What a weekend!

Wow!  What a busy weekend.  Firstly our visitors arrived safely and set their caravan up in our yard.  Luckily we have plenty of room.  Our eldest daughter (B) and her partner came to visit later that night and catch up.  We ended up with my sister and her family here for tea Saturday night so that meant catering for eleven people.  Luckily the weather was mild and we had a BBQ out on the deck. 

Our visitors caravan

We did manage to head up to Montville and Maleny on Saturday and do some site seeing.  There was a wood expo on at Maleny and if time permitted we would have spent more time there.  Hubby is a carpenter by trade and loves all of that type of thing.  That is where I bought the boat wall hanging.  It was done by a local gentleman using driftwood and items he found washed up on the beach at Tin Can Bay, Queensland.

I love the weathered look and have hung it in our ensuite.  The green sail is a foothold from a buoy.  I really appreciated this type of craft, especially when the artist is recycling what we would call rubbish.  We had a lovely weekend with the most gorgeous weather.

On Sunday we went to the local shopping centre and I found this book!  I have been eagerly awaiting this book since I first heard of it impending arrival. I have been following Rhonda's blog for years and couldn't wait to get her book.  This was the earliest opportunity I had to find it and now I am trying to find the time to sit and read it uninterrupted.  At least start reading it anyway!

Rhonda is an inspiring woman that tries to live simply.  She takes pride in who she is and what she and her partner, Hanno are able to achieve.  They encourage everyone to live life in a way that is suitable to your own circumstances and all the while trying to live as debt free as possible.  I can't wait to get into this book as I am sure it will be as interesting as her blog! 

On a crafty note.  I have finished the hot water bottle covers my youngest daughter (E) requested so I will post a photo of those tomorrow!

Take care

Andrea

On the Agenda.....

I've pulled some plums out of the freezer that I froze back in February.  My eldest daughter and I made plum jam back then but ran out of jars. I have since had my jar collection replenished so I'll be off to Aldi later to get some sugar and lemons.  My hubby loves nothing better than homemade jam.

 I've nearly finished reading this book for about the sixth time.  It is a truly lovely story about a group of women that come together to make a quilt so they can raise money for a mammogram machine for their community hospital and in the process heal each other.  It is a heart warming story and one that inspires me.  You can tell by the dogeared pages just how many times I have read this novel.

These fabrics are on my cutting table awaiting inspiration for bag making.  I hope to get to them today and at least get one bag made.  I especially like the black fabric and hope to make a bag for myself out of this one.

It is indoors weather today and as it is pouring with rain.  Great for my vegetables but not for working in the garden.  I might even light the fire for a bit of warmth, but have absolutely no hope of getting my mountain of washing done.  There is no way I am going to put it all through the dryer.  We are trying to cut down on our electricity use and we aren't out of clothes yet, so not completely desperate!

I will go and get some groceries today also.  I need to stock up on our basics and haven't bought these for over a month now.  I buy most of our groceries from Aldi and make my hubby come with me as doing a large shop at Aldi can be a bit daunting.  A couple of things I still can only get from Woolies but it always amazes me how much it costs there and I only ever come out with a couple of bags of items.  I don't know how people shop at Woolies and Coles each week and they buy everything from those supermarkets.

We support a small local butcher for our meat and head off to our local markets every second Sunday to get our fresh produce.  We have found that we have to be careful of the stalls we buy our produce as I am certain that some of the stalls are selling produce from the Rocklea markets.  We try where possible, to buy items that the stall holders have grown themselves.  Hopefully once our vegetables have grown we will have to go to the markets less and less.  This will be awhile though.

I planted some potatoes yesterday so will keep an update on how these go.  Just have to remember where I have planted them.

Take care

Andrea