Dahlia Dreams

One of my all time favourite flowers are dahlias and when Lucy from Attic24 introduced her dahlia inspired blanket, my soul sang. 

Despite not being a pink loving girl my heart was doing flips at the colour wheel.

I was laying in bed at night envisioning myself working through this beautiful blanket.

When I woke in the morning my thoughts again went straight to it.

I was obsessing!

When my yarn packs arrived I was giddy with excitement, but tried to be disciplined and finish my existing projects.

So I worked and worked, crocheting my little heart out, finally stitching on the fifty stars and, voila! My USA flag is complete and sitting nicely in its place over the back of the couch.

I wanted to finish my teal rug before I started the dahlia blanket.. But...

I only wanted it to be a lap blanket but completely overshot thst, and at nearly $10 a ball, by the 15th ball I had to call it. I couldn't afford to put any more into this blanket, so I undid it all and started again, smaller.

I crocheted my little heart out yet again and wanted to show a friend the new size. 

I draped it over my bed to take a picture and stopped breathing when I realised that I had made it the same size, maybe an inch shorter!!

I have started unwinding it yet again to make the world's largest ball of wool, but am so cranky at the whole thing I have put it all aside for a while.

I'll come back to it another time with a fresh mindframe.

So began the dahlia blanket!

*insert trumpet fanfare*

The rows work together super quick and before you know it, you're changing to the next striking, amazing, summery colour.

Nothing I do is without it's flaws though and this is no exception. 

The spikes are supposed to alternate each row, to sort of zig-zag, but me being the impatient thing I am, didn't read the pattern beyond row 3, so my spikes are all aligned.

This bothered me at first and I was too far along (and so over undoing my work) to unwind and redo so I carried on.

I've come to like it and as a friend said, it's personalised.

 

Now my bathroom is scrubbed, floors are vacuumed and mopped, I can enjoy the last 10 minutes of quiet before the boys get home from school.

I'll make some tea, weave these colours and do some mental planning for the vege garden.

Not a bad day

💙💙💙

With or Without You

There's not a night goes by that I don't climb into bed after a long day, finally getting 5 minutes to myself to think and reflect, and wish i had more time with my Dad.

Often things will happen and I'll think I should tell Dad about it, and it's a knife in the heart when I remember I can't.

I still haven't forgiven myself for all the time we wasted arguing with each other.

We were too much alike I think. I'll take that.

This month marked the first year of not having him around.

I have a recording of his voice mail saved on my phone, so if I begin to worry that I'm forgetting what his gravelly voice sounded like, I can play the recording.

I haven't needed it much.

I have all my memories locked so tightly inside, petrified that one day I will inevitably forget some details.

Though don't ask me what I ate for lunch yesterday because it'll take me an hour of racking my brain to remember!

For this first anniversary to honor Dad I got a tattoo.

Some native flowers that grew around his home and feathers of birds that had significance to us.

Dad kept birds for most of his life.

The first bird he gave me as my own was a pink and grey galah, I called her Jamie.

One of the biggest birds (aside from peacocks for a brief time) were Sulphur Crest cockatoos. 

One Christmas about 6 or 7 years ago we were spending the holiday with my parents in their little town. 

My boy's dad was finishing work on Christmas eve and driving there to meet us that evening (we were still together at this stage).

But he didn't turn up.

The road he was traveling on is an unsealed, gravel road that only a year or two before my Pop had a car accident and passed away.

I was worried sick that this road had taken him too.

At midnight, 7 hours after he was expected to arrive, I got a call from a stranger to let me know that he'd found the boys dad, safe and well, just the car had broken down.

So Dad and I hopped straight into my car and drove the 2.5 hours to reach him.

About half an hour into the journey we came around a bend and there was an owl sitting smack bang in the middle of the road, staring at us.

Luckily I was too scared to be driving more than 80kph so was able to go around him.

He just sat there, unafraid, watching us.

Those are the reasons I chose those feathers.

They have their little meanings and memories.

We buried Dads ashes.

I want to say 'finally', because it had been a year, but I know some people need more time before they can take that step.

One of the towns oldest and maddest characters said a beautiful prayer.

We had a beer at the pub for him.

Then we gathered a small handful of Dads closest friends and went back to the grave.

We parked right next to it, opened all the car doors and blared a U2 album from the stereo and we swept the dirt off the grave, drank more beers and told the most hilarious stories and jokes that Dad used to tell.

He was such a story teller, and his tales became more and more exaggerated as time went on.

When I first posted about my Dad a year ago I mentioned a song that always makes me think of him.

With or Without You, by U2.

It came on in the album and I stayed silent through that song.

This was the perfect 'funeral' that I imagined for Dad, and hopefully just how he would've liked it.

Nothing big, a small group just having a laugh over drinks and old times.

The next day we drove home.

I took my teal blanket to work on in the car to keep me busy.

We got 40km out of town and the radio started playing With or Without You. 

Boof held my hand while he drove on and I silently cried my heart out, staring at the bush out the window.

Before we went to bury his ashes, I sent out a little prayer to the Universe that Dad would show me a sign that he was there.

That song coming up was the sign I needed. 

This picture is taken right next to my Dads house. 

As a kid I was forever playing in this area of bush, building cubby houses in the trees, looking for treasure - usually broken coloured glass, playing hide and seek with friends.

I was in a small accident just up the first track and remember seeing my Dad come running fast as lightning to my rescue.

The sunsets we used to watch here were so beautiful. 

The track leads to the salt lake.

We had so many adventures here.

Even as an adult, I would go for a walk through the area every time I visited.

Dad and I used to walk the last dog he owned through the winding trails.

The dirt is so dry in places it puffs up around your feet.

You'll be red from the knees down by the time you get home.

It was a wonderful childhood.

Thank you for that, Dad xx