Feeling like a goose

Well I finally found a bit of energy this morning and while Carl and Romily were out of the house I started stitching my flying geese 'blocks' for baby Campbell's quilt. My back is much better, so I thought I'd see how I went sitting on a big fat cushion at the sewing machine - not too bad!

Until I started to sew - god my Janome gives me the irrites. I have to fiddle faddle with the bobbin casing every time I sit down to sew - it's either too loose or too tight - and I can never predict which. It catches and jumps and does lovely little snarls on the underside of the fabric. It drives me nuts. I finally got it resolved after about two hours, but I was feeling less than relaxed and happy by then.

Anyway, I finally got all my green bits pieced, pressed and sewn together. Only to discover that I had managed to really muck up my measurements and the centre part of the flying geese block doesn't extend all the way to the edge, so they look funny. I have no idea what I did wrong, although this just proves two things:

a) I am a novice quilter; and
b) Trigonometry is not my strong suit.

Ah well, live and learn I guess. What did I learn today? Buy yeself a pattern. Yes, a pattern. Stop trying to make everything from scratch. When you have mastered a pattern, then begin freewheeling!

I still like the effect. Next job is to colour match the light purples with the dark purples and stitch the outside flying geese. The inside green ones will be separated from the outside purple ones by orange, red and yellow sashing/inner border. Let's hope it all works out!!

Maybe I should call the quilt 'bandaged geese'?

Sore back

Well I'm certainly going through the wars at the moment. Just as I was recovering from another gastric infection, I've 'done my back in'. I was bending over helping Romily up our stairs and 'twang'! I suddenly felt excruciating pain and couldn't move. I had to yell out to Carl to come and get Rom and to help me move, somewhere, anywhere.

I spent that night in agony, finally managing to get some sleep, but waking up in pain every time I tried to move. Yesterday was spent in bed, trying not to move. Today I am a little improved, and can manage to hobble around the house. No bending over and no playing with Rom though, which is pretty hard on all of us. Poor Carl now has two children and a kitten to care for. He's not enjoying it much either.

I hope I'm much better by Monday - I don't want to take another day off before my last day if I can help it. And I am finding it very hard to not do anything. It's horrible! Not the way I prefer to spend time away from work...

Sydney delights

I promised to post some photos from our weekend in Sydney - finally downloaded onto the Mac, transferred via DVD to the laptop, edited and phew! Can finally post them here.

We had two nights in a lovely two-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-storey (noticing a theme here?) apartment, which overlooked Darling Harbour - on the 'back' side of Sydney CBD. A very pretty spot and a great view! If you look closely (click to enlarge), you can see the water in the bottom left corner. The funny looking building in the foreground is the entertainment centre.


And what a great night sky! For those of you who live in big cities this is probably a bit ho hum, but for we Canberra-ites, it's a little bit exciting!


And you've gotta love a complex with a pool and spa like this one.


Well Romily and Carl did anyway!


We had a great time visiting the Powerhouse Museum (had never been there before) and Rom certainly enjoyed the enclosed playground they have on their lower floor. It was a short but sweet visit - the best kind with an 18 month old toddler in tow!

I give you Jacqui O!

Well, maybe not Jacqueline Kennedy, but my very own Romily! She adores these sunglasses I bought her today - probably because Mummy and Daddy never let her handle their glasses!

And good news - I have a new job and I finally got motivated to start cutting squares and triangles for the flying geese quilt I am making for baby Campbell.

This is after I dragged myself off my 'deathbed' after succumbing to yet another mystery gastric viral infection - this one hit me the day after I resigned my job! I had to take almost two full days off work - it wasn't a good look, so I went to get a doctor's certificate to prove I was actually sick. Although any of my colleagues who saw me on Thursday knew I was, to use a very Australian term, crook as a dog. I felt like death warmed up. There's enough cliches for you!

Anyway, although I am not 100%, I felt much improved today - sufficiently compus mentis to start cutting fabric anyway. I will have to use some fusible webbing on one piece I accidentally cut 1/2" too short! Oops. By the time I quilt it, no one will ever know...I hope!

I also discovered that I need more fabric. Shame that really!

Oh and for any Aussie quilters or those further away who may be looking for some new fabrics... visit http://quiltfabricdelights.com.au/store/Default.asp

They have good prices and an amazing collection - most of which I haven't seen before (not that I get out much!).

We had a good weekend - yesterday we had about 1o adults and 6 chidren around to help celebrate Carl's birthday. It was madness and mayhem and we had to put poor little Bashkaa away in our bedroom for the day - and endure his plaintive wailings (I did go and visit him a couple of times to make sure he was okay!). But Carl and Rom had a great time - I was a trooper and tried to keep my distance from everyone so I didn't cross-infect.

Am pretty tired now, and the new season of CSI is about to debut on telly, so off I pop for a bit of choc and relaxation.

More about the new job in my next post.

Smoochy smoochy

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Today is also our 3rd wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary honey!

I just had a flick through our wedding photos and picked out a few (one or two!) to share.


Awwww, smoochy, smoochy :)

Happy Birthday darling Carl

Happy 45th my darling Carl.



I love you and our life together. I am a very lucky woman to have found a man like you.

Bashka is here!

Just had to post some photos of our beautiful boy, who finally arrived today! Bashka is settling in beautifully and he is just gorgeous. We're all in love all over again. Especially Romily, who has said 'mau mau mau' about 5000 times today!

New toy!

We're back from our lovely but short weekend away in Sydney - we had a fantastic two-story apartment that overlooked Darling Harbour and the cityscape. I'll post some photos during the week - I haven't had a chance to download them yet.

But I have downloaded some photos from my new toy ... er camera ... and you'll never guess the subject matter!

Romily of course!






Did I mention how much I love my new camera? It's fab!

Dropped off the face of the earth

Well not quite - I can't believe it's nearly two weeks since I posted. Have been planning to show off some photos from my new camera, but have only just got around to loading the software. And I still have to download all the photos to our other computer because we still don't have a new one and this one's USB ports are busted. So I have to transfer everything via CD. A very big pain the bum!

Very busy indeed at work and at home - I've had hardly any time to myself, although I have started yoga again. It's been 18 months (yes, just before Rom was born), and I really need it. I just love yoga (I just do hatha) and have missed it a lot. It's good to be back into it again - although I've realisd just how weak I've become!

I have done absolutely no stitching or anything crafty for two weeks. What a shocker. I've just been so tired and struggling to keep my eyes open after putting Romily down for the night. Too tired by half.

Romily is going really well - she speaks about 40 words consistently at the moment, understands just about everything we ask her, answers yes or no to all our questions and has finally started saying 'ta'. She had her last jab the other day until she's four - the chicken pox vaccine has just come onto our 'free' inoculation list. I say 'free' because you still have to pay for the doctor's appointment! She is so gorgeous at the moment - 18 months is the most gorgeous age!

We're off to Sydney for the weekend after I finish work tomorrow afternoon - we haven't been there since before Romily was born. (Well I had a day trip with Rom when she was five months old, but Carl didn't come). I am looking forward to just getting out of Canberra for the weekend and just mooching about with no firm commitments, no timetables, just random, leisurely wandering!

Bashka - 13 weeks (photos from the breeder)

And to top it all off, our Bengal kitten Bashka arrives in Canberra on Monday afternoon - I can't wait - I am so excited about having a pet - it's been 10 years. I think I may even be more excited that Romily will be when she realises the 'mau' is a permanent fixture/captive target!

Sorry I haven't been keeping up to date with everyone's blogs - I have hardly been online at all.

Hopefully I'll have some stitching to report next week! Until then, take care my little chickadees!

Fruit 4 leukaemia

While not up to the unbelievably high standard of needleturn applique produced by fellow bloggers Anne and Judy, I am fairly happy with this effort. (Not so happy with how the photos turned out, but hopefully that can be fixed soon - see below!)

Here are my four blocks for Clare's project (see previous post for links):

Fruit salad!

Cherries

Banana

Pear

Strawberry

Not so happy with the banana - it's out of scale with the others, but I guess it doesn't matter really!

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We're having a lovely long weekend - catching up with lots of friends and their kids, which is keeping Romily entertained as well as us. I had a very busy week at work, but actually got everything done that I needed to. No more, no less! But it meant that I came to the long weekend in the right frame of mind and I'm even managing to relax a little bit.

Oh and I bought myself a new camera yesterday! A Canon 400D. Can't wait till it arrives. I haven't really used my old film SLR for a long time, as it's now so damned inconvenient! We have a little Nikon point and shoot, but it's no good for inside photos or for rapid fire shots, which you kinda need with an energetic 18 month old on the loose!

Romy is asleep downstairs and I'm hoping she'll have a good sleep, as we're off to a BBQ late this afternoon and I don't want her to tire out too early. We'll employ our two-car strategy again tonight - we go in separate cars so that one of us can leave early and take Romily home if she needs to go to bed. She's not quite old enough to keep up late without paying a huge price the next day! She usually lasts till about 9pm, but that's quite late enough! And I'll probably be ready to come home by then anyway. I may even get started (finally) on baby Campbell's quilt. I have about 80 flying geese to cut and sew!!! Had better get stuck in and stop procrastinating!

No excuses now that I've finished the red and white blocks - my fingers are starting to get itchy for some more sewing!

Nothing to show for it

Howdy.

Just exhausted here. Nothing fun either. Just work, very little play and not enough sleep.

And no sewing to show you either. Although I have been doing some applique - I am making four blocks for Clare's Quilts 4 Leukaemia challenge. I slipped into her last round of contributors and was most relieved when she said there was no rush!

I'll be able to post a photo of the finished blocks over the weekend. It's a long weekend here - Friday is Australia Day. I usually really look forward to long weekends, but not at the moment - it just means I have to fit five days worth of work into four. Grrr.

So I feel like I've been doing a lot of work, but have nothing to show for it.

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We have had a little time for fun - Carl and I took Romily to the walk-in aviary in Canberra the weekend before last. She loved it - there was an amazing number of different parrots, finches, budgies and galahs. There were also quail, doves and lots of other birds. Romy loved it - she could run around to her heart's content and she also fed some apple to the gamer birds, some very experienced and noisy lorikeets. We had a lot of fun.

This little bird has obviously worked out what new humans into the enclosure means - fresh apple. He landed on Carl's shoulder within seconds of us walking in!

Budding artist

I give you ma petite Picasso!




Actually she prefers taking the crayons in and out of the container to actually using them to draw. Unless it's on the floor when Mummy is not looking. Then she seems to enjoy it very much! So far the walls are safe :)

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I am still sick. It's on-again, off-again and driving me a little bonkers. I went to see the doctor on Friday and he said it's either some bacteria eking out a living in my intestines after an initial bout of food poisoning (apparently the bacteria can get into your blood stream and stick around for a while), or giardia. Gross. He prescribed a 4-tablet dose of a pretty strong antibiotic, which I took last night. I was still feeling nauseated today, so I was also doped up on Stemetil. I'd better have some yoghurt tomorrow to put some of the good bacteria back in my system I suppose.

I was feeling a little down last night before I went to bed. I should have been happy. Sleepless in Seattle was on the telly and I watched the end of it. I don't much like either Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks usually, but I do like them in that movie. I should have felt uplifted at the end, but I felt strangely sad. So I thought I'd pop in and watch my sleeping angel. Unfortunately just the moment I stepped into her room she was moving around in a semi-sleep mode and she spotted me and immediately stood up and said "up"! So I had to pick her up for a cuddle. She took about 10 minutes to go back to sleep. I felt much better after that. How did she know Mummy needed a midnight cuddle?

Movie time

Not a lot exciting to report - but I have been to the movies twice in the past two weeks, which is a real luxury. With a one and nearly a half year old and no family in town you don't tend to get out very often.

My father-in-law kindly offered to babysit one night when we were in Bendigo and Carl and I went out to the cinema to see Casino Royale - the new James Bond flick. I have to say that both Carl and I were hugely impressed - we thought the film was excellent and loved Daniel Craig. Those piercing blue eyes are mesmerising! We look forward to the next instalment.


Last week, two nights before I returned to work I took some time out or 'Lily time' and went to see The Holiday - a romantic comedy with two of my favourite actors Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz. I thought it was fantastic! It was what Love Actually should have been. It was a little corny and a little contrived, to be sure, but for lovers of romance it was excellent. I would have to say it's one of the best films I've seen for ages!


I really enjoyed going to the movies by myself. I might have to do it a little more often (but remember to arrive early enough to have time to buy an ice-cream!).

Romy's quilt is finished!

I can hardly believe it, but I managed to get the binding onto Romy's quilt while we were away! I have finished my second quilt. I am very happy to have finished it - after all, I started it in May (now last year!). There are some problems with it, if you look closely, but I'm not! :)


One question for you lovely ladies though - I washed it on a cold delicates cycle in 'wool mix' and the chalk I used to mark out my quilting lines hasn't come out completely. Any tips? I guess that it will wear off eventually/come out with a couple more washes?


Anyway, it was my first major quilting project and I learnt a great deal from doing the sampler.

I am about to embark on the next one - yet another cot quilt for our friends who just had a baby boy. I am taking inspiration in terms of colours from Patti's Stars for Sophie quilt - I think purple and green is a beautiful combination - but don't worry for those of you who wondered about my 'babies love brights' comment - I have bought brilliant orange flannel for the backing! I will also bind it in something outrageous and it may yet have some bright highlights...we'll see how it turns out. I am planning on doing a tonne of flying geese and setting them in a sort of spiral. Again...we'll see how that turns out!! Now I just have to dig out my instructions for cutting and sewing the blocks :)

Happy 2007!

Happy New Year!!

We're back from our trip down south, and taking it relatively easy over the next few days before I return to work. I am trying very hard not to think about going back to work and all the headaches I'll face then. I haven't turned on my BlackBerry the whole time I've been away and I don't intend to until Thursday morning. I want to stay relaxed for as long as possible.

Two days before Christmas - and it was hot!

We had a lovely Christmas, although it was coooooold on Christmas Day - brrrr! Fortunately I'd taken some cold weather clothing for Romily and for me - poor Carl had neither a jumper nor a jacket, so he was a tad chilly, but he's usually pretty warm all the time so he didn't suffer too much.

With Carl and Granddad in Bendigo

Unfortunately I was sick on and off for most of the time and Romily came down with a cold. I lost about two days of my life after Christmas - I'm not sure whether I picked up a bug or whether I ate a dodgy oyster on Christmas Day, but whatever it was I was very ill indeed. I am on the mend now and will, no doubt, be all recovered just in time for my return to the office.

It was wonderful to catch up with our families and some of our friends - we never have enough time to catch up with all of them, which is hard, as we only see some of our friends every two years.

Romily on Christmas Day with cousins Darcy and Cody

Romily really enjoyed having other kids around - she loves playing with them and I think the stimulation of having other people her size to be with has really spurred her development. She seems to have really changed over the past week - she loves going to the playground and has mastered the slide! She loves swinging and throws her head back so she's horizontal in the swing - it scares me but she thinks it's hilarious! She can walk over the rickety bridges without holding our hands (she has to hold onto the rail though) and beetles about the place having a great time.


She has also started babbling non-stop - my mum tells me I did exactly the same at around 18 months and haven't shut up since!! Carl and I think the babble will soon become sentences. She already has about 20 words. Including "Mummy", which I adore!

She's a big girl now in many ways - she's very independent, but still loves snuggling (which I also adore), she has four molars through and one eye tooth (with the others coming down any day now), her hair is just about long enough to put in a pony tail, and she now goes up and down the stairs holding onto the railing - no more crawling for this little girl!

I'm a big girl now

We had a very quiet night last night to bring in the New Year - we watched a DVD (The Libertine starring a very untidy Johnny Depp among others - I didn't like it very much, disappointingly) - and then we stayed up to watch the Sydney Harbour fireworks show on telly. What a pair of party animals we are these days! Not!! Ah well, we had bubbly, chocolate and each other - what more could you wish for?

So Happy New Year to all - I hope 2007 is good to all of us!

Merry Christmas!

I know I'm a week early, but we're heading off on holiday leave on Tuesday night straight after work, so I won't be able to post again until after Christmas.

We are making our annual pilgrimage to Melbourne and Bendigo to visit our families and spend the festive season with the ones we love and who love us. All of the grandparents are very much looking forward to seeing young Romily - she has come along and grown so much since they saw her last in October.


She is becoming a very beautiful person, although she is a real handful. She is the tantrum throwing queen, but then the next minute can be just delightful. It's hard as an adult to remember to not stay mad at littlies! I have to keep reminding myself that I'm the mature one in this relationship, so I'd better start acting like it!


I'm looking forward to showing her off to our families. She won't really 'get' Christmas this year, especially as we don't have our Christmas tree up - we figured since we're going away and she'd only destroy it, there wasn't much point. I will make a big effort next year - and it gives me 12 months to make a tree skirt :)

So Merry Christmas everyone - stay safe, eat too much, drink a bit (but not if you're driving) and enjoy some time away from work and with your loved ones.