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. 

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

perfect sunday

oooh look ~ exercise does pay off!

This is what I found on my early Sunday morning walk!

I was just saying to my pt/brother in-law Dan, as we walked past piles of council clean up rubbish, that I really was NOT going to be picking up and more fantastic junk finds as my house is at capacity but just as those ill fated words fell from my mouth my eyes spotted this orchy crate and good intentions were swiftly kicked to the kerbside. I had to walk another approx 5kms up and down hills with that, although Dan did offer to carry it for me. It was a great workout!

perfect sunday

A quiet day at home is always nice. I've been catching up on jobs around the house. Can I show you my pride and joy... two tomatoes from the tiny tomato plants I was given at Christmas. 

These were my Nan's. I don't use then very often so I took them out of the dark cabinet they were in so
I could at least enjoy looking at them.

This little enamel tin was a score from the lady down the road who had it on her junk pile during the council clean up a couple of weeks ago. You can bet I was all over that in a flash.

My lovely swan found at "Vintage Frills" at Mt Tamborine was a completely practical purchase after all.

Originally Christmas decos but they stay up all year.

Hope you had a relaxed and perfect Sunday!

perfect sunday

 Went for a walk, went to the markets for fruit and veges and finally went to the garden center for some plants and saw these lovely lisianthus. Aren't the colours divine! I brought a pot home as a Valentine's to myself thank you very much. I borrowed the bathroom bin {ikea} for them and put them next to my front door ~ very pretty. All that before 10.30 am! I guess getting up early has it's virtues.
Now I will wait till it's cooler this afternoon before I do any gardening.

This is also happening... from maccas, first coffee in a week and it was pretty amazing !

Have a perfect Sunday!

perfect sunday

Hello, hello!

It's been a busy week for me, I had something on every night and a headache which has lasted pretty much the whole week and I've been so tired... the thought of sitting at the computer for more than 5 minutes has not been appealing or doable.
I also had grand plans of following Lobster and Swan's Matchbox A Day as my creative endeavour for February but yep, wasn't happening this week.
However... this weekend has been a rare, child-free one so I did have some lovely, quiet time to myself!

I spent some time catching up with the matchbox challenge and my brother in-law took me on an excursion to buy my very first whipper snipper! After a quick lesson I am now a proud owner/operator. Fast forward to 2 and three quarters of an hour and two tanks of petrol later and I have a choppily, half trimmed front yard and forearms that are so shaky I can barely type these words.
Not to mention the blisters on my hands. Still ~ I am VERY satisfied, yes sir.

I also happened to fit in a spot of vintage shopping {mostly looking} and coffee with my friend.
I will tell you more about that soon but here are just a few pics.
These ones were taken at Can You Keep a Secret. A whole house full of vintage! Wonderful.

Hope you all had a great weekend too, perfect even.

perfect sunday

Hello!
how was your day?
We braved the morning walk at 6.30 as there were grey skies with no rain but sure enough, a minute in and hello, there's the drizzle. If it hadn't been so warm, I would have hated it but apart from the water streaming into my eyes, I really enjoyed it. Jeremy Fisher would approve.
My friend who's super fit joined us this morning but halfway through, decided to run on ahead and stop in at our local to get a coffee whilst she waited for us to catch up, and then she joined us again for the rest of the walk! What a cheek!
Not a bad idea though, something for me to aim for... not fit enough yet darn it!

Other than that, a stay at home day. Baked weet-bix chocolate slice, had my niece and nephew over for a play and pretty much buried myself in my office to continue with the clean out - it's been all January long but I am getting somewhere... a few sunny pockets of order!

just as I was blogging my day, my sister Louise just popped in with a chocolate cake for me the kids as a thank you! Can never have too much chocolate!

another perfect sunday, hope yours was too!

perfect sunday

I went for my long hilly Sunday walk and took my older son with me.
His Uncle Dan is going to keep us honest for the rest of the year - as he said, "only 40 or so more walks to go and imagine how fit you'll be!"
I am impressed with myself for sticking to it for several weeks now, mostly because I am most definitely NOT a morning person, especially not a 6am Sunday morning person! But it's been great and when Liam joined us today for the first time, he kept up all the way and we kept our speed from the week before - what a champion! Helps when you have got someone to motivate you and be waiting at your front door each week - thanks Dan!

Some beautiful "rain flowers" at Dan's and my sister Louise's house.

Apart from the fitness benefits of our walks - getting up early makes the day really long and I have
been fitting heaps in!
I have finished my "Back Room Reorganise" and took some photos...

One room down and quite a few more to go but it feels great having a proper dining room after being squished into a corner of our lounge. Our back room now has an area to eat and a reading corner. Behind the table is my cupboard holding all of the riffraff such as cleaning stuff, my ironing board and vacum a shelf for all of our board games and puzzles. We've been enjoying family dinners and sitting around fighting over games. I thought I'd better take some pics before the table inevitably becomes buried under homework, sewing, projects, etc over the next week.

Like my free suitcase? Courtesy of The Side Of The Road.

Then there was the last minute grocery shopping to for The Start Of The New School Year...

Who on earth goes to Woolworths on a Sunday afternoon the day before school's back?
Geez, get organised people - it was really crowded and annoying. {okay, that admittedly was me}.
It was gridlock with trolleys fully of school lunch paraphernalia being strategically crammed into queues at the checkouts. It was like a badly played game of tetrus by a lot of harassed looking mothers.
The streets outside the school are going to look like that too tomorrow morning and I just know there
are going to be tons of new parents who don't get the parking system.
{like me ~ again, who got a ticket on my first child's first day of school ~ so mean!}

However, it was worth the trip. I found these ~ BANANA MILKY WAY!

Did some office tidying - it's a "Work In Progress"...

And finally, just because it's been so unusually cool and breezy in the afternoons for this time of year ~ another walk...

Another perfect Sunday. Hope yours was too!