interesting blog links

my little kitchen
food blog
real e fun
funeral stories
cooking for engineers
analytical food blog
wanna be girl
general girls blog
dooce
great reading blog

covering up

Have begun to the couch cover project, finally. I have had 25 metres of faux suede hanging around looking at me for months now. I bought it on sale, before having made up my made about covering the couches myself. I was going to pay someone to do a professional job, but have since decided to save the thousands of dollars and do it myself. So after some research about slip covers, I decided to start with the ottoman. Luckily my couch is a modern design with square everything, so I have found the courage to get it started. After making the ottoman cover I discovered it is not so square afterall but in fact has slightly rounded corners. I have made the neccessary adjustments and am onto the cushions. You may wonder why I am covering an almost new (3years) couch. When we bought it, we were carried away by the comfort, the grooviness and we forgot for a moment that we have children and bought a camel coloured couch (camel: light beige, dark cream, wheat), in a nubby fabric that cheekily manages to trap the dirt and never let it go. So we have gone from nubby camel to suede donkey (donkey: somewhere inbetween chocolate and aubergine). Camel to donkey - it is a very profound change that may change our lives). Gone the paranoia about dirty feet, snotty noses and sticky hands
Gone the many and varies couch throws that never manage to stay put and always have to adjusted before you sit down. And best of all, gone the steam cleaning man who clucks at you for not looking after your couch, not cleaning it frequently enough and for letting it 'go'.

This project is likely to take me about a month as I only have one child free day a week and trying to do with children harassing you for attention and wanting to 'help' is more than my nerves can handle.

my little o's

Camping on the weekend was great fun, we went with some friends who have kids the same ages as ours. Sharing food prep and kid watching made it a bit easier, as least we agreed to do it again and having finally shaken the spiders out of our camping gear we are energised to camp every hot weekend of this hot hot summer.

I also took a trip to Ikea to get a new bed for little-0, which he is incredibly excited about - graduating from a cot is a big deal, especially as he has an alien/monster bedcover now to go with the new bed. He was a bit put out with big-o getting a whole lot of new goodies to start kindergarten, so now they are even, although big-o did think the doona cover was "too cool" for him.

zip, vibrant red. This could be my best for the year for photo friday, difficult to choose.  

gorgeous lollypop stripes

Holidays at home with the kids. Big shed clean up, managed to throw things away - a trip to the tip, returned borrowed items and gave some stuff to charity. Can now manage to fit the canoe in. We had a great beach holiday, weather was up and down but swam everyday anyway, the rest of the family were a bit precious about the cold, but we found it bracing and good for flushing out all the snot. Craft activities: still experimenting with doll designs, think I have stumbled upon a good one, but needs to be bit bigger, I made it the most gorgeous vintage lollypop stripes, yellow, pink, green and blue. I finally finished the second bean bag but now the kids still like to sit on the same one together, so I wonder if i should have bothered. I finished the kids dolls in time for christmas although I didnt make as extensive a wardrobe for each of them as I was planning. Not that it matters as they spend most of their time undressed anyway. Kid news: big O starts Kindergarten this year, we went school shoe hunting, and found some black shoes that were acceptable, however not in her size, so we ordered some in and now have to go through the whole trying on shoe drama again. Both O's are in swimming lessons at the moment, big O had a male swim teacher and she kicked up such a stink that they changed her to a different class, most embarrasing.