Happy new year

I haven't blogged in a while as my laptop has been stolen by my daughter as hers has broken.

I am using another one so have no photos at the moment.

I hope that you all have a wonderful new years eve. I know I will as I am celebrating with my friends this year.

Resolutions for the new year?? not really got any as I a pretty happy with my life. Might declutter a bit, exercise more (HAHAHHA) blog more regularly!!

I hope that you have enjoyed reading my blog this year, I have had a lot of enjoyment in taking photos and sharing my life with you all. I know that not everyone is into the same interests as others but this is what makes everyone individual.

See you all next year!!

Triathlon season!

First here is a photo of our little Milly. She and Cookie are besties and play very well together.. more photos to come in future posts

Ive been rather busy recently so have neglected the blog somewhat.
I have lots to tell and quite a few photos but think I will blog for each event in individual posts.... so which to talk about first....
Well I guess I will get the brag over....

I didn't win a new bike, but my training partner and I participated in our first triathlon for the season last Sunday morning at 7am at Mordialloc Beach.

I don't have any photos of us at this stage but the weather was far from warm and the water was rather rough, making the swim leg very challenging

I am however very happy with my times and finished in 39.36.1 my partner in crime finished 38.28.3 She was 7th in our age group and I was 11th (10th if you discount the woman with no swim time!!)

I did a personal best in my ride and my run, so cant complain about that!

We have a plan for our events for the next 3 months.
Jan 2 - Amy's ride - 70km bike ride in Geelong
Jan 22 - triathlon at Elwood beach - 250m swim, 10km ride and 2km run (little bigger this time.
Jan 29 - triathlon pink - not sure if we are doing the mini or the long course at this stage.
March 4th - tough blokes challenge - this is an obstacle course with running between obstacles.... nets, mud, ropes, mud, monkey bars, mud, oh did I mention mud?? This one is going to be fun!

book to read

Poor cookie was a little hot yesterday so he found a spot where the air conditioner was gently blowing and stretched out for maximum coolage!

I have my name down on the local library website for several books... imagine my surprise when I got the email to tell me that this book was in!! I must be the first to get it, a friend of mine just told me last week that she got her own copy!

I cut up and paired up all the fabrics for my friends granddaughters quilt.

I have now completed the blocks and need to put them together.


I'm quite pleased with the way they are looking and they weren't that bad to make either!!

new family member take 2

Today we found our newest member of the family.

This is Milly.

She is a little Jack Russell. Her mum is the same colour as her and her dad was a mini Jackie so she isn't going to be a huge doggie

She is only 6 weeks old today so we wont be getting her for 2 weeks....OMG its going to take forever!!

Note the little heart on her head!!

new toy

The beastie is home again. She has had a rear tyre alignment a little grease on the chain and her computer was fiddled with.

How ever no amount of fiddling would make the damn thing work so I decided to take it back to the shop and upgrade to a decent system.

It works with GPS and is soooo simple its not funny.

I sewed for a little while this morning after I came home from pump class, so I have sat down for a while.

This is the first block I have made for the quilt I am making for a work colleagues granddaughter. I have sewn up all the half squares today, so just need to iron and cut them later on.

feeling beastless

The beast has gone visiting to my friends house for a little adjustment.

melbourne cup day

Today was our Melbourne Cup holiday. Its the day the race stops a nation. I worked today but we did stop and go and watch the race on the big TV in the patients sitting room, was such a close finish... won it by a whisker!! I didn't win anything though.

However, I have finished my first entire ring!

I showed the froglet and she was very pleased with the result.... gave me crap about how long it had taken me.... then asked how many more do you need to make?? I cant remember if I am doing 4x5 or 5x6 ...... she decided 5x6 ..... might be done by the time she finds a husband lol

whats in your sewing bag??

Yesterday after I did a mega pink class down the gym (2 hours of different classes) with all money raised going to breast cancer, I came home and sat down for a change and worked on my double wedding ring for a while. My team partner and I have decided on our next event, it will be our first Triathlon for the season on the 4th December... stay tuned for more!

I have taken my bernina to be serviced and used my older machine but wasn't happy with the results.. think my brother needs a service too.

While I sewed cookie the quilt inspector decided to get some much needed ZZ's in, oh the life!

While I sat here, I looked at my sewing bag and wondered if everyone has as much junk in theirs as I do in mine.

most things are sewing related, but I do have a few odds and ends that my friends have given me and reside permanently in my bag

I have threads of different brands. I use gutermann mostly but several of my friends use aurifil and love this thread so I have bought some to try out.

I love my little unpicker... Mr Plod!

Of course sewing bags are the best place to hide lollies or chocolate that you don't want your family to find, after all who would go into mums sewing bag??!!

I don't have a kitchen sink, but I do have a cow heheheheh.

wordless wednesday.... me wordless??!!

Did I mention that I enjoy my coffee? and no this isn't cookie :)


who else has lettuce growing in their lawn??? I had lettuce in a pot last year that I let go to seed and I have now found where all those little seeds went!!

We planted a new clematis some months ago and I thought that it had died.

Thank goodness I was wrong!

fun run completed

Today I ran my first fun run. surprised? Yeah I train a lot in the gym and do triathlons but never actually done a fun run (this word fun, I'm not sure about lol).

The day started out foggy and chilly but before we started the cloud cleared and out came the sun!! Was a glorious day for a great event. The fun run was held to raise funds for the Northern Hospital so I hope that they can buy some much needed equipment with the money raised.

I started out towards the front of the pack but we spread out pretty quickly and there was plenty of room for everyone. The volunteers did a great job and were stationed at all the corners and possible turn offs so we wouldn't go the wrong way. I knew quite a few of them which was great as they cheered me on and kept me going.

I struck trouble within the first 1.5km when a bee hit me in the face just below my eye and stung me.... oh the pain! I was crying from the pain but kept on going as I was on a mission. My head is still pounding, thank goodness I'm not allergic to the little suckers.

I decided that I would stop at the 3.5km after this as my eye was throbbing, but when I got to the gates they pointed to the 7km continue lane and my choice was made for me.

My team partner did even better than me and her son who is only 12 won the under 15, 7km division, way to go babychino!! (he wants to do a marathon now, I will watch him!)

I will admit that I didn't run the entire way but I'm happy that I finished in a time of about 46Min's, not the fastest time but for me its a PB. There was a few times that I felt like either throwing up or quitting all together but I promised myself that I would finish the run for myself and for a special lady who IS going to do a fun run with me when she gets her new lungs!!

busy busy busy!!

Well those that know me, will be nodding their heads at the above statement heheheh.

My friend and I did our 2Nd round the bay in a day. We had her hubby, her 12yr old son with his new road bike and my other gym buddy come along. Was a great day out, I didn't enjoy the headwind at all, which was all the way to Altona. The best thing about the headwind is that I knew I would have a tailwind home whoo hooo. But it rained on us for a while so that was rather chilly.

We got a really nice finishers medal when we got back to Alexandra gardens so that was a lovely finish to the day (not to mention a crunchie bar or two!!).

Cookie was sitting eyeballing something this afternoon, he was supervising the unpacking of my new fabric purchases.

I took the noisy one and my mum for a little jaunt today, we visited Gail B's patchwork shop in Bayswater.

She has a large selection of fabrics, notions, and everything you may need to create a masterpiece.

I picked up these 2 yummy jellyrolls and was told that the yardage wont be out for a couple of months....

No probs I thought as the pattern I was going to use doesn't need any any extra yardage.

But then I read the pattern again and started to measure my strips and discovered to my horror that the pattern doesn't really suit these fabrics at all. so fortunately I had 3 other patterns that I was considering and was able to change my mind. The bad news is that I now need some background fabric grrrr. The good news is that I think I can get away with some other fabrics from other ranges... the stripey stuff is for binding (hope I have enough) So I may have to make another trip to Bayswater.... damn! Will go without non quilting people this time!!


Tomorrow I have my first ever fun run. I am not a big fan of running due to the fact it hurts my feet. This run is local and is only 7km I know the track as my team coffee mate and I have walked it several times together in the past weeks.

I will post how I go. The froglet is doing the 3.5km walk with some of my other friends. I know my friends will help me keep on going, I'm not doing this to win but to finish so wish me luck. I only did 4 training sessions this week, last week in 5 days I did a whopping 9 sessions! so hope it pulls me through. Just adding a little extra note here, will be dedicating this run to a fellow blogger that I admire greatly, she knows who she is...

Quilt shows

I must have known that this was a winning quilt, it was one of the few that I took a photo of and in fact this is the only one that I took multiple photos of!

Marylin did an amazing job of quilting this masterpiece, I took some close ups so you can see the detail a bit better.

you could look at her quilt from the front or the back and still be impressed.

this was the small quilt that won viewers choice, there was a lot of wonderful quilts to chose from but this was what I class as less is more.

Now here is my quilt top that I finished on Sunday evening.

My little man, cookie is lounging on the top being the quilt police.

He approved of the top but not when I whipped it out from under him hehehehe

Now I need to get out some fabric for the backing and find some batting and get stuck into the quilting!