getting’ granny wit it…

So, prior to the ill-fated meeting of Lap Top & Tea Cup, I was being productive. Of the creative variety, that is, rather than the boring, everyday-crap-which-must-be-done kind of productive. All fired up by Car’s crocheted granny blankie, I was keen to have a go myself. I placed my rather lofty ambitions in the somewhat capable hands of Google, and had a bit of a search for an easy to understand tutorial whilst enjoying a nice, quiet cup of tea (unspilt at that stage).

 

I think I have tension issues. The end result was a square, true, but not of the granny variety. There are holes at somewhat regular intervals, and it looks ok, until I compared it with the picture of what itw as suppoed to look like. *sigh*

 

Once my poor sore fingers return to normal I may have another try.

 

Monday has been picking on me so far. A certain small boy decided he wanted breakfast at soem unholy hour of the morning, so I found myself standing in the kitchen making Weetbix before five this morning – not a good start to the week! But I plan to turn that around. Teaching the crochet hook who’s boss. Finishing D9P - so close, I’m just in the process of sewing in the ends & stitching down the binding, so hopfeully will be able to show it off sometime this week. Trying to find a painting groove. Lots of books & couddles & swings & outdoor play before winter really sets in. It’s going to be a good week. Let’s do this!

heartbreak in the nest

Silence. After a night of constant waking, and a morning of relentless whinging, the children finally, peacefully slept. The silence is broken only by the excited chatter of a boiling kettle, followed by a soft “thunk”. Mug, sugar, teabag, water. A cloud of milk turns the liquid from deep brown to light amber.

 

She sits, tea by her side, a small (ish) Easter egg lying unwrapping in front of her. Sip. Bite. Sip, sip. Twitter. Bloglines. Inspiration. Google. Wool. Hook. Success. Sip, sip. Row 1, 2, 3. A rhythm develops, and the tea grows cold, forgotten.

 

The peace is shattered by the cry of a baby. He feeds, his eyes flutter closed, and he dozes.

 

He stirs, blinks, then wails at the horror of finding himself awake. He sits up, his eyes survey the desk in front of him, lock on that plain, yet interesting blue & white thing in front of him.

 

Time slows. He reaches out and makes contact a split second before his mother does. He grasps, pulls, and then, in slow motion, Tea Cup meets Lap Top. In a performance that would make Romeo & Juliet proud, their tryst ends in tragedy.

 

Yep, keyboard died. Shut down the computer, restarted 2 hours later, still dead. Shut down, restarted this morning, still not working. So off we trundle to buy a new keyboard. Set it up, type most of this post using new keyboard, accidently revert to laptop keyboard for the last paragraph – the flipping thing works again! AARRRGGHHHH! Murphy strikes again!

Just a gentle reminder…

…to myself.

 

Mondayitis hit me over the head yesterday, and the wheels came off my “don’t think, just do” campaign. But I’m back on the bandwagon today, and thanks to several strong cups of coffee, I’ve found my groove!

The current favourite toddler activity is painting. Anything & everything. So what better way to enjoy the warm sunshine on a lovely autumn day, then to lay a ripped sheet on the back lawn, break out the paint bottles and let  little feet go nuts?

I have no idea what I’m going to do with it now – maybe just save it for cubby house building?

 

Another fun project was potato stamps.

Being a ‘seat-of-my-pants’ project, I just squirted paint direct on the stamp and swirled it with my finger. I think next time, I will use tray of paint to make it easier/messier/funner (is that a word?) for Bear.

 

It would appear that my children have conspired to hatch an evil plan to prevent their poor tired mama from doing anything fun, and are refusing to nap at the same time. *sigh* The quilt will just have to take a back seat to trains and Bubba’s favourite game of “eat the mama – or drown her in drool trying”. Eh, just a different kind of fun this Tuesday has in store for me! Loving it!

Worming through the books

What with sick children & visiting relatives over the last week or so, I’ve been unable to scratch my creative itch. And itching it is. I’m about 2/3rds of the way through quilting D9P (who knew straight lines could take so long?), there are a couple of very rough sketchs I’m hanging to refine, and an idea for a little watercolour painting. I’m feeling very inspired at the minute, and my brain is working overtime thinking about the 300 or so projects I want to tackle. (Ok, so maybe it’s only 30, but it feels like a lot!)

 

One thing I did manage to do though, is churn through a few more books. So, as of noon, Monday April 20, my reading challenge list looks a little like this:

 

1. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald (fiction, opshop find) *** (Jan 09)

2. Fishing for Stars – Bryce Courtney (fiction, new/gift) ***1/2 (Jan 09)

3. The Time Travellers Wife – Audrey Niffenegger (fiction, re-read for the 736th time) ****1/2 (Feb 09)

4. The Adventure of English:A biography of a Language – Melvin Bragg(non-fiction, re-read for the 312th time) ***1/2 (Feb 09)

5. Vet in a Spin – James Herriot (non-fiction, memoir, re-read) **** (Feb 09)

6. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie – James Herriot (non-fiction, memoir, re-read) ***1/2 (Feb 09)

7. Various Flavours of Coffee – Anthony Capella (fiction, library find) ***1/2 (Feb 09)

8. How to help you child read & write – Dr Dominic Wyse (non-fiction, library find) *** (Feb 09)

9. Before I Wake – John Scott (fiction, library find) (in progress, contemplating giving up!)

10. From Here to Maternity – Sinead Moriarty (fiction, chick-lit, library find) **** (March 09)

11. Dog Stories – James Herriot (non-fiction, memoirs, re-read) *** (March 09)

12. The Planets – Dava Sobel (non-fiction, astronomy, new/gift) **** (March 09)

13. Creative Play for Your Baby – Christopher Clouder & Janni Nicol (non-fiction, Steiner based play & craft, new) ***** (March 09)

14. The Writing Class – Jincy Willitt (fiction, light crime/homour, library find) **** (April 09)

      I quite enjoyed this book. An engaging writing style & well-thought-out plot had me hooked, as well as all the red herrings. I had a few ‘suspects’ in mind, and thought I wouldn’t be surprised, but I was! Explores the themes of trust & the idea that people aren’t always who or what you expect. I’m thinking this one will get another visit sometime down the track.

 

15. Australia Street – Ann Whitehead (fiction, drama, library find) **** (April 09)

    Another enjoyable read, exploring family relationships & dynamics. Well developed characters are easy to empathise with, and I found myself ‘taking sides’ in one of the marriage breakdowns!

 

16. Behind the Bestsellers – Jenny Bond & Chris Sheedy (non-fiction, literature history, library find) ****1/2 (April 09)

    Very interesting to read the histories & motivators behind some of the books that have had an impact on our culture. I also like it as a reference list for important books that I would like to read some day.

 

17. But Wait, There’s More… – Robert Crawford (non-fiction, advertising, library find) in progress.

 

 

If the boys will sleep a bit longer for me, I’m hoping to get this quilting finished & binding attached so I can stitch it down tonight. Then I want to hit the paints, plus I have a few ideas in mind for prettying up the blog a bit. Autumn is definately underway, and I have a few ideas for some clothes for the boys (particularly the toddler – baby has enough hand-me-downs from big brother that he could change 3 times a day and still not run out of clothes!), that I’m hoping to design, draft & sew myself. Plus I want to have a go at crochet again, and try a granny square or two. Try & knock out a few projects to clear my brain a bit.

 

Watch out Monday, I’m here, I’m ready, and I’m not thinking, just doing!

A productive weekend

I had a good run on the weekend as part of my “don’t think, just do” campaign, and managed to knock over a couple of projects I’d been planning for ages.

 

First was an art smock for Bear. I scored a metre of rubber backed Pooh Bear curtain fabric on clearance, so I drafted up a pattern, and here’s what I got:

I was quite chuffed with how this turned out. It was my first go at drafting something with sleeves, and it worked! Yay me! A couple of minor boo-boos, but easily fixed, and not noticeable at all. Not bad for a grand total of $6, is it? It is a bit big, but that just means it’ll last for ages.

 

So while I was on a roll, I pulled out another pile of fabric I had, and made a little swag/sleeping bag for Bear to use when visiting/travelling/camping.

The star lining was a bargain, the cordouroy outer, not so much. Shhh, don’t tell DH!

 

I’m about 1/3 of the way through quilting the D9P, but may have to ignore it in favour of some hemming… though I can hem while watching tv, can’t I? Hmm, hemming tonight, quilting now, I think.

 

Sleep small boys, dream sweet dreams & take your time…

Don’t think, just do.

Seeing as winter was upon us, it was time to upgrade Bear’s winter shoes. The boxes were too good to chuck in the recycling straight up, and I couldn’t be bothered storing them, so out came the craft bo, and the boxes became a house (left box is an open plan lounge/kitchen, right box is bedroom with ensuite), complete with a spoon person, aptly named “Person”.

 

And the title, you ask? My motto for this week. I think I’ve mentioned before that I am a procrastinator. Big time. I’ll even procrastinate about fun stuff. But over the weekend, I had an epiphany.  (And for those EBers playing along at home, not that kind of epiphany).

 

Don’t think about it, just do it. Then it’s done. It’s working so far. I had a very productive weekend, the house got clean, I finally caught up on all that washing, finished the top of the D9P, made an art smock for Bear, and also made him a little sleeping bag. Very productive indeed. Today is shapng up pretty good too. I may even get the D9P quilted today. But I might just have a coffee first…

Nope. No excuses. Let’s do this crazy little thing called Monday!

Fun Friday…

We had a blast yesterday. I got the blocks joined for D9P, and the border chosen. And much to the toddlers delight, we baked biscuits. Teddy bear and star and duck and people biscuits. I didn’t do such a great job of ignoring hte housework, but I suppose that’s a plus. Though I still have a massive pile of dirty washing to plow through. Seriously, where does it come from? Am I the only one drowning in washing? I also managed to add Twitter to my blog yesterday (sounds like it should be easy, huh? Well, yeah, if you use your brain. Something I struggle with constantly). If you’re on twitter, leave me a comment with your user name & I’ll follow you. Or you can follow me by clicking on my updates over there –>

 

At first I didn’t get the whole twitter thing, and to be honest, not sure I still do. But I find myself, having just hit the publish button, thinking, oh, should’ve said this, should’ve said that, so now I can tweet it instead!

 

Today, we’ve been like a tribe of chipmunks on a suger high. We’ve sung, we’ve danced, we’ve painted an old sheet to use for cubby houses. We still have a shoebox house to make, and maybe some puppets too. I really should attempt to conquer Mt Clothesiosko (both clean and dirty). And I really hope to swing a bit of sewing time to whack this border on, then head to the fabric shop over the weekend for wadding. I’m going to finish this week on a high note!

Book haul

Phew. We survived. Bubba Bear only cried a bit when the needles went in, and stopped as soon as I picked him up. I think Bear took it worse than his little brother – he was in hysterics as soon as we walked into the doctors office! I ended up getting a whooping cough booster too, and my arm is still sore. Yep, I’m a sook. On the upside, the dentist wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected, just a filling really, so that was good. I’d got myself all stressed about nothing!

 

And is it just me, or does washng seem to breed in the rain? I did three loads yesterday, and I still can’t see the laundry floor. Sigh.

We dropped into the library after the doctors, as I was desperate for some new reading material, and I ended up with the four pictured above – the top two are fiction, th bottom two non-fiction. I made a crack at “Behind the Bestsellers” last night, and I’ve found it quite an enjoyable read.

 

Today, I intend to finish D9p (anyone feeling a bit of deja vu?) – the blocks are done, so it’s just a matter of joing & deciding on a border. Bikkies to bake, books to read, a request for a green bus. Enjoying the sunshine, playng in the sandpit, maybe finding a few puddles to play in after all the rain. Ignoring the housework, including the self-propogating washing, because it’s a beautiful day with beautiful boys, and I’m going to enjoy every last second of today. Let’s do this!