Whistle Along Now...

Eleven years ago today, the Mr and I were ‘hitched’ at the Wandsworth Town Hall in London, because if we wanted to see if we wanted to be together, then this Australian needed a visa. As we exchanged a just-married, Leap of Faith kiss, the strains of a Monty Python musical masterpiece could be heard, catching the guests a little off guard...

Always Look On The Bright Side of Life
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...(etcetera)

No Whitney Houston for us, this song seemed just right – appropriate even – as much as it does eleven years down the track. Although I suppose there’s a whole measure of appropriate and I did get married in a reddest-red dress.

I reckon it’s been our trickiest year yet: more to juggle, too many curve balls to deal with, too much time together with most of the work happening from home and amongst the day-to-day. And then not enough time, only together, to remember how it is to be, well, us.

Today is glorious. We’ll get the inevitable navigation-themed, clear-the-air argument over, as soon as we drop the kids off at Grandma and Grandad’s. Then it’s a lazy lunch involving a vineyard, a summer breeze and no need to be any place in particular, the Mr and me, until tomorrow morning.

BLISS.

This is a photograph of my Mr, my mother’s hand and me. We don’t have many pictures of our wedding (particularly with my mother’s hand) and many are questionably composed, entirely unflattering and shot with a flash as darkness descended at 4pm on a dreary, wintry day. They are all the more precious for their scarcity. This is the one taken as Our Song played.



I hope you have a whistling, bright-side-of-life weekend too.

.........................

And just in case you haven’t whistled along yet, here it is, for your convenience...

My Creative Space: McEnroe Gold

Don’t you want to play it again? I remember watching this famous wobbly in real time, in, ahem, 1981. THIRTY YEARS AGO. Cripes. It has always been my favourite McEnroe tantie. Someone close to me may even have been known to quote the man (during a Tania tantie). When the planetary alignment occurred a couple of days ago and there was a ridiculous need to throw myself in to some speedy, Why The Heck Not? making, this is where things ended up...



Entirely prompted by this needlepoint notion found in the fabulous book: Crafting a Meaningful Home,



I tweaked things a little to suit my swift crafting purposes: a hasty stencil, a one-off screenprint (whereby some of the stencil went, um, AWOL),



a speedy embroidering of John McEnroe and a post rationalised AHA! moment with the aida cloth (removing bits to pay homage to (badly strung) racquet strings)...



All up, I’m pretty chuffed. I mean, I’d do everything entirely differently, neatly, carefully, were I to do it again but as far as the dodgy bits go, I really couldn’t give a bad ball toss. Crafty mischief is wonderful for this soul, the Mr is resignedly signed up to yet more wall art and most of all, it’s a fabulous reminder to plant a smile on the dial. Life shouldn’t be so serious. Right?



For more mischief of the Creative Space making kind, go see Kirst.

Mischief

I’ve been chuckling to myself all day, because I’m being inspired by this book...



This roadside find...



These bits of stencil...



All the game, set and match Melbourne-based business...

But most of all, this:



He he he.

My hit prediction is that I’ll be crafting up a shocker. I couldn’t give a double fault – I’ve been behaving myself for waaaaay too long.

A-Ah-A-hem. Cough. Ack. Ack. The Post Where She Clears Her Throat and (Finally) Says Something (in Bullet Points)

Bullet point #1
The five of us went on a summer camping holiday. In a rather roomy tent. With a trailer. And the dog. For the purposes of melodrama, it rained for ten days and ten nights (or more accurately, seven days and we came home on day nine).



Bullet point #2
Even when camping and surrounded by wading pools of puddles, the youngest does things in her very own sparkly shoe style.



Bullet point #3
Less successful was the youngest’s approach to fishing: yelling encouragement at dinner. Dinner was not encouraged.



Bullet point #4
When it wasn’t raining and there was a break in the weather...



...there was a crazy hairdo wind...



...perfect for kite flying.



Bullet point #5
Much creativity was required to keep morale on the straight and narrow. When we weren’t making coal mines out of Jenga games for coal miners made from sticks – oh, best not ask – there were trips to wet beaches with impressive cliffs.



And adrenaline highs from jumping off impressive cliffs.



And many more adrenaline highs, (and one exuberantly queasy response), to those spinny-around, playground, whirlygig whatsits.



Bullet point #6
Typical of every summer holiday in recent memory, there was a classic car meet and the kids and I looked convincingly impressed and rivoted, peering in at windows and under bonnets and surveying engines. But secretly we were busy finding faces...







Bullet point #7
There is nothing like a great dollop of perspective for making the best of a rainy camping holiday. Night in and night out, I lay snug in my sleeping bag, drowning out the din of Rainstorm-on-Tent, tuned in to ABC radio. Aghast at the flooding horrors up north (and now all over Victoria) and overseas, humbled by nature’s forces, worried for friends, hyper-aware of the tenuous nature of life as we know it.

The subsequent crafty, bloggy, money-raising ingenuity and generosity has been nothing short of INSPIRED. If you haven’t already indulged in exuberant bidding or giveaway entering, there is yet time. Were you in the market, for instance, for Colin, you still have until 9pm tonight (Melbourne time) to place your bid. Be warned, I am a shocking bidder. It’s all compulsion, no restraint. Best make yours a good bid, because I am rearranging my 2011 yarn-buying budget and the plan of attack is always to come in at the very last second...

Bullet point #8
At another wet and drizzly beach I found a fortuitous heart.