patches (right where I stand to hang out the washing). Over the back fence, as you can see, is vacant land and railway lines. The garden shed is on a permanent lean, although the exact angle varies depending on the moisture content of the ground. Being married to a civil engineer, I can tell you that our dirt is an Expansive Clay (not e x p e n s i v e, e x p a n s i v e ) and it does weird things when wet. It either turns to soup in which a sedan can disappear to roof level , slippery slime which can have you driving on your roof in a nano-second or sticky, sticky muck that can clog the wheel hubs to the point where the wheels won’t turn. And that’s why everyone out here drives a 4WD. Big ones. With High Wheel Bases.
It also does nasty things to buildings. One Sunday night we came home from a weekend away and our front door was open. No burglars, just the house moving on the foundations so much that the door could no longer close. One of the real benefits of living in a community such as this, is that we weren’t at risk of robbery - just the house filling up with bugs. Check this baby out -
This thing is FOUR INCHES long. And that’s not even a big one. What’s really scary is that this is just the Scout - there Will Be More. Every year there is a plague of the suckers. I don’t go outside for two weeks (don’t think that I’m joking, people). I HATE THOSE THINGS. They bite and they fly and jump and make nasty clicking noises. I watched Saw and Saw 2 back to back and even that wasn’t scarier than these things. I would rather be tied to a chair and forced to watch the whole Hannibal Lecter series, in the dark and by myself than have these things around.
Well, maybe not in the dark.
And I don’t like being tied up.
Can I watch “Sean of the Dead” instead?

Scrubbing filthy, dirty house today. Ajax. Paper cuts. Need I say more? ow

The King of Higher Learning has done it again! Congratulations to clever Peter who is now a Level Two Accredited Tennis Coach! That means he can now coach coaches on how to coach. The only thing after that is Level Three for coaches who coach professional players, but they are a bit thin on the ground out here in Western Qld so he’ll just stick with Level Two! And now that that qualification is out of the way (by two days), he is busy at work on the next one…
And, in a similiar vein, I have suffered a sporting injury. Last night I dropped a photo album, juggled the catch and SIMULTANEOUSLY got SEVEN (count them, seven) (you heard right, SEVEN) paper cuts across my knuckles (could there be a more painful place?? I don’t think so) . I had to be blood-binned and today four of them are infected. I doubt that there was ever anyone who has suffered so for their art. I bet that even Leonardo never topped three at a time.

Some days are just B L A H days, and, even worse, some weeks are just B L A H weeks. Weeks where you get to Friday (oh, is it Friday TODAY??!!!) and feel as if you have achieved absolutely nothing. Not a thing. Not one single thing.
I always start Mondays so full of hope, so full of expectation. Mondays are a day for anticipating. What will I do this week? What will I have accomplished by Friday? Well, the answer this week is,”Go away and leave me alone. This week sucked.”
It started with a cyclone. And not just Larry. Our house had it’s own mini cyclone when it became a storage facility for a whole host of furniture and personal effects that temporarily have nowhere else to live. I’m good at living in chaos. Mostly it doesn’t bother me much, but as the kids get older and we have less of it, my tolerance is lowering. Now it just plain gets me down. And the downer I get, the less able I am to straighten it out (not that there’s anywhere else to put the stuff).
Then I had a project disaster. This seldom happens, so I suppose I should be grateful; except that it was someone elses project. I should know by now. I STRESS out something chronic when working on commissions. The feeling of obligation is just so overwhelming that I crack under the self-imposed pressure. Well, maybe I’m overstating things just a little. MOST times I’m fine, but all it takes is one teeny mistake and I can feel the panic starting to rise. It’s OK for my own projects to be imperfect, but as soon as the first glitch hits someone else’s project I want to throw it in the corner and howl.
After three equally pathetic attempts, I finished. But I’m not happy.
So, yesterday was a write-off. Nothing happened all day. I read. A very good book. Oh, yeah, and then…
…I know it was only last night, but I’d actually forgotten as I sat here in a funk, writing…
… I DID have a win! I have been playing in one of the local Quiz Night teams. The first night was a “warm up”, and my team won. The next week was Round 1, and my team won. Last night was
Round 2, and, guess who won? WE DID! YAY US! We rock! We know more useless information than the other five teams. We know that the safest place to sit in a plane is the tail section and that penguins only have sex once a year. We know how many countries joined the EEC and that Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan had a hit single called, “Especially You”. We also know that some of the other teams are getting pretty tired of us winning every week and we may start receiving hate mail soon (this is a Small Town). We tried to appease them last night by putting our winnings on the bar, but I suspect this magnanimous flourish only rubbed the all-ready-out-of-joint probosces deeper into the sludge. Alas, we of the Superior Intellect are fated to suffer the slings and arrows of lesser mortals! We may need to don chain-mail for next weeks comp. Or maybe hire some heavies. Maybe I should start knitting balaclavas…hmm…

…must dash! A creative surge is building and it could be productive!