where's woozie?

woozie's skool show had its final night on saturday - we took the brothers to see it and we were all blown away - it was BRILLIANT!!! these photos are from the programme - just dress ups, no hair or make up. although the whole cast was fabulously talented, the Major General stole the show with some hilarious ad libbing. we found ourselves singing along and tapping our toes and laughing and standingly ovating, and there was even a cannon blast at the end with sparkly stuff which shot out everywhere!

here they are -
the cast of *Poirates*

rehearsal -
holding imaginary umbrellas

aha - props

the daughters -
jeez you girls can sing!

see that Pirate King's costume
(with the shiny purple pants)?

it was made by woozie.

what is it with my Nigella muse at the weekends?

so, it's saturday, and it's raining, and i think danny has brought The Big Smoke weather with him because i swear it's been sunny here for *weeks*.

i might need to take my temperature though cos since getting back from the gym four hours ago, i have been swanning around the kitchen making five six seven thousand stuffs:

1. a gigantic pot of veggie soup with alphabet letters in it for dinner tonight

2. a nearly-as-gigantic pot of roasted pumpkin soup for dinner tomorrow

3. eleventy billion wholemeal buns which are actually still rising in the oven and i even remembered to put an egg in the dough otherwise they don't rise so well

4. roasted garlic and lemon hummus from dried chick peas which i pressure cooked and which will be awesome to nosh on instead of those evil white carbs that have been stodging up my gym scales

5. two poached eggies on burgen bread cos it's my turn to keep Bulldog alive while he is in essay-writing mode

6. twelve delish boysenberry muffins for whenever the kids find them

7. two little espressos. don't forget the espressos.

and it's all so weird, cos it's not like there is anything to procrastinate. and here i am *writing* about it. ah yes, i spy a BS bloggeur award. i think i shall go off and find my quilt. i'm sure the whole world will be ecstatic to know that i have made friends with it again - probably because i can sniff the finish line. it's started to veer away from the rules though - i am going to put some words on it. except i have this gigantic headache which is probably caused by the two thirty morning last night which wasn't even for partying reasons.

simultaneous equation

hi mum, (kiss, grin, wink) can i please borrow the car?


hi danny, (kiss, grin, wink) can you please babysit tonight?

it's very quiet around here

so - how is life in The Sunny Bay?
Danny Boy's last exam was yesterday and he arrives tomorrow afternoon: WOOP WOOP! we are all hanging out to see him. Woozie's school show opens tonight: she is gonna break her leg alright! All singing, all dancing. Charlie got his first skool report this arvo and is seriously rocking the world: egads, these kids just bounce. Sammy played three different instruments in his school literature evening yesterday (yeah, the music was an interlude between all the words lol) and is off on interschool basketball tourny tomorrow. Mousey had a wee go cutting his own hair and so he's currently going by the nickname "hedge" (add a hog and you'll get it - yeah, we ended up giving him a rescue number three all over). Katie is divvying her time between making this blimmin' quilt (which is beginning to give her a headache now that she's nearly got it all together - not absolutely sure she luffs it - might change her mind once she frames it with a border or two) and playing babies and eating too many pies and driving herself mental speaking in the third person. Bulldog is about to write three essays - easy peasy. oh and we had our Māori class this morning and BD's group cheated won chocolate fishies. and - rather excitingly - the shortest day has passed so it's summer again. very soon.

summer swap

anyone fancy swapping a little bit of winter for some *summer sunshine*?
go here
it's actually a fabulously fun fabric swap, hosted my my fabby friend sarah of le original petit sac who i'm procrastinating sewing an apron for!!!!!

while this might sound a bit "nana", it's actually a riot - i'm currently sewing last year's swappage into my quilt. and i even splashed out on a "darning foot" today cos am about to attempt my first *free form quilting* - blah blah sewing blah blah - maybe i am turning into a nana after all.
(it's saturday night, and i'm excited about staying in and watching a chick flick)

*sneaky peep* at quilt piecing in progress -
(it's one of those Love It Or Hate It eclectic mixes. i absolutely adore its craziness)

i am needing *suggestions* for a good name for it - it's currently dubbed "my in-between quilt" (cos i'm sewing it between semesters) which is hardly poetic..... maybe inspired by a song title... or a movie line...?

tettie ah tettie

it's the newest hip phrase,
coined by one of my fave linguists,
from the original tête-à-tête.
although to be fair,
there were no hyphens or circumflexes
on the flower pot when we glanced at it.
HILARIOUS!!!!!

it's been a week of birthday parties,
one of which was with my fave poppies
(minus one - my evil twin
who's flown the country for her FORTIETH -
we are saying that word out loud, nik)
at The Posh Restaurant On The Water for lunch.

(ah, diggin' the rugby-socks-under-the-summer-skirt look)

can you say, "POH-sh"???
"blue vein and onion jam
hot pastries" sort of posh.

(c-h-e-e-s-e)

"glazed pork ribs and teensy weensy
salad leaves" sort of posh.

"two and a half glasses of maimai
sauvignon blanc" sort of posh. hic.

"manuka honey crème brûlée with pistachio biscotti
(which i gave away, cos nuts are savoury
and crème brûlée is sweet.
can't eat nuts in my chocolate either. ick.)
and kiwifruit sorbet" sort of posh.


cos ya know how we
love being Ladies Who Lunch.

you'll be pleased to see that
i have resisted posting the
inevitable dodgy photos here.

oh alright then, hope you
took your heart pill this morning.



yeah, there's a limit to
the number of photos
a birthday girl
can pose sensibly for.

happiness-making

(which is a family word from my childhood, referring to any thought or activity that makes you feel happy, as in, "that's very happiness-making.")

i am all about happiness-making this month, this space in between.

my amazing mother has made us a quilt for our bed to celebrate our year, this year of us reaching twenty years married and me reaching forty, and us having an oasis to mark it.

(ha! just kidding, but isn't this a retro beauty!!!)

the celebration quilt is machine pieced, hand quilted,
and there are stars all over it
and a very speshal message is on the back.
it looks very goldy brown in the photos,
but it's creamy irl.
and warm.

today i went off in search of happiness:
baby cuddles: and breathing in that warm new baby scent.
syrupy lemon muffins: with lemons from our tree.
a gym class: i know all the jackie chan moves, you know.
a sunshine beach moment and surf in my hair: no i didn't swim, but i saw three crazy girlies shrieking in the waves!
chicken soup: three bowls full, but no vino cos i have a weigh in on monday lol.
and a lovely play with a rather eclectic fabric mix: which is swiftly turning itself into another celebratory quilt...

sweet sixteen

beautiful woozie, i am blown away by you.
in the last month, you've:
sung a choral solo in front of two hundred.
repeated the performance at the interschool competition.
spent hours and hours rehearsing for your part in the school production.
sewn the costume for the lead actor.
got an "excellence" for another french oral exam.

you emerged from me with lungs already at full blast - i should've known then that you have talent.

i love the connection we have, the creativity that we share.
i love the way you see the world, the sunshine you radiate.
i love your beautiful alto, and i love the bounce that you bring to our lives.

joyeux anniversaire, ma chérie .

i fink i'm ready to say the F word

egads, i'm finally emerging from down inside the rabbit hole - my last assignment (which has morphed into a hundred and fifty page BOOK, complete with photos, maps, documents and anecdotes) on The Social History of Tauranga Primary School is printed and bound and destined for my lecturer on monday.

it's five o'clock somewhere in the world (bottoms up!) and tomorrow is my *FORTIETH* birthday. for which i'm strangely excited all of a sudden.

i'm immensely thankful for my beautiful life, for sunshine, for rain, for my hair which has finally reached my derrière, and for the blessing of fabulous people, all around the world, who continue to inspire me.
*waves hi and blows a kiss*
the hippie happy month starts now X

the light at the end of the tunnel

the brain is fried
the bum is numb
the back is munted
the fingers are froze
the eyes are sand
the hair is straw
but there are fifteen thousand words awaiting their last edit,
printing and binding into a definitive book.
and then it'll be party girl mode.

random text

is it just me, or is everyone noticing how the english language is doing a huge metamorphosis? for example. the word "okay" - in my teenage kids' texts has gone from "ok" to "kk" to "k" to "ohk" and today i got "awk"...
and the other thing is that there's a lot of switcheroos going on with adjectives and verbs and nouns - like "text" and "random" -
teen: "oh, mum, it was just some random texting me."
katie: "you mean a random PERSON sending you a TEXT?"
teen: *raises eyebrow*
(oh, and people don't know the correct use of capital letters any more either lol)
i think we need to listen to Eats, Shoots & Leaves in the kitchen while we're cooking dinner... love that idea!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh, and not being the fabulous Ralph, but someone rather more verbose, i filled in the word gaps on yesterday's post - more of my usual thinking aloud and self analysis etc, cos i'm a navel gazer like that. thanks for the feedback, you gorgeous people - oh and Hay, you'll be relieved to know that each "printed" (other) supermarket bag is sandwiched between two "unprinted" countdown bags - now will ya gimme an A plus?
hahahahahahahahaha
*vizzini falls off his perch* X

an apple for the teacher

hi, i'm katie. i make stuff.
the truth is, this art paper
has saved my life this semester.
as much as i have a love affair with words,
there is something so organic about talking in pictures.
i have really struggled with my perfectionism
over the last three months -
what a journey... an A- for an essay just won't do.
and i really hope this is not osmosising
to my kiddos' consciousnesses.
because what i believe
and what i find myself doing are in obvious conflict.
we are supposed to make art in response to an issue:
and i cannot get off my usual soap box -
in skool it still seems that
"education is something we do to a child"
and like it or not, there is a conveyor belt
along which beautiful individuals travel and
get a rubber stamp on our foreheads at the end of it.
i am all about starting with the child.
i hate that "national standards" are being mooted
at a SEVEN YEAR OLD level.
why the hell is NZ looking at adopting something
that's tried and failed globally?
maybe this is why i've been so angsty this semester?

cos i'm so anti-system, yet here at uni i'm
playing the rubber stamp game too.
conflict, much?

anyway - snapshots of my last art project -
i have layered three supermarket bags
and heat-fused them together to make each page
and raided my button stash and added printed stuff.
it's the printmaking journal - my usual
loads-of-creativity-but-not-much-actual-ability style.
but hey, handed in today -
completed a week early.
seems i'm not last-minute-katie any more.
i do worry myself a little.

and oh gosh i am loving my first time connection
with so many New Zealand artists though -
i've now studied six. a drop in the pacific ocean,
but what amazing inspiration, right here:
Ralph -
look at his essence:
and Marilynn
yeah - i had to get all teachery with it.
check this one out - seven artists got together and
made art in response to our own Hone's poetry.
and Robin


who's in love? i am.

sneaky peep

here comes another one
just like the other one
nah nah nah nah nah naaaaaaaahhhhhhh
pfffffffffffttttttttttt!!!

it's the title page of my printmaking journal, due on my brother's birthday.
that would be in nine days and counting.
i'd better post his birthday card.