Bread!

We ran out of bread for lunches today, but it's not payday until tomorrow so I got the bread machine up and running.  

Dark Rye, hopefully yummy!

A week and a half

That's the time we have before we have to have the garage cleared of stuff.   This morning I spent clearing the top part of the pantry and calling about the garage to try and get things sorted.   A bit of jumping up and down (while being polite) has got results.  We had a visit from the contractor to look at the garage, confirmed that they won't take all of Thomas' junk away so we're going to have to do that.   I'd expected that anyway; Thomas hadn't.   So that leaves us with just over a week to clear things out of the garage, get as much as we can to the storage unit and the rest to the dump.  The contractor has offered to loan me his trailer to get stuff to the dump which is very nice of him.    The first day there won't be any destruction going on, but there will be a big trench across the drive and no power to the house (or phone).
The contractor asked if we wanted to keep anything from the building such as roofing iron so I've asked for enough to roof the boys playhut and one of the light fittings for FIL.

So, the next wee bit will be pretty busy without much crafting.  I'll still work on George's vest though as it's a test knit on a time frame, but all else will be on hold including my sewing, aside from on the no-power day when I might do hand-sewing and some spinning.  It's going to seem strange not having a garage though; it's been there so long!   Hoping I do get the chance to finish cleaning out the pantry though, might list a few things on Trademe from the kitchen as we've got stuff we never use.

Love Freecycle

I popped 3 items on Freecycle today, within half an hour 2 of them were claimed and another half hour later one had left the property. We no longer have a big oil fin heater; last used about 5 years back which worked fine then and has been in the garage since. 16 wineglasses will be going to their new home on Wednesday; the new owner lost all hers in the quakes; ours haven't been used more than 3 times in the 12 years we've had them.

Most of the big stuff from the garage is now in storage, spent 4 hours yesterday working on that, well, 6 actually but we only had the trailer for 4 of those 6. Still a few big things staying here; the ladder for one, the workbench as it won't fit on a trailer and one big storage unit which we'll have to trundle out of the garage and into the deck area. Still quite a bit of stuff in the deck, but that's all things that will fit into the car so I'll take a trip or several during the week. In particular the bigger tools have yet to go, but one trip should take care of most of them if I take the carseats out. Luckily I am capable of opening the unit up, it's a storage container and the levers are a little stiff.

On the crafting front there's not a huge amount happening due to all the tidying I've been doing, but I have cast on for another item. I signed up to do a test-knit of a cabled vest for children. I'm doing the size 7 in a longer length for George. He seems to prefer vests over jerseys and I'm happy to accommodate that.

 I'll be working on this only until it's finished; hopefully once this is finished I'll get something else finished.   Thomas would like his socks.

Wardrobe Wednesday on a day of rememberance.

A year ago today was not a good day for anyone in Christchurch, today we remember and I dressed up for the occasion

I'm wearing my favourite dandelion fairy t-shirt, a favourite stretch A-line skirt that was too big so I've introduced  tucks as a design feature, my favourite socks and shoes as well. 
T-shirt from One-day tees
Skirt - made by me, and then I got smaller.   Fabric was from Fabric Vision
Socks - made by me using Noro Silk Garden Sock
Shoes - Planet Shoes brand, lovely and comfy and good at showing off hand-knit socks.

I'm participating in Wardrobe Wednesday on Sailor Spy


I'm about to start work on that quilt again, same as this time last year.  I'll post photo's later as they're on the good camera and I'm recharging the battery.

A year ago tomorrow

Life changed forever for everyone living in Christchurch.   It changed in different degrees, for some just small changes, a little cosmetic damage to property, the ability to gauge the size of earthquakes accurately.   For others it changed in a big way, the loss of loved ones, of homes and possessions, jobs and local communities.  We're lucky, yes the garage is dangerous, but at least the house is only cosmetic damage and no-one we knew was killed.   We have friends who have lost their homes though and we know people who have lost friends too and people who were hurt that day.   I had been planning on being in town that day, so glad I procrastinated.
I suspect that everyone in Christchurch that day remembers exactly what they were doing when it hit; I certainly do as does my husband.   I was sewing seams on a quilt and that's exactly what I'll be doing tomorrow at the same time.  My husband was in the loo at his work; hopefully he won't be doing that and if he is it won't be in the same building as that's red stickered and likely to be demolished.  The boys were at school, just down the road being well looked after by the teachers and staff there who did a wonderful job, especially as many of them had no idea how their families were doing.

Things in Christchurch are not yet back to normal, but many businesses are back up and running, people are getting on with life admittedly with some adjustments.   I'd like to think that most homes in Christchurch now have emergency kits; pre-earthquake we were one of the few families that seemed to have one; now many do.

I'm going to be busy tomorrow morning, dropping into work, signing up for our storage (3-4 weeks turned out to be 3-4 days wait) and then working on the quilt, which really hasn't had much happen to it since a year ago.   I'll also be getting things ready for teaching the kids at school to spin on Friday.   I'm making basic spindles from CD's for them, I'd prefer finer shafts, but I can't get the grommets here so thick shaft it is.  I'll test run one first though.

Quotes

I seem to be spending a lot of time getting quotes at the moment.   The chap from Skyline garages just left, got one from Fair Dinkum for the kitset only already, and another 2 being worked on as well.   Haven't heard from one place, but hopefully with 4 it'll be enough to get things underway.    Have no idea on timelines for any of it yet, but I'll be jumping up and down again tomorrow.

I didn't go to spinning on Saturday, have a sore throat courtesy of youngest I suspect so decided not to go an infect everyone else.   Instead I helped get more stuff out of the garage so we've now got it to the point where everything in there is either junk or stuff that Thomas has to decide if he's keeping or not.
Despite not going spinning I didn't feel too bad about that as I finished the first lot of fibre on Friday night so the first bobbin is full!

On Saturday night we played Talisman with Thomas' mother and sister and for a wee while George joined in.  Between my turns I dizzed another 100g of the fibre I'm spinning so that it's ready to go as well.  We had a great time, that game is always heaps of fun, and I won!   First time I recall doing that.   I also started crocheting another dishcloth, this one out of Elann cotton, this one will go into a pile for later gifting seeing as I have plenty already.

On Wednesday it's the 1 year anniversary of the big quake here in Christchurch, I've decided I'll be remembering by pulling out the quilt I was working on that day and getting more of it done; I feel that's a better way to remember it for me than going to one of the public things.   There have been a few items on TV remembering and they're hard to watch but I've still watched them, and I've recorded them too.  I think it's going to be hard to watch them for some time yet, for me at least, but I don't want to forget.   Remembering is important to me.

Finishing on a happier note, I decided to try something new when I got the groceries.  Jules Destrouper Butter Crisps.  Horribly expensive, but they are incredibly yummy!  No preservatives or any nasty things in there, flour, sugar, butter, eggs, salt and baking soda.   Now I need a waffle iron that can do the really thin ones!  I am in love, but it's not something I can afford regularly.  Probably very bad for the diet too, but at the time I didn't care!

Things are slowly happening

I think the first update has to be on the Tom Cat. He got to the cat shelter and then escaped from his cage! He's not been fixed, they've set up loads of traps to catch him and I'll let them know if he turns up here again. He's a wiley wee sod, got to give him that. Apparently even if he doesn't get trapped over there he certainly won't be short on food.

On the garage front we still don't know what's happening; this is what it looks like at the moment.

We've got approval from insurance to put the stuff in storage; we are on a wait list for storage which will probably be around 3-4 weeks.  We'll have to wait and see.
I've rung EQC again, no response from the chap who came out to look, so rang the main number who have (I hope) referred it urgently to Fletchers.   I rang them yesterday, so I'll give them a week before chasing it up.   We were doing some measuring last night and Thomas leaned against the worst wall; he wasn't thinking, but it moved and you could hear it too.   Not a good thing to listen to.

I've not knitted much, but I have finished the crocheted dishcloth for Thomas' Mum.  It turned out quite well luckily, though I did have to add to the side edge as it was getting too long.

It's 100% cotton and I'm not blocking it as it'll be used for dishes.

I'm now about to get back to the spinning for a bit while watching Black Swan.  I'm still working on the same as last time, except the bobbin is almost full

 and I still have this to fit in there; don't think it'll make it, but I'm going to push it as far as I can.