Dad update

Thank you so much for your queries and concern for my Dad.

I am very happy to say that he DIDN'T have a heart attack.

Even though there are obvious issues and he was in hospital for 3 days, he's home now and feeling much better.

I ended up getting plenty of crochet done while waiting for news and only have the border left of my shawl before it's finished.

We're almost half way through the weekend here and it's very hot again.  There are some storms building up but I don't think we'll be getting much out of them which is a pity.

It's so dry here now with large patches of dirt on the lawn and the rest of the grass is brown and crunchy to walk on.  Rain will be a blessing so I hope we get some soon.

I hope you are all well.

xx Susan

Removing a tick

We found a tick on Patch a couple of nights ago.  

I'm vigilant in keeping his tick treatments up to date, especially as he has long hair and we go for our walk where there's plenty of bush and scrub for him to run through.  Perfect tick hiding spots!

Thankfully it was only just attached so it made removing it fairly easy but I thought I'd give you a little tip I heard about years ago for removing ticks.  I have no idea where I heard it but I've used it on Patch a couple of times and the kids and it works well every...single...time.

Just place a couple of squirts of liquid hand soap on a cotton pad, folded tissue, toilet paper, paper towel or whatever you have, and hold it over the tick for about a minute.

They HATE it and back out really quickly with their legs flapping about.  All you have to do then is grab it with the tweezers and dispose of it and it's much less trauma for everyone involved (especially if you have a child who freaks out when they see tweezers).

Pretty gross I know but our boy is fine.  I didn't sleep much that night as I let him sleep on his bed in my room so I could check on him and he kept coming to wake me up, wagging his tail.  I think he was excited that he got to sleep in Mum's room!

As the tick wasn't far in I only had to hold the soap over it for about 30 seconds before it was fully out.  One of the kids had one once that was tiny and quite embedded and I needed to have the soap on it for a little over a minute but that one backed out fully too.

It's school holidays here and we've got a few plans but are spreading things out a bit so as not to overwhelm at least one of my kids who isn't coping with certain things at the moment.

The kids and I did go on a short outing on Sunday but it ended up being a bit much so we came home and then I ended up being a bit of a wreck trying to work out how I can deal with it all.  I'll get there though, I always do, and the crochet is certainly helping so I'll update you with that soon.

On another note, my Dad was taken to hospital with chest pains early this morning so please keep him in your thoughts.  I'm off to do some more crochet to help keep my mind off things and am looking forward to hubby getting home tomorrow.  A little help would be wonderful.

xx Susan

Craft update

Things have been extremely busy and very up and down here at the moment.  I won't go into the details but I will say that I'm not getting the chance to blog or even catch up with my blog reading as much as I would like to.

School holidays start next week so I'm hoping things will settle down a bit and I'm able to get back into a bit of a routine for myself for a few weeks.

I haven't been crafting that much either.  Well I have been doing some but nowhere near as much as I would like.

You will be pleased to know that I've finally finished my table runner.

It was touch and go for awhile even though it was a really easy pattern to work on.  I had this brilliant idea to make some place mats to go with it but they weren't working out how I wanted them to.  After nearly finishing one and then pulling it apart about 4 or 5 times I got the shits a little cranky with it all and placed the table runner out of sight until I was happy enough to work on it again.

I now only have a table runner (no plans for placemats) which looks okay on our scuffed up table but much better with the white tablecloth I think (notice the photo bomber behind the chair!)

As we usually only use the white table cloth at Christmas, this table runner may end up being our festive one.

I've also started another version of my Venetian Shawl.  I honestly tried a few other patterns but when things can go a little haywire in an instant, I wanted something familiar and soothing and pretty to work on.

The green is not my usual colour but it was in my stash and I'm quite liking it.

Those of you with a keen eye may have realised I said Craft update and not Crochet update in the title.

That's because I've also had the sewing machine out and am slowly starting on a few projects.

I won't bore you with photos of my mended jeans as you won't be as excited about seeing patched inner thighs as I am at being able to wear them again. (HaPpy jigs here!)

I have started on a few Christmas gifts though.  Don't gasp at the thought of Christmas like I nearly did.  I realised that the next few months are going to whizz by and wanted to get the teacher's gifts started so I'm not rushing around at the last minute.

I bought the fabric awhile ago and finally got round to laying everything out on my bed and cutting it out.

I now have a pile of fabric waiting for me to piece it all together with some trusty pins and then sew it up.  I'm not planning on doing the whole lot in one day, and have broken the whole process down in steps so I'm not leaving half finished things spread out everywhere if I get a phone call from school and have to drop everything and run.

My next step will be to pin them all together and then I'll sew all the bags and handles of the same colour together first so I'm not changing thread as often.  I'll show you more  when they're finished but in the meantime I'll give you a peek at the shopping bags I made last year.  

I hope you are all having a great week and if you have school holidays coming up, I hope you enjoy the time.

xx Susan

I love my Mum...

I could do up an endless list of reasons why I love my Mum.  This week though it's because she loves her gardening and I'm a very grateful recipient.

We had some really, really hot weather last week and over the weekend it's been very windy.  It's also very dry and as a result parts of our state are battling bush fires.  Thank goodness there's been no loss of life but a number of people have lost their homes and unfortunately the weather forecast isn't favourable.  

What we need is rain.  Good, soaking rain to help but that's not looking likely right now.

As a result of the heat and the dry weather, Mum's garden started to look a little worse for wear so she harvested as much as she could and has delivered some of it to my sister and myself.

We have cabbage, leeks, zucchini (courgettes), tomatoes, choko, lettuce, celery, parsley and snow peas.  I will admit that the snow peas didn't make it to the fridge as Miss R and I munched on them which means they also won't be making their way into the stir fry for dinner either.

Thanks Mum.  Love you lots!

xx Susan

Gardners Falls

We celebrated Father's Day here last Sunday and apart from a special breakfast it ended up being a quiet day.  Hubby was heading back to work early the next morning so a big outing wasn't really an option.

Having said that, Hubby ended up on the roof at one stage cleaning our solar panels and I cleaned up our outdoor area.  It's now swept, the table and chairs have been scrubbed and it's had a bit of a tidy up so we can enjoy sitting out there now that the weather is warming up quickly.

A really lovely place to visit, especially in warmer weather is Gardners Falls just outside of Maleny.  It's only a 15 to 20 minute drive from home and a nice spot to spend some time.

There's an easy access path from the car park so you don't need to do any kind of strenuous hike to get there.

A word of warning though,  the car park is only small so on weekends and during the warmer months it can be difficult to find a spot to park.  

It's a really popular place, especially with the locals as there are a couple of good swimming holes.  

Oh and there are no public toilets so keep that in mind if you're planning on visiting but it is only a 5 minute drive to Maleny where there's plenty of cafe's, shops and amenities.

There's a few different ways you can drive home from Maleny but on this particular day I decided I wanted views.

We do live in a beautiful part of the world and I couldn't resist the below shot of the cows in their prime real estate location.

It's only the 4th day of Spring and at 10.30 am it was already 30 degrees Celsius so the cows were finding patches of shade where they could.

I am not looking forward to summer.

I hope you are all having a wonderful week.

xx Susan