A smidge of knitting, a dash of Italy and a truckload of photos.

I follow instructions.

Recipes, sewing patterns, knitting instructions;
heck, even for Ikea cupboards...

I work better given formulas and specific amounts.

"Winging it" or "making it up as I go along" in not really in my nature.

I am not sure if this is because I studied the science subjects at school

or why I studied science at school.

But I suspect the need for structure came with my personality.

(I do remember, however, having to make it up as I went along in Italy

when, as navigator to hubby's chauffeur, 

I was presented with the dilemma of a red light with a "green straight ahead" arrow

right next to it.

I can't remember what we did at the time

but my memory of driving in Italy is that you drive how you want but with excessive confidence

and she'll be right, mate)



As a creative person,
I am frustrated by my inability to fulfill that part of the creative process.

It isn't that I don't want break out and rebel.
Heck, I have even ditched a couple of sewing pattern instructions recently,
thinking that I could do it a bit better.

And I can boil an egg without a recipe. Promise.

But me making things up would appear to be a (wait for it) recipe for disaster
(Oh, c'mon- you just can't beat a good pun)

It is just the way my brain works.
But I really do envy those people with the confidence and the talent
to create patterns and make up recipes.

But I guess they need customers, don't they?

Squishy Love- Amanda Keeys
modified (yes, modified) by the highly technical method
of using bulkier wool and bigger needles.

When will I, will I be famous?

I had a Shirley Valentine moment at the weekend.

(bizrate.com)

(For those of you who don't know or remember this 1989 movie,

Pauline Collins plays a British housewife

(who is my current age)

who runs away from her depressing, tedious domestic life to Greece

and, to cut a long story short, "finds herself")

The day started with a fight with Mr Boozle

( I don't handle fights well.

We don't do it very often and we don't do it very well)

Then two of the spawn of Satan...er, I mean, children tag teamed tantrums throughout the day.

The other offspring was exceptionally quiet...

probably due to the fact that he was five kilometres away at a birthday party.

There was washing to be done,

a never-ending to do list of chores,

another family meal to make...

(boldsparrow.blogspot.com)

I just wanted out.

I wanted something different.

Something more inspiring.

More exciting.

If I died tomorrow, the eulogy from my hubby might go a bit like this:
"I love her to bits.

I can't live without her.

Now she's gone, I can't find the kids' lunch boxes or their socks

and I wish she'd come back just to tell me which kids eats what.

But wow, the credit card bill is healthier"

My kids might say:

"She was crabby and grumpy

and played crap 80s music
(note post title- they have a point)

but she told us that she loved us every day.

We wish she'd come back and tell daddy where the socks are.
Our feet are cold."

Do I aspire to more?

Do I want to be remembered for more than being a wife and a mum?

Do I want to be more...known...or even famous?

The funny thing is I would want anonymous fame.

I would want to have my name come up around the dinner table-

but not in that rock-n-roll or Parisian catwalk or Hollywood kind of way.

(seo-writer.com)

There would be way too many free kicks for the paparazzi

(hanging washing out with bed hair in my PJs and my ugg boot slippers would suddenly come at a price)

I can't imagine losing my privacy and anonymity.

Plus I am too old for groupies.

(ehow.com)

(Of course, I wouldn't mind financial rewards that could come with being famous either)

I've left it way too late to discover penicillin.

But if I could  knock over those bloody cane toads, I'd be in with a chance.

I could write a best-selling novel.

I am sure Harry Potter was originally a little thought over a bowl of breakfast cereal.

I am not sure where my potential for fame lies.
Or even if it exists.

I guess on my death bed,

it is my hubby and kids telling me that they love me 

that will give me a sense of achievement.

But I suspect that I am still going to channel Shirley

some days in the meantime.

Seriously. I am not a hoarder.

Hoarders are those people who just can't bear to throw out
useless and unnecessary bits and pieces.

It's just that a bent and dented Finnish airport sign

that I brought home 25 years ago

might one day come in handy.

Truly.

The Luck of the Draw

We didn't find out the gender of any of our babies in advance.

I am essentially an old fashioned girl at heart
and the modern world has so few real suprises left
that Mr Boozle and I didn't want to know.



When our first born was a boy,
I was kind of shocked.
I had always visualised myself as a mother of girls.
I spent 2 years of early high school at a very small, all-girls school
and I believe that this is the time, as an adolescent, that you learn to relate/deal with/interact with boys.

Ever since then,
I have always found it easier to communicate with girls.
Or more so, I struggle with guys.

Still, he was very cute and kind of defenseless
so we took him home anyway.



When number two arrived, another (very cute) bouncing baby boy,
I thought how nice it would be that 20 month apart siblings were the same sex.
They could find common interests
or, failing that,
at least all-out-warfare would be on pretty even terms
(unlike the all-out-warfare between my older brother and I as young kids)



I decided that I wanted a third before number two was born.
So it wasn't about having a girl.

(I just had to persuade Mr Boozle that he wanted a third)

I had read that,
once you have either two girls or two boys already,
statistically speaking, you are 75% more likely to have another child of the same gender.

So we went to hospital without any girls' names on the list
and without any girlie clothes in the suitcase.



When the little goddess popped out,
we were seriously in shock
and after 4 years of boy's colours in our house,
it took 6 months to get used to having pink in the house.
(It really, really did.
And whodathunk that there were so many shades of pink?)

She is a girlie girl.
But she is also her brothers' sister.
A tiara-wearing, pink-lovin' princess in commando boots
who is right in the middle of the muddy scrum.

It is one of life's little card games
that we can peek early to see what cards we have been dealt if we want
but it is up to the shuffle as to what we get.

Squishy Love cowl- Amanda Keeys.

Elle Macpherson...I'm not

Her...

(123people.com)

(celebritybeautybuzz.com)

(smh.com.au)

Me...

 

 

Of course, one of us has been airbrushed...

 

Romantika cardigan- Elena Nodel

I'm not sure...



...but I think that I might be becoming a dog person...

Sad to say, I think I'd rather have a pet that privately eats its own poo
than one makes such a public mess of my button stash.

Ruffles and responsibility.

Recently I completed my first knitted garment for a swap.

Kelly made my daughter a gorgeous elf coat as a swap for an Oriental Lily tunic for her daughter.

In my life BC (before children), I was a perfectionist and a worrier.

(Yes, you can read that as me saying that I was anal)

I have learnt to let a lot of things go since becoming a mum.

Nothing like the pain of childbirth and its after effects,

permanent banana and milk vomit stains on seemingly every item of clothing in the house
and a chronic lack of personal time and sleep to put most things into perspective.

I still am fussy with regard to some things.

One is my sewing standards

and, as I get better, my knitting.

I have many years of sewing experience

and happily sew for myself, my family and close friends.

But those gifted seams are damn well straight
and those ruffles headed off to a new home are very, very even.

Yet while I might happily sign up for swaps

and every other day think about selling,

I then stress no end about producing something decent.
Well, perfect.

I have certainly lurked in the darker corners of market stalls

to check out the standard of products made

and I am honestly surprised as to what some people will put up for sale.

But perhaps we crafty people are our own worse critics.

A dear friend whose daughters are always gifted clothing that I have custom made
openly admits that she has no crafty bones in her body

and that she would have no idea about the quality of the fabric used
or the standard of my sewing.

I always joke a little that I decided not to do medicine at university

because I couldn't handle the responsibility of people's lives.

(Heck knows that the pressure of being responsible for people's dear pets' lives
was more than enough for me)

Given that I can lie awake at night worrying
that maybe there was a teensy pucker in a flared skirt destined as a present,
it was probably a wise decision.

A simple exercise in numbers

1 test knit



1700 metres of yarn almost knitted

7 buttonholes

27 minutes until midnight

1 huge search through buttons to complete the project

300+ buttons in stash

4 sets of 6 buttons that are a colour match

0 sets of 7 buttons that are a colour match

29 swear words

1 believer in Murphy's Law

What's in a name?

What indeed.

(contmediausa.com)



When your little ones start to communicate,

it becomes necessary to start giving things names.

Labels.

Words that they can recognise and understand

and eventually verbalise themselves.

Milk, flower, car, banana, tree.

You know what I mean.

But this process of course includes body parts.

I am finding that there is a big component of family influence here.

I grew up with a "fanny".

Well, I am grown up now but I think I still have one.

It was there the last time I looked.

One friend thinks fanny is a dirty word.

Another, a doctor, thinks that the correct words for the correct anatomy

right from a young age is the way to go.

So her daughters don't have fannies.

They have vulvas.

And vaginas.

While I am comfortable with fanny,

I was an adult before I recognised that the Americans

use the word "fanny" for bottom.

You can imagine my shock to hear someone demand that you

"get your fanny moving"

and geeze, I did not want to know what a fanny pack was used for.

(Mind you, the Americans also seem to use the word "panties"

I am an undies girl.

Panties to me conjures up porn images

or at least a MA rating)

Boys bits are easier.

Willy is a nice word

given the options available.

But somehow my boys already know to use the word penis

the same way they use the word bum or fart.

Whatever you may think of these words,

I think that they are infinitely more functional and socially acceptable

if you have a young kid on the other side of the fruit and veg section at the supermarket

who is capable of yelling out

"Mummy, Bertie just pulled out his pink bits"

And our house is a boob household.

I think of this word as the equivalent to breast

in the same way that bonk is a light hearted version of

many, many other less attractive words.

"Mummy's boobies" is good.

Before you pass judgement on this, consider your options.

Would you prefer mummy's twangers?

Her air bags,

cajungas,

whammies,

puppies,

sweater kittens,
chesticles,
David and Goliath,

winnebagos,

crowd pleasers,
devil's dumplings,

magic mountains

or perhaps bodacious ta-tas...

Personally I am going to stick with boobs.

It could be oh, so much worse...

(Footnote: I did have to google to find some of those breast words.

Given the moderate content of this blog,

there were a heck of a lot that didn't make the list.

And I didn't even dare google penis.

I learnt enough hideous variations at Uni.

I hate to think what is out there now...)

Who needs recreational drugs when you have a kettle?

(sciencealert.com.au)

Today I learned  that 5 or more cups of coffee a day

can exascerbate any tendency to hallucinate

and cause you to hear things that aren't there.

I asked Elvis what he thought about it over our daily coffee catchup

and he thought that it sounded like a load of crap.

Heart failure.

(clients.ingenious-web.com)

So tell me this?

If the sight of my slumped four year old,

sadly, oh so sadly, waiting for her late arriving mother

on her "Special Person's Morning Tea"

while everyone else's Special Person had turned up on time,

breaks my heart just a little bit,

how the heck am I expected to cope with

the first time her heart gets really broken by a boy?

...When she works out that not all people are nice to you

and the world is not always a nice place

and that even cute animals die in the name of the food chain?

...When she tells me that she hates me for the first time?

Life was so much easier when a Wiggles bandaid fixed the bruises.

(It also has to be said,

she has every right to feel gypped that her mum,

who she spends all her free time with,

was the best example of a Special Person that we could put together

with rellies so far away).

On the upside,

my tardiness was due to finding some completed homework

forgotten at the back door

and taking it to my eldest at school

so that he wouldn't get in to trouble.

So I still get a smiley stamp for today.

Just not a gold star.

Making it up on a daily basis.



This, my dear readers, is my makeup stash.

I am sure you can make it out under all the dust.

There is a fairly new mascara there.

You can tell because it doesn't look like something that time forgot.

And, if you look really closely,

you might see what appears to be a cobweb.

There on the right.

Can you see it?

Needless to say, I don't walk out of the house fully made up very often.

Don't get me wrong.

I don't leave the house with bed hair

(or if I do, it is carefully yet nochalantly covered up by a casually placed yet trendy beret)

I don't leave home with a monobrow.

I learnt from a young age that us brunettes have hair responsibilities.

I don't leave home with a untended pimple like a guiding beacon to find my nose.

(Please let's all promise now not to perpetuate the myth that only teenagers

have to deal with zits.
Promise? Good)

I do my hair.

I pluck any stray eyebrows that set up squatter's right onto my face overnight.

I moisturise and I "powder" my nose.

But that's about it.

For a special occasion,

I will dust off the lipstick (literally it seems)

And a really special  event like a wedding

calls for some eye stuff.

On the flip side,

this means that I am quick to get ready

and boy, am I cheap.

Do you know how often you are meant to toss your makeup and start again?

Mascara?

Every 3 to 4 months.

Yes, 3 to 4 months.

Sometimes I don't dress up for 6 months at a time.

Eye shadows and powders?

Every 2 years.

 Lipstick?

Every 1-2 years.

I got married in 1995.

I still have my wedding day lippy and occasionally pull it out to see if it goes with my outfit.

It's a wonder it hasn't mutated into another life form by now
and crawled off to take over the world.

I would love nothing more than to be one of those people

who casually lippies up with some fire engine red to go buy milk

but I don't quite get there.

What I am hoping is that, in 20 years time,

Mother Nature, Old Man Time and anyone else on the "Ageing Gracefully" committee

 will decide that I have been good to my skin

and will repay me with a few less wrinkles and crow's feet.

But I am not holding my breath.

Maybe I can put all the money that I saved on makeup
into botox injections and cosmetic surgery.

I'll probably still come out ahead financially.

Water for Elephants...be still my beating heart.

As a (reasonably) hot-blooded 42 year old woman,

is it wrong that my perving at Water For Elephants

was directed fairly and squarely at the exquisite clothing and fabulous 1930s circus costumes?

(waterforelephantsfilm.com)

(mtv.com)

(fabulousdoodles.blogspot.com)

(wheelingrampage.blogspot.com)

Robert who?

(In my defense, I kept my perving for things other than costumes

in Pirates of the Caribbean a few weeks back...)

Weekend diary: part 3- But wait! There is more.

Yeah, I knitted too.

(Ripple- Wendy Bernard)

7 hours in the car each way.

(easy Wribbed hat- Joan Janes)

(Hoo hat- Celia Ng)

In between sewing projects.

(The Big Easy- Vivian Aubrey)

Over breakfast.

Oh, I love this pattern.

I adore the yarn.

Needless to say, this is my new favourite hat!

(Norie- Gudrun Johnston)

That's all, folks!

(More details for all projects on Rav.)



Weekend diary: part 2- sewing productivity

(Proof that, in spite of my self doubts,

I can still multi-task when it is required)

KeykaLou keychain purse

I can sew as well as eat, drink, talk and not sleep at the same time.

(Osoberry bag-Fox Flat)
(Yes, orange. Orange!)

(Thanks so much Tania. The perfect project for your gorgeous embroidery.
Oh, the pressure to use it for something worthy!

To be used for all my little knitting necessities)


KeykaLou Ditty bags



(I modified this pattern all over the place as I wanted
to leave out the zip and the ruffle and change the shape of the flap.
Instead of an old sheet,
I will make it properly one day in a lovely vintage style)


NapKitten Pleated Clutch

 I may not have it in me any more to change a nappy
while drinking a cup of coffee and paying bills on the internet
and whipping up a sponge for morning tea,
all at once,
but nice to know I still have a bit of multitasking left in me when it is "necessary"