Last night we had our family fun night down at the pool. What a hoot! We got the inflatable out which is a huge long bouncy castle type thing that floats on top of the pool... its a loch ness monster and you have to negotiate around a big head then a arch and a big cone to get to the tail where you can slide down.

I hope that no one got any photos of me as I was the biggest kid of all. I got bounced and splashed and fell off so many times I lost count. I got one of the boys to give me a boost up on the end so I could slide off the end. I got smart and was waving to everyone and I fell off sideways lol.

We had ordered the perfect amount of pizza and only had one and a bit over, so we gave some to the staff for putting up with all the screaming. (think that was me rather than the kids).


At retreat recently one of the girls gave each of us in our group a egg cup that she thought suited each of us, they are really funny! Seeing as I am going to do my first round the bay in a day she thought this one was me.

I love the little birdy with a helmet on!

Christine made me these gorgeous coat hangers than she made for me and a little bag that is full of lavender so you have a nice smell with your clothes.

Home made gifts are so much nicer than store bought gifts for the one reason that its been made specially for you by your friend. However I am happy to receive any gift, handmade or not!!

Today I only went for a swim for an hour with a quick spa at the end as my right shoulder blade/back is rather sore. I think I have a rib out as this happens every now and then to me... will be seeing my osteopath sooner than I thought. Thank goodness for nurofen, speaking of which I think its time for another one.....

rain, rain and more rain

Yep its offical, I do have muscles in my thighs lol, Im not complaining just stating a fact.

It has rained shitloads here (shitloads is also an offical weight) I popped out the back in between showers and took a couple of pictures of our very very soggy back yard.


Im off back down to the gym, not for me this time, but for swimming training. But tonight we are having a fun night to reward the kids who swam recently at MSAC for interclub, we are having the inflatable and then pizza afterwards. It is going to be a family night so even if some of the kids didnt swim or arent even actual members of the club they can join in.... Im putting on my bathers and going on the inflatable too!! Hope no one takes my photo.

I have muscles in my thighs....

I can officially say that I am in pain. Yeah yeah, I know its self inflicted, I'm cool with that :) I expected to feel pain and I better see results in 5 weeks time!!

Tuesday morning saw us lining up in 2 groups... those who could run 3km and those who could run 1.5km I must admit I took the easy way out and lined up with the 1.5km group. I'm glad I did, as the 3km group immediately took off in the dark for a run around the streets.... I have done this run before and its not the easiest 3kms.

the smaller group who stayed behind were brutally punished by John our evil instructor from hell. He made us put on gloves or pads, that in itself was a punishment as they stank and were wet inside ewwww (I was dry retching from them alone!) Anyway he made us do lots of sets of punches and core work and one of the girls slacked off so lucky us got to do an extra 50 push ups.

When the 3kers got back it was light enough for us to go outside for our turn with the other instructor from hell. We started off doing step ups on the wall (in the drizzling rain) and then off we went for our run around the park. I didn't stop and kept up with the front of the group so was happy with that. Back inside for a few more drills and home to shower and get ready for work!


We had an extra session on Wednesday night... only 4 of us turned up!! John was rubbing his hands with glee as it was an intensive hour of pain :) More drills, punching (brought my own gloves this time!) push ups, burpies with weights, squats with weights and chasing partners around the gym. I also stayed after and did a yoga session with Carlos.... he does tai chi and I find it a relaxing class after running around like a looney in most of my classes.

Back to the gym at 6am this morning for what we thought was going to be an outside session. Instead it was another team challenge CIRCUITS!! whoo hooo, love circuits! So we named our teams.... we are team Coffee! there was 3 sets of everything. 100 skips with ropes, 5 runs around the gym, 20 burpies with weights, 20 bicep curls, 10 stage runs,10 jump ups and the list goes on. our team came a very respectable 2nd by 2 mins which was good as the winning team was 3 big blokes and we are a team of 2 girls and one bloke.

Poor Seb, his leg was hurting by the end of the class so only Georgina and I ran around the park as we had finished earlier than the other teams (great reward lol). Of course that wasn't enough for us so Georgina and I returned for the knockout class with John (suckers for punishment aren't we!)

I figured that I have done over 6 hours of classes in 3 days! 4 of them within 24hours.

Ahh well its all fun isn't it :)
Have I been sewing? yes I have gotten some embroidery done on my final block for the quilters journey. Need to go and cook dinner so that I can go out to sew tonight with my quilting buddies

challenges and sewing machines

Today was the first proper day of our challenge. We started inside the gym and did circuits in teams of 3. I had my best buddies Georgina and Seb to keep me on target, we flipped tyres down the length of the gym and picked them up and ran back only to do it again. then lots of sit ups and push ups in between all the sets. running up and down ladders on the floor, step ups onto the stage, side steps with 5 kilo weights, more push ups and running through tyres.

Then it started to get light...... we ran outside. Now, I'm not a runner and it usually hurts my feet and shins but I managed to run the entire course without stopping and I wasn't at the end of the pack! Last year I found another girl who jogged at the same pace that I did and she is doing the challenge again, so we found ourselves pacing each other and Georgina also jogs at the same pace.

We finally could see the gym again and Seb who had run ahead as he is an awesome runner, came running back towards us, yelling encouragement to keep going. I thought he was going to run past us and keep the back of the pack going, but he turned and started to yell at me to run hard, so I did! wow. Didn't know I had it in me. The thing that really impressed me was that by the time I walked back in to the gym I had caught my breath and didn't feel like throwing up!

Being the sucker for punishment and I'm on some sort of fitness mission, My partners in crime and I returned to the gym at 8.45am for another knockout class with our instructor from hell. He worked us even harder than he had at 6am and left us feeling like large jellies.

I was really fatigued earlier this afternoon but had a 15 min power nap while the froglet and her friend practised their dancing in the kitchen.

While we were on retreat Kate from Kate's sewing centre in Bundoora http://www.katessewingcentre.com.au/ came and showed us a new machine on the market.


This amazing machine does sashiko, yes that's right it does sashiko beautifully.

It was amazing to watch how this machine worked, it doesn't have a top stitch, it only has a bobbin and a little arm comes up and hooks the thread back down. Very nifty.

So if you are in the market for a machine to do your sashiko or indeed it also looks very much like hand quilting then pop in to see Kate and have a look at her machines, she has lots of other machines for sale and some fabrics too.

SOLD!

In my last post I mentioned about a friend selling her can quilter, well the auction has finished and it sold which she is delighted with, so if you bought it... thank you and I hope you enjoy your new toy :)


Today at work I nearly had a close encounter with a phone receiver that flew through the air at an accelerated speed. I had actually had a vision of this occurring and it was pure good luck that I needed to use the photocopier at the precise time that a certain person using my phone decided to terminate the phone call and hang up the receiver across the other side of the room!!

I just love my job.

Tomorrow morning is the real start of my 6 weeks challenge down the gym. On Tuesday morning we did our assessments, this time (this is my 3rd challenge) we did 5 minutes on the treadmill, the cross trainer and the bike... then we did 1 minute on this water machine that I haven't used before, its like a bike for your arms... so you pedal with your hands rather than your legs.
Finally 1 minute of push ups and 1 minute of sit ups. doesn't sound like much when I think about it, but we did do 30 Min's prior to this of weights and burpies and other little delights.

So we recorded how far we got on each of these machines and how many of the sit ups and push ups and we do it all again in 6 weeks.

So now the fun begins... we will be inside for the start of the sessions, but they tell me we will go outside for maybe the last 20 Min's or so light depending... its so freaking cold at the moment I am not looking forward to that part.

I will be posting about my challenge a fair bit in the next few weeks, so sorry if I bore you all brainless but you do have the option to not read it all I guess :)

I will post pictures and talk about my quilting too so don't give up on me completely just skim the boring bits :)

bootcamping and quilting!

Tomorrow I start my new spring challenge down the gym. This consists of me being at the gym for a 6am start to leap and jump around with several other lunatics that I call my friends lol. This events occurs on a Tuesday morning and a Thursday morning for the next 6 weeks. Not including the extra Wednesday night class that is on offer.

My friend who I am doing the round the bay with later in the year has been pushing me to get out of my comfort zone which is great as you need a buddy like that to make you work harder. We figured that we will be doing between 11-13 hours of classes each week for the next 6 weeks!

Anyway that's the boot camp bit..... now for the quilty bit!

The other week was my guilds retreat and I made all my friends a gift for their birthdays. I'm terrible at remembering to get them cards and gifts on time so I give them all a gift each retreat in honour of their birthdays!

This year I made them all a pencil roll, I found the pattern on the Internet and I'm sorry to say I have no idea which pattern I used in the end... I kind of took the idea and looked at many patterns and wrote my own using the information I gleaned from all the other posts... thank you to anyone who might have helped me :)



I used 2 different combos of fabric because the fabric I thought would make enough for everyone wasn't in fact enough!

I received some lovely gifts too as it was my birthday the week before, Claire gave me some lovely variegated cottons, which are really nice.... now to find the perfect project for them!! some of these I had bought from spotlight with my $10 gift voucher that I received for my birthday from them.
Christine also made me some lovely coat hangers... I need a better picture so I can show them to you.

my friend Jennifer made her two daughters butterflies from a Melly and me pattern. We both bought patterns months ago and she prepared her wings by doing the embroidery.... now I didn't realise that I didn't take pictures of the finished butterflies but here is an antenna.. or is it an antennae lol.


We had lovely food of course, some healthy and special diets catered for! and some not as healthy but still yummy!



this is a picture of the front of where we stay, overlooking a man made lake. We sit behind the windows and can see down the lake. Not so many ducks this year. A few superb fairy wrens were spotted but they are very fast little birds and I didn't get any pictures.


Every year I have looked at the canoes that Burnbrae have sitting on the shore and thought about going for a paddle, still thinking about it!

I went for a walk with my friend Madeline (who I think has finally recovered hehehe) and we came across a large mob of kangaroos who stood and watched us walking around. When we came across them the second time we realised that several of them had joeys in their pouches. I know I live here but I still get a buzz when I see my favourite Aussie birds and animals.



Madeline and I also found we could see a good view of the city from one of the vantage points.

Hope everyone is surviving the wet and cold weather we are experiencing here at the moment. Also some bloggers that I follow haven't been feeling the best so I hope that they are feeling better too.

Can Quilter for Sale

If any of you enjoy quilting, or think you might enjoy quilting here is the perfect item to add to your quilting room.

This can quilter is lots of fun to use and very simple. you simply put your own machine onto a little trolley and away you go! its like having a long arm quilting machine on a small scale without the huge expense.

The lady who is selling this is moving and really need to move this quilting table onto a new home as she cant take it with her. Please have a look and if you know of someone who might be in the market for a can quilter.... then look no further!!!


http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Sewing-Quilting-Frame-Can-Quilter-/290462746404?pt=AU_Quilting


I need to go to sleep as I have a busy day tomorrow... but need to upload some photos from my recent retreat and all the goss :) The pc is playing sillybollocks with me and likes to freeze up just to really annoy me.... the fisherman is going to wipe the hard drive clean and re start it and I hope it will fix what ever is wrong with it, otherwise you might all be reading about a flying laptop in my suburb!

I have to save all my stuff onto my external hard drive and nerd sticks ready for him to do his stuff when he gets back from his little fishing trip :)

birthdays

I recently celebrated my birthday. Last year there was a lot going on in my world and I didnt really celebrate, in fact I worked and didnt tell anyone until I left at the end of the day.

This year was different!! My day was awesome and I was surrounded by people that I love. I started the day with my fisherman and the girls who gave me a stunning pandora bracelet with 5 charms. Then I had an excellent boxing/circuit session at the gym with my friends.


Lunch was next on the menu and mine was yummy.... I had a vegetarian breakfast with bacon.... yep you read correctly I had bacon with it heheh, much nicer than the full breakfast.

One of the girls had a nice thai beef salad mmmmm.

I also received another 2 pandora beads AND a beautiful scarf.... I love my scarves.

After lunch my friend from work came over and spoilt me rotten with not one but 3 more pandora beads. So by the end of the day I had 10 beads... need to photograph them in the light of day.

Dinner with my family at our favourite japanese resturant and then topped off an excellent day with my quilting buddies!

I was throughly spoilt and have my friends and family to thank for helping me have such a wonderful day