Reversible pants

For the first time since my daughter was born, I have used my sewing machine. The logistics of trying to sew with her at home was too much for me to figure out until now. I bought a pattern for reversible pants a few weeks ago and I took a look at it this morning. It looked pretty easy, so I thought i'd give it a go with some groovy material I had picked up on sale last week. Thanks to the pattern being very easy to follow, the pants were finished in a few hours. 

I am so pleased with myself, not only for making the pants but for finally pushing all my excuses and worries aside and just giving it a go. Woohoo, i'm back baby.

Helping out with the bushfire victims

As many Australians do, I feel so helpless with the bushfire tragedy in Australia. We can give cash but many people want to help out in a more practical way. I tried to give blood but they wouldn't take blood from a lactating woman. 

At the same time people were suffering in these fires, a lot of wildlife was too. I heard from someone who works with injured wildlife in Victoria that they were looking for more knitted pouches to keep baby animals in. Often the mother koalas/wombats/possums are killed in fires but their tiny babies are saved from harm protected in their mother's pouch. Animal rescue members are trained to look in dead and inured animal's pouches for these young ones. They need a lot of one on one care and are kept in knitted pouches made to resemble the one they came from. So i'm giving it a go. If you read my previous post, you'd see what a slow knitter I am, but I just have to try. They also need flannelet inside pouches to line the woollen ones, so i'm going to try and make some of those too.

Pants finished!

I finally finished those pants I was knitting for my daughter in an earlier post. I got them done just before midnight on Christmas eve. They took me about six months to finish! Here they are on my daughter taken while on holidays in Tasmania.

Lucky finger sack.

Umm...ok..., originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

Whadda reckon this is for? Come on, guesses please.

Konichiwa!

Konichiwa!, originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

I was used to seeing Engrish on shirts in Japan but here it is in reverse. Japanese on a shirt in Australia. Would you wear this? In which country? Would you buy it for your daughter?

Beginner knits

I thought it was about time I learned to knit. So recently while visiting my Mum, she taught me the basics. I had a go at basic baby leg warmers and made two pairs.

Next I am onto a proper project following a pattern and am having a go at pants! Here's what i've done so far.

Making cloth nappies

A few months before bub arrived, I started to get interested in cloth nappies. Not just those flat white squares of terry or flannelette but the fitted type. Man oh man, have you looked into cloth nappies?! There are like a million different types- AIOs (all in ones), pocket, fitted etc. I spent hours on the internet researching the different types and how to make them as I thought i'd give them a go. I ended up buying a handful of different types just to get my head around how they're made. The net has a few free patterns too, so I got to work trying to make a few. I didn't want to make too many before bub arrived though, as I couldn't test them out to see which ones worked or not.

This is the first one I made of hubby's old T-shirts and some flannel. I guess it's a fitted type. It doesn't have any waterproof layer, so it'd need a cover or just as a quick day time nappy.

It's too big for bub right now, so I haven't tested it out yet. Talking of waterproof layers too (which most cloth nappy websites call PUL), it cannot be found in fabric shops anywhere! Arrrgghhh! Most fabric shops hadn't even heard of it. Talking to some other people who use and make cloth nappies, it seems the best place to buy it (and other nappy making goods) is off the net, mostly imported from the states. I tell ya, this is a huge gap in the market and if I was business minded in any way i'd open a cloth nappy materials shop in Melbourne.

This next one is made from old cotton T-shirts and microfleece. It isn't waterproof as such but the microfleece stops most moisture coming through. I've used it a few times and it fits well and works a dream too. When I get some time, I want to make a few more of this type.

The next one is a pocket nappy. I made it with microfleece and a vinyl. I had in mind to stuff it with any booster of bamboo, hemp, cotton or flannel etc. I've only tried it once so far with a cotton booster and it leaked. So i'm not sure if it was the booster or the nappy design. I'll give it another go with a different material booster.

I had a heap of old cotton T-shirts and old flannette sheets, so I made a few boosters/soakers too. They work pretty well but I don't think they're as absorbent as bamboo or some other more 'fluffy' materials.

We made a little human!

Two weeks ago at 1.45am on the 19th of March I gave birth to a perfect little girl at home. I'm in the process of writing her birth story and procsessing all that happened. Our lives have been turned upside down as having a little human rely on you for everything is pretty all consuming. Her Dad is totally in love with her and her Mum can't stop looking at her.

This is our first family pic, taken about five minutes after she was born.

Sewing for bub

I've been going to sewing classes to learn how to sew. My Grandma left me her sewing machine and it had been sadly sitting all alone for months and months before I finally got good enough to try a few things. We also moved our furniture around, so I could easily use it. I was so excited I made some outfits for bub.



Since I started lessons i've also made a skirt for me (doesn't fit now), boxers for hubby (he didn't like them) and currently i'm making a maternity dress.

New Zealand

Last month hubby and I went to New Zealand for a holiday. Last big break before bub comes. We had a great time. Kept busy most days as I wanted to see lots of places. We were basically based at Lake Taupo (central part of the North Island) but we did plenty of day trips to places like Rotorua, Napier, Hastings etc. Here are a few pics.

First the geothermal areas. They were insane! Smelly gases, bubbling mud and hot creeks and pools.

Steaming lake;


Mineral deposits looking like a geothermal waterfall;


Boiling hot pool;


Bubbling mud;


Leaves fallen into the mineral laden mud;


Gorgeous scenery everywhere. Here are some green rolling hills;


Breathtaking waterfall;


A creek in the trout fishing capital of the world;


Maori culture. When big burly Maori men are doing the haka right in front of you, whoa, you get goosebumps. Here is a group showcasing traditional Maori dance and music;




Plenty of yummy food too. Here is a visual instruction on how to eat a prawn. First start with a huge platter of freshly cooked prawns;


Next, play with your food and get to know it;


Then pull the shell off and eat the tasty meat. But don't forget to suck all it's brains out;


Finally, survey the damage and be satisfied;



Hubby decided he liked the sound of rolling down a hill in the center of a plastic ball;


We finished off with a couple of days in Auckland;

Woohoo, camera issues sorted

OK, now I can actually access pics off my naughty camera, I have decided to bore you all with pics from the last couple of months.

I spent a week in Tasmania (an island off the south of the Australian mainland, which is a state in itself) in September. My parents have recently moved there and as i'd never been, I didn't need any excuse to go and see.

Tassie in pictures
Down by the water:


Salamanca markets. A popular weekend market in central Hobart. Saw some awesome cloth nappies and my Dad bought scrumpy! Nice fresh cheap vegies there too:


It was spring time, so gorgeous bulbs out everywhere. Some daffodils in a cemetery:


Wattles were flowering everywhere. I have never seen so many different types of wattle before. There were even wattle trees. As in huge massive tall trees with wattle blossoms all over. This isn't one of the big wattle trees, just a gorgeous specimen.


Pebbly beach:


Fresh Tassie seafood:


The coastline down to Port Arthur:


Ruins at Australia's most famous prison site at Port Arthur. An intriguing, eerie, sad place:


Looking out from within the ruins of the hospital. This place made me want to cry, all I could feel was despair:


Daffodils grew like wild flowers in Tassie. You'd be driving and see a whole paddock full of these happy yellow flowers:

An update

Lately, I guess i've been keeping busy but not in a typically busy at work kinda way. I have decided that staying away from the work I was doing is the best idea for now as I found it pretty stressful. And as pregnancy is not really the best of times to go searching for a new job, i'm having my gestation period quietly at home.

It's given me the chance to catch up on hobbies i'd neglected for a while and start new ones. I'm doing a sewing course and am presently making baby clothes, which is really satisfying. I'm hoping once I get a bit more experienced, i'll be able to expand and make clothes for hubby and I and things for our house.

My camera/computer are being big poos lately too! My camera works fine but when I try to connect it to our computer to upload my pics, it won't read properly. I've searched online for answers and tried everything I can. The camera's batteries are fully charged. The cable seems fine, drivers seem fine. The computer accepts the camera but when it goes to get the photos, something obviously doesn't compute. I have a feeling our computer might be on it's last legs. It's slowing down a lot lately and just doing whatever the hell it likes. I've tried disk cleanup. So any ideas to fix these two problems?

As for the pregnancy, I am officially in second trimester about 14 weeks along (almost 15). According to all the info, my uterus is the size of a large grapefruit, my baby would be fully formed, it has eyebrows and is even peeing! Thanks goodness that bloody morning sickness started to ease about a fortnight ago and has almost disappeared. That was rough going for a while.

Little Mango-chan would look something like this;

I don't have an actual ultrasound picture to show as i've decided not to have ultrasounds. They haven't been proven to improve outcomes and in fact some studies have even shown some harmful effects. Here is one article by Sarah Buckley, outlining some cause for concern if you're interested. One thing from this article that should scare the shit outta anyone thinking of having an ultrasound,

''A UK survey showed that, for one in 200 babies aborted for major abnormalities, the diagnosis on post-mortem was less severe than predicted by ultrasound and the termination was probably unjustified''.

There is no reason for a healthy woman progressing with a healthy pregnancy to have an ultrasound, especially if she doesn't intend to abort at any abnormal findings.

Back again

Once again i've been awol. But this time I have a good excuse. I have been feeling absolutely terrible. Imagine feeling like vomiting about 14 hours of the day?! That's been my life everyday for the last three weeks.

I'm pregnant! It is long awaited news for Yutaka and I and of course our families. My Mum is already madly crocheting a million booties and bonnets and things.

I am very excited to be a Mum and can't wait to make our family one person bigger. I remember when I was a teenager thinking about being a Mum... I started a list of names for my future kids when I was about 12! A few I have had to cross of though, as they have 'v' or 'l' or are unable to be pronounced properly in Japanese. Plenty of other names work in both languages though.

So here I start the pregnancy journals. Can't say how much i'll be writing or if i'll feel up to it very often.

I leave you with a pic I took last week. Love daffodils!

Random Facts

Tigermama tagged me for a game of random facts.

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Eight random facts about me:

# I'm a closet hippie- well not entirely a closet hippie. But my 'mainstream' friends probably think i'm a dreddie away from being a full blown hippie and my more 'hippieish' friends probably think I am laughably mainstream.

# I often make up new words. Or morph Japanese and English words/phrases together. The other morning when I heard the garbage truck coming and realised I forgot to put the bin out, I yelled 'oh shit it's gomi no hi' (garbage day).

# I luuuuurrrrrvvvveeee wine. White or red.

# I've never been skiing and don't intend to. I'm not terribly co-ordinated and have failed miserably at sports like ice skating and surfing. So i'm just trying to avoid the embarrassment and bruising.

# I always thought my names (given and surname) were such common and boring names. Now I have a surname that most Aussies can't even pronounce and my kids will probably get teased for it.

# My brother is a priest and I was raised a Christian but my views/beliefs are probably not like those of your typical Christian. I tend to veer to the more liberal side and try to keep an open mind about most things.

# I have quite a few scars. I was a bit of a tomboy as a child. Scar next to eyebrow, on elbow, on cheek, on finger, on each knee (one with the holes from stitches still visable), various chicken pox scars on my stomach and back....

# I don't really act my age. If you walked into my apartment, you might think an old lady lives there. You can find me doing things like crosswords, crochet, collecting antiques and sorting out my recipe collection.

People I now tag. Have fun!

Cameron
Kath
MomKori
Dave's Armchair
Kuri & Ping
Kitten
India
Jessica

Blurry Buddha

Buddha, originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

Recently i've really been enjoying taking photos. I have a small Ricoh digital camera with lots of different modes that i've been trying to figure out. I upload the best of my shots to Flickr.com (see the sidebar), which is a fantastic website if you take photos, check it out.

I took this shot recently and even though it's all blurry, I love how it turned out.

Whale Pirates

Woohoo! I just love this. The Australian Labour Party has plans to intercept Japanese whaling ships. But as this action will be taking place in international waters, some have labelled it an 'act of piracy'. Yeah, I can just see Kevin Rudd (Labour leader) with some dreddies and eyeliner leading his party of politician pirates to intercept the harpoons and save the whales.

I admire the sentiment but I have some concerns that this will come to fruition. Is it just me or do politicians tend to not tell the truth? [insert rolling eyes emoticon here] All jesting aside, something more drastic has to be done about Japanese whaling in international waters. I guarantee the average Japanese person wouldn't even realise if whale meat stopped being available in Japan. From my experience, it's a rare person nowadays in Japan that eats whale meat and it takes some looking to even find it in the odd supermarket.

Story here: Rudd defends plan to intercept Japanese whalers

Alcoholism and homosexuality

Ahh, that title gotcha huh?!

This train of thought was spurred from watching Oprah yesterday (i'm on a sabbatical, leave me alone). Oprah was interviewing the author Terry McMillan (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) about her ex-husband who told her after 6 years of marriage that he was gay (interview and pics). Terry was very hurt and angry over the incident and kept repeating, 'how could he not know he was gay, that's like saying you're an alcoholic without ever having a drink'.

Huh? Say what? Is it just me, or does that not fit?

Alcoholism or any addictive behaviour requires one to first do that behaviour, to then become addicted to it. While our sexuality is an ingrained part of us. Without getting into the nature/nuture debate, I think it is a fairly well accepted fact that one does not choose to be gay or lesbian or heterosexual or other. Hell who'd want to choose a life with so much bigotry aimed at you and your loved ones?

So now, I think I have explained how her above example does not make sense. But as to her actual meaning in that message- 'how could he not know?'. He claimed that he grew up in a conservative country (Jamaica) and that homosexuality was not talked about, was not understood and that he didn't even think about the possibility that he was gay (when he was younger). Well, Opera and his ex-wife ripped into this guy for that confession. Opera started spouting things like, 'I know soooo many gay people and they all say they knew they were gay at 7, or they knew since they were born'. So? Good for those people. Wonderful that a child was so in touch with their sexuality at such a young age. Great that they were given the freedom of thought to be about to entertain all these different thought processes.

But come on, give this guy a break. I think it is totally plausible that he might not have realised he was gay until later in life. He married when he was 21 for goodness sake. I've been 21 and I know how much turmoil can go on in the mind at that time. And just to highlight that I don't consider this guy to be completely off the hook cause he did cheat on his wife and I don't give the time of day to cheaters. Anyone who ever cheats on me better hold on to their privates.

I wish I knew a gay person well enough to discuss this with them and get their point of view. Anyone out there have more to add on this? Gay or not, all are welcome here, including alcoholics....damn, think that's me....

Reality shows- Big Brother

I've been a bit of a fan of reality TV shows for a few years now. Before I left Australia to venture overseas, I watched Australia's first series of 'Big Brother'. I find reality shows and true stories in general more engaging than fiction. Anywho, being in Japan and away from reality shows (while they seemed to be at their peak of popularity in Australia) for a few years meant my appetite for reality shows was far from quenched. So here I am, back home and eager to get back into watching some reality shows again.

Pretty much the only reality TV show that has been on here the past few months has been 'The Biggest Loser'. I actually really enjoyed it and was surprised how emotionally attached I became to a few of the contestants. I even managed to get hubby interested in watching each week.

Then guess what starts up again only last week? Australia's sixth (!!) season of 'Big Brother', which effectively is only my second season. Now I don't know how the other four seasons went or what 'formula' worked for ratings for this show but I am seriously disappointed this season!

You want to know why? There are 14 people in the house and they all are PRETTY MUCH THE SAME. How utterly boring. They have chosen young, straight laced, thin, pretty, blond, white girls and young, straight laced, good looking, buff, white men. There are a couple of exceptions (a brunette girl who is still young thin and pretty though, a couple of guys from non-caucasian backgrounds and a less buff but amusing geek). Have a look Big Brother 07 Housemates.

Heellllloooo producers of 'Big Brother'. Variety is the spice of life. We want to see a mix of people in the house, not watch 'Barbie and Ken' plastic cut outs. And you know what really pissed me off? In the media lead up to this season of 'Big Brother' starting they had ads on TV saying, 'We promise this year's Big Brother will have people from all walks of life'. Yeah right, bull-shit!

From memory the first season of 'Big Brother' in Australia had a gay guy, a couple of larger women, a woman with dark skin, a dominatrix with an accent, a guy with a mohawk and generally a whole bunch of different looking, sounding and feeling people. And it was INTERESTING.

There is going to be an extra housemate come into the house sometime this week I think. They will have won a promotional competition and won't have been chosen by the producers, so let's keep everything crossed that it will be someone just a little....different.

'Big Brother', you better start pulling something better out to keep me interested this season.

Easter breakfast

Easter breakfast, originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

As this was his first Easter in Australia, I decided to make an old favourite for hubby's breakfast. Dippy eggs with soldiers. Which is a soft boiled egg with hot buttered toast.

So that, along with some hot cross buns and a chocolate bunny from Mum (I mean the Easter bunny) and we had a yummy Easter Sunday brekky.

Happy Easter