Singing Toorali Oorali Addity

For we're bound for Botany Bay.

The taxi's booked, we're checked in for our flight, we're almost packed. We're going to Sydney this afternoon.

I'm looking forward to seeing all my family again but I think it's going to be a bit of a busy week. We'll have to make sure we get a bit of down-time in there somewhere.

Santa came early last night to bring The Boy the SS Feathersword, Captain Feathersword from the Wiggles' pirate ship.

Santa is an incredibly perceptive anthropomorphic personification, and so he realised that the SS Feathersword was waaaay too big for The Boy to bring home from Sydney and so he would need to bring it early. Well done, Santa.

I noticed on an ad on tv last night that they're showing Terry Pratchett's Hogfather on free to air tv here. Tomorrow (Sunday) and Monday at 8.30pm in Brissy and Sydney, check your guides elsewhere... Take a look at it if you get a chance, because it's beautifully done, with some big names in it, and it's full of Pterry's trademark humour. I found out this week that Pterry's been diagnosed with Early-onset Alzheimers, which is a great shame. Still, as he says in a number of posts on this thing we call the internet, he still aten't dead, and he reckons he has a few more books in him yet. Bring on the dried frog pills, I say.

I'm finished all my must-do Christmas knitting, and I'm half-way through a nice-to-have mystery project. I'm about to go and raid the stash to find something to take to Sydney with me. Even though it will be busy, it will be the sitting around in cars, trains, ferries, and at other people's houses kind of busy - with plenty of good knitting time. I just wish i could knit on the plane.....I think I might smuggle a tapestry needle into my carry-on so that I can sew up the first half of the unfinished mystery project. Surely no-one can protest about a tapestry needle!

On the health front, I think my Crohn's is starting to settle down after three weeks back on the steroids. I'm still getting a little bit of pain and bloating, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was. I'm hoping that it will improve more so that I can drop the dose of the steroids soon. That and I'm kindof sick of the pain and bloating and burping. :)

I hope everyone has a happy Christmas week with whatever they are doing. I hope it's all fun and stress-free and that you get to do a lot (or at least a little)of whatever you're looking forward to for the week.
Merry Christmas and big hugs.

Twas the Wednesday before Christmas

As is always the case at this time of year, there's lots going on. I am exhausted and lacking enthusiasm for pretty much anything. It's one of those times when I am reminded of "Doug's Proximity to the Toilet Rule", which states that "The closer you get to something you desperately want, the harder it is to wait". He was a smart man, my husband. That rule not only works for the toilets mentioned in its name, but also for holidays, payrises, and many other things. Its relevence to me personally at this time is that I can't wait for my holiday to Sydney next week. Only three days to go, but my goodness they're stretching out to 4million times their length at the moment.

My Christmas knitting is almost finished. I got the handle finished and felted for the third and last of the Christmas Mystery bags and it's currently tied between my wardrobe and chest of drawers stretching out its kinks before I attach it to said bag tonight. Then there's only Gracie's Christmas stocking to finish (and Anna's stocking to find - somehow I've managed to misplace the thing about three times in the last couple of weeks....I know it's in the house somewhere though, so that's a start). I'm past the heel on Gracie's stocking so there's only a couple of inches of "foot" and the toe to go, then a little bit of weaving in ends. Hopefully it will be finished in time to drop in on Saturday.

I finally bought a wool winder for making my winding of balls of wool easier than it is by hand. I won an ebay auction the other day for $30, and I'm pretty happy about it. I'll be happier when I have it in my hot little hands though. :)

My feet hurt. I went shopping on the weekend with some of the girls from work, out at the DFO (Direct Factory Outlets) at Jindalee. I did pretty well, with a gorgeous black and white cocktail dress for Leisl and Nick's wedding in March, a great new bag for work, so all my stuff can fit in it and The Man can stop complaining about me being the bag lady with 3 bags every day (I know it's excessive, but it's my thing, okay?) and some body scrub I really wanted. But that's not the reason my feet hurt. I also got some really gorgeous Merrill lace up leather shoes, which are supremely comfortable everywhere except at the back of my ankle, where they come up a little bit high and are bruising me so that it hurts there when I walk. I am persevering with them, which I don't know if I should be doing, but I'm being a bit stubborn at the moment and A STUPID PAIR OF SHOES ARE NOT GOING TO BEAT ME!

I had a bit of a funny scare yesterday when my eyes suddently went funny and I had an experience where everything off to the right looked like ripply water. I went to the doctor and it went away while I was waiting... He reckons that there's nothing obviously wrong (ie, no detached retinas, etc) so I just have to see if it happens again.

And in family news, my Nanna is getting a pacemaker today. I think that's taking the idea of a "little heartstarter for Christmas" just a little bit far but the Docs think it's the best course of action to avoid some health problems she's been having. I believe it's all fairly routine now, but I'm thinking of her today.

Just in case I don't post again before Chrissy, I hope you all have a brilliant and joyous festive season wherever and with whoever you are. Peace and Goodwill to all men and women and children and animals and plants and all that stuff.

Hugs!.

In which, surprisingly, Alexia comes good on her word.

I promised another post and some photos. So here goes.

I suddenly realised that the last photo I posted of Tivoli was back in April, when she was less than half finished. I can't remember when I finished her, but it was a while ago.
Anyway, here is a dodgy photo of me wearing her. [edited to add: I mean dodgy only in the sense of the fact that I didn't do my hair and makeup and wear appropriate pants for the photo, not in the sense that The Man took the photo badly ] I love how it fits although I think the Zhivago yarn, while it feels really silky, is probably a little bit flabby for a close-fitting top like this one.
Oh, and I wouldn't normally wear my pants untied, it's just that the bow from the waist tie disturbed the way the bottom of the blouse sat.

I don't think I've shown anyone this photo (below) of Little Petal, from Creative Knitting magazine, can't remember which issue. I made this for a friend's baby girl, and I loved the yarn it was knitted with, which I also can't remember....oh, hang on, a quick look in the overstuffed knitting drawer shows it to be Elle Caress wool/nylon/courtelle blend. Very nice and soft. And I was really pleased with how this turned out. If I made it again I'd be more careful with some of the work around the collar. I redid it about three times as it was, but just as I finished I realised that I'd made a serious misjudgement with some of the picking up stitches. By that time, however, the little petal it was intended for was well and truly born, so I didn't really have time to pull it out and do it again. The Man tried to point out that only a knitter would recognise the mistake but it still eats at me a bit. Oh well, apparenly little Beth loved it (which I think translates to Beth's Mummy and Daddy loved it - how much can a newborn love something that isn't their Mummy or Daddy ?) so I'm happy with that.

I have number two of the Christmas Booga Bags in the washing machine felting as I blog. It seems to be behaving itself and felting nice and evenly, which was actually probably too much to hope for, considering that I was mixing different brands of yarn, including one I'd never used before, and I didn't swatch and felt-test. Obviously the knitting gods are smiling on me today. When I think about it, it was probably the knitting karma (knitma?) I earned by starting to teach The Man's 8 year old neice to knit this morning. She had the good grace and tenacity to stick to it for a good 30 minutes and was starting to slowly get the hang of the knit stitch before she gave up with sore hands, and she insisted on taking her yarn and needles with her. I'm so proud!
Probably because his cousin was doing it (which makes it cool), The Boy firmly stated that he wanted to learn to knit also. I set him up with a pair of blue 6mm needles and a row of stitches, and showed him the knit stitch over and over, and then he took the needles, moved one backwards and forwards against the other and claimed to be knitting. I'm just over the moon that he was interested enough to do that much. He's only 4 - I've got years to indoctrinate him... BWAHAHAHAH HA HA HA. Maybe I should start using the subliminal message audio tapes while he's sleeping.....
Unfortunately, I forgot to get his Dad to get photos of us knitting, so this one of him hard at work at another artistic endeavour will have to suffice.



Oh, and this one of him holding a plastic fish over his nose at a recent birthday party....

And some gratuitous roses, just because they're beautiful.

One happy moment

I'm happy that the reserve bank didn't raise official interest rates this week. Some of the lenders have been raising their rates anyway so I'm hoping that the fact that mine raised them out of synch with the reserve bank a couple of months ago due to "rising costs" means that they will be one of the ones staying put just at this moment.

I've noticed how bare this blog looks at the moment with no photos. So I promise some photos of something later today. All of my recent knitting has been christmas knitting for people I want to maintain the surprise for, so photos of those will need to wait a bit. But I think there are a few things I can show you. Just not now.... Must eat breakfast before stomach initiates mutiny.