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5 weeks today. Strange to think that only 6 weeks ago I was so anxious about this trip, not sure what to do about leaving the country while Mike was so unwell and now over a month has passed.

We're leaving on a jet plane shortly, for sunnier foreign shores. We'll speak in 3 weeks - enjoy the school holidays.

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After school snacks.

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Mum tells me she'd like something like this for her. In a cushion cover, but not on a white background, because they're mucky. Dad corrected "we have mucky guests"!

Can I share something light hearted? I'm aware I'm not the most chipper person of late, but this does me giggle like a school girl.

We're going to an evening wedding in October and I set my heart on a 50's style dress. I bought a vintage pattern, was all set to have it made, but after speaking to the dress maker and having her quote me $550 for the making plus all the fabric which I would need 5m of each fabric and liner, I decided I'd try something else.

So, I've bought my first vintage dress. It hasn't arrived yet (etsy shop DearGoldenVintage) but I'm beyond excited about it. The trick is finding a dress that will fit. I have a 28" waist but so many of them are only around 24-25". I didn't want to take on a corset and this one was exactly my measurements. I hope it's as lovely as it looks - soooo excited.

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One of my nieces is very modest but gifted young woman, a wonderful writer. I wanted to share a snippet from one of her emails.

"I had a dream on Friday night that we were all up at mum and dad's for a dinner of some kind, and I couldn't find a seat at the table so I was standing beside it while every one talked and ate, and I looked at the chair on the end and there was Mike.


I looked at mum and asked if she saw him there and dad nodded and said something to him, quiet, like to make a fuss would frighten him away, and we all stayed there for a while until he got up. As he walked past, I put my hand on his arm and said 'I really miss you' and he nodded like he always used to and said 'I know'. It was really nice, made me real upset in the morning, but good-sad, like, I don't know, seeing something beautiful again for a moment before it fades away."

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Four weeks..

I'm discovering that grief is as they say, something that has many stages.

I was having lunch with a friend yesterday who I haven't seen since Mike passed. She was asking me questions about him, his illness, his passing and I was answering her. It was only as I sat watching the tears stream down her cheeks that I started to hear myself and how I must have sounded to her. My voice was without emotion, quite blunt I guess, just recounting a group of facts. I realised that my demeanour might have made me seem uncaring, as if it didn't hurt to talk about those things.

I tried to explain why I was being the way I was. For me it's like, at this moment, my grief is in a big pot. It's full to the brim with tears, heartache, yearning, loss, regret, but the lid is still on, just hanging on at the edges. As long as I keep the lid on that grief, I can control it. It's not a conscious thing that I'm doing, but that's how I can best describe it. Self preservation. I keep it pushed down otherwise it can just take me over.

Of course I can't do that every day all the time, and it overflows at the most unexpected times. The sad fact is, that life goes on, without him. Perhaps a time will come when that's reassuring in itself, but for now, that is cause enough for the lid to come off.

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A friend has a new baby on the way so I'm taking inspiration from a pinterest link and making my first baby quilt. I need a bit more applique action in this house.

I've finally finished the top of my appliqued quilt for our bedroom, but will have to get the quilting done for me as I don't feel I can manage a large queen quilt on my domestic machine. If anyone can recommend anyone to me - Eastern suburbs of Melbourne preferably - that would be great.

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My breakfast of choice at the moment. Pears poached with a vanilla bean and the zest and juice of an orange. I have discovered a King Island yoghurt with cinnamon and honey, delicious.

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The simplest games are often the best. We're off on early holidays next week, must remember to include these in our back of tricks.

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Another weekend.

This one spent with my parents, cooking for them and us at their house, drinking too much wine, eating well and laughing for the first time in a little while.

We woke far too early with over excited girls squealing Happy Father's Day and the younger daddy in the house straining to squeeze his eyes open.

Later in the morning Nan and Pa's garden was trimmed of its flowers and the girls set up a little flower stall, the arrangements which I'm sure are now inside around their house.

An afternoon pottering in our own garden, examining all the buds bursting open, the blossom already falling to the ground, the cycle of things marching ever on.

Today our daddy celebrates with his daddy at the footy - go Tigers. To all the dads out there, to mine and ours particularly, thank you.