Great minds think alike?

I was curious when looking at my blog stats that lots of people had stumbled across it whilst googling 'purple purl'. Now it doesn't seem like that common a phrase, and there's not that many people who know my blog name and would be searching for it. At the time I started my blog, I checked, and there wasn't that much else around with the same name. But upon a quick search of my own, I discovered that apparently a new yarn shop called The Purple Purl recently opened in Toronto! How bout that? I'll have to visit it one day :)

A year.

Happy blogiversary to me... Seems pretty crazy that it's been a year... sometimes I get a bit scared how fast time goes... like somehow I'm not taking enough notice of each moment as it zooms past. Something to work on!
Hehe... reminds me of the Douglas Adams quote: "I love deadlines. I especially love the whooshing sound they make as they go by."

So here are some flowers to say thanks to those of you who read my blog occasionally, and put up with the extreme sporadic-ness of my posts! Cos you reading it is what makes blogging worthwhile I spose! If someone blogs in the forest and noone reads it, does the blog cease to exist?

I'm back on the job hunt. It's kind of exciting picturing all the different things you could do. Kind of painful answering selection criteria. Kind of nerve-wracking going to interviews. And kind of crushing getting turned down. Ah well... all good experience right?

Time waster

Does anyone remember the old MS-DOS game Rockford, or it's precursor Boulderdash? I've recently rediscovered it thanks to the magic to the interweb, and it's nostalgia plus around here! Just check out those little sandwich-butterflies!! Awww.

Cordially

I'm proud to present... our wedding invitations. Each and every one of them lovingly screen printed by Mr Purl and myself (neither of whom, for the record, had ever touched a silk screen in our lives before deciding to take it upon ourselves to master the photo emulsion method and do 2-colour printing of One. Hundred. and. Twenty. Invitations!!). The fabric is quite heavy, and has a funky botanical wallpaper-style print on the back.

We also managed to make a complete team effort of designing the waratah motif.

When Mr Purl first suggested screen printing the invites, it was kind of a joke, as we were talking about getting a silk screen for making some patches for Rat Patrol. But it somehow grew into something to be seriously considered... and to give him credit, they came out amazingly, and they're certainly different than your average wedding invite, which is what we were after! :)

Space to breathe

I've been back to the yoga retreat twice in the last couple of months. It's a truly gorgeous and special place. Here are a couple of piccies from when Mum and I went there for a week long retreat last month. It was a treat to re-live the autumn colours after they had pretty much finished in Canberra.

Trivialities

It's been a lovely relaxing long weekend. Mr Purl was off in Newcastle flying his hang glider (although it sounds like there was more sitting around camp drinking beer than actual flying - the winds weren't right apparently). So I stayed home and mostly vegged.

Friday night was a trivia night at Cafe Satis in Watson, organised by my favourite workmate. It was definitely the best trivia night I've been to, partly because of the yummy tapas Cher from Satis served up, but mostly because of the original trivia questions!! One of the bonus rounds was a sheet of pictures of hairy, bead wearing hippie folk, and you had to guess whether each one was a Guru or Folk Singer! Then there were rounds such as "Name that Grain" - identifying grains/pulses/herbal teas etc in big jars, "Name the Smurves" (they decided that in the leaf/leaves plural tradition, the plural of smurf must be smurves). Then there were questions on games (everything from Dungeons and Dragons to Scrabble to Jump rope!) Questions on Canberra, Cartoons, and a round entitled "Questions we got from the Internet". Nice work to all involved, it was a thoroughly enjoyable night!

I think I'm definitely over having housewife time. Apart from sporadic moments of productivity, I'm finding I'm not actually being that productive, and then I'm feeling bad for not being productive!! So I think it's definitely time for me to be doing a few more hours at work!!

Decadency

We had lovely weekend in Rutherglen last weekend, celebrating Mr Purl's grandma's 90th birthday. We stayed at The House at Mt Prior. Very fancy!! (but not to exxy!)

Their hospitality was amazing. When we got back to the B&B late on Saturday night after pubbing in Albury with Mr Purl's cousins, this little offering was awaiting us in our room!

This is their cellar, takes up a good part of the room under the house.

On Sunday we got a bit of time to explore the wineries, including our favourite, Chambers, and All Saints, where we got some delicious cheeses!

On the needles

While I'm here, I'll show you what I'm working on at the moment!
A tea cozy for mum... as a very late mothers day present, using the handspun wool that's in the blog title bar! I'm using a basket weave cable pattern.

And the back of my cardigan... which I haven't really been working on much, but is coming along pretty quickly anyway... (the second picture shows the colour a bit more realistically).

And seeing as it's the second day of winter today, here's some Winter Thyme!

Reflection

Well... seeing as it's been about two months between posts, apparently I'm just not blogging! Part of the reason is that I'm far more interested in reading everyone else's blogs than actually updating my own. And the other reason is I just can't seem to find the time in amongst everything else! I suppose when I look at the things in my life that are really important to me, blogging isn't coming out anywhere near the top. (which is fairly evident from the complete lack of activity on my blog).
And the silly thing is I have a lot of guilt about not posting... not sure where that comes from? And then because I'm feeling guilty, I'll put off posting even longer!! So it seems like one solution to not feeling this guilt would be just to scrap my blog all together... but some part of me just wants to hang on to it... to know that it's still there. The thing is, if I find I do have something I want to say, I like the idea of having somewhere to say it!! And I really do enjoy being a part of this knit blogging community!
Hmm... so I think I will keep it around, but remove myself from the blog rings etc, where you're actually required to post at a certain interval. And I'll ask everyone to forgive me in advance for my incredibly sporadic posting! Or maybe it's just me that needs to accept my sporadic posting, and everyone else is already OK with it!?

Anyway... that's probably enough introspection for you, so here are some photos...

Last month, there was a freaky cold snap and it snowed in the Brindabellas. I got home from work on a Monday night to Mr Purl and T & H saying "we're going to the snow!" I thought... that's nice... thinking they were just telling me about their own intention to go to the snow... not realising that it involved me! They had all my snow gear ready for me, and within about 5 minutes we were on our way up to the mountains. We drove as far as we could... played in the snow, then had a yummy dinner in the Bulls Head stone shelter where T & H had gotten married almost a year ago! (time flies!) What an incredible way to spend a Monday night!!



As a very early wedding present, Mum and Dad gave us a new fridge. We've been incredibly overdue for a decent fridge as you can see from the before and after photos: (notice the broken top shelf, serious lack of space and the metal bars Mr Purl had welded for the front of the shelves in the door after the chintzy plastic broke!!)


A little poetry...