For those of you who are into art of a slightly different kind - and I mean tasteful, decorative art, not sleazy stuff - check out this auction on ebay here in Australia.

Most of all check out the questions that have been asked….trust me don’t try and take a sip of your coffee as you read them because I can assure you that your coffee will be sprayed all over your computer screen as you get a giggle from what some people ask.

I might add it is NOT me who is putting this particular item up for auction.

Go on have a look.  It is worth your time to click the mouse button and is very definately good for your funny bone.

Here’s the link again just in case you missed it.  Makes you wonder just what people will sell on ebay.

I have been a bit remiss in thanking both Julia and Candace for nominating me  for the Brillante Weblog Award.

How very kind you both are and it quite made my day   : - )

Thank you both so much I really appreciate the fact you enjoy my ramblings.  Do take the time to check out Julia’s and Candace’s blogs.  They are both amazing women and do the most outstanding quilts and other crafty stuff.

What else do you do when you are on holidays by the sea and the sun is shining but try surf fishing.

A definate first for Ashley and Elise - but luckily Graeme was there to advise/tell/supervise them….vbg.

Naturally like all small boys and water James just had to try out the waves.  Maureen had just finished saying “Ohh we forgot to bring towels” when James fell head first into the waves and promtly had another wave dumped on top of him.

It didn’t deter him though.  Ten minutes later he had stripped off down to his jocks (the modesty of five minutes before of wearing Jocks in public over) and winter jacket he was back playing in the water which I swear had ice cubes in it.

The fishing did not go well.  In fact we began to be very glad that tea was already organised and fish wasn’t on the menu.  The closest any of them came to a real live frozen fish……………….was the bait.  But there was lots of fun in trying to cast that poor little fish way out into the ocean in the hope of catching a bigger one.

Of course there is always some shell collecting done.  Who can resist these treasures from the sea and if it means walking out into the waves to wash them off well of course that has to happen.

Do you just love the look of Footprints in unmarked sand?

Long solitary walks on the beach are a must.  Just right for getting your head around the fact there has been no homework for a fortnight, no pressure to be in class on time and the time to just think and dream is there for the taking.

What else does a man with his toys do than play with the remote control car on the beach?  Well it helps if you actually have fuel in it…..wicked grin.  Ashley disappeared only to return 15 minutes later with the car full of fuel.  It alway helps….lol.  Ohh and remote control cars and sea water don’t mix all that well although it still runs. Personally I think the waves were taking revenge for being disturbed by such a noisy smelly creature……………and yes I’m referring to the car and not my darling hubby.  Why else would a wave come in just as the car was driven just a tad to close to the water unless it wanted revenge?

…..I’m not posting a photo of my left eye on this blog!!!

I woke up yesterday morning with a sore and yucky eye and thought “conjunctivitus” (sorry can’t spell it and honestly I don’t think I want to learn).  Had a nanna nap that afternoon still feeling pretty ordinary from the flue  and travelling home etc and woke to find my eye nearly swollen shut. An hour later I was scaring the Doctor with it - he looked at me funny as I walked into his surgery room wearing sunglasses….vbg - and the first thing he said was “You have got a good infection haven’t you!”  Well no kidding!!!!!!

Half an hour later I have drops for my eye, antibotics for this flue that won’t leave me and a ventalin type puffer to try and releive my chest.

Today the eye is only half swollen but very, very red and sore but at least it’s stopped weeping and so have I if I don’t look in the mirror.  Ashley did offer to punch me in the other eye so I had a matching pair but needless to say I didn’t take him up on the offer.

On the brighter side of things it is raining  - positively bucketing down - which is lovely.  I tempted it this morning by hanging out a load of washing and pulled it in half a hour later when the rain started….lol.  The mountain of washing from our holiday is now down to a small hill but will be there a while as trying to dry sleeping bags and blankets is a tad hard when it’s raining.

Crafting (due to my eye) is at a standstill but I did rearrange the lounge room so now my sewing chair is near the window and I have a small table next to it so I can spread out my treasures as I work.  I have spent quite a bit of  today winding  stranded cottons,  silk threads and anything else I can find onto floss cards to put in the new boxes I purchased.  So far one box isn’t quite full and there are a lot of threads in there…..way more than I thought I had.   I’m sure there are more threads lurking around the house…..it’s just a matter of finding them.

Right I’m off to check on Elise.  She is cooking tea for tonight - Shepherds Pie……and tomorrow nights tea - Lasagne.   It’s a pity this isn’t “Smell-A-Blog” cause if tea tastes anything like it smells we are in for a treat.

Hi All

Home again safely thank goodness.  Bit of a nightmare trip with the bus playing up and getting slightly lost around Pakenham but we made it and arrived home at 5 pm.

Details and photos soon - well as soon as I find time and the camera which is somewhere in the house.

If you don’t hear from me for a few days it’s cause I’m buried under the mountain of washing that is lurking in my laundry……and I do mean “mountain”.

Haven’t caught up with any blogs as yet, but thank you for the lovely comments left on my last two posts.

Apart from washing, I’m taking the day off to rest and relax and maybe work a little more on the cq piece I started at Maureen’s.

Talk to you soon

Catherine

Quick post cause I’m using Maureen’s computer.  This place (and our wonderful hosts) are magnificent.  Ashley and I can’t remember the last time we were on holidays where we relaxed instantly the morning after we arrived and honestly the relaxed feeling hasn’t gone away.

We have just come back from exploring the National Park.  Maureen, Elise and I went to Sale yesterday to do some shopping - just a bit….roflmol.  I will show the treasures when I finally get home (if we can ever drag ourselves away from here).  Shall we just say that Spotlight in Sale will never be the same…..vbg.  We have visited the beach, played in the water, collected shells and just generally loafed around.  My crafting is progressing slowly - there are too many treasures to check out in Maureen’s craft room.  Trust me - you could spend days in there and still not see everything.

Maureen and Graeme’s daughter and some of their grand children came for just a couple of days - and all six children had a ball spending time together.  We had to keep doing head counts at the beach to make sure we had them all…vbg.  Children can scatter like grains of sand in a wind storm when they are intent on exploring we have discovered.

We still aren’t sure what day we are leaving (Maureen hasn’t kicked us out yet….lol) but I imagine it will possibly be Saturday as the kids start school again Monday….sigh.

Ohh the best news is that our colds and flue are just about gone and apart from feeling sleepy (Graeme says it’s the sea air and the ambiance of this sleepy little village) we are all on the mend.

Right I’m off - the kids have just asked how much do I need to write???  Cheeky things.  Will catch up with you all when I get home.

Hugs

Catherine and the Gang.

I’ve been a bit absent from blogging due to a nasty dose of the flue.  James decided to share his bug with me, just as I was getting over the first dose, and the end result was a very sick and sorry Catherine.  As a result not a lot of crafting has happened - simply not coughing was a major achievement.  If anyone has a spare set of lungs I would appreciate them - mine ran away a week ago.

Good news though - today I am heaps better which is a good thing as we are off on a weeks holiday to visit Maureen and her dear Hubby Graeme.  Yipeee.  We set off first thing tomorrow and Ashley is talking about doing the whole trip in one day - 9 or 10 hours driving in the bus - towing the trailer with the Suzuki so we can go “flitting about the district” - Maureen’s turn of phase not mine…vbg.  Either way the bus is nearly packed - I have no idea what food I have actually put in but so long as they are prepared to exist on two minute noodles the family will be fine….wicked grin - and there are just a few last minute items to go in tomorrow morning.

No doubt there will be plenty of photos to show you when we return not to mention plenty of crafting happening which I am really looking forward to.  Maureen assures me her house is “magic” and I will get better while I’m down there.  I have big plans of standing on the beach, facing the strongest wind I can find and letting it blow the bugs (and hopefully not me) away.

I have been keeping up with your blogs - and while I’m not crafting seeing what everyone else has been doing has helped to keep me sane.

Bye for now - I’ll catch up with you all in a week.

Hugs

Catherine

The household is at “sixes and eights” instead of “sixes and sevens” as the saying goes.

I have had Elise home all week sick with the flue. So sick in fact that today is the first day there has been any sign of life even remotely coming from her. James was home yesterday as well also sick. Terrible tempreture and a cough that sounds like his insides are going to shortly appear for everyone to see.

Yesterday Elise dragged herself to the secondary school, along with me, so we could get her books and the wooden chest she made for Technology before the holidays start tonight (for the secondary students) in an effort to be organised for next terms change of subjects. It must have really knocked her out -as she slept again that afternoon and we were at the most out for only about an hour.

Today James is a little better which was good as we had the Student/Parent Conferences (ie parent teacher interviews) at the primary school. Both Nicola and James did very well and their teachers had such nice things to say about them….vbg.

I have raced around down the street, grabbed some wind cheaters Elise needed. I even managed to buy the right ones as I had the “Smile of Approval” when I got home and showed her. I must be getting old as I truly had no idea there was a right and wrong style in these things. I bought some wool so I can knit James a new scarf - lovely soft blue which he loves - wiping brow here in relief. Nicola didn’t get anything but she did manage to claim a pair of my gloves (actually I never wore them so they were still brand new) in a lovely soft shade of pink which goes beautifully with her pink scarf so she is happy.

I have manged to wrench my back somewhere along the line and add that to the exhaustion of caring for sick kids and still trying to get over the flue myself - I needed a nanna nap this afternoon. At least I would have got a decent one if Ashley hadn’t kept ringing me wanting me to check paperwork in the office. I must have dozed off - cause everytime the phone rang I reached for the electric clock and tried to turn the alarm off.

Now for the “Sixes and Eights” news.

I have finished basting all the Octogons to their papers and what an exciting time that was. Yes I know there is so little excitment in my life I get a thrill out of that…vbg. Milly thought it was pretty exciting too though - so we shall be excited together….roflmol.

At this stage I might add I’m telling her “don’t eat them” as she though they were pretty darn good.

Progress has been made in sewing them together. At the time of this photo two rows and the filler squares were done……

I have now sewn the other octagons into rows and am about to start sewing rows together - yipee.

The funny thing was when I starting sewing these together I started to realise that I was really tense while I was doing it. I had to consciously relax. I was so tense it was physically hurting my neck, shoulders, back and hands. It really started to bug me until I worked out that I kept thinking “This is taking too long” and “I could do this faster on the sewing machine”. I stopped then and gave myself a talking too.

The whole idea of hexagons and octagons and all those kinds of blocks is yes I could do them on the machine but I choose to hand piece them. I choose to take the slower route. To revel in the sounds of needle and thread passing though fabric in the time honoured tradition of hand piecing. To enjoy the process and to accept that this won’t be a “quick quilt” in the way that so many are these days.

Guess what! When I was sewing blocks together last night - I did relax. I enjoyed the process. I listened to needle and thread and the sounds they made. My heart rate slowed down. My muscles relaxed and I entered that frame of mind of where all is well in my little corner of the world. Bliss. Now I’m beginning to think that this might be a quilt that is hand quilted. Time will tell.

I can see hexagons and octagons popping up maybe a bit more often in my sewing.

Nicola has also been bitten by the “Hexagon Bug”.

She was sick early last week and needed something to take her mind off the flue so she was told convinced that these would be fun to make. Guess what - they were.

Nicola has paper pieced all of the hexagons. She would disappear - arrive back with her sewing box and suddenly whip out some fabric and a paper foundation and begin sewing. It was surprising how fast she got after a while….I only had to show her once how to baste the fabrics down.

Now she has the center (green) hexagon and the blue ones all sewn together and is ready to start the maroon/pink ones. I think this will end up as a cushion and there have been definitely murmurs of maybe making some more of these hexagon cushions as Christmas presents. You can see the improvement in her hand sewing all ready and she tells me that practising this way is a good idea. If she takes too big a stitch she can hear the needle going trough the paper and that reminds her to keep her stitches small. Hey if it works who am I to argue.

I can’t believe I nearly forgot to post this photo.  So often we see Milly (the big red one) and Ajax lying together perfectly relaxed and enjoying each others company.  Unfortunately Ajax is one of those dogs who, the minute he hears the camera start up just has to come up close, just so you can get a picture of his cute and hairy little white and brown face.  Today I succeeded…….only because everyone was told to stay exactly where they were and I hid behind the kitchen bench until I was ready to take the photo.  Ahhhh the things I do to get photos of our dogs.

At last my friend has the Birthday Quilt I made her for her “significant” birthday - I won’t mention her age - but friends will know she is six months younger than me…….wicked grin.

On the off chance she checked out my blog the most I could show you of the quilt was this….

and this…..

At last I can reveal the entire quilt.

Ta da.

My friend loved it I’m pleased to say - even if it did have orange in it - not one of her favorite colours and honestly I didn’t even think of it until after it was finished.  She and her hubby are off on a well earned break for a week - child free and the quilt is going along just to keep her warm.

Of course there just had to be another picnic planned just to see if the Bus is working properly.

Big plans were made involving the five of us, two dogs, sausages and bread and of course nice weather.

For a while I thought things might come a bit unstuck as Ashley and James decided, at what seemed to me to be at the last minute, to do a run to the tip and get rid of some of the piles of rubbish that have been accumulating of late.  All was well though - we did set off even if it was later than I had planned.

The bus ran really well.  Nice and smooth, no oil leakage and the “timing” (whatever that is) was working right so we were able to travel at a whole 96 km per hour - yipee!!!

Lake Boga was our destination of choice.

No Ashley isn’t strangling Milly - she saw another dog and of course the first response is “I’m going to play”…sigh.

There has been lots of controversary over Lake Boga in the recent past.  It’s the nearest Lake to us (about 15 mins drive) and as such is a mecca for those wanting a watery type holiday without travelling to the beach which is at least five hours or more drive away.  As a child we spent many long summer nights splashing in the waters.   There is a local ski club and yacht club, plus a caravan park and small township near by.

Due to the drought conditions Boga has not had any rainfall to top it up nor has there been any water from the Murray River pumped into it.  The level has been dropping steadily over the past few years.  Combine that with outbreaks of Blue Green Algae (which can make you really ill) tourist numbers have dropped off considerably - I wonder why!!!

Of course with receding water and muddy banks the outbreak of Midges(small black flying insects) has been prolific to the point that residents around the lake and in the near by town had to sweep them up by the shovel full  not the handful as they would hope.  It got so bad that many residents couldn’t even have lights on in their houses as they attacted too many insects.

Naturally as the water receeded more the fish started to die.  There was a proposal by one enterprising person to harvest the fish and turn them into something useful such as ferterlizer - but the Powers that Be decided no so the fish died and the stink from them intensified.

As you can imagine the stink that the towns people kicked up was as good as the stink from the fish.  There has been lots of “buck passing” by those in various offices as to who looks after what and who will make a decision.  One “group” controls the water, another does the foreshore of the lake, yet another has control of the fish and another is just there to stir up more trouble.  Not all of these in power are the local council either - some are state and government bodies.

In a great many peoples opinion there needs to be a major rethink on the lake and an even more major clean up while the lake is dry and the opportunity is there.  To make matters worse Lake Boga used to be a flying depot for Catalina Airplanes during the war. You can see some photos and read more about it here.  There is  quite a bit of ammunition being discovered around the lake as the water receeded to the point that there are now signs posted warning people of the dangers of finding any of it.

So it is one of those never ending questions of what will happen.  In the long run probably nothing unless a group of enterprising people get together, ignore the “Powers that Be” and get stuck in and thoroughly clean up the lake and it’s surroundings returning it to the place of beauty and tranquility it once was.  Anyone who is in office and semi official is putting the problem into the “too hard basket” and probably praying for enough rain to fill the lake and hide the problems.

Having said all that it was a lovely picnic. The sausages were done nicely, sauce went everywhere (as it is supposed to) the dogs ate there fair share of left over sausages and I got to take photos of my children walking in areas of the lake which would normally be anywhere from waist high to neck high in water.

So off we headed home - at at least attempted to.  One bolt had fallen out of the starter motor so my always clever hubby fiddled around with a screw driver under the bus and got it started so we could get home.  The bolt has now been replaced I’m pleased to announce that He Who Decides Such Things thinks that we should have another picnic next weekend.  I must remember to put sausages on the shopping list and maybe some rolls.  The children complained that the bread fell apart while trying to eat their sausages.  Honestly kids of today - it isn’t a picnic unless your bread falls apart…..wicked grin.