speed quilting

twenty-four hours is all you need to make a quilt
(and supervise chores and knit a few rows and do some shopping and visit friends and cook dinner and read a chapter and grab some shuteye....)




presenting.....




the twenty-four hour quilt......
(complete with fluff that needs to be picked off but I'm oh-so-impatient about getting it onto the blog!)


Laying it on top of the Blue Quilt was probably not the most aesthetic thing to do, but I can't put it in the garden as it's raining! And I really *wanted* to lay it out on the dark brown bark...coz this is The Ghecko Quilt for The Ghecko Boy, who is turning five next week.


But I don't think it's *ever* going to stop raining, which takes me back to the impatient comment above.


TGQ is a leftover quilt: leftover ghecko material from the boys' shorts last summer, leftover cord from our lounge suite, leftover brown cotton from my pants, leftover checks and plain brown from the boys' jackets, lots of leftover suede (which never got made into what it was bought for - heehee) and a little cord that wasn't leftover, but *was* a bargain from the Sallies.

The back looks just as good as the front.....in spite of me throwing all caution to the wind and just picking up random pieces (Very Not Me, but it's how you Get It Done in 24hrs...and more importantly, Before The Birthday!)

what a wonderful weekend

It started early on Friday morning with a trip to the airport to pick up Sharon. I had only met her face-to-face once before and on that night the time had flown by all too quickly. This time we would not be returning her to the airport until Monday evening - and the children would have a car-picnic on the way home.

She was the Most Wonderful House Guest Ever. She made her own bed and took the sheets off on the final day, she washed dishes and vacuumed floors and made her own coffee when I didn't think to, she engaged children and even offered to take one of them home, she didn't leave anything in the bathroom sink and she didn't snore.

Not that we slept much.

Friday night I had a group of friends over ~ Sharon went out to visit with her own sister, but left us Brand Spanking New Only Just Arrived From Amazon The Day Before craft books to pore over......and she still managed to spend a couple of hours with us all as the other friends* didn't leave until their customary 12:01am......*these ones: Jenna who doesn't blog, Jess and Karen.

Saturday night we had even more crafty-type friends over. Fifty of them if you count the kids and partners. For Dinner. But my Father Bear went out! Well, do you blame him? He marched back in the door along with Midnight before All The Guests* had taken their leave.....*I'm not listing the blogs of all that lot!
On Sunday we dropped some kids off at church, picked up Karen and headed out. Sharon and Karen disappeared for the morning to a slightly-disappointing eco-tour. I took J12, K8 and L6 to make felt in a friend's garage.


This was a Massive Hit and there are now Big Plans to make a fullsized blanket! Thankfully the expert-felt-making-tutor who had never done it before, but had googled a lot was happy for me to sneak inside to the house and play with yet another friend's swift and wool winder.

Was it the wildly spinning swift or the bright roaring fire or the two-late-nights-in-a-row to blame? I wondered if I looked as cross-eyed as I was feeling to the girls sitting round the table with me - girls whose blogs I would link to if they wrote them, but they don't.

Dropping off Karen after lunch was.........well, it should have been deeply-something. I mean, it was the last time it would happen for a Very Long Time. She would be leaving town the very next day. Maybe the momentousness of the occasion was softened by the fact that she'll be back for a midnight craft night in three weeks!

We returned home to Chocolate Cake in the Late Afternoon.

The problem with this is that it always means dinner is late and the smallest kiddlies who didn't get chocolate cake end up scratchy. But hey, as I said, Sharon was an impeccable guest and her only comment was that her own son squeals much louder and longer and at a higher pitch. How polite can you get?

Fortunately when you get to that time of night anything is bearable, because you know it's now a matter of minutes and not hours until the angels will be tucked up in their beds! And so it was not long until we were sitting in the lounge with yet another bowl of chocolate cake (*bowls* this time, to contain the overly generous dollops of whipped cream).

We sat. We knit. The tv was on. We browsed through the craft books again. We knit some more. We hardly even talked. I realised it was a moment of "companionable silence" I had first read about in Trixie Belden (at the time I thought I'd plagiarise that phrase one day! The Day Has Happened!)

Monday we sat, knit and talked lots. It was The Last Day. So we made the most of it.

Sharon finished a wonderful baby cape, I finished a project I had started the night before from one of her new books (using wool I had wound into balls that afternoon). It will always remind me of Sharon, of the weekend, of the new friends....even when I'm wearing it in deepest Mongolia!

You see it's a little collar to keep your neck warm - just like a scarf but without being as big as a scarf - we're trying to keep our packs Not Too Heavy remember! This will be just perfect.

But back to the present...yesterday's airport trip was just to the domestic terminal.

And Sharon flew home.

T IS FOR TABLE

Our table didn't start its life with us.
A newfound soul-sister (who also had seven children in nine years) moved away to America. Her table with the accompanying benches she had had made to go with it came to live at our house and be a constant reminder of a Very Special Friend. The dents at one end where her littlest would bang his cup have worn away - or at least amalgamated with our own bangings to create quite a smooth surface! The varnish has peeled away and we have sat around with more than one set of dinner guests scraping the top so it is now almost entirely bare timber.
Father Bear has grand plans about cutting the sides square and fixing in extensions - we talk about these plans every few months;-) In the meantime, the table is collecting history, collecting memories.

The table is for working at....

chopping parsnips

making pizza lunches (with friends)
making plans

fulfilling dreams (aka excavating, albeit on a smaller scale than dreamed of)

creating musical instruments

building gingerbread houses

creating masterpieces (with friends)

conducting experiments

The table is there when you're playing the goat

The table is there when you meet friends you've been writing to for years - friends who live in Romania

The table is there when you're celebrating with family

(and sometimes we even put a tablecloth on it!)
celebrating with friends
celebrating birthdays

and doing real Su-do-kus too!

The table is for eating at

and eating under (when it's made into a hut)

The table can even be made beautiful....

this photo is one which prompted a friend to tell me I really should start a blog!

wild wild west

Sunday afternoon:
one family ambling across the black sand of Piha
enjoying the fresh air and big open spaces
after a couple of weeks of rain
and too many hours indoors,
kicking balls around and
watching one race down the river to the sea,
watching a small sand cliff tumble down,
feeling invigorated.

"Thanks so mush for bringing us Dadda.
Could we come back again tomorrow?"

Monday:

family battled across the Karekare sand dunes in the wild wind.
It swept up the sand and whirled it around in little "tornadoes" and
sent sheets of it blasting across the beach.
Often we had to turn our backs to the blast and
wait for the sand to settle before fighting back into the wind.

We found a sheltered spot for lunch.
It was just like a summer's day.
Beautiful.
The children tumbled in the grasses,
explored, climbed, adventured, contemplated.

The day hadn't started too well.....
whining, complaining, arguing, pushing.
I almost suggested we all hop back in the car
when we arrived at the beach.

But three hours of walking did *something*

It turned into a wonderful day.

K8 summed it up as we waited for another sand flurry to pass
"This has been the funnest time we've ever had at the beach"
qualified only by
"when we couldn't go in the water"

I'm ready for a museum

OK so I'll admit it.

I'm no techno-geek.
When I was in hospital with L6 a month or so ago, Father Bear left us his phone....mobile phone, that is. Honestly, it was easier to walk up to the ward phone, put 20c in the slot and call home on that! There was a handpiece to hold, nice big buttons to push and no chance of taking anyone's photo!

One of our kind friends sent us a text message. It took me over half an hour to reply....and do you know what I managed to say?

ta

Yep, that's all. (And just in case you North Americans don't use the term, it's Kiwi slang for *thank you*)
I could almost have run to the guy's place, told him in person and been back at L6's bedside, wiping his fevered brow in the time it took me to say TA!!!! Would've been a lot less stressful too.

But that's not the end of it!
Ah well.

At least they sent another text the next night.
That time I wrote a whole word. Three Whole Words, in fact.
But I sent them to the wrong person!

I haven't heard from the texting friends since.
And I still don't know who knows "we're still here"

Maybe that's why I like my friend who prefers a piece of paper and HB pencil to a Palm Pilot!
Could be why I liked what Mr No Impact Man had to say today too. Have a look here.

And on a related-but-totally-different note....when we were at the museum, the kids had A Great Deal of Fun learning how to use those *old-fashioned* (gasp) phones. Do you know the sort? The ones you put your finger in a little hole and twist the whole dial round and then release it and wait for it to return to Starting Position before you could put your finger in another hole and turn it all the way round...clockwise, dear, you have to turn it clockwise....take your finger out now and wait, no, hang on, it has to go all the way back to the beginning before you can do another one, yes that's right, now you can do the next number, yes it does take a long time doesn't it, clockwise remember, and wait...."
Using the Real Thing, which was set up to ring another phone, was so much more exciting than googling "ancient tele-communication", more exciting even than anything Wikipedia could tell us......and I bet Wiki fails to tell the kids you have to replace the headset on those little black buttons...you can't just lay it down on the table!

fourth of july

I just noticed the date when I posted the lightning post (lightning in content and in the amount of time it took me to write!)

The Fourth of July always makes me think of.....well....America.
At least, it has for the last seventeen years.
You see Father Bear and I got married on the last Saturday in June and then on the Monday we left New Zealand, bound for the rest of our lives together.
We chose the Fourth of July to go to Disneyland. But we didn't realise it was The Fourth of July. At least, we didn't think about it being That Auspicious Day. Admittedly, we were a bit surprised at being handed little American-flags-to-wave before we even entered the hallowed gates, and then American-flag-pins-to-wear once we got through those gates....but we just thought, "Well, it IS America, they ARE patriotic and I guess this IS Disneyland"!!!!!!

It was midnight before we realised. We climbed off a rollercoaster, which had hurtled us through darkness and just about made me cry (I'd never been on anything like that EVER before that day...and I vowed never to do it again, a vow which has been broken on numerous occasions in a number of countries and one that I remake in the middle of every subsequent breaking)...anyway, we stumbled out of my source of despair and looked up.....I thought I was seeing stars exploding...and indeed I was. There was the Fourth of July fireworks display in all its grandeur...and we realised it wasn't just the fact that this was Disneyland....or even America....we were there on
The Fourth of July.

Funnily enough, I remember the fourth of july easier than I do the wedding anniversary!
It was one of the best days of our lives. I am so not into canned entertainment and America-mania and big-business-exploitation now....but oh our memories of Disneyland! We didn't leave until it closed in the wee small hours of the morning. It was a wonderful day.

published!

For those of you who have asked, and for anyone else who might want to take a nosey, the children's accounts of The Science Competition can be found here.

I must admit, what the older two were going to do was deemed unacceptable my their publisher!
Actually they only got as far as the first sentence
"These two photos show...."
and I said,
"Hey guys you can do *more interesting* than that".

I gave them a sentence starter:

After many years of weather watching......

and they were away.

When they were done we went back and I enquired,

"do you think there's a more interesting way to write "very good"?

how else could you describe those games?".....

and so "very good" became "most professional"............

and so on.

They really jumped on board with trying to write in an interesting style - this is a first, and so worthy of note! And it turned out a little differently to their usual scratchings!

Proud Mummy Moments

The kids will blog the same story tomorrow....I'll do my version tonight and then we can compare notes!

K9 was entering his very first University of Auckland Science Competition and he really really really wanted to get a "highly commended" mention (like his brother and sister had done three years earlier on their first time)

But there were eighty contestants...and some of them had Very Smart Entries. As he looked around, K9 was coming to terms with the thought that he just might not have made the grade.
Then Mother overheard the judges discussing his piece - the JudgeWhoHadInterviewedK9 was rooting for him. Desperate to keep listening, she Did The Right Thing and moved away so as not to hear any more! But she couldn't help noticing the JudgeInARose-PatternedTop went over to talk with K9! Then the Official Photographer took his picture. K9 came running across the hall, full of excitement. "Mama they want you to sign a thing that says my photo can go on the university website" Thoughts of highly commendeds were banished - he was about to be famous!!

The Prize-Giving
The five highly commendeds were read out. The anticipation of coming fame was not quite enough to soften the blow that K9's name was not among them. He looked disappointed. How I wanted to hug him! All my talks about "the effort you've put into this has been fantastic, you have done your best and that's what really counts, our family will enjoy playing this game for many years " just weren't cutting the mustard.

Third place....goes to.....
K9.
What? Me? They didn't say my name right, but it sounded kind-of close!
Woohoo. I won a PRIZE. A real prize.
AND I'm going to be famous.


Then it was on to the older kids.
J12 and J11 had told me they were hoping they might get a Highly Commended, but so many of the other entries were STUNNING, so they just weren't convinced theirs measured up.
They too got that disappointed look at the end of the Reading Out Of Highly Commendeds.
For an instant I wondered if they might actually get a prize...but there were still so many Great Projects out there.

Third Prize.
Second Prize.
First Prize...well, the guy couldn't read K9's name, and he did even worse with J11's and J12's!
It didn't even sound like them! But it was. For the second year running, they were delighted with first place.

And while those were proud moments for me, the best was when J12 came up to me and said, "Mama I'm happy to get first" (mistress of understatement! I'm sure she was VERY happy)....and she continued, "but I'm really REALLY happy for K9. He'll just be soooooo pleased." That was the precious moment of the day for me.

catching up

My email inbox is overflowing - quite nice really!
But I know I should get some answers out......so here we go.

COCONUT OIL
I get mine from East West Organics - they order it in from Ceres, so you out-of-towners might be able to contact Ceres directly if your local shop doesn't stock it. If any of you are purists, I'd better mention it IS refined. You can get unrefined, but it costs three times as much and so we have stuck with the cheaper-but-still-beneficial option. And even that is not cheap. 10l cost $109 last week.

The other issue with it is SATURATED FAT.
If you have got the heebie-jeebies over it, please go here and read at least three of the articles.

ISN'T THE WEATHER COLD!
Why, yes it is! In fact it's been so chilly in the evenings that I ended up feeling sorry for M4 who wears a knitted soaker over his night nappy (and no PJ pants coz they wick moisture through). I started knitting him a pair of longies a couple of days ago. They will be done in time for tonight.

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN READING?
I've been lent a copy of "The Continuum Concept" by Jean Liedloff, which I really need to FINISH by this weekend. I'm bound to discuss it some time next week!

I've got a great stack of self-sufficiency books by the bed and even Father Bear who is renowned for saying "I'm not a farmer" whenever I'm having a rural-dream picked one up and conceded it was "pretty interesting".

At the bottom of that pile are a couple of books about rural New Zealand architecture in the past 150 years. Why? Well, you never know when knowing that might come in handy! I researched traditional villas a couple of months back. Very interesting.

Two of my *own* books are being flicked through too - the old encyclopedia has been too overwhelming in terms of the amount of information that I don't know....but now in comparison to my newest acquisition, Mollison's tome on the right, it makes positively light reading!

And as these photos show, I am desperately in need of reading Father Bear's new book:

Actually, when we travel next year I am hoping to take the time to learn to a) use the camera well and b) sketch and use watercolours. I wonder if I'll be able to sneak this book into someone's pack;-)

DID YOUR KIDS MISS YOU AT THE WEEKEND?
ER (13 mo) had two very snuggly days when we got back, and M4 struggled having his first weekend away On His Very Own With No Other Siblings (in fact he ended up sleeping one night at Grandpa's with two sisters!) and T3 got a wee bit teary at church when she could see all her family in the distance....but apart from that....they had a ball. One watched lots of tv * another enjoyed playing Mother to ER * another didn't even have to do any chores, only clear the table * one was surprised to discover it's not just our family that goes to open homes at the weekend! *

Thanks all you families for taking one or two, even at last minute notice, and giving us a wonderful weekend.

WHAT DID YOU DO?
Dropping off kids took an hour and a half! Not bad we thought!
Friday night we ate at a Mongolian restuarant and dreamed. "Let's dream this weekend and no judgements" Father Bear had said. That will be a post of its own!
Friday night we Did Not Sleep. I was awake from 2-4am, at which point I decided I didn't NEED to go back to sleep right now coz I didn't have to get up in the morning, so I read until 5:30.
I then slept in till after 9! Just before 9:30 we discovered we could go to look at a house half an hour away at 10am. We raced out the door and turned up only to discover the gate closed. Hmmm.
Time for some shopping Father Bear needed to do for work....and while he was doing that the house guy rang him. We could go back - but not until after an auction of a villa on two acres that we were en route to. Bidding started above our final price so we were not in the running - actually noone was. There were no bids and we raced off to the other house. Father Bear loved loved loved it. We looked round for an hour, chatted with the owner and agreed to let him know what we think it's worth (it's not on the market).
Then we had a spontaneous-due-to-circumstances shopping afternoon, picking up some great bargains to get packed away for The Trip.
A weekend away for us almost always involves at least a few hours at Borders....this was no exception, but we were exhausted by 7:30 so headed to the hotel for the night. We both had a new book to read, but only managed to glance through the newspaper!
Sunday morning we wandered around the Viaduct Basin, stopped for breakfast in a cafe....Father Bear let me take my knitting and he watched the rugby replay on a big screen. Win-win! We thought we could get used to having no children and no church every weekend!
We wandered along the waterfront and stopped for ENORMOUS icecreams before heading back to pick up kids. It would be nice to say everyone lived ahappily ever after, but the reality is the older ones were tired and scratchy and snitching with each other and generally quite unpleasant.
It was still a wonderful weekend though.

WHICH FORUMS HAVE YOU BEEN LURKING AROUND?
http://www.ruralvillage.org/
http://www.lifestyleblock.co.nz/
http://www.bootsnall.com/
and one with a few friends.

ARE THE OLDER KIDS READY FOR THEIR SCIENCE COMPETITION? ISN'T IT SOON?
Yes! And yes. They're tossing up whether to blog about it now (coz they're all done) or wait until after The Day - Monday.

a teeny tiny house

Last week I got a pile of books out of the library....mostly New Zealand architecture and a couple of small house books. One really caught my imagination and I leafed through it a number of times, even pausing to actually read it!
Incidentally, I have enjoyed looking at Tumbleweed Houses occasionally in recent weeks. Less recently, I had pored through The Not so Big House and its companion Creating The Not So Big House at Borders one Day Out On My Own.
It's an idea I've been fascinated with and certainly feel drawn to.

We're not about to sell up and start building again (well we might if we weren't about to head overseas, but building and travelling don't go well together...although I did suggest to Father Bear that we renovate a castle in Poland - scroll down and look at those photos!!!!!! Grandpa pointed out the "own water supply" is through the roof!).....as I say, we're not about to build, but all the same, I did something crazy (something else, that is).

On Sundays I try to do something different to the rest of the week to be rejuvenated. So yesterday I sat down with a piece of paper and pencil and tried to design a small house for the ten of us. To cut a two hour story short....I came up with a design that would house 14 people (no, we're not having triplets!!!!) in less than 140 square metres with a 12.5m x 6.5m footprint. There was even a laundry chute, a 3.5 metre long table and an office for Father Bear to work from home. The only problem was that half of our books would not fit....but it would be easy-peasy to add a *library* in the attic.

I think I'd like to build it...and get Ross Chapin Architects to design a character-filled exterior like this one.

ONE DAY

simply windswept

there's nothing like a morning on a windblown beach

* rest * exercise * family * creation *
* lions hiding in the bush * worship *

what's with that guy popping over the hill just as the camera on remote timer clicks??? sigh

it was a happy birthday

the cake:

every single one of the children has used that candle for their first birthday...only now there's no wick - so ER blew out the match;-)

the totally homemade present:>



OK so the hair is really wild....but it's beautifully soft....merino wool, each piece individually attached....and Karen, thanks for the wool for the bodies - it's extra-special making something with wool a friend has lovingly dyed

some of the cards:

you really have to click on that photo to see the cute little button standing with her head between her knees!

and there's always a birthday balloon:

It's Saturday

We were supposed to be at a church family camp this weekend. But unfortunately Father Bear realised the conference he was helping to run fell on the same weekend, so we are home......and he's at work.

The children are doing chores....with the promise that when they've finished, they're free for the day to do *A*N*Y*T*H*I*N*G*

And I'm going to have a post-a-rama!!!!

No need to cook today because Father Bear said he'd take the rest of us Bears to a restaurant for dinner to make up for missing out on camp. YAY. So I've got time up my sleeve. It feels like a holiday!

one year

there's something about a baby turning ONE....you are our eighth bubba to make that transition...and it's no less special, just because it's been done before.

how can you not marvel at the change from this:

to this:

ER - you are such a joy to us. We all love you. Your sparkly eyes, your cheeky grin, your serious contemplations, your contentedness, your slobbery kisses.

Your older brothers and sisters like to snuggle with you, play peek-a-boo, read stories, take you for rides in the trolley, encourage you to *talk* and teach you new tricks.
I like to watch you learn.....I'm keeping a record of your language development (something that I haven't done for any of the others, but I'm doing it specially for you). At the moment you can sign "more" when you think you're starving and you say eye-eye (goodbye) and ah-yo (hello). Mostly you're quiet, but when you pick up a book you chatter at it. You've just learnt to climb the stairs and to stand up by yourself. You love to go to bed at night (and during the day, for that matter!). You drink raw goat's milk and eat whatever we're eating (though no lollies till you're two - dem's da rules round here!). You clap when you hear fast music and sometimes when we're revising memory verses. You watch and engage.

You love to be held.

Darling, this is one of my favourite photos. My hand will be there for you to hold as long as you need to. Even when you are big enough to let go, our hearts will be connected.

still wild.....

that paper pile....hmmm I spent Monday evening on it.....now it's in four piles! I really must get on to it. There were just far more interesting things to do last week!

like.....

READING....I read some fascinating travel books and kept up with reading my friends' blogs (but refrained from writing anything) and read answers to my questions on one of the two forums I frequent. Picked through a parenting book for the first time in a long time!

GARDENING....we did a complete vege garden overhaul - pulled out everything that was spent, turned the soil, dug in some compost and planted out the seedlings that we'd grown. The children then asked to make dinner with some of the bounty - only the sausage wasn't from the garden! There were capsicums stuffed with sweetcorn and carrot, boiled potatoes smothered in butter, cabbage-carrot-n-corn-stirfry. Mmmmmm.


Now we're down to a couple of cabbages and pumpkins, a pile of enormous swedes and a washing basket full of chillies!

KNITTING....two little vests and a hat and the beginnings of a hat and mittens to match the second vest. We had to go and get some contrasting wool today so I can finish them.




TALKING....I was interviewed about being a mum at Carey College - who knows what future pastors thought of that!.....I spent two evenings home with Father Bear dreaming and leafing through books and putting ideas down on paper and talking.....JUST. THE. BEST......We spent Tuesday and Friday evenings with good friends....Saturday had friends over for lunch and Saturday night went to another family for dinner, where we ate the hugest pizzas we've ever seen!Sunday visited more friends.

DESIGNING.....a website...you see, we are almost definitely leaving these shores and heading into the big wide world and we decided a website was a twenty-first-century traveller's necessity....I played mostly unsuccessfully with dreamweaver, but managed to use plain-ol-boring-but did-the-basics-OK-Home Publisher

ENJOYING....for Mothers Day I had bacon and eggs in bed with seven chapters of a book about a Kiwi family living in France - shared snuggles in bed with T3 while the food was being cooked.....I received two very special picture frames, one complete and one needing some pictures to be inserted.