School Holidays

Previous years, the summer school holidays seem to go by really quickly but this year it seems that Miss R has been home forever. I think the difference is that she is old enough to be more independent and so I'm not constantly arranging to drop her here there and everywhere to be looked after by someone. It's always a bunfight to get time off in school holidays, so this year I arranged to work 3 x 8hr days and take the remaining 2 days as flex/annual leave (I normally work school hours ie 6hrs/day). It's actually worked out really well and I'm hoping that I can continue this arrangement in the future. The days I've worked have been busy, but it's also great knowing that the reward is 2 days off - I really miss having days off during the week but life has been easier for after school activities & supervising homework if I'm home at a reasonable hour, so I'll be going back to that for school terms. As goodness know, Miss R cannot organise her way out of a paperbag, so leaving her to do homework unsupervised?? A recipe for disaster, given that she's starting Year 8 this year.

So we've been having a relaxing time, not doing too much, spending far too much time online but still managing to get some sewing done. I've made a couple more of these little purses to give away (do you know, I've made about 15 of these and have given every single one away....and taken no photos!), my scrappy quilt top is finished and in a month or so when the weather starts to cool, I'll start turning all my quilt tops into finished quilts. Right now I can't bear the thought of quilting them.....just too hot. (When I start a quilt, I like to finish it, but am having to compromise for now.)

Here's how the scrap vomit top turned out.The solid colour is called Turquoise, but when I started putting the blocks together, all I could see was Port Power teal....

Now as it happens, Mr G's mother was a one-eyed Port Power fan and his aunt (who lived next door) is the same. So I made the top smaller so it's lap size and will put that aside for her for Xmas. We usually buy her a small gift but she absolutely spoils Miss R so I hope she will appreciate this. However, it has made only a tiny, tiny dent in my scraps so I will continue to churn some more blocks out - just with a different solid colour! Months ago I made some scrappy string blocks so will use some of them for the back - I don't think it will look too scrappy, will it??

The weather was so good yesterday that I did about 5 loads of washing - one load was dry by the time the next was ready to hang out. Must have been in a bit of a spring cleaning mood as I decided to wash the cushion covers in the lounge, and thought I'd wash a few quilts at the same time. Naturally the red from the covers ran......one quilt was fine but the other 2 showed signs of 'pink'....but not all the white turned pink so it was very selective. Today I managed to find some colour run remover and it has worked a treat, so lesson learned the hard way! Wash the reds together! (I usually do but was being complacent.)

Neo had a trip to the vet yesterday to have his teeth cleaned. He has absolutely shocking teeth, despite us giving him 'crunchy' dog food, bones, Dentastix etc and so he ended up having 4 teeth removed. He had the same procedure done about 12 months ago where he also had 2-3 teeth removed...vet said this was most unusual. Not much else we can do though, so looks like he'll be costing us a small fortune each year until there are no teeth left!! We've been assured that dogs can survive very well without any teeth - good news as I'm definitely not forking out for doggie dentures!

Well, this has turned into a bit of a novel so will leave it there for now.....