thoughtful gift giving...its 92 days till Christmas

Its already September and I can see Christmas decorations and items already in the shops.....where has this year gone?!?

Last year I saw many posts about the gift giving philosophy and really wanted to be wiser about gift giving this year.

I like to be organised and personally don't want to go any where near the shops in the month of December so I got on to shopping early this year!

I wanted to gifts to be thoughtful to avoid the clutter and the random items. With the boys being so similar in age I always need to be some what consistent in the amount for each but I can't just buy the same for each (they both have different likes and strengths)

So these are the items I have sorted this year

Something they want = Lego

Something to create = Watercolour paint and paint brushes / Paint brushes and apron

Something to read = books of interest 

Something to wear = t-shirt, shorts

Something they need = duvet covers

I find purchasing items over the year much less stressful. Of course the boys will always get socks and undies in their stockings as we stick with family traditions.

I am feeling so relieved that I don't need to go to the shops and feel stressed. And I may have purchased myself gifts, handed them to Mr B to wrap. It feels great to be done.

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5 years since september 4th

Its hard to believe its been 5 years since we woke at 4.35am 4th September 2010. 

I briefly posted about it here in June 2011.

My babies have grown so much over the past 5 years.

Lots of things have changed that have been beyond our control.

I am so thankful for the beautiful things I have created in the worst of times

and despite the city still being in chaos and construction mode my boys and family are safe and well.

We now have new opportunities to explore the ever changing landscape.

We are making the most of the new and exciting, creating memories along the way even when sometimes all you want to do in go back to bed and hide.

We have been capturing the small and possibly insignificant moments 

and enjoying the simple pleasures of home.

In some ways nothing feels the same as it was before all the earthquakes.

I'm making sure to capture it all. Every moment of it.

Sometimes through the worst of times it brings out our best and what's important and what we are capable of. 

A lot has changed over 5 years. This is now our new normal. And I'm okay with that.

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where I am right now- Its nearly September

Making : lemon slice with Master B

Cooking : dinner on the bbq

Drinking : water

Reading: New Zealand Gardner - get growing Garden Diary

Wanting: more plants for the garden

Looking: forward to the long summer evenings

Playing: chess with the boys

Deciding: what vegetables to plant in the garden

Wishing: the boys wouldn't grow up too fast

Enjoying: hugs

Waiting: for online orders to arrive

Liking: listening to the boys read

Wondering: why is it so hard is it to get a nice photo

Loving: the sunshine

Pondering: where to take a holiday

Considering: buying a few more bike attachments to make rides easier

Watching: the boys explore the city

Hoping: we take another family bike ride soon

Marvelling: at the view on top of one tree hill in Auckland

Needing: to rest my wrist *sigh*

Smelling: the flowers

Wearing: hats and jackets

Following: the inconsistent weather forecasts

Noticing: all the new growth on our fruit trees

Knowing: we all have strengths 

Thinking: of how far we have come

Feeling: wonderful after a surprise visit to see my Nana

Admiring: how well they can play together

Buying: mens shampoo for the boys

Getting: sad and excited to see the transition away from cuddly toys

Bookmarking: summer bbq recipes

Opening: feedly

Giggling: at the funny things the boys say

You can find the list here

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quick and simple stool recover

I was given this awesome stool from a friend. It sat in our spare room and I started using it as my sewing stool. It was a perfect height for me to sit and use my sewing machine.

The fabric is was already covered in wasn't exactly modern or fitted with our house decor. 

A quick trip to spotlight and to the cotton canvas area I spotted this fabric. It was $11.99 metre and I brought just over 1/2 metre $6.83.

The hardest part to recovering this was removing the screws that attached the legs to the bottom of the seat. I needed Mr B to remove these for me.

I just used enough fabric to cover the seat and folded it over a few inches so it wouldn't fray. 

I used the staple gun (with thankfully just enough staples for me to finish this project) 

I have a good amount of fabric left over from this project.

Once I got the seat back on it looked like a brand new stool.

Loving the new stool fabric! Such an improvement from the original pink swirls.

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Farmers Wife Quilt

I'm starting again on my Farmers Wife Quilt. This time I'm only using fabrics from my stash.

Last time I started I wondered why the blocks were not 6 1/2'' as per the pattern, turns out the default to print was 94% so this time they are all set to 100%.

This time I made sure the seam allowance was correct by doing a test by sewing on the paper pattern.

So now I've started on new blocks and this time my blocks are coming out at 6 1/2'' so the finished size will be 6''.

I've got a nice pile of block patterns ready to sew and iron.

Progress!

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a whole pile of extra photos

I have now finished the boys month by month  0-5 albums, my 2014 project life album and working away on the 2015 weekly album.

 I wondered what to do with all the photos I had from our youth and all the other photos I had in piles in random boxes over the house.

It was very overwhelming looking at such a large pile of photos I had found in my searching/organising the house- many photos are of the boys I didn't use for their month by month albums.

To work out what we wanted to keep I created categories and firstly piled up the photos that fitted in each of the categories and this made it easier to create new categories as we sorted 

Here are a few categories

* boys baby photos

*marching photos

*wedding photos 

*our baby photos

*holidays

*santa photos

Once the piles were created we (Mr B and myself) went through every photo and decided

yes - keep and put in an album

no - destroy

there were no if's, maybe's or I might need it sometime.....

IT WAS TOUGH but it was also a nice time to reminisce over all the photos and the memories.

BUT I also had a problem with what to do with all the photos left over in the no- need to destroy and not put back into boxes pile- this was a fair few hundred photos.

(don't worry every photo we have is backed up in multiple places online- Mr B has that covered) 

One thought was to shred all the left over photos- BUT we don't own a shredder of any type, and I wasn't keen on hand cutting up hundreds of photos.

I was not going to be putting hundreds of our photos in the bin for someone to one day find to look at.

After a quick google search I came up with a very simple and sort of quick solution (sorry this isn't the most environmentally friendly but a very quick solution that suited me)

bucket+lid+water+bleach+photos

I  filled up the bucket with the photos from the no pile and filled it with water and added a cup of bleach- it works really well. I have the lid on the bucket and the bucket in the garage away from the boys and our pets. It strips all the ink from the photos and all you are left with is very dirty water and blank photo paper which I can now safely bin. 

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