Bikram...

Have you heard of Bikram Yoga? It's essentially yoga in a room that is heated to around 36-40C (105F) to let your muscles stretch more. Apparently you sweat litres. I melt in that sort of temperature and turn into an ice-cream eating, cool-drink guzzling headachey sleep-deprived grumpy sloth. Which is why I've been quiet lately. Exacerbated by a sickly little pup who - feeling unwell - wants his mummy at 2am and 5am (and that's on good nights - the bad nights reap four wakeup calls). Grumpy Laura. And I've been unable to read blogs on my ipad for some reason, so I've been a bad commenter as well as blogger. Mea culpa :( Mi dispiace.

For the last week, it's been between between 36 and 42C here (with humidity, which we are not used to). The coolest it has got at night is around 26C. It was 33 in the city at midnight the other night when I was out at a show. Ugh. Hard to sleep, tempers fray and road accidents go through the roof. I spent Australia Day at home hiding from the 42C heat. Typically on Australia Day there are fireworks on the Swan River and half of Perth turns out. The better half of Perth decided to stay at home this year. But there was also a surprise skyshow -  Mother nature put up some competition.

The rain was a welcome relief but it was back to high 30s and low 40s the next couple of days. Sigh.

Enough whinging.  

The good news is, I've come up with two new exercise regimes which are sure to become fads and earn me bucketloads. I'm stating my intellectual property rights here and now. You heard it here first.

1) Bikram Furniture moving

This involves deciding to reorganise two rooms, and move furniture from one end of the house to the other by yourself, in 38 degree heat. As a fairly lightweight girlie, I moved  a double bed, two bookcases, a desk, and two armchairs all by myself in 38 degree heat. I frequently have this problem, like I'm a Jack Russell who thinks it's a German Shepherd. Moving that furniture was crossing the line between determination and stupidity, and only by the grace of some higher being did I not put my back out, but I did it. I was soaked in sweat halfway through but didn't give up until it was all done. Could this take off as an exercise craze? Only works in over 36 degrees though, so maybe it's not a viable business idea...

Why did I do this? Well, my spare room (which has been used 3x in 5 years) has a ceiling fan and cupboard space (hence making it the spare room - I'm very considerate of my nonexistent guests). My study (which has a desk with sewing machine on) has no cupboard space or cooling/heating so I end up spreading over about 3 rooms to sew. Shifting the rarely used bed into the study room and the desk into the spare room means I now  have a fan cooled sewing room with access to cupboard space. Hurrah! Why did I do this now? Well, there's a new arrival at my place and I figured she needed a new room to live in ... I gave it a bash for a few days and love the space, but it's still too damn hot to sew in that room at the moment...  So I'm back in the kitchen, strategically positioned in the draft between the aircon vent and the door.

I even hauled ALL of the fabric out of the drawers, folded it and  sorted in colour order. :)  Lucy at Charm About You is having a Fugly Fabric party - I found a few from 10 years ago - florals mostly - that someone else may love so I have my pile ready...

And the new addition to the family is a REAL Bernina this time as my Bernette was so lovely. It's a Bernina 820 and weighs in at 16 or 17 kg. That's more than my two cavaliers put together. :) It was pricy but it's a 10 year machine... I can't see myself replacing it ever, unless I get the space and time to go into longarming... Which isn't likely. Life is here to enjoy and who knows how long we have, so I decided to go for what I really wanted. We had a few teething problems which required the lower tension to be reset, but we're off and running now. And I did spend 3 hours with the manual and instructional DVD before I even felt courageous enough to turn it on. And another half hour to thread... Believe me, this baby requires SOME getting to know. She certainly doesn't put out on the first date. (Full review sometime later.)

2) Bikram Quilting

I tried to finish off some larger quilts. Honest I did. But sitting under a single bed quilt in 40 degrees just didn't do it for me. Still, for more dedicated people, this could be a great new exercise regime!

I hope you are surviving your  weather wherever you are.

Happy sewing!