Getting crafty - another apron

I'm excited to share my latest crafty creation with you. I decided a while ago that I would teach myself to sew by making different styles of aprons. I found a great inspirational book, "A is for Apron - 25 Fresh and Flirty Designs" by Nathalie Mornu, and I've been slowly working my way through the different designs, learning new techniques as I go.

This is my latest apron, a birthday present for my MIL. The project was actually a little more ambitious than I had realised at the outset, but my mother - an excellent sewer - assisted me in achieving a lovely final product.

Care to share your latest crafty exploits? Go ahead...

Hot in the City!

We have been experiencing a glorious mini-heatwave! It is still winter here but the mercury has soared and today in my town it reached a whopping 36 degrees! Woo hoo!

To put my excitement into perspective, this is the first winter my family has experienced since we moved to our new town last spring. We expected it might be a little colder here, but soon realised we had underestimated the chill. On top of the colder weather, we also had a quite a few weeks of bad health and I had morning sickness - altogether a winter I'd rather forget!

You can imagine my absolute delight when the weather forecasters predicted this break from the cold, and I certainly was not disappointed. In fact 36 degrees feels very hot after months of maximum temperatures at least 10 degrees lower and minimums in single digits.

I noticed Mr 1 was not handling the heat as he became quite irritable and drank heaps of water, so we stayed inside and turned on the airconditioning to keep our cool. We spent half an hour outside at 4.30pm this afternoon, where it was still a steamy 29 degrees.

There's a few more hot days predicted in the next week, then it's back to the reality of cooler days, at least for a few weeks. Bring on Spring!

Home hunting

We have our current home on the market. We are looking for a new home which is a little bigger and feels a more like the warm family hub I'm after... We've been searching for a few months and we've come up with a few good options along the way, but which for various reasons have turned out not to be 'the one'.

It is really tricky searching for a new home! First you have to like the property you are looking at: the land shape, size, contour, the location of the house, proximity of the block to services, major roads, neighbours and schools... Then you have to step inside the house and weigh up if it has all or most of the requirements your family needs. And if all or at least most of these seem to line up with your ideal property list and the property fits in your budget, you then have to imagine if your family could feel like this is their home, the place they like returning to and where they feel really comfortable.

It sounds a little academic, but going through this process with every property you have an interest in can be quite exhausting! We are working on this process at the moment and we have had some frustration but we are persevering. I know it will be worth it when we finally get to move into our new home!

What are your experiences with property hunting?

The Kindness of Friends

We've been sick lately in the nearlySuper household. Hubby and I have had coughs and sore chests, I've also had very blocked ears and nose and Mr 1 had a long cold followed by bronchitis and is now on a puffer for some asthma. Yuck! Needless to say, it's been a rough few weeks with none of us feeling up to much at all.

Before we were really unwell we put our house on the market and so we have had to endure the usual round of open homes and inspections. To top it all off, our families and closest friends all live too far away to stop by and help out. I miss that!

Something very nice has been happening though - 3 lovely girlfriends have all made us a meal. The first brought over meatballs last Friday. It was a complete surprise and a real blessing after a day of running around between the doctors and radiology. Mr 1's chest had to be x-rayed to rule out suspected pneumonia. My friend caught me at home between appointments, a miracle in itself!

We didn't make it to church on Sunday as none of us was feeling well and Mr 1 had a big sleep in - hooray! Come Monday, I was worse and Mr 1 was still on the mend so nearlySuperDad took the day off work to look after us and continue his recovery. Another of our friends noticed we weren't around and volunteered to make spaghetti bolognaise for Monday night, and a 3rd friend emailed to say she'd take care of the following night's dinner and a chicken pie and vegies turned up.

So that's 3 meals - how lovely. None of the meals was fancy - just nutritious home style cooking, but generously given from the heart at a time when it really helped us out. It is such a blessing and relief to get to the end of a long unwell day and not have to make dinner! The simple things in life really are the best.

Have your friends blessed you with a kind act? I'd love to hear about it...

Fashion Steal of the Week!

Hooray, the return of Fashion Steal of the Week! after quite a few weeks of no shopping - no really, I mean NO shopping!

Needed some new clothes for Mr 1 who is rapidly outgrowing his wardrobe due to his lengthy arms and legs, not his girth... I've always been happy with the quality of Pumpkin Patch clothes, but being the bargain hunter I am, never want to pay full price! I was happy to trawl through the sale racks of end-of-season gear to score some jeans and these:

Long-sleeved printed boys size 1 tees: $12.99 each - Pumpkin Patch

I'm in that yucky in-between size where regular jeans and pants sit too low and tops barely meet in the middle, but I'm also too small for most real maternity... I scored some great-fitting maternity jeans @PP for a tiny $24.95 - yay!