Highs and Lows

This week has been full of highs and lows... 

This is my car being towed away for repairs because the transmission is broken. I sent the car in for repairs 7 weeks ago because I knew there was something wrong with the transmission , and it came back marginally better after a full major service but still wasn't quite right. It's been back in since then for other repairs,  and I have been asking Mr. P for 3 weeks to take it back in to have the transmission looked at. There was some rather blue language round here on Saturday when the car just refused to go into gear.  Mr. P arranged for the car to be towed away to be looked at after the RAA dude confirmed it was transmission related issue .  Mr. P's  motivator was fear - I was not a happy camper. The irony of all of this is that Mr. P works for a major international car company that has all the fixit guys you could ever need about 30 seconds walk from here he sits all day Monday to Friday - I ask you how hard it could have been to organise for the car to be looked at on one of the other 475 occasions I've mentioned it.... 

These are the jeans that I went to put on Saturday morning and the zip on my jeans broke ....its not like I don't have others - but these were one of my favourites :(

I also stuffed a brand new pair of unworn unides but since this post is already sounding a bit like a pity party lets all move on shall we?  

We had a house full of visitors all weekend. Aside from my parents, we had a very special visitor come to stay on Friday night for the first time in a while. We had a camp out in our bedroom and everyone knows when you have a camp out you have to have a fire. I was a bit dubious about setting a camp fire on top of my carpet so we improvised.

Unfortunately Kevin the sock monkey got too close to the fire at one point and we had to render first aid. 

On Saturday Little P chose hanging out at home over going to the movies. We baked some chocolate chip cookies (no pictures -since they all got eaten rather rapidly), blew some bubbles, made playdough, did some drawing, and then did some gardening. I know you already know this - but this kid is the light of my life. I love seeing the world through his eyes. His enthusiasm for life is positively infectious.   

The week before last I won a giveaway over at Rachael's blog (Blue Mountain Daisy). I kept waiting and waiting with increasing excitement for it to arrive, checking the post box every day. I mentioned to Mr. P last Monday that I was waiting for parcel and he sheepishly went out to his car and brought in a package that he told me had arrived Friday but that he forgot to give me. 

Talk about hitting the motherlode-A huge parcel of awesomeness! Thankyou Rachael. I dont know what to use first but trust me - I'm going to have fun playing with all of this loveliness.  

And last of all, I managed some sewing in amongst the madness that was my weekend. I've been moving forward on my Seville quilt (which in theory is meant to be finished by the end of June -dont laugh - it's still possible) 

And I started cutting fabrics for my first new quilt of 2014...which doesn't look like much at the moment but is going to be absolutely gorgeous if I can make all my seams behave. You'll have to wait until I have an actual block done to see where I'm heading with this. And who knows when that's going to happen. Crazy week coming up....

RIP Irving....And Snippets from My Week

My iron had a rather unfortunate accident this week where he pulled a Humpty Dumpty and fell off the washing machine.  Mr. P subsequently found out Irving had died when he went to iron his work shirt on Friday morning. Guess who went to work in a slightly crinkly shirt?

So it was off to buy a new iron this weekend. Mr. P was dragged along with a lot of eye rolling happening. There are a dizzying array of irons available and I'm quite the iron snob (which is ironic given I don't iron clothes) so finding one that I could bond with wasn't an easy task. Anyway, eventually I found my sole mate (pardon the pun) so meet Izzy who so far is proving herself to be a real workhorse. 

The sole plate on this will look pristine for about a week and then it'll look like I haven't cleaned it ...ever. Even when I have.

There was also a trip to the hardware store this weekend and it was my turn to eye roll at Bunnings while Mr. P got excited about all manner of shit I have no idea about. We were buying paint for the guest room which I will be slapping on walls next weekend while Mr. P is off enjoying 4 days of motor sport at the Clipsal 500.  

I had a doctors visit last week. I got the anti smoking lecture which I tried to divert a little by pointing out that I'm also quite fat. Apparently this didn't come as any big news to Dr. Ben and so with the focus (temporarily) off my potential lung cancer and onto my possible heart attack, this week has been full of salad and vegetables and fruit and non white bread and healthy lunches instead of steaks slathered in butter sauce, and pies and chips and takeaway asian and chicken packs for lunch.  I seriously feel like murdering people most of the time and all I can think about are Tim Tams and chips , and massive wheels of cheese.

I slipped on Wednesday night and "accidentally" inhaled some salt and vinegar chips when Mr. P was out at 8 Ball. Then I took a bag of chocolate sultanas to bed with me and hid the empty packet in my underwear drawer before Mr. P got home. I felt so dirty - but it felt so good. I was totally busted when Mr. P got home because apparently I was angelically asleep with chocolate around my mouth. 

On Wednesday I made a snap holiday decision for 2014. We're heading off to stay here. I've already booked our flights and accommodation ( and yes - we are staying in one of those darling little chalets on the water) 

 And we're going to sit by this pool and drink cocktails...I promise I won't mention it again until at least three months before we leave. 

And garden plans abound at Maison Pyjamas. Various parts of the lawn have been poisoned in preparation for garden beds to be dug so some plants can go in over the next month or so.  This is my dodgy kindergarten style plan because I'm a visually creative type. 

 I went and raided Sister of Pyjamas Hibiscus hedge for multiple cuttings today because I want to bring this front yard re-do in for pretty much nothing over the course of this year. I hear that's possible if you're savvy - what I know about gardening at this point could be engraved on the head of a pin so it looks like I'm going to be learning as I go. Tips will be most welcome starting with anyone who knows how to strike and keep hibiscus alive.

And for my last trick of the weekend, the Postage Stamp quilt is all quilted. Now I just have to find the mojo to get the binding done.

May the start of your week be kind to you ..I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

I've been feeling like a fluffer...

Spoiler Alert

*if you're one of the awesomely fantastic people I'm lucky to spend my work week with, you might want to skip this post. I'm blogging about your Easter gifts and you don't want to blow your surprise. Come back tomorrow or go read another post or something.

Up to 4 pm Saturday I managed to achieve exactly nothing but write a blog post about mild drunken-ness and my latest fabric acquisitions. Then I got mad with myself for wasting time and sitting on my bum. This spurred me into action. I despise inactivity.

 

The menu board is  done. The new magnets cost six times as much as the rest of the project and had to be mail ordered from  interstate but that's not the point. It looks awesomely fabulous if I do say so myself.

The garden edging for the stair garden  is finished. (Thank you Freecycle for the bricks and edging)  This will stop all the dirt washing down the gutter. Sadly it will not stop the dogs dancing a tango in the garden beds. Only hobbling them is likely to do that and it seems a bit drastic.

I am excited because I have managed to keep my parsley and rosemary alive through the whole summer. I celebrated this unexpected  longevity by buying herb markers...

However,  my boston fern is looking very sick. It is possible I am still  a serial killer but that my tendencies are just in brief hibernation.

Happy Dance Time! The Dresden Fans are finished. All excruciating 500 pieces. They're off to live in a box until I feel like looking at them again.

My thoughts have turned to Easter and I started working on this tote bag as a protoype for  gifts for the girls at work.  I have 8 of them to do. I'm sure at some point I'm going to start muttering about feeling like a sweatshop worker.

The delightful Clare at Clare's Craftroom has a tutorial for making stuffed fabric carrots. I decided to jump on the vegie bandwagon and  make some. I raced out today to buy fabric because I have minimal orange in my stash. It's OK- I blamed Clare when Mr. P raised his eyebrows. Plus I had a voucher for 10 bucks from Spotlight so this lot only cost me $6.25.

SOP(Sister of Pyjamas ) and I headed up to the Hills to check out the Lobethal  Markets this morning. The weather was glorious.

Our trip was in vain since the markets aren't running anymore. There was only one store open that sold fabric. SOP says I planned it that way.  The lady who ran the stall was apparently making up prices depending on how much she liked your face. This bundle of 10 inch layer cake squares were priced at $18.00 and there are about 200 of them there. The navy , yellow and red are the colours of Mr. P's favourite football team.

And this damask fabric which will be perfect for the Dresden quilt back is almost 9 square metres and was going out for $28.50. I got both for $15.00 which was slightly more than the 50% off she was advertising.

We stopped at Norton Summit on the way back to have lunch at the Scenic Hotel but circumstances conspired against us so we went to Assaggio instead. That was also a no go so we ended up somewhere else having lunch at afternoon tea time.  Third time's a charm.

  

It was a lovely way to spend the day.Fabric Bargains, lunch (eventually) and laughs.  SOP even picked up!

It's a public holiday here tomorrow so I'm hoping to get the carrots started, the tote bag prototype done  and the snowball quilt knocked off after Mr. P and I head out for a romantic breakfast together.  All that should bring me up to lunchtime. Any ideas what I can do for the rest of the day?

P.S. I gave up on the mirror mosaic that's been in my sidebar as an unfinished project since January 2010. Does anyone need lots of broken mirror pieces? It's been sitting outside for 14 months gathering dust. Time to face facts and chuck it.

Deep Thoughts and The Usual Weekend Round Up

I've been a bit off my game the last few weeks. There have been lots of changes and pressures at home and work and it's been hard to keep up. I've been spending some time reflecting on life's big questions, as we all do from time to time.  Where am I ? Who am I?  Where do I really want to be? What isn't working in my life and how do I change it?  Wow -I'm deep. I'm an untapped well of deep. I don't have the answers, but I'll let you know when I do. I think this deep thought has been spurred on by constant change over the last month or so , with more unfamiliar territory to be charted this week and more stressful events than usual to be faced.

So this post was going to be all about that but when I read back what I'd written it was too much. I'd rather mostly keep this blog about the fun and bizarre and mundane stuff in my life not for diatribes or too much introspection.

That being said...onto my weekend.

After the grocery shopping, washing, trip to the library for more books , the jaunt to the hardware store, cleaning out my  wardrobe and my jewellery drawer, (OMG I have too many clothes and jewellery to go with every conceivable outfit -who knew ?)  and lots of furniture re-shuffling this weekend in preparation for our annual carpet cleaning I still managed to do a few other things that were actually enjoyable. 

I baked lemon coconut cupcakes. Delicious. And some coffee kisses which were not delicious so I'm not wasting bandwidth showing them here. Blerk. 

I spray painted the wicker chair one last time. Next stop-  conquering my fear of zips so I can re-do the cushion.

The desk got it's first top coat after two coats of primer.  One or two top coats to go folks. Then a few layers of poly. I'm going to throw a party when we finally put away all those paint cans that have been cluttering up our patio since July and you're all invited.

I did some Christmas crafting/sewing/creating . More about that on Tuesday.

Since I managed to  kill all the agapanthas I planted in the filing cabinet planter in February- how many times must I confess I'm a plant murderess?- I decided to plant some new green things to kill. Including herbs. So for all of you that suggested I grow my own vegies, here is my compromise.  I've already had to re-pot the mint since Moo the cat decided it was a good place to take a dump 10 minutes after I'd finished.   The neighbours learned new swear words, and Moo spoke angrily at me in cat speak when I yelled at her.  I'm assuming she knew what "*^!# you, you *!%#*. I'm going to kill you" meant.

My hydrangeas look like they're going to have a crazy amount of blooms  this year. (See..I talk the lingo) They got fertilised and mulched. And admired. I've managed to keep these alive now for over two years and grew them from brown sticks of nothing to this.

I re-fashioned a bag I found while op shopping with Miss P...

Before

After...Yep I bought it because it matches this shirt. The bag makeover took about 60 seconds.

Mr. P and I got up early and hit the Growers Market for some fruit, herbs  and vegies. It all looks pretty but I wish it tasted like donuts or salt and vinegar chips.

Miss P cooked tea Saturday (I had to check to make sure the sky wasn't falling). Sorry I didn't take pictures but it was too awesomely wonderful to wait to eat while pictures got taken. 

So a pretty quiet weekend. I sat on my patootie at the computer a lot surfing blogs and the internet in general ooohing and ahhhing over people's projects and general craftiness. I hope your weekend was exactly what you were hoping for.

P.S.  This is Little P's dismantled cot , in the computer room. Nothing is where it should be at the moment which is giving me flashbacks about the all too recent kitchen renovation. Ugh...