are we there yet?

YIPPEE!!!
A decision has been made.
I can be impatient, I can get twitchy wondering what's coming up next.
I have the sometimes tiresome punctuality gene that makes me ready and raring to go while others are still lagging blithely behind, casually pottering and pondering in a desultory fashion.
I am that person, who, left to her own devices will turn up your door AT the time on the invitation, not fashionably late when you really EXPECT everyone to shamble in.
If I'm being picked up by a friend, I will probably be standing outside waiting while the friend is still getting out of the shower.
ANYHOO....what I really want to say is that I have endured the past few months of house hunting, trawling through alert emails, schlepping through peoples homes on the weekends, admiring the nastiness of gilt bathroom fittings, the pong of carpet infiltrated by greasy cooking smells, the space and spaces, the cracks and mould.
I have tried to imagine us living in these homes, mentally riding my kids bike route to school, their trudges to the tram stop. I have sighed with jealousy in laundries & secretly examined the tomes on the bookshelves.
Yesterday, after the obligatory 4 week sales campaign, the one house that we have loved, in the most wonderful location, went to auction. We thought we were in with a chance. We actually thought we kind of liked the estate agent (!@#$$??><#??) and felt that he could see us securing our dream home too. He warned us not to be intimidated by the Buyers Advocates he knew to be attending on behalf of their clients.
So we didn't sleep well for a few nights. I felt sick worrying about preparing our house to go on the market with haste. We hashed and rehashed our top cut off limit. We contemplated the unbelievable amount of money we were about to spend and what else we could usefully put it towards. We debated various scenarios and how we would respond to the auction environment pressures.
We put an expensive bottle of Champagne in the fridge and while D finished off an online game of Carcassonne I sat in the car with Pepper and my Mum.
It rained, it poured, the crowd stood in the back garden under umbrellas while the auctioneer, his lackeys and the Buyers Advocates sheltered under the veranda. The auctioneer speedily took off with his pre-show blather.
THEN.
IT WAS OVER.
The two professional fellows duked it out between them. They started $50,000 above the highest price in the price range and in 90 seconds the property was sold 1st, 2nd, 3rd call.
For 13 times the price we paid for our house. Nearly $300,000 in excess of our limit!
So it was fairly decisive.
I have called a builder already this morning.
We are renovating. See, next doors have already and we need to get our roof to match back up with them.
And we are staying in our lovely little pocket of real estate with all the great neighbours, the handy shops, the florist, the mechanic, the lovely cafe, the great pizza on the corner. And did I mention the neighbours? One of them told me that I would be excommunicated from the knitting/craft circle meetings if I didn't stay....seriously!
So that's IT!
The champagne was great and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face.

wish us luck

This is an old photo of a road trip to Gippsland, but it does have a lovely bit of stormy weather in it, so it has a smidgen of relevance to today.
This weekend we are bidding on a house. This is such a MAJOR step for me the Cancer crab, home loving type. I am very resistant to moving. I live in the BEST neighbourhood ever! But this house is so great. It will be so expensive. We really might not get it.
Tonight Mackie is going to a scout camp, Pepper is going to see New Moon & sleep at her Twilighty buddy's house.
We have to drive a couple of the scouts to Mt Martha, so we are going to stay in a motel tonight!!!!
IN FRANKSTON!!!
I grew up in Frankston. I haven't been back there much since.
The wild weather is bearing down on us now. Thunder and wind and cool gusts of air, bursting into the hot sulky house, bullying down the hallway, battering the doors and snatching up dog-fluff.

abundance

At the moment I have a carnival of sweet peas climbing up my front fence.
Instead of using any type of moderation, I planted heaps of seeds and to my delight I now have what looks like a jungle of sweet peas engulfing the woven wire fence.
They have emerged in the lovely and very fragrant pink & white variety, then a wandering patch of blowsy white ones, then an eye-popping hot pink collection with the addition of a gorgeous purple/magenta bunch as well. There are even a few very blue ones thrown in for good measure.
I have tried to photograph them but the photos don't really convey the joyousness of their display.
They have taken a bit of a battering in the wild wind and weather of the past couple of days. They are about 6 feet high and have grown beyond the reach of the fence, so a section in the middle has now flopped back into the garden. But the flowers aren't ready to give up yet. They have changed direction so that they are again climbing sunwards!

Happy Halloween too. We had a delightful neighbourhood get together last night with bbq and friends and marauding kids dressed as goths (the big girls including Pepper), a caveman (Mackie), a cat, a ghost, a couple of draculas, a corpse bride (in her real wedding dress), me (a decapitated dolly) and Minnie Mouse (our bbq hostess). Good fun & community spirit, I love it)

craft stall pix

Well the craft stall went off with a bang. It was a blast and earned the school a big chunk of money. Thank you to everyone that came along. The community spirit of the school is fantastic. We are all patting ourselves on the back of course. It was so much fun.
Here we are in our stylish get-up.

the red sticky tape dispenser is gone

Packing up.
Choosing, deciding, discarding.
Cleaning up.
Having a wine.
Going to work.
Putting things in storage.
Cooking, vacuuming, washing.
Looking at real estate.
Lacking the ability to be gorgeous, thin, witty, good with finance, productive in craft or blog.
When a blog dies, where does it go?
Can you print it out and keep a hard record of the madness of blog-osity?
Can it be a book or file, something else on the shelf that someone else will one day look at briefly then pop regretfully into the recycle bin?
Yeah maybe it meant something to you..
Why do we keep anything?

last reminder

St Kilda Primary School Fete. Tomorrow. 10 til 4. Cnr Brighton Rd and Chapel Street near St Kilda Town Hall. Super Dooper Craft Stall, Rides, Food, Best Cake In Show Competition, Beauty Parlour, Secondhand Clothes, Toys, Books, Rockwiz Show & Live Music, Enterprising Kids' Creations, Ya Mum (hardy har har), Spooky House!!!!!!( it really IS spooky, believe me I helped spookify it yesterday). Happy Community Goodness. I'll be on the Craft Stall, 1 til 3. See ya there.

ST KILDA PRIMARY SCHOOL FETE!

We have had a very productive morning, bagging, tagging and generally pricing all the various beautiful creations (BARGAINS) made by school parents (LEGENDS) for our upcoming fete.
St Kilda Primary School are having their fete (blockbuster extravaganza) on Sunday, October 18th.
I will be there, proudly selling wares at the craft stall. What a delight it has been, working with a dedicated and passionate bunch of lovely (hysterical) Mums to produce a rip-snorter of a stall, jam-packed with handmade goodness.
There will be a cornucopia of Xmas gift ideas! There will be a VERY competitive cake competition (YUM), rides for the kiddies, second hand books and toys aplenty. There will be great food.
You don't often head out to a school fete with bags of cash, but I would highly recommend it in this case!
Hope to see you there.
Sunday, October 18th.
Yay.

school hols

Considering we have had some devastating losses during the past two school hols, I was trawling the net last night for something fun to do. Something memorable for the kids to keep in their minds as they head back to school for term 4. NOT GOING TO THE MOVIES. Something DIFFERENT!
I found a site for the Melbourne Stencil Festival and they were advertising the final of their kids stencil making workshops. I emailed requesting a place for three squids and straightaway they emailed me back and booked us in.
It was fantastic! While the organisation of activities in the beginning was a little casual, the friendliness of the arty helpers was delightful and my two kids and their friend got totally stuck into the process of choosing/creating a design, cutting a stencil and transferring it onto stickers and t-shirts with SPRAY PAINT!!! Banksy look out!
These photos, apart from the spray paint and the kids, do not in any way represent what we did today. We found this artwork in a local laneway on a walk last week. A sunny day..see the shorts and thongs. nice.
They had a ball. They brought home examples of their art & a t-shirt each. We are all feeling a trifle headachey now, despite the use of masks. It was worth it though.

I have been...

Making toffee with the kids and watching Mackie defrosting the freezer, catching up with the washing and wishing I had a hot cup of coffee wrapped in my frozen little fingers.

I have just been to visit my blog and many of my favourite blogs for the first time in a while.
The first surprise I discovered was that someone has left comments on a number of my posts. That someone's comments are composed of links to chinese porn. Don't bother following any of those links, unless of course you enjoy that particular form of entertainment (??) I have now disabled my RECENT COMMENTS widgety thing in disgust.

Then, because of what's been going on with me, I'm going to share this quote that brought me to tears.
"There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go."
Anon.
I read this quote on Jacinta's one little acorn blog. You can read about the heart-breaking reason for it's inclusion on her blog here.
For me..within a period of 4 months, I have let go my own father and suddenly last week D's father also. From being a blissfully death-ignorant kid to being the closest authority on the subject is a very steep climb. I never imagined that my experience would be called upon so soon. But I was sincerely touched by my mother-in-law's gratitude. I have never felt as though I had anything of real worth to offer her, until now. My poor kids have lost both their Grandfathers at the beginning of each of the past school holidays. It doesn't seem fair and yet it is just a small touch of a harsh reality compared to the experience of others.

What's goin' on

The latest craft stall inspired triumph!
The banner for the front of our marquee. Each letter is roughly 12 inches square.
It's actually all in one big long strip, but I couldn't get it in the photo like that. The pink background fabric was donated to us crafty laydees by another school mum and most of the rest is from Nell's and my combined stash. It was great fun doing that speedy whizzing through the sewing machine, no great care required....but it looks fab! Can't wait to hang it up.

Then I must show you our new favourite mugs. Cuppa tea time has never looked so stylish.
D is The Big Sleep and I am proudly The Common Reader. So sleepy. So common.
I have just finished writing a super brief review of a couple of books for a Childrens' Reading Catalogue. I am stressed out because I find it very difficult to write in a succinct & interesting way. I can blab on face to face about why and how much I love a book, but I worry that I sound a bit "thick" in the written form. Still it's for the good of the kiddies, and they were very enjoyable books to read. The Undrowned Child by Michelle Lovric and Beatle Meets Destiny by Gabrielle Williams.

Dad's Day minus Dad

I have continued on my non-blogging but fete-crafting way of late.

I have been hanging out in my head (quite dull & echoey) and enjoying the snap & buzz of the beginning of retail christmas. Things are busy as they always are at this time of year.

I had a fabulous weekend away with some of my quality laydee friends. We left town on a Friday night and stocked up on trashy mags. We walked on the beach, had a few wines and lots of talking. We turned up the music and cavorted drunkenly around the lounge room. It was hysterical.
The next night we cooked a huge spectacular fishy, ate ourselves silly, more drinks and played some kind of game like "celebrity heads", until they was not a drop of wine left, not a chocolate nor a dry eye in the house.
In the morning only one chickadee was up early to enjoy the sunrise view from the enormous windows and while we other slobs were just rolling over for a bit more shut-eye, the call was heard....THERE'S A WHALE!!!!!! Well I'm surprised no one seriously injured themselves, tumbling with closed eyes and headaches knocking, down the steps into the lounge to see the wondrous sight.
Not only did the whale cruise in a leisurely fashion to and fro in front of our window for an hour, but as we were watching, a huge storm front blew over dumping rain and amazing us with a rainbow show big enough to span the whole ocean! We felt blessed. Great company, incredible sights and peace & quiet to enjoy and appreciate it all.

Today is Father's Day AND my Dad's birthday and for the first time ever, I don't have a Dad. It left me a bit befuddled. I wanted the kids to shower THEIR Dad with love and attention, but I didn't really feel like doing much to help them. So, sadly they didn't exactly jump sensitively to the party. They didn't want to "help" me make brekky in bed. They wanted to go out to our thriving cafe strip for brekky, so we did. And then they wanted to go to the movies to see "UP", so we did. I think D was happy to avoid the "active family" outing (bike ride/big walk/ice skating) in favour of early movie for the kids and then an afternoon watching the footy. So, while it felt very emotionless and self-serving, it worked. We went to MY Dad's house and we watched footy and I got to potter around in his studio and mentally be with my memories (interspersed with adjudicating extreme sibling squabbling). And MY SAINTS triumphed. And we could hear the roar of the crowd from the backyard.
So it was good.
Here are some tiny little purses that you could buy from the St Kilda Primary Fete Craft Stall on Sunday October 18th. They will be a bargain because we want to sell everything (and there is a LOT of handmade love) and it is for a really nice school with a beautiful friendly vibe and a passionate crafting community.

craft & garden

craft & garden
Originally uploaded by lovelybutton

nature's been working on this explosion of magnolia flowers and I've been pottering about with badges for the school fete!

FLOATING WITH LOVE

At the very beginning of the school holidays my Dad died. He was the best Dad ever. I am an only child and I was very privileged to always have the love and support of my great Dad. He was the type of guy who was full of interesting facts and trivia. He knew lots of funny simple magic tricks to amuse the kids. He was very well informed on current affairs and always inquisitive and interested in my friends. Over the years I made school friends, work friends, play group friends, kinder friends and parents of my kids' school friends.
Dad remembered all of them and their kids and what made them special and wonderful. He had a relationship of his own with lots of those people because for most of the time he was collecting the kids from school or other activities while I was at work.
The partner of one of my closest friends is a hot air balloon pilot. The very special Chris, AKA Balloonman.
Less than a week after Dad passed away, Chris decided that D, the kids & I needed a big distraction. Our two families & Chris' photographer friend Andrew Chapman drove up to Hall's Gap in the Balloon bus. In the frosty cold of the morning before the sun came up we rugged up in all our cozy gear & drove up to the Wonderland Carpark. We all heave-ho'd and unfolded the balloon in the empty carpark. A group of international bushwalkers looked on in amazement. We climbed into the basket and with a long whooshing blast of the burners we climbed up and up and up over the Grampians. It was the most spectacular experience ever. It was a bit terrifying too, especially when we rose up to 10,000 ft to clear an outcrop called the "Asses Ears" only to find ourselves drifting back over the range very slowly instead of towards the pastureland we were expecting to reach. Lisa & I were looking desperately into eachother's eyes over the heads of the children.
Is this IT?
Don't be silly!
While ballooning leaves you at the mercy of the elements, rudderless so to speak, the skill of the pilot is the most important thing & Chris is a master of the craft. It was the best & I want to thank him for his love & care. Thank you Balloonman.

We went off on a trip to Rye last weekend. We were staying at a friend's parent's holiday house. But on the way there we stopped off at a Salvos shed/collection depot. As it was open (and we can't resist) we stopped for a peek. On the asphalt forecourt was a motley collection of mattresses, ride-on fluoro plastic toys, metal serving platters and moth-eaten carnival prizes.
AND
A beautiful wooden two-seater couch, two armchairs and a chaise! All in the most stunningly well maintained wood. All perfect, springs intact and covered in such truly awful chintzy fabric that we couldn't take our eyes off it.
How much?
Well, we're just here for the weekend...we'd have to somehow get it to our friend's house....we'd have to get it back to Melbourne....there's nowhere to put it at our place....when have we EVER fallen in love with op-shop furniture before?
"OH, don't you worry..we have a trailer over there...you could just borrow it to get it to your friend's place"
Thirty five dollars?!!??
"Yep, ya couldn't buy the firewood for that much"
So yes, somehow we organised the transportation and this delightful bunch of firewood has taken up residence at Dad's house. It completely outshined Dad's fugly black modular lounge.
So as we already had the trailer, the modular got a free ride down to our local Salvos.
Here is the lovely armchair doing a striptease.
It was covered so carefully and loved so much, but we had to strip-'er-off!
It was fun.

PROFILE UPDATE: I am 41

chicken tonight?

Today was my first day back at work and after the bombshell of my past 2 weeks it was pretty fantastically normal and cheerful. I really enjoy my job.
Somebody has reorganised the entire picture book section. Someone who probably looks at MY arrangement every time he/she comes in to work and finally couldn't stand it any longer. Maybe he/she thought I wasn't coming back. I have been gone a long time. I don't like what they have done with it at all. That gave me something solid and productive and busy to do. I didn't even feel cross about it. (though normally that would have really given me the SHITS)

from before

At the end the last school term, I was with some crafty laydeeeez getting some ideas and stuff organised for our school fete coming up in October.
I nabbed the felt birdy badges project. I used the red, orange, black & white felt supplied and my own ribbon collection to make these jolly little badges. I have been calling them "the chickens" because they look so plucky and clucky.

small break time

My beloved Dad died yesterday.
There are so many ways I would love to pay tribute to him and the way he enriched the lives of us all. At the moment I am feeling busy busy busy and do do do, but I will wait and consider things before rushing ahead.
No crafting this week.

more sunny monday

It was so beautiful today I felt inspired to photograph my lunch. Look, my eggs seem a little overdone, but when I cut into them they were perfect!
Still a tad runny.
So delish.
I made a yummy salad tonight as well. How good am I?
It had blanched snow peas, chick peas, coriander, red onion with crumbled feta and a little mixed lettuce. Lemon juice and olive oil dressing. With some very tasty snags. From ALDI.

On Saturday morning I was trying to encourage the kids to get out of their jimjams and get on with the day. Earlier I had slightly rearranged the bedroom, turning the big desk around from under the window to running out (from the window) into the room. It divides the room a little more and more obviously defines their "space".
But the lovely thing I witnessed was both kids USING the table from their respective sides.
Well Mackie had tipped out his container of textas (lots) and was methodically and painstakingly putting them in rainbow order.
It reminded me of how much I loved the meditative process of sorting, especially colour.
So this afternoon, I did a little bit too. Of course I messed it all up again. Don't want anyone to think I have strange uncontrollable compulsions.

Mackie taught Pepper how to play backgammon sitting up at the table too. It was very sweet. Then she taught me to play tonight.
Trying to butter me up just before we read her report! Super good report it was too.