I blinked and 2010 was gone...

Since it is the last day of 2010, and most people seem to be doing the whole best-of-blah in 2010 lists, I thought it would be a great opportunity not to do one. To be honest I get a bit tiered of the retrospective thin that happens around this time of year, I much prefer the Nostradamus approach and make a whole heap of resolutions. The only thing guaranteed with this, is that most likely I won't actually achieve any of them but will have a great time thinking them up. As Jack so often tells me through his pet telepathy, if its itchy- scratch it (even if its the middle of the night and you wake everyone up with your coffee percolator impression). I won't share all my plans for the new year, since then I would feel obliged to actually do them. Instead I will share this one, I am intending to write more. I have been inspired by NaBloPoMo, and in the spirit of things will attempt to write something everyday. Apparently if you want to be a writer, you have to write stuff. Can you believe it?

Happy Chrismas Public Holiday

I have been a bit neglectful of my blog lately. I would like to claim that I was busily creating fabulous Christmas things to send out to everyone, but I completely underestimated the time it takes to make most of the things I envisioned making. So, I have quite a few half finished things and its already the 28th. As a consolation, I will start posting tutorials in the new year on my dismal attempt at a handmade Christmas...
.
I must admit that my slackness is in part down to good ol procrastination, a skill I refined down to pure art while studying. I have been keeping busy doing a bit of sewing. After making the bird cage cover, I had some left over fabric that I thought would make a good dress. I thought I would have a second go at the shirred dress previously attempted that had disastrous results. The good news is the end result actually looks like a dress, the bad news is it would only fit a 7 year old. Hurrumph! So at some point I am going to attempt a third try, hopefully ending up with a dress that both looks like a dress and fits.

For Christmas we got the first proper rain of the wet season and it rained and stormed for hours. I tried to video the impressiveness of it all, but it doesn't quite translate too well. How frustrating that when you try to take a photo of an amazing sunset or video rain pouring down, it ends up disappointingly puny. Of course the thunder was always off cue no matter how often I tried to include it, and don't get me started with the lightning. The old show biz tip of never work with children or inclement weather certainly is true (wild animals on the other hand were no problem, photo above). Ah well, video attached of boring rain if you're interested...

.
.

Time is running out!!!

It was with great optimism when I sat down to start writing out Christmas cards so they have some chance of making it to their destination before Australia Day, only to find its last days for online shopping. Damn! How did that happen so quickly? Oh yeah, its the 15th already.

.

I have to say that online shopping is no substitute for the real thing, with the small joy of not stepping in spilt sticky stuff on the floor or having numerous children (and sometimes their parents) walking into me whilst wandering around looking in the direction they just came. I don't really understand this, and I might add its not just at Christmas either. I am not so short that its hard to see me, especially when I am wearing my work clothes with reflective strips. All I can say is a steel cap work boot beats a rubber thong any day, mwah ha ha ha! (that's an evil laugh by the way).

.

In the meantime, we are getting into the Christmas spirit. I was thinking of getting Jack a tennis ball for Christmas, but he already has everything...

Christmas procrastintion

The past few weeks seem to have flown by. Last time I looked it was September! I am starting to despair that I won't get all my Christmas pressies finished before July next year. As cards start to arrive I am starting to have the panicky realisation that I had almost forgotten about sending them on time this year (last year I promised myself that not only would I send out cards on time, but I would even make them! Ha, I bought a box of them today).

Then in true procrastinating fashion, I made a cover for the budgie cage rather than write out Christmas cards. I was pretty pleased with the end result and it seems to work in keeping all the husks in the slidy tray. That's one task out of the way that I have been intending on doing for the last year and a half. Now, back to the Christmas presents...

Secret Christmas business

I am a bit late in posting this, since I planned to post something on Sunday. I got all caught up with making Christmas presents that I lost track of time and had to walk Jack in the dark. This is always awful since the mozzies are horrendous and I always end up looking like I have some sort of horrible tropical skin disease with the huge number of bites I get (and yes I do use aeroguard- which is its own horror after I found it had leaked and melted the plastic bucket I keep it in).
.
Anyway, the point is that although I would really love to post a picture and share my latest crafty endeavour- I can't because it will ruin the surprise for pretty much all my friends and family. So I will wait until after Christmas before I post the pictures. I am thinking I will do my first ever tutorial on how to make these really great... items (am I hyping it too much?).
.
In the meantime I thought I would share this great recipe for bircher muesli. I don't know what is going on with photos in blogger since they keep coming up sideways. I figure it looks much the same sideways as it does the right way around so I am not going to bother trying to fix it.
.
Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats (I use the quick cook stuff)
• 200mL apple juice
• 1 green apple, peeled and grated
• 2 big desert spoons of greek yoghurt
• 1 small handfull each of hazlenuts, pistachio and wall nuts- chopped (or any combination of nuts you like, just make sure they are unsalted)
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar (if you like it sweet)
• Honey

Method
The night before; pour the rolled oats into a bowl and soak it in the apple juice
The next morning; mix the grated apple and yoghurt into the oat mixture and pour into two bowls. Sprinkle the nuts, sugar and honey over the top and serve immediately.

The ugliest skirt in the whole world II

A while ago my work changed uniforms because the colours were wrong. I ended up with a heap of ugly work shirts and thought I would make something out of them since I was never going to wear the shirts again (I was told they are great to wear to the disco because of the reflective stripes, but I don't think thats the look I am going for). I was thinking of making a bag out of them, but after a troubled week looking for a skirt to wear after work, I thought I would have another go at making a knee length skirt out of my work clothes.

.

I chopped the green bit off the bottom of the shirt and removed the reflective strip. I cut off all the bits that weren't a skirt and stitched it together. Viola! Ugly skirt take 2. For about 5 seconds I pondered stitching it back on along the hem so it could be a disco skirt, but it is already ugly enough.

.

.

I didn't use any patterns or anything, I just made it up as I went. I even re-used the buttons to make up the waist band- a complete accident that worked out quite well. The whole thing will be a lot easier and less stabby when I am able to construct my own dress form out of old newspapers and duct tape. I'll be waiting for the Chrismas holidays for that though, since I don't know anyone here well enough to ask them to wrap my up in gladwrap and sticky tape...

My kingdom for a plot

Its 7pm, I am tired and just want to eat chips in front of the tv. Why did I start this NaNoWriMo? Why is it that I can only ever seem to write the beginning of the story and not the middle or the end? Is it really only the third day? Argh! My plot has abandoned me.....

Later that evening...

Its 8.30 pm and I have somehow managed to get the wordcount goal of 1667 words done for the day. Not only that but it only took 58 minutes, and I was stuffing about updating my ipod at the same time. Ahhh, smug mode :-D

Puns with buns

The weekend was an almost-got-it-right weekend. I tried to make some bread rolls, unlike last time I tried this I actually got the dough to rise. However, I baked them too hot and ended up with little bullets of something that is hard on the outside and squashy on the inside (I was thinking a knight, but that's a little bit tasteless). So I tried to convince the dog to eat them and he gave me that unimpressed look he gives me whenever I try to get him to eat something strange and slightly inedible, like tomato or small pebbles. He looked at it then started scratching his bum (I was going to say buns, but it was a terrible pun). He is a hard food critic but honest. Next weekend I'll try baking them at a lower temperature.

.

So I moved on to my quilt project I started last weekend. I learnt that although polar fleece is cheap, it is hard to sew straight. It moves around, a lot, while you are trying to stitch it. As you can see from my wonky block, its not all that straight. I figure I'll cut the wonky bits off later. I am kind of out of the instructions and into the wild making it up as I go territory. I am sure it will all work out fine.

.

Being impatient I have put the twirly blocks (as I call them) with the ducky blocks to try to get an idea of how great it will be when I make another 11 twirly blocks. I am sure quilters must do this all the time in order to admire the work in progress... or perhaps they don't procrastinate like I do. Anyway, here is my procrastination, it is starting to look like the picture in the magazine...

..

.

I also wanted to mention that as it is November 1st, I have started my first unofficial attempt at NaNoWriMo. I am also pleased to be able to smugly announce that I have achieved the daily word count goal of 1,667 words a day. Not bad, and I even have a plot planned this time. They say that's important in a novel. And, I won't even post the crap I write here so you don't have to be subjected to my terrible story writing. How lucky!

Something to do with IKEA throw rugs

A while ago I bought a patchwork magazine and wanted to make just about everything in it. Once of my favourites is this quilt called 'Just Ducky' (if you are interested, you can buy the pattern from designer Bonnie Sullivan). I am not sure why the picture is coming up sideways, but if you tilt your head you can see what I am attempting to make out of my cheap IKEA polar fleece throw rugs.

.

Although this blanket is supposed to be made out of woolen fabric, I thought polar fleece would make an okay substitute. Its also cheep enough that I won't be too upset if I completely muck it up.
.

This is the first time I have attempted applique, but it seems to be working out okay. All that time procrastinating by reading patchwork magazines seems to have paid off. So after cutting out all the shapes, I now almost have the first six of the ducks...

.

.

There was a surprising amount of off cuts- which found their way to the dog to play dress-ups in...

.

Word in the trees is...

News of the shredded wheat appears to have spread throughout the bird world. I wasn't sure why the little green bird had shown up since the biscuits aren't really suited to a little bird with a small pointy beak...




And this is why you should eat with your mouth closed...

Banana pants

I prefer to think I am getting old rather than acclimatising to the heat up here. I have begrudgingly given up and bought myself a pair of slippers to wear around the house on the cold floor. It is a chilly 21 degrees inside! I had planned on crocheting a pair of slippers, but I just couldn't wait that long, and besides I was having troubles getting two the same. So, going along with my decent into old age, I have even taken to wearing pyjamas. The horror!

A little while ago I bought some pyjama pants online and paid a small fortune (which I have later found is about right for adults pyjamas). Shortly after sleeping in them, they have turned themselves into a twisty licorice all-sort and started to fall apart. So,I finally got up the nerve and cut into one of the pieces of fabric I brought back with me from Sydney. Today I made (and finished) the first ever piece of clothing that I will probably be able to wear- Pyjama Pants!

TaDA!

I am quite proud of my sewing attempt. And because they are for sleeping in, I don't have to worry about anyone commenting on my lack of sewing skills (see the worlds ugliest skirt if you don't believe me). There was a scary moment there when I had to do some button holes (elastic is a little bit beyond me at the moment). Luckily with some phone support from my Nanna, I was whizzing up buttonholes all over a scrap piece of fabric. Too bad they weren't as good on the actual pants.

.

Anyway, I am off to pack up my mess (not as bad as the crape incident) and bake some banana bread for the week...

Grannys and broomsticks

It was going to happen sooner or later- the photo post. I figure it makes up for the last post that I couldn't load anything on, thanks to the clouds interfering with the internet... he he he

This is my sample of broomstick lace. I wish crochet would show up on photos properly. It looks a lot better in real life than it does here. You can even see my thrifty metal pole that I used to make the big loopy bits...

This is the doomed granny square. I realised that the last 8 rows were smaller than the rest and it was probably caused by having one stitch instead of two between the little squares. So, through great big wobbly tears, I undid approximately 200m of crochet or around eight hours of work. I am now re-crocheting it with the one extra stitch. Why? Because I am a half-arsed perfectionist* and knew it would drive me mad every time I look at it. I have already re-done two and a half rows, and I am optimistic in getting the five and a half remaining rows done in the next few days...
.

.

*the half-arsedness is due to not taking the time to get the proper yarn and hooks for this little project- the perfectionist bit is due to wanting every 2mm square to be perfectly spaced and even

Broomsticks and the art of being thrifty

The optimism of Friday was squashed by Sunday evening after the sewing machine never made it out of its cupboard. I did manage to try out a bit of broomstick lace after finding this handy tutorial while randomly bouncing around on youtube (Its just of a lady showing how to do broomstick lace nothing weird or scary or anything*).

This was all a bit exciting and I had to give it a go, although my broom is one of the modern ones with a hook on the end that would make the whole thing a bit nightmare-ish. I did find a metal pipe up the back of one of the cupboards. I think it was left here by the previous tenants, although I am not sure what it is for. Perhaps it was an alarm system where if left balanced precariously on the door handle it would make a hideous noise when it falls onto the tiles if anyone was to try to open the door. It would probably make a noise if someone walked past and coughed. Anyway whatever its original purpose, it makes a great 'really big knitting needle' and I was being thrifty and using the materials I had at hand. So using a fairly large pipe and a crochet hook, I was able to make up a sample of broomstick lace. I would put a photo of it here but the wireless internet here seems to be struggling, so I will have to post it some other time.

*This might seem like a strange comment, but I recently came across a story of a lady whose son was scared out of his mind after watching something benign, possibly something about elmo, on youtube that turned out to have a ghost jump out and scream or something. Apparently people do that for some reason, most likely because they are weird little people that think its funny to glue coins to the footpath and similar pranks...

Optimism before the fall

How exciting Friday afternoons are! I love the possibilities of the weekend more than actually doing those things. While in Sydney I bought some fabric and now have a whole heap of possibilities ahead of me. I am thinking of having another go at making the shirred dress I tried a little while ago. It ended up turning into a pile of crape that left little bits of ant sized crape everywhere. Despite this, I am feeling very optimistic about it all and have three lots of fabric to massacre. I am sure out of 6m of fabric I can make one little 'ol dress...

Dogs, budgies and pansies

I am back after having a week in Sydney and now know what happens when you do in a week what you normally do in two. You rush about, fail to comprehend small simple instructions (such as don't forget your jumper), and fall asleep at inconvenient moments (such as at the dinner table- how lucky no one served us soup! There was lots of cheese around, which is mercifully bouncy).

I did get a moment to envy the southern gardens with plants I can't grow up here. I cant wait to move somewhere where I can grow pansies, lavender, jonquils, pot plants that aren't hurled around the veranda by cranky cockatoos looking for shredded wheat biscuits... Although most of the excitement happened at home.
.
Little Jack got into something that gave him that warm happy smiley feeling some sort of drug gives. I am not sure what he ate, but he ended up so spaced out that I thought he had a head injury and took him to the vet babbling about possible senility and the hope he wouldn't become incontinent in the unit with my white rug...

.

Of course Jack wasn't finished, before I picked him up he got into a fight with another dog and ended up back at the vet. He doesn't seem bothered by it and appears to be slightly proud of his new scabs that give him something to chew on. As if the chocolate-chip biscuits aren't enough!
.
Now I have to go and walk the dog before it rains and hope the budgies emerge from their travel cage before I am forced to shake them out...

Percy the Pigeon

I was handed this stunned pigeon yesterday and it was quickly named Percy. The poor birdy had flown into a wall or something and was knocked silly. I did the right thing and took it to the vet to get looked after properly, even though I wanted to take it home and feed it shredded wheat biscuits. As it turned out Percy wasn't a pigeon but a dove. In all likelihood Percy is probably a Petunia (I'm not sure what the female derivative is- Percina perhaps), after all I have a male budgie called Penny and learnt to ride on a mare called Albert...

The lion, the giraffe and the sheep

After surprising myself yesterday with how little I had actually done on the cross stitch, I sat down with an audio book and finished off the train engine. I am really happy with it, and I am sure it will look even better once I get around to doing the back stitch on it. For the moment all the cross stitches are done and I am now onto the caboose. It is oddly filled with a sheep and a cow that are both the same size and are happily travelling along next to a lion. Its vaguely biblical in a way.

A giraffe without a nose

I was slightly disappointed by my efforts at the water bottle holder after it stretched out of shape and became some sort of medieval torture implement. I also want to find something that isn't basically a granny square, and found Crochet Pattern Central. I got all excited at the possibilities of all those patterns, I ended up slightly dizzy and had to go and have a lie down. I am still going through them and when I finally decide on one I will be sure to post something about it.

.
I also had a half hearted attempt at the cross stitch sampler and was fairly pleased by almost finishing off the previously headless giraffe and half a duck. Actually, now I look at it, I haven't really done all that much more to it. The giraffe still hasn't got a nose. I guess this is what happens when you watch a movie while cross stitching...

Cocky wanna bikit?

What do you do with shredded wheat biscuits? Feed them to the local wildlife! These two showed up this afternoon and had a great time munching on a couple of biscuits.. and pecking each other. The one closest to the camera even stepped on the other one to get to the biscuit. I guess a shredded wheat is like a tim tam to a bird. I was going to get them a cup of water to dunk the biscuits in, but then thought that was going a little too far.

.

Jack got jealous and had some biscuits too... and of course the budgies, Luke and myself. I think Jack and the cockys liked them the most out of all of us.

.

They flew off a little closer to the ground as well.

Stretchy bottle holder

After a couple of weeks of crocheting a an enormous granny square that only got to about 30cm square I got bored and ended up on Ravelry. I found this crochet bottle holder and thought it was a great idea, so I made one.

.

I learnt a very important fact about crochet. It is really very stretchy. The handle is now twice as long as it was intended and bangs me in the knees when I walk.

Stuck in the mud

Its hard to believe a whole month has gone by already. I really should pay more attention. I was convinced it was Wednesday today and was really pleased when I found out it was Thursday. Still, its better than Tuesday when I was convinced it was Saturday and was horribly depressed all the way to work.

I have been busy crocheting away and now my crochet square is getting close to 20cm square. Not bad for thin crochet cotton and a teeny tiny hook. I am still not sure what it is, but will keep going until I get bored with it and pack it away with my enormous scarf that I never finished. I would put up a picture but it is just like the one from two posts ago only slightly bigger. Although I have to say I was pretty pleased to find out that you are allowed crochet hooks and knitting needles on domestic flights again, so I was crocheting all the way from Darwin to Brisbane. Its quite surreal to crochet in the early hours of the morning.

The other bit of news is that Jack and I have been biking along the trails behind the town. I have only run over him twice, and each time I told him to get out of the way so its his own fault. Poor Jack has never really been taken out with a bike so it was all a bit scary, what with all the spokes and tyres and everything. I am sure I must look like a crazy lady riding around the place yelling at Jack to get out of the way and not to sit in the mud.

One whole year

One year ago today I started the job I am in now. Its hard to believe it has already been a whole year, so I treated myself to a pie and a milkshake. Its not exactly the traditional paper present given on a first anniversary (although that may only apply to wedding anniversaries), but I did come across a great paper cutting blog which kind of makes up for it... Scherenschnitte. Here is a small sample... Nice huh?

A teddy bear driving a train? Thats unbelievable!

Sometimes the territory is great. This weekend is a long weekend thanks to Monday being Picnic Day. Despite it being meant for actual picnicking at Adelaide River, I like to think of it as being meant for consuming large amounts of picnic bars... or chocolate in general. What a day!

Note: the picture of the chicken doesn't relate to anything, I just liked it, it was a mad chicken... er... I mean rooster.

So on my time off I have dusted off the sampler I started quite a while ago now and have had another go at it. I am rather pleased at getting the train engine done and am now madly stitching away at the teddy bear driver. I wonder if it takes most people this long to do a cross stitch... perhaps it would go quicker if I didn't leave five months between stitching bits of it.

Soraya's Rather Large Granny Square

I thought I should share my latest work in progress. Should I worry about the number of things that are 'in progress' at the moment? I am getting concerned that one day I might get crushed under the weight of all the half finished cross stitch and crochet projects that are stacked precariously around the TV.

I think I am a little mad for starting this one. I got the idea from a post at purl bee for a project called 'Joelle's Giant Granny Square'. The name says it all really, and I thought 'I can crochet a granny square- I can do this and I don't even need to read the instructions'. So I started with crochet cotton and a size B (2.25mm) crochet hook. After a while I thought 'perhaps I should have read the instructions'. But not being one to admit defeat at a poorly thought out crafty project I am soldiering on. My 'giant' granny square is about 15cm at the moment- about 20% of the way to the proportions of Joelle's giant granny square. And while it takes about 30 minutes at the moment just to complete another round of this crazy project I idly ponder over how long it will take to do a round when it gets close to completion... and whether I should invest in another ball of crochet cotton.

I am reminded, while working my way around another row, of a similar craziness I embarked on when I was about 9. I had learnt to knit at school and we were encouraged to take the knitting home to practice. I had managed to weasel a pair of needles from somewhere and had a small ball of probably about 10m of horrible acrylic plum wool. I boldly started knitting convinced that I could knit my horse a woollen rug out of it. In reality the rug had to be 6ft in length and probably about the same in width to successfully cover a moderately sized horse. Needless to say I didn't finish it. If I had tried I probably would have run out of wool first, probably because I only had 10m of it. Things don't really change do they?

Crappy crape

We had a long weekend this weekend thanks to show day. I had a go at making an 'easy' summer dress that I came across on threadbanger. Well it probably is easy but I stupidly used crape because it was cheap. Stupid crape... I took a photo of the mess that resulted but inadvertently deleted it instead of saving it- Crap!

So I took Jack for a walk, because things had reached that stage where it is best to walk away rather than trying to persevere. I remembered being asked about what the town looks like, so I took this photo of a random street. They all pretty much look the same.

Deja vu

Last night I dreamt that I was in a truck and it was rolling slowly forwards. I was trying to stop it but nothing would work and eventually it rolled through the wall of the shed we were in and out towards a steep terraced hill. I kept trying to stop the truck until the last minute when I jumped out as it toppled over the edge of the hill.

I scrambled to the top of the hill and turned to see it was the drill rig I have been working with over the past couple of weeks. I could distinctly hear it crashing down the hill as it fell down each terraced section and I woke up before it hit the bottom. This afternoon I got a phone call from the owner of the drill rig I had been working with to be told it had been dropped while it was being transported. All I could think of was the image from my dream of the truck rolling down the terraced hill...

Crochet Rocks! Man!

I have just gotten back from a holiday in Adelaide for the week, and had a wonderful time roaming around the place munching on cheese and sipping wine. We also were 'forced' to sample quite a few sweets and even went as far as buying a few jars of the nicest ones (I'll post a photo once it arrives, it was too large to take home in my luggage).

.

On getting home and going through my emails after neglecting them for a while I found a fantastic message from my aunt- with a new crochet challenge. Crochet rocks! The picture to the left is from Designsponge, and has inspired me to give it a go. I could use some paperweights to stop all the crap sliding off my desk at work (some people would say to tidy up the desk into neat little piles, I would say those people lack depth and imagination).

.

You can buy them online (actually you can buy a photo of a pile of crochet rocks), but I thought 'piffle, I could make that' and found some great instructions from A Foothill Home Companion. I already have the yarn and a crochet hook, I just have to find a suitable rock... I may have to settle for a lumpy piece of bauxite or a bessa block up here. I don't think we have these lovely smooth beach rocks, although a whole boat did turn up after a storm once. But someone set fire to it and the burnt out husk is still there. I'll have to take Jack for more walks along the beach as part of a rock hunt...

Happy Financial New Year

Its the first of July and everyone in the NT are letting off fireworks and scaring the crap out of every dog for miles around. I was particularly embarrassed when Jack gave a girly sook and leaped into my lap while a small spoodle barely paid it any attention. I have a large red hairy bag of jelly for a dog.

.

Here is a hastily snapped photo of a firework being let off next to my bedroom window. Needless to say Jack didn't know where to squirm, and settled for knocking my feet out under me and scampering off.

.

I was asked about 'firecracker night' and what it was all about. Stupidly I started off by telling them it was Independence Day... Doh! That's a movie (although it does sometimes resemble scenes from this movie), no its Territory Day where an independent NT Government is celebrated. Ironically by blowing stuff up. Brilliant!

.

Remember remember the... arh... 1st of July

James the baby bird

A baby bird fell out of its nest and was handed in to our department at work. It was named James after the guy that found it.

James is totally mad, but then most birds are a bit mental in their own way. I feel a bit odd about the fact a wild bird will purch on my hand but my pet budgies go crazy and flap about the cage when I try to hang out with them.

Now I know how Jack feels when he can't fly around the room with them...

Champagne tomorrow... sigh

Despite being incredibly slack and not posting anything for the better part of the month, I have finally managed to vacuum out the car. It is something I havent done since October last year and it was getting pretty scary in there. Even with the dreaded uni report hanging over my head, procrastination never reached a point where I felt it was incredibly urgent to grab the vacuum cleaner, haul it down two flights of stairs and across the carpark. Eventually I did (last weekend) and now, less than a week later, the mystery gravel has returned. ARGH! Damn mystery gravel!

.

Anyway, I was told yesterday that the dreded uni report passed and I have now finished uni for good. So I was ready to break out the champagne, which has been chilling in the fridge since Janurary in anticipation of this wonderful day, only to find that I may have to go in to work over the weekend thanks to a crisis. So no Champagne for me. Reminds me of a song... champagne tomorrow, champagne yesterday, but never ever champagne today...

.

I also, quite stupidly, left the cable for my camera at work so I can't upload any photos I took during the last couple of weeks while I was in Brisbane. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I was in Brisbane the week before last. On my way there I stopped off in Darwin (its kind of on the way... a bit) to see what my husband looks like and got to see the new machines we recently bought. I was pretty impressed.

.

I will upload some of the photos I took in Brisbane when I get my camera cable back and give a few highlights from my trip.

Hearts (not the squishy kind)

A nice person parked me in this morning, so while I was waiting for them to move their tank of a car I had a go at making a crochet heart (I had an idea to roll it back a little but remembered the scene from Charlie and Boots where they roll a ute down a hill, and though 'perhaps not') . This is a picture of my second attempt and it worked out fairly well. I had been pondering over this for a while, well since I posted a link to it a few days ago. I am really pleased with how it worked out, and now have to see if it was a fluke or if I can do it again...

How to sell your house

Sometimes I really wonder about real estate agents. I am sure there are many people out there who would probably agree. I was looking through one of the real estate websites and came across a place that looked nice... hideously expensive, but nice to look at anyway. Seeing there were about 20 photos of the property for sale, I stupidly thought they would be of the property. How silly! One was, the rest were of tree bark, reflections on a puddle, a bird perched on a railing and flowers in the garden. The one on the left is just an example of someones amateur photography portfolio being disguised as a means of selling a house.

Now don't get me wrong, I am sure they were lovely photos. But really are they trying to sell a house or do they have delusions of being discovered as an amateur nature photographer?

Surely they teach young undergraduate real estate agents in real estate agent school that people buying a house want to see the house, not blades of grass with stick insects. Clearly that is where I went wrong when we bought our house, I was looking at the house and thinking of what work needed to be done and whether it was worth buying. I never once stopped to consider the possible angles I could take of the top edge of the fence with an interesting cloud formation in the background.

The ugliest skirt in the world

It seems without uni to give me cause to procrastinate, I have no motivation to do all the little things I previously found necessary to do. So, I am a little late in posting this...

I call it the ugliest skirt in the whole world. Although to be fair they are made out of some fairly ugly work pants, so they didn't really have a chance. Whats that saying... you can't make a silk skirt out of a crappy pair of drill work pants?

Twinkle little star

I did it! It took a couple of goes but I crocheted a granny star. And it even looks like the picture in the magazine. Now to bravely attempt changing wool colours, something I have always avoided for some reason... If anyone has any words of encouragement it would be appreciated. Its a bit like jumping off the high dive for the first time when you were a kid. I am sure its not that hard, but I always end up chickening out in the end...

Crochet crazyness

I have finally submitted my report for uni. So now I am free to do whatever I like without feeling guilty about not doing my uni work. This is great, and I have gone completely crochet crazy and have made a granny square tower...

.

It seems everywhere I look there is a new crochet challenge. I made a flower last night and although it didn't look like the picture, I am still pretty pleased with it. During my lunch time googling I found some...er... granny hearts?

.

I nearly hyperventilated and fell off my swivel chair- I actually have some red wool that I could try making some of these with! Do you know that is the first time ever I have had something in a 'stash' that I could use for some crafty project that takes my eye? These last few months of manically hoarding fabric, wool and buttons has paid off. Although I am still not entirely sure what I will end up doing with the fabric and buttons...

.

Then I came across these... er... granny stars? The instructions are in this month's notebook magazine. Although if you aren't that keen on spending $6.95 you could always go to YouTube and get a free video that shows you how to do it (mmm.... monkey see, monkey do...).

.

Awesome Sunday

I came across the Book of Awesome while doing a little bit of lunchtime googling. So I was thrilled when I had my own awesome moment this morning- I thought it was monday and was about to haul myself out of bed when I realised it was actually Sunday and I could sleep for as long as I liked- Awesome!

Happy Mother's Day

I can finally post this since it is Mother's Day and mum would have recieved it by now. I spent a couple of evenings in front of the telly stitching this up for her. If anyone is interested in the pattern, you can download it for free from Gazette 94. Its a French blog, but can be translated into English, and there are heaps of free cross stitch designs available.

Happy Mother's Day mum

Almost there...

I only have three more sections to write for my uni report and am so excited that it is nearly finished. And I have only procrastinated a little bit! Yay!

While procrastinating I came across the Dunning and Kruger Effect. Which is pretty much a theory that incompetent people have no idea how incompetent they are, so they believe they are more competent than they really are. The other side of this is that competent people know how competent they are, so they know how much they still have to learn and so are not as full of them selves as incompetent people are. I hope that makes sense.

.

Anyway, I thought it fit well with the New Scientist story from a couple of months ago that basically said that people who are competent at their job are promoted to positions where they are perhaps not suited/traind for. They will continue to be promoted until they reach a point where they are completely incompetent at their job and no longer progress.

.

Or, from what I have observed call numerous meetings and form many committees to discuss the progress of a project, which in fact delays progress, at which point the committees then have another item to discuss- why there is no progress. I have had the misfortune to be part of some of these meetings and find them completely bewildering. I can only guess that this is how it is for everyone but no one has the guts to say that none of it makes sense. That would be admitting your own incompetence...

She just went mental

What a relief it is Friday. Today was one of those days that people just went mental. I spoke to one lady on the phone and the attached scene from the IT Crowd immediately sprang to mind. All I could think of was Roy saying 'he just went mental', although in my case it was slightly altered to 'she'. Perhaps I expect too much for people not to completely over-react to everything.

Think winner

I have finally made some progress on my uni report and I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was feeling so happy with what I have achieved I wanted to include a picture that shows just how great I feel about getting a big chunk of my report out of the way. So I googled 'champion' to see if I could find some inspiring picture, possibly of someone winning a race or something. What I did find was this champion lamb...

Unfortunately the poor thing is having its head twisted off by its owner. Perhaps winning isn't always enough...