Endings and Beginnings

Ah, those long, lazy days between Christmas and New Years that just seem to fall off the calendar.  I honestly think they are my favourite days of the year.  This year of course they are doing double duty as "packing days" and that is kind of fun and kind of painful.  They are also a welcome respite after Christmas with gastro - the gift that kept giving! Christmas was somewhat of a write off so I am especially appreciative of these slow crafty days to recuperate.

Unfortunately my camera is dead (dropping onto slate floors from a bar stool will do that I'm told)  I am trying to be brave but I adored that camera and I feel almost bereft without it.  The plan is to sell a heap of stuff we don't need and use the money towards a slightly smaller, newer model.  It will still be a nikon as I don't think I can do without the Nikon portrait feature.  The loss of the camera means that there won't be a lot of photos of us looking green and bilious opening presents LOL I do always complain about having to scrap 5 lots of Christmas photos so I suppose every cloud has a silver lining!

There has been plenty of crafting - I knit another fluffy little cardi Christmas afternoon, and then yesterday I did more on Hannah's red flannel mitts and Maddie's school cardigan.  There has also been some spinning as I try to get the stash under control before the move.  And I have dabbled with a bit of papercraft too.  Just throwing around ideas using January's SOM and our beautiful new Charlotte range which will be available January 1st.

Mealtimes have been erratic while we were all sick and now they are about to get unusual as I make an attempt to eat from the freezer and pantry.  The freezer seems to be full of chicken drumsticks and bits of mystery meat (possibly lamb backstraps?) and lots of frozen cherries.

I am feeling quite wierded out by the move - are we doing the right thing? Are we crazy? Will the house feel "right" once we move in?  Will there be things that drive us crazy about it?  Will I ever get over leaving my beautiful craft room (sob sob sniffle)?

The 3 times I have been there the peace I feel is overwhelming.  I hope that stays with us when we move.
Wishing you a wonderful start to 2016.
Keep smiling,
Nell

Ridiculously Happy About..

I honestly feel so blessed with my life right now.  After an extremely busy year at kindy we have 6 weeks of holidays stretching out before us!  So many good things are happening right now.  

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

The Christmas tree is up and decorated. Briony's "B" is front and centre thanks to Kate from Fox's Lane.  It has been a great way for my children to remember their friend.  The kids did the bulk of the decorating this year which felt kind of strange as I like to take a moment to reflect as I put the special decorations up.

I decorated the front room for our Christmas workshops.  Some of these goodies will go to the Twilight Market at the Lobethal Lights this weekend.

The Nativity is conspicuously missing Baby Jesus this year.  I have tried explaining the significance of that short falling to my children LOL afterall, JESUS is the REASON for the SEASON.

So blessed to have so many lovely gifts over the years - we have a collection of snow globes, bears, angels, and reindeers!

I was showered with beautiful and generous words and gifts from my beloved kindy kids and their families.  It is making me so happy!

And there has been crafting this weekend - I even FINALLY managed to get this year's scrapbook pages into their rightful albums.  There has been lots of knitting too.  Some for the market and some for secret Christmas business.

I have been doing my first ever Indie Giftalong on Ravelry and I am loving it! So much inspiration in one place! I was even lucky enough to win a couple of prizes.  

So see, lots and lots and lots of great reasons to be ridiculously happy but I have saved the best for last.

We are moving..

We are having a "tree change" and moving onto acreage.  This country girl is moving back to the country.  We are just far enough out of Lobethal to be considered "rural" but still close enough to walk to school and work.  We have our own gumtrees, and fairy wrens, and a resident koala, and lead light doors, and a balcony with French Doors.  I am soooooooo ridiculously over the top happy about the move.  Let the packing begin!

Wishing you every reason to be ridiculously happy as we catapult into the "silly season"!

Keep smiling,

Nell

For the Love of Librarians

It's been a long time hasn't it?
Life got a bit crazy there for a while.  Too crazy.
Next year I am determined that will be different.  Next year I will find more balance.
I'll talk about next year and good things to come a bit later on but for the moment I just wanted to share something I've been mulling over here.

Last weekend the world lost someone fabulous. Someone inspirational.  Someone I was proud to have known.

I love books.  I love libraries.  Disappointingly though, sometimes librarians don't live up to my expectations.  Which is why Zellah was so amazing.  Zellah was like my own "personal" librarian.  She ran the Baby Bounce sessions at my local library when my kids were small.  First baby Hannah, then Dan, and finally Maddie fell under Zellah's spell.  Me, well we just kind of clicked from the start.  Zellah was the sort of librarian who really cared.  She had the same reading taste as I did and often when I would go in she would have a book she thought I might like put away for me.  Often when I was checking out a book she would say, "Oh! I want to read that one soon, tell me if it is a good one!"  She was the sort of librarian that didn't comment when I borrowed the same books over and over, or when I had to extend and re-extend my magazines because life had been too busy to read them.

I remember being heavily pregnant with Maddie and standing at the counter with books piled high in my arms while Hannah whined and a toddler Daniel threw himself on the ground and chucked a massive tantrum.  I remember feeling soooooo tired, and sooo frustrated and thinking I was going to cry and then Zellah's voice said "Just think Nell, next time I see you, you will have a sweet little baby bundle in your arms!"  and she smiled the sweetest smile and squeezed my arm, "you'll get through this, and one day you will look back and love these days."  She was so right.  So non-judgemental. She cared.

I remember borrowing "Tickle Tickle Tom" for the thousandth time and saying to her, "This book is our favourite and it is out of print so please if it ever gets decommisioned can we buy it?"  and her looking at it, and at my children, and saying, "gee, it really IS getting tatty isn't it? I think it is even too tatty to sell" as she stamped it with the "cancelled" stamp and passed it to my children.

Zellah was the sort of person the world needs more of.  She was not a best friend.  She was not even a close friend, but she touched our lives immeasurably and she will be forever missed.  Every life, no matter how brief, has the potential to change the world forever.

Thank you Zellah. My three little bookworms and I will not forget you.

Time for Meet me at Mike's taking stock again!

Making : card kits for my first "card buffet" on the weekend
Cooking : pork ribs and potato bake and our favourite beetroot and feta and pecan and sweetpotato salad
Drinking : apple cider (yay for Summer weather!)
Reading: "Delancey" (again) perfect holiday reading.  I love the way Molly Wizenberg writes.  Just finished "The Lie" which was well written but kind of moody and bare and depressing
Wanting: another week of holidays
Looking: at lovely things on ravelry
Playing: my favourites list on the ipod
Deciding: to make a conscious effort to do over 10 000 steps each day
Wishing: the 9 year old birthday boy would stop growing so fast
Enjoying: holidays with everyone home (what a luxury to have James home too!)
Waiting: for Mum and Dad to get back from cruising
Liking: Sleep ins, and lazy days
Wondering: If I could pay children to clean up the kitchen
Loving: my Spring garden - a 10 year old lilac bush that has just now decided to bloom!
Pondering: the next quilting project (now that Dr Seuss is finally done)
Considering: casting on another knitting project
Buying: groceries - we seem to eat such a lot with us all home!
Watching: The 3rd series of a Place to Call Home, Foyle's War reruns
Hoping: For a calm, stress free 4th term
Marvelling: that I am mother to a 9 year old boy - where did that chubby baby go?
Cringing: At the thought of NQS assessment and 55 summative reports this term
Needing: Sleep, home comforts, quiet days
Questioning:
Smelling: Lilac and lavender and jasmine and roses - oh sweet Spring smells
Wearing: my new favourite summer dress (made locally and super comfortable - LOVE IT)
Following: CTMH card ideas on Pinterest
Noticing: the washing piling up
Knowing: holidays can't last forever
Thinking: I have pretty great kids
Admiring: crafty people who can get paid to do what they love
Sorting: Maddie's old clothes, my old craft magazines
Getting: ridiculously over-excited at the vintage Strawberry Shortcake colouring books gifted to my kids - the very same one that I had when I was a girl - circa 1982!!!!)
Bookmarking: New recipes
Coveting: more Summer dresses and nice sandals
Disliking: that no matter how much I exercise I still don't lose weight
Opening: junk mail and cans of condensed milk and beetroot
Giggling: over silly facebook posts and the funny things Maddie says - that girl has way too much sass!
Feeling: happy, and nostalgic
Snacking: on pecan nuts
Helping: kids bake
Hearing: James rocking out with the guitar

Hope you are having an awesome week too. Back tomorrow with pictures of my boy and his birthday quilt and some of the photos of our recent Flinders trip.

Keep smiling,

Nell

Spring Finishes!

Oh Spring is in the air and the last three days of sunshine have lifted spirits and blown the cobwebs away.  I've even had the kids Spring Cleaning and decided to rearrange my craft room!
In the midst of the Spring fever I finally finished my  http://www.ravelry.com/projects/nelliebligh/curly-wurly-gloves
and I love them sooooo much! Jude is an awesome local designer (remember the Vivonne Bay Hat?) http://www.ravelry.com/projects/nelliebligh/vivonne-bay-hat-2
and this is her latest effort.  This pattern taught me soooo much and now I can read charts a whole new world of knitting has opened up!

There has also been another two little cardigans from the "One" pattern (also on my rav page)

And I have been mucking about with a bit of my own semi-designing using a bit of a mix and match technique to come up with a soft little lace edged cap for one of the kindy newborns (angora bunny/merino mix - soooo soft and smooshy)

Now I have to get back to sorting out my craft room in time for this week's workshop!
Happy Spring!

Taking back September..

I used to like September.  Spring is my favourite season.  I have always been more in tune with Spring than any other season.  I have always been able to wake up one morning sometime around September 1st and sniff the air and exclaim that "Spring is Here!"  But sometime a few years ago everything changed.  Suddenly September is a month of pain, and worry. Partly it is because by September my Vitamin D levels have dropped to way beyond acceptable leaving me teary and emotional, but mostly it is because over the last few years September has been a miserable month for many of my friends and family.  This year, already, barely a week into September, my Mum is sick with low blood pressure, my friend is mourning the anniversary of losing her son 6 years ago, my best friend is mourning the loss of her baby a few years ago, I am remembering my Grandad who passed away in September.  Today my high school friend lost her grandmother. Tuesday we will celebrate a sweet girl who should have been turning 11.  At work we have been making meals for 3 families who are going through tough times. At home I am waiting for the inevitable sad news that two friends have lost their partners to the Big C.  September is crap. September sucks.  Which is why tonight I am letting myself indulge in a pity party, and tomorrow morning I will wake up and I will look for the good things, and I will grasp them with both hands.  I know that life can't always be perfect which is why I will ride this wave and come out the other side.  Hold close to those you love. Help those that you can in the little ways that you can. Know that you can't change some things. Try to find the good..

A Big Week

This week I was privileged to be a school helper on the 5,6,7 class camp to Nepabunna. Nepabunna is a tiny Aboriginal community in the Flinders Ranges.  This was my first visit to this unique part of the world and I feel like I am still processing a lot of our trip.  The scenery was dramatic, and diverse, and quite harsh.  The Adnyamantha people are so welcoming and friendly and keen to share their culture.  It was a wonderful experience.

Unfortunately about a third of the kids and most of the adults got a rotten flu bug and Hannah and I have spent the last few days recovering.  I was determined to still get to the Mt Pleasant Fibre Fair yesterday, so in the afternoon my friend Christine and I set off and managed to bring home some terrific goodies.

I finally have a new (working!) ballwinder and you have no idea how happy that makes me.  Of course lots of yummy fibre followed me home too - and books, oh books! The girls have already looked through that little knitted wrist warmers one and picked out a couple of must haves and now are casting looks at my stash to see what wool will be best LOL  The two pairs of socks are handknit by a lady from the Mt Pleasant Spinners and Weavers.  I love to knit socks but I know how time consuming they are and I cannot believe that she was able to make and sell them for $7.50 a child's pair and $20 for an adult.  The wool is often worth that much!  Anyway, I was happy to support her if it meant another day of warm feet at bush kindy. One day in the not too distant future I shall have enough handknit socks to wear a pair every day!

I got quite a lot of knitting in while we were travelling on the bus so next time I will be able to show you my progress on my Tea Leaves Cardigan and Klausner Mitts.

Until then, have a good week!