Pay It Forward Time

Since I've just signed up for a Pay It Forward over on Terry's Life, it's now my turn to host a Pay It Forward here. This should be lots of fun. Join in & begin to bless some other gals out there. For those of you who may not have heard of this before, here are the rules:

1. The first 3 people to visit my blog & leave a comment saying they want to participate will receive a homemade gift from me. You are allowed 1 year (according to the rules) in which to send out the gift, but I plan on making it much quicker than that LOL

2. You must have a blog of your own to participate in the PIF.

3. You must post about the PIF on your blog & you must offer the challenge of a PIF.

By accepting my PIF, YOU agree to host a PIF on your blog, you will agree to send a homemade gift (within 1 year) to the first 3 people who sign up on your blog to participate in your PIF......... & so it continues.

This is a wonderful way of being able to bless others.

Sewing Time

Saturday turned out to be quite a wet rainy day, so after Pete & I making a trip into Wangaratta for various things, the afternoon was just perfect weather for sewing! Out came the signature blocks I'd been working on putting together to make a snail mail holder! The blocks were made by ladies in my snail mail group to celebrate our 2nd year group anniversary. Don't they look great. So it seemed fitting to put them together to hold all the snail mail. There are several pockets of various sizes, so I can also fit in some light weight packages (as it hangs on the wall) in readiness for sending to friends - like dishcloths for example LOL.

I also managed to get Petes new work jeans taken up & a few other "jobs" done - yes, all sewn up amidst the boxes LOL Now its time to get Stacey's quilt finally finished. Poor thing has been waiting such a long time for her quilt (which was originally to be a single bed & had to be changed to a double bed size). Maybe this arvo if I get some paperwork & chores done, I get stuck into it. Just has the quilting & binding left to do.

A Busy Couple of Days

After getting the groceries & other erands finished in town this morning, I headed back home armed with hooks, screws & other associated implements that have been preventing me from getting things up on the walls! I decided it was time to attack the kitchen..... especially after unpacking more boxes yesterday & finding my beloved chook curtains (previously made for a past home - they have quite a story attached to them). So up went the curtains, up went my lovely kitchen clock (given to me by my daughter Stacey a couple of years ago for a birthday gift), & up went my chooks with the hangers!
Don't they look so pretty!!

There's still a couple of shelves yet to be fixed up properly, but the kitchen is just about done now.

So that leaves just about every other room in the house still to go LOL.
Now, if you cast your eyes downwards, you'll see a complete different story.......... does this look like somebody who is hankering to get sewing???? Surrounded by boxes!
Yesterday I decided I just had to get my sewing machine out of its box & up onto a table........ even if it meant having to move / unpack enough boxes just to fit the little white table into the room!!!! As you can see, surrounded by boxes :) No idea where the power point is in the room, can't see for all the stacked up boxes, so a long extension lead currently snakes its way out to the lounge room when I take a break from unpacking, weeding, paperwork etc to get some sewing done LOL. Of course I'm working on the dishcloths at night time ready for the dishcloth swap.

Dishcloth Swap

With so much talk of late about making our own dishcloths, I've decided a dishcloth swap might just be in order?? What do you all think? Anyone interested in taking part??? If you are then please leave a comment & don't forget to include your email address so I can contact you. This is a great way of getting lots of dishcloths without having to purchase so many different colours!

Don't need any Gym here

My workout this weekend was a combination of digging & fencing. Definately no need for a gym membership when you are working on building up a homestead! I remember now why I must have been so much fitter whenever we lived in the country on a bigger than suburbia block LOL No wonder I put weight on up in Townsville................



See these horrible little prickles, with the tiny needles
that make you jump sky high............ well they
pretty much cover 90 percent of our yard. I was lucky enough to be able to spend 5 hours
digging out various patches on Saturday.........
like along the fenceline where we are trying todo the fence, and making "safe zones" for the poor dogs to be able to walk on some parts of the yard!!!


PJ spent a good few hours last week digging them out around part of the back yard to make pathways to the sheds, out the back door & a couple of places under garden benches so you can actually sit there! So we have various piles of these lovely things over areas where we've been working on them. Sure gives you a good work out with the constant shovelling.



The little building you can see is the future chook pen. After digging out the prickles on one side of it I was able to put in the start of a nice little garden.

It Worked!!

So who remembers me having a go at making my own soap?? A couple of weeks before we were leaving Townsville, I finally got around to using the ingredients I had bought to have a go at making a batch of soap......... This was the photo I posted then.......

And the good news is that 7 weeks later here it is & very useable. Yes, I've tried it out & even got Pete to have a go at it & got the approval!!! Something I will definately be having another go at doing in the future. I really can't believe how well it turned out. For
anyone else wanting to have a go at making soap, I got this
receipe from the website of Kristies Homemade Christmas. Sorry
I don't have the link on hand, but I'm sure you'll find it easily enough doing a google search.

19 Days on the new Homestead

Well it seems some of you are desperately wondering just what we have been up to in the past couple of weeks since moving in, so please accept my apologies for being a little slack. Part of that was due to limited internet time, as it seems I'll be using my little USB stick for a while, funnily enough, this seems to be working out ok for now. Anyhow, back to our 1st couple of weeks here.....................

The furniture has found various homes, although some of those places are subject to change once the 2 spare bedrooms have been emptied out (1 contains all our boxes that are still packed & the other bedroom currently houses Stace & Johns boxes & various furniture items). There's still plenty to unpack, but I've found the days have also been filled up making various phone calls to alter things like addresses, insurances, getting the necessary police check in order to be able to work at the hospital again etc etc. Still, I am having some fun with it all. Even beginning to check out various sections of the garden, thinking, planning, planning some more................ followed by some purchases of plants........... Some of these will be going around the soon to be completed chook pen (hopefully soon to be completed that is LOL). Pete has quite a list of things needing to be done. He started with spraying all the yard which is full of a type of prickle/bur/bindi. Next he cleaned out the gutters which definately had not been cleaned out for the past 12months at least! Saturday & Sunday he decided to head out to a local farm where the farmer (whom he knows) had told him he could collect some firewood for us. 2 trailer loads were brought home which we put through the log splitter (purchased the 1st week here on a special trip to Melbourne). So that lot of wood has now been split & stacked & some used of an evening to keep the house nice & warm now that its cooling down. Apparently there was snow falling on the mountains over the weekend.............. no wonder it felt a little chilly here!

So in between all of this I decided to have a go at crocheting some dishcloths for myself. I had no idea they worked so well till a friend sent me a couple for our new house. I have to say I just love using them & am now hooked on making some for our new home.

Next was getting the electrician in to fix up broken lights/ fans that didn't seem to working too well. I made a trip into one of the townships to purchase lights for the dining, lounge & main bedroom plus a fan for use in the living area............ here is the new style of lights (clips are gold, even though they look kind of silver in the photo), & the fan which I was lucky to match up with the ceiling colour.

We also have a rangehood that needs replacing quite badly so the electrician will be back to do that tomorrow!