Anyway.
This week we've weaned our cute fat little calves and the bellowing is. driving. me. insane. The only upside is that we're weaning them from powdered milk, not their mothers. So although I may be unable to go outside right now without setting off the most unholy cacophony, at least my heart is not breaking listening to them yell for their mothers.
As an amusing aside, did you know that the calf milk feeder is called a CALFETERIA? How good is that!! And the cereal feed we're weaning them onto is called MOOSLI?! I am beside myself with these puntastic names.
In totally unrelated news, it's crayfish season. I'm totally underwhelmed at the thought because I don't actually like crayfish that much. So.... moving on I guess. Next topic!
Hey, remember that Christmas decoration I ordered off eBay with great trepidation? Well IT'S AWESOME. Look!
Come closer! Sorry I don't know why these photos are so dingy. Clearly I was too excited at the excellence of my ornament to actually check the camera settings. You'll have to squint a bit.
Amazing right?! I love it. I switch it on every night, even after the kids are in bed I just love to look at it. And needless to say J is obsessed.
Here's another hopelessly dingy photo of the Christmas tree all lit up. Confession time: I un-decorated it. I was yelling about it every day, plus A was eating a LOT of glitter, J kept smashing the baubles together and crumpling them in her fists... they both kept trying to unwrap the little gift-shaped decorations... and the last straw was when I found A (part baby part goat apparently) eating polystyrene from inside a gift decoration that she had successfully unwrapped.
So now we just have tinsel and lights!
B has been away for work a bit recently which means pasta for dinner every night! My most favourite effort the other week is pictured above. I rolled two massive bowlfuls without any trouble. It's basically slow roasted carrot, sweet potato (sorry, kumara), and zucchini, plus some crispy fried bacon, all tossed together at the end with a big dollop of my number one kitchen staple: tomato paste.
Delicious, I tell you. Make it tonight!
Last of all, I'm proud to say that I've been very industrious in the evenings recently. Normally once the kids go to bed I flop on the couch with The Good Wife. I'm only on season two but I'm really enjoying it. I just wish they wouldn't yell "OJBECTION!" eighty-five times every episode.
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. Other than an epic amount of gardening work getting done recently, I even pulled out the old sewing machine last night and made some fabric gift wrapping bags. This is a project I've had on my to-do list for about, oh, four years. And it took me less than half an hour. Boom, as they say.
It was so easy - I made nine gift bags and two santa sacks in, as I said, less than half an hour. I even had time for sips of wine in between.
Who's up for a sewing tutorial? No one? Perfect!
First you cut your fabric into a long skinny-ish rectangle, or whatever shape you choose. I made a few different sizes and shapes. It can be wonky and slapdash! It's just gift-wrapping!
I used the selvage edges at the top of my bags wherever possible because: less sewing. So you fold your rectangle so that one edge overhangs the other as in the photo above. Wow these explanations are so clear. A craft blogger I am not.
Like this. That overhang is going to be the "flap" of the envelope that you fold in to close the bag. If you know what I mean. Let's carry on.
Then you sew all around the edges of your bag and across any raw edges so they don't fray. I did the whole lot in a big zigzag stitch which meant I had to reload my bobbin about three times.
Can you see that? It was getting dark as I was taking these photos. I should just rename this post "dingy photos of stuff".
And... that's it! Done! That last photo shows how the flap tucks into the bag. No more mountains of gift wrap going to landfill to keep you up at night.
Or is that just me?
Have a good week, friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment