The One About Inori

Ok, again, procrastinating with the 2nd part of the overland trip…..

I’ve been busy busy busy with the reopening of my online store and hoping to reopen very soon! It’s currently undergoing a face-lift as well as spanking new (handmade!! by me!!) products in store.

So.. yes! After taking many readers’ advice, I’m finally selling my handmade stuff online. You’ll just have to wait to see what I will be offering!

I forsee 2010 to be a very very busy year for me. I’ve enrolled as a full time student (but studying from home) and will be sitting entrance exams to Bachelor of Medicine/Surgery in July as well as in November.

I will be taking 5 pre-tertiary subjects this year, namely Maths, Physical Science, Chemistry, Biology and English. (Yeah, don’t ask why English. It’s compulsory… -___-” )

Really hope I can cope with the store + studies + kids!

School starts end of February so I have from now till then to work extremely hard for the store. Then it will be time to balance these 3 jobs of mine. Pray that God will give me the strength to do this and still remain sane and cheerful!

Anyway, I just dropped in to introduce to you some new guys in our family!

Remember I mentioned a couple of posts down that the mover guys lost our bed slats and we had to go out to get wood to lay under the matteress?

Well, we had to cut the wood to size (the warehouse guys do this service for free!) and thus we had some off-cuts.

I looked at them (the off-cuts, not the warehouse guys) and thought that I would put them into good use.

So with these:

Wood, sandpaper, nails and hammer, I made this:

And it sits happily on my sewing/work bench. I’m very happy with it.

And then there’s this fellow:

Haha. Don’t worry. We haven’t adopted another cat. That would be highly unfair to Kelly. This stray visits us from time to time and he’s very friendly. He likes to sit on top of our car for some reason. I fed him with some doggy food on some occasions.

I named him Mr. Bingley (No prizes for guessing what classic I’m reading right now) but Nad suggested “Mr. Bing” (after Chandler Bing from FRIENDS, Matthew Perry’s character).

Mr. Bing doesn’t come very often nowadays. Well, that’s the style of strays I guess. Easy come, easy go. I saw him yesterday perched on the neighbour’s porch and promptly ignored me when I mewed to him. Tsk. Cats.

Then, on my mum’s birthday, she bought me this:

Yes.. you read it right. SHE bought me a present on HER birthday. Hahaha. She’s an awesome mum like that.

An overlocking machine to help with my online store creations!

I named her Lizzy Harmony and she’s sitting right next to Brother:

I love how they are colour coordinated, like a happy little family. She’s a dream to use and is a perfect companion to ol’ Brother.

And then we have a surrogate mum:

Her name is Mama Chooki and she’s a loan from a very dear friend of ours. She’s currently sitting on 8 eggs (well, she started with 9 but kicked one out yesterday) and we hope to be chicky parents on or around 20 Feb.

Don’t worry about the eggs sticking out. I eased them back under after taking this photo.

We won’t count our chicks before they hatch so fingers crossed that there won’t be anymore cases of the chicken version of an abortion or miscarriage!

I read somewhere that in summer, a higher percentage of chicks would be males so HOPEFULLY, we get a couple of female chicks!

Mama Chooki is a good mama and although she looks pissed (well, a broody hen is always pissed I guess), she’s rather patient with my peering into her little house to make sure she’s okay.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a picture with chubby Chubbs…

I followed him into the room and found him in this position, bobbing up and down in a little baby jiggle.

SOOOOO CUTE!

Hellooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s been soooo long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you everyone for the comments left while I was gone…. I will try to reply them one by one so please be patient! I’m not ignoring anyone!!!

So.. yes… as you can imagine, I have much to say and many pictures to show.

We reached our destination in mid December but because of the Xmas and New Year holidays, it took so long for our furniture to arrive as well as the phone AND internet to be connected. The phone would have been connected earlier but the telephone company made a huge mistake and cut off my neighbour’s line instead of installing ours!!!!!!!! *Duh!*

THEN, our removalists managed to lose A LOT OF items. For example, Sunshine’s wooden table (very sad over this as Ikea doesn’t produce this anymore!), our bed slats (what good is the bed frame without the slats!?!?!?), parts of my armchair (again, from Ikea)… our hot water flask, my lace blocking kit and mats!!!! (ARRGHHH!!!), and many more items.

We are of course, very miffed and will be filing a complaint as well as claiming from insurance.

We had to buy wood boards from a hardware store (I love Bunnings, don’t you?) to use as the bed base, try not to wobble the armchair from side to side and grieve over the other lost items. (T___T)

Alright. I’m going to break our trip into 2 parts. To be honest, I don’t know when I can write part 2 of this post as we still have plenty to do around the house but I try my best.

There are 40 pictures in this post so if you have slow connection, or limited time, consider yourself warned.! Hahaha. Otherwise, click ahead!

(more…)

I’m so sorry, we’ve been busy packing and exams and kids and blah blah blah….

The movers came to take our belongings today and I’m currently sitting on the floor typing this post. The movers were very professional and may I say, over-enthusiastic.

Why?

Because they packed our shoes as well. We were left with only our flip flops, only because they weren’t in the house but in the backyard!! If they were in the house, we would have to go out barefooted to get new shoes. Hahhahaha.

We did a quick shopping trip to get us both new pairs of shoes (Nad said I looked good in a pair of dress shoes and bought it for me as well as a pair of pink sneakers. Hehehe) and we also got Sunshine a new pair of sandals even though her shoes were not accidentally packed away (her shoes were in the car).

In a few days, we say goodbye to our home for slightly more than 2 years. And we say goodbye to the state we’ve lived in for about 3 years.

We close a chapter of our lives and open a new one. We view this change with slight trepidation. It’s a little of a deja vu as well. Deja vu because we’ve moved from Singapore to here with only Faith on our backs and now we’re doing the exact same thing.

Now if we had tons of money, moving like this won’t be a problem. Hire people to pack and move for us and get plane tickets, get a nice house and have it ready for us etc… but we are not. So unfortunately, we have to bear with some inconvenience that comes with the move. I’m hoping it will be our 2nd last move (and our last interstate/international move).

I am going to miss my new found friends here in WA. Both the knitterly ones and the non-knitterly ones. I know we won’t be missing the summer here though!

Funny I thought I would be more stressed out about the move than I actually am right now. Maybe because I have Nad who is very supportive and responsible around to take care of the family. And even though it seems like it’s taking a stab in the dark where the future seems so uncertain, I know he is with me. BUT most importantly, God is here with all of us. Always. And I know we’ll be fine.

Tomorrow I go to school for my graduation. My results for the entire year are:

*clears throat*

Maths – 93% (1st in class!)

Physics – 94.4% (2nd in class!)

Chemistry – 91% (2nd in class, sharing the spot with another very clever lady! Who thinks she beats me anyway because she got half a mark more than I did in our final exam… Lol.. )

So next year, I will be doing the entrance exams to Medicine as well as Year 12 (equivalent to A levels). I was doing bridging to Year 12 this year, by the way (Slightly higher than O levels I would reckon – I’ve never done most of the topics we covered before)….

I can’t wait. I hope and pray that I will be able to make it into Med school.

I don’t know how long we’d be offline for. Probably more than a month. I don’t want to rush Nad into anything and being online is one of the least of our least worries for now.  (My current biggest worry is that there is a cockroach loose somewhere in the house and we’re sleeping on the floor tonight…………………..)

I’ve packed quite a few projects to cast on and am excited to unleash my castonitis, just dive in and indulge with all the new projects, baybee!!!!

Alrighty then…. till we meet again, please take care and have fun!

So………. these are the other items I’ve been rushing like mad to complete:

I made two of these:

They look like that when both are hung up behind the car seats:

It’s to store the kids’ books, toys, flash cards, umbrellas, hats etc etc.

We already have a mesh pocket at the back of both front seats but it was over flowing and driving me nuts. Besides, we need more ’slots’ to store those various stuff in!

Here’s a close up:

If you look closely, you can see the tabs I made with velcro sewn on. These are to hold plastic bags of rubbish or to hang my knitting bags on road trips

I also sewed on these purdy labels:

Nad likes the organisers. I guess that hard work didn’t go to waste afterall!

Ever since Chubbs started to sit in his baby chair instead of the infant car seat, I’ve been wanting to make seat belt covers for him.

Sunshine has a pair that someone gave to us when she was born.

So I made these:

to match with the car organisers!

Then I thought that I should make one pair for Sunshine too.

So that she won’t feel left out! (And the backseat would also be more coordinated… hehehe)

How do you find my new car ‘decorations’? I think Chubbs likes it pretty much!

(Notice the car themed fabric? I love the blue!)

So why all this rush and why the sudden urge to sew stuff for the car?

Remember I wrote about The Project not long ago? Because it’s a HUGE Project, it comes in many parts.

Some parts have been done now and the next part is actually to move house.

Uh huh. we are moving. Relocating. Woohoo! And not just across the street. Not across a few suburbs either! Not even across the same state! Yep. We are moving INTERSTATE.

We will be taking the road because we want to punish ourselves /are out of our minds/ want to see Australia and it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.

3 adults (including my dearest sister who so lovingly offered to come along and squeeze in between two babies in the car), 2 babies, 2 dogs and I would imagine, quite a lot of luggage. All in our not-so-big car. Woohoo! Fun times! (Not?)

We plan to take the drive slow. No rush and would probably be on the road for more than a week.

Apparently, if we drove for 24 hours straight a day, we can reach our destination in less than 2 days. Lol!!!!

So therefore, I had to rush through my spinning and sewing projects because we have to pack. My sewing machine has been kept away in her box and my sewing table dismantled. My spinning wheel has to be put aside too.

The side effects of that is that I have severe castonitis. I want to cast on 4 sweaters and like 5 shawls and many other projects now. AND bring them all on the trip with me.

What? You’ll never know what can happen! Our stuff might be delayed for a year and these projects would be the only ones I’ll have for that year! We could be stranded in the desert (although apart from sanity reasons, I don’t see how knitting can help us in the desert) *touch a lot of wood*! We could go through a snowstorm!!! (In summer.) Hey! Anything can happen!

So yeah!

My exams are in 2 to 3 weeks and we are moving right after them. If I had a stress level gauge, it would be hitting the sky by now. I think I’ve been acting rather cuckoo recently due to all these…..factors and probably stepped on Nad’s toes quite a lot. Sigh. I need to take a chill pill.

So would you help me move by going to my store:

And buy some yarn?

Relocation sale, baybee! (We ship worldwide. Just send an enquiry for a quote.)

I’ve been agonising over the past month or so.. about making a very tough decision in our lives.

The boys in the household have had hay fever and Nad has a history of asthma and gets mild attacks almost every night.

The main cause for this is dust and animal fur, especially cats’ fur. Cats’ dander and saliva is proven to cause more allergies than dogs’ and is also much finer, therefore tends to float around the air more so than dogs’ fur.

It breaks my heart to see Nad as well as little Chubbs sniffing. I too, get hay fever when I get close to Kelly. I cannot imagine how I used to share the same bed with the little kitty before marriage! Maybe you get de-immunised when you are apart from an animal for a long time?

With a very heavy heart, I placed an ad on Ravelry to rehome my dearest Kelly cat.

It must have been God’s will as a very nice lady responded within half a day.

I spoke with her over the phone and agreed to bring Kelly to her home.

2 days ago, we finally packed up Kelly’s belongings and put her into the crate, the same crate that carried her from Singapore to here, and some of her toys and a towel that has both the dogs’ and her smell on it.

It was probably be the last car trip she’ll have with us. (She HATES to travel as it stresses her out.. she meows non-stop in the car.)

As soon as I met the family, I knew that Kelly was going to a good home.

The two young boys (10 and 13 years old) are very gentle and loving towards Kelly. They’ve had a cat all their lives but she was recently run over by a car. She was deaf due to her old age and couldn’t hear the vehicle approaching.

Kelly would get to do the things she used to be able to in their house – sleep with them on their beds, have full roam around the house instead of being confined to only the laundry area of our home.

In many ways, I have let Kelly down.

She used to be able to share the same bed as I but she obviously can’t now.

With two young kids, I’ve slackened even more with housework and can’t keep up with vacuuming the house every second day. This aggravates the furry situation in the house.

I used to be able to wash the laundry area where the pets are kept every other weekend as well but have found it harder to do so recently.

At least, the dogs have the yard to play in and they go on car rides and romps in the parks often with us. Our church is connected to a park land and they come with us on some Saturdays to play after service too.

But Kelly…. is cooped up at home. Watching longingly at the windows, looking out at the yard where the dogs get to play.

It’s not fair for a cat to be kept like this.

I know I have always been a strong advocate on responsible ownership. That ‘a pet is for life’ and you commit to the very end. I used to think that children will never come in between pets and I.

I now admit that I’m wrong – that try as I may, I can never juggle 2 young kids with all the other things I have to do and still do everything at 100%.

Don’t get me wrong – I still love Benji, Chiyo and Kelly. But have slackened much with them after the birth of the kids.

I miss her terribly. I’ve shed tears at night especially when I miss her bell tinkling as she prances around.

I miss seeing her cuddling up with Chiyo.

I miss chasing her away from the kitchen when she tries to steal food.

I miss playing with her with string and watching her chase yarn balls as I knit.

I will always remember that when I first felt Sunshine kick me in my tummy, Kelly was sitting on me.

I will always remember how I had to dig her butt to clear out her poop when she first came to us – unable to move her bowels.

I will always remember how we refused to put her to sleep despite vets urging us to do so. “She’ll never be able to poop in her life!” so said a senior vet to us.

I will always remember her loyalty to the dogs. How she refused to eat and was so stressed in quarantine but the moment she saw the dogs at home, she felt at ease and happy again.

(Photo taken in my dad’s house in Singapore.)

Kelly dear…. I would love to keep you until the end. Please understand that to do that, I would be very selfish and unreasonable. And you would be very miserable as well.

Thank you for being so patient and forgiving. And being so gentle with Sunshine… even when she hit you, you did not retaliate.

Thank you for teaching Sunshine to be gentle and kind to animals.

Thank you for sharing your life with us. For mysteriously turning up at Nad’s parent’s doorstep. Your appearance still puzzles us as you couldn’t have got so high up in that building all by yourself.

We will miss you greatly… but we are very sure that you’d be much happier where you are now… and that you can once again, share a bed with another human. We know you are a loving cat who craves human relationships and we are sure that you will get plenty of love in your new home.

We’ve come to learn the hardest lesson in love – letting go.