Wear, wash, iron, repeat

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I have been known, once in a while, to insanely purchase clothing items that need ironing. 

I know, I know. 

I wear, wash, iron and repeat a few times and then I tend to get a bit stuck between the wash and iron stage of the cycle.  It's not because I hate ironing because I don't.  It's a much worse reason.  I am a bit of a lazy bum. 

This weekend I decided to do some ironing because MR needed a shirt ironed and I thought well, while I have it out I may as well do the rest.  There wasn't that much really.  Two dresses and a pair of pants of mine and six shirts of MR's.  And, wouldn't you know it, another pair of pants I forgot I even had.  I was ironing a pair of grey pants and tried to work out when I wore them last.  I think it was last Winter.  I thought to myself I should have bought a pair of these in black, these are nice pants. Continued ironing a couple more shirts and then what do you know, the next thing in the stack is a pair of black pants of the same style of the grey ones.

On the plus side, my work wardrobe options have just increased a lot more.




Are you a bit slack in some areas? Come on, make me feel like less of a lazy tart.

15,467

That's the number of pages I have read so far this year. 30 books.

6 of them in the past 11 days. 

I finish one, faff around the house for a while doing odds and ends but not really committing to anything of real importance. 

And then start another. 

My bedside stack has dwindled to just one. 

Mass reading, while a definite holiday pleasure, is also a sign of mine. A sign of lack of coping. Of attempting to escape from something. 

In this case it's the empty house. My 'just weekends' now with MR are taking more adjustment than anticipated. It feels too much like a step backwards. It's not. But the less time together leaves an ache in my heart. I feel lost. 

The end of next year feels a very long way away. There are things to be done in that time. And then we can finally, after seven and a half years, live together full time. 

Properly. 

One week down, one (and a bit) to go

It's hard to believe the first week of my holidays is practically over already.  Usually it gets of to a much slower feeling start.

I spent the weekend in MR's home town where he is now working again.  He's staying with his parents so I did too, it was nice to get looked after for a couple of days.  They live on the edge of town, overlooking a paddock.  This was the lovely view greeting me outside each day.  Anyone see the legless rooster cloud?

I got to watch a really good game of netball by my old team, which actually has no one on it that I used to play with and also now has one of my ex-students.  Way to make me feel old!

It was incredibly freezing there on the weekend so I didn't get a lot of socialising done, I kept racing home in need of warming up.  But I did manage to light a fire myself for the first time in over 15 years.  My first attempt wasn't too successful but the next day I tried again and got it going first try.  I spent a fair bit of time cooking myself in front of it.

I also made a cheat's pavlova and a chicken and chorizo risotto for a family dinner on Monday.

And on Tuesday I got some help getting the binding ready and attached onto the baby quilt I started during the Summer holidays.  MR's Mum is an accomplished quilter (I have just finished selecting the fabric for her to make us one) so she was a great help getting me on the right track.  I've got one side of the binding all attached now and the corners are all pinned and I have done about a quarter of the hand stitching.  I don't think I blogged about this when I was making the top of the quilt so apart from the tiny sneak peek in the corner below, unless you follow me on instagram, you will have to wait to see the rest!

Since getting back on Tuesday evening, I've just been chilling at home, reading books, watching DVDs and The Ashes, stitching the binding and attempting to get on top of all the washing that seems to have built up to mammoth proportions.

Today I went for a massage this morning and now I am madly trying to push away the need for an afternoon nap.  I haven't had a nap yet these holidays and I actually had a sleep that was restful enough to rate as a good night's sleep two nights ago (sadly followed by a bad sleep last night) which is pretty rare for me. 

Unfortunately, the thought of school work has started to loom above my head with the almost half way point of the holidays.  Next week will need to be a bit more productive!

 

A facelift is as good as a holiday

What? No, no not me.  Our house.

As mentioned previously, we recently got a bit of work done on the house.  We got our gutters replaced and the fascia painted.  It's been on the list to happen since last Winter and we finally got onto it. 

Previously they were both a particularly unpleasant shade of pooey-red which (in my opinion) did not at all go with our grey roof.  I am not overly fond of warm colours either which never helped the situation. 

BLERGH!

We wanted blue gutters and seeing as there is only one shade of blue, Deep Ocean, in the Colourbond range, we went with that.  Nice to have an easy choice.

We had discussed getting the facsia painted at the same time but hadn't quite gotten ourselves sorted with a painter which we mentioned to our gutters tradesman when he was doing our quote.  He said he would bring a painter he knew over with him to give us a quote.  Brilliant, we thought.  So the day comes and they both arrive.  We get a Really Good quote for the fascia painting and ask when he might be free.  Today?  Excellent, but we haven't chosen a colour yet!

Luckily, when I was collecting colour samples for ideas for our walls I grabbed an outdoor colours card too.  We had about 3 minutes to make a decision (at 9am on a Saturday morning) before the painter was heading down to the get the paint and get started.  Sometimes, that pressure and limited lack of choices is a good thing or I would imagine it would have taken hours.  I chose a colour I liked, MR liked a different one.  I coaxed him around to my choice because his blue had green undertones and mine had grey undertones which would suit the roof better.  He thought it would be a bit light but let me have my way.  Looking at it all finished he says he likes it and I hope he's not just humouring me!

The gutters are off and the fascia has had its first coat.

All finished and looking SO much better

It really does look like a whole new house.   MR gave the bushes out the front a good pruning as well.  Our bedroom is to the right of the front door and that bush was blocking all the light which is fine in Summer but having it pruned right back in Winter makes such a big difference.  Afternoon sunshine comes in and lets the room warm up just a little bit.  Perfect!

Now we just need to get rid of the horrible red driveway and path.  Unfortunately it does not feature anywhere in the near future on our list of things to do!

  

New Frontiers

A friend of mine who is very fashionable buys almost all of her day to day clothes online.  And a lot of her going out clothes too.  She has labels she sticks with that she knows her sizing in and waits for the sales to hit the online store and then stocks up on mid range designer label items at not so high prices.

Even jeans.

I, on the other hand, have only once purchased an item of clothing online that I can remember.  It is a tshirt that I bought from etsy about 2 years ago with a cute tree print on it.  It is slightly too big, very thin and strangely (as usually I find the opposite to be the case) way too long.  I wear it over a singlet to pilates and this works fine. 

The thought of purchasing jeans online leaves me incredibly perplexed.  How is such a thing possible?? My friend is on the short side so does not have to worry, like I do, about the length of the leg being long enough.  But she also doesn't seem to worry about the online jeans purchase being bum flattening, or bum unflattering or for that matter, bum fattening.

And not only does she purchase jeans online, she also buys dresses.  Usually she likes to try the dress on instore first but on the occasion of the store not being located in WA, she is generally quite happy to just buy the dress anyhow.

As she explains this to me, and I look at her with an expression of dubious nature, my brain wonders if a) I am a particularly odd body shape that finds picking out clothes difficult; b) she is just the perfect body shape for most clothing brands; c) I am just incredibly fussy and picky or; d) she is just super self confident and happy in herself.

After pondering on this for a while momentarily I believe it is a hefty dose of c and a smaller combination of the rest. 

This phenomenon is not just isolated to my friend.  My sister is somewhat shoe obsessed and has taken to purchasing online brands of shoes unavailable in WA.  This is even more inconceivable to me than online jeans purchasing but I know this to most definitely be because I am incredibly fussy and have feet that blister up each season whether it be the change from havianas to my oldest most comfortable ballet flats or the reverse. 


So, I've decided to give this online shopping thing a try again. 

What I'd really like to buy but will not without trying it on

 
With another tshirt.  And one that is on sale!  I really don't think I will ever progress to jeans, dresses or shoes online unless I am purchasing an exact identical version of one I already have because I love it so much that I want it in a different colour or a spare one for when the first dies.  I suppose it helps that looser style tops are rather fashionable at the moment so it doesn't matter if the tee is too big. 

One cute tee coming to a letterbox outside my house soon

So here's my choice.  Stay tuned for a review of fit and liking of style once it arrives.


Do you buy clothes online?

  

Looking forward

Right now there's lots of good stuff to be looking forward to and about.  Both event wise and life moments.

I saw my haematologist today and my Leukaemia cells are at their lowest ever.  Last month they were at 0.057 and this month they are at 0.022 which is an excellent drop for a one month period.  My next test is in three months time now so I've got my fingers crossed I'll get another zero on the right side of that point mark.  Either way, I'm feeling very positive right now!

There's two days left of Kindy until I'm on school holidays.

I'm heading to MRs home town this weekend for a bit of time with him and his family.  He had his first week of work at home and enjoyed being busy and working with the tools again after being office-bound management for quite a while on the mines.

On the weekend there will be some quilt finishing by me and some quilt starting by MR's Mum who is making us a quilt which I think I have finally finished selecting fabrics for.

I've made plans with four friends for four different catch ups over the holidays.  Movies and lunches and afternoon teas.  And hopefully I'll manage to fit in a few more catch ups along the way.

And super exciting, we had some work done on the house this weekend just been.  It's not entirely finished so no photos yet.  The workman is back tomorrow to finish it off and I can't wait to show you what we have had done.  I am so pleased with it and it is our first big change to the place since moving in two years and three months ago.  What a long time we took to get to this point!!


Have you got some lovely things on the horizon?