This and that

Ever since I started this blog for fun on my birthday in 2008, I have had the same photo of a fairy nestled in amongst blue lobelia flowers for my header. I never found another photo that seemed the right one to replace it, one that summed up my life/outlook/philosophy. But then, while flying my big girl's kite in the park the other day, I managed to hold the camera with one hand and the kite string in the other and snap a picture of it flying above me. Every time I look at this photo, I feel happy. It makes me feel hopeful and reminds me that the world is still full of beauty and simple pleasures despite earthquakes, floods, and other bad things that happen to good people. Plus..... I do have a little rainbow obsession.

I don't know where I used to find the time to do more posting on this blog. Suddenly, I just don't seem to be able to manage to find a spare 20 minutes to find the camera, upload the photos and stick them in a post with a few sentences. I could only find one of our two cameras tonight so some of the photos I was planning to post will have to wait until another time. I know I had our camera at Gallery of Modern Art on Friday and don't think I have seen it since, which is a worry.

A few posts back, I mentioned a quilt I was making for a special friend who has taught me so much about mothering, loving kindness, living in the moment and "letting go". After a couple more weeks of stitching it was finally finished, wrapped up and delivered. This quilt pretty much made itself and I loved making it. I loved the colours and the pictures of herbs and the simplicity of good old squares and rectangles. I love that it has gone to a happy home where the door is always open to friends, even when they have wandered down the street after dinner in their pajamas.

(I apologise that there is a tiny bit too much of me showing in this photo, but, hey, it's only the internet).

The autumn weather has made it a joy to be outside, especially in a park. A few weekends ago, we went to our local park with our friends to fly a kite and get in some extra monkey bar time.

Can you see the kite disappearing over the bridge?

When I sat down at the computer this evening to upload the latest batch of photos from my camera, I came across a bunch of gorgeous photos that I had never seen before. What a gift! Not sure what I was doing when my husband snapped them but I can't resist showing them to you. This is the side of our house where the weeds run rampant and we never seem to get around to making it beautiful. When we bought the house, the architect friend who did our building inspection warned that the landing didn't meet safety standards and we should add a railing. We did get a quote but never followed through on it. Nearly four years later, no-one has fallen off it (touch wood). Somehow, an old geranium has grown in a neglected corner and enchanted two girls having fun with a beachtowel and an umbrella. Thanks Scott for the photies!

Thanks Universe for two happy, healthy children (who didn't fall off the landing!)

More everyday stuff

Baby hollyhocks sheltering beside the eggplants.

Baby sweet peas. (Sorry...these photos belong further down. I'm having trouble getting my photos to move around. Cutting and pasting doesn't work and clicking and dragging will only move them a centimetre at a time if I am lucky. Any suggestions gratefully received. I also can't get the spaces to appear between paragraphs. They are there when I write the post but disappear when I publish it. Editing does not fix the problem and yesterday I went into my format settings thing and thought I fixed it, but no. As someone who writes for a living, this is driving me completely nuts!!!!!)

Nothing earth shattering going on at our place - just the same old same old. Sometimes that is lovely, but sometimes it seems a bit like ground hog day. But how can you possibly complain about life's ordinariness when you see what has happened in Japan? So.....I am thankful that my little world is safe and ordinary and full of normality and love as well as dishes, children with mouth ulcers (is there a virus going around or something?), doggy doo doo to pick up from the backyard. You get the picture.

So here are a few scenes from our ordinary life in the quiet suburbs.

My big girl wanted to make a little garden on the weekend so transplanted some sun jewels into a shallow pot and decorated it with pretty stones and a little pond. Her friend made one too. I love to see them with their hands in the dirt (well.....in the potting mix). My little girl just played in the soil and made a fine mess in the carport. (It was too hot and sunny to do this on the grass).

I've been neglecting my garden for months. My poor old lavender bush was surrounded by weeds and one of my no-dig vege patches was completely overwhelmed by weeds and is now a vege garden no more. So I headed to the beautiful garden shop at Carseldine on the weekend with the girls and bought some flower seedlings. I do love growing veges but have been hankering for flowers. I have hardly any at the moment and cannot survive a minute longer without them. All I have at present is the occasional hydrangea flower and some sun jewels. I have always LOVED sweet peas but have never had the right spot for them. So this year I am determined to grow them in the vege patch against the fence. The nursery only had medium height and little bijou ones when I really want the standard tall ones that go right up the fence but I couldn't go home without them so bought a punnet of the medium height ones and some lime to dig into the soil to make it sweet pea friendly. I also saw some hollyhock seedlings. I have never grown them but I love them and couldn't resist so I have just planted them next to our raging eggplants and have my fingers crossed that they will get enough sun and goodness to grow and flower for me. I saw several earthworms in the soil so that's a good sign. It never ceases to amaze me that when you put layers of newspaper, compost and sugar cane mulch in layers that it turns into beautiful dark rich composty soil. What a miracle!

My little girl has been exceptionally good lately at amusing herself for hours on end, just pottering in her room or in the playroom. Mixing up all the toys and packing them into various containers. Such a big job to sort them out again later but never mind. This week she got into the dress up box very quietly and then suddenly found me and announced that she was a pirate. Funny creature, she is.

Kipper made us laugh this week. We have an old bathmat next to the fireplace where he is sometimes allowed to sit and be with us in the evenings before he goes to bed in the laundry. When we let him inside and say "mat", he trots to it and sits down. If he's tired he lies down and will have a sleep or just watch what we are doing. Because I had been vacuuming and mopping I had put his mat in the wash and one of the girls' little TV couches was sitting in his "mat" spot. Suddenly we realised Kipper had parked his bottom on what he thought was his lovely new comfy mat! I think he has a very worried look on his face.

Hope all is well in your worlds.

Baking, sewing, loving

After a few weeks of resting up after the thyroid surgery thing, I am starting to feel like myself again. The swelling around my throat has gone down a lot and I have finally got enough energy to get back into normal life a little. Having some extra time on my hands has been a real gift. After not touching my sewing machine for months, I decided to do some quilting. I wanted to make a quilt for a much loved friend and found the leftover fabric my sister gave me after making me a surprise wedding quilt. It has lovely pictures of herbs on it and I have always really loved it. With some help from the wonderful Claudia at Quilt Essentials, I picked out some colours that matched in well and started cutting out big squares. I want this quilt to be beautiful but nice and easy. I couldn't wait to start playing with those beautiful squares of fabric. Here's a sneak preview.

I was going to put in a few blue and purple squares but they didn't look right, so I'm saving the contrasting colours for the borders. I want the finished quilt to be like having a little garden inside.

Because I hadn't quilted for so long, I felt really rusty so I tried making a table mat first, using some of my rainbow baby quilt stash. I thought I'd be brave and try triangles, again with some timely advice from Claudia. She showed me how to place two squares right side together, draw a pencil line from corner to corner and then a line a quarter of an inch on either side of the first line. Then you stitch up the two outer lines and then cut up the middle line and, hey presto, you have two half triangle squares. (I think that is what they are called). That part was easy and so was stitching them together. Then I sewed on the binding, thinking I was mitring the corners properly, but somehow the corners went out of whack and now they don't match up properly. I guess I'll stick to right angles for a bit longer. I also am having trouble with joining the two ends of the binding together using the method where you poke one end into the other and then sew along the edge. My binding always ends up too bulky and looks like a snake which has swallowed a mouse. (See the little bulge in the middle part of the binding at the top?) Melissa, Queen of Quilting, - if you read this and have any hints for me, that would be great. But, I loved making it and quilting rainbows always makes me so happy.

Apart from some sewing, I was inspired by this post at Beck's Dandelion blog to try my hand again at muffins. I have tried once or twice before but they didn't turn out so well. Yesterday, the little girl and I made strawberry and chocolate chip muffins for us and gluten free banana and choc chip muffins for the coeliac Daddy. We had a lovely time cooking together and my girl loves to say "check...check...check" when I read out the ingredients. Doesn't she have a funny grown up look on her face?

Yummo! They were so good, I made another batch today. Thanks Beck!

On Sunday nights we try and keep up our tradition of a family game after dinner. Last time, "Rhino Rampage" was chosen and it was really lovely to sit together with the TV off and play a game. I'm looking forward to the day when we can move onto Scrabble. My big girl can play but my little girl can only spell one word - L...O...V....E - thanks to the Hi 5 song.

In the meantime, "Rhino Rampage" is fine.

My big girl is finally getting her two front teeth. A tiny bit crooked but still beautiful!

So.... a lovely week of healing, sewing, baking, playing and loving.

Taking it easy...

These hydrangeas are from our garden and almost match the lovely card I was given by one of my sweet school mum friends. I must put flowers in my room more often as it is so nice to lie in bed and look at them.

Life has been settling into a new pattern of resting and recovering and enjoying being home with my girls (and my husband and the dog, I suppose). As usual, I am constantly fighting to turn the TV off after a few hours because a) the noise of it drives me insane and b) I know the girls could be doing better things with their time. I don't mind them watching an hour or two on school days and a couple of hours on the weekend but if I left it to my family, the TV would stay on ALL DAY. Anyway...I digress. I have been enjoying doing nice quiet things with the girls. I got out my stash of quilting squares left over from making baby quilts to think about making a table runner for a friend. Both girls love playing around with the coloured squares and 'making quilts' and it occupied them for ages. Here is the little one creating.

My big girl literally spent about 2 hours arranging squares in endless variations. I was amazed. (Note the TV remote is not far away in the shot below showing where she was sitting).

One night, we had a quick game of dominoes before bed which was lovely. The girls even managed to have a game by themselves without one of us needing to participate and sort out the fights (usually caused by the youngest girl not following the rules, but what can you expect from a four year old?). I listened to them happily playing and wondered "Is this a new phase of parenting? I sure as hell hope so". Not that I don't like playing games - I'm a big fan - but sometimes I'd rather be doing other things. Here is the little girl watching her sister's domino moves. She has this sweet old fashioned nightie from Peter Alexander that makes her look like something from a period movie.

And my big girl, lolling around on the little couches, suddenly gave me a glimpse of the teenage girl she will be in 5 years. (Yikes!) What a knowing little face she has.

The game continues.

Yesterday, I had my first day at home with my little girl for since mid-December. Because of school holidays, working, my big girl having 2 weeks off school sick and me going to hospital last week, I have either been with both girls, or at work, or home alone recovering. So my Curley Whirl Girl and I had a really lovely quiet day together. I enjoyed drifting from activity to activity with her and we spent ages looking at her baby scrapbook album and the backlog of photos on the digital camera. We tidied up the playroom and it's truly amazing what you find when you start putting things away and looking in baskets and boxes. Some little things that were missing turned up in the cash register where they were doing duty as toy money.

After lunch we had a teaparty with the dollies. Check out these cakes! (Yes...we are a bit partial to buying wooden food. I'm a bit of a toy snob. I put the cheap plastic food toys away in a drawer and like to play with the pretty wooden ones).

The picnic tablecloth was carefully laid.....

The guests were seated and the teaparty began! "Mummy, would you like to be one of my guests, she said?".

Hope everyone is well and happy at your place.

home and hosed

Just a quick note to say thanks for the good wishes. The surgery went well and all my results are clear. Such a relief! Thank you, Universe! I'm feeling very lucky and loved and have been home just an hour or so. Home has never looked so beautiful.

Thanks again to everyone for their support, especially the wonderful friends who have helped looked after my girls.

Off to see the thyroid wizard

Just a quick update today. I'm off to hospital early tomorrow morning to have some nodules (lumps) removed from my thyroid. (Actually, the plan is to remove half my thyroid). The nodules have been slowly growing for a couple of years and the specialist suddenly decided last week that he would like to take them out "as we wouldn't want to leave them there for another year and then find they were cancerous". Mmmmm. Thanks Mr Surgeon. So reassuring. I thought that biopsy I had last year was all ok. Oh....it's not 100% reliable??? Oh...you forgot to tell me that part????

Anyway...won't bore you with the details but today I need to get my head together, pack my little bag and organise life for my family for the next day or two. (Should only be in hospital a night or two). Chances are the lumps will all be fine, but I am a worrier by nature (thanks for that, Mum) so am looking forward to having the whole thing over and done with. Thought I would write a quick post to ask my lovely bloggy friends to send some positive thoughts my way.

In other news, my big girl has had the first two weeks off school with a chest infection. She's better now but a bit thin and pale. Back to school today and jazz ballet after school. My mother-in-law is coming over this afternoon to stay which is a huge help. Not that my husband isn't extremely capable but I would like him with me at the hospital until I get those results.

My girl also had her first violin lesson on Friday and brought home her own instrument on loan from the school for a year. She is overjoyed with her new friend and is walking around the house making beautiful music already. I can't wait for lesson no. 2.

My little girl is growing up and quite a handful sometimes. But such a cutie and so loving. One more year to hang out with her before she is off to prep next year. I want to do some special things this year, like gymnastics or something, as her big sister did all sorts of stuff, but my little scamp has mostly been dragged around to everyone else's activities. Despite the fact that she likes to yell a lot from excitement (or rage) at home, she is very quiet when out and about and hasn't really wanted to do lots of socialising /activities.

Brisbane is busy recovering from the floods and we are now having 30+ degree heat. Very sticky and lots of cold baths required.

Take care everybody and I'll let you know how I get on.

After the Flood (and photos from before the Flood)

It's been a surreal fortnight here in Brisbane. In the area where we live, there has been no flooding between the inner suburb of Rosalie to the south that was deluged and the northern suburbs of Strathpine/Petrie which were cut off by floodwaters from the rest of Brisbane. It's been a bit like watching another city flood except it all looked so familiar - the river that I walk over from my office to do research at the State Library, the shops at Rosalie where we used to live, Queensland Uni where I did my degree - all a gigantic mess of endless brown water. I have no flood photos to post, as I saw no flood waters. I was tempted to go and see the power of the river but knew it was more sensible to stay home with my girls and out of the way.

On the Tuesday before the flood hit Brisbane, the girls and I were having a "no TV/no computer day" and went off to see the movie "Tangled". When we emerged from the cinema at 1.30pm, the world seemed to have changed. The giant shopping centre that we call "Chermie" was closing down, people were gathered around a big TV listening to the Prime Minister addressing the nation and an announcement said that public transport would stop running in half an hour. (It didn't). My husband was sent home from work in the CBD like thousands of other workers and had left messages for me that he was waiting at Northgate Station because the Caboolture Trainline might be cut. So....the TV went back on and I watched in amazement as the flood dramas unfolded. As the expected peak of the flooding drew closer, the electricity supply to the CBD was turned off and the city centre shut down except for the emergency personel at the State and Council headquarters. Scott and I stayed home from work. It felt like a holiday but no-one wanted to enjoy it. Life in our sunny dry suburb went on as normal.

We were so lucky to be unaffected and I felt guilty for not helping, but there was no one near us to help. I could not get through the traffic snarls on Friday to help at Rosalie and could only offer our spare bed for emergency accommodation if it was needed. (Apparently not). So we just watched it unfold on TV and cried for the families who literally lost parents and children washed away by the force of the water.

Now the massive cleanup is underway and everyone is talking talking talking about how it could have happened and why did Council let people build on the floodplains and why did they let Wivenhoe dam stay so full during the wet season so that it couldn't contain the floodwaters and had to release gargantuan volumes of water at the worst possible time. I am so thankful that all we had to put up with was a leaking kitchen ceiling from weeks and weeks of rain.

So....here are a few photos from my garden from a few months ago when Brisbane was its normal, sunny self and we were gearing up for Christmas and the school holidays.