Flashback Friday

Music theme today, and my photos are still in storage so instead I'm posting a photo of my sister dancing at a primary school concert around 1985. Lucky for me she doesn't know about my blog otherwise I'd be dead for posting this picture of her :)


I believe the leotard may even be Koala Blue, go Olivia.

My routine

At the moment this is my life...


Bake, Sleep, Work, Australian Idol, Bake, Sleep, Work, Australian Idol etc etc


At least the Australian Idol is back to 2 days per week next week, I might get more done. I will have to start getting more done soon because we have the first meeting with the draftsman to start working on our house (yay) and my house scrapbook has been feeling neglected.

Australian Idol

Australian Idol is on every night this week. Any losers? Only blogging, no posting time now!

Happy with Matt and Jacob going through, don't know which of the girls I like though, maybe Cheray and Natalie.

Sad, but true. I love it.

I made the spiced apple muffins for the shop again, but I had a texas muffin tin this time so they look a little better than the last time I made them.

The trip

We survived the road trip! 2 days in the car and only about 400 songs on the ipod :( I was hoping we'd get through more than that. Some good sing-a-long moments though which is the main thing, especially to some daggy 80s and 90s hits, yay 1927, how I loved Eric.Our original plan was to spend 3 days driving up, take it a bit slowly and visit the Bison factory outlet in Canberra and Peppergreen in Berrima on the way for some shopping goodness. Unfortunately for us we ended up having to do the trip in 2 days so Canberra and Bison had to take a rain check. We did make it to Berrima by about 3pm on the first day though so we had some time to look around Peppergreen. I had never heard of this place until I got InsideOut magazine's Shopping Secrets handbook. It's a big shed full of antique kitchen items, fabrics, quilts and other linens.. there is soooo much stuff to look through. I was looking for a couple of things to have in the cafe but in the end I got too overwhelmed and ran out of time so I didn't buy anything other than a couple of old cookbooks and 2 old tablespoons for me to cook with.



We had lots of fun on the drive up, stopping to take photos (lots of them on flickr) and visiting second hand and antique shops, looking for a country style table for the cafe. G had a new toy to play with as well, so we was happy - we bought him a little satellite navigator so he can get around Brissie without losing his way, meet Tim the tomtom (we perhaps spent a little bit too much time in a confined space with just ourselves and Tim for amusement).



So that's it, now to the business of making ourselves a new life up here :) G started his new job today and I'm back at the cafe, so this is it now.

It's raining!

Finally we've had some decent rain today in Brissie. It's been raining since lunch time and is still going strong, nothing better than a rainy Sunday afternoon. We had a nice roast dinner for lunch with raspberry and apple pot pies for desert so the rain and cooler weather was a nice match. The roast is pork fillet with green apple and marjoram stuffing wrapped in pancetta - from a Donna Hay magazine a few issues back. It's really flavoursome and because it's a pork fillet it only takes about 20 minutes to cook, which is good for someone as unorganised as me.

Raspberry and apple pot pies, just add a little scoop of vanilla ice-cream on top.


I haven't written anything about our house for awhile (because nothing is happening with it - we still don't see a draftsman for a few weeks) but I have been keeping my eye out for bits and pieces that I like to add to our scrap book and I saw this picture at the paint shop a couple of days ago. We don't really know what colours we want on the exterior because most that we see we don't really like for our house, but I think I like this combination.


I also did a bit of shopping this weekend, very bad of me . I'm not sure the going from two salaries to one real one has really sunk in for me yet. I bought this dress, which I love.. and it's from K-mart! I couldn't believe it. I love the fabric. I think I'm going to cut it off shorter though and wear it as a top.


I also bought a new pair of shoes, I used to have a major shoe habit but I have been getting a lot better over the past 18 months (they should have rehab for that). These ones were cute and practical though, so that's too good to pass up.


And it's bonus time for Clinique and I needed some new cleanser and look how pretty the bonus cosmetic bag is.


Shopping urge taken care of :) Now I just need to not going anywhere near shops again for awhile.

G's mum has been spoiling us lately, we got a fantastic package in the mail from Chile from her... comic books for G (because he's never grown up) and a great cookbook full of Chilean recipes for me, now I just need G to translate a few of them for me.


I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow to pick up G so I'll be back in a few days after the road trip!.

Flashback Friday

Or Saturday in my case. I'm really not good with deadlines.

I'm breaking another rule today, I think this photo is actually from 1986 but I thought it might be close enough.

The theme for this week is group photos so this is my family, the whole lot of them - aunts and uncles, cousins etc. It's Christmas Day and we're all lined up outside the front of my Grandpa's house at the beach. I'm on the right hand side in the yellow skirt and crop top - an outfit made by my mum, it was cool at the time or at least I thought so. Another bad haircut for me too. Actually there's a lot of bad 80sness going on in this photo.


Growing up we spent all of our christmas holidays at the beach, usually with at least half of our cousins. We all still have Christmas dinner together even now, except now we're an even bigger group because there are new husbands and wives and kids to add into the mix.

Disappointing

We drove around the countryside today for hours only to find second hand stores closed on a Wednesday or full of junk. In some little towns we couldn't find any second hand stores - that's just not right! We didn't buy a single thing.

On the other hand our catering went well, I think. We had to do lunch, just some sandwiches and stuff for a business meeting. Along with our toasted pides and bagels (which I didn't get a chance to take photos of because we were running out of time) we made a platter of little sweet things - mini caramel tarts, passionfruit tarts and flourless chocolate cakes, these went down really well.



I've also booked my flight to pick G up from Melbourne. I am looking forward to the trip back down to say hi to everyone and then the road trip back up. Most of all though I'm looking forward to G being up here, until then it still just kinda feels like I'm on holidays and not quite permanent.

Passing time

I've been in Brisbane now for 4 weeks now, I can't believe how quickly time has passed. I'm heading back to Melbourne next week to pick up G who is just finishing up at this job in Melbourne on Wednesday. We'll be driving back up so I'll be away most of the week. This means Road Trip, so I need to start work on some road trip playlists on the Ipod, any suggestions? I need some new music I'm getting bored. Road trips are the best fun, I'm planning on making him stop at lots of junk and antique shops on the way up. I'm on the look out for some furniture for the cafe and some pretty little cake plates. The shop is shut tomorrow for a public holiday so mum and I are going for a bit of a drive to see what we can find around Brissie. We have our first official catering job at lunch time though so we'll only have the afternoon to shop.

Renovations have started, slowly at the shop. I started painting last Sunday. We can't wait to cover up the blue that is on all our cornices at the moment. I only got a couple of walls finished though so there is a fair bit of work ahead of us. We've also started to make some of the arrangements to make our little takeaway shop more of a cafe - I think we've now sorted out our coffee machine and supplier so now we just have to work out when to get that all installed. I can't wait for that to happen!



What else have I been up to... we went to the Brisbane show or Exhibition on the weekend (or the Ekka as we call it up here). Bought all the obligatory show bags and sat in the grand stands waiting for the fireworks watching the horse and cart races etc. Didn't get to see any sheep dog trials or wood chopping competitions this year though which was a bit sad :) Here's a couple of happy snaps, there are a few more over on flickr.





I've been bad and bought more fabric. I had to call in to Spotlight to get some black and white felt to finish Miss Charlie and I ended up getting a couple of extra bits and pieces, so naughty of me! But they were just to good to pass up. I better start making some things out of all these bits and pieces I've been buying.





In my weekend shopping frenzy I also bought some more cupcake papers, another thing I really don't need any more of, but they're Donna Hay ones and I love them and on the weekend that was a good enough reason to buy them. I think I need to have a party or some friends around for high tea so I can use some of them.


I can sleep in tomorrow, yay! No 7am start for me.

I heart stationery

I love pretty paper to the point that it is pathetic. I buy bits of wrapping paper just because it's pretty even if I don't have anything that I really need to do with it. When I got married a couple of years ago, the invitations were sooo much more important to me than my dress and I got a couple of extra invitations printed so I could make sure I had one to keep.

Anyway, I particularly love customised stationery and I love that because of the internet you can order it and it isn't too expensive. One of the places I like is Fabulous Stationery. I got invitations for my mum's 50th from them last year. They have a couple of new designs now... I like these ones...

Unfortunately I don't have any special events coming up any time soon so I don't think I need any invitations.

Another stationery designer I love is the Australian company, Poppies for Grace. I also bought some of their stuff for my mum's 50th, we had lolly bags on the tables for people to take home with them, they were so cute!


Oh and I love Iomoi too. I bought my family KK a personalised paperweight from them last Christmas. You have to love international shipping.

Finally... Miss Charlie

I bought the pattern to make Miss Buttons back in June from Meet me at Mikes and this weekend was seriously the first chance I have had to try it out. I think she is too cute. She is for my new niece(ish), Zoe who is 1 month old.



And she was easy enough to make while having a cup of tea and some caramel slice :) Perfect Sunday afternoon ingredients - sewing and slice.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I've finished it, poor little Harry all grown up. I'm a little sad there will be no more.

I liked it, I think it was a good way to end the series. I must admit though I did get a little bored at the bit in the bank, but that could be because I was reading that bit when I was really tired and I'd read about 2 pages and then fall asleep so it took awhile :)

Flashback Friday

I thought I was being so organised, working out what stuff I could put in storage for 12 months while we build our house and working out what needed to be kept out.

I realised last night that I've packed all my photo albums up into storage so my pickings for Flashback Friday are slim! And I was so upset because I'd thought of the perfect photo for this Friday, since it's meant to be fancy dress day. When I was in year 1 at school we had a book day where we had to dress up as a character from a book and who knows why but at the time my favourite book was about granny smith and how she grew her apples, so I dressed up as granny smith, with tonnes of talcum powder in my hair to make it go grey, very messy. This is all sadly for no point though as all the photos of it are in my photo album, in a storage unit under lots of other boxes and furniture :(

I did find this photo though in my mum and dad's stuff. I'm the one in the red t-shirt next to my mum. This one must be right at the start of 1985 when my second little brother was born. I always had bad haircuts!


Thanks to everyone that has left comments on my blog lately, it's a bit exciting to get them and they're all so nice!

Being slack

I've been bad lately with my blog. I've been meaning to blog since last Friday when I scanned my photo for Flashback Friday and I still haven't made it. Not good. I've also been slack keeping up with friends and family in Melbourne so I have to get myself into gear!

I have been having fun up here though - working lots at the shop, catching up with old friends and family and spending a bit too much time reading Harry Potter (which could have something to do with the lack of blogging). G is joining me here finally in a couple of weeks so I've been getting all of our stuff organised too - he'll have to start his new job pretty much as soon as he gets here so I wanted to have everything pretty sorted so he doesn't have to stress about that.

Mum and I also did some catering for a wedding and hosted a garden club at the cafe for morning tea before a lecture they were having at the nursery next door to us so we've been busy busy in the kitchen. So busy I forgot to take photos! I do have a couple of little bits though - some carrot cake and very rich and yummy chocolate cookies, we call them chocolate goodness cookies (they're especially good if you microwave them for about 10 seconds before you eat one so the big chocolate chunks inside go a bit gooey, yummo!



I also made some lamb, feta and pinenut filos for the shop and this side salad to go with them. It was so warm here last week that salad was better for lunch than soup.


I made myself a milkshake at the shop today, just to make sure I knew what I was doing. We even have the proper ye olde paper cups for them. Next time I need to add more flavour though. It's probably not a good idea to admit that my milkshakes need work though!


Hopefully there'll be more tomorrow!

Presents

I have a bad habit of buying myself present when anything *big* happens to me. I also have a special talent of making 1 event worth about 4 or 5 presents.... for example, moving to Brisbane is currently up to 3 presents.

Here's how:

New wallet - a present to myself for quitting my job


Big stash of cute fabrics - a present to myself for leaving Melbourne (a sad event therefore worth lots of fabric) (bad photo sorry!)


And my latest, a present for starting a cafe - I love cooking t-shirt from Genki. I actually haven't bought this yet, but I'm just about to order one for me and one for my mum. I think they'd be a good uniform for the cafe.


Yay for justification I say.

On another note - we had peach cobbler after dinner tonight. Yummo.