Aussie aussie aussie, oi oi oi. Its official, I am Australian.

I attended the ceremony and received my certificate on Monday night, that's me shaking the mayor's hand. I have actually met the mayor before, we got our heads in the local paper when we planted some trees together at the local skate park, well, the council worker planted them and the mayor and I turned up and threw a bit of mulch on them and said "cheese". The neighbourhood centre where I go to knitting group donated the trees, and I am on the committee of the neighbourhood centre and nobody else could go (or wanted to) during the day so I was volunteered to go and plant the trees with the mayor.

He remembered me, I had to remind him of course, but he definitely remembered me, which was lovely. And after the ceremony (which was just wonderful by the way, bagpipes and everything) we got talking to the local MPs and they gave me their business cards etc and said if there were any issues I was to let them know. Next election will be my very first vote in my life. When I became eligible to vote in NZ I couldn't be bothered, and its not compulsory and I didn't give a fig about politics. Then I moved to aussie and wasn't allowed to vote anyway. Since having children I have become very interested in politics and I will enjoy having my chance to vote.

Anyway, being the good kiwi girl that I am (bwahaha) I like to save a buck where possible, so the next day it was off to the uni with my certificate of australian citizenship to see if I could put my degree on tick like everybody else. And the answer was "yes", so I am continuing.

I got my results back and I passed the unit with distinction and got 87% on my final essay and got some very inspiring comments so I am going to keep plugging away at it and I am very happy about that.

My little family came and watched me become a citizen and a couple of my girlfriends Ains and Mel came along, I felt very loved. And the guy behind the flag in the photo above? That's Mel's uncle, who she didn't know would be there, how random is that, lol. He was handing the plants out. We got given a native plant each.

And Callum reached his arms out to give one of the politicians a cuddle so in another photo there is Steve and I and Baden and the mayor and the local MPs and there's Callum being held by the pollie, lol, gawd he's so cute. Callum I mean, not the pollie.

Still loving the applique although I have been distracted by the patchwork a bit. My course has finished but I didn't finish my quilt. Aww. But my teacher said I could go to her house one day and finish it, so I might do that or I might go to some patchwork classes that are at a shop near me.

In other news, I have decided to withdraw from my uni course. Another aww. I know its a bit sad but there is some stuff happening around here and uni is very far down the list at the moment. I am going to do it, just not right now. I am definitely going to continue though, I really enjoyed it and was doing really well, I get my final result next week and that unit I did will be credited when I do go back so it wasn't a waste of time. When I go back I will be an australian citizen so I will be able to put it all on tick, which will be much more fun that having to pay it all up front! I will probably do some classes during the day, I am just waiting for Callie to get a bit older, I am not quite ready to leave him yet.

Speaking of older, its my birthday this month, gawd, and of course its Baden's as well, a week after mine. He will be turning five. If we lived in NZ he would be off to school, but here everyone starts on the same day at the beginning of the year so he has to wait until January. I enrolled him the other day and they have orientation in October. He is very excited.

The other baby has arrived, made us wait till 44 weeks, far out. A healthy little girl named Saffron, what a beautiful name. It's my cousins name too.

Patchwork yesterday was a bit of a bust, I bought 'wadding' instead of 'batting'. Traps for young players, I did ask the folk at Spotlight but you can't rely on them anyway so it serves me right. I got the borders put on anyway. Next week is the last week. I have learnt alot. The main thing I have learnt is that I need a craft room, and that project is well underway now.

My husband was very busy while I was at patchwork class. I sold Baden's car bed because he never slept in the blimmen thing so the lady came and picked that up and Steve took the kids out to the garage sales I now have a new bookcase for my craft room. I was looking at one at Vinnies during the week for $60 but this one is MUCH nicer, same style but bigger and newer, and it cost $30 so I like it even more LOL. And clever hubby also bought a long sideways mirror which is what I have been  harping on about since we bought our house, that our loungeroom wall needs a long sideways mirror. It cost $60 at another garage sale and I am absolutely stoked with it. Well done hubby.

Babies, babies everywhere at the moment. One was just born the other day, one is still cooking but due any minute, a few women in my 'mother's group' are preggers at the moment which is very exciting, and my next door neighbour is pregnant with a little boy after having two girls so she is very excited. I think that little bloke who is going to live next door will have quite a few jumpers handed down to him in the next few years.

I have been knitting a lot in the last couple of days, trying to get my unfinished projects finished so I can start knitting straight away when my order from Bendigo Woollen Mills arrives for the jumper I am going to knit for Baden. He goes to school next year so this winter is the last one that he will need more than one jumper because the kids wear a uniform at primary school over here. So I better get cracking. I finished one little cardigan today, I am nearly finished Callum's dachshund jacket, pics will follow soon, I have another cardigan for him that I have totally lost the love for and I have a little vest for a little buddy of mine that I need to do the neckband and the ribbing around the sleeves. I need to get cracking on that too.

There are a few other things I want to make. Mostly little baby girl cardigans. One is called Little Butterflies, I was going to buy the pattern but I really wanted to take a look at it first because sometimes I buy things and then don't use them, which pisses me off. The worst part about buying online is that you can't flick through the pattern before you commit to buying it. In a shop you can look through it and get an idea of whether or not its something you would want to knit. And you can't re-sell them if you don't use them. I don't mind spending money on a pattern but I don't like wasting money on a pattern that I don't end up using so I am being very picky lately.

The other one I am looking at is called 'In Threes' which is very cute but I am not sure if I want to buy the pattern or not, because it's in worsted weight so I would have to do some maths to put it into 8 ply and by the time I have done all that I could probably just design something of my own or just knit something I have already paid for and just change it slightly. Hmm. Anyway. I will think about it. So far I have decided on nothing! Sometimes I think its easier to design something of your own than follow someone else's instructions anyway so I might design my own 'Go To' baby girl pattern.

I have knitted a couple of pairs of booties and done quite a bit of applique lately. And my patchwork is coming along nicely. Steve spilt coke on my squares last night so my craft room idea is also coming along quickly. I need to get the hell off the dining room table and I can't even articulate how much I would love a door between my craft work and sticky grabby little fingers. It's going to be FABULOUS!!!!

Well, looks like there was a bit of a personality transplant around here after all. Total surprise, a very lovely and unexpected one.

Tomorrow is Worldwide Knit in Public Day and there is a gathering in the city but I will be Patchworking in Private so I can't make it.

Its also our wedding anniversary. I don't think we are doing anything for it, maybe go up to the RSL for dinner with the kids or something, but I must confess that it's not a day that I get all sentimental over. I mean, I love being married and I am glad that we did get married but I don't really see the fuss about the anniversary of the day we got married. I mean, we chose that day, it didn't happen by chance or karma or destiny or magic or anything, we just decided on it. We eloped to Fiji so it didn't matter what day of the week we got married so I decided I would like to get married on a Wednesday because I'm a quirky bugger and Steve had no real preference for any particular day, so the Wednesday that we were there just happened to be 18th June. That's it.

I am, however, a sentimental old fewwwwl about the day we *met*. I love that day. I get a bit calf-eyed about that day and ramble all day about it and ask my husband silly questions about what his first impression of me was and whether or not he dreamed we would get married one day and how weird it would be if we hadn't met, blah blah blah blah blah. Every year. Same conversation, same questions. I love it. But that's in January, not tomorrow.

So there won't be anything much happening tomorrow except of course if my husband takes it upon himself to provide a whirlwind of surprise romance that he has lovingly planned down to the last detail.

So, barring a personality transplant around here, nuffing much, ha ha. And that's fine on this occasion. Although dinner at the RSL will be nice, we don't get out much so anywhere is fabulous, and the RSL serves a buffet which is beautiful. So I am happy.

But anyway, I have patchwork in the morning while the unromantic, gorgeous, kind, honest, hardworking and dependable man who married me looks after our babies. Sadly I am not as good at patchwork as I hoped I would be. In fact, I think I suck at it a bit. I hope I improve because I want to be good at it. I spent the whole four hours last week cutting out my material and three and a half hours into it I realised that my tape measure is out by one millimetre because my kid has stretched it while being a superhero and tying up bad guys. So all my patches are out by one millimetre which means I will spend tomorrow re-cutting my fabric. Grrrr. One millimetre doesn't sound like a big deal but it will mean that the whole thing is bollocksed and I think I should start off doing things by the book.

I am going to try and actually get something done, because its the third week and it only goes for five weeks.

A plain long sleeve T shirt, a rainy day, a 4 year old who is mad about fire engines and his mother who is mad about applique. The fire on the sleeve was Baden's idea, which I thought was pretty cool. It was very fiddly to do though and I won't be doing it again, but it looks awesome.

And of course he LOVES it, which is the main thing!

Last week we bought a new dishwasher because the one that came with the house died. It was a long slow death but when it was over it was definitely over. I think Callum helped it along, he is a Button Pusher Extraordinaire. I often find clothes in the washing machine still dry because the sneaky little munchkin has wandered in when I have left the door open and turned the bloody thing off.

But we can't blame him for the oven because he can't reach that. So that is this week's appliance on the blink. It has been on the way out for ages, it's probably as old as the house. It's brown, which was all the rage once I am sure! We had to use a special door-staying-closed device when it was cooking, to keep the heat in. But last night I tried to close the door and the whole thing just went WHUMP and now we need the door-staying-closed device on the whole time just to stop the door falling down. The door for the grill fell off a while ago, lol, gawd.

We wanted to renovate our whole kitchen, which meant we were going to get everything all lovely and shiny at that time so we just put up with it, but now it has become more of a one at a time kind of situation. It would have been nice to be able to plan it a bit more because there are a few things we want to change around.

But we're getting there anyway, the fridge was replaced not so long ago, replacing my little old single-gal-living-in-a-granny-flat one with a lovely big stainless family-sized jobby. Exactly the same situation with the microwave. And now the new dishwasher matches, and the new oven will match both of those. Noice.

Colour guide - tells you all the colours that are in this piece of fabric!

What I have chosen so far, need one more.

And the cotton.

So, I went to my patchwork course and I looooooooved it. My first project is a 42 square basic quilt. I love this idea because you can do anything you like on the squares, applique, whatever. I am just making a plain one first to get the gist of it all, but I am going to make one at home at the same time. So I will go to class and do one, then come home and do what I learnt on another one.

I already learnt heaps. I have trouble matching colours of fabrics, that is my biggest weakness, but I learnt that there is a colour guide on the bottom of the fabric. Holy cow, that's bloody magic!! Just learning that little gem was worth the price of the course, lol. So I have already bought my fabric and it was much easier to match it all up. I would love a few squares of chenille in this one, I think it would look awesome, but chenille is a bit hard to find at the moment.

And I bought the cotton, its 100% cotton,  not the usual polyester thread I buy. I dunno why, the lady told me to buy it and I bought it. And I already have a rotary cutter and ruler and mat. So I am all set.

The best part was that I could come home and go through all my old craft magazines and didn't have to flick past the patchwork pages.

I am really looking forward to next week's class. There were some ladies there who started last term and they have made so much cool stuff, after just one term. Promising. Very promising.

Okay, so uni is finished for the semester. Next semester I am thinking of doing a unit on Business Law which looks quite interesting.

So I am on holidays now, I get to say 'I am on holidays' now that I am at uni one night a week, because you can tell the difference between that and the rest of my life, ha ha.

We are thinking of heading down to see the inlaws because Steve's brother is down from the Gold Coast. They haven't been back for about fifteen years due to family dramas. When we got married I thought I was marrying into this lovely little normal family...HA!

And I finally went and got my throat checked, its been bugging me for months but everything else always got in the way, stupid pelvis, stupid arthritis, I didn't have time or energy to check out stupid throat, but it was getting too annoying. Anyway, doctor thinks maybe thyroid is enlarged or something, have to get some more tests. I have no idea why this has happened, I don't know of any family history, tis all a bit random.

And I have been busily knitting and doing a bit of sewing. I start my patchwork course on Saturday. squeeee, I hope its as good as I am, um, hoping, lol. I am doing lots of applique and having fun. Today I discovered a product called FrayStop, so now I think I have discovered everything there is to discover about applique and can now just get on with it. I am quietly thinking of opening a wee etsy shop or something, but that is just a speck of an idea that is currently germinating and could go either way really let's be honest, lol.