Valentine's Cards

You can now buy these two designs of mine on-line at Chuckle Monster  - I can't believe it's nearly February!..

PS The pics are titchy because my copies are on my other computer and I can't be bothered to transfer them over...)

A Day Out

We've made it to the last week of the summer holidays and it's been amazingly painless.... The daily sunshine has definitely helped - as compared to our first summer of 2012...

So, today we went up to Perth on the train, collecting Nanna on the way, and had a mooch around the museum and a wander through Northbridge to meet Mark for lunch at his favourite Vietnamese restaurant.

And here are some of the things we saw along our way....

Our first Australia Day

Coming from a nation which doesn't have a national holiday (can anyone tell me the date of St George's Day? Without googling it!) Australia Day was a bit of a surprise - a whole holiday weekend just to celebrate Australia??

Great idea! (Putting aside the dubious chosen date..)

We went to Fremantle to watch the fireworks over the ocean - the beach was packed with families, the fireworks were fantastic, it felt good to be an (honorary) Australian.

Making and Reading 3

I'm quite proud of this  - I made a half decent skirt - in that it fits and the zip is quite good! (i hate sewing zips..)

And this week I've been reading short stories - I love Joanne Harris (Chocolat) - she has a really dark imagination, and I'll definitely be looking for more books by Alice Munro.

I'm keeping a reading list for this year here, with a little note about each book - this is mostly for my own reference so I can look back over the year and see what I read, but also might be useful if you're looking for some ideas of new books to try.

Today we will be mostly...

...planting seeds at the library (part of our spend-no-money summer holiday plan!)

....watching a Tintin DVD in French (appears to make no difference to my non-French speaking children!)

...adding to my long Ikea wishlist (new house needs presents..)

... buying lovely postcards from The Calm Gallery (cheap international postage!)

(Title inspired by The Fast Show...)

Peaceful weekend...

I packed the boys (and Mark) off camping with the sailing club and had a lovely peaceful weekend alone - just me and the dog. We watched a few good movies (she likes Red Dog) had a sunset stroll along the beach and sewed half a skirt.

We were really pleased to see them back again though!

New purchase...

We bought a house...

I'm not going to show you a photo of the whole thing yet because it might give you nightmares (like it's giving me..)
The words 'fixer' and 'upper' were invented for this house.
In fact the words 'knock' and 'down' might be better!
It's a 1960's fibro beach shack, it needs everything doing to it (most obviously the asbestos has got to go) and it's all ours on the 4th February!

Wish us luck...

(It's never been painted as you can see from the original lot number in the photo)

Making and Reading 2

Reading - On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan and A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon...

Making - And to brush up my rusty sewing skills I made a new cover for my sewing machine...

Jump!

The mission: find a jetty and jump off it.

Mission accomplished.

Making and Reading

I've decided this year, that instead of resolving to do something I really don't really want to do, like hoovering more, or exercising more, or eating less.... I will instead resolve to do something I do want to do.
This has to be a good idea - for a start I'm more likely to stick to it, I won't feel guilty when I look at the state of the carpet while eating another slice of cake, and I should hopefully be happy at the end of it! (If perhaps a little fatter and living in a hovel...)

So, the two things that really make me happy are reading and making stuff.
I've started already - my will power is amazing!

These are the books I've read this week....

And this cushion is the first product of my new sewing machine....

(and bonus - I read the Frankie magazine too!)

SUPs, good books and massive ants

So far this weekend has been all about our new stand up paddleboard - it is GINORMOUS and we all love it.

I'm reading The Paperbark Shoe by Goldie Goldbloom (great name), although shortly after taking the below photo I was bitten on the bottom by a fearsome looking ant and quickly jumped back in the water...

Australia and the Eiffel Tower

We had a painting day today - a trip to Spotlight to buy supplies, lots of newspaper, old clothes on and we were ready.

Bill decided to go for an Australian theme with cave paintings and native wildlife, while Tom went for a more abstract 'Eiffel Tower with Red Bird'...

I love Bill's line drawings - especially the platypus in the top left!

 Finished!

Paired no 1

Dog Beach!

Molly's New Year's resolution was to learn to swim, so today we took her to the dog beach in Fremantle.

With a little gentle persuasion she swam a little bit (with her mouth tight shut and a look of terror in her eyes), before running off to play with two boxers...

twenty thirteen...

2012 was pretty good - here's to an even better 2013!
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