My New Furniture

The postie delivered a couple of boxes to my house recently which raised my kiddo's curiosity. Both boxes were slightly larger than a tissue box and inside was my new furniture. It sure had the kids puzzled for a while. lol.
I'm not sure if blogger is going to let me show you the photos tonight as it seems to be going awfully slow. I'll try again tomorrow. Oh, there's one photo come up at last! These bookshelves are about 5 or 6 inches tall and I'm planning on filling them with mini craft items. There is two more photo's but I'll think it can wait till tomorrow otherwise I could be up to midnight waiting for them to load.

In the morning I'm off to the library to make some bead angels. I've wanted to learn to bead for a while and as this class was only $5 and during school time I leapt at the opportunity. I also saw an ad in the local paper about a new bead shop in town that runs classes, I may go and have a look.

Checking out the goals for the last week:
1 - Blog every day. I need to make this into a habit. Done.
2- Finish digging and spraying the front garden border. Almost done. I have two more bunches of those lilies to dig out.
3 - Catch up my emails. Way behind on them. Um, still way behind.
4 - Sort bookcases in the lounge out. The kids shelves are in disarray and they are missing several library books. Done!
5 - Sort out the camera cable problem so I can download my pics. Done.
6 - Work on my Christmas redwork project. Did a little bit of work.
7 - Start listing up ideas for the church craft group. Nope, nada, nilch.
8 - Clean front porch so it's ready for painting. I was going to...
9 - Shift couches and clean underneath. Wonder what goodies the kiddos have left for me this time. Maybe missing library books are under there! Shifted one and was so freaked out that I have to pysch myself up to do the other couch. lol. No missing library books however.
10 - Report back next Sunday. 8:) Am doing.

So for this week:
1- Keep blogging each day
2- finish the digging over the front garden bed
3-Must work on church craft group projects
4-Get on with jigsaw puzzle so I can have my craft table back to scrapbook on.
5-The other couch.
6- The front porch must be done as the painters will be coming soon.
7-Catch up on emails.
8-Report back next Sunday!

A Book Questionaire

This questionaire was posted on a message board by someone who had read Anne Fadiman's book Ex-Libris. There is a chapter in her book where she tooks about being courtly lovers or carnal lovers of books. A courtly lover takes care of books,not marking them at all and abhors the idea of putting open books face down. On the other hand a carnal loves forms a close relationship with a book by jotting in margins, folding the corners down etc, and often their books become worn by use. Which are you?

1. Do you write, underline, or otherwise mark in your books?
No. I can't even bring myself to write in my Bible apart from the front and back pages.

2. What do you use for bookmarks?
Bookmarks? lol. I fold down the corner. The top of the page is folded to show where I'm up to in reading, and I'll fold the bottom corner if there is something that stands out to me so I can copy it later or think more on it.

3. Do you lay your books open and face down when you break from reading?
Yes.

4. Do you read while you eat and drink? Do you have food or drink spills or smudges in your books?

Yeah I eat and drink while reading, but it's not often anything ends up on a book. Not even chocolate.

5. Do you go crazy if there's nothing to read in the bathroom?
I use to go crazy. In fact, a childhood friend reminded me how she would be yelling outside the toliet door for me to come and play with her but I would be too wrapped up in a book. lol. With four kiddos at home I don't have that luxury any more.

6. On a scale of 1-10, how urgent is it for you to always have a book available-- in the car, on a trip, at the doctor's office, etc.? (this is related to the one above)
Oh, I say a nine. If the kids are with me it's not so important, but if I'm alone then I'll definitely have a book along. If I go on a trip somewhere I'll always back a couple of books even for one night. Just incase I don't fancy reading one particular book.
Going back to childhood memories again, my mother would occasionally take us out for the day to do bush walks. My brother and I would not be able to go without packing about 20 books to read each. Not that there was a lot of time to read, but I guess they were a bit like a security thing. We *may* of been stuck out in the whop-whops (NZ slang for country) for hours if the car broke down or something and then where would we be with no books?

7. Do you read your books before buying more? Have you read all of your books?
No. I have a whole bookshelves of books to read but still I buy more. In defense I generally buy books second hand and it's a matter of grabbing them while I see them.

8. Do you read mostly fiction or non-fiction?
Mostly non-fiction these days. I still aim to read four fiction books a month and one of those will hopefully be a classic. The bulk of my reading is often scrapbook and craft related books.

9. Are your bookshelves carefully organized? If so, how?
Generally they are organised. I have groups of homeschooling books, finance books, weight-watchers cookbooks, books about books, a shelf of history books, my fiction books and about eight shelves of children's lit.

10. Do you keep reading journals or do your write down quotes from *your own* reading? Do you make lists of new words you come across?
Sometimes. I do keep a list of books that I've read each year for the last couple of years. When it comes to new words I'll pull a dictionary out straight away if I can otherwise I'll forget to look it up.


11.How many books do you have going at once, on average (these are books you're actually reading)? Then add to that the number of books you tend to *browse* at once?
Maybe two or three fiction, and about five non-fiction. I tend to browse quite a bit, probably around 5 books a day.

12. On average, how often do you visit the library?
Too often. At least twice a week, sometimes daily.

13. Do you re-read your favorite books?
Yes, I have done.

14. Do you have a shelf or a small collection of what Fadiman would call "odd books"? These are books about an unusual or surprising subject-- something others might not guess or know about you. Anne Fadiman's "odd books" shelf happens to hold books about polar exploration.

My beginning collection of doll house books. Or maybe my collection of weight watcher's cookbooks considering I haven't lost any weight for a bit. I just like collected the books because they have good recipes. lol.

I wanted to crawl back into bed...

But there was such a lot to do today that I had no choice, I had to get up feeling like I'd been hit by a bus with a chest and head cold. My decision to try and take it easy didn't happen as a friend needed me to look after her young children so she could take her baby to the hospital. Thankfully the young kids behaved wonderfully and even cheered me up quite considerably. Somehow I find it amusing to listen to their chatter of how they are going to be a ballet dancer and spiderman when they grow up. Only the boy who wanted to be spiderman said he had to be bitten by a spider first and he didn't like that idea. I don't blame him. lol.

It was almost another no spend day for me apart from buying some milk. When I stay away from the shops I don't fall for 'bargains' and stuff that looks tempting and my bank balance looks healthier for it. Another good reason to stay home more. 8:)

The plan for the weekend is to definitely rest up. The kiddos have been told they have to sleep in and I'm reasonably confident that will happen as they know they won't be having turns on the computer otherwise. I have Coming Home by David Lewis to finish reading and plenty of craft mags. There is leftovers for tea so I don't have to worry about cooking. Off to bed I go!

Op Shop day

OKiddo no. 5 and I went and helped out at our church's op shop which is run by a good friend of mine, so while I was pricing up items we got to hang out and chat. The downside of working there is that I always come home with something! I got a pink long-sleeved top for me, a pumpkin patch top for kiddo no. 3, and kiddo no.5 discovered a pair of CareBear shoes that she quickly put on one foot, (and a slipper on the other foot!) and refused to take them off so they came home with us.

Still feeling a bit blah, although it may have a lot to do with the fact that I kept being woken up by kiddo no.4 who decides to talk to me in the middle of the night! We are currently having to share a room until we get a four bedroom place but if this keeps on for much longer I'll end up sleeping on the couch. Boy, can he talk! He asks things like "Can I watch such and such dvd when it's time to wake up?" and starts snoring before I've even replied. I did end up falling asleep on the couch this afternoon. I sat down to watch SpongeBob about ten minutes before it started and promptly fell asleep. When I woke the kiddos had a dvd on so I told them to change the channel to SpongeBob and got laughed at.

Blah Day

No stitching, no gardening, no scrapbooking, no cooking and nothing exciting today. Feeling totally blah. I did buy one plain blue pillowcase from the Warehouse for $1.89 with plans in mind to embroider it after reading Colourful Stitchery yesterday. That was my one creative thought for the day.

Interruptions Galore

One of those days where you sit down all comfy to do some stitching and the interruptions start to come. Phone calls to be made, a letter to write and post, kiddo's fighting, and then finally the youngest kiddo didn't quite make it to the toliet in time and wandered with wet feet through the house to tell me. That's when I gave up. lol.


A bright spot to the day was finding this book by Kristin Nicholas in the library. There are some gorgeous ideas, and the photos are stunning. Very bright, colourful and modern. Eye candy for the crafty soul. Check her website to see what I mean. On a wierd/freaky side note, I followed the link from the website to check out her blog and found it was one that I had discovered just a week or so ago! Gotta love the internet and blog world.

Pottering around

This is the Christmas redwork piece that I've been working on for far too long. I'm in no rush to complete it though as I find it so soothing to stitch; no thinking involved, all one colour and just follow the outline. Easy peasy. This pattern is from an old Australian Handcraft mag that I got out from the library nearly two years ago.

Here's a pic of those nasty bulb things I was talking about yesterday. There are bulbs all the way along that strip of dirt, and it's next to impossible to dig them all out. So the plan is to dig as much as I can out, spray, throw weedmat over it and lay a bunch of stones on top. I was going to plant some natives in a pot but may go with cottage type plants in a pot instead. Just about finished all the digging today. Little by little it's getting done.

As you can probably tell I've figured out the camera problem. It only took a minute to find the solution. The bookcases took a little longer, a couple of hours. Two shopping bags were taken to the Sallie shop and I found four missing school books, but still no library books. Into the bedrooms tomorrow I guess.

Goals for this week

1 - Blog every day. I need to make this into a habit.
2- Finish digging and spraying the front garden border.
3 - Catch up my emails. Way behind on them.
4 - Sort bookcases in the lounge out. The kids shelves are in disarray and they are missing several library books.
5 - Sort out the camera cable problem so I can download my pics.
6 - Work on my Christmas redwork project.
7 - Start listing up ideas for the church craft group.
8 - Clean front porch so it's ready for painting.
9 - Shift couches and clean underneath. Wonder what goodies the kiddos have left for me this time. Maybe missing library books are under there!
10 - Report back next Sunday. 8:)

Yay for Spring

The warmer weather looks like it's going to stay around now. The cherry blossom trees are all flowering and my one little daffodil at home is blooming away.

I'm continuing to work outside on the front garden pulling out those nasty bulbs. I took some photos of them to show you but I need to update my computer with the software for this new camera. I sprayed roundup on one side of the front door and hope to finish digging and spraying the other side in a day or two. Whilst doing that I did the lawn edges and dug a little bit around the back too. I do little gardening bursts, ala flylady's 15 minutes rule. Works for gardening as well as housecleaning.

The kiddo's made their Dad some Father's Day cards with some of my scrapbook stuff and felt pens. It was some of my older paper that I can't see myself using ever again so I'm letting them loose at it. Helps to declutter a little too.

When I wasn't gardening in 15 minute bursts I would lie down on the couch (not being completely lazy, my ankle has been giving me a bit of grief after tripping over last week so I'm trying to rest it without feeling guilty) and read old Home and Garden mags for ideas. I'm so tempted to paint our kitchen cupboards blue as they are currently a grungy dusty pink that is scratched badly. I'm thinking a light blue; between say wedgewood blue and a steel grey blue. Hopefully Housing Corp will come through for us soon with a four bedroom house with a better painted kitchen so these feelings of temptation will go away. lol.

Sick of Sick Kids

This has been the worse year on family record for the kiddos being sick. All four have been off school for for a mammoth amount of time; so long in fact, that the principal sent a notice home! Thank goodness for dvd's and lego to keep them all amused and quiet. They are all feeling better now, the sibling fighting has started up again. lol

I haven't been entirely closeted at home, I flew up to Wellywood during August to see my oldest son and spend some time with my kiwipea friends and I got to meet Cathy Z! I did her Designing class and thouroughly enjoyed it. She has such a wicked sense of humour.

I have been on a bit of a craft binge lately. I keep checking out blogs such as Posy Gets Cosy for ideas and bringing home stacks of books from the library. Our church is setting up a craft group and I was asked to teach scrapbooking and I offered to teach redwork as well. Should be loads of fun.

Spring has sprung at last. Although we are hoping to move house soon I can't help getting stuck into the garden a bit. I've been tidying up the edges of the lawn and digging the garden bed in the front garden. There are some horrible bulb flowers there that are really hard to get rid of. I'm thinking about digging up as much as I can, then laying weed mat and stones over it. Hopefully that will kill the buggers. lol. Then maybe planting some native plants in large containers. (Then I can take them with me when we move.) Any suggestions for what will do well in a pot on the not so sunny side of the house?