"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole."
-Roger Caras

It was great having my Uncle come visit for a couple of weeks, it meant I got to pretend I had a dog again for a little while. A quiet afternoon in bed with a good book and a good dog is heavenly.

I have spent a good part of today listening to helicopters flying endlessly back and forth overhead.

The flooding that is currently going on to the north of me has weighed pretty heavy on my head for the past couple of days. It's a horrid situation and it looks like it's not going to be improving anytime soon.

I've been gathering my thoughts, maybe I'll be able to write them into something legible sometime in the near future, but for now I'm still a bit shell-shocked, I suppose. Between this and the shooting that happened in Arizona and the endless gray drizzle of rain, I've been stuck in a bit of a rut.

If you are able to help at all to the poor souls in Queensland, I would encourage you to donate to the relief appeal.

One Small Change: January

For my first month of One Small Change, my goal for January is to pay some extra attention to my garden while I have the time. I have been enjoying quite a few surprising successes (as well as a few failures) and my garden is producing nicely right now. I'd like to make it even MORE productive, though, including trying new plants as well as digging in a whole extra veggie bed to fill with yummy things!

I also really want to make sure that I am picking, using and storing what I grow as well; especially with my herbs. In the past I have not been storing as much as I could have and therefore a lot of my plants have gone to "waste".
At the moment this is primarily turning a glut of basil (and I do mean a glut!) into lots of pesto that I have been freezing. I'm sure I'll have lots of tasty pesto-y dishes to enjoy over winter, there's still lots of pesto to make! (and I do love me some pesto. Yum yum yum!)

The one major hitch to my plan at the moment is this endless, heavy rain we've been getting! We're scheduled to get several more days of it yet as well... but I'm hoping soon I'll get a couple of dry days in so I can get this new veggie patch in!

Happy New Year!

It's funny; although on occasion I do miss a snowy "white" Christmas, I can not imagine spending New Years on anything but a steamy, hot summer's day.

It's been a while, hasn't it?
Life got a bit busy the last half of last year; namely I took on a second TAFE course (Bookkeeping) on top of the one I was already doing (Horticulture) as well as the various voluntary and family commitments I take up as often as possible. In general, my presence online was very slim.
That's all done now, I passed both my courses and have even managed to survived the Silly Season that is the last few weeks of the year, and here I am!

It's a new year! Happy 2011 to you all! I hope you all had a very nice New Year and are looking forward to the months to come. I know I am!

I've made a couple of Resolutions for the new year.

1. Get in shape. That's everyone's number 1 isn't it? Well I'm no different. I want to get back into routine exercises as much as I can. Look into a couple classes that are available in my area. I've also signed up to SparkPeople.com and is proving to be interesting and useful (although the nutrition tracker is utterly useless, I don't use it)

2. Wear more skirts. I have them, I even have some nice new ones I found at op shops. So I should wear them more often.

3. Post more blog posts then I did in 2010. I've only signed up for one TAFE course in the coming year (the next Horticulture Certificate, woo!!) So hopefully I should still be able to have free time to feel up to making decent, routine blog posts.

4. Increase my online presence. I have a higher monthly bandwidth for internet now, which is exciting! I now no longer feel so guilty about spending time online and uploading my photos. I want to comment more on the blogs I read and participate more in conversations going on in forums that I read. I know how appreciative I am when someone comments on my posts, so I need to really start going out of my way and commenting in posts that I like!

I'm sure that there will be more, good intentions are always ongoing, right?
It's good to be back.