Sunday Sesh

We spent this Sunday afternoon at the park.  My work threw a barbecue by the river, at Kangaroo Point, under the Story Bridge.  Callum loved the jumping castle and spent almost all his time in it, with only a few breaks for drinks and food.  Anya's favorite part was the pile of hula hoops, balls and frisbees.  We had a great time throwing the balls to each other -- she was especially good at throwing the nerf vortex (a whistling football with tailfins).

At one point, Callum said, "Can I do that? Can I do that?" and pointed in what seemed a really random direction until I realised that he was pointing out one of my coworkers spraying colour on a girl's hair.  So we went over and sprayed gold on Callum's head.  Then we sprayed silver glitter on Anya's hair, and red streaks in my hair.  (It felt weird, but I thought it actually looked really good.)  Our car's interior is still glittery, and I suspect it will be so for quite some time.

About Time

I’ve been untrue.  To myself, that is.

All my life I’ve been a writer, reader and artist, and lately I have been none of those things.  Why?  I’ve been knitting.  It’s not like I think that knitting is so much more fabulous than writing, reading or drawing.  It’s just that the knitting grows slowly, too slowly to finish in an afternoon, but just fast enough that I can see how it’s going to be so much bigger in just a few more days.  I think, “If I just do two more rows right now...” and the next thing I know, it’s way past when I should have gone to bed.

Anyway, that's my attempt to explain the lack of blogging.  The other reason, of course, is my new (-ish) job with longer days and more intense involvement.  When I’m not knitting, I seem to spend a lot of my spare time thinking about work or doing stuff around the edges to try to keep the work on track.  I guess that’s one benefit of knitting.  It’s something completely different to be thinking about and concentrating on.

A friend taught me to knit and crochet last October.  I started simply, with a couple of scarves (I didn’t mean to make two, but each child claimed one), then progressed to a small pair of pants for a six month old (my first experience of shaping a garment),and most recently I completed a baby blanket with a lace pattern (my first experience with cabling, too) which took over three months of my spare time.  Now I’m finally making something for myself, the “Sideways Top” (Jo Sharp, Saturday).

Other than that, this weekend I went rollerblading -- with the rest of the family on bikes – David gave me some new blades for my birthday, as my old ones shattered when I put them on a month ago.  I’ve only had them since about 1990, so I guess it’s fair enough.  Rollerblading is just about the right speed to keep up with the kids and a huge improvement over running.  I am just not a runner.  All that foot impact and wobbling bits just feel wrong to me.

We also attended a massage course.  I’m still sore!  Not from receiving, from giving.  It is hard work giving a massage.  I went first, and was practicing on David for about two and a half hours.  By the end of it, I was starting to feel overheated.  After lunch it was my turn to lie on the table, and I passed out in the middle of it.  We have a massage table at home, so I’m looking forward to many practice sessions.  (No doubt, so are all our friends and family...)

Sydney Opera House Graphic

I made up this graphic yesterday, because I was not happy with the graphics out there (that I could find, anyway). So, just thought I'd share...

When I had the logo made which was meant to incorporate this, we ended up doing something totally different (to my disappointment, but I don't really have time to mess around):

http://www.dhigroup.com.au/Training/TWeek09.aspx

Where did all this come from?

On Monday, I asked Stefan (my boss), “So how was your weekend?” and he replied, “Terrible! We had vomit all weekend!” and I said, “Me too!!!” Ah, the parental life… sounds like they had it worse than we did, with their daughter throwing up in four successive beds.

This has been a crazy week: David had two job applications due today, while battling a cold virus that he caught from Anya. He stayed home with her on Monday and Tuesday. I had to deliver a training course, so couldn’t stay home with her myself. She originally started with a light cough and restless sleep last week, and on Thursday Becca (Kindercraft) discussed her cough with me, but I really thought it was not going to get any worse. Then it did… she started vomiting a little upon coughing, but it seemed like she was just coughing too hard and throwing up a little saliva. Then her appetite diminished until she was refusing all food and taking only milk, or sometimes not even milk.

Saturday night she threw up when we tried to give her some cough syrup -- she got really upset and cried so hard that she started coughing and threw up. It went all down my front, while David jumped back out of the way. I was thinking, "Where did this all come from?" since she really hadn’t eaten anything all day. By Sunday we thought she was getting better because she ate a little bread and fruit. But while sitting on the potty before bathtime, out of the blue she vomited again. Luckily I had a bath drawn and we just wiped her up a bit and got her into her bath.