Over two months ago I posted my grand plans to sew myself a dress.

Which, to my credit, I did.  It took me probably about 3 weeks all up because I was doing it at night when the kids were asleep and I was always a little tired so probably not as fast as I could have been.  Also, as a beginner sewer (as in one who sews, not the other kind) I had to undo a couple of things (like the sleeves) because somehow I ended up sewing it so that part of the sleeve was somehow caught up in it all.  But I had it all finished.  Almost.

I got to the hem one night and read the instructions and in my tired state could not make head nor tail of them.  Also, the dress when put together in the el cheapo fabric I had bought to practice gave it a bit of a "cleaning lady" air, so I lost my enthusiasm for it, and it has been languishing on the back of my spare room door ever since.

However.  My Anti-Procrastination Project for today is to finish it off.

This is what it looks like currently:

100_4229

I've been saying for years that I would do it and today, I finally did.

I listed a bunch of stuff on Ebay.  It took me bleedin' ages, too.  Perhaps I dithered too long about my descriptions and titles etc, but it seemed to me like the listing page was incredibly slow. 

I have had a bag of stuff sitting around for months (some of it I have been holding onto for years!) and since we are trying to declutter the house figured it was about time I actually pulled the finger out and listed it.  13 items went up today, and that's just round one.  I have another pile of about 10 things that I need to iron and photograph, and then there is my terribly overcrowded wardrobe to be gone through. 

Hopefully it will prove to be a worthwhile exercise, and by this time next week I will be rubbing my hands and chuckling with glee at all the money rolling my way.  Which, you know, will be going towards my children's extra-curricular activities because for some reason we seem to be short of cash at the moment.  This is what happens when you chuck in the credit cards and actually use cash.  Christmas can really knock you about a bit.

With the extreme heat rendering me unable (or, rather, unwilling) to do more hands on work such as packing boxes and tidying houses, I have been playing around with GIMP this afternoon.  Which caused me to remember that I hadn't submitted a self-portrait in some time, so here I am in all my GIMPish glory:

Self-portrait 150109

The kids getting some trampoline action:

Can I do some bouncing yet?

Boing!

Boing!

Bottom boing!

Boing boing!

Boing!

Just running around in circles now.

Surely you can't be serious.

It's currently about 38 deg C outside my window.  That's about 100 deg F.  I must be getting tough in my old age because I'm barely even sweating.

Partner has taken the boys off camping this weekend, so it's just the girlie and I.  They left quite early this morning (before breakfast, anyway).  Daughter was already up and about, whereas I wasn't, so I convinced her to come and hop into bed with me and we read stories for about half an hour.  She's mad keen on the Rascal the Dragon series by Paul Jennings at the moment.  Slinky Malinki by Lynley Dodd is also a great favourite (thanks, Santa!).

She's asleep at the moment and the house is disturbingly quiet.  I'm not used to it.  I'm supposed to be working but instead I'm having a cup of tea and tootling around the internet. 

As we've decided to put our house on the market in a month or so, it's become essential to pack up half of our belongings and put them into storage.  Practically every wall needs to be patched and plastered.  The entire house needs to be painted, inside and out.  The back exterior wall needs to be re-rendered.  But we can't start all the patching, plastering, painting and rendering until we've put our stuff into storage because we don't actually have space to move around to do these things at the moment.

And that's what I'm meant to be doing right now.  Packing up this room so we can begin work.  I should really get started, huh?

Have been a little on the low-ish side since before Christmas and it's stayed with me.  I have a lot to deal with at the moment and thankfully I'm managing to get it done but why does everything have to be such a bloody effort?

Have tried really hard to shake this feeling off but it just won't go.

But I do have a really big box - the one the kids trampoline came in.  I wonder if anyone would notice if I took up residence ...

Show us something that's going to make this year's New Year's resolution a little harder to keep

Elegant rabbit

Now that Christmas/New Year is over and done with, we should expect to see easter eggs on the shelves of our supermarkets.  Last year I think they were there on something like the 5th of Jan, so pretty much any day now.

I love Red Tulip easter eggs, but I do wish they weren't around so early.  I am particularly addicted to Elegant Rabbit.  Partner and I tend to go through quite a few of these gentlemanly chocolate rabbits before Easter actually rolls around.

Given that one of my aims this year is to eat more healthily etc (which I do mostly, but chocolate is one of my downfalls), the temptation presented by Elegant Rabbit is something I'll need to overcome.

(Just as a side note, I just discovered that Red Tulip, whose main rival in the easter egg stakes is Cadbury, is actually owned by Cadbury.  What a crock!)

Partner had planted some zucchini plants in the backyard a couple of months back.  I have not really given them much attention.  I haven't really had much success with zucchinis in the past so didn't hold out much hope of any produce.

Was out watching the kids bounce a couple of days ago (on the new trampoline what Santa brought) and thought I'd have a look to see if there was anything growing and lo and behold, there was!

Boy with zucchini

There were also a few smaller ones besides these two, which are not the biggest zucchini I've ever seen, I admit, but still pretty sizeable.  And since they are not really very tasty at that size, what else was there to do with them?

Zucchini chocolate cake

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Am performing my usual post-Christmas role of being home alone with the kids whilst partner is off at the Sydney - Hobart Yacht Race.

Dropped him off at 7.45 on Boxing Day and he flies back on new year's day at 10.15pm.

He's done 10 on the same yacht with the same crew in the past 11 or so years, but this year he's been sailing on a different boat.  Apparently they've made it (according to the website), so I should be expecting a slightly drunken phone call at some stage today.