Sasha’s Green:

A blend of bright green, turquoise and teal. I usually don’t dig greens but this one is just gorgeous! Don’t ya think? Named after a very good friend of mine, Sasha! We used to live just 5 minutes from each other and she was Sunshine’s one and only nanny (thus far). Now we live so far away from each other! Would have to just content with the emails and reading her blog.

This green will knit up to very lovely socks and even shawls / scarves.

Glacier:

Inspired by pictures of glaciers. I LOVE BLUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This would knit up to very nice socks, I think.

Me Time:

I feel that this colourway needs more exposure and perhaps, an explanation!

It’s named “Me time” because this is the colour I see when I look out of the window at night, when the kids and the hubby are asleep. My ‘me-time’.

I love this colourway so much I think I’ll knit a shawl with it someday.

It has mostly black, teal and a little turquoise thrown in. I should have taken a picture of the yarn before it was reskeined.

But seriously, this is a beautiful colourway for those who prefer darker shades.

Aurora Borealis:

This is the colourway that took me the longest to plan and dye up.

If you follow this link to Paulo Coelho’s blog, you’ll see the picture I based this colourway on.

Colours go from very dark blue (navy), to lighter blue and then the bright green and purples. I think this colourway would make a nice shawl or scarf. Maybe socks too!

Click on this link to see these yarns and other colourways in store! Thank you!

Edited to add: Nad had just taken a shower and was wearing boxers. NOT that we walk around nekkid!

All the nights (or rather, mornings) of dyeing and making soap.

These are the new colourways I have in store. The colours are very intense and saturated.

And of course, soap!

Handmade soap is different from commercially manufactured ones. They will not dry your skin and are made of 100% natural ingredients. Only the highest grade of essential oil and/or fragrance oil is used in my soap bars. Also, I only use approved colour pigments to colour soap.

On top of that, I use vegetable oils (Olive, Coconut, certified sustainable Palm, Rice Bran) exclusively. No animal fats are used!

I hope to whip up more soap once these are sold. Please help me out by buying some!

Shipping is automatically calculated for overseas customers now too! So you don’t have to email me for shipping charges and packaging costs etc. Any excess shipping charges will be refunded to you as well.

There is a 10% store wide sale going on now so go grab something before they’re all gone!

YARNANDKISSES

Thank you very much!

Sunshine: “Bye poo poo gozaimasu!”

This is what I’ve been up to recently:

Uh huh uh huh! I’ve been making more soap! And this time, I’m using the HP method! I love both CP and HP. HP is good for those that do not need swirls and the best thing is that I can use the soap in a day instead of waiting for weeks!

So yes, I’ve been making changes to the store (backstage, so you can’t actually see it until the curtains go up!) and working my butt off for it!

I have to race through this before school starts and I will have even lesser time. But now, all I ever dream about is the store. It’s like my 3rd baby. :-/

I can’t tell you everything but here’s a sneak peak (or a blatant giveaway) at what might be in store:

Will try to reply comments (from 4 months ago) soon! Sorwie for the delays. And ohhh, an update on mama chooki? She got off the eggs. We’re thinking of just getting chicks now and bypass the hatching process.

Gotta go!

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!

But check this website out!

Type out a sentence in English and watch it translate to Japanese, back to English and back to Japanese and back to English until it reaches an equilibrum!

My sentence:

there is a spider on the wall eating a fly

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!

Before we left Perth, we went to visit our dearest old friend, Kelly. I feel very very sad to leave her although I know she is in good, loving hands. She’s the best cat I’ve ever had.. (well, I only ever had one cat but she’s the coolest because she loved the doggies… ) I miss her a very very great deal and consider from time to time to ask her new owners to send her to us… But I know it’s not fair to both Kelly herself as well as her new family.

I love you, Kelly.

On the road! The road is long and never ending!!!!!!!

We had to dry our laundry on the dashboard. Hahaha! Oh dear… I had to hand wash everyone’s clothes every evening so we would have constant supply of fresh clothes and so that we won’t have to pay for laundry services. But it wouldn’t dry overnight under the air con in motel rooms.

Since the temperatures were just…….silly (35 to 45 degree Celsius!!!), we made full use of the sun’s power to dry our clothes!

But yeah.. we were also baking in the car. We do not turn on the air con for fear of overheating the engine as we were going at more than 110kmh under extreme heat.

We stopped at some beaches to stretch our legs and get a breather. This is still in WA… I THINK it’s in Albany.

Benji became Chubb’s pony.

Daddy and daddy’s girl on the beach.

I don’t understand – why is the statue flipping me the birds?

Well, I flipped back at it and it was unamused…..

Moving on…

The doggies’ ‘home’ for 6 days. We unload the bags under them every evening after checking into motels to give them enough room to sleep in.

Ahhh! SNOW!!!

YOU WISH… at 40 degrees summer heat in the Nullarbor? NO WAY!

It’s a dried up salt lake.

The longest straight road between Balladonia and Caiguna in the whole of Australia. VERY VERY BORING.

They really should rename it ‘Nullarbor-ing’ because it is.

After 3 days and 2 nights, we are finally out of WA!!!! My goodness. WA is really huge!!!!!!!

Chubbs and his daddy. At the Nullarbor roadhouse (Motel/fuel/rest stop).

My bet is that he didn’t do it in summer? Spring maybe? It’s bad enough in the car in summer!!

Because of the time difference (1.5hrs), people used to go into the roadhouse and exclaim if the time was correct. So they put up a sign to say that the clock is correct. And a sign to say that the sign that says that the clock is correct, is correct.

Very very funny.

Reminds me of this.

Still at the Nullarbor Roadhouse. I just like this picture. And the random whale behind the Mobil sign.

This is the treeless plains.

Very……..very………….boring…………

With an eagle to spice things up… just a little.

Wished I brought my better zoom lens.

At the Head of the Great Australian Bight.

We missed the whales by… uhh… 2 months. (Dang)

We passed many a road train! Overtake with caution. Make sure that the road is straight and no crests before overtaking! (And of course, no oncoming traffic, duh!)

Peaceful sleep. The babies slept most of the time. They were really well behaved!

Including Lulu.

Oh wait.. maybe THIS is the treeless plains…………….. Anyhooo… BORING.

Another beautiful salt lake!

SA is much much prettier than WA, in my honest opinion.

See what I mean? Lush and rolling hills! None of that in WA.

Australia, land of flies.

Kamikaze-d flies. Very juicy, some of them.

Juicy muffin man.

It was actually cold and she was shivering! But she loved it, thus the huge smile on her face.

Chubbs exploded on his seat. Had to wash it in the motel. SIGH! Debs thought I fed him a canary.

In the spa tub. And after talking to my good friend about spa tubs (she had one before she renovated her bathroom), I found out that the jets were actually water pumped out from pipes that held the remnants of the previous bath. (Please forgive me if I sound incoherent.. it’s almost 3am!)

So think about this.. everytime you run a spa bath, you are getting old water from the previous bath pumped into your new bath water. And what do people usually do in spa tubs in motels/hotels?

Food for thought?

Never again.

*Shudder*

Dingo Chiyo.

They are 7 and 6 years old respectively and yet still have so much energy and behave like little puppies, running in the wind and having the time of their lives.

They even splashed in the salty water much to my horror as they had to get back into the car after their romp. I had to wash them down with fresh water as best as I could.

But thinking back, I’m glad they had fun. They deserve it.

I think the boys want to join in the splashing fun.. but can’t. Because I said so.

SA’s pine tree plantation. The area actually smells nice! Pinewoody smell!

The Blue Lake in Mt Gambier (South of Adelaide).

It’s a dormant volcano. The Blue Lake supplies fresh water to the surrounding areas and has been for years!

Finally, we reach Melbourne. We stayed there a few nights with some relatives and this picture was taken after church on Saturday. We brought the kids to a park near by.

Chubbs LOVES the swing!

We brought the kids to a mineral spa in Hepburn springs. This is Chubbs’ second time in the pool. His first was also at Hepburn springs. He loves to bob in the water!

Sunshine would only play in shallow waters. She doesn’t like it when water splashes on her face.

I love this photo. It looks like it was taken with a Lomo!

The 40th and the last photo of this post. Melbourne city. Too busy, too noisy, too messy, too crowded for me. I don’t think I will ever love Melbourne. I’m glad we don’t live there.

Alrighty then. I’ve sacrificed a huge chunk of my sleeping time just to update this blog! Time to hit the sack! Toodles!

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!

She could stand on her own at 7 months and even get up on all fours….
Chubbs has turned 7 months and he still cannot do all these things! I wonder is it because we’ve been neglecting him?

He can sit on his own but that’s about it. He HATES being on his tummy since birth. I’ve been trying to get him to turn from his back to his tummy but he hates it. He would rather lie flat. He can roll from his tummy back to being on his back though. And he’s ever rolled from his back to his tummy, pushed himself a few centimeters to get to a toy. But I’ve only seen him doing that once.

Oh dear… Are boys generally slower than girls or are we neglecting him or is he just too fat? (I think he’s about 10kg now and Sunshine weighs only 10-11kg NOW!)

Should we be worried?