[cybele727]

Driving you insane? Must be on the mend!!!

The walking is very exciting!!!

Sewing more selfishly is mine. 🙂

[Tamara]

Well the instructions were from the doctors to do “nothing” but being an active person there is no way he can sit and have a forced holiday for the whole 6 weeks! Besides we have people coming out to help with the broken down windmills so he needs to be up and at ’em. Mind you last night he was really feeling it as he has been sitting around and was out all day virtually yesterday. Today he has to go up to Geraldton again and get things but the young man who is giving us a hand will drive him (and clock up learner hours) – he’s a good driver so Murray will be alright.

Walking means planning dresses which is exciting too.

But I have to sew more for Imogen and make sure she has clothes of a desirable length/ standard to take with her to school. And Noah has grown out of everything and is 😱 Wearing rtw because I haven’t managed to sew for him alot. He got a total of one item last year😱😱. I want to sew more for me and also for Murray. He decided to wear button up work shirts the other day so that means I am resuming making the shirt that is cut out for him so that he can wear collared button up shirts out and about too. We were wearing shearing singlets there for a good while and trust me that is a very casual look.

Chloë got the bulk of my sewing last year but we have to share a bit more this year. I am still determined to be minimal on the rtw for her though so she may take the stage again.

[Tamara]

I am trying not to watch the news right now as I see images of something happening in Paris again.

My thoughts are at present with those in the south west of my state battling a huge a very fast moving bushfire. I am so sad for the town of Yarloop. 95 homes gone – only one house left standing in the whole town. I am thinking of my friends who live in the area near the fire and pray they are all safe, especially those who may be in the thick of fighting it under the volunteer fire brigades that often jump in to the rescue.

And I am hoping the storms will go away and not bother us right now. I really don’t like summer!

[Tamara]

so the good news is Murray has his cast off! The bad news is he has to straighten his arm by the time he goes back to physio (in a little over a week) and if it isn’t then the arm will heal crooked and it will have to be broken and reset and we will have to start all over again. He has another xray in five weeks and hopefully he will be given the green light to be able to drive. He was told he could be out of action for six months not three like we were first told!

So just call me James! As I will be doing all the driving and all the running around (but thankfully he is able to shower himself now😀) for possibly another three months. This means no going back to work but he has been told he can drive the tractor provided he is careful.

And tomorrow we take Imogen to boarding school! But we will see her when we are down for the xray as it will lead into mid term break (that early?!). I have mixed emotions I am not going to hide it. But essentially we will all be fine as the support network is fantastic! She is nervous but excited as are we. I think once we are there it will hit much more, even though I have been having the odd cry. This is such a big thing and like I keep saying to the kids if we had a school of this cakabre close to home, they’d be going.

So that’s the news at this end. I need a stress ball or two and an appointment with the counsellor to get me through the year I think.

[thejennigirl]

Sadly, all my grand January sewing plans are taking backseat to life. My uncle called me around midnight Saturday night to tell me that my grandfather, who raised me a good portion of my life, was doing poorly and the doctors said we had around 48 hours to say goodbye. Sunday, Grandpa did a complete 180 and shocked us all by waking up healthy, happy and hungry. The same on Monday. And then Tuesday morning he started going downhill again. This morning Hospice came in, and he’s comfortable and resting. My uncle says he’s fading away pretty quickly, now that he’s not in pain. We’re praying he passes peacefully. In the meantime, I’m rearranging our lives for the long trip to Kansas to lay him to rest. It just doesn’t feel real.

[Nicole]

I am sorry for your loss @thejennigirl.

First day back at school tomorrow. Fingers crossed Lidia gets away with her Croquet #sneakyschooluniform. https://www.flickr.com/photos/motherof5/24181472982/in/album-72157662616182800/

[Tamara]

@thejennigirl I am sorry you have to experience this with your grandfather. You are in my thoughts as you endure this difficult time.

Day one of school term and here’s to an awesome school year! I have only one child that made it to school today but that was because we were travelling. We had a reassuring phonecall from the head of boarding to say she has confidence that our beautiful girl will settle in quite quickly – which is what we hope and expect so reassurance is a bonus and we continued our journey home with broader smiles!

I am forever going to have a very clear picture in my head of how special she looks in her gorgeous uniform. Totally unforgettable!

I am confident both my big kids will have a terrific year this year. Noah has the same teacher as last year where he made great strides academically so we are expecting even more progress. He is not very happy with some of the plans I have put into place for afterschool though, but he will adapt and get used to it.

Did Lidia get away with her croquet dress @Nicole?

[dubhels2003]

@thejennigirl I’m really sorry to hear your news, I hope the trip goes as well as it can.

@justsewit Really pleased that the settling in is going well, that must be a great weight of your mind.

I have taken the epic step of leaving my job without another one to go to. This is the ‘first day of the rest of my life’ as my good friend says. Bit scary. I need to find a new job in the next few months, but for now a bit of time out, lots of rest, more time with my kids and some sewing (hopefully)! Here’s to where life goes now.

[Tamara]

Thankyou @dubhels2003. Imogen says to say thankyou to everyone who have sent messages of best wishes and support. Unfortunately last night she became ill at dinner and had to be collected by my sister to recouperate – they suspect gastro but because it was over 40 degrees c in Perth (47 here!) I think it may actually be heat stroke.

As for your decision to leave work without another to go to…. You are extremely brave! It is often fear that holds us back from doing such a thing (we can’t ever be really dependent on a job we don’t enjoy, surely). I hope you get the chance to do a little more sewing in amongst your break from work and that another, better job comes along before long. You children will certainly benefit from soending more time with you – that can always be beneficial for everyone involved.

[thejennigirl]

Thank you everyone, for your kind words, thoughts and prayers. Grandpa passed peacefully on the evening of January 29th. We had good weather for travel, a dear friend took care of our children (the trip took longer than the 3 days allowed by the school), all but one of my cousins made the services, and, despite the reason behind all of us together, it was lovely and even a little fun to be together. Grandpa was 89 years young, and if I can ever manage to accomplish half the things he and my grandmother did, I will consider myself lucky.

[Tamara]

You know 89 is not a bad “innings”! He sounds as though he lead a rather fruitful life. Often it is the family occasions, happy and sad where family can really enjoy spending time with each other. I am so glad everything went smoothly. I expect it cannot be easy leaving your children to go on a trip for such a thing. I had no idea schools dictated how much bereavement leave students could have! To me, if it meant a week from school, then a week it is – could the teacher not get some work together for them do whilst away?

I guess also in times like this you have to what fits in the moment too. So I am glad you have had the support to enable you to do this.

My darling daughter who started boarding school last week has had to leave boarding due to an illness! We suspect it is heat stroke as it has been awful and very hot in Perth – the heat there is very different to what we are used to, even though are temperatures are far hotter, the heat is very dry.

I had to call me sister to take her out of boarding because it was feared she had something else. She spent yesterday and today away and will return to school tomorrow. I have fingers and toes crossed she doesn’t relapse.

Imogen has also started singing lessons. She is learning contemporary voice, eventhough alot of the songs she sings can lend themselves to musical theatre. She has only had one lesson so far with another tomorrow but already she has signed up to join the school rock band!

The school encourages the girls to get involved in the many clubs they have and because they don’t have music “clubs”, just choirs and bands, she’s chosen to join a rock band. They give the kids a chance at performing real “gigs” at various places nearby and often it is in conjunction with the brother school.

She also wants to join the anime club, where they hone their skills in drawing cartoons – rightup her alley!

I will get to see her this weekend when I go down for an appointment on Monday. They are having a Valentine’s theme dinneron Sunday night which I am allowed to attend.

[Masha Richart]

thejennigirl I am so sorry for your loss.

@justsewit I hope Murray is doing better. I enjoyed your photos of your girls on Flickr. It sounds like school is going so well for Imogen, illness notwithstanding. Hope she is feeling better.

@dubhels2003 I always find clean slates to be exhilarating. Hope this change brings great things for you.

I have taken a little bit of a break from Flickr and the parts around it following a disturbing incident a few weeks ago. A couple of photos of my son wearing swim trunks I had sewn for him last summer were “favorited” by a man unknown to me. Whenever that happens, I click through to see whether this is a person interested in sewing, or something else. Usually I can tell from the person’s other favorites that they are interested in the sewing. But this person’s favorites was full of photos of young boys – all scantily clad or completely naked. I immediately blocked the user and started fiddling with my privacy settings. Because the photos were of my son in a swimsuit, I had cropped his head out, but I am unnerved nevertheless!

Not sure what to do going forward. I am sure I am not the only person on this forum to whom something like this has happened (please share if you have something to tell!). Last year someone tried to add photos of me wearing various plaid shirts that I had sewn, to a clearly fetishist group featuring women in plaid shirts, many posing suggestively. It was just a photo of me, so I declined the invitation, but didn’t think much else about it. But my kids … I wanted to throw up.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Masha Richart.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Todd Gibson.

[Tamara]

Oh Masha!😱 It is completely unspeakable how these people can get around something that is meant to be very innocent and abuse it to the point where it spoils it for everyone else!

I don’t blame you one little bit for staying vigilant and cautious. It has happened to me but not to this capacity. I had a photo of my daughter wearing a Dorothy costume, when she was in year two. Someone favourited this photo and being quite naive of all things online at the time I thought nothing of it.

Until that is, someone who was a contact suggested I block that person.

Another more recently was a series of three photos of the same daughter, showing the fitting of her bistro dress. This was favourited by a different person but this time he was immediately blocked.

There have been several people favouriting my photos and so what I do is check them out in the same way that you do, to see if they are interested in the sewing side of things. You generally find that they aren’t mostly and so they are immediately blocked. Because if they favourite your photos, it means that they can have access to other photos of yours and this is totally not good! I also look at who their contacts are because they can also access the favourites page.

I have made alot of my photos private to save this scary act from occuring over and over. I have even changed settings to allow only certain people to comment – and this is where I apologise if anyone has tried commenting and haven’t been successful.

I myself have even been blocked from others! And this is where you have to hide the hurt and the wondering why and know that they are doing this to protect their children, the same way that you would protect your own. Still, I would love to wear a plackard on my profile to let them know I mean no harm and I am not a freak!

I am sorry that this has happened to you. It is scary and confusing of sorts – I must be so innocent of things even now, I need to relearn how this modern world of ours works because I have misplaced the rule book😕.

I don’t think ANY online social site is truly safe. I don’t go on facebook because I have stalkers – would you believe it!!! There are some very crazy and very wierd people out there. But maybe there needs to be something happen where Flickr has a screening of its users?

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Tamara.

[Sarvi]

I’m so sorry, Masha 🙁 It hasn’t happened to me yet, but I constantly get other people who think I am overcautious sharing photos of my kid publicly (grandparents) and it is so tiresome to have to prove to each one individually that there really are creeps out there. You really wish people would respect your parental decision! It feels as though almost everyone I know who makes photos of their kids public has had unsavoury comments and I can send you a list of flickr IDs that I have banned (I suggest you do not look at their photostreams). A group of friends and I alert one another to any flickr user who makes a nasty comment or has a repulsive photostream/favorites and we block them proactively. Just be aware that if they are not logged in to Flickr, they can still see all public photos, and take screencaps.

I really wish a small number of sick people didn’t ruin it for everyone else!

[katybellabug]

@roundtheworldgirl Masha, that is upsetting to hear! It sounds like you did the right thing though. There will always be people out there with less than savoury intentions. Flickr doesn’t seem to be the place to go with photos as much as it used to be. I use Instagram more now and like that I can make it completely private except to those I add. I have a separate public IG account for my sewing and that works well for me.

We heard back from school today that Boo has got one of the lead roles in the production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She is Willy Wonker! We are all absolutely thrilled. My first thought, naturally, went to the costume. I will be required to sort one out. My Art Museum pattern might come in handy! Does anybody have any suggestions? They would be gratefully received!

Katy.