Points

– This week is sewing my ass off week (I wish it worked like that, I’d sew every week). My fabric stash is small but my cupboard space is smaller and so now I know that it was worth saving all those pink fabrics for so long I can put them to good use. Smocks, pants, oh the plans! The next blog post should be very cute indeed.

– Sewing is the craft of choice around here because…sob…carpal tunnel has hit. I had it before pregnancy so I wasn’t surprised to get it now but I was slightly surprised that pregnancy carpal tunnel is like having your hands run through a mincer. Wrists that feel like every bone has been broken, burning fingers all night long. So no knitting until I give birth! I’m not impressed with that at all.

– My belly has exploded. I look Quite Pregnant. A friend dropped by yesterday and her eyes nearly fell out of her head. Yes, I get it. I got big fast. I’ve noticed. Dave has been called on several times to help me out of my chair. I call myself the Hungry Hippo now. I’ll shock you with a photo sometime.

– The best part of nesting has finally arrived – the urge to bake. There’s a chocolate cake ready and waiting for me to ice it. I think that if I turn into a baking fool though it might be time to invest in a proper cake mixer. The hand mixer, while adequate, gets a bit tricky to manuveur when you’re trying to hold a tea towel over the (too small) bowl to stop splatters. The tea towel sagged too close to the mixer blades and….one big fat mess in 3 nanoseconds.

An expensive lesson

I’m a slow learner sometimes. So when I read on a blog that felting sweaters in a washing machine can damage the filter I went “pssshhaww, that won’t happen to ME“. You can see where this is going already can’t you? Yeah. Well I couldn’t. Like I said: slow learner. So I just want to warn you: if you felt sweaters in your washing machine you will break it.

If you felt (for example) a tan men’s size large wool sweater (hypothetically) that sheds like crazy then you felt two much, much less sheddy blue/purple lambswool and angora womans sweaters….the tan one will have already blocked your filter and you’re basically f***ed. You will, in no particular order, have to get your very patient beloved to empty the full drum of all the dirty water, then drain the filter which is on the side, an inch from the floor and naturally requires moving the big chest freezer. Then the next day you will think it is fixed, do an enormous load including, because you lost so much weight, the only pants you own that fit you right now. This will necessitate wearing your darling’s balloon shaped track pants with a layer of ginger cat fur. You will then try to drain the machine yourself, marking the lino as you move the chest freezer, flooding the laundry, using 3/4 of the towels you own to stop the flood (your only piece of good luck is it will not reach the hallway carpet) so not only do you now have a pile of waterlogged, half washed clothes but you also have that pair of jeans that have to be washed separately (they’re still leaking dye when wet) and a pile of towels that urgently need a wash. And that still broken washing machine. And not surprisingly a headache and a mild stomach ache. You may also want to cry but try not to start because you might not stop for a while. It’s been that sort of year.

So your sweetheart will come home from a full day at work to find he has to shuffle past the chest freezer, enpty the washing machine drum, drain it, poke around for a blockage that can’t be felt and press lots of buttons. Just as you think it is fixed…it will stop. You will take a sodden load of towels, a sodden load of clothes and your jeans to the laundromat – wearing large, badly shaped men’s trackpants in public (call it justice for breaking the machine) – where you will spend a small fortune to wash it all.

So the moral of the story is when someone says you’ll break your machine….believe them . Or at least buy a second pair of jeans. Mens track pants really don’t fit well on women.

(This has been the very worst year. In two months we have had a wasps nest – the biggest the exterminator has ever seen, about 40 inches across – in the ceiling, fleas in the carpet, the Chrischurch earthquake, the garage burglary, borrowed money (we spent all our money trying to kill the fleas and after 3 tries had to call the professionals) and now the washing machine has broken. We can only take so much. It’s very nearly too much.)

A Heart of Stone

Dave doesn’t buy me flowers or soft toys and isn’t particularly romantic. With a dozen roses costing up to $200 this coming Valentines Day I would be furious if he did. I mean think of all the yarn I could buy for that! Not to mention food, power or insurance! But that makes the romantic gesures mean so much more – they are rare and very thoughtful. He went to the beach with ‘the guys’ and he came home with some loofahs for Steph’s feet (useful things are twice as romantic as flowers nowadays) and a little heartshaped stone. I think I will treasure that stone forever.

Are we there yet?

It’s Labour Weekend here this weekend and I am like that little kid in the back seat squirming around and whining “Are we there yet? Now? How much longer? What town is next? And then?” It’s been one of those weeks. Rastus cost us $462 at the vet. Yeah. I can forget having spare money for a while.

BUT….I’m determined to change course and focus on the positives:

– I got a gorgeous gift this week. Yarn. Silk/merino yarn. Yarn so soft I want to take it to bed and spoon it. Yeah, yarn that feels that good. Jessicah very kindly sent me a skein to cheer me up after my bad week last week. It was the perfect mail yesterday. Thank you Jessicah, it was so generous (and delicious). 2 ply scares the bejeebers out of me but I’m going to sit in the sun and crochet myself a couple of beautiful headbands so I can go for a walk in the wind and not look ‘windswept and interesting’ when I get to the shops. The colourway is sky. Take a look at Jessicahs etsy shop and prepare to drool.

– I lost 900 grams this week, the first time I have managed that much in a long time. I’ve now lost 16kg (35.2lb) and only have 10.7 to lose. I am over halfway!! One minute it was so far away, the next thing I know I’m miles past it! I now weigh 92.7kg at WW and that means I’m 90.7kg (under 200lb!!) at the hospital. The doctor said he would refer me at 90kg so I’m basically at referral weight!! I have two weeks to get closer to the 80’s. Omigosh the 80’s….when did I last see them? I am turning so vain these days, I check myself out in every mirror or shop window. I now weigh the weight I was before I met Dave. The old me is back. I’m babbling with happiness, can you tell?

– I walked into my street today to an almighty noise. The birds were taunting this poor pussy cat, just out of reach. They kept swooping just out of reach and cackling. He was not a happy cat! It was one of those little scenes that can make you chuckle for the whole afternoon.

– The very beginning stages of my dream came true today. Very tentative baby steps so I won’t say more right now. Suffice to say there is light at the end of the tunnel and November the 14th will be an amazing day. I’m planning on taking business classes next year. I know exactly where I want our life to go. Now I just have to figure out how to keep heading that way.

As usual with these blog entries I finish typing only to see I have so much to be thankful for and how good life really is!

Randoms

– Do you ever go thrifting and see something that catches your eye and you love it before you even get close to it? You want it, you have to own it, you hope it’s a decent price and you’re shocked such a score is still there. I saw this rag rug on Saturday and had to own it. I was happy nobody else in the crowded store had snapped it up but kind of annoyed that of all those people I was the only one with such good taste. $4 later and it looks perfect in the conservatory, like it is supposed to be there:

– This article is so funny I literally rolled around laughing. I swear you will not regret reading it.

– Crocheters have you seen this amigurumi pattern creator site? Genius!

– I am so close to having a finished crochet item. I’m big on starting, not so big on finishing so that never fails to get me excited.

– There’s two weeks until Labour weekend when it’s traditional to plant your tomato plants. It’s my first garden ever and I am excited. I’m not so excited that I caught my cat toileting right where my tomatoes are going to go. Not erecting a fence once you’ve cleared the garden bed is an amateur mistake that I will not be making again.

– 24 days until my next specialist appointment. 24 days!! This is the one where he refers me to the fertility people for treatment!! There’s a waiting list to be seen but we’ve really come so far from where we began. I get a little giddy thinking of it. Soon.

– If I lose 100 grams tomorrow night at WW then I get a gold star for losing 15kg. I had no idea that gold stars could be as exciting at 31 as they were at 6 years old.

– TWENTY FOUR DAYS PEOPLE!!

– Rock on.

 

A spring in my step

Oh, sweet Spring is here at last! I have made it to the other end of winter – the happy end. There’s a polar blast due soon of course – winter is never keen to let go. But in the meantime there are trees blooming left, right and centre. Oh joy! My Daphne bush bloomed this week and it smells divine:

Can you tell it’s been quiet here? I walked up to the water tower every day this week which is as exciting as it got. But I am finally about to start my first ripple blanket this weekend. If I can tear myself away from doing nothing for a while anyway.

Goodbye to July

Has anybody else had a particularly rough month during July? It seems that it’s been rougher than normal for a few of us. I’ve certainly been feeling like this a lot lately:

Whatever could go wrong did go wrong. My mood has been terrible and my motivation hasn’t been far behind it. Curse that lack of sunshine. But July is finally over and when I get up in the morning it’ll be the first day of the last month of winter! Spring is in sight! And I now weigh DOUBLE FIGURES!!! Yes, I cracked the 100kg mark on Tuesday. Oh happy days! I’m slowly heading back to my Pre-Dave weight. My pants are so loose they flap alarmingly and new jeans are fast becoming  a priority. I see the fertility doctor on Thursday next week too. I’m hoping to be referred for IVF by Christmas. So I think it’s time for me to say enough is enough, no more winter blahs and here’s to a brand new month! I hereby pledge to start and complete three whole craft projects in August. Now I just have to make sure I don’t spend the whole first half of the month deciding what those projects will be…

Friday randoms

– Rain and wind. Repeat often. Increase periodically, usually when halfway home. Try not to go stir crazy.

– On a fairly related note I’m going stir crazy. I’ve cleaned most of the house, cleared out my sewing room, slept a LOT and before I get so desperate I start cleaning the bath with a toothbrush I’m determined to master knitting. It feels like the right time now, you know? I previously wanted to because everyone else was and that never worked. But now, I just want to for me and for my family. We’ll see how it turns out. Maybe being more ready to learn will help me? Being left handed doesn’t help, thats for sure.

– Since nobody would come paint pottery with me I bought a necklace for my 5% weight loss reward. It is a good visual reminder of how far I have come – especially on nights like tonight when I want to eat something sweet and might need a visual reminder to put the food down:

– I thrifted this bag last week. It caught my eye and I went bounding over to the window and went “Ohhhhh!”It’s not my usual style but I can see myself using it a lot in summer. With a knitting project in it perhaps.

– I’m feeling a bit down this week. Lack of sun, lack of fun. I think it’s time to vanish into my sewing room and finish a few projects. There’s nothing like holding a completed sewing projct in your hands to make you feel good.

– Maybe it’s time for a giveaway….

Sickies

My crochet fever was interrupted by a real fever. I was struck down by a bad head cold bordering on the flu this weekend. It made me ravenously hungry (when you now pay Weight Watchers $17.90 a week to fix that problem this is annoying), weak like a little kitten, desperate to cry (that was weird) and inclined to nod off after a row of my scarf. It is fast approaching 2/3 done though and I am trying not to think of the bajillion ends to weave in – not an exaggeration: 160cm long scarf, 2 ends every 2cm colour change…eep 160 ends!

I have my second weight watchers meeting tonight. The head cold hunger and being too sick to concentrate, let alone exercise make me think it won’t be a loss but you never now, right? Weighing my breakfasts has been a big eye opener for portion sizes and although I haven’t always finished the day on or under my points I’m coming close. I must admit it has been tough at times and this is on my mind a fair bit:

Will be back tomorrow with a scarf WIP reveal and a weigh in. If I am back with only a scarf photo you know how my weigh in went.

BooMonster

I have secretly lusted after a BooMonster Trophy Head from BooCraft for a while. I was thinking that something so cute must be seriously expensive but it wasn’t (it really should cost more Deb!) and so finally I thought I better just go ahead and get one. Deb very kindly made me a custom green one – I wanted one that might one day hang on a child’s (of unknown gender) bedroom wall one day – and I am so happy with it.

It’s currently squished in the corner because I just had to hang it up right now but I will hang a hook in the middle of the wall asap so it can hang proudly in full view. I was petrified of monsters under the bed until an embarrassingly large age and so this monster will serve a dual purpose – for now it will just look awesome on my sewing room wall and then eventually it will help a little one feel safe knowing the other monsters won’t come to a house where you get stuffed and hung on the wall!!