MrsBrown's philosophy of life and stuff

to try and cram in the activities I had planned for my holiday. I go back to work in 5 days.  I have 4 days to complete the following;

complete the christmas process without embarrassing myself due to a lack of appropriate gifts - this includes at least 3 sewing projects by Sunday. mostly.  It's over now and I can't do anything about it, although I still have to finish the buttonholes on one gift.

finish knitting my cardy I also started a jumper for Rose, that's almost finished too but I don't have time to do it if I'm to do any of the other things.

make the dress that in my head goes with the cardy
finish the dress that was in my head last summer
finish the other two sewing ufo's hanging over my head
Nope!  No sewing done yet - looking unlikely, see kitchen note below.

build a back fence and gate
draw the renovation that I've been drawing for 6 years
Today I decide if the back fence gets done or I do something else.

lie on the couch reading or watching television for 3 days in a row I may have done more than 3 days of this...
go shopping for new work clothes

mend work clothes
buy a new fridge
spend a couple of days hanging out with friends
a couple of easy ones so that I would have stuff to cross off.  Although the new fridge prompted me to decide to pull apart the kitchen and re-surface the floor.  That's been made harder by the moral collapse yesterday, but it should be finished today - as soon as I buy more paint, wait for people to have breakfast and showers and close the kitchen for the day.

pull apart Rose's room and put it back together
This may be easier to do as MsNotaGoth is nagging for it, so the amplifier collection can get out of her room and into her sister's.

and some other stuff
I started using asana these holidays.  It's been good to just keep adding projects and then reviewing and moving the from the "today" or "upcoming" lists to the "later" list.  It removes the guilt of not doing them, but keeps them as possibilities for my future.  Based on the asana list and my calendar, here's how I'm going to spend the next 4 days;

finish kitchen
do work thing that's due on Monday but I didn't finish before christmas
work on Jumper
See Sherlock Holmes 1
See Sherlock Holmes 2
attend conference thingy for morning
attend birthday gathering in arvo
clean my bedroom
sort finances, and book keeping process
review back gate project for feasibility and planning
update tent blog

Let me see... what can I do while I lie here in bed...?

I'm on holidays.  but so is Rose, and dragging her around everywhere we go is fine for a while, but I think we need to remember to program some stuff she will enjoy.  If I'm careful I can do stuff that I will enjoy too.

I wrote a post of stuff to do last summer, and we only did one of the things on that list so it's a good start.

I'm more tempted by the Wind in the Willows this year - I think she'll enjoy it much more.

mr-bassman and I have been talking about getting more live music into our lives. We've discussed Sunday arvo's at a pub, but this Friday night Supper Market at the Convent also looks worthwhile.  I just have to find a Friday night - maybe in February.

We need to get to the Disney exhibition at ACMI and they also have movies.  Movies in the next week, and the week after.  Next week they also have a story telling, craft thing.

Given Rose's most recent craft interest, we have to go to this:





Maybe we should enrol her in circus classes next term.

From an article in The Age;


Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne Explore the vegie garden with a story and gardening fun (Jan 6, 14, 19 & 20, 10am-11am, ages 4-8, $10). Ian Potter Children's Garden, Birdwood Ave, South Yarra. Tel: 9252 2429, www.rbg.vic.gov.au

Abbotsford Convent's new Supper Market, Fridays 6pm-10pm to Feb 26, Heliers St, Abbotsford, suppermarket.com.au

Melbourne Museum Get up close to the animals in Wild: Amazing Animals in a Changing World with activities themed around this new permanent display including making an animal mask in Creature Features (Dec 26-Jan 31, daily 11am-3pm); or take part in a 20-minute Wild party in the Milarri Garden with music, dance and games (Jan 1-31, noon, 1pm & 2pm). Open daily 10am-5pm (closed Dec 25). Nicholson St, Carlton. $8, child/conc free, all activities included in entry. Tel: 131 102, museumvictoria.com.au

NICA @ Fed Square Try your hand at basic circus skills at fun drop-in workshops with experienced NICA trainers. Suits all ages. Jan 14-Mar 18, Mondays noon-2pm. Fed Square Amphitheatre, city. Free. nica.com.au

ACMI The bumper program of films includes the popular Kids' Classics with free screenings of Eloise: Little Miss Christmas and the all-chimp spy spoof series from the 1970s Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp (Dec 14-Jan 30, Mon-Fri 11am, Sat 11.15am). The Kids' Flicks program screens nine films including Meet Me in St Louis (G), The Muppet Christmas Carol (G), Tarzan, the Ape Man (G), Dunston Checks In (G), Curious George (G) and the computer-animated Space Chimps (G) (Dec 13-Jan 30, dates vary, 1pm; $5). ACMI Cinemas, Fed Square, city. Tel: 8663 2200, acmi.net.au, thatsmelbourne.com.au

The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame's story of life on the riverbank is an established family fave. Dec 29-Jan 30 (no shows Jan 1 or 26), 11am & 6pm, Tues-Sat. Royal Botanic Gardens, Birdwood Ave, Gate F, South Yarra. $25, group of four $90. Tel: 1300 122 344 or 136 100, australianshakespearecompany.com.au

I don't seem to be as broken this year as I have been other years. It's only 2 days since christmas and my mind is overflowing with the things I'd like to get done. Here are some of the things on the top. I'll use this whenever I get bored.

Repaint the hallway floor
Reorganise my books - get my authors together
Sort out my bedroom, throw out clothes, put away others and revise clothing storage so I don't have to throw them all in a pile
Finish sorting out Rose's room - organise better clothes storage and get rid of stuff that doesn't fit
Install new kitchen cabinets so I don't have to have cutlery in a drawer on a chair
Paint the wall above the stove
Finish assimilating stuff from giving Rose her own room and find more room in the Family room
Rearrange the television corner so it isn't
Justify buying a new TV that we can use to watch iview and photos from our laptops
Rearrange the backyard to fit more vegie garden and a chook run
Build a medieval kitchen shack with my friends
Finish the plumbing for sjkasabi
Spend an hour a day driving with MsNotaGoth in preparation for her driving test
Buy ceiling fans for our bedrooms
Resolve the lighting in the Family room so we can install ceiling fans without suffering from flicker but keep the room as a workroom (we have strip fluorescent lights, ugly but very functional)
Draw up sjkasabi 's existing kitchen and laundry to scale so she and martinlemechant can draw all over it
Arrange printing of the business cards that monstah so cleverly designed, but I never got to.
Make Mr-bassman's christmas present
Make Mrpeacock's christmas present
Take Sneetch shopping for his christmas present
Work out what to give MsNotaGoth for christmas
Have a faux christmas day with pancakes, a tree, a large lunch and all my children
Spend a day sewing with rain_and_snow
Organise/build composting toilets for Surveying

and, to make sure I can cross some things off this list in 17 days;

Read several books
Nap when necessary
Go to a New Years Eve party
Sleep in

Saturday feast held at 4pm with Ball after - VERY neat. Kids liked it, I'm sure cleaning crew liked it and we got to go back to that fabulous hall again for a ball.

Monday, bought too much fabric. 15.9kg for those interested - about 40m of wool at $3ish a meter, and 10m of linen at $3 per meter - All NZ prices!!! I think we may need to arrrange care packages of the linen - montjoye and sjkasabi exclaimed over it enthusiastically. Tomorrow, budget permitting, I want to go and buy some of that wool cashmere in Brunswick.

Tuesday at Hanmer Springs was a highlight, particularly the waterslides (thanks to Dickon for the suggestion). And I never knew it was possible to gossip and converse for two and a half days straight - that was great too.