Pinkerton Manor

I’ve been a little quiet lately.  Mostly because I’ve been busy.  I went to Melbourne a few weeks ago for a holiday and it was hands down the best week of my life so far.  Hands down!  I’d never been there before, but people had always told me that I would like it.  They weren’t wrong.  I want to live there.  I met up with my ex boyfriend from Brisbane and we shared a hotel room for the week.  We’ve kept in contact a lot since I left Brisbane and we’re very good friends.  Even though we’d been a couple for nearly three years, Melbourne was our first real holiday together.  Anyway, here are some photos before I explain more.

Matt in front of Flinders Street Station

Lord of the Fries

I think that’s a theatre or something

Bikes we hired for the day

Church we stopped to look at on our ride

Matt with his bike

Cupcakes from my new favourite place, Little Cupcakes

Matt at Little Cupcakes

The cupcakes were delicious

I didn’t get nearly as many photos as I would have liked since I kept leaving my camera in the hotel room.  Sometimes because I had the dumb and others because I was achey and couldn’t be bothered carrying it.  We ate so much amazing food, my favourites being Little Cupcakes and Soul Mama.  We went to Soul Mama for a date.  It was the greatest date ever.  After we ate what was easily one of the best meals ever we headed over to Luna Park.  We went on the Scenic Railway and laughed so hard it hurt, then Matt played a sideshow game and won me a purple snake softie which I wore around my neck afterwards when we went for cake in Acland Street.

The other highlight for me was riding a bike.  I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was a kid and I was a little worried that between the arthritis in my back and the problems I have with my knees I might have a bit of trouble.  But I desperately wanted to do it and Matt was incredibly supportive.  We rode along the river for a while, but my knees started to hurt so we decided to cut through some suburbs in order to get to Abbotsford Convent.  We walked our bikes for a bit and then when we came to a slight downhill run Matt convinced me to get back on.  I had the time of my life!  We rode the rest of the way with no problems at all.  On the way back to the city I even rode in a bike lane on the road.  On the road!  I really want to buy a bike now.

In the weeks since I’ve been back I’ve done a lot of thinking and Matt and I have done a lot of talking.  I’m moving back to Brisbane on the 31st of December.  Moving back in with Matt, but we’re taking things slowly and seeing what happens.  I’m planning on going back to uni to finish my creative writing degree mid year and I’m going to put a lot more effort into the blog and my various creative endeavours.  I’m so happy and enthusiastic about life at the moment.  It’s fantastic.  I’m glad I moved to Canberra even though it hasn’t lasted that long.  I’ve spent lots of time with Mum and Louie and Matt and I have both grown and learned to communicate with one another much better.  Plus I’ve saved some money while I’ve been here so I can afford to go for my learners licence next year and get driving lessons.  I’d still rather a bicycle though, but I can probably afford that too.  Yay!

I just wanted to share how awesome my little brother is. Here are some choice quotes.

“I only think about things I don’t know about.”

Me: I just saw some ducks!
Mum: Must be because of the ponds they build around here. Every pond needs ducks.
Me: Every duck needs a pond.
Mum: Maybe they build the ponds just for the ducks.
Louie: Maybe they build the ducks just for the ponds!

Me: Those are expensive dvds. Oh, wait, they’re blu rays.
Louie: Your Mum’s a blu ray.

Me: *something about things being on fire*
Louie: Your face is on fire.

“I hate when people graffiti their names on things. It’s not very unitive. Unitive is my new word for good.”

Also, he wears Volleys and scarves and flannel shirts and likes sushi and has great taste in music. Oh, and he’s also a keen photographer. I’ll post some of his photos soon. They’re really awesome.

Apparently the Wild Things are in Canberra. Or at least they were. I spotted this awesome graffiti every day walking to work in the mornings and it always made me smile. Until this morning when I discovered that some jerk had covered Max’s head with an ugly poster. So glad I got a photo of it now.

The last few days I’ve been trying to decide whether to do outfit photos for the days I go to work. I love getting dressed on the weekends and always put effort into what I wear, but when I go to work it’s more a question of ‘what clothes do I have that look good, but I won’t be upset if I ruin’. So I kind of wear a lot of the same.

Right now I’m wearing black pants, a maroon cowboy check shirt with a grey knit vest over the top. It’s actually a pretty neat outfit, but I’ve worn it once a week since I started this job. Plus I’m usually too rushed in the mornings to be taking photos and too tired in the afternoons. Perhaps for now at least I’ll skip the work-day outfit photos. Unless I’m feeling particularly spectacular anyway.

As of today I have finished both Curtain and curtains.  Confused?

I’ve been addicted to Agatha Christie for the past year or so and last week I started reading Curtain.  Coincidentally, I also started making curtains last week.  Our flat has quite a few windows (including one in the bedroom that opens out to the living area).  There are trees all around and it’s great.  We loved it when we first moved in, but now the afternoon sun shines right in and that’s not so nice.  Also there is a street light right outside one of the windows.  We did have a towel hanging over it (the window, not the street light), but curtains do tend to look better on windows than stripey bath towels.  And so, I made curtains.

It was my first time machine stitching a blind hem.  I’d heard it wasn’t easy to get right the first time around, but I seriously don’t know what those people are on about.  It was so easy!  And waaaay faster than doing it by hand.

I still need to make curtains for the front windows, but that’s not urgent and frankly I’m kind of over curtains for now.  I think I’ll make the camisole over at Weekend Designer in the meantime.  I’ve also fallen in love with American Apparel’s Le Sac Dress and I’m pretty sure I could make my own (and for less than $US38 too).

For now, I leave your with a photo of the possum that lives in our roof.

Last year I started making my own Christmas ornaments.  I thoroughly recommend it, it’s a lot of fun.  Here’s how it turned out last Christmas.

This year I’m making peg people.  Inspired by Martha Stewart and these cuties on Flickr.  Here’s a sneak peek of my work so far.

Two down, twenty four to go.  I plan on keeping six for our tree and giving the rest away as gifts.  Suggestions for characters are more than welcome (so far I’m making some more 18th Century style people, Mr T, a little drummer boy and a hobo).  And if anyone knows where I would buy teeny tiny screw in eyelets I’d be totally in your debt.

PS Photos of buttons are on the way, I swear.

I had intended to post a number of things before now, alas life got in the way. My boyfriend, henceforth known as Lord Adlington (his choice), and I moved house rather unexpectedly. Long story short, circumstances led us to realise that we weren’t happy in our old flat and fate led us to our new one. Our new flat is the front corner of an old Queenslander. It is utterly delightful and I look forward to posting photos as soon as we have finally finished unpacking.

In other news, my good friend Darren at RapidHosting kindly helped me out with some hosting. I now reside at PinkertonManor.com (which currently redirects here). I’ll be roadtesting WordPress in my secret blogging labrotory in the next few weeks and hope to officially launch Pinkerton Manor soon.

When my little brother Louie was about 3 years old his favourite adjective was ‘good’ (or ‘dood’ as he said). So, one day I had a chat to him about other words he might like to use instead. We discussed words such as ‘awesome’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘fantastic’, but he remained loyal to ‘good’.

“I’m really good at helping Mum hang the washing out,” he told me.
“You sure are,” I replied. “And modest too.”
“No, Amie,” he corrected me. “I’m not modest, I’m fantastic.”
He learned a new word after all.

So, when I read the Craftster needlework challenge was going to be favourite quotes I knew exactly what mine would be. Unfortunately I didn’t finish in time to enter the challenge on account of a back injury which had me out of action for over a week. However, I really enjoyed working on it and I can’t wait to give it to Louie.

This was also my first attempt at stitching that wasn’t just backstitch or French knots. The border is laced double stitch worked in three colours. I really like the way it turned out.