Agent Smelly turns 10

 

My baby has just turned 10! 

 

 

 

There are so many wonderful things that I love about Agent Smelly. She is a sweet girl, generous, kind with a cheeky and rather dry sense of humour which has us in fits of laughter so often. She is very affectionate and leaves me especially lots of love notes. I am so proud of the beautiful young lady that you are growing into.

Your Mama xxx

Watercolouring Book Pages

I was cleaning the school room up recently and found an old book that I had gotten from the library purposely to make a wreath with. Being me I hadn't gotten around to making the wreath but I had the sudden idea to do the following.

 

First of all I drew a quick picture with a black marker on one of the pages. I know it sounds horrible to be drawing in books but the pages were already falling out which is why I picked that book at the library.

 

 

Then I coloured the picture "partially" in with some watercolour pencils.

Then I popped some water gently over the coloured bits and voila! You could easily use water coloured paints, this was just easier for me to grab and use.


The kids were watching what I was doing and before long they were right into churning out lots and lots more pictures ...

 

 

 
As you can see from these two pictures above, don't always colour the whole picture. They look great with some of the text showing through.

 

Sadly the photos don't do justice to how awesome and effective these look in person but everyone who enters the school room comments on how great they look. So if you are looking for something easy and quick for the kids (and the mama's) to do then I'd recommend trying this for some fun. I may even frame a few of my favourites down the track.

My Command Centre takes Off

I have been after a command centre for ages. I just love them and am hoping it will make me that little bit more organised ... dreams are free my friends!

For those that haven't seen them on Pinterest (that will be you my friend, Sue Elvis, but we will bring you around!)  here are a couple of examples ...

 

 

 

I decided to combine a couple of my loves in order to start my project, ie repurposing something old (I know how it is to start to being a bit older and feeling a bit useless hence my repurposing everything that I can!) and getting something snazzy for a real bargain.

 

Anyone remember these old spice racks? Well I picked this one up from the place I volunteer at for the princley sum of $2. People who know me will not be surprised that I always come home from there with some "find". I can't help myself.

Here she is again all snazzified with some black gloss test paint that I found in the garage. I wasn't going to go black but it seems to hide a multitude of sins (she was a bit yukkier in real life than the photo actually looks) and also will give a modern feel to my study, which should help with the house sale in due course, where the command centre will probably end up. I am not entirely sure what will go in it yet possibly some mail, invoices, receipts or such.

So that is my first piece for my command centre ... piece two is already on it's way peeps! Stay tuned.

It's Been a While ...

I thought I should try and touch base with those of you who have kindly been wondering where I have been. Despite the picture below, we haven't been lazing around in our "onesies" snoozing; it has been very busy for the past few months.

How I found Agent Smelly one night after a particularly busy day out.
Completely knocked out - I had to carry her to bed!

We finish term officially in NZ on Friday. We have taken on some new hobbies and adventures and hopefully at some stage I will get to fill you in on them all.

Now where to begin ... first of all I thought I'd share that I have been doing some volunteer work. One Saturday a month, for four hours, I assist at a local second-hand shop where all the money raised goes to the local retirement village. Our local retirement village is quite unique. You have the option to buy some land in the village and build your own home or buy one already built (great for some of our local farmers who want to move off their farms but are not yet ready to go into a retirement village), or rent one of the smaller units closer into the middle. As a resident becomes less independent it is possible for them to move into the Residential Care Unit, which is right at the heart of the village. Residents on the whole stay 'in their own home' as they may progress through the care stages of rest home level and hospital level care.

In the first six months of the shop being open we raised enough to donate $20,000 to the care unit so they could buy some fancy shmancy new hospital beds; the ones that lift and help the residents who need help getting into and out of their beds. Awesome ey!

I am really enjoying the opportunity to get out amongst the "real" world and am also enjoying working in a shop environment which I have never done before. I am teamed with a 'senior' person, who are usually much older than I am and so far they have all been so darn sweet.

We check and clean the clothing and other products that people drop off when we are there and then we price them and place them out on the shelves. I generally like to keep busy so am often re-arranging items on shelves to make things look nicer and easier to get to.

We also have eftpos so that's another new thing that I have learnt that I have never done before. I am quite enjoying the actual work involved and have been thinking that one day it might come in handy for me to pick up a part-time job also.

I wasn't rostered on in June due to us having reduced hours in winter so am really looking forward to getting into the shop again later this month.

The Magic Half - Book Review

The Magic Half (2009) by Annie Barrows

This book is the best book I have ever read! It is my favourite book.

It is a magical adventure about two girls. The main character, Miri, comes from a family that has two sets of twins and is always feeling left out.

Her family moves to a new house and she finds a piece of spectacle glass in the corner of her bedroom and when she looks through it she goes back in time 75 years before in the same house.

There she finds a girl called Molly, who is exactly the same age as she is and looks like her too.

Molly lived with her mean aunt Flo, two cousins (evil Horst and Sissy who was OK) and her very old Grandma who was deaf and bedridden but had sort of magical ways. She helped Molly summon Miri in the first place to save her grand-daughter from her evil family as she is not able to look after her herself.

Miri and Molly have some adventures and then Miri saves Molly from her evil relatives and brings her through time to the present. It changes the present to how it should be. Molly lives happily with a new, loving family and Miri gets the twin that she always wanted!

Agent Smelly (nearly 10!)