Monthly Archives: July 2009

Paint on the soles of my feet

And on my knees, under my fingernails, in my hair, but most importantly on the walls.  I am painting a room, something I have never done before and was quite apprehensive about doing.

Last week I began the fiddly but essential preparation.  I sanded, vacuumed and washed the bright aqua, glossy walls, then the grubby dented beige base boards and door trim.  Not the window trim, mind you, as there is none.  As with many of our windows there is no trim at all!  L14 picked a colour as this will be her room eventually and then I painted a sample patch.

Next came the frustrating and never ending task of cutting in.   I did less than a metre before giving up in disgust.  It looked terrible.   When Andrew came home he demonstrated, advised and encouraged so I began again.  It took a long time to do all the cutting in, sanding of drippy bits and repainting.  Many rooms have four walls which means four flat expanses to paint.  Some might have an alcove or a closet which extends into the room a bit.  Our house is full of rooms with strange protrusions ranging in depth from half an inch to a couple of feet.  The room I am painting is no exception it has eleven flat surfaces making up the walls, which translates into many edges to cut in!

But that is behind me now as today I began rolling.  The roller is much more satisfying and more forgiving also.  It is beginning to look like it just might work, and it definitely won’t be called the blue room any more.  Of course there is the trim still to come, which I imagine will be like cutting in all over again…

Happy Birthday girl

IMG_8000crop

Earlier in the week we celebrated A13 ‘s birthday with some good food and some good friends.  She and L14 made a delicious breakfast of fruit salad followed by ham and eggs on toast.  We watched as A13 opened some cards and gifts including a card from B8 containing rhyming clues which sent her on a hunt around the house for the gifts he had hidden .  She was wearing some of the gifts her sister  bought  for her a few weeks ago when they went shopping together.

She spent the morning playing games with B8 and trying out some of her gifts.  One of them is a set for designing clothes for a  2D mannequin.  It is a variation on paper dolls but is all about the fashion design.  There is no cutting out just loads of different shapes and styles which can be combined and then texture plates which can be used to make the different fabrics on paper.  I might just have to try it myself!

Friends dropped in for lunch which was chicken and salad, cooked the way A likes it with Franks Hot Sauce.  The friends were convinced to stay while their mother went for groceries which enabled everyone to watch the final episode of Gilligan’s Island.  It was an hour and a half special made some time after the series ended where they were finally rescued.  According to the keen Gilligan fans who watched it was not worth it!

Dinner was Sushi rolls, which A13 has been wanting to make for a while.  We don’t make them often because  they are time consuming.  As a birthday cake she requested cheesecake so I bought one and  made a gluten free one.  It was not hard so I plan to make more in the future,  and will play around with gluten free crust ideas.

As we have mentioned before we have become avid followers of MasterChef Australia, so we watched a couple of episodes after dinner.   Not only is it entertaining I think it is having a positive effect on the culinary efforts of everyone in the family.  We had a very happy and delicious day celebrating with our delightful Miss A.

IMG_8189crop