Happy New Year! Thirteen, lucky for some

2012 has been immense. I moved house, began a completely brand spanking, career changing new job as a library assistant and then shortly after, interviewed again and went from a part timer to a full timer. So whilst still unpacking the house I have been trekking up the very steep learning curve that has come with working in a new job and trying to manage my fulltimerness with being a solo parent. Thank goodness my littlest one loves after school care and that my parents are on standby for at least once a week baby sitting. I have considered this a very fortunate year for me. I LOVE my new job and whilst it's sometimes tricky to juggle everything it's not half as stressful as when I was studying full time and working part time a couple of years ago. I am working with some very encouraging and supportive people at my new work who have helped me settle in and held my hand when necessary. Obviously my blog has fallen by the wayside and like my garden, although I love gardening so much, lack of time and energy has seen it become a bit weedy and neglected looking. So time to put some love back in. I hope you will stay tuned and thank you to all of the people who's blogs I have visited in 2012. You inspire and cheer me, no matter what, any time of the day or night, whatever I need, you are there.
Happy 2013!

Brisbane Shines!

The sparkling finale to the 2012 Brisbane Festival lit up the sky over the river and the Spiegel Tent and Lantern Garden at south bank. We were lucky enough to get front row views from the windows of one of the city buildings on George Street. I loved having such a wonderful view and to be apart from the seething mass of the crowd below, however there was that element of being a bit removed and missing the sounds and heat and the smell, the crush, getting spattered with rain, feeling the wave of the explosions beat through you. You know, like watching the mosh pit on T.V instead of being in it - not quite the same effect. Happily, Liam as able to set up his tripod and get some beautiful photos and I wasn't stressing the whole entire time about losing Lukey. Bless him, he turned to me during the fireworks and said in my ear "I love you Mummy". Ain't it the truth, there's something about fireworks that brings us to our knees. If he, in 10 or 15 or 30 years time and whilst watching fireworks says the same thing to someone he loves I will consider my efforts in parenting a job well done. He feels the magic the same as me - thank goodness. And so did everybody else, there were thousands and  tens of thousands of people there. Ahh lovely Brisbane! I will miss all the pink!

Santos City Of Lights - 2012 - wonderful!

the Lantern Garden at Southbank

Riverfire 2012

All of the gorgeous photos were taken by Liam with the guidance of his Grandad. My parents gave him a camera and lens for this 15th birthday recently and Dad has been giving him lessons ever since. I 'm so happy he has really been interested in photography. He found his tripod on the side of the road during council clean-up - that's my boy!

And finally - there were some very special people working on this festival, turning the wheels and pressing the buttons behind the green curtain, it was wonderful! Thank you!

enjoy the present

I just finished this piece for a friend who is giving it to her husband.
It is a favourite quote of theirs set against an image created from a photo taken at their beach house where they have been taking their family for many years. We blew it up to a big 8 x 12 inch print and my friend framed it in a box frame with the addition of a little heart shaped rock. They have a little collection of heart shaped rocks, found on holidays together and placed in a silver dish.
If I could dive into this picture and be right there, with time standing still, I would.

smells like spring

the scent of jonquils, warm air, clover in the grass smelling like honey... hope you too had a
perfect Sunday.

   

              

Hurricane

You wanna hear something Suweeet?

it's this : Hurricane from Ms Mr

The clip is sweet too like a Pop Culture flicker book...  

I love it... free download, domo arigato.

Here ☚

Brisbane Square Farmer's Markets *with pretzels!

Last week I worked in the city and really loved having the Jan Power's Farmer's Markets there all day Wednesday. I bought a pretzel, some macadamia nut brittle, a vietnamese salad, some strawberries. So much goodness! It was packed with people, everything looked delicious and so fresh, the mushrooms being cooked up smelled amazing! Next time I'll try and fit in a round of black jack at the tables too.

op shop findings

A lovely little collection of shops along Ipswich Road at Annerley is just a short skip away from our new home. The boys and I went for a Saturday morning excursion. We had brunch at Groove Cafe which is going to be a new favourite and then checked out the 2nd hand book shop and a wonderful shop full of handmade goodies. We pressed our faces against the glass of the huge aladin's cave of an antique shop and I made plans to return later without the youngest of the boys... and then the op shops, this little strip at Annerley is famous for them. It was fun. I found this lovely vase!        
These are all places I've ventured out to before but it kind of feels different now that they are in my own neighbourhood, do you know what I mean? We are enjoying exploring our new surrounds.

experimental!

Luke went to his friend's birthday party today. It was a very amazing and fantastic science experiment party. I will have more pics up soon but here is a birthday message I made and rolled up into a test tube in lieu of a birthday card. I got the test tubes from Reverse Garbage about a year ago for no particular reason other than you never know when a specimen tube will come in handy...

How cool are these sweets! Like lego bricks! There are more in the range which I found at
David Jones and by coincidence there were other types featured at the party.
Of course, I couldn't go past the packaging.

Thanks for staying tuned and asking for more, moving was a big undertaking for me and I am still unpacking and also, during all that I was applying for a very exciting new job, a big process as well, more to come on that too!

Flo ri-der

I'm gonna lose my mind.... to be more specific, I am about to lose my business, I am so excited in anticipation of Florence and The Machine {gosh almighty, I love her}, playing at River Stage tonight. My fabulous friends managed to get me and my mate Holly free tickets... man we are spoilt and we are feeling the love xxx

thank you,

thank you

 and thank you

to the library!

What a great quote, I love it.

new digs

my new house

it's very unfamiliar, my things look quite un-at-home. We {my friends and family} have made lots of little trips this weekend, filling our cars with boxes and bits and pieces and taking them over.

My new house is only a suburb away from the old one. So we are now in Tarragindi, it's very pretty and leafy. There's a park at the end of our street and a bowls club just around the corner! 

I am discovering all of the little characteristics of our new home, such as this faux lux laminate {pictured below - you will notice it} in the handwashing room. Despite the bathroom being tiny there is a very generously sized room next to the WC with a basin in it and that's about it . I'm calling it a mudroom from here on in because I've always wanted one. I am sure it will be handy for dumping stuff in, school bags etc, so exotic!  

A removalist will come on Tuesday to bring all the big stuff and that will be our first night. 

My back hurts and I think my brain is hurting too! So much still ahead but I am looking forward to setting everything up and making it look pretty, that's the fun part, pity there's so much blah, blah blah to go through to get there.

candy!

We went to Sunnybank Hills shopping centre on the weekend. My sister Catherine organised for Liam to go to a Manga workshop at the library because that is the kind of thing he is very much into and afterwards we did a teency bit of shopping at the Asian Supermarket. We probably only make it there a couple of times a year and it's a bit of a treat because there is so much cool stuff!
I like just about everything because of the packaging, I really could spend hours looking at it all.
Mostly today I bought sweets and tea, Liam bought noodles, condiments and he loves the drinks, he got some Calpis this time.

These White Rabbit candy taste a bit like Milkos,

beautiful packaging.

These are brown sugar caramels and are divine and this little box is my favourite. 

 If you like ginger, these are the best ginger candy ever! sweet and hot! 

Once again the packaging is an equal part of the enjoyment for me.

There are about a gazillion Asian grocery shops in Sunnybank, Brisbane.
My boys love going there and nothing's too expensive, our little excursion was a sweet end to our school holidays. Today the boys are back and I am packing boxes as we have a new home to move into at the end of the week. Man it's been a stressful couple of weeks trying to find a place to rent. I know moving house is a pretty foul job but I feel like the hardest bit is over and I can just get on with it now that everything is set in place. Wish me luck!

Easter Printables

Well, I had some grand plans to make some new fabulous easter printables for you this year but I am completely and utterly not all over it... however, did you know you can still download my Easter tags from last year? They are still just as cute so if you would like and are needing something of the sort, 

hop to it!

They are free, please share the link!

To download click here  ☛ Suburbansider's free Easter Tag download

p.s I keep writing "eater" instead of "Easter"... chocolate on the brain much? terrible

a sort of homecoming

no two for tuesday today... I have been giving my attention over the last couple of weeks to my impending move and it's pretty much all I can think about. My sister and her husband spent this weekend moving house too and we all helped. I am dropping in to her house early tomorrow morning before work to say goodbye for the last time. My heart will break just a little, so many happy memories, it was a big part of my life. I am taking heaps of photos back at mine before I pack everything away. I didn't want to move in at first but I have grown to love this place, it's been good to us too. I have owned 1 house and lived in about 13 since I was 21... that's a little over 15 years. It's has been good because I've travelled a lot and had some really different experiences but I'm a tad over moving now. I need to take more pictures of the little details because they are the parts that I miss the most.