fanbloomingtastic

Can't stop! Sew much to do, so little time...

Just back from a fantastic Spring Break Doctor Who Roadtrip.... if you pop over to my Absobloominglutely tumblr you'll see I was instagram'ing teaser photos of it as we went along. I'm now working through the nearly 500 photos Goth Child took on the good camera (as opposed to my iphone). And yes, we acted out some of the iconic scenes from Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon.

Some time this week, hopefully in the next day or two I'll post the absolute best of these and for any of you fellow Whovians who want to do the roadtrip around the the sites used in Season 6 Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon, I'll post GPS locations and directions......as well as the pics we took.

BUT, I'm seriously behind on this week's Sew Weekly challenge (Pantone Spring 2012 this week's theme) so I must, must, must get sewing. I've a pencil skirt without a zip or waistband and a top of many gathers not anywhere near wearable....and the deadline is midnight tonight.

AND I've got to take Luca back to the vets AGAIN this afternoon to have her bandages taken off (hopefully for good) and see if she can be allowed out. She is soooo angry at me right now for keeping her in.

AND it's the last day of Spring Break, so it's time to get the kids back ready for school tomorrow and I imagine some last minute emergency washing of their favourite clothes worn on our roadtrip that they NEED to wear this week.

So I'd better get moving.....more soon......honest.

Happy New Year! (I'm starting this one over)

Happy New Year (well, for me and all the Persians, Iranians out there).

OK, how about Happy First Day of Spring?

Will that do you? Oh how I miss Shropshire and our daffodils.

I've been joking with people in the last couple of weeks that I was looking for a New Year celebration date to start 2012 over, and this one seems as good as any.

Because frankly the start to the traditional calendar year has been a bit pooey.

I'm not even sure I can remember all the stuff we've been battling, but they include:

• Mr D being diagnosed to have diabetes and bladder cancer.....both which later proved to not be the case.
• Mr D being taken off a plane by paramedics in Chicago with chronic kidney stone pain and then not being able to get home for over a week.
• Two trips to A&E or as they call it over here, the Emergency Room....one until nearly 3am, the latter with Goth Child and Melchett in tow.
• Luca (our cat) going missing....then coming back only to be chased my a neighbour's dog and losing most of her back claws in the process (I'll show you a pic of her little bandaged legs in a minute).
• A car reversing into my beloved Hartley (my car) in a car park/parking lot.
• Me having the largest tooth infection our dentist had seen (that had caused a large abcess in my jaw....and I didn't know anything about it until they showed me the x-ray).
• Having to go to an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon to have the tooth pulled out and work done on the jaw.
• Me slipping into the bottom of my cyclothymia cycle and being quite depressed.

I think that's about it.

Anyway, that was all 'last year'......and with the start of Tempest's New 2012 things are going to be better....or we'll be having words.

But it's not all bad.

I did make some pretty clothes for the 'end of last year's' Sew Weekly Challenges:

So if you want to find out more about my Dr Seuss/Lorax tribute (the whole in Seussical-type rhyme), my Angel of the North, my Up skirt (no, not that type), my Life on Mars outfit, Pinky Blue dress, Green and Red challenges, my parachute maxi dress, my big threatening buttons shirt (which now actually fits me, wey hey!) or my 'two nations joined by a common thread' check out the full blog posts on Sew Weekly by hitting any of those links.

And would you like a sneak peek of what will be appearing this week for the Sew Weekly Mad Men challenge?

As you can see my photographer (Goth Child) and I had big fun on the photoshoot. You can see some of the prepping photos on my Absobloominglutely tumblr....which, if you're interested, is also the place to get sneak peeks of all my Sew Weekly challenges during each week.

Another happy time near the 'end' of 'last year', was being taken out by my lovely friends over here Paula, Rachel and Beth. We go out to celebrate our birthdays but as I don't celebrate my birthday I was told to choose a random date just to go out. We chose the Monday nearest to March 1st and went out for a pizza to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday (March 2nd) and St. David's Day (March 1st). Look what these lovely sillies presented me with:

Aren't they wonderful? Daffodils and a leek (Rachel was righly proud to have sourced these for me and had researched St. David, the patron saint of Wales) and Green Eggs and Ham converse......which I must, must, must get exchanged for the right size, Mr. D told them I'm a 7, which is true in the UK, over here a 7 is actually a 5....so they're too small boo hoo....but if I get my act in gear (which I am going to because it's New Year right, new starts, good intentions, new umph) I can ask Rachel to politely see if we can exchange them for a US 9.

I consider myself stupidly lucky to not only have been found by wonderful supportive friends back home in the UK....I'm looking at you in particular Maretta....but have been adopted by some women over here just as silly, fun-loving and quirky.

Oooh I promised you a pic of the poor old Luca as well didn't I?

 

Those were last week's pink bandages. She's had them rewrapped and is in blue this week....though fingers crossed she can have them off next Monday and be allowed outside again (she is soooooooooooo angry with me for not letting her out AND squirting antibiotics and painkillers down her throat).

OK, I'm off to celebrate the rest of this 'New Year's Day' and update/write my goals and dreams for the 'new' 2012. I'll show you them tomorrow.

The 2011 Christmas Letter (Christmas Bucket List task - Day 2)

So Day 2 of the Christmas Bucket List of things to do was: "Do a 'Christmas letter' for 2011 on fanbloomingtastic.com". I didn't do a Christmas letter in our Christmas cards this year, I don't know....I can't bring myself to do one, it seems a bit braggy. BUT, I do know some of you actually like that stuff so here goes...

Hmmm what did we do this year? Let's be honest, you really only want to hear about the kids don't you....I tell you loads of stuff about me every week here and on Twitter and Mr D is thriving in his job and as per usual working all hours including dashing off around the country and abroad on a regular basis.

So let's start with the smallest first...

Melchett

Melchett got taller as her hair got shorter this year:

 

 

She's now a 3rd grader. She loves maths (even if the Americans will insist in calling it 'math'), science, sports and dancing. Her reading is coming on leaps and bounds, she devours chapter books and adores our local library. She attends a weekly dance class, a gymnastics club and is part of the school choir (meaning we have to get her up earlier twice a week as they practice before school). She is a total comedian and makes me laugh every day.

I know we're biased but she is an incredibly kind-hearted and caring child, very sociable and incredibly inquisitive (though hasn't she always been?) As you can tell from the middle pic above, she's also developing a very individual style of her own and is highly interested in fashion.

 

Although the shortening of Melchett's hair is nothing compared to her big sister's transformation this year...

Goth Child

 

Looking back on photos of how Goth Child has changed and grown up, I'm gobsmacked this is all one year.

Guess which photo isn't taken on an iphone but a self-portrait by the photography student herself (no surprises it was the one taken this weekend on the far right).

Goth Child (who is no longer a child really and tells me the 'Goth' was always ironic as it's a nickname she was taunted with back in Shropshire by other kids at her school because she was a bit different) has matured so much this year and we are so proud of her (and her sister).

She graduated from Junior High School in summer as a straight A student and is now working so incredibly hard to keep her grades at A's in her High School Freshman year. She dropped Spanish on leaving Junior High in favour of Mandarin Chinese and is excelling at that, Honours Maths (they say Honors Math) and Honours Biology. As I said earlier she's also been doing Photography but she misses Choir so much (which she did for 2 years at Jr High) she's swopping to that in the New Year. The uniform you see her in is her dress uniform for AFJROTC (Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps) which in all honesty she only took at first to get out of PE, but now she's enjoying it so much she's thinking about doing it for all of her time at High School.

Other things you might want to read that will tell you what we got up to in 2011:

Selling our UK home, ready to move to the USA permanently

Leaving the World's Brownest House behind (that we rented for 1.5 years)

Moving into our new home and arranging for Luca our cat to join us

The arrival of Luca Brasi (also known as the $5000 cat)

Beginning to sort the rooms in the new house out - my sewing room/lair

Surviving a haboob and getting back to school

Putting some colour into a beige house with curtains

Creating a Trophy Room (I mean guest loo)

Going to see the Grand Canyon.....and our family

Working out how to hang pictures ridiculously high

Creating our Doctor Who/Van Gogh 'gallery'

Controversially organised the bookshelves by colour!

Made the living room more ours, more cosy

Luca Brasi is HERE!

OK this is the last post I'll rave about having my cat back honest.....nah, it probably won't be, you're right.

But she's here (arty photo alert...)

 

 

Ok so that pic doesn't show her at her best. How about this one?

 

 

Luca having travelled the world (ok it was just a 10.5 hour flight from London Heathrow to Phoenix AZ) now stretches out in front of it (map from IKEA for everyone who's been asking).

And so far she seems to be coping well, she's eating and drinking fine. Bodily functions all seem ok too.....except she threw up on the beige carpet this morning....hmmm thanks for that one Luca! She's sleeping a lot during the day, but then she's a cat. Actually her new favourite place to sleep is beside where I'm typing now, under a shelf in my computer desk...

 

We've been advised to keep her indoors for 2-3 weeks...though we have let her out for a few minutes each day and goodness knows what she's making of the lack of countryside and mice...

 

That basketball in the swimming pool was VERY interesting.

So all is well and I'm a very happy bunny to have my Luca Brasi back with me. One year, 4 months and 16 days apart....not that I was counting ;)

The move....and the imminent arrival of a Hitcat

Last Friday the move finally happened, sort of.

I have NO IDEA why the removals firm scheduled 3 whole days to move our stuff just less than 2 miles. Unless it was health and safety, worrying about the amount of carrying the heavy furniture...that could be it.

So Wednesday - they packed our stuff. They arrived at 8 and finished by 11.30. This was the day we took possession of the new house but as none of the utilities were connected yet, we just made do with the opening of the new house ceremony...

 

Of course the girls couldn't do the usual thing of using scissors to cut the ribbon and had to karate chop it instead...

Thursday - the removal men loaded the stuff onto the very big lorry...

 

...and they were finished by half 12, but very kindly came and dropped off our mattresses so we could spend our first night in the new house.

Friday, they brought the lorry to the house and unloaded it...and were finished by one o'clock. Plus all of our stuff only filled about half of that lorry. That would sound good if you didn't know that all the rest of our furniture was on it's way across the Atlantic heading towards Los Angeles...actually it's arrived there now and will be heading across land to Phoenix to arrive next Wednesday.

Although the house isn't anywhere near as open plan as the world's brownest house that we've been living in for the past year and four months...it was still a little more open plan than we liked. So since the move we've had numerous contractors coming in and putting right all the little things that happen to a foreclosed house that need fixing and putting in some extra doors to make more separate rooms. Like here...

 

So we're in.

But me being the social phobic that I am, I'm finding it massively hard having numerous workmen in the house constantly and having to talk to people is taking it's toll. I'm sleeping really badly...especially when a certain burglar alarm technician failed to reset the alarm system already installed in the house and it went off about 2am and as we didn't have a manual nor had he warned us what to do when the control panel shows a zone number that doesn't actually exist.............aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, he's been back and fixed it and charged me $80 for the priviledge.

The kids go back to school on Tuesday, although this I think will make me being alone in the house with strangers even more difficult. At least the kids are starting points to start conversations. 

The works on the house are going to go on for a couple of weeks, and then I'll be able to settle and make this place my new sanctuary...and paint some colour into the house - it's not as bad as the world's brownest house, but it's all the same colour light brown carpets and mid brown walls. I need to make some of the rooms more colourful.

So here's what you're really waiting for - some initial pics of the house before we start Devyne-ing it (the downstairs loo is going to become a tongue-in-cheek trophy room/faux shooting lodge/reading room....watch this space for pics of it's development; Tempest's Creative Lair is going to become a home to pink flamingo curtains, with a similarly reupholstered armchair....and very possibly white picket fence around the walls; and much, much more).

But here's some befores for you:

 

 

(large wall where I hope to have a large blown-up pic of this eventually)

BUT more importantly than all that, currently as we speak, my beautiful cat, Luca Brasi is coming to America. (We gave her a Godfather mafia name in the hope that other cats would be afraid of her....plus she dreams of sleeping with fishes and sings like Cerys Matthews (we sing this with changed lyrics - I am the Mog)....that last one is a lie.....the second last one probably was too....but she did once put a horse's head in my bed...well ok, it was a run-over rabbit...and she didn't manage to pull it all the way through the cat-flap...)

Look I'm tracking her as we speak (or I type):

 

My Luca, she's coming! The hitcat :)

(I think we can probably guess what my Silent Sunday pic will be of....)