Dee-Tales

Polishing Cloth

2012-02-08T06:40:00.000+10:00

I mentioned yesterday that we polished up the beads with the silver polishing cloth. I bought it for the seemingly exorbitant price of $5 when buying silver chains. the sales woman advised that it would keep the jewellery nice longer if each time I wore it I gee it a run down with the cloth when I took off the necklace etc.
She said that it was impregnated with a silver cleaner and was therefore worth the $5 for a piece of what looked like pink cotton about 12cm square. She could see i wasn't convinced but said that it was covered by the store's 100% satisfaction guarantee and that I could try it and if not happy I could bring it back. I decided to give it a go. I tried polishing some of my grubby silver jewellery with a piece of regular cotton cloth - not much difference. Then I tried it with this cloth and there was a huge immediate difference.

I shall have to do further research into it. I am still amazed at he difference it has been making to my silver jewellery.

This pic isn't great but it is the only one I have. It was taken in my yellow-lit lounge at night without a flash. the light still reflected off the silver.

The difference was remarkable. The ear ring on the left was the one that I polished. It was shiny and the detail showed up again. :)

Pandora style charm Bracelets

2012-02-07T07:58:00.001+10:00

Some years ago when the Pandora beads were first on sale here in Australia and they were the hot item every where my girls requested them for Christmas.

They were very expensive and I told the girls not to expect them. I hunted around and found heaps of other similar beads in others brands online. I ordered beads and bracelets for myself and the girls for Christmas that year.

I selected beads for the girls base on their favourite colours and things as well as to represent key aspects of their lives. I gave them to the girls in little organza bags so they could have the fun of assembling the bracelets.

The bracelet for teen 3 was too small and she put hers aside after assembling it and forgot about it. Teen 2 couldn't get all of her beads onto her bracelet as some weren't made well and some didn't suit the style of bracelet. she also put hers aside and never wore it. I don't know why but I also never fully assembled mine. Several years have gone by and in my renewed beading stage I got the girls to pull them out again.

I pulled mine apart and removed just a few of my favourite beads to put onto a keyring as that may get more use. I gave teen 3 my bracelet which is a perfect fit. Teen 2 has also outgrown hers and I had one other that was just right for her so gave that to her. Both girls have grown up a lot since I got them the bracelets and not all of the original beads were to their current tastes. I asked them to go through my beads and select any that suited them better and to feel free to discard any that no longer suited their style.

We polished up the beads with the silver cloth and now both girls have bracelets that they like and have been wearing in the week since we put them together.

This is teen 3's bracelet. It has many of the beads that I had originally selected and really suits her. I am interested to see that many of the beads of her childhood are also here: the pretty dress representing a special party dress, the bunny representing her favourite soft toy, butterflies and a cat. It goes nicely with the car, her love of red, the key representing her growing independence and the coffee cup; her favourite beverage.

Below is teen 2's bracelet. It is less crowded but that is also a reflection of her style and taste.
Her bracelet is a little less symbolic but still has a cat, teddy, blue and stars; all favourites of hers. Some of her favourite symbols include the square-faced bead each depicting a different facial expression which symbolises a deeply felt aspect of her development and a large heart bead made up of lots of smaller hearts.

I am delighted that we have finally been able to get to a point to make these work for the girls and they are even more special now as the girls are matured to a stage where the symbols have significance to them in different ways.

My little key ring didn't quite work as I had planned as the key holder wouldn't take the threaded beads so I had to just make use of the ones which would slip on over the top brace.

hand bag hanger - blue

2012-02-06T08:00:00.001+10:00

The hand bag hangers are an ongoing project I'm afraid.
Each one takes several hours to wire and then assemble. My teens enjoy sitting with me and making suggestions etc. I have offered for them to do some of the threading etc but am yet to have one of them take me up on my offer.

Last night I was working on the teal blue for teen 2.

She wanted one that was really full because she likes that look more than the more sparse ones.

I added only 1 extra link and managed to crowd 19 bead clusters (most have additional beads on each hanging). I even put the crystal butterfly on a separate link as a feature.
These pics show the detail of the many beads on it.
You can see why it took me so long to do.... oh and I was watching a movie at the same time. But it was a sllloooooww moving drama and not the comedy that I was expecting. I should have looked at who the director was first before hiring it - Woody Allen. I am amazed that he is even still alive let alone still making (not very good) movies.

Here she is showing off her bead hanger.

Now teen 3 wants me to put more beads on the one I made for her...

Ear Ring Remodel

2012-02-05T13:43:00.000+10:00

I have a number of ear rings that I just don't wear. Recently I went through and pulled out them all out of my collection and have begun making my way through them all. I only got rid of a few pairs and the rest I have been slowly working my way through and addressing the reason for not wearing the ear ring.

Below is a pic of me wearing one of the ones that I don't wear. (I know that sounds wrong.)

The are chandelier drop, maroony-purple, hand-made (not by me) and very long.
I like the long length as I have a long neck and can pull it off. But they don't hang nicely.

In the close-up they look nice and straight but they actually aren't. The top lot of wire is too constrained and all the sets are on different angles. The second lot of twirly wire also isn't straight and has a way of making the beads hang oddly.

It feels weird. It annoys me. So I don't wear them.

This should be fixable.

I really like the lower section and didn't want to lose that look. As I was pondering what to do with them I roamed through my stash and found a hanger with 7 holes designed to hang drops.

Perfect.
Easy.

I simply attached each of the lower dangles and they hang nicely and feel lovely on.
I also freed the top section and it seems to hang better too as it hasn't go the tension of the lower twirly frame. Now I have two pairs of similar ear rings. I don't need two pairs so may see if I can find a happy recipient for the top half.

Pretty huh?

I really like a happy success.

Oh and all the pics were taken at night time so the colours are affected by the artificial lighting. The shades in our lounge room have amber coloured glass so give everything a yellowish tone. At least I managed to get pics without a flash.

Not that you can see much of my hair, but i just got it cut yesterday morning - saturday and it always looks lovely when I come home. She spiked it up at the bcd for me. I had a 'nap' for abut 2 hours in the afternoon and it still looked good. :)

clutching at cars

2012-02-03T21:55:00.000+10:00

or 24 hours of extreme stress preceded by several stressful days...

On Tuesday while minding my own business and going about my business the clutch started sticking and then popping out the rest of the way. Not a good sign.

On the weekend before hubby had checked the clutch fluid level as I had complained that it was feeling "heavy" during the previous week. He gave the fluid levels the all clear and I decided to bring forward the planned service by a few weeks and have it checked by the mechanic. Before I could get to that though it really started to misbehave.

I drove straight to the mechanic, directly to the mechanic and didn't pass go ...

A quick check and it seems that it's just the Master Cylinder and can be easily fixed for a mere $300.

ahh relief. well kinda...

I went to pick the car up again after it's day at the car hospital expecting news the minor operation was a success and the car was recuperating nicely in the recovery yard ... only it didn't quite go that way. Tim the chief of told me that it was way worse than first diagnosed and only major surgery could save it now. My poor car has cancer in its entire gear box and needed a transplant.

Like my medical analogy?

Sad but true but my car needed a lot of money thrown in it's direction. It will be 14 years old in a few week and has done nearly 300,000 km and has reached that stag of it's life where it is going to keep costing a lot of money.

S. T. R. E. S. S.

discussions into the night, research and not enough sleep ensued. Headache.

Big decision made.

Application approved.

Car hunt begins in earnest.

Success and success again.

Next Saturday we will be the owners of a new (to us) 2007 Subaru Outback. Yep the same - just newer cos we really do love our Sooby.

This is not the exact car but it looks just like it... the colour is GOLD. Really if you ask me someone put too much beige into the gold.

If I was naming the colour I would call it Natural Linen done metallic so it is shiny. So not gold.

This pic below sort of sums up life with our sooby

... it was a lot of fun. ;)

even if we did seriously bog the old dear.

I wonder what ~~mischief~~ adventures Sooby II will have?

pineapples, grapes and more

2012-02-01T21:40:00.000+10:00

Welcome to the latest nail art show 'n' tell. Lucky for you there's not too much tell and just enough show.

teen 2 has been on a fruit nail art theme for the last three weeks.

It started with Kiwi fruit ... forgot to photograph it.

Then onto pineapples

and grapes

The background colour is actually a shade of teal.

The dotting tools that I ordered from Hong Kong for Christmas finally arrived.

While I am on my parcel arrival soap box I will pause to add that I ordered it on 1st December and it only arrived a little over a week ago. I ordered thee items from 3 different sellers in HongKong that same day and the other 2 parcels were here in less than a week.

Since then I have ordered several other items from the same country and they all got here before the dotting tools. What gives??

any way I return from this little rant to our scheduled bit of entertainment...

Last week I was in a hurry so just did colour and glitter... if in doubt add sparkles.

The next time I decided to put in a bit more effort and got creative with the nail art pens.

It isn't really anything specific, although I got a few compliments for my 'flowers'.

pretty huh?

I just figured it was red and pretty so it worked for me.

I am trying to decide what to try next and am open to suggestions.

... and so ends my presentation here today. Thank you class and thank you teacher.
couldn't resist ;)

another beading post...

2012-01-31T08:33:00.000+10:00

I have a small container of green beads which were a gift. When at the bead shop recently I spotted a nice hand made silver bead with green swirls. I had planned on using it as a feature bead with the other green beads.

Daughter 1 had other ideas.

She wanted it as a feature bead.

Just on its own on a chain.

It just so happened that I had a recently discarded 60cm long snake chain and she decided that it would be perfect on a chain around her neck.

Hubby is telling me that I have gone soft.

I hope the bead store has a few more of the handmade beads, I liked its colours and uneven pattern/texture.

The tape measure in the pic above isn't just any old tape measure...

It's my new ducky tape measure that was in my christmas stocking. It is quite a success. I need it regularly when beading and I keep misplacing my tape measures (under all the bits and bobs on the beading table) This little fellow is easy to locate and gives me a smile each time I reach for him.

Yes it is a 'him'. I don't know why, it just is. OK?

Nail Art Newbies

2012-01-30T09:09:00.000+10:00

Teen 2 has been developing an interest in nail art. I have long enjoyed pained nails and have been joining her in the adventures on nail art.

We are both complete beginners in the world of nail art. There are hundreds of nail art blogs out there in the blogosphere - who knew?

Our efforts are not worthy of a dedicated blog but I will show off our beginner efforts and hopefully we will see progress over time. Believe me the only way is UP.

taped mani with glitter top coat

vertical taped mani - tape cut with fancy scissors

more fun taped mani

last week of school for teen 2 - end of grade 12

grey/silver free-hand french mani

silver crackle over navy blue - I wasn't very happy with how the blue chipped so fast and the silver crackle was a good save.

My Christmas mani. red striped on white base. I spent ages getting in neat and then when I did the disco ball top coat it made some of it run pink.

black/green striped mani with disco ball top coat. The disco ball really picked up the light so you could barely see the pattern in the pics.

red with nail french and silver border. You can see that I broke my pinky nail and it is growing back - it was one of those low, painful breaks.

We are improving in our nail art and from time to time I will feature our efforts.

Dee-stashing Joys

2012-01-29T09:40:00.004+10:00

I needed ONE fresh water pearl for an embroidery project some time ago. In order to get just one pearl I had to buy an entire bag of fresh water pearls.

So begins the inadvertant creation of a stash of such items and the enemy of those of us committed to keeping clutter at bay. I could really get going on this topic.... I shall spare you the drama.

Last Saturday night our married daughter and her hubby dropped in to visit. I was making some jewellery at the time and she sat down beside me to play with all the goodies. She asked if I would make something for her. I showed her the ear ring posts I had bought with her in mind some time ago. That got her excited.

When she saw the pile of fresh water pearls in one box it was instant love. I made several suggestions and told her to feel free to use them all up as they were left overs and handed her the bead board to play. Meanwhile I got to and made her a simple pair of ear rings to her specifications. She decided that a simple matching necklace with pearls and clear seed beads was what she wanted.

Today I have finally got to stringing it for her.

It really looks sweet and dainty. I can't wait to see her reaction. The seed beads sparkle and set off the natural roughness of the fresh water pearls.

I am not into pearls, but I could even see myself wearing this one. And I have no more pearls to use up - oh joy.

BFF Transformation

2012-01-28T08:16:00.001+10:00

The other day on a trip to the chemist I walked past a costume jewellery chain store. Remembering that teen 2 was on the hunt for strong clips that won't slide out of her silky, smooth hair I stopped in to see what they offered.
My eyes fell on the corner of mark down with the big sign reading 6 for $10. Well that was too good to pass up. The first thing I spotted was this BFF necklace set. It was just the thing I needed for my next project. A quick scan of the ear rings netted a cute pair of pencils and a band for teen 2. Teen 3 was with me and I offered her any 3 items from that section. Oh the delight she had in choosing.

This is my before pic. Two snake chains for $2 and the bonus of the cute hearts.

Here is what I did with one of the chains. I had a 60cm snake chain with this bell pendant on it (gift from oldest daughter's honey moon in Bali) and it was too long, so I swapped it over to the 50cm chain. Much better.

Then I started to play with the hearts. I pulled some purple faceted glass beads out of my stash and made these sweet, simple ear rings with a bit of colour and a bit of bling.

Oh and for the other bits teen 3 chose some hair clips, a feathered alice band and a flower alice band. Easy cheap happy. And I found the clips teen 2 was wanting.

Last First Day

2012-01-27T08:20:00.002+10:00

Teen 3 started back at school this week.

When she was nearly ready to walk out the door I came into her room with the camera. She groaned and said, "Really? You really want to take my picture?"

Ignoring the sarcasm, my smile and enthusiastic nodding must have won her over because her next comment was, "Ok as long as you do it right here, right now AND I wear my sunnies."

Deal done. Ya gotta take whats ya can gets sometimes - so no nice posed pics.
Photo snapped (fast I might add lest she change her mind).
Teen 3 plants a kiss on my cheek and skips out the door of her bedroom happy in her victory and off for her first day of her last year of high school.
I am left smiling too 'cause it is a win-win scenario; last year she wouldn't let me take her pic at all.

The photo does tell it all really.

Long gone are the days when she would be happy for me to take photos of her and would proudly show off her new uniform or school bag or lunch box...

It really is the end of an era. After 17 years of first days at school this is my last one.
I'm not sure how I feel about that yet; part glad, part sad.

How Charming

2012-01-26T08:16:00.001+10:00

Teen 3 loves red and black. She requested a charm bracelet in red, black and silver. I had some red beads and started to wire them up.
I thought I didn't have enough so visited a nearby bead store ... a.k.a. lolly shop for beaders
... and no calories either.

This was a dangerous move as I went from too few to too many in the blink of an eye.

The result was a pretty charm bracelet, a happy teen ....

and a big pile of left over wired beads!

Teen 3 happily informed me that she wouldn't mind a bag hanger too now.

As it turned out I did have enough beads for the bracelet and didn't need to buy any extras.

The irony is that I was trying to use up my bead stash with the intention of only buying beads for specific projects as I needed them.

Bag Hangers

2012-01-25T08:20:00.001+10:00

Still Beading. :)

Some years ago I started to make charm bracelets for all three teens. I got no further than selecting some beads and wiring a few of them ready for the next step. Colour preferences and tastes have changed. Now, what to do with the selected beads? That is still a work in progress.

So far though I have made some bead hangers for hand bags or jeans or where ever one wants to hang them.

I got a bit carried away with the green beads. Eldest daughter still loves green and is frog mad. She visited last night and saw it. She immediately clipped it onto her jeans and did her happy dance. So it has now gone home with her.

So much for my idea of putting it aside for next Christmas.

This cutie doesn't have a destination yet.

When I started wiring these, teen 3 was orange mad. She no longer wants orange but it is the IT colour this season so may find a suitable recipient at some stage. I continued wiring it and assembled it. I am happy with the result. What do you think?

Ear Ring Rescue

2012-01-24T09:47:00.001+10:00

I am now feeling the mojo.
It's time to take a look at my existing ear rings and identify the ones I don't wear, evaluate why I don't wear them and see what I can do about it.

I pulled three pairs out to start.

I didn't take any before pics. The aren't hugely different as it was minor changes which make a big difference to the functioning of each ear ring.

Here is the after pic.

The red star ear ring on the left originally was on 2 strands of tiger tail and was crimped at the top just above and below the fish hook wire. This meant that it didn't hang straight. This crooked hanging bugged me as it would make the crimp at the bottom rub agains my neck and scratch me. Pain and discomfort ends to be a turn-off for me so it was time for a remodel.
I liked the basic look of the ear ring so switched the tiger tail to a single red strand, threaded the beads again and crimped it at the bottom. I have also now discovered crimp covers and they look like silver balls and cover the sharp edges of the crimps. I decided to not crimp again above the star as I like the loopy look. It made it a bit trickier to get the two different sized beads on the ends but was worth it.
The ear rings were originally a gift to have Christmas themed ear rings that weren't tacky as at the time I was attending many Christmas functions and was getting tired of my on pair of nice Christmas ear rings.

The second pair were even simpler to fix.
They had a large red shell on the bottom and it dangled and touched my shoulder. I just removed it.

The third one on the right is part of a set with a matching necklace featuring a lager disk like the smaller disks. another friend gave them to me for my birthday last year. I have worn the necklace a bit but have had trouble with the matching ear rings. I was thinking of re-homing the entire set. The ear rings were on cheap brass hooks which my ear don't like and the bit where it hangs was too thick to swing freely from the hook.
I replaced the hook and made a joining part using a left over small coral bead and double loops. A simple fix which greatly improves the look and function of these ear rings too.

Now I have gained 3 more wearable ear rings that I won't skip over. And I didn't need to get rid of them either.

Lariet 1,2, and not 3

2012-01-23T09:51:00.012+10:00

I still have lots of beads and feel like I am getting the mojo going, so will keep rolling with it while it lasts... wonder where it will go?

Anyways.
One big container full of blue glass beads begging to be turned into something...

The result this Lariet with the second big blue triangle bead as the feature. I can see myself wearing it over a plain black top. It is quite heavy with all those large beads but every one who has seen it decorating my lounge room has admired it, and tried it on too. ;)

I have a set of red coral beads that were a gift. Red is always good for me. The challenge is the red coral is often a slightly orange or pink shade and can be tricky as doesn't alway work with a more pure red shade. I tend to lean more towards the pure red or blue-red than the orange-red. mmmm tricky.

I played with lots of options and ended up string and re-stringing the red coral three times before I was happy with the effect. I was trying to make one necklace featuring the flat disk but it just wasn't working. I also made good use of my bead board in deciding what to do.

In the end I came up with two different coral necklaces. The best part is that they can be worn together or separately depending on the outfit and my mood at the time.

I forgot to rotate this pic before uploading.

The round coral beads in the second necklace are the same size as the single round coral bead used as the feature bead in the longer Lariet necklace.

The pics don't show all the colour variations and just how lovely the coral is.
I used some shaped coral, some tumbled coral, glass beads, bugle and seed beads all in a monochrome as other colours just didn't work.

ohh and teen three came in when I was most of the way through, LIKED it and offered to relieve me of the burden of the necklaces. I take this as the ultimate compliment as any one who knows the nature of 16 year old teen girls can testify.

Suncatcher Updated

2012-01-22T12:41:00.000+10:00

On one occasion when my children were little and we were visiting my parents, my dad pulled out his Pagodas that he made out of old television glass to show the girls. They were fascinated. He showed them some that he had hung on chains with a few beads for interest. Naturally the girls wanted one each.

Granddad let the girls choose and the eldest two each chose one. Nana pulled out some plastic beads and necklace chain. I spent a happy hour with the girls selecting beads and threading them and then joined it all up to make two sun catchers.

These sun catchers have hung in the kitchen of every house we have lived in for the past 15 or so years. Fast forward to the present and the sun catchers were really showing their age. The chains were rusty and the plastic beads grimy. Definitely no sun catching or sparkling happening.

I asked the two youngest teens if they would like to play with the beads and re-do the sun catchers? Both girls took up the option and spent a happy hour threading beads on wires and again I assembled them with new chain and fittings. This time all of the beads are glass, some faceted.

The dark chains are from the old ones with the new ones now sporting the glass beads and ends.

close up

The girls kept going and made more beaded sets so I added new bottom dangles and now we have four beaded hangers.

No prizes for guessing one daughter's fav colour.

I used a large glass triangle bead for one and revamped a pair of pretty but unsuccessful faceted glass ear rings for the other. The ear rings had been done on tiger tail with crimps on the ends. Fail, because all the sharp little crimp edges aren't pleasant bumping against sensitive neck skin.

Showing the entire length of the four new and two old bead hangers. sorry it's a bit blurry but it is the only pic I have showing them fully.

This is the view from our kitchen window across the back yard. Yep it is a hug yard with a hills hoist style clothes line, huge double shed and even bigger Mango tree now full of fruit. After this pic I threw out the old, rusty bead hangers.

Oh and they do sparkle in the afternoon sun. :)

Busy Beading

2012-01-21T23:48:00.000+10:00

In the great dee-cluttering I went through all of my various craft bits and pieces and culled. Then I did it again... and again. I was afraid that I may later go looking for some bit and only realise that no longer owned it.

I used to do quite a lot of beading and jewellery making and then fell into a bead funk where no inspiration came my way. I would pull out all the various boxes and then sit and look at them not knowing what to do with it. My beads and tools now fit in one box.

I had some time off work over Christmas and got out what was left of my once substantial bead stash. I started out slowly playing with beads and assembled the various ear rings that I had put into little bags ready some years ago. Nicely done.

I could feel my creative functions awakening...

Gradually making more variations.

Then onto necklace and two different co-ordinating ear rings in blue and black.

Necklace and three co-ordinating ear rings. I made the heart ear rings and my visiting friend assembled the other two blue/green ear rings.

And to show the pink set with necklace and two styles of ear rings.

It is interesting to me to note that I was able to get into it again with less beads to overwhelm.
I did go a little too far in the bead clear-out though. I got rid of my seed beads along with all the plastic beads and oddities etc. Now I am finding that I need to replace some of the seed beads in order to create, but I don't regret getting rid of over had of the bead stash.

Moving On

2012-01-19T11:29:00.000+10:00

I have missed blogging and was not sure how to proceed.

I have a little blog primarily about my dee-cluttering experiences... then I got to a point where I was mostly clutter-free. I know that sounds incredible, almost impossible. It's true.

The biggest aspect was when my hoarder hubby finally made the connection that his life was better when there was less clutter. He slips back into his old ways occasionally and we had had a few interesting discussions / debates over certain items, but for the most part he now prefers our less cluttered life style.

As I have noted we have moved house a lot. Each move we have dee-cluttered as well as each change of season. I still have a box where I put any items not needed and regularly re-home bits. the difference is that it feels under control.

I wish I could say the same for all of my life... but that is a whole other story.

My solution from here is that I will keep my blog and will get back to regular blogging.
I will switch the focus to the tales of my life and document all the details that catch my attention.

It feels like a positive step and a progression for me.

Meet Parker

2011-06-27T21:12:00.000+10:00

We have a small, furry, purry, pouncy, mischievous, green-eyed, ginger-ninja at our home.

Mmmm that would be AKA a kitten.

Cute Huh?!

What on earth are we doing with another cat in our home? Well you may ask. We are asking the same question. There is a story, so grab a cuppa and sit back for a read and a giggle (or groan).

Our eldest daughter and her hubby went to youth group on Friday night as leaders. There was a bonfire on one of the other leaders property just outside of town. In the midst of the bonfire madness as only those who are familiar with the madness of high schoolers on a youth group outing can testify, a wet, muddy, hungry kitten came wandering in.!! What animal in its right mind would approach a groups of loud, crazed teens.

The cute little furry MUST have been very desperate.

Our girl loves cats and rescued the poor thing. Cleaned up and fed and watered, and fed and watered, and a little more food for good measures and one little purry kitty is safely loved. First thing next morning our girl and her friend door-knocked the entire area with the kitten, now named PARKER trying to find his owner. No success. No one owns him or is claiming him.

Apart from being wet and very hungry, he has been well loved and cared for, toilet trained and well socialised.

"Muuuuuum can you look after a kitten for a bit? I want to keep him but can't." Living in a unit with a cat-hating hubby doesn't bode well for our daughter keeping the kitten.

Phone calls to RSPCA, Vets, city Pound yields nothing.
Notices up around the found area.

The pound tells us they can't guarantee the kitten won't be put down if we surrender him.
They also tell us that it is officall two weeks of waiting to decide if an animal is claimed before we can decide to either keep him or offer him too someone else.

So for now we are the foster parents to a very sweet kitten.
Our other two teens are thrilled and have fallen in love with the little mischief-maker.
Eddie is still sulking and avoiding the baby.
Charlie is making nice and mothering the new baby after an initial period of coolness.

Oh and the word from the local council... we are legally able to keep three cats in our new area. Oh my.

The Big Four-Oh.

2011-06-19T19:53:00.000+10:00

Since I last blogged we have moved house again. We didn't want to move again. Alas the lot of the tennant is that one doesn't have any say in things like home owners putting the house on the market.

When we moved into our house in Strathpine we had asked for a 12 month initial lease. We were told that they had a policy of offering only an initial six month lease but that the home owner wanted long term tennants. The house had been on the market for the previous three months. We were suspicious that the home owner wanted to lease for a short while and then try again to sell.

We were very clear about our desires for a long term tennancy. The letting agent promised long term tenancy. It seems sadly true that a persons word counts for nothing. If its not in writing then it never existed. sigh.

Just three weeks after we had moved in, the chatty neighbour told us that she had spoken with the home owner when the "leased" sign went up over the top of the "For Sale" sign. The home owner told our new neighbour that since the house hadn't sold she was going to let it for six months and then put it back on the market. !!!

That is not what we were told!

One could argue that the home owner had lied to the letting agent. Hmmm

So we were back to house hunting, packing, moving, unpacking and settling in.

Five days before my 42nd bithday we moved into the 40th house I have called home.

Home Sweet Home - number 40.

Long Absence

2010-11-13T23:47:00.000+10:00

Hello out there in blog-land... are you still there?
I have been absent for such a long while ... and now I am stating the obvious...
I have been wanting to get back, but at the same time feeling somewhat lost and not knowing how or where to pick up again.
A recent award from a dear friend has been on my mind and I will use it as impetus and launching pad to get myself back into blogging.

Award Rules:1. Thank the person who gave you this award
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason! (in no particular order…)
4. Contact the bloggers you’ve picked and let them know about the award.

My dear friend Textile Tragic at ZTwistArt gave me this award and I thank her, although I am not certain on my deservatory-ness (new word I just invented) for such an honour. Thanks for the encouragement and the kick in the pants. ;)

Seven things about me that you may not know.

1. We have just moved house (again) and that is part of the reason for my long absence.

2. I have been on this planet for 41 years and have moved house 39 times in those years. All of those moves were moving every possession that we own and do not include holidays or stays where we had a home to return to.

3. The longest I have ever lived anywhere is five years and nine months and I have had one other period of five years; from the age of ten - fifteen. I have had three stays of three years in one house.

4. The shortest time I have ever lived anywhere that I can remember is eight weeks and I am not talking about a holiday stay... it was lock, stock and moved everything.

5. In the first seven years of my life we moved 17 times and I have little memory of many of the houses. Many of my childhood memories are fragments of different houses and locations.

6. One of the ways I remember when an event happened is to picture the house I lived in at the time and to then narrow it down to the time frame in which I lived in that location.

7. My deepest yearning is to have my own home and to not have to keep moving house.

now since I am on a roll it is bonus info...

8. In all those moves we have only had the benefit of a removalist on five occasions.

9. Whilst I am very experienced at moving, (practice does make perfect) it gets harder each time and the emotional toll it takes is getting worse as I get older.

10. I do not come from gypsie descendants. My mother lived in the same house for her entire childhood and had her first move at nearly 20 years old. Her husband (my natural father) dragged us all over the country during the six years of their marriage and my formative years. Once she left my father we lived in a Housing Commission house for two and a half years until mum married my step-father. We lived in the house he built for five years until my parents could afford a bigger house where they lived for the next 25 years and have recently moved into their 'retirement home' (as they call their new home).

Now I believe I am to pass this award onto other bloggers.

1. Jane at Projects by Jane; I love seeing her bags and reading about her life as she makes and sells her bags.
2. Nancy at F8hasit; I love her writing style and the stories she tells of her life are thought provoking and poignant.
3. Donna at Coming Home; I find her stories of life encouraging and inspiring.
4. Anna at Noodlehead; mothering and craft and cute stories.

There are heaps of other deserving blogs, but I need sleep... I'll contact all tomorow.

Hair Gone

2010-09-28T21:51:00.000+10:00

Teen 2 has been considering cut off her long hair for some time now. Back in July she decided that she did want to cut it off but we both thought it a good idea to let the idea sit for a bit before the big cut.

Today was the day. With scissors in my hand I gave her one last option to change her mind.

Then in less than five minutes she was standing holding a long plat of her hair and remarking how light her entire head felt.

BEFORE - We took this pic back in early July

AFTER - I like that I caught her discovery of the difference.

"It feels so funny when I slide my hand down and it slides off!"

19"/48cm of long silky, brown hair.

A picture really does say 1000 words.

Now she can wear her hair down, not have to plat it for bed, school etc. It will be quick to wash (and not cost me a small fortune in conditioner etc) and not take three hours to dry. She can't wait to show it off at school next week and see if people recognise her with her hair loose and not in a long plat down her back...

Do you know anyone who wants to buy 19" of quality hair? she is keen on making a few dollars from it towards the car she is saving for.

Packaging

2010-08-22T21:35:00.000+10:00

This weekend we have been to visit my parents who live in the land of no internet. The thought of being two whole days away from his life-line had my hubby running off to the shop to buy a mobile internet dongle.

Dongle acquired and with it an over-abundance of packaging.

I was more than a little shocked and flabbergasted at the amount of packaging on this tiny, not-especially-fragile piece of electronic equipment. It comes in a hard plastic bubble, encased in thick, glossy box packaging in three layers and then a branded gloss-coated paper bag! WOW!

It begs the question WHY?

Sure it looks attractive, but is 'attractive' enough of a reason for such over-packaging? I think not. Does anyone buy an internet dongle based on the appearance of the packaging? None of the pictures in the advertising feature the packaging - perhaps it should be shown and we may adjust our purchasing decisons by avoiding the over-packaged product.

We are encouraged (read nagged incessantly) on a daily basis to resist plastic bags, to take our own canvas bags shopping and to avoid all forms of over-packaging on food and goods products. Why oh why does this piece of equipment come so over-wrapped? I can only think it is company vanity and certainly shows NO concern for our planet.

Well there is my little rant for the day. I normally don't care so much about such things. It is the abundance of advertising and big push to avoid unnecessary use of packing marketed so forcefully to the average consumer coupled with a consumer item so blatantly over-packaged which has got me a little hot under the collar. Talk about clutter... planet clutter. I may even be moved enough to get out of my apathy long enough to write to the offending company.

Layers

2010-08-15T13:16:00.000+10:00

There are so many layers to keep peeling back in an ongoing quest to dee-clutter. It is a task that is never done, but the reasons for that are many.
As I go through and put aside items to get rid of, I go through a series of stages. It is more than the do I need/want this item? Does it justify the space it occupies? etc. It is difficult to pin-point exactly... It is freedom from having to store, maintain and work around the item, but it is more than that. It is felt most at a deeper level. I don't know if you would call it emotional or psychological, I suspect it is both AND some other aspect too.

I keep digging into why we hold onto stuff. really why. what hold on us does the stuff have? To what degree do I want to be owned by my stuff? What is it withini us, all of us, tht drives us to acquire? and to keep on acquiring? Is it ever enough?

The more physical space I create around me, the more thinking and emotional space I feel/experience. I experience freedom. I experience peace. Still I struggle to define it as there is more to it that eludes me.

I'm afraid that is the best I can currently describe it.

Larry, a character in the TV series "Numbers" expresses a similar thing when he decides to part with the acquisitions of a life-time. Larry goes through various stages and his friends and colleagues think he is having some sort of mid-life crisis. Perhaps he is. Over many episodes he explores the freedom that he experiences from parting with 'stuff'. Larry takes it much further than I would ever contemplate (like everything) but I can certainly understand some of what he describes.

My general goal is to free my life of unnecessary clutter. How I determine what is necessary and what is unnecessary is an ever changing and developing thing. One of my key ways of determining whether an item is necessary is how it affects my life. Does keeping the item improve any aspect of my life? There are items that I once thought were essential to keep, I now am much less certain and in many instances, I am certain that they do not enhance my life in any measureable way.

Today I can give another tangible example of this process and where it has developed.

About 18 months ago, I culled over 800 books from our shelves. 800 books! It still left us with many hundreds of books. Since then we have culled several hundred more in several stages. The last big cull was about a year ago as we were unpacking when we moved into our current home.

We have a couple of big bookshelves full of books. I have asked my self and my family to consider how many times we have gone to the shelves AT ALL to access a book. We have not accessed any books on the three shelves in question during the last year. That is quite a statement.

We have not accessed ANY of the books on our shelves in the past year.

Why do we keep them? The reasons are many and varied and today I have again been assessing the why question. After consultation with hubby and teens, we have decided that we can part with quite a few more books.

The best part of 100 books from one bookshelf. The shelf is still over half full. There is not a single book here that I couldn't access if I really needed or wanted to through a library etc. Conclusion - out they go.

Now that is freedom.

Never say "I'll never..."

2010-08-05T19:52:00.000+10:00

I'll never let my kids ... eat in the car; stay up late on a school night; eat junk food; spend hours on the internet... ... ...
I'll never wear ... flares; paisley; 80's hair; etc
I'll never eat ...maccas; HJ's etc
I'll never be one of those mothers ...

So many things we think we will never say or do. Until we find ourselves doing exactly what we said we would never do.

I'll never make my kids do ...

Ha!

I'll never be one of those crazy cat ladies...

Ha, Ha.

How many of those things have I now done? Hmmmm more than I like to admit.

I thought I would never be one of those cat ladies.

That was before I had my cat Eddie. I have always been a dog lover.
I still love dogs, especially my sweet boof Buddy. My daughter loves cats and after many years of nagging (sigh another 'I'll never' when I eventually gave in and let her get a cat) we welcomed Charlie cat into our family. He is a nice cat. I like him and I managed to maintain my non-cat lady status.

It wasn't until I bought little Eddie who is a most unusual cat that I began to slip in my resolve to nvever be a cat lady.

I must admit I am thoroughly smitten with this little fur-ball.

Now I have gone all the way over the edge and turned into a cat-lady.

Eddie isn't well at the moment. He has been lethargic and had a sore tail for the last couple of days. Last night he got really distressed when we went to pick him up. sigh. That means it's time to take him to the vet for a check up. Except this morning he was nowhere to be found and didn't come for breaky - not even the most precious sandwich tuna - yep human food.

Suddenly I am a cat woman but not just a cat woman. I am a crazy cat woman!!!

yep I was worried and anxious about a cat. Several anxious hours until he was found.

And the verdict... a tail-pull injury. How??? This little cat and his tail are frought, to say the least.
He had a fever and is now on pain meds and antibiotics. Give him a week or so and he will be fine to run around again... and get his tail caught. It is only a matter of time before this cat uses up all his nine lives as far as that tail is concerned.

And it leaves me admitting that I am a crazy cat lady. How long is it before I go all the way crazy and take up turning my home into a cat haven where humans are the minority and it stinks like cat urine?... NEVER.

A Fun Night

2010-08-01T13:41:00.000+10:00

Last night hubby and I went to a social for his work. It was a murder mystery dinner set in a Western salloon in 1873 where a gambling tournament is taking place. I got to play "salloon girl B" and hubs was a gambler.

Yep. Here I am in all my western, saloon girl gear. I had to laugh when I got this character as it is sooooo far from my regular life. It was quite comical and I was having trouble getting my head around how I was going to dress up in such a costume. I was quite pleased to find one that was at least somewhat modest.

Hubby made a fine gambler with his pack of cards, hat and costume. He didn't keep his vest on long as it was a warm night and he got too hot in a satin shirt and vest. I should have made him one of those rope ties but, oh well.

hamming it up for the camera.

This pic was taken later in the evening.

Everyone had made so much effort with their costumes, even those who didn't have a part to play in the drama. There were over 40 people at the do and I managed to correctly 'guess' the murderer along with three other people. I got a "Smoking Gun" award for my efforts.

"Annabelle" is second from the left and she won the best dressed award. As you can see the others with her were all pretty fine. Her hubby on the left was a "gentleman" and the other young lady was a "lady". the young man was an "outlaw" who was suspected of the murder but was innocent and had an irrefutable aliby. yes we did giggle much.

"Salloon girl A" and "Mr Money" the bank manager.

The "crooked sherif" and in the background a cowgirl, gambler and salloon girl.

The notorious "Black Betty" - a scoundrel and a thief. In the background was "the cook", "victorious Vicki" one of the finalist gamblers and her hubby a cowboyas well as one of the other cowboys.

The "federal Marshall" in town to keep an eye on the gambling tournament and the crooked sherif and withhim is his "lady".
A fun and funny night was haad by all. My P.S. is that 40+ people is too many for such a game as it isn't possible for all to fully participate. I would like to ttry this again sometime with a much smaller number - around a dozen or so.

Life gets cluttered

2010-07-25T21:06:00.000+10:00

As you may have noticed I have been quite absent for the last few weeks. I recently returned to work outside of home. It has been over a year since I was working outside of home and I have spent that year recovering from burnout. Time to look at my life and evaluate many aspects of it.

I was at the point where I really wanted to get back to working. I was getting restless and lonely at home all the time. I figured that was an indication that I was ready for the next stage. So I updated my resume and started searching out jobs and making applications.

I knew I wasn't ready to return to full time work and I also wanted to change the direction and focus of my work. In the short term I needed a simple job where I could go to work, do my job and go home. I no longer wanted the level of responsibility that I had previousy, nor the accompanying stress levels.

clock-on... clock-off.

I didn't know and I still don't know what I really want to do. But I figured that starting and adjusting as I went along would be a fair plan. So far, so good.

I took the first job that I was offered. It wasn't actually the job I had applied for however... I had applied for a part-time job in an in-bound call centre in a sales support role. I sat tests and passed so progressed to interview. In the interview I was informed that the client had decided that they wanted the role to be full-time and was asked if that was ok??? Now what was I to say? If I said "No", then I wouldn't get the job. So I said "Yes".

It gets worse.

When in training, it turned out that it wasn't inbound at all. It was in fact out-bound and I would be making calls to people who had made inquiries on the company web site looking for quotes. I would be following up on the quotes and trying to see if I could 'assist' the person to decide to buy the product...which turned out to be solar panels.

My part-time, in-bound, sales support job had turned into full-time, outbound sales. Only one step up from the hated telemarketing in my opinion.

It has a low hourly base wage rate with a commision structure. I found out this week, three weeks in, that the commision structure is actually quite lousy. Yes they managed to keep that from us despite daily requests to be told the structure. sigh. Morale is pretty low, no surprise there. It should also come as no surprise that most of the staff are looking for other roles. What is also quite sad is that several employees left good jobs to take up this one.

40 hour working week plus a 45 minute lunch break and over an hour travelling each way - I am gone almost 12 hours a day. I have been coming home from work so tired that all I can manage is to eat my dinner and go to bed.

Hey what happened to dee-cluttering my life? It got well and truly cluttered up leaving no time to live let alone anything else.

The good news.

I got the other job too. :) Now I will take a two week break between roles, catch my breath, catch up on neglected stuff at home (including blogging) and then start the part-time role I wanted: still in the city, not sales, in the claims department of a leading insurance company. clock-on... clock-off. Providing the cash I need, the stimulation and interaction as well as time to continue to evaluate what I really would like to do when I grow up.

Dee-cluttering my Blog

2010-07-25T19:15:00.000+10:00

I have been getting a lot of spam lately - at least daily. In order to prevent this I have now added a word verification feature to this blog. I don't really like the word verification feature, but sadly have had to sucumb to using it.

Thanks for bearing with me on this.

Where are the tissues?

2010-07-11T14:27:00.001+10:00

It's winter here. That means it's cold and flu season. Cold and flu season means tissues are in frequent use.
We started the winter with a tissue box in each room. It didn't stay that way for long as people get colds and cart the box under their arm, guarding it should anyone decide to take it away. That brings on the other winter sport - hunt for the tissue box.

Hunt for the tissue box goes something like this...
the person in neeed of a tissue, let's call this person The Hunter, starts it off by asking, "who has the tissue box?" this is either not answered or receives a chorus of "not me"s. Sometimes it may get a, "I saw it on the bench in the dining area." It involes a variety of questioning approaches, who had it last? where was it left? Have we used them all up? Did we buy enough boxes of tissues in our last shopping excursion?... The hunt continues until the hunter finds his or her 'prey' and is able to stop hunting or until the hunter, getting ever more desperate at not finding the quary, takes invassive action and raids bedrooms or just resorts to gettting a new box out of the bathroom cupboard.

No big deal. it's just one of those things of everyday family life in winter.

Moving the couch is one of those activities where one never quite knows what one will find beyond the odd dust bunny and missing pen. It's been a few weeks since I last moved the couches when sweeping so I decided that today was the day. I got two surprises for my efforts as well as reclaiming about six missing pens.

Three boxes of tissues... and the legs off an embroidery box, an old newspaper - thankfully not too many dust bunnies and no dead tissues.

I have found where all the tissue boxes keep hiding. ...And I thought it was just that my beloved were all doing their level best to keep the tissue company in business and my sanity on edge. It seems the tissue boxes really do just keep vanishing. Now we know where they go - down behind the couch.

How do they get there? I could spin some interesting yarn (pun fully intended) about the mysterious tissue box eating couch, but the reality is much simpler and not anywhere near as intersting... It seems they fall off the bench behind the couch and land down where they can happily hide from human hunters.

It never rains...

2010-07-07T20:15:00.000+10:00

And then it pours. That saying is a familiar one from my childhood.

"Thump and shake the plum sauce bottle, none'll come and then a lot'll." This little poem is one that was often said at the dinner table too, not that we had plum sauce, our tastes didn't tend to go beyond tomato or bbq sauce.

The sentiment of both is certainly an apt one. nothing and then abundance.

I have been looking for work for the last six weeks. I have had a few interviews but they haven't gone anywhere. This week I had two interiews on monday plus a third that I turned down and a third interview for one of the Monday interviews today. on Monday i was offered a position to commence tomorrow (Thursday). Today I was told that one the police checks are done I will be offered the other position too.

None'll come and then a lot'll.

The role I prefer is the one that I have 'almost' been offered. It doesn't commence until the 8th August. That means there is four weeks between one job commencing and the other one commencing. I don't feel like I can pass up the first one which starts tomorrow ass I am not certain that I have the other role, but i feel a bit funny about starting one job when i may only be there a few weeks.

Oh well. At this stage all I can be sure about is that I have a job that comences tomorrow and at some stage I may have to make a choice between that job and another. I'll see what the contract offers when I get there in the morning.

Maybe I can ease up on the ol' thump 'n' shake for a bit.

The old girl isn't what she used to be

2010-07-05T17:22:00.000+10:00

She had 21 good years and it was a long run, but alas she is no more.
Our old Volvo 240GL has died and gone to the great car shop in the sky - well the wreckers at Nundah but the other sounds better.

Old faithful has been one of those tough cars that just keep on keeping on. Hubby has always referred to it as our "luxury European motorcar" and mostly managed to say it with a straight face. The teens have referred to it as "that horrible old thing".

We were seriously thinking of selling it a few months ago, now we are glad we didn't. The person who we were thinking of selling it to was the 20 year old son of a friend. It was running well then. I would have felt awful if we had sold it and then just a few months later it died. Suddenly. No warning, just dead.

Our young adult borrowed it yesterday as her car is off the road at the moment and it was sounding "a bit funny". This morning she went to get in it and it started but wouldn't go. :(

A call to RACQ brought the roadside mechanic who confirmed that it has one dead cylinder. It died while she was driving it home and that is that. Our mechaninc told us that it would cost around $2000 to replace the engine - the whole car isn't worth that much. The wreckers will give us $100.

Well that is one way to declutter. Now we will try the one car thing and just as I am about to return to work... I start on Thursday.

Blanket Bliss

2010-07-04T10:01:00.001+10:00

"Mum, will you get me one of those mink blankets please?" It was an innocent enough question from teen three. It started a series of events which included clenched teeth, a carpet needle and red double polar fleece.

Teen three stays with friends through the week in order to attend school. When she is at our friends place she has a minky blanket on her bed and it is so soft and snuggly. She loves it. She wants one for use at home too, hence the request. The tricky part is that our budget is a little too stretched at the moment to allow the purchase of one of these blankets.

As always, necessity is the mother of invention.

Over eleven years ago, prior to our family moving interstate I purchased on end of season clearance three metres of 150cm wide red double fleece polar fleece with the intention of making three dressing gowns for my small daughters in the colder climate to which we were moving. That fleece went interstate with us, twice, and stayed in its garbage bag. Never did make those dressing gowns.

In my decluttering I have wondered what to do with the fleece. I needed to find a suitable purpose for it. Along came teen three and her request.

Hmm. What if we used the double fleece and made you a blanket? It would be warm and soft like the Mink blankets." yep that was my sales pitch to our teen. Teen three wasn''t so sure... until she saw that it was RED and soooooo lovely to touch and cuddle. : ) sold!

Oh happy day. A wanted item for my girl and one less thing stored and not used.

No worries, I'll just measure it and cut it to size and blanket stitch around it. Hmm what if we double it over? yeah that'll work. The lovely thick fleece on the outside of both sides. oooh drat. It is too thick for the sewing machine. No worries. I'll just stitch it by hand. !!! (what was I thinking???) Oh look I have some red "Bamboozle" Bamboo yarn in the exact shade of red, that will do nicely.

I think you can see where this is heading.

Next issue - what needle to use? Hmm the wool needle has a big enough eye. Some short while later and very sore fingers from trying to pull the wool needle through two layers of double polar fleece with 18 ply bamboo yarn on the needle. Back to the drawing board... Hmmm maybe this flanged carpet needle will do the trick. Ahhhh that's better. Now it goes through the fleece easily. Well as easily as anything is going to go through two layers of very thick fabric with thick yarn.

After some time, I noticed not only were my fingers sore (understatement) but my front teeth were hurting and I could taste blood. I was clenching my teeth so hard each time I was trying to pull the needle through the layers that after a while they were hurting. This is going to take a while to actually finish.

Yes I am blanket stitching by hand around 7m of blanket. Feel free to have me checked in somewhere where they can treat my insanity.

Oh but it is sooooo worth it.

Magazine Monster

2010-06-25T16:48:00.000+10:00

In the ongoing quest to lighten my life load I am now tackling some really hard stuff. The stuff that I have been facing lately is stuff that has hooks attached.
Emotional hooks.
Big barbed hooks.

Stuff that when we went through it the first and second time was still too hard to deal with and so got put aside for later.

You know that sentiment... I'll deal with that later. We can manage to delay later indefinately if we try hard enough. I am determinded to not just leave it that way. So I am making myself face a little each week.

The fabric that I blogged about the other day has all gone now. I gave some to a friend and the rest to another friend who is part of a group that does knitting and sewing for Brisbane's needy. So at least it has gone to a good casue. It actually felt good today when I walked into the sewing room and it was empty. It is the actual getting it out and making the decision to part with it that is the hardest part.

I still don't have an answer for the emotional hooks. I keep asking myself all the practical questions:
Do I love it?
Is it useful or beautiful?
Did i chose to bring it into my life?
Do I need to it save it for tax or legal reasons?
If I needed it again later could I replace it?
If I were free from guilt would I keep it? - this is a very good question.
Have I used it in the last year? The last five years?
Does it fit with the vision of the life i want to lead?

These questions help to a large degree - they are not magic and it is still hard to actually part with the stuff with emotional hooks. Once they are out of my life however it definately is better. It feels better and the emotional load gets a little lighter.

I have to keep reminding myself of this fact.

Today's challenge is dealing with a large pile of scrapbooking magazines.

There is a lot of them and each is worth $10 although since I bought them with a subscription it cost me about $7 each. It is a lot of money.

As you can see many are still in their packaging, which confirms to me that I have lost interest in them. I used to open then and pour over them marking ideas and making notes of things that I could apply to my own scrapping. Now I just let them sit. I don't get excited by them. Mostly I just feel overwhelmed and pressured. I have opted to avoid it by not even taking them out of the wrapping. yeah i know, it doesn't avoid anything really.

I tried selling them on eBay. Even with them as a bargain, I didn't even get one watcher and no sale. A friend has a stall at a flea market in a ccouple of weeks and i will be helping her so i will try putting them in a crate and ooffering them for $1 each. If that doesn't move them then I guess I can drop them off at a charity.

I have to keep reminding myself of all of the reasons to not keeep them and it is better to not even see them. Perhaps I would be better off to just drop them off at charity now. Hmm I'll box them up and put them aside so i don'[t have to see them until the market. yeay me. No guilt allowed.

Her life in my Lounge

2010-06-24T14:11:00.000+10:00

No it's not the name of yet another new reality tv show. but it is a reality show of a sort...
Teen1 aka young adult is currently between homes. Last weekend she moved out of her no-longer-suitable living arrangement and this coming weekend she moves into her new share house close to uni. In the meanwhile she is staying with us for a few days and as you can see her stuff is in my lounge room.

She is currently trying to sort and do some decluttering of her own.

Tough decisions

2010-06-23T16:15:00.000+10:00

My vow to declutter my life and free myself from excess has been quite transforming. I have learned heaps about myself, have gained space and freedom. Based on the wonderful gains, I promised to continue to declutter. This has been somewhat mixed. It is still freeing but it is in some ways getting harder.

I have already gotten rid of so much. All the 'easy' stuff has gone and believe me it wasn't that easy either. Now the really hard stuff is upon me and keeping it up is really hard. In fact it is down right difficult.

The current 'for instance' is my sewing room. I used to sew all of mine and my children's clothing. Now I only sew pants for myself in order to get the right fit. Sewing clothing is no longer fun. I have given away most of my clothing fabric stash and got it down to four crates. Yesterday I decided to tackle those four crates. I have now got less than half a crate left of fabric I really love and will use.
Yeay Me!!!

Three empty (or soon to be empty) crates and some of the discards.

What to do with the contents of the other three and a half crates is where it is tricky.
I have already gone through my fabric at least twice and culled any that I didn't love or that were out of date or that my kids had outgrown or, or, or. These four crates represent the stuff I have kept for one reason or another after all my culling.

Now is the time to really asses why I kept each piece and to decide if it still earns the priviledge of occupying space in my home and my life. Surprisingly the first go through yesterday I still managed to pull out a fair bit of scraps, small-ish pieces and left over bits as well as a few pieces kept out of guilt. All of them went into a bag to give away.

See the fabrics in this pic? BTW they are balancing on the box of 'keepers' and as you can see it is only half-full. :)

All of these are full size pieces of lovely fabric - they just don't suit my life for one reason or another. They all represent money spent - wasted if I never use them. I know I need to just suck it up and get rid of them... but first I think I'll just torture myself for a bit.... yep that's what I am doing and it even sounds loopy to me. so why do I do it??? ... ... ... nope, no decent answers coming. sigh.

I have considered trying to sell them on eBay to recoup a few dollars... there are over 10 000 pieces of fabric already on eBay in Australia alone, most of which are online fabric shops. sigh - what chance do I have of actually selling them? I don't want the cost of an add (even if it is only a dollar or two) if they don't sell and I still have to end up just giving them away... that would only be wasting more money.

I tried to find a swap type of arrangement where I could swap it for things I actually could use. I found heaps of craft swaps where you swap lovely completed items but nothing that is quite what I am looking for.

So after they have sat for a few days and I rack my brain trying to come up with options, I will bag them up and drop them in a charity bin. got any good ideas?

Work wonders

2010-06-16T14:45:00.000+10:00

Things have been pretty hectic here in the last few weeks. Between all the usual stuff, I have started the long process of returing to work outside of home.

I am feeling quite mixed about it.

I am ready to return to work and there are some BUTs.

My perfect job would be three days a week in a middle management role where there were enough challenges to keep it interesting, but not so much as to be overly stressful, oh and it has to be something that I can just walk away from at the end of the day - ie not carry any emotional baggage home.

yeah I know, I'm dreaming.

Those jobs don't exist.

Meanwhile I have applied for a few jobs and even had interviews with two companies. I am now waiting to find out how the second company interview goes. It is the fist company I applied to that gets my focus at the moment.

A couple of weeks ago I applied for a position some degree below my skills and qualifications. It was full-time but it was close to home and would not ask very much of me personally - I could do it easily. Yes I knew i would get bored within a few months, but I figured it would be an entry back into the workforce and I could either gain a promotion or leave for a better role down the track.

I had two interviews for the position. The first was over the phone. I was asked why I was applying for a role below my skills. They must have like my response as I went through to the next round of interviews. What I didn't tell them was that if I didn't like the job I would be continuing to look for something more suitable. I guess they figured that out. I was called in for an interview and spent 40 minutes with the manager. He told me they were interviewing six people. My interview went very well - excellent in fact. He told me they would be making a decision within two days and would let me know either way by the end of the week.

The interview was two weeks ago.

I still haven't heard.

How hard is it to make a simple phone call after interviewing a person twice to say "yay" or "nay" to the role???

We have got used to accepting the common rudeness of not hearing whether an application submitted has gone anywhere (and even surprised when one does hear). But this new rudeness of interviewing a person and not bothering to notify them of whether they do or don't have the position? Sigh. It doesn't bode well.

I have naturally figured that I don't have the job and am not bothered by that - kind of glad apart from I need a job.

I am surprised at being told that I was one of six and would hear either way by a certain date and then no follow through. Six phone calls surely isn't too taxing for a HR profession (whose job it is to make such calls).

Are you ready for a giggle?

The position was with a job agency whose role it is to recruit and place employees. The role was to make the follow up phone calls to people who the agency has successfully placed to check on how they are going and to flag any potential issues - the agency only gets paid if the person stays in the role for 12 weeks. Ironic.

Meanwhile I have been applying for roles closer to my qualifications and that means answering long position description criteria.

Hair DIY declutter

2010-06-13T20:37:00.000+10:00

Teen 3 decided it was time to declutter her head... well make it physically lighter anyway.

So here is a different kind of DIY.

BEFORE

Gorgeous girl and her long locks

... and the back view

AFTER

Happy teen

with short layered hair ...

... a funny uneven fringe.

and all the atittude of a 14 year old to carry it off.

She has had her hair every length from long (down to her butt) to short elfin style and every thing in between over the years. changing her style is as simple as saying, "mum I was thinking I would like to have my hair like..." which is just what she did this weekend when she returned home.

No I am not a trained hairdresser.

But I have had much practice over the years.

I have my hubby to thank for getting me started and all those itchy, hairy experiences.

11 years ago on mother's day my hubby proudly presented me with a hair cutting kit. ! We had just moved to a city at the opposite end of the country - 1700km away from our family and hubby's lifelong hair-dresser, his mum. He figured that if she had been able to style their hair for all those years as a poor ministerial family, then so could I. !?

yes, I know. The logic was a tad questionable. His mother I am NOT. and what about whether I wanted to take on the new role of hairdresser? sigh. We were poverty struck students and i had nothing to lose ... except for some hair, but hey, it grows back!

all that is water under the bridge as they say...

Thus began my experience as a hair stylist.

Thankfully my children were young and consequently had no idea how bad their hair really looked when I was learning. The good thing about hair is it just keeps growing, so even a bad hair cut looks better a couple of weeks later. Now many cuts later I am pleased to say that generally I am much better at cutting and styling hair.

It amazes me how much my kids trust my ability - even as teens who are quite particular about how they look. ... 'though now that I think about it, teen 2 has chosen to grow her hair long in the last few years, maybe all those bad hair cuts did leave a few scars. ;)

In search of the perfect pants

2010-06-10T13:15:00.000+10:00

I am very curvy. Even back in the days when I was skinny I was still curvy. Now I am NOT skinny and my curves are all the more pronounced.

I am told frequently that I have the ideal female body shape. No one told the clothing manufacturers! For a fat lady I have a tiny waist - yep and from there I go out. My hips are quite wide and then there are my thighs. I am sure I could make use of one of those signs that say "Wide Load".

By comparison the top half of me is still quite small. When I walk into clothing stores for larger sizes I get strange looks from the staff as they see the top of me first. Whilst it has it advantages, it does have a down side too.

Getting clothing to fit is difficult to say the least. I long ago gave up on even wearing a dress again. There is a ten size difference between my top and my hip/thighs and there isn't a dress on the market that accomodates that kind of difference. I can buy most tops in the regular size sections of a store, but this season all the tops are long line and I have the same problem then that I do with dresses. Any that fit the top part of me are too tight for the bottom. To get them to go over my hip/thighs they are soooooo baggy on the top that it just looks ridiculous.

Pants get even trickier.

If I try on pants to fit my thighs - as I must, they are soooooo loose around the waist that they fall down and it is only my hips that keep them on. In theory hipster styles should alleviate this issue. sadly they don't. The last thing I need is horizontal banding around my hips it just makes everything look really bad! To further complicate it I am tall and have a long waist, so even the waist on pants tends to pull down and sit below my waist and pull in all the wrong places.

In the past I have tried many things to get round the pants fitting issue.

In the 80's there was a style of pants called "paper bag waist". Finally I was fashionable as all of my clothing looked like that anyway. Lots of extra fabric pulled in at the waist with a belt; fabric gathered both above and below the belt. I am not sure why that phase didn't last very long; possible something to do with it not being flattering or comfortable...

Darts are another much used option. I got very good at adding darts to every pair pf pants that I bought. I killed my first sewing machine trying to do just that. It chocked on 16 layers of denim in the jeans that I was trying to dart. yes waist bands are a problem for darts. And of course even if one can successfully add darts to a finished pair of pants, there is still all that bulk to manage.

Elasticised pants are an option. If the elastic is sewn down hovever it is of no help at all and we are right back at the darts dilema again, only this time the dart has to go through an elasticised band.

Long ago I concluded that I would just have to make my own pants and adjust every pants pattern. I used to buy a pattern based on my hip meansurements and make it up to see how it fitted. then I would make adjustments to the pattern. Some years ago a dear friend did a drafting course. The happy result from that was that for the fist time we were able to analyse each issue and design a simple pants pattern for my body.

Oh the joy. For the first time ever I had pants that fit!

Over the last 7-8 years she has made most of my pants based on this pattern. Also over this time I have changed size many times. Each season we would measure me and make any necessary adjustments to the pattern. Sadly most of the adjustments have required the addition of more fabric to the pattern.

the pic below illustrates this well.

You clearly see where extra vilene has been added to the pattern.
You can also clearly see that when I lay something out on the floor, my cat Eddie thinks that it has been put there for his royal self and makes immediate use, taking possession and resisting all suggestions that his help isn't needed. :) just had to show you that.

"What you mean you don't want me to lay here and hold it down?"

I have been making pants again.

I am happy to report several things.
1. I am fitting back into pants that I havent worn for several seasons.
2. I need to trim about 3cm off each pattern piece.
3. I am very happy about both of these things! :)

So now I just have to convince the cat that I need to use those pattern pieces and I can make myself a pair of black cord pants to wear.

Teen 3's new room

2010-06-07T13:58:00.000+10:00

Things have been flat out hectic around here in the last little while.

Over the last month two of our closest lots of friends have both moved house... hmmm both moved further away from us... what does this mean? :)

We had a great time (really!) helping both with the moving, doing whatever was needed. Hubs even got to build a wall (and I forgot to take pics of it). In amoungst the most recent house move our youngest teen went to live with one of our friends. As I mentioined in my post yesterday it is much less travel for her. Last weekend when she was moving in the two hubbies went off to the far side of the city to pick up some wardrobes that I found on eBay and our friends bought - old house not many built-in robes. It turned out to be even better value than I had first anticipated as instead of getting two wardrobes and a tall boy, we got three robes and a tall boy. yeay!

we took over a bed and mattress and two of the teens - both 14 sanded and painted it.
The dads had little faith in the teens abilities to manage power tools and to do a good paint job, and with only a little assistance from us mums our teens did a great job.

Yes, that's right. It's now RED. Very, very red. Before it was bright blue with one red and one green drawer, all of which were chippy and looking very tired.

Our friends also surprised us with lovely new bedding for teen 3.

Here is the completed room with freshly painted bed (the drawer was still drying), crisp white linen and doona cover (my friends are braver than I giving her a mostly white doona cover), happy red bath towel with her name embroidered on it, shiny new silver-grey curtains, new (to us) robe and tall boy. Yes even the grey carpet tones.

And the other angle standing at the end of teen3's bed - a cute black wrought iron edged mirror completes the room.
As you can see this was taken before she moved her stuff in. I am sure that in a short while the walls will be deocarted with pics and the top of the tall boy covered in teen girl stuff.

In case you are wondering, the room measures 3.2m x 2.65m. My friend and I sat with a piece of paper and worked out the only way to make every thing fit in the room. The incredible thing is that it all fits perfectly! The robe door opens with about 1cm to spare and as you can see the bedroom door opens also with 1cm to spare. We are becoming very good at making small spaces work well.

Domestic Outburst!

2010-06-06T14:07:00.000+10:00

Teen 3 is boarding with friends of ours who live much closer to the school. Now it only takes her half an hour to get to school and she is home from school at 4pm instead of 5pm. Our friends have four teenagers of their own and now - as of last week, they have five teens who go to three different high schools and all have to get out of the door early... oh and mum and dad both work in the city too.

I can only imagine how busy it is in their home each morning. By contrast now ours is remarkably quiet with just teen 2 at home during the week. I told teen 2 after we had dropped teen 3 off at our friends, that it was up to her to make all the noise now since the two noisy siblings have both gone (teen 1 aka young adult is off being independant).

In an attempt to contribute to our friends who have our teen 3 and for feeding their tribe school snacks, we got busy in the kitchen this morning.

Butterscotch biscuits

Chocolate Choc-Chip Cakies

Butter Choc-chip Cakies

Yep and if all that productivetity isn't enough... pumpkin Rissotto done in the crock pot for dinner.

Yummo.

Wardrobe workover

2010-05-26T14:01:00.000+10:00

About two weeks ago it suddenly turned quite cold her in southern Queensland. We have been enjoying a wonderful autumn with beautiful warm days and cool nights. Autum is my favourite time of year.
For the last couple of weeksI have been needing more than ust a light cardy in the mornigns and eveings and have been digging to the back of my robe and into crates to find my warm stuff. It was time to do the seasonal swap.

I have some space saver hangers which I use to store my off-season tops. They are excellent! You simply hang them in the robe and hook five hangers through the holes.

Then you just drop one of the ends and five items now take up the space of one!

I wouldn't want to use them all of the time as it slows access to the clothes. I had my winter tops on it and now it has my summer tops. I don't have enough space in my robe to have all my clothing out at once.

In the process of swapping the tops over, I went through the summer tops assessing each. I had quite a few that I just didn't wear at all this last season. Many were now pilly and old so out they went. I was telling myself that I could use the old tops for around home or doing chores - but really how many such tops does one person need? Others were uncomfortable but I had hung onto them "just in case" - why I thought I might want to wear something that is scratchy or doesn't quite sit right, I don't know! Quite a few "work" tops and skirts got to stay as they will be needed when I eventually return to work outside of home.

I now have a gap in my robe!

For now i will pat myself on the back and be pleased that I have once again culled.

Keeping one's vows

2010-05-21T13:18:00.001+10:00

Do you know what is the hardest thing about decluttering? It isn't parting with things, 'though that is pretty hard. It is keeping it up long after the initial momentum has passed and saying "No thanks" to all the lovely possibilities that come along later.

Sometimes I do well at this and sometimes I just don't.

This week has been a major test for me. I have been helping a friend to pack, unpack and much decluttering. I am sore all over and tiiiiirrrred. I am sure she is feeling even worse since my memory of my big move is still fresh. But I digress...

My friend has been getting rid of much kitchen stuff out of necessity. she has gone from a large kitchen with much storage space to a small one with very little storage. Yesterday in her new kitchen as I unwrapped items we kept a big box and put many things straight into it.

Do you remember all those chip and dip platters from the 80's? yes those. They are a storage nightmare with the dip holder attached to the platter. I got rid of heaps of them in my cleanout and now my friend has gone from about eight to just her favourite two. As we have all discovered, they don't get a lot of use, but one or two is handy.

I have done so well with most of the stuff she is decluttering. Most of it, I can easily look at as i put into the garage sale box and leave there. some it it however keeps calling to me.

I keep telling my self that I don't NEED it. Oh but I WANT it.

check out what I just can't resist.

Cute little hand painted, gold edged glasses.

Set of six

In the cutest box

kinda says it all really

I'm in Luuuurve.

BUT, I don't need it. i don't even know what they are for! I have been having some interesting coversations with myself over these glasses:

they would be good for Port - I can count on one hand the number of times in a year that I drink Port (and still have fingers to spare);
If I don't use them I can simply re-home them - yeah that's likely (not);
I do have space in my glass fronted cabinet where I could store and see them, even if I don't really use them
they may be valuable - who knows I may now be the proud owner of something actually worth $.

sigh. I have a few more knots left in me over these glasses yet... For now they can keep sitting on my bench and I will keep admiring them and prabably not part with them. :) and call myself a happy hypocrite.

Instant Art

2010-05-17T14:00:00.000+10:00

On the weekend we helped friends pack. As we were packing they were decluttering. yes, if you are wondering, this is our second lot of friends who are packing and moving within a very short time... perhaps we started something? : )
The friends who moved recently have lots of stuff that they have also decluttered and are going to hold a garage sale in a month or so to sell it to rasie $ for their daughter who is going overseas later this year. Sooooo I offered to take all the decluttered items from one lot of friends to the other.

Can you see where this is going?

The decluttered items from one friend are passing through our space on their way to another friend and their ultimate out-of-all-our-lives desitation. yes this is dangerous territory 'casue then I get tempted by it all. Some of it will just go straight from one place to another and some of it I will actually sort through because we have a young adult who is currenlty setting up home and needs/wants all sorts of things. I told her about the bags of old linen, boxes of kitchen plastic ware and partial sets of glassware etc and she got excited. sigh.

Soooo, here comes the confession...
I was putting stuff aside for YA to look through later today and I spotted six little inspiration quotes in black matting and I'm afraid to say they called to me. "Dee, we're cute and you like us, so why not find us a nice home at your place?"
I resisted and told those cute little matted quotes that I really don't need them.
but they kept talking to me saying, "but there are six of us, a set, and you have some very blank spaces."
I reasoned with the little matted quotes and told them that if I couldn't find a suitable home and get them housed within an hour then they were going out. !!! the last of the tough stands.

I walked into my laundry where there happens to be six empty, white doors. Well it looks like the little matted quotes found a home on the doors to the cupboards in my laundry. They won! I got them up with double sided mounting tape, resisted the urge to 'fix' them or frame them and now they are instant art.

Here is the AFTER pic, complete with cat-assistant/supervisor.

The BEFORE, so you can see that it is an improvement.

and the during, with wooden spoon used to getting the spacing right - what can I say, it was close at hand in the laundry tub as my soaker-pusher, and the ever-present cat, observing all that I do.

... and one more gratuitous cat on lap with laptop shot taken just as I started to write this blog. He would prefer to be my only laptop but will tolerate the competition since it is emitting additional warmth.

Shed adventure

2010-05-10T11:31:00.000+10:00

The pace of our dee-cluttering has slowed, but not stopped entirely. We have homes for most items and it is so much simpler to keep our small house tidy. There are still areas that need decluttering as well as the need to keep vigilent lest we be once again taken over by stuff.

The shed is our biggest scary space still to be tackled. The shed is Hubby's domain. Hubs has a hard time parting with stuff and tends to hold onto things ways past their usefulness. He is also a master procrastinator. That makes for a tough combination - a hoarding procrastinator!

I have been trying to 'help' him with this habit for many years with everything from nagging, to leading by example. Not much has impacted his thick shell, until now. what has made the difference? It's hard to pinpoint it to any one thing. I know he said he wanted to do it differently; though he has done that many times before with no behavioral change. He saw me get stuck into it and experienced the difference in our home. I think it had something to do with the smaller house and necessity, but that still is not all of it either. When I ask him about it, he shrugs his shoulders, says that he finally gets it a bit more, sees the difference it has made to our lives and still finds it very difficult to actually do.

I am so proud of him! He has changed so much and done things that he didn't think he could do.

This weekend we finally tackled the shed. We had unloaded about 6 boxes before I thought to run and grab the camera, so it is already emptier by the time I took these pics.

Yep its kinda scary.

Once we had unloaded a heap of boxes from the sheed, hubs and I spent the next hour or so going through some of them. We tackled the scary computer/technical boxes. There were two large packing boxes plus a couple of other smaller boxes. Most of the contents of the two large boxes went into the trailer. Hubs was amazing, he happily, willingly made decisions about which things to keep (not too many) and which to get rid of. We sorted the get rid of's into three piles: dump, sell and give-away.

And before he could change his mind :) we loaded it all into the trailer, along with the results of the previous weekends decluttering and headed off to the dump.

There was a sweetener though... I bought this for hubby on eBay last week and we were to go pick it up on saturday afternoon. the shed needed to be clear for it to fit, the trailer empty to pick it up and now hubs had a place to store some of the real treasures that he owns.

'scuse the flash in a tin shed at night. One happy hubby.

There is still a heap to do, but now hubby has some better storage and can hopeuflly feel good about getting it into use, so we shold get the shed done fairly soon... and the rest of the shed conttents out of our undercover area.

the adventures of ...

2010-04-30T16:23:00.000+10:00

Freezer-girl

and her not-so-trustworthy sidekick cake-stealer

...who doesn't even have the decency to look remorseful.

The adventure begins with the decision to defrost the very frosted up freezer.

My contribution was to remove the last few items from the freezer and place most of them into the esky. There was one double sponge cake bought on clearance which had made its way to the back of the freezer where it had been forgotten. Upon discovering the cake, I decided that it was now only suitable to be served with icecream, jelly and custard (aka trifle) so left it to thaw on the outside table while I went inside to make jelly...

Along comes cake stealer, aka Buddy the dog and discovers that I have left a gift for him (why else would it be on the table unguarded. So he helps himself to the cake off the table (might I add the middle of the table). When I went out to retrieve said cake only a short while later all that remained was the base of the cake container, no crumbs and no lid - still haven't found the lid despite a search of the back yard... which makes the mind boggle!
I was greeted by a very happy, tail wagging, licky dog.
The sad part is it not his first cake-stealing offense. how could I have forgotten???

A short while later, our girl-wonder heads out armed with old towels, scrapers, trays, squirt bottle of hot water and goggles. yes goggles. " 'casue when ya spray hot water and it hits da ice it mists back in ya face, ma... 'n' dat feels yucky." Who can argue with such logic?

Baby Hair

2010-04-28T13:57:00.000+10:00

This last year has been quite stressful. So when my hair started to fall out by the handful a while ago I was somewhat concerned. A medical check ruled out all the 'nasty' possibilities and the doc asked me about a major stress even of about six weeks earlier. !!! In a life of stress how does one remember back six weeks to a major stress event?

As it happened i was able to flicck back through my dieary six weeks nad I had actually recoverded the major stress event. The doc informed me that it would certainly have been significant enoough to casue such a sudden loss of hair.

why am I telling you all of this now?
'cause now I have lots and lots of new hair growing - baby hair.

Ignore the greys - I really need to colour my hair again. Lots and lots of new hair growing all over my head. It is really only obvious around the edges. i am amused by it, I hope it gives you a smile too.

See how my garden grows.

2010-04-19T18:16:00.000+10:00

We had a busy couple of hours on Sunday morning out in the garden.

Our yard is full of gardens and plants. As I have mentioned in the past, we aren't really gardeners. I love gardens and plants but am not really a gardener and my family are even less garden minded. Yet we are in the process of creating annother garden... why? There is a 'dead' patch in the back corner of our yard where grass doesn't grow due to not enough light and surrounding trees, but the weeds grow very well. We planted a baby Royal Poinciana tree in December just before Christmas and are gradually preparing this corner for a shade garden where shade loving plants will reside under the shade of our Poinciana.

teen 2 and our Poinciana, Sunday morning whilst gardening.

Same tree when teen 2 helped hubby to plant it in december!

You have to look closely to see that it is even there at all. It was about 15cm tall when we planted it. It is now about 90cm at the trunk and 100cm at its branches. WOW! That is some growth. It has only been in for four months and has grown to six tiimes its size at planting out! Yes these trees grow very big and it has a big corner to fill. It seems to be doing its best to fulfil that goal.

I am gradually mulching this corner and look forward to being able to under plant the tree next spring.

Room Re-do

2010-04-16T12:47:00.000+10:00

Since teen 3 has changed schools, she now has a laptop as part of her school requirements. It is a very fancy piece of computing machinery and the old desk-top has been sidelined, neglected and unloved. Her desk was piling up - even more than usual - with all kinds of papers, clothing, stuff etc. Teen 3 declared that she really didn't need a desk any more but could really use a high shelf in its place for all her school work as she mostly sits of her bed with her lap top on the nifty lap desk I bought her for christmas.

We decided to leave it for a while to see if the pattern changed. It didn't. Eventually we bit the bullet and I turned to my old friend eBay to find her a book shelf. sigh. yes that is after I got rid of three no longer needed shelves, one of which would have been perfect for her needs. I ended up giving away my old white180cm x120cm (6' x 4') shelf at our 'garage sale' and had to again part with cash to replace it - we will never be rich I tell ya, as long as we have kids who keep changing their minds on what it is they need. Now I have a desk which is surplus to requirements and have no where to store it either, so I hope I can make a few dollars selling it on eBay.

Of course we also had a desktop that was about four years old that was no longer needed. That worked out rather well though as a friend's much older computer died an untimely death so it went to her.

Teen 3 at her 'desk', on her bed, cuddling charlie cat - note unmade bed (she used to make it soooo nicely when she was younger)

The new shelf beside her bed where the desk used to be. It isn't pretty but it works, stuff is off the floor and can be found so that makes teen 3 and mum happy.

Her room, taken from the door way. It is a small room (all the rooms are small), the robe is on the right side of the shelf. Note the unmade bed - "what is the point, I am just gonna get back in/on it?" sigh.

The other shelf.

Note that it is neat and tidy. The only person to see this one is teen 3 as it is at the end of her bed, on the same wall as the door. Did I mention her room is small?

Also note, the orange and purple doona at the end of her bed, in front of the shelf. It really is a nice doona and if it was pulled up, the bed would look neat and the doona could be appreciated - such innane things are lost on teenagers. (I am sorry mum, I am sure I must have been painful too.)

Now We have solved another dimema - yeay.
teen three is happy - yeay.
mum is happy - yeay.

I still have a surplus desk to unload that is now cluttering up my alfresco area...

stranger things have happened...

2010-04-12T13:19:00.000+10:00

On Saturday hubby and I, along with teens 2 & 3, went out for coffee and to do the grocery shopping. We had our budget and our shopping list. While we were finishing up our coffee the teens decided that they wanted to do the shopping. So armed with the list, a calculator and a strict budget we set them to it.

We enjoyed the chance to sit and talk and even saw some friends who were coming for coffee before doing their shopping so sat and chatted to them for a bit.

The teens called us, we went and paid with the fantastic plastic and off we went home.

The girls were very pleased with themselves as they had managed to get everything on the list and come in under budget.

With me no longer working outside home the budget has been tighter than it used to be. We had told the girls that if they were getting to the top of the budgeted shopping amount, then they would have to make some decisions about which items they went without. Over the last few months they have experienced a fair bit of this.

Imagine my surprise when we unpacked at home and they had chosen homebrand cordial. We buy many homebrand items but there are some things which if I dare to purchase the homebrand I don't hear the end of the whinging about inferior quality and taste for longer than I care to say. (I don't think I am forgiven yet for buying the "American style peanut butter" at Aldi some 7-8 months ago - it is very sweet and is full of sugar!) I have been a well-trained mummy and so just NEVER buy homebrand cordial. If money is tight then I just don't buy it at all, 'cause nothing is as good as Cottees cordial...

My two teens were excited about saving money. They happily told me that the homebrand cordial was less than half the price of the Cottee's cordial (like I didn't know???) and that even if they have to use a little more, it still works out cheaper. Well blow me down!

I think I need to send this pair to do the shopping more often.

School Holidays

2010-04-11T09:48:00.000+10:00

You can tell it has been school holidays here just by looking near our front door.

Yep.
Who would have thought that we could still clear out so much stuff inthe holidays?
See the small box in the left ofthe pic? that box has been sitting by my door for the last few months. Each time I find somehting to re-home it goies into the box. Eventually the contents ofthe box get out in a bag and off to charity. Last month we didn't even fill the box. We made up for it thiss month.

To be totally fair, it is mostly clothing AND the garbage bag came into our house with donated clothing. Hubby's young (20-something) cousin was having a wardrobe clear out. My daughters love it when she clears out her wardrobe as she "has more money than sense" and spends a LOT of money on clothing, most of which is barely worn before her robe is overflowing and she does her big cull.

Our deal is, when new clothing comes in, something has to go out. So a big bag of clothes comeing in means wardrobe sorts. It is also change of season here. Without any prompting, my girls went through their wardrobes and pulled out anything they hadn't really worn this season, analysed why they hadn't worn it and culled. I was out at the time and got quite a surprise when I came home! They culled more than they received hence we added a second bag.

Holiday clothing culls aren't new, but unprompted? Seems like something is working...

Flat pack fun

2010-04-10T00:53:00.000+10:00

We had fun today. We helped friends unpack at their new home. Those two sentences really don't belong together.
Perhaps it was because it wasn't our house and life in chaos? yep that is good fun material - work hard and go home to our ordered house where we know where the toothpaste is and don't have to hunt for the breakfast cereal.

Perhaps it was because these friends have practiced decluttering for years and so didn't have much unnecessary or excess stuff. In fact this friend has been a huge inspiration to me to begin decluttering. My friend has been ruthless with decluttering for quite a few years. Her motivation was buying a small unit and moving in with her hubby and three kids (the same ages as ours) so they could get into the home owners market. They had NO SPACE and got rid of everything - some they regretted but mostly not. I was and still am amazed at how they did it. Now they have just moved into their brand new lovely home. Woohoo that is sooooo cool! : )

Perhaps our great day was because everything was new and hubby and teens had fun assembling lots of flat-pack furniture.

It was really all of the above, plus they are good friends who have helped us move twice in the last twelve months.

two teens (who are the same age) doing a great job of a tricky flat-pack assembly.

and the result of all the allen-key action...
well apart from lots of assembled furniture...

Man that is a LOT of packaging!

While they were having fun with the allen keys I was busily finding the bottom of all the boxes marked "kitchen" - all 7-8 of them. Now my friend won't be able to find anything for a few weeks and will have to rearrange three or four times before finding a way for it to work but at least she has a functioning kitchen.. well mostly functioning. : )
I wonder how many times she will call me to find something?

Long weekend Lazies

2010-04-05T11:05:00.000+10:00

We were going to go camping this Easter weekend but it didn't work out for us and we had to pull out at the last moment. I feel mixed about this as I was looking forward to camping and relaxing but had other tings which needed attention and it was all just too hard in the end.

These pics are from the last time we camped at easter - 3 years ago

Instead we have stayed at home and done nothing.

The weather has been perfect - this really is my favourite time of year. We have bee soooooo tired. Sleeping around 12 hours each night!

I hired some movies and caught up on a few movies - great way to be lazy. I finally got to see Julie and Julia - I really liked it. I discovered just how behind i am. It was set in 2002 when Julie was writing her blog. I didn't even know blogs existed in 2002! Hubby first told me about them in 2006 when he was setting one up for the organisation where I worked. I thought it intrigueing but paid little attention to it. It was another few years before I caught up withthe rest of the world.

After three days of doing absolutely nothing I am feeling ready to begin to tackle the LOOOOONG list of things to do around home, most of which are outdoor stuffs - gardening, sort and deeclutter shed, tackle carport...

on blogging

2010-04-03T12:32:00.000+10:00

I have been re--thinking my blog and blogging in the last little while.

Recently I received a comment from a visitor and it gave me quite a giggle - Janet commented on the irony of having two blogs one of which is about de-cluttering. She does have a good point.

I started with one blog - dee-cluttering and as those of you who have been following know it has been documenting my journey and life in my de-cluttering adventures. I wanted to also document my embroidery adventure and have been doing so.
Here comes the BUT...
It is tricky.
There is overlap between the two, do I blog about something twice - with a different spin for each blog? Or do I chose the one to which it better fits? I have tried both with mixed results.

When I was first blogging, only a few short months ago, I read on an advice column that a blog is more 'successful' if it centres around a theme. I thought I had two distinct themes... they don't seem quite so distinct any more.

Janet's comment came at just the moment when i was already contemplating the subject. I have been considering combining the two and perhap re-naming my blog. No idea what to re-name it though. I have also been looking at layouts - man there are a LOT of options out there.

Now it is your turn to tell me what you think.

Happy Birthday to Me

2010-04-02T13:42:00.000+10:00

Yesterday was my birthday. I consider myself blessed.

Over the last couple of weeks many of my nearest and dearest have asked me what I would like for my birthday. My answers have varied between, "take me out for coffee" to "pick anything from my non-clutter gift list that I wrote at Christmas" (which included take me out for coffee). I am amused and curious at how this news had been received.

At Christmas time, one person said that my gift wishes were not really gifts because most of them weren't things. This can be tricky to get your head around. I guess some people don't feel like they are giving a gift if they don't give an item. I have been giving quite some thought to the whole subject.

Why do we give gifts? What is a gift?

I have concluded that we give gifts as tokens of how we feel about a person. It is a way of showing our care and love. At least it is for me. We give gifts to celebrate and sometimes just because one feelss obligated to give a gift - this always seems to show.

How we give a gift and what we give comunicate a lot about giver, the receiver and the relationship between giver and receiver.

I think this is why gift giving is such a big deal for me. I like giving gifts. I want the receiver to be delighted with the gift (yep I have tended to put myself through all kinds of mental knots over this one).

Of course I do also give gifts to folks at all kinds of times, just 'casue I love to give. it makes me feel good to bless them - so really it says quite a lot about me, including the silly mental gymnastics I put myself through trying to make sure the gift will be 'special'.

The newest member of our family, my daughter's fiancee, has been a good measure / reality check for me. He isn't used to lots of gifts and whilst delighted has been a little embarrased at times. Last year, aluminium water bottles were on special and I bought one for each of us including him. I gave them with a kiss and a love note. My family were all delighted and put them to use. "the Man" was delighted, but puzzled - he said, "but it's not my birthday or anything" He isn't used to gifts "just 'cause I saw it and thought of you". For me it was an extension of my love for them.

But I certainly have gone overboard way too many times.

...ooo...

Many of the wishes on my wish list are for treats that I rarely, if ever give to myself; like a manicure or pedicure or massage or go to the movies. To receive such things as a gift is special and all the more so if I get to share that time with soomeone special.

Since I have been trying to change my way of seeing it, I have been discovering just how difficult gift giving is for many others (and i thought it was only me). I seem to end up having conversations with folks about gift giving occasions. I actually found it very freeing at Christmas when wanting to give a gift to the person who has everything or who needs so little. What do you give to an elderly relative? or your parents/parents-in-law? Taking someone out for coffee or spending time with them, going to the movies, etc these things are great gifts and don't have to be locked into one day. To receive a piece of decorated paper telling me that I will be taken somewhere or get to experience something makes my day and makes the celebraton last even longer.

Am I alone in my thinking here?

Another thought that I have had is that perhaps it is easier for some folk to just buy a something and hand it over? It may require less of the person, which to me somehow defeats the whole purpose.

I used to have a close friend but sadly we drifted apart as our lives went in different directions. One Christmas she sent a large box of fruit which I thought was a wonderful idea (except that we were going away and couldn't eat it or take it with us so had to give it to other folks) The but comes in that I would have been way more delighted if she had just given me an hour or two of her valuable time for a coffee out together instead of an expensive, impersonal delivery which took her five minutes to arrange over the phone with her credit card. It felt like a gift of obligation not love.

The saddest thing was that I really missed this friend and wanted nothing more than to just be with her and talk to her. I did tell her this, she didn't get it; I think I may have offended her. To her an expensive gift was it and a shared cuppa was a non-gift (even if accompainied by cake). In no way was I rejecting her gift, i just wanted the one thing she couldn't/wouldn't give - her self. That was a few years ago and I still miss her but know that she has moved on.

You have heard my musings, now I will indulge a little more and tell you about the lovely gifts I received.

Darling hubby left an envelope on my bedside table and a cup of tea as he left for work very early. I woke and was delighted to discvoer a lovely hot cuppa (he does this most days and I still delight in it). The envelope contained a card he had made with a sweet glass nail file (I lost my last one :( ) and a hand made voucher for a pedicure - oooow I have been so wanting to get one of these.

I can highly recommend a good quality glass nail file - don't waste your money on the cheap and nasty ones.
My mum gave me money and took me to a craft shop whilst I was visiting her and I chose this...

skeins of lovely hand-dyed silk thread. We had a great time looking inthe craft shop together and then going to lunch afterwards.
A friend made and send me this armchair caddy...

One daughter is taking me to the movies and for a picnic - I think we will see "How to train your dragon" in 3D.
Another daughter gave me this voucher with a book tag for "A-Z of Smocking" - the book is on order.

Her creativity gave me a giggle and I look forward to cashing in my voucher for her company.

I was smiling all day as each text came in and getting to chat to a few special folk who called too.

All in all I am had a wonderful day and I don't have a pile of things for which I have little need to have to find a way to store.

Corkboard Necklace Holder

2010-03-30T18:44:00.002+10:00

Remember my post way back before Christmas about dee-culttering my Jewellery and making my necklace holder? Way back then I promised to show you the doona cover that matched... i never did get around to honouring that promise. Well it is time I made amends.

The cover was made by folding and tie-dyeing a large piece of pale green sheeting with a dark green dye. Stenciling with bleach paste to make the leavesand blossoms - not very successful. Then painting with green, pink and silver to get the gum leaves and blossums. Then it was a relatively simple task to make it into a doona cover. Overall it worked and looks great.

I am going back to it becasue I have finally finished off the necklace holder which completes the set.

Here is the happy final result!

Cork board coverted to necklace holder.

It was a simple and very effective transformation to my necklace storage challenge. My young adult had originally made it for me, but it needed some refinig, so it is now finished and hanging on the wall. I love being able to see all of my necklaces easily and in one go. I really love that the don't get tangled and it makes great art.

It is made from an old corkboard which had been in use for some years and was no longer very attractive due to the creative teen who hot-glued lots of decorations to the cork as well as the timber frame. When the time came to change it around the decorations came off the frame easily but took chunks of cork out of the board - not so pretty, but still useful.

We cut a piece of fabric to size and cut out and no-sew apliqued some of the left over gum leaves from the original doona cover and hand stitched around them (as can be seen in the pic below).

Note the necklace holders... more on this to come.

I got out my trusty staple gun and attached the red fabric to the timber frame on the cork board.

I also stapled some cord to hang it up... if you are doing this, I suggest checking which way is the right way up first.

Unless of course you want two cords across the back ; )

Can you see what we used to hold the necklaces? Yep it is push pins! Remember it is a cork board under the fabric, so we recycled the push pins too.

To complete the rest of the set... Wall hanging

I am going to link up with several linky-parties with this one.

Sewing Room

2010-03-21T21:28:00.000+10:00

It's done! Today we moved my sewing gear into my new sewing room. Redy for a tour? Believe me it is a small room so it won't take long. :)

Standing at the door looking in we see my bright yellow and blue sewing table, oh and the door. The sewing table is 4foot square (120cm) and there is about a foot between the door and the sewing table. The room is a mere 266cm wide - just under 9 foot yep tiny room.

Stepping into the doorway we see the end of the sewing table, the curtains (which I really must hem up) and the mirror-doored robe. Remember that the sewing table is 120cm Square and the distance from the end of the table to the mirror doors is less than a metre. The room is 237cm accross + 50cm for the robe.
Man that table is bright, remember sponging? yep I used left over yellow paint to sponge over a white undercoat. In my defense it was in 1995 and I was pregnant with my third baby.

Slide open the doors and we see my sewing stuffs, the beloved Kirby and to the right the single mattress standing on its end. I love using clear boxes for storage and it makes moving them around soooo easy too. Notice some coloured boxes? I went to purchase some more boxes only to discover that the world had found out my secret and the price had jumped up from $13 per set to $24 in a little over twelve months!!! The coloured ones however were only a few dollars more than they were previously, so I embraced colour.
The other good thing, there is still plenty of space in the robe.

Standing over by the window looking toward the wall opposite, we see the mattress (young adult will stay on Wednesdays) and the open cupboard with my fabric non-stash. Again more space in there.

My sewing table in all its yellow glory. I love its proportions, hubby and I cut down an old bar and made it just the right height for me (I'm 175cm, 5'10"). I am looking forward to being able to sew again at almost any time of the day. I promise to remove the machines from their cases very soon ; )
...and I think a coat of paint will be happening in the not-too-distant future.
Oh and I will finally get to use my new sewing machine.

strange occurence

2010-03-20T13:32:00.000+10:00

the strangest thing happened yesterday...

While chatting to a friend on the phone I was doing a bit of general tidying, put a load of washing on, swept through the lounge, kitchen, dining, hall, laundry, bathroom and toilet. I put a couple of things away and stood looking for what else needed to be done and.... nothing. It had only taken me about 15 minutes. There were no hot-spots piled with clutter.

Everything was neat, tidy, clean. There was no housework to do! I couldn't quite believe it. How did this happen to me? What had I missed?

so I walked through the house looking for things that needed doing.
My room and ensuite - check
bathroom - check
toilet - check
laundry - check
dining room - check
kitchen - check
WOW!!!
There was no housework to do.

I had moved the things listed in my post from a couple of days ago into the now-spare-soon-to-be my sewing room and stacked them neatly in the robe - so they now have a home and look neat. :)

All of my dee-cluttering has been paying off! Most things have homes and are away when not in use.
It makes it so much simpler to keep the house tidy and the teens are more inclinded to put something away when the cupboards aren't overflowing.

There are still areas to dee-clutter and keeping clutter down will be a lifetime challenge.
The rewards are sooooo worthwhile.

As I was chatting with my friend and exclaimed my surprise that 15 minutes had the tidying done, she told me that it was a blog-worthy story - so here 'tis.

On the dining table is a vase with four gerberas. One of them is this unusual pink and green flower.

Pink and green Gerbera viewed from underneath.

Op Shopping

2010-03-19T20:15:00.000+10:00

This afternoon teen 2 and I went op shopping in hope of finding a few things on the list of items needed. We didn't have much success. It was just as well though that I had my camera with me to document some of our adventure.

Have you been into an op shop recently?
did you notce anything unusual about the prices?

I am astounded how expensive they have become. I can no longer afford to shop at the op shops for many household items!!! now that is saying something.

There were two main items on my shopping list. A utensils crock for my toilet brush and some kind of shelving for the inside of the robe in the room vacated by our YA. I was also looking just in case I found curtains or a nice small table cloth or furnishing fabric.

First stop was the Endeavour Foundation Op shop, otherwise known as Endos. Nice and clean and well laid out. i looked at many items here and was shocked at the prices:

what would you expect to pay for one of these little crocks in an op shop? $2-4? try $6-8 at Endos!

small melamine bedside table $20
used double bed fitted sheet $10
70's chipboard laminate sideboard - very ugly and in poor condition $50
set of 5 water glasses (same as ones as Crazy clarks) $6 - they were one $1 each at crazies!!!
chipped blue ceramic lamp with no shade $7

I won't even bother to go into Endo's again and I WILL NOT donate any goods to them.

I faired better at Vinnies - better known as St Vincent de Paul
I found similar crocks to the ones above for $3 and one came home with me. Many of their items were 1/2 - 2/3 of the price of the other place. But they were a much smaller shop with not a lot of stock, i suspect it has to do with better prices.

Onto Lifeline. Teen 2 asked, "why is their logo circles made of dots if their name is Life Line? Shouldn't it be a line?" (Have I mentioned that teen 2 has Aspergers and thinks very literally? ) after we had a laugh and I explained their phone counselling origins she got it - yes the logo is based on the old rotary phone and it was literally a (telephone) line that saved lives.

Their bric-a-brac pricing was similar to Vinnies for some items and closer to Endos on others.

We spotted this little glass tray on the shelf at LifeLine for $4. It would have been unremarkable except that teen 2 had admired the exact same tray on the shelf at Endos for $8 - twice the price!

Then we saw this little TV unit for $95! I have been looking at similar things on eBay and similar ones are selling for around $10-30. Nice, big, timber units sell for around $50-80.

All of LifeLine furniture items were way over priced.

Onto the animal refuge op shop - the pllace where I had taken a car load full of dee-cluttered items. It is a small charity shop crammed full with stuff all over the place and treasures to be discovered at fair op shopping prices. :) I will donate here again and shop here first. Pity it is too small a place to sell furniture items.

I was later told that the Salvos are still reasonably priced so will have to check them out sometime.

The sad thing about op shopping becoming popular / fashionable / trendy is that the prices have gone up a LOT.
supply and demand? there is still a huge supply to meet the demand yet the prices are way high.
what about those who shop at such places becasue they can't afford to shop else where?
what gives???
the stock is all donated...
the workers are mostly volunteers...
overheads are low...
sure there is shed rental - but none of these sheds are exactly luxurious.

sigh.

what have you found?

In common...

2010-03-17T16:51:00.000+10:00

Can you pick what it is that all of these items have in common?

Kirby vacuum cleaner

Christmas Tree

Base Guitar

Assorted brooms and mops

Queen airbed

as yet unpacked but rumaged through boxes of mostly craft materials

Camp mat and camp bed

Any ideas???

The answer is they all have no permanent home in our new house.

The vacuum cleaner moves from space to space, gets used and is in the way when not in use. It is much loved and is not clutter, but it is sadly homeless.

The brooms, mops, duspan etc are also homeless but since they can lean againsly any wall or corner they are less under foot... the downside is that no matter when any of us wants to use a broom or mop or dustpan and brush, in ALWAYS involves a great search throughout the house to work out where it was last used and where it is now. This is time consuming and annoying as fequently the wanted item can't be found without ten minutes of searching, calling to other household members and looking in every possible place twice before finding it in an already overlooked spot. This is a daily occurence!

The Bass Guitar and the Maton six string guitar (not pictured) are less of an issuue, they lean against a wall, get moved around and since hubby rarely plays them anymore they take up space with little issue (unless I suggest that he may like to consider selling them).

The airbed (usually deflated and in its bag), camp mat and camp bed also lean against a wall in the hall and are generally homeless visual clutter, but not tripped over.

Ditto for the unpacked boxes of craft materials.

The Christmas tree is very useful for about 6 weeks a year and for the rest of the year is a storage hassle. Hmm that sounds like the best case that I have heard for a real tree yet. But I gotta tell you, real trees in Australia are expensive and sad as they are spindly excuses for evergreens which drop their pine needles in the December heat.

The no home for these items issue has, as you can imagine, been an ongoing challenge. I can't really dee-clutter these items as they all have a use and purpose - just no where to store when not in use.

This house has no linen cupboard and no broom cupboard.!!!! Don't get me started on this one!

It is also a VERY small house.

Every bedroom has been fully occupied by humans with every robe full.

That creates some storage challenges.

I am a creative problem solver.

Here is how i have partially solved some of our storage challenges.

I had a piece of water-resistant coated particle board cut to the size of the top of our bath tub in the bathroom and put it over the top of the tub to use like a giant storage bin. A thumbhole was drilled in it so that it could be lifted up to access items stored inside the tub. As you can guess, we don't use the bath tub and tend to shower.

yes, if you are wondering, that is our bathroom. It is tiny. The floor measures just 105cm of space between the wall and the tiny vanity and another 105cm between the tub and the shower. To take this pic I leaned the camera into the room with my hand against the wall. the gap from the wall near the door to the tub is 195cm.

As you can see quite a few items including the Christmas tree are stored on top of the tub.

Effective but not pretty.

To put it is perspective (if the brooms and small bin don't convey size) the bedside table used for vanity drawers (!) is a small one as is the child size collapsable laundy hamper.

All of this is about to change!

With our first born leaving home, we have the robe in her bedroom for some additional storage. I will be moving some items into there in the near future.

I have concluded that this house was never intended for a real family of five, at least not ones who own broom, vacuums, linen and christmas trees.

BTW if I ever meet the man who admits to being the designer of this house, I will be sorely tempted to strangle him. I am convinced no woman would design a house (which is less than 10 years old) with no linen cupboard and no broom cupboard.

Tune in next time for more adventures in dee-cluttering and adjusting to one less person in the house.

Setting up house

2010-03-15T23:24:00.000+10:00

My darling young adult (formerly know as teen 1) has moved into her very own granny-flat and is setting up house.

She was over after uni today (I have seen more of her since she moved out than i was seeing before she moved out... teehee hee). I should have taken a photo of her littler car loaded to the hilt (if that metaphhor can be stretched that way). It was just as well there were no other pasengers!

Who knew a teen moving out and setting up their own place could be such a great way to de-clutter?! Today I sent many things onto a new and excited home....
5 mismatched but cute drinking glasses
6 coffee mugs
the remains of my floral dinner set - now I can justify using my 'new' white one all the time ; )
4 tea towels (old, not so pretty but made her happy)
4 hand towels
4 'rag' towels
5 standard bath towels (which i had previously packaged up in a bag with her name on for just such an occassion - each of my girls had been given towels for gifts at various stages and just couldn't manage to use them all up,so I sorted and bagged them for the day that they left home)
mixing bowl
7 wine glasses (she bought these herself a while ago to paint for her friends birthdays but they were in my space)
large crate of dress-ups (yep she wanted to take the dress ups and her two younger sisters had long ago 'outgrown' the desire to play dress-ups)
5 photo albums of her life
her accademic file out of the filing cabinet (to which I will add her birth certificate and several other important documents)

Young Adult (YA) thought it was as good as Christmas and I thought so too. I got (lots) more stuff out AND got to feel good about it. AND most of it was still in perfect working order but had been for a few trips around the sun (if you get my drift) AND my head is brimming with all sorts of other things that I can send her way... kitchen utensils, knives, plastic stuffs... I have now started a box to put stuff in for her in setting up house as I find suitable things. It is wonderful. !!!

She did ask if I had a spare clothes dryer I could send her way, along with a microwave oven. She shrugged her shoulders and said she was obliged to give it a try and certainly would have says "great!" if I had said "sure darling".

She's coming for dinner tomorrow night after uni, and asked if she can come on wednesday nights after uni and sleep over since it is a late night at uni and she works locally on Thursdays at 10am. So it looks like I will get to see her saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday... who knows we might even get friday in at this rate. I am seeing more of her this week than I have seen of her for many weeks ; ) No complaints here.

Oh and have i mentioned that I now have an empty room which is soon to be my new sewing room? I am starting to get excited about that. And YA has offered to come and give me a hand setting it up - she insists that i do it SOON.
Life is GOOD

Adjusting

2010-03-14T10:14:00.000+10:00

I am getting over the shock of my darling young adult leaving home. I need to change some of the way I think about my teen 1, she is a teen, but she is also a young adult and she will always be mine but not mine. Letting go of my baby is sooooooo hard. At each stage of parenting I gain an even greater appreciation for my own darling mother.

I have known for some time that she needed to spread her wings. Part of me was wanting it too. She has been pushing for some time, stretching her wings, testing her skills and independence ready to fly from the nest.

A big part of me just wants to keep her close to me and safe. I know I can't protect my babies for ever. I know they have to learn and make their own mistakes. I know she is ready. She is as well prepared for this step as she will ever be. I am telling myself that we have done a good job of helping her grow into the wonderful young woman that she is.... even if in my head I still see my sweet, little, curly headed, sparkly, brown eyed, cheeky, mischief filled, little girl.

Hubby often describes a time when she was about 12 and I was away. He was getting everything ready for a family vacation when I returned. Darling teen 1 drove him crazy by organising him and telling him "that is not how mum does it" at every step of the way. She bossed him around and got things done. He later told me it was frustrating and funny at the same time and that if not for her he would have forgotten quite a few things. This skinny legged little girl knew what to do and how to do it and was making sure her daddy got it right.

She is a beautiful, intelligent, capable young woman who is ready to take the next step in her life.

Darling young adult wrote a letter to hubby and I. It made me smile and I want to share it with you.

Mum and dad,

I don't want to be leaving on bad tearms with you. My relationship with you both is very important to me. I am sorry that my actions or lack of haven't shown you that, I want to keep in regular contact with all of you and come and see you perhaps weekly.

I respect you mum and dad, and I'm sorry for not really showing that. I am going to work harder at that. I love you and miss you already. I feel sad to leave you. I need to figure out who I am other than your daughter. I am hoping we may be able to have an even closer and richer relationship than before."

Mum I want to help you move your craft stuff into the room. Can we hang out this week.

Dad, I'm gonna need to come and get daddy cuddles fairly often, only you do them right. I want ot hang out with my sisters at least fortnightly if not more often. i believe that is really important.

I don't want any of you to think or feel that I'm abandoning you. But i know some of you are probably already struggling with this. It's a big adjustment for all of us. Please know that I love each of you vey much and that I am especially fond of you! I'm gonna come away for a few days over the easter break.

Thank you!

Thank you for loving me, caring for me, looking after me. Thank you for helping me, for raising me, for providing for me.

I know that I'll never fully understand what youve gone through for me until I have kids myself, and maybe not even then. I am appreciateive to the best of my ability. Even though it often doesn't seem like it. I do love you.

Lots of love,

Even as she is stepping out and asserting her independence she is thinking about how hard it is for the rest of us. I love her sooooo much.

A family member has gone

2010-03-13T11:38:00.000+10:00

This table has been in our family for nearly 17 years. The stools were born 11 years ago when I had them made to match the table. This morning at 9am they have gone to another young couple who were very excited to be taking it away. Their excitement was similar to our own when we took possession of the table - bought from an older friend who was downsizing after raising her family around that for over 40 years.

The nice young couple said they had been searching for some time for the perfect table and were very happy to have found just the right one. They were interested in all my raving about its history... or at the very least they humoured me in a convincing manner.

What is it about furniture that we get so attached to?

We have decluttered many items over the last few months but this one was harder than most to part with.

We had bought a smaller dining setting since this beauty is too big for our small dining space. we moved this to our outdoor area, but didn't really need it there. We just didn't want to actually part with it.

I figure I am more attached to this setting because we have sat around it eating many meals, making craft, sewing, doing our budget, studying, sorting our lives, meals shared with family and friends, laughing, crying...

Just because it is going out of our lives doesn't mean that our memories of its significance are also going out - we get to keep all of those.

By the way, just as the young couple arrived to take possession of this set, teen 1 arrived home to announce she was also moving out and on with her life... and was gone in a little over an hour.

Look what I found today - take 2

2010-03-11T21:54:00.000+10:00

Look what i found today... The Red Chair Blog check out this blog for lots of great de-cluttering ideas (as well as clever tutorials). This clever blogger has been in my HEAD!

I am in LOVE! This is just the coolest pic... and it's free... and it's cute... and it's BIG.

Throughout my dee-cluttering, I have been asking myself and teaching my family (especially hoarder hubby) to ask these same questions.
Do I love it?
Do I need it?
Is it useful or beautiful?
Would I buy it if it were in a store in front of me?
Would I keep it if it didn;t come with emotional strings?
Can i buy it again if I find I really did need it?

Now I can print a pretty picture and stick it on the wall and simply point to it instead of doing my cracked record routine. (my kids sooooo don't get that image so I have to say scratched CD routine - somehow it just doesn't sound as poetic).

Is this kind of love normal or natural? who cares!

2010-03-11T20:42:00.001+10:00

Look what I found today... The Red Chair Blog

Better?

2010-03-08T20:29:00.000+10:00

I am not sure if this is an improvement. What do you think?

The dark curtains seem to frame better.

The light ones blend better into the walls.

Ideas? suggestions?

Lounge Room

2010-03-06T15:12:00.000+10:00

I have been gradually culling and sorting and trying to make our new home work for us for the last few months since we moved here. It still feels like I take 2 steps forward and one back, but it is at least going in the right direction.

Whilst no where in the house is done (is a house ever done?), parts of the house are starting to look ok. It is functional, BUT...

Every where I look I see things that need to be done. I am feeling frustrated with it all.
Perhaps i need to have a look at some ofthose befreo photos again...
Still, i can't deny that I am feeling restless and frustrated with the house. It is time to address what is underlying this.

When I look around I keep thinking "I will get to that eventually." It is getting to me! Yeah I do smile with each little progression, but it is somewhat discouraging to keep seeing soooooo many things still to do.

Whilst there is much more to do in general space sorting, I have decided to break things up a bit. I will alternate between de-cluttering and also focus more on decorating. I hope that will give me something that will make me smile rather than sigh.
I have decided to turn my decorating attention to the lounge room. I chose it for several reasons, it is the first space that anyone sees upon entering the house, it doesn't need too much to get it looking fab and it is a confined area.

here are some pics of our tiny 3.4m (11.15)' x 4.3m (14') entry / lounge room :

It looks OK - not great though.

Any ideas on what i can do to give it a little more zing?

Considerations:

Our lounge/entry is tiny.

Our house is a rental and the walls and tiles are beige and white - can't change them.

The style of the house is quite modern, but generic.

Our lounge chairs are deep burgundy/brown leather - they are a keeper.

The curtains are a rich brown, which whilst not the same as the lounge, tones with it.

There is no ceiling fan so unfortunately the pedestal fan is an essential feature for nine months of the year.

We are utilising lamps for lighting since the electric lighting is via five (!) 12 watt halogen downlights which provide good, but expensive lighting and add much heat, hence we have decided to avoid using them as much as possible. BTW There are 43 halogen downlights throughout our tiny house! yes 43!

My previous style had been modern country with lots of happy country clutter in our very large lounge room. I have got rid of most of it, only keeping a very few favourite pieces.

I love timber furniture. It seems to go with most houses and never dates. I have over the years collected most of my furniture in a "new teak" type of stain.

I have found that I can add colour in other furnishings. For many years I have had burgundy and forest green. I am now quite over the forest green / burgundy combo.
The three remaining cushions are all hand-made and lovely but now quite dated so I will replace them.

Ok i think that just about covers the inventory...

I want to make some changes.
I have a few ideas but would really like to hear your ideas. go crazy as it just might spark some inspiration for me.

One thing I would like to draw your attention to...

A few years ago I found this little sweetie table at a garage sale for only $3. I had intended to paint it, but never did.

Now it lives just inside my front door and is my Dispatch Centre.

The top of the table is decorative.

Underneath is functional.

The baskets are intended to be the storage spot for items which need to go out the door with us as well as things like the cat brush for attempting to remove those hairs before we rush out the door.

I like the way it gives the room a bit of colour and I really like the acqua colour. I like the way it looks with the burgundy/brown and am thinking of bringing in more of this colour.

I bought the baskets yesterday.

Not sure about colour, keep them black or spray them white?

Not sure about height, I deliberately haven't taken the tags off so I can look at them for a few days to decide if I keep them both or exchange one. What will work best; two high baskets or one of each? what looks best?

Happy Birthday Eddie!

2010-03-05T18:49:00.000+10:00

My hubby thinks I have completely lost the plot!

Teen 2 and I planned and hosted a birthday party for Eddie the cat today to celebrate his first birthday.

Really it was a good excuse to eat chocolate cake but let's not tell him...

It started out simply enough. Teen 2 had a a yearning for Chocolate cake and had voucher for a cake at a local bakery . It is Eddie's birthday so we decided to combine the two and have some fun.

Teen 2 made a cat sized party hat, we picked up the cake, she decorated it with cake decorating gel... instant party. The family all got home from work and school and the party began!

Hubby may have thought I'd lost the last of my marbles, but he was happy to eat two pieces of chocolate cake!

Eddie didn't get any cake

... but he did get to drop a hair on the cake (hubby got that piece) and chew up his hat - what more could a cat want... except perhaps some tuna for dinner.

BTW, his tail is now healed and just has to grow back the hair.

Thank you for humouring me in my strange and unusual cat adventures of late. I sincerly hope this is my last cat post for a very long time.

For Medicinal Purposes

2010-03-04T17:06:00.000+10:00

Emergency Chocloate

For immediate relief of: chocolate cravings. love sickness, exam pressure, mild anxiety and extreme hunger.
Directions for use: tear open wrapper, break off desired dosage and consume. Alternatively massage into the affected area. Repeat dosage as required until finished. If symptoms persist consult you local confectioner.

Yes this is for real.... and it helps ;)

Just ask teen 2

Cat- tastrophe strikes again...

2010-03-03T14:36:00.001+10:00

The Teens and I learned a valuable lesson last night. It is not wise to rile up a cat and leave it full of adrenaline and skittish and then to dump it on the lap on an unsuspecting person - especially if that person is your mum. A loud noise only moments after said cat has been placed on lap and cat leaps into the air with all legs splayed in different directions, claws out as it looks for traction.

Unfortunately for me, the owner of the lap, the point where he found traction was my eyebrow!

My scream brought hubby running who quickly decided that a trip to emergency was needed. I groaned and said hopefully it won't need stitches, just a clean up and a steristip (or two). No such luck. Five stitches later it is mended, well at least joined back together so it can mend. And I felt four of the five stitches going in, even with anaethetic and two extra shots.

To add insult to injury, since I couldn't remember when my last Tetanus shot was, I got to get a tetanus needle too.

The good news is that it has rained solid here for the last few days and all the clever people were tucked up at home at 9pm instead of at the emergency so I got straight in. I didn't think that ever happened thse days, but there ya go, silver lining to my cloud.

Today I am taking it gently with a dead arm and a sore face.
I get to explain it to everyone I see for the next week until the stitches come out.
BTW, did you know that your eyebrow moves when you laugh? It does, and it hurts too.

My Baby's Coming Home!

2010-03-02T09:54:00.000+10:00

I used to get into trouble every time I called teen 3 "My Baby", but now she just shrugs her shoulders and smiles. She is now happy for me to call heer my baby since she long ago passed both her older sisters in height and at 5'10" thinks it is funny to be called a baby. Yep she is a giant and is proud of it.

Anyway...

Teen 3 has been boarding on the other side of town in order to attend her new school and coming home on the weekends. This Sunday night we didn't have to take her back for the first time. She caught the train from home to school. The express train will get her to the station in an hour ten with a ten minute walk up hill to the school from the station. The stopping-all-stations train takes 90 minutes to get home in the afternoon. She gets home about 5pm - yep two hours of travel.

When she was offered a plaace at the school it was strongly suggested that we opt to board her closer to hte school as the two main rasons that students drop outt are the huge addition accademic leap andthe pressure that goes with it and the strain of travelling long didstance. We are on the border of what they consider an acceptable daily commute, so were encouraged to board her.

She has been boarding with a lovely family. BUT she just wants to be at home. So we are trialling the commute option.

Last night was our first school night with her at home. It was lovely. She sat at the dinner table chatting, eating and generally being her happy, noisy self. It was wonderful. It has been remarkable how quiet the house has been without her. That girl certainly has a presence. And she makes it felt.

I am so delighted. I hope it works.

Colour to save the day

2010-03-01T10:05:00.000+10:00

I have been working on a page here and there for my scrapbooking albums. Last week I was working on a page for a mother/daughter date I had with teen3 and it needed a little something else. I pulled out my paper flowers and thought they would give it that little something needed, but didn't have the colour to suit the page. As I was holding it there I thought, "if only it was the same colour as my nails"... bingo! I painted my nails, I can paint the flowers.

Out came the box of nail polish and I had an arty time with the colours.

close up - the lovely sheen was a delightful bonus.

the finished page.

Additional page elements included: lilac/purple floral paper, purple card stock, ribbon, silver metalic paper, cleaar rinestone stick-ons and holographic letter stickers.

On the road

2010-02-28T12:47:00.000+10:00

A picture says a thousand words...

Teen 1 got her licence about six weeks ago (at long last) on her first attempt, which is a BIG deal...

...and now she has got her first wheels, complete with GPS!

Her Man sure knows her! Her total lack of spatial ability is well known to all who know and love her... Last week she got lost on her way to her first day of uni FOUR times. It is only a fourty minute drive up the highway and we had shown her the way in January! The Man has just bought all of us the best peace-of-mind possible with her now roaming on her own in the big world. I am so impressed!

Oh yeah... it's a Peugot 306 XRN5, whatever that means. To me it's a cute little blue car wth a good safety rating.

Play Time

2010-02-27T18:20:00.000+10:00

It's time for the girls to get together and play! I am visiting a new friend with one of my not-so-new friends (I am not allowed to say old).

We are making a happy creative mess, staying up too late, crawling craft shops (spending $) and enjoying a little drink (or two). What is even more impressive is that we are having lovely meals made for us by the clever hubby of my new friend. A girl could really get used to this...

Note to self - do more of this. I highly recommend regular instalments of girl time and all that goes with it!

Now I better get this up befrore I am found out.

beauty

2010-02-25T14:59:00.000+10:00

I made these little sweeties yesterday at a craft group which I have been attending.

Beaded angel bookmarks

I have been attending a craft group on a Tuesday morning for a few weeks and have been beading in the hope to get enthusiastic about beading again. I didn't. I did get to meet some lovely folks though.

My new adventure will be smocking. I have done lots of differnt kinds of embroidery and have always intended to do smocking but never quite got to it. When my teens were babies I bought the transfer dots to create hand gathered smocked wonders for my little people. Time passed - quickly! and those little people grew up and outgrew the stage for wearing anything even remotely resembling a pretty smocked dress.

If I start now, I just might have it down pat in time for grandchildren... No I am in no hurry for grandchildren, but if it took me over 18 years to get to begin to smock, who knows how long before I actually manage to produce anything even remotely wearable. Maybe I will discover just how much work it really is and will have a reality check on actually making anything wth that much work in it for a small person who will only get it grotty... oh the possibilities.

One pleasant surprise at the massive craft group was this:

Seconds from a local flower farm. how nice. One of the men who comes along to play cards live next door to a flower farm and they givehim their seconds to take to craft for the ladies to take some home. gerberas are such happy flowers and I have been smiling at them each time see them.

A Cat's Tale

2010-02-22T11:45:00.000+10:00

The postie arrived early this morning bringing a "get well and stay safe" gift for our Eddie cat. (Who is still wearing his bucket and still has a bandaged tail)

It's a door-stop in Eddie's likeness, it even has a short tail. Now our front door won't blow shut on an unsuspecting cat's tail.

Eddie's first meeting of his new likeness. He was quite timid, just sniffing and running away.

Charlie on the other hand grabbed it with both paws, pulled it to him, sniffed it and went back to sleep still holding it. Teen 1 had to call him several times to get him to look up for a photo.

Yes teen 2 didn't make her bed this morning... but that's nothing unusual

Thanks heaps C for the thoughtful and appropriate gift. :)

PS just checkd on the cats and sure enough charlie is asleep still holding the new cat...

Gen Y & Z

2010-02-20T21:49:00.000+10:00

This is socialising if you are aged 12-16...

We had dinner at a friend's house tonight and as we were walking out the door teens 2 & 3 were carrying their laptops. Hubby commented asking, how can they expect to socialise if they were taking a computer? They insisted that it the BEST way to hang with their frineds.

Here they are at the dining table - six kids - six computers - six dinners - six glasses of softdrink. We decided that it was an expensive table top indeed.

Yes they all hang out together, laughing and talking about what they are doing. They were playing games and Youtube. In moments of extreme concentratoin it would go strangly quiet, before the noise would again burst forth.

This evening was mostly girls, the older boys were all out elsewhere). The boy featured evenings are similar, with one major difference - they network their game and try to kill each other. The girls however whilst all playing the same game were chatting and sharing tips on how to get to the next level...

It is soooo not my world.

Us oldies did it the 'old fashioned' way... we sat and ate and talked and laughed and told the stories of our week, work, worries and wins. (had to keep the "W" thing going)

... and a good night was had by all.

Fab fake

2010-02-19T17:55:00.000+10:00

There is a distinct lack of green inside our home. Outside is VERY green, we are fully surrounded by gardens, palms, trees. I decided to begin to address the lack of green and bought this little plant.

Teen 1 was admiring it and was offering the plant her condolences on coming into our home only to have to suffer a slow and indignant death. She was about to take bets on how long this one would last...

when she saw my funny grin. ;) she knew something was up.

Mmuuuuum. Why are you grinning like that?

This beauty won't die - it's a FAKE!

I was tickled. She couldn't tell it was a fake. that'll do me. Maybe I will get another fake plant or two. It has got to be cheaper than my other habit....

I am sure my fake plant won't even mind that I have put it in a planter that a plant which I had managed to kill had once called its own. oh yes, I earned my reputation as a house plant murderer. What is worse is that if I didn't kill them by forgetting to water them, I managed to water them too much or they didn't get enough light or, or, or...

Well there will be one less dead plant in our house.

Can I have a hand?

2010-02-18T22:59:00.000+10:00

Tonight I am enjoying my pretty nails and the fact that for the first time in many weeks I can make a fist (gotta love drugs that work). For the last few weeks every time I look at my hands, I have felt sad. So I decided tonight to do something pretty to make me smile at my hands instead of sigh (or worse, cry) and to mark one small progress.

The light was tricky, but here are the best pics I could manage (with a little help from hubby).

Base-coat, two coats of Avon Speed-dry "Feisty", fun with decals and clear top coat. Ignore the bubbles and little oops and enjoy.

Now I will try to keep telling myself nice, positive things about my hands and to celebrate all that I can do. I will do it, even if I cry.

Last Thursday I dragged my unwilling self off to the doctor. I described the pain that I have been experiencing in many of my knuckles and diminshed strength, along with inability to make a fist etc, over the last little while. It started off just before Christmas with one knuckle, then another. I put it down to all the embroidery that I was doing trying to get stuff made for Christmas. Early in the year, when I was doing less embroidery, it was still sore, and more knuckles were joining the party. I muttered about it, saying that I am too young to develop arthritus and besides I have many many things I would like to embroider.

The doc told me that what I was describing was "classic symptoms of early Rheumatoid Arthritus" and ordered a blood test to check my rheumadtoid levels. In the meantime, I was to take anti-inflamatories and come back a few days after the blood tests. Istill haven't had the blood tests and I have cried heaps. yes I know, it's not even confirmed. I know there are worse things in the world that could happen.

I keep picturing ugly, deformed, bent up, arthritic, swollen, useless hands which can't hold a needle or open a bottle or do much of any of the things that I love to do. yep grief. Soon I will push myself past this denial/avoidance and get the bloody blood test and confirm my fears, I truly don't expect any other outcome. Then I will pick myself up and get on with it and make the most of whatever it is that I can do to slow the progress and to enjoy as much as I can while I still have pretty hands which are talented and useful.

where women glow...

2010-02-16T13:48:00.000+10:00

I come from a land down under, where women glow and men chunder (aussie test... do you know what chunder means?) from men at work song "Land Down Under"

You know you are in Queensland in summer when...

you get out of the shower and you can't get dry no matter how much you towel yourself.
you give up on make-up as it just sliiiiiides off.
sunscreen is a handbag essential as is deodorant and mosquito repellant.
going to the toilet involves peeling damp clothing off of damp skin, then trying to get it back up and in place again. - yeah too much information. o
three showers a day still isn't enough.
changing clothing several times daily is not only acceptable but necessary.
worn clothing must be hung out to dry before going into the washing basket.
sleeping in past 7am is impossible (unless one has airconditioning).
the cat looks dead - except it's breathing.
the dog can barely manage to do more than a pitiful wag.
it is a relief for it to finally rain.
31 degrees & 93% humidity is better than 36 degrees & 81% humidity - go figure.
it actually CAN rain 55mm (2") in 30 minutes.
the rain is so LOUD that one can't hear the radio/tv/kids etc
conversation over coffee includes topics such as the best anti-fungals or anti-mould treatments (yep I over-heard that one in a coffee shop recently... and paid attention)
the only way to bear a hot cuppa is to go to the air-conditioned shoping centre.

Got any more to add to the list?

De-cluttering benefits

2010-02-15T11:00:00.000+10:00

We are now a little past half way through February and my dee-cluttering has continued. I have turned my focus to our undercover area outside. It is the saving feature of our tiny house as it more than doubles our usable living space. It also is the space where we ~~dump~~ put all other things that we don't know what to do with. This means that it gets sorted and nicely usable and then messed up again. It has been in the messed up again state for some weeks now.

When hubby and I cleared the family room to make it work as a craft and office space, the excess furniture and stuff all came outside. Thanks to freecycle I have now re-homeed an L bookshelf, six folding chairs, a large suitcase and our no longer needed but in perfect working order second printer.

We have also made the hard decision to sell our oringinal dining setting so that it doesn't get ruined being outside in the undercover area. Here in Queensland in summer it is very humid. Today we are expecting 81% humidity - urgh. We have also had our wettest summer for many years and finally our dams are at full capacity or near - yeay. But all that means a lot of water in the air most of the time.

All scrubbed and outside to photograph for sale.

I have twice scrubbed the mildew off of the pine setting this year. At that rate it is only a matter of time before it gets past the varnish (which needs re-doing) and into the timber and ruining it. The table is over 50 years old and is truly solid timber. We had the stools made just over 11 years ago to slide under the table. I am quite attached to this piece of furniture and don't want to see it ruined. Decision made - time to re-home it. I told the table that it was for its own good.

I am working on one section at a time, sorting and clearing. I keep asking my self "Do I need this? Do I love this?" I keep surprising myself just how many things i really don't NEED. We have so little space to store things for "just in case we ever need it" and I am still finding it so freeing and liberating.

Hubby recently said a couple of things that I consider priceless words.

"Since you have been doing the de-cluttering thing, the house feels free-er and I feel less stressed - not that I realised I was feeling stressed about the house but the change has actually revealed something I hadn't realised."

Go figure!!

He was carrying stress about all the stuff we owned and he didn't even know it until it was gone. he has beenthe biggest opposition and resistance to de-cluttering and has held on tightly to everything that has ever come into our home.

On the weekend he also did something for which I am very proud. He said NO THANKS when offered some stuff, mostly books, from his dad as they are preparing to sell and move. He has never done that before. I am so proud of him. Now this is even more remarkable when put in context. Hubby is a book hoarder. He loves books. We still have many books, but used to have about 800 more than we do now.

De-cluttering the physical stuff somehow makes not only more physical space, but more emotional and mental space too. Even hubby now feels the benefit and has begun to make different decisions around stuff.

I truly never thought the day would ever come. AND I am sooooooo grateful.

personalised coasters

2010-02-14T19:03:00.000+10:00

Simple sweet personalised coasters

Teen 2 made these coasters today becasue she grew tired of not being able to tell which glass was hers lined up across the ledge behind the sink. Now each member of the family has their own spot to place a drinking glass and won't have to worry about sharing each other's germs. : )

We only wash up once most days and so we don't end up with 20+ glasses to wash, we use the same glass for water throughout the day and place them on the space behind the sink. Since our glasses are mostly the same it becomes difficult to tell which glass belongs to whom. Now each person can place their glass on its own marker.

they were very simple to make. simply choose desided decoration and mount on plain card and laminate. Teen two used a sticker set, a photo, and scraping paper. The base was 10cm x 10cm with the double one 20cm x 10cm (teen 1 is happy to share germs with the Man). You could use anything thin as the laminator is best suited to 1mm or less.

We had a set previously but they had become yucky over time since the laminate hadn't sealed properly and water had eventually got into the designs. You need to check that it has fully sealed before cutting. the laminate. We ended up running this batch through the laminator twice to be certain of a good seal.

Here is my original coaster.

Teen 1 had made the original coasters. She had drawn pictures on cardstock representing the interests of each person in our family. They alway made me smile as she had captured each person's interests and personality well.

Animal tribulations part 3 ...or is it 4?

2010-02-13T16:48:00.001+10:00

You guessed it... yet another post about the trials and tribulations of the animals in our lives. Tell me that it gets better...

Today we got not one but two trips to the animal hospital. I now know most of the staff by name and they know who I am as soon as I walk in the door and greet me by name. They are nice folks, but I sure wasn't keen on getting to know them all on first name basis.

The other day I recounted the story of the big lizard in the back yard bailed up by Buddy the Lab-X. Well the lizard didn't leave. This morning hubby found lizard and dog again in a stand-off only this time the lizard was in a much worse shape than a few days ago. I now suspect that he had been injured last time and hadn't eaten for a few days nor had he climbed to safelty. In the meanwhile he has been further hassled by our dog. sigh.

We scooped up the now-too-weak lizard and took him off to the vet. It looked like there was some damage to his front left leg. He was muddy, but this time I snapped his picture. Meet the poor sad Water Dragon...

60cm Bearded Water Dragon - take a look at the length of those claws. they are climbers. you can also see his injured front leg which is just sitting there limp.

I found out how he was faring when we made trip number two for the day to the animal hospital.

The good news - the vet couldn't feel a break to the leg, but he was dirty, hungry, cold and dehydrated so has been cared for and on a heat pad for a couple of hours. One of the volunteers who care for wildlife has collected him to take him to Australia Zoo about 40mins up the road from here where they have reptile specialists who will be able to nurse him back to health. They actually thanked us for bringing him in. I just feel bad that I didn't think to check on him a few days ago to see if he was ok and that my dog had been hassling him.

Hopefully the water dragon will make a full recovery and be released. The vet tells me that we must have a healthy creek if the wildife is all so big and well. Until we moved in with our big dog.

That brings me to todays second episode at the animal hospital...

Eddie, cute, 11 month old, shorter-tailed, bucket-headed, stitched up tail grey tabby cat, was due to have his stitches removed on Wednesday. Wednesday. I was beside myself in the anticipation of it on tuesday night. We were nearly at the end of the cat tail tale. ...alas Eddie was impatient and ripped the stitches out himself on Tuesday night while we all slept. Mmmhhmm. yep we were awoken early Wednesday to an open wound at the end of the cat's tail. NOOOOOOOOO!

Off to the vet agin. It was decided to try the wait-and-see approach for a few days. bandaged tail. fingers crossed that it would heal on its own. It was a long-shot, but by this stage we were all looking at a long shot and hoping that it was fnally going to be our day. You know like in those movies where the long shot comes in...

It was not to be. Sigh. The vet checked it today and it has not healed even one tiny little bit. On Monday Eddie goes back to the vet for futher surgery. How much shorter his tail will be this time is anybodies guess at this stage.

It has gone from a drama and turned into a mini-series. It had better not turn into one of those long-running day-time soaps. Are you as over this saga as I am? Dare I say Stay tuned for the next installment?

True love

2010-02-13T14:05:00.000+10:00

"See how much I love him!" says teen1 through teary, onion-chopping eyes.

I love him enough to chop onion AND handle raw meat!!!!

That is certainly the mark of true loooove - to overcome one's biggest hang-ups for the sake of the loved one.

Our darling teen one has avoided the kitchen for most of her 18 years. She has no problem with cleaning up, just don't ask her to cook. She immensely dislikes chopping onions but will do it if there is no other option... like a daddy to chop them for her. She NEVER, ever touches raw meat, even with tongs and at a distance. There have been occasions when just looking at raw meat would leave her gagging and going pale.

Our family has many stories around her immense dislike for meat especially in its raw state. We have battled with her since she was tiny to get her to even eat meat at all. So you could imagine my amusement as she has been preparing to cook dinner for her Man for valentines. "Wuv. Twooo wuv" as the old priest in "The Princess Bride" says.

Do you remember feeling like that? Do you still feel like that about anyone?

I love my hubby, but I don't remember feeling so much in love that I was prepared to go to extreme lengths to do something special for him, where I was prepared to overcome myself for him.

I have without even a moment's hesitation put myself in harm's way to protect my children, but that is a different kind of love. That is that deep, primal, institnctive, parental, sacrifice-all-in a-moment-without-even a-thought-for-one's-safety kind of love. And I would do it again.

But a deliberate, planned, acted out, struggle to over-come one's hang-ups (is phobia too strong a word?).!? Perhaps I was THAT in love once... I do recall moving city; quitting my job and leaving my friends to be with him... but that was for me too.

What about you? what out-of-the-usual things have you done for the sake of your beloved? In what ways have you overcome yourself for your beloved?

Following

2010-02-12T12:32:00.000+10:00

How does one end up following one's own blog?
yep my little blue and yellow pic is now there as a follower on MY blog!

It's funny but I also feel the cringe factor.

Here is the story...
Yesterday I wanted to email "This Plate is Full" to say THANKS for the lovely matt. I got a message telling me I needed to sign in and so clicked the appropriate icons and what do you know... I am my own follower. Now how to get rid of me... nothing I have so far tried seems to have worked. So I cringe, smile and shrug my shoulders.

speaking of stories about followers... yesterday I was reading one of my favourite blogs, F8 hasit. Nancy was talking about followres. Do yourself a favour and have a read of what she had to say.

the post has arived...

2010-02-11T10:16:00.001+10:00

Look at what the postie has brought me...

Sweet 8x10 Matt handmade by K at This Plate is Full. The matt is collaged with lots of lovely papers, ribbons and pretty bits like paper hears and bling. The photo doesn't do it justice.

She also surprised me and sent me this cute postcard of a painting by Adolphe-William Bouguereau called "The knitting girl". What better way to photgraph it than to sit it inside the matt? :) The postcard is going on my bedroom door so that when I see it I will smile.

Many thanks to K. I will get much joy from this gift.

I have happily decided what to do with the matt ... it has been on my mind since discovering that I had won and it was on its way. Teen1suggested that I put a pic of hubby and I in it, but I don't have a recent one that would work. In my Dee-cluttering yesterday (yep talk about timing) I finally threw out a favourite pic of hubby and I that has been sitting in a frame that I made many years ago when we were first engaged (ohh so many years ago). Today I have had my brain wave.

I had made a fabric covered heart frame with a magnet on the back and slipped the engagement photo in it. It lived on our fridge door for many years and has suffered for its years of service to the point where I had retired it when we moved. One particularly memorable event was when one of the teens was learning to bake some years ago (I have forgotten which kiddo is the culprit). Dear kiddo took the beater out of the mix before stopping it. Hmmm kitchen covered in creamed butter and sugar. The photo was not behind glass since it wsa a simple heart shaped frame on the fridge. I wiped it down but it was never the same again. the photo had faded from years of exposure and now was decorated with greas marks.

when dee-cluttering I had conceded that it no longer looked so good and had removed it. It took me some time longer to finally admit that it was only fit for the bin. I was finally able to let it go by telling my self that I have the negatives and can print another one!

Now I have an incentive... I will print out a new pic and mount it in the matt. stay tuned for the happy event as I will surely blog that one. ... since it was only yesterday that I finally tossed the old one i may be able to still find it in the bin and can do a before and after... I am off to rummage through the bin.

Happy Day.

animal trouble - again and again

2010-02-09T21:21:00.000+10:00

my animals are ganging up to stress me out! well that's my story.

Today I had animal troubles - again. Eddie the cute 11month old now-shorter tailed catten is still wearing his bucket (i am soooo longing for the stitches to be removed in the next couple of days). He loves getting the bucket off at every opportunity and knows that if he comes and sits on my lap, I will remove the bucket to allow him some grooming time and happy pats. He purrs so much and I go all mushy - sad cat lady in the making. He follows me around and as soon as I sit jumps up - yep pathetic but still kinda cute.

Blurry but tells the story.

This morning he was enjoying some bucket-free time on my lap. I was feeling sorry for him so thought I would give him his antibiotics and breaky whilst his bucket was still off. It seemed like a good idea -boy was I WRONG! While I measured up his antibiotics, he tried to pull at the stitches in his tail. This hurts him a lot and one would think that he might have learned this after nine days, but hey he is not the brightest animal in the world. ...just as well he gets by on his looks. Long story short... small cat running around to get away from the pain, stopping to chew on stitches and cry/yelp and run again. It would have been comical if it wasn't so darn frustrating.

I chased him into my daughte's bedroom where he was hiding under the bed and got down on the floor to drag him out from under the bed. That's when my troubles escalated. I got stuck. Yep stuck on the floor, unable to get up, with a distressed, crying cat in my arms.

I need to back up a little here and say that I smashed my right knee cap in an accident some years ago and since I am too young for a knee replacement I have to manage as best I can until it gets unbearable. This morning seemed pretty unbearable to me! I did eventually manage to get up but had to let the cat go and naturally he did his bite-stitches-cry-and-run-around-like-a-mad-animal thing again.

SIGH

You may laugh. It wan't so funny when I was stuck on the floor with visions of needing to be rescued, but now I am slightly amused.

As if that wasn't enough animal trouble for one day...

This afternoon I was allowing the cats some supervised play time outside, packing up my sold beads and throwing the ball for our insane Labrador to keep retrieving when a large frill-necked lizzard happened to wander into the middle of the yard. Lizzard are you trying to get killed?!!! There are two cats and a dog here!

Yep you guessed it. All three animaals were in for a go. charlie cat surprisingly gave up quickly and sat watching as Buddy took over with the lizzard. Buddy the Lab ignored all my yelling to leaving the lizzard alone and I was trying in vain to catch and haul away a 40kg dog that didn't want ot be caught or hauled away!

Now this was a VERY LARGE frilly. It was about 70-80cm long with about 40-50cm of tail and 5cm long clawed toes. It was the biggest one I had ever seen. Seems living next to a creek and nature reserve means living with plenty of wildlife. I like wildlife. I don't like having to take wildlife to the vet to be euthanised due to my animals attacking them. see this post for that story.

Now anyone who knows a bit about lizzards, especially frilled ones, may know that they run fast and climb and have big claws. I have seen them run up a person to get away from danger and I sure didn't want to have this monster run up me to get away from my dog! I was trying to catch said dog but keep enough distance from the terrified lizzard so as to not look like a 'safe place'.

Hence one crazy lady running around the yard trying to catch dog and not lizzard. yep laugh as you picture that casue even I must acknowledge that it IS funny... NOW.

I managed to drag and lock up an unwilling dog, catch and house two disappointed cats. That only left the somewhat unhappy lizzard to deal with. Find a nice Loooonnng stick to encourge it to climb the fence and find a better hiding place safe from domestic animals. sigh.

I have had enough animal enduced adrenaline for one day!

Oh and I did think of getting pics of the lizzard for you to see but I was already running late to pick up my daughter from school so left he Lizzy to it.

Pushing through the creative slump

2010-02-08T17:49:00.000+10:00

How do you get through a creative slump?

I have tried various things with mixed results. As I have mentioned, the last few years have been tough and last year was particularly tough. My creative endeavours have helped me to manage stress and to keep somewhat sane through many years. I had found that if I kept something creative happening I could keep most other things in balance. I knew something was wrong when I was no longer feeling creative. I was finding it harder and harder to create and was not getting the sense of pleasre or satisfaction that I used to get.
I would sit at my craft desk and just not have any ideas.

I tried all kinds of things and the one that I had the most success with was to simply push through the slump. I would make myself do a little of something. often after a while I would feel my creative mojo return.

I did find that doing a stocktake of some kind helped. Yep I am a loony to actually like this and find it helpful, but it works for me - mostly. I would tidy my supplies, note what I had, write down possible ways to use them, read my old notes, look over what I had done and work out from my previous notes what I was thinking when last creating and where I was up to. Often that would get the creative juices flowing again.

Another of my tricks is to read creative magazines or books or to read stuff online.

I enjoy many crafty things:
embroidery - I design, stitch and teach silk ribbon embroidery as well as general embroidery
scrapbooking - I am years behind but have been working on albums for each of my kids.
beading / jewellery making - Most of my jewelery is handmade and I get many comments and compliments
card making
sewing
occasional piecing of fabric stuffs loosely called patchwork
and just about any other creative pursuit that I stumble accross...

Last year I did very little craft of any kind. I did an album for my 40th and a couple of little bits of scrapping. I was still teachinng for the first part of the year but had little design inspiration. I didn't touch my beads or cards or sewing machine.

It is time to get creative again. BUT It isn't coming easy. My usual tricks aren't working.

stocktake of a scrapping album

I sat at my beads for quite some time last week, sorting, tidying and hoping for inspiration. I was thinking all throughout and concluded that it was time to let this craft go and promptly took a few pics, made an add for eBay and waited. They have now sold and I will pack them up and post them off. That feels good.

To get back into my embroidery, I signed up for a LARGE project. It is someone else's design and I purchased all of the beautiful silk threads and ribbons for it. I am following the instructions in the book and actually loving stitching again. I am teaching myself new techniques and getting ideas for how I can incorporate it into my designing. Embroidery had become a chore. I want creativity to be a pleasure - not a chore. So it is nice to have that area getting going again and since I am creating but not designing it feels ok.

My designing mojo is still out there somewhere... I don't even feel especially inspired to teach right now.

Last year I went through all my sewing patterns and culled 2/3 of them. The only ones I kept are the basics, the classics. I went through my fabrics and donated most of them too. I have kept my quilting cottons and a few special pieces of fabric. I have found that with the introduction of cheap overseas made clothing in the last 10-15 years it is usually cheaper to buy clothing than to buy fabric, pattern and then add hours of labour. The only clothing worth making now is what can't be easily bought due to fit or specialty items.

Now what to do with my scrapping?

That is my current dilemma. I have hundreds of dollars worth of tools, paper and accessories and am struggling to do much of anything with them. Today I pushed myself to work at it for a few hours. I got two pages done. They are very basic, but they are done. I am pleased to have finished them, but it was a struggle the whole time. I didn't have any of the old thrill. No sense of anything special... and that bothers me.

I will persevere and see what happens over the next little while. Maybe it will jsut take a while...

here are the pages I did today from 2008...

really simple, little/no journalling - that is where inspiration ran out.

How do you get past a crative slump?

Lesson learned

2010-02-07T14:12:00.000+10:00

When it rains here in Queensland it really rains. A short dash from the house to the carport leaves one WET. And I am not talking a few spots of rain on my head and shoulders wet, I mean, where is the dry patch wet?! We have had a drought here for many years and it has now officially ended. We have had our best rain this summer for many years. The farmers are happy because we have had good rain and then good follow up rain with the right interval and again.

We have discovered that our house was built during the drought. There are several places where this is evident now that the drought has broken. One that seems minor at first is our carport. It is a free-standing structure about four metres from the house with open sides and garden on two sides. There is no chanel or drain between the garden and the carport. When it rains, the water runs off the gardens and straight through the carport and anything on the floor of the carport gets wet. This hasn't been a problem until recently since we only had the occasional shower.

It rained last night. really rained.

Late last week my sister gave me a tall boy which needed minor repairs to give to our daughter and her fiancee who is a cabinet maker. They are preparing to marry and collecting things to start their married lives. A 'free' tall boy which only needs minor repairs is quite useful. Sadly I had put it in the carport until 'The Man' could collect it today. Now it is only good for the scrap heap.

Cappilary action at work.

All this damage was just one downpour!

What I thought was a pine chest turned out to be pine veneer; thin pieces of pine over MDF. The only real wood in it is the drawer fronts and sides and cover strip on the top and bottom.

Any suggestions for what I can do with six pine drawer fronts?

18th Glass

2010-02-06T11:34:00.001+10:00

A few days ago I posted about the 18th party and the celebration wine glass that teen1 wanted to give her friend. We compromised between spending a small fortune for one at the gift shop and making our own.

Here is the result...

Personalised 18th Glass - mini cooper, name, date.

Total Cost = $8.95

Glass $1 at Op Shop

Set of Glass Paints $7.95 at Riot Art - lots more paint left for next time.

comparison - Impersonal 18th Wine glass from gift shop $18

Teen1 painted the gllass for her friend and it looks FAB. She had lots of fun and is really happy with the result but learned a lesson for next time - use masking tape to get a straight line.

Next was to present it so that it looked professional and not home-made or tacky.

Shoe box painted black, big silver bow, scrunched tissue paper and glitter.

Cost negligable as we had all the materials, the bow was bought on sale after Christmas set of three for $1.40; tiue paper used two pieces from a pack of 5 for $1. total cost for presentation - 75cents. hmm that's less than a sheet of wrapping paper at $1.

I am going to link this post - never done this before so here goes...
Linking to to frugalicious friday.

Now

2010-02-05T14:30:00.000+10:00

This morning, whilst I was procrastinating, I was reading a few blogs and came across this one. check it out, I especially liked her cupcakes.

I really liked her blogging idea and so am shamelessly copying it.

I am...

enjoying a chat to a friend on the phone - good distraction from lesser tasks.
writing this blog - well duh
nursing my sore arm after the blood test that I had this morning - the reason that I was procrasinating earlier
patting myself on the back for finally going and getting the blood test done - I put it off for several weeks.
celebrating that the pathologist only had to stab me twice this time to get blood out of this stone
keeping an eye on teen 2 and encouraging/nagging (sigh) as she works through her tasks
washing some towels
making yet another specialist appointment
helping teen 2 to assemble her keyboard stand
trying to keep a small flexible cat from chewing on the sore end of his tail despite his bucket-head
making a vet appt to remove sutures
wondering what to do about the car air-con that died yesterday in the middle of a QLD summer, bummer. These things never happen in cooler weather
reading a few more blog entries whilst I procrastinate a little more.
wanting to do something fun...
making a shopping list - nope not fun
still wanting to do something fun
happily anticipating the weekend with teen3 home again
sorting and putting washing away... does this sound as dull to you as it is to me?
getting ready to go out and pick up a few essentials.
fending off a telemarketer - what gives???
wondering how to decorate this patch of wall in my bedroom (spotted it when putting washing away)

contemplating how to get this tall boy out of my car? it would have been a good idea to do it this morning before the blood test.

smiling at the masses of small purple flowers in my front garden... gotta love reward for little effort

yep that's my day. Just another day in paradise. Let's hope yours is more interesting.

2010-02-04T18:20:00.000+10:00

The origins of this story begin several years ago when i visited my mum to give her a hand to sort and de-clutter her kitchen. I gotta put this in context...

My lovely mum is the BEST hoarder one could hope to meet, she even eclipses my darling hubby. My parents had a large family and a large home. Once we had all grown and left home they continued to hold onto all the stuff needed for a large family, as well as gaining bits from their own parents after they had died. Are you getting the picture?

Mum's kitchen was BIG and FULL. Mum and I spent several days sorting her kitchen in preparation for selling their home and moving to a smaller home in their retirement. We filled many boxes for charity as well as making phone calls to siblings to ask if they would like such and such piece... there were a even couple of times I near begged one of them to take soomething so mum would let it go. I suggested that if they really didnt need, love or want it they could eventually thrift it themselves and so they agreed to 'assist' in the reduction of STUFF in mum's kitchen. Of course quite a few things came to my home too. And that is where the story begins... Of course, I have kept the pieces that I LOVE and re-homed the rest.

I love fine glass ware and china. the kind that is lovely to use and breadks easily. Mum gave me the remaining four wine glasses out of a set which were an engagment gift to her nearly 40 years earlier. Unlike my mum I use the pieces I have and love and that means that breakagaes occur. Mum had the set for over 30 years and only broke two, I have had it for about five years and also brok two. Now I have a set of two lovley fine wine glasses.

At the thrift shop yesterday I spotted two more matching glasses to the two I have at home for only $2 each. Oh happy day! Well naturally they had to come home with me...

I have just taken over 50 pics of one of the old and one of the new-to-me glasses to show the difference/similarity. Man is it hard to photograph detail on glass! Below are my two best resullts.

What I wanted to show you was the subtle differences in shape and etching. I hope you can pic it. But if you can't that's OK too. ;) I am hoping that the difference will be not so noticable on the table with a nice drop and company.

well I am not doing very well at No-Spending for February. Perhaps that is why I haven't entered the challenge before... Not counting household expences, so far I have spent:
$5 on beading class - tuesday social outing. My excuse is my sanity (what little I still have)
$4 on the glasses - nice but not essential.
$8 on glass paints - could justify it as saving money since we did have to get a birthday gift... (yeah I know good try Dee)
$33 on scrapping papers - no good excuse here, what can I say, they were there on special and I was there too. Yep not too good at this no spending thing.
$4.50 on coffee - now I could argue that this WAS essential...

so there you have my confessions. Does it help any if I list all the things that I resisted buying???