A timely reminder

I am finally getting around to working with the photos I took on our holiday last year. Yes I know it was a year ago next month that we left and I still don't have the photos edited and uploaded, let alone scrapped or in an album, bad, bad bad...

The reason... well one of them. Just too many darn photos. I have about 70 photos of Uluru at sunset alone. Seriously after scrolling past two or three I am over it, my photos are not bad, but they are not spectacular either, I certainly wouldn't get paid for them, so I just need to get busy with the delete key.

Here is a post from the Digital Photography School website talking about just that - deleting ruthlessly. I think its time I searched out the delete key on my keyboard too and did something useful with my photos ;)

Mad about Harry

I know everyone in the known universe is probably talking about Harry right now, but I had to chime in. Saw the final Harry Potter movie today. It felt like the end of an era for me. I was feeling almost deflated by the end of the movie.

I loved it.

I have loved every minute of Harry and his friends over the past decade, and am so grateful that JK Rowling had the inspiration to tell his story.

Give me a month or two and I think I will pick the books up and read from the start again.

How can you not smile?

Its kind of hard not to crack a smile when you walk out to get in the car in the morning to find that someone has left you a message for the day :)

Last day of the holidays

Just hanging out today with the kids, our last day of school holidays before the new term starts. Its been a funny type of holidays this time, I worked the first week, while dh stayed home with the kids then he went to work while I stayed home. Then my parents came for a visit, which was great. Then it was Easter, and we had heaps of jobs around the house to sort out. And now, we are here at the last day.

I wish we had another week... its all been over far too quickly.

spare a thought

just a quick post today to ask anyone who reads this to spare a thought for my two year old nephew, he is in hospital with pneumonia and asthma. He is responding well to medications but still needs some more healing before he can go home.

The Lost Weeks

Hmm something weird seems to have happened. I looked at the calendar this morning and its the 30th March! wth? Surely not, there must have been some mistake, it must be closer to maybe March 21st?

I hate how that happens, I think I am on top of things, and wake up to find out that somehow I have misplaced two weeks (sometimes more). I am trying really hard to remember what happened in those lost weeks, but cant come up with much. The only occassion of note was our 16th wedding anniversary. Luckily for me it was the most important occasion in said lost weeks, so its good that I can at least rememer that ;)

This year we stayed in and ate at home. My Delicious magazine featured an article on Rachel Allen, and Irish woman, who cooks. I think I may well become addicted to her because I used some of her recipes for our meal, and it was the best. Ever.

We started with little bruschetta style things, thinly sliced, toasted baguette pieces, topped with an olive and caper tapenade, then slices of tomato and bocconcini with a little basil. To. Die.For. alongside a G&T, so so good.

Next up was a baked salmon with tomato and avocado salsa and aspargus spears. Wish I'd eaten it slower just to make it last for longer. I ate slowly as it was, but I could have had that experience for many more hours without tiring of it.

Then we finished with Chocolate Creme Brulee. Only I don't own a kitchen blowtorch thingy to cook the top with, so we had to place the brulees under a hot grill till the sugar melted.. and well lets just say that now I am getting a kitchen blow torch thingy because they would have been heaps better if I had one, and the brulees were good enough to justify having a blow torch to use even if it were only once a year ;)

We had a lovely New Zealand Sav Blanc with our meal, and I had a lovely Peter Lehman Botrytis to go for after but I was so full I didn't even open it! So that is there for another day anyway. So like I said, I may have lost a few weeks, but the day I remember was pretty good. Brett and I both felt it was as good or better a meal as we would have had in a restaurant, and the kids joined us for desert after making themselves scarce for the main meal.

My Santa Collection

My mother has a gorgeous collection of Santa's that she brings out each year at Christmas. Most of them are kind of expensive, and all are absolutely gorgeous. A couple of years ago I decided that one day I would like to have a Santa collection too, so I started collecting.

My first was a Heartwood Creek Naughty/Nice Santa, which I love so much, and it actually has some of my kids names on the lists that Santa is holding, and there was enough room to add the rest. Then my best friend gave me another Santa another year. Then each year another has been added to my collection. Some are inexpensive, and some not. This year I added another Heartwood Creek Santa with Woodland animals.

I hope to continue this tradition, and to have a note of where each Santa came from, and hopefully my kids will like the idea enough that they will be happy to give my Santa's a home one day.

to P or not to P

Perfectionist = a person who is displeased by anything that does not meet very high standards
Procrastination = the act of procrastinating; putting off or delaying or deferring an action to a later time 

In reality I am not a true perfectionist - and that is something I have been working on for quite some time ;) but when it comes to anything photographic, scrappy or paper crafty my perfectionist nature rears its ugly head. It seems that because people know I love to take photos and scrapbook I feel that they expect something really WOW from me when it comes to things like, ummm, say.... Christmas Cards.

That means I put stupid pressure on myself to design and create something fantastic, which leads me to the second word Procrastination, because I seriously doubt my ability to produce said fantastic production, I put off getting started on it, and put it off, and put it off until.... oh dear its Christmas Eve and I still have not sent any Christmas Cards! eeek

Last year I only posted five cards, and that was because everyone else on my list had an email address, so I could email a .jpg of my card to them on Christmas Eve and they would still receive it before Christmas. I am afraid the posted ones probably arrived a day or two after New Years. I took the annual photo of the kids early enough, I even wrote the annual letter in plenty of time. I them ummed and aahed over the design, then decided it was all too hard, and put it off for another day, and another, and another. Of course then I had to go with something that I was way less than happy with, because I had run out of time.

Stupid huh?

So this year I am changing tactics. I have downloaded some free card templates from Becky Higgins blog, I am dropping in one photo of the family, typing a greeting, printing and posting (the envelopes are still here from last year already addressed and ready to go). No fuss, no responsibility for the design, just a simple greeting to our family and friends for the holiday season. The goal is to have them in the mail by December 16th.

I'll keep you posted - wish me luck!

White Christmas?

....I'm dreaming of a wet Christmas.... hey wait a second, that should be white not wet shouldn't it? Around here right now wet is the word. After years of very low rainfall, dam levels below 40% capacity, water restrictions and drought reports on the news each night we have been thrust into waterworld.

Overnight last night 87mm was recorded as falling on us. Gutters are running fast, dams are filled to overflowing, and the grass in the yard gets to knee height in record time. It feels quite surreal.

Christmas season to me is always couched in thoughts of heat, sweat and dust. Not damp, rain and wet ;) Yes I am sure there have been wet Christmas seasons before, but the overriding memories are of those long hot days leading up to Christmas, of being too hot to sleep at night, and of dreading the thought of having to cook and eat a hot meal for Christmas lunch. This year as the season starts we are far from those kinds of thoughts. Its probably amplified by the fact that the past few years we have been under drought conditions, so all of the green and damp feels decidedly out of place.

One of my dreams for Christmas is to actually experience a white Christmas. When I was 21 I spent a Christmas in Switzerland, surely you would expect snow... but no, for the first year in I don't know how many they had no snow for Christmas. Disappointed? you bet. I love seeing the snow scenes in photos from my overseas friends, everyone rugged up and red cheeked, it all seems so special, so romantic. At home we are all red faced from the heat, and hot, tired and irritated often too. White Christmases seem to be absent of all of that, although the reality is most of that is probably very good marketing from Hollywood lol.

So this December I am settling for a wet Christmas. Its cool enough that we can be a little rugged up, we can snuggle up inside with hot chocolate and watch movies together, we can leave the tree lights on without fear of melting the tree, we can have a hot lunch, and hot pudding without complaints.

...yes I'm dreaming of a WET Christmas ;)...

Time Flies

Its December!

I mean, really, where did the year go? In less than two weeks the kids finish school for the year, Kelly finishes primary school forever, and I only have one primary schooler left.

Time to start my December Daily and gear up for Christmas. I love Christmas, I find its lots more hard work these days than it ever was when I was a child, but its still lots of fun. Its funny how different Christmas is as an adult, I obviously never appreciated all of the work that my mother had to put in to make things special for us, and its only now that I get it.

Our tree is up, thanks to the girls, they love "tree day", the 1st of December, they were a bit excited, and I am already sick of hearing them sing Christmas carols lol, but luckily its all good :)

Lucky

Today I am having one of those moments, you know, when you just feel appreciative of what you have in your life. Its Friday, which means I am at home. I love my home - it feels good, I am lucky to live in such a perfect home for me.

The sun is shining. I am warm. My dog is sleeping by my feet. There is homemade mango ice cream in my freezer. My kids are healthy and happy. My husband loves me, even when I am less than loveable. Its not long to Christmas and I feel organised and ready. I am healthy. I have internet. I have good friends. There is nothing in this world that I need (only things I want ;) which is different).

Today I can say, I am one of the lucky ones. Have a fabulous Friday xx

Pretty curse

All around town at the moment the paddocks are covered in purple. From a distance it looks just amazing, but, sadly it causes irreversible liver damage to horses, so it is bad bad bad.

Even so I couldn't help myself, I had to stop and take a photo of it today. Its called Patterson's Curse around here, a friend calls it Scottish Thistle, I dont know its true name, but it is very pretty, even though it's a curse.

Support your SES

This week is SES support week, to find out some more check out Amys post here. The last few years the SES has not been short of work here in Australia, so here's to those who volunteer!

Typing wounded

Hmm and I thought it would be a good idea to get the kids to cook one night each during the week. It appeals to my laziness to be able to sit back and play on the internet while supervising dinner being cooked. What a shame the reality doesn't line up with the fantasy ;)

Last night it was Kels turn to cook, but she still requires more hands on help, so I was slicing veggies using a Zyliss slicer and I managed to slice off a part of my finger too - ouch!! It was quite a deep slice, although nothing requiring stitches, but painful nonetheless.

Also bad was the fact that even though I was slicing a zuchini when the incident occurred, just prior to that I was slicing an onion, and of course I didn't rinse the onion juices off before starting on the zuchini. Man that smarts....

Then to add insult to injury this morning while making my bed my fingernail snagged in the blanket as I was snapping it tight and ripped off and flew accross the room. Both injuries on my right hand, both stupid and avoidable, and both hurt more than they should given how small fingers actually are.

Bummer :(

Here's a fella I met while on holidays

This cute little guy sat watching me intently while I clicked away, then darted straight at my foot! What I didn't realise was he was waiting for a big juicy fly to land on my shoe, then he pounced, and voila! lunchtime.

We all sat for ages watching him repeat his trick over and over, he was very entertaining. I dont know his real name, but the locals call him a ta ta lizard, becasuse while they are watching they wave one of their front legs as if saying ta ta or goodbye. We were in Lawn Hill NP by the river when we saw him. We also ran into one of his cousins in Mt Surprise who was equally as cute!

Project 365 update

Last time I attempted project 365 I fell flat before May, this year I am happy to say I am still going strong in October. There were one or two weeks that may contain a couple of photos taken on the same day, but overall the photo a day thing has continued.

At first I really wanted to take superb photos every day, to finish up with an album of magical visual delights, but as the weeks went on I realised that not every photo is going to be a magical visual delight, in fact some photos will be downright near unprintable ;) Funnily though not all of my photos could be considered excellent from a technical or artistic persepective as I look back through them I am finding them quite magical. Its unlikely that anyone outside our family would see the magic, but for the five of us living in this house it is there.

It's there in the way it shows how many more freckles have appeared on small faces, or how much smaller the height difference is between a boy and his father, or the number of amazing faces one girl can make, or the love that three kids have for their dog, the magic in the garden that makes the hard work worth it, and the life experiences we face as a family.

I started out thinking that Project 365 would be an artistic endeavour, but found that approach made the whole task daunting, when I started shooting it as a labour of love, that's when I really appreciated the true value of Project 365.

I am back!

The last few months have been a real whirlwind in our house, we had numerous birthdays in July and early August to contend with, then on the 22nd August we drove down our street and headed for the great outdoors for a whole seven weeks.

So we spent seven weeks touring around the country (well the Eastern to Central part anyway) and having an absolutely fantastic time. Coming home has been hard.

We have slipped back into the routine of housework, school, work etc etc, but if you asked me if I wanted to go again tomorrow, the answer would be a resounding YES!!!!

We tried to keep a blog along the way, but due to sporadic internet, and so many other exciting things to do the blog was sadly neglected. All of us kept travel journals on the road, so over the next few weeks I will be uploading the record of our adventures. If you are interested in reading about our journey you can find it at Are we there yet??

There will be more to come.

Safe as houses...

Sometimes you see headlines in the paper like "Burglars thwarted by family dog" or "Family Dog protects home" but, with my dog its more likely to read "Guard Dog - I think not!!" lol

This morning I managed to drive up my driveway, walk through my side gate, cross the yard to the back door and open it and go inside without even a flicker of fur from my vicious attack guard dog!

Hope no one is relying on him to protect the family home lol

 Here is just one of the hundreds of photos of our dog that I downloaded from my p&s after my daughters had been using it for a weekend. Its probably lucky they love him!

Camping at Easter

Another weekend of great weather, great friends, and time spent in the great outdoors. There was the small inconvenience of multiple tick bites per person, and I am still itching four days later, but otherwise nothing to complain about.

Fireside entertainment provided by the boys and their guitars.

Whining to start but ending with optimism ;)

Only one more sleep and she will be home. The weekh as gone faster than I thought it would :)

The day before yesterday I slurped up my coffee too soon and burned the roof of my mouth. Oh I hate that! now evertime I try to eat something a little bit crunchy it pokes into the sore parts of my mouth.

As if that wasn't bad enough yesterday morning I woke up and couldn't open my mouth fully without bad pain in my jaw, and of course, I found myself needing to yawn much more often than usual. Have you tried to yawn without opening your mouth fully - totally unsatisfying lol

Thankfully work is really slow this week, so I am spending Thursday at home yay! I have a huge pile of photos to edit, so I will be busy most of the day, but at least I can lounge around in my trakky daks while I am busy ;)

Only one more week until school holidays, which I am really looking forward to this term. We will spend a few days camping, we will have some pyjama days, and my sister will visit with my neice and nephews for a few days. I am so looking forward to that!

Living 300km apart means we dont spend much time just hanging out, and on previous visits her kids were still young enough that there were some things only Mummy could do. Now they are that bit older, and my kids are keen babysitters, we might actually have time to really talk to each other and hang out.

Just have to get through the next week and then the fun begins!