The visitors are gone. Life is slowly returning to normal. It's been a long three weeks, but I'm glad it's over.

Last Monday I picked up my Japanese friend Michiko and her friend  Yukari from the airport. We went back to my parents for morning tea and then home to drop things off. Then I left them at Garden City while I took Sophie to the doctors - turns out she has a bit of tonsillitis. We had a relaxing afternoon and then Steve took our visitors to frizbee to watch his team play in the finals.

Steve was caught in the rain coming home and after going out to the frizbee finals, woke up Tuesday morning with a full blown cold. The rest of us headed up to Manley. Can I say that after a week of pretty rotten weather, rain and storms, Queensland turned on the sunshine like a pro. It was a long day, morning tea with friends, a walk through Mary Caincross Rain forest and then a picnic lunch before coming back down the mountain, but well worth it. That night I drove them up to Mt Gravatt Lookout. Lovely.

Wednesday and we went out for breakfast, over to indro to go to the bank, up to Mt Cootha for the view (spectacular) and then I dropped them at Kangaroo Point with a well highlighted map of South Bank and the City. They made their own way home by risking the Brisbane trains (apparently an exciting adventure).

Thursday we went out to Lone Pine (which I had no idea was so close!) and saw kangaroos and koalas and some other cool animals (Sea Eagle!). Sophie had no inhibitions about the large kangaroos being so close and was just anxious to get out of her pram so she could touch one. I dropped our visitors off to indro on the way home for more shopping and got home in time for a two hour afternoon nap.

Turns out I was coming down with the same cold Steve has. Friday morning I get up at five to do the trip to the airport feeling like death warmed up. Aside from Fiona, Mum and Dad dropping in Friday morning, it was a lovely stay at home and do nothing kind of day. I did go to youth that night, because I'm a sucker for punishment and I stick to my commitments.

Saturday was another fairly lazy day, though we did stir enough to go and get a vaporizer. Steve and I dropped Sophie off to Mum and Dad's that night for some baby sitting while we went to the Symphony of Legends at the Exhibition Center. Despite being cold and fluey, having blocked noses and sore throats, it was amazing. Just fabulous.

Because I was hanging out with Japanese people all week, I found I'd often come home to Steve and speak to him only to have him look at me blankly, then say; "Paula, English." My only regret of last week was that I didn't bother to charge the camera batteries so I've only got a couple of snaps on my phone.

Today, it's nearly 3:00, Sophie and I are still in our PJ's and I feel no shame. I've done two loads of washing, vacuumed the floors, washed up, made dinner and done a general tidy of the house as well as make the beds. I finished reading Xenocide and watched a movie. The cold is on the way out but still hanging around annoyingly. What a lazy day but, I feel, very well earned.

Steve and I were eating Spanish Chicken tonight, which is chicken and chorizo with roast potato and veg, and Steve comments that I could perhaps make just Spanish Chorizo. I replied that that may not be the healthiest meal, given the fatty nature of the delicious chorizo. He responds with this gem:

"Clogged arteries are healthy, because the heart has to work more to get the blood through, thus getting more exercise and being healthier."

You heard it here first folks. Clogged arteries are healthy.

So I'm pretty exhausted again. Not particularly from doing much, but I thought I'd share with you the story of my life the last few weeks so that you can see I don't do stuff all the time, but get exhausted like normal people anyway. :P

We have had a number of people stop in over the last two weeks and I still have two more people coming in to stay tomorrow. I knew that these three weeks would be nuts, so I spent a large amount of time two weeks ago just chilling.

I watched all of the Lizzy Bennett Diaries on YouTube, which, if you are a Pride and Prejudice fan, is a must. I can't believe I didn't know they existed before now. It was fabulous. A great modern take on the P&P story. The same people are currently making a series called Emma Approved. It is also turning out to be pretty darn good. :)

Fiona came and stayed two Thursdays ago and we had dinner with Sarah and her Steve and Amy. Then the Steve's left and it was us girls. That was so nice. Cannot express how lovely it was to just sit around and chat. So fabulous.

Mum and Dad got back from their five week Europe stint on the Friday, so we all ended up having dinner over there. Sophie spent the day with them and ended up with carpet burns on her knees from all the crawling. Saturday was Steve's birthday and I had brunch with Sarah and Amy (and Sophie) and then Steve and I went to Jame's first birthday, before coming home to have dessert and play games with people. 'Twas fun.

Backstory here; Steve's Mama (grandmother on his Mother's side) passed away the week before, so he took Monday off work to fly to Sydney (and back in one day) for the funeral. Steve's Mum came down on Sunday night to stay with us and I took Steve and Maria to the airport on Monday morning. They came back Monday night and then Maria stayed with us again and we took her to the train station about 10 on Tuesday morning.

Steve had Tuesday off because he was feeling sick. Wednesday, I took another trip to the airport (after my usual early-Steve-drop-off and go to the parents for breakfast before going to Prayer at church) to pick up Steve's other grandparents who were here for a visit. They stayed with us until Saturday. We played a lot of card games together.

I left them at home alone on Friday and went to school to see my grade 12's graduate. It was so nice to see them again. :) Cannot wait to eat Japanese food with them sometime. I wonder if I'm super weird or if becoming Facebook Friends will destroy my image of them, but I think it's worth the risk. I really loved teaching them. Ok, I'll stop gushing now.

I went home via Aunty Chris's and had arvo tea with her. Sophie was getting sick. By Saturday, she had a full blown cold and cough. Poor little girl. Saturday we all went out to John and Aroha's and had lunch together and then the grandparents stayed there (they go back to Sydney on Tuesday) and we went home.

After all that, Steve and I (and Sophie I guess) were so glad to get home and just be here with no one else that after Sophie was in bed, we sat down and watched four episodes of Stargate SG-1 straight with no regrets. We had toasted sandwiches for dinner.

Today, I'm going to go shopping and then we are going to a birthday party (suppling bunting of course :P) and then Steve's on PPT at church and I'm on the dinner crew. Tomorrow, my friend Michiko is flying in from Japan with her friend Yukari and they are staying till Friday morning when they fly to Ayres Rock.

God is good all the time, even when I'm so busy with people that I don't get to sew anything.

Block of the Month Quilt Top

Well internet, you have waited a long time for this. Today, I finally managed to put the finished top of the Block of the Month Quilt onto the backing and wadding. It looks nearly finished to the casual viewer, though when I look at it, although I feel a good sense of satisfaction, I have a little sigh inside because I know that doing the actual quilting and finishing the binding is still a huge task right ahead of me.

Because this quilt is so big now (nearly 1.5m by 2m) it is considerably hard to photograph well. Sorry kids. Anyway, I don't usually do this, but what do you think? I know it is so different to how it began but I like it. :)

So technically these should be a secret-surprise-thing because they are a birthday present, but the intended recipient is only one so I doubt he'll accidentally stumble on this while web surfing before his party on Saturday. Hello monster finger puppets!

It was a really fun spur-of-the-moment idea yesterday that only took a few hours to come into reality. Good times. I like hand sewing.

I feel so slack about updating. I have been doing stuff, although sometimes not bothering to take photos of the stuff that I'm doing (regret!). That said, sometimes I feel I don't want to post because I think that if people knew all the stuff I did manage to cram into a day they'd feel bad and I don't want that. Sorry people.

Anyway, here is another until-recently-secret-thing that I put together. Remember this?

Well that little sneaky bit is a small part of this:

Which is a postage-stamp-pieced pillow case that I made for my dear friend Melissa for her Birthday. :D Took a while to think of what game-y character thing to actually do, but thanks to Steve's extensive game knowledge I think we hit a win. I had fun figuring out how to actually put it together. Totally forgot to take a picture of it as a final product, but thankfully Melissa didn't. Hooray!

Can you see where the sneaky section is from? Wark wark!