2nd Bedroom

The 2nd bedroom had a 'lick' of paint put on it when my darling daughter moved home for a while a year or so ago.  I let her pick her colour.  If I remember correctly it was called Pomp and is a very deep strong purple.  I must say that I don't really mind the colour although it is a tad on the strong side and since right now finances don't allow for me to race out and buy more paint I have decided to try and work with it.

I was in Vinnies the other day; I went there with the intention of finding some curtains for the bare windows in the 2nd bedroom that would tie in with the strong purple colour but soften the overall effect.  I don't know that I really expected to find anything the first time I went in but I was lucky.  I found a pair of heavy cotton curtains that have a really soft cream/lemon background with butterflies and bluey/purple flowers.  It was the colour of the flowers that caught my eye.  It matches the dark purple and so ties in with the wall nicely.

I think this is an ok result for the moment.

Catgoyles Again

The catgoyles are at it again; only this time it's not the dressing table its the lounge chair.  They are guarding it against the dog who will take any and every opportunity she can to settle herself comfortably on the human furniture.

 Mind you, having just finished chasing the vacuum cleaner around she seems to have decided that the freshly cleaned carpet is a good place to relax.

When it rains... it pours

We had a discussion the other night about the rain and the storms in our lives.  The discussion was basically that they do and will continue to happen and although it is a time of pain and difficulty and fear and worry if we put our trust in the Lord, He will bring us through it.  In my life right now there is a pretty huge storm around losing my business and now my job and having huge debts etc.  I'm trusting and I'm knowing that everything will be fine no matter which way it goes. However, the storm has just intensified.....

That which I have feared most for the last six years has finally happened.  After my husband left the one nagging thought that I have kept trying to ignore is that one day I will be completely on my own.  That has happened today.  My youngest son who had 'moved' next door with his older brother was due to come home today, but instead he decided to move in with mates.

This is a wonderful time for him and I'm excited and happy for him but I have to admit some anger and disappointment about it over a few issues.  One he didn't even bother to tell me or discuss it with me until I asked him directly what he was doing and two which I am aware is completely selfish, is that at this time I was counting on his being here to help pay the bills and feed myself while I'm unemployed and he know that.  His living here would have meant that two very important bills would have been paid but now?...I'd say not.

I know that sounds very selfish of me and although it is a huge issue for me right now I know that even more than all that I am going to miss him.

I think I'll go have a little cry, hand it over to the Lord and start looking forward to the next season of my life.

You know, doing this is quite healing.  As I've typed this out and added to it and re-worded it so that reflected best how I was feeling I am now realising that I don't need a little cry at all.  This is an exciting time for my baby and I pray that I've prepared him enough for the big world out there and it is an exciting time for me to discover life on my own.

Week End Projects

Now that I can move myself back into my bedroom, I can also start setting up my crafting space.  I'm so looking forward to that so that I can start making my card kits for sale.

The last week end I went to a friends place for a week end crafting.  I took another friend with me and we had a great time.  The three of us sitting around doing things we love and spending quality time with each other.  I got four cards completed for myself along with creating three designs for L and showing her some new techniques.  It was a wonderfully relaxing time.

Finish floors and Furniture Catgoyles

The floors have been finished.  They look great.  Here.is a photo of one of the floors.

I've walked out from the other room to see some additions to the dressing table that is living in the middle of my lounge room at the moment.......

When the dust settles

I have been waiting for quite some time now to finish the sanding of my timber floors.  The job was started about 14 years ago with the first bit of carpet coming up.  The majority being the stairs, hallway, lounge and dining rooms were done almost 10 years ago.  The 40 year old carpet finally came up in the three bedrooms about 8 months ago.

Today, the sanding has started.  #1 son has been working at it all day long along with a young friend of mine from church.  A has just gone home after 7 hours working with #1 son.  He's coming back tomorrow to help some more.  He is such a blessing, as is #1 son.

It would seem that one room is almost completely done.  That is the room that will be my craft room.  I had a look in there this morning  before the dust started flying and thought, "I should cover those."  That is as long as the thought stayed in my head too.  Until I went in there later to start sweeping the dust off the floor and walls and windows and..... turning around I remembered my thought as I saw this.......

 and this......

 

and this.......

I think I'll be spending quite some time in that room in the next day or so.  *Sigh*

In a state of flux

I am feeling a huge pull to start doing something with all the stock from my shop that I've got sitting in boxes under my house.  I want to start getting it out so that I can sell it or use it.

Along that line is the thought of actually trying to sell stock from home on a more permanent type basis.  How could that look?  Maybe a blog page show casing goods?  Maybe E-bay or Oztion?  Maybe Etsy for pre-made goods/kits?

It comes back to having to wait though.  For someone who doesn't know the background this is going to sound bizzarre to say the least...but I have to wait for the floors to be sanded and polished.  Once that is done I can then use the three mostly empty bedrooms in my house.  One as MY bedroom...it will be so nice to be back in my room, the second as a guest room and the third as my craft/play room.  Then the rooms downstairs can be used for displaying and storing my stock.

Just to throw a cat among the pigeons or a spanner in the works or to just annoy me there is a strong possiblity of baby boy returning home to live.  In which case I don't have the rooms downstairs.  So I then need to come up with some other plan.  *sigh*

I'm also trying to come up with a name for this little 'business' venture.  Any suggestions?

Internal interrogation

I've had a particularly stressful week.  Some fundamental mistakes have been made...by me over the last 6 weeks of my new job.  I have noticed some and have corrected my proceedures to stop these mistakes being made again only to find yet another mistake etc.  I am hoping and praying that I have found all the cracks that things can slip through now but I don't know how many more of these mistakes are going to be found.

Now while I have been finding and correcting I've felt bad but still reasonably confident in my ability, however, others are also finding the mistakes and little things have changed as well as a dressing down in the office by the boss in front of everyone else. (He's like that!)

I'm now struggling with my confidence.  I am any good at this?  Have I ever been any good at this?  Was I too proud and now having to fall?  Where is the line between being confident in your abilities and being proud and boastful?  Where is the line between being humble and self deflating or even worse appearing like you are fishing for compliments.

I'm noticing that my stress levels at work are increasing daily with the whole stomach acid, chest tightening thing happening.  It is time for some serious prayer I think.

Week end away

Last week end I headed to Gympie about an hour and a half north of me.  There lives my very good friend L and B.  I haven't had much of a chance to get away to L and B's for eons...not since I bought the business.  I was open every Saturday.   Now that I'm working Monday to Friday again I intend to spend more time with them.  L loves to card make and scrap book.  B loves to cook and he cooks a fantastic steak.  I'm still drooling over the perfectly cooked 1in steak that was my dinner on Friday night when I arrived.

We had a lovely evening enjoying the food and a couple of drinks.  Was a wonderful way to relax.

The next morning however, was when the fun stuff began.  We spent the entire day in the air conditioned craft room crafting.  L was working on some scrapbook pages.

And I did some crochet and cross stitch.  I finished the scarf that I was doing for my sister.  I think it looks great.

The cross stitch is a long way from finished but I did get B's help with something.  Several months ago before the shop closed I commissioned a young friend to make me some frame stands.  These are just a V shaped arm with a bolt and wing nut to hold a tapestry frame.  I needed holes in my tapestry frame to attach the frames stands.  This is where B helped.


It is such a great little device... allows you to set it up at a table or on the arms of a chair and just stitch away.  I will say that ending off is a little more annoying as you have to turn it over and around to be able to get the right direction for the sew under.  But this annoyance is so minor compared to the freedom it allows.  Working two handed is great.

I just have to come up with a way of being able to easily see my patterns.  An A4 stand isn't big enough as I blow up the patterns onto A3 sheets for easier seeing and marking off.  I'll have to think about this problem a little longer....unless someone else can think of something.

It is so nice to just be with a good friend and do something we enjoy. 

Lamb chops and salad WITH beetroot

What more could an aussie girl want for lunch on Australia Day?  I have just had lunch with a friend celebrating Australia Day.  The fun thing is that this friend was born in the USA and still has a very strong accent but she loves being an Aussie and it was HER idea.  I'm a born and bred aussie and while I'm extremely proud of being an aussie I've never really celebrated Australia Day.  Maybe I need to change that from now on.

Something different

I just saw a great idea.  It's different.  And I like different sometimes.  Recently I found a blog that piqued my interest and have been following.  This is the latest post from Thrifted Treasure. 

There is something fun going on in Blogland, here's how it works...

- I will make a handmade gift for the first 3 people who comment on this post.

- I have 365 days to do it in...

- What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise!

The catch is you must participate as well:

- You must have a blog and before you leave your comment here, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going.

Many blessings

Thick as a brick

I've been silent on here for a week or so.  Mainly because life has been fairly hum drum.  Nothing much happening between working and sleeping.  However, there has been a hidden story line going on. With the end of my business there is the inevitable 'clean up' of everything.  The most major of these of course was firstly getting a job and now paying off the debt. 

Recently the bank called and we had a good chat.  Out of that came the paperwork. 

I had two weeks to complete a stat dec giving my current financial situation and a proposal on how I would like to pay the debt. This totally overwhelmed me.  I just looked at it and thought about it... and looked at it some more.

Finally, realising I had to send it no later than last mail yesterday I started doing something with it on Monday.  It is in the mail and should have been received today.

The interesting thing about this is the automatic behaviours within myself.  I have been in situtations like this before where I come up against something that 'scares' me in some way and I procrastinate.  In my mind it grows and becomes far greater spectre.  However, the moment I make a start on it the spectre shrinks and shrivels until the job is done and is 'suddenly' non-existant. 

Why do I do this?  Why do I not learn this lesson?

New adventures in crochet

As you might recall I had a friend of a friend talking about a knitting technique called entrelac.  This of course made me google it and find out a bit more about it, which led me to the discovery of entrelac crochet.  Entrelac crochet uses a Tunisian crochet stitch called the TSS - tunisian simple stitch (I will at a later time investigate other tunisian stitches).  This is a very easy stitch to do and creates a wonderfully dense almost woven look and texture. 

 I had bought some yarn on special a while back and had seen a scarf for my sister in the balls of yarn that I had thought were going to be a loose knit.  I tried it a few different ways but it just wasn't coming together so I decided to go the TSS crochet. 

I am teaching myself along the way on the best ways of doing this so it's by no means perfect but I am enjoying doing it and the results.  I am alternating the direction of the stitch with each colour so that there is an added dimension of texture.

As you can see I do have an issue with the end curling but I'll deal with that later. But just look at the 'wrong' side and see that lovely bobbly pattern and texture.

The killer ute

I borrowed my son's huge 4wd ute to collect some newly acquired chairs.  While for the most part I consider myself a reasonably good driver, I will say that as time has progressed, I have become less and less confident with reversing.  Hence I never attempt it as a rule.  However, my son likes his cars reversed into the yard and since I had borrowed his car I decided to do the right thing and reverse park the ute in his driveway.  There are several other vehicles in the double driveway and I was extremely conscious and cautious not to hit them.

I've swung in and been very happy that I  can clearly see that I'm not going to hit a car.  However, slowly backing in I realise that there is some resistance...a metal arch in a small garden off to one side of the driveway.  Dang...too far that way...ok... no damage done I'll just move forward and fix that up.  All of a sudden there's a crunching sound and I've opened my door so see the letterbox lid had been opened by the ute...so I've reversed up a little to free it, only this time it's pulling the whole thing with it..so I try to move forward a little.................

I think you get the idea.  In the end I just drove forward and parked the ute back in my yard and walked  back to find the post lying on the ground with the box flung open on the ground next to it.  I straightened the post.... but it's broken at the ground.

Entrelac Crochet

I was reading the blog of a friend of a friend whom I have recently met.  She is a mad keen yarn and textile freak and the knitting queen.  In her blog she showed off some knitting she was doing in a technique called entrelac knitting.  I had never heard of it.  so after seeing her impressive photo I went off to do some investigating. 

This created a dilemna!  I am a papercrafter and a cross stitcher and occassionally a crocheter although of late I've been doing some very very basic knitting.  This was just a means to an end.  Well.... in my googling travels I found entrelac crochet.  Of course, I couldn't just let it be now could I.  I had to give it a go.  And guess what?  It's quite easy to do although the written instructions were a little unclear at times.  So here it is....my first attempt at entrelac crochet.

New Acquisition

20 years ago I inherited a lovely big extension table from my mother.  It have been at her brothers and before that my grandmothers (I think).  When extended fully it will seat 10 - 12 people.  However, with no extension in it will seat 6.  I did get the chairs with it that included a carver but the years have seen the chairs gradually fall apart and then bits get lost or broken while waiting to be fixed.  Since the person who was going to fix them left 5 years ago and I know that I am not going to fix them I decided that it is time for them to go.  In the meantime I was given 6 matching but quite ordinary chairs to use.

The other day while just cruising through ebay I came upon 6 chairs that would match the table nicely.  I put in a bid and low and behold I won.  Today I borrowed my son's ute and went and collected them.  They are by no means perfect, but they blend in wonderfully.  The chairs were a bargain even allowing for some fuel money. 



However, the exercise will end up a tad more expensive with the consequences of me, a HUGE ute and reversing.  This story will be told another time.

New Year

Well, it is the beginning of yet another new year.  And like most, I'm sure you're saying let's hope it is better than the last, and I'm going to make sure it is by doing this or that or the other thing.  However, I have found that having had quite a few of these beginnings of new years with all the usual things said I have come to realise that we have no say in what happens at all....only in how we respond to what happens.

It is in that response that we choose whether what is going on is good, bad or indifferent.  That decision is based only on right that moment because how many times have we thought something was really good or really bad and then found that a consequence of that is not something we counted on?

It is in that moment we also choose our next action or response.  Again that decision is based only on the information we have at that moment so what comes after is out of our control.

So, what am I trying to say here?  I think what I am trying to say is that all the good thoughts, all the good intentions, all the New Year resolutions, all the common platitudes that we hear and say at this time of year are not important.  What is important is each moment we have and what we do with each moment.  So, with that in mind I offer a prayer for myself and all those I love and care about....

Lord give us direction and strength in each and every moment so that our lives in You are fulfilled to Your will and purpose.  Each moment  we are know Your love and presence even if we don't feel it.  Each moment we are thankful for Your provision and abundance.  And each moment we reflect You to the world around us.

Father, for those I love who do not know you yet I ask that You continue to protect them and draw them to You.   In Jesus name Amen.