Resisting temptation

I'm almost there with my spring clean. I'm down to our bedroom, bathroom and the cupboard under the stairs.
With our bedroom and especially my wardrobe, I'm determined to be ruthless. Have kept so many items for sentimental reasons but I need to purge.
Will keep my wedding dress and some classics but have to purge the rest. I did promise myself to buy a few new things this coming spring to update my wardrobe and knit for myself which I haven't done for some time now.

Celia has offered me the opportunity to buy some of her items incl her Ashford wheel!
OOOOOO!
I am so TEMPTED!
I purged some of my craft stash including a spinning wheel (gosh can't even call it a stash - more like a cave of wonders) starting some 12 months ago. Just had not enough time to do all the crafts I wanted to pursue. So I prioritised them and spinning was one of the first to go as it was time consuming and I couldn't dedicate any more at that stage to learning the craft.
And I'm sure as I tackle my bedroom I'll find more things that I forgotten I had.

But I can't, SHOULDN'T take on any more new things just yet....eek.

For example -
Here's a pair of Red Satin RAYNE shoes (size 7 - innersole 25.5cm) that I'd forgotten I had. Tried to ebay it but no takers. Wore it once for a wedding. DD's feet area already too big for them. Please post if you are interested.

Behemoth Lunatic???

Things to do at Blogthings

Your Monster Profile

Behemoth Lunatic You Feast On: Peanut Butter You Lurk Around In: The Ocean You Especially Like to Torment: Hippies

What's Your Monster Name?

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Your Theme Song is Beautiful Day by U2

"Sky falls, you feel like It's a beautiful day Don't let it get away" You see the beauty in life, especially in ordinary everyday moments. And if you're feeling down, even that seems a little beautiful too.

What's Your Theme Song?

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You Are a Light Pink Rose

You represent sweetness and grace. Your vibe: Kind and gentle Falling in love with you: is like falling in love with a best friend

What Color Rose Are You?

Interesting!

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Orange County

You're rich, pretty, and living a charmed life. (Or you seriously wish you were.) From Disneyland to Laguna Beach, you're all about living the California dream life. Just make sure to marry rich - so you don't have to work for it!

Where Does Your Inner Californian Belong?

Somebody tell my husband he's supposed to be rich!

Maya's cloche

All done!
I think I'll make this pattern available as a set. Now to knit the set for some photos!
Do you think it goes well with the jacket?

Nice touch Ms Rowling

I'm sure many readers would have had their tissue boxes with them as I did.
Had quite a few suspicions when I reread the 6 books before the release of Deathly Hallows. 3 of the more 'important' ones were true - dreaded them but they were true.
As Fred (or was it George?) who said in the movie...." back to your knitting"
PS Miss you Fred

All Knitting Activity Suspended!

Went to pick up our pre ordered Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this morning. Arrived at our shopping centre before 8am and hurried to the bookstore. All this for Australia's East Coast opening time of 9.01am release of the book!
Glad to say I was number 9 in the queue.
At the last minute, I bought another of us and one more for Maya's mum as she is probably wanting a good read now!
3 HP books!
DS, DD and I are pouring over the pages now with DH teasing DD constantly about telling her the ending (He honestly does not know the ending...c'mon)
A quick dinner tonite, ABSOLUTELY NO KNITTING!

Feeling GOOD!

All this cleaning was really getting to me plus persevering on the baby projects.
I'm 60% done on the homefront and am redoing Maya's little cloche. We saw her yesterday and I've forgotten how little
and precious babies are! My hat was way too big- big overestimation!
I'm also trying to get over this inertia of writing down what I'm doing... I'm always saying that I'll remember what I knitted and how I did it. And of course, I forget a few months down the track...
I can actually see a light at the end of the tunnel!

Even Lions get a brand new set of chompers!

Here's our favourite hand puppet at our dentist!

For little Maya

A cross stitch welcome notice for little Maya.


All done and ready to go!

I had 2 wips on needles thinking that my GF was going to have a boy (one wip was a mini man's cardigan with rolled collar).
When Maya was born, I decided to abandon the other 2 and quickly knit this up. As you can see, I'm hopeless when it comes to sewing up. I love knitting but I hate sewing up!

Retirement...??

Fast forward to July.
Here I am now - almost 4 months into "retirement". My role and area of work was wound down and it seemed a good time to take it as an opportunity for a breather.
I had stacks of things I wanted to accomplish in anticipation of the change. Getting stuck into learning more needlearts like ribbon embroidery, stumpwork, cleaning up the garden and the house (major spring cleaning).
Four months on and ...
I think I've just about finished cleaning downstairs but I still have upstairs to do.
Started on a teeny bit of the garden
Tried quite a few new recipes
Cleaned up computer files and did some backing up (pre disaster backup!)
Knitted for 2 babies
Finished a cross stitch welcome for a new baby (next post)
but mostly, I do have a new vocation...
School 'bus' driver/chaffeur.
The hours during school days go so quickly.
The moment I get back and settle into cleaning, etc, it's time to pick them up again. Public transport in Melbourne isn't the best and DS would be the only one that it would work out for. DD's school and timetable are not 'public transport friendly' in terms of location and times. There are more trains and bus services being implemented so hopefully, we'll see a better 2008.
In the meantime, more spring cleaning to do!

Death of the Formal Lounge and Dining Room

Do you ever use yours?
Over the years, we've found that all our visitors gravitate to the kitchen, meals family and rumpus room. That's where we're all relaxed, chatting and drinking freshly brewed coffee, snacking, kids playing in the rumpus room or outside or watching TV.
Good food, good wine and great company.
The Formal Lounge and Dining Room were untouched and uninhabitated, desolate areas ....
Well, until this year.
With both kids now in secondary school and for some reason that's evolved over time, they both don't use the desks in their respective rooms to work. They just don't do homework in their bedrooms.
At first, DS was the only one working downstairs and he's basically taken over the study.
With DD starting a new school this year, she had begun to stake her territory downstairs too.
I looked at my pristine red mahogany leather lounge suite and formal dining suite and pondered...

Two months ago, we lined the dining table with a surface protecter and a heavy weight upholstery material (on special at the local haberdashery store) and voila, the dining room table is now laden with laptops, screens, books, pens etc.
We've yet to get small bookcases for them but pretty much I now have running shoes, sports bags in my modified mobile kitchen trolley and school bags leaning agst walls in there.
As for the lounge, that's become the music room with 2 guitars, music books and piano. The piano has always been in there but there's no where else in the house where the table (coffee table) and seat (my pristine lounge suite) is the right height for practising the guitar (DS does classical).

I've been told that new house plans nowadays are being to do away with the traditional living areas as well.
Have you changed yours as well?

and another pouch....

for BILLS!
This one has taken a bit of a beating. At first, I had only intended to keep my unpaid bills in due date order in here.
The beauty of knitted things is that it stretches. Ok .. so maybe it won't spring back to its original shape.
I've now got more things cramped in it now - cheque book, to do list and it still fits in my handbag :)

Getting back my knitting mojo

When we got back I was preoccupied with getting my foot back to normal.
Doctor visits, xray and even a CT scan plus many physio visits. Fast forward to 2nd July, it's almost there. There's still some stiffness and aches when the weather gets cold. I've been trying to ease back into wearing heels. Feel ok with 1 to 2 inch heels but not higher than that as yet. Twinges of pain when I put on my winter boots (3 inch heels) and to top it off, I had bought 2 more pairs at Century 21 in NYC before the fall! I can't let that go to waste!
Lost my knitting rhythm too with going back to work, kids back at school.
I needed to kickstart my mojo so I tried knitting a cosmetic pouch for my handbag with scrap wool. This 'new' handbag didn't come with enough compartments and it got to the point where it was like having a lucky dip when I reached into my handbag for something!