The Question Is…

One of the things which contributed to my Very Bad Day yesterday, was a trip into uni to pick up some student submissions for marking. Ten minutes after picking them up, Finn spilled water all over the back seat of the car, and the papers. Aaargh. They weren’t harmed much, so unfortunately I still have to mark them. Damn :giggle:

This whole thing, this marking, has been an experience I’d rather not repeat. We refer to it here as ‘my volunteer work’, due to the pittance which I am paid (the hourly rate is actually perfectly satisfactory. The problem stems from the unreasonable and unattainable time limit which is imposed on us to mark each assignment – regardless of how long it actually takes, we are paid only for the given amount of time). But, you know, volunteer work is supposed to be enriching and valuable in other ways, right? Ha.

Anyway, I decided early on that to make myself feel better, I would spend what I earned on stash. Technically this order came from some of my earnings. So now… the question is. What do I go and blow the rest on? A Silkweaver’s Trick or Treat bag? 25% off ‘almost everything’ at the SB&B Ooky Spooky sale? Any other sales on I should know about?

In other uni news, I decided officially today that paying through the teeth to wear a mortarboard and gown and sit through the endless hours of boring drivel that comprise Graduation, is not for me (again). I’m having my degree conferred in absentia. It should arrive sometime next month 🙂

Moving To Timbuktu

Yes, it’s true. I’m running away to Timbuktu, just like Alexander. How do people deal with more than two small children? How? How is it done? I didn’t even have a great deal to get done today, but by early-afternoon I had a grumpy, too-long-awake Niamh, and a grumpy, not-very-well Finn. Trying to time things ‘just so’ is very difficult, and when ‘things’ include a visit to the dentist (Finn’s first), well, that’s just an extra added bonus :yuk:

The short story: he survived, she survived, not so sure about me :giggle: For the successful dentist visit, I bought Finn a new book (this is known as ‘bringing out the big guns’ – promise of a new book is enough to elicit good behaviour from him under the toughest of circumstances!) I had bought the book ahead of time, but it could not have been more apt: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is a wonderful book, and I’m glad we finally own it.

Finn, unlike Alexander (and Emma), has beautiful teeth and no cavities. Hooray for that!

‘Lizzie’

Last night’s marathon (for me) stitching session took Lizzie from here to here:
UFO-RR-Claire-3

And now, her bags are packed and she’s leaving on a jet plane for America. Tracey, I hope you enjoy stitching on her 🙂

I have nothing more for you tonight – it’s tax night in our house (yeah, I know, we are really, really, really late!) so I’m off to join in the fun :giggle:

My Neck Hurts

I just finished up three and a half hours stitching on Claire’s UFO. 3½ hours! It is a long time since I’ve done that, and I’m sure I’ll pay for it tomorrow, especially in neck pain – I really need to find a better chair to stitch in when I’m stitching for that length of time :ouch:

I finished up the right hand border, and ‘Lizzie’ will be in the mail tomorrow. I’ll get a picture for you before she goes.

While you wait, why not go waste some time? Be careful, it’s v.addictive!

Here’s One I Prepared Earlier

This post, that is. Since I’m away for the weekend (sort of), this post comes to you courtesy of yesterday 🙂

Since I blogged about making friands, lots of people are stumbling across my blog while out Googling for friand recipes. So especially for you friand fiends (okay, and for me), I’ve been hunting down some more recipes. Here’s a few you may like to try:

Raspberry surprise and Green tea Chocolate surprise friands
Orange and poppyseed friands
Fruity friands (for Em, who asked about a gluten free recipe)
Chocolate and Raspberry friands.

Interestingly, when I went seeking friand recipes, I noticed that they seem to be a bit of an Australian obsession. Even, I would say, a Melbourne obsession. Do you think this is related to this city’s ongoing love affair with good food, and of café food in particular?

I bought myself a new friand pan recently. Here’s the recipe I’ll be breaking it in with:

Chocolate and Pecan Friands
190 g (6½ oz) unsalted butter
100 g (3½ oz) ground almonds
6 egg whites
75 g (3 oz) plain flour
3 tablespoons chopped peans
3 tablespoons chocolate chips
115 g (4 oz) caster sugar
icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F/ Gas mark 4). Lightly grease 12 small friand tins. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes until very hot. Remove from heat, cool for five minutes. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add lightly beaten egg whites and stir until just combined. Stir in melted butter. Pour mixture evenly into prepared pans so they are two thirds full. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden and firm to touch. Remove tins from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Turn friands out onto a rack and cool completely. Serve dusted with icing sugar. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

(from 500 cupcakes & muffins, Connolly, F. New Burlington Books. © Quintet Publishing Limited. Directions modified for clarity)

Now go forth and bake!

Buzzzz

The last few mornings, while Finn has been watching a bit of ABCKids, and Niamh has been sleeping (or ‘notsleeping’, as the case sometimes is), I have been doing the dishesfolding the laundrylearning to pole dance… stitching, yay! I finished up my MiraBee this morning:

MiraBee-finished

Also, I wanted to show off my new scissors. I won these in Jenna’s Great Scissor Giveaway 🙂 Aren’t they lovely? They are now elegantly attired in a scissor fob made for me by Ruth (Graciella) in an exchange on the TWBB a couple of years back. Thank you Jenna, that was such a wonderful thing to do!

Scissors + Fob

SBQ 19/10

Woah, I’m actually answering an SBQ on the day it appeared!

Which way do you stitch, i.e. do you stitch /// followed by on top, or the other way around followed by ///? Are you left- or right-handed and do you think that this affects the way that you stitch?

This has always been interesting to me whenever it’s been discussed on the various BBs I frequent. I stitch then //, and I am left-handed. I taught myself to cross-stitch, and that seemed the logical way to me at the time (and still does, actually). Later, when I found out many people stitch the other way, I assumed that it was based on handedness. The people I know personally who stitch (not that many, admittedly) all stitch // then if they’re right-handed, and the same as me if they’re left-handed. But I’ve seen this topic come up on the boards a few times, and the answers vary. It seems there are plenty of left-handers who stitch // then , and right-handers who stitch then //. So who knows why we stitch the way we do, I just know that when I tried, once upon a time, to change the direction I stitch, it was a complete disaster! For the Round Robin I’m in, I’ll stitch on any UFOs which have differently directioned stitches to me by turning the fabric and chart through 90 degrees, which works fine. For Claire’s Elizabeth, I was pleased to see she stitches the same way I do, so that made my first one easy 🙂

Stream of (Un)consciousness

I don’t really know how much I like the new Mirabilia mermaid. I’ll happily wait until seeing some WIPs before I decide completely, but she seems kind of… shapeless, to me. The colours and swirly bits look nice, I guess.

Anyway, it’s not like I need another addition to my wishlist! More stashy mail arrived yesterday – I was completely unable to resist the lure of a 60% off closing down sale at Stitched from the Heart. Along with some Antique White Quaker and Cashel to add to my dyeing stash, I picked up Teenie Tweenies Vintage Grapes and Baby bluebells fob and The Drawn Thread Autumn Arbor. I’m thinking it might be time for another trip to the Wagon soon 😳

I’ve truncated my blog feeds. Just in case you were wondering. You probably weren’t. It’s related to the Bitacle saga, reading about which has taken up too much of my evening. I have yet to make further moves to block Bitacle from my content, but I’m too tired to think about it right now.

And on a related note, I’m definitely now switching from my current feed reader (Sage) to Google Reader. I tried Google Reader only a couple of weeks ago, and wasn’t that happy with the interface, and it seemed a little buggy (not picking up updates from all my subscribed feeds, for example). But I had another look tonight, and it seems they’ve had a nice little makeover, which makes me happy.

That is all 🙂

Elizabeth

OK, you caught me. I cheated again. I blogged yesterday today. My entire evening yesterday was written off by a migraine such as I have not had in a long, long time. Nasty. Niamh picking yesterday to take an hour and a half to be put to bed (by me… she won’t go down for anyone else yet) did not help matters one bit, either. She just wanted to feed and feed and feed, and if she wasn’t feeding, she was screaming. The screaming, ohhh the screaming :ouch: Luckily I can breastfeed lying down, because I certainly wasn’t able to stay upright for any length of time. At one point, I just had to put her (screaming) into the cot, and walk away to throw up (sorry, that’s gross). It’s definitely been a long time since I’ve had one that bad.

Today hasn’t been a great deal better. I always have a bit of a hangover effect after a migraine, and on a hot day it makes me feel kind of out of it. We headed off to the park for a bit and I sat in the shade with Niamh while Finn mucked about. I’m feeling okay now that kiddos are in bed and the house is quiet, and I’m hoping to sit and stitch now for a little bit. I’ll be working on Elizabeth – Claire’s UFO. Here’s my progress so far:

Elizabeth when she arrived:
UFO-RR-Claire-2

Elizabeth now:
UFO-RR-Claire-1

I was hoping to finish up the border at the right hand side before sending her on her way, but to be honest it has caused me some grief – the froggies have come to play on more than one occasion :yuk: Much as I think she’s beautiful, I think if I had stitched this for myself, it would have become a UFO for me too!

MiraBee in progress

Before today turned nasty, I managed to catch about half an hour stitching time with Niamh asleep in the car as we waited to pick Finn up from kinder. This is where the MiraBee is at now – there’s not a lot of regular stitching to go, mostly beads:

MiraBee in progress