"It's good to be back ..."

A HUGE "g'day" from Elwood!!! Yep, this is actually me sitting in front of my very own PC in my very own little flat - no, Houston, we no longer have a problem - we have a phone line!!! :D The phone technician called this morning to see if I was home, and if he could come round ... his job today still went ahead, but he finished it sooner than expected, and was able to fit me in woohoo!!! :D Unfortunately the phone jack is now right in front of the front window where the Christmas tree usually sits, so I've had to spend just under $40 for a 12 metre extension cable and double adaptor, seeing as my computer is miles away, and the double adaptor I had already got was for the geriatric phone connection originally in place - now we have a snazzy new one.

I've already made one call home on it, and exercised the phone line for almost 2 hours chatting to Mum ... and here are some photos expressly for her - the latest on my wall cracks. The first one also includes a great shot of the newly finished phone connection (I still have to vacuum up the mess and move the furniture back), as well as the lovely new crack I have along the middle of the wall, just nicely in line with the height of the sofa.

Next up is the top corner of the same wall - the window is now so out of plumb I can't actually close it at all, and the phone technician reckons the floor in the corner is actually on a bit of a slope now hmmm.

Next is the corner behind my bookcase which divides the lounge and dining rooms.

And lucky last is above the balcony door frame. Some of them actually look worse in real life than they do in the photo ... yep, definitely a good time to be looking for somewhere new, before I end up making an unexpected visit to the downstairs neighbours by landing on their heads!!

As for stitching, not as much to report as expected ... here's the latest progress photo of Bordeaux Sampler - I stayed up last night to finish of the over-one parts, and it's been put away again until next week. You can see by the groups of grapes down the left hand side of the border where the halfway mark is, so I'm now very very close to it :) Don't worry Carol about not being in the same place - I know you've been very busy doing gift stitching ... it's still nice knowing you and Leslie are stitching it as well, even though we don't have a designated night for it :)

Lastly I can show the latest UFO I've finished - this Cream Button Bag by Shelley Warner was from a Guild weekend Retreat in Auckland ... it just has to be made into a bag now, but that will happen on one of my 'finishing' slots in my rotation. It's pitiful how long this has been sitting around, as it only had four leaves left to be completed and the buttons added - it only took about 1-1/2 hours to finish!

This week I also started a SAL with Carina on the Ross Originals Macaw - it's hardly worth showing a progress piccie, as there's only a few stitches to show for it ... but by next Wednesday there should be something worth showing, as that's our new SAL night :)

Rightio, now it's time to get the icing ready for a chocolate cake I made this morning ... I'm not a baker by any stretch of the imagination, but I figure my skills will never improve if I don't give it a go, so I'm stretching myself a bit. And the guys from work are going to be my guinea pigs to help save my waistline :)

I also made Honey Coconut Biscuits which are quite yummy ... and a case of 2nd time lucky! I was making them on Wednesday morning to take into work, but the final ingredient was self raising flour, and when I was sifting it I found a big clump of insect eggs ... everything ended up in the bin. Then I finally made them again last night, and managed to have an accident with the oven tray - while taking it out of the oven the heat started coming through my right hand, so I tried to jiggle it a bit in my hand, only to have the whole thing start slipping ... I automatically grabbed it with my left hand, only to remember I didn't have an oven mitt on it - let's say I remembered bloody quickly!! Luckily I have a heap of ice cubes ready made in the freezer, and I ran a 1/4 sink of cold water and dumped every single cube into it - the throbbing pain was insane, and it's no wonder people sometimes don't survive major burns due to the shock from the pain! Anyway, it seems the ice bath really helped, as today it's only slightly tender and the blistering is thankfully in places that is letting me have full use of my hand ... phew!! I even managed a bit more stitching on Bordeaux after the accident, I think more to take my mind off it than anything else ;)

I still can't switch to (non)Beta Blogger, and I'm getting sick to death of clicking on the "we are ready for you, switch now" blurbs ... this kept happening for a while before losing my phone access, and it's still happening. It's getting a bit annoying, but perhaps I should just ignore the prompts until it changes into something nasty, like a final demand letter ;) Either that, or start looking at alternatives, as I understand a few people haven't been able to comment on my blog for quite some time :(

Well, no more chatting for me - time to get moving, as I have an early shift at work tomorrow (a mix of 8am and 5am shifts for 7 days), and I still have some housework to finish ... as well as organising some rental alerts on a few suburbs, and to get that icing done.

Oh boy, it's good to have the 'net at home again!!! :D Mind you, with 1160 unread feeds, I'm sorry but I really do have to mark all as read and start from scratch - it's just too much to handle. I hope I won't miss too much by doing that :( Hope to catch up with you all again soon :D