Chaletgirl

School holidays, that is. Thank goodness. Henry’s preschool runs on school terms and whilst I know that many mums love the lack of routine that school holidays brings, it’s, well, not for me. Being so restricted with Emmeline’s sleeps at home means we are here at home a lot, and the first week was cool and rainy and, just, ugh.

Emmeline has been sick again, with another bout of tonsillitis, and pure misery has been her middle name. Now that she’s on the mend, dosed to the hilt with antibiotics and probiotics (my mathematical head is telling me that these should cancel each other out, but a health professional I am not), teething has taken over and one of her top teeth is through and the other is looking like it’s on it’s way too.

Super action heroes at the park

We also had some lovely visitors for a few days, all the way from the sunny northern state, which was, seriously, heavenly. I didn’t get to talk about or show or crap on about half the crafty stuff I had wanted to (and we did a tremendous amount of crafty talk, so that’s saying something). These visits always go too quickly.

So I guess there is no need to explain why it’s been quiet at the chalet, is there?

In a more positive light, the minute the damned child my delightful son was safely ensconced at preschool for the 6 minutes hours that they tend to his every need yesterday, I started to sew again and life is looking decidedly brighter again after getting some time to fondle some fabric.

Results of that are still to be photographed, but will be shown ASAP.

Actually I did do a little bit of sewing while Donna was here. I told you she inspires me to sew. One of our mutual friends is 37 weeks pregnant, and as is our tradition, we chose a fabric range and made co-ordinating baby things.

This is the first time we have had a boy on the way, and we chose the Cogsmo by Cosmo Cricket range. My contribution was a quilt, so I made a sample block and cut all the fabric months ago. Many months ago. It has been glaring at me, and I at it, for a long time.

Everytime I saw our friend’s belly get bigger, I would wince at the thought of how behind I was.

Donna made a Mail Sack bag from Pink Chalk Studio. And a Wee Wonderful robot which is so perfect for this fabric. And she gave them to me in August (August!) when I winced again about how much I had to do. I’ll let her show you them herself.

So then she arrived in town last week, and I felt rotten that I hadn’t finished my part of the gift in time to give to our friend now, together. So on Sunday morning I neglected the kids for a while, fed them when required, and started to sew.

I finished the quilt, the entire thing, from pieces of fabric, to a quilt top, to basting, quilting and binding before 4:30pm, just in time to meet our friends at 5:00pm for an early dinner out.

The back

How pleased do you think I was?? The new owner is happy and those dastardly pieces of fabric can’t glare at me anymore.

In other news, Miss Emmeline’s multitude of illnesses have prevented me from starting the food challenges until today. (When you are looking for reactions to food, you have to be able to assume that she is otherwise well). I don’t know if you know this about me, but I suffer from a lot of headaches. Usually daily. No wonder I get grumpy sometimes. I know that bananas and chocolate give me headaches, so I have been dreading the amine challenge which requires one to consume copious amounts of, you guessed it, bananas and chocolate. Do you know, and I don’t know why you would, that in the 67789 32 days I have been on the elimination diet, the only headache I got was my stock-standard-hormone-induced-night-before-that-time-of-the-month one. So by my calculations, that’s 31 headaches less than usual. I felt so GOOD. Even if I felt like Pamela.

So at 7:30am this morning, I started with the salicylate challenge. I gorged myself on a juicy ripe delicious peach, straight from the garden of Eden and all it’s evil temptations. Added some diced peach to my cereal, poured some apple juice ( Juice! JUICE!). I was excited about the week ahead! 7 days of salicylate heaven! Nectarines! More peaches! Peppermint tea! Stewed apple and rhubarb! Lychees! Apple juice! JUICE! The fridge was stocked. I was ready!

By 8:30am I had a blinding headache.

It took less than an hour for my dreams of apple juice to float right away. So who really is the intolerant one in this house, huh?

So although the original plan was to challenge Emmeline through me, that has been abandoned, and I’m giving her small amounts directly.

I don’t really know what this means for me. Am I destined to be limited to pears if I want to avoid my daily headaches for the rest of my life? If you have any experience with adult intolerances, I’d love to hear it. I think. Maybe I don’t really want to hear that I can never enjoy a juicy peach again without reaching for the painkillers. Be tactful, okay?

Oh and if you are still reading, and I can’t believe it if you are, here is your reward. It has been a big day at the chalet. Peaches, headaches, JUICE! and then this:

The baby one is crawling. All it took was a bowl of potato chips in her line of sight and she was off.

And if that wasn’t exciting enough for one day, she also now claps. On request.

Clearly she has inherited all of my intelligence and talents along with my intolerances. And my love of potato chips. (Oh stop it, of course I didn’t give her one. I just used them as bait). Because, you know, crawling at 10.5 months is so incredibly amazing, she must be super clever.

Oh, and one last thing. Click over here and take a look at the first quilt top from Around The Block. I am so very proud of this group!