Catching up

So things have been scantier than a Brazilian bikini bottom post-wise around here lately....
I alluded a bit to why (briefly) in my last post here, but let me fill you in properly on a big part of the reason for it (if you are interested, feel free to just keep scrolling tho!).

We have been renovating!

Another year (can I stop counting now?)

Yes I'm a whole year older! It was the Winter Solstice this weekend, which means it was also my birthday too, which meant gift receival from hubby and the kidlets :

Yummy smelling WoodWick candles, a gardening book and a sewing book. Who knew that my 4 yr olds could pick such appropriate presents for their mummy ;)

Plus a cake with candles on it. 

Three candles to be precise...thats all we had in the house and frankly 36 candles would most likely be a fire hazard (and darn tricky to light to boot). 

I also had a few online ordered goodies that I had "gifted" to myself in the lead up to my birthday (anytime in the month beforehand is fair game in my mind)- some Mox shoes (super comfy!) and a couple of Lekala patterns. Super excited to finally be trying out the Lekala patterns as I've heard lots of good feedback about them. They are drafted to your custom measurements (that you enter yourself) and as a added bonus they have some freebie patterns to download, so you can try before you buy :)

Going back through my older posts tagged under "birthday" (I like to try and make sure I don't use the same title post/introduction ) I found this post from 2009. Gee how much has my life changed since then! :D

Happy Sewing !

Kate :)

Hanging out for the [school] holidays

I think this is the longest stretch of time I've worked at a paid job since having my children and boy do I feel it!
Bring on the holidays already...
Yes thanks to my school based job the time of year that many parents dread (6 weeks of kids sans school) is the time I am now looking forward to;)
Honestly I cannot wait for a break to spend some time with my family (not to mention the chance to recoup and gather myself) before starting anew another working year.
I feel exhausted.
To all those mums juggling full time work and family life out there I honestly don't know how you do it! I feel totally "absorbed" just doing my meagre two days per week (and during school terms that is). 
As to anyone who blogs or actually has some sort of hobby outside of family/work...feel free to send me any hints you may have ;) 

Til next time ...

Happy sewing [or whatever you are able to do- maybe we all just need a rest!]

Kate x :)

Sick...

Ever had a day, week or month like this:
You feel like everything is going along quite nicely in life. Somehow (miraculously) you've managed to tick all three boxes for domestic duties, parenting and creativity this week and it feels like there's still enough energy in the tank to do loads more!
Then you know what happens...
Some thing happens!
In my case a rather yucky tummy bug that's been doing the rounds in our little suburb :(

Amazingly I appear to be the only member of our family that seems to have been affected for longer than 24 hours, so for the last 4 days this has pretty much been my main view :

Thank goodness hubby had a long weekend off so I was just able to lie in bed and suffer recuperate, while he looked after the kids. I must say my post-kids fantasy of spending a whole weekend sleeping in bed didn't involve Gastrolyte or Buscopan...

On the plus side it was lovely to hear the kids playing with their father in the house and out on the front lawn. If I didn't know better I'd swear they were having way more fun with daddy than they normally have with me ;)
Also having all this "down time" has given me the chance to catch up on some of my blog reading :D

Have a wonderful week!

Kate :)

It's my birthday!!!

This year has is going waaay too quick - can I be 31 already? Luckily I have a lovely husband and friends to help me celebrate, if not in person then via the mail box :)
Not much has happened on the sewing front, wore my completed half circle skirt to work a received quite a few compliments on it! Show one of my co-workers the serger rolled hem that I was worried about and he said that maybe my tension was a little uneven in places, but not overly and it still looked OK. Coming from someone who used to teach clothing design/manufacture classes at a college I will take that as a good sign!
I am feeling the urge to start cutting out and preparing something - maybe a nice summery dress? For my birthday I received a gift certificate from my M-I-L , however after hours of treading the tiles at the shops I haven't be able to find anything to buy clothing -wise with it.
I'll be darned if trying to squeeze into those "average" dress sizes doesn't just makes me want to give up on clothes shopping altogether!
Maybe it's time to head back to the sewing machine (and lovely alterable dress patterns) after all?