Floor Rug

Earlier this year I purchased a roll of t-shirt yarn from Spotlight. There was only 1 roll left and it was white and $5.00.  I had to buy it. It then sat in my craft room until Boxing Day when I decided to make a rug for Megan's floor.

I tried making up a pattern as I went, but it ended up looking frilly, so I pulled it apart and rerolled the ball and started over, this time following a pattern from Dandelion Day. I managed to finish the whole project in roughly 3 hours. So I am over the moon at completing another project.

Now comes the hard part. Miss Indecisive wants to ombré dye it.



Bye for now
Debbie

Introductions

Ten random facts about me -

1. I love Christmas and struggle a lot with the changes having older children bring.

2. I read every single day.  I have been known to read with a torch whilst camping in the days before Kindles.

3. I love baking and my shiny red mixer.

4. I am a technology geek.  I love my iPad.

5. My great aunt taught me to crochet when I was 13, but my passion for crocheting has only returned recently as I thought it was a daggy hobby.

6. I love the colour of my walls so much that this is the second home we have painted this colour.

7. I didn't finish school, so I will do anything g humanly possible to make sure my children do.

8. I have been living with my husband Len for 30 years!

9. My children are my world.

10. One day I would like to go to Europe.

Bye for now,
Debbie

Things I have learnt

Lately I have been doing a bit of soul searching and here are a few things I am learning -

1 - Anti depressants are not a miracle cure for depression

2 - I am an introvert and that is ok

3 - Not everyone needs to like everyone

4 - I am far too dependent on my daughter

5 - Marriage  is hard work

6 - Making friends when you are older is hard work

Is anyone else on a steep learning curve too?

Deb

On my lap today 19/11/13

I have been rethinking my handmade Christmas plans and changed a few ideas. My friend Leoni from Kiwi at Heart recently posted a photo on Instagram of some Infinity Scarves she had made for gifts. A light bulb lit up in my head! I can make those too! So off I went to Spotlight and purchased some pretty fabrics ready to go.  Unfortunately, I wont be able to share much about them until after Christmas :(

I am knitting 2 beannies at once, please don't ask why as I don't think I could answer that question. I went to my local wool shop to buy myself a Symfonie crochet hook as my friend Tammy from Girlswearbluetoo had bought herself a couple for her birthday recently and they looked so pretty.  I didnt purchase any hooks (yes they had them in stock) but I did buy a set of pressure gloves to help with the pain in my hands.

Finally, I have taught myself how to link to other web sites :) so I am very proud of myself.

Bye for now
Debbie

Travelling

All of her life Megan has spoken of travelling overseas. Now that she is working,  trips are being planned. The first trip us to Brisbane to visit her lifelong friend, Simon and they are heading to Fraser Island for some 4wd action.

Today we went to the travel agents and collected some brochures about Europe. Whilst at the shops, we went into Aldi and found these amazing travel journals for $4!!!!  At home I showed Megan some Smash albums that I had seen on Pinterest and she was intrigued, so her journal is going to become her personal smash/travel journal with pictures and lists of places to go.



We never did any travelling overseas, we had one trip to New Zealand, and I must admit that looking at Megan's brochures I am really jealous.  Oh well, maybe one day I will see the world.

Bye for now
Debbie

Blurgh

Tomorrow marks the start of my working week and I really don't feel ready to go back.  I just feel blurgh and as if I haven't achieved anything I set out to.

Len and I have realised lately that our relationship needs some attention. We have put so much into being parents that we have forgotten about us.  So we have set ourselves a goal of doing something together every weekend.  Did we do anything this week? No.

I wanted to at least get two presents made. Did I? No!

Megan has finished classes at Uni for the year and so I haven't the house to myself very often and I seem to work better alone (funny that).  I must learn to ignore all distractions.

Do you get to the end of your weekend and realise how little you got done?

Bye for now,
Debbie

What is on my lap

I have decided (with 2 months to go) that I am giving almost everyone a handmade gift.

So, I have far too many projects on the go.

- Megan's quilt
- 2 crocheted cushions
- dishcloths galore (knitted and crocheted)
- 2 tote bags
- make up cases

Oh dear, I think I have bitten off more than I can chew.  I shall just have to keep plugging away.



Bye for now,
Debbie

Lately

I haven't been around very much lately as our lives have just been crazy.

Crazy busy and crazy bored and crazy scary.

There has been some knitting and crocheting happening and also some sewing. I will share what I have been doing in another post. Andy and I are on a weeks "holiday" from work and school.  Life is normal for Len and Megan, well sort of.

Let me start with last Thursday.  I was about to finish work and looked out of my window to a massive smoke cloud in our homes direction so I quickly shut up work and dashed to the car. I started getting text messages that the school was in lockdown and the students were sheltering from the fire in their classrooms. I looked around at the school where I work and thought that cant be right, they are letting me leave.  It wasn't right, it was Andy's school.

That began a 6 hour nightmare of knowing my son was trapped in his school whilst homes were burnt down around it and knowing I could do nothing.  We had mobile phone contact for most of the afternoon so we had reassurance that all was ok, at one point that contact was lost as there were so many parents letting their children know their homes were lost and the children were becoming hysterical, so the decision was made to cut the phone contact completely.  We finally got our distraught boy home at 7.30 that night.

Friday morning I decided to go to work as everything seemed to have quietened down.  11.30 am I got the call that we were on standby to evacuate.  Poor Megan was home alone and was starting to panic, so we calmly packed what we wanted and prepared ourselves, but luckily for us we didn't have to leave.

Andy's school has been closed for the week and my school decided their weren't enough students attending to warrant running the canteen so I didn't need to go to work.

Wednesday was the day authorities thought would be the worst day, so we again prepared ourselves and sat home waiting. There was some embers flying around but our neighbourhood was so well organised that anything that hit the ground was put out immediately.  The fire is still burning 8 days later but is under control.



This photo was taken at the back of Andy's school. (photo from The Daily Telegraph)

We are ok and things will be back to normal from Monday. Yay!

Back soon with some crafty sharing.

Debbie

Last week

This last week has been a normal, crazy busy type of week for us.  Len has been busy at work.  Megan has been busy with work, Uni and prac at the local day care centre.  I returned to work after the 2 week school holidays. I have been working on Megan's quilt and also crocheting dishcloths for a swap being run by Mel at OneCraftyMumma.

Andy has been so busy we hardly get to see him. Between his job at MacDonalds, school and the gym there is rarely any down time for him.  He did manage to get a haircut, but I am not happy as he cut off all of his curls and he no longer looks like my little boy, he looks so grown up :(

As Andy is in year 10, there have been a few conversations about career paths.  A few ideas that have floated around are engineer, physiotherapist, doctor, electrician, police officer. You know the normal types of things a 16 year old boy talks about.  Today I received a text message from him saying he would like to join the Navy as a Boatswains mate and he only needs Yr 10 English and Maths to get in. Oh, and he could get in next year when he turns 17. Ummm. Number 1 - since when has the Navy even entered his head? and Number 2 - over my dead body will he be leaving school before he does his HSC.

Andy has a very clever mind but is not interested in pushing himself. I can see lots of sighing and door slamming as we look into his latest career goal.

Luckily Megan always knew what she wanted to do with her life and was/is willing to do whatever it takes.  Education was not valued by my parents and I have struggled all of my life as I have no formal qualifications, my main goal as a parent was to make sure my children have better life choices than I had.  This is going to make for an interesting time.

Bye for now,
Debbie

Mental Health

Did you know that 1 in 4 adults and youth suffer from some form of mental health issues? I didn't.

I have suffered with depression and anxiety for most of the last 19 years.  For reasons known only to myself I chose to not take medication and attended lots of self help groups with much success. Or so I thought.   Recently my anxiety levels skyrocketed and I was finding it hard to leave my house, and getting through a day at work was becoming increasingly hard.  I took myself off to the doctors and after testing, was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, iron related anemia and perimenopause.  I decided I needed help, so I am on medication and also visit a psychologist.  Things started feeling better.

And then my 18 year old daughter was also diagnosed with depression and anxiety.  I sat in the surgery and cried.  The doctor was lovely and explained the statistics and told me that it wasn't my fault, that the stress of HSC had brought Megan's condition on. The decision was made that Megan would not be put on medication but would visit a psychologist.  We eventually found the right person for Megan and they are working on getting Megan back to her happy place.

Its hard on the whole family living with us.  There are days where Megan is just unable to cope with everything and has huge meltdowns and I am her comfort. Which means I can get upteen phone calls in a day.  There have been days where I am not in a good head space and I have to be short with her and ask Len to step up and help her.  The mama guilt quickly sets in, but I know that I have done the best thing for both of us.  I cant help her if I am feeling down.

My girl is a beautiful blue eyed blond, tall, nice figure and a beautiful heart, but she sees herself as plain and fat.  It breaks my heart.  I want to tell her to snap out of it, of course she is beautiful.  But I can't.

I feel helpless at times, but I feel that by getting help myself I am helping her.

Life isn't always happy in our house, but its getting there.

Bye for now,
Debbie

New beginnings

Last week our girl started working at Bunnings. It's been quite a big change for us.  Megan is something of a homebody and to go from being at home or Uni, to being at work, Uni, prac placement or home is huge. Megan has already had to speak up and tell her boss that she is working too many hours, so after the next roster change her hours will be 24 hours a week instead of the 40 plus she is doing at the moment.

I must admit I miss her company, but the pride in her smile when she checked her bank balance made my heart very happy.

Here is a sneaky photo I took of Megan hard at work.

Bye for now

Debbie

Hello again.

This is my second attempt at blogging, I am in a much better head space than ever before and feel that I have a lot to say about life, parenting teens and marriage. I am no expert, I just hope to bring a smile to your faces.

Len and I have been married for 24 years (living together for 30!!!@@@!!!) and we have a daughter Megan who is 18 and a son Andy who is 16.  Life is changing for us big time and it is how these changes affect us and how we deal with them that I hope to write about.

Humour has played a big part in our lives, I have found that laughing with my children over the most ridiculous things really bonds us together.  

This week I went shopping with my sister and her family at Costco, I took Andy and a mate.  The boys loved the trolleys, they are huge! So, the boys went racing around the car park, taking turns pushing each other and making car noises. I couldn't help but laugh, and even in the lift strangers were smiling.  After lunch in the cafeteria, Andy's mate hopped into the trolley with Andy pushing him, I thought for sure the lady at the door would tell him to hop out. No, she told me to keep my toddler tied in and then giggled.  Andy found a huge stuffed monkey that must be about 5 foot tall, so he hopped back into the trolley and put the monkey on top of himself and went around asking people where the bananas were. In the hour that we were there and the boys were doing this, only one person got annoyed with them.  I could so easily have gotten stressed and frustrated with them but I decided to laugh at them, they were hurting no one. 

They have asked to go again next week.

By laughing with them and allowing them to be the foolish 16 year olds that they are, I like to think I am honouring them and their unique qualities. At least I like to think that.

Bye for now
Debbie