Finally a New Post!

It has been a long time since I've posted on my blog. This is despite those who have been nagging me, wanting to see what has been going on during my summer. (Yes, BM - I've been listening to you. You too TW.)


It has been a long summer with lots of work. And I've come back from my holidays and jumped right back into my full time job. So my evenings have been dedicated to washing huge garbage bags of clothes, towels and weeks of bedclothing... as well as the clothes we are using in our every day life back in the city.


But I've finally got around to finding the pictures I want to use, and getting my head around what I it is I want to say.


First of all - here is the most important of our projects: the porch on the third side of our cabin. This is what we (and especially my husband) has been dreaming of for 10 years.



We have already been out here eating breakfasts, watching the sun rise.


(Well, okay, that's a bit of a lie - have day light almost 24 hours a day means that we would have to wake up at 3 am to see the sunrise. Maybe we'll try that in October. But we have eaten lots of breakfasts out here).


We've also eaten lunches out here and myself and my husband have enjoyed a glass of wine or two (or more...) in the evenings.


And I also have to say that since we've been using this side of the cabin we've seen more animals this summer than we ever have in the 12 years we've been living out here in the summer. We've seen: porpoises, a family of mink, sea eagles, weasles and lots of fish jumping out of the water. It is quite amazing.


In the autumn, when the grass begins to die, I will (yes, that is *me* I said) be starting to dig out the dirt down the forth side of the cabin.


We'll be starting to build the forth balcony next spring.

I am a bit hesitant about it though. It is a steep incline, going straight down to the sea.

But, great things do not come without great risk. I will just check my life insurance before starting.

We're also using the porch as a storage place. Until now we've had piles of nicely stacked building materials covered with tarps. They've been green tarps of course, so they blend into the landscape. But they've still been there and have bothered us. Now we've got it all tucked away...

And they're protected from the rain....

The second major project that we've completed was to re-routed our water supply around 20 acres of property. Here is where we used to get our water....

Which was way at the far end of the first porch we built 8 years ago. And completely on the opposite side of the cabin to where the kitchen is.

But with hard work done by my kick ass brother in-law and my cool nephew...

And a little bit more tinkering here...

(If the truth be said, it was my brother in-law who did all of the important work on this project)

And paying my 7 year old son an advance in his allowance to crawl under the second porch (build 3 years ago) which is muddy and wet, to pull and push the hose and tap to where it is supposed to be....

We can now simply go out our kichen door to get our water. We will be building a stand for the sink pictured here.

The third project: I spent 3 days (with the help of one of my younger nephews and my son (7 years) and daugher (5 years) to paint this wall. It would no doubt have taken me a lot less time without the help, but it isn't always the point to get something done in the least amount of time.

And most of the paint actually ended up on the wall.

We are really happy with the color on the wall - although you can certainly see the difference with the wall beside it:

Here's a better view of the painting that needs to be done next summer....

But at least we'll have a great view to comfort us while getting the work done.

Finally there was a bit of fun building. My daughter has been after her father to make a proper bed for her pet lion. You could see that she totally fell in love with her father when he got the job done:

It's a perfect fit.

And inbetween all of this work, and the fishing, swimming, water tubing, and day trips we took, I was still able to get a lot of crafting done.

It has been a very good summer this year.

My Working Space

One of my collegues from the European Street Team on Etsy had a challenge to all members: blog about your creative workspace.

This has taken me a bit of time to do as I, in the big scheme of things, do not actually have a permanent workspace.

I do have my sewing corner under the stairs of my house and I have done a lot of creative sewing in the past. However, at this point in time, my life is so busy that I am only sewing patches on the knees of my son's pants. But I will come back to this creative corner sooner or later.


Notice the newspaper articles I've been featured in as well as the pictures that my daughter has drawn for me in order to help me become more creative. I do miss sitting in that corner.

The next most popular place to work is on my living room chair in the evenings (below). Lately this has been happening more and more infrequently. But I do manage to get at least 30 minutes in before I need to go to sleep. Even if I don't create anything worth keeping and need to take it apart, I do manage to relax my mind and heart rate which makes falling asleep after a hectic day that much easier.

It's not often that I am a passanger in our Pajero. But those times that I am, I do some easy knitting.... the kind that can be done without looking at my project and thus avoiding car sickness.

Last week I managed to do a bit of knitting at one of my son's feild trips. We went on a big picnic at the north end of the large island we live on. After visiting the museum, wading in the super cold ocean water and eating our packed lunch, everyone else pulled out their coffee thermoses while the kids were running and playing in the fields. I took out my current project. I only got 10 minutes worth of work done, but 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there makes an extra project every week.

And today I did a bit of knitting while at the aquarium. I planned it right and we were able to get a window seat in the cafeteria just before the seal show started. My children happily ate an ice cream while watching the seals and all their tricks. I got to begin on something new.

So basically where I can take my work with me, I can have a work space. It would probably be easier to think of where I cannot do work:

• on an airplane (damn those terroists!)
• in the dentist's chair
• in the movie theater
• in bed after my husband turns off the lights.

Otherwise, I guess the rest is fair game.