The perfectionist in me

I like "finishing" details. Those little touches that adds something classy and complete looking. Sad thing is the most I ever do is top stitching! I am a big fan of top stitching.

Something about those neat little rows of stitches holding down seam lines and emphasizing your fabrics really works for me. In my mind, it also looks much cleaner and neater. My problem is that I never have the finished product looking as professional and well constructed as I imagine.

I can spend hours upon hours of cutting careful, lining things up precisely, stitching slowly, serging, changing threads, using alternate presser feet. It never works. Always some major stuff up that stands out like a sore thumb.

By the same token, if I want to make something look grungy and rough it looks too prissy and perfect. Go figure!

A sweet blessing

Terrible photos take on the spur of the moment with my mobile phone, who I know's camera is damaged (erm, does anyone else drop their phone 50 times a day? hmm..).

Miss Cadence, the newest member of our family, asleep in my arms.

Jessica enjoying a nice long cuddle with the little cutie, Cadence. 

My hay fever is officially a cold. I was out most of it most of yesterday. Had to call nan and ask her to drop Jessi at school as I felt like I could barely stand. Then last night a friend is txting me all worried because she'd just been diagnosed with Shingles and was worried maybe I'd get them too as she'd asked me to check them for her. I called HealthDirect and they told me it's unlikely but gave me symptoms to be aware of etc. HealthDirect is a brilliant government initiative! I have used it more than once. Basically it is a 24hr advice line staffed by registered nurses. For those times you're unsure if you need to go to the hospital, or like me last night needing to check the factuality of information my friend was reading on the internet, it's extremely useful. 

In the mail today Jessica and I received an invite from Ronald McDonald House to attend a Christmas party they're hosting in conjunction with ANZ bank called ANZ All 4 One Xmas ExtragagANZa. We'd be invited because we've been registered to stay at RMH before, although we never stayed as they mucked up our booking. I REALLY want to take Jess but it's barely 2 weeks after our trip to Perth for doctors and I can't even afford that trip. I might have to do some major sucking up to my mum!! She will miss more days of school, but at this point is that really an issue?

McHappy Day is just 2 days away Aussies, please get your BigMac and support RMHC. The work RMHC does is magnificent. Until you're in a position to need their services, you really have no idea. You can always donate online, too. 

Nov 13 also marks my nephew Hayden's 2nd birthday!! I am sad we can't be with him on the day, but we will see him soon enough :)

Finding trust a misguided thing

I have barely slept at all. I tossed and turned most of the night. That it was quite warm wasn't helping things, but more importantly, because of the news that my daughters teachers aid was implicated in a story you'd never hope to hear.

At this point in time it's pure here say, but in a town of under 1000 people gossip is usually right to some degree.

While Jessica is not directly affected I still feel so bewildered. I have little choice but to trust those in charge of her care while she is at school, and that's a really really hard thing to do. To add news stories of this calibre to it just blows my mind.

I also wasn't notified by the school that Jessica didn't have an aid yesterday. Something they've been good about in the past and I have bought her home on days where I just felt too unsettled by the idea. Probably an over reaction, agreed, but her aid is her primary carer in the classroom/playground. Not the teacher. Her teacher doesn't even know the child she sits next to threatened to punch her in the face yesterday. I will be going to the office this morning to voice my concerns on both topics.

I'm also a little annoyed that of all the people gossiping about it, who know the close contact this woman has with my daughter, no one told me. It was only when I approached a friend and gave her the pieces I was slowly building the jigsaw with that she told me.

Jessica relies on other people to keep her safe. She's too little to do it all herself right now. How do I trust those people? Do I just blindly give it to them and hope for the best? Let's just say, that's what I had been doing to date and it hasn't always worked out.

Nonsense

I've been spending a bit of time in the garden, but it's getting really hot already. I am getting really tired. I am so unfit that a few swings of the pick has my head spinning and I spend more time trying to regain my equilibrium. Some of my tubestock natives shrivelled up  :(  They over water them in the nursery's! Or they keep them in she shade when they're a full sun kinda plant (and over water them). So anyways, a couple have already succumbed to the not-quite-summer heat. Not looking forward to summer! I thought I was all clever using some plastic gutter-guard around my little plants, until I had to buy a new roll. Oh, lookee there! It says on the packet you can use it for that purpose. Talk about pricking a balloon and rejoicing in its deflation.

I actually had to turn my air-conditioner on this afternoon because Jessica wasn't coping with the heat. I guess it was more the humidity. She finally has her trampoline mat repaired and back on the tramp, and her cubby house complete. Wow. Christmas 2009 gift is finally usable. So sad. No pics cos the backyard is 4ft high with dead weeds.

I saw a local lady yesterday who will have some canaries I can buy off her for Jessica for Christmas this year. Yay! Only $10 each, the pet shop in Esperance wanted $25. There is another local lady I will see about buying so budgerigars off.

I am really, really annoyed that drug companies removed pseudoephedrine from hay fever medication. Well, it was probably some stupid law which said they had to do it. All they're basically doing is punishing people who get hay fever! Yes, it can be used in illicit drug making (hence its removal) but the way I figure it, they're going to keep making/selling illicit drugs one way or the other. You're just making people who could really benefit from it miss out. Jessica's been suffering badly this spring. Definitely her worst to date.

It's barely 9pm and I am struggling to keep my eyes open.

I'll leave you with a pic of my girl trying to turn herself inside out.

So much to do, so little time

Who am I kidding, I don't work anymore so to most of you why should I complain about time? 

The fact remains, I have a "to do" list bigger than my Santa list and it only grows every time I see a wonderful blog, or a new magazine arrives, or I've been op shopping and have a bunch of vintage to drool over. There is so much I want to make, so much I want to achieve. 

Trying to remind myself of something I read on a blog once (was it Ali Edwards?) where she had used a quote that went something like "no body has any more time in the day than I do". Well, that's a really poor representation of the quote, but that was the meaning of it. Each day, we all have 24hrs. What we squish into those hours is entirely up to us. Some of us feel overwhelmed with work, kids, hubby, kids activities etc so much so we never have a hobby or read a book or even get a hair cut. Others amongst us leisurely stroll through life with no goals of time, achieving only what comes before them and happily accepting this life with a smile. Some of us just want to do it all. Now. I think I am one of the latter.. (as if you hadn't worked that out!). The trouble with wanting to be the over-achiever (wow that sounds modest?) is that it usually ends up in achieving nothing as it all gets so overwhelming and it's easier to go watch a dvd. Then the guilt kicks in, you can see where this is going. No where.  

For a long time I have considered making items to sell. Yes, just considered it. I am multi-talented when it comes to crafting which is a real pleasure, but it also means I never focus on one thing for very long. I haven't picked up a tatting shuttle in a long time (ok, so I bought 2 at a garage sale in Perth last time and they had tatting needles too, my first. Does that count?) and my interest in crochet has waned. The last scrapbook page I shared here is still sitting on my desk incomplete and I've got so many sewing patterns I can't remember which ones I like most. 

I think what scares me the most is that moving from hobby to income will kill the pleasure. I know how badly I procrastinated on the 2 bridesmaids and 1 flower girl dress I made in Nov last year for my besties wedding. I know how when I got to her house on the eve of the wedding I hadn't hemmed the 2 bridesmaids dresses. I also know I have no originality. I can mimic things, I can work from patterns, but I don't see ideas in my own mind. Not like I do with crochet anyways. I can crochet up almost anything on a complete whim. Even with crochet I was constantly being encouraged to write patterns and it all just sounded like too much hard work. Perhaps that's what it is, I am just lazy? I want to sew all day long, and yet I haven't been near my sewing machine in months. I like things to be "perfect" (yes, my own image of it, not yours, not his, just mine) and then I spend 6hrs sewing one dolls outfit that should have taken 30mins. I also know there is so little money to be made from homemade items. People do love them, but they seem to expect them to be cheap. I can't afford any lovely fabrics and practically all those I do buy are reduced to $4/m or less. How does anyone make something with those gorgeous quilt fabrics that cost $24/m, then sell them? They have to be losing $$ in a big way! I also don't know what people like. I know what I like, I know what Jessica likes, but beyond that I haven't a clue. 

There is an entrepreneur in town who is opening a monthly market (just like a jumble sale I guess, once a month) but he is also advertising permanent weekend booths. I could do that. I know I could. But how come I can say it then not do it?

McCalls 8784

Above is a pattern I have cut "just because" and maybe with a small inkling of.. will I participate in the market? Even just the jumble sale one? I cut view (D-size 1), the little girl sitting down. The pink floral is a quilting fabric I absolutely adored and I cut the front of the shirt in 1 piece to avoid the center front seams. The little shorts were cut in a dark pink poplin.

Simplicity 9495

I have also cut Jessica a nightie from Simplicity 9495, view C, size 7 (girl holding the teddy bear) in a lightwight cotton. Nighties you buy are usually satin or jersey and with Jessica's skin, neither is comfortable. She loved the fairy fabric (as did I when I bought it!) and "can't wait for you to make it mummy". Yet here is mummy dragging her feet.

Butterick 4286 - McCalls 5439

My last trip to Perth I got a lot of preloved sewing patterns and quite a few were costume. McCalls 5439 is girls size 3,4,5 and Butterick 4286 is misses 6, 8-10, 12-14, 16-18 and I've been using them as a reference for Jessica's 2010 Halloween costume. The owner of many of these patterns must have been a seamstress, all her patterns were cut around the outlines and not specific sizes so I have full use of the size ranges. Yay!

My new issue of Australian Homespun arrived in the post today, already i want to make a few things from it and order back issues (see, this is why they print letters and photos of items people made from past issues!). I'd love to make the girly quilt but I don't have the fabrics or the patience.

My psychologist wants me to enroll in a course at Uni or Tafe, I want him to back off. Maybe I should enroll in drafting, or seamstress or something? *lol* He'd not appreciate that. Apparently I am "too smart to stay here" and he's always asking me "why don't you move? you're wasting yourself by staying here". I keep thinking "shouldn't I be grateful for what I have?". I'm the first to admit I don't feel like I have a lot but when I view it from outside eyes I really do. I have my gorgeous daughter, a loving and supportive local family, I own my home (something I achieved all by myself), I had a good job that I threw in, I have friends, and if I really set my mind to it I also have the ability to make positive changes/influences to my local community. Ugh, life. I just want to pack up and go to the USA for a few weeks. Oh wait, no income. Just got to keep reminding myself to be grateful.