Birthday celebrations and Science Week in Perth

We had a great birthday weekend. Yesterday it was mine and my hubby’s birthday, yes we do share the same birth dates. It makes it very easy for the family to celebrate! On Sunday we went to the Western Australian museum to see the expo “Remember Me: The Lost Diggers of Vignacourt” (you can click on the title of the expo and it will send you to the original site for more info). It is an amazing expo and I highly recommend anyone who lives in Perth to go and have a look, its only until the end of August so hurry. The story of how these photos and footage were found is just amazing, for more info on that click here. By coincidence, Science week was on so little dude had an amazing time cruising around all the stalls and learning new things about plants, animals, planets and much more! On our birthday yesterday we went to Ria a great Malaysian restaurant (my favorite) in Leederville for dinner. A lovely birthday celebration and just what I wanted; a quiet and simple birthday enjoying the two people most special to me: my hubby and my son. Who could ask for anything more?

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Uni starts again & 1st day of Spring!

I don’t think I have told you all that I am back at Uni. This was the reason for the past 5 months of silence since the Christmas holidays. I enrolled for a Graduate Diploma in Primary teaching. I am already a high school English teacher with a major in ESL. I always wanted to be a primary teacher but when I lived in Holland they did not have the course in English only Dutch and my Dutch was not good enough so I opted for secondary English.

The last semester was pretty full on, even doing the course part-time. I had my first 4 weeks practise in a local school and loved it! I had a Year 4 class(4th graders for all of you in the US). I did really well in the units even got a high distinction for one of them. But the best part was the kids. I forgot how much I missed teaching, I had pretty bad experiences teaching in Holland right after I graduated and that made me leave the profession. This time around I only can say how positive the whole 4 weeks was in comparison. I started to volunteer in the same school every Friday from now on because my next teaching practise will be in my final semester in a years time.

So semester 2 just started this week and I thought to my self that the next 10 weeks will be crazy busy so best post something today. We had a lovely Sunday, it’s the first day of Spring here in Oz and the weather warmed up. We even took the dog to the beach today for a swim.

I did some reading for uni in the morning while hubby chopped down 2 sick trees in the backyard with his favourite toy (chainsaw). Little man helped his daddy and enjoyed the sunny morning. Later after lunch with some of the wood from the trees I decided to build little man a mini hut for his play mobile figurines. So hubby got the hot glue gun out and we all build a really cool hut. Once done little man played with it for a while. We then decided to take little man and dog to the beach for a play. Lovely late afternoon and dog got drenched jumping and surfing on the waves. Little man got all wet too but he had a blast looking for sea shells and crabs on the rocks.

Enjoy the pictures guys I am over and out and will post when all this crazy stuff is over. Take care.

Naughty BSR foot got updated!

I have had a love and hate relationship with my Bernina Aurora 440 from the moment I tried quilting with the BSR foot. At first I thought it was me, I was a novice after all but after a couple of years I truly believed that my machine was a lemon. She was just too fussy about certain threads when I used the BSR foot and I eventually gave up quilting all together because I ended up speaking like a sailor with any project that I attempted to quilt. The last straw was at the quilt retreat last month, when I attempted a quilting workshop and again my tension from my bobbin was all over the place. It was perfect tension when I was piecing but once that naughty foot was placed it all went to hell as usual. I had to hear the same things. ” you just need to tweak your tension” and “you need to be patient” and ” maybe it’s the thread” and even ” it’s your inexperience”. I heard it all people and this time I had enough bullshit! The machine was going to be dumped, my mind was made up!!! I got home pissed off and went online to find if I had fellow quilters with the same problem. Guess what, so many quilters in forums speaking like sailors about the same problem. It looks like I would need to retire my expensive purchase but all of sudden I read something I had not tried yet. Updating my BSR foot. Yes you heard it right. Apparently when I bought my machine in 2006 the foot had just been on the market and many had this tension problem when used so an update was created to solve the bloody problem. So I took my naughty foot to the Bernina dealer here in Perth full of hope. I told the pesky foot that this was its last chance. I got there and of course the dealer looked at me like I was out of my mind, “What u mean update your BSR”. I think he thought I got my head mixed up with the apple shop. But I explained my dilemma and told him what I read on the forum. So he took my foot and got the newest Bernina out and put the foot in and behold everyone the display said Updating…. Just like that; he started looking at me, as someone who knew her stuff and not an amateur! He told me to let him know if that helped so he could spread the word.
Days passed and the foot stayed in the bag, school holidays is here and I could not find enough time to try it. Also I was terrified that if this didn’t work I would have to retire the bloody foot and would not be able to do any free motion quilting with my machine.
So today I got my machine all ready and tried the foot. I checked my bobbin tension before stating (dealer showed me how he checks and does this). I can happily say it worked like a miracle!!! The tension is perfect and it purrs like kitten when in use. So if you are experiencing tension problems with your BSR foot it’s not your skill or your machine it’s the naughty foot who needs to be updated. Here are the pictures of before and after!

BEFORE

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AFTER UPDATE

It’s looking a lot like Christmas!

Busy busy busy! This month has been full on people! I’m not going into detail over all the stuff we have been up to but you can have an idea with the photos!
This week I finally got the tree up and finished the quilted Christmas stockings. I managed even to send some cards and presents last Friday to all family and friends overseas. Had the last day of Kindy for Luke. Also I applied to go back to Uni to do a post grad in Primary education, got acceptance email yesterday. *sighs* I’m pooped everyone now I am putting my feet up and relaxing till Monday!