Memory Loss is one of the first signs, they say...

It's official! I am definitely turning into a nanna, just as Widget said. (In person, not on her blog.) I spent all of yesterday behaving like a doddery old fool. M mentioned a wool shop called Sunspun where she was able to order some shimmery wool from Wales, and she raved about the service. Seeing as how both myself and the shop are in Melbourne and I'm on holidays with time to burn, I decided to go forth and visit, specifically to buy a new knitting bag. This is the sophisticated, cosmopolitan life that I lead when my kids are away for a few days with their dad. Maybe I should begin dating again, but how can I fit in chunks of eye-glazingly boring time with random males who are dull when my days are crammed with full-blooded excitement like this?

This manky old thing is what I've been using to cart my knitting around in for 37 years. (I've just had a coronary. I thought it was only 27, but seeing as how I got it when I was 7.... )

Time to let go of the past and get a new bag. So the day before yesterday I hopped onto the computer, glanced at the address and then yesterday I set off. I drove up and down Camberwell road , and by the time I got home I'd wasted just over an hour. The shop wasn't where it should be.

(Though all was not lost. On the way home I popped into Patchwork on Central to have a look. Ages ago when I started getting interested in quilting I saw a pattern they had for sale. This one: The St Kilda quilt. It's now mine. Though being a Carlton supporter I'm going to use different colours. I don't understand all of the directions, but it says that it's easy, so I should be right.)

Anyway, I went home, popped back on the computer and looked at the address. It was 185.... not 420. I called myself an idiot, then had lunch and jumped in the car to drive back. It was deja vu. I was walking up and down Camberwell road for ages looking for this shop. Finally a nice guy in a music shop rang directory assistance for me....

I'm very lucky that Canterbury road is so close to Camberwell road. Yes, sometimes I remember things by their first letter. It often works well, but obviously sometimes you end up wasting two hours of precious child-free holiday time. After investing all of that time and effort, I wasn't going to give up now. I went. I saw. I bought this. It has lots of zips and no holes for knitting needles to stick out of. It cost $60, but I'm thinking that over 37 years that's less than $2 a year, so it's an absolute bargain.



I also bought this. I'm going to have the most lurid socks in the history of the world. I know a couple of posts back I was obsessing about the swirly socks, but there is no way I'm paying $23 for wool and $11 for multicoloured bamboo double ended knitting needles and then NOT have people notice my work. I watched tv and knitted like a maniac on the afghan. I have to finish it before I can start. It's getting warmer, so soon it'll be too hot to knit.

I'm having friends over for dinner tonight, so today will be a house cleaning and cooking day. We were going to have a paprika chicken thing for our main course, but with the mercury hitting 38C today I've decided to go for a cold dinner. Dessert is the apricot nectar cheesecake I promised Scott, after I mucked up the last one. I know that mid afternoon I'll probably be kicking myself for spending so much time on the Great Knitting Bag Hunt of 2007, but that can't be helped now. I'm off to have breakfast and put the final layer on the cheesecake.

My day off.

Ha! Didn't I tell you that I was suspicious of Connor's sudden illness? Turns out I was right. (Thank goodness he wasn't deathly ill, because he did all the housework except for some of the folding.) Turns out that he had a "How to..." project due yesterday, and due to circumstances beyond his control he didn't do it. (I'm guessing the urgent need to beat Brennan on some PlayStation game or other was probably to blame.)

But get this.... he had the whole day off to get it done... Does he? My answer to that (non)rhetorical question is NO. We were lounging around in front of the television after dinner, and he pipes up with an "Oh no. I forgot to do my project."

After a few pithy words from me about the pitfalls of lying about being sick (he confessed) and then the stupidity of not doing the task that you took a sickie to do in the first place, he worked on it till 9.15. He'll be woken up in about 20 minutes to keep going on it. Ah well, it's how we learn. The information on the project will be the least of it.

But guess what??? My big news is that I have the day off!!!! Yay! I went into the boss's office and asked for the Correction Day I didn't take due to interviews to be transferred to Friday. Which is today. Why I still woke up at 5.45 is a mystery, though it might be because last night it was warm, so I left the front door open. Those birds sound like they are using megaphones this morning.

So what are my plans? I'm thinking first up I'll do some knitting. I've nearly finished one of next year's balls of wool on the afghan (mmmm yes, that thing), so I'll finish it. The ball, I mean, not the afghan. There's still 3 more 200g balls to go. I was knitting on it yesterday during Brennan's guitar lesson, and it got too hot to have on my knee. This means that summer is just about here. So I'll finish that ball, and then I might start on something else. Something smaller, so my knees remain cool and ladylike. The package from Bendigo Knitting mills arrived yesterday. I was delighted. I tore apart the packaging to reveal this!

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but these balls of wool are bigger than my head. I was a little disappointed in the colour, as there's a touch more yellow in it than I thought. I was worried it wouldn't suit me, but when I held one up against my face in the mirror it was ok. I looked hideous, but no more than usual, and I've made my peace with that.

But the best thing was the colour charts they included free of charge. (My wool shop charges $17 for one of those, which is why I don't have one.) Connor's already picked out the wool he likes and I can see I'll be making a few more orders. It took 4 days for them to deliver, which is fine by me. Some of the wool shades are lovely. I chose a very plain pattern, as you can probably see. There's a cable detail in the bands and neck, so one of today's jobs is to buy a cable needle. I may have one, but I've only ever tried cabling when I was a wee slip of a girl, so I don't know if one is hiding at the bottom of the box I keep my knitting needles in or not. So maybe over the course of the weekend I might cast on for a new jumper.

But what I'm thinking of doing sometime today is to go and have a look at a quilting shop. I think there's one on Burke road in Malvern, and the yellow pages listed one in Camberwell somewhere. Should I go? I don't know what I'll do in a place like that. (I'm a bit nervous. I'm going to look like a goose as soon as I open my mouth. I'll probably call fabric 'material' and they'll throw me out.) I'm determined to learn how to quilt, so I have to go sometime. I'm a quarter of the way through 'Quilting for Dummies', so I guess that means I'm slightly less stupid than I was a week ago. (I'm not kidding about being nervous. I know next to nothing about sewing. My sister sews for a living, and mum has sewed (sewn? sewered? ooo, maybe not that last one!) ever since I can remember, but I stuck to knitting. The only thing I ever made that I was proud of was a calico doll for year 8 needlework. I embroidered a face on her and everything. But that's a far cry from doing a quilt.)

I've actually got a slight feeling of butterflies. How ridiculous. I can raise four boys on my own, tame a lawn mower and paint a house, teach masses of kids taller than me, take four kids overseas on my own not once but twice; yet I'm scared of going into a place where they'll use words like 'thimble', 'selvage' and 'mercerized'. (I don't know what the last two mean. I pulled them from the back of the 'Quilting for Dummies' book.) I'll let you know if I face my fear or if I chicken out and wait for Mum to come back from Queensland so she can hold my hand while I whimper.

One last thing.

Jordan's piano teacher is finishing her uni course this year, and she's said that she might not be able to teach him next year. She'll be working, and of course she doesn't know what when or where at this stage. Panic stations!! I don't know if the school can fit him in to the piano course next year or not. He'll be doing grade 5. Widget, if you read this before I get a chance to call you, can you ask if Jordan can be fitted in? Otherwise I don't know where we'll go. Why do kids want to do interesting hobbies that enrich their lives? All it does is create panic when their parent least expects it.

Panic notwithstanding, I'm off to enjoy my day off.

Lovely day.

What a fantastic day!! I spent all of it with a definite bubble of happiness inside me. Everything went well, even when I had to bellow at the boys for being lazy little so-and-sos for not doing any housework. I kept the bubble because they went and did all the work while I made 4 meals of leek and potato soup, 2 meals of tuna pasta sauce and 80 cupcakes/muffins with green and red icing.

I guess it began on Friday, when I got some quilting books in the mail from England. Yes, I'm putting in the research. It was all going well until it dawned on me that when you're quilting, not only do you have to sew all of the patches together, then sew the wadding and the backing onto it as well... you THEN have to sew all over it in a million different directions to keep them all together. That just doesn't seem fair. I don't have a sewing machine, so that's a world full of hand sewing to make a quilt to keep me warm at night. (Not having a man and all.... what's a girl to do? Apart from have an electric blanket.... oh how I love my blanket....)

I was almost about to give the whole idea away... resign myself to cranking up the electric blanket for 10 months of the year... (I'm a bit of a reptile)... when my friend Sandy called. I mentioned in the course of the conversation about the inordinate amount of sewing that quilting demands, and she said that she had an old sewing machine she'd lend me. Can you believe it? I'm so rapt. So the quilting/doona cover thing is all set to go. I was flicking through the quilting books today, and I'm looking forward to giving it a burl. Honestly, how hard can it be? One of my books is 'Quilting for Dummies', so if they can do it, then so can I!!

Then, after my whinge at my technological ineptitude about links yesterday, Lightening posted a comment explaining how to do them. How fantastic is that? I haven't had a chance today to get near the computer to try and follow her directions, but now I know they're there when I need them. I don't need to rush out and order 'HTML For Dummies.' I'm a happy technophobe.

Then there was the meme...

I tagged Suze from Peasoup. She was apparently pleased by this (thank goodness. You never know if people are going to like you or loathe you when you tag.) Then later in her post, she mentioned buying wool on line from the Bendigo Knitting mills. She included a link. (Obviously she's more savvy than I am.) I was beside myself with glee. I've been wanting to buy some more wool for ages, but the wool shop near me is a bit limited in range, and Marta's, while gorgeous, is a bit exxy. All of the online shops I've seen have been in the UK or the US, which made me reluctant to buy online. It seemed a bit silly to fly wool into the country when we've got a gazillion sheep here. Suddenly, there was the answer. I chortled happily and tapped the link. Fifteen minutes later, I'd ordered a pattern and some soft green wool. I can't tell you how pleased I was. I've saved the site in my favourites, so now I'm set! How lucky is that?

Then I wandered out and glanced at the veggie garden, and guess what I saw? Purple beans. No, I'm not kidding. I was pretty darned pleased, because they said on the packet that these things are purple, and then when you cook them they go green. "Get out!" I said as I looked at them in the shop. I had to plant them and see.

See? How bizarre does that look? I think it's fantastic. We haven't cooked any yet, but when we do I'll have my head jammed half way in the saucepan to follow the colour change. I'll let you know how it goes.

Sandy reminded me to update about the afghan. I should apologise to all those who have been on the point of emailing me demanding to know how it's progressing. I realise that for many of you, knowledge of the progress of my acrylic basket weave afghan is the only thing getting you out of bed each morning. Well... on Friday night I officially passed the half way mark. (I can hear a round of applause... ). I'm very pleased about it, because when I started with it a while ago, I knew I wouldn't get it finished before summer came. So in my head, I thought that if I . .. (I've just realised what a stupid thing that was to type. Where else apart from my head would I be thinking? I don't think my spleen has had any good ideas lately. What an idiot.)

Anyway, I had an idea that if I made it to the half way point this year, that'd be good. Well, now I'm at least 10 rows past that. (At 253 stitches per row, that's not bad going.) I really love the feeling that now I'm doing next year's knitting!!! I'm time travelling! Already this thing is as tall as a toddler. I'm starting to look forward to when it's finished, because it's big enough now to spread over my knees when I'm knitting, and I have to say that it's rather cosy. I have visions of curling up on the couch in the dead of night watching all new episodes of 'Boston Legal' all snuggled up in my afghan. What care I if the temperature is a bit nippy??? Under the afghan it'll be tropical.

I've got more to say but it's getting late. Before I go I'll just quickly mention a comment Scott made on the post I wrote yesterday on the 7 weird things meme. It was very funny, but he will not suck me in to his twisted plot to make the world read shockingly bad authors.

I realise I said that once I start a book I have to finish it. It's absolutely true.

However... nothing... I repeat.... NOTHING will make me read another Isabel Allende book again. (Unless it's on the booklist for work and I have to teach it.) Scott is a cruel, evil sort of person, who will stop at nothing to torment me. He's devoted to the woman and knows my views. Honestly I can't see why anyone would want to plough through one of her books unless it was superglued to your hands and someone had a gun to your head forcing you to read it. Even then, I think that death by gunshot would be a preferable fate.

So nice try, oh so-called friend of mine, but I'll resist. (It's a shame, because the opening sentence sounds interesting, but I know all too well the agony that will come.....)

Interviews begin....

The afghan is growing. This means that the story is not. I woke up at 5.30, and knew that I should toddle off to the computer like a good girl and churn out some more drivel. Instead I knitted 3 more rows. I'm kidding myself that I'm still being productive, and indeed, it's exactly the same sort of obsessive activity as NaNoWriMo. One has a word count, the other has 30 rows of pattern before you can change onto the next pattern block. (I'm up to 21 rows on the current block. Did that since Tuesday. Word count: 18000.) It's not a good sign when writing on my novel.... my beautiful child of the imagination..... is less enticing than doing a few rows of glorified stocking stitch. But here's why I've been writing as much as I have:

Today is the day we start interviews at work with all of the year 10s. Me being a year 10 student manager (Oh bow down before my awesome power) I have to be there at them all. Hmmm, let's see. 250ish kids @ 15 minutes each + intense discussions of which subjects will get them where they want to go in two years time = my life being sucked away by these students and their maniacal ambitions of qualifying for high status courses and ultimately ruling the world.

Whatever happened to the three R's? Don't these selfish adolescents know that I've got a novel to write? (Or an afghan to knit?) Actually, once I'm embroiled in the whole process it's interesting, and it's good to touch base with every kid. Some of them have done brilliantly, and it's lovely to be able to congratulate them on how they've done and rubber stamp the courses they've chosen. Then there's the bulk of them, who have done ok and are really nice kids, but who may lack direction and need some help tailoring their courses. Some of them want to do subjects that blind Freddy could see are beyond them, so there's a bit of negotiating involved. Jack is in this group. He's done far better than last year (straight C's.... and C = crap.... so boy did he get into trouble. One of those kids who should be getting A's, especially in Maths and Science, but took things a bit too easy.) He's lifted his game, but not enough to be in the first or second round of interviews.

Then there's the group of kids that are heartbreaking. They're the ones who have either slacked off during their whole school lives, or who just don't have the wattage upstairs to be able to cut it in VCE. Actually, the 'low wattage' kids aren't so much of a problem. By the end of year 10 they know that a glittering career in rocket science is beyond them, and they don't care anyway. Their interests lie in other, usually more practical areas. They're fine with that, and so are we, as long as they're happy. It's the smart kids who haven't lifted a finger for 11 years and have nothing but shocking marks and bad behaviour on their records. They swish in with their high falutin' list of subjects they want to do, and the look of absolute shock in their eyes when they're told that they can't do Chemistry or Maths Methods or whatever is awful to see. They've finally run up against the brick wall of consequences.

This is why I really hate the state of affairs when kids are automatically promoted every year. It's a really hard one, because to be kept down does nothing for them socially or emotionally; but when year after year a bright but bone lazy kid gets put up in the next year level when his results are mediocre he gets to believe that having a good work ethic is a waste of time, because you get what you want anyway. It's like seeing a kicked dog when they get the look in their eyes that says "oh shit. I can't get out of this one."

Sometimes they cry. Sometimes the really smooth talkers negotiate a position where they get at least some of what they want because they're going to reform and become saintly. Sometimes that actually happens, because usually it's all a maturity thing. By the end of year 10 they're well on the way to growing up, and over the next two years there can be an enormous change in kids. Or not. We've got to have a crystal ball to peer into the future to decide....

So my life at work over the next month will be full swing boogie-woogie. It's interesting, because I really love the kids we have at the school, (well.... most of them, anyway....) but it's tiring. And today I say goodbye to my year 11 ESL class. I've had these kids for two years now, and they're fantastic. They don't know it yet, but they'll be getting another teacher for year 12. There's only one class of year 12 ESL next year for 20 students (don't get me started on the stupid state government and their pathetic cost-cutting measures for education), so the teacher who has taught this level of ESL for years naturally gets them. That's not me. I'll be sorry to see them go. I've trained them up beautifully in the art of sarcasm as humour, the Aussie vernacular and an appreciation of Vegemite.

I'm lying about the Vegemite. You really have to be born here to appreciate the glorious taste. They call it 'kangaroo poo.' I'm going to miss the little horror-heads.....

Bamboo and wheatgerm.

Well that was a bit of fun. You should've seen Brennan's face when he saw the expression on 'his' face when he was dancing. What fun technology is!

I popped into Spotlight yesterday to buy a cushion insert for a silk cushion cover I bought in Thailand. (Incidentally, when I got home and took the cover out of the wrapping, I found that a seam had popped. I'm outraged. Do you think I should get on a plane and fly back to Phuket, go to the market and track the seller down and get a refund? It cost me all of $3..... or is that taking rationalisation to go on a new holiday too far?)

Anyway, while I was there I went to the wool section. I got wildly excited when I found some bamboo and cotton yarn. I love the idea of wearing something that would make me delicious to a panda. The question I have is... where would I find a pattern for yarn like this? I'm assuming that I couldn't adapt a pattern for wool, given that wool is stretchier and... well... woolier than a cottonish thread. I like the idea of knitting a simple jumper for summer days that get a little cool. For when the drought breaks. It has to soon, because I've planted my veggies. So I want to get cracking, while not forgetting the afghan (mmmm, the afghan.) So does anyone in internetland have any ideas? Spotlight didn't seem to have patterns for this type of yarn, though admittedly I only scanned the shelves briefly. I had a couple of cakes in the oven, and I knew I had to get back. I sound so domestic, don't I?

Yesterday turned into a bit of a baking day. Usually I bake about 4 cakes on the weekends, and the kids have one a day when they come home from school. It's easy to divide a cake into quarters. I also bake huge amounts of biscuits every fortnight or so, and freeze them for the kids lunches. But since coming home from Thailand (land of inadequately sewn cushion covers and elephants.... I still love the elephants) I've been knackered, to use an elegant phrase. The kids have been eating toast, popcorn and uncooked spaghetti (pasta) after school, and using shop bought (gasp!) biscuits in their lunchboxes. Obviously this shocking state of affairs cannot continue.

4 cakes, and 120 biscuits with wheatgerm and chocolate chips made. Wheatgerm for inner health because I am now a Good Mother again, and chocolate to get them to eat the darned things to get the wheatgerm in their colons. Especially Connor, the eat-no-vegetables-except-chips kid. I feel in control again. What a legend. Brennan has to take 60 of those biscuits (cookies to our American mates) to school for a project he's doing about healthy food, so I'll have to make more on the weekend, but now the snack situation is organised. I also made an impossible pie at the same time as making dinner, and now that's cut into portions and frozen for my lunches for the next week. It's amazing how much better I feel now that I've done this. I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed with everything, but now I'm back on an even keel.

Ma Ingalls has nothing on me!

Productivity.

After I uploaded this I realised that I should've made this a LAAAAARRGE photo. The afghan (look, the afghan!) would look far more impressive. I've been knitting feverishly, and according to the pattern I'm a quarter of the way there. Yes, gentle readers, I've done four rows of squares. With very few mistakes, considering I've been knitting in front of the tv and blogs on the computer screen. But here's the thing.... how come in all of the knitting blogs I've wandered through, the people start a major project and then five minutes later post a picture saying "oh look. I've finished. And by the way, here's some shots of the forty-seven hats and scarves I completed while I was doing this major project. Just so I didn't get bored." How do they do it??? Do they have an extra pair of arms, so they can casually keep knitting while they're cooking dinner or driving to music lessons or working in the garden? Are they insomniacs, knitting quietly away in the dead of night by the dim glow of a night light? I wish I knew their secret. They're making me feel very inadequate.

Speaking of works in progress, look at this life sized portrait of a cauliflower I grew. I'm so excited. I bought a punnet each of cauliflower and brussels sprouts plants, and bunged them in at the end of winter. It was supposed to be too late to get anything from them, but I thought I'd do an experiment and just see. I was planning to pull them up this weekend, but when I was watering on Wednesday I saw two golf-ball sized caulies. I squealed and jumped for joy. Brennan came out (he's the other cauliflower and brussels sprouts lover in the family), and he said that he found them a couple of days ago, but decided not to tell me because he didn't want to spoil the surprise. What a sweetie. So we squealed and jumped up and down together. Nothing's happening with the brussels sprouts as far as I can tell, so they're living on borrowed time.


After lunch I'm popping on a sunhat and planting the seedlings I bought last weekend. They've been sitting in the laundry trough all week. Heaps of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis and lettuce. Mum noticed two of the tomato plants were optimistically putting out flowers, blissfully unaware of the bee-less state of the great indoors, so before school yesterday I raced out and put them next to the pigface so they could live it up. Yummy little yellow cherry tomatoes.

My mature response to a dare.

Big news, people!!!! My afghan has now doubled in length!!!! Yes, amazing as that may sound, it's now....wait for it ....... the length of my little finger. I can hear the sound of your rapturous applause now....

ok, it's not that impressive, but this wool is really thin. I took it to work, and during after school detention I took it out and was knitting away while staring disapprovingly at all the naughty kids. I felt like Madame DeFarge at the steps of the guillotine.

Imagine if every day I was able to post and say it had doubled in length,,,, it'd be finished in no time. Ahhhh.. the dizzy heights that my daydreams reach..... I really am impossibly suburban.

My friend Scott has written on his blog (Scott's Abode.... it's listed in the interesting blogs list on the right) about National Novel Writing Month. I haven't jumped onto the website yet, but apparently you sign up to start a 50,000 word (175 page) novel on the 1st November, and you have to finish by midnight on 30th November. It's all first draft/don't agonise over every word/just plonk them down and keep going until you finish kind of writing.

He's persuaded me to do it. Probably because he's evil. I'm kicking and screaming about it but I'm going to do it for three very good reasons.

The first one is that I haven't done anything creative with my writing since I started full time work. This is no good for me. It's making me weak and dull. So, in effect, doing this will put hairs on my chest. (In a purely metaphoric sense, of course.)

The second reason is that he dared me to. Maybe not in so many words, but I get the feeling that he's probably as competitive as me, so once the challenge has been put out there then there's no other option. This is why I said he was evil.

But then again, it'll be good for both of us. We'll egg each other on. The fact that I'll be frantically doing Year 10 interviews for their VCE courses during the day, whilst he lolls around in his office with PLENTY of time to spare for his novel is irrelevant. I'll still beat him. Maybe not in quality, but by gum! I'll beat him in quantity. (Is that a good thing for me to be aiming for? To bury my very good mate in a pile of illiterate crap? But then again.... how good will his novel be? He adores reading Isabel Allende, for God's sake! Maybe the bar won't be as high as I fear.)

The third reason is that he's a boy, and I can't let him saunter away believing that he's more creative than me. Even though he is. So I have to creative-ise my life, and make it appear as if this frenzied imaginative activity is perfectly normal for me. After all, I am a woman and a Virgo, and I can do everything perfectly.

After writing this, I think I want to kill him. But I'll get over it. (Connor's reading this over my shoulder as I'm typing, and he said, "If he dies on the first of December, will you be looked at?" My reply is.... "Only if I haven't finished this bloody novel.")

So that's my next challenge. Anyone else care to jump on board? Your stuff couldn't possibly be as bad as mine is going to be, so you'll be able to write with the comforting knowledge that your novel is scintillating next to mine.

Rows on the throw.

My computer is running really slowly this morning. I'd tear my hair out if I had any, so this post will probably be brief.

I started my throw/afghan last night. I bought about 6 circular knitting needles at the op shop at the end of my street for $3 total, and luckily one of them was the correct size for this project, so my frugality kick is happy. The word 'project' was deliberately chosen. It's 254 stitches a row, knitted in 8 ply wool on 4mm needles. I estimate the finish date to be in the vicinity of winter 2010. I knitted during '50 First Dates' last night, and got a grand total of 9 rows done. It's half the length of my little finger. And no, I'm not a slow knitter. It's not a complicated pattern, just plains and pearls. But I will finish it. I'm channelling Scarlett O'Hara... "As God is my witness, I'll finish this damned rug...."

Have to say I'm loving the barefoot investor book. I'm half way through, just got up to the Mojo account part, which is the part I'm really interested in. So far, I'm already doing all of what he talks about, so of course that makes me feel good, but most of my enjoyment comes from the way he's written it. He has a conversational style that's funny and easy to read, so the information gets absorbed painlessly. Now how to get Jack to read it? If he thinks I'm desperate to put it into his hands he won't touch it. Whereas Brennan is absorbing investment like a sponge... weird how kids brought up the same way, with the same genetic heritage can be so different. Why can't all my children be just like me????