Rain

People keep saying that there is a drought here.  Maybe there is but I'm not convinced there should be this much rain in a drought... 

All the rain means a few things 

- our grass is nearly shin high.  

- I spent most of Saturday snuggled on the couch with book four of the Twilight series and some dark chocolate.  Started and finished... (don't forget to check the 'Have Read It" button over on the left for my list of books)

- hot chocolates with marshmallows

- movies

- and a little bit of cabin fever ending in the realisation that if we didn't get out of the house one of us might have to call the ambulance in regret...

So we rugged up in gloves and raincoats to fix things before we broke them more.  A walk along our favourite track led us to discover that the creek was flowing, the leaves were shining and areas were flooding enough to make waterfalls!! Gorgeous!  A quick trip back in the car with camera and tripod at hand made the most of the fading light to capture this picture and document a tiny taste of the beauty of where we live.

I'm loving autumn here!

H is for...

Hannah (having her party last night) & Hillbilly.  We might've missed the party by a few hundred kilometres but we didn't miss the opportunity dress up and have some photo fun! 

 

(This was the birthday girl's card from us)

Maybe here...

Albury Botanic Gardens & Joel

Where do you go to in your head when it's grey outside and you can't seem to be bothered with anything?

Twentyone Today!

Happy 21st Birthday Dearest Hanswy, Bean, Hanrahan, Hanface, Fozzie, Hannah!!

I am so proud to be your big sister.  You are a wonderful young woman - strong, gentle, loving, kind, gracious, hilarious and so much more.  I know that, even though you have to go to classes, you will have a special day because you have so many great friends and family who will make sure you know how much  you are loved.

Be blessed today Hanny. 

Congratulations on turning to 21!

With big, giant, squishy, mooshy love always, 

your sister and friend, 

Rach

xo

Special Project for Baby Sister

I'm fairly sure this little girl isn't old enough to be turning 21 but they tell me she is...  on wednesday this week actually.  She's having a big party on Saturday night and everyone has been asked to dress up in a costume starting with 'H' because, well, it's Hannah's party and that's what she wanted!  

I made the tough decision to save my trip to QLD for later in the year so will miss out on her party but have been able to help her with it by making a slide show of pictures from her life.   I custom made a her a background - including fitting all those h's together - put together nearly 100 photo's of her and sent her a USB full of options to get it to work on any computer of any age!

It's in the mail Han.  thanks for letting me a part of your special event.  Stick around for a special birthday post on the big day!

From Our Garden

And we didn't even plant them ourselves!  Joel is currently outside working on planning out, digging and things ready to put our real vegetable patch in and we found two thriving little cherry tomato plants - cheer!  Hopefully the things we actually plant will do as well as the wild things.

A little bigger

The Puppy Lady promised to send us regular photo's of the puppies to see how they are growing.  When we were there we said how much we loved the all black little boy - the one we were holding in the posts below.  She is the one who decides where the puppies go so I was very excited to just receive this picture of the very same puppy (you can tell because all the others had white chins) a few days older and much more alert.

Why does that make me extra excited?  Because I'm guessing that if she's sending ONLY pictures of the one we loved she has decided WE can be the ones to have him!! Yay!

Still no name but we've got 6 more weeks to agree on that.  Thanks for your suggestions so far - they've been great!  Keep them coming and I promise you'll see as many 'growing puppy' shots as I am sent!

True Story

A cute elderly lady and her husband just stopped in front of our house only 3 metres from where I  was watching them from my perfectly situated vantage point with the screen door open.

She says, in her gorgeous british accent, "Oh, that must be where the Vicar lives."

Surely she heard the loud belch I'd just let out as they stopped?

Maybe I should take down whatever it was that gave our house away??!

2 Weeks Old

We drove for 5 (yes, FIVE) hours today - 2.5 there and back - just to spend half an hour with these gorgeous 2 week old spoodles.  Mum is an american cocker spaniel and dad is a poodle named Jim.   And their babies are adorable!  We will probably be bringing this very one home in 6 weeks time!!!  He's a little boy.  All black.  And needs a name.  If you can drag yourself away from looking at how gorgeous he is suggestions will be considered!

Easter Weekend

Happy Easter!

Easter Eggs: Dyed and covered in parts of the Easter Story by me - with a gracious donation of a disused and now repurposed Bible.

See Mum?

It happens when people point a camera at me too!

Towel Tags

Making my guests feel welcome - and not get their white fluffy towel mixed up with everyone else's white fluffy towels.  

I've been stitching the names of all of our Easter guests onto fabric tape and then stitching the tags onto towels in a way that after each set of visitors is gone the tags can be removed ready for the next tags to go.  Does this mean i have too much time on my hands? Or that I finally have enough time to do all the little things I think of?!  Let's go with that.

What little project do you wish you had time to work on?

Want to see your name on a Towel Tag?  Come and stay the night!

Don't forget to add your vote for the kitchen colour...

Foxmask

This book has got my guts churning and my heart thumping!  I'm 3/4's of the way through it and I desperately want to flick to the end to see what happens.  It's incredibly good story telling!

It's actually the second in the Saga of the LIght Isles by Juliet Marillier.   I didn't actually read the first one but it doesn't really matter because this one is set a generation later and does give the back story anyway.

So Good!  Back to it.

I miss this...

These may be the two worst photo's I will ever post but the point is that I miss these people terribly.  

I miss sitting around in my daggiest (and comfiest!) clothes with them, playing the wii and talking silly talk.  I miss sharing a house with them for the weekend or a week and brushing our teeth at the same time.  I miss seeing that cute and crazy little girl zipping around the place chatting about everything and bossing me around.  I miss the uncontrollable giggles and the eyes rolls we get.  I miss knowing what someone's response will be to a joke I haven't made yet or knowing who will be green when we play a game and who will be offering 'helpful advice'.  I miss having someone around who makes a bigger mess in the kitchen than me and someone who understands that your spouse isn't people.  I miss pooling dinner on any night of the week that we haven't finished talking/laughing/playing/making elephant noises and stories or just because we might be able to get chips out of it.

I miss having someone else's house I know as well as my own.  I miss having someone else who knows me as well as I know myself.  I miss these people.  Everyday, I miss them.

Kitchen Colours

I am still battling it out with colours for our kitchen.   Joel doesn't love the speckledy stuff so today I've been looking through the Laminex and Formica sites for solid colour options.  I've also been starting to think about the floors.   Here's what I've come up with as ideas today:

Vote for your favourite over by my profile or let me know if you think I should mix them up a bit in the comment section (eg - Bench Top B with Tiles A).  I hope the colours look ok on your monitor...!