A tiny feathered friend avidly watching and waiting for the Dogwood tree to unfurl its strawberry pink flowers.
Little baby Russian dolls waiting patiently for me to build a legion for them. I am actually thinking about turning you into pendants sorry girls, I am just not the person to make an army. 
Looking out across the farm from our balcony, I couldn't help but notice that for all intents and purposes, it is Spring. And an odd thing happened, an electrical current flooded my body and rewired it all to Spring cleaning setting. Which means that I am now kinda looking forward to going through the house and dealing with the mountains of stuff we have everywhere.
I am going to curb the impulse that causes me to see things as individually interesting and instead...
Remind myself that it all mounts up to something unintelligible and rather frightening.
To take that scary image out of your mind, here is a little parcel before it was sent away all wrapped up like a peachy, freshly swaddled new baby.
Life has changed a lot since I bought my Fiskar shape cutter (by the way, this is not in any way a paid advertisement for Fiskars). It is just better. Life is better when you realise any shape you ever wanted to cut will just flow from your hands like birds from a magician.
I am gathering all of the the random and left over balls of wool,
To make pom pom packs and my Fiskars whisker cutter has been helping me. Look at all the templates they so lovingly included for me...
I'm thinking Christmas labels, I'm thinking about attaching fancy tags to the boys, I'm thinking, well, in fact I am thinking about dinner. Risotto - chicken and streaky bacon and mushrooms and Parmesan cheese.
Just a little post to say I have bought the best thingy in the world.... a Fiskars shape cutter. It's amazing, I think I have experimented with a whole forest of paper doing all sorts of wonderful cutting. More photos tomorrow (that is if you want to see photos of me cutting pieces of paper - maybe not the most exciting thing in the world when I think about it). Off to book group. Tootles.
Thank you very much for all of your comments when I was feeling under the weather. Sleep was the best cure in the end and I made sure I received ridiculous amounts of it. The dreams I had during this time though, I tell you, I am glad no one else was watching.
I'm feeling much less like this...
But I still want to do lots of that.
In the meantime, I am comforting myself that flowers are still blooming inside my gangrenous house.
The hexagons are starting to be stitched together and it is much more fun than piecing a puzzle together thank goodness. The boys are tucked into bed so in typical Sunday night tradition, I am about to go upstairs to the big, blue couch, snuggle with Jonno, do a little bit of crochet and watch a bit of telly. Good night xxooxxooxx.
Love comes in all shapes and sizes. Today it came in a pink Tupperware container.
My cousin called around with them knowing how upset I was to miss out on a fairy party yesterday due to the dreaded lurgy. She put blue tissue paper underneath the cakes 'cause she just knew I would be needing something pretty.
And not only that, they are gluten-free so Hugo and I can eat them happily knowing there will be no tummy aches to follow. Thank you Jodie xxooxxooxxooxx.
Here is the finished version of the scarf I began the other day. I have come down with a pesky virus that has unfortunately, taken all of the bones from my body and as a result, it was very hard keeping the camera still enough to take these photos. I will try and post better ones next week, maybe with a model wearing it. Anyway, back to bed for me. Have a good weekend. xxooxx
Sometimes you know you are loved beyond all measure when on a cold day, you find a basket of wood tucked in quietly beside the front door.
This week I would love to be the person with the beautiful studio that you walk into and are immediately spellbound by all of the colours and fabrics and amazing storage ideas but it is just not my lot right now. Hopefully one day I will have that space but at the moment, most of my creativy is still relegated between the couch and the kitchen table. It isn't a bad situation by any means because the couch is big and comfy and the kitchen table is close to, well the kitchen and all of the food that lives there. The fire place also burns warmly when I am downstairs and you have got to be warm to create. Cold hearts don't produce much, but with a warm one, the universe is yours for the making.
Sometimes when a little boy has a cold and is at home on a day of birthday present making, you just have to get them involved, even, dare I say, pretend that they are a worker in your very own sweatshop. I am pleased to see he has inherited the sewing gene. Yes, I think I will keep him on the production line.
The face of this young person is obscured because even though they agreed to modelling the hairclip, I don't think he realises that it could be used against him in the future. He did say however, that it is very good at keeping hair out of eyes. So that's good.
I was completely overcome by an ugent scarf making need after reading Vanessa's blog. I didn't have the time to make little circles so I just took the centre of the pattern I am using for the hexagon blanket and made big circles instead. Hugo sewed and I crocheted, very pleasant. And then suddenly I realised I needed pompoms, from the depths of my soul the cry reverberated. It turned out to be quite a large one so I think I might reduce my template size on the next one. I am still working out what this is for. 
Don't you just love seeing the things you have made be absorbed into the house. Like the cushion that took many nights of crocheting sat upon as though it is the most essential piece in the house. I love it. And I love that the boys think it's a normal part of life. By the way, please excuse the tails poking out of the cushion, I just can't get around to sewing them all in, there just seem to be so many more interesting things to be doing... like starting a new cushion.
I went shopping with Hugo today to try and replace my favourite yellow mug which I dropped on our stony concrete floor. On being told there were no yellow mugs left, I took a deep breath, did not cry and boldly reached for the purple version. It does hold a good cup of tea but I am still not sure how I am handling the colour change - maybe I really am suffering from some sort of greedy for colour syndrome.
To get over this hurdle, we then bought 4 paper lanterns to go over our lights in the colours pink, red, blue and green. I will post more photos tomorrow but the house looked so atrocious, it seemed kinder not to inflict the whole room on everyone. It has been a good bit of medicine for the house though as it looks as if we are constantly in party mode. Being the end of winter, this is a very powerful magic.
Another Sunday over and its passing has been marked with soft boiled eggs and soldiers. The exciting part of the childrens' dinner is that the eggs are ours. That's right, our plump little araucanas are back on the lay, popping out their blue-green eggs again. Wahoooooo!!! I think my eyes bulged most unattractively when I went into the hen house. I am so used to just feeding them and walking away empty handed while they giggle and cluck behind my back.
I went to the nursery today to stock up on a few plants. And now I have a lot of planting to do. The weekend has brought with it the kind of sunshine it usually reserves for the midweek and the boys have been running like drunken bees (we are perhaps, not the most co-ordinated of families but maybe it is an age thing and there is still an All Black just waiting to be discovered).
After fully expressing the practical (but extremely withered) side of my nature, I was overcome with a sudden cramping need for some kind of beauty. Something beyond the green streaks that had transferred from the back end of those sweet and furry creatures and onto my leg. So I rushed around the house concentrating on good things like wedding shoes and beads - can you tell that I plastered myself flat against the wall to get the side on view. You have to pause occasionally to think of the ridiculous positions people get into in pursuit of the perfect photo.
I have just finished watching this series from the library. If you like Jane Austen, this is the show for you. Crochet is calling even more insistently than the calves and I am going to answer and there will be love in my voice and warmth in my hands and yes I am having way to much thinking time out in the paddocks, all alone but for the company of animals...
This week, my creative space is to be found out and about on the farm. Our herd manager has broken his thumb and is off work for six weeks (ouch). As we are calving, Jonno is flat out so he has delegated big calf feeding to me. My job is to drive the big milk container out to the paddock and feed the calves who have graduated from the baby pens. Jonno very kindly went over the ropes with me again as it has been quite a while since the last time I drove a ute with hundreds of litres of milk into a paddock of glossy, frolicking calfies.
