February 6th 2011

We had a late minute change of plan today as something we thought we were going to do didn't pan out.

Never mind, always a Plan B to fall back on.

The school swimming carnival is on in a couple of weeks and Rhianna is busting to compete.

Not sure if she is eligible or not at this stage but this morning she begged Bill to take her to the local pool to "train".

I said it was a good opportunity to see whether she could swim 50 metres of anything.

While Bill and Rhianna headed to the pool, I took some "me" time and went for a nice long walk.

I was so hot by the time I got home, I was dripping in perspiration. I jumped in our pool fully clothed :: well, I did take my joggers off first!!

So we hung around home today. I am trying to use up some of the multitude of art and craft stuff we have around here.

I had a canvas behind the door in the laundry and Rhianna asked if she could paint on it.

We even got the easel out so she could paint like a professional.

A whole afternoons worth of entertainment and I didn't have to leave the house or open my purse. Yah!!!!!

Then the southerly hit and we walked around all afternoon smiling at each other like idiots saying how nice it was to finally be cool.

I did some long overdue housework and we just sat and chatted about our trip to new York.

We are going to the travel agent tomorrow and need to decide on all the activities we want to do and book them now. For instance, you can walk to the top of The Statue of Liberty again but it is a 3 month wait list so we'd need to book that now if we wanted to do it. I think we do.

Since it's cool, I finally dared to put the oven on again and cooked Tuna vol-au-vents. Basically a cheese sauce with a tin of tuna and all the old vegies left in the crisper and poured into a pastry case. Yummy.

Even Finn likes Tuna Vol-au-vent night.

He's in there somewhere.

Fete Nights and Fabric Love

I'm finding it really hard to keep up my challenge of posting every day. I find that as the weather gets cooler I get more energetic. That means I get out and about a bit more and less time sitting on the lounge blogging away. The house has also been quite neglected of late and I have had to start doing some "in depth" housework. Let's just say that if Halloween was tomorrow I wouldn't need any fake cobwebbing to decorate.

Last Friday night it was my turn to host the fete stall craft night. You might recall that earlier in the year I put my hand up to organise the craft stall at our school fete. Unfortunately not many parents from the school have donated craft items at this time so we are busy making our own.

Once a month one of the "crafty" mums hosts the craft evening and we all get together for some laughs and crafts. Hey, that rhymes!

It was my turn on Friday night and as I have a small ( I like to call it cute) house it was quite a feat to fit us all in but we managed. Here is one of the tables of ladies fueled up on wine and water and ready to go.

Here are 2 examples of what we managed to create. They are the cardstock notepads that I have shown you earlier in the year. They are like a portfolio and open up to reveal a notepad, calendar and some sticky notes.

Some more samples. We all love the one on the left made by the lovely Julie Johnson. Has such a retro feel. I think that one might get purchased before it gets to the craft stall.

I also received some lovely new fabric last week from Ebay. It is an Alexander Henry fabric called "Children of the World". I just fell in love with it. It has rows of children holding hands in a variety of traditional customs and dress.

I covered the large canvas above Rhianna's desk with the fabric and rehung it. It was time for some new fabric anyway. Such a cheap and easy way to add some joy to a little person's room don't you think? Have a great week everybody.

A Quiet Week (so far)

I've been a bit quiet on the blog this week as there really is not a lot to tell. I've had to catch up on a lot of household tasks that had sort of gotten behind with all the creative stuff we've been doing and the not so creative stuff like sitting on our bums watching telly when I should be ironing.

But its lovely to have the fire on now. Not during the day yet but around 4pm when that sun starts to drop, on goes the fire. It's not a real fire. Its one of those gas ones that looks like it has actual logs in it. All the heat without the mess. And I like to call it the fire as it makes me feel all English countryside.

When not watching the TV, I've been curled up on the sofa or better still off to my bed with some delicious reading and even more delicious chocolate. I'll worry about the calorie fallout from this activity in spring.

Our craft stall for the school fete is coming along nicely. We've had one craft night already where a bunch of us Year One Mums got together to make some stock for the stall.

Meanwhile another crafty Mum - Emma, has been busy making these - bookmarks. I've already snapped up 2, for Miss R and myself. And I've put it into my new book purchase. It's a second hand book - and has some great articles in it. A lot of them were written in the 1950's. So much has changed since the 1950's but not the fundamental things that make up feel happy and content so this book still feels relevant.

Bill has bought me home 2 bunches of flowers already this week. I don't know whether I should be elated or suspicious. Hmmm.......

Love the colour of these

And last weekend Rhianna asked for a blog of her own. Broc was kind enough to set one up for her.

I don't suspect she'll have many followers. l mean how many people want to know what's happening in the local school playground. But I figure the writing and typing is all good literacy experience.

Here she is busily blogging away before school this morning.

Hope your week is a little more exciting than mine.