Sunday In Pictures

Today was a busy day. Join me on my day...via pictures.

I  was told that doing the laundry is not the same as renovating the laundry so I  left it in Mr. P's capable hands.

  I cleaned the dog kennel  out......

And  rescued  a crocodile, a whale, a bear,  a dog and one lamb being held in captivity. I'm sad to report the yellow bee didn't make it.

I discovered one of our dogs has a drinking problem.

My favourite tree...

But like the people that live in this house it doesn't pick up after itself, so I had to do it.

I took down all the lanterns from the back patio  because summer is done, and because when they swing in the wind Indy tries to catch them.  

I made brunch, and considered photoshopping out some of that butter before I showed you this picture. But I don't know how to use photoshop. Meh.

I harrassed Mordecai by taking his picture. He is telling me to bugger off in cat-ese, which I speak fluently.  

Lola took refuge in the computer room. But I stalked her down and took her picture any way.

Miss Pyjamas pretended to clean her room. Last time we saw the carpet in there was in the year 2000. Nothing changed today.

I held Little Pyjamas dummy hostage until Miss Pyjamas coughed up some payola.

I cut  fabric for my mystery quilt and ended up with this  pile. If my sewing machine doesn't come back soon, I swear I'm going to glue this freaking quilt together.

I started to sand back the old oak desk we bought a few weeks ago on eBay.

Apparently you can only use a mouse sander on flat surfaces. Who knew? I'm going to pretend that ding is adding character.

And, I shaved my legs. 

I hope you enjoyed your Sunday.

P.S. Now other leaves are stalking me ....

Seinfeld Posting and Succumbing to Peer Pressure

Ha! I told you all I could be less wordy! No words since Monday! I am da Bomb!

I have been noticeably absent this week from blogland. The cold morphed into something else and I’ve been a total coughaluffagus. Just standing upright for longer than 10 minutes  and remaining conscious has been a challenge and if I hear one more time how tired and pale I look, I’m going to scream. Just like Veruca Salt did in the Original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

So tonight I’m playing catch up. Checking out what everyone has been up to , ( I cannot believe the world doesn’t stop when I’m not here ) reading and responding to emails,   reading and responding to comments, making comments, thanking people and wondering what the dickens to write about.  So I'm  just going to  do a Seinfeld Post . A post about nothing in particular.

I want to welcome some new readers to my blog. Thanks for visiting and deciding you liked what you saw. There really is no accounting for taste.  Someone turned my own 4 post rule around on me (Touche! )  and someone else commented at least my blog didn't sound like it was being written by a Stepford Wife. These are my kind of Peeps.    I woke up one morning this week to find my followers had increased by almost 40%. It all felt a bit Jack and the Beanstalk.  What a head rush! I don’t know where you all came from (it’s probably my Mum using several specially created blogger accounts to boost my self esteem ) but I hope you find things here to amuse, bemuse, and tickle your funny bone often enough to keep you coming back. My biggest fear at this point is that people will decide I’m not witty , talented, charming or riotously hilarious and followers will start to leave which I will also have to blog about  because I’m too darn honest for my own good. (I actually saw someone once do an abusive post because she had lost three followers overnight- seriously) I promise I won’t do that . I’ll just drag myself off somewhere and have a quiet sniffle. If it ever happens. Which I’m sure it won’t.

I’m succumbing to peer pressure. In the last fortnight 4 people have emailed to let me know they would love to follow my blog but since I don’t have a followers gadget thingy they can’t. Well yes you can ! You can go to your dashboard , scroll down to the Blogs I’m Following section, click “add” and chuck my URL in there. I’m making it easy for you because this is my url  - http://fairybreadmusings.blogspot.com/

Then the blogger fairy will ask you whether you want to follow publicly or privately – and that’s totally up to you.

But since I’m an equal opportunity kinda gal, ( and the way I’ve explained the process above makes it seem really hard  ) I’ve added the followers widget thingy over there on the side so you can just click to add my blog to your blogroll. Then you can get all the goss straight to your dashboard.  You know peer pressure was what started me smoking in high school don’t you? I’m highly suggestible. Please don’t peer pressure me into anything else. Like eating a pack of Monte Carlo’s or daring me to run naked through the quad with your underpants on my head.

Two things totally made my week this week,  and I’m going to tell you what they were tomorrow.

Oh and new followers, I'm heading over to your blogs in the next few days - be afraid - be very afraid. I don't get out of my cage all that often.

I'm holding the sun hostage- you can have it back Friday

Autumn has gone into hibernation. Even she thought it was too rude to go from summer to autumn in the space of 24 hours.  The last three days have been around 90F and we're expecting temps of that or over for the next few days.  That must mean our northern hemipshere friends are in for more snow storms.  Don't blame me if you  have to shovel your driveways-  I don't make the weather- I just report it.

No further along on the laundry.  I keep making Mr. P.  drag the washing machine in from the verandah and reconnect it every time I need to wash. He has a very scientific system going whereby he duct tapes the hose into a big pipe that rises up from the floor because we dont have a sink in there anymore. If it blows the whole house is going  to flood.  I like to call this "Washing Day Roulette". It's certainly adding some spice and daring  to washing Mr. P's undies. I will not be sad when this laundry reno is finished.  

I wouldn't usually use a new post to comment on an old post - but since I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl I'm going to run with it-because this just has to be said - I was completely blown away by the response I received to my Blog Surfing and Desperate Insecurity post. I was truly touched by your comments and support. Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know what you thought. I love you guys! 

From the really random department- I found a chin hair at least an inch long today while at a conference. Of course I didn't have tweezers on me and it would have been entirely inappropriate to pull it out since I was sitting at the front  because my boss was presenting. Do you think I can find it now I am at home in the sancitity of my own bathroom? Getting weird random hairs in middle age  is one of the things they dont tell you about in sex education  class in high school. Sure, blather on about menopause  and pregnancy and STD's.  "Horrible things your body is going to do when you're 40-ish"  should be a compulsory subject.

I'm on day 7 of my sewing exile. I finally capitulated yesterday and got Nanna's sewing machine out. After fluffing around with the front loading bobbin setup, and threading the machine (OMG this thing has no automatic thread cutter and I dont have a manual - how do you cut threads without a thread cutter???) it grudgingly sewed three stitches and rewarded me with whining, wheezing and a birds nest of thread at the back of my fabric. So much for that brilliant plan.  Meantime I'm suffering serious withdrawal and have to have the back of a quilt done by Friday. Eeeekkkkkkk!

To counter this feeling of being completely cut off from the quilting community I decided to start cutting fabric for my next project. Can anyone see where I'm heading with this? I'm really excited about this quilt top. Mr. P. is already  talking about moving out until it's finished.

  

   

   

This is some of what I did yesterday in between perfecting my dying swan impersonation . Yes I am still full of a cold and have now started delightfully hacking and coughing every three minutes. Mr. P is starting to get peeved about my seemingly torrid affair with my Ventolin inhaler.  

I vowed to try something new this week...not being so wordy with my posts.....

Looks like that didn't exactly  pan out. Maybe next post.

Blog Surfing and Desperate Insecurity

Not sure where I'm going with this post. It's been rattling round inside my head for a week. I'm pretty sure I'm going to offend someone,  somewhere. (probably with my comment about religion down the page -paragraph 5 in case you want to skip straight there  ) And why I would choose to post this today, on a  mere four hours sleep,  with a hacking cough and dribbly nose has got me whacked. (Green isn't good right?)  But I'm going to do it anyway. This is my year of living dangerously. 

I've been looking at profiles a lot this week  in the hope of finding like minded people  and widening my blog circle, and being further inspired by the amazingness of others. Plus I'm nosy and like to live vicariously through the lives of people I've never even met. It's a large www out there people and I want to sample more of it. I owe it to myself.  You guys inspire me so much more than you realise. I have an idea of what each  of you  is like from what you choose to share through your own posts and comments. You're all lovely by the way.   

What I'm left with after peeking at people's profiles  is the thought it's pretty hard to bring your personality across in the small space they give you to list your interests which is all they show when you're looking at profiles. Which means people like me have to actually go to your blog and read some of it to decide whether we're likely to be kindred spirits. I have a four post rule to decide whether I want to come back for dessert and other meals at your place.  If one of the 4 posts  rocks my socks -I'm going to be eating at your joint on a regular basis.  You might be funny, you might be creative, you might like to poke fun at yourself, you might have a warped slant on something or we might share a common interest. Sometimes I stretch it to 5 , or 6 or 7 posts even. I'm giving you a fair shake. If we don't connect - no hard feelings. It doesn't mean you have nothing worthwhile to say . It just means I'm not feelin' the love. And it's quite likely if you read my blog you'd feel the same way.  

I'm not professing to being the Queen of Exciting Blog Posts. Hardly.   That's not my point. I have exactly 8 followers and a few pop ins who are following me privately. ( I know you are - don't pretend you aren't- you know who you are)  It's not like I'm Mrs Popularity. Or that anything I have to say is going to change the world. Or that I'm inspiring millions like that bitch Bakerella. (I'm sorry Bakerella - I'm just kidding - I totally LOVE your site- I just have baking envy and a short attention span when it comes to  fiddly shit )

Going by the interests of people I have scanned of late  I have to ask does everyone in America home school? And I'm guessing Sunday morning when everyone is in church is a good time to go shopping with the twenty  other people on blogger  who don't attend worship?  Not trying to inflame here - Just saying.  And if everyone on blogger is so into their families, why is there so much angst at family Christmas lunch? Am I the only freaking person on the planet that doesn't knit underwear for the homeless? Profile surfing is making me feel completely inadequate. There are so many things I don't do. That cuts down my "connection" opportunities significantly.

And then I got to thinking ( for the first time ever ) how I might come across on my blog posts and in my own profile...what if people think I'm a boring self obsessed whack job? Are people out there thinking "I can't believe that weird Aussie chick wrote "salt and vinegar chips" as an interest. No way I'm looking at her blog" .  Or worse still "Is this woman on crack? Nothing she posts makes sense" . I can imagine people all over the blogisphere invoking a one post rule with my blog.

Do I come across as weird? I don't feel like I do, but when you're weird you actually think everyone else is and you're the only sane one don't you? Clearly I am desperately insecure. The more I read profiles the more insecure I'm becoming.

The funny thing is that I used to really watch what I wrote on my blog. Go back and read some of my early posts - none of my personality in them at all and nobody was reading either. Go on, off you go , read them , I'll wait................

A few months back, I started thinking about why I was scared to be me on my blog. It was because I wanted to be liked. I didn't want to upset anyone. I didn't want to post something offensive.   Even in Blogland, I want to be liked. Blog land is a lot like High School. I want to fit in. I want to be popular. I want to wear the right kind of jeans and have perfect Pat Benatar hair. I wish my freckles would fade away, methaphorically speaking. The thing is in real life people either like me or they dont. And I'm fine with that. Why is Blogland any different? So I started posting like I talk in RL. And all of a sudden people started  reading. 

Like High school, you can't fake it in blogland. Some peeps gonna be yo friends and some not. You're going to have the pretty girl with loads of friends, the jock  and the geeks who generally aren't aware they're geeks. Then you have the people like me, that are middle of the road, and are never going to set the earth on fire , but are appreciated in their own little circle.  Now that I've surfed round for a while and  havent found anyone I want to make new  friends with right now, I'm happy in my own little clique.

So, thanks for being in ma' posse.   

Help Needed....What is this object ?

At one of the op shops I was at today , this object was hanging up at the register, with a  sign asking  "Do you know what this is?" Obviously the op shop volunteers had no idea and I said I'd pop it on the internet and see if anyone out there knew what it was.

So if you think you know what it is - or if someone you know might know what it is please let me know so the op shop ladies can sleep at night.This is driving them mad apparently.