A list of the small things that are making my days a bit nicer at the moment:
- the beautiful pair of rosellas that are visiting our backyard each day
- gooey marshmallows in hot chocolate
- old friends that remind me about the bad music i liked when i was 13
- that my husband knows Photoshop a whole lot better than i do
- handmade mother's day flowers
- and this cat. (She's not fat, she's getting her winter coat in. Swear!)
What little things are making your days a tad nicer at the moment?
A few of the small and random things making me quiety content right now...
* the routine of just an average day with nothing special planned
* the start of Autumn weather, cardigan weather to me
* pretty new desktop wallpaper on my computer (from Gennine)
* carrots, beetroot and cauliflower coming up in the vegie patch
* the sweet toadstool-ed pot plant on my daughter's window sill
* sewing some colourful paper projects
* reading a new book filled with pretty housey-decory pictures... purely aspirational on my part i'm afriad
* and our beautiful, crazy dog who cannot be distracted when faced with a tennis ball!
What would be on your list of small things at the moment? Leave me a comment or, if you're so inspired, play along with me on your blog and leave me a link. I think small things are important.
Today is one of those days where i'd actually like to write a lot in this space. I'd like to write something that would inspire you or get you creating. Perhaps a cute story or share something crafty. Or at least post some pretty pictures for some momentary eye candy.
But truth be told it's all a bit blah here at the moment. Words are failing me. It was grey and cold on my morning walk. The second coffee of the day didn't leave me with the 'perk' i was hoping for. Just one of those days, you know?
So i'm going to park my butt at the sewing machine, put on some music and at least be productive.
What do you do on these kind of days?
This is from a couple of years ago when my eldest wanted me to make him some finger puppet monsters. I only ever made one of these... See how he's sketched them for me and put the colour scheme he wants beside each one? Even putting a cross on the colour he wanted for the body? So cute and pedantic.
I'm still mid cleaning up and there's crap everywhere, i'm completly distracted and don't want to finish. I'm claiming credit for starting and good intentions though.
The weekend went by too fast as always...
But it was the last couple of days of school holidays so we made the most of some family time with painting, baking, bike riding, going to see a basketball game, books, games, gardening and movies. The weather was so nice i shoved the kids outside at every opportunity!
This morning the kids were excited to be seeing all their friends again. And i'm a little bit excited to have the house back to myself for a little while today too! I have a long to-do list of things that didn't even get a look in while the kids were home. Hope your week is off to a lovely start...
"...go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."
I do like this quote.It's from American writer Kurt Vonnegut and I'm not sure i've got it word for word accurate here, but it's the essence that got me. I know my days are better and i'm happier with a even just a small bit of creating time squeezed in somewhere. Are you the same?
I'm very happy with these.
Tea towels from the years my husband and i were born! Particularly perfect since i got them on the day of our 11th wedding anniversary.
Thanks to my eagle-eyed niece who magically pulled them out of an enormous pile of vintage linens at a garage sale over the long weekend. I'm going to make them into cushions for our bed i think. One of them has two small singe marks so i'll do some embroidery in that spot just to cover it up. Of course i'm totally giving away my age by showing you these. Do me a favour and don't do the math please :)
And as an aside, it turns out that my husband was born on a Monday. Which seems strangely fitting in a 'first thing Monday' or 'start of the week' kind of way. You know? He's the reliable type with a work ethic for just getting stuff done that i've always admired and envied. So Monday is completely right for him.
As for me, I was a Tuesday arrival. Which also seems rather fitting since i'm the procrastinator.
School holidays are here... this term was so short that it barely feels like we got into a routine at all! We have no grand plans for the next two weeks, rather lots of little plans. To catch up with friends, things we'd like to make, a couple of day trips away, replant the vegie patch and other nice things that we haven't gotten to lately.
It was a beautiful day yesterday so we cleaned out the cubby house and pottered around the garden. A kind-of sleep in this morning but i was woken to the Star Wars theme music blasting out of the lounge room. A little epic for 7am!
I tend to measure my day's productivity by how long it takes me to tidy up at the end of the day. Yesterday was quite productive.
Nothing. No pretty pictures of crafty works in progress. No photos to inspire or delight. Nothing.
The past week has been spent doing the most mundane of chores... cleaning out. Every room in this house has been gone through and sorted. Piles of bits'n'pieces in every room. A whole bunch of stuff has been given to charity, some made it to eBay and an astonishing amount was just thrown in the rubbish. The purge has been good. It feels good, lighter somehow. It's amazing how much stuff just accumulates, especially when kids are around!
I did find this in my cleanout though, buried under layers.
I'd been learning embroidery stitches on a piece of raw linen. Unfortunately I can't remember what i had actually intended to use the stitches on...
