Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas, may your day be filled with love, laughter, peace and goodwill

Back in Time for Christmas

 First I'd like to thank those of you who have sent messages of comfort and support over the past few weeks - the funeral for my stepmum went as well as could be expected, and although it was a sad and difficult time,

it was also nice to spend time with my sister Kathy who lives in New Zealand,

 my wonderful Dad,

and also to catch up with other family members. 




 I should say a special thankyou to the friends who shared their home with us during this stressful time, and also to another friend and her daughter who took the time to attend the funeral and then a couple of days later made sure daughter and I got to share coffee and cake!

Now here we are back at home and it's Christmas Eve already!!   I managed to get the Christmas decoration swap hosted on my fb group of ladies (50 and over and striving for fitness and health).... I received this lovely little critter from Carol and it arrived on the perfect day - after good news and before Heather passed onto our Lord...... I think she is so sweet.....

Our grandson Jax had been on the telephone nagging Pop to get a snowman made since he had one out the front of his house up in Townsville.......  so after several reminders and being told that Grandma can take a photo to show ........ well, this was the result.........

Yesterday I received such a wonderful treat when a Christmas parcel arrived from my friend Lyn

who lives up the northern stretches of NSW.  They live on acerage that has been drying up and have been praying for rain which has thankfully come and filled their dams, including a new one not long completed!


We are part of a small  Christian ladies snail mail group of penpals that have been

writing to each other for over 7 years now........... So this is just the perfect gift ever...... it even came with a new writing pad and envelopes!  I'm so excited to have this little writing case that will be so easy to pick up and take with me when I'm away or to take in the car.  Thanks Lyn, I love it to bits!!







So as you might imagine, I'm way behind on Christmas this year.......

 


I've been out in the cabin getting this little bag finished in time for tomorrow ........ I can show you since DD doesn't tend to visit blogland too often lol

And before I finish....... Meet Betty...... My wonderful Kitchen helper!  She is the trade off so to speak for me taking on an extra shift each fortnight next year, and after washing dishes by hand for years, I have to say I'm finding her pretty useful!

So its time for me to head off now to other things.......... Before I go, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and pray you all have a peaceful, joyful day tomorrow
Hugs Sharm xo

 

 

In Loving Memory......

I thought I had already written this post, but as I struggled with what to call it, I knew that was what happened...... You see, last week was massive, while we gave thanks on Wednesday, on Thursday we received the news that my Stepmum, Heather passed  into Gods arms.  She was very much at peace as she had such a wonderful faith in God!  I'm thankful for the times we shared, and for so much more.  The angels will certainly be rejoicing as they receive this beautiful soul! Please keep my sister and Dad in your prayers as a different chapter of life emerges.

Giving Thanks

Giving thanks to God!   Giving thanks to Family and to Friends who have supported us, Prayed  for us and for our son, helped us to remember to laugh in the midst of tears and distress.  This particular crisis which began in  January,  finally reached an outcome yesterday after a very long and trying couple of days.  While not completely perfect, and a somewhat bitter pill to swallow, it is by far and wide a wonderful outcome to what it could have been. Our DS and our family will now be able to move on with our lives.  We are humbled by those who have stepped in when we needed them most........ Thankyou from the bottom of my heart

Sharm
xo

FNWF in December

Can you believe this Friday just gone by was our last FNWF for 2014?  A big thankyou to Cheryll for hosting this all year, and she is looking to carry it on again next year! 

It's a real encouragement to get out the sewing, crochet or handiwork....... this Friday I got to work finishing off the hand stitching on this which will become a little Christmas present for somebody.......

Friday was also the day a package I've been waiting on finally arrived here from USA...

... I had ordered one of Astri's lovely clocks with her crocheted flowers ......


these colours are just the shades I have planed for our bedroom, and with limited space in our bedroom a wall clock will work really well.  It's sooooo pretty and I really love it!!  Thanks Astri for popping in the lovely ball of yarn as well :)

 

We've had storms, heavy rain, hail, humidity between them and coldness during them..... perfect for having to spend more time inside doing more stitching........ so I went on a bit of a search in the cabin and found this project I bought last year.........

So I decided it was time to make a start on it......... and sew I've been having fun with it all weekend ....  still a bit more to go .......

Hope everyone else has had a restful weekend......... 

 

Hugs Sharm

Welcoming December

Can you believe today is the start of December?  How quickly this year has flown, even with all the life obstacles our family has and still is tackling this year!  Unfortunately "life" has been keeping me so busy and in such a state of constant upheaval there has been much less time than I would have liked to be creating -

Even so, I have managed to make my first knitted  pullovers  (one for myself and  one for Pete), made various crocheted and sewn items for our home and for gifts , and thanks to OPAM, I've even got a lovely record/reminder of just how many things I have managed to complete..  a total so far this year of 44 items - 27 crocheted, 6 knitted, and 11 sewn  ....... Mind you,  I also seem to have a number of unfinished items too lol    We managed a lovely downpour of rain here earlier, so thought I'd share some of the rain with you... 

If you've visited my blog before, then you'll also know that lots of gardening, preserving, soap making, and various other activities go on around our little homestead throughout the year, just like most other homes  (smile) ... But,

Today however, being the 1st of December, it's time to put up the Christmas Tree ...... its a family tradition I began when Pete and I first became a couple .... hopefully when Pete is back next weekend (he's currently working away during the week), he will get the outside Christmas lights up :)

I'm way behind on Christmas cards this year, so perhaps not so many will get sent out in time.......

I have a few more items yet to complete the decorating, including the lovely items from Christmas in July - so I'll pop those on next post.....

What I have done though is to look towards next year, and with the current specials on Craftsy Classes,

I've enrolled in 3 of the online classes - this is the first time I've enrolled in any craft online courses, so I sure hope they will be good........

they certainly sound great and I'm looking forward to getting into them over Christmas/ New Year when I have a bit of time off work.

I'm off now to work on a bit of stitching .....Before I go, I'll show you the little dishcloth and towel toppers (crocheting the  tops of face washers  work really well as little kitchen towels)  DD ordered a couple for her new little place .....     What are you doing today

 

the brown and orange one is going into another gift.

?

 

 

FNSI

Last night was meant to be Friday night sew in.......it turned into Furniture night sit in... After we packed a heap of gear into the trailer straight after work......Can you see my glass of wine sitting there.......we packed DD stuff into the furniture moving trailer we hired to help her and her partner move to Melbourne.....about 300 Kms (3-4 hrs drive) from here.  We had a 2nd lot of furniture and boxes to pick up in Wangaratta at her partners parents place and then off we headed........ 

A pretty good trip down........during which time I finally managed to get some stitches done.......car rides equal crochet work for me as it's easy to quickly pick up or put down.  I managed to get one towel topper completed except for the flower, and start on a second one!

While I didn't get my Saturday walk in, I did cover 19 flights of steps with taking boxes and items up stairs to the new unit :)

They are in a lovely area, and very close to the beach and to shopping and trains......  But we didn't get much time to sit down as we had to get back on the road in order to return the trailer to Rutherglen before the 24 hr period was up.  Mission accomplished!

I'm looking forward to a sleep in tomorrow lol

Tomorrow is Friday!!

Tomorrow is the 3rd Friday of the month and its time for FNSI .... click on the link to find out more about it!  It's going to be a busy time for me...... after work, I'll be picking up a furniture trailer as we have to help DD and her boyfriend/partner move to Melbourne on Saturday - approx. a 3 - 4 hr drive from here, so I expect DH and I will be rather tired and exhausted by Saturday night!  I'm hoping to get a little stitching time in to keep some sanity....... perhaps even take the crochet hook with me during the drive!  It will likely be Sunday before I get to post about it, but I'm sure there will be lots happening with all the link ups down so far!  I'll catch you all Sunday xo

A bit of Stitching at last

Finally I'm back doing a bit of stitching ........ I made a start on one of the Sally Giblin designs I purchased on the weekend..... "Miss Bossy Boots" using some of the fabrics already here in my stash.....

 

 

I've also managed to get a little Christmas decoration stitched up ready for a swap I'm organising for one of the online groups I run....... I'm pleased with the way it's turned out.......

 

Last year I purchased a number of face washer with the intention of making them into little kitchen and laundry hand towels...... I managed to get a couple done by sewing some fabric tops to them, but I decided this time to try a crochet top, especially after seeing what Astri did with some kitchen tea towels.......... so here is my version which I'm pretty happy with and plan to make a few more of them for stocking fillers.......

Monday I took a drive 170 kms along the Murray Valley Hwy to Echuca to meet up with a friend who was down from Brisbane.  We've been doing this for a few years now each time she comes down to Vic to visit her Mum who lives further up the Murray around Swan Hill.......... here's a little pic of the Murray River at Echuca for you to see ....... it's famous for its paddle steamers.....

 

Visit my Garden

Before I take you for a look around my garden, I thought I'd mention I went into town today with hubbie ....... he was getting a hair cut and I had a crochet hook  to pick  up, (size 10mm- can't seem to find the 19mm I really need for the rag rug).......... well, since I had a few more minutes to keep occupied I had a bit of a look around "The Material Girls" patchwork shop (also has knitting and crochet supplies)   I found these wonderful patterns, and these 2 fabrics I think will work in nicely for the quilt top I want to make for our bed.........   The little sewing caddie you can see in the corner of the photo is an embroidery I made up a number of years ago when I was learning stitches.  It fits nicely over a chair arm.
Now onto the garden....... after talking on the phone to my mum today, who lives about 2000 kms from here.  We were talking about various things in the garden, and I thought it would be easier just to take photos and put them on my blog to see....... and at the same time you can all visit the garden lol
We have approx. 1/3 acre total which includes the house, sheds, carport, water tanks, my little craft cabin, vegie patch, pond area, fruit trees (white nectarine, apricots, peaches, plums, apples, pomegranate, lemon, lemonade, orange, mandarin, various berries, grapevine, passionfruit vine,  and ornamentals and flowers and herbs........ here is some of it

This is my favourite tree - it along with 2 other types of trees, a couple of bottle brushes and 5 gum trees were the only things here besides the carpet of prickles instead of grass, when we moved here 4 1/2 years ago!   Here's the tree from a different angle.....

Hope you enjoyed the visit.......... I'm off to do a bit of stitching now,
Hugs Sharm

Shooing Bunnies....

I've been busy shooing Dust Bunnies the past couple of days...... my goodness they've been busy over Winter and it seems like they have pretty much taken over the house!!  I have a huge allergy to them, so they need to go ....... 

 and after visiting Apple Blossom Dreams blog and seeing how neat Astri has her home looking, it inspired me to get back into the decluttering I had started on at the beginning of the year before we had all the changes and side tracks with various life crisis here.  It's certainly been an intense year and we still have a bit longer to go to see how a couple of those situations work out....... prayers over the next 2- 3 weeks would be most welcome for our family.



So a start has been made and I feel like I might actually be

able to start working out where things should go.  The house seems rather dark with  our dark furniture (which was bought for our house up in Townsville that was almost completely white including white floor tiles, which were already there when we bought), and the dark aubergine feature wall here, and same coloured architraves and skirting boards throughout (also already that colour when we moved in here 4 1/2 yrs ago) ............. I'd like to lighten it up a bit........ I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do that just at the moment.  We won't be purchasing new furniture

and I know DH will not be wanting the good wooden furniture painted....... the wooden floors are still waiting to be sanded back and done properly (perhaps a lighter colour on them would help??) 

I also need to get a nice white lace tablecloth for our table as that would help too.  Extra furniture is sitting in the living rooms until the adult children move back out......... speaking of which..... our daughter looks like she will be making the move to Melbourne in just a couple of weeks and is sorting through her room as we speak ..........
The bedrooms in the house are very, very small, and we even extended out under the eaves to manage to get a wardrobe built into our room............. Our bed needs a nice cover for it.......I feel some stitching coming on lol......... I'll be doing something for our bed and I plan on using whites, lavenders and greys I think ....... based on a lovely little clock I've just purchased...... but I'll wait till it arrives to show and tell.  I've also just purchased a great pattern for a crocheted rug which I hope to get made up very soon........ stay posted!  Thought I would leave you seeing the lovely bunch of flowers I just brought in from the garden..... some of the roses have the most amazing fragrance!

A bit of produce

As many of you know, our little cottage sits on about 1/3 acre which includes the area the house, sheds, water tank etc take up.........We do enjoy the garden, but we also like it to be productive, after all we still have a decent mortgage that we are trying to pay off.  While DH works full time, and I go out working 3 days a week, it's important to me to do as much as possible with what God has given us......... The veggie garden is a great example......it's one thing to grow fruit and veg, but you have to also be prepared to put in the time so it doesn't go to waste!  Yesterday I picked 4 lovely beetroot that were ready and boiled them & sliced them to  have beetroot ready for salads and sandwiches this week.  It was really quite simple.....I used the woman's weekly recipe, but made a slight alteration......since I only had 1/2 kg of beetroot, I only needed half the amount of vinegar, water, sugar, and peppercorns, and I added a small sprinkle of chille powder .....( oh,  and I didn't use the star anise either)....I love how this turned out.  I've used various other bases in previous years with minimal success......this is by far the best!   We also pulled some of the red onions that were ready & once they dry a little I'll hang them ready for use.

I thought you might like to see my girls......  They were just getting themselves settled down for the night......they work hard providing eggs, eating pests, turning over the garden and depositing fertiliser for the garden.   Goodnight Girls!