Best Laid Plans Part 2

So......those plans I made yesterday?
Let me go through today's happenings in order. I got up at around 3am to take some Panadol (this is good news as far as I can tell-sore tooth=nerves still alive=better chance for root canal to work). Woke again around 6.30am when Caitlin came in to tell us that the power was off. This was lucky for Ron as this is around the time he gets up for work. Phone call to ETSA (electricity company) that power should be restored around 8am. At around 9.30am we still have no power and recorded message now says that power should be back my 4.30pm....... Take Caitlin to softball practice-do not go food shopping as we have no power. Go home and boil kettle in caravan (gas stove) for coffee-shops down main street (we are in a busy tourist town) are mostly closed, including shop that makes good coffee. Yet another recorded message tells us that we have an underground fault in our area, and the estimated time for power is now 2.15pm. Lunch is sandwiches, and hooray for the caravan stove for my coffee. We receive a phone call from ETSA at around 1pm to say that they are still trying to find where the fault is exactly underground and that generators will start between 1.30-2pm to give us power. At 2.45pm we are back! A quick check of the freezer brings relief that I do not have to have a frantic cook up of all the meat in the freezer (the only thing that seemed affected was a loaf of bread....). Luckily this has happened on a coldish (max 15C) spring day and not in summer. Fast forward through washing, coffee made inside the house, some internet (including booking accommodation for the weekend away), plugging the cordless phone back in, making dinner, dishes, watching Spicks and Specs to around 9pm when..........the power went out. We figured that they had maybe found the fault and had to turn off the generators to "plug" the proper power back in (see my superior understanding of how this all works). My plan to light lots of candles to make the power come back on more quickly (like how if you get something out to read when waiting for the bus it makes the bus turn up earlier) did not actually work for half an hour or so. The photo above is me with my candle, knitting the dalek washcloth.
Looking at my plans for today, I did get most things done except for that food shopping. I did pick up a few more things from the local supermarket but I'll grab some more things on the way back from knitting & library tomorrow afternoon.

I have days where I don't go online, but not being able to go online when you want to feels totally different and really shows you how much it is the first place we go to for information & contact with the world outside your direct neighbourhood.

We have booked a unit/villa (I am not sure of the difference and when booking accommodation was suitably confused) down on the Fleurieu Peninsula for Friday and Saturday nights, so I should only miss blogging on Saturday. We will go for a bush walk, maybe see a whale (or have they left already?), and all manner of things. Now that I have made the booking, the next big question will be............what stitching & knitting will I take? Tune in tomorrow to see the answer!

Best Laid Plans

That's what this picture represents-my best laid plans that didn't happen (yet). My plans today were

• food shopping mostly not done-this will get done tomorrow when Caitlin has softball practice
• washing done for today
• knitting dalek washcloth the picture above shows how far I've got-sunshine in the garden=weeding and such, and then visitors arrived-hopefully I can make a start shortly

Tomorrow, therefore, will include:

• Caitlin to softball practice in morning
  
• food shopping-see above
• more weeding/gardening if weather permits
• some knitting/stitching
• booking somewhere to stay for Fri/Sat night

as well as all the usual.

Round (and round) the garden

I did no actual gardening today, but decided to take the camera out around the garden while it is still green here and take a few snaps. It's been so wet here that our local reservoir is full and they've been letting excess water back into a river (sadly not the Murray). I am sure that when we get some finer/warmer weather everything will dry off, and the wetness and greenness will seem a distant memory.





There's a selection of flowers, including my last dutch iris, my vegie seedlings (Roma tomato, basil, chives) and Copper (a very curious chook who wanted to know what I was doing and did it involve anything edible).

Tomorrow-food shopping, washing (scout camp went well, but as with any camp=washing), knitting a dalek washcloth (Caitlin has a friend from Brownie's that is a big Dr Who fan as well, so this will be part of the gift-pretty sure it will be unique).

Cindy-I wanted to leave a comment on your blog, but it wouldn't accept it. Any ideas what I was doing wrong? I just wanted to say that perhaps rolling hills would look nice on the cardigan( or maybe a fox stalking....or maybe that would traumatise the poor child).

Day 4

So it's day 4 and I've run out of catchy post titles already. Luckily with Blogtoberfest I can use the day number when inspiration fails me.
Sunday summary:

• Daylight saving started-most clocks changed-still need to change mobile phone time
• washing done
• some weeding done
• grand prix watched
• craft photos taken

All in all, a quiet day, but that's how I like my Sundays. The photos are not great-it was either too dark inside, or too glarey outside. First is my progress on The Drawn Thread's "Sampler Gameboard"-stitched with DMC on some natural linen of some kind. This is a long time WIP so most details are sketchy in my mind........


I even took some photos of one of my knitting projects. The colours are not at all accurate-it's a much darker green/purple/blue combination (called Vineyard). It's the "Forest Canopy Shawl" in a hand dyed 8ply wool that I picked up at the local Spinners & Weavers Market Day earlier this year.




Tomorrow is a public holiday here, so Ron has a day off work, and we have nothing particular planned except collecting Luke from his camp.

Shopping Score

We survived shopping. I am not one who looks forward to shopping for the sake of it. I do not say "Let's go shopping!" as a rule, but we needed things. As is usually the way, we found some of what we were looking for, didn't find some of what we were looking for, and even found something we weren't looking for.

The one thing I "found" but didn't even know it existed, is this:



It's a (sideways-thanks to Blogger) ticket to a talk & book signing by one of my favourite authors, Diana Gabaldon, at my local library (sorry that the picture is so dark, but it's laminated, and it's very dark & gloomy here today). It's the only one she's doing in the state-I don't really know why it's going to held there rather than anywhere else, but I'm not complaining. I'm going to be doing some rereading of her books (although I have the first three on audio book so I can craft at the same time) so I will be up-to-date when I get the new book.

Tomorrow is a free day, and hopefully better weather so I can spend some time in the garden, before stitching or knitting whilst watching the Japanese Formula 1 Race. Maybe I'll take some craft photos as well-maybe......

The Whole Tooth

Well, it's been a busy day, but Luke is at scout camp, and I visited the dentist. You need to use your imagination to feel how exhausting arriving at that state can be, but I feel worn out now. The prognosis for my tooth was that a deep filling I had about 5-6 years ago (and I did not know that it was so big or deep) has finally caused the infection (well I think it caused it-I have literature to read-the dentist-thought it was a bad enough experience? -it now comes with homework) or whatever (see above comment for my lack of ability to explain what the dentist told me) which, in a nutshell, means that I can (a) have a root canal, (b) have the tooth extracted or (c) ignore the discomfort until an abcess forms and I am in agony and the nerves die and then have the tooth removed. I am going with option (a) so an appointment with a specialist has been made (for after the school holidays). If anyone has any horror stories regarding root canals, please keep them to yourself. If it's going to be awful, well, it's going to be awful, and I don't need 1 1/2 weeks of worry to add to it. I am happy to be ignorant in this instance. I also need a filling, and that delight will also be after the school holidays-two days before the specialist appointment. Luckily both places have craft shops nearby to bribe distract me after the event. And who knew that there were root canal specialists? (obviously not me) Is there so much variation in root canals that these specialists find it fascinating? I have to say that drilling out root canals day after day would not make me bound out of bed each day-but perhaps I'll change my mind when we get the bill...........

Again, I have no photos of my exciting day (and for that you should thank me!), but trawling through my pictures, I found one that I haven't posted. It's Caitlin's softball team (who won last season). Training has started for the new season, and I think that there's only three or four players from last season in the team (it's under 12s-mixed).



Ron may be playing this year as well-quite a few of the dads of last season's team have joined together with some younger lads who have outgrown the U16's to make up a team. They have yet to find out if there will be a second division for them to play in, or whether they will join the A grade. It should be very interesting and lots of fun.

I am going to do a bit more surfing of the web (does anyone say that anymore?) and then get to bed because we have a day of shopping tomorrow-I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

Blogtoberfest

I have signed up for "Blogtoberfest" - there's a link in the sidebar, but basically it's a commitment to post at least once a day for every day of the month of October. Can I do it? Who knows? The worst that will happen is that I don't. We may be going away for a couple of days at the end of the school holidays, and although I've read blogs where the blogger writes a blog in advance and somehow sets a timer to release the post at a set time, I'm not sure I have the capability with this blog.

We've nearly finished the first week of holidays, and Luke is off tomorrow for a 3 day scout camp in preparation for the Jamboree in January. I took Caitlin & a couple of her friends to the movies on Monday-it was her belated birthday outing. Because her birthday is in the middle of term, there are no new kids movies released, as the new releases are kept for the school holidays. We went to see "Up" which was lovely. I do enjoy the kids movies that have something for the adults too. Saturday we are heading to the "city" to hit the shops. There is much shopping we need to get done-shoes, clothes, knitting, softball mitt, jewellery,......... Poor Luke will miss out-unfortunately for Ron, he will not.

Craft-wise I haven't really stitched or knitted much since the holidays have started-what routine I had seems to have gone out the window. I need to take some pictures of the progress I have made, but because I have nothing to show, and it's night time and therefore a bad time to be taking pictures, I will show a picture of a project I am planning on starting soon. It is quite large (as usual with most of my stitching projects)-"Marriage of the Minds" by The Drawn Thread. The quote comes from a Shakespeare sonnet (and it has featured somewhere in a book I have read sometime in the last year-but I cannot work out which one-I read quite a lot.....).




Speaking of reading, I love my libraries (I belong to two). Caitlin & I have visited both this week, and we have quite a large & varied selection of books, DVDs and audio books now. I have also quite a few books on my hold list, including Sock Innovation or here for a non-Ravelry link.

I had better head to bed-tomorrow's exciting schedule includes: getting a 13yo boy to pack for camp, going to dentist for sore tooth examination (me), and writing another riveting post for the blog-the fun never ends ;)

Some progress at last......

Two posts in a week-who would have thought? I must point out that the picture featured in the last post was the first project in my rotation. It's the Patchwork Sampler by Jan Houtman stitched on 36ct linen with 1 strand of DMC over 2 threads. Here's a picture of the progress after I've finished 5(ish) hours working on it.

I've also included the photo that I took before I started stitching, as I've worked out that the progress is much easier to see that way. I did enjoy working on it, and I also worked out that I want to rechart part of it to remove the "title" and replace that with continuations of the motifs. I don't think that this would be ideal for a focus piece.
Next up was Celtic Autumn which is being stitched on 28ct Jobelan Stitches & Spice "Tundra". This one might be a candidate for a focus piece-I will see how I feel when I've gone through the list. Here's the before & after pics.


This week I also want to get some work done on a couple of Christmas ornament WIPs as well as some knitting.

We have one more week of Term 3 left, and then it's 2 weeks of holidays. In other news, our next door neighbours have put their property up for sale. It's a lovely property with a pool and potential for subdivision, so it has a substantial price tag. They had an "open house" this afternoon and it was interesting to see the cars that prospective buyers drove-Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, BMW......... We will have to wait and see if any of them move in next door.

Hopefully I will be back soon with more progress, and maybe even some knitting pictures.

I have a cunning plan...

Well, I'm working on one, anyhow. The rate I'm posting this year seems to be working out at one per season. Hopefully this become more, but this is not what I am referring to when I mention the plan. It's a stitching rotation. Before I elaborate, I will quickly update family news, so that you can read and move on, if you have no interest in my stitching & knitting.

We survived winter quite well-it was not that cold and quite wet- which was good. Kids continue to grow and do quite well at school. We had our house re roofed and insulated (note-not reinsulated, because we found when we got the bathroom renovated that we had NO insulation whatsoever-just the tin attached to the roof beams!!) which has made a huge improvement in the temperature in the house as well as markedly improving the look of the house. Last month we had the sad news that my Uncle Albie passed away. After a bit of juggling, I hitched a ride with my brother down to the SE and then over to Western Victoria for the funeral. It was a bit surreal at times as it ended up part of the trip with Mum, Dad, me and my brother & sister-just like old times?! It was also a bit strange catching up with other relatives that I haven't seen for 20-25 years. The summer holidays (gasp-so soon?) are starting to come to mind as we will be having Christmas lunch with my family here this year (and also those who don't live in Adelaide will stay with us). Early January Luke will be heading off to Jamboree for 2 weeks, and Ron's parent will take Caitlin on a mini holiday for 1 week of that time. This means that I will be child-free for 1 week of the school summer holidays. I'm not sure what we will do, but Ron & I plan to have a mini trip of our own.

Enough of the chit-chat, now to the stitching. I have recently felt my stitching mojo return-I don't think it has been fully back since I've recovered from my tendonitis in my elbow. Along with this urge to stitch, I have felt the need to get a rotation started. I have used one in the past, with some success, and want to get stuck into some old WIPs as well as a few new projects. I've rummaged amongst the WIPs and charts, and come up with a starting list. For my first run through of the list I will work on each project once, just to see how I feel with each project. I may possibly decide on a focus project (one that is worked on more than once each time through the list) or not-I will decide after the first run through. I may even ditch some projects (not really likely as I looked at all the WIPs and still like them). Because a lot of the projects (all right most of them) are on the large size, and none are close to being finished, I'm introducing a few smaller/simpler projects so that I will get some finishes in the near future. I've still got some Christmas ornaments to get done (have done 2 and have 2 that are partly done) because I will have exchanges later this year, as well as teacher presents, and I want to send off at least one to the Vic. bushfire families. I'm not sure how I will work this into the rotation-maybe one night a week until I'm caught up? For the rotation, I'm going to give the "min 5hrs/max 10 hrs" timing thing a go, and tweak it if need be. My plan is that I will take a picture before I start stitching on a piece, and then post again with the progress.
I am still knitting, and will continue to do so as it is handy when less concentration is needed, but I do find that I knit less in summer. Our local knitting group is still going and a few new people are attending, so at the very least I will knit there each week.
I think I will stop there, before this post just stretches on & on........ Off to stitch for a while is it quiet.

Winter Welcome

I'm not sure if I'm welcoming Winter, or welcoming anybody who might read this in Winter. I quite enjoy Winter- the sound of the rain on the roof (we've had rain!!), the wood fire, the ability to do things without suffering heat-stroke....... One thing I don't enjoy, and that I tend to forget about when I am longing for cooler times in the heat of Summer, is the gloomy grey skies we get here in the Hills. Of course this is usually a prerequisite for rain (which is good), but gloom does not always equal rain.

Now I encounter the dilemma of the blog writer who returns after (let me go check) 3.5 months-do we try to update what has happened in the time elapsed, or do we pretend there was no break and just take up where we are...

Let's see-how about I do a quick summary of things that stand out at the moment

• kids are surviving school quite well
• both keep growing at an alarming rate-I will be the shortest in the family again sooner rather than later
• Caitlin's softball team squeaked into the Grand Final, and then won-she plans to play next season, and the "dads"(including Ron) are planning to make up a Men's B Grade team-should be interesting
• Luke broke his arm playing tennis at school about a week before the school holidays
• this was not ideal as we went to Lake Bonney at Easter, and a lot of the activities he likes to do involve water-we all had a good time nonetheless
• Ron has been hither and thither for work-usually short trips, and just within Australia
• we got our bathroom renovated (I actually forgot about this and had to go back and add it)-more details and pics another post
  

No doubt there has been other happenings, but nothing that comes to mind right now.

I finished the model stitching, and am currently finishing up some more, now that I've got more thread that I needed. Unfortunately with model stitching there are no pictures, but there is stitching happening. I did have a finish-a UFO that was started quite a few years ago-called "Random Thoughts" by The Drawn Thread. Here's a picture.


There has also been knitting-once the cold weather kicks in, the urge to knit warm, woolly things is strong. I had an urge to knit gifts for Mothers Day-a neck warmer for my mum, and fingerless mitts for my mum-in-law. Both were finished on time (although Aust. Post let me down) and appreciated. I'm also working on a jumper for me (back & front done-now on sleeves), a shawl and a baby cardigan (for friends). I need to take some pictures (both for here and Ravelry).

Well, back to winter-need to put some more wood on the fire, check the soup in the slow cooker, and maybe squeeze in a few rows of knitting before I need to get dinner ready.

February Dragon*

It's been about four weeks since I last blogged, and the main reason it's taken so long has been the bushfires in Victoria. Our worst natural disaster, the current death toll is 210 people, and at least 7000 are homeless. Fires are still burning in Victoria weeks later. There are stories of great tragedy and great heroism as well as wonderful generosity which outweigh the stories that might make you despair of the human race. Being too far away to help out in a physical way, we've donated (over $100 million has been raised so far). Just about every school, business and group seem to be raising funds-I've never seen anything like it. There are also various initiatives in the craft/blog world to make handmade things for survivors as well as restash our crafting friends in Victoria. At the same time as the bushfires, around 60% of Queensland was under water. What a country we live in. We've had similar conditions to those in Victoria, but have been lucky so far to avoid any major fires. We've still had no rain (the odd shower) since the middle of December, so it's extremely dry here.

On to other things (briefly)-I've spent the last 4 weeks stitching on the model. It's mostly done-the magazine has it for photography for the next issue (it's being released in parts), and then it will be back to me for a few more days stitching. I'm planning on using the next few days to go through my WIPs (both stitching and knitting) and work out which ones I want to be working on in the near future. Maybe I'll even take some pictures.

To finish, here's a picture of our Easter Lily. This was planted in a garden bed that is basically dirt-no other plants (they had been moved) and consequently hasn't been watered (I think we forgot that there was anything else planted there). A couple of days ago I noticed a shoot, and it's now flowered. Ideal plant for there conditions, really.

* February Dragon is a novel by Sth Australian author Colin Thiele about a bushfire (aka the February Dragon)

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.

Back so soon?

It's only been a week since I was here last - I shock myself!

So-the last week in brief......

• Ron's growing a "mo" for Movember - pics to come soon, but he already has quite a good one already, but there is some grey.


• We sold our Jayco camper trailer (for about only $500 less than we bought it for 7 yrs ago) , but have got our eye on a pop top close by that might be just what we are looking to upgrade to. We're in no rush, so we will see what is around.


• Caitlin was able to miss a softball game to go to the Christmas Pageant so the kids and I (Ron stayed at home to sell our camper) braved the crowds to sit in the rain (well it was only showers, but still...)


• I decided that I deserved a day off so I journeyed to the showgrounds for the Craft Fair. There was very little in the way of knitting or embroidery supplies, but luckily I have also become interested in stitcheries/patchwork/quilting etc. I took a class from the Thimblelady in hand quilting which was fun-I must do some practice soon. I will have to take some pictures of my purchases soon too.

I've finished some stitching on some ornaments-I will need to work out how I want to finish them and get that done so I don't end up with too many to do at once.

Please excuse the oddly cropped pictures-I'm still working on using the software that came with our new printer/scanner. The snowman ,white ornament, and the Peace tree are all from last year's Just CrossStitch Ornament magazine (I actually stitched the snowman earlier in the year, and the white one in Oct). The Sampler Tree (I will look up the proper names for these designs and the designers later and edit the post) was from last year's ornament issue of The Gift of Stitching magazine .

I'm off to the city tomorrow -mainly to meet Ron and look at bathroom tiles and setups (did I mention that we are looking to get our bathroom renovated in the next 6 months?) - but I'm sure I'll get some browsing done too. Maybe even some Christmas shopping-although I have already done some.

I'll have some pictures of the pageant next time-they are still on the camera and I'm not going to go hunting for it now.

Dormant or Extinct?

Long time, no see........... So how do you write a post on a blog when you haven't been near it for 11 months? A blow-by-blow description of each month's events? (supposing, of course, that I can remember what happened) Or perhaps start with what is happening now, and if something occurs to me, or nothing exciting happens (?) I might return to the past. I'm going to go with the latter.

I stopped blogging in December last year when things got hectic (as they do at that time of the year), but did not get going again when I ended up with Tennis Elbow which meant that for some time I was doing little or no crafting or using the computer. I'm not back to 100%, but it is about 90% and I can stitch and knit, but not for unlimited amounts of time, and with lots of stretching.

I've found a few pictures-"Flower Sampler" model that I finished just before Christmas last year, and a couple of ornaments that I finished up recently for our stitching group's yearly exchange with an English stitching group.

And here's some irises from our garden.

I'm feeling the need for a list or two, and maybe a vague plan to organise what craft I want to get done in the next couple of months.........We'll see how long that lasts.

I also have to have a plan of attack for the craft fair that I plan to visit on Sunday. There's nothing worse than wandering about, overwhelmed by all the stalls, desperately trying to remember what you wanted to look at or buy.

I'm off to keep stitching on more Christmas ornaments-I'm really enjoying the quickness of these at the moment.