Accomplishments

Done yesterday:

• laundry
• chocolate pudding
• roast dinner - beef, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yorkshire pudding, broccoli, gravy
• scrabble with the boy
• standing practice with the girl
• far too many dishes
• more house-hunting
  

Plans

What I want to do today:

• waffles
• chocolate pudding
• tortillas
• sewing practice
• knitting

What will probably actually get done:

• 
  

(No, that wasn't a mistake.)

So Far Today

• I've been mostly awake since 3am
• the baby is being weird
• she stinks
• my eyelid feels like its on fire
• I have killed over 30 fleas in the last hour
• the rat came into the house
• I have no idea what to do for dinner
• the boy keeps arguing
• I keep yelling at him
  
• God loves me anyway
• that makes everything better
  

I Never Wanted To Keep Her In Pink

When Critterbug was a baby, we often had questions as to his gender. I didn't really understand that, as to me he looked like a boy (right from the start, to me he looked like a Boy rather than just a Baby), and he was always wearing 'boy' clothes - little jeans and blue shirts with monsters and trucks and stuff on them - but I understood that people didn't want to say 'what a cute little boy!' only to be told he was a girl, and we were just a little untraditional in our clothing choices, especially since it is generally deemed more ok to dress a girl in boy's clothes than it is to put a boy in girl's clothes.

Its getting a little ridiculous with Gosling though.

Granted, she doesn't have a particularly feminine face yet (not that she looks masculine, she just looks like a 'baby' instead of a 'girl'), but when she's wearing a pink t-shirt, a pink velvet skirt with butterflies and flowers on it, a pink velour jacket, and pink tights with more flowers on them, she's holding a pink teddy, has a pink dummy (pacifier/binky) in her mouth, and has two pink blankets in her pram, people STILL ask if she's a boy.

That's right, its a boy. We're just trying our hardest to scar him for life.

Maybe once her hair grows out we'll stop getting stupid questions? In the meantime, despite not wanting a frothy frilly pink girl, I have resigned myself to the fact that if I want less confusion, I'm just going to have to have one, and I'll never be able to take her out dressed like this:

I Confess: On The Dress, There Has Not Been Much Progress

This is approximately what it should look like when finished. The skirt will stand out more because of the underskirt, and I'm hoping to make a sash also, but you get the idea.

So, I didn't manage to get Gosling's dress finished before the wedding, which was a pity, but totally expected. The bride lent me a gorgeous little purple dress that had been her daughters, so my bub was cute and matching anyway. So glad I'm not the only one who has a stash of no-longer-needed baby clothes lying around.

I am continuing to work on the dress, and I'm quite happy with how its coming along. It doesn't look professional, but I never expected it to. I'm sewing it by hand, I'm making it up as I go along, its by far the hardest thing I've ever attempted (yes, I consider a dress to be harder than a stuffed toy), and I only have very short spurts in which to sew - we're talking 5 minutes here, 10minutes there - so yes, I'm quite happy with how things are turning out.

Things I've learnt thus far:

• backtracking on a row of running stitch is nicer than doing a whole row of backstitch (thats nicer as in 'I prefer doing it', not necessarily 'looks better')
• skirts are easy, except for the opening at the back for a zip/buttons
• sewing is easier if you don't have a baby sitting on your lap
• sometimes, my stitches are visible where they shouldn't be, and I DON'T CARE
• arm holes are EVIL
• it helps if you have your pattern figured out before you start the actual sewing
• the needle threader is close to useless
• clipping curved seams/hems makes them sit SOOOOOOOOOOO much prettier
• pins are good, use as many as will fit
  
• ARM HOLES ARE EVIL
• I want to rub my face on the paler fabric because it is so nice and soft
• I still can't use a thimble
• I need to find my own scissors and stop using mum's
• I really don't know if I'm up to hand sewing button holes, and may have to break out the machine when it gets to those.
• ARM. HOLES. ARE. EVIL.*
  Unfinished arm-hole. Needs to have a facing put on.
  

My current aim is to get it done by Christmas. That would be good. Don't know that it will happen. The fact that Gosling is now sleeping unwrapped most of the time should help, but this wretched heat makes me want to just lie down and sleep too, instead of sewing or cooking or cleaning or feeding the kids (did I just say that?)..

Having two separate needles helps too. I have a scrap of fabric in my pin box with the needles in it when they aren't in use, and I am in fact using two needles. One for the dark thread, one for the light. I have no idea why its making things easier for me, but I've found it a lot easier to switch needles, and keep threading each one with its own coloured thread, rather than using one needle and alternating thread colours. I know, my brain works oddly.



*The mostly-arm-hole-shaped facing I've used instead of trying to 'hem' them properly has made things a LOT easier. But what would have made it EVEN EASIER, is if I'd made the shell and lining separately and then put them together, instead of treating it as one piece. Then I wouldn't have had to bother with all the clipping and folding and facing and cutting and screaming and swearing and finger stabbing and trying to only sew through three-out-of-four layers.... Next time. Next time I'll know.

Brought To You By The Letters "E" and "W", and By The Number "2"

Things Gosling doesn't (or does, but only partially) digest:

• peas
• corn
• carrot
• broccoli
  
• olives
• sultanas (golden raisins)
  
• pumpkin

I can understand all except the pumpkin, considering it's well and truly mushed up when she eats it.

Ok. I'm done. You can go eat now.

:D

Photodump - My Garden

WARNING!!! There are 20 photos in this post! Expect slowness!























All photos taken on a digital point-and-shoot. Photoshop was used to shrink&sharpen (sharpen not needed if I'd left them big), and watermark. No colour correction, no darkening or lightening, this is what you can get from a normal camera.

My Husband Is Not Special

I have a friend whose husband is a cop. Another is married to a doctor, another a head chef. My father is a lawyer. My oldest friend helps businesses find solutions to their biggest problems, his father helps with the pipelines all across Australia. A lot of my friends husbands are, or are training to be, ministers.

My husband is the manager of a refrigeration parts warehouse. Before that, he worked on the counter in a warehouse. Before that, he drove a truck, delivering stuff from a warehouse. Before that, he was the heavy lifting boy in a warehouse. Before that he was tech support, telling old people how to connect their computers to the internet.

Its very easy to see what he does as less important than the other men I've mentioned. He doesn't save lives, or catch baddies. He doesn't ensure our country's sewerage, gas, and water are all working. He doesn't know the bible inside-out and backwards, read it in three different languages, and speak to a congregation every week about our Lord. The only people he cooks for live in this house.

He doesn't have a good singing voice, he can't play an instrument. His writing is incredibly messy, and he can't paint or draw. He doesn't have an extraordinary memory, and he doesn't make up amazing stories. He isn't drop dead gorgeous by most people's standards, though I wouldnt change anything about him.

He sells copper pipe and refrigerant gas, components for cool rooms and filters for air conditioners, stud finders and tape measures, and gloves. He drives a truck and delivers parts to the fridgies and plumbers and sparkies who actually use the stuff he sells.

My husband is not special.

But without him, when the coolroom at your supermarket breaks down, everything is wasted. He goes to work in the middle of the night to get stuff for the technicians so the supermarket doesn't lose $50'000 worth of dairy (true story. He left well before midnight and didn't come home till the small hours). He sells the parts to keep your local department store air conditioned. He supplies the people who service the steelworks.

All of us have a job to do. Some look more important on the surface, but none is without worth. Just as none of our lives are without worth. God created each and every one of us, and he gave us each a job. Who knows what that job is? I don't. You don't. Only He knows what we do and why. But none of us is unimportant.

Ugh

I have about 4 posts half written, I'm just lacking the motivation to finish them off and actually post them. some of them might not happen at all because they won't be relevant anymore - time specific.

Last night's stint didn't help any. Gosling had me up 10 times. And then woke up for good at 6am because her brother's sleep-talking woke her.

And now she's sitting on the floor sobbing. Today is not going to be fun.

Someone send me soe chocolate??


In interesting news, despite getting a letter from Better Homes & Gardens saying my subscription was up, and me not renewing it (just can't afford it), I got one in the mail yesterday. I think the magazine people are stupid. Mum's subscription to a different magazine yields 3 copies. 2 sent here, and one sent to her address. They started sending the extra copy here after she renewed her subscription, and when she changed her address they started sending one there as well, instead of stopping the one(s) coming here. IDIOTS.

Oh well. They'll figure it out at some point, right? Or should I tell them?