And so the first fortnight of 2014 has raced past fast.

It was much easier to do daily (or at least regular) posts when I wasn't spending all day at work, and coming home brain-dead.

The first week I was still on holiday – playing with my loom, trying to sleep in, and generally do very little.

Then it was back to work, and a wall of 36+ faulty VAC units to fix. While the cleaning lady had been able to QA the rest, these were the ones that needed a ‘little extra’. Most of them had been dropped, springing the tubing and pcb’s inside loose. The rest were stinky, or contaminated with lipids. Yuck. It took most of the week to catch up.

Thursday night we discovered that Smudge was sick. Friday morning we could see that he’d been in a fight and got bitten, and the right side of his face was one huge abscess. His eye was bulging out of its socket, and weepy and horrid. That necessitated a trip to the vet (which was originally scheduled last Saturday, but he disappeared! The cat that NEVER leaves home went awol.). I/V fluids, an injection of antibiotics, 1½ antibiotic tablets and $130 later, we left. We have a fortnight of 1 1/2 pills TWICE daily, and another trip to the vet on Monday for a checkup. At 1030 I realised I was due at the airport in 30 minutes to collect Alex!

Becca and I made it to the airport by 1130 – not bad! But didn’t recognise Alex! He caught up to us just as we were exiting the pick-up/drop-off area, and vaulted over the fence!

Friday night David went off to play games, so Becca, Alex and I went to see 'Frozen' at the movies, based on Hans Christian Anderson’s story, ‘The Ice Queen’. Saturday was a stay-at-home day, except for taking the dogs for a walk in the evening. David mowed the lawns, and the kids and I gardened. I got Alex to do the edges of the concrete - the kikuyu had been making a run for the house - and to empty and refill the pond. 

Here's Smudgy curled up in the nest he's made under the giant Hebe:

And here's the tidy back garden:

with Kama helping!

This afternoon we visited B&B at Selwyn. L Even tho we took Alex, Becca, Caramel Cake and Berry Cheesecake, it was seriously hard work. I think mum was very tired, she wouldn’t/couldn’t sit up straight, wouldn’t use her left hand – except to hold a cigarette - and was very snappy and snarly. Dad kept fussing, which made mum even snappier. He was also terribly vague, missed the beginning of the sentence, and had to have everything repeated. I have to wonder if Dad is trying to give mum pneumonia again, in the hope it will kill her. Dear Lord, is it a bad thing to ask that she dies in her sleep, just drifting away? Once we said goodbye and got in the car, I could finally cry. It was a totally miserable experience.

OK, onto other, more cheerful stuff ...

I’ve been doing quite a bit of weaving. This photo shows my completed projects so far.

·      A cream bookmark

·      10 Cream and Blue ‘cable’ bookmarks

·       A cotton summer shawl – made of white cotton string and a cotton yarn called ‘Spices’, which is a variegated brown/yellow/red/cream. This is 2.5m long, and only took Friday/Saturday to weave – fun and quick!

Weaving projects

Next project is some more bookmarks, this time ‘flowers’ in cream, blue and red. After that ... not sure. Maybe a shuttle hanger/holder – a pattern came with the second heddle stand kit. I could use the wire heddle for that.

Oh – the shawl was done on the 40 dent heddle, and the bookmarks on the 100 dent wire heddle – you can push the wires really close together to get a really fine weave.

A few weeks ago, I bought a couple of new shirts - one a lovely blue, the other white. I can't wear white. White + Sue = manky child. So I decided to dye it - PURPLE! Of course. And while I was at it ... I found a couple of cream silk shirts, 1 long sleeved, 1 short sleeved - so that went into the dyebath too. And a grey t-shirt, and a browny-beigy lace trimmed top I've had ... forever. I'm thrilled with the result - 4 tops with completely different colours, that all look fantastic. The instructions on the Dylon dye said it didn't do silk (or poly-cotton), but look at this:

Cotton shirt, polycotton and lace top, silk shirt, polycotton t-shirt. The dark blue shirt at the end is its original colour.

What else ...

Still waiting to hear back from the recruitment agency – they’re on holiday till the 13^th of January. Still waiting to hear back about the trip to Canberra for David’s second interview – I don’t think they’re back till next week either.

Most of the rental houses in Yass that we looked at are still there. One in particular we like has rammed earth walls. 

Yass High School DOES NOT teach Japanese – it has French instead. Bah humbug. But I’m wondering if we can negotiate distance learning ...

The animals are probably going to cost around $5000 to ship to Aussie. $2000 of that is MAF paperwork! Scumbags!

I’m feeling stressed, and maybe a bit depressed – if we do shift, we’ll have 4 weeks notice, so there’s certain things that we have to start organising, but, we are still waiting to hear ...

And, just for fun, this is Alex - lounging on the couch, reading: