Travel Blog: Canberra 2023

Trying to make the most of opportunities this year, when Steve was sent to Canberra for work in April and it happened to fall over the school holidays, the girls and I booked some flights to join him. Steve worked Tuesday to Thursday and then took Friday off so we could have the long weekend together. School started again on the Monday, so it was a quick trip, but still lots of fun. 

The weather was cold, but clear skies for most of the time. We spent loads of time on the Friday at Questacon, where Steve was in his science element, explaining all sorts of things to the girls and just generally having a great time. 

We went to the War Memorial. 

And up Mt Ainsley. 

The next day we did a walk through aviary, and a round of Cockington Green. Before going to the Arboretum. 

The Arboretum turned out to be fantastic. We had thought we were only going to spend an hour or two there, to let the girls have a play in the park, but we ended up staying for ages. There were heaps of different gardens to explore (including bonsai!) and the girls just had lots of fun running around. 

The weather on Sunday was rubbish, but we were meeting up with friends to go to church and then hang out before our flight home, so it all worked out ok. The colours on the trees were pretty spectacular for us Brisbane-ites and overall, it was just a lovely little spontaneous trip for us. 

Book Week

It truly is the most wonderful time of the year when people are talking about reading, books and characters that have influenced their lives. Book Week is just magnificent. Even when I see characters that were definitely movies first, I'm not too worried, because for everyone one of those, there are five more kids dressed up as someone they read about first. 

This year was a no sewing year for us. Not by design, but just serendipity. Sophie wanted to be Anna-Beth from the Percy Jackson series. Arguably the hardest costume, because finding an orange shirt proved to be incredibly difficult. Once we had that though, my friend Amy was kind enough to print and iron on the appropriate logo. 

Rachel wanted to be Lavender from Matilda. Mostly because she has a pet newt called Isaac. I guess this was the sewing part of the costumes, because I did whip up that little lizard the night before. We could have used some more forethought though, since the legs didn't turn out at all, and I ended up sewing them on inside out, but whatever. Rachel sewed the eyes on herself like the good little sewer she is. We borrowed her a different school uniform dress from a friend on the street. 

I got to have two Book Weeks, so I recycled the Mary Poppins from last year, and went as Matilda on the second day. I based my Matilda costume off the stage musical, since I wanted to be able to sing the songs. Borrowed a grey skirt from a girl at church (it's her high school skirt), and then wore a Cue shirt of Sarah's that was in my dress up box, along with my blazer and tie from when I lived in Japan. 

Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now! Here is me as Matilda leading the revolt against the Trunchbull at school. Some days are the best. 

Despair Dress Hopefully Redeemed

Much much earlier in the year, I decided I wanted to make a replica of a Princess Highway dress that I love to wear. I'd already made replicas of a skirt, which I feel was very successful, since I was able to reuse it to make my Mary Poppins skirt for Book Week last year, so I was pretty confident that I could replicate this dress. 

I'm fairly sure I did a mock up of the bodice in leftover sheet fabric, and then turned my attention to some Japanese fabric I had in my stash. It was a lovely cherry blossom print, and there were meters and meters of it. I thought it would look really lovely, so I lay it out and got started. 

Then I found out it was very sheer. I hadn't noticed before because it had come folded over, into what would be a good width for kimono making, but when I unfolded it, I discovered it's true see-through nature. Totally fine, I rationalize, I'll just line it. I've got loads of lovely cotton bedsheets that will work perfectly. So I cut the bodice and everything is going smoothly, before I remember, now the skirt has to be lined, my pocket construction won't work the way it was supposed to. Sigh. So I've got to rethink all of that. 

The other thing I've got to rethink entirely, is how to cut the skirt out. The fabric is only about 60cm across, which is pretty narrow. One width, won't be enough for a front panel of the skirt. Two is a bit much, but doable, except it lands me with a centre front seam, which I don't think I can stand. I did sew it with the centre seam initially and it did turn out I hated it. So then I unpicked it all, and cut one of them into two and sewed them either side of the front (is this making sense to anyone?). 

The skirt of the dress was definitely much fuller than it needed to be, but the fabric was so sheer and I was using the selvage edges for the skirt, sides, rather than have to deal with firstly working out by how much smaller to make each panel and then spend twice as long on each seam because I would have had to French Seam them to make them sturdy and beautiful. 

It turned out that I had also cut the skirt panels excessively long, and the hem on them was turning out to be ginormous. At this point, I was so over this dress. What I had thought was going to be a beautiful, flowing easy to wear dress, was turning out to be a layered, bulky monstrosity. Not sure it would ever recover, I put it on the dress form and tried adding belts to see if that helped things.

. 

It did. A bit. So after another week or so of procrastination, I just finished the hem and called it done. 

I've honestly been having a rough year in my mind, and this sewing experience did not help things. Even though I've since made other, much more successful projects, I'm still not feeling all there. I did wear the dress twice before the weather got too cold, in an attempt to move past the somewhat disastrous sewing experience. But I was not feeling like I would reach for it too quickly when the weather changed. 

What I did do, after a sewing break and a palette cleanser, was use the pattern, and all I'd learned from making it, to make another dress. This time out of a (non-sheer) cotton that mum picked up on sale at Spotlight. 

This dress worked exactly as I had wanted. This dress fit so well, sewed without having to rethink or unpick anything. This dress looks beautiful on the inside as well as the outside, because I did do French Seams on the sides and finished the other edges with bias binding. This dress has pockets to write home about and is exactly what I need to wear for a great day. 

I listened to a sewing podcast recently which talked about taking the time to reclaim the items that you didn't have the best experience making. Make new memories with that item, so you can move past the bad ones and still enjoy it. 

I guess I don't often have too many bad sewing experiences, or items that I'm so frustrated with that I can't bring myself to wear. The last one I can remember was this dragonfly dress, which wasn't a terrible experience so much as turning out to be not my style of dress after all. Maybe it was time, but listening to the podcast did make me consider the cherry blossom dress again. I should give it another go. 

After all, I'm the only one who knows about the sewing grief I experienced, and I don't need to let it stop me wearing it. Also, it did pave the way for a dress I do truly love, so it can't be all that bad, right? 

What they Wore

I realized as I flicked back through the very haphazard posts of this year, that I neglected to share what the girls wore to guides the night they celebrated the Coronation of the King at Guides. I made the crowns, which I talk about here, but didn't follow up with a quick post about the rest of their outfits. 

They were pretty funny picking out dresses, because I have made them loads of princess style dresses which still fit (see red one here and blue one here), but for some reason, they wanted to wear anything but that. In the dress ups, they found an Asian style dress I had bought in New Zealand of all places back when I was 17, and my formal dress, which my mum had made in the same year. 

Rachel was enamored with my formal dress, and Sophie loved the Asian style one. Unbelievably, Sophie was also tall enough to get away with wearing it, without me having to do any adjustments. It was a little long, but with the side splits, it didn't matter. 

Rachel's on the other hand, needed a fair few things adjusted to make it wearable. I asked her if she wanted me to remove the sleaves that I had put on spontaneously one year when I was working at an OSCH and we had a dress up day. She told me no, she loved the sleeves. So I just tucked them up a bit to make them short enough for her arms and otherwise left them. 

Then I took up the shoulders, hem of the underskirt and tacked up the sheer overlayer in places to give it a swishy ball-gown feel. The dress was a bit chaotic, but very Rachel. Sophie was very particular about how she was a Princess of Wisdom and I do feel that she nailed that look. My red and blue dresses did get used on the night by some other girls who needed a dress, so good to know my sewing didn't go to waste after all. 

Belated Camping Memories

 Much earlier this year, back in April actually, I took the girls camping. We went to the usual spot for a "just the girls and I" camping trip, since it's easy and still fun. The difference this time, was that we also took some friends. The girls cousin Hugo and our friend Mia both have Dads who are into camping, but their Mums are not so much. Kind of like Steve and I, but reverse. 

Anyway, we booked a couple of nights and the kids had a blast. It was a bit rainy, but dry enough for us to venture out and see the glow worms at the Natural Bridge the first night. 

The next day we did the Warrie Circuit, which I a little bit regret suggesting, since the rainy-ness had made a lot of mud. We did the walk in good spirits, only a little complaining from the kids at then end, which was abated when I told them I'd dish out a marshmallow for every hundred steps we went up. 

While I could barely move the next three days from the pain in my knees and hips (welcome to old age?), the trip overall had been a success. I'd like to thank the playdough I packed for entertaining the kids for a lot of our campsite down time, and the audio book, Have Sword, Will Travel by Garth Nix and Sean Williams, which also kept them occupied and resting for the before bedtime hour and the two hours it took us to pack up in the morning. 

On the way home, we stopped off at the Gold Coast for a play and an impromptu swim (kids only!) Sophie cooked us sausages on the BBQ for lunch and we picked up a pie from Yatala for dinner. It was beautiful and a lovely reminder that we live in a beautiful part of the world. 

One of Those Cakes

Some days, you've just got to make a cake. Rachel went off for a play a couple of Saturdays ago, but upon arriving at her friends house, things unfortunately did not turn out as she had hoped. Her friend was there, with nothing to do, but it still being only 9:30 in the morning on a Saturday, didn't feel ready to actually have a play. Poor Rachel came home in tears. 

What's a mum to do, but suggest some quality one on one cooking time. Surely cake will fix everything? If not, it will come pretty darn close. Coincidently, a day or two before, Rachel had seen this video of cake making on YouTube, and so requested to make something similar. Why not? 

We made a very thin chocolate and vanilla cake (as well as a round of cupcakes) and let them cool. Then she cut circles and stacked them to make mini layer cakes. 

We had fun making a ganache to cover them (Rachel was pretty excited when she found out she could ice a cake with something made of chocolate and cream) and then I let her go to town decorating with icing and flowers that we had in the cupboard leftover from her birthday. 

This cake was just what we needed. Especially starting back to school for term three that week. Just what the doctor ordered. If the doctor were me, and cake were medicine. 

Getting ready to write this post, I realised the last spontaneous cake we made was the Duck Cake back in 2021! And before that, was the Just Because Cake in April of the same year. The world needs more cake. 

Could be though, that we haven't been making as many because Sophie has been in the kitchen much more. She made a spontaneous purchase of a Bluey Cookbook (I think back in the Easter holidays) and has been quite inspired in the kitchen ever since. 

Another reason could be that we have all been too busy reading to need to make a cake "just because". I for sure, know of no better escape from reality and am so glad to have this shared love for books with my family. 

More on that reading next time I hope. See you then!

Rachel Turns Nine

This month has been pretty busy but the highlight has to have been celebrating Rachel. Now that she's finally riding a bike, it's hard to get her off it, so we gifted her a bike basket. She decorated it with butterflies from Nana and some star beads. 

While I get older and am personally less concerned for birthdays, they really do bring a little something special to our lives. Especially when you can make a cake for it. 

Rachel chose the piano cake from the Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book this year. I had the same when I turned nine. Coincidence? Probably. White chocolate kit kats really do make it super easy to make. 

Her birthday fell on the last day of school, so we invited her friends to hang out at the park after school finished for the term. They ate snacks and cupcakes (complete with Rachel's signature insects on them) and ran rampant in the park together. It was some beautiful chaos that I was glad to see. 

Crowns

This is by no means the first of all that I should catch up on in the Land of Blogging, but I do think it's the simplest little thing, so it's a good place to start: I made the girls crowns. 

They have been absolutely loving going to Guides each week for a year now, and last Friday was Coronation themed. They were invited to dress as royalty and enjoy the night in their fancy wear. Their dresses is another story, but what they needed first and foremost was a crown. 

There are no rubbish plastic crowns in our dress ups, so I offered to make them one each out of felt. They were excited to design them. I think the end result is a little oversized, but meh. It's funny because what I envisioned was basic felt, maybe some cut outs, with loads of sequins. The girls had very different ideas. 

Sophie's crown represented wisdom, so she wanted an owl and olive tree leaves. It was all to be silver, greens and blues. We had some back and forth over the owl design, since she wanted it to be as realistic as possible, but in the end I think it works. 

Rachel was convinced by the sequins, but again, surprisingly few. She wanted her crown to be nature themed. While we were looking for something for the centre, I remembered that strange floral thing that she had kept from when her face was painted last December at the piano concert. It was perfect and now also, not loitering around in my kitchen. Double win. 

The girls had a great night, and you'll have to come back to see what they chose to wear. 

Lunch Boxes

Lunches! A real sign of how the kids are growing. For the most part, I still enjoy making these. Especially when I can reuse dinner from the night before. The one below has some mini sausages with tomato sauce as well as pikelets with golden syrup for the girls to drizzle on. 

Sometimes when I'm feeling pretty lethargic about lunches, I'll remember that boiled eggs make an excellent filler. Even better when I remember to make them cute with Japanese moulds. 

These lunches were both made the night before and kept in the fridge until the girls packed them in the morning. I'm often up and out the door by 6:30 on a work day, so it's either that or the girls make them themselves. 

The girls do make their lunches, probably at least once a fortnight, if not once a week. Sometimes they even make them the night before so they don't have to worry about it in the morning. I get really excited when it's a Japanese lunch like this. 

So good! 

End of April

Here we are closing in on the end of April and once again I'm noticing that I've not blogged this month. Is this the end? Have I joined the ranks of people who no longer blog? Admittedly, most people I know who say "Oh, I started a blog!" usually join those ranks after three or four months, not eighteen years.

Even typing this though, my answer is no. It's not time to end this. I have things I want to document and more that I want to share. Even if my content is somewhat limited and repetitive, and my readership is not wide or varied by any means. That's never been the point for me. Blogging will continue. 

I recently went to my 20 year high school reunion, which was an interesting experience. It was very small, only twelve of us original classmates with a few spouses thrown in for good measure. Most people were those I was friends with, or knew well enough, so it was fairly easy to have a conversation and catch up. What I found the most strange though, was people saying "We haven't changed!" because I'd very much like to think I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago. 

I wonder if anyone else left the night feeling the same way. Surely the years and experience have made a difference to us? Maybe it was just the superficial thing to say, or about what they could see on the surface. My face has the same blue eyes behind glasses and a smile most of the time, but underneath I feel so completely removed from the girl I was wearing that uniform. 

As I reflect on this, I'm quite thankful for my blog, which I think does quite a good job of showing at least some of the changes. I'm going to keep at it, even if it takes a little while to get back into the swing of things. There are still more changes to come, and if you've joined me for the ride, thanks for being here. 

All's Quiet on the Blogging Front (but Pumpkins are Growing)

Things have been quiet, though as always, I've been busy. Not sure I have much more to say really. Maybe next month I'll start going through the back log of photos, creativity, events and memories and start sharing them again. We shall see. 

In the meantime, here are some photos of the pumpkins that sprung up out of our glorious compost from when we did the front garden beds in September last year. For the first time ever we had butternut pumpkins! 

I was hand pollinating some of these, but our neighbours have bees and they were buzzing around most days too. Steve wonders why I bother, but it feels very pointless to have a huge sprawling pumpkin vine with nothing to show for it. 

The pumpkins grew up and over the retaining wall and alongside the water tank. Aside from accidently shading out the little flowers we had there, it's actually the perfect place for them, so we are now thinking we will convert that strip of grass into a pumpkin patch long term. I'm the only real pumpkin fan in the house though, so maybe it's not the wisest of investments. Perhaps it could be used for corn too.

In the meantime; pumpkin scones anyone? 

Measuring Time

I was honestly not sure I'd get any posts out in February this year, but I've found myself with an hour to spare so I'm figuring, why not. Time to catch up on some things I guess. 

Sophie had a birthday in Jan this year which was a bit of a milestone. Double digits. Can it be true? Must be, because the earth is still turning and we are still measuring time by rotations around that sun, so here we are: 10. 

For her birthday, this cool kid got a fun family afternoon at South Bank with a chill BBQ dinner and lots of chocolate cake. 

Her present this year was a room makeover, which we asked the family to contribute to so Sophie could have some autonomy over it, in lieu of usual presents. So just before I spent 40 plus hours painting the ground at the girls school for a week, I spent ten hours painting Sophie's room. 

We had gone to Bunnings and looked at paint colours together in December. Sophie had selected a range which came home and were stuck up on her wall for consideration. Slowly she would remove the ones she didn't want until she decided on the Tsunami colour for her feature wall. Since I was painting the feature wall, it made sense to repaint all the others to match the house while I was at it. 

After that, Sophie had a bit of cash to use to decorate. She chose to buy some LED lights, a Squirrel Girl poster and the white desk you can see in the corner. Other family gave her things for the room - the cute lantern balls, the light box, the collage art on the door. Sophie had fun setting it all up and making it hers. 

Lastly, she had a park play date with her small group of core friends on a Friday in the holidays. Since they are all avid Wings of Fire fans, I took them to the park with the dragons, and Sophie had a dragon guarding her cake, which was full of all the chocolate treasure a girl could want.