One last post before bed

I've had a late but exciting night, well OK that's a small white lie - for most people not that exciting but I am very excited about my achievement of progressing through the world's longest to-do list, as I have just finished putting the wing snaps on a HUGE pile of nappies that have needed their snaps for at least six months *blush*. Everything got so overwhelming at one stage, I figured I could just snap the nappies as people buy them, to make my life easier. It kind of works that way, except for Murphy's Law and it is always the way, that I'll get 5 orders all on one day for nappies that need snaps and I end up stressing out. I'm very glad my no stress moto combined with the flying organisation is helping to relieve the stress :D

I'm also waiting for a phone call from the UK as it's morning/lunch time there, so while I wait I figured I might share yet some more pics rofl - I did warn about the exceptional number of photos already ;)

The other day Patrick and Maia were playing in my fabric stash, making tents or something else exciting. Maia was particularly attached to a certain piece of fabric and she kept coming up to me saying pleeeeeease mummy make me a pwetty skirt. She actually took things into her own hands at one stage, sitting down with her piece of fabric and the pin cushion, trying to make her own skirt. As luck for Maia would have it, the tiered skirt I had sitting in my cut out, needing to be sewn up pile, was actually using that same fabric, so I obliged and made her 'a pwetty'.

I first saw this skirt on Tikki's blog and thought it looked great. It's more of a ruffle skirt than a tiered skirt I guess - not up with the correct lingo, so please excuse me if I don't get it right ;) - although it does have two tiers. Super easy and quick to make and looks fantastic too, The tutorial is really easy to follow. It says that it is for size 5-6, but Maia is more like a 1-2 and it fits her fine - I cut a little off the edges, but no more than a couple of cm each side. I put snaps on the elastic in the waistband and left a little opening so that I can adjust it later if need be.


Maia loves her skirt sooooo much, her new most favourite clothing item. She asked for it to come off the washing line this afternoon so she could wear it again - please excuse the food covered and mis-matching shirt ;) After the bath I put it back in her basket and she pulled it out and asked to wear it to bed! She currently has it on over her longies LOL

And this pic just because Maia wanted to me take a picture of the back of the prwetty skirt while she was upside down.

Oooooh I just realised where I found the pattern for the balls, it is the same blog as the ruffled skirt - ace! http://grandrevivaldesign.typepad.com/ballpattern1000.pdf

My beautiful ballet dancer:)

Aren't these so cute! They are tiny size ballet shoes, for my lovely little ballet dancer :D Patrick started ballet last week, after we stumbled across a black and white ballet video on you tube of a famous russian ballet dancer and he decided he wanted to be able to dance just like that!

So off we went to see if he would like and and he LOVED it! So much so, that we had to immediately go to the ballet shop to buy him some ballet shoes. This week was his second week and he still had just as much, if not more fun dancing than the first time round. This week, so he blended in with the girls a little better, he wore a pink t-shirt and I made him some cotton knit ballet shorts, as the teacher suggested that boardie length shorts were not the most appropriate thing lol. He is trying to do a curtsy in the picture, because that is what the girls do and he isn't quite so sure that he should do a bow, as that is different to them, so was very happy with me for making his shorts go wide enough to do it lol.

He is the only boy in the class, but that doesn't seem to worry him, the teacher loves having a boy, and she also loves that he loves to dance.

The many faces of Patrick...

Well my gorgeous son does love the camera - well kind of, he likes to play this game where he does a weird or crazy pose, then runs away as I am clicking, then he rushes back to see if he can get back in time to see himself on the LCD before the pic goes away. Our resulting photo session was pretty funny, lots of blurry pics and heaps where he isn't even in the picture cos he has ducked down or run before I can click, but these are some of the best ones :D

The case of the missing ball....

I made a couple of pressies for one of Patrick's friends, as it was his birthday this week. Firstly some denim shorts with animals on the pockets. I did want to have monkey's cos he loves monkey's, but the only monkee fabric I could find was pink and I'm not sure all boys share the same love of pink that Patrick does LOL. Very happy with how they turned out, I even got over my fear of topstitching - glad I did cos I will do it all the time now as it really does look soooo good.

I found a pattern for a ball on a blog somewhere too - will find the link if I can remember where. Awesome way to use up scraps and so easy to make. I did two balls, but Patrick and Maia were helping me stuff them, and somehow, one of the balls has managed to find a home with all the missing pens, single socks, puzzle pieces and rechargable batteries. I turned the house upside down and I couldn't find that damn ball, so there was just one for the present in the end.

New Camera Alert - Prepare to be bombarded with photos

Well last week the old trusty digital camera finally died in the ass. It had been playing up a little for the past couple of months, but I must have finally dropped it one too many times and it cried enough!!!! We did take 3500 pictures on it over three years, so not a bad innings.

It is amazing how cheap cameras are now for what they do though. For just $250, from dinosuars deals.com.au, we got us a 7mp Fuji semi SLR camera with 10x zoom and a lovely big lcd screen on the back. Very happy with it and have been going super snap happy ever since, so prepare to see LOTS of cute kiddy pics over the next couple of weeks lol.

Wooly Delivery :D

I must say I am pretty blessed that I have extremely talented people that want to trade stuff with me and this week was a super exciting delivery of wool from Elissa at The Yarn Cafe.

This was custom dyed for Maia - enough pink to keep her happy and enough other colours to keep me happy. Elissa has called the colourway Maia Jade - isn't it spectacular! I will be turning this gorgous Blackberry Ridge wool into winter longies for Maia.

Also was some super super pretty pink and lilac merino, which I am going to knit into a soaker for Vanessa's little girl who is due any day now.

Apron for School

Patrick needed an apron for school, they have one to leave there cos they do cooking most days. He picked the fabric for the pockets and he decided on pink for the apron - of course ;) with green bias binding.

I thought this would be pretty straightforward to do - and it was, but man that bias binding sucks!! There must be an easy way to do it, perhaps a bias binding foot or something? I had to iron all the bits in half, then sew them on, which wasn't hard, but was very time consuming.

Pretty happy with the end result though :)

Cute photo brag :)

I've taken some pretty cute pics of Maia lately, so just thought I would share :) I wish I knew how to get pics from my mobile phone cos there are heaps on there too, I'll add them in later if I can figure it out.

Flying Progress

Well I have to say, I am totally amazed at what a profound effect this flying stuff has had on my life in such a short time!!! I have gone from being stressed out of my head, to having a plan each day, getting my boy to school on time every day so far (this is a HUGE achievement for me!) and not living in a filthy pit wishing it was cleaner. All this in just a week - wow!!

I am finding many of the emails completely cheesy, but I've just set a folder up in my emails and all of my flylady emails just go straight there, so I don't get sidetracked reading every one, I just read the odd one here and there. That encouraged me to set up folders for all of my emails, so now it is not so overwhelming when I open my emails up, I know exactly what I need to reply to and I can find emails again easily when I need them later.

I kinda skipped ahead in the babysteps thing and I have a morning routine and an evening routine sorted, plus I have an routine for work as well, and already I am seeing progress on things that have been outstanding for months and months. Today I finished snapping a pile of nappies that has been sitting on my desk for at least six months if not longer! I have been doing 10 mins a day of snapping and after just 9 days, hooray it's done. Also doing filing in the same way, 5 mins a day of work and 5 mins a day of home and that giant pile is slowly fading away. I nearly wanted to take a before and after picture of my desk, 5 mins a day and now I can actually see the desk and don't have to spend ages digging around in the mounds of paper for what I need. Filing stuff is filed, current paperwork is in it's relevant folder in the filing tray and all the crap is gone - wooo hooooo. And because the desk is so much cleaner, I really feel that it is making me feel more organised and wanting to do more and more, the clutter reduction certainly makes me feel calmer. I'm still incredibly behind with everything for work, but because tiny bits are happening every day, I now feel like I can get on top of it all and I don't feel so overwhelmed that I don't know where to start and just wish for it all to go away - haha, if only ;)

Doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen + benches every night before bed has a waaaaay bigger impact than I imagined, it is sooooo nice to wake up and not groan as you first walk into the kitchen and because it is already lovely to start with, I want to keep it that way all day, so I have been cleaning as I go, so it is staying nice. Brad was amazed last week when he was getting home after 9 and finding a practically sparkling kitchen, kiddies all sorted and in bed, bathroom clean and tidy and washing on the line. Normally if he got home that late and I was doing the whole dinner, bath, bed thing by myself, the house would look like a bomb had hit it lol. Best thing is that it doesn't take any more time, I guess I am just using the time more effectively and doing a quick kitchen clean up feels easier than a hideous clean when the sink and benches are piled with crap. I'm doing a daily bathroom swish too - I made a whole heap of microfibre clothes, size of cloth wipe, the each morning I do a 1 min on the sink wipedown etc, then I chuck the cloth in the shower and while I am showering, do a quick once-over, then chuck the cloth in the bath and do a quick once over just before I run the bath for the kiddies, then pop it in the wash. It's working so well, the bathroom always looks clean now and I can take bathroom cleaning off my weekly (ish lol) cleaning schedule. It encouraged a declutter as well, cos it took longer doing the shower with all the old bottles of shampoo etc, plus toys on the floor of the shower, so I got rid of all of those and put up the caddy that had been in the cupboard since we moved in, so I had somewhere to put the shampoo etc. Plus I went through all the toys and culled the dodgy ones and just keep what fits easily in the mesh bag, so that after the bath, the kids now put all their toys in the bag, so I just pull the plug, pick up the bathmat and it looks tidy again - hooray!

I've also been decluttering clothes and more - six bags gone so far and I can see the floor of our bedroom for the first time in months which is pretty embarrassing - usually we just close the door - that's just been a 15 min a day job too, I really am so amazed what a different 15 mins a day can make!!!

Anyway, I better stop raving on about the flylady, I can get a bit carried away with excitement sometimes LOL, plus I need to get finished up on the sewing room declutter - I did take a before and picture of that - I am sure the after ones will be amazing :D

So yes, after initially being very unsure, I reckon flylady rocks and I won't go back - bring on the super organised and destressed life!!! :D

My big schoolboy and his school 'handbag'

Well my grown up boy went very excitedly off to big school this week. I can't believe how time has flown!!! He has been busting to go and this morning he gave me a hug and semi clung to my leg for about a minute then he was off! He was so confident and ready for it :D Last year I decided that I would make him a schoolbag and asked what he wanted, showing him pics of backpacks. He did not want a backpack AT ALL!!! lol, instead he wanted a pink handbag with a rainbow on it! A big ask indeed!

Eventually I decided to do the Meena's Marsupial Tote in the stitch and bitch book. I made it a bit bigger - about half bigger, so instead of CO 16 stitches, I CO 24 and adjusted the rest accordingly. I knitted the base in pink, then started the colour changes for the body, 10 rows for each colour, but changing one of the strands of wool every 5 rows so the colours would kind of merge into each other. I was fairly happy with the end result, although the yellow wool was actually machine wash so it didn't felt doh! All knitted with cheapy stuff from spotlight :)

This is before felting:

This is after felting (three times through the wash on hot lol):

I'm a flybaby!

Well after posting last night on NC asking for advice from the flylady gurus, I have decided to officially give it a go. Anything has got to help at this point! Of course I couldn't possibly follow the babysteps as they have given it - all you are supposed to do for the first day is shine your sink, then on the second day, get straight up in the morning and have a shower and get dressed inc shoes (jandals or leather jandals if I am feeling extravagent for me though). Then you start reading two mins a day of the numerous emails they send you etc etc. I just kinda crammed the first week into the first day, but I am pretty sure I can handle it ;)

It was wonderful this morning to get up and find a totally clean kitchen and no crap all over the benches, with dishes to make me shudder, I really did feel better about the day from the beginning. Best thing was that we were all dressed, had brekky, cleaned up, I did some knitting on Patricks bag and we went on a long walk to the park and a play, all before 10am, when we would usually just be getting out of our jimmy's!

Trying to keep Brad on task is a different story though, I have *reminded* him (he calls it nagging) to put the dishes in the dishwasher as soon as they are finished with several times already, plus he has this really bad habit of leaving tins and milk bottles etc by the sink to get washed out before putting in the recycling.

Hopefully I'll get into some good habits and will be able to reduce some stress! I'll update in a week or so how I am going :)

What a week!!!!!!

This week just wasn't meant to be, it really should be erased from my memory in case I suffer PTSD because of it! It all started on Monday really, when I spent half the day researching and buying a coffee machine. I'd been wanting one forever and the lure of long weekend sales finally made the decision for me. I really couldn't afford the time off work, but I knew that Brad wouldn't be working until Tuesday night, so I figured I could catch up on Tuesday. That was the start of it really. Brad was actually called in to work on Monday night and ended up working until 11am Tuesday, so plans to work on Tuesday went out the window as he went to bed as soon as he got home.

The rest of the day was chaos, shyte car trip to newy with the kids constantly fighting, nightmare shopping mission, then the clock in the kitchen was wrong and I missed the post cut off, so any work I did get done was a waste of time cos I didn't get posted *sigh*. Then more fun fun fun, about 9pm Maia started vomitting, the biggest one I think I have ever seen, poor thing was so upset and then I had to spend half an hour cleaning up - yukko! Soooooooo not much sleep Tuesday night cleaning vomy and looking after sad Maia, plus Brad was only supposed to work til midnight, but he ended up working til 8am, so that blew Wednesday for my work as well. Maia being sick meant I couldn't visit some friends and their new bubbas on Wednesday either :(

Wednesday was shyte as expected, trying to keep kiddies happy and quiet while Brad slept, but to top off the crapness, I flooded the bathroom when I was filling the bath up and not paying enough attention to what I was doing arrrrggghhhhh. I only realised when the water started dripping through the light fitting in the kitchen!!!!! Lucky it was the light over the sink LOL.

Thursday started out well but went to the crapper after my trip to newy was a complete waste of time and my stress levels were hitting the roof. I had to pick some stuff up to finish off some orders that really should have gone Tuesday or Wednesday except for the previous days stress meltdowns, but the two people I needed to pick stuff up from weren't home. I couldn't ring them on the way to check whether they would be there because I left my phone at home and just presumed they would be cos they always are (except for today waaaahhhh) so my whole trip was a complete waste of two and a half hours and I wasn't able to get the orders out and I had to drag the kiddies back to newcastle later in the day to pick the stuff up. Plus Maia slept for some of the way in the car so she didn't want to go to sleep, so Patrick didn't want to cos she was away and they were both still up at 10pm!

Today wasn't looking too bad, until I realised while I was packing Maia's daycare stuff and realised that she didn't have daycare cos I changed the bloody day til Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!! So that was two days of daycare this week that she had missed, neither of which we could afford the time or money for her to miss - although not much choice about the public holiday on Monday ;) Crap, crap and more crap!!!!!!!!!!!!

I REALLY REALLY hope that next week is going to perk up, not sure how much longer the stress free moto is going to hold for at this rate. So right now thinking happy stress free thoughts and wondering how I am going to hold it all together. My super organised plan doesn't work very well when Brad's shifts change at the drop of a hat, so I probably should just presume that I won't have his help at all any time in the next eight weeks and any help I do get is a bonus. I was looking at flylady the other night and wonderfing if that would help, but I can't launch in with babysteps - I don't have a month to get things cranking on the organisation, super mum, super business owner thing, I need it to be NOW! Plus I'm not a good morning person, but I gotta try something or I will crack it for sure *insert hysterical laughter here*.

Right, best get into the nights work as the sounds coming from the kiddies room are starting to fade, maybe I will get lucky and they will actually go to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight. Here's hoping!