2024 - week 2 - January 8 - January 14

Well as if we went sad enough - this week brought another sadness to us. Our lovely dog = Beau (also named Sabian) went over the rainbow bridge. He was such a lovely friendly and people friendly dog. Yes he often got in the way and in the wrong place at the wrong time and sent cattle the wrong way and drove Gary mad at times, but he was so great with kids and everyone. Megan brought him here more than 8 years ago for just a few days and he stayed ever since. I know we gave him a really good life but he will be sadly missed. We are thinking of getting another dog (when the right one comes along) as our one remaining dog - Molly - is pining.

In other farm news - due to the large amount of rain we have had in the last couple of weeks, we once again have flood waters coming towards us - hopefully not as bad as in 2022 and to be honest I dont think I could cope with that at this time. We have excellent flood banks now at Jackos so it should be ok and fingers crossed it is. Feel for those who have once again had water through their homes and or properties. And the flood water has also brought plenty of mozzies with it and weve also had a large brown snake hanging around the house which is not fun! 2024 you suck so far!!!!!! On the crafting front I have managed to finish two things! Firstly a mandala on canvas that I have had for I dont recall how long. I coloured it in with textas and its actually quite stressful choosing the colours until you get some sort of a pattern going. I love how it turned out though. I think it came from Target and probably several years ago. I want to learn some new things this year - and this is one of them and also to either work on, complete or move on the plethora of crafty things I have bought or been given or inherited over the years!.

Secondly I finished a pair of socks! These were my Christmas yarn ball gift from a Ravelry group Im on - with being gifted the yarn and pattern and lots of little gifts wound into the yarn. Pattern is Second Breakfast socks and the yarn is Cascade yarns and a dream to work with. These socks will be for me! Heres a pic of the completed socks plus all the gifts that came as I unwound the ball of yarn. All super lovely and I felt very spoilt as I worked through it. Thanks MsDonna.

No more progress on the quilts I had been working on but I have started another quilt - this one for Sarahs baby that will be here next month. Its a boat themed one and I think its super cute. Still a few more boats to make though!

And on the reading front - I finished Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros! And Sarah was totally right - I wanted to throw the book across the room when I finished it as the ending was so not expected and shocking and I dont know what else. The next book in the series is still being written so Im not sure when it will be published. I did hae a proud moment though as I wrote something similar to that on Facebook and the author commented on my post. Talk about a fan girl moment and I think it goes without saying this was a 5 star out of 5 star read.

On audio book I also finished "The Tudor Secret" By C.W. Gortner which is about a fictional spymaster involved in the court of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth in the 1500's. I havent read a historical fiction for a while and enjoyed this - I think there are 3 or 4 books in the series and Id rate this a 4 stars out of 5 read. So all in all a pretty busy week - Ive also (in my spare time) been deep cleaning the house and giving wardrobes, cupboards etc a really good clean and moving on a lot of stuff or gifting or selling it where appropriate. Im feeling overwhelmed by how much "stuff" i have so its good to do some of this. Til next week stay safe and well my friends.