So I seem to solidly do one blog per month.
Although I prefer doing them weekly, I’m making a goal to stick to doing them
once a month. Regular readers (if there are any) will just have to check once
in a while to see if I have anything new up or wait till I post it on Facebook.
For two weeks in February I spent my time
house/animal/teenager sitting at my Master supervisor’s house in Glenorie, NSW.
It’s about a 45-minute drive from my house, but I was able to use her daughter
Elizabeth’s car as needed.
It was an interesting two weeks for me.
This story needs a little back story: Elizabeth
is 18 (I think) and although she didn’t need a companion, it’s a lot of work to
take care of two dogs, two cats, and a horse by yourself and without a full
license she needed my help to get around. She is taking a fashion design course
which is primarily all design and no sewing. As a side note she also wants to
be a famous actress!
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| Elizabeth and Valentine |
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| Claire & Pixie |
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| Sugar the troublemaker |
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| Sugar and Pixie sleeping with me on the bed |
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| Blind Kelly who loved to cuddle with me at night |
My first night there I learned she had
to sew a dress for class following a pattern and it must include a flounce. She
had chosen a beautiful silky material that despite our best efforts we couldn’t
get her mom’s machine to work with. After seeing the pattern I realized this
material was not listed on the pattern
(side note: as my sewing abilities are quite limited and I’ve never made
a dress, I felt with sticking with the instructions to be safe). We had three days to buy a different fabric,
sew it together, and have it ready to turn in. To make a long story short, we
(and sometimes just me) put a lot of long hours and late nights into the dress
and finally got it done! I learned chiffon is by far my favorite fabric to work
with, elastic can be a major pain, and sewing round hems like armpits are
difficult. Whew! I should also mention that all this was accomplished with my machine as we never solved the tension issue with her mom's machine.
All seemed good. The day before Valentine's day I had a wonderful dinner with friends from church and a couple of people suggested some job opportunities with companies they worked with. I was hopeful! Matt and I had a nice Valentine's day to my surprise. I met him for dinner and we watched The Theory of Everything at the theatre. I don't know that we've done much in the past for Valentine's day so I was happy he had made an effort to do something. He also called me each night which was sweet.
I soon found out after the holiday fun that Elizabeth didn't need the completed dress and that her new assignment was to make another dress. This was supposed to be a simple shift dress (with their own flare/design) with the use of a basic pattern the teacher gave them. By pattern I mean a cut out piece of one side of the dress with absolutely no steps included. I felt like this class seemed to expect a lot of their fashion designers when some of them have no sewing experience like Elizabeth. So we bought fabric, she drew her design, and we went to work. She wanted this stair-step element to her design which didn't seem difficult, but turned out to be horrendous to get perfect. We had to get creative to make it work, but unfortunately there was not hope for making it professional looking. Aside from that, we also incorporated an invisible zipper. I melted the top a little because the iron was too hot at first, and then after I had sewed it on with the use of a YouTube video, Elizabeth accidentally pulled the zipper head off. Despite my best efforts we had to just buy a new zipper entirely and sew it in the same place as the previous one. We found out later that the teacher also wanted a liner with it (as we were almost done), but we decided to forgo that as well as the pockets in her original design due to lack of time. As she used my machine the whole time we wanted to complete it together and just hope she didn't get any more sewing projects! I love sewing, but I definitely think you should build up your skills before attacking complex dresses!
Aside from dress dramas, I got to have fun with a rat in the walls, creepy spiders everywhere, giant wasps, and more. There's more to my eventful time in Glenorie, but you'll have to ask me for further details otherwise this blog will take forever!!
Coming back home meant I had to really push myself to apply for more jobs! I also spent time with the Young Women and got to watch recent convert Dev and her mom do baptisms for the dead in the temple for the first time! It was wonderful and Dev's mom was a trooper and did 35 baptisms! Normally with a small group they might do 10 each, but I think the guy in charging of the names wanted to just go until he didn't have any more! The young man that followed did 55 names. Afterwards a couple of the girls went to wish happy birthday to a youth that couldn't make it and we had a nice dessert night.
Later that week I finally heard about a job, although it wasn't what I expected. A member from church told her cousin about me for a course advisor position at Evocca college. They are a college that helps people get their "second chance" at an education so they aren't your typical 19 year old students. The job is in the Counselling branch and I will be helping those interested in getting a Diploma of Counselling learn more about what the college has to offer and start enrolment. I loved the people there and the manager that interviewed me at the end is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was AMAZING to finally have someone understand the work and value of what I do for the church and have that actually add to my job application. A few days later I found out I got the job!! I start next week so my next blog will be all about that for sure!
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| I guess Shade won't need to help me apply for jobs anymore! |
Poor Matt had to miss the fun since he had to take the IELTS which is an english test for non-native speakers to prove competency and get their visa to Australia. In our case, Matt needs to score high so we can get points towards our visa. Unfortunately, he said the listening portion was awful and we are not confident he got a high enough score. We'll find out by the 13th this month. So, he missed out on the laser tag and the severe leg soreness that came afterwards.
Another big event was the Young Women New Beginnings! Jaydene and I had planned our cruise theme for over a month, but as the time came I felt all over the place. I was overly stressed and spent most of that day cooking and getting everything prepped. In the end I think it went well and the stake leaders and girls seemed to enjoy it. We had them all take pictures with our "Port" sign at the end of each section. It was a lot of effort and I'm glad it's over, but now I have to worry about decorating for the Stake Youth Dance coming up March 20th! This calling is certainly keeping me busy!
Also, I just wanted to display a memento of how great my skin is doing! After my most recent skin treatment I had to take a picture when the new skin was revealed. It's amazing I used to struggle to go anywhere because I was so embarrassed about my acne! There is hope all you acne sufferers!
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| I had just gotten up that morning so that's why I look sleepy, have messy hair, and no mascara. |
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