[Tamara]

Oh you lucky girl! I love the fact you are being catered to! Enjoy those newborn snuggles. I miss them already!

[needlewoman]

A new ‘snook’ – such a great nickname for a newborn. I’ll bet your older boy is really chuffed!!

[Nicole]

Fourth time attempting to post….
Congratulations!

[cybele727]

Such a lovely name! Congrats!!

[cybele727]

Never send a man to measure:

We have an outdoor play set whose plastic canvas roof shred after about 8 years. Hubby measured and said the dimensions are 90x 39 and 45x 39. I added 4 inches to each for finishing the edges. So in terms of length where it mattered 94 + 49= 11.8 feet. I bought 4 yards of outdoor canvas. It is literally straight edge sewing four sides– big rectangles. No loss of fabric, why get extra, right?

Before I cut, I said, “let’s remeasure since I don’t remember each piece.” I went out with him and measured. 104 and 54. He measured the surface and not the length needed to wrap around the wood and secure it. LOL

So I have to go buy another yard and sew it to a piece to make sure I have enough.

Never send a man to measure.

[Tamara]

Giggle! Oh my goodness gracious me that is funny. But I can imagine a little frustrating at the same time seeing as you have to turn around and buy more fabric.

The old adage comes to mind when I read that story – Never send a man to do a woman’s job! Or as I tell me kids when they are looking for something, do a woman’s look not a man’s one!

[Tamara]

I just found out why my son announced he wanted to jump the creek on his bike! They are reciting Mulga Bill’s Bicycle as the class poem for the school speech comp!

He’s not going to do it though, because its not the kind you’d want to attempt.

[Nicole]

Just picked up my daughter, Elsa, (15) from work experience at an animal reserve.

She handled everything from pythons to possums and even minded a monkey!

[Anonymous]

Sounds like such a great place to work, Nicole!

[vothgirl]

How fun, Nicole! When I was still in school in Sydney I did my work experience at my local veterinarian’s office – but was then selected out of students from all over the city to do a week of work experience at Taronga Zoo! Being an Assistant Zookeeper in the African mammals section was and still is one of the highlights of my life ;).

[Tamara]

They have programs like this available to school children at Perth Zoo during the summer school holidays. You have to book well in advance though.

It sounds like Elsa had a rewarding experience Nicole.

[needlewoman]

Big news for my family!!! My eldest niece, Nicola (Nikki) rang me this am to tell me that she is engaged to James (who I met last December). Wedding likely to be early next year – shockingly hot and humid in Sydney, NSW at that time – depending on one of her two sisters’ travel plans. This is the first wedding for our family since Nikki’s parents were married in 1987. Parents of young couple all approve, and everybody excited and happy.

James proposed in front of ‘their’ friends last night (he must have been very confident of answer), and N’s engagement ring is/was my mother’s (her Nana, gone to God in 2001) which her parents kept for her. My parents were engaged 60 years ago, this year; married 6 mths later. Nikki, bless her cotton sox, made a special point of telling me this- so sweet and special of her; she’s a lovely girl and will make a beautiful bride.

Don’t think James can afford a ring as he is finishing his tradesperson training. N is a social worker in the Health Sector, and will be 27ish at marriage. One step closer to be a great-aunt for me (jumping the gun, here but I’m sure all the older forum members will understand). One down, 4 to go (nieces, that is).

Dear vothgirl, and N; I quite understand your own delight, and Elsa’s about working with animals. My whole family is animal-mad, but especially the new bride-to-be’s father, my younger brother, Chris. His poor wife has put up with baby kangaroos, fawns, parrots, and goodness knows what else being brought home to be looked after, not to mention the more conventional kind of pets, dogs.

Meanwhile, Tamara and N, thank you both for your sweet and generous comments about my “Easter bunnies” in their new outfits; Flickr is a bit slow tonight – pandas out having good time, probably_ so can’t reply there. Thank you.

Fingers crossed that plans for wedding go well; at least this much notice gives me lots of time to save up for airfare, accommodation, and outfit.

[Tamara]

Oh a wedding is so exciting! How fun and thankyou for telling us all about the big news! My hubby rang my parents who were out to “ask” if he could marry me! He was so nervous he just blurted out over the phone “can I please marry your daughter?” To which the reply was “which one?” Because I have a sister you see but of course they knew which one they were just being my parents and wanting to throw him off course and make him even more nervous!

So I gather you will be enlisted to help with wedding sewing? Any flowergirls in the line up? I made the flowergirl dress for my niece to wear to my wedding and still have it. I plan to frame it one day. Probably after it is an “old” at another wedding or something.

I’m very excited for you Fiona. Its terrific news!

[needlewoman]

Dearest T, thank you!! No, I seriously doubt I’ll be asked to sew – too much distance between Adelaide and Sydney for it to be practical – besides the fact that sheer fabrics are my bete noir. I shall content myself with cross stitching a magnificent wedding sampler (probably with rabbits hidden in it somewhere – don’t ask), and maybe making a quilt. The young ones have been house-sitting for sometime, and own a teeny flat in Randwick (Eastern burbs of Sydney – used to be darkest working class, not now of course). So ‘decor’ is a ‘work in progress’. I was cheeky enough to ask N to save me a seat at the wedding; goodness knows what will happen in fullness of time. Please goodness, they have wedding in Sydney, somewhere; I won’t be able to manage if they do a winery or something. Many waters under the Bridge before a date is set so we’ll see.

Of course, I wanted to share such news with dear friends on the forum! I know Nikki is thinking of it (although I didn’t mention it this morning) but my dear friend Adrian would have been their first choice of celebrant, but I’m sure they will find someone nearly as special.

Looking forward to boring everybody silly with details.

[Tamara]

I’m looking forward to reading the details! Wedding as such fun things but the organising can get stressful if too many people have a say.

Its like anything!

I’ve been having fun with Chloe learning to roll over just this week and have indulged in some on the mat in the sewing room time. She’s been delighted in her new trick, with her big siblings singing our made up song about how clever she is.

Noah has gotten into the finals of the speech competition at school. That’s this Wednesday and his topic is Sir Frank Hornby (model rail enthusiasts will know ALL about him).

And my Imogen has decided that cooking dinner every once in a while isn’t a bad idea! The only thing is that she put the pizza on the wooden bread board to cook instead of the pizza stone! Luckily I checked the oven!

If anyone can send rain to us that would be awesome! Its a little dry out here.

• This reply was modified 9 years ago by Tamara. Reason: A better comment