Year 6 Graduation Dinner and Dance..

I've been getting in to trouble from my Mother for not keeping my blog updated, sorry Mother :) so I thought I had better stop being a slacker and update it ;). A LOT has happened in the last few months, including a move back down to Brisbane, as work died off immensely up at the farm township, so decisions had to be made.  A lot of people up there have been affected by a lot of mines closing and money is pretty short, which of course has a flow on effect on small businesses such as ours. We still have the farm, and the cattle, we just have to head up every few weeks to take stock of what's happening up there. We still also have our business up there, we have put a casual guy on to do the jobs that come in, and I am running that part of things from down here, and Damian has gone back to project managing for a company down here...regular income is lovely.

Anyway, tonight is a big night for our youngest, Kasey has her year 6 dinner and dance tonight. This is the first year they have put on such an event, and the kids are all really looking forward to it. Kasey spent weeks designing her outfit, then we had to provide the $ to make it all come together...lol... but she looks beautiful, and is looking forward to a great night.

School awards

Kasey's school had their yearly awards ceremony this morning. Kasey received an excellence in behavior award, and an excellence in English award. The school really focuses on rewarding good behavior in their students. We are very proud of her achievements this year.

Decluttering and Baking

I have had a busy couple of days. I was so sick of trying to scrounge my way through some of the kitchen cupboards and drawers to find things, I just started on one of my big pot drawers with all of the baking trays, as I just updated my baking trays as my old ones were looking really grungy, and then it just sort of steam rolled from there...before I knew it, my car was full of kitchen appliances, old plastics, trays, etc etc, but I can actually find things in there now...so I donated it all to the charity store, and on Saturday night I completely overhauled the linen cupboard, because I was sick of chucking the towels and linen in the cupboard and quickly shutting the doors so things would stay in there...so now we only have about a dozen towels, teatowels and washers, and a few sets of sheets, etc, but still absolutely plenty of linen. Getting the cupboards re-done will be on the agenda very shortly, as they all need to be re-shelved, so I wanted to cull the contents down as much as possible, so that it's easier when I have to empty them all out to paint, before getting the new shelving put in, and the new doors on. The excess linen absolutely filled the entire back of my car to the brim....but looks so much better now. I spent the weekend using up some of the produce in the freezer, and made up 5 1/2 kilos of pasta sauce base out of the home grown tomatoes from last season

It is now all in the deep freeze. I also used up the rhubarb from last season, and made up 2 rhubarb crumbles,

These are extremely yummy, especially with some home made custard, I also made up some rhubarb muffins, but they ended up way too moist in the centre, so I gave them to the chooks, so will change the recipe a little as they would have been really yummy if a bit lighter in the middle. I also made up some banana chocolate muffins, and these got the thumbs up from Kasey

So, we will be back up at the property later in the week, Damian should be going up Tuesday to get the machines in to prep for the slab for the shed, and they are going to pour the slab next Saturday. The cattle sales will be on  the Monday, but it will depend on a few things whether we will be able to get cattle this time around, as we need to be on the property for a least a few days after we get them to keep them in the yards and feed them etc, so I am not sure whether we can manage that with school starting back tomorrow. Kasey is so excited, she went to bed nearly on time, and has her bag packed and her school clothes out already, so I am nice and inspired to make her a nice healthy, yummy lunch in the morning, and then take her and settle her in for her first day in grade 3. So, probably another busy week coming up, I have to finish a baby blanket for a friend, so I will need to pull the sewing machine back out and get that done, and a few wedding preservations to finish off to get those out the door, and then I am going to only take on very limited wedding work for the rest of the year while we are working out the new property and travelling back and forth between here and there. So, a very productive weekend, and it looks like some more rain coming our way this week, which will be great for the gardens.

Exhausted......

Very, very tired today.  I spent about 9 hours in the car on the weekend just delivering wedding flowers, not to mention the days of preparation and actual making of the bouquets.  I did 4 weddings this weekend, and the majority of them were wired bouquets which are more labour intensive.  The weather today here has been terrible, we have had torrential rain, and the garage and front verandah was flooded.  I kept the girls home from school today because of the severity of the weather, and figured the roads would be flooded by the end of the day, and I really didn't feel like driving in it or walking Kasey in to school in it.  So I said, stay home girls, and went back to bed for a while :)  I had one of the bouquets from the weekend come back to me today to be preserved, and another one will be coming in tomorrow for preserving. I have been a bit down today, I think from being tired, so hopefully will wake up a bit more refreshed tomorrow and a bit more motivated. I have tried not to take on too much this week, and I have another wedding for Friday, but it's just the one this week, so much more civilised, and being a Friday wedding, will leave the weekend free.  Anyway, here are some of the bouquets from the weekend.

Craft, sports carnival and a little upcoming trip...

I have had a busy couple of days as usual. Yesterday was spent at sewing class for the block of the month class on my back on the farm quilt. I spent the whole day tracing out the designs to be appliqued on to the individual blocks.  Now have to cut all the little pieces out, attach them to the different fabrics and cut those out, and then glue and sew to the blocks, still a bit of work, but definitely getting there. Last night I finished off a pair of crocheted fingerless gloves that I started the night before. They are really quick to crochet up, and this is my first wearable crocheted item I have made, and I am quite proud of it. They are really warm as well.

Kasey had her very first school sports day today. It was really nice sitting down to watch all of the littlies trying their hardest.  Kasey ran a 50 metre race. She had fun..

I have been to a sewing class again tonight for the evening bag. Tonight we embroidered the front flap of the bag. I left my machine there to have a service while I am away, as I seem to be having some tension troubles, and I don't think it was serviced before I purchased it from the lady who sold it to me, so it isn't going to hurt it. I also need the needle threader replaced, as it has been broken since I bought the machine. The embroidery is coming up really nicely. I have a wedding to do tomorrow, and it is also Toni's year 12 formal, and I am picking Damian up from the airport as well, so a very busy day ahead.  I have started on the few things I could do for the wedding, so it shouldn't take me too long to finish it off tomorrow.Damian is flying in for Toni's formal, and we are going to fly back up to Mackay on Sunday with Kasey and spend a few days driving back down with our new caravan which he has left in accomodation at Mackay. I haven't stayed in our new caravan yet, so I am looking forward to setting that all up, as Damian is likely to have set it up with a man's touch, so I will probably relocate a few things....  :)  I am going to head in to the city tomorrow night and pick the girls up after their formal and drive them back home, so it is about an hour's drive in to the city, so it will be a late night by the time I get home....I am going to need a few days off I think....I am going to make Toni and her friend up a lovely wrist corsage each for them to wear, they have asked me for them and I am happy to make them for the girls, it is lovely that they wish to have some fresh flowers to set off their dresses. I will post some photos of their special day after the event.

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.