More Project Ago-Go

It might be the summer or the short holiday before work or the absence of the Big Fella but I am on a mission to get a few big jobs done. It may also be a need to avoid Christmas duties as we have yet to dig out the tree or decorate anything at all. We seem to be wagging Christmas. 

The chief tree retriever is Fishy and he is horizontal with a mini man flu. Tradition demands that he and Lala extricate the tree and its associated chattels from the abyss of the Underhouse.

Until he improves there is always a bit of rejigging to be done. 

You may remember the battered gooseneck lamp from the roadside collection. I found it in the trailer destined for the dump so I squirrelled it away until there was time to give it a serious workover. Lala and her friend scrubbed the peeling orange paint, then I rubbed it down with sandpaper, primed it with a gripping undercoat and sprayed it turquoise. The brass came up a treat with a bit of elbow grease and detergent and steel wool.

It is in situ now but I won't show you until I find some shades for it. If anyone knows where to get the original slanty shape please do let me know!

Before further projects could be attempted, small people needed to be placed in a holding bath with laundry deities to keep her busy. I can get a good hour out of this.

Next was the attack on this old dear of a kitchen/art  cabinet. Every time I watch ABC's Kitchen Cabinet, I see that nicely painted one in her promo shot and think about giving mine a face lift too. I bought this one at Patty's for $30 when we first came back to live in Australia pre marriage and babies when we had cartons for tables and a bed base on bricks. Ah! The simple days.

The interior was always yellow and after I scraped and stripped her exterior back last time, I couldn't be bothered to paint her innards. However this strange nesting frenzy saw her finally getting the full treatment this time round.

Soon she was all white and shiny thanks to Sonya's ongoing stash of paints from last year. The blue at the side is the original colour under all the first stripping job in the nineties. I never could paint over it until now. There is still a small tribute to the original colour on the side for historical accuracy or sentimental foolishness.

A tower of linen seemed to appear teetering on the stools and I felt a wave of culling wash over me and it was good. This stuff all came out of the meat safe in the kitchen (domestica). The two cabinets  were about to swap places.

This other stuff came out of the art cabinet (artistica).  Cull till there is no tomorrow!

Delegation is key to successful rejigging without a Big Fella. Lala paints very tidily and B2 and his friend had to down pi- pods and move the furniture around. (Ironically the game they were playing was called Order and Chaos! Here's a bit of real life for you, boys!) For several hours there was disruption and stuff everywhere. Shorty played in the middle of it and the others hid in corners of other rooms. 

Here she is all painted and repacked with the good bits instead of the art junk. Luckily with the breeze and heat the paint was dry in no time.

It is nice to see my pretties behind glass. Maybe I'll remember to use them more now and enjoy seeing them as  as well.

Those Ittala glasses finally got pulled out to drink some rather smashing pear cider a friend dropped in with this afternoon at beer o'clock. Little green leaf plates, how I have missed you. Where have you been languishing?

 Now there's just this tiny bit of finishing off. 

If the Big Fella has access to a computer and is reading this....not to worry. It's all under control. Really!

P.S. Have a Jelly Bean

This Christmas I'm having a little trouble finding my Christmas Spirit. The whole palaver of having to buy gifts for children who really need nothing when you look at the real world is making me feel a little railroaded. Do any of us need any thing just because of a date?

 Then a couple of things happened in the last twenty four hours.

The big boys and the three grannas and I went to the Christmas concert to watch and laugh and shed a joyous tear for the seventh time. It never gets old. There is always one in tears, one with a finger in their nose, an extrovert, an introvert, a tap dancing Santa....How I love the Kindy Christmas concert. I'd forgotten.

Then I came home to some lovely surprises. These were gifts given not because there are eighteen shopping days left but because people are good and generous and sweet.

There was the give away package from beautiful Mel, of Bungalow Bliss, who lives just over the river and who I am going to meet one day to share coffee with and a playdate with the Short ones. Got that, Mel!

  

How is it that a hand addressed brown paper package in the mail can make you feel so excited? 

Is it the thrill of the unknown something inside or the fact that somebody has connected with you from far away in a very personal and tactile way. Either way it was a lot of fun to slowly open this crafty little stash of goodies.

There was also a lovely gift from Anna at Shiny Happy Art which was a belated birthday present for the birthday I didn't want to celebrate. She had collected a little trove of treasures over the last months and delivered it here one night this week with wine and good pizza and great conversation. Isn't it lovely when a friend just knows you so well and nails it! 

She threw in a delightful godmother painting for Shorty too which she adores because it is a princessy fairy and I adore because it is not pink .

Shorty loves it so much she has been carting her new friend around the house to watch Playschool and play teaparties. I wonder if she'll be okay about  me hanging the friend on the wall?

The other gifts I get a small squeeze around my heart from are the little surprises my children sometimes leave around the house for me. Lala staggered in from a break up party at eight thirty last night after a big day at the swimming carnival. As I was enjoying a few wines with some lady friends out the back I asked her to come and say good night when she was ready. She never made it back but instead I found this when I went to bed. This bribe/ gift is indeed valuable as it is her "Guess the Number of J.B.'s" prize.

Twenty four hours of goodness may have just kick started a glimmer of the Christmas spirit.

Projects ago-go!

Since the Big Fella left I've coming over all busy bee. It may be to do with the fact I have to go back to work next year and there are things that need doing. There's a two week window before the house is full again. Nothing like a deadline to get a bomb under you.

 I finally whipped up some dodgy tea towel cushions out of the unused stash. They're rough but they're new and linen and cool. The fluffy, furry ones really had to go into the cupboard for summer.

These old kitchen cabinets have needed fixing for a while. 

I have further plans for them this week but for now, replacing ancient broken latches and doctoring doors with PVA and clamps was enough.

Then there's the oar. My funny brother who always brings me booty from my  his favourite coastal oppy, dropped these in a while ago. There are two but the other one can wait. There is only so much you can do in ridiculous heat with a three year old in togs stuck to your knee.

Oh and I finally got this out of the cupboard. 

 It arrived when I was too sick to flick any food related items a second glance but has emerged in its glory to make curly apple for dinner. It really is child's play! Thank you to Mr Urban Cottage, ye of the impeccable vignetting, for putting me onto this fun gadget. It does, however, mean there is a need for more cabinet space. Back to the cabinets.

Tonight they had fish, prawns, curly apple salad and lashings of 39 cent watermelon because, in case I hadn't mentioned it, the heat is RIDICULOUS! 

There will also be lashings of Neapolitan ice cream cones for them- peanut brittle ice cream cone for me and a crispy glass of white. Children? What children!?

There were ten on Saturday, nine on Sunday and they have all been fine as mine were kept busy

- and I let them eat melon. 

Looks Like Summer

Watermelon at 9 cents a kilo! That's a 39 cent melon! We bought ten.

The summer light here is so clean and crisp. It is most fetching when it falls upon a pretty melon..

or two.

Aldi fuzzy felt board for $10! It is a summer delight. I have even caught the thirteen year olds designing their world. It's like primitive summer Minecraft.

My favourite signs of summer- watermelon, stripy beach towels and frangipanis bursting into leaf. This one was dropped in by one of the Big Fella's friends last year while he was building the front. We weren't sure it would survive the transplanting and winter but it's back and covered in buds.

Even the ginger boo ladies are producing above expectation although the tiny egg there a couple of days in a row was unusual. 

It seems anything will grow in this climate.

Waiter, there's hair on my melon!

He's Off!

Google images

The Big Fella has gone off to outback Nepal for a few weeks to help schools build things. He does this every two years with his students. Last time he went on a trip he took two of ours with him. He thinks they are all at home with me this time. Just wait till he opens his pack in Kathmandu.

He has had a rough year too. Some time spent in the land of enlightenment might be just the ticket and he is bringing me back some prayer flags- lots and lots!

In the mean time I will paint the house purple and rearrange everything and hock the children for Birkinstock money- just a couple!

These boys are not much use after riding all morning and swimming all afternoon.

Pod People

At least Shorty finds them inspirational.

Homage to the Pod People

Looming

On the way to the doctor I noticed there was a spectacular storm looming. Strange mushrooms of humid, steamy air were pluming in the sky. So Brisbane, so November.

I like shapely clouds. One day I would like to study them and work out how to paint them well so I could have a huge painting of them over our bed. The Big fella has a friend who is a renowned painter of clouds. Perhaps we could commission him.

On arriving at the doctor I was pleased to see that her well stocked waiting room had some new Home Beautifuls. Being the loveliest female doctor of breastage she does NOT stock Marie Claires and Vogues full of strangely elongated women with perfect breastage for the real women in the waiting room to be traumatised by.

My doctor's name is Jenny. I sometimes find myself calling her "my Jenny" but then I sound a bit like Forrest, Forrest Gump.

It was fortuitous finding the Home Beautiful for it also reminded me that another storm is looming. That would be Christmas folks. The image below from the H.B. reminds me of how Christmas will never look at our place.

.We NEVER wear long sleeved ironed shirts. It's too hot.

.We don't have handbag dogs and if we did we would not dress them in frocks and Santa hats and cuddle them at table. It is too hot.

.We do not have tablescapes of delicate flowers and light, dainty pastries...you know why, don't you?

.We don't use real crockery for the chillun and the glassware is non-matching. There are too many of us. We don't smile politely while one family member makes a light clearly enunciated comment. We all speak simultaneously and loudly and participate in multiple conversations at a time.

.We do not have matching white paper lantern things.

.We do not tie ribbons around our napkins. They are in a packet.

.We never have dewy complexions but are ruddy, sweaty and salty /chlorinated.

.We do not have immaculately coiffed hairstyles but messy hair which are also sweaty and salty/ chlorinated.  (Some of us have considerably less than we did last year. What was I thinking? It must have been too hot!)

.We DO have a handsome white haired grandad. We suspect he likes to turn off his hearing aid.

Here's one we prepared earlier for comparison.

This is not the full contingent. It is about half of them. 

If it's not chaotic, it's not Christmas.
After late lunch, when the kids are swum ragged, they all lie down to watch the High School Spectacular or something else Grandma has taped for them to fall asleep in front of and the grown ups laugh and chatter and tipple till late over the leftovers.

I dread it and love it equally. 

We are one but we are many...