Life Took Over

Well here I am six a bit months since my last post!!............. and I was all set to post regularly when LIFE took over and my time has not been mine. My life has been taken up with a very sick mother, nursing homes and selling our family home........ and in amongst that grandchildren have been a constant as have a lot of changes for me.

Through April and May it was becoming more obvious that mum was not looking after herself. My sister and I were taking it in turn spending most of each day with her to make sure she showered and ate - if we didn't she wouldn't. This worked for my sister but for me it didn't - I have Karah to run around after and by that time I had my 14yr old grandson coming for half of every week to stay with me as well.

Early June mum started going downhill even with the constant care we were giving her. I had dealt with and accepted that we were going to have to put her into full time care as I couldn't keep going with the way things were. By the end of June she was in hospital where she went close to dying twice. After a week in hospital with her being not much better the Drs decided she could go home - that was until I told them that she was on her home and family could not provide the medical care she needed. So the Nursing Home journey began.

Mum has been in the Nursing Home for 4 months now but doesn't want to be there. During this time her dementia worsened and she has forgotten how ill she was. There have been some funny comments from her like "it is conspract that I ended up in here - it's those girls fault!' and 'there was trickery at play to get me in here'.  I am pleased that she is getting 24 hour care, 3 meals a day and company all day every day. I know it is going to take quite a while for her to accept it fully but it has just made all our lives so much easier and no stress or worry about her wellbeing.

Then it was time to empty her house and sort all the belongings and get it ready for sale. That has been hard. 45 years of memories - my 4 boys hated coming in to help me because they seen nan everywhere and memories would assail them wherever they looked. It was hard and took me 7 weeks to do it all the sorting (and mum had gotten rid of a lot of stuff a few years ago. I packed a lot of it into boxes and brought home with me - it is stored in a shed until I can get to it to sort it.

The house has been sold one of my sons bought it for his family home which I am pleased about. Changes have been made to his and his wives liking and I think they are for the better. It is slowly becoming their home.

Mum in her youth.

Mum with Oliver

The great granchildren visiting Nan (Lachlan, Abbey and Karah)

Mum and William

Mum and Hope at our local show at the beginning of October.

We (including her grandchildren) pick her up several times a week and go to the plaza and have lunch or coffee - she sees more of her grandkids now than she did for many years!! And we all go and see her constantly.

So now I am getting used to getting my life back in order and having some time to myself. I did find myself resenting the time dealing with mum's house was taking from me but I have dealt with that now and happy with the outcome of it all.

My garden is a sea of weeds but going for a walk around each day is an adventure - flowers pop up overnite and greet me through the weeds each day! Here are a few:

Julias Rose - one of my favourites

3 years this has been in my garden and finally it was covered in flowers

So as life settles down I am thankful I can still share times with my mother, my grandies are my rocks - they calm me down and cuddle me through the tough times and myadventure finds keep me smiling and excited for good times ahead!!

Just a Quck Catchup

Well I have finally found some time to do a quick post. Working full time these past few weeks has certainly taken its toll on my 'me' time!! All good  - my 'me' time will be back before I know it.

Last weekend we had a break from the weekly catch up stuff. Mum turned 85 last Sunday. We had a lunch with mt 2 sisters, a couple of aunties and the sewing girls and one gardening friend too.

From the right: myself, Charmaine (middle sister) and Maxine (youngest sister) and mum in front. I took heaps of photos but because we were seated next to a huge window the light from outside ruined most of them. Fortunately I was able to get a couple of good ones.

Cutting her lunchtime cake.

Then that evening all of my boys and grandies converged on mum's house for a pizza dinner and cake and presents!

Ollie helping Nanny Jo open her presents - which he thought were for him - winter pj's and thick socks didn't do it for him tho!!

When you are 85 you can have 3 birthday cakes. My sister and her family had a cake with her the day before (which she didn't remember!). This is the one we had at her house - Chocolate Cheesecake - everyone loved that dessert! Poor mum couldn't remember how old she was or that it was her birthday - we had to keep reminding her, she would be all good for a few minutes then would forget. She had a great time with everyone tho - thankfully she still remembers family and friends. There were 22 of us all up in mum's little house, very noisy but mum had a smile on her face watching the antics of her kids and the tom foolery of her grandsons. Good memories were made from the whole day.

She was happy to pose for all photos!

I found these when I was going through mum's cupboards trying to find candles - just look at the prices - goodness knows how long she had these in her cupboard!!

Now my 4 generation photos are complete - mum, myself, my son Rheis, grandsons Oliver and William. Mum, daughter, sons, great grandsons, Nana and Great Nana - I treasure these photos.

The babies of my family. Hope is now three and a half months and Will is six and a half months - time is going by way too fast!

Hope's photo with Nathan now gives her a complete set of Uncle photos.

Football season has started for this year. Karah found Ruben in between games yesterday. This little man is playing his first season and is now in Kindergarten (big school).

Today is a home day - I have just done 3 hours in my pot house and vegie garden - sooo humid here - I perspired gallons the whole time I was outside - bet it doesn't make any difference to the weight and the rolls!! Inside now ready to have a shower before the mild aches and slightly spinning head take a  hold of me - hot soaking shower and heat rub will hopefully take care of that.

A lazy afternoon inside relaxing now - a load of work clothes washing and then some hand sewing, dinner and an early night before back to work tomorrow.

Life just got very busy!

Well there I was coasting along nicely getting lots done... and WHAMO..... I got employment for the next 8 weeks. Soooooo..... I am now flat out just keeping up with meals and the very basic household things!!

Vintage has finally got into full swing here and I am working in the weighbridge of a local distillery. So 7.30am starts and finishes between 4.30 - 5.30.pm. Karah has been good so far getting up as I am leaving and doing her horse and getting ready for school, then Greg gets home and takes her to school.

Today is filled with meal prep for the week - love my two crock pots!! and my 2 freezers!!

Bonus is that I can take a little bit of hand sewing with me and when it is quiet between trucks I can sew!!

The vegie garden is still producing tomatoes, zuchinni and egg plant. So we are having a few meals made up from baked vegies (with the addition of potato and mushrooms) combined with what I call the scrap meat from a lamb - the flanks. It is time to start planting our wintger vegies so I will have to spend an hour after work getting the beds ready. The horrid 40+ temps appear to have gone - we have high 30's predicted but they are so much easier to cope with and much kinder to the gardens so I feel that I can make a start on prepping the beds.

Yummo - it only lasts one meal in this baking tray so today I am doing double the size - the 3 of us take it for lunch the next day.

The kitchen is full of vegies, different meats, herbs and flavourings - worst thing about it all is the clean up!!!

Yesterday I went out to Hillston - an hour from here for the Zone Showgirl Judging - I was judging the Zone Wool Garment/Article and Rich fruit Cakes. IT was a lovely day. The dinner in the evening was really nice - the above picture is the table centrepieces - Hillston is a grain/sheep/cotton growing area. The meal was lovely. Listening to each of the 17 showgirls was very interesting - many varied careers and studies, with lots of plans of continuing their chosen paths in the rural areas of NSW. The judges would have had a really hard time selecting the two girls that go on to the State Final at the Royal Easter Show.

We had lunch on the bank of the Lachlan River at 'The Shed On Lachlan'. Beautiful lunch so we went back for afternoon tea - we are such clever girls - it was a brilliant decision....

Beautiful home made scones with homemade strawberry jam and cream!!

My travelling companion and good friend Rhonda doing her best to enjoy her half without being a little pig and getting jam and cream everywhere - that was impossible!!

Across the river there must have been a couple of hundred white cockatoos - and their noise - and their munching on the river gums! A beautiful sight to see but they just wreak havoc on the trees and gardens. 

Hard to believe that a few months ago this river was in flood - farms and the town went under water. Everything is getting back to normal now.

The cockatoos were quiet happy spending their time in just a few of the trees - they will move on to a new lot when they have stripped these ones of their leaves - I guess mother nature has a reason for their behaviour!!

A walk way across the river to walking paths. The gate was locked so we couldn't cross it.

Me with my phobia of heights did go down to the bottom of this stairway - just so I could get better pictures!! - A bit shaky by the time I got back to the top. And NO I did not try to get on the floating platform - I am no lover of water that I cannot see the bottom of!! Nor do I like the motion - it really disorientates me. 

A closer view of the bridge. 

Some of the Woollen Article/Garment entries that I judged.

The standard of work was exceptional in all of the entries.

It really came down to the fine points of judging to come to a decision of a winner and second place. The creators of each piece should be proud of their efforts.

So that was my day of freedom and enjoyment for quite a while - I think I have to work 12 days straight now - this will really test me!!!lol. I have spent the last 5 years being at home and just planning my day as I go!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week and I will keep on reading your posts even if I don't get to make too many posts myself!!

Initial Heart Swap

Some happy mail arrived last Thursday - my gift from my swap partner Illene in the Initial Heart Swap organised by CHERYLL.

Illene and I have been swap partners a few times now and she never fails to amaze me with her ability to create 'perfect for me' gifts!! Illene is Very good blog stalker!!!lol

A beautiful Crazy Patchwork Mug Rug, some cute heart buttons and some Lavender.

There is my initial....

and my two cute heart buttons surrounded by the sweet smelling lavender!

Thank you so much Illene for your beautiful gifts.

To finish this post here are a couple of photos of our 5 month old grandson William with Pa-pa - they don't get to see each other very much so this was a special hour for both of them.  He is such a happy baby - much like his big brother Oliver.

Pa-pa is known for terrorising the little ones!!

Pa-pa just falls asleep whenever he sits down for too long - William kept looking across at me to check if it was alright for Pa-pa to do that - after I told he was safe a couple of times he  finished his bottle and went off to sleep too!!

And on that note I will finish this post. I haven't done much the last week or so - like the rest of the state we have had the mid 40 temps plus an aircon not working at full capacity - a few very draining days for me!! But I do have some photos of a few things for my next post.

FNWF

Last night was FNWF hosted by Cheryll at Gone Stitchin'.

I started about midday yesterday and did manage to achieve some finishes and a start!!

First up I finished off some drink bottle bags

All set for our first market of 2017.

Then I moved onto preparing Hexies - I have joined a Hexie Swap group on facebook - hopefully I can keep up with it and get all of my hexies done through the year. These are the first 3 - another little bag to add to my 'take with me and sew when waiting'! bag.

Best thing about this swap is I can use my stash!! and second best is i will end up with 49 hexies from all over the world!

And the last bit of sewing I did with FNWF was make another casserole carrier - this is also for our first market - another two of these to make also.

So a BIG THANKYOU to Cheryll for hosting FNWF - pop over to Cheryll's blog and check out the links to all the other girls who were sewing along together!

Sewing - Beats Being Outside in The Heat!!

With temperatures see sawing over and under the 40 degree mark I have been staying inside most of the last week - although most of the nights have cooled down which means we have been able to sleep!! So what else is there to do when you don't want to do housework!!! - sew of course!!

I have finished both casserole dish carriers - very happy with how they turned out. The one above doesn't have a board in the base - I have tried it out and it holds the casserole dish quite firmly in place - also made two pot holders to move the dish from the carrier to table or oven at destination.

This one isn't quite finished in this photo. I also made 2 pot holders for this one.

All finished. It is a rectangle shape and has a board in the bottom for extra strength and stability. I also added a serving spoon holder. Both of the Casserole Carriers have Insulbrite linings to keep the casseroles warmer than they would stay with plain wadding. So now that I have done them once I will be doing some more for gifts and a few for market stalls.

I actually can't wait to use them!!

I have been snacking on fresh rockmelons the last few days - fortunate enough to have been given some otherwise I would have been buying them!!

Karah decided she wanted to make a quilt - so I let her go through my stash and choose what she wanted! She was a bit scared of the rotary cutter (especially after seeing the cut I had given myself (just a little one but it bled  and bled!!); so I cut the strips and off she went and sewed them together on her own little basic singer (which I might add is a pleasure to use) which she hunted down in a cupboard and set up herself! Then she ironed while I cut again. And this is the end result of all that sewing and cutting. She is quite chuffed with it (and so am I) - next up she will be sewing the strips of 3 together and then we will be looking for sashing fabric!

And back to my sewing - I am oftem asked for potholders when I have a market stall - so I am going through my stash and putting aside heaps of smaller pieces (9"sq and less) and making them into potholders. I am thinking I am going to have to keep a couple for myself as mine are all a couple of years old and have served me well but are looking a lot worse for wear!! I will also keep some for gifts as well. These also have insulbrite to stop the heat burning your hands (although I never had any problem with my hands burning when I use cotton wadding in them).

So that is about it for me this week. Back to do some more sewing now and then later this evening out to the yard and get the sprinklers going - we have 40 - 43 predicted here this coming week which could very well be higher - so I hope to get the garden beds and lawns soaked up before that hits here.