Caravan, Overlocking and Crochet and stuff

Toni had her follow up appointment after her operation at 7.30 this morning. It's all looking really good, and she will be able to go back to school tomorrow. She really could have gone back today, but anyway.....

I made some more Easter eggs today, these were rocky road ones. To make these I combined:

2 packs marshmallows - roughly pulled apart by hand

2 packs red rasberry lollies

1 cup coconut

I melted 3 blocks of milk chocolate, 

and then added the other ingredients, stirred it all up, and put into the molds to cool. This made 8 large eggs.

Then giftwrapped them ready to give as presents.

I also went through the caravan and checked all of the supplies, and made a grocery list for things to buy. I also went to my overlocking class and finished my table runner, I am really, really pleased with it.

My overlocker had a hissy fit at class, and would not work, I only got it back from being serviced last week, so I had to use one of the ones from the class, which was a bit stressful, as I didn't know my way around it to thread it etc. I actually had to get up at one stage and walk away from it, as the stress levels had built up to ridiculous anxiety levels, after that I was fine. I had my overlocker serviced through the sewing shop that I do my classes through, so they kept the overlocker there and they are going to get the technician to try and work out why it isn't working.

When I got home I crocheted one of these little whimisical flowers, I think it turned out lovely for my first effort. I will definitely make some more of these and dust with diamond dust etc, for my scrapbooking pages, I will post pictures when I do some, and I will post some instructions for making these a bit later.

Snakes in the grass!

Today I went to the Husqvarna day at the local sewing centre. We are constructing a pieced cushion, using different feet and sewing techniques on each piece of the cushion. I am up to piecing it all together now, and then the cushion can be constructed

(Photos to come)

Toni picked Kasey up from school for me as she is home still recovering from her surgery. She is really good now, just not allowed to do anything strenuous for the next few days, but otherwise she is completely fine. I have done some washing, and tonight when I was going to hang it out, there was a little black snake on the back verandah, it was probably only about 60cm or so long, but I really don't like snakes, but it disappeared before Damian could get the shovel... it's only going to get bigger, I hope it has moved on, but I have a bad feeling that it hasn't. :(

Tonight I have made some honeycomb easter eggs. They are so easy to make, and cost about $2 each to make, they are the same size as the ones Darrell Lea sell for $11.95, so a big saving. I will be making some rocky road ones tomorrow.

These are my egg moulds.

First I roughly cut up the honeycomb pieces, then I melted a complete block of chocolate (Aldi brand) in the microwave for a minute and a half, then stirred the honeycomb through the chocolate.

Then I spoon into the mould, I spray it with cooking spray first.

This is the finished result, ready for pretty packaging, to give to family and friends. Rocky road ones are next on the agenda.

Sewing, Scrapbooking, Craft and a busy weekend

I have had a very busy weekend.

Friday afternoon Mum arrived, and promptly got bogged in the front yard as everything is still pretty wet in some areas here. Damian had to pull her out, lucky we have a 4WD! Damian then washed Mum's car for her, as there was mud all over it - he can be very nice to his Mother in Law when he wants to be. We chatted for a while, and had yummy home made pizza for dinner. After that Mum did some knitting, while I went to a scrapbooking crop. These are the pages I made:

Saturday I went to my sewing class and finished the Bali Bag. I am very proud of this creation. It took a lot of work though, so I am not sure if I will make another one or not, but I absolutely love it, and it is so big.

At lunchtime, I came home and packed up the wedding flowers, and delivered them to Sharon. I then returned to class to finish the bag.

We ran out of time at class, so I finished off the final bit of sewing at home.
This is the bag:-

It has lots of lovely pockets inside for keeping my bits and pieces:-

Saturday afternoon Michael came around with a friend of his who is a bricklayer, and he is going to come around after Easter and brick up the pool pump house, outside bathroom for us, so that Damian can re-start this project. After he left it was time to lock up the chooks, and I had the door of the chook pen shut while I let the little chicks have a run around in there by themselves, but I couldn't find Sam the Rooster. It was getting close to dark, and I searched for him until it was just on dark, and then got the torch and searched for him some more. I must have searched for about 1/2 hour but he was nowhere to be seen. I thought that he would probably be perched in a tree somewhere or in the garden where I could not see him. On my way back inside, something told me to look in the office under my desk, and there he was! He was quite happy in there on the carpet, quite comfy, so I picked him up and put him back up with the girls. He hasn't worked out how to come back down the runners from inside the chookpen yet, so I had to pursuade him out with a little push on the bottom so he would go down.

Sunday I attended the craft show, and picked up a couple of patterns, some lace, and some absolutely gorgeous lace flowers, Ann and I went halves in these.

 This pattern book has quite a few different patterns in it, as well as a few Melly & Me patterns, they are really lovely.

 This is the stash I purchased
 

I love this pincusion pattern, it is a very large pincushion, probably about 20cm diameter, with gorgeous hand stitching around the outside.

 These are the lace flowers Ann and I bought, they are absolutely gorgeous, the photos really don't do them justice, they had such a wide array of colours, but it was too expensive to buy too many, I am planning to incorporate each single flower into some of my scrapbooking pages.

We also attended a tutorial on how to crochet thai crocheted flowers, which was good fun as I haven't crocheted for years, and I found it very relaxing.

I also picked up some scissors, a needle threader and a tape measure which I can keep around my neck as it has a lanyard attached.

When I got home I had to tidy the house as my family don't seem to know how to put anything away....grrr....and we had left over chinese for tea, with some spring rolls and dim sims.

Tomorrow is the Husqvarna demo day at the sewing centre, so we get to go and learn about all the different feet that come with the machine, and some extras, and learn what they all do, and what we can achieve with them. Tuesday and Wednesday I will need to catch up on paperwork, and pay accounts etc, and pack the caravan for our Easter trip to Gin Gin.

Toni's Surgery

Toni has had her eye surgery today. It has all gone well. She got quite sick on the way home, but went to sleep reclined up on the lounge with her bucket beside her, and she is feeling much better now.

I have finished my wedding flowers for the wedding tomorrow, the bouquets have come up beautifully.

I have let Sam the rooster out again this afternoon, and while they are all out of the pen, I have shut the door and let the little chickens have a good scratch around in there, they are very relaxing to watch scratch around. I am currently making a couple of pizza bases in the breadmaker, we quite often have pizza on a Friday night, so I thought I would bring back the tradition. Then off to a scrapbooking crop. Mum should be here soon, so I had better make the bed up for her, I'm not sure whether she is going to come to the crop, or stay here with Damian and knit her rug.

Just the girls for dinner and wedding prep

Kasey and I are on our own for dinner tonight, Damian is at a plumbing seminar and Toni has gone late night shopping with a girlfriend, so I think we will have something simple for dinner. Kasey is usually happy to have spaghetti on toast on easy dinner nights, she would have this every night if I let her. 
After that I will head back out to my shed to continue working on this weekends' wedding bouquets, after Kasey goes to bed. I am trying to get a head start on them as I will be out for the morning tomorrow, and as they have their natural stems on them I can start on them a little earlier as they will be in water once made. The bride is picking up some rose petals, gum and some extra roses in the afternoon, and then I just have to do the corsages and buttonhole flowers in the afternoon, and it will be ready to go out first thing Saturday morning. 
I have let Sam the rooster out for a little while late this afternoon, and he enjoyed having a scratch around, I let him out not long before their bedtime, so he would stay quite close to their pen, and would go to bed and not get lost.

Mini Watermelon & Sweet Corn

I have picked the last solitary mini watermelon from the vegie garden this afternoon. I like the mini ones, as they are not too big to store once cut. This one has been up in the garden for a while, and I should have picked it quite a while ago. It is not quite as sweet as normal, I think because I had left it, but it's still nice, and I have saved the seeds to plant later in the year to have a new crop for summer!

I have also planted up about 45 sweet corn in the vegie garden this afternoon, hopefully we will get a successful crop before it gets too cold and I will blanch and freeze some for winter.... I let the little chicks out with the big chooks in the pen while I was up there keeping an eye on things this afternoon, the big chooks seemed fine with them, but I will still wait longer before I put them in with them during the day. The larger frizzle has flown out of their protected area a few times during the day while I have not been up there, and she seems fine, none of the bigs chooks have harmed her at all, so I think it will all be ok...we're having rissoles and vegies for dinner tonight, about to go and cook the rissoles now...after that I am going to knit a few rows on my dishcloth, as I need to increase my supply of these so I can change them over more often, as they do tend to get a bit yucky, so I would like to change them over every couple of days..

Chillies, Passionfruit and Overlocking

I picked a heap of chillies this morning from the vege garden, the plants were absolutely full of them, and 1 branch had snapped under the weight of the chillies. I wanted to leave them until they had gone red, but as the branch had snapped, I had to pick them earlier than I would have liked, so I guess it will be green chilli jam this time. I also picked these lovely passionfruit from our vine.

I went to my overlocking class last night. We are constructing a weaved table runner. I have finished the weaving part, and next week we will finish off the centre part, and construct the rest of the table runner. I am quite liking how it is all coming up. It is amazing what you can do with your overlocker besides everyday overlocking of edges.

I have also folded the huge growing pile of washing in the laundry, and it has all been put away...I have reclaimed the laundry! I had to also worm Max today, as he was showing signs of having worms rubbing his butt on the ground, he was NOT happy. I do worm him every 3 months, but he has obviously picked some up somewhere a bit earlier than normal. I have also finished off some paperwork for Diverse, and will have to do the wages as well. It's nearly time to pick up Kasey from school already, I don't know where the day has gone! I have flowers coming in the morning for a wedding for this Saturday, and have to take Toni to Redcliffe Friday morning for eye surgery. I usually have a scrapbooking crop every 2nd Friday night, and Mum has also said she is now coming down on Friday instead of Saturday. I also have my 2nd Bali bag sewing class this Saturday, as well as the wedding delivery. Sunday is the craft show I am going to go to with Ann....oh my goodness....how am I going to do all of this....ok, big breath...1 step at a time.....what doesn't get done, doesn't get done, the most important things are Toni's surgery, and the wedding for my wedding client, everything else  can wait if need be.....all's good... :)

Tuesday's a bit more organised now

I am feeling way more organised now, I am so glad I didn't go to my class this morning, I was definitely feeling overwhelmed, and spending the morning in my home has made me feel much better. I have made muesli bar slice... 

Dinner is in the crockpot - curried sausages

Vegetables are cut up and ready to go on later this afternoon for an early dinner

Yay :)

Toning down Tuesday

I was meant to go to a jewellery class this morning, but I have cancelled. I have a bit much on my plate at the moment, so I have decided to make things a little easier on myself and not try to fit so much into today. I am learning a little I think...I finished my squares on my bali bag yesterday, so they are all ready to go for our class on Saturday where we finish the construction of the bag. There is 8 squares to the bag, and I finished doing the patterns over the top of each square yesterday in a variagated thread, and I went over some of this with an orange thread to make some parts stand out.

I have sent off a couple of wedding quotes this morning, and I am about to go and make the muesli bars I didn't get around to doing yesterday. I have to go out and get some fabric for my overlocker class tonight, and top up my protein shake mix as I ran out this morning. I will also put dinner in the slow cooker as I have to leave early for my class. I was quite tired this morning, as I had trouble getting to sleep last night, so didn't get to sleep until about 1am.. too many cups of tea yesterday I think.... I have had a hit of vitamin C this morning though, and I am starting to feel a little more energetic now thank goodness. I think Damian is dropping his car off to get his canopy done on the Landcruiser, so I think I have to go and pick him up from Lawnton way this afternoon some time..

Sewing, Shopping and Chickens

My quilt kit has finally arrived this morning, hooray... I can make a start on that now. This morning was quite busy, after dropping Kasey to school, I went and grabbed a couple of things from Aldi, and I purchased a bulk pack of chicken breasts, and they are currently roasting in the oven, I will then shred them up for lunches, as it is too expensive buying BBQ chickens all the time, as they only do a couple of days worth of lunches, and there is so much waste with the rest of the chicken. I have also put on beef stroganoff in the slow cooker for dinner. Our new rooster - I think his name will be Sam - has been crowing away madly this morning. It is so cute, as he's not very loud, I hope I still feel that way in a few weeks! I put the little ones back up in their protected area this morning, and they are scratching around having a ball, and Sam is back in with the girls, so far so good, they haven't been harassing him, so I hope it stays that way. I am now going to go and do a bit of sewing, Toni wants me to take the hem up on her school uniform, and I have to work on the Bali Bag squares from Saturday.... I will also make a batch of meusli bars today, I am going to use a different recipe and see how these ones turn out. Busy, busy, busy......

Silkies at last

Well, today I finally purchased some silkies. I bought a lovely little rooster, and a white silkie and a brown frizzle. I went up to the markets and they cost me $12 for the 3 of them. Damian has constructed a little area up at the chook pen this morning for the little ones to go in until they are big enough to go in with the big girls.The rooster has been put straight in with the girls, but they have given him a bit of a hard time, so we have let them out to free range all day instead of just the afternoon, so they can give him some peace.  Hopefully they will all settle within a couple of days, and after about a week or so, I will let him come out when the bigger girls go out. They are soooo gorgeous. Kasey has been told she needs to handle them lots, so that as they grow up they are lovely little pets. I haven't bought them for egg production as such, but more as pets as they will be quieter for Kasey to handle than the other girls are. I will bring the little ones inside for a couple of nights...I feel a bit bad just leaving them out on their own at night while they are so little. I am also going to put the rooster in their little area at night for the time being while the little ones are out, so the girls can get a bit used to him without giving him a hard time, I'm not sure if I can put the chicks in with him during the day, he seems very gentle, but would hate for him to kill the little ones...

I have also planted up the garlic, as well as some cabbage, broccoli, silverbeet and a couple of capsicum in the vege garden.

I am quite tired this afternoon, so I am thinking I may go and lie on the lounge for a little while before thinking about what to have for dinner tonight... :)

What's with the dead possums??

I have found another dead possum in the yard this morning. This is the 2nd one in the last week and a half I have found. We have been here for 18 years and I have never had a dead possum, and now 2 in 2 weeks??? I don't know what's going on. This one had been dead for a little while.... it was not pleasant...they have definitely been poisoned, with ratsak I would say... you can tell when they have been poisoned, as they always have a little hole in their tummy..... the poor little things...they are so cute.... we have ratsak in our shed, but it is in a sealed rat trap and wildlife and dogs, cats etc can't access it, so I think a neighbour has had some ratsak around. I just wonder why I always find them when Damian isn't home to be the one who has to pick them up and wrap them up in paper....just my luck.... I know people get annoyed when they have a possum in their roof, I just wish they would build them a possum nest in a tree, instead of poisoning them....so sad.....

Things I Like

I thought I would list some of the things I enjoy doing in my life. They may not appeal to all, but they are what makes my life happy.

Spending time with my family

Being at home - most of the time anyway

Opshop shopping (Toni gets very embarrased by this :)  )

Sewing

Scrapbooking

Cardmaking

Gardening and Vege Gardening

Watching the chooks - they are so funny to watch

Watching our dog Max climb the ladder to the cubby, then slide down the slide, or hop up on Kasey's trampoline by himself and bounce up and down on his back while he chews his tail, or dive and swim in the pool - he definitely does not know he is a dog!

Craft

Reading my magazines - I don't buy gossip ones, usually green living or crafty ones, especially after I have cleaned the house

Camping in the bush with our caravan - definitely not tents - I got over that idea years ago - we love our caravan, it makes us spend time with our kids and relax

Going to Bribie in the afternoon on the weekend for a BBQ - very, very relaxing - like a mini holiday

Reading blogs and interesting sites on the computer
Baking
Achieving my day's goals...
Being happy and feeling well :)

New Kitchen Stools

Today I went and had coffee with a girl friend. We try to catch up for coffee once a week. We have known each other for about 20 years, and our children grew up together as littlies, we didn't see each other very often for a few years due to our lives heading in different directions for a little while, but have started catching up again regularly in the last 6 months or so. After that I went to the shops and caught up on a couple of errands and had a little bit of lunch. I then went and purchased some new stools for our breakfast bar. Our stools have gradually broken over the years, we started off with 4, all the way down to the last solitary stool which is all we have had for the last few years. I have been meaning to buy some new stools, but wasn't sure what I wanted and I didn't really want something with a back this time, to keep the area looking as uncluttered as possible. I found these lovely ones last week, and after thinking about the decision for a week, decided that today was the day. After getting them home, I found that 1 was cracked, which was disappointing, so had to make the trip back to the store and get them to swap it over.

This is a picture of our new stools :)

I also had a parent teacher interview with Kasey's year 1 teacher, who says Kasey is doing marvelously, and has no problems with her. After that was Kasey's swimming lesson.  Have had a relatively quiet night, steak, salad and sweet potato chips for dinner with some yummy chilli jam, and then watched Better Homes and Gardens - Kasey loves this show too, and really enjoys Dr Harry, she says she wants to be a vet when she grows up, it would be lovely if she kept this aspiration. I will spend a little while tonight on my computer catching up on blogs and emails, and wait for Toni to get home from work, and will then head off to bed. I have a wedding quote in the morning, then a sewing class from 12.30 - 3.30, and then Damian and I are heading into the movies as I have gold class tickets that need to be used before the end of March. Damian's parents are going to have Kasey for the night, so we may make a night of it and stay in the city and maybe go to the Casino or something like that afterwards.

My Kitchen

This is my kitchen. It is just on 18 years old, we have been in this house since we built it back in 92, and I still love my kitchen. It is the hub of the house, as is most peoples. The only thing we have changed is we have put in a dishwasher, we removed 2 cupboards to do this, which left us with a little nook between the dishwasher and the next cupboard, which is a perfect spot for jars etc., and we have put in a new ceramic cooktop. The oven is still the same, we replaced the fan in that about 18 months ago, and the rangehood is still the original. The wide benchtop is brilliant.

 My knitted dishcloth is hanging over my tap :) I have to knit some more. I picked up some lovely cotton from an opshop I think they were something like 50c ball, and I get 2 or so per ball of wool. I like this waffle weave pattern the best. My home journal is on the bench, this has phone numbers, menus, school notes etc etc in it. Damian made my phone cupboard, the drawer holds pens etc. In the corner next to the dish drainer is the recipe book holder Ann made for me for my birthday. I use this a lot. My chook scraps bucket is next to the sink, and is used everyday. When the girls see me walking up the yard with this in the afternoon, they all come running!! I have a country wall hanging next to the phone, I picked this up from a garage sale for $2, and under that is my handmade wall/desk calender. This gets used a lot also. I don't like my home to be cluttered, but I do like a few favourites here and there. I will be purchasing some new stools for the breakfast bar shortly, as Damian made some but over the years they have slowly but surely broken, and he doesn't want to make them this time, I have my eye on some no back bali style ones, so I think these will be an added addition to our home soon. :)

Pantry Cleanup

I have cleaned up the pantry today, so much for a quieter day, but you have to do these things when you are in the mood for them. There was a fair bit of stuff in there that didn't need to be in there, and now there is heaps of room.

This is before:

This is after - much better :)

 

Now, I am pretty exhausted. Have to go up and lock the chookies up for the night, and then cook dinner.... sometimes I really wish I had a maid.... or a cook.... or both :)

This morning was quite busy. I folded and put away the washing, from Tuesday, and put on 3 more loads and hung them out. I have also put 3 coats of colour on the gerberas and sealed them and they are now ready for framing. I will get the frame and matts tomorrow, and ask Damian to construct the box for me so that I can get them framed over the weekend. I have also mowed the front yard and raked up the excess grass, as the grass has been growing before our eyes with all of the rain we have had. The rest of the yard and the trenches desperately need mowing, but it is still way too wet to be able to mow these areas yet. I have also gone over the verandahs with the blower to tidy them up.  I have rung the hospital to do my pre admission for my surgery, and have also rung the eye hospital and confirmed Toni's operation for next Friday. I would ideally like to weed spray some time today while it isn't raining, but I have had a very sore back the last couple of days, I have pulled a muscle or something, and the backpack for the sprayer is very heavy when full and puts a big strain on my back, so I am not sure if I will do that or not. It is also that "blessed" time of the month, so the back and tummy are a bit sore already, without these extra things to make it worse. The weather is also starting to look a bit suss, so I think it will have to wait for another day. I have also rung the sewing shop and confirmed my attendance at the Bali Bag making class this Saturday, and they are going to email me over the requirements list for that a bit later today, I am really looking forward to this class, as I really like the bag, and I think I will get heaps of use out of it, as it is a really big bag. I haven't done any more on my table runner from Tuesday night yet, I have only taken the machine out of the car this morning, so may do some later today or tonight rather than watching the stupervision :) 
I may try to clean out the pantry today, it is really in need of an organisational clean out, it has steadily gotten worse and worse over the last few months since I last did it, as things don't get put back where they should, and it eventually ends up a mess. I have collected and purchased a few extra large glass canisters over the last few weeks as well, so will transfer some things into these while I am going. I would eventually like to have the pantry full of these for neatness, and I much prefer glass containers to plastic ones, even though Tupperware is fantastic, I just don't have enough Tupperware for everything in my pantry and it is very expensive, and the glass jars are either free or very very cheap.

First jewellery class

I went to my first ever jewellery class this morning. I made a necklace, bracelet and earring set. I wanted to do it in the purples, silver and crystal colours. I think it's come up quite nice, and it has now given me a bit of a foundation for some other things. I will go back and do another class next Tuesday morning, and I want to make a drop style pendant, suitable for formals, weddings etc. I quite enjoyed the class, but my fingers probably need to toughen up a little bit, as there is a bit of prodding and pushing involved, I think if you did too many beads with a heavier gauge wire, the fingers could get quite sore. Here goes yet another magazine genre to start reading.....beading and jewellery!!!

Tonight I have spent catching up on Diverse paperwork, that is now looking much more under control, so I can start tomorrow not having that hanging over my head. Tomorrow I actually have nothing in my diary, hooray, but I will probably finish the colouring on a bouquet preservation, so it is ready for framing this weekend and do a wedding quote, pay a couple of personal bills, and have a hopefully quiet sort of day...that will be nice.......

Uniforms, sewing and jewellery classes.

I have tried to have a quieter day today. After dropping Kasey at school this morning, I went to the school uniform shop to purchase Kasey a new shirt, as 1 complete school outfit of hers has disappeared, and it is proving quite difficult keeping up with a weekly supply of uniforms with 1 uniform short. I purchased her a formal shirt, which she promptly told me this afternoon that she doesn't like and she is NOT going to wear it!!! That girl is such a drama queen! I would actually like to try and purchase some material and make my own uniforms, they are so expensive to buy, $28 for a shirt and $42 for a dress, I think for $50 worth of fabric I could probably make enough uniforms to last her through most of her primary schooling.  I will have to see if I can find any over the coming months. I then spent the rest of the day catching up on a few things on the computer, organising a few wedding quotes etc, and finalising a few details for a wedding coming up in a week and a half. Had to get dinner ready a bit earlier, as had my sewing class this evening. Currently our project is a double sided oriental style table runner. It took me quite a bit to understand the quilting pattern that was instructed to us, but finally worked it out, and plan to finish this off over the next few days or so. I have booked in for a jewellery class in the morning. I haven't done anything like this before, so I am looking forward to that. I will post pictures of my completed sewing and jewellery making projects when done. Once I get home, I will need to spend most of the afternoon in the office catching up on Diverse paperwork, as that is getting a bit on top of me. I also have a quote for a wedding at 4.30, the bride is coming here, so don't have to do too much preparation except ensure the house is relatively tidy, and I will probably put on a nice scented candle before hand so that the house smells nice. I will probably try and organise dinner a little earlier in the day as well so I am not running behind after I have finished my consult. BTW, I am still waiting on my quilt kit, I am going to have to chase them up, as it has been just on 3 weeks since it was posted, and mail from the US usually comes in about 10 days.....I am getting a little impatient.....

Today I went to see my naturopath for my follow up appointment, and also to have a follow up brain and body scan. All looks really good, and I have been taken off a lot of the supplements, and she would like me to do another test to ensure my stomach infection has completely gone, but otherwise I will just plod along for a little while. Once I got home, I caught up on my QWF quotes and emails, and secured another wedding for May. This afternoon I went to see the surgeon about my gallstones, and I am booked in for the 21st April for surgery to remove my gallbladder, not looking forward to that, but better than the pain associated with gall stone attacks, that's for sure. I put Beef goulash in the slow cooker for dinner tonight, so that is just about ready, we are having that with some sweet potato - of course - and beans, pumpkin and cabbage, yummy. I am feeling a bit tired, so I think after that I will settle in for a night of Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters, then call it a day :)

Christmas 2010 Planning

I have printed out part of my Xmas planning spreadsheet tonight, the part which has the things I need to start on within the next few weeks. I will keep this in my notebook, so I can refer to it, and write up entries in my diary a week at a glance, so that some of these can be incorporated in to my daily routine. This week I will see about enrolling in a jewellery making class, and keep an eye on the chillies that I am waiting on in the vegie garden, they are currently green, once red I will pick them to make some more chilli jam, as I have run out, and I absolutely love it. I will probably also start on designing my calender layout for the 2011 desk calenders. I think I might do some vintage photos instead of stamped pictures this year, will see how it pans out. There is no need for me to leave these until later in the year to make, I can start anytime and put them away, so I would prefer to do this. I am also going to look at setting up the spare room this week with my craft supplies and desk, so that I can have an area separate to the office for all of this, and so I can leave projects that I am working on so that I can come back to them, rather than packing it all up. I am also planning of perhaps painting the cupboard I got from Mum and Dad this week, I was looking at purple, but I may even go a shabby chic white yet....just not sure....hmmm....more thinking to do. I am currently quite awake, so I am catching up on reading some blogs while everyone is asleep.

Sweet Potatoes Galore!

I have been up at the vegie garden this afternoon, doing some more tidying up, fertilising and digging the soil over. I have cleaned up the pumpkin crop, and scaled that back down to a much smaller size. It still has about 8 or so pumpkins that are maturing quite nicely, so I am going to keep the existing vine, and see how it goes. I had 3 small ones that had rotted off the vine because of all the wet weather, but while they are small they still look quite ok, and also picked a very large one. I managed to get all of the garden fertilised and 1 side dug over. While digging this side over, I also scaled back the sweet potato crop, and picked 32 sweet potatoes from just a small portion of the newest area - there are absolutely heaps, and to think what is also in the older area, I think we have plenty to last us quite a while. I used 1 to make sweet potato chips with dinner tonight, and they were yum.

Today, I also did a quick tidy up of the house, and vacuumed the floor - with Kasey's help, she did a little vacuum and packed it up for me. I also did the washing, and then dropped Kasey off at her friend's house for a couple of hours of playtime. During this time I went to Aldi and grabbed a few things, and worked on a bouquet preservation, hardening the Gerberas. This has been quite time consuming, so will probably charge more for the next Gerbera preservation that I do.
Tomorrow, I have an appointment at the wellness clinic to have another scan and start to come off some of the vitamins and supplements. I have been following a strict high protein, low carb and sugar diet for 2 months now, and have so far lost 7.5 kilos. The aim of the diet is for health reasons, the weight loss has been an added benefit. I will probably stick to this for another month or so yet. In the afternoon, I have my appointment with the surgeon about my gall bladder, so tomorrow will no doubt fly by as usual.

http://www.channel4.com/4homes/design-style/how-to-guides/how-to-make-christmas-crackers-steps-09-12-07_p_2.html

http://www.channel4.com/4homes/design-style/how-to-guides/how-to-make-christmas-crackers-steps-09-12-07_p_2.html

This is a link to making some beautiful handmade christmas crackers for Christmas, they are stunning. I have added these to my Christmas spreadsheet for 2010, so will start on these during the year, and fill up with chocs etc, as it gets a little closer.

I have also printed out my to do list for the easter eggs I am making this year. I will be making rocky road, honeycomb and chocolate crackle eggs. I make these the same size as the lge Darrell Lea Eggs, and they cost about $1.50 each to make. I will buy the ingredients this week, and make them the week after, ready for Easter the week after that. I already have the moulds which I purchased last year - just got to find where I put them!

Cards

I had my monthly card class today. I really enjoy going to these, they are very relaxing, the card designs are always really lovely, and a really yummy lunch is always put on for us. It is a great "me time" day. Here are the cards we made today.

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Tonight I will probably work on the last bouquet preservation I currently have here. I have to finish hardening the flowers ready for painting.  Hopefully I will be able to get this finished next week, so that gets them all out of the way for a little while. I have another wedding coming up in a fortnight, and then April seems pretty quiet for weddings, and then it starts to really busy up until November.

This afternoon I have unpacked and freezer packed all of the meat I bought yesterday on the way home from down the coast, at the Super Butcher at Yatala.  I got black angus grassfed eye fillet steaks, wagyu sausages, lamb roasts, lamb chops, chicken schnitzels, chicken rissoles, chicken kievs and heaps of dog bones. The steaks have ended up working out to be nearly half the price of the supermarkets, I really hope they are nice.  We are going to have some for dinner tonight, with some home cooked chips and salad or vegies - yum.

I am hoping it is fairly cool tomorrow, as I haven't had a chance to finish tidying up and refertilising the vegie garden yet, and I would really like to get this finished tomorrow, and plant up the garlic. The rest of the vegies I am happy to leave until the following weekend, once the garden has had a chance to soak up all the good from the compost and manure etc.

I think I really need a relax day, that might be on the cards for tomorrow, well after the vegie garden perhaps....:|