The 39th Birthday Skirt

What did you do this year on your birthday?

I'm betting you didn't wake up and think: "I know! It's been almost 20 years since I sewed anything. I think I'll make myself a skirt!".

That's pretty much how my day went and it was delightful. I am not good at long term craft or sewing projects. Over the years I have tried knitting, long stitch, tapestry, latch-hook, cross-stitch and other such lady-like accomplishments. In Year 8 I made some macrame owls that my mother insists on keeping in her laundry. They are truly garish. But when I was first at uni I did used to come home in the holidays and sew clothes. Dresses mainly, because I can never get dresses to fit me in shops. Lately I've been looking for skirts for summer and just found nothing. This might be because I live in the regions and our shopping is limited. It might also be because there aren't many skirts around. I don't know.

About 5 years I bought my own basic sewing machine. At the time I was keen to try patchwork. The fiddliness of that totally tried my patience and the machine has sat in the cupboard ever since gathering dust. A few years ago I covered it with a tea-towel but that was all the attention it received. Until today.

Sadly, the only place in town to buy material is Spotlight which is like a giant bargain basement. After my parents finished mocking me and what they perceived to be my hopeless sewing abilities, I dragged my mother along to find a pattern and some material. I wanted to simplest skirt pattern available - preferably A-line. Anything with a zip got the flick. I will attempt that later. We chose this:

Elastic waist, no zip, various lengths. The lady on the packet looks happy so how hard could making the skirt possibly be?

Then after much deliberating I decided on a dark patterned material (in case I made a dreadful hash of it), bought some thread and took it all home.

I got the sewing machine out of the hall cupboard, gave it a dust, switched it on and hoped for the best.
I was fine with the cutting out of the pattern and the material. I decided not to worry about the fancy-schmancy bow, because bows and I don't really get along. I read all the sizing and decided to cut the biggest pattern and just do bigger seams if needed. And hey, whaddya know... I have a skirt. I only ran into trouble once - when the bobbin ran out of thread and I couldn't remember how to fill it. But (and here's my sewing tip of the day) if you Google filling bobbin Janome MS 2008 some lovely instructions appear through the magic of the internet. My mum helped me with setting the waistband casing to thread the elastic through but I did all the sewing myself. I cheated on the hem and zig-zagged it on the machine because I hate hand-stitching and this was just an experiment. Two and half hours later....ta da I had a skirt.

And it's not just any skirt. It's the 39th Birthday Skirt.

I'm going back to Spotlight tomorrow to buy some slightly heavier material as I think it will hang better. I'm also going to get this for Christmas.

watching people think out loud really isn't that interesting

I've managed to watch some interesting television lately, despite the best efforts of our TV stations to fill their schedules with rubbish. First of all though, here are some things I am not watching:

House Husbands - looks awful
The X Factor - no explanation needed
Puberty Blues - not interested
Big Brother - seen one Big Brother seen them all
First Tuesday Book Club - Jennifer Byrne is a bit too smiley for me to cope with on a Tuesday evening. Sorry.
The News - any channel - it's all too depressing.
The Gruen anything - A panel of smug, unfunny people....pass
The Chaser anything - I don't find them funny....sorry...clearly I'm unAustralian
Randling - I have tried. I have watched the episodes with Anthony Morgan because he's funny, but the actual show is a bit of a slow, tired fail - crochet merch excepted. There's lot of good talented people who I am usually a fan of but watching people think out loud isn't actually that interesting.
Q and A - despite the fact that I'm usually out on a Monday night there is no way that I will watch this contrived version of some kind of Jerry Springer yuckness. (You can take that comment as a comment too by the way). Putting people on a panel who don't agree with each other in the hope that they will disagree in public isn't really trying very hard is it?

That's quite a long list isn't it? Clearly, I'm quite harsh and judgemental. Here's what I have been watching.

Call the Midwife - wonderful British drama based on a true story. I loved the first two episodes so much I downloaded the book and have finished it. Miranda Hart is fabulous as the clumsy, posh midwife who can't ride a bicycle.

Doctor Who - no justification required. For all your Doctor Who needs go to Circulating Library.

Rockwiz - the best music quiz show on Australian television ever. Julia Zemiro is outstanding, the Rockwiz orchestra is fantastic, Brian Nankervis is a genius and the guests and audience panel people are fabulous. Highlights of this season which finished last night? Mary Wilson from the Supremes and the cover of The Weight last night.

Smash - yes it started promisingly enough but has turned into a soapy-opera about putting together a new musical in New York about Marilyn Monroe. Still I am persisting because I love watching rehearsals - real and fictional.

Gardening Australia - yes, they had a bad time after Peter Cundall left but with Costa and his giant beard in charge of things this is lovely viewing.

Repeats of Friends - I know. It's hopeless really but anything is better than the news.

The size of an envelope

I cried on Tuesday afternoon when I arrived home from work. All because of the size of an envelope. I shall explain.

When you enter students into music exams in the AMEB they do their exam and then you have to wait for about a week and half for the AMEB to process the results in Brisbane, put their certificates together and send them back to you in the post with the comments sheet. On Monday afternoon I arrived home from work to see the great big A4 envelope stuffed into my letterbox. This was it. The results. I had 10 students sit exams and one of them sat for her AMus.A diploma which unlike all the other exams is basically a Pass/Fail exam. It is a recognised Diploma examination and requires a very high level of technical ability and musicality. So when I saw the big white envelope my heart started to race as I got out of the car. I didn't even wait to get inside. I stood on the footpath, ripped it open and madly flicked through all the reports looking for the AMus. report. It wasn't there. What a let down. It must still be on its way. Maybe they do something special and magic with that one I told myself. Maybe she didn't pass. Who knows what the hell happened. WHY WASN'T IT THERE? Anyway, all my other students passed so I dutifully went inside and read their reports and then phoned their parents. They were all happy. Another restless night. I went to work on Tuesday and tried to forget about the postman until I got home. I drove in the driveway and immediately noticed that there was no big white envelope. Phew. I was off the hook for another day. I didn't have to open anything with trepidation and worry. But, wait a minute. What's this? A small, ordinary sized envelope from the AMEB sitting in my letterbox. What the hell was this? Where is the big A4 envelope with the certificate inside. That's it then. She failed. I was a failure. The previous year of endless lessons, discussions about Bach, Mozart, Chopin, the history of the piano, etc etc etc, the extra lessons, the worrying about musical maturity, the questions about whether I had chosen a suitable program of pieces washed over me. I walked towards the front door feeling sad and opened the envelope. I looked at the section where the examiners wrote the result. It said "AWARD". Sorry? I looked again. "AWARD". Not "NO AWARD". She passed. I burst into tears in my lounge room and stood there for a good five minutes sobbing. No wussy little tears running down my face. This was full on crying the like of which I have not experienced for many a year. I rang my mother and was unable to speak. "What does the report say?" she asked me. "I don't know...I can't see to read it". It's a wonder she understood what I said.

Why was the envelope so small? Because they don't send out the certificate for the AMus.A. You get invited to a graduation ceremony to receive it. How was I to know that? I haven't had a student sit for an AMus. exam before. The opportunities for this in a regional area are few and far between. Usually by the time students get to this level they are ready to leave town and go to university. It might not happen again for many years.

tales of domestic goddessery

It seems like Sunday is blog day here at The Spiralling Shape. Except for last Sunday when I spent the morning with my little piano chickens at their exams. There were tears, laughs and mild panic....and that was just me. Needless to say I was happy when the weekend was over. I took two days of leave from work to catch up on everything that I hadn't done on the weekend. These things were two assignments, one workshop preparation and the basics of domestic goddessery which had been ignored for far too long. I got so much done from home rather than being at work. It was peaceful. I could concentrate and focus for the first time in a long time. I could make cups of tea when I wanted to. Lovely. A few more days and I might have even gone into my much neglected garden or cooked a cake or something. We shall never know.

The rest of the week was a blur of assignments, panicked students at work and entering data into multiple spreadsheets. You know, the fun stuff. I was very much looking forward to Saturday and it didn't disappoint. My mum and I had a coffee in town. Then we went to meditation for the first time in weeks which was lovely although I nearly fell asleep. Then I came home and did fall asleep for three hours on the lounge. Delightful. This was followed by fish and chips for dinner at the beach with the parents and sister. We also had a store-bought ginger cake roll which was quite yummy. Then I came home and did all my washing in between watching the Paralympics and listening to the TunnFM RequestFest. The wonderful Mr Tunn played two of my favourite songs and I followed the other request action on Twitter.

Surprisingly the domestic goddess activity is continuing today. I have been and bought food, remembered to put the bin out for the morning, and now I am cooking meals to restock the freezer. There will be lamb and chick pea curry and some kind of random vegetable stew situation that I just make up the recipe as I go along. It usually turns out okay. I know I'm not actually following the Nigella Lawson guidelines of domestic goddessery but you take what you can get.

I shall spend the afternoon marking a couple of assignments, doing up a marking guide and catching up on my weekly library study activity.

Then, and only then, will I watch the new Doctor Who on iView.

saccharine promos make me ill

Sunday again? Already?
Sadly, I have no tales of incident-packed personal grooming for you today. I managed to shave my legs again yesterday without any leftover salad hijinks. It's been a week of busy busy busy.

Next weekend my piano students have their AMEB exams. For the first time in many years I have more than about three students sitting. This time I have a student sitting for her AMus.A diploma which has meant many hours of extra lessons. I also have 7 other students ranging from preliminary to grade three. Some of them have done more practice than others which makes for interesting lessons as well. Two of them I have not seen for a fortnight as they have been on a holiday to the Seychelles. They will get one lesson before their exam on Sunday. I'm really hoping there was a piano in the hotel they stayed at and that the guests didn't mind two kids playing a few scales now and then. Thankfully, the students who I accompanied for their instrumental exams are now all done. The last two were yesterday. I like accompanying a lot. It's just the fitting in of the rehearsals with them into an already jam-packed week that is the tricky part. So I have been working at my actual job all day and then coming home every afternoon and doing lessons and accompanying until 7pm. As you might imagine I am a little bit brain-fried after that. As a result I am behind on my marking and on my study. However, yesterday I did manage to set up the new printer that I bought two weekends ago. It only took an hour and a half. Yes, I am a technical genius after all. ;-)

In between all of this I have been trying to find at least 20 minutes a day to play my violin. Next weekend the Bundaberg Youth Orchestra is having a 40th anniversary concert and past members are going to join in and play in the concert. Here is evidence that I was once in the orchestra.

This means a three hour rehearsal on Saturday afternoon and then the concert on Saturday night. Given that I barely play my violin for more than 15 minutes at a time, sometimes with months in between, I thought I should do some playing beforehand so I don't look like a total fail. The program is Beethoven's Egmont Overture, Death of Ase, Night on Bare Mountain and Finlandia. During the week I realised it had been nearly ten years since I had put new strings on my violin. Probably dumb to change them so close to a concert but I did it anyway. They are settling pretty well after a day.

The TV has been rubbish lately. While the Olympics coverage from Channel Nine was pretty darn hopeless I did enjoying that I could turn on the telly and have something to watch. I am looking forward to the Paralympics now. I have returned to my DVD cupboard over the last week or so. I finished watching Lark Rise to Candleford, rewatched all three series of the IT Crowd, revisited Standing in the Shadows of Motown ( I never tire of that) and watched Gigantic (the TMBG doco) again. Last night I recorded the 25 years of Rage early 1990s so will do some reminiscing when I get to that. The only thing on the actual television I watched was I Will Survive a second rate, yet mesmerising reality TV, singing competition based on Priscilla Queen of the Desert. From this I learned that both Jason Donovan and Stephan Elliot must be pretty hard up for a gig. I also learned that I had no idea who the host was because I refuse to watch Packed to the Rafters on the grounds the saccharine promos make me ill so why would I watch an actual episode? Oh..of course I watched Rockwiz. That goes without saying because it is the best thing on the teev at the moment. Mary Wilson from the Supremes last week was truly inspirational. When I grow up I want to be Julie Zemiro.

And in my spare time I worry about the Kath and Kim movie. I love Kath and Kim. Before it moved the Channel Seven it was wonderful telly. I wrote a PhD chapter about it. I still use "noice, different and un-ewe-usal" in daily conversation. But I think it was of its time. And that time is gone. So I worry that the movie is going to be bad-cringeful rather than good-cringeful.

cucumber-leg hair surprise

I shaved my legs this week for the first time since around the beginning of June. That's right. You heard me. JUNE. It's been too cold to bother with them. I've been wearing winter clothes so no-one could see the increasing hairiness and be shocked into speechlessness. I was not frightening any horses. That was until I happened to be visiting my parents and the topic strayed to the fact my sister had just bought a new lady shaver kind of thing that she thought was fabulous. "Oh" I said nonchalantly, pulling up the leg of my jeans, "I should probably shave my legs sometime soon". My parents both gasped in horror at my lack of ladylikeness. As the young, cool people say, they were full of disappoint in me.

Later that week my Mum rang to see if I wanted to come up and eat dinner with them. I was teaching late so I declined but she tried to entice me with the promise of a present. "What is it", I demanded, wondering if it was worth my while after all. "A lady shaver". Hmmmmm. I decided to go up and see them the next evening.

We ate dinner and then like an excited child my Dad raced off to get the new shaving device. "I'll put it together for you". (This entailed getting it out of the ridiculous packaging and putting in the two triple A batteries). I pushed my plate away and decided to try out my gift. Note: (and this will be very important in a moment) I had not finished up my salad. There was a slice of cucumber and some lettuce still on my plate. Once again I pushed up the leg of my jeans and attacked a path of my yeti-like leg. It was only a minute until I needed to clean out the hair. So I got the little brush that came with the shaver and scraped the hair out. What to do with this. I didn't want to put it on my mother's clean floor, so I deposited it on my plate on top of a slice of cucumber. I returned to my leg when suddenly all was disturbance and mayhem and my father was hacking and spitting into his hand. Oh yes, gentle readers, as is his habit of polishing off everyone's leftover food, he had decided to help himself to my slice of cucumber which was now garnished with some leg hair shavings.

Laugh? My mother and sister and I were nearly sick with laughter.

Now I realise nobody emerges from this tale looking particularly classy or genteel. Shaving legs at the table? Eating cucumber covered in leg hair shavings? Finding that uproariously amusing? It's not exactly champagne comedy. But these are the things that life is made of. The incident has been added to the time my father got really cranky because the TV remote wasn't working until someone pointed out to him that he was using his mobile phone as well as the time he was watching (*sleeping*) Billy Elliot and half an hour from the end asked "Does this boy dance?". The list goes on but he asked me not to tell anyone about the cucumber/leg hair surprise. So I have just written a post about it instead.

corporate polo shirt

I'm thinking it would be wonderful to have a Sunday where I mooched around the house in my pyjamas and do not much at all. Perhaps I would read a work of fiction or watch a film. Perhaps I would do some cooking or go outside into my much neglected garden. Perhaps I would have a little nap in the afternoon. I might even do some vacant staring out the window. It's been some time since I've had a Sunday like that.

Instead I'm going to quickly shower, put on my university-issued corporate polo shirt* and black pants (no denim as per the staff briefing document circulated last week) and front up to the campus open day looking helpful and welcoming. I will answer questions and fill out forms for an hour and half before leaving to drive into town and accompany a cello student for her exam. I shall play Haydn, Elgar and Piazolla. I may or may not still be wearing my aforementioned corporate polo shirt. Then it's off to buy some groceries, get a prescription filled, return home to organise the week ahead, complete my coursework for the week, feel guilty that I haven't yet started my assignment due at the end of the month, unpack the printer I bought yesterday and in a feat of technological genius manage to get it talking to two computers. I fear the last task will take the longest. And that, my friends will be the end of Sunday.

*there's also a corporate issue cap. I choose not to wear that.

green glass bottles

I woke up absurdly early this morning with what is known in our family as a bit of a "woozy" head. I hadn't been drinking. I'm blaming a combination of the tiredness from the week, female hormones and staying up way too late. Anyhow, it was a less than auspicious start to the day especially since I had an eyebrow wax appointment at 8:30. I rang and cancelled and then went back to sleep. When I woke up again I was fine although still tired. I made myself get up, eat breakfast, shower and go to meditation. I was supposed to go over to Saskia's (a lovely gift/homeware/coffee shop) with a friend and I really didn't feel like it. But I made myself do this too. Just as well, because we had a lovely chat, the best chai latte I have found in the Bundaberg region, and some yummy homemade pork and veal sausage rolls. Then I did some retail therapy. My favourite things are the green glass bottles. Really though, it was the chatting that did the trick!

Yes we all wear glasses

The first two weeks of July also happen to have been the first two weeks of the teaching term here. They have whipped by in a flurry of Moodling frustration, parts of speech, sentence structure, emails and discussion forum posts and replies. The only thing that kept me going last week was the knowledge that by Friday there would only be 10 weeks left in the term. What a dreadful attitude!

Still, there have been some highlights. One was the whirlwind trip to Brisbane last weekend to see Flight of the Conchords. It was a Davis sibling excursion to the Entertainment Centre. We had pretty good seats on the floor about 30 rows back. This meant we could actually see the Conchords without having to rely on the big screens. Pity the people at the back. Anyway, it was excellent and much better than the review of their Sydney show in The Australian might lead you to believe. Here we are before it started. We're smiling because we're happy to be there and we made it through giant traffic snarl to get there.

Yes we all wear glasses.  We're nerds.

My only disappointment was the gigantic crowd at the merchandise counter which meant we could not get anywhere near anything. That, and the delight of the hopelessly huge traffic jam that greeted us on the way out as well. Driving in Brisbane is less than lovely.

Anyway, here's one of my favourite songs that they didn't play. Enjoy.

winter afternoon

This is what is wonderful about Queensland winters. Blue skies, cool air, no breeze. Perfect.