Hot

That says it all, really. The South Eastern area of Australia has been extremely hot (5 consecutive days 40C (104F) and above, with the hottest here in Adelaide at 45C (113F) ). We have been lucky here in that we've suffered no power loss (there's been power off in various areas) and so far South Australia hasn't had any majow bushfires. It's not looking good in Victoria with a big bushfire east of Melbourne. It certainly wasn't the ideal weather for the first week back at school. Both kids seem to have settled in fairly well-only 10 weeks to go until Easter and the next school holidays.

We have a new addition to our chookyard. She's been named "Copper" and has coped surprisingly well, considering the heat and new surroundings. The older chook was quite indignant that there was a stranger in her yard, but has adapted. Here's a shot of her on her first foray out of their yard, trying to keep cool on the back veranda.


I've been stitching on the model sampler this week, but took a break to start Dark Cherry which is a HAED QS which is one design that quite a few stitchers are trying to finish by the end of the year. We are getting pages every second month, and there is a monthly SAL. I'm a late starter. and won't post a picture yet as I've only done a 100 stitches or so, but it's nice to have a new start.
I'll also be stitching a Christmas Ornament next month-I will wait to see the poll results before making a decision on which one.


Speaking of new projects, here's a picture of my new knitting project. One of Ron's workmate's wife is due to have a baby in the middle of next month, so I'm knitting the cardigan (they know it's a girl) but since I've only cast on, there's no picture of that either.

Before I go, I promised on my craft stash that I wouldn't post Luke's "first day at high school photo", but I didn't promise not to post any other photos. This photo was taken on Australia Day at a local breakfast. I forgot to mention last post that he is now officially taller than me (I'm 5'4") and he takes mens size 10 shoe (Ron takes 8s).

RIP Pecker

.....Pecker being one of our chooks, if you didn't know her. She was put to sleep by the vet after suffering from a virus and complications. She was one of our family for over 4 years, and will be sadly missed (I know she was only a chook but she was a nice chook!). A new addition to keep the remaining chook, Ginger, company is most likely to arrive tomorrow-hopefully the place she will come from will have some tips about integrating a new chook with an old one. The picture provided was one of the few I could find, and was taken and modified by Luke years and years ago for a school project.

Going back a couple of weeks, I celebrated my 40th birthday with a bbq with family. Unfortunately, both my Mum and my brother and his family were unable to attend due to illness, but we still had a lovely day. Here's one of the few photos from the day (artistically shot by my daughter).


I've been getting some crafting done also (tennis and cricket season is ideal for this) and here's some finishes. The advent calendar was finished in 2008 (not the best photo, but I was wanting to pack away Chistmas decorations). The other two were ornaments I started in 2008 but finished this year.

This is "Sing Noel" by Primrose Needleworks from The Gift of Stitching Ornament Issue 2008. I changed the colours somewhat to make them less pastel.

This ornament is called "Christmas Delights" by Cats Whiskers Design Studio and is from The Gift of Stitching Ornament Issue 2007. I used a Needle Neccessities green (#139).
There should be many more ornaments here during the year as I will be trying to stitch an ornament a month-starting next month, so I'm working on finishing up a few I started last year. I will also have a finishing spree, where I plan to actually make these into something.
I've also re-entered into the model stitching world, now that I feel my arm can withstand stitching to a deadline. I'm currently stitching on a mystery sampler for The Gift of Stitching magazine, so I won't have any pictures anytime soon on that.
This week looks ideal for crafting of any kind as the forecast temperatures for the first week back at school are for 41C, cooling down to 39C on Friday-blah! Uniforms are organised, shoes are bought, stationery has arrived (it gets home-delivered and didn't arrive until about 2pm yesterday) and hairs are cut. I just need to label Luke's books and we should be ready..........well except for the early mornings-just as well it will be a short week!

Insert Snappy Post Title Here

I quite often have trouble coming up with post titles, especially when I don't have a specific subject for the post (e.g. when I am summarising weeks/months of activities due to slack posting). I'll copy myself from my last post and give a brief run down of what we've been doing since then.....

• bought that new caravan I mentioned last post.
• attended new parents information sessions for Luke's high school (and he attended his transition day as well).
• spent the day at the cricket (someone at Ron's work was giving away members tickets). Unfortunately Ron couldn't go, but he let me go, so I spent a lovely day by myself.
• participated in and/or attended many end-of-year functions for various sports, school things , brownies and scouts.
• helped set up the school gym for Luke's Yr 7 graduation, which was lovely.
• went to Carols By Candlelight (which was enlivened by lightning -in the distance, thankfully, and a little rain-but it's so dry here, we love rain!).
• organised for Christmas which we spent down at Kingston SE (about 4 hrs away) with my parents and sister.
• enjoyed the weather on Boxing Day by going to a local beach where you can drive onto the beach and swimming and playing beach cricket.
• just recently celebrated the start of the New Year by having a street party with quite a few of our neighbours.
• taken down the decorations and getting the house back into gear in time for a family BBQ that we are having to celebrate my 40th birthday in just over a week's time. And family adds up to somewhere between 30 to 40 people-immediate family.........
• fun things also such as knitting, stitching, sewing, playing on our new Wii, catching up with my knitting buddy Bobbie who is temporarily back in Adelaide.
• my arm seems to be doing well-I just need to not overdo things and keep stretching it.
• Ron's work is going well-the company he worked for went into administration, and since then into liquidation, but he's got a six month contract doing exactly the same job (his old company had the contract for the IT for Santos but he's now working there on contract). Bonus is that contracting is good money, but there is no pay for public holidays, and the six months the contract runs for has most of the year's public holidays. We should find out later this year what's going to happen (either work directly for Santos or another company takes over the IT contract). The guys that are working there should stay there-we'll see what pans out.
• we also have some more uniform shopping to do for Luke (fun for the whole family) as well as shoe shopping (will the fun never end?).

I think that's enough rambling for now - I need to go do some housework, as well as some sorting out in my craft room (guess which I prefer).
Finally, some photos from the Christmas Pageant. I still need to dig up those photos with Ron and his moustache-he has them at work somewhere.