Swaps, Moving and Navel Gazing

Here's the deal-
BP is moving to Brisbane. She applied for entrance into tertiary courses last year and found out a couple of weeks ago that she was accepted into her first preference.

I'm so proud of her and very happy for her too.

BUT, I'm going to miss her.....a lot!
It's been just the two of us for quite some time now, so it's going to be very very weird not having her around to annoy talk to me everyday. Fortunately we found a solution that fits us perfectly.

I have been contemplating moving back to Brisbane for quite some time now. With that in mind, I went house/apartment hunting in Brisbane, somewhere for BP to live while studying and somewhere that I could escape to every so often.  I found a fabulous place which stretched the budget somewhat, but is just perfect, a secure place for her and a great place very close to the city for me to get my city fix!

We have been slowly moving BP's stuff down to the apartment and setting it up. It's taken a fair chunk of my time. It's about an hour and a half drive away. Plus all the sorting of things that she needs down there. We spent last week there, finalising everything.  It's finally set up and she is about to move there permanently this week.

The only thing is, I love it so much I want to move there NOW, not eventually.  I'm already wondering how I can move BP out so I can move in permanently.
I've lived in the same house for 13 years. I bought it originally as a temporary place, somewhere to renovate and then sell after a couple of years. 13 years is not what I would call temporary.

The decision has been made, I WILL sell this house, probably not straight away as the real estate market is not fabulous right now, but I'm already doing a major de clutter and getting the house organised for when I'm ready to sell.

So that's where my head has been for the last couple of months, why blogging has been sporadic and why I haven't exactly been sewing up a storm.

Having said that, I'm trying to make sure I will be very very busy, too busy to constantly worry about BP or spend every spare minute in Brisbane, after all she does need her space.

So I've put my name down for two swaps so far. The first the Mouthy Stitches Swap. I've just found out who my partner will be and I'm very excited, I'm also crapping myself, because I hope I can make a zippered pouch that she will love. Heck I'm just hoping I can make a zippered pouch, having never made one before. I've been ordering in supplies, some zippers from Zippit on Etsy and some fabric. In the meantime I'll be practising zippered pouches this week.

The second swap I've signed up for is the Name Game Swap run by Anorina at Samelia's Mum. I've put up my mosaic and found out who my partner is. At least no zips in this one. I have a few ideas already for this and have put together some fabrics on flickr that I hope my partner will like.

1. mini quilt swap, 2. finished pouch, 3. For the Love of Solids Swap, 4. Oh, 5. custom order, 6. Entrance and hall, 7. Dining/sewing table, 8. Scrappy Pincushion Swap--Round 2, 9. Doll Quilt swap 10 Finished, 10. Gerberas, 11. Dining/living room, 12. Monday - washing day, 13. Pillow Swap Round 4 Pillow Finished, 14. MT swap sent, 15. For the Birds, 16. Better shot - Finished MMM bookshelf mini-quilt

I took some hand sewing to work on while I was in Brisbane and thanks to some intensive hours of sewing, now have a finished quilt, the first for 2012 and quite a bit of progress (for me) on some other projects. I'll share with you next time.