Recipe Holder

As you would have guessed, blogging has taken a back seat at the moment, due to my Dad's illness. We still haven't got M&D into a care facility yet, (but it's getting closer), so they have been staying with one of my sisters and our family has been their carers, making sure they have someone with them every day, taking them on outings or having visitors over and just being there for them. We are fortunate there are 6 of us girls and partners, so we are all juggling the caring, work, family life etc.
It has been a lovely time though, of having quality time with M&D and catching up with aunty's, uncles and their friends.

I thought I would share with you though this picture that came through on email yesterday as it's a classic and so practical. A recipe holder!  Why didn't I think of that!

 

When I was down in Adelaide the other week I took M&D out to Newman's Nursery at Tea Tree Gully for lunch. It was a lovely sunny day and after lunch we wandered around the nursery. It's so picturesque. The photo below shows their amazing magnolia trees, and Mum was beatifully colour coded amongst them!!

I didn't catch Dad with a smile, but he did enjoy the outing :)

My Dad :(

My blogging has taken a back seat of late, as my Dad got diagnosed a few weeks back with a brain tumor, along with a kidney and lung tumors. Dad is 87 and has had a very healthy, fulfilling life, with lots of friends and family that love him dearly.

The tumor is a primary one and very aggressive and not treatable, so we probably only have a very limited time left with him. He, however is in very good spirits and unbelievably isn't in any pain as yet. He is still quite alert, but is starting to get very confused with things and his memory isn't good. He has been told to expect the right side of his body to become quite weak.

Up until his diagnosis, Mum and Dad were independently living in a Retirement Village with Dad being Mum's carer as Mum has mild Alzheimers, but our family is now caring for them and going through the process of getting them into assisted care etc. His drivers licence has also been taken from him now after 70 odd years of incident free driving!

 The above photo was taken at my party back in early July. It is Mum and Dad with some of their family.

It has been an emotionally sad time, but we have all spent quite a lot of time with them lately, taking them to visit some of their family and friends etc and just being there for them.

A new blogger and bits and pieces!

Some of you may be familiar with Jo from Vintage Lane Stitches, who is one of my best friends and a creative person. One of her daughters Hannah has joined her on the blog and is posting some of the items she is making. Hannah is a very talented and creative person too, who loves stitching and sewing. Please go and visit their blog and welcome Hannah into blogland.

Above: These are the backpacks Jo and Hannah from
Vintage Lane Stitches made for the Sydney Quilt  and Craft Fair

I wasn't sure what to blog about, so looked on my camera to see what I had taken over the past couple of weeks. Below is our 2 beautiful 'grand dogs' who belong to our sons. 'Cooper' is the chocolate brown one and 'Marshall' is the black one. They come visiting and stay over quite often. They are beautiful dogs and in the picture they are sitting waiting for a special treat. The white board in the background is their shelter with their bed in it where they sleep if they stay over.

 

We have had a new coffee shop open within one of our beautiful homewares shop 'LaVilla' in Loxton. I had a coffee there with a friend last Saturday morning and it was lovely. Lots of yummy sweet treats to go with coffee as well as light lunches are available.

Have you ever cooked beetroot? I have always bought the tinned variety and had it cold with salad, but I decided to give cooking them a go. I just peeled and roasted them. You are meant to wear gloves when peeling so your fingers don't go red. I didn't and my fingers did go red but they washed off easily enough. They tasted just like warm beetroot...surprise, surprise!!  Not sure if I liked it enough to do it regularly but at least I've tried it.

One of our sons Daniel and his partner are in the process of building. Here is a shot taken a few weeks back. It has been rendered since then and it is now at lockup stage, but I haven't got photos of that yet. As he is a qualified cabinetmaker he is doing all the cabinetry himself.

It's amazing now a days with technology how fast things can develop online. You will recall the epic arrival of London's Mayor Boris Johnson via a zip wire to an olympic event. People have been creative with the photo of him dangling...take a look at the website dedicated to it http://dangleboris.wordpress.com/   Quite amusing!

 

That's about all from me, hope you enjoy your weekend.

 

My Party!

My last post was telling you about my pending 50th party...well, it's taken me this long to catch up and get back to normal routines after having a great couple of weeks of celebrating!!

The party on the Saturday night went off extremely well, and have had so many comments about what a great time everyone had. From the Thursday prior, some family and friends started arriving from afar, so for a nearly a week our house was the meeting hub for everyone to drop in for meals, coffees and catchups which was awesome.

 

A couple of my nephews helping out in the kitchen!

A few of my great neices enjoying some cake.

We had a few family photos taken just before the party got into the swing of things.

Our boys and their partners giving the photographer a hard time!!

  A bit more sensible here! (They won't like that I've put them on my blog!!)

One of my brother in laws gave a speech. Notice my upside down balloons.
I didn't actually get any good shots of the setup of the room and the table decorations :(
To get the balloons to hang straight down like that you place a marble in the
balloon and it stabilises them so they don't fly around.

In my childhood I must have had a fettish for red shoes, as in many old photos it is ironic how many pairs of red shoes show up on my feet!! David made a point of this in his speech and presented me with a pair of red boots. I do remember my 10th birthday though, when all I wanted was red boots.

As you can see, I got those red boots!  There were many other embarrasing
photos that appeared on a slideshow throughout the night!

Guess which one I am....yes that's right, the one with the red boots!

One of my sisters couldn't be there on the night as she had already booked a ski holiday,
but she sent along a cardboard cutout of herself which was amazing!

For those who have been following my blog for a while, you may remember for my past 2 birthdays, I have received an 'Annette' book from the Walt Disney series that my sister Bronny has happened to find in the Opp Shops. Well, one of my other sisters found another one that she gave to me as part of my birthday present. There is apparently one left to go...the hunt is on!

Not to be outdone though, Bronny happened to find this one for me, and if you read the finer print it says 'Fifty Years of Good Cooking'. I wonder what next year's present will be?

And of course some lovely cards were received.

That about sums up the fun times I've been having lately. 

 

Party planning

I turned the big 5 0 yesterday and now getting excited for a party on the weekend.
Being my own boss I have put myself on semi-holidays this week, so I've been enjoying getting things ready...baking..cleaning...working out my playlist for the dancefloor etc...fun, fun, fun!!

 

 

My birthday invites

I have a special birthday coming up so have decided to have a bit of a party!
As we have quite a lot of family and friends that live away from us I designed some 'Save the Date' cards and sent them out earlier in the year.

I then created some invites to match the 'Save the Date' theme and they went out a few weeks ago. I've blurred out appropriate details. It was fun desigining my own invites.

 

Lovely rural setting

Well, I failed the photoaday challenge, but I did make it to day 15 without a break!

It was one of my sisters birthdays on the weekend and a lunch was organised for Sunday for anyone who could get there so I decided to go down by myself for the weekend.

I stayed with my youngest sister Bronny and had a nice time, just chilling and we watched 'Eat Pray Love' on Saturday night. I hadn't seen it.

Bronny has never been one to make desserts, let alone cakes, so we got out her newly purchased Sunbeam mixer and made a sponge for our sisters birthday on Sunday.
As you can see in the picture she is looking very proud of her/our efforts! I posted this photo on Facebook and we had a few comments asking if it was the cake they made on Masterchef! It wasn't but apparently they made one that looked like ours. It was filled with strawberry jam, whipped cream and strawberries and topped with chocolate/coffee icing.

 

I just looked up what the word was for photoaday and it was 'Fav photo you've ever taken'...that was an easy one.

 Above: We holidayed in Noosa a few years back and travelling to the Eumundi Markets on one of the days we passed this beautiful house. On the way home we stopped so I could get a photo of it as I loved it so much. This was quite a way off the road but I zoomed in as much as I could. If anyone reading this blog knows who owns it, I'd love to go back one day and have a cuppa with them on their verandah!!

I also had the photo enlarged and framed in one of the calendar frames. 

Photoaday...June 14

Today's word...Time

I love this TIME of the day...off with the work clothes and boots and on with the ugg boots and trackies!  Time also to stoke the fire, make tea and take up residence in my recliner with hubby close by to enjoy a cosy night of TV watching, while surfing on my ipad and perhaps picking up the knitting needles.

 

This book arrived in the mail today....it is the second book in the Inn Boonsboro Trilogy. I wasn't expecting it to be available until November, so it was a surprise when a friend told me she had seen it in a shop. You can read an excerpt from it here.

 

Above: This was the first book...I really enjoyed it and it wasn't until I got to the end of it that it mentioned book 2 wouldn't be available until late 2012!!  

Art

Photoaday...June 13

Today's word is Art

One of my sisters goes to an art class and is learning to work with pastels. This was one of her first pieces of work in progress. It turned out really good but I don't have a photo of the finished piece!

 

And the artist herself...my sister Bronny.

Photoaday...June 12

Today's word...From a low angle

I struggled with getting a shot for this day's photo challenge. This was the best I could do. You can see we have a compacted straw roof in our family room...very 70's, but I don't mind it.