Shock, Worry - Relief

I was happily browsing in Typo. With time to wander, I laughed at the crocheted bunny ear headphones, when my phone rang.
It was a call from school.
You pretty much know from the first few words whether it is a good or bad call. A good call is they start with "Everyone is ok, we're calling to let you know..." I didn't get that today, so I started to short cut them. With Alexander on an excursion, I assumed he'd forgotten something or been left behind someone given his recent form!
It wasn't him but Benji - with dots, assumed chicken pox. While this in itself isn't too much of an issue - my immediate thoughts went to everyone else. Do my other boys have it? Who else could they have infected. What is the ramifications for Mum - who is doing both radio and chemo? She saw them on Sunday? Oh GOD!

So, I rang the doctor and thankfully got a quick appointment. I got Benj from school and came home and had to ring mum. While I didn't want to worry her, to the same token, I wanted to alert her to the potential danger and so she could be prepared should she need to do anything. It was a difficult call, and of course we were both worried. She was feeling ok today - but tired. It is hard to know what is a side effect, cancer or environmental factors. The weather changes recently have affected everyone so tiredness could be a result of that, or she had a big -active - day yesterday. That could be it. Or she could have a life threatening bout of chicken pox.

At the doctor, we got shuffled into an anti room because we were potentially contagious and the doctor saw us quickly. In next to no time she had disregarded the chicken pox and told us it was a virus. Every time I see this doctor, her diagnosis is "a virus" so she had to find a fact sheet to prove that it was in fact Four virus - in the slap face family. He doesn't have a temperature so it is not contagious. In fact she suggested he go back to school.

Huge relief. Actually that is a massive understatement.

Rang mum on the way home, and amazingly, she felt better!

Spending the afternoon with my pocky little mate who is happily entrenched on reading eggs!

Cranky Pants

The twins had a playdate at our place and they wanted to decorate tshirts. A quick trip to Kmart saw us with 3 long sleeve tees and I grabbed a pair of trackies for myself.

While the boys were happy decorating and deconstructing their shirts i pinterested my trackies into my own pair of cranky pants!

Cranky Pants from Pinterest

Heres how I did it: 

Freezer paper template cut on the silhouette in Victorian Dots font but you could cut it out with a knife.

Ironed the template onto the lower leg of the pants.

Using neon 3d fabric paint, I filled the holes

 Once the paint was dry I removed the template to reveal this:

 I was quite happy with that but I was trudging through the ironing and thought I would give it a quick press to set the paint and much to my surprise it puffed up. Even happier.

I was all set with my Cranky Pants on today to face a Monday morning school run and for a change I didn't need them. 

Maybe these are the anti cranky pants? (Note I already had my matching cranky face on instructing Xandy to take pic!)

Old School Baking

Its really nice to be part of the school community but hat I've found is the more you get involved, the more you need to do!

Our school fair is next weekend and parents of preps and grade 1's are expected to stock the cake stall (yes the one I did the bunting for). This year I just don't think my usual packed cake offerings will cut it, so I have to mix it up - old school.

Rather than searching aimlessly for a recipe, i found this book and went straight to the food section.

 There I found twice baked cookies. I ran a trial today and YUM! Easy, bulk, tasty and crunchy. They tick all the boxes and look good.

Here is the recipe:

this simple recipe makes '120 biscuits- which is their alternative name, Baking buscuits twice allows them to remain crisp for longer. Can be made up to 1 week ahead; store in an airtight container. I made only half the recipe.

500g margarine or butter, softened

1 cup (220g) caster sugar

400g can sweetened condensed milk

5 cups (750g) self raising flour

1.5 tablespoons finely grated lemon rind

.5 cup (100g) finely chopped glace giner

Beat margine or buter and sugar in a large bowl with electric mixer until smooth. Add condensed milk, flour, lemon ring and ginger in batches. Beat until combined.

Roll heaped teaspoons of mixture into balls, place balls onto lightly greased oven trays about 4cm apart; flatten lightly with a fork. Bake in moderate oven (180 degrees C/350 degrees F) about 10 minutes until light golden brown; cool biscuits on trays.

Biscuits can be arranged closer together on trays for second baking as they will not spread any further. Bake cooled biscuits in moderate oven (as above) about 8 minutes or until golden browm. Cuool on trays.

Suitible to freeze.

She yelled and she yelled.

I do not like to yell....but some days.....In fact if I am totally honest it has been a few days lately where I have done nothing but yell.Today I was so angry and yelling that I almost cried.

We have all been tired and cranky round these parts. it has been hot - not so much hot but humid. To be covered in sweat both day and night is uncomfortable and unnatural to us. We are all sleep deprived from the hot nights.

This morning it was one of 'those' mornings. I was cross because I'd forgotten that we didn't have any food. I know its sill right, but I'd intended to get up early and duck to the shops alone and grab some fruit. But no. I was already behind schedule and surprised to find myself a modern day old mother hubbard!

Light bulb- Lunch orders. I found the price list and filled out envelopes (nope didn't even have brown bags). Money. Money? No change. Went to raid piggy bank only to discover rice (thankfully uncooked) sprayed all over lounge room. Argh!

When cleaning said rice, managed to misplace lunch order envelopes. Rewrite. Poor Xandy can see I am stressed and is trying to help. Anxious for a job I give him the exact change for each lunch order. He mixes it up. Yep there it is - the inconsequential action that caused my to unleash my tsunami of yelling. Yell at kid who wont get dressed. Yell at kid who wont get off computer. Yell at dog for well, being a dog. 

I yelled and I yelled and I yelled.

It didn't make me feel any better.

"I'm sorry" she said. And she was.

Celebrate with Bunting Part 2

My bunting is for the cake stall at our school fair. The black and white theme will continue on to decorate the cakes - imagine how good it will look when it all comes together!

But for now here is part two of the instructions:

Iron all of your bias tape in half. Do not stretch it as you iron.

The mark the middle of your bias tape - and this will be the position for your first flag.

Open the ironed bias tape and place the top of the flag on the fold mark of the bias tape. The flag should then be sandwiched between the two halves of the tape. Pin lengthwise along this. (Make sure all of your pins face the same way as this will save loads of time when you are sewing them all in) All of the flags raw edges should be inside the bias tape and it will give you a nice neat finish - on both sides.

Now the tricky bit - the placement.  My flags are quite big - finished they are about 28cm (11 inches) long. I wanted a little space between the flags, but still fit all 33 of my flags in to my 10 meter tape.

Working from the middle (as there was an odd number) 1 decided on about a 4 cm gap. By eye this looked the best and was a good fit to the tape.

Once all the flags were spaced and pinned - again with all the pins facing the same way so I can pull them out as I sew, its back the machine for the final stitches.
I matched the threads to the black bias tape and sewed on the edge closest the the flag - away from the bias fold edge.
Again in this step, make sure you do not stretch the bias tape - particularly in the gaps between the flags.

And then hang it wherever you choose. I have pinned this on with sewing pins but I think we will use safety pins on the day.

My little old puppy had to get in the action too - at least she matches!

I have a pdf pattern of my bunting flag but am not clever enough to put it here - so email me and I can send it to you,

Work in Progress pattern review V8848

I mentioned that I was working on making a new dress using this pattern. 

The Australian Winter fashions have just launched and there is a sea of faux leather - a trend that I am ready to jump on board. I am not talking about a head to toe pleather  outfit, I really like the way it is being mixed with other fabrics so with this in mind set out to make the dress above in my faux leather from Darn Cheap.

  

Really putting myself out there today with some really dodgy shots here to highlight the problems. Putting it next to the model in the dress really does wonders for ye old self esteem!

I digress. I snapped these shots to send to mum for advice. I knew I needed alterations but wanted a second opinion. 

You can see some puckering in the pleather around my chest but the main issue is where the band hits my hips. It is even worse at the back. 

See all that wrinkling above my bum - I am sure the model doesn't have that.
The body of the dress it too long for me and if I lift it all up - probably about an inch most of these problems should disappear. The band on the model is at her high hip, whereas mine drags across my timmy, altering the fall of skirt. There is no shoulder seam in this dress as there is a yolk piece, but I am simply going to add one in the grey ponte. This should fix the problem.

Light it up

The city of Melbourne certainly knows how to turn on a celebration. The March long weekend for Labour Day is also celebrating Moomba (at one point this was sold to us as Aboriginal word for Lets Get together and Have Fun - but now I would question that!)

Regardless of the reason, there was a celebration along the Yarra and with the hot nights continuing, after dinner we grabbed a rug and some chips and headed off to the city for the night. We walked along Southbank and saw various street performers - the statue, the guy that recreates the old masters in chalk on the footpath (amazing) and one guy that got all locked into a straight jacket and chains and managed to get out of all of it.

We made our way under St Kilda Road and set out our blanket on the river bank. There was a real community spirit as the crowd grew for the fireworks which started at 9:30. The boys loved it. It was their first in-real-life fireworks display. The noise, the colours, the atmosphere is always so much better in person.