River walking

Our regions has been in the grip of a drought over the last few years. Parts of our state have been in drought for 4 years so its pretty dire in some places. Things were looking really dry and bare - even by the river. The water itself and the trees along its edge gave some relief to the parched look of the place but it was dry and brown and barren looking

But its summer here and that is when we get our rain. Its still drought in lots of our state but we have had some reasonable rain here where we are and the grass has grown and its all looking rather lush.

My river walk has been revived. The grass has gown long and green. Now when the dog Digby rushes off through the grass as she is want to do we can pick her out (when the grass isn't too tall) Her fur is the exact colour of the dry grass so she is hard to spot when its not green.

Jack our other dog is even shorter than Digby but he is white and brown and so stands out pretty well in dry or fresh grass.

We hadn't had much rain before we went away on holidays. A few showers but not much. While we were away over Christmas the area got some good falls and in fact when we got back to town (January 2nd) it was a bit wet and muddy to walk by the river on the occasions I stirred my stumps to actually go out with the dogs. Finally a week or so ago it was dry enough to walk down that way again and its been beautiful. The grass is long and green. There isn't much in the way of wildflowers around but the grasses are in seed and they are beautiful in their own way.

Friday Fitness

Running late this week... got the blog written but hadn't gotten the photos uploaded so it took till today... sorry

Diet has been less than ideal all week - we had chocolates in the house as well as the cheesecake I had made my husband for Fathers Day. We've been eating it all week but the last slice has now been served up so that temptation has gone however we now have a box of chocolates to go through... 

I haven't managed to make 10 000 steps every day this week... close but no cigar... well a couple of thousand under. One evening I was busy quilting getting a project finished and worked till 1 AM and it was after midnight when I remembered I was still short on steps. Another evening I realised I hadn't made my goal but was tired so went to bed.

But on a positive note I have managed to start walking again in the mornings again. My friend Maree was keen to restart our morning walks and even when she hasn't been able to make it Fixit Guy and I have stepped it out. Jack dog is loving it. Means I get more opportunities to take photos too. The pelicans (well one anyway) is back at the river and so are the ibis and ducks.

 The roos are back too. I managed to get this photo on my phone before he bounded away

Its still very dry here. There was rain about 10 days ago and so there is some green shoots about but its dry and parched

Even though I haven't made 10 000 each day I have made over 70 000 steps this week. I have also crept up my friends lists and am lodged pretty firmly in my top 10 friends. I doubt that I am going to get much higher than 7... some of my friends get crazy step numbers.

Fitbit Stats
Friday           12 786
Saturday       10 561
Sunday           8 183
Monday        11 664
Tuesday          8 111
Wednesday   13 514
Thursday        15579

Fitness Friday

This week... yeah much the same as the last couple. The weekend in Brisbane did damage to my attempts to lose weight and I haven't helped since I got home. Motivation is lacking. I need to look at those fat photos some more I think!

Have kept up the walking everyday and have managed to once again achieve my 10 000 steps everyday for the past week. Right now, at 11.15AM on Friday my 7 day step count is 87 367 steps and I am ranking 2nd behind Terje who is way out there with 106 832. I have to say that I was at the top of the leader board for a little while yesterday, before Terje must have synced cause not all that long later she was 15 000 ahead again. Still... for a moment I basked in the glory of it all. I am 5 000 ahead of my friend Sam but again once she syncs or goes to the gym this afternoon she will zoom past me. But I can tease her about falling behind for a few hours at least.

Again there has been no running. When the alternative a nice walk with my Fixit Guy why run? We've been talking about doing some bike rides together but that hasn't happened yet. The trouble is there are only so many hours in the day and right now our dog Jack is very happy with the concept of 2 walks a day and he will probably guilt me into it anyway.... will have to see how things work out.

Here are some of my random photos taken on my walks along the river

One day we saw this huge flock of ducks and the pelicans all swimming up river in a group. At times it looked like the pelicans were herding the ducks

My bouganvilleas are in full bloom. I have never had them so covered in flowers

The pelicans were all perched on the bank this morning

Can you see the roos? There are three of them hiding in the grass

You can see them once they start to move

So how are you going with your fitness challenges this week?

With encouragement from Sandy at Quilting For the Rest of Us and Jenny at Quiltin Jenny I've added a linkup which I hope is going to work. Please link in your fitness report for this week or else add a comment below. Lets all play along and encourage each other with our desires to get fitter and healthier

An InLinkz Link-up

Fitness Friday

So - Friday again. Time to Fess up as they say

I have tried to keep up my walking but haven't felt motivated to run. I blame Fitness Guy's retirement. He is happy to come walking with me in the morning when my walking pal isn't available. I enjoy his company... why run when I can share the walk with him.

My walking stats suffered a bit this week. I didn't meet my 10 000 step mark 3 days Friday Saturday or Sunday due to travel and/or meetings on those days. I have slipped down my friends list on Fitbit partly as a result of that and also because a couple of them have really upped their steps this week. Currently I have 77 936 steps for the last 7 days. Hopefully will get some more steps in this afternoon when we walk the dogs again.

Weight wise. Yes well. FG put new batteries in the scales at long last and the increased good living over the last month hasn't gone unnoticed. Oops. I was back up to 90kgs on Monday morning. All I can say is that I am glad we kept up our walking over the time the boys were  home and then our week of holidays or it would have been a lot worse. I have been back on the straight and narrow (though not tracking I admit) and after 4 days have lost 1kg so that is a start. Its the easy kg to lose the rest will be a hard slog. We are going out tonight to a celebration for the locally based charity "Our Rainbow House". That will no doubt involved lots of yummy food and alcoholic beverages so will have to resist. If we walk down to the venue and back that might be a start

A few pictures from my walks this week. I got two walks along the beach at Tannum Sands

Its really drying off around here. This photo was taken late afternoon so the colours aren't as vibrant as they shoudl be but the grass is brown in many places. The two birds you can make out in this shot are pelicans. I haven't seen them around our town before this year. Previous to seeing these two on the river we had seen some out at our local dam. If waterholes out west are drying up it may have sent them to us.

WIP Wednesday... on Thursday

Running a day late again. Had planned to write it last night but after a lovely long soak in my new bath I went straight to be. Never mind

Getting ready for my first bath in our new bath. Complete with Lush bathbomb

What have I been working on this week?

Made great progress on Disappearing into the Blue. The top is finished. Yay. Whoot. Having thought it was finished last week I then decided it needed another border... a white one so that the lovely binding fabric I bought would stand out. I worked out how much I would need of the tone on tone white for a narrow border (1" finished) and went to buy it... found some great stuff in backing width and the shop's minimum cut was .5m. I only needed about 50cm of the ordinary width stuff so had double and more! So thought... might as well use it up and instead made the border 4" (and still had leftovers) The quilt has ended up 93" x 103" (or something like that) I didn't get a photo of it when it was laid out at patchwork yesterday. No room to do it here so... you'll have to imagine it

I am now in the process of making a pieced backing from the leftover blue fabric from the top. With the smaller pieces thus far I have a piece 43"x83". I will put the bigger left over pieces around the edges so they will get trimmed back not the pieced littler bits. I have two strips of left over piano key border. I'd accidentally trimmed one stip to 4" when I made it instead of 4.5" so that went into the back along with the leftover bits and all the too small tag ends. I also made up a bit more in order to get the 2nd strip long enough. I think it looks really cool. There is the strip of white tone on tone not needed for the borders in there as well.

New Project. Riverwalk
I have been working on a green banner to use in church too. I started a blog post just about it on Tuesday but didn't get it finished. I might complete that blog post to fully explain it. Meanwhile I'll just say I am using heaps of different green scrap fabrics. I am using my 2.5" strips, bricks and squares plus 4.5" squares and strips. Its coming on. I have it about 2/3s pieced. I don't think Fixit Guy was overly impressed by it. He tried hard not to sound too negative but today I showed our minister Suzy and she was delighted by it. FG is much more of a literal guy... doesn't do the figurative too well!! I think I will call it River Walk cause it was inspired by my walks by the river. Or then again I might find a biblical reference to trees and rivers and call it that. If you have a suggestion then please let me know

  

I received the ruler I ordered to trim up my half square triangle blocks. Its a Quilt in a Day ruler. That means that I'll be able to start work again on my black and white with a touch of red trip around the world quilt. Need to come up with a name for this quilt as what I refer to it as currently is way too long.

No further progress made on Teddies and Pinwheels or Twist and Disappear (Disappearing Nine patch with a twist) They both have tops and backs done. Just need to get the batting cut (or do a bit of Frankenbatting) and pinned. Should surge ahead and do them so I have a finish for Sunday but it isn't going to happen. Tomorrow is all booked out and we go away on Saturday for the weekend.

Other non quilting works in progress.

The Bathrooms.
Both are almost done. The family bathroom should have been all finished BUT there was a problem with the shower leaking under the door and the water not running to the drain in the floor. They pulled up a couple of tiles and relaid them to fix the drain problem but having hassles with the seal under the door. Sigh. It looks beautiful though and I had my first bath in the glorious tub last night. It is deeper, wider and longer than our old one so it actually fits me (short and slim I am not)

Since this photo was taken the painting of the trim has been completed and the ugly blue tape has come down

En suite is coming along. Fixit Guy has to paint it and the builder is waiting on the shower screens. We are going to move back into our bedroom today which will be nice. The weather has been chilly this last week and I miss my electric blanket. We didn't move it onto the spare bed. Probably should have just gone out and bought myself a second one!

Almost there! So close I could just about squeal. 

Fixit Guy's retirement.

Tomorrow is his last day. Yay. Today he is at meetings at another mine in another town. He took his replacement to show him the ropes. Tomorrow he has to hand over his laptop and his mobile (cell) phone and will drive his car home for the last time. Someone will pick it up from here over the weekend we presume. (unless someone drives him home and drops him off!) He has emptied his car of all his own stuff and has bought home a box or two of stuff from his office. He has taken his personal stuff off the computer and the phone. He has a new phone - bought last week with help from Fangirl. Also a new computer (with same assistant). His new car is on order and should be here at the end of the month. We have to wait for his redundancy payout to come through before we can pay for it. So... transition to retirement is progressing well.

Last week they had a farewell morning tea for him at work (early cause his boss was going away) and they are having another night time farewell for him next week (after his boss gets back). That works out well for us as this Friday Fangirl is in Brisbane. She will be back by next Friday and Massage Man (26 year old son) will also be in town. He lives in Melbourne. Kombi Boy (21 year old son), his partner Gamer Girl and our youngest son (19 year old whose blog name I forget atm) are both in town because they are university students and its currently holidays. We are going out for dinner to celebrate anyway.

Fixit Guy has a list of projects he wants to work on and has a large number of options to look at as far as volunteering about the place. There are all manner of people with a definite gleam in their eye when they hear a) he is retiring and b) we aren't planning on leaving town.

I celebrated the other day when I checked his wardrobe and realised he had enough shirts to see him through to the end of the week and that meant I didn't have to iron the work shirts that were in the basket

On Monday afternoon there were 4 shirts hanging up, and 4 work days to go!

so these two puppies got to go into a drawer. And I retired from work shirt ironing. Yeah

linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Saturday Thoughts - My quilty word

For 2014 the word I chose for the year was Renew. Not sure why I chose that. - wasn't writing my blog at the time so don't have a post on the subject  - so no longwinded self indulgent naval gazing post to go back to in order to check it out. Yeah I know it was only a little under 4 months ago... but still I got old lady brain going here.(You've seen the grey hair I got going now)

So far for me it has largely centred around using fabric that I have in my stash that has a previous use - fabric that wasn't designed to be part of a quilt. This has been the theme behind 3 of the quilts 2 have finished this year and 2 more that I have as works in progress.

In January I completed making a crazy patch tie quilt that I was making for my cousin Syd who turned 70 last month. I gave him the quilt at a family reunion in January (to see the blog post about it visit here) I got a real kick out of making the quilt. I have a pile of ties left - ones that didn't fit into the blue and red spectrum I chose for Syd's quilt. I'll make another one day

I have also been working on my SOMB quilts. Shirt Off My Back quilts that I am making using 2nd hand men's shirts for a challenge that I am involved with. To find out more about this challenge just search my blog for SOMB. Added to the challenge of using the fabric from the shirts we had swapped i added the challenge of only using recycled fabric in the whole of the quilt and with the 3rd quilt in the series completed  I have one more quilt in the series to complete. The top has been made completely using recycled fabric and I am still working on the backing. Its going to be a gift for a friend currently undergoing chemo. I have cut 6.5" squares out of light coloured fabrics- mostly old sheets but some calico whose origins I am not sure of. Friends and family have been signing these squares with messages of love and support. Still thinking about how I will incorporate these into the backing... depends how many I get back. I may just alternate them with coloured squares or then again... might make them into blocks. Will see.

I also want to renew my sewing area. I want to get it all sorted out and freshened up, go through my projects and fabric and decide what I am going to do. I have already started on this by going through my fabric and sorting out the little bits and cutting and sorting these according to size. Larger pieces of fabric have already been sorted by colour. It will be good to have it all tidied up and renewed. Apart from anything else it will bring to mind what things I have - what gadgets, fabric, patterns etc which in turn will help generate creativity and help me to work out what projects I want to work on next.

How are you going with your quilty word for 2014?

Fitness Friday - a new milestone

This week I set myself a new personal milestone. I ran (or joggled as I more accurately describe it) for 8 kms on Wednesday. It took me almost 72 minutes which means my average speed was a tad under 9 minutes a kilometre. My fasted km was about 7mins 30 secs and my slowest was about 9 mins 30 secs. I am certainly not scorching up the miles but I am getting there.

Funny thing is I did not set out to run that far. In fact as I crept out of the house (avoiding my dogs. They love to come with me on my walks down by the river but I hate trying to run with them) I thought I would run my usual walking track... ie down by the river to the weir, turn around and come back. 

The weir

However once I reached the weir I decided to cut across the dry gully  to another road which would lead to the tarred road I usually do my distance running on. Once I got to the road... I turned right, to head further out of town, rather than right to head home. I kept on running till I got to 4km on "Endomondo" the ap I use for measuring my pace and distance. Then I turned around and ran (or joggled) home. 8 kms... done. Whoo hoo... go me.

The gully I crossed. Its popular with trail bike riders

I have had another little personal achievement. I clocked up 250kms on my fitbit. I've had it since the end of February so was happy with that as well. This week (including my weekend away at the retreat) I persisted in walking around the room or jogging on the spot, to make sure I hit my daily target of 10 000 steps.

My friends at the retreat were highly amused by my antics. One of them suggested I might be a tad obsessive and I would agree with her. I have even managed on a couple of occasions this week to be top of my list of friends in steps walked over the previous week. I have one friend Terje who averages 17km a day so she is usually in the lead... but she doesn't log in every day so I sometimes sneak ahead of her for a bit till she logs in again and then BAM I am back well behind her. (just checked. Yep Terje has logged in and I am 30 000 steps behind her!) I have another friend Sharyn who also is usually ahead of me but she too seems to not be logging in consistently and perhaps she has had something going on that she isn't walking as much. I have been ahead of her a good bit this last week too but I am pretty sure its just an aberration!

Weight wise things have been a bit steady or slight increase. I've had some peanut M'n'Ms in the cupboard and the last few days... they have been calling my name very loudly and before that it was the cookie dough truffles Fangirl had made for the Afternoon Tea. I have managed to polish them off this week too. Its not surprising my weight hasn't gone down when you think about it. (it did dip under 88kgs when I ran on Weds but dehydration had big part in that loss)

Annie dog is still doing pretty well. She comes for many walks in the stroller although sometimes she doesn't want to be bothered. Her appetite has picked up which is pleasing. I think she is starting to slow down again but is still going well enough. Our youngest son, her owner, gets  home on Good Friday which is a week away. The way she is now she will still be good when he gets here which we are happy about. Very glad that we made the decision to go ahead and have her lungs drained as she has been so much better. Don't know how long she'll last but so far so good

Annie and I on the swing that Fixit Guy made me for last Christmas

Jack and Annie with me on the swing. Jack always muscles in on any attention Annie gets

Turtles

In the blog post I did last Thursday I talked about it being turtle on the move season. When Fixit Guy and I had been walking the dogs by the river on Wednesday we saw 3 turtles crossing the track. Then when out running on Thursday I had seen one crossing the bitumen road I was running on. Then on Saturday when I was out walking the dogs by the river I saw 3 more. Now they could have been the same turtles I had seen a few days before... I am not much of a turtle expert. This time I was not in such a hurry to snap the photos. The dogs weren't interested... well not very so I wasn't distracted by trying to keep them from bothering the turtles so I was able to take a little bit more time and care. The photos are from my phone so not necessarily as high a quality but they are clearer than the ones I took the other day so worth sharing.

Walking and running

Yesterday my husband, My Fixit Guy(I once joked that I never got anything new cause he always fixed the old stuff) and I went for a lovely walk along the river with our 2 dogs Jack and Annie, and our friend's dog Digby. The road our cul de sac empties onto goes all the way down to the river. 

The street becomes a dirt road just past the last of the houses and when we get to that point we let our dogs off the lead so they can run and sniff and fool around (and pee where and when they want, and wade in the water, chase birds and generally do doggy fun things).

 We put them back on the lead if we encounter any other dogs. Annie and Digby would be fine but Jack is a trouble maker. He is tiny (hand bag sized dog) but at heart he thinks he is a wolf or an Alsatian and wants to take on anything no matter their size.

In this picture My Fixit Guy is walking another friends dog who has to stay on the lead. Our other 3 fur babies are enjoying freedom

Digby at back. Jack (white and brown) and Annie (black)

Once our road reaches the river it turns to run along side it. Actually we don't take the track right down by the water. That is usually more populated - fisher folk and other people enjoying the river. Instead we take the track that runs along the top bank. I really love the walk. It is beautiful and peaceful. We often encounter kangaroos in the paddock beside the river. I am glad the grass is high enough that our little dogs don't see the roos or they would be chasing them. Well Jack and Digby would. Annie is getting a bit old for such activity. 

These photos were taken back in October after a fire had ripped through the paddocks. You can see the  roos grazing on the fresh pick that was coming through

The bird life by the river is prolific too. There are usually ducks and other water birds on the river. I saw pelicans one day.  We have had flocks of sulphur crested cockatoos about the place recently. I came across 20 or 30 of them on the road as I turned the corner one day last week. My presence disturbed them so many flew off immediately. By the time I got my phone out the dogs had arrived and so I took a photo of just one cockatoo... not a great shot and it will sound pathetic when I say there were so many there when I started to take the photo. So I haven't included it

Lots of grass dwelling birds are about at certain times of the year... how do I know... Well Digby in particular loves to chase them. She goes rushing into the grass beside the road and there is a swoosh and and flutter and out come one or more little birds fleeing before her. I don't know what they are and I have never even tried to photograph them but Digby assures me they are great fun to hunt. (I don't think she would know what to do if she caught one)

The paddocks are now thick with grass which is drying off again

The river itself is so beautiful to walk beside. My photos do not do it justice but I am often blown away by the sight of the sun glinting on the water, the green trees, the ripples dancing in the light breeze. 

Our walk ends at the place where there is a weir across the river. 

The bank here dips right down onto a large flat area that is once again very popular with fisherfolk and others enjoying the river. People often make camp fires here too and hang out beside the river. The dips and rises of the bank make it a popular place for people riding trail bikes etc so we don't ever venture down there preferring to keep the dogs out of harms way. Even when I walk at times when others aren't around I don't go down there as the walk to the weir and back home is a good length (about 45 mins) 

Digby surveying the tracks made by trail bike riders

the track down to the river flat where people often fish, swim, make camp fires and hang out. You can see how steep it is and why I don't bother to venture down there

Yesterday I realised that there is a gorgeous tree above the weir with a blaze on it. Explorers came through our district exploring ways to open up our huge country and they marked their way with these huge blazes. This might not actually be a deliberate blaze but instead might be the result of natural phenomenon. I might have just been more aware of it because this weekend a small community near us is celebrating 170 years since Ludwig Leichhardt passed through our area, marking a tree at Comet. I took some photos of the tree and noticed that high in its branches was a native orchid growing. Stunning stuff. 

It must be turtle season... time for them to get a move on because we encountered 3 of them on our walk yesterday. The dogs weren't sure what to make of them and though I don't think they could harm them we kept the dogs away from the turtles. I tried to take a photo on my phone but it was blurry so not worth showing to you. Today when I was out running I noticed another turtle crossing the road. Its a fairly quiet road so I didn't stop to move him off the road which I would normally have done. Not to mention I was 5 kms into my run and if I had stopped to do that I might not have got started again.

Today I ran my greatest distance to date. 7.34 kms in 64 mins. Its not a record breaking pace but I am very proud of my achievement. I am now eyeing a new goal. I would like to be able to run 10 km by the end of the year. I would also like to get my time for 5 km down. Currently its just under 40 mins (39.40 I think) 35 would be terrific.