A week in our house...

~ Hmpf! We really are having a winter of sickness! Not all at once, and not even the same thing! So, we're all well again, but I feel like I lost a week looking after Danielle with some random vomity-viral thing that covered her in a red rash from head to toe. Onwards and upwards!
~ Good news on the chicken front - my very sporadic layers look like they're in for a change. Over summer I had a few broody ones sitting on the nest, then they all moulted, and now finally, one of them is back laying. Nathan came into the house a few weeks ago all excited that he could tell that Caramel was going to start laying soon. He'd noticed her comb had gone bright red and nice and plump-looking. Danielle discovered the first egg yesterday! The other two still have pale pink combs, but I'm hoping they'll be coming onto the lay too.

~ I got together with several friends on Thursday evening for a knitting/crochet session. I offered to make a friend a pair of the fingerless-gloves I made myself a wee while back, so made a start that night and then finished them off the next day.

~ I have a set of seedlings ready to pop into the garden tomorrow (yay for some lovely weather).

~ I bought a 2nd-hand square coffee table off Trade Me during the week. We haven't had a coffee table in the lounge since Nathan was a baby; just seemed to be a bit of a hazard and unnecessary. Now that all the kids toys have been removed from the lounge, the large space was no longer required for spreading out on. I have been wanting a large, square, low table that can be used when sitting on the floor - doing jigsaws on, eating at, playing card games, drawing, etc. I found the perfect table - 90cmx90cm and we chopped length off the legs so it is now only 30cm high. I intend on sanding it back and staining it a darker colour to modernise it. So that's my project for this week.

~ I've been drawing! An online friend recommended a book that sounded really interesting. I have always been one to think that I am very uncreative, can't draw, wouldn't know where to start, and told myself I wasn't really interested ... so wrote myself off as ever being able to. Well, this book basically told me that everyone can draw, and that it was really just in the way you "see". I amazed myself by drawing my first picture ever (that wasn't just a "kid" picture with lines). Now, I look forward to learning some skills to take the vision from inside my head and putting it onto paper, rather than just copying an item. So, here's my first picture (after being told that I can in fact draw - strange that it was all in  my perception). This is a sample before any instruction, and I'll keep it so I can do a comparison as I go through the lessons.

~ I've been drumming! Yes, I'm all about creativity this year! I am still practicing the rhythms that I learnt at my workshop last weekend (on my tiny little drum lol).

~ I've finished reading Nineteen Eighty Four (it all keeps playing through my mind), and fitting in another library book (along with the drawing book), before I make a start on the 3rd Earth's Children book.

~ The kids have got all creative yesterday - both had ideas for constructing, building, and creating - was great to see!