a tour around my house

today im showing off my kitchen...clean and tidy...but that didnt last long..u know lunch and dinner to be made..:) this is our art hanging wall. the piece of wood was covered in wadding, and then material. i screwed in 6 or 7 small bulldog clips along the bottom and then daniel put it up for me. we change the things up here each week after lilly has been at preschool usually. atm its a mixture of preschool stuff and home stuff. i love this part of our house. its the newer section, and i especially love the exposed brick walls.

our kitchen. not much to do in here. we would like to change the bench tops eventually to granite. its amazing that my kitchen is clean and tidy in this photo but it still seems to look messy!, we have a very lived in house thats for sure. all the slate is heated for winter...hmmmm nice

and the view from our sink back towards the back of the house. we have a little glassed in sun room off the back which is lovely to sit in, the kids enjoy playing there too. nice place to a wine and a chat with dan when he gets home. the kitchen opens out onto it by bifold doors which is nice.

heres my diary swap. thankyou daisymum7 it is just so pretty i love it. im going to collect information in it this coming year about our garden, rain fall and what grew well where when and how. i also recieved a lovely teapot cosy which will get used come winter as we have taken a liking to drinking green tea (im allergic to black tea, it tastes like tin to me) and a coffee plunger warmer. which will also get wrapped around the plunger during winter. thankyou daisymum7 its all so lovely. daisymum7 and i are also doing a swap. im swapping her a few cards (which i have ready to post to u on monday) and she sent me her lovely and so cute hobby horse heads for my girls for christmas. i will share later when they r all together.

arh our potatos in the bins. they r doing well. actually growing like wild flower. we hope they keep going, there is room for one last hilling up of soil and then we will let them do their potato growing business. we have no idea what we r doing i will point out and r learning as we go. lots of finger crossing going on hehe

last a zucchini flower. woohoo and i see other buds on all the plants. woohoo. success at the moment anyway hehe.

i havent scrapbooked inthe longest time, months, but im itching to get in my room tonight and scrap! i so dont have time to scrap with all the things i have to do for my kids for christmas, but im sure i will get it done in time...:)

so tomorrow i hope to come back with at least a page to share. ooer and some of the things i have made my kids so far to stuff stockings with. with lovely night time flash photography! seeing as i have tokeep it all hidden..:)


lastely im thinking of my dear friend sally right now, going through a bit with her youngest and the hospital. sending cowper all the good get well vibes we can find sal.

family fun day

we have gained permission to have emily at the park and in the softfall again woohoo...in fact it was encouraged, all that holding on and climbing! we found a great park in ballarat that reminds me of kidsspace at chermside and it was great for emily, steps and stairs to the slides so she could easily handle the climbing part without to much effort. how cute r they going down that slide together.
miss em...best photo i have had of her in an age!!! no smile but...everytime i asked her to smile she would say the word but not smile lol
this one is always smiles a plenty....and here she is just being her...i love this pic best one i got all day and i only had one chance to get it too.



hmm what else...i got some strawberries to make a patch with...and a green seedless grape vine to grow over an arch way too...and we r still looking at ways and products to build the veg patch out of...anyone got any good EASY ways to do that?? dan wants to use bricks eventually but its sort of a long term plan and one that we will do bit by bit. we dont want treated pine for the veg beds...so then its dollars...dont know still looking. the granny smith apple has blossoms on it...but only time will tell what will happen with that.
13 days until we move
6 until we start moving some of the smaller things up there
woohoo!!!!

cooking, growing and cuteness

well i think these r lettuce...coz i think they will be...but still waiting to work it out lol
beans, snowpeas, corns and a few other things today. will have to wait on identification there. the beans and snowpeas and the corns will be on potted tomorrow to get a bit stronger, and may come out of the green house too. and then in the ground in 22 days or something like that
cucumbers here, pumpkin and 2 tomatos r up today too.
also have some lettuce that i know is lettuce, and basil another cucumber and pumpkin in the other reseeded seeds. looks like i will have pumpkin and cucumber coming out of my ears!

how cute r these two, walking hand in hand through the wild flowers in our backyard. would u believe its only been 2 weeks since dan mowed! would of done it the other day but it rained one day and then his next day off we were in ballarat for emily. this week i HOPE
ooer YUM!!! cinnamon scrolls
this was super easy to do
i found the recipe here
http://eatmeblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/day-39-cinnamon-scrolls.html

A SWAP

i would love to organise a swap

this is what i have in mind. a 2008 diary swap.

i was looking at diarys the other day, the cheapy shop ones for just a few dollars and thinking of using my remembered sewing skills to making something nice for 2009. and then thought what a great swap.

so this is what i propose.

if your interested email me djon7593@bigpond.net.au

this is what u have to do:

email and join in before the 15 october. if we have enough people i will send out partner details by the 20th.

swaps will be due in the mail by the 30th november

your swap will need

to have a diary no smaller than 10cm by 5 cm as a guide, be covered in a quilted top, or altered with paper. make sure that its going to last for the year. then add in a few things to spoil your partner with.

thats it

im also thinking of organising a secret santa type swap, email if your interested in something like that too

all is not lost

in the seeds i thought i would lose
we have and counting
edited to add
2 strong beans
1 strong snow pea
2 strong sweet corns
plus 5 little little green things that i cant work out what they r just at this point. i will let u know!
2 cucumbers
1 butternut pumpkin

this weekend i will pop the beans, snowpea and one of the corn in a pot of their own! So they continue to grow well, getting ready for my new garden bed...in 25 days! not that im counting much

heh
yes i sleep
not well and usually very late...sleep has sort of been missing for me since emilys accident, i dont know if its going to get any better any time soon. but thats ok its just the way it is for now.

im still learning (learning as im doing really) on the garden front. i have read about lots of things to try on some sustainable living blogs that live organically for helping with pests and fertilzer etc that we will be trying and i bought an organic gardener book too
here r the blogs i visit usually daily
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/
http://crazy-mumma.blogspot.com/
i use the links these ladies have to get about and look in sustainable world.
all the blogs i get lead to from these too are a wealth of information on all sorts of things from the garden to the budget and craft and cooking and canning lol..i could go on and dont forget soulemama too...link in side bar

gardener...its still questionable lol

im trying...or its very trying...or maybe its got something to do with my keen as mustard helpers lol
our of our lovely trays of toilet paper rolls we now have two beans and a snow pea.
but the others oh the poor others...some got tipped out of their lovely homes and r all in a tray together...and im hoping for the best to see what we get out of that mess.

much more reading happened and we decided that with the weather here atm that we needed a green house. we r having some very lovely spring days and then days like today and you would swear we were back in august again. not good for plants and seeds at all!!

enter a trip to the nursery today where we both lusted after top of the mill green houses for our new house in a few short weeks, but what to do until we could afford that.?? next a trip to bunnings...oh bunnings, u can never find what your after and come out with a million other things dont u!!!

Not today woohoo. i came home with this. a portable green house that is already doing its job...:) i popped in the hopeful seeds plus the ones we have up, and egg carton we moved to next as an option but we get our eggs from people and we reuse the cartons so i didnt have a heap of them available. so i ended up splashing out on real seedling trays to try as well. i have reseeded all the ones im not sure we r going to get plus some other things including pop corn! and hopefully this time we have more success.

the top shelf has my snow pea and two beans, plus the hopeful ones that were helped alot and some other bits
the second shelf has my reseeded everything for the garden
and finally on the bottom i have carrots, but they were also helped alot and im now not sure where the carrots will come up in the tub...oh well lol

It was market weekend the weekend just gone. its right at the back of the house we currently live in, nice and easy for a stroll. the nursery came this month and i came home with our first citrus tree. an orange. it will be planted at the end of the month, when we move! i also came home with our first every homemade tomato sauce...YUMMO do yourself a favour try it...i tried just a little as tomatos and me r not best friends at all...but the kids love it so i will be making some with our tomato crop!
today we finally made it into ballarat to a nursery. we came home with a lemon tree, granny smith apple and a pink lady apple to put in our new house. i cant wait to see them grow! and then fruit! we also came home with a mushroom box...i have no idea how or even if its organic but we liked the idea so r giving it a go...its currently a box of dirt but in a few weeks i will share some pics of mushrooms i hope!