Love and Laughter at Any Age

On Saturday Tammy and I gave a ride home to an elderly couple who had attended a Red Cross meeting where we were.

To get to the meeting this couple had walked, caught a bus, then walked some steep hills for another 30 minutes.

I actually wondered at them even being at the meeting - first, because of their age (I felt curious about what service they could give to the Red Cross?), and secondly, I wondered at them making such a big effort to be there.  It was a de-brief meeting, where we heard about the experiences of five volunteers who were deployed during the recent Bundaberg floods.   Interesting, but I don't know if I would have gone to the efforts they had to be there..

We got to know them a little on the drive to take them home.  Tom was 83 years old and she was his wife of three years.  She had been married before and had five children (one of whom had died).  She also had grand-children.  He had never married before; he had always cared for his parents.

At the age of 70 he was an alcoholic.  Then he met a lovely couple who gave him a place to live in their home when he had nowhere else to go.  They took him to church with them and two weeks later he was baptised - and stopped drinking.

"I'd be dead now, if not for that," he said, but in his broad Scottish accent, that I could barely understand -although Tammy has a knack for that, thank goodness, and was quietly translating some of what he said for me.

"I couldn't understand most of what he said either!" his bride laughed, and her laugh was a happy trill that was glorious to hear.  Not one person in a five thousand has a laugh like that!  She was short and perhaps a little dumpy, and she wore a bright wedgewood-blue skirt and top, with a matching wide-brimmed that she kept on her head the whole time.  Her laugh had youth and fun and sunshine in it.  If that laugh could be bottled we would all be wanting some for Christmas!  And perhaps because she was so good at laughing, she laughed often.  (Or perhaps it works the other way around?)

He met her at church activities.  He rang and asked her to marry him when she needed to move interstate.  "I was more surprised than anyone,' she laughed.  "Now I think of it, he did always carry my bag for me!  He didn't want me to go away without him."

www.dailyrecord.co.uk 

"He needed you," I said, and she answered, "Yes, and I need him too!"

We let them off at their rented home, him so tall and lanky and with a satisfied twinkle in his eye, and her with her youthful, abundant smiles.

Then Tammy and I smiled all the way down their street, and on our way.

"How wonderful that they have each other!" we both said.  And it really was.

Tammy's Pink and Orange Birthday Dinner

After being thrown a fun Halloween party for her thirtieth birthday, Tammy wasn't going to worry about doing anything much for her 31st birthday...  Until, hospitable soul that she is, she decided to throw a dinner party for her friends - and have, appropriately, 31 people there altogether.  (Since some of the chosen few were her young nieces and nephews, the dinner actually only had to seat about 26 people.)

The back veranda of the lovely old Queenslander that she shares with some friends was the perfect location.  Fortunately, Tammy let us help to prepare the party.  (We of course tried to get her to do nothing, but she loves to entertain, so...) 

Tammy was happy to go with a hot pink and orange colour scheme, (that I'd been wanting to try out), and we loved how vibrant the table looked :)   I ran a length of hot pink chiffon along the table over white damask cloths, then used bright orange serviettes, and some beautiful orange, hot pink, lime green and white flowers from the Brisbane markets - and some oranges, naturally. Don't you love the way that the (non-alcoholic) punch matches the colour theme so well?  It's made with an orange and pineapple-juice base, with a small amount of raspberry cordial sploshed into the glass after it has been poured. The cordial sinks to the bottom to effect the pretty layered look.   (This punch is really quite delicious and we use it often, so I've put the recipe at the end of the post.)

Abby made some pretty place-cards, which needed to be anchored by the cutlery when the breeze came up as night fell.

Tammy strung pretty fairy lights along the balcony railing, and littered the table with tea-lights in mason jars and gold-painted candle glasses.   It was all the candles, and especially the hanging mason jars that made the lighting truly magical.  Using jars that she purchased from K-Mart to decorate a friend's wedding, Tammy hung the lights at different heights from the edge of the veranda roof and along the lattice walls, using twine.  So simple and sooo pretty!

Dinner consisted of a soup course, a main, and a very simple dessert table.  Abby made pumpkin pies (a nod to Halloween, and Tammy loves them - and, now I think of it, they are orange.  Did we think of that at the time? Impressive if we did, yes? :), Bethy did apple pie with 'Tammy' as a pastry decoration, I did the cheese and fruit and creme caramels, and Jonny and Jessima made a fabulous chocolate layer cake with chocolate ganache icing that celebrated Tammy's talent on the piano.

One of our smallest guests came perfectly dressed to match the colour theme..  :)

As a surprise for Tammy, we secretly asked each of the guests to write her a birthday poem that we litstened to over dinner. They were mostly hilarious, and all were entertaining.  Two girls got together to present a lengthy 'Tammy Rap', which was a lot of fun.

(Do you see Bethy's smile in the photo below?  This beautiful girl has a major 'smile at the camera and look fabulous' talent that both completely eludes and completely fascinates all of the other girls in our family!  We awestruck, who always look less-than-fabulous-in-photos, salute you, Bethy! :)

I think there were some trick candles on the cake!  (Tammy couldn't blow them out!)

Perfect weather, delightful company, Tammy's favourite big-band swing music playing, great food, beautiful flowers and the fabulous table colours, a wonderful occasion, and the so-pretty fairy lights and candles in jars all made it a memorable night!

I found myself sitting at the table until quite late, just because it was so nice to be there :)

PUNCH RECIPE

Mix together 3 litres of Sunshine Punch (a 'tropical' fruit juice drink), 1 litre of 100% orange juice, 2 litres of lemonade, 1.25 litres of Kirks' Ginger Ale, 1/4 large bag of ice, and a splash of raspberry cordial to give some colour.
If you like the look of the colour layers staying separate, first pour the punch into the glass, before sploshing in a little raspberry cordial.  (It will sink to the bottom.)  Decorate with a half slice of orange, a mint leaf, and half a strawberry.

Why I will never pack light again

I think I mentioned in Wednesday's post that I've been to Sydney a couple of times recently for work.  Well, this past week, I was there for two days:  Got up at 3am on Tuesday morning, caught a 5am flight. Worked all day. Stayed in a hotel that night, got up Wednesday morning, worked on Wednesday, and then flew home Wednesday night. (Now you have the logistical context for this story).


Well, as I was doing my customary 'throw some things in my small suitcase a few minutes before heading out the door' thing on Tuesday morning, it occurred to me that I really did not need a small suitcase, surely.  It was just one night. Surely a little overnight bag (that doesn't even have wheels) will be fine, right? I mean, I'm wearing Tuesday's clothes, so just throw in pajamas, Wednesday's clothes, and a toothbrush! There's shampoo, conditioner, soap etc. at the hotel.  And on a final whim, I didn't even throw in my hairdryer, because they have those in the hotel too.  I was taking my iPad and my laptop, so I had anything else I would need right there.

Delightedly, my little overnight bag was so empty that I was able to fit the iPad and laptop into my overnight bag.  Ohhhhh yeah.  I strutted that bag down to the car with all the swagger of a true packing-light rockstar.

Driving to the airport is always the moment where I stress and wrack my brain a little until I can figure out what it is that I've forgotten to pack:.... mmm.....mmmm....mmmm.... Ah! Deodorant.  I forgot deodorant...... Okay, well, there's nothing I can do about that, and it's better than the time I forgot my makeup, or the time I forgot my shoes.  I'll just shower at the last minute tomorrow morning, and I'm only filming for a few hours before I'm just laptop working by myself at the airport for the afternoon, so I should be able to get away with it. I have a plan. Disaster largely averted.

Shooting went well Tuesday, got a lot of laptop work done Tuesday night.  Had a good sleep.  Got up early Wednesday morning. Had a shower. Went to blow dry my hair, and realized that the hotel hairdryer actually blows about one 100th of the amount of hot air that an actual hairdryer does.  Oh no. Well, on the upside, I wasn't in too much of a hurry, so I spent the hour it took to get my hair mostly dry. Not a great hair day I'm afraid. Had to half clip it back and looked more like a 15 year old than anything else.  Oh well.  Don't think about it.  Went to finish getting dressed and got down the iron and ironing board to iron my clothes.  Realized the iron didn't have a place to pour water. Obviously a really cheap, dumb iron that probably wouldn't even get hot! Grrr! Just like the hairdryer. Nothing works. *sigh*  *heavy sigh*  Oh well, cranked it up and tried to do my best to iron my shirt even though the iron would be useless.

Promptly burned a massive, double fist sized hole right through the middle of the back of my shirt.

I just stood there, staring at it for a moment, and actually attempted the thought 'Maybe no one will notice?' which even I had to admit was a ridiculous thing to think.  Panicked. Realized I hadn't brought an extra shirt with me like I normally do, because I was a packing light ninja. Finally admitted that I would have to wear yesterday's shirt again (which I hoped no one would notice, although of course it was a bright red shirt, so anyone with a brain would notice), and of course I had no deodorant, and it was yesterday's shirt.  PLUS, it was wrinkled because I'd tossed it in my bag last night and it really needed an iron.  I couldn't chance that though - it was my last shirt and I couldn't really wear my pajama top!  So on went my smelly wrinkled top.  At least I had a new skirt for today.  Took some solace in that thought as I put it on.

Went into the bathroom to put on makeup.  My liquid foundation was almost empty, so I was shaking the bottle.  It slipped out of my fingers and landing on the floor - spraying (what turned out to be a lot of) foundation all over the front of my skirt. Like, all over the skirt.  My first thought:  "I can not wear yesterday's skirt too!".  So I pulled it off, lay it out on the bed, got soap and water and attacked that skirt!  Half an hour later, it was sopping wet, but the foundation marks were at least a little bit less obvious.  If you squinted your eyes a little. A lot.

Hung the skirt up to dry, put on yesterday's skirt, grabbed the book I was reading and headed down to have the lovely buffet breakfast that had been included with the hotel.  It was a lovely spread, and I was trying to forget that I was wearing all of yesterday's clothes.  I got a nice hot breakfast, sat down to eat in the lovely restaurant, pulled out my book to read. Cut into the grilled tomato and proceeded to squirt 87 tomatoes worth of tomato juice all over the white table cloth. The silver lining: it squirted away from me and yesterday's shirt, but I was still absolutely horrified. It completely covered the table cloth in a half metre ring around my plate.  How did that one tomato do that? It should be off winning some kind of 'world's juiciest tomato' contest, not sitting here on my plate!

At this point I froze, and decided not to move for the rest of the day. It had become painfully obvious that I was simply not business trip material! I was a serious danger to myself, and probably anyone else who came too close!

But then I got hungry, so I finished my breakfast.

The good news is that nothing too terrible happened for the rest of the day (other than working with the crew while sporting yesterdays crinkled, smelly top and a sopping wet skirt with a 15 year old hair do).

But I've learnt a few lessons:
1) Always bring deodorant
2) Always bring your hairdryer
3) Always bring spare clothes
4) It's probably a good idea to also bring the kitchen sink

Happy packing!!
xo

This Time 'Round' (Pregnancy Perks and Pains)

And I do mean 'round' :)

Last time 'round

I am pregnant with baby number 3.  I do not sail gracefully and beautifully and glowingly through my entire pregnancy.  I think I do that for maybe a week somewhere around month 5.  The other 39 weeks are more of a challenge.

Here's how pregnancy #3 has gone for me... 

The first trimester:

• I thought that I would die.  Morning sickness feels like death.  Or at the very least, like you're heading that way!
• How did I do this twice already?
• It must be much worse this time!!! (James assuring me it was exactly the same)
• I can't eat ANYTHING!!! - wait, except an Aussie burger from Hungry Jacks... right now.. I'm not kidding James, right now.  Why am I not eating it right now?  Sob, sick.
• My poor children!  I'm putting on that Hi-5 DVD again!
• Yes, I'm pregnant - but you're not meant to be asking me that yet, I'm only 8 weeks, we're trying to keep it under wraps!  The weight I'm putting on isn't 'baby' yet - I just can't stop eating or I'll be sick! Yes, I know I look 14 weeks.  It's the 14 Aussie Burgers I've eaten in the last 2 weeks, that's all.
• James, don't get uni holiday work! - We'll survive without money!  I just can't get out of bed to look after the girls!  Or get myself food to cover my cravings and make me not be sick for 2 minutes   Skip class while you're at it please!  And skip basketball!  Skip everything - just stay home and help me not die!  You really have to go to that exam today?!  Okay, okay, I understand... Can you drop me at Mum and Dad's on the way??

The second trimester:

• When James asked me what I wanted for dinner, I didn't burst into tears! - I think I'm okay with anything!  I'm healed!!! :)
• Sick again.  Pregnancy feels like death!
• Better again today!  Finally pulling out of it!  :)  
• Wow, the world is a happy place!  A lot has happened while I've been 'under' for the last 4 months!!  I am so, SO excited to be pregnant!  YAY!!! :)  Wow, I put on SO much weight eating 24/7 to help me get through that!  But I'm still a little feeling fragile, and still can't stop eating.  That's okay - it's about survival right now... I wonder what we're having!  Bet it's another girl! :)
• It's a boy!!!  I can't wait to buy something blue!!!  It feels so real!!  I can't believe it!!!
• Come on time, hurry up - I want to meet this little guy!! :)  This trimester is taking a whiiiiile!!!

The third trimester:

• I have 12 weeks to go!!!  I'm not going to fit into any of my maternity clothes if I keep growing at this rate - cut junk food, feel HEAPS better!
• This is so exciting!  Planning, planning - ordering new bassinet, picking up bits of blue here and there :) 
• The girls and I are SUPER excited!  They can't wait to meet 'the baby brother' - we talk about him all the time, they give him lots of hugs.
• Lots of cramping, lots of sciatic nerve pain, lots of random pains, feel faint a lot.  Am assured by the doctors with a smile that this is all completely normal.  Reassured, but still in pain.  Again I say - I must be MUCH worse this pregnancy.  James telling friends I'm doing much BETTER this pregnancy.  Really?  It was this bad the other times?!  
• Am barely getting bigger since cutting junk food - think the baby must be eating the fat I'd already grown.  I feel good about this! :)
• Baby's too small!  Booked in for ultrasounds to plot growth!
• False alarm - baby's a great size.
• But baby's breach!  Unless he turns will have to try painful procedure with 60% chance of success to turn him, or book me in for a caesarean!  
• Prayers.  He turned!  Yay!! :)
• 12 days to go.  Over the moon, SO EXCITED!!!  Getting excited and gooey looking through 'the day Ana was born' photos.  Hospital bags packed.
• Falling asleep halfway through sentences at 6:30pm - barely making it from the dinner table with my eyes open.  Roll my eyes anytime poor James mentions in passing that he's feeling tired or sore from something.
• "Oh, you've dropped!  You'll be having this baby any day now!!!"
  "Wow you're still carrying really high! - Baby must still be a long way away!!"
  Obviously nobody as a clue when he'll really get here :)
• I can't believe we get to meet this boy soon!  Praying that everything will go 'well' with this labour.  Sick of leaning forward, but terror of posterior childbirth (first pregnancy) keeping me at it.  Dreaming of lying on my back within the month!
• Mixture of indescribable excitement and terror waiting for 'something' to happen!  Trying not to be afraid of labour.  It's not working.  
• Made dinner last night.  James surprised and grateful.  He is practically Mum and Dad while I'm pregnant.  I think he may be looking forward to baby's birth as much as I am! :)
• I really, really love my children.  I can't think of anything in the world I'd do this for, aside for another beautiful, perfect little addition to our family.  

After giving birth to Maggie after a 3 day posterior ordeal that was worse than any of the nightmares I had imagined (and childbirth has always been a huge fear - I imagined as bad as I could!), the first thing I remember saying, was "Oh James I would do it all again right now!  I love her SO MUCH!!!".  I was deliriously happy.  There is NOTHING like that feeling in the whole world.  And there is NOBODY like your very own child!!  Someone you can cuddle, and teach, and love and look after!!  And you get to watch them grow, and learn, and 'try you', and no matter how badly they're misbehaving, every day is full of perfect moments :)

So despite the last 9 months, and the very huge ordeal of childbirth, which will spring itself upon me any day in the next 4 weeks, there's nothing in the world that makes me happier than this:  

We're having another baby!!! :)

Christmas Desserts and Recipes

We are pretty serious about our Christmas desserts around here...

I may have mentioned that I am pretty terrible at ever remembering to take photos?   So unfortunately we have very few photos of all the food we have prepared for Christmas over the years, except for these few snaps that give you some idea of our traditional family Christmas dessert recipes.  

Although the list of desserts we prepare varies slightly with the number of people we are expecting to feed, a regular list, (actually, funny story..  You would laugh, kind of.., to see the way we usually make up the list of what to cook each year. Picture our whole family gathered together, me with a pen and paper, asking everyone what they can't live without this year? Of course, the list would get longer and longer and more and more ridiculous, and then we'd have to decide to have a party so that we would have enough people to help us eat it all - and, if you can believe it! - still make doubles of lots of the recipes to keep in the fridge for ourselves for Boxing Day Breakfast too.  Anyway, back to the list, which...), would usually consist of all or some of the following: 

Home-made Chocolate Almond Ice-cream with sugared almonds; Chocolate Mousse; Chocolate-Mint Cheesecake; Choux Pastry Puffs filled with chocolate cream; Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake...   (are you sensing a chocolate theme here?)  ... 

...  home-made Strawberry Ice-Cream ring; Mango, Berry and Kiwi Fruit Salad; Pavlova; Brandy Snaps served with cream and strawberries; Gourmet Baked Cheesecake; Apricot, Chocolate and Coconut Cake; Pecan Pie; Pumpkin Pie ...

Chocolate Cherry-ripe Biscuits; Date and Rice Bubble Finger biscuits; Apple Turnovers; Chocolate and Caramel with Ginger-base Biscuits...

 ...  Coconut Charmers (those little, round biscuits); the Chocolate Hazelnut Tree; Chocolate Cheesecake Biscuits; 

Creme Caramel; Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake; Chocolate Crunch Coconut Biscuits ... 

..  Chocolate Yule Log (only slightly eaten here :)   (To make this, I bake two chocolate sponges in lamington tins, fill each of them with chocolate cream and roll them.  I use them to make a log with branches, then cover it all in Sour Cream Chocolate Icing, decorate with a skewer, add shaved chocolate 'bark', and chocolate leaves, and finish with a dusting of icing sugar.  It looks beautiful, if we had a better photo :)  Our son Jonny sometimes decorates this for us now  :)

One year our family cooked a four-course, sit-down Christmas dinner for 120 missionaries from our church.  As usual: almost no photos, but you can see the Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch sauce here.  Very yum!  I know that Sticky Date Pudding might not sound so very fabulous, but this is really, really good!

I thought I would leave you with one of our recipes.   If there are any other recipes from these pictures that you would like, please just leave me a note and I will email them to you.  I am always happy to share recipes :)

Chocolate Hazelnut Christmas Tree

(I've included this one because it is very easy, is no-bake, and is totally yummy - if you like chocolate and hazelnuts together?)

500g dark chocolate (I always use Cadbury's dark chocolate.  They have a good dark cooking chocolate.)

250g roasted hazelnuts  (If still raw, put the hazelnuts in a moderate oven for 10 minutes, then rub the skins off.)

1 brazil nut

60g dark chocolate, extra

Few spoons of icing sugar

Break up the chocolate and  place it in a covered dish in the microwave for a minute, or until it is melted when you stir it OR place chocolate in top half of double saucepan, over gently simmering water, making sure that water does not touch the base of the saucepan. (I use the microwave, but take note that the chocolate will not look melted until you stir it!  Don't overcook, or the chocolate will burn. You'll know it's burnt by the smell, and the fact that even dedicated chocoholics will want to dispose of it in the bin.)  When the chocolate is melted and smooth, stir in the roughly chopped hazelnuts and mix well. (Don't use your food processor for this - it will chop them too finely.  I put the nuts into a plastic bag, then hold the bag shut while I beat it up a bit with a rolling pin or meat tenderizer.  Do leave the nuts not whole, but still in big chunks.  If you look at the picture you will see what I mean.)   

While the chocolate is melting, prepare the trays for marking out the branches of the tree. Cover scone or biscuit-baking trays with  aluminium foil. (Any flat tray, upturned cake tin, base of baking dish, or pieces of heavy cardboard can be used.  What you want is a surface that is level and rigid enough so the branches do not bend while they are setting. Bread boards or pieces of wood covered with foil can be used but the chocolate will take longer to set.)

Mark out nine crosses on the foil, leave about 2.5cm between each cross. The measurements for the crosses are: 7cm; 9cm; 11cm; 13cm; 14cm; 15cm; 16cm 17cm; 18cm.  (I use a ruler and pen, and mark the measurements on the foil beside each cross as I go, so I don't get confused later :)

Prepare a base for the tree; you will need a piece of heavy cardboard or pressed hardboard 20cm in diameter, it must be rigid and strong enough to support all the branches of the tree. Cover with decorative silver paper or foil. (I have a round, flat mother-of-pearl plate that I always use.)  Make a cross 18cm on this base board. 

Using a teaspoon, drop teaspoonfuls of the chocolate mixture along the marked crosses. Do the cross on the base board first, refrigerate, then do the remaining crosses in order of size, starting from the largest size and working to the smallest. Refrigerate crosses as soon as they are complete for several hours or, if desired, overnight. Do not freeze.

NOTE: if the kitchen is very cool, chocolate can be left to set at room temperature; this will mean the tree will take longer to make, but chocolate will have more sheen than if it is refrigerated.

Melt extra chocolate over simmering water. To assemble your tree, join the largest cross to the cross on the base board by dropping about a teaspoon of the melted chocolate into the centre of the cross on the base board; position the cross on top. It may be necessary to move the top cross around until the best position is found; if branches look a little uneven, support underneath with a match box.

Drop about half a teaspoon of the melted chocolate on top of the second cross; this forms a good base when adding the next pair of crosses.

Assemble the remaining eight crosses in pairs, starting from the largest remaining cross to the smallest cross, refrigerate until chocolate is set; about 15 minutes.

When each pair of crosses is set, place the largest pair on top of the crosses on the base board, joining with melted chocolate as before. It is important each section be completely set before topping with another pair of crosses.

When the tree is assembled, cut an end off the brazil nut, so it will sit neatly on top of the tree, place in position with melted chocolate, cover nut with chocolate and then refrigerate until set. Dust the tree lightly with sifted icing sugar when it's ready to serve.  (People break off the branches to eat them.)

(I've been known to occasionally melt down some dark chocolate and mix it with chopped, roasted hazelnuts to make nut drops, just because they taste so good!  Something else you could do is to add sultanas and chopped apricots to the mix, for a chocolate fruit and nut tree.  I don't think I would get away with it though..  messing with a family classic!)

Enjoy!!

Guest Post by Ally - Joy School

This is Ally's first ever Blog post!  Ally is a speech pathologist who now works at home as a busy full-time mother to her three beautiful girls.   We are very grateful that she has written for us about Joy School :)  With Ally's permission I have added some photos of her and the girls that were recently taken by Jessima.

This is my first EVER blog entry. 20 minutes at the keyboard, and I've lost count of the number of times I've hit the Backspace button just writing my first line. That's because I have that annoying problem of wanting everything I do to be just right. Thankfully, I get to write about Joy School. When it comes to this ingenious program, everything feels just right.

http://joyschoolco.blogspot.com.au/

Joy School was created by parenting gurus Linda and Richard Eyre. It's a curriculum for 3-5 year old kiddies, and from what I can gather, parents all around the world have been teaching its lessons for decades! As the name suggests, this program is all about helping kids to experience joy in all its forms. When I first read this, I cynically thought "What does joy have to do with learning? Doesn't it just happen on its own?". But what I'm quickly discovering is that when you focus on teaching joy, the learning of other concepts is what happens on its own. I won't go too much more into what Joy School has to offer because these 2 amazing sites here and here will tell you all about it.

What I want to share is the little gems of joy that I have experienced in becoming a teacher-mum alongside my friend Jessima. She and I take turns teaching the lesson. We hold it every Thursday morning. The curriculum suggests doing 2 lessons a week, but life is too busy for Jessima and I to manage that. That is one of the wonderful things about Joy School - it gives the parents the freedom to decide what works best for them. We started almost 2 months ago and have done 7 lessons which have been predominantly about the Joy of the Body. The concepts we've covered are amazingly simple, so simple in fact, that you wouldn't think you could get a 2 and a half hour lesson out of it. And yet, I almost always run out of time when I'm teaching, because the lesson content is so diverse and rich. To give you an idea, when we covered the 5 senses, we made a smelling collage with different aromatic herbs and spices and we listened to pre-recorded sounds that the kids had to try to identify.

When we talked about body parts, we compared our joints to hinges on different doors around the house. Eating and living healthy was our topic last week, and we had an enormous amount of fun discussing different vegetables and how they grow, before cutting them up and turning them into vegetable soup. But every week, no matter what we cover, the underlying message has always been that we are so lucky to have our bodies, and we are lucky that they do all that they do. If I was to just blurt that message out to my kids in the car or at the dinner table, my kids would politely smile and nod and then look at each other bemused with a look that said "that was pretty random...". Thanks to Joy School, my kids don't think I'm as kooky as I would otherwise seem AND they are actually learning what it means to enjoy their bodies.

One of the things that leave me most satisfied is when my 3 year olds comes out with something like, "Hey mum, I'm using my sense of smell!" as they sniff a flower, or they tell me what month we're in (it's sooo cute watching a toddler try to get their mouth around the word "November"). Inside, I victoriously claim: "There you go ABC 4 Kids - you don't teach my kids everything they know!!!"

Jessima's and my older children are charismatic, but strong-willed little girls. It has been amazing watching their friendship develop during Joy School. This is especially rewarding for us as their mums, because on the first day that they properly met, Jessima and I could hardly hold a conversation due to having to referee their constant arguments. lol

Thankfully, to help with the moments when a child decides to misbehave during the lesson (the older children are, not surprisingly, the usual perpetrators hehe), we have the Joy School House. It is this quaint little cardboard cut-out that works magic! When the kids arrive at Joy School, they each open up their window to reveal a photo of their smiling faces. Later on, if someone decides to be disruptive we simply say "oh, it doesn't sound like you're ready to be in Joy School today. We'd better close your window". Whenever I've had to say that to my munchkin, within 20 seconds she has this cheesy forced smile on her face and she's opening her window back open. She then manages to sit quietly for about ooooohhhhh 30 seconds before she's wriggling again, but she's at least a lot less disruptive right throughout the rest of the lesson.

I could go on an on about what I love about Joy School. It IS hard work, and requires more committment than I had initially realised, but it is incredibly rewarding because it's not just a source of joy for my kids, but for me too. It's nice to know that 20 years from now, I can look past the fighting, the whinging, the scrambled egg dinners, and the excessive amount of time my kids spent in front of the TV, and I'll be able to reassure myself that I definitely did some things right... Joy School being one of them.

How Hard Can It Be? - DIY Upholstery

  

Have you ever noticed how surprisingly easy a lot of things are if you will just jump in and give them a go?   ...And stop thinking that you can't do something - at least until you are proved wrong!?

Have you ever tried upholstery?  I hadn't either, but I've written my instructions for covering these lounges, which was simpler than I thought it would be.  Below that are simple directions for covering a chair - something that anyone can easily do, no sewing required :)

These two lounges (you can see them a bit more here) were as cheap as chips when we bought them over twenty years ago - a few hundred dollars for the two of them.  Although they look identical, one is a pull-out sofa bed.  They were originally covered with a very cheap calico which, naturally enough, lost whatever good looks it used to have after spending several years with our several children.  It never really occurred to me to replace the lounges because we couldn't afford it at the time, so I looked around for some inexpensive upholstery fabric.  I found this light-cream coloured, raised and tufted material at an end-of-roll warehouse and bought about twenty metres very cheaply.  

I had in mind to make some kind of slip-covers - something that I could remove for washing.  I'd never done anything like this before, but how hard could it be?  I have resisted the temptation to find you a great YouTube video that might show how to achieve this because,..  well, it's probably going to seem a bit more complicated than the way I did it, so I thought I'd just tell you what I did instead.

I could have tried to remove the old covers to use as a pattern, but I decided that it would be easier working with the original fabric 'shell' still on, than with uncovered foam.  I used some un-needed cheap cotton fabric that I had at home to make my own pattern by doing this:

1.  I took off the loose cushions, then took note of the placement of the seams in the original covered lounge.

2.  Using my pattern fabric, I rough-cut larger than needed panels to match each of the panels on the lounge.

3.  One panel at a time and using basic sewing pins, I pinned each rough-cut pattern fabric panel against the original lounge panel, stretching lightly to keep it smooth.  (Keep the pattern fabric square to the grain of the fabric so that the material itself doesn't stretch.)

4.  Using a marking pen, I fairly carefully and lightly (so it wouldn't mark the lounge) drew the seam lines on the lounge (I could feel them through the fabric), onto each pattern piece.  (You could use a fabric marking pen for this, but it fades off after a short time.)

5.  After unpinning I, again pretty carefully, added a seam allowance around each panel and cut each of the pattern panels out, following my marking lines.

6.  (At this point, I tacked a few pattern pieces together, to see if they fit the lounge and to see if I seemed to be on the right track.  They seemed like they would be ok.)

7.  I also made pattern pieces for the four loose cushions.

8.  Before making any cuts on the good upholstery fabric, I carefully planned out the fabric to make sure that everything would fit and that the fabric pattern would work well on the lounge.   However, to save money on the good fabric, I planned to cut the pattern pieces that wouldn't be seen from heavy calico, instead of the upholstery material.  (eg  On the seat under the cushions, and on the back of the lounges.)  I also planned to cut some long narrow strips of the fabric to make my own matching binding.  (You can read how to do that here.)

9.  Using the patterns I had made, I now cut out the panel pieces from my upholstery fabric. (Again - I made sure that I had planned out all the pieces on the good fabric before I made the first cut!)

9.  Now it was just like a big jig-saw that I put together.  It was large and unwieldy but not too hard to sew.  Inserting the piping is always a little bit tedious and I actually got lazy with it (and I think was trying to get it done quickly for a party), so I never did do the piping around the front of the arms, unfortunately, since it would have looked better if I had.  You can see in the photos that I put it around the front of the cushions, up the centre back seam and along the front floor hem.  (Note: you will want to use a heavy gauge needle and upholstery thread in your machine.)

10. At the back of each lounge I used velcro down each side for easy removal of the covers for washing.  (I also used velcro to create an opening on the seat of the sofa bed, so the pull-out bed could be used without removing the lounge cover.)

I had no idea when I started if this was going to actually work..  But was a bit amazed and quite delighted to find that the covers fit like a glove, and peel off and on as needed.  Voila!  And Hurray! :)

We've had these covers on now for about 15 years, and so far they come up like new after each wash.  I wash them about three or so times a year.  I put them back on the lounge when they are still quite damp, and they fit very snugly and still do service after all this time.  (The photo above was from earlier this year.)

A much simpler project again is something like this chair.  Again, we bought this cheaply because it had only a basic calico cover.  Once I found some upholstery fabric I liked, (this was from an off-cut of a blind I made for our girls' room), nothing could have been easier:

1.  I worked out a placement for the flower pattern that I liked.
2.  I cut out a slightly larger than needed piece of fabric for each of  the chair panels.  I stretched and pinned these over the original fabric.
3.  Using a staple gun I started to attach the upholstery fabric to the chair by working all around each panel at the same time: one staple in one side, then one in the opposite side, then the other two sides, then each of the corners, etc.  (To keep the fabric square and tight.)
4.  Eventually, I stapled closely around all the edges, then closely trimmed off the excess fabric.

5.  Using a matching tape trim, you then glue the trim over the staples to cover them.   Easy!  

I did this chair about 10 years ago so I don't remember exactly how long it took to do but it wasn't long.  When the arm pieces got dirty after a few years, I pulled out my off-cuts and re-did them.

I'm sorry that I have such a terrible photo of these, but these are the dining chairs I've also covered (they're currently in storage or I could have tried for better pictures).  These took a bit of sewing and then stapling onto the under-base of the chairs.  It wasn't hard!

The best thing about trying out your own upholstery skills is that you can make your own fabric selections for your furniture. Have you ever found a great piece, but don't like the colour?  Maybe just have a closer look to see if it would be easy for you to recover with a fabric you like more..

 

http://anakral.blogspot.com.au

Once you get the hang of it..

You might not want to stop!

http://anakral.blogspot.com.au

http://anakral.blogspot.com.au

And don't forget - there are more than just chairs out there! 

Cynthia Bleskachek

Happy Upholstering! :)