The Prodigal Blogger Returns

The Transportation Security Administration take their jobs very seriously. We were body scanned and had our hand luggage and /or our checked baggage rifled through at every single airport we stepped foot in. I forgot at the first airport that I had 110 mls of coconut sunscreen in my hand luggage and we got ripped out of the line and questioned. Another time  Mr. P had a breath mint in his pocket that looked like an ecstasy tablet.  I'm pretty sure that was what placed us on a watch list for every subsequent airport. At one point I was pulled aside by a security dude who, to add insult to injury, was pissing himself laughing , because apparently the bras in my hand luggage looked suspicious. The only thing suspicious about it was that he hadn't ever seen bras that huge before and he was obviously concerned I could make a Sherman Tank out of all that underwire on the 29 minute flight between islands. 

I strongly suspect that Mr. P wearing this t-shirt didn't help our cause. And I'd like to point out that my checked bags were only fully searched when they were mislabelled with Mr. P's name. Yep-it's official- my husband looks suss. 

In comparison, on my arrival back in Australia I duly declared my 345 packs of Oreos (I literally squealed when I saw the huge range in supermarkets there) and one of everything single thing Hershey manufactures, 400 York Peppermint Patties, maximum allowable amounts of cheap liquor, and my awesome wooden salad hands. I could have been a mule for a Columbian drug cartel carrying 19 kilos of A grade cocaine but because I was speaking with an Aussie accent mate, I was just waved through without a bag check. My fears of ending up on an episode of Border Security and having my Oreo stash confiscated were completely unfounded. 

It took me forever to get over the culture shock of being in another country. There were so many things that were different and not just the obvious ones like accents and driving and money and the fact that I gained an extra day that I also lost again somewhere over the Pacific en route home. America did you know your butter is completely different to ours? Is yours made from albino cows or something? And why does all your bread taste like someone fell over into the dough vat with a 20 kilo bag of sugar?  Any why are brown eggs more expensive than white eggs? Don't all eggs come from a chickens butt? What's up with your bacon? The good bit is missing.  What do you do with it? Why is your walk man at the traffic lights white and not green? Why are your light switches upside down? And why do your toilets suck everything down with a g force that was so great that I was concerned for my life every time I had to pee? I found that so amusing I had to video it.  Pondering this and other imponderables kept me amused for hours. 

American Butter 

The Aussie variety 

On the other hand American restaurant chains are the shitz. I fell in love with them and the price of booze in the US. I thought Mr. P was going to wet his pants when he bought a bottle of Canadian Club for 13 bucks. I had to remind him to start breathing again. How you aren't all obese alcoholics has me buggered.  I swear if I lived there I'd be drinking Southern Comfort like it was water and staggering to Denny's 3 times a day for fully loaded cheese fries. And I'd eat breakfast at least three times a day too. In fact , some days I did. I also defiled your bread by adding Vegemite at every possible opportunity. 

I bow before your burger greatness America. You ARE the masters. Hand you a hunk of hamburger mince and some cheese and you knock out something that is awesome in a way Australian burgers will never be. 

And you know how to do proper chocolate fudge cake too... Cheesecake Factory how I love you so. I miss you already. If I could have worked out a way to get this stuff home without it growing fur and going green I would have done it. 

It wasn't all eating and getting shit faced on cheap booze (although I have noticed an inordinately large amount of food and cocktail pictures among our holiday snaps). We did see some of the sights too. Sea turtles and lava and hydrangeas the size of my head. Pearl Harbor, a palace, gorgeous beaches and hula dancers. Most of Hawaii is incredibly beautiful. And we only drove on the wrong side of the road twice.  

And naturally I managed to accidentally stumble into a few quilt shops. And had to post 40 pounds of fabric home in secret because that was the only way of keeping Mr. P from knowing exactly what I bought to augment my already overflowing stash ....

I came home to this jar of treasures that Little P had been collecting for me since we left. It doesn't get any cuter than that. 

Things that are treasures to a three year old

On the agenda for this weekend is getting re-acquainted with my sewing machine and spending some serious time in my pyjamas. And drinking some decent tea. And sleeping. And trying to find a recipe for chocolate fudge cake because the 12 pounds I put on overseas simply wasn't enough. 

Home Stretch

Do you know that feeling where you're anticipating something but you have a lot of crud to wade through first to get to the good shit? It always feels so close and yet so far away. It's like those dreams where you're being chased by something hideous (insert your biggest fear here) and not being able to reach somewhere safe.  That's been me this week.

I've been refusing to get excited about Mai Tai's and grass skirts and sunshine until I got through some of the billion skillion things I had to do this week in order to get to the cocktails, flip flops, sarong part of my life.  I gotta tell you people it's only Wednesday and this week has been as slow as molasses. 

One thing I can cross off my list of things to do this week is "getting an ear infection". Naturally I had to do this the week before I'm going to be stuck 10 miles up in the sky in a tin can for 10 straight hours. I'm not great with decompression in planes anyway (I'm the pathetic creature sitting in Row 7A keening and rocking when we descend feeling like my head is about to explode)  but I really did it properly this time and am dosed up on steroids and antibiotics so my ear drum doesn't perforate mid flight. Dousing the plane with ear goo isn't the way to make friends on a long haul flight. 

Cool stuff I'm looking forward to (because this time next week I'll actually be in Honolulu-not bragging- just saying) includes being somewhere the sun DOES shine, driving on the wrong side of the road, learning how to tip and having everyone stare at me because I talk funny. I'm hoping we aren't going to stick out like dog balls and embarrass the crap out of Australia somehow. 

I suppose I should probably start with not saying things like "stick out like dog balls"...

Mish Mash

With our departure drawing closer, I've been working long hours so I can go on holidays from work with a clear conscience. Not much else that's blogworthy has been going on here unless you count the batch of cakes I made that I forgot to put eggs in (they were like little rocks and tasted very strange) or the fact we've been living on takeaway for about a week. 

Mordecai is firmly ensconced back in usual life after his near death experience. My credit card is not so much dented as completely smashed into tiny pieces. But it's nice to have a happy (breathing)cat.

He is minus a lot of fur , and all the neighbourhood cats are taking the piss out of him. I told him to tell them this is the "half poodle" cut and it's very chic right now. 

While I'm bitching and moaning about how poverty stricken I am I'd like to show something I ordered before the cat decided to suck the life out of my credit card. I haven't bought shoes in weeks so I went on a bender.

There are actually two of each shoe but I was trying to be arty with my photography. I Love Billy is my absolute favourite brand of shoes and since I bought three pairs on sale for the price of one it would have almost been sacrilege not to buy them.

I've done a bit of sewing lately but it doesn't feel like a huge amount of progress is being made. I've pressed all the bits for this quilt that is making it's debut appearance on my blog. I stupidly announced to Little Miss Sunshine that I was  aiming to have this top together before we went away and once I have an idea out there I find it hard to change it so watch this space.

And I finally sucked it up and basted Flurry yesterday because it's been sitting here mocking me for about a year now. 

I was assisted by my helper , Little P who has obviously been watching me baste quilts for so long that he knows how it's done without instruction or prompting. And yes- he did it in his pyjamas. I'm so proud. 

The plan for today is to quilt that darn thing. I'm already plotting about how little quilting it really needs to remain stuck together! If you hear crying- that will be me. 

P.S. 9 sleeps!

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

The post title refers to what I should have done to cope with the week. I'm going to vent a little and then let it go. If you're not up for a pity party -look away now. 

Work presented some curly situations this week that meant I put in a significant amount of extra hours and spent the whole time running round like a blue arsed fly. I like a challenge, think very clinically and clearly in a crisis and usually respond well to a certain amount of pressure but this week was ridiculous. By late yesterday afternoon I couldn't even hold a coherent conversation. I came home Friday night and drank 3/4 of a vodka cruiser and fell asleep due to exhaustion. My brain was just so tired. 

I swear I'm never going to poke fun (in a blog post at least) at my poor cat again. I obviously tempted fate. I got home from work on Thursday night to find my bathroom looking like a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and had to do a second emergency vet run. Poor cat had to be knocked out again, had half his side shaved (he's not happy about rocking a cat style mohawk let me tell you)and had all sorts of medical type stuff done to him again. I'm swear the vet had a twinkle in his eye when he told me how much it was going to cost. The bastard was probably thinking about that new Ferrari he's had his eye on. So Mordecai is currently weeing through a tube, is missing half his fur, has a bucket on his head, a bandage on his leg and every time I visit he's looking at me like I'm personally responsible for his misfortune. Dude- I just drove you there - risking a speeding fine - to save another one of your cat lives. Since you cant possibly have that many lives left due to your habit of sitting in the middle of the road and playing games with dogs 6 times your size, show a little freaking gratitude. While you're recuperating you have plenty of time to make me a thankyou card. 

My house has finally hit the stage where it looks like a scene from "Hoarders". OK maybe it's not quite that bad but for Maison Pyjamas standards it's pretty revolting. There is crap (not real crap  - just mess) everywhere. I've lost my sanity not control of my bowels. Normally I'd share the mess with you to visually illustrate my point but it's so bad I'm fearful of being judged. There is still stuff on the dining room table from Monday and I'm struggling to find clean underpants. I hear you can turn your undies inside out for another wearing. If you've tried this feel free to privately email me to let me know your experience. I'm looking for ways to save time and money. 

Understandably, all of this means absolutely no sewing happened here this week. The craftiest I got was artfully throwing things in a basket for a baby gift for a girl at work while I was simultaneously loading the dishwasher. But last week before the crap hit the fan,  I was on fire. 

A ton of people I know are having babies. And even though I'm not planning to have any more of my own , I have no objection to other people having them because it means I get to make cute stuff. As far as I'm concerned you can never have enough bibs because one thing babies excel at is dribbling and spitting up on themselves. I think someone should create a Baby Olympics and have that as one of the events. Pooping in your pants could be another event. Crying could be another. Miss P would have taken gold for Australia in that event when she was a baby. 

While I was sewing Mr. P announced that one of the girls at his work is also expecting so I just added some extras to my making pile. What's three more bibs when you're making approximately one bajillion - give or take?

Last weekend I put in a big effort to finish the selvage quilt.  A heap of people contributed selvages to the cause. To all those people (I have a list somewhere but do you think I can find it at the moment? ) Thankyou! This quilt truly felt like it may never get finished-even when I modified the size down to a large lap sized quilt. 

I made the back out of old bread bags because that's what I reckon women would have done in years past when they were making a quilt that was all about utility. Plus I had a load of them laying around doing nothing much except taking up space and I hate to waste anything.

And I decided Mordecai needed a quilt since he manages to roll all over everything else I'm making so I cobbled this together from some questionable fabric I bought off the internet eons ago. It's wonky and hastily put together but sometimes that’s just the way things go.  So long as he isn't reading up how to be a cat quilt critic while he's on holiday at the vet I'm golden.

I'm off to start cleaning the house. Lucky, Lucky me !

The Six Million Dollar....Cat

"Mrs. P,  we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic cat. Mordecai will be that cat. Better than he was before. Better. Stronger.  Faster. " 

I took the day off on Monday. Phoning your boss and saying "I'm not coming in today. I'm not sick - I'm taking cat leave " is always guaranteed to make your boss chuckle first thing on a Monday if she has any sense of humour at all.  I tend to revert to joking when I'm under pressure. Not everybody gets that. 

There are three types of people in this world. There are people who aren't animal lovers. I don't judge them. They're just missing a crucial gene. It's not their fault. There are people who say they are animal lovers and actually "own" pets, but they treat them like pets and that's OK too.  And then there are people (like me) that have sleepless nights when their animals aren't quite right and take cat sick days and treat their animals like part of the family. And maybe that means we have an extra gene that makes us unable to identify that our animal mates aren't actually people and probably don't need specially made quilts and home made cooked meals and that despite the movie, Dr. Doolittle, animals can't actually speak. 

Whatever. 

Rewind to Sunday night. Mordecai, our big, laid back ,cool ginger cat had been playing a game of tag in the back yard with Indy in the late afternoon and Indy's Modus Operandi for winning was to plant his dinner plate sized paw squarely in Mordy's back and flatten him to the ground barking "Tag -You're it -Cat  ".  Mr. P witnessed the carnage and practically had to peel Mordy off the concrete with a shovel while Indy stood by feeling inordinately pleased with himself for winning the tag round. If I had a dollar for every time I've told my "children" to play nicely or I've screeched "you'll take someone's eye out with that stick" I wouldn't be looking down the barrel of another day at paid employment. 

But on Sunday night when the normally silent Mordecai spent the night looking at me and intermittently yowling (loudly and frequently) I was a bit worried. This is the cat who only speaks when he wants to eat or when he wants you to turn the tap on since he hasn't mastered the art of flicking the tap on without the assistance of someone with opposable thumbs.  I'm sure that's the only reason he hasn't acted on his master plan for world domination. He needs us to do tap duty. 

So I checked him out thinking maybe Indy's paw-in-the-back routine had busted something crucial. Nup- no broken bones. Full range of movement. Still jumping up and down off stuff he wasn't supposed to be jumping on and off like the kitchen benches.  So I figured a 15 pound cat being rugby tackled by a 100 pound dog probably meant that Mordecai was feeling a little sore and sorry for himself . If someone dropped something 6 and a half times my weight on me I'd be feeling pretty sorry too. At that stage I was hoping he'd rally by morning because every single time I go anywhere near the vet I need to take out a second mortgage on my house. Did I ever tell you the story about how our dog Lola was bitten by a snake and had to have anti venom? That shit costs a bajillion dollars. I guess milking snakes for their poison to make anti venom is an expensive business, further convincing me I'm totally in the wrong line of work. Oh and Lola wasn't bitten by a snake. She ate a green mouldy bone. I know that because the same thing happened two years later. So you can understand my hesitance to barrel down to the vet for a bruise on a Sunday night no less.  

Sunday night was a barrel of laughs (insert sarcasm here ) Mordecai is the kind of cat that ensconces himself on the bed at night and doesn't make a peep or move till morning when he is forcibly removed with a crow bar. He spent the night jumping up and down off the bed, stomping on my head, and speaking to me in very loud cat-speak. Coupled with Mr. P's freight train snoring I had no bloody hope of a little shut eye. 

Monday came and he wasn't any better. In fact he was worse. Right after he started throwing up and I muttered nasty things to Indy about dogs with big paws who don't know their own strength I called the vet. And within an hour Mordecai was in surgery for kidney failure due to a blockage.  So I came home and apologised to Indy and thanked him for stamping on the cat because we might not have been watching Mordy so closely if we weren't considering the possibility that he had a broken back and then I started crossing my fingers and toes and thanking my lucky stars that I do understand cat language and listened to the voices in my head. Normally voices in your head are a bad thing. Ask any serial killer. 

The surgery was a success and Mordy came home last night with a plethora of really cool drugs.  I don't think the vet got the joke when I asked if she could slip a couple of extra Valium tabs in there for me. Some people have no sense of humour.  I came home with a considerably heavier credit card bill. There's 80 yards of fabric I won't be buying in Hawaii.

Aside from the fact my cat is a rampant junkie and fell off the ottoman last night because he was stoned out of his gourd and then looked at me all surprised like I'd pushed him off, and aside from the fact he's weaving and slurring his meows and aside from the fact he's become obsessed with licking his private cat parts he seems to be on the mend. 

Drugs are Bad ...M'kay...(a little South Park reference there ) 

And because he's such a special cat he now needs to eat a special diet. Pound for pound this new food costs approximately the same price as European White truffles. And I just know he's going to live until he's 47 in people years. There's something rotten in the state of Denmark when your cat eats better than you do. 

And it's typical of me to have a long blogland absence and to mark my comeback with a post about my cat's drug habit. That's just the way we roll at Maison Pyjamas. No class. 

P.S. Just be thankful I didn't include a picture of my cat's penis in this post. I sent one to the vet this morning with the subject line "cat porn " so she could tell me whether it was normal for cat privates to look like that because I've never taken it upon myself to peer intently  at my cats whatsit before. 

Thank Goodness for Jesus Handles

I guess I should say I'm not dissing religion in my title. I don't know about anywhere else in the world but Jesus handles is a pretty common saying here in Australia and since we poke fun at just about anything I'm going with it. Also there is something a bit rude at the bottom of my post too. I figured if I was going to offend anyone with my religious reference I may as well go for a two-fer and upset people with mild porn while I was at it. 

There are milestones that we commonly share throughout life. Learning to walk , starting kindergarten, getting your pen license in Year 3. Starting high school, and having your first kiss. One of the major rites of passage in young  adult  life is getting your drivers licence. It means you can give public transport the bird. And it means your parents have another thing to worry about and that their petrol bill is going to increase by at least 100%. 

On Thursday Miss P got her learners permit. She didn't get it first go (or even the second) but  I was very proud that she persevered until she had achieved her goal. Sometimes it's easy to give up, but the things we want are really worth going for. No matter how long it takes. 

On Saturday I went out and bought L Plates and a crash helmet because today I took her for her first driving lesson. I also banned her from watching any Formula 1 racing for the last week in case she tried to emulate Mark Webber. 

She did a great job and I think doubling my dose of anti- anxiety medication prior to the lesson was a stroke of pure genius. And crushing some up and putting it in her morning coffee seemed to help her too.

With my whole "anything you really want is worth working for" speech ringing in my own ears I decided to brave making whoopie pies again this afternoon. And you know what ? I think I nailed it. Finally- whoopie pies that aren't the size of baseballs or that can be used as Chinese throwing stars. 

The week that saw me absent from Blog land also saw me finish all the blocks for the selvage quilt. 

And  a second pair of yellow pants that you need to wear shades to look at directly lest you be blinded so Little P could play at being Fireman Sam. 

One of the roadkill rescue ottomans got a makeover this weekend. 

 Stapler gun + cushion covers= gorgeousness 

Finally,  the reason most of you scrolled down to the bottom of this post as soon as I mentioned porn ...I was in Spotlight shopping yesterday and saw a totally new section. I waddled over there as fast as a middle aged woman can waddle but trust me it was a lot less exciting than the sign led me to believe. 

Enjoy your week!

P.S. In case you're wondering about the title ...here's an explanation of Jesus handles. 

A.W.O.L

Some of you noticed that I was AWOL on Friday. To those of you who emailed to make sure I was OK -thank you. I particularly liked Kate's email that asked if I'd gotten into a tangle with an irate kangaroo.


Sometimes unanticipated events occur and parts of my life get put on the back burner. Family will always come first and family has needed me more than usual over the last month or two.  I stressed out about not posting my favourite thing for the week but that's just the way the cookie crumbled.  

The truth is I've been really struggling to juggle my real life with my blogging life lately. At some point over the last month or so blogging has made the shift to my list of things I need to do like doing the washing or grocery shopping.

I had a chat with my inner self this weekend and I recognised that I am not wonder woman and that I can't juggle everything or do everything at my usual 110% at the moment. So for the next little while I'm going to drop in when I can and see what you're all up to without putting ridiculous pressure on myself to comment on every single post or to post to a schedule myself. 


This weekend has been full of highs. We celebrated Little P's birthday on Saturday with a Friday night sleepover and had to wait until he went to sleep at 10pm Friday night to bake his birthday cake. Don't ask.   

I didn't have the internal reserves to make a firetruck cake at that time of the night so Zebra cake it was. It was all good, Little P and I just eat the icing off the top anyway. 

Since Little P is Sam the Fireman mad at the moment, I made him a pair of yellow pants (just like Sam wears) Saturday morning to go with his Fireman Sam top. It's amazing how happy 3 bucks of yellow fabric and some thread and stitches can make a kid so happy. And that has been the sum total of my sewing this week since my machine only made it back from the fixit shop on Friday. She's purring like a dream. I'm pretty sure the fixit guy knows I abuse my machine by running over pins all the time but at least I didn't get a lecture. Although I did get one for using metal bobbins in my machine. Again.

Going Home

I mentioned that my Dad had a birthday last week so Mr. P and I drove to my folks place this past weekend to pay a visit. It's about a three hour drive north of here and we haven't done the trek since Easter. I always refer to my parents place as "home" even though I've never lived there. I guess that proves that home is wherever the people you love are.

Even if they pull faces like this...

I warned you that was going on my blog Dad.... don't ever dare me. You know you'll lose.  

I took this picture on the drive up  to deliberately freak out all my friends in the US because it looks like we're driving recklessly and wantonly on the wrong side of the road. I wonder how I'm going to go with changing sides of the road  when we're away and whether I'm going to spend my days in a perpetual state of agitation about crashing. 

I spent the car ride finishing sewing the binding onto Home on The Range (when I wasn't taking shots of the road and firetrucks to show Little P )  so I could give it to my Dad when we got there. There's nothing like bringing a finish down to the wire.

And Dad loved it. And I loved it so much I used it all weekend to keep warm since my folks live in Antarctica.

I'm so happy with how this turned out that I may have to make a scrappy tumbler at some point just for me. 

Love the back almost as much as the front. It makes me want to go out and find a boot scooting class. 

While I was at my folks I raided my Mum's garden for goodies to bring home. And I dreamed of putting in a vegie garden at our place and then dismissed the thought because I have a black thumb. I figure as long as my Mum gardens I can just steal the fruits of her labours. 

I spent some of the weekend working on more hexie flowers. It's getting to be  a decent sized pile, but still feels like its taking forever  ...and now I'm looking for a volunteer to peel the paper out. Anyone want to put their hand up? 

And finally I have something to link up to Elizabeth's monthly linky party!