love thursday

i'm not a shutter sister, but i love their blog.

i have been spazzing a bit about next year and beyond - Bulldog and i popped up to the local school today to have a look around and a nice chat with the principal - so now my head is whirling, whirling...
yep, am rather unearthed about it. i saw this quote at shutter sisters just now, rather serendipitously. or maybe i was looking for it?:

Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first.
Ask questions, then feel the answer.
Learn to trust your heart.
(Author unknown)

i think i'll do just that. so now i need to work out what is in my heart?
thinking, thinking...
it's love. it's friendship. it's family. it's my babies. it's the beach. it's beauty. it's agony. it's poetry. it's making people happy. it's sunshine moments. it's unanswered questions. it's the breath of life. it's songs sung and yet to sing. it's trust. it's equilibrium. it's the arc of the pendulum.
swinging, swinging...

(mother and son at sunset)

mamma mia, here i go again...

i 'fess i have never done this before: it's the third-week-in-a-row mamma mia fest. yep, have been to the cheapie tuesday viewing of mamma mia *three times*. rather excessive, but my my, how can i resist ya?
(slide show takes a minute to load)

loKATEd

oh what's that blonde kiwi doing now?
posting pictures of her *floor*?
just to say:
i'm absolutely ecstatic, cos we have loKATEd the floor here

and here

and here

and there's not a cobweb in sight, which means we're about half way there.
*singing all together now*
"wooo-oooah, we're haff (sic) way there..." i just have to talk my woozie's sewing machine into stopping sabotaging me. cos i am about to sneak off and play with these:
no, i haven't chundered on the screen: if *my* favourite colours were green and orange, i think i'd *love* it.

sunshine intripliKATE

while certain parts of New Zealand were being lashed by a violent storm yesterday, we stayed safely inside (except for a quick jaunt into town to drop R15 at the cinema, and a rather eventful ride home where she had to jump outta the car to drag a *branch* off the road, cos it had been blown off a tree!)... Bulldog and the lads played squabble-opoly and i finished sewing up my latest *sunshine* storm:

ah yes, here we have three sunny-days-daisies aprons
for three speshal peeps:
The Gorgeous Debbie

(who *didn't* pre-announce her birthday back in june,
so *wasn't* surprised by moi lol)

and two of my fave Lauras

all three aprons are sprinkled with daisies,
sunshine and wiggly waves...
and sewn with lots of love from The Sunny Bay.

and what's with the conveyor belt mentality, you're wondering? well, during my teens i worked at maccas, where we made twelve burgers at a time: toasted bun, sauce, sauce, onion, lettuce, cheese, tomato, meat, top of bun... as quick as a flash (yep, i like fast everything... guess the movie line).
i'm thankful for those daisies days, cos i often find myself making that many whatevers at a time for all of us. and i do find it easier to sew more than one thing at the same time too, cos it saves trying to remember how i did it last time, the next time i wanna do it.
it's rather blonde-logic, but there you are.

having the time of our lives

*****turn the sound up*****

when you're obfusKATE-ing the clean out by sewing a speshal handbag to match a gorgeous dress created by your daughter for a skool project absolutely drowning in the latest Hurricane Katie manoeuvre (love that "o") and gorgeous peeps phone at nearly-lunchtime to see if you'd like to celebrate the Blue Skies And Sunshine by a game of Beach Cricket for an hour or two, followed my an icecream with a flake in it, what do ya say?
ya say, "i'll just change outta my pyjamas we'll have a quick early lunch and beat ya meet ya there." and ya leap in The Tardis and zoom-zoom-zoom baby. and when ya get there, everyone miraculously stops squabbling ya spread out into The Big Wide Open Spaces and have a fabulous cricket game and even take the latest Mamma Mia self portrait series:

cos we really do repliKATE Tanya'n'Donna'n'Rosie

don'tcha think?

school's in

we do this at the beginning of every term. we start on monday morning with a hiss and a roar and we sharpen pencils and we Fill In Pages and we... essentially we Play School.
ah, such traditionalists.
this morning, (being tuesday, but we are still under the influence), J12 decided to write this scrap-of-rap-in-twenty-minutes-flat (my lyrics are bottomless), inspired by his latest book (which he has read "uncountable" times)

*hiphopopotamus voiceover*
I was the son of a poor fisherman,
I rode off with a horse in search of a new land,
We rode on land, we rode by sea,
I rode with my friend - a horse named Bree.
We came up near a lion, and it seemed a little grim,
For we found a small Tarkheena and a mare called Hwin.
We rode off to Tashbaan, the desert, and the North,
In Tashbaan we found a prince, a king, and a dwarf.
We rode into the desert to the tombs of Tashbaan,
We found a little valley which we rode through like a charm.
The sun was nearly setting, but our time was not yet done,
For we fought two hundred warriors under the morning sun.
And now the story's over, for you can see the end,
But more stories I will tell you with my pencil in my hand.

spring *giveaway*

i hate the word "housewife". cos i'm *not* married to my house. it shows. i do wipe around the bathrooms and clean the loos every day (yeah, we all have our fetishes) but i am a CLOSET closet-crammer.
yesterday, in celebration of Early Summer i had a wee *sunshine moment* and made myself a summer tote bag (yeah, nicked the pattern off sarah).

and then woozie lined up for one,

made from a canteen bandanna

(i did iron it, but it does look a tad skwoshed here). and feeling evah-so-springy, this morning we wrote THE BIG LIST and began THE BIG CLEAN.

R15 : why do you call it a "spring clean"?
moi : because it's gonna take until september to finish it.

ye-e-e-e-s, it took three hours to clean up the lounge and half of the kitchen, including vacuuming up two inches of dust from under the telly and rescuing seventy zillion marbles and pieces of lego from under the couch, and wiping half a year's worth of mould from the wooden slatted blinds, and biffing the cd collection from 1994, and unearthing an old library book that i'd already paid for and will now be able to get my money back on. yuss.
and lookit the first cupboard in the kitchen: the pantry, cleaned and organised by R15.
NB: woozie is *not* the SPRING CLEAN GIVEAWAY.
a *summer tote* bag (like the ones i made yesterday) is. in the colour of your choice. just leave me a comment revealing your house-cleaning-fetish (yeah, i know ya have one or two: leaving shoes outside? or wiping under the toaster? or washing up the kitchen at soon as dinner is finished? or making your bed every day? or (*scratches forehead and think-think-thinks, cos none of those are mine*)... and i'll draw a winner by spring, as soon as we've finished cleaning up this:

and this:

and this:

or i *could* start creating the tote sooner, if anyone knows a fairy-with-a-magic-wand who'd like to *alacazam* my house?

marvellous fabric swap

my dahling friend sarah of the petit sac français is hosting a fabric swap, which is totally marvellous and *not* scary at all...

(oh lookit that... click that button and see where it takes ya. yeah, i am off to make myself a Bona Fide Geek CertifiKATE, whatever that looks like)
cos it's open to everyone - even the artsy-fahtsy-non-sew-ers out there in the universe *waves*. that's right, you don't even need to sew a stitch!! all ya do is sign up over at sarah's and at the end of august ya post a metre (yard) of spunky fabric to someone in another part of the globe!!! it's that easy.. sounds like a *sunshine* moment? you betcha!!
and while you're at sarah's, you might wanna sign up for her fabulous giveaway!!!

on second thoughts, don't. cos i wanna win it, lol X

butterfly kisses

woo hoo, i've finally finished
woozie's *fifteenth* birthday quilt.
it's delish and girly and packed full of love.
it even has her name on it!

(that's her butterfly blankie peeping out.)

there are four hearts on it,
for woozie's four brothers.

and fifteen buttons, for her birthday.

ribbons are arranged in fives,
for the five kiwi kids.

i've handquilted around fifteen flowers,
to keep the top half of the quilt layers
snuggled together.

and on the back, there's a secret pocket,
for treasures.

and butterflies,
to celebrate your emergence
from girlhood to womanhood.

i even went off in search of
some new fluffy sheets,
and found these, which were originally white
(but i soon fixed that),
and i've sprinkled a few flowers on the pillowcase
so that they match your decor.

and then i thought you'd like
a matching heaty-wheatie

and a cupcake pincushion,
for your own future sewing endeavours.
(ya never know, i might even be able to
squeeze an apron out of
the leftover fabric too, lol)
love you to the moon and back X

Mamma Mia!

I had no expectations going into this film, but... my, my, how can I resist ya? I think it helps that my lovely life resembles a musical - someone says or does something which triggers a spontaneous song. As the director would have it, I found myself in the cinema side by side with two girlfriends, and instantly we became the Dynamos: I was Donna - with the blonde tresses and ditzy tanties, Deb was Rosie - with the spiked 'do and funky dance moves, and Nush was Tanya - the trim, toned siren. And magic was all around. The whole theatre was abuzz with laughter and song and silly grins plastered on nostalgic faces as we skipped and swam all over that idyllic Greek island. Sure, it was predictably sweet and cheesey, but there were a few delicious surprises - and at the risk of spoiling it for all you glitter-tassled ABBA fans out there: prime your vocal chords, sing Fernando before ya go (cos it ain't there), and let "the happiest flick eva" light the fire within your soul... just one look and you will hear the bell ring... one more look and you'll forget everything... oh-oh-oh-ooohh!!!

les bloggeurs

a few weeks ago, i read an article in the newspaper. uh, that's spelled n-e-w-s-p-a-p-e-r. you know, the thing that has large paper pages, and you lick the tip of your mouse-clicking-finger and turn them as you read? the journalist was talking about social networking sites like bebo and facebook and blogs and how easy it is for prospective employers to do a bit of behind-the-scenes checking on prospective employees.

*ack!* that's freaky deaky. let's hope my future prospective employer doesn't know i masquerade as kate5kiwis (and not just cos there's an errant "s" at the end of "kiwi"). cos most people i "know" online use pseudonyms, or maybe first names. a lot of people i "know" online, i even know in real life. i sometimes read of scary fairy Bloggeur Meet Ups, where there's a bit of a road trip or a convention and peeps pack their axe in their suitcase (for self-protection) and then there's much unpseudonyming of pseudonyms joyous conversation.

i've often found myself trying to explain the secret identity of fellow bloggeurs to Bulldog:
lately it's been:
oh, you know, Saaaa-rahhh, the one who made me my petit sac français?
or Barb the Evil Genius (BD knows Barb, she sent us coffee beans)
or Lauuuura, the one who i made the elven bracelet for her daughter, and she unschools and lives in the states USofA?
or Hay, the one we knew for Five Fab Weeks, before she mutiny-d (if in doubt, make up the spelling) to The Windy City
or Sarah Bean, who used to be just plain Sarah, but i called her Sarah Bean once in the comments and so now she's SB and lives in a shoebox
or Floss, she lives in Cathedral City, and sent me my frou frou bag and she has four kids and...
and Bulldog looks at me quizzically and rather foncusedly.

there's one bloggeur that i keep up with who lives in France: Antipo, short for Antipo Deesse (antipodes, get it?) yeah, she's a loyal kiwi chick, living in a little village in France *ecstatic sigh* i first came across her blog two years ago as we were preparing for our little European Jaunt, and was instantly smitten. since then, i've made her a wee bit of jewellery and guess what? this week i've finally met her, and - she's lovely - and not at all an axe murderer. and now BD is foncused no more. he knows her real name now too.

Antipo Deesse and kate5kiwis at sunset, surfside.

au revoir, c'est moi, signing off another half-baked blog post with plain black font and no hyperlinks. but lookit: i've posted the photo. and dahling Antipo, your camera's in the post. that's snail mail. and you'll be happy to know that i even refrained from filling up your memory card with saucy photos of my nostrils. mwah mwah XX

postcard from The Big Smoke

The Three Musketeers

when it's just you'n'me'n'you at home by ourselves,
we quickly slip into a sort of Three Musketeers vibe.
you lads do laddish sorts of things by yourselves -
going running and mowing lawns -
while i sit in the sunshine and create stuff,
and then we all go off arm in arm together.
we eat rather adventurous food too -
and that's fabulous.
cos three people are never a crowd in the kitchen.
the days go from mid-morning until late, late at night,
instead of dawn 'til dusk,
and there's the occasional nana nap for the oldies
as our allegro con molto spirito
becomes andante con amore.
and you throw my precious lemons to the sheep
over the back fence when you think i ain't lookin'.
and we sing, and quote movie lines,
and tell bad jokes, and laugh.
laughing is good.

baby news

another beautiful little babygirl is in the world:
the pinky-perfect Kya, a sister for Zoë,
another daughter for my cousin, Nik.
in the tradition of handmade pressies,
i've made a little one of these:
and we've had a Team Effort on the
*Little Bunny Sisters*
R15 cut out and sewed up the bunnies,
and i stuffed them and made their wee skirts,
and then Granny embroidered their little faces.
so there's one bunny for each sister,
with all our love and wishes for
happy days growing up together X

katie's subLIME syrupy muffins

for some reason, limes make me think of snow.
i think it's either the scene from Little Women where Amy's teacher throws he limes out into the snow, or perhaps it's because i equate limes with ice in the summer, all swished in a glass?

anyway, when i woke up this morning and found our backyard resembling the inside of a magic wardrobe with frosted tables and chairs and a crunchy white lawn (alas, no snow... or lions... this far north), i remembered that two days ago i had driven past our neighbour-up-the-road, and plucked a bag of *free limes* out of the cardboard box which was perched beside their letter box. how's *that* then, for love going around the universe? pretty awesome.

so i bribed Bulldog (who has the patience for such things) to grate zest and squeeze citrus, and together we made these subLIME (yeah, i'm so punny) syrupy muffins:
swish together in a bowl:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt grated zest of five limes
add, previously mixed:
100g melted butter
a happy egg
1 cup milk
stir briefly to just mix. spoon into 12 muffin pans, place a wee slice of lime on top of each muffin. bake 210 celsius on fan bake for 14 minutes (in my oven).while the muffins are cooking, heat and stir juice of the limes and 3/4 cup sugar until dissolved. the instant the muffins come out of the oven, drench in syrup. cool, share out evenly between gannets with a spoonful of tarty yoghurt on the side. lick the rest of the lime syrup off the plate while no one's looking.

communiKATE

one of the beautiful little things i love about families is their unique sayings - it seems that each time a family has a new adventure, a few new sayings emerge. there are hundreds from my childhood that i have thought about writing down for posterity - i have a couple of sayings zipping into my mind from our boating days, of which i have no idea of their origin:
Bingo, Bango, Bongo, Uncle Bungo.
are you B-sick (feeling queasy) or seasick (actually chundering)?
i'm D-sick.
and skiing days:
i'm gonna ski the top off the mountain (which actually applies to any of life's big mountains, scaled)
there are eleventy billion more, i've just got the brain blank.
yesterday my dahling Dad reminded me of another:
S's (our family name) are a wiry breed.

in our own little family, we have the *movie lines quoting* thing: where someone might say something that triggers a sequence of lines from a movie, and then it quickly becomes a giggly moment as voices escalate in unison, quoting the lines back atcha.
(no surprises, i do it online too.)

this year, D18 and i have somehow developed a wee *hiya* game via text where he might send me a line from a song late at night from The Big Smoke... sing another drinking song, the honkytonk will do.. and i'll text him back with another line from the same song... eyes wide with revelation shine at the police station... it's a fun way of connecting without doing the usually predictive "so, how was your day?" or "wuu2?".

i'm not sure how long the next wee game has been operating, but it's a goodie, and getting rather obsessive, competitive, and increasingly compulsive. i noticed we did it first thing this morning, as Bulldog was getting ready to go to S10's hockey game with him. it was rather a short sequence - these things usually drag on for quite a while (BD is the cryptic crossword king)

BD: Oh, where's my beanie?
moi: Has anyone seenie the beanie?
*calling to R15* Hey, Queenie, have you seenie Dad's beanie?
BD: *finds it, whangs it on his head* I'm a genie.

Roight then, I'm off to sew a quilt:
No more rhymes now, I mean it...
Anybody wanna peanut? Garrrrr!
(easy peasy movie line)

oh, how we do love ourselves!

er, what we *really* mean is:oh, how

we do

*love* our new

hair dos.
(we *love* blonde webcam moments too)