Just another manic Sunday

So, the week apparently flew by without me or anybody else, noticing.  Monday & Wednesday I went to Upholstery School, where we have a real teacher... and who took pity on me and helped me fix my chair's arms...  

and I was able to start on the seat:

I'd forgotten how much fun it is hand-tying springs, the twine is a little bit hard on your hands, but it was somewhat nostalgic in the 'brown paper and string parcel' type of old-fashioned thingy...

Anyway, I've got to tie them all together, and I can't go to Upholstery school on Monday because I have to go to a Management Offsite dinner - can you believe this, Gentle Readers?  Not only do I get to spend the whole day talking to my management colleagues, I get to have dinner with them as well.  Yeehaw.  Good thing the company's paying.

So, Wednesday is the last day of term, and this chair was supposed to finished this term.  Oh well.  Guess I'm not going to be ready for Third Year in 2012... unless something dramatic happens.  Any suggestions?

In happier news, I took some photos for the very lovely kate, of Rapt! Upholstery, aka The Chairy Godmother.  She's made this chair to show at the Warwick Fabrics Trade Show - I think it's fantastic!

And one of the teachers made this, which I also think is fabulous:

He made it by stitching pieces of fabric together at random, then cutting out what he needed for the chair & making it as it fell - I absolutely love it & would happily pay a lot of money for it - but apparently we aren't allowed to buy it.  I have suggested a raffle, but somehow I think it's going to end up in the foyer of the Upholstery department.   

In other news, I spent three days in the company of other 'new' or 'potential' team managers - we had a game to play, once a day over the three days, and the aim, it being a bank, of course, was to make money.  I never cease to be amazed at those people who can spend three days in a course which is designed to make you a better leader, who then throw it all away and try to do everything themselves, rather than showing some leadership and delegating some of the bits to other people.  

Our final round of the game was noisy, chaotic and disorganised, but it was fun.  We made $414 million dollars, if anybody's interested.  That was just our team.  Together the three teams made $1.1 billion dollars - all good clean paper money.  What kind of rewards and bonuses did we negotiate for ourselves?  Well, none.  What kind of negotiators were we?  The crap kind.  All the negotiating was done around the tools and resources needed to make more money, rather than share it around amongst the workers, equitably.  I'll never, never make a capitalist.  Can you tell?    

Oh yes, and I made these:

Apparently this fabric is much in demand...  and now, Gentle Readers, I am watching an episode of Stargate, and then I am going to bed.


Ciao!

Has-beans and pea-ing on the ground

Well, a fabulous weekend in the Hunter was had, very relaxing (mostly because I forgot to take a bobbin for the sewing machine, so funny, ROTFLMAO, oops.  No cushions, sorry Kaz.


Kaz excelled herself in the 'big fat fluffy bed' stakes this week - the candles were lit, the bed was beautifully made and even the vases and flowers co-ordinated:

Just beautiful.

We also had lots of fun upholstering the bench (finally):

And here it is on the matching rug:

It only took about 20 minutes to finish it off.  I thought it looked OK, but Kaz said she thought it looked "bloody fantastic".  It would certainly pass the Head Teacher pinch test... and Mr Golightly looks rather fetching sitting on it in his best working clothes:

And we picked some peas, had a look at the broadbeans, which Uncle Arfur pulled out a little prematurely... like, before they'd even sprouted, and I took a pretty picture:

The smell of the barrels we bought back for MBF* Deb in the back of the car was rather heady, a mix of oak and dried wine, but fortunately we didn't get stopped by the RBT** boys, and the trip home was quite quick, which leaves me here on the couch at 6.50pm, thinking about making pouches and watching Silent Witness...


All in all, rather relaxing.  I'm going back to Upholstery School on Monday & Wednesday nights for the rest of this term (which is only this week & next), and hopefully a break will make me feel a bit better about how this is all going... and maybe I'll even get the seat started next week?  We shall see.  And see, not another thought about the Tuesday Child Minder!


Hope you all had a relaxing weekend too, Gentle Readers.


Ciao!


*My Best Friend
**Random Breath Testing Police

Damned by...

Faint praise.  Yes, Gentle Readers, the Tuesday Child Minder has excelled himself.  I am overwhelmed by the encouragement and support he gave me at the end of last week,  telling me that my chair would look good in a dark room.  Hmmm.  Some issues there, I think.  I've taught people.  You know that, Gentle Readers.  I've done plenty of 1:1 coaching of people who have no business trying to learn how to use a computer, right up to standing in front of 200 fairly hostile people telling them about software which was going to make them all redundant.  There are ways, and there are ways.  This, I hasten to add, was not one of the ways.


I wonder what qualifications you need to be a TAFE* teacher?  I know when I looked into doing it in the IT world, you needed a qualification at least one level above that which you were going to be teaching.  For me, that meant I had to go & get either a degree, or some form of magic post-TAFE Diploma graduate qualification, which is what I did.  The reality that I then couldn't get a job in IT was not a reflection on me, but more an economic wake-up - they pay these guys $54 an hour (if they're lucky), but they're casuals.  They don't get any of the security of a proper job, and I didn't love teaching enough to give up my six-figure salary for $54 an hour, for maybe 6 hours a week... would you?


Anyway, having done Cert IV in Workplace Training & Education in 2004 as part of my quest to be a better teacher, I know that you don't tell your students that their chair looks like crap, and that they should have taken notes, and that nobody is going to employ you anyway because you're not a real upholstery student, not like the apprentices [and no, before you all throw up your hands in horror, he didn't actually say that, but it was implicit.  Well, it was inferred by me, so I'm blaming him.  That's how it works, isn't it?]  You encourage them gently by helping them when it's obvious they're stuck, even if they are supposed to be doing it themselves.  It doesn't get done if they can't remember what they're supposed to be doing (and let me tell you, Gentle Readers, in the grip of peri-menopause as I am, I can't remember anything.  Except the two landlocked countries in South America, which for some reason, never leaves me).  Bolivia and Paraguay.  I know.  You needed to know that.


So, here's the progress, and don't be too horrified to find out that this took me 8 hours to do.  Miss Natalie & I left at 4.00, being thoroughly sick of standing around waiting whilst the Child Minder communicated to the builder about his renos**, the other male teacher about the footy***, and the apprentices about the very thorny issues involved in making a slip cover.  Cranky?  You bet:

A note of thanks is due to the lovely Kate, of The Chairy Godmother, who reminded Miss Natalie and I that the Child Minder's tenure as our teacher is finite, and that happier days await.  Also, to the lovely Blue Lambb, who pointed out that a Vitamin B shot might help - I was thinking of a Vitamin R shot myself, as in 'Red Wine'!


In other news of the happier kind, the house is looking slightly less bomb-damaged, with clean washing only in one place, the industrial sewing machine having de-camped to the workroom and the food fairy having been [yesterday, amongst other chores post-upholstery school].  


And finally, I took myself out of the office today at 3.55pm, if only to visit the Doctor.  It was lovely to be home by 5.30pm, which I celebrated by getting the bin in, doing some recycling and meeting Butch, the new Dog Next Door.  The unbridled joy of scritching a warm soft puppy under the chin took away any remnants of tension.  I want me a dog!


Ciao!


*TAFE - Technical And Further Education - Technical skills such as building, carpentry, upholstery, mechanics etc.
**Renos - Renovations.
***Footy - Football - Rugby League, a game played in very few places on the planet, but still considerably more than American Football, which is played, I believe, only in America.

Routinely bad...

So, Gentle Readers, it really is time for me to get my merda together and get back into some semblance of a routine.  The house looks like a bomb has hit it, there's nothing in the fridge, there's clean washing all over the house, there's dust all over the floors, there are piles of stuff to go to the charity shop, magazines and books to go to the library  and the only clean thing is my bathroom, because I can't stand a dirty bathroom.  Where's the cleaner, now that I'm working, hmm?


Trouble is, it's all built up a bit in the first 2 months of working, and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all.  


Mr Golightly has been absolutely no help because he has been, and is now, in the final stages of making this, which is going to turn our pretty much unused guest bedroom into a workroom for me, until we can come up with the $40k needed to excavate our under-house space & turn that into a workroom for both of us!  Then, he can help with the house.  Maybe.


My lovely Ma spent some quality time in an institution known as a hospital, and I felt frustrated and angry that I couldn't just pop over to be there, like I could when I wasn't working.  


Because I'm working a 9 day fortnight, I've been going to upholstery school on my off day, and then on two nights in the alternate week, and that's left me pretty much exhausted.  My etsy shop is still open & I've been selling stuff, slowly, and one of my customers from 2009 has just popped up again with some custom requests, so that's got to fit into the schedule somehow...


The new job is good, but I need to stop going in at 0700 and still being there at 1645 - that's just ridiculous.  I seem to be more productive in the afternoons, so maybe I should start at 10.00am?  Maybe.  


Last weekend I spent a fruitless afternoon trying to re-cover a piece of furniture for MGF* Kaz, and we are going back to the Hunter Valley next weekend so I can finish that off... it's a bit of a tale of woe...


No, I think I'll save it for another post.  But we did have some nice morning weather:

And I had some lovely news, my good friend Clare, from Lulu Carter, is having a baby.  I know she's wanted another baby for a long long time, and I'm thrilled for her.  Her lovely sister, Alix, also had a baby this year, and that's adding to my guilt because I have things to send and can't get myself organised enough to send them off in the post.  Gah! 


Anyway, that's it.  I've got to go and fold, wash, clean, sweep, dust, put away, tidy and shop.  Ick.  I'd rather be sewing.


Ciao!






*My Good Friend

Squeeeezing in a post...

Just to let you know, Gentle Readers, I have found the time today to squeeze in the following:


Breakfast
Shower
Dress
Make a flask of coffee
Pick up lunch out of fridge
Pick up upholstery stuff out of car
Let Miss Natalie drive to TAFE (her turn today)
Sit in warm car for 25 minutes waiting for the workroom door to open
Spend an extremely frustrating day putting my cover on and taking it back off again to the satisfaction of the child minder they give us on Tuesdays instead of a teacher...
Leave early
Get home early
Do a load of washing
Sweep the kitchen floor
Empty the kitchen bin
Put the garbage/trash/rubbish bins out
Cook dinner
Empty the suitcases from the weekend & put them into the spare bedroom, for Mr G to put in the roof
Talk to my lovely Ma, who has purchased these:

And this is the state they were in:

And I'm going to reupholster them when I go over at the beginning of October...


And I've sold two pouches to a lovely person in the US, who also bought some of these:

So, perhaps life is returning to normal?  This is a very good lesson for me on what can be achieved if I leave work at 4.00pm instead of 4.45pm.

And after all that, how are you all, Gentle Readers?  I've missed talking to you, I admit.  I know that only a few of you hardy souls ever comment, but I know you're out there, still checking in, and I appreciate that, especially over the last few weeks (well, since I went back to almost full-time work, really)... 


Anyway, it's back to work, as I have to check on Dinner.  See, a Golightly's work is never done!  Ciao!

Is this what it takes?

Hello universe, I'm back (just for a short time, I'm sure).  I'm a bit bemused by some things that happened here on Monday... I lost two friends and I just can't begin to comprehend how something like this could happen here in Australia, where we don't normally get text messages at 7.00pm on a cold Monday night telling us friends are dead, in terrible circumstances.


Anybody got any answers?  I've never been a believer in that old saw "everything happens for a reason", because, yanno, we never get to know the reason.  We just have to take it on faith that my friends died for some higher purpose.  Not seeing it, you know?


I don't believe that there's any such thing as fate, either.  You get given a life, and you make the best of it.  Yes, some of us get given better starts than others, but it's yours, you own it, you drive it.  You can piss it all up against a wall, or you can start from nothing and build yourself a big shiny wall.  You choose.  


Some choices are good, that's a given.    You check the traffic before you step out.  You take your library books back, you stick to the speed limit.  You stop going drinking all night when you hit 30.  You take responsibility for your reproductive health.  You learn, you grow.  And yet, here you are, on a Monday night, dead.  That's not a choice you made, I'm sure.  So there are definitely limits to how are this whole 'determinism' thing goes, especially when you share your life with another person, because suddenly the capacity for making smart decisions is halved, not doubled.


Good advice welcome.

Cat? What cat?

Look at me, I'm tired.  Don't look at me , I'm tired.  Look away, I'm tired.  No matter how I look at it, I'm tired.  Five nights being woken at 3.30am by the cat, three mornings getting up at 5.30am,  two mornings of starting at 5.30am and working through until 9.30pm (with two whole breaks of 30 minutes each in between), and then hitting the sack at 10.40pm, and guess what?  I'm tired.


We're cat-sitting for my lovely MIL*.  It isn't the best thing I've ever done, because, by and large, I'm not a fan of cats.  There have been cats in my dim & distant past whose company I've enjoyed in passing, but I've never offered one a place at my table, nor am I likely to.  I side with whoever it was who said "Dogs have owners, cats have staff".  Currently, Mr Golightly and I are butler and housekeeper to Munchkin, he of the beautiful blue eyes (photo somewhere, too tired to find it), whilst the current provider of food and board to the beautiful spoilt one is in Queensland, defrosting.


Anyhoo, the return of my WMIL* is imminent (Monday), and I've just had three glorious hours of afternoon nap, and I feel almost hooman** again.  I still wouldn't have a cat though.


Progress is being made on the latest chair, it is currently covered by extremely ugly orange fabric, and I have really enjoyed the Monday & Wednesday night classes at Upholstery School - we are lucky enough to have a fantastic teacher those nights, and I'm quite sure I learn more because he's so enthusiastic about what he's doing!

And finally, Gentle Readers, some of you may have noticed that my output has dramatically dropped off, and I think it's only fair to warn you that until I get into the groove of starting early, having two night classes and some semblance of life beyond that, there isn't going to be much more.  So, I'm officially signing off for a while, until I can dredge up some more energy!

Take care of your loved ones!

Ciao!