Great kids clothes!

Walking the streets of Newtown at lunch time today I stumbled upon a wonderful kids' clothing shop on one of the side streets. Gorgeous hand made dresses, jumpers, shirts, pants and beanies. They also have a nice selection of baby shoes and some fun toys. I bought a dress for Elora. Of course. How could I not? Though, it was in the "Sale" bin. And one size too big.

The clothes are all locally made and designed by the owner of the shop. Simple "retro" designs but the thing that really got me drooling was the choice of fabrics which she used. So lovely! Nice fabrics + simple designs = gorgeous and cute.

Anyway, if you're in the area, check it out. Support local! One day I'd love to have a place like that (heh... after I learn to sew straight seams) so I like to support local businesses.


hullubullu
243 Australian St
Newtown

That newborn smell

Our good friends Joe and Ellie had their first baby yesterday. Right on his due date! Amazing! How many babies do you know that actually arrive on the date they're expected (excepting scheduled caesarians)?

I couldn't wait to go and visit him today. The hours until 2 o'clock just dragged on. And he was just lovely. I had a nice extended cuddle and was very reluctant to hand him back. He was so gorgeous I even entertained the thought of having another baby... holding him and smelling him brought back such wonderful memories. Dan helpfully reminded me that we had both learned our lesson and we AGREED that there'd be no more.

Anyway, welcome to the world little John Haven. Isn't he sweet? And a brilliant name, too!

(That's me holding him in the photo above, not his mother!)

Cleaning up

My husband did the most wonderful thing yesterday. When it came time to take Dante to his piano lesson, he took the other two kids along as well to play in the park while they waited. And then afterwards took them all out for lunch. I had almost two hours free to myself! I napped, showered and then got stuck into the sewing room/study.

We had, on several occasions, done some big clean ups in there but lately it has become a big pile of ironing and mending waiting to be done. And piles of fabrics that I'd bought and washed but not ironed and put away. So I requisitioned some shelves that weren't holding anything important (whose previous contents are now in a box under my desk) and got to it. I even got to continue during the afternoon while Atti and Elora slept.

Here's the result.


Work in progress, obviously. Ignore the tangle of bias binding on the left - it'll get rolled up nicely once I've finished pressing it. I've still got about the same amount again of fabrics waiting to be shelved, but I already feel liberated by what I've done so far. I can see what I've got now. Huzzah!

One day I'll have something more creative to show. One day soon, hopefully!

That's not very long

Sitting in front of the tele this evening when a news break came on.
"Gough Whitlam's ninety second birthday party" the newsreader announced.

The immediate thought which came to my head was "That was quick!"

When I realised what they meant (he is an old, old man) I laughed my head off, and yes, there was even a snort.

From the archives

My mother found a bag of loose photos the other day, recovered from my paternal grandmother's place after she died. Mostly pictures of my brothers when they were kids but more recent ones as well. This is one of me and my two second-cousins born the same year (April, May and June). We're standing outside the family home, where we live now. It must be Chinese New Year since that was usually the occasions that we got together, plus it's summer. I'm guessing that we were about 4 or 5 years old.

That's me on the right. I love the pose and look on my face. I seem to be saying "Have you finished, yet?". I'm amazed that I'm so much smaller than the other two girls (there's only a couple of inches height difference between us now).

I love looking at old photos. I'll post some more soon!

The poor bub

Elora's sick, the poor thing. She has an outer ear infection which means that she has to have ointment put in her ear and nostrils (to prevent the spread of more germs) but yesterday she came down with conjunctivitis (or something similar - 100% certain that it's related to the other infection) and now has ointment for her eyes as well. What a regimen we have for her each morning and night with creams and cotton buds and what-have-you. She screams and screams during it all :(

But anyway, I'm home after half a day at work (couldn't leave them completely in the lurch for two days - tomorrow's my regular day off) and finally got her to sleep. It's so rare that I have time to myself at home with no kids under my feet that I'm giddy with nervous excitement. What to do with this time?? Must do something that I can't normally do or am usually too tired to do! Not housework! Pah! Too boring! There are so many crafty projects I want to start, but really I should complete the many that I have unfinished, lying around gathering dust. Oh, the dilemma!

But I think some major cleaning up of the study/sewing room is in order first. Piles and piles of ironing and clothes awaiting repair, and the aforementioned unfinished items. I have a basket of pre-washed fabric waiting to be ironed and folded and stacked nicely on the shelf. My mother-in-law asked me why I'm bothering to iron them if I'll probably iron them again before I use them. Good question. Perhaps just folding to do, then.

{sigh}
Time to stop writing about it and get started! Wish me luck!

--

Edited to add:
She woke up after only one hour. I managed to clean one shelf, iron some fabrics (I know I wasn't going to iron them but they were really crushed and I like ironing, especially on a cold day), fold and stack them, and started a new knitting project (a baby shrug for Elora). But no sewing, which is what I would really like to get stuck into!

I am Mojo Jojo!

The kids (mainly Dante) have been getting stuck into The Powerpuff Girls recently, a cute little cartoon about three superhero girls. I've always enjoyed this show, since I first saw it years before the kids came along.

Last night we watched an episode called "Mo' Linguish" which focussed on the wonderful super villain, Mojo Jojo, the talking chimpanzee with a grossly over-large brain (and a Japanese accent akin to Monkey Magic).

Mojo Jojo has a very... verbose way of speaking. In this episode he teaches the citizens of Townsville to speak in the same manner. Chaos ensues until the Powerpuff Girls step in to save the day (as usual). It made me laugh so much! The scriptwriters of this show are geniuses!

Then while searching the web for an excerpt, I found this blog entry which expressed everything that I felt about the episode. He also linked to the full transcript of the episode. Pure brilliance, in my humble opinion.

He also mentioned my other favourite episode:

I am not Bubbles! Bubbles is not who I am! I am the one, the only, single solitary doer of dastardly deeds! Purveyor of pestilence! Interloper of lawlessness! Menace to mankind! I am bad! I am evil! I am Mojo Jojo!

(Watch the excerpt here.)

Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Total brutality

An interesting thing that Dan pointed out to me this evening. My work building, which is is ugly, brown and starts on Level 2, actually is a prime example of an architectural style called Late 20th Century Brutalist.

Heh. Who knew?

Ice weather

My goodness it is freezing today. The current outside temperature is 13°C (about 55 °F). We are not cold-weather-loving people! Brr.

By the way, Happy America Day to those of you celebrating that thing.

Squeek, squeek

It appears that we have rodents lurking in our pantry. I discovered a muesli bar with a hole eaten in one end, then some easter eggs and little black pellets. Plus the headless corpse our cat left on the lounge room floor the other day. Bit of a giveaway.

We'll have to do a major clean out this weekend. I'm not looking forward to it. Worse, though, is the thought of catching those cute little creatures. Poisoning is dangerous with small children and cats around. Mouse traps are cruel and icky. What else is there to do? Stop feeding the cat and hope she catches more? I'm not even sure that she caught that one the other day - we suspected the kittens caught it (next door - not really kittens anymore) and our cat just nabbed the remains. I don't really care which cat gets it in the end, as long as they don't leave them as "presents" around the house.

Don't tell my sister-in-law (I'm looking at you, Mark) - she won't set foot inside the house again!