More of this and that

 Gosh, must be getting garrulous in old age - here I am blogging again! I've been looking at blogging tips on Pinterest and they recommend to blog regularly and often. And when do you start to bore your readers to death?
Still, I see you're all still sticking around, nobody seems to have dumped me yet, so I'll carry on.
First up, some books I received and found recently. A friend gave me the Parisian Cats book and the "I could Pee on This" book. Love them both, the Parisian cats sure lead a life of sophistication in the city of (cat-) love. Lovely photos and stories to while away an afternoon. Similarly, the 'French Cat' book is about felines, and the houses and countryside they inhabit. For a bit of a laugh, the cat poetry in "Pee" is perfect, and yep, I recognised some of those behaviours. I won't tell names though.
I finally unpacked and hung my special Venetian mask that I carried all the way from Italy last year. I wasn't sure where I wanted it, but eventually decided to hang it over the bed. I'll probably dream about it tonight, or get a shock waking up in the morning. It's beautifully made though, and

 compliments my bedroom furnishings.
It's taken a while, but yesterday I finally subscribed to Foxtel. Three months of free viewing was a good offer. And already I've watched two great old movies. One was "The Cardinal" (starring one of my favourite actresses, Romy Schneider), and tonight I watched "In the shoes of the fisherman", which was a great book by Morris West. (Note to self - re-read more Morris West books). Both from the 60s, and satisfyingly long movies. I'll probably get square eyes from watching too much TV.
In order to get away from the screens for a while, I dug out a UFO and finished most of the top. Just a sneak peak for now, I'll try and get more done over Easter. But yes, batiks feature prominently. Stay tuned.

Assorted

The weekend was taken up with a day in town, while Pretzel acted as watch-cat. Hmm, maybe he did have his eyes closed there fore a while!
Shopping is exhausting, so when I came home I relaxed and looked up some recipes on Pinterest.
One of them sounded just the thing for a cool evening, namely Mulligatawny Soup.
I hadn't made this before, so I had to get a few things from the supermarket. But the recipe is fast and easy to make, and the results were yummy. And I have some left for a couple of lunches.
I also finished the Prim table runner, and am pleased with how it turned

out. Just in time for autumn.
This morning, one of Pretzel's stalkers came to visit. I call her Minnie, and she was happy to slurp up a little bowl of Whiskas milk. I'm sure she belongs somewhere, she's in good condition, but something for elevenses is surely welcome.
Waiting for the cabinetmaker to install the shelves and kitchen cupboard in the studio. The builder said it should all be finished this week. Fingers crossed!

Early morning

This morning I woke up at the ungodly hour of 6:30am, goodness knows why. Still, it afforded me a view of our foggy paddocks, still rainsodden from yesterday's weather. Our little mob was here too, and the joey was out of the pouch, hopping around like a mad rabbit, before diving back into mum's pouch upon seeing me. I love seeing fog, and the rain was so good!
I also finished a small challenge quilt wall hanging, called "Paula's challenge", because Paula gave us all a panel from Japan. My design is extremely simple, I'm finding 'less is more' a good principle at the moment. The few bits of bling I attached give it a bit of a lift.
On the studio front, we will have a floor complete within the hour. I chose vinyl planks for ease of cleaning, and they looked nice in the shop. I didn't realise how thin the planks were. But I think it'll look ok.
Now I'm onto the quilting of my Prim runner.

I blinked

Yes, I blinked, and it's March! No idea where February got to. Didn't achieve much, either. The building works have slowed, and I'm getting toey! The concrete needed testing, and was found to be only borderline dry, so apparently we need to apply some liquid to make sure the vinyl doesn't warp. But I'm told the floor is going in this week, and I believe the cupboards aren't far off either. The painting is done, at least, and looks good. This needs to be wrapped up by Easter,
In the meantime, I've been working on two things, one is my 'Prim runner', which is ready to quilt. I enjoyed doing this, got the idea from a picture in Pinterest and did my own version.
The other is a challenge ( in more ways than one!), and I can't show it yet, need to finish it this week.

Pretzel had an interesting morning, with TWO kitty visitors! The other day, we had 5 kangaroos near the windows, and when they saw Pretzel, the all sat up stared at him for a while, before hopping away. You're a scary cat, Pretz!