Long time... no blogging

It's been a very long time since I made an appearance here at my blog.  Well... strictly speaking that's not true.  I actually check in here almost every day, just to see whether anybody I have linked to has written a new blog post, but I never seem to find time to post anything myself.

Life has been the usual kind of busy in the Gellert family, with a few exciting highlights since I last posted.  I began studying for a Diploma of Theology last term, doing one subject to begin with and I'll evaluate how I'm going at the end of the year and see if I continue with it next year.  What I'm learning will, hopefully, make for another blog post in the near future.

We have also had a wedding in the family  Simon's brother Matthew got married to Kylie on October 2nd, this year.  

Simon gave the message, and did an excellent job (in my opinion).  Our children were in the wedding party and were, mostly, very well behaved.

 On the whole we had a lovely day at the wedding, and everything went well.

We also had lots of holiday fun while we were in Victoria.  We felt a bit like we were on a strict schedule most of the time as we tried to fit in seeing all the people we wanted to catch up with.  Sadly we did not manage to fit everyone in, and many of our visits were very brief, but we did see more than I had expected we would.

We caught up with family...

friends...

more friends...

 And it was all followed by a very long drive home again.

Winter Holidays in Sydney

Our holidays felt very busy and as enjoyable as they were, it is almost a relief to get back into the routine of term time again.  We had many visitors, including both family and friends.  The weather has been absolutely glorious most of the time and we are appreciating not being in freezing cold Victoria this winter.

Here are a few holiday snaps.

Ben and Jerry's ice cream in Manly.

Rock climbing and bushwalking in Lane Cove National Park.

Exploring the creek behind our house

and building lego with other friends.

Botanic Gardens Family Fun Day to finish the holidays

And we finished the day by finally succeeding in getting a photo of all four of our children in Autumn leaves to replace the original which only had Abby and Tim.

Crochet books!

I am very excited because my new crochet books arrived today.  They are "The Crocheter's Companion" by Nancy Brown and "Crocheting School - A complete Course".  I ordered them last week and received an email yesterday saying they had just been posted and may take up to seven days to arrive, but they were here by 10:30 this morning. 

Here are a couple of random pages, just to show what they are like inside.  They look simple enough that even I should be able to understand them. 

I am a little sad that I need to do housework today (we have Bible Study here tonight, so I can't ignore today's housework) because I'd much rather be looking at my new books and trying out some of the new ideas and stitches.  I guess my creativity will have to wait until tomorrow.

Winter Uniforms

Yesterday was school 'photo day' and all children were required to wear full winter uniform.  We don't believe it is cold enough for winter uniform yet, but we dutifully went and bought them for the kids as we have been told that it can get cold here in the middle of winter.  Here's all my beautiful children spiffied up for their photo's.  I admit that I don't think the winter uniform is any more attractive than the summer one, but it does grow on you after a while.  Abby couldn't put her book down long enough to walk to the car without reading.

Easter Happenings

We have had a very exciting Easter this year.  Among other things my parents came to stay for the weekend and Tim got baptized, by Simon, on Easter Sunday, whilst they were here.

 Tim giving his testimony

 Simon and Tim in the Baptistry

After our Church Morning Tea, and a quick lunch we decided the weather would allow us to make use of Sydney's 'Family Fun Day' tickets and so we visited Circular Quay, the Sydney Opera House and took a ride on a ferry to Watson's Bay.  We discovered that while the ferry going to Watsons Bay was practically empty, the return trip was very, very crowded.  Apparently you are not meant to remain on the ferry and do a round trip.  You are meant to get off at Watsons Bay, join the end of the queue and see if you can get back on.  We didn't know this and the ferry crew were a bit grumpy with us.  Fortunately, they let us stay on, and the Ferry was not quite full, so we would have made it back on, but we may not have had the seats we had, right at the front.

Kids with Grandad and Grandma at the Opera House

Grandma, myself, the kids, Simon

A lovely day was topped off with icecream sundae's at Hungry Jacks.

Crocheting

On Christmas Day my dear sister-in-law tried to teach me how to crochet.  Fortunately for me she is a talented and patient teacher and I managed to learn enough about reading patterns to be able to pick it up.  She also introduced me to a delightful blog, Attic24, where I discovered the pattern for these little flowers.  If you like to look at crochet, or learn about it, that's a good place to start.  Lucy's work is much better than mine and I love her many beautiful creations.

My intention is to make many of these flowers and use them to decorate a plain net curtain for Abby's bedroom.  The first flower I made, top left, is made of something cheap from K-mart (I lost the label and I don't remember what it was).  The other two, bottom left, (shown with the original) are made from a bamboo/cotton blend.  I like the feel of this, and the fact that it is not so 'fluffy' looking as the first one, although it splits easily when trying to crochet with it.  I'm a little annoyed that I ended up with almost the same colours from two different shopping trips.  I must plan better next time, but I guess this is indicative of what colours I like.   When I have enough money, I intend to buy some different colours, to add variety and brighten it all up a bit.

A look at homonym's

Last week at FaithWriters (a site for Christian Writers) we had a 'mini-challenge' involving writing a story and using five sets of homonym's within the story.  When I looked up the link we were given listing many homonyms a ridiculous little story popped into my head and I wrote it down for fun.  Here it is.

Faye's Strange Day 

Faye lived in a cosy house in a small town by the beach. One morning, as she ate an egg and wurst sandwich for breakfast, she felt the strangest sensation on the heel of her bare left foot. Looking down she was surprised to see a fay, one of the little folk, sticking a large pin into the heel.

Faye angrily kicked at the little lady, who promptly disappeared into a small knot hole in the floorboards, leaving Faye puzzled about the whole experience.

As Faye stood up to begin clearing away her breakfast dishes, she noticed her heel was numb. As the morning progressed, the heel began to swell and by evening Faye could barely walk and when her husband arrived home, they took a drive to the local hospital to get it checked.

After one look at Faye’s pale face, the nurse on duty ushered her into a cubicle and hurried off to find the nearest Doctor. Faye was concerned when she overheard the nurse speaking to the Doctor. “There’s a woman just arrived and I took one look at her and, seeing how fey she looked, I thought I’d better get her checked quickly.”

A Doctor entered the cubicle shortly after and seemed puzzled by Faye’s injured heel. “I know of only one way to heal an injury like this. Because it was inflicted by the little folk, we’ll need to use their own remedies to cure it. I must ask what you were doing when this occurred.”

Faye told the story of her morning and the Doctor nodded and “Hmm, hmm’d” until she mentioned the wurst she had been eating.

“Ah, huh! That is the cause of this problem. There is only one cure for you. You must stand up, wave your arms above your head and repeat three times “I waive the right to eat wurst for breakfast”.”

Faye was most puzzled by this cure, but after her peculiar day, she decided to try it. As she finished her third recital, she felt a tingle in her left heel and looked down to see it had been completely healed.

“Now,” said the Doctor, “You must never eat wurst for breakfast again or the worst thing imaginable will happen. This heel would swell again and we would never be able to heal it afterwards.”