Only two weeks left.....YIKES!!!

Hi everyone,

I hope you're all enjoying a wonderful weekend!

It's been a crazy, busy week with only two weeks left now until Michelle's wedding! To be honest, I haven't had much chance to get too excited about it with so much on my plate at the moment. I've had Aaron back and forth to doctors over the past three weeks....he's been getting a few tests such as ultrasounds, X-rays, blood, urine etc. to try and find out what is causing a mystery burning pain in his abdomen....it comes and goes...can be mild or quite severe. What is it with the medical ailments this family has had over the past few months??? 

On top of that, I've been working on Michelle's wedding dress....and no, it wasn't a planned thing.  Due to an unforeseen circumstance, Michelle decided to change the dress design with some added extras, so we picked up the unfinished dress from the dressmaker and I have been making the changes and sewing the dress over the past couple of weeks. It's been a scary process for me considering I haven't sewn a garment from scratch in over sixteen years.  I used to do dressmaking for the whole family in my younger days until art found its way into my life and, thankfully, I hadn't lost the know-how.  The dress is almost finished, at least to the point where we're no longer panicking and yesterday, I got teary-eyed seeing Michelle wearing it when she came over for a fitting.

Funny how things work out though because, as you know from a recent post, the termite repair guy was supposed to be coming back last week to get the sanding and painting done which would have been a huge hindrance to me working on the dress.....can you imagine trying to sew a wedding dress with sanding dust everywhere?!!  As luck would have it, Bob phoned up to cancel because his van broke down suddenly the very morning he was due to come over....bad luck for him but good luck for us!

Remember the wedding tie box I started?

It's finished and just needs varnishing now.

Michelle wanted it to match the wedding invitations.

I think it turned out pretty close, wouldn't you agree?

I traced and transferred the design to the box and painted it with acrylics.

Oh, did I also mention that I'm also making the top tier of the wedding cake??  Michelle is going with lower tiers of decorated cup-cakes and a fruit-cake with royal icing on top.  Yes, I'm a very busy gal and you may not see much of me at all over the next couple of weeks so I hope you won't forget me in my absence.

I'll be thinking of you all though and will try to visit blogs when I can.

~ Love, light and peace ~

My son's a celebrity!

The promoters for the next Fight World Cup bout in November requested that a photo of Reece be used for their official poster (shown below)!  YAY!

Reece is stoked!

The picture was originally taken just seconds after Reece won his last fight. It's hard for me to believe that the muscled fighter looking ready to kill on that poster is actually my son.   I'm very proud of him but I'm even more proud of the fact that Reece felt bad for his opponent who was feeling pretty deflated after his loss to Reece.  They both spoke after the match and Reece encouraged him to keep at it and even invited him over for a training session at the fight club Reece attends.  So, while Reece looks like a lean, mean fighting machine on the poster, he also has a big heart to match.

He was announced the winner!

Mehul on the left is Reece's friend and big-time supporter.  He trains with Reece too and Mehul himself has an Australian title fight coming up in October.  Leo, on the right, is Reece's trainer.

Reece with his trophy

I'm one proud Mumma!

~ Love, light and peace ~

Pay It Forward gift and the termite repairs begin...

Another Pay It Forward gift was sent recently to Gemma who kindly posted about it here.
Gemma told me that her favourite colour was seafoam green and that she loved the scent of roses so I combined the two into this small painting.

Acrylics on 6"x6" gallery wrapped canvas

© Serena Lewis

This was the whole package

I'm so glad that Gemma loved her gift.

I have just one more official Pay It Forward gift to do and one more that is unofficial.
Thank goodness there were no time limits with the Pay It Forward challenge as life has sure thrown a few curve balls since March and it's still ongoing.

One of those curve balls was the second infestation of termites!
They sure are hungry little buggers!
I discovered the nests in two different areas of the house.....the dining room and the corner wall near the front entrance.

Those little black specks on the floor you see in the pic above are actually large black ants which apparently LOVE cleaning up termite nests.  Thankfully they do because, if it wasn't for me noticing THEIR activity, we would never have discovered the huge termite nest sitting inside the wall near the front entrance.  It makes me wonder if there are any more nests like this in the house that are yet undiscovered.

Anywhoo, we had a four month treatment of bait boxes stuck to selected walls which was followed up with a full-on chemical treatment.  That entailed small holes being drilled, approx. 2 metres apart, just above the skirting boards throughout the whole house and the Termidor solution sprayed into the wall cavities.  Last week, the repairs started.  Something that needs to be done, of course, but a major intrusion on our normal day-to-day living.  I had to move A LOT of our furniture into the centre of the rooms so the workman could move about easily and access the walls.....talk about upheaval!  It was very difficult for Brad too as, being legally blind, he needed me to guide him through certain areas.

The pic below is the corner wall where one side faces into our dining area and the other side faces towards the lounge and family/my studio areas of the house.  You can still see a small part of the nest waiting to be cleaned away.

 The chewed up studs were replaced with treated pine

This (below) is the corner wall near the front entrance after stud replacement.

Bob, the repairman, did get the walls to the point of having the sheeting in place and the first coat of plaster applied. Tomorrow (Thursday), he comes back to apply another coat of plaster and then the fun part begins......SANDING!

I am SOOOOOOO NOT looking forward to the sanding part....can you imagine the fine dust everywhere???!!!

The saving grace is that Bob, the repairman, is such a sweet, old man.  I think he does these jobs for the termite mob to supplement his aged pension.  I had Brad play Golden Oldies music on the days Bob was here and we could hear his appreciation as he sang along while he worked.  A few times, I think we were all singing along together.  Bob's sweet and considerate attitude helped to ease the inconvenience of the actual repair-work but I'm not quite so sure if it will be enough when the sanding starts...lol

Stay tuned as I'll be posting again soon on how I've progressed with Michelle's wedding tie box.

~ Love, light and peace ~

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

It was Father's Day in Australia today so I had Mum and Dad over for lunch.

It was a rainy day which was perfect weather for a nice, hot lunch of home-cooked corned beef/silverside, roast chicken, garlic/cheese/cream potatoes, Brussels sprouts, carrots, sweet potatoes and gravy.  I had vegetarian nuggets in place of the meats with my veggies.

After a delicious lunch, we played cards for the afternoon.

We all had a great time.

Mum and Aaron were clowning around behind us. 

Dad with Beau

Dad with Brad.  The wall behind them is in the process of repairs...a whole other post.

Aaron with Mum

Mum with Brad

As I look over the photos I am reminded that my parents aren't getting any younger and my eyes well up with tears hoping that I will still have quite a lot of years left with them yet.  I can't bear the thought of them not being in my life.  They have been my rock on so many occasions and, while we haven't always seen eye to eye, they have always been there for me when I have needed them.  I am so thankful to have such wonderful parents.

I LOVE YOU, MUM AND DAD! xoxo

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Other news - I am finally starting to feel some relief from my head and neck pain.  It's been going on for three weeks now.  Over the past couple of days I have been getting a lot of hot flushes....
....HELLO MENOPAUSE!

Brad's Aunty had her MRI and it was clear. The specialists are now doing a variety of blood tests to investigate further as, unfortunately, her neurological symptoms persist.

Brad's neurological symptoms also persist but, thankfully, they haven't worsened.

I hope to post again soon as I have some art goodies to show you.

~ Love, light and peace ~