Weekend Wonders

Monday 15th October 2012

We had an amazingly busy weekend here!  It all started when I purchased an old cupboard from a friend during the week.

There was nothing wrong with the cabinet as my friend had already shabbied it up nicely.  It was just a little too yellow for my house, I'm more of a white girl even though yellow is my favourite colour.

After a lovely cup of tea on the front steps, in the sunshine with Ron and the dog................

 and admiring the flowers out at the moment........

We went off the the hardware Saturday morning and bought some necessary goodies - plants, fertilizer.....oh and paint stripper.  I had already tried sanding off the paint with the intentions of having it back to the timber finish.

Note all of the sanding dust in the above photo!!  The previous finish was doing nothing much but clogging up the sandpaper so I thought paint stripper would do the trick!  This also had little effect.  By this time I was starting to regret touching it at all, but decided to try painting it white.  This turned out to be right solution and I absolutely love it now!

It has pride of place in our dining room and I will change out the items on top of it frequently.  I have placed most of my patchwork quilts in it to keep them safe.

As I said, yellow is my favourite colour so I decided to keep this on the inside.  Such lovely colours when I open it up.

Ron helped me clean up the mess I had made in the garage and then after washing my car, which was also covered in dust, we checked our phone messages to find one from so dear friends of ours that are moving at then end of the year to 12 hours drive away.  They wanted us to join them for a quiet night, so we bought some chickens and chips on the way. 

I also got a message from Bec that afternoon asking if we would like to meet them for a BBQ breakfast in the morning, so we packed up the picnic gear and headed off to the beach to have bacon and eggs cooked on the BBQ.  The weather was absolutely lovely and the company even better!

Bec and her fiance, Rana.

Of course the dog had to come also as this is one of the few beaches that you can let your dog run on the beach without a lead.

 The only problem was that the tide was in and there wasn't any beach.  This was just too much for Cindy (dog) and she insisted on walking on the waters edge.  This wasn't an easy task as Ron had to walk on the footpath while the dog scampered along the waters edge below.

This lead to HEAPS of laughter from us all and some very curious looks from other people.  One woman even walked up behind Ron to see why he was walking the way he was!  This just caused Bec, Rana and I to laugh even harder!

What a wonderful way to spend the morning.

When we got back home, it was the general washing, tidying up and later in the afternoon I had to bake.  Ron was completely out of goodies to put in his lunchbox, so I made peanut butter and choc chip biscuits, lemon cake, muesli bars, bread and some mini lemon meringues.  I also put a rolled pork in the oven to have as a roast for dinner and this would then give me cold meat for sandwiches for the week.

I hope everyone else had as good a weekend as we did!

Take care
Andrea

Birthday Celebrations!

Friday 21st September 2012

We have a birthday in our family today.  It is our youngest daughter's birthday, she is 19!  It only seems like yesterday that she was this small.

I just wanted to take this time to wish you a wonderful birthday Emily.

A Quick Update and a Recipe

Tuesday 4th September

I got a phone call from Emily today wanting to know why I hadn't updated my blog in awhile.  I have been busy helping Ron with the business and haven't really been up to much that is exciting!

One thing for certain is I am REALLY glad that Spring is on it's way.  I hate the cold weather and dark mornings.  I love the sun rising as I get out of bed and as we get up around 5am the sun has to be up pretty early for us! L O V E  I T.

Father's Day was spent with my parents , Bec and Rana at the beach having a BBQ breakfast.  The weather was lovely.  We did spare a thought for those families of the Australian soldiers that were killed recently.  They too were someones father, son, brother, nephew or uncle.

This was the weather at 8 o'clock in the morning!  Bit tough to take.

We have our little dog back with us. It turned out that she was more ill than the vet first thought.  She had a bad tummy bug and along with a sudden change in her diet she became very ill.  We collected her from the vet Friday afternoon and at the moment she won't leave my side.  She probably thinks that I am going to abandon her again.  She lost heaps of weight over the week and only started eating again on Friday.

The above photo is Ron and Cindy having a nap on the deck after lunch on Saturday.  They were both worn out from a huge week!

I did manage to get some time to make some Mixed Chinese Pickles on Sunday.  This is a great way to use surplus vegetables.  I used turnips, carrots, celery and chili in mine, but you could adapt the recipe to whatever you have on hand.

Chinese Mixed Pickles

2 carrots

1 large cucumber

1 red pepper

4 sticks celery

8 shallots (1 onion)

beans

Pickling liquid

2 1/4 cups sugar

2 1/4 cups white vinegar

1 1/4 cups water

Combine the pickling ingredients in a saucepan, stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves, bring to boil.  Remove from heat and cool.

Cut carrots and cucumber into strips.  Cut pepper into 1" cubes,  Slice celery diagonally.  Slice shallots diagonally.  Boil large saucepan of water.  Add prepared vegetables, then remove the pan from the heat.  Leave vegetables in water for 2 minutes, then drain for several hours.

Pack vegetables firmly into jars and cover with preserving liquid.

Stand one week before using.

Awhile ago I decided to paint an old trunk white.  This trunk had been brought over from England when my grandparent immigrated just after WWII.  It belonged to my grandmothers grandmother  and is one of the few items they brought with them.  My grandfather used to keep the tack for his horses in it when I was little and I remember it sitting in the shed.  When my grandfather passed away, my grandmother had the shed pulled down and was going to throw the trunk away.  I was able to rescue it.  It is in very poor condition with all of the paper falling off the inside.  It has had, at some point in it's life, been infested with wood worm, and all of the metal on it has rusted.  I got Ron to make a base for it to sit in and help hold it together and over the years I have had it, it has been placed in many rooms.  At the moment it is living in my "reading room" (Cindy's room, as she is in it the most often) and it has a new lease on life with it's new paint!

Before



After





I hope that it will remain in my family for a long time yet, so hopefully one of my girls would like it one day.

Speaking of girls.  Emily and Dave went to an engagement party on the weekend and when I looked at Facebook yesterday I noticed that Emily had changed her profile picture.

This was taken by a professional photographer and I just love this photo of them both!

On the countdown now to Bec and Rana's engagement party!

Take care
Andrea



 

Quality Time

Monday 6th August 2012

I have just spent three days last week staying with my daughter while her partner was away.  We had a lovely time together and had time to explore her local area.  Unfortunately while I was there we had some REALLY cold weather!  I don't cope with the cold at all.  Thursday morning was -3.5 C, not cold for some but definitely too cold for me.

Frost on my car!

One of Emily's requests while I was there was to teach her how to crochet.  She had already bought some yarn so I took out one of my crochet hooks for her to get started with.  To date she has learnt how to chain and do double crochet (USA single).  After four attempts at trying to keep it neat she is well and truly on her way to making her first item, a scarf.

Love the look of complete concentration.

On Wednesday, I made the 40 minute drive in Dalby to meet her for lunch at the coffee club.  While I was there I had a look at a fabric shop and bought some more fabric for my bags and a pattern for a dress.  I have a wedding to attend in March next year and will need something to wear.  I will need to make some adjustments to the pattern as I am only a size ten but have a large bust so hopefully a friend of mine will be able to help with this task.  It is hard to believe with the cold weather we have been having that soon we will be looking for nice cool dresses to wear.

Dalby was established in the early 1840's and some of the buildings reflect this.  I really enjoyed my stroll around the town in the lovely sunshine.  You can see the lovely blue of the sky in the photo below.  The cars for the variety bash were in town.  This is a charity that raises funds each year through an unusual car rally to help sick children.

The back of an old hotel

I brought Emily home here with me on Thursday night and we made a trip to the other side of Brisbane to Ikea on Friday.  We had a lovely time together with lots of laughter.

We had lovely weather here on the weekend with Sunday getting to 25 C.  I spent some time in the vegetable garden, removing the lettuce that had gone to seed.  As the weather is starting to warm up I have put in seeds for more lettuce, chard and silver beet, cucumber and rosella.

Rosella is a plant that is related to the hibiscus and you use the calyx from the plant once you have removed it from the green seed pod.  It makes lovely jam, tea and cordial.  The rosella originated from Africa and I have had no trouble growing it in my area.  I can't wait to harvest them!

How are things going in your garden?

Take care
Andrea

Children

Tuesday 31 July 2012

As mentioned in my post we had Emily here for the weekend.  One of the first things she mentioned when she got here was a desire to go to Spotlight.  OK with me as they were having a 30% off all fabrics and I also had a $5 voucher to spend.  Needless to say I walked out with some fabric and a couple of balls of wool.  Emily bought an abundance of things one of which was a craft wood tissue box cover which she wanted to cover with pretty paper.

Somehow this always means that I end up doing it because she runs out of time.  This was the case again this time. 

I am going to spend a couple of days with her at her house and when I walked into the craft room this morning the tissue box cover was still at the same stage of covering as when she left on Sunday.  So this morning I have been busy trying to get it finished to take out to her.

Am I the only one who can't so no, especially to my children?  The wool I bought is for another project that my mother has started for my nephew and she asked if I would be able to complete it for her.  I will post a photo of that once it is done.

We had some lovely weather on the weekend.  The mornings are cold but the days are lovely, up to 21C during the afternoon.  I managed to pick some peas on Sunday, not many, but enough for Ron and I.  We had them with our roast lamb last night and they were delicious.

Later in the afternoon we had to go and get some firewood from some friends so I took along some afternoon tea.  While the men were busy cutting the wood and filling up the back of the ute my girlfriend and I planted some free plants I took for her.

Lemon delicious slice and lemon meringue slice!

I had to go and do a colour selection with a client yesterday and while we were at the floor covering store I found this great mat.

Don't you just love the rainbow of colours?  I know someone by the name of Emily that would love this if she was allowed!

I have heaps to do today

• type a tender for a job
• make Ron dinner - done
• ironing - done
• washing - done
• go up street to collect mirror for Ron's ute and contact solution
• sweep floors
• clean bathroom
• bake bread
• post letters
• pack - WARM clothes. Freezing out there!

So I had better get moving so I can get it all done!

Take care
Andrea

PS  I have found a recipe for a coconut, walnut and raspberry cake I will share shortly!

Wet Wet Wet

Wednesday 20th July 2012

I am tired of the rain.  Most days this month it has rained.  This has made it next to impossible to work outside and is only holding Ron up on his jobs.  We have been able to get one job completed and this will be getting handed over to the clients on Friday!  I love being able to hand the jobs over as it gives me a sense of completion.  I only wish the rain would go away so we could get on with the other jobs. :{

Job ready for handover!

We had Emily and Dave here for the weekend.  Unfortunately Dave's grandfather passed away last week so they had to come down for the funeral.  Not the best circumstances.  It did give Emily a change to catch up with Bec and they spent the day together shopping and watching a movie.  We ended up with them all here for tea Sunday night which is always great.  I love having everyone here together.

Not much has been happening on the craft front.  Too busy cleaning for handover.  I have completed the back of the cardi I am crocheting and am now up to the sleeves.  This confused me for awhile but hopefully it should be full steam ahead on that now.  I have some great ideas for recycling of old jumper so when I have done that I will be sure to post some photos.

Hopefully the weather will improve shortly and things can start happening again.

Take care
Andrea

Another Penny Rug

Thursday 12th July 2012

Remember a couple of posts back I showed you my version of a penny rug for Emily.  I had been busy working on one for Bec and last night I was able to give it to her.

I'm calling it village on the green.  Bec has a round dining table so I though the round shape would suit it best.

I really enjoy sewing with felt as I find it quite easy.

We had some exciting news on the family front last week.  Bec and her partner Rana are now engaged!  I keep thinking she is too young to be engaged but then I remind myself that I was 18 when Ron and I became engaged.  It is just hard to believe my babies are growing up.  It seems like yesterday that I was nagging them to clean up their toys.  Time flies!

Leftovers for dinner tonight.  I have some spaghetti bog casserole left over from dinner last night and some potato from the night before.  I will turn the potato into some fritters and just add a few bits and pieces to the meal to fill us both up.  Then for desert I have some leftover chocolate self saucing pudding and custard from last night also.  I love leftover meals as it means I almost get a night off cooking.  I don't mind cooking it is just thinking of different things to have each night that gets to me.

We were going to take ourselves out for dinner Saturday night for a treat, but I have just finished speaking to one of my beautiful friends and have invited her and her family for dinner that night instead.  We haven't caught up for awhile and they are moving away in a few months so I have to make the most of them living close.  I think I will do a roast for dinner as it is lovely and warm on these cold wet days.  Then I will finish it off with this custard poke cake I found here.  I can get this made tomorrow and then that is done!

I'm off to do some ironing now as Ron hasn't any clothes for work tomorrow!

Take care
Andrea

Slow Going

Wednesday 11th July 2012

Things on the home front have been mightily slow going of late.  I did manage to get some work done in the garden last week with fertilizing and a general tidy up.  I even managed to spray the zucchini with some milk and water to help with the sooty mould.  So far it seems to be working, but with the wet weather we are having at the moment it is hard to tell.  The sooty mould has certainly slowed the plants down but then again the cooler spell we are having at the moment doesn't help either.  I am getting plenty of snow peas at the moment so we have been having them cooked and raw in salads.  I love the crunch of fresh peas.

The grey cloth you can see is fly wire that is covering my cabbages.  I am trying this to keep the cabbage moths at bay instead of pesticides.  Hope it works!
Last Friday I made the trip out to the country to visit Emily.  She has now moved into a lovely house and her and Dave are making their own personal touches to it.  It was a long journey as I made the trip there and back in one day. 

The is a photo of their dining room.  Please excuse the blurry photo.  Emily took this with her phone and sent it to me.
I took our little dog with me as she loves going out and by the end of the day she was completely worn out.  I don't think she slept the entire time I was visiting but she certainly slept in the car on the way home.

While I was out there, Emily and I picked a bag full of lemons.  On the weekend I turned some into lemon butter.  I have been having it on my toast each morning and Ron has been having it on pikelets for morning tea at work.  My lemon butter recipe is super easy and made in the microwave.  I have been making it this way for years and it always turns out nicely.  When I get some more eggs I shall make some more to give away.

Another reason things have been slow going around here lately is I have had an infected finger!  Somehow I got an infection between my nail and the skin on one of the fingers on my right hand.  I has swelled up enormously and been extremely painful, so much so that it has been keeping me awake at night.  I headed off to the doctor on Monday and was prescribed some antibiotics.  The infection has made it extremely difficult to do most things as I am right handed and therefore any craft has been next to impossible.  I did however, get a start on a crochet project last week.

It is this cardigan shawl I found the pattern for.  I bought the magazine in a thrift shop and have been anxious to make it!  I decided to go outside my comfort zone with this and make it up in a green yarn.  This is only the back and I am on my third ball of wool.  I have bought 18 balls so hopefully I will have enough as I should only need 16.  I think this is going to lovely and warm but probably won't get it finished this winter.

The thing I love about this garment is the variety of ways it can be worn.  Very versatile.

Take care
Andrea

Changes in the air

Wednesday 4th July 2012

We are having some major life changes in our family at the moment.  Our eldest daughter got engaged to her partner on the weekend.  I can't believe she is old enough even though I was engaged at 18!  She is extremely happy and her fiance gave her a lovely ring.

Our youngest daughter and her partner are moving into a house this weekend and that is extremely exciting for them too as they had been living in a caravan.

Things have been rather quiet on the home front as I have been helping hubby quote a house.  I did however start another garden yesterday.  I love the excitement of productive plants growing and we have an area along our garage wall that wasn't being put to use.  This is an awkward area as it is north facing and gets quite hot during the summer.  I did some research and found that herbs are best suited to this type of area, so I have planted oregano, thyme, lemon grass and sage.  I also moved my rosemary from its pot along with my capsicum and a self seeded tomato, so we'll see how they all go.  I did intersperse the herbs with some everlasting daisies and sweet peas to climb over the old gate.

This area is only small but hopefully I can turn it into a productive area!

I received a present in the post last week from Emily.  She had kindly thought of me and my love of crochet so purchased a magazine for me and sent it in the mail.  There are some lovely items in this I would love to make, and I think the suggestion from Emily that she likes the milky way blanket could be taken as a hint?

The days are lovely and mild at the moment but the nights and mornings have been really chilly.  I am not a fan of winter and hate to feel cold.  I try and spend as much time as possible outside in the sunshine to try and combat the cold.  Our little dog has struggled to get out of bed too.  She curled up under the blankets yesterday morning and when I tried to pick up her she flopped back down.  I think she thought that if she couldn't walk she would get to stay there all day!

I believe she is hoping I won't notice her.

Due to the fact that I have been working in the office doing a quote I have been inclined to put surplus items in my sewing room.

This was the scene that greeted me Monday morning.  Hubby's shirts hanging up needing repairing - done.  Fabric not put away - done. Wool not put away - done.  General mess and untidiness - mostly done.

Ron is going to make a cutting table for me one day with shelves underneath.  At the moment I am using an old camping table but this is a bit low and as I am reasonably tall I have to bend to use it.  The new table is going to be around bench height so cutting out will be a lot easier for me.

Do you have a room where everything seems to land?

Take care
Andrea

Gifts

Wednesday 20th June 2012

I am one very lucky girl.  When Ron got home from work yesterday he said he had a gift for me.  That normally means work and when I complained he said he two gifts for me.  By this time I was really thinking it would be work, but I was wrong!

He first presented me with a green shopping bag, and when I peeked inside it had lemonade fruit in it!

How yummy do they look?  I have a recipe for orange jam that I've been wanting to try so I will do that with these.  I'll let you know how it goes.

The second gift was.............................

.............................some beautiful roses in a bucket!  I didn't leave them in there of course.  They were quickly put into a vase.

I placed them next to my chair where I sit in the evening so I could admire and smell them all night.  They smell divine.

He is working on a property at the moment where the flowers and fruit are just falling on the ground so he brought some home for me to enjoy.  How spoilt am I?

I bought some fruit trees today.  A lemon, orange and lime so hopefully I will get them planted this afternoon.  One step closer to my mini orchard.

Take care
Andrea

Church, Camping and Quinalow

Tuesday 12th June 2012

Well my weekend started on Friday when I had to finish work early to go to Church.  My nephew and God son was confirmed on Friday, into the Catholic Church.  I was very privileged to be invited along to the ceremony and then for a light lunch later.  The school he attends is a Catholic school and therefore the Church was on the school grounds and just a short walk later we arrived at the high school home economics building for a lovely lunch of sandwiches and some cakes.

The above photo is of Max and my sister who is directly behind him.  My sister was his sponsor.

After lunch I made a mad run home to finish packing the caravan.  We went camping for the long weekend at Quinalow to see this beautiful girl....

We were lucky enough to spend the entire weekend with Emily and her partner Dave.  It did mean that I had to put the electric blanket on the bed and we took the heater also as they had been having nights of 0 to 2 degrees!  We were lovely and toasty in our van.

Saturday we all piled into our cars and went for a drive to a place call Jondaryn to see a heavy horse show.  They had some beautiful horses there and luckily the rain held off.  While we were there we met Dave parents, Ian and Jenny. 

Wouldn't you love to ride around in this everyday?  I would.  I imagine that the tyres would give you a reasonably comfortable ride, although it would take you ages to get anywhere.

Here are a couple of cowboys looking at the horses.  Only joking this is from the left, Dave, Dave's father Ian and my hubby Ron.  I love this photo of them all.  As you can tell by the jumpers the weather was a bit chilly.

On Sunday we went for a scenic drive into Dalby.  This meant down lots of dirt roads and lots of unhappiness from Emily.  We got to see where she works, although the library was closed.

We had a look around an antique store packed with goodies, where I bought an old lamp.  The gentleman that I purchased it from informed me that it is heavy on the bottom as it has a weight in it.  It is a night light for a baby!  How cute, but I don't think I would like to leave it in a room with a child.

Emily and I went to a couple of plant nurseries where we drooled over the plants and the items in the gift shop.  I have yet to get to my local nursery to buy some fruit trees.  The ones out there where really expensive, nearly $40.00 each!

Back at the caravan park I noticed a lemon tree with quite a bit of fruit on it, so we got a bag and picked some.  I was able to bring them home with me.  The fruit is only small but it smells heavenly.  I am going to have a go at making my own citrus cleaner with the peel.  It should smell great.

For the three days we had been away some of my zucchini had grown big enough to be picked.  I love being able to go out to the garden and pick my own fresh produce.

These zucchini inspired me to make a zucchini pie and some salad.  It was cold outside and a warm meal would've been lovely also, but I couldn't let this fresh produce to to waste.

Nearly everything you see on this plate was grown by me.  The zucchini for the pie, the lettuce and spinach leaves, the tomato and the carrot.  I pickled the beetroot and the pickled bell pepper was grown and pickled by a friend.  The cheese was the only thing not homemade!  I think that is an amazing effort.

Take care
Andrea