A Little Pampering

My sister Peta: Joseph, it’s nearly your birthday.

Joseph: Yeah.

Peta: What do you want to do for your birthday?

Joseph: Jojo get haircut.

Peta: You want to get a haircut for your birthday?

Joseph: Yeah.

So he did.

Everyone likes a bit of pampering on their special day, even if they’re only three.

Slightly Obsessive

The cyclone that threatened our shores earlier this week has moved on. While we did not experience any of the winds that can come with such a tropical storm, we did get an enormous amount of rain. We are very fortunate to live in an area that drains quickly, so flooding has been very limited in Townsville. Areas to the north have not been so fortunate. Many places have had more than 1000mm of rain in a week. That’s more than 40 inches.

Would you believe that one consequence of the rain was that a man driving down our main street (remember this is a town of 160 000 people) received two blown out tyres when he struck a crocodile. The crocodile was crossing the road to get out of the quickly rising waters of the river. It walked through a school grounds and was heading towards homes. I would not like to explain THAT to the insurance company!

Percy, my slightly obsessive dog, has nominated himself to be responsible to catch every rain drop that drips from our gutters. He has been standing in wait for each drop for the past two weeks.

He has created enormous muddy patches as he leaps to catch each drip.

His feet are permanently muddy and he is completely exhausted from his own diligence.

Tonight I see that there is a chance for another cyclone to form before the weekend. The poor dog will get no respite!

Winners and Warnings

Winners:

Today I drew the winner of the competition that was running on my other blog. I also made a free pattern as a gift to all who entered the competition. I am very pleased with how that little project is rolling along and deeply appreciate the support that has been shown to me. Thank you, everyone.

Warnings:

In January we had 650mm (26 inches) of rain. My weather obsession continues as we are currently under a cyclone warning. A tropical cyclone is looming to the north of us. These storms form over the warm ocean and are notoriously unpredictable. The weather bureau tries hard to let us know where the storm may make landfall, but it is never an exact science. Each couple of hours a new warning is issued with a new possible pathway.

Even though the map now shows the cyclone crossing between Cardwell and Ingham, the whole area in the grey zone is a potential landfall. The cyclone is only a category one, but it still means winds up to 100km per hour.Who knows what the morning may bring. Whatever happens I know that there will be many more visit to the cyclone watch website!

Use your Flippers to get Round…

It has rained here every day since for ages ago. It has rained, then stopped for an hour, then rained, then stopped for an hour. I don’t remember the last day without rain.

It has rained in the day, it has rained in the night.

The washing is piling skyward, the sheets are getting crunchy.

The mould is growing up the bathroom walls, the car has a damp carpet smell.

The grass is squishy, a tadpole smell hangs in the air.

Puddles are enormous, mushrooms are sprouting.

Mud is everywhere.

I need flippers to get around…

(with apologies to those in the south of Australia who are melting. I’m really not complaining – just making an observation.)

Festival of Imogen

This week our family celebrated our fourth annual festival of Imogen. A week of pink frothy celebration, presents and cake.

Our party in the park was moved to the coffee shop due to wet weather and muddy ground. Fairies cannot abide mud.

Everyone got into the spirit.

Ashy was the beautiful head fairy, in charge of games and amusements:

Pip was the timekeeper fairy, “Is it time to leave, yet?”

Squish face photos were taken:

Candles were blown:

We rocked out to High School Musical 3, the soundtrack:

And took home beautiful fairy cakes.

Happy Birthday, Fairy Imogen.

My best Ever Decision

My best ever decision was made twenty-two years ago on the hottest day of the summer.

There’s One in Every Family…

and Philip is the one in ours.

Remember all of that happy dancing I was doing. He knows how to stop it. This child will seriously be the death of me. Here is the loooong list of horrors he has perpetrated on his family.

At ten months he lost weight and was declared a ‘failure to thrive’ baby. Comforting words for any mother. He was hospitalised and had an endoscopy performed, but nothing was found. After a while he just started eating and gaining weight again.

At fifteen months he was watching a green frog on the screen door, leaning forward intently. The frog jumped, gave him a fright, he fell forward and chipped both of his front teeth on the metal door runners.

At two he was jumping on the trampoline with his sister – under parental supervision. He fell and injured his arm. I rushed him off to the after hours doctor who declared him fine. Three days later I returned to my regular GP who x-rayed and found it was fractured. He spent four weeks in a cast.

At three he got tonsillitis, for the very first time. He did not recover and he got an abscess on his tonsils. He remained on anti-biotics for almost three months before the decision was made to remove his tonsils. We took him off to hospital on the day of the operation and he was declared too ill to undergo surgery. We returned two weeks later and afterwards the surgeon remarked that his tonsils were almost rotten in his throat. By that time he had lost over five kilograms and was so weak he barely had the energy to even play.

At four he was doing a crazy pants dance in the lounge room. He flipped his legs out behind him and landed chin first on the tiles. As I picked him up I could see blood pouring from his chin. I held a towel to it and threw him into the car and drove straight to the doctor. My poor Pete arrived home to an empty house and a blood trail leading to the garage.

At four he burst an eardrum in the middle of the night. It was discovered that he had glue ear. A month later he had surgery to put a grommet into the unburst eardrum. Six weeks later we returned for another surgery to put a grommet into the healed eardrum.

At five he hopped out of the bath tub, dried off then did his usual nudie run down the hall to get his pyjamas. Somehow… who knows how… he misjudged the width of the hallway and run smack into the wall. There is still a crack in the plaster. He very nearly knocked himself out – not quite, but he was wobbly afterwards.

We survived a year without major incident.

At seven he caught a vomiting virus and vomited so hard that he split the lining of his stomach. He spent almost four days in hospital on a drip before he finally managed to keep food down.

At eight he fainted on school assembly. Thankfully the other children were packed in really tightly around him, so they managed to catch him.

At nine he was chasing a tennis ball as it rolled along the ground and ran right into a metal sink, splitting his head. Again – towel on top and rush off to the doctor.

At ten he burst an eardrum in the middle of the night. He took quite a few weeks to recover form the resulting infection.

We survived a year without major incident.

At twelve he ran through a jumping castle and managed to fracture his finger.

At thirteen he kicked a girl at soccer and managed to break his foot.

At thirteen he underwent major surgery to repair a severe pectus excavatum. Lots of his ribs were broken in the process.

This week, at fourteen, he went to kick a soccer ball at futsal. It was a long way away so he threw himself into the kick, lost his footing and fell onto his elbow, fracturing his collar bone. His pain threshold is so high that it took thirty-six hours for him to mention that “something wasn’t right and should this big red lump be on my collar bone?”

What can you do?

Would you like him?  I’m pretty willing to give him away…provided you have good health insurance.

Rock On

On Friday the lovely Miss Ashleigh and her beautiful friend Miss Rachel asked me to take them to the airport.

They hopped onto a plane and flew to the Gold Coast. They have been planning this trip for many, many months.

Off they went to the Big Day Out. A huge, iconic Australian music festival.

Last night I got a text message that read (imagine it without any punctuation):

I can’t hear, my ears are ringing. I can’t talk, I have no voice left. It was awesome, the best day ever.

Rock on, baby, rock on!

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Thank you so much for your supportive comments to my last post and to my new website. Thanks to those people who have entered the competition and linked back to my other blog. Every one can do that -you don’t have to be a quilter. In this competition I will make a quilt for you.  It has been a very busy few weeks. I have been floating on clouds with excitement as every thing came together at the last minute. Pip found a way to bring me back to earth, though… but that is another post.

About to Burst

That’s me. I’m about to burst with excitement. Too many good and exciting things are happening all at once! I have been dancing around my house in a way which has caused my children great embarrassment!

First of all, this week the new edition of Quilters Companion magazine was published… with my quilt ON THE COVER! Clare, the editor, doesn’t tell you if your quilt is giong to be on the cover – she likes it to be a surprise. What a lovely surprise it was. Kellie saw it first and sent me a very cryptic email. I sent my sister immediately to the newsagent beside her work to see if it had arrived in Townsville.

And…ta-da (look hard and you’ll see my name right there on the cover)

It had. Isn’t the magazine just lovely? I made this quilt some time ago, while Philip was in hospital. I may have given you a little teaser, but now you can see the whole thing.

I am so pleased with the photography in the magazine. You can see the quilted feathers. It is just lovely.

But the very best thing about the magazine is this:

an article written about me.

The focus of the article is my secret project. The one I have been working on for so many months. The one I am about to reveal to you. (You should make a ‘doo doo doooo’ sound, like a trumpet announcing something of great importance.)

Imagine That… quilts.

I am so delighted and excited and proud to link from here to my new website and to my second blog – this one is written exclusively to support my website and Imagine That… quilts. I am having a competition to launch my business out into the interweb. I hope you’ll join in and help me test the theory of six degrees of separation.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and dance around a bit more.

Come to the Edge

Come to the edge, he said.

They said: We are afraid.

Come to the edge, he said.

They came.

He pushed them and they flew.

(Guilliame Apollinaire, French poet 1880-1918 )

I am about to step to the edge.

Imagine that…

Come fly with me….