Eye Spy - Something I should use

Late again.... seems to be my theme. I have found my arrival back on the planet not completely to my liking... it hasn't been a great week. Yesterday I was busy with one of my away from home 'jobs' and came down with a killer headache/migraine. I finally made it home barely greeted the family before heading straight to bed to sleep for 12 and a half hours! Wow it has been a while since I did that.
When I woke though I remembered something I should use. A weekend away. A friend has a holiday home in Ocean Grove which is just a short drive from Melbourne. Last December I gave her a hand for the day and she gave me a weekend away in exchange. I have been planning a weekend off for husband and me to get away, I can't believe how hard it has been to find the time to get away. It is about time I cashed in and took us both away for a night or two, away from school homework, and husband's at home work and chores and all that grown up stuff.
To find out what else people are remembering they should use, visit Cindy. Thanks to Bird Bath for this weeks theme

Eye Spy - Favourite Childrens Party Game

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Although it may seem that I have fallen off the planet and in many ways I feel I have, I have found my way back on and found the world is still spinning. Some of you will know that I recently returned to my home town in New Zealand and while I was there catching up with all my family and friends I also shared a wee exhibition of my creations with two friends. I will tell you more about that and the rest of my time away soon, but first I thought I should catch up with my Eye Spys. Especially since Cindy asked me to come up with last weeks topic and I choose, "A favourite childhood game/ party game".

I LOVE children's partys. I had great joy in organising them for the children in my life when I was a teenager until I could plan my own children's parties. They are teenagers now so don't want to play pass the parcel, but I still do. Like Cindy and Christina I love pin the tail on the donkey but since I favour themed parties we have pinned the tail on the dragon, given the fairy a wand and put the hat on the gnome. I can't for the life on me find any pictures of these occasions, maybe we were having too much fun. I also love the children to get involved and we have decorated cupcakes and made pizza and ice-cream sundaes. Sometimes the simplest games are the most fun, like when we had a sand castle competition (everyone wins a prize) ............Or feeding the animals like we did last week at niece beansie's party. That's her cousins feeding the highland calves and the pig at Grans farm.

But I think if I had to choose one, please note I can't even follow my own rules and choose just one, I would have to come back to pass the parcel, I love the anticipation and who doesn't like opening a present. Everyone gets a prize in my version and in the middle a prize for all to share. Oh but I just remembered treasure hunts......

Eye Spy - Something I love about my suburb

This one is easy for me My favouritist thing about my suburb is Little Sparrow a great wee shop that is just around the corner and happens to be owned and run by my friend Shelley. I have a friend to go and share a coffee with, a place to sell some of my goodies, a place to go shopping for the children in my life and an easy place to get more crafty supplies. I have meet some lovely ladies at our Handwork circle and have taught and learnt all sorts of sewing and knitting skills as well as supporting each other thru parenting and other life adventures. I really am regularly grateful for being so lucky to have such a great resource at the end of my street. I also love the trams and the two train lines and the excellent food available in our wee corner of Melbourne.

Cindy has asked me to come up with the next Eye Spy theme and since it is my niece's 2nd birthday this weekend I have been thinking about - Favorite Childhood party games... the ones that were favorite when you was a kid or that you like to play with or organise for your children. I love party games and have been known to re-play some of them as a grown up child.

Eye Spy- Something I made for a little person

Really late for this one but have been thinking about it a bit and this week I walked into my nieces bedroom and found this.

I painted this for Beansie when she was born and since it is her birthday next week that makes it two years ago. I have painted words I want her to hear as she grows up about believing in herself, following her bliss, that she is a wonderful person and all the other things we want to tell the children in our lives. I painted similar ones for my girls that I gave to them when the hit a certain mile stone girls hit in their teens. I had forgotten I had done it, but Beansie looks at it every night as she goes to bed and as she is learning her colours at the moment they talk about what colours everything is. I live in a different country to Bean, but I love that I can be a little in her life everyday.

For more Eye spy visit Cindy

Eye Spy - A sign

Again a week late but the sign was slow in showing itself, or was I just slow in seeing it................. I thought about the literal ones but I didn't see any as funny as Christina. And in the end it was one of those life lesson signs. On Monday my week started with this....

when the second born tipped the admittedly carefully balanced dozen eggs onto the bench. There were a number that were just cracked but needed to be used straight away. Baking was no where near my list of things I wanted to achieve that day but I decided to take two lessons from this sign. Lesson #1 That sometimes you can't control what life throw at you and amongst small disasters there is the possibility to create opportunity. So these became wheat and dairy free picklets for when they got home from school and work, left over potato and corn fritters for tea and wheat and dairy free fruit sponge for desert. The fruit sponge was very successful, I will feature it in Recipe Monday.

Unfortunately I also created these.

But while I was doing all this creating I thought about Lesson #2, remembering to make do with what I have. I like many crafters suffer the illness of stash hoarding. I love to use preloved fabrics, but I also like to collect more. I really need to remember to use my collection that I have first before I think about going out to buy more. On the other hand is there really anything wrong with buying a bit more inspiration every now and then.......... Maybe I will bang my head on that sign a few more times before I learn that lesson.

For more signs pop over to Cindy

Edit: I have tried to make the formatting sit better but it won't... I am so looking forward to one day understanding how to drive this blogger thing better.

Eye Spy - Inventing

Remember when you were young and biking to horse riding, or swimming, or whatever your after school activity was. It had been a long day at school full of learning and important lunchtime activities and it was hot and there was a head wind and you just wanted to be there. Of course then I wanted to time/ space travel and to just be there, I wanted to be able to with mind powers be able to get kind parent and grandparents with cars to stop and pick me up and drive me there (obviously before mobile phones), I also wanted to be older, to have left school, to have left home to be able to live by my rules... ahh how I was so misinformed. Today if I could invent a way to play with time it would be much more about slowing things down, to give me more hours to play with, to create in, to enjoy my growing children, to have more time with friends, to have more time to be still.
But playing with time is not the invention I am thinking about this week. I think I will have to return to the Amanda's invention that started this eye spy this week. I would like to invent something where we Mums can take and carry the pain for our children. I am glad that my children have mostly had a good run however there have been time aplenty when I wish I could do it for them, to have the blood tests, to mend the broken arm, to help them to breathe freely. My kids are getting big now and I still wish this.

A friend's teenage daughter has been very sick this week and I know that she wishes she could be sick for her, to suffer for her, and save her from the fear and the pain. Even dealing with disappointment and broken hearts I wish that I could carry that for them. But I can't, I can only be there and hold them and wait for it to pass. And I know this wish for our children never stops. I remember my Mum crying for me when I was is labour with the first born, knowing that only I could do it, knowing she would have stepped in for me in a heart beat and knowing that already I would do anything for this child as yet unborn.

A little serious this week but it has been a serious week. Light and happiness will return after this short break.

Eye Spy - something in bloom/scars

This weeks eye spy compliments of bugs and pop is a two for the price of one deal. Something in Bloom and Scars. It is winter here at the moment so the only blooming going on is all the creating in my wee space and lovely winter cooking smells coming from the kitchen.
Scars though I have a few. No photos today partly because I don't know who has the camera and partly cause I am not convinced that seeing them would enrich anyones lives. But a wee list -
The ones I notice the most especially as I swim regularly for exercise are those love marks my children left behind many years ago. Transforming my trim and tidy wee body into the womens body it is today. I have a love hate relationship with my stretch marks, they don't fit the picture I have in my mind for how my body looks and yet I also know that they mark an important transition in my life.
I have a great scar on one of my fingers from a day I was helping a friend in the garden and sliced my finger with a serrated saw. I probably should have done something about it at the time but I had to pick up the kids and cook tea and.... consequently I have a scar.
Going back in time I have a burn mark on my elbow from a burn as a child, but I have no recollection of it. I am sure it was traumatic for my mother.
One scar I do remember receiving I collected while playing a very exciting game of dodge the cushion. Aged about 7 or 8 I guess, visiting friends there were probably at least seven kids needing entertaining. A game started where we had to run from the kitchen to the other side of the lounge to one of the bedrooms without being hit by a cushion thrown by one of the adults. I am guessing the weather kept us inside. It was great fun, full of anticipation, fear and triumph. We had all made it across the room with squeals and laughter. In the second round during my dash to safety, one of the flying cushions collected me with force and I fell right onto the corner of the chest freezer that was just outside the kitchen. I don't remember any pain or the blood but I do remember the bright light as I sat in the Doctors chair as he stitched up a wound on my forehead. No butterfly stitching in those days, we are talking needle and thread. It was a great wound for showing off to my friends, and I am pretty sure that the grown ups felt so guilty about what had happened that I got what I wanted for the rest of the day.
As a parent it has been strange to be on the other side as both my girls have broken their arms and had various bumps and bruises. Their memories are much more oriented around their favourite top that had to be cut off, what colour their cast was or that they got to choose what to have for tea that night (some mother guilt in action). I remember the sadness I felt the first time the first born fell and cut her lip in such a way I knew it would scar, that perfect precious skin marked, now I look at that scar and remember that moment in time, not the accident but that wee kids enthusiatic energy, running and giggling until she fell and then in my arms crying. I remember a time when a cuddle from Mum could just about cure everything. I look at their scars and my scars and notice the passage of time and reflect that as we grow we will collect a few scars like bookmarks in the story of our life. Oh how profound, I'll stop now before I wax on anymore all lyrical like... Thanks for coming with me on this wee indulgent journey.

Eye Spy - My Morning Ritual

My day starts sometime into the morning walk with Husband, we fall out of bed into warm clothes and wake up some time along the second block. Evenings are busy and now the teenagers stay up around the time we want to go to bed, the morning is a chance to catch up and breathe out before the day starts.

At the door...... deep breath....... ready? Time to wake up the girls and for me to head to the kitchen to make porridge (smoothies in the summer) and school lunches with, either bread just out of the breadmaker or, a current favourite, buckwheat pancakes.

At this point I would like to sing praises for school uniforms. First born is wearing a uniform for the first time this year and the mornings go so much smoother now she doesn't have to change five times. Breakfast is served and either eaten together or separately depending on who is in the shower, but either way, yesterdays school notices are handed over, last minute requests for cash made, and plans or notifications made for the afternoon/evening events.... Till I bundle them all out the door to the car, trams and trains.

I switch on the coffee machine and breathe, my day begins.......

Edit: I forgot to add Eye Spy is hosted by BugandPop. This week the topic suggested by 3RedButtons