N

Tammie led me to one more Sesame Street clip. i love Ricky Gervais in his David brent persona! it makes me want to watch reruns of The Office :)



i'll have to show Nicholas this one, being about the letter N after all.

speaking of Nicholas, he finally had his full leg cast put on yesterday. the trick is to get him to be less active! he had another x-ray and it appears the bone has shifted a little. he has another x-ray next week and if it has shifted more he will require surgery to put pins in his leg!! i am confident it won't come to that though. lots of convalescing on the lounge with jigsaw puzzles, colouring books and tv is in order...

judging a book by its cover

these Penguin clasics are gorgeous. i saw them in Borders a couple of months ago. now that i have decided i actually want a couple i am finding out that they really are a limited edition. and which seems to be the most popular? of course my first pick - Wuthering Heights. after calling 5 Borders later and i find a copy. i couldn't not have this Wuthering Heights edition. not only is it my favourite classic, i am pretty sure it might be the only one i have read!* and i'll be reading it again as part of the Bronte-along. at $19 these editions are a steal. i'd love the set, but that would just be because they look so good. instead i have limited myself to ones i will actually read.

Jane Eyre
Sense and Sensibility (so pretty)

Wuthering Heights (suitably serious cover)
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what do i do while trying to distract myself, waiting for Nicholas and David to come home from hospital? read and look at pretty pictures. (not read wikipeadia articles about compression fractures and growth plates, because, well, i don't want to worry myself unnecessarily, right?)

i have started Jane Eyre, which i am quite proud of as i have always felt guilty not to have read it yet. it is my mum's favourite book and she first read it when she was 10!

*(actually i read Tess of the D'Urbervilles in english lit, and watched the depressing Roman Polanski film afterwards.)

Sesame Street

funny, my kids don't seem to enjoy Sesame Street as much as i remember liking it... good thing i still do!
these are some of my favourite clips:

super-productive

yesterday, in the morning, after waking, dressing and feeding my children (while Nicholas is confined to the lounge it is easier to feed him) i dug manure through our vege garden. then i raked blood and bone through it and sprinkled some fertiliser on top. i watered. then i planted some basil and rosemary seedlings into pots. tomorrow i will plant the rest.
in the afternoon, i made this bag, in between cooking meatloaf and putting vegetables on to cook. i had the sewing machine set up, so kept going from one to the other. the bag instructions came from Handmade Home, by Amanda Blake Soule.
while it is not really the kind of bag you're likely to see in the office, i took it to work today, as i am super proud of it! these things do not come easy to me, so i am always pleased when something looks the way i expected it to!

i am also going to attempt the Bronte-along. the other day i told David that i was 15 when i first read Wuthering Heights, and it turned on the bibliophile switch in me. i said i was way overdue to read it again.
i came across the Bronte-along today. i have never read Jane Eyre or Tentefield Hall, but this sounds like fun! and my mum had bought me a boxed dvd set of Bronte adaptations. exactly these three.

progress outside

details...

a couple of days ago i posted a little about how i have been feeling the past couple of weeks. i go through cycles of high and low like a lot of people. the lows are manageable, and usually bought on by our ridiculously hectic lifestyle and my aching for a simpler one. and probably by the ridiculously high expectations i have set myself of motherhood!

anyway, this morning i read this post, and that seems to be exactly where i am at -it seems now more than ever. i like this blog - often what Ann says resonates somewhere in my heart with my day to day life. "I remember it again: In the midst of the ugly, there's always a window through to the joy beauty." i need to look through the window. to remember that "our Creator God passionately wraps each moment different but He's actually the most predictable of gift givers. God gives only one kind of gift: All is for joy."

i got to do a bit of soul searching in the quiet hours of the evenings while David was away fishing. and after having such a lovely birthday, feeling utterly spoilt, David came home with my favourite bread from a cafe in Mogo. it is filled with fruit: figs, apricots... it is divine. AND he saw a patchwork shop in Moruya and bought me another metre of fabric. i am so impressed that he knows the name of the line of fabric i like! i am sure his fishing companion was less than impressed to be going into a fabric store but that's my husband, he takes note of details, and he remembers.

Nicholas seems quite content lying on the lounge watching ABC. i’m sure it won’t last for 5 weeks though! he just had an ice block, and his hands are cold, so he said “maybe we could have a cup of tea and that would warm them up!”

yes, Audrey is with Dave’s mum, so having one child gone and another confined to the lounge gives me time for a cup of tea and surfing the net!
a woman i work with went home and has lent Nicholas and i a bag full of wonderful children's books. i love books!

i plan to finish the stitching on the quilt i have been making today, and then will have to get the wadding and backing and i can start the hand quilting process!! today i will also dig the zucchini out of the garden. we only have days left to get the cabbage, broccoli and spinach in! a modest winter vegetable garden. so, as Nicholas says when we have come up with a plan, "let's get cracking!"

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thanks to everyone for their prayers and well wishes for Nicholas - last night i went to bed a little sad that i am not going to hear his feet running down the hallway at 3am, climbing into my bed and wrapping his arms around my neck, saying "i love you mama!" in 5 weeks he may learn to sleep all night in his own bed... :(

Nicholas

a fracture of the femur (above the knee) just above the growth plate, so hopefully doesn’t affect the growth of his leg…

arrived at emergency at 4:00pm yesterday, saw a doctor at 7:30pm, finally had an xray at 11:00pm… home and in bed at 3:26am!

lesson learnt: don’t try and jump on the trampoline with lots of basketballs. you are bound to fall on one!