Gastro Cures

2 of the kids are sick with gastro this week and I have been busy tending to them, reading to them, stroking their hot little faces and doing endless loads of laundry. Speaking of which, I heart Canestan Hygiene Rinse.

There hasn't been time to do much else and they haven't wanted to have me far from them so I got them to help me cut up a cereal box to make yoyo templates, pick some fabrics and while they were busy with that I cut out a bunch of circles and spent the rest of the day sitting with them sewing them up. They're so quick and easy! I'm imagining all kinds of fun things I can do with them. I know when I google it later all kinds of goodies are going to pop up but the first project will be 2 cot quilts embellished with rainbow coloured yoyos. One will be going in the silent auction at the school's fundraising night and I figured I might as well double up when I was cutting out the circles earlier.

Apologies for the awful photo, I seemed to have managed to not get anything in focus :-)

More Pottery Barn love

It's a good thing I live a long way from a Pottery Barn store. I'd have a lot of trouble keeping to a budget!

I'll have one of these,
Maybe 2 of these, and one of these,

My favourite rugs from their current line are:

The orange! The birds! Oh my,

I'm a sucker for blue,

And my old favourite, the Malika rug,

Red

Blue

New projects

I received a lovely email from Anna Maria Horner after my last post in which I admired her lovely rug but lamented the cost of shipping large items like that to the Australia. She has checked it out and apparently it would only cost $40 for postage. Oh my! That's all USD of course but it does make it more difficult not to purchase it. It would be lovely at the end of the hallway where the bedroom doors are and it would catch some of the dirt that is carried in from the backyard and ends up on the bedroom carpets.

Cue thinking music...

I am planning a gift for the wonderful Mr Duyvken that might take a little doing. We will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary later this year and I have a photography idea brewing. It is going to involve photographing every letter of the alphabet which could take some doing. That's why I am starting now. There might be some blog entries from me later in the year asking my fellow Sydneysiders for help spotting letters I haven't been able to find. Stay tuned!

I visited Mary earlier in the week. I had been looking forward to the road trip with Eleanor expecting lots of long, interesting conversations interrupted only by raucous laughter and coffee stops. Unfortunately, I ended up having J, C and JW with me and they were so excited about having a passenger that they carried on all manner of bizarre and amusing conversations and DID NOT SHUT UP for the whole drive. In fact, it was so bad that when Eleanor's father rang her on her mobile he thought she was on a bus! They were so exhausted by the time it came to drive home that I was sure they would sleep all the way back but J was too busy giving me driving instructions to fall asleep. He had definite ideas about which lane I should be in and how hard I should press the 'celerator. I honestly think he talked constantly for the 2hr trip home. Poor Eleanor probably felt like her solitary drive home from my house was akin to a visit to a day spa.

It was great to see Mary, to confirm for ourselves that she is doing OK and to peer into her fridge to see that she had plenty of yoghurt and chocolate. Kim brought her a divine lemon slice and jars of homemade jam - how does she do it?! - to add to her sweet, snacking stash.

Thank you for having us, Mary, and thank you for the wonderful photo, I love it!

Retail Therapy

Time for a little fantasy shopping - who's coming with me?

A beautiful rug from Anna Maria Horner. It only costs $120 but would cost $127 to ship to me so I think I'll just admire from afar.

I love a big, beachy looking lamp.

And another one...

Someone recently linked to Desire to Inspire and I adore it. So many beautiful interior photographs to browse through. I love the grey on these walls. I'm thinking about using something similar in our long hallway.

I also love the black framed b&w photos on the wall but I do think hanging exactly the same photo in 2 different places. That's taking symmetry too far, if you ask me. And you did ask. I swear I heard you.

Travel Envy

My youngest sister headed off today for a month long trip to Italy and Spain.

I know!

She is a children's book editor (I know!) and will be going to the International Children's Book Fair in Bologna and then travelling through Italy and Spain before heading home at the end of April.

I am hoping she finds lot's of time to email and Facebook because this is one trip I want on which I want to be a cyber companion.

Happy St Patrick's Day

Lemon sugar cookies made with cookie cutters my mum bought in the late '70s served with green tea.

Travel Envy

My brother-in-law and his girlfriend have been tripping through Europe for the past couple of weeks visiting her family in Northern Ireland and taking in a few other sights as well. They spent a few days in Paris and he proposed!!!! She, very sensibly, said yes and I am so excited! I love weddings, I love proposal stories and I love bil's girlfriend. She is a true gem and I am so pleased that they found one another.

They'll be home next weekend and we'll get to hear all the details and all their plans then.

Gush, gush, gush!

Can't wait!

Dinner at the beach

We decided to have dinner at the beach tonight - one of our favourite things to do to. When we got in the car it was sunny and bright but we drove through torrential rain on the way to the beach and were thinking we'd have to turn our picnic into a car-nic but when we got there the skies were clearing and we could see the rain heading out to sea. The salt haze had been washed out of the air, the light was dazzling and this rainbow tempted us to dip our toes in the water.

We bought hot chips, set ourselves and tried not to eat too much sand.

The hot chips brought the seagulls. They're pretty bold! We enjoyed watching them squabble over our leftovers as the sun set.

It wasn't easy to get them in the frame but I did enjoy trying.

Reslience

For Mary.

Report Cards

Written by the big sister.

Shoes

Just so you know I seem to have a thing about feet.
Although you come here regularly and look at my blog header so maybe you know that already. I hadn't realised it until this morning when I was putting some photos I've taken of my nieces and nephews on a disk for my sister-in-law. Scattered among the expected photos of people smiling, children playing and life's milestones I have photos of bare baby feet, baby feet wearing socks, toddler feet splashing in puddles, kid-sized feet covered in sand at the beach, photos of my feet in new shoes/old shoes/much-loved shoes and lots of photos like the one above.
It was taken in Dec when we were up north visiting Mr Duyvken's parents and all the grandchildren were waiting for their turn to ride in the tractor with Papa. C and a couple of the other young grandchildren were unsure about having a ride themselves but they loved watching the older ones take their turn wearing the ear muffs and riding circles around the paddock. She planted her feet on this spot and stood for almost half an hour watching, considering and then quietly shaking her head 'no' when asked if she wanted to have a turn. And this is all brought back for me so clearly just by looking at these pink sandals on the grass.
On a less sentimental note I also like the composition, colour and light.
Do you also have photos that bring things back clearly for you?

Reflection

Darkness

Wire

I imagine the previous resident planned on growing something up this chicken wire. Tomatoes, sweet peas? I wonder if they ever did...

Dust

Subtitled: I will never buy a flokati rug again. I don't care how cheap it is. Amen.