part one: the wedding.

Question: is it possible to remain sane when arranging a wedding?

i know, i know. that could easily be viewed as the dumbest question to appear on this here blog. i'm gonna ask it anyway. can you really hang onto your sanity when the fabric on the back of a shoe is the sort of topic that gets a good hour and half air time? I mean really...what was i thinking? did i really expect that ben and i would sneak down to the mornington pennisula, scurry up to a man who looked somewhat like a priest, nod 'i do' kiss happily and then race each other to the bar? I must have had my head in a bonbonaire magazine for the last 3 months!

as the days towards our special day fly by like a rickety italian train loaded with hairy backpackers and even hairier locals, i am starting to feel my quiet calm slipping away. on saturday i ventured over to mums house armed with invites that were harder to extract from ben that oil is from the americans. today was a dedicated 'wedding day' when invites were written out, dresses were reexamined, invite lists were finalised. it started off well, all 'those would be gorgeous flowers' and 'i think you're mad not to wear your grandmothers pearls' when i dropped a question that could sink a thousand ships with the weight of it's response.

'ok mum' i asked, 'who would you like to ask to our wedding'.

she stopped for a moment, put down the blue satin ribbon and starred at me. i don't think she quiet believed i'd asked her. her eyes flicked for a moment, registering each word and then glazed over as her mind worked to piece together her response.

*mum is irish, please imagine irish accent*

'well now, i have to say that i would definitely, no doubt about it, have to invite blah and blah because they have always been so good to me and your father. oh and mrs. whats-her-face from god-knows-where because remember the time she did that thing with the thing? well i just have to invite her! and listen, i'm not being greedy, but i MUST bring ba ba ba and la la la because when their son's dog got married to the next door neighbours fence we were invited'.

this colourful, delightful mix of names went on for some time, as my stomach got weaker and weaker. where had my small 70 group of family and friends gone? where had our 'everyone there MUST know the both of us and our relationship well' rule gone? where had our 'ideal wedding' vision gone?

Apparently they high tailed it with my sanity in a car that traveled down some dusty road, ran out of gas, sputtered, chugged, and back fired so fiercely it sounded like a drunk man farting. *sigh*

rockin' moroccan.

this christmas i MUST have been good. all my favourite things were sitting under the tree - which was nothing short of surprising considering i swore quite a bit towards the back end of last year! someone must love me flaws an' all.

from ben i got this wonderful tagine dish.



*ta dah!* dont ya just love it? there will be plenty o yummy goodies warmed slowly in that baby. do you think it's weird that my fiance who LOVES food got me the one thing that could increase he admiration? before you think ill of him, i actually asked for this. instructional sticker included! look at how much work needs to go into getting your tagine into right cooking order. that's a good days work i tells ya!



to go along with my newest kitchen item, ben's wonderful aunty Mary bought us a fabulously fabulous turkish recipe book. forget suva's. this book is rich with dishes i have never even heard of, ingredents that i am sure i wouldn't find in elsternwick coles and photos so stunning it makes your passport itch.



stay tuned. i will be sure to post my taste bud favourites as i trial these two great gifts in our batty old kitchen. what a lucky girl...

and then i saw a tiger snake.

i'm back! and man is it good to be home. there's only so much fly swatting and eel dodging a girl can do. i am pleased to say that our little camping trip away was a huge success. we had bagged a Ray's Tent City voucher from ben's wonderful parents for christmas and spent boxing day loading the car with new buys that would get us through our bush experience.

our destination? glenelg river on the south australian/victoria border. this river flows through several sleepy towns before gushing out into the open arms of the sea. it's waters are full of platypus, eels, brim and other nasties i tried not to think about. getting a camp spot there is no easy feat. you need to put your name and suburb into a ballot and they pluck at random lucky, lucky people. tim (bens good mate) had his name in the lottery. we didn't get it. but, with persistence, tim befriended the entire glenelg council organisation and they 'squeezed us in'. (yeah timmy!)

there was about 14 of us. four boats. no pets and plenty o beer. the group was a good mix. couples, singles, even a father and son combination. we spent the days either fishing, reading or swimming in the river. bar opened at about 12pm every day and there was more than one afternoon siesta let me tell you! at night we shared the chore of cooking for the group. considering that we were so remote I would say we ate very well. chicken curry, pork casserole, spaghetti bolognese, roast (three meats) on the campfire and chili con carne. not bad huh?

it was not until the final moment of our stay there, after ben and I had packed the car and had our final swim that i heard a 'rustle' in the bushes that caught my attention. as you do...i turned my head to see what exactly was doing the electric bugaloo in the dense native bush. all i happened to take in was the orange and black stripes on a somewhat slippery skin. it was in that sheer moment that i cottoned-on to the fact I was looking at the tiger snake. with a quick 'oh jesus it's a snake' (said in a irish accent for some reason. perhaps when i get scarred i revert back automatically to my childhood accent and crave the protective arms of my parents. either way i know this time it wasn't the Guinness making me all 'potatoes, potatoes, potatoes'. nope, it was the fear of being jabbed on the leg by a snake no bigger than my arm and the fact that i might actually have to revisit my first aid training and haul ass to the nearest hospital - which wouldn't actually be near) i shut my eyes and walked briskly up the path blocking out Ben's comments of 'wow, its beautiful' 'hows about that' 'em, have another look' and jumped into the car so quickly you'd think I'd just robbed a bank. *sigh* i was alive. thank god. here to tell the tale....and of course, show you some pictures.....



maggie was clearly unimpressed that we were shoving fishing lines into the back of the car and not her. (she stayed with her uncle george for 6 days - thanks georgie!)



our home away from home. sleeps six and completely water proof (dont really wanna test that one though!)

feet in water.

i am nearing the end of the last day of work before my christmas break. as the idea of relaxing slowly seeps into my weary mind, i am sad to be moving away from my blog for a week or so. in the wonderful new year of our wedding i will return hopefully with many new designs to share and sell in my new etsy shop. i feel very fortunate that so many people have stopped by for a peek. perhaps it's the names of each item that draws them in. they did take some serious thought time :)

to all who stop by, have yourselves a wonderfully warm week and keep friends close and family closer. i'll be seeing you after my camping trip (feet in dirty water, esky full of melted ice) when the christmas tree needles are turning a little grey and my tan looks more potential than the environmental promises of kevin rudd.

putting myself out there.

*sigh* it is with bated breath that i announce my presence as a seller on etsy.com. i have been planning to open a shop there for some time now, but with traveling for work and planning our wedding, getting the 'goods' ready as proved a difficult task.

having said that, i put it off no longer. you will now find some of my newest creations gloriously on display in my shop. it's nice to think that i can create something with my bare hands and offer it up to be loved by someone else. very satisfying indeed. i plan on making at least one thing a night (when i am not out chatting nonsensically to friends and gulping red wine). this way, with some luck, my little shop with grow with all the ideas that are currently taking up much needed room in my head.

over christmas i hope to run some sweet cottons through my beloved old machine, but part of me also needs to take it easy. perhaps read a little. oh, and we really need to organise a celebrant to actually marry ben and i. i left the task to my aforementioned fiance and the only person he found and suggested was someone that looked like michael bolton! why are there never enough hours in the day? how did it get to dec o7 without me even feeling the middle of winter?

i leave now, rosy cheeked with the excitement of being a woman in business, with a motto i find fitting for all the wonderful, exciting, happy, momentous things that i know to be happening in the next year:

2008 is sure to be great!



'what colourful dreams' baby blanket, as featured in my new etsy shop :)

a sense of summer.

after braving the soft falling toronto snow, i was delighted to be tilting my face towards the strong aussie sun once more. how nice it is to be kissed by the sun. to throw on a pair of flip flops and wander through green grass with heat on your back. *sigh* i am truly happy to be home.

so, in my absence ben has turned his guitar finger into a green thumb. the quest: to grow ones own tomatoes. and i have to say, he's doing a wonderful job. we sat out in our little garden last saturday, the day of ben's 36th birthday, and had dinner together. ben slapped some steaks on the new bbq we won at elsternwick coles with our flybuys card. as they sizzled away i noticed the solid green stare of our new neighbours. they were blantantly watching us. sizing us up! sitting up there on their throne and mocking us so.

but it is we who will have the last laugh. for as soon as those neighbours redden with embarrassment, ben will pluck them from their mighty throne, cut them with a knife and toss them in a salad. don't you just love summer?

our new neighbours:

feeling a little festive.

since getting back from canada life has been a whirlwind. there has been family functions 'happy engagement liz and rob' and 'happy 36th birthday my benny'. besides all that, getting back to a heap of emails at work and feeling jet lagged and fluey, has meant that i haven't been able to write much here. sorry george!

my time overseas was great but its more than wonderful to be home. as the festive season rolls around there is no other place a person wants to be. on my return ben and i put up our Christmas tree and decorated it. to be honest, it was more 'ben lugs in tree, makes it steady, screws things together. em untangles ikea lights and hangs over already limp branches, decorates with baubles and begins the long winded process of trying to make maggie understand that the balls on the big green tree are not the same as the ones she loves to chase across wide open footy pitches'.

i had been thinking, while away, how lovely it would be to make my own decorations. something with meaning, ya know? i remember as a little one having a tree full of stuff we had made at school especially. with five kids in my family the tree had no room for glam myer colour coordination. it was 'get your work up there and be proud!'. so i wanted to make my own. i decided the theme would be something wonderful that has happened in our lives over that past year. I made two. One for last year to signify maggie coming into our lives and of course Ben and i getting engaged this year.

my dream is that over the years we will have a collection of wonderful things to be grateful for and hopefully some smart, savvy and caring kids to past them on to.

here are the designs complete with my new tags courtesy of fancyweaver.









*shop note: will be opening soon-ish. Just got to finish a few bits of sewing. expect launch in jan 08'

I must go now. onegirl has insisted on playing Christmas Songs while we work. there's only so much boney m a girl can take!