Achievements, celebrations & the mundane
What a week it has been! We’ve done more home improvement in the last month than we have done in the last year! That’s Parkinson’s Law for you.
The biggest achievement (and a huge weight of my shoulders) is the completion of Richard’s office. It’s a small room attached to our garage and basically had bare brick walls, a concrete slab floor and a dodgy light. Richard installed down lights and put new power, telephone and TV points. Then we spent the entire last weekend painting the brick walls and ceiling, which by the way is very hard work! And on Friday I laid down the new vinyl flooring all by myself. Yes, me! I rock!
Richard has set up his office now and he is a very happy hubby. Only 2 more weeks before my new house mate moves in and I’m starting to feel nervous and excited at the same time.
On Saturday, we celebrated our nephew’s 9th birthday and there was a bit of fooling around when the sparkles got lit on the cake! That’s the uncle (Richard’s brother) grabbing his nephew’s face. Haha… no harm done I promise!
Now for the mundane part of life. Charlie had one of his showers this week and was happy to show off for the video camera. He LOVES it and gets all excited when he sees the spray bottle.
[Video link]
I’ve also bought yarn to start knitting a charity Christmas project. I won’t say what it is just yet.
Has anyone started their Christmas knitting? I can’t believe we’re only 4 months away from 2011!
“Help” sewing buttons on
I had a bit of help sewing buttons onto my knitted rib jacket…
Charlie was very helpful in handing stitch markers to me… and taking them away!
Hmmm… More disruptive than helpful to be honest. Cute nonetheless. 
I did get real help somewhere else though. I found this great tutorial on Craftstylish – Sew Buttons Securely on Hand Knits – and it was extremely useful. All the buttons are now sewn on.
So what’s left to do?
Nothing! I’ve finished my jacket! Yayyy!
Photos coming soon… ish. Haha… Hope you’re having a good week!
Picking, knitting & watching
I’ve picked up the stitches along the neckline of my ribbed jacket to knit the collar. I worked out a simple way to make sure I have the stitches evenly spaced out around the neck and managed to get it right the first go too! Yay!
This how I did it. I divided the neckline into sections using stitch markers. Firstly, I folded the neckline in half to work out the mid point. So now I have 2 sections. I folded again to work out the mid point of these sections. Marked them with stitch markers. Now I have 4 sections. I repeated this step again until I get 8 sections.
A little bit of maths helped me work out how many stitches I needed to pick up for each section. I tried to divide the total number of stitches as evenly as possible between all the sections. Some sections had one more stitch than others. Generally, it’s much easier than trying to eyeball 116 stitches around the entire neckline!
Then I picked up right number of stitches for each section. That’s it! So much easier dealing with a small section at a time. Phew! Glad that’s over though. I’m happily knitting my collar now and it’s going quick. 
Oh and while I was picking and knitting away, I had one eye on this…
It’s a little hard to concentrate and count when at any moment, Olly might wake up from his feathery dream and make Charlie his midnight snack!
Charlie’s Firsts
My baby eclectus parrot, Charlie, has had quite a rollercoaster ride the short few weeks he’s been with us. He’s still settling in and so are we! I’m still getting used to preparing food for him and getting him to come out to play. It’s a new experience for all of us!
Here are a couple of videos showing the exciting new things he has been up to. The first one is of him making a big mess while having dinner at the dining table. The second video is of his first shower!
Video 1
Video 2
We are seeing an avian vet today to give him his first check-up. Exciting!
On the knitting side, I have almost, almost finished knitting the second sleeve on the ribbed jacket! I also have a lot of other news to share with you and I will reveal them through the week. Stay tuned!
Organic Hot Water Bottle?
Since the snuggie didn’t get much support in the last post, I’ve decided to go organic and use my darling cat as a hot water bottle to stay warm. I’m carrying her around like she’s a celebrity pooch in Hollywood. Like, she’s my BFF, you know. 
Oh and if you drop by during the day, please excuse the dressing gown and flanelette pajamas. I thought I’ll just stay in them all day since they’re warm, cuddly and soft. If I’m not going out, I’m not getting changed. I may carry my pet around, but it’s not really The Hills here!
Get automagic 
blog updates
