"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.

The Envelope Project

Meet Me At Mike's is a craft shop in Melbourne. I know about them because of the fantastic blogging done by owner Pip. When I get down to Melbourne, this shop is one of the places I intend to seek out first!

I discovered Pip was holding an Envelope Project calling for people from all over Australia and the world to mail in decorated envelopes to display in her shop window I knew I wanted to participate!
I've been super busy of late (thus the quietness on my end) so a couple of hours break with mindless crafting was exactly what I needed.



This is what I ended up with. Everything came from my stash, in fact most of it was just me using up the rest of bits and pieces I had. A good reminder on why I hang on to all this stuff!

We were encouraged to fill the envelopes with some interesting things; bits of fabric, papercraft things, paper scraps, etc.



Here's what I sent down. Mostly just some leftover scrapbooking stuff I have floating around, a little knit heart and felted rose, that week's grocery shopping list and some really kitchy hankies that were excess in an opshop find.

Simple and oh so satisfying. And the best part about it? Look! A couple of days later and there I am:


A little bit of me hanging up in Melbourne on display. You can see more of the gorgeous submitted envelopes and the whole display on Pip's Flickr Stream.

If you happen to be in Melbourne, go check it out!

Perennial Coriander

This is a new-to-me herb I just happened to come across at one of my local nurseries over the past couple of months. It's a perennial coriander plant(!)
It has very thick, fleshy leaves and very, very spikey margins (almost like a thistle!) But they smell and taste exactly like the more delicate coriander plants!
I love them, because these are so hardy, and they're perennial. Just chop them up finely just like you would regular coriander and cook away!


Hanging out with his more delicate coriander buddy.

Coriander is such a hit or miss for me in terms of growing; they're notoriously difficult though and certainly they don't seem to last very long (I guess my family and I cook with them too much) but this perennial version is really doing fantastic. So well in fact that I bought myself a second one the other week!

Weekend Vacation Part 7: Nambucca

The very last part of our little get-away was a stop in Nambucca.
We had a reservation for lunch at the Jaaning Tree restaurant there. The place is run by chef Clayton Donovon who mum and I had met at the Saltwater/Freshwater Festival earlier this year. He's a fantastic personality and cooks amazing food, specialising in native bush food (he actually sources several of his native fruits from Vally of the Mist!)

We had some time to kill before our reservation though, so we took a little stroll through town.





There's a very fun mosaic running along a bit of the main stretch made from all sorts of recycled materials!









We were walking along the boardwalk beside the river when a woman walking her dog pointed out two creatures swimming against the tide. They were fairly sizeable and sending up bubbles every few seconds. They were a complete mystery! We were walking along with them trying to figure out what they were; they weren't coming up for air, so they couldn't have been dolphins... We guessed maybe turtles but it was a lot of bubbles for turtles and they still weren't coming up for air.
By this time we had come across a fisherman who spotted them as well, he flicked out his line towards them to try and perhaps encourage them up to the surface of the water so we could see; his guess was dugongs(!)
Eventually one of them came close enough to an outcrop I was able to get onto for me to recognise what it was:
A pair of divers! Without a diving buoy!
Jesus; that's stupid. This is an active river-way too with boats; certainly the fisherman was keen to get his hook into one of them.
Note to all divers; SWIM WITH A BUOY!





It was a perfectly delicious way to end a truly remarkable couple of days; a much needed break for both Mum and I between hospital visits and other family activities.