School holidays

Well the winter school holidays are almost over for another year, today the girls have a pupil free day so we are off to see HP7.2. These holidays we have also been ice skating, made rainbow jelly, had bike rides with dad, gone to the park, shopped for luggage for our next term break (so excited!), had a State of Origin pizza party (too bad NSW lost), planted veges, made a cake and had sleepovers! There were only a few things left on the list that we didn't get to, but all in all I think having the girls write the list of things they wanted to do over the holidays was a good idea, I'm sure that if the list wasn't in plain sight they would be complaining how these holidays were boring and that they didn't do anything. Kids!

Cheers

Knitting along

I have been doing an extraordinary amount of knitting of late (extraordinary for me that is!) and here's a little peek at my projects.

This is an infinity scarf I made for myself and I love it! I made it with two strands instead of one strand of bulky as I haven't found any good sources of bulky yarn around here yet. It can be left as a large looped scarf or doubled up to keep my neck extra warm. I found the pattern here.

This is the same scarf, but one I am making for a friend. Yes, I know it is very orange but she is returning to her native homeland of Canada soon and her favourite ice hockey team is orange (Philly Flyers maybe?). Anyway, going to ice hockey games and living in Canada I'm sure it will get used!

This is a scarf I started this week, just a yarn user-up really. But a lovely pattern found here.

And finally this is a little black beret I am knitting for Miss 8.

As you can see I have several projects on the go at once, something I like to do with books too. I always have several to choose from so if I get bored with one and can easily pick up another. That and I am a major procrastinator so I rarely finish anything! (Just joking, I do occasionally finish things, sometimes...). You may have also noticed I am a huge fan of Ravelry! If you are a knitter or crocheter make sure you have joined as it is a great resource. You can have your own page and link all the projects you have your eye on, and update as you make progress. I haven't updated mine in ages, but writing about it has inspired me to do so!

Cheers

Backyard chickens

We keep chickens in our backyard and at the moment they are in a smallish hen house, with nesting boxes, in a large run made by Mr Homespun, but after we return from our trip there are a few backyard improvements we are finally going to get around to and as a result I have been pondering ways to improve the current chicken arrangement. This week I went around to a friend's home and she has a lovely small run for her chickens that I have taken a few ideas from. As a result of my slight addiction to all things Pinterest, I have also stumbled across some other ideas on the net, although definitely more elaborate than I have planned. Check out this chicken coop from Heather Bullard! In my wildest dreams I would have a chicken coop like this one! It is divine. But in the meantime, my beloved chooks will stay as they are whilst I continue to dream and plan.

cheers

Book Club - The Secret Life of Bees

I have recently joined a book club with some of the mums from Miss 8's school and am loving it! The book we have just finished is Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees. I enjoyed this book, Kidd's writing style  makes for very easy reading but to be honest I was a little bit disappointed. Without spoiling it for those of you who haven't read it, a tragedy occurs later in the book that left me feeling that the book was missing something because I wasn't overly upset by this tragedy. I love to form an emotional attachment to characters (and have a good bawl) and I'm not sure whether the lack of attachment was deliberate (as the main character is a little distant from some of those around her) or whether it was just a product of the lighter writing style. Either way, it was a really good read, but it didn't make the list of all time favourites.

This month we are tackling Craig Silvey's Jasper Jones. Whilst I worked at the bookstore we sold a gazillion copies of this and it was especially popular with book clubs so fingers crossed it delivers something special.

Until next time.

Gardening and a homemade blackboard

Since finishing work I have immersed myself in a couple of projects I have wanted to do for some time.

This weekend I finally tackled the back vege garden. I always find this time of the year a little uninspiring in the vege garden so I have neglected it for some time. This is what it looked like on Saturday morning (above) and below is how it looked a couple of hours later!

I removed the passionfruit vine that was blocking the sun to the other half of the garden and replanted this side. Much better! Although you can see the plants I transplanted are still suffering from a little shock but since this was taken they have bounced back.

I have also been working on this blackboard, something I have wanted for the kitchen for soooo long. I have seen much smaller versions around but they are always too expensive so I enlisted hubby's help and together we whipped this together. The kids have since used it to list all the thing they want to do on these school holidays.

I'll post on the other things I have been up to soon.
Until next time...

PS Happy 4th to anyone from the US reading this.

Kids Reward System Part II

Good grief, time has passed quickly between blog posts! I have been busy finalising our plans for Paris, booking hotels, train tickets etc and I have been working on a home project that has been bugging my for a while, I will post on it later as it is so close to being finished.

A quick update on a post I wrote a few weeks ago, the kids reward system. In my home we have deemed it a success. After both girls had filled their jars for the first time we made some slight adjustments to the value of some chores (for example getting the clothes off the line moved from a small marble to a medium one) to encourage the girls to do some of the chores they don't usually attempt. We also added a few we had forgotten about! If anyone wants to have a look at our completed (at this stage, who knows what we'll think of adding as they get older!) list, please let me know and I will happily send it to you.

Cheers for now

Look what she made!

For some strange reason Miss 12 had it in her in her head to make a sponge cake earlier this week (here she is working away on it, yes of course in her school uniform, let's get it dirty and give mum more washing!).

And here is the end result.

She did a great job, it was a lovely sponge. She also set the table for a full afternoon tea and invited my mum and dad around to share. What a nice way to spend the afternoon.