Happy Mother's Day Ladies

Hope you have all had a happy day if you are celebrating Mother's Day today.

My day was quiet and restful. It started with breakfast in bed {pancakes made by Liam} and I received some sweet presents from the boys. Liam and I had coffee and cake at the Cottage Garden Nursery and Antique Center earlier in the week and I found another puppy to add to our menagerie. We called him Bob after a little terrier who is the hero of one of Agatha Christie's books "Dumb Witness".
Little Luke chose this chocolate rose from his school Mother's Day stall.

My sisters and I celebrated our Mother earlier last week before she went on an overseas trip with Dad. She is at the moment visiting Denmark with the added purpose of doing some family history research into her danish ancestors. Mum has been methodically collecting information into our family history for over ten years including scanning hundreds of slides and ancient photographs. It will be a treasure for us all in years to come. I am eagerly looking forward to Dad's photos when they get back. Of course I miss them already. Mum is one of the biggest players in what makes my life work! She does a lot for me and my boys.

I would also like to mention all of my friends who are mothers - you all work so hard and always inspire me. You are the village around me it takes to raise a child. We all have truly had some difficult moments yet I am proud to say we all know how to laugh our arses off, have a good time, find as much joy as possible from the roles we chose and still somehow manage to hold on to what makes us the unique people we are. Our hearts have all grown bigger in the process and we always find a bit of extra room in our homes and lives for the people who need us.

And "Mummy Bloggers" this includes YOU! You are an extension of my friends and family. You are there all day and night with your stories, photos {pretty and messy} and are always a comfort.
I hope you all get how much value you are. Mums need people around them, people on their team. Doesn't matter where you get it from.

Brisbane writer Rebecca Sparrow has written a fantastic post on her blog called: Why I won't read "Mummy Blogs". You gotta read it. It's important. Maybe you feel sometimes, like me, like you don't have enough time to do all the things you need to do, want to do and why am I even wasting time writing this blog? Well, you HAVE to make time for things that you want, things that are important to you or you will go crazy, your brain will shrivel up like the dried apricots you are throwing in your kid's lunch boxes. People like me really value visiting your blogs - so thank you and thank you Rebecca Sparrow.

Finally, here are some vintage mummies for you to read about ~ Mrs Miniver, who is lovely and 

E.M. Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady, who is quite hilarious. If you like English fiction set in wartime, then you will like these. As a Mother, you will be able to relate to their antics no matter how removed from your 2013 lives, I swear. I particularly like the covers of both of these books, Mrs Miniver dating from, according to the dedication in the front page, 1941 and The Diary of a Provincial Lady, a modern copy done in vintage style by Cath Kidston. 

I heart Paddington!

My sister and I went to Paddington, {a gorgeous inner city suburb of Brisbane, in this instance, for those of you who don't know} to buy birthday and Mother's Day presents for our Mum!
We also did manage to fit in a spot of afternoon tea at Monty's Chocolates. I love a visit to Paddington but what made it extra special this time was this...

Look what I found!
I love the person who trims their hedge into a heart. I'd like to see more!

Perfect, if slightly damp, Sunday

Poor old Brisbane and in fact much of Queensland has been drenched! It continued to be torrential all day and the wind has thrown it's two cents in as well. I have never heard it actually whistle and howl so loudly before! Every window and door in my house is rattling and the branches of the trees next to the house are rapping on the windows in a very agitated way.
We've got sideways rain and the water-catchments and nearby creeks are looking scarily full. The house is damp, my pile of laundry grows unrelentingly larger but from the sounds of things I could be a lot worse off, other people have lost power and are watching waters rise across their backyards. People in northern cities of Queensland are facing hurricanes. Hopefully it will be nothing like the floods of this time two years ago...

Little "Bow Tie Killer" is keeping watch for me

We barricaded ourselves in and admittedly it was good to have the excuse to relax and catch up on some reading {of the blog and books-from-the-library variety}. Of course I did have a pile of back to school books to cover awaiting me on the dinning table but I just gave those an occasional cold stare and otherwise ignored them for today. Tomorrow!

a couple of the new collection of zakka books from the library - I love them!

I did lots of other things to prep us all for the back to school performance that will begin on
Tuesday morning - or may not... I have heard a rumor school may not open because of the weather
{I don't believe it though}. Either way I have clean socks, ironed uniforms, frozen sandwiches
{thanks Michelle and Ben for the hot tip} and bags and lunchboxes ready to go!

It was so dark inside the house today. The lamp light cast some pretty shadows.

And in much happier news... "The Jungle Giants" came in at number 83 with their song "She's A Riot" in the Triple J Hottest 100 2012!! And no wonder, they have been working their butts off, playing heaps of gigs and festivals, making radio appearances,  touring with some amazing bands and just being so brilliant and fun to watch live. I love their music!

I was super happy and have never been so tensely awaiting the countdown. My friend Cesira who is their amazing and beautiful guitarist was so excited. They have produced two Eps and are now recording their first album which I can't wait for. Here are some links to two of their latest filmclips if you'd like to hear and see more. 

"She's A Riot" and one of my absolute faves "You've Got Something"

coming to you from dampened circumstances but not spirits, Ains xx

It's Australia Day!

Happy Australia Day!
It's a bit of an outrage the rain is coming down in buckets on our barbecues across Brisbane today but I'm just happy to have a precious day off work to spend time with my boys.
Obviously we're going to be celebrating that Australia is the best country in the world, I should know, I've been to cities that never close down...
We'll still be having that barbecue with my fam, I'll be listening to Triple J's Hottest 100, I'll be very excited if my favourite Brisbane band, The Jungle Giants make an appearance with this song.
We won't be going to the cockroach races or meat pie eating contests at our local pub {although I do think it's important to occasionally embrace your inner bogan}.

What will you be doing??

Photos from our trip to the Brisbane bayside suburb of Wynnum last weekend - one of the boys and my favourite places.

Have a great day!

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!

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.