AJ2010

On Saturday.....in just 2 short days.....my darling Miss R will be going with over 10,000 other Scouts to AJ2010, held at Cataract Park, NSW. She'll be gone for 2 weeks. This is kind of huge for us.....12mths ago, I never would have imagined that my little Aspie girl would be able to cope with being away from home for that length of time, that she was independent enough to look after herself or that she would be able to co-operate and mix well with the rest of the troop. But we have been working all year to get her ready for this, and it seems to have paid off. After the last camp in September, I've been quietly confident that she will be able to cope ok.

So last week, she had her hair cut short to make it easy to care for. And today we have finished packing the bag. All I have to add is.....actually, I don't think there is anything we have to add - even the snacks for the bus trip have been included! I was hoping to include a disposable camera, but it's been too hot to venture out (am loving the new air con though!!!) so I might duck into Kmart on Sat morning to pick one up.

Initially she didn't want to go, then she seemed quite keen, but I think today it has finally hit her that she IS going and SOON. We've had a little chat about how it's ok to miss your family, but not ok to spend so much time thinking about how much you miss them, that you forget to have a good time. And I've assured her that we will miss her too. But what I haven't told her, is that we plan to drive over to see her on Visitor's Day. I hope it's a good idea - it could go either way.

Have a Happy New Year!


PS - a conversation with Mr G last night.....

Mr G: So what time are we going out tomorrow night?

Me: Why, where are we going???

Mr G: It's NYE....aren't we going out with the W's???

Me: OH! Is tomorrow NYE???

Good lord, how on earth do retired people keep track of what day it is?????

What I have been doing on my holidays so far.....

A spot of gardening.....



Sewing badges onto Miss R's scout shirt....



Packing her bag ready for AJ2010....



Quickly running up a peg bag for her to take.....



Having an air conditioner installed......



A spot of reading while lazing on the couch (this only lasted about 10 mins though).....



Taking pictures ready for listing on eBay....

It's been pretty relaxing so far but I think I deserve a little rest; it has been a hectic year!

Tomorrow I plan to cut some of my scraps into 4.5" squares for a scrappy quilt I plan on making eventually. I also have a cream quilt I started ages ago to finish. It's almost all quilted; I just had to put it aside while I dealt with more urgent issues, but I reckon I can knock that off before I go back to work on Monday.

Hope you are enjoying your break.

And another one done!

Finished Mum's quilt at 1.30pm. Thank goodness. Was too hot to stitch the binding yesterday but I had to persevere as I knew I would run out of time otherwise. Looks lovely, so hope she appreciates it (and doesn't just put it in a cupboard never to be seen again....until we're cleaning out the house when she's dead and buried).

Now I can move on to making potato salad, packing for Jamboree.....oh, and making Miss R some lunch....she's probably hungry by now.....

Jamboree Quilt is finally finished!

I made this one for Miss R to take to AJ2010 - the Scout Jamboree held in Sydney next month. I've used fabrics from Robert Kaufman's Girl Scout of America range, plus some Prints Charming and 8 Happy Camper panels. The backing is from Ikea, bought when we were in Melb last month. I had a few challenges quilting this one (I've decided that I enjoy creating the tops far more than quilting the layers together) but am really thrilled with how it finished up. I've sewn Scout badges on the back, and hope to sew more on when she comes back from Jamboree. Badge swapping is apparently a big part of Jamboree and Miss R has a bag of badges to swap. (Although she very nearly didn't have any......I had put them in a 'safe place' and then couldn't find them yesterday. Tore the place upside down and finally found them on the floor where they had fallen behind the wardrobe...phew!!)

Finished quilt measures approx 71" x 47".

Meet Captain Bullseye

Call him an early Xmas present.

The garden centre at Mr G's hardware store has the most fantastic garden ornaments; I really could spend a small fortune there. They have a whole range of these - bulls, cows, sheep, roosters - in different sizes. We just fell in love with this one and had to bring him home. Now all we need is a garden to put him in. :-)

Busy

Yes, it's that time of the year (again!!) when we are busy, busy, busy. Here's a small rundown of what's been happening since my last post...

• Miss R finished school on Dec 1. Yes, ridiculously early. The school holds their End of Year Eucharistic Celebration (EYEC) and Year 12 Graduation on the first Tues of December, and then it's all over, red rover. She's been in Vac Care/at Grandma's/at friends since then....ah, how I love the school holiday shuffle.
  
• We've run the Scout BBQ a few times to raise funds to send the kids to Jamboree next month. Only problem is that we haven't actually seen any of the money raised yet! Just can't fathom what is happening there....in the end I paid Miss R's fees in full and am hoping to get some kind of refund eventually.
  
• We've had the Glenelg Pageant (Miss R waved the Scout flag) and the Scout Xmas break up.
• We've had the dance Xmas break up.
• We invited a few families over for a BBQ....nice to catch up and we must try organising them more regularly.
• Miss R had her drama performance. Now, I don't get to brag about Miss R very often but I think we've finally stumbled upon the thing she is good at. She's only been doing drama since Term 2 but she ended up with the most lines - she was the Pirate Captain - and performed extremely well. Spoke clearly, projected her voice, didn't rush her lines....and no apparent sign of nerves before hand. I was very proud. She's been invited to join the Youth Drama group next year, which is for age 13 upwards (she'll turn 12 in January), so that was another proud mummy moment. Of course, she doesn't want to do it....we'll have to go to a different group for that and she absolutely hates change but I think I'm going to insist on this one.
• We've got Mr G's work Xmas party on Sun which is lawn bowls and sumo wrestling.....sounds like an absolute hoot!
  

I'll leave you with this pic of the quilt I'm racing against the clock to get finished by Xmas. Present for my mother....I should be doing it right now!