Tuesday, September 27, 2011

I'm being overrun with llittle grubs......

I think I have finally found out what is making a mess in my craftroom.  These little grubs just seem to be multiplying.  There is two more ready to hatch but they are sooo cute how can I resist them.  If anyone would like the pattern let me know and I'll try and get it down this weekend.  I really must make a start on the elephants and pigs, but these grubs are so addixtive and quick to do. I might make them a little flower basket each with their own little blankies or would that be spoiling them. 
I had to go into town to sort out my Rates, visit the library to find out what that tree was, have coffee with a friend and go for my walk. I went in the op-shop and found this cute little thing, its a bit battered and seen better days but it fulfils my needs and makes me happy.  Its just perfect for putting a mini jamjar of spiderlings in and she sits on the laundry window sill, I must just remember not to knock her flying when I pull down the blinds at night. 
I also bought a pack of Happy Feet from Natural Therapies, has anyone used them, you stick them on your feet at bedtime and its supposed to draw out all the toxins and impurities from your body and in the morning they are covered in a horrible gunky mess.
It will be interesting to see what happens.  I'll be posting before and after piccies tomorrow so if you are of a squemish disposition I would suggest not looking. 

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Two in one day.....

I didn't notice your previous post Norma. Well Q'land health is terrible.  The surgeons only come up here once a fortnight, Cairns base has huge waiting lists, their A & E is overloaded and there just isn't the doctors to go around. So we up here either have to go private, go to Townsville or grit our teeth and double up on the painkillers till I get seen up here. I don't get it removed till the end of November and thats not a too bad wait time considering, if I lived in Cairns it would be even longer.
I've lost 6kg so far, I've not had any bad pain for a couple of weeks now, in fact I feel so good I feel like fraud.  I'm tempted to go and splurge on a fat laden meal just to see if I get sick again, but the memory of crawling round the floor in pain stops me before I open the fridge.
I hope I'm one of the lucky ones who can go back to eating everything after the op.  Christmas is going to be so hard if not.  The good side being all this weight I am losing.

Blue skies......

Yes the sky really was that blue and those yellow flowers that bright. I wish I knew what they are, there is a stand of these trees growing in front of BigW in Atherton, I've not seen them anywhere else , not very tall and they appear to get their leaves after the flowers fall. They are so bright and cheerful. I'm going to scour the garden centres and the native plant nursery to see if I can get them.

There I was deadheading the petunias and I found this little grub just begging to be picked up for a cuddle, isn't she cute, good to see she had her sunhat on. I've got a couple of orders for pigs and elephants and I fully intended to make a start on them but somehow
this little girl appeared, she doesn't look much like a pig or an elephant, she's a bit lonely so she might have a little sister or brother by tea-time.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Happy Exhaustion.....

I love my grandgirls to bits, we have great fun together, but, boy, when they have gone and I have collasped into my chair at the end of a very busy day do I know what exhaustion is.
We walked round and round the curtain fig tree, talked to foreign tourists - one who complimented me on my beautiful daughters and wouldn't believe I was their granma. We then visited with my niece at her new business, had icy-poles and a play on the park. The girls are now big enough that they don't need lifting onto climbing frames or helped down from the flying fox so granma gets to sit and rest.
A game of bed tennis developed into a very rowdy game of 'lets see who can whack the ball around the room the hardest'.  Bed tennis involves a very tired granny lying on the bed with one or two grandgirls, they at one end and me at the other, we bat a very soft ball to each other, they run around after the ball while granny lies there resting, occassionally batting the ball out of the room, but then it got serious and competitive. When I bought the ball I bought it because it was bigger than a tennis ball and a lot softer, it makes me cringe just thinking of the damage we could have done with a tennis ball.  But we had fun, granma worked up a sweat and the girls got tired.
The highlite of the day was decorating masks. I'd been to the Reject Shop and picked up a load of cheap craft items and a friend had cleared out a lot of her sparkly bits and pieces so we spent the time; when we were not racing around; in decorating the masks, lots of glitter and fairy dust was used - its amazing just how far two little girls can spread that stuff.  We left them drying on the verandah while we went for our walk and visits and when we'd had our rest the girls added more and more glitter and sparklies.  The little one decided to throw her tanty and I could see she was getting tired and it was time to take them home.
We always have to drive past the horse fields to see the horses and count how many there are, how many black ones there are and discuss the merits of horse poo for the roses (their mums dad has horses and they collect the poo for the garden), its one of our little rituals.  I suppose because I only had one set of grandparents that I didn't see very often and my grandmother had  gone by the time i was 8 that I want to create special memories for my g.girls.  I know I remember every single thing we did and the fun we had and I hope they will remember those times as well,  one day all too soon it will be a chore going to grandma's and they will want to be off doing other things so I don't mind the hours of clean up afterwards, the teenage mutant ninja turtles in my bed (Stacey found her uncles old toys in the cupboard) or the aches and pains these aging bones feel for days afterwards.



Its about time I made a start on the day, it looked like it was going to be miserable today, the grey clouds have parted revealing beautiful blue skies, so the garden needs a good watering and I might put some new veggies in the kitchen garden.  I need to finish off some crochet flower garlands and maybe start a new pig.  I got an order for a set of snowdolls, so I need to work out a price for them and the postage and have some me time and coffee with a friend and I'm not going to get all that done by hanging around in blogland. Better dash........

Monday, September 19, 2011

Its hot, and only a few days into spring

Phew, I had my usual walk by the lake, got my daily dose of vitamin D. Its gonna be a hot dry summer I think.  The garden is as dry as a bone, the grass have given up trying to grow and its not been green for a few weeks.  It only seemed minutes ago we were complaining of the constant drizzle and grey skies.  But its cup of tea time now I think, maybe a chai or a Liptons raspberry, cranberry and strawberry herbal infusion. Sounds good, anyone care to join me.........
Aren't the three little pastel coloured cannisters soooo pretty. I picked them up for $5 yesterday at the markets. I love this little corner of the kitchen, unfortunately though the biscuit and cake tins are empty, no cake or biscuits for me till I've parted company with my gall-bladder.

Woohooo......I got on the front cover

Did they get my best side? 

Now behave you two, no throwing snowballs when my back is turned.

I still get excited when I see my designs in print.  A friend phoned me up from town when I was in our local post office, she texted me that my design had made the front cover, I hope the guy who was stood behind didn't get to much of a shock at my happy dance.   I wonder if the snowbear will be in next months edition.  The snowdolls arrived home the day before the magazine came out in the shops, I'd forgotten how cute they were.  They were very excited to see themselves in print as well, luckily the snowbear and the big basket of snowballs didn't come home with them else I'd be in the middle of a snowball fight. .............. and I won the giveaway at Delena's blog.  What a wonderful week I've had, lets hope this new week is just as good.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Thanks Pat

It was you not me that solved the problem, everything is so much easier now.

I think an easy day is called for today,, I'm going to sit on the sofa with a couple of the boxes from yesterday and go through them properly, I'm sure I don't need half the stuff that is in them.  I might make up some crafty baggies for the op-shop - the sort you love to find. Fill of bits of lace and beads and hidden goodies.  I usually donate all my stuff to the animal welfare op-shop, its a small private one and I usually always find a good bargain there and its the one I'm going to volunteer in when I'm back on my feet after my op.

I sat and made more crochet flowers for the garlands last night, I played around a bit with different flowers but have gone back to the first one I did.  I can't get the darker colors in the cotton anymore, theres a magenta and a purple and a darker pink that people want in their garlands, I've just got enough to do two more garlands and then its probably time to change colour schemes. Its only a cheapy cotton but its works up really nice for the flowers, I priced the DMC and another brand and they were 3x's the price of this one.  I love the african flowers doiley above, my friend saw mine and she has been dropping hints she wants something for her birthday with them in.  So I might get the ordered garland finished and then save the rest of the darker yarn for her birthday pressie in October.
I need to go get dressed, make the bed, do a quick vacumm and dust and then settle down for a day of crafting.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Side-tracked yet again...........Vicki wanted embroidered doilies for her hexagon quilt she is making, I have some you can have them I said, Judi wanted spray adhesive - don't buy any I said I have some you can have,  I wanted to to find something, can't think what it was that I was meant to be looking for. But while I was looking for the doilies and the adhesive I'd be bound to come across whatever it was I wanted.  Couldn't find the spray adhesive anywhere, obviously I must have got rid of it.  Doilies all washed and hung out on the line and then I remembered I'd hidden some in a white wicker hamper, so out came the hamper, found some felt bits, decided there and then to make a felt flower brooch, didn't have enough felt, it needed more petals, went in the spare wardrobe, dug out a bag of felt bits (but not the colours I wanted), found some 8 ply apricot coloured crochet cotton - great, just what I needed for a project, found the victorian gold buttons that were on an ancestors wedding dress - great I thought I had lost them, while I was in the wardrobe I might as well get a few boxes out and go through them, found the felt I wanted plus some more so I went and made three flower brooches, then I went back to the wardrobe and found some crochet squares that I was making into a blanket, so I had to arrange them and decided I would finish it off this week, I found the adhesive and the doilies. I looked around the room, oh my, did I make that much mess.  Oops.  So now I am in the process of cleaning everything out.  I never did find or remember what it was I was looking for. 

Monday, September 12, 2011

back to winter again

Brrrrrr.......there was I thinking I could start to put the winter clothes away, how wrong was i. The wind howled through yesterday at the markets, one poor stallholder very nearly became airborne as the wind got under her gazebo. It was amazing watching the leaves flying everywhere everytime a gust came.  You could tell the holiday crowd - they were the ones in t-shirts and shorts. 
I took the dog out for her walk by the lake early this arvy, I'm glad I did because now the sun has disappeared its so cold I'm not venturing out.  Okay, so its around 20C, thats cold for up here and I'm getting old and  sooky.                                                                                                                               Pop on over to my friend Delenas blog and say g'day, she's having a giveaway for new followers - http://serenitynow-del.blogspot.com/.  I hope I get invited to her next years camp out, it looked so much fun.  Loved the comment you left Delena, you can tell what people are thinking when they see what you have made - now theres a woman with too much time on her hands (and thats the polite comment they make).
I'm heading off now to close up the house and get into my fleecys before it gets any cooler.

Hugs

J

Saturday, September 10, 2011

message for Pat

Hi Pat, I wanted to leave a comment on your blog but it wouldn't let me, kept saying i couldn't with my account and had to change it. I don't have another blogger account so don't know whats going on. Please don't think I am ignoring your comments, I appreciate them very much.  Nice to know someone is interested in what I have to say.

Hugs

Jan