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Every year I spend hours and hours online, searching high and low for just the right calendar. I’m lost without one, but I’m very very fussy about them, I mean you’re going to be looking at it for a whole year right?!
For me it’s not just about the pictures, though obviously that does play a big part. My scrupulous list includes:
• I like the pictures to be predominantly hand painted artworks, not photos, not digital.
• I like the theme to be original, not done to death a thousand times before
• It needs to be cheerful, not gloomy
• The whole calendar has to fit in my "spot" in the kitchen
• I like the days to be laid out in a grid, week by week, not a long list. I like to be able to identify a week in a very quick glance. (I LOVE LOVE LOVE Camilla Engman's calendars, but they fail in this point).
• The days each need a big spacious square/shape for me to write lots of stuff in.
Umm, I think that covers it. The secret is out, I'm cale-anal.
Last year I found a great free, customisable, printable one online at My Owl Barn.
The year prior to that I got it from Be Happy Now. (Actually I got one from her two years in a row because I loved them so much.)
Anyway, Lalaland have put together a 2013 calendar featuring lots of great illustrations. And upon first look it seems to tick all of my boxes. Good job Lalaland! And I'm not just saying that because one of my pictures is in there.
You can buy it online now for just shy of $20, right here!
Right now my Mum is on a 7 week trip around the United States. Arghhh. She's sending me daily updates of places they've been and sights they've seen. Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountains, Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, Sedona... And next they're are off to N.Y.C and up the East coast.
My good friend just spent 2 weeks in San Francisco.
AND Mr You is, as I write this, on his way to work at an arts festival in Beijing, China.
Arhhhhhh, so so envious!!!!
Some of you may remember the wooden watch I gave Mr You for our anniversary last year. Well this year we clocked up 16 years together.
Traditionally anniversaries carry a theme; cotton, silver, diamond, etc… I'm not sure if the 16th anniversary has a theme, but this year I made one up all the same; "Game of Thrones" - whooot!!! (a-hem, exposing our nerdiness a little here -blush).
So last month I popped onto Etsy and got these for my tall good-lookin' man:
For those of you as addicted to the show as us, I know you're dying to know where I found these... Direwolves hoodie from Fencing N Archery and the cute Stark card from Sophie Blackhall Cain.
He loved them both!
Last weekend a festival rolled into our town. Rolled in in cars with white wall tires, fins, and flames. Our town, with not much sub-culture, rocked with retro hipsters, as Wintersun (a festival of 30's, 40's, 50's, Rock'n'Roll and Rockabilly) came for the weekend. Mens hair combed high, ladies lips gleamed red, and double bass players balanced on their instruments as they thrummed out can't-stand-still tunes.
Sadly half of it was rained out, but the first half that we went to was so - much - fun!
I had a dream last week where I was in a teahouse (built in a tree) where all the floors and 1/2 way up the walls were made completely of old hard cover books!
Very much like this amazing side table made by Tytie on Etsy.
While preparing afternoon tea the other day I happened to notice how each of our cups seemed to embody our personalities. :)
I was all reved-up and set to do a "WTF is the deal with those mullet skirts!!!?" post...
But then when I set of in search for some accompanying images I found a few that kinda pull it off.
Now I'm conflicted. Very conflicted...
Thoughts?
While I'm distracted trying to work out why half my baby's face turned red and puffed up on the weekend* (giving me a heart attack in the process I might add), I thought I'd fill this void with some lovelies from talented stylish ETSYites.
Here you go, enjoy:
*NOTE: I crammed him into the car and raced him to the afterhours clinic, watching more of his face blow-up on the way... of course by the time I got there he'd returned to normal colour and shape and was giggling happily, needless to say the doctor couldn't see anything wrong!!!!
It had been a few hours since he ate anything, we were inside playing at the time... any ideas?
10 good things. (inspired by a little bird) :
1. I have managed to cross so many things off my to-do list, that right now I am sitting on the internet, sipping tea, without feelings of guilt or underlying stress. Ahhh :)
2. I can hear cheerful birds outside
3. The cup of tea I'm sipping was brought to me by my thoughtful man
4. My baby is sleeping (right now at least)
5. My Dad and his family stayed over last night, and the big Christmassy roast dinner we made was really yummy
6. The sun just came out after a rainy morning
7. That there are still so many of the little tiny fruit cakes, that my mother in law baked, still left over waiting for me to eat
8. While our back yard has been irreversibly changed, our front yard is looking nicer and nicer
9. I love Christmas time
10. There are presents :)
Merry Christmas. Hope you enjoy laughing with your families, and eating food in ways you shouldn't normally. .xx.
One of Santa's elves has let me in on a little secret...
Santa is bringing Millipede THIS for Christmas!!!
Camilla Engman cot sheet.
A bit of a splurge really, but one that will certainly help to ease my pain of having to get up to the little one with the shouty-mouth 5 times a night. How thoughtful of Santa! ;D
Screen Print by VWorkshop on Etsy.
YIKES, I really have dropped off the face of the internet haven't I? I have so so many months of Millipede catch-ups to do, and months and months of general life news to. But right now I am tired.
So so so so very tired.
Millipede has reached a plethora of "stages" seemingly simultaneously; teething, crawling, separation anxiety, and an apparent 9 month sleep regression stage. At least I'm using all those as reasoning for his horrendous nights at the moment. And when I say horrendous I mean I can no longer form whole words, let alone sentences.
Luckily during the daytime he is the cutest, most gorgeous, adorable thing on the face of the planet. It's a survival mechanism. A very very clever one ;)
But check this for a *can't think of a good word, insert one here, with your own well functioning brains*... during the night he will wake if my clothing brushes softly against a wall, and just every hour anyway, but today he slept through the smoke alarm going off right outside his bedroom door! TWICE!!!!!!!
I love the colour blue, but I'm putting my foot down. Enough already!
Trying to dress a baby boy I've come to learn how uninspired baby clothing can be. I mean practically everything is pale blue (despite all the amazing shades blue has to offer), and for a boy it's a choice of stripes or traffic (cars, trucks, planes, trains...), it's like a smoggy old peak hour out there!
What about red, grey, green, orange, purple, yellow, brown, maroon, aqua? Or even some variations of blue?
So this article on Etsy really caught my attention...
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As reported by Jeanne Maglaty for Smithsonian:
In June 1918, an article from the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department advised, "The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." Through the following decades, several department stores, including Filene's, Halle's and Marshall Field, recommended that boys be dressed in pink.
Maglaty describes the turning point as the women's liberation movement in the mid-1960s. Young women gravitated toward gender neutral clothing to rebel against the subservient role of women dictated by society. But by the mid-1980s, gendered clothing returned in a big way...
..."All of a sudden it wasn’t just a blue overall; it was a blue overall with a teddy bear holding a football."
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Fascinating!
(Remind me to do a show-and-tell of all the teddy bear reassignment surgeries I've done too).
To be honest, the challenge of finding clothes for Millipede that are a little more unique is kind of thrilling me at the moment. So when friends gifted us these I was nearly beside myself!
Alpaca jumper sent from Bolivia from friends currently traveling around the world. Apparently made by a woman who's been doing it for over 20 years.
And these gorgeous pants; "coffee bean" fabric hand printed, and pants designed and handmade by my friend who runs Hyde Clothing.
Yesterday Mr You and I celebrated fifteen years together.
It was a chilly Winters night, and we reminisced escaping the cold on a tropical North Queensland holiday for our 5th anniversary. Then for our 10th we embraced the cold with a weekend away up the frosty Blue Mountains.
This year we were a little more restrained. We went out for our first dinner since having Millipede, and he was a champ, slept through the entire thing! I don't think he even realised he'd left the house. When we got up to leave at the end of our lovely meal, patrons around us exclaimed " Oh my gosh, there's a baby. I didn't even realise he was there." Heee.
Then to add to our pride, our little Millipede gave us a sleep in! 8 o'clock!!!! 8 o'clock PEOPLE!!!! That's 3 whole hours more than usual. B-lissful.
And of course, back to the man of this moment; Mr You. We love you :)
And my gift to him, to the man who loves wood so much he expressed it at our wedding...
This!
Happy indeed...
A little over an hour ago, whilst I was selecting a shopping trolley and assessing if Millipede had it in him to make it around the supermarket without losing it half way, I was given a bunch of flowers by a complete stranger!
A kind-faced woman approached me, and asked if she could give me the flowers she was holding.
I said yes.
She said, "Good, I would like you to have them."
I asked what the occasion was.
She told me she is doing a ten week course called Making Australia Happy, in which, among many other things, her homework is to give a gift to a complete stranger.
We chatted some more, I smiled and accepted the flowers, she complemented my baby, I gave her a hug.
Millipede smiled and did quiet little shrieks of joy throughout the whole time we shopped. Both of us swimming in the good vibes.
N i c e D a y.
One of the "advantages" of this new lifestyle is catching up on daytime TV (and midnight TV come to think of it) as I'm feeding baby Millipede.
A bonus last week was catching an episode of Oprah that featured none other than the amazing NieNie*. Actually I only caught the last 10 minutes, and have been searching online for it to see the rest, to no avail. (It actually aired in the US back in 2009, hence the title of this post).
There is THIS bit though...
SO great, especially for me right now; a fledgling mother.
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* NieNie, for those of you who don't know, is Stephanie Nielson. A great blogger, plane crash survivor, and inspiring mother.
Recently I have been showered in generosity. Pure, sweet, kind, selfless, thoughtful generosity...
Penny from Pocket Carnival sent me (for our soon-to-be-new-baby) one of her adorable softies:
Lauren Carney sent me an ORIGINAL drawing:
And at the Finders Keepers markets I made some great cards swaps with Courtney Brims and Kareena Zerefos. Plus I managed to swap one of my prints for this lovely pair of birds by Beth-Emily:
Now we have our bedrooms painted, and all this gorgeous new stuff in them, it's all starting to feel really really homey. Thanks, so so very much. :)
A few weekends ago (yes, that's how far behind I am in blogging), I was completely surprised when my friends threw me a surprise baby-shower!
It was at a gorgeous tea-house in a nursery, and together we sat around drinking very fine tea from very pretty cups, and munching on a delicious selection of bite-sized savouries and sweets. Each of us were served munchies from our own cake stand, and tea from our own tea-pots, with embroidered linen serviettes, and small flowers on our plates.
I've been to baby showers before, and had to do things like guess with a length of string how wide the pregnant woman's girth is. It's always been awkward, and there's always been at least a slight degree of offence due to the over-generous guesses.
Well, here, at mine, there was none of that. No awkward moments whatsoever. Just very fine company, tea and nibbles. It was wonderful. AND they gave me lovely gifts!!!
You may spot some handmade treasures in there from Chunky Chooky + My Bearded Pigeon.
I felt so special. And what's more, it was all a total complete and utter surprise! Mr You, in kahootz with these sneaky friends did a stellar job of keeping the secret. So much so, that somehow (I suspect Jedi mind-tricks), he managed to get me to suggest going to that exact tea-house that afternoon, so I thought it was my idea... Which as you can imagine added to my confusion... So when we walked in and I spotted the table of my waiting friends, I assumed they were there on their own, and it was a co-incidence we were there at the same time.
EVEN when they all called out "Surprise!" I still thought they meant "Surprise, what a co-incidence we're all here at the same time", not "Surprise here's a party for you!"
But it was a party for me. And I was completely chuffed. Thanks so so much guys! :)
Guess what I did last night?...
I met long-time blog friend Jacinta from One Little Acorn! Yes, met in real life! She and her Mum, Shirley, are up in my region this week taking part in Camp Creative, and as they were so close (compared to being in Melbourne, where they are from, in a whole other state!), we organised to meet up.
The three of us went out for dinner and can I just say it was so comfortable and natural.
We've only seen the very occasional, small, not too detailed pic of each other on our blogs, but we recongised each other immediately. Then spent the rest of the night chatting away as if we were old friends who hadn't seen each other in a few years. I think we probably could have lingered on chatting for a few more hours. :)
Co-incidentally, it was only a few weeks ago I sent her the prize pack from my Thanksgiving Giveaway this year.
And guess what else?! They gave me a gift!!!
Hand-knitted (by Shirley) baby booties! With the loveliest "blackberry stitch" cuffs. THEN they shouted my meal!!!! I couldn't stop them. So generous and kind they both are.
Anyway, I had a really really nice evening with them, and I'm so thrilled to finally have met Jacinta after aaaalllll these years as blog-friends.
Thanks so much you two, safe travels all the way home, looking forward to doing it again next time. .xx.
I'm so overwhelmed by all the flooding in QLD. I watched too much footage today, and am now numb and hurting.
Hope you're all okay up there .xx.
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