fiveandtwo

Fish o' The Decade

Definitely a once-a-decade phenomenon. My husband catching an eating size fish, that is (not through lack of effort, though).

A 1kg trout, what a beauty.

It's been a scattered week. Well, more so than usual.

I got my large, luxurious sheepskin off lay-by. I haven't sat on it yet, but doesn't it look sooo comfortable.

A random room shot from where I was sitting on the couch to photograph the "sheepy".

The room through the doorway is Linsey's bedroom. It's really interesting to go and look at the ever-changing pictures, photos and artworks on her walls.

I was tagged for the "Seven Weird Things" meme by Janet. I should be able to come up with loads of weird things to tell since I've been considered weird for most of my life! The label did lessen somewhat upon finishing high school. Then I pretty much embraced the tag.

I'll come up with the seven in due course.

There's A New One!

A new op-shop in town. At the Uniting Church. There's now a total of eight in town, and more in nearby towns. Of course I had  to visit and check out the merchandise.

A worthwhile foray.

Plenty of goodies, including the suitcase.

Couldn't resist this old block set.

Picture heavy. I'm having a bit of a word drought at the moment.

Peg Bag

Old peg bag.

What a sad state of affairs.

New peg bag.

In the nick of time I reckon.

The pattern I used. Found at the good old op-shop in a plain envelope, along with tea cosy and apron patterns.  I always wonder about the women that  items like these belonged to.

Hmmm, Could Be A Theme.

Definitely a theme in this week's oppy finds.

Citrussy colours, stripes of black.

A new crocheted knee rug/throw. When I asked the price I was told $6. Six dollars. For a new handmade item. Nah...I gave the lady $30 (still a bargain in my book). I am so glad to be able to do this now. Not so long ago $6 was money I needed for food - I would have bought the rug and felt enormously guilty: for spending food money and devaluing someone's handwork. The volunteers make these items to raise a bit of extra money. In this case the local Rural Ambulance Service.

Splendid biscuit or cake tin (quite airtight). What's in it now? Anzac biscuits, of course!

I've never seen the like of these before. So of course I had to have them.

Reminds me to sort out the spice shelf. So I can fit in these two lovelies. I need to raise the shelf above the spice section in the pull-out cupboard so I have better access.

Black and orange again! Good for pencil storage.

Unusual to have such a thread of colours  in a week of oppy purchases. I enjoy these colours but they're not my favourites. I lean more towards blues and greens, with a dash of purple. Red gets a look in too, sometimes.

Cheers

My Favourite Season

Ah, Autumn...such splendid weather, long shadows in the afternoon, crisp mornings. I'm all invigorated.

Much gardening going on. For the next five minutes it's pretty much in order. I've planted a full-size tangelo. I have one in a half barrel, but...I want more! Tangelos and lemons are my favourite citrus. I also planted a dwarf Washington Navel orange in a large pot against a side fence. I lost my other orange tree when we built the deck at the front.

Speaking of which, it seems the pergola above the deck may be painted completely soon (oh please). One more coat and it's done.

It's taken two years to reach this stage.

Note Suska wolfing down her tea, and recently reupholstered chair seats. Red vinyl from Spotlight. Very pleased with the result. How I like my staple gun!

The vegie garden is all tidied. All the languishing half-dead summer crops have been heaved out. Except for Clare's late planted corn - she's determined to have a cob from it.

I planted seeds of lettuce, spinach, silverbeet, beetroot and sugar snap peas. Clare planted rocket. All are up, but I need to plant more peas, blackbirds have scratched some up.

Leaves are falling.

I need to pick all of these - they ripen off the vine.

When I look at them I'm always reminded of something Jackie French wrote about a visitor to her garden. An elderly Oriental lady who laughed quietly when she saw the kiwifruit. Jackie probed. Apparently, back home in China the fruit were nicknamed "golden hairy goat testicles"!

Gratuitous nasturtium picture. They are so perky now the hot weather has abated. Such a relaible plant (once you've reefed out those that grow where you don't want them to). They just grow themselves, don't they.

Just some Autumn light photos now.

I have another sick child. Goodnight.

Adding to My Collections

Gee, I havn't posted about op-shop finds lately. How deprived you must all be feeling...

Vintage patterns to add to that collection. I especially like these doll's clothes ones. Clare fancies an ice skating outfit for one of her Barbie dolls, and some of those splendid gowns.

I collect old buttons, and have come across some beauties lately. I love the weight and sheen of mother-of-pearl buttons, much more "solid" than the mussel shell ones common these days. A good friend has made a stunning necklace with her collection.

The lovely little flocked box was an oppy find too.

I've learnt to wash clothes I sew the pearl buttons onto in a lingerie bag, otherwise they get chipped.

New storage receptacle for elastic (most of which comes from the op-shop as well). When I bought it the elderly lady serving me said, "Oh, these are marvellous for putting things in. I've got some in my shed". One for her angle grinder, one for her cordless drill. I love these women, always full of surprises.

Here, a new ric-rac receptacle (gee, I like the sound of that!). Old sewing basket is the recent purchase, the ric-rac is part of my random haberdashery collection. Those in the picture I've bought over several years. If it has interesting packaging I don't use it,  the rest gets used.

Now...on to fabric. Greens. A colour I use a lot.

Splendid ponies on a border print. This would make a wonderful skirt, or dress, for a little girl.

Assorted florals. How about that sheet on top of the pile!

Recycled linen shirts and dresses. All ready to be transformed. On some I've retained the button and buttonholes to incorporate in the new garment. Also things like the back pleat you get on some shirts, and pintucked front panels.

Ah, I'm really taken with this metre-or-so of fabric. I held it up to myself (shirt potential?) but it just made me look rather matronly. I could make something decidedly cool for Clare or Ally, but they'd never wear it. It wouldn't be skanky enough, or have brands emblazoned on it. Sigh...

I don't let them wear skanky or branded clothes, but that's what they want to wear. Sigh...

However, I have an idea that's growing. Maybe, just maybe, I could have a line of one-off children's clothes. Strictly 0-4 years. I have a lot of vintage/interesting fabric to hand! It's just embryonic right now, growing though.

A Very Muddled Week

Ally's description, "This has been a very muddled week". So accurate.

It started last Saturday with me going to the Curves gym (recently joined to deal with stress and apalling level of fitness) and developing a blinding, excruciating headache halfway thruogh the circuit. Carted off in an ambulance. Nausea and vomiting, photophobia. In retrospect, classic migraine symptoms.

It was decided, eventually, that I'd had a sudden migraine. Fortunately, I don't have these evil headaches very often, but in the past there's been some warning: a thudding headache that doesn't go away, thirst and fatigue. One coming on suddenly was rather disturbing. I was out and couldn't get back home under my own steam. What if that happens again?

I'll go back to Curves, but I'm really nervous about doing so.

Oh, and there's nothing like a shot of morphine to deal with pain, and Stemetil for nausea/vomiting (Maxolon didn't work).

Took a couple of days to throw that post-migraine weird, disoriented state.

A long appointment sucked up Tuesday. I did fly in to work and do the pays though - disgruntled employees weren't on my agenda.

The usual routine was thrown completely by now. Transporting kids uses so much time. With Giles, mostly I drop him and some mates at the favoured surf beach, one of the other kid's parents pick them up. It's still a 1.5 hour round trip to drop them off. Sometimes, if the bus timetable works, they can catch the bus both ways. Their favoured surfing area, Red Bluff, doesn't have a bus for them to catch home. V-Line buses = strange timetables.

I managed to buy some food and pick up Leah from Lakes Entrance, where she'd stayed with a friend. Leah looked pretty crook, she could hardly speak. Criminal sore throat. GP appointment...tonsillitis? All the glands around her jaw were huge. Can only imagine the state of her tonsils. Antibiotics prescribed and duly taken. I worry about her fluid intake. It's so painful to swallow that the poor kid just isn't drinking.

Thursday: buy more food. Take Leah to A&E because she finds it hard to breathe, and looks really "flat". Leah is admitted to hospital, IV fluids perk her up a bit. But only a bit. She's on her third type of antibiotic now.

Ah, but the waiting with Leah in A&E meant reading time! Good progress made on this:

When I read As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, well, I was going to Spain. Never did though. A friend who read it around the same time spent three months in Spain with her baby daughter.

I've enjoyed all of Laurie Lee's books. This one came from the op-shop. How lucky! A $50 book for a couple of dollars. I'm enjoying this biography.

This pre-order came too, last week:

Resisting starting it until I'm done with the Laurie Lee biography!

Back in the early 80's I read Monkey Grip. My impressionable seventeen-year-old self wanted in to that lifestyle. Never did though.

Gifts, Birthdays, Mess

Look, look, look what came with the parcel man today!

From Victoria, whose art I really admire. It's a beautiful piece of work which I'm honoured to have.  It's of Clare and Ally (and Suska the dog) dressed as princesses (one of the Twelve Dancing, and Clara ,from The Nutcracker) for Book Week.  Lucky, aren't I.

Speaking of Clare and Ally, they've just had their eighth birthday. We made this stupendous cake which started out as a castle but was so loaded with lollies and the like, well, you wouldn't recognise it as that.

See what I mean?

But it was "all good".

Hmm, but their room is something I'll tackle with them this week, now that the birthday and all is done. Look at this (or maybe you should avert your eyes).

A bit of sorting and tidying is in order, I think.

Now for some peaceful sunlight.

Now that the days are getting shorter there's sunlight all the way across the kitchen in the late afternoon. The tall windows require ingenuity to keep extreme heat out, and cold out (thick blinds and curtains) but it's so worth it. So I can gaze at patterns of sunlight on the floor, on the wall, across the furniture.

This place was an absolute dive when we bought it. But like our first place, it meant we could still pay for it even if neither of us had paid work (because that's been the case in the past). Heck, the first house was four rooms plus lean-to. No bathroom, outdoor dunny (bonus!), rusted out wood stove in the "kitchen". Paper-and-hessian wall lining. Good living, but got really squeezy when bub number three (Leah) came along. And I really wanted more room to grow vegies.

We'd fixed up number one house slowly, over four or so years, and were fortunate to get a buyer who really wanted it.

So to house number two, this one. We're here for the long term. All the work over the last twelve years has kind of custom-made it for us (contrary to teenage opinion - why haven't we got a TV Room, a Family Room, a Pool, a Spa, a Tennis Court, a Boat Mooring with large motor boat, and so on...) I must say this comes from Giles and Leah. I think Linsey remembers the "poor years".

Well, this is rather a ramble. Not  what I intended.

Cheers.

Egglites and Glow Bands

Just some pics taken recently. Clare and Ally got ""Egglites" for their birthday, and glow bracelets at a friend's party today.

Mucking around with the camera. One of the stupendous bonuses of digital. Mucking around is not expensive.

My greatest interest is light and its nuances.

I have a tripod for my film SLR, it doesn't fit my DSLR.

I like these blurry, ephemeral-looking images.

I've lent my film SLR to Linsey's best mate, she's had it for a couple of years now.

I swapped a Big Day Out ticket for two wonderful photos that were part of her year 11 folio. I've matted and framed them but undecided where to hang them.

I think my love affair with digital is its affordability. When I used film I took  loads of photos. Perhaps a quarter (if that) of each film was any good. Expensive. I had a special "photography" part of my strict budget back then. It was factored in because it was important. Most of the photos were family anyway.

The expense with digital is the photo paper, if you decide to print. I do print some, with the best paper possible, because I keep albums. Dry mount with the "who, what, when, where" description. No scrapbooking. Apologies to scrapbookers, it aint for me.

A bit o' fun with not much available light-no flash-slow shutter speed stuff.

Sometimes inspiration just happens upon you.

Completed Creatures

Two likely lads, about to set for a stroll.

The lad claimed by Linsey has facial features (and a bellybutton).

This sleepy one has its own reversible bag for snoozing in.

I did a post about the book the patterns are in here. I really like them, enjoyed "bringing them to life".

However, I don't think I'll make any for a while.

I really  need to focus on only two or three  (perhaps one or two) particular art/craft endeavours. My usual method is really scattered. So many projects, none of them completed. So often exploring new inspirations, while those previous, they languish.

Then there's my love affair with blogland, I need to rein that in somehow.

But you people have been so supportive, you've provided feedback on my various projects, empathic comments when things have gone pear-shaped, useful links and snippets of wisdom. A special window to your own experiences and making of splendid arts. Enjoyed immensely.

How do you lovely people resolve this dilemma? I aim not to occupy the computer during the day, but the evening is when the teens want to use the machine. I always defer to homework do-ers. Linsey is the only one at the moment (year twelve). Sometimes I get up really early to "catch up", and do a post. Depends on the lateness of the previous night. Not from partying, oh no. From waiting up to pick up offspring from their part-time jobs!

Basically, I think I should close my blog rather than post sporadically. Particularly since there isn't much continuity. Subject matter is quite random I imagine many of you have reached this point. How have you made the decision?