Cat Lady

I'm not afraid to admit that I am a "cat person".  Steve is not.  I guess you're either a cat person or a dog person.  Dogs are nice and all, but I'd rather have a cat.  This of course, means we have a stalemate situation in our house.  While both Cheyenne and I want to get a kitten, Steve is dead against it.  You might think that two against one should mean something.  It doesn't.  As much as I want to get another cat (since my beloved Zephyr passed away last year), I'd prefer to have a peaceful home life, so to keep Steve happy, we haven't got a cat.  We haven't given up, though; we are still working on him.  Maybe one day he'll give in.

I bought this cat pot plant holder ages ago because it was cute.

It sat empty on my potting table ever since I bought it, for one reason.  The pot is so damn small (just 7cm in diameter) I wondered what I could plant in it that wouldn't get pot-bound too quickly.

Recently, I decided that maybe a small ornamental cactus might be ideal, because, A. you can get quite small ones, and B. cacti are better suited to me because I often forget to water my plants.  So, despite the fact that the local Bunnings had a nice selection of small cacti, I believe it was fate that decided which one I chose.

Not only was this one the right size, but it was covered in "hair" (which fits with the cat theme).  It was flowering when I got it. It gets a ring of pink flowers around the top, which is kinda cool, since none of my other cactus plants have ever flowered. But the best part?  It's called "Old Lady" cactus.

So now I have an Old Cat Lady that isn't embarrassing.  LOL.

O is for October, a month of "O"s

O is for nearly Over.

This means that all our birthdays are done and dusted for another year.

Cheyenne turned 8 in September.  She celebrated by having two of her friends sleep over (OMG, sooo won’t be doing that again for a few years!), and by getting her ears pierced.  (O is for just a tiny Ouch.)  She was very brave and had them done one at a time.

I turned 38 a week and a half ago; which is a rather unremarkable milestone.  About the only remarkable thing about it is that I was on Fraser Island at the time, lol.

O is also for the Big Four-Oh…and also for Old (Bahaha, I had to put that in). Yep, Steve turned 40 just last week.  You know you’re getting old when your idea of a birthday bash is a quiet bbq with a handful of friends, lol.

O is for Overdue.  Trip to Fraser Island, that is.  Finally, after all these years of going to Rainbow Beach, I have managed to actually go to Fraser Island for a holiday.  Technically, I have stood on the shoreline of the island a few times when we’ve gone over in the tinnie flicking for flathead, but that isn’t “visiting Fraser Island”.   At the Rainbow Beach Fishing Comp earlier this year Steve won (well, technically his dad did, but it was Steve’s fish) barge transfers and one night’s accommodation for 4 adults at Eurong Resort.  So we paid for 3 extra nights (they didn’t charge us any extra for Cheyenne) and went over with his parents.  The plan was to do the touristy stuff, so no fishing rods were taken. (shock horror).  Although Steve has been to Fraser Is. many times on fishing trips, he hasn’t gone to most of the tourist spots, so this was a first for him as well.

 Amusing ourselves with self-portraits on the s-l-o-w barge trip, lol.

 Ocean views from our top floor balcony!

We stopped at the wreck of the Maheno (along with every single tour group and carload of backpackers on the island), went to the Champagne Pools (so named because of the frothy bubbles when the waves hit the rocks) and drove up the Eastern beach as far as Nkala Rocks. 

  
We stopped several times at Eli Creek, which was fabulously icy and refreshing on the hot days.  Most of the freshwater creek is only knee deep but there are a few deeper holes you can take a dip in.

Another day we did the Southern Lakes Scenic Drive and then on to Lake McKenzie, where Steve and Cheyenne went for a swim, but the rest of us decided it was too chilly. We also walked along the boardwalk beside the creek at Central Station.

 The sand is so white at Lake Birrabeen and the water is crystal clear.

  

The above sign post cracked me up.  

Don't even think about camping on the edge of Lake Boomanjin.   

(Actually, as this lake is not crystal clear, has no nice beach and is, to be honest, pretty swampy and manky on the only side accessible by road, I don't think the sign is really neccessary.)

 Lake McKenzie has crystal clear water and reflects the colour of the sky.

We saw dingoes (although not as many as you’d expect), whales in the distance (I sooo need a better camera with a telephoto lens *sigh*), a starfish in a rock pool, and a camera-shy echidna hurrying across a track.   

Someone had carelessly discarded some fish frames on the beach, attracting a dingo.  We pulled up alongside to watch it.  A handful of gulls circled, trying to steal some fish.  One got a little too close and the dingo asserted its claim on the fish.  While we watched, it jumped up and snatched the gull out of the air.  Once it was satisfied that the gull was dead, the dingo calmly returned to the piece of fish.  Let that be a warning to other gulls. Don't try to steal food from a dingo.

We were blown away by the amount of devastation caused by the recent bushfires.  Such a huge area of the island is now black and ghostly. Luckily, a lot of Australian native plants need fire to regenerate, so the area won’t stay black for long.  The grass trees seem to be the quickest to recover.

All in all, it was a lovely holiday, albeit far to short for my liking.  It is so nice to go places and actually see something other than bait and fishing gear.

Weekend Sewing Project

...well, maybe a long weekend.

So I’ve been sitting on this project for…   oooh, nearly two years now, and seeing as I was in a creative mood last Sunday, I thought I might finally get on with it.

There seems to be a trend of "re-styling and re-purposing" at the moment.  Everywhere you look, crafty people are turning one thing into another thing.  May as well join the bandwagon, right?   To tell the truth, I was already planning on using Cheyenne’s old kindy sheets for this project, way back when I bought the laundry hamper.  I mean, what else was I going to use them for?  She did use them (as sheets) once or twice when we went camping, but she really is too big for them now and they don’t fit her camp stretcher.  It just seemed a waste to chuck them out and not do something with the material.  But hey, now I can seem trendy and say I’m re-purposing them, LOL.

So, it’s a cheap and not-so-cheerful laundry hamper from a bargain shop.  Cost me about $14.  Ugly plain linen bag complete with dodgy, el cheapo stitching and unfinished wood – you know the ones I mean.  All it needed was a new bag (courtesy of Cheyenne’s kindy sheets), and a lick of paint and it would look fantastic in her bedroom.

I love the floral pattern and colours in this fabric.  I fell in love with it at the time when I got it on sale at Spotlight. So much so, that I think I got some in blue tones as well…  * note to self - hunt through material stash *

After much grumbling and swearing, I gave up trying to un-seize the lift on my sewing cabinet (last time I was packing up my machine, the lift got stuck about a third of the way down, and now it won’t go back up again either!) and just made-do.  Just as well I wasn’t sewing something huge that I needed the extra table space for!   The bag is such a simple shape that it all came together very quickly and I only really had to stop and think when I came to do the buttonholes on the tabs.  OMG, the last time I sewed a buttonhole was in Home Ec at high school.  Thank goodness for my Bernina instruction manual, haha.  Result?  Four perfect buttonholes.

With nothing left to do to the bag other than sewing on the buttons, I turned my attention to painting the frame.  Cheyenne’s bedroom furniture is white, so I was determined it had to match.  Quick trip to Bunnings for some spray paint (yes, you're right, I'm too lazy to fiddle around with a paintbrush) and I was ready.  First, the primer. No problem there.  Now the top coat...  Two coats of white later and I could still see patches of the primer showing through. Seriously?  I could be re-coating forever…  Time to rethink the colour.  I sewed on the buttons while I thought about what colour would be more likely to give a nice even coverage.

I decided to go with a bright pink paint, which would pick up some of the colours in the fabric. That meant another trip to Bunnings in the morning.  *le sigh*   Naturally, it rained all day, which put a stop to painting.  My “weekend project” had now stretched out to three days!  Thankfully, yesterday was fine and I got two coats of pink on the frame.  Touch dry in ten minutes, my arse!  Not even after 20 minutes!  After retouching a few touch marks, I set it to dry overnight.

 Yes, pink was a great choice, I think.

Ta Da!

Finally, it is finished. Yay! My "weekend" project only took 4 and a bit days!  Although Cheyenne will be using it in her bedroom straight away, it will match even better with her room décor when she moves into the front room at the end of the year. After we paint it pink, that is. And after I move my craft room out and into her current bedroom… and don’t even get me started on that!

(I’ll leave THAT for another post)

Oceans of Fun

“Have you started your project yet? You’ve known about it for a couple of weeks. How are you going to get it finished on time if you haven’t even started?”

Sound familiar? Seriously, I think I’m beginning to sound like my mum. Oh the horror! LOL.

Welcome to 2RS semester 2 assignment. Environment Dioramas. They had to choose between a Natural, Social or Built Environment and build a diorama. The even had the boxes supplied for them. I’m sure Cheyenne chose the biggest box. No shoebox for her. Oh no, that would be too easy. She ended up with a file box. Which then sat untouched on our lounge room floor for about two weeks!

She decided to make an ocean diorama. With that initial decision made, she figured there was no rush to get started. In an attempt to try to motivate her, I raided my craft cupboard for things which she might find useful.

Cheyenne knew she wanted to have starfish made from kitchen sponge (not sure where she got this idea from, but they do look pretty good), rocks, seaweed, coral, anemones, jelly fish, an eel and of course, fish. She didn't think she would be able to draw fish that looked like fish, so we compromised and I printed out some pictures she could colour in and cut out.

This was all well and good, but she couldn’t start putting it together until the painting was done first. After much nagging by me she finally got stuck in.

The bottom and three sides of the box had to be painted blue for the water, and the fourth side was smeared with PVA and covered with sand (from her sand pit). In lieu of real rocks (which may have been a tad heavy and tricky to glue down, LOL), we grabbed a few smallish chunks of styrofoam from the Great Mountain of Styrofoam behind Steve’s brother Brett’s shed. Don’t even ask... Trust me. These chunks of styrofoam were painted a sandy colour and glued into the box. Coloured pipe cleaners twisted together became seaweed, coral and anemones, and poked easily into the foam. Yet another good reason to not use real rocks, LOL.

I’d saved an individual pudding container “just in case” (yes, I’m genetically predisposed to hoarding, LOL) and this became the jellyfish, with kitchen string for tentacles. Cheyenne was unsure how to make the eel. After a bit of thought, I suggested a wiggly balloon, stuffed with cotton wool, with googly eyes stuck on.

Much fun can be had with an assorted pack of googly eyes, LOL.

All that was left to do was to decide where to position the star fish, shells and eel, and where to hang the jelly fish and fish by their fishing line. 

...Oh, and write up a materials list and draw up the plan (which, of course, was supposed to be done first, but hey, whatever, it’s grade 2 not high school).

 

The finished product.

As practising in front of Steve and I was deemed to be “too embarrassing”, I was unsure how her presentation would go. They were to be marked on how well the construction "followed the plan" (ROFL), their discussion of their strengths and weaknesses and general oral speaking skills.

This afternoon I asked her how she did and what she said. Her reply? “Good. I just said some random stuff.” Good grief!


Her teacher reassured me that she did do quite well, apart from not making eye contact. Apparently she was too busy facing her diorama, pointing out its features, LOL.

Collection or Obsession?

Ah, Lego. You never really grow out of it. In fact, I still have an ice cream bucket full of random Lego from my childhood.

Back then the Lego men (there were no women) came in city characters or space men (they may have just started to do a limited range of knights as well). They ALL had the same yellow heads with the same smiley faces, and that wasn't really a bad thing. It was just they way Lego men were.

Somebody at Lego finally came up with the idea of updating the figures. They now have awesome facial features. No more boring smiley face, lol.

Last year I was waiting in a checkout line at Target and saw a box full of packets of individual Lego figures in what appeared to be a “lucky dip” type arrangement. I bought one just to see which one I would get. That was Series 1 of the Minifigures. Had I known that in Series 1 each of the 16 different figures had individual barcodes, I probably would have gone back the next day to find the ones I wanted.   I didn’t.    I never saw another box of that series again.

Earlier this year I noticed a box or two of what turned out to be Series 3. (Not sure why I never saw any Series 2 figures.) This time I was determined to get several of them. I guess you could say I became obsessed, lol.

I spent a lot of time, in various stores, squeezing foil packets to try and figure out which figure might be inside. Random shoppers would give me odd looks (naturally) but several were intrigued enough to actually stand there and help me squeeze packets! (Lego had wised up that the identifying barcodes reduced sales because people only bought the ones they wanted, and they now had no obvious identifying marks). After many wasted hours a nice lady told me that, although they all looked the same, there were apparently some Braille-like dots on the back of the packs which would help. Five minutes on Google and I had the code breaker, so I managed to get the Fisherman, Biggles, Snowboarder and several others.

Series 4 has been harder to find. They were released in April but don’t seem to be stocked at the usual places.  The Braille dots are a wash this time round (damn you Lego), so I have gone back to squeezing packets again.  sigh...

At long last I have FINALLY found the Hazmat Guy that I’ve been searching for.  The expression on his face is priceless.  

Now I just have to find the urban skateboarder…

...sigh.

This could take a while.

Slack!

I really didn't think it had been that long since I last posted.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered my last post was in February ! February... Seriously ?

It isn't that absolutely nothing has happened since then, it's rather that it has all been so mundane and not worth blogging about. (well... that and the fact that Facebook games have kind of sidetracked my life, lol)

I promise I will try to make more of an effort from now on.

Not right now, obviously, because I'm off to do a bit of shopping and meet a friend for sushi. Mmmmm... sushi :)

Another Childhood Milestone Reached

Yesterday, for the first time ever, Cheyenne rode her bike without training wheels !

I'm so proud of her :)

We were beginning to wonder if she'd ever find the confidence.

She used to ride her bike a lot, and last year we decided she seemed ready for Operation Training Wheels Removal. So we did... and she wasn't. She flat out refused to pedal. Wouldn't even try. So we caved in and put them back on. Since then, she has not really been interested in riding her own bike, opting instead for trips on the Tag Along, behind Daddy's bike.

We frequently see little kids, 3 or 4 years of age, riding (without training wheels) beside their parents on the way to pick up their older brothers or sisters from school. "If they can do it, you can do it too", I'd say to Cheyenne. "No I can't. I'll fall off." Now, I have terrible balance and I know I was a lot older by the time I finally learnt to ride a bike, so I wasn't going to push her into it if she truly wasn't ready. Steve, however, felt that as she is already 7 it was high time the training wheels came off for good.

On Saturday he went out and bought a kick stand to suit her bike (along with a new inner tube for the back tyre) and removed the training wheels. Yesterday she had a few reluctant practice runs on the grassy footpath outside Nanny's, then after lunch we hit the local bike track. We figured it would be perfect as it is nice and flat and not particularly busy (it's more of a dead-ended scenic track rather than a commuter route).

After numerous minor stacks (mostly caused by her looking round to check that Steve was still holding the back of the seat, therefore throwing her off balance) she had mentally given up and was whinging that she just couldn't do it, but we weren't going to let her off that easily. We told her she had to ride all the way to the end before she got to turn back. At least she got to ride. Both Steve and I were running along either side of her! NOT my favourite thing to do in this heat!

The return leg was where her confidence kicked in. After one wobbly stop, Steve revealed to her that she'd just ridden about 30 metres all by herself, without him holding the seat, and she realised she could do it after all. After that, the few times she came off she picked the bike up and got straight back on without hesitating. She was even remembering to use her brakes to stop. By the time we got back to the car, she was still a bit wobbly, but the only time Steve was holding on to her was to help her start off. She'll get the hang of that with a bit more practice.

Now that she has the confidence in herself she'll be keen to practice, so next time I'll be taking the camera. I'm sure it won't be long before she's able to keep up with us and we can all go riding together.

Happy (Belated) New Year

Well, it's 2011 already! I'm sorry it has been so long between posts.

My New Year's Resolution was to keep my blog updated more often. Clearly, not going so well with that, as it's almost the end of January already and this is my first post of the year. Hmmm...

Not that it's really any excuse, but the last part of the year always seems to get rather hectic, so naturally a blog falls by the wayside. Surely though, I must have had something to write about in the last 6 months?

Let's see... Cheyenne turned 7 last September, then in October I turned 37 and Steve turned 39. Then we had the end of grade 1 for Cheyenne and Christmas holidays, and rain, rain and MORE rain.

We had a very soggy and muddy week away at Borumba Deer Park between Boxing Day and New Year. What should have been a pleasant week of fishing, swimming, watersports and trips in the boat became a week of squelching about in stinky mud, daily checking the waterlevel of the flooded creek against the powerpole on the lower campgrounds, and playing about on forestry roads. All because we were trapped between two flooded creek crossings and couldn't get up to the dam or back into town for fresh supplies. Did I mention NO SHOWERS ? That's right. As the creek was flooded, the pump had to be removed for safety, so the limited supply of tankwater had to be used for flushing the toilets, rather than on showers. Still, there was copious amounts of rainwater to be collected from our tarp, so no shortage of water for bucket washing, lol. When the floodwater receded, the bridges had been damaged, but at least we could get home.

Of course, that was still an adventure, compared to the flood devastation throughout the rest of the state. Emerald, Rockhampton, Bundaberg, Chinchilla, Condamine and so many other areas in between. Then Toowoomba, the Lockyer Valley, Ipswich and Brisbane had their turn, before the floodwaters headed south into northern NSW. Now Victoria is also in the grip of flooding. So much devastation and it isn't the end of the wet season yet.

Today is Cheyenne's first day back at school for 2011. New teacher, new classroom block, a mix of old and new classmates and lots of new things to learn. I'm hoping she will enjoy grade 2 as much as the two previous years. I promise to keep you posted.