Random Things

 Here are some things I've been doing lately. Firstly, making a rope net. 

Thanks to the internet and it's never ending resources, I was able to figure out how to tie this. I took down the swings on the swing set and hung this instead. It's hard to see in the photo below, but it works fine, holds my weight and is providing quite the challenge for the kids. 

We've picked a lot of tomatoes. Rachel helps by eating them before I can put them in the bowl. 

She especially likes these bumpy mutant ones. I don't know why.

I've been giving tomatoes away by the punnet for the last week and we still have so many, with more on the bushes ripening every day. So many tomatoes. Time too look up a recipe for chutney maybe? 

I've also been reading my bible. 

To be honest, there has been a bit of a slow down here, and I'm a bit fatigued to still be in the prophets of the Old Testament. But then I look at the Bible when I open it up like this and realise I'm over half way. This waiting to get to Jesus must surely be doing wonders for me somehow. And spending time reading the minor prophets especially, in The Message Translation, has given me a much better understanding for God's character, and what he is really concerned about in life. 

"Do you know what I want? 

I want justice; oceans of it. 

I want fairness; rivers of it. 

That's what I want. That's all I want."

Amos 5:24

Camping 2020

I almost don't want to post about this. The spot we camped at was so perfect that I want no one else to go there, so that we can book it out whenever we like. Alas, I know that would be selfish of me, and so I am sharing this with the world. We went camping, and it was perfect. 

This is probabaly the hightlight of our September holidays actually. We did two nights away with Sophie's friend and his parents, who I took the girls camping with last year. This time, Steve came too! 

We went to a property in Fernvale, so we had the whole place to ourselves. It was so perfect, becuase we were right on the river. It was cool and shady, even in the middle of the day. Our friends brought their cannoe and the water was just warm enough for a swim. 

There were fish in the river, so we tried our luck at hand line fishing, with no success. 

We played DnD with our friends, had campfires and generally lay around. 

Compared to the 14k hike we went on last year, this was so relaxing. To be perfectly honest, we didn't do much at all, and as I'm typing this, I feel like it's not even worth a post. Even getting there was only 40mins drive! We didn't even listen to a whole musical album in the car. But it was refreshing and fabulous, so I want to remember it and I'm posting this anyway. 

I'm surprisingly even more keen for camping again. It's so irrational, but we had a great time. The girls have scored themselves two extra days off school at the end of this term, and I'm wondering if they aren't ready for a solo adventure with me prehaps? 

All the Reading

Reading is really the best way to avoid the world. It was true when I was a kid, and it's true now. Want some escapism? Read a book. Everything turns out all right in the end. So heart warming after reflecting on what is going on in the world. Never do I appreciate books as much as I do in times like these.

The last few months, I've been reading a lot out loud actually. To the girls; mostly to Sophie. After the last post on reading, I did go on to read some Narnia with the girls. I started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which they both liked, and then I went with The Magician's Nephew. This book is a fair bit slower paced than that most famous of the Narnia Collection, so it was tougher to get through. We also noticed Rachel doesn't quite have the stickability as Sophie does with sitting around listening to chapter books, so I ended up just reading most of it to Sophie.

After that, we did The Horse and His Boy, which I really enjoyed too, and we referred to the map at the start constantly. That's something I've never done before, but was really helpful for Sophie, especially since we'd only read a chapter or two a night and then have to recap before we started again the next night.

After this, I thought we would give Narnia a break. I did some research on books that I thought might be good for Sophie to start reading herself. Even though reading with kids is absolutely my weak spot, and something I will pretty much drop everything else for, I was wanting her to develop her own confidence with longer books too. I ended up purchasing the following books.

Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George
The Kindom of Wrenly; the Lost Stone by Jordan Quinn
Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Some of them were a little beyond her, others were a good middle ground for us to take turns reading, and others were spot on. I enjoyed all of them.

We started with Tuesdays at the Castle, which was good for me to read to her, but the story line turned out to be a little political. I can see Sophie liking it in a another three or four years, so not a bad investment, just a little early. We made it half way before we moved on to The Kingdom of Wrenly which was spot on for Sophie. Chapters with pictures, easy to follow story with no scary bad guys, but enough trouble to keep you interested. This is a great book for introducing young readers to fantasy they can read themselves. We loved it.

Fortunately the Milk was next up, and a pretty great tale, even if the time travel was a bit much for a seven year old to follow along with. I've put Ella Enchanted on the shelf for now, because I think it will fall in the same realm as Tuesdays at the Castle. Sophie is keen for it though, so maybe soon.

The next thing we started was Tashi. The Tashi books are short stories with illustrations written by an Australian author. My wonderful Godmother had given Sophie a set and we picked up another at the lifeline bookfest earlier in the year. They are full of mythical creatures, dragons, ghosts and demons, as well as your typical "bad guys"; the evil Baron, the wicked Lord, the witch in the forest. Tashi always comes out on top though, through some clever trick or kindness.

Each Tashi book has two stories in it, so we've read 24 Tashi stories all up. Plus one that Rachel spontaneously brought home from the Library at school (the week before we started actually!) These were shorter, so I was reading them to both girls most days, and they couldn't get enough.

As far as what I've been reading, a new street library opened up near us, on our daily walk to school route. Oh, how I love our community. I picked up The Book Thief by Markus Zusack and The Airman by Eion Colfer. Both of these were great reads.

One of my day care families lent me a book called Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings. I was about a third of the way through before I realised it was an Australian Gothic novel. Not my usual choice for reading, but by then I was committed, so I kept going. It was easy to read, and fairly short, but not something I'll be pick up again.

Then I was graciously allowed to borrow the first five books of the Wings of Fire series by one of the kids at our church. For me, not really the intended audience, they are snack reading I guess. Easy, light, but delicious. The world building and description of each type of Dragon is really well thought out and believable. My only complaint is that at times, they dragons act like humans (raising their "talons" to show they are harmless!) but I don't think I'd have noticed as a 12 year old, and given that I'm not the intended audience, I can let it slide.

Now I'm not sure what will be next. I suppose with the girls it's time to go back to Narnia and read the fourth instalment. Given that I'm starting my last term of Family Day Care this week, maybe I won't have as much time to read for a while anyway. Such a shame. Some days, reading is life.

Tuckshop Mural

This is in no way my creation, but I spent a lot of hours over the holidays working on it, so it feels like I should get to share it with the masses. 

I've signed up to be the Secretary of the school P&C this year. Actually, I didn't sign up until July, when they really didn't have any other takers for the job. It was a learning curve and pretty full on at the start, but I feel like I'm hitting my stride a bit more now and am actually starting to enjoy the role. 

One of the things I love to see and be a part of, is stuff getting done. This is one of those things. Sometimes with a volunteer organisation, things take a long time to happen. Lots of back and forth in the discussion phase, time waiting for people to put their hand up and take ownership of projects, the seemingly desperate search for volunteers to pull it all together in the end. Painful. 

This project was quite the opposite. At our August meeting, when we were all rejoicing that our school tuckshop, which had been closed for over six months was at last up and running again with a new convenor, someone remarked offhandedly; "Wouldn't it be nice to paint the outside of the tuckshop a bit? It's a bit dreary. Maybe we could put a mural up?" 

That night, one of our parents said she'd love to do it. The next day, she'd spoken to our local real estate agent and the local Bunnings for funding, had organised another mum who was a graphic designer to do the designs, and had the go ahead from the school admin. Winning. 

There was a little bit of a wait, while we organised the final colours and paint selection, but in the last week of school, the area was cleaned, the gear and paint picked up and we were good to go. Painting happened over the two weeks of the school holidays, most days with at least three or four volunteers painting for anywhere between three to seven hours. It was a huge effort. 

And so worth it. It looks amazing. I wish I had more before shots because it's really transformed the area completely. It's the centre of the school, but you can see different sections of the murals from the road and other areas around the school. Amazing. 

I'm so stoaked that I was a part of it. Sure, it did mean that I didn't get quite as much time as I would usually with the girls over the holidays, but it's not something I'll be doing every holidays, and now they can come to school and be so excited about something their mum helped to create. That's pretty special. 

The World Keeps Turning

Disclaimer: This post is not really about lunchboxes at all. If you have found your way here hoping for a fun bento post, just look at the pictures. This post is mostly a somewhat morose reflection on what it is like to be alive in the world.

Here we go.

I don't know if it's the third-quarter phenomenon of COVID (please let it be, because then we are nearly done-ish, right?), or if it's just lots of life getting to me right now, but I'm feeling lots of heart break. Really feeling it.

I feel like you might think I'm rehashing something I've mentioned before. Maybe I am. But there is more to it than my usual "This is hard and bad stuff has happened, let's keep going" mindset. It's hard. I'm feeling it. I'm in it.

All around are people struggling with relationships. Wrestling with changed lives. Jobs being changed, or made redundant. Plans cancelled altogether. There is so much unknown. We don't know what's coming next. We can't plan. We don't know how to deal with what is happening now. We are all just making things up as a we go. Or making things a big mess as we go.

And yet, the world is still spinning. The seasons are still changing. I get up in the morning and I make yet another lunch for the girls because they are going to school, just like any ordinary day.

This has been the hardest thing for me. To know that people are hurting. Struggling. Wanting answers to things that are so unknown. The heartbreak is real. And life is going on.

Passages from Ecclesiastes are resonating with me. There are so many things under the sun that are falling apart, unfair, or unjust. What are we do to, but to eat, work and be happy with what God has given us.

I don't have answers. I'm not wondering why this is all happening. I'm not trying to ignore it, or pretend it's not real. There is no gloss shine I can apply to make all that is broken appear smooth and fine. It is broken. The ache is real.

And there is seemingly nothing I can do but pray, and make lunches. 

T Shirt Quilt Phase One

This is something I started earlier in the year, and am no where near finishing. I had been going through the wardrobes, as you do, and sorting out the shirts that were getting too old for wear, stained or had holes appearing in them. Time for them to go. 

But some of these shirts were just so fun. We have great memories of wearing these shirts. Of the way that the girls slowly got the jokes on Steve's and would ask repeatedly for him to explain it to them so they could laugh over and over again. It seemed a shame to just throw them away. 

Of course, there was a sewing soloution available: why not take these well worn and comfy fun shirts and give them new life in a quilt? It's been ages since I made a quilt, and I recently aquired a walking foot to really level up my quilting game. It was time. 

So I carefully cut out the cool parts of the shirts and did lots of maths. Seriously, there is so much maths in sewing. Every shirt had a logo that was a different size, so after cutting them out as large as possible, grouping them, measuring, rearranging, cutting some down and then starting the whole process again, I was begining to see how a quilt of these random shirts might actually come together. 

In that above photo you can see how I'm starting to pull together the pieces into three coloums that kind of match in size. There was still some padding to add in and rearranging so the colours went better, but overall, I was liking where this was going. 

So much maths though. People really have no idea all the maths that you need when you are sewing. I work in inches when I'm sewing a quilt, because that's how I learnt to quilt. I sew with a quarter inch seam. So whatever I'm making is going to lose a half an inch in seams. 

Now, if everything is cut the same size, you have the same number of pieces in each row/coloum and they are all going to lose the same amount, that's fine. But if you are working with random sizes, and one row has more pieces, it also means it's going to have more seams and thus, lose more fabric in the long run. So it needs to start out longer to compensate. Complicated. 

I did cut out lots of padding bits of t-shirt fabric (from the backs of the shirts, and other random shirts that had prints on them, rather than a logo), but when I lay it all down on the floor, I didn't like it. I don't know if it was the mix of the extra bits, or the way it was laid out, but something just seemed wrong. 

I think another thing that has stopped me from going ahead with it is that some of the shirts that we are still currently wearing, are also really cool. Some of them would fit super well with this quilt. I don't really want to end up with two T-shirt quilts, so it's probabaly better to just wait for the current shirts to wear out a bit more so I can add them to the others and just make one mega quilt. 

So I've put aside the coloums and all the extra fabric that I spent four or five hours cutting out, and more hours sewing together and thinking about and doing maths for. They are sitting in a bag. One day, I suppose, I'll get around to finishing this quilt. 

But not today. 

Nature Break

2020 has really thrown us all a curve ball. In more ways than I can say. People have had a lot of plans rescheduled or just cancelled outright, and we were among them. While we were bearing the changes fairly well, we were also feeling the need for a shake-up of sorts. Steve especially, I think. I've been working from home for seven years now, but he's only been doing it since March, and it can really start to send you a bit mad to see the same four walls every day. 

With the Ekka cancelled and the usual holiday changed to a Friday, we had a bit of a chance for some time away. We hadn't been planning anything, but a week before, we suddenly decided it would be great to do a few bush walks; get out into nature as it were. We wanted to keep things pretty chilled out, not stress about stuff too much, so we just booked a night at an AirBnB down at the coast and figured we could go where ever from there. 

In the end we actually covered a lot of ground, but it didn't feel like too much. We started on the Friday, having breakfast at Macca's and then driving down to the Gold Coast Botanical Gardens for a picnic lunch with my parents who also had Hugo that day too. It wasn't particularly amazing, but it was nice to be somewhere new, see some wildlife, and let the kids run around at a different park. 

Then we went further along over to Springbrook and took the girls on the Twin Falls waterfall hike. The girls loved it. Even saying that feels like an understatement. They thought they were going on the best adventure and were just so happy to be bushwalking along. Rachel ran along like a surefooted deer, giving us quite a few heart attacks when we were close to the edge of a sheer drop. Even when we tried to explain the danger, she was just so unaware and excited about being out in the wild that she didn't really take it in. 

Since they took the Twin Falls walk so easily, we ended up continuing on and doing another loop as well. The fog descended while we were on the Blackfellow Falls loop, so the views disappeared, but it was still fun.

We ended up back out at the Gold Coast for dinner, before we headed to our AirBnB for the night. Not all smooth sailing, as Rachel was car sick on the way, and when we ended up where we wanted to have dinner, they were booked out, but you roll with the punches, wash out the puke and have dinner somewhere else. It’s all good.

The next morning, we had a quick breakfast and then set off for Mt Tamborine.

There we did the Cedar Creek Falls circuit, which was pretty short. I think we would have liked to do another longer walk, but it was raining on and off, which kind of dampened the mood. Instead, we did something Steve had spontaneously suggested the day before and took the girls to the Tree Top Challenge at Thunderbird Park.

They have done this before, nearly two years ago when we went camping at Cedar Creek Falls with our friends, the Pans. I didn't blog about it, but it was a lot of fun. The Tree Top Challenge have two areas, a 3 years to 7 years, and an 8 years to adult course. Our girls will be too big for the kids course next year, so we thought we'd let them have another go on it before then.

They had a great time, spending nearly two hours going over and over each of the four courses. The loved the flying foxes at the end, and were not phased by the heights at all. Looking forward to when we can all do a high ropes course, even though that's a few years away yet.

After this, we began our trek home. It wasn't particularly late in the day, but we didn't feel like there was anything else we really wanted to do before going home, and for the girls, nothing could top the Tree Top Challenge. We went home with a stop at Yatala Pies, where we actually just got chips for a snack and a cold pie for dinner.

We made it home by about 3 in the arvo, so Steve and the girls had some chill time on the couch while I got to do all the unpacking and two loads of washing. It sounds bad, but that kind of thing makes me happy. I'm weird; it's ok. That evening, we had our low fuss dinner of pie and salad and relaxed knowing we still had a full day of weekend left before I needed to think about getting the house ready for another week of work.

Our little nature break was unexpected and fun. We did lots, but not too much. At the time, it was just what we needed to shake out of our little bubble of existence and venture into the world again. Now it seems like a pretty distant memory, and I'm glad I'm taking the time to blog about it so that I remember it when I need to.

Hopefully you are able to take a break in our beautiful world too and remember even though it’s 2020, it's not all bad. 

Denim Apron

A long time ago, when Sophie was only eight months old, I made aprons out of old denim jeans that we had lying around. Obviously she wasn't going to use them then, but I figured she'd grown into them eventually. Here we are, seven years later, and the denim aprons are getting their use at last. I thought I was organised with the Easter Dresses this year, but the aprons got a much larger head start.

Anyway, my sister Sarah was around one day and noticed the aprons hanging up on the hook outside and told me immediately that she would like one. Was that in invitation to use up more stashed denim and sew? One can only say yes.

So I did. I had a pair of jeans and a pair of shorts ready to go. If you are interested in making a denim apron, I realize my first post has less than ample instructions, and this one probably won't either, but feel free to leave a comment if you want to know more. Maybe I can be pursued to divulge more information for the people of the internet.

Denim aprons are super satisfying, completely functional and ethicially fabulous. Everyone should have one. 

What We Did in the First Wave

This feels a long time ago now, and I was considering not bothering to reminisce, but now that a second wave in Brisbane feels just around the corner, I'm taking the time to remind myself it's not all bad. 

And it really wasn't all bad. I know we fared pretty well given that both Steve and I continued working, while others around us had hours cut and jobs lost. Our girls are old enough to amuse themselves and adventure together, so they weren't under our feet demanding to be entertained. The unbearable heat of Brisbane summer had given way to cooler days which were prefect for pretty much everything. I know having an education background also helped me deal with the reality of home schooling, while others around us tore their hair out at the thought.

It wasn't all sunshine and happiness, but overall there was just a lot of good times. The uncertainty we are feeling now as we wait for the contact tracing and test results of thousands of people around the city to see if the latest outbreak will be contained is pretty daunting though. Perhaps it was naive to think that we could ride it out, once that the initial outbreak had been quelled, just by keeping our distance and washing our hands really well for the next year or two. It's hard not to instantly give in to the doom of another wave, of exponential spread, lockdowns and unkowns. 

So here I am. Looking back on the highlights of the First Wave. The "What we did in Iso" as it were. I hope you enjoy this too, people of the internet, and that it reminds you too; it's not all bad. 

Since I was home schooling anyway, I decided now was the time to really invest in the girls Japanese learning, so I taught them their hiragana. We also did various random vocab words, sang Japanese songs and read Japanese books. But a dedicated part of each morning's "school work" was Japanese focused hiragana. I'm actually so thankful for that opportunity, because I might never have thought to do it otherwise. 

Part of the girls school work was story telling, so we made puppets and drew a background and wrote stories to act out. Such an easy way to make literacy fun, and involve lots of fine motor skills, recycling principles, creativity and imagination. 

Drawing around shadows of various toys (mostly dinosaurs). This is maths, because then we measured them and graphed them. Also good for hand coordination and strength. Sorry, my educational background is really showing off here. 

I had seen these butterfly wings scrolling through Pintrest one time and tucked it away for "one day". That day was now. I had lighting gels from Reverse Garbage on hand from another kids activity that I'd taken to play group and I made the black outline shapes by painting pages from an old calender one of the playgroup ladies had given me. 

The girls glued the colours on and then we laminated them for stability. They look pretty magnificent in the sun. 

The girls played with boxes. A lot of boxes. I don't know why Rachel is making the face she is making in that picture. We also built a lot of cubbies. And a tree house, but you know about that already. 

Easter rolled around and we made an Easter Garden, thanks to one of the lovely ladies from church dropping us the stuff we needed. I did lots of sewing (here and here) and cutting of fabric just for the sake of cutting fabric I think, and to give me something to do, rather than think about the "what if's". 

We went camping in the backyard. Gosh this was fun. Someone in our community was giving away their enormous 12-man tent earlier in the year and we had been lucky enough to nab it. Given all the time we had around the house on the weekends, and over the Easter break, we decided to set it up to see how it went together. The girls slept out there for two nights, I did one with them, but it was super windy and the tree house is very noisy when it is getting blown around. 

And what is a tent in the backyard with out a little campfire to go with it? We have since found out that our little fire-in-a-wok to cook marshmallows was not exactly legal, so we won't be doing it again, but it was fun for the couple of nights that we did do it. 

See that photo in black and white along with a ramble about photo challenges and other photos that show things we did during iso in this post here. 

We played games. Some more interesting than others. Lots of games of Spot It and Sleeping Queens, but also King of Tokyo and Carcassonne. 

Sophie learnt to ride her two wheel bike at our local netball courts. I will be honest, I never thought it would happen, so I'm so thankful that COVID-19 gave us the time and space to do it. It is still amazing for her to have that much more freedom, her world just got bigger. We spent so much time at those netball courts actually, and still do. I almost hope that no one ever decides to refurbish them and use them for anything else. 

We were out most days, either on wheels or walking. Lots of walks around the neighbourhood. People had chalk out everywhere and just down the road from us were people arty enough to pull off some fun Bluey characters on their footpath which were pretty impressive. 

I did lots of face painting, and we watched musicals with the girls. Most notably, The Phantom of the Opera, which was a bit of a milestone I guess. Phantom was the first musical I saw live at QPAC when I was only six years old. I know the soundtrack by heart. Even though we weren't seeing it live, it was great to be able to share it with the girls. They both thought it was too dramatic. 

I learnt to make origami elephants. Because, why not? We also did lots of cooking, reading and gardening. 

So it's not all bad. And if it happens again, we will survive it too, just like we survived the first time round. Hang in there people. 

And wash your hands.