Little Cookies

New life starts NOW

1. I'm moving house. Again. By the time Miles reaches the grand old age of one he'll have lived in three houses. (If he keeps up this trend, and lives until he's 80, he'll live in approximately 240 houses in his lifetime.) After the ute got pinched we've been right royally spooked out of living in the place we're currently in. Great house, damn terrible location. Thankfully the house hunting has been fruitful and now we've got a place that's both great and in a good area. (For all those familiar with Shepp-world, it's down near the golf course. Noice). We had to do some wheeling and dealing to get the place, and thanks to one of our friends who put in a very good word for us, we're able to move in this Friday (holy torleedo I gots to get packing).

2. I'm going to go to Uni. I think I always knew I was going to, but just had to wrestle with it for awhile. I'm still not chuffed about leaving the bubs, and everyone I speak to about the course tells me it's a tonne of work which I'm not looking forward to. But I am looking forward to cranking the cogs in the scholastic side of the brain again. And buying new stationary. I'm very excited about buying new stationary.

3. That's about it. But I think that's enough for one little duck. Anything else and I think I would explode.

(Thanks Lara for emailing the photos to me. They were taken on her man's totally covetable Mac puter on the very fun photo booth program. Now I really really really want a new MAc.)

The devil within

I made one bag, but one bag wasn't enough. I had to have more. MORE. MORE!

I'm going to post them out to some of my dedicated blog readers. There's a gaggle of them out there who are very dedicated. They leave comments, they send other emails, and they freak me out in conversations by seeming to know everything about my life. I always forget that people read the blog when I'm talking to people then someone will say "found the ute yet?" and my heart will do a back-flip and I'll think "how the heck do you know the ute got pinched?" Duh Meaghan, you have a public forum on which you air all the goings on of your life.

With the exception of getting comments back, it's really easy to forget that people actually read this. It's like when I write for the parenting magazine (whose current issue has a cracker photo of Grandpa and Grandson doing loop-de-loops in the pool). I just email it off and don't really think that thousands upon thousands of people will read it. It wasn't until the other week when there was a letter to the editor in the mag which related to my column from a lovely lady whom I have never met who lives on the other side of the country. It really brought it home that people read what I write. Oh god help me.

I made this little dress ages ago. I was going through some fabric to make the bags and re-discovered it. Thought better of turning it onto a bag (although the table runner which I found in the pile wasn't so lucky) No, I'm not secretly harboring desires to have a little girl. It's going to go off to a little munchkin for her first birthday.

Now that the ute's gone (sob) Amba and I are right royally spooked and don't want to live in this house anymore. So house hunting, here I come! It's the worst job, and it's not exactly a relaxed process anymore. No more just drop into the office and pick up a key so you can have a squiz. You've basically got to sign over your first born just to get an inspection. Hopefully it's all swift and smooth. Who am I kidding?

And on a completely different note:

Tag! Your it.

Bloggers like to bring a bit of the school yard to the blogging world and play tag. Someone tags you, like Justine has tagged me (I thought I had the perfect hiding spot behind the shelter shed but she still found me), and now I've got to tell 5 things about myself that I haven't yet disclosed on this blog.

So here goes...

1. Miles has my last name, not my partner's. It's our little ''up yours'' to tradition.

2. I love calling Amba "my partner". It makes us sound like cowboys. Or gritty bent cops from the wrong side of town.

3.Sometimes people think I'm a lesbian. Especially when I say ",,,, me and my partner Amba."

4. I've given up washing my hair. I read about it in a reputable magazine. Apparently your hair's natural oils re-balance and your hair turns awesome. Sounds like a great idea to ditch the poo to me.

5, My backside goes to sleep every time I sit at my computer because my computer chair closely resembles a pile of old bricks.

And now I get to tag five people. So I'm tagging Britney, Ron, Dave, Winona and Natasha. I look forward to reading their responses.

Bags, necklaces and musical criticism

I finally cracked my new sewing machine out of the box. Geez, I can understand why old fogies are scared of new technology.  The machine nearly did my head in, and it's not even a computerized one. The bobbin threads through where and where? You flick what to make the foot drop off? There's a light?! I felt like I was conducting a magic show rather than setting up the machine.

But I got it roaring along (and when I say roar, I mean roar), and made this little bag. The design is inspired by Masako Shibata's bags. I've always loved them but would never be able to afford one myself so I thought I'd just give making one a go. It worked out really well. I'll make a few adjustments when I make another one, but on the whole it's me new favourite thing that I own. The material is an old table runner cut up. I couldn't decide which pattern I wanted as the outside, so I just made it reversible. That solved that problem.

In the mail this week arrived a wonderfully packaged surprise (well, not entirely true. I knew it was coming. But I still acted surprised, so does that count?) It was from Mary at Contrary Garden. It's hard to see in the photo, but the round beady things are actually old typewriter letters. It's awesome. I'm falling prey to the perils of wearing it non-stop and risking it becoming worn out. Nah, won't happen. I don't wear it all the time anyway. I take it off to sleep.

And Miles has something to add ...

                     

The eyes have it

I'm very lucky to have some eyes in Melbourne which keep a look out for things I would love.

                  

Like these Hats. My eyes (Sarah) saw them in the window of a shop in High St, Westgarth, knew rhat I would gush over them, snapped a photo and emailed it to me. Now that's friendship!

Sarah also went a few steps further and worked out they were Chick Pea hats.

Living in the middle of country Victoria offers very little in the way of stimulating handmade thangs. Sarah knows the problem of my isolation so willingli\y takes it upin herself to keep me in the loop.

So knowing she's out there keeping her eye out for something that'd hit my sweet spot makes me feel  a lot less lonely. Especially when that something is sweeter-than-icecream kids hat.

Trying to be light of heart

          

by QueenThings.   

Still STOLEN

Still reeling about the stolen car. The impact didn't sink in till yesterady really. Amba was really upset by it yesterday. Walked around all day with his bottom lip on the ground. He did look kinda amusing heading off to work on his pushy this morning though. Slinging his backpack on and strapping up his too tight helmet, he looked like he was off for his first day of school.

We haven't heard anything from the police about the ute. If it was going to turn up (either in one or several pieces) we probably would have heard by now. Kiss it goodbye and move on I guess.

So we're a one car family now. Not the slightest bit convenient, but at least it's more environmentally friendly! Well gotta tyr to look on the bright side. Plus only having one car means only one registration to pay, one petrol tank to fill up, one car to clean. Can't deny those things aren't good.

It's the way it's going to have to be for awhile. Unless rubbing two ten cent pieces together will produce a small fortune with which we can buy a new car.

In other, non crime realted, news, I had enrolement for the primary teaching course. So, I'm enrolled. Still not sure if I'll actually do it though. It's full time (and from many reports, a slog of a workload) and I just don't know if I can leave my baby for all that time. Being breastfed, he hasn't been away from me for more than 4hours at a time. To go from that to being away from him full time, everyday, I don't think I'll cope.

More thought to go into it yet.

STOLEN

Of all the no good, rotten, stickin', crappy things to happen!

Amba's ute has been stolen from out the front of our god damn house.

Gone, vanished, not a broken tail light in sight. Amba went to get into it this morning, but found that a little challenging seeing as though there was no ute there to get into. A slew of swear words followed.

The police have said someone was probably just wanting a ride home so helped themselves. It's probably dumped a few blocks from the person's house. Either that or it's been torched. Great. Just great.

For those who haven't been to our house, we live on a fairly busy street. We describe the position we live in as the thoroughfare from the ghettos to the main street. Our street is okay but it's on the cusp of the bronx of town. Every dodgey man and his dog walk past at all hours of the day and night. Last night being a Friday night, it was particularly busy. It could have been anyone, and at any hour of the night. Bastards.

It's not like it's a very good ute (sorry honey, but it's a pretty crappy ute). It's old and "well loved". It hasn't been stolen for it's re-sale value, that's for sure. But it was Amba's means of transport. It was important. The value it had to the person who nicked it has gone now, they've got what they wanted out of it. But we still need it, very much so. Apparently that fact elluded the theif. Either that or they didn't give a damn.

There's nothing we can do but sit here and go red in the face and swear some more.

God damn no good scum of the earth theif!

The snot that holds the family together

Meet the latest member of our family: TEEV.

                              

Teev does many great things. The greatest thing he does is babysit Miles. Miles loves Teev. In the pic above Teev is teaching Miles the virtues of teeth brushing. Teev deserves a medal. Or at least a plaque saying "Family member of the week: Teev!"

Why has Teev been instated as primary carer for the baby? Because our whole house has succumb to a tidal wave of snot and sore throats and itchy eyes and banging heads and glugly ears.  See Figure 1.

                                    FIGURE 1 Miles with snot.

Despite Miles' misleading smile, we are a miserable household at the moment. It feels very bizarre to be struck with the flu when it's 40 degrees outside. All I want to do is rug up on the couch but it's too darn hot. Or is that my outta control temperature that's making me hot? Gosh dam I don't know.

I'm supposed to be figuring out if I want to do the primary teaching course, but all that keeps going round in my head is " blerh blerh blerh blerh". I'm going to put my brain in my bedside table draw and fetch it tomorrow when I feel better.

But good news today is that I've got the net working at home again. No, no new computer. I had to uncross my fingers beause they were getting cramped. Instead I've got this set up going on:

                                       

Thankyou Amba for setting up the antique PC so I could access the internet. Thank you also for risking your life to get the spiders off it when you retrieved it from the shed. Okay, so it's not the ideal set up, but it's gunna have to do for awhile. At least having two puters makes me feel a wee bit important. I can sit here and channel my inner geek.

Better go. Teev is playing Dr Phil and Miles is watching it a little too intently. I really don't want him doing TV psychoanalysis on me next time I change his nappy.

Grey skies

                          

The weather turned.

Unfortuantely later that afternoon, it had all blown away and it was blue blue blue again.