Neighbourly

We really won the lottery with our neighbour, A. He's a lovely guy, very friendly and gregarious. The best part is, he is super handy. He's basically got a life membership at Bunnings, and has done all sorts of amazing things to his house. We regularly commiserate over the strange things we find leftover from the previous owners (who owned the whole property then re-divided it into semis when they sold). Strange wiring, weird not-quite-legit things...but between the two of us we're putting things to rights and making two lovely spaces. He's always very proud of things he's done around the place and will tell me in great detail; I think his boyfriend isn't that interested in the detail so A's glad to have a willing audience in me.

My backyard cabin is going in next week (hurrah!) and I needed to cut some of the old timber railing away and move some plants. I asked if I could borrow A's chainsaw and muscles; he came over with his chainsaw and his boyfriend (I guess he's the muscle) and they spent a few hours replanting raphis palms and cutting down anything I asked them to and doing a much better job than I would have on my own. I gave him a bottle of wine to say thanks, but I don't think he expected anything. It's quite something.

I told him over the fence today that we're getting the driveway resurfaced in a few weeks too.

"What about the retaining wall?" he asked. He's been talking about building us a retaining wall in the front yard with the leftover railway sleepers from the deck he took up in his backyard. "You'll have to do that before the driveway. Well...how about this weekend? I've got some time. We can come over and...you'll need rapid set cement and these long bolts...why don't I just get them from Bunnings for you and you can pay me back?" A quick chat with his boyfriend and they're all set to come over and...build me a retaining wall.

But the thing is - he's going to China for work on Sunday for a month! So this is their last few days together and he's willing to come over and do stuff in my yard. I don't quite know how to repay him. He says he loves doing landscaping and gets a lot of pleasure out of it. But I'm still so grateful for his generosity. And muscles.

Fun stuff!

It's all been doom and gloom around here for so long, it's time to break the mood. Well I'm feeling a lot more calm and in control and while I'm not bounding around with energy, everything feels manageable again. So hurrah for that!

In the midst of all the depression, some cool things happened but I didn't write about them because I couldn't get excited about it. Which is really sucky, because the things are lovely things!

The catalyst for all this is money. I don't think I have a love of money in the way the Bible warns against, but the truth is it is a useful tool that allows you to do stuff. Mum and I talked about it, and prayed that we would have the right persepctive about it, and decided we would apply to refinance our mortgage and borrow a little bit more so we could do a few things around the place. I prayed that God would help me be content with whatever the decision was, whether yay or nay.

Our excellent mortgage broker, Paul, was not too optimistic and was very careful to try not to get our hopes up. But as with when he got us the original mortgage, everything just fell into place and all was approved quickly and with no fuss. It was quite something. So people if you need a mortgage or anything mortgage related, get in touch with Paul, he knows his stuff.

So now here are the amazing things I get to do:

Cabin in the corner of glory land my backyard
I've held this dream since we moved here two and a half years ago, to build a little studio type cabin in the backyard, to be a place where I could do work/creative stuff and not be doing everything from the clutter of my bedroom. We have a long block and it's got lots of trees right down the back, which we don't want to get rid of (they screen quite nicely from the neighbours). But the yard isn't used that well for all the space we have. There's a deck right in the middle, and a little courtyard.

So now we have some money, I'm going to build a little cabin on the deck. I did a bit of research but the one I kept coming back to was from Cabin Kits Galore. Made of wood, quick to assemble, under 20m2 so don't need council approval (it's considered a shed at that size) and reasonably affordable.

So very soon, I'll be set up in something a bit like this, to sew and work and do massages in:

Speaking of massages, I was also able to buy a new table which will be a bit over 2m long so my taller friends won't be hanging off the end of the table. On track to finish my Certificate IV by the end of the year!

Bathroom

And once the cabin is in with its little ensuite bathroom, we will make some changes to the house's bathroom. We have a stupid little bath that I try valiantly to relax in, but it's too short even for me. We're going to see if we can reorient things in our tiny bathroom to fit a longer bath under the window and a walk in shower, instead of the shower over the bath (which mum is worried she won't be able to manage climbing into forever). But if that won't fit, we'll just do a walk in shower and fix up the walls and window sills which are starting to show water damage issues.

Big Hearted Business Bali retreat
I was excited to hear about the BHB retreat in Ubud and applied for it, not knowing how I'd pay for it, but thought it was worth a go. It sounded like something that would be a proper holiday and also nourishing and fun at the same time (as opposed to travelling somewhere and just looking at touristy stuff). It was limited to 20 places, and they were going to be specially selected to try and create a harmonious group of people that would get the most out of the week. Unfortunately I didn't get in.

But a little while later I got an exciting phone call from Lisa at the BHB office - they had had so many applications they decided to run a second retreat in November. And because I was on the original short list, they wanted to offer me a place! Hurrah! And then we got the refinance and so I could pay for it! Double hurrah!

So I'm going to Bali in November. With Clare Bowditch, Pip Lincolne, Jesse Neave and 19 other excellent people. We're going to relax, drink coconuts, swim, have massages, do yoga, and learn/do a whole bunch of creative stuff for a week. Oh I am so looking forward to it.

This is where I'll be - at the beautiful Villa Gaia

It is so exciting! I know we're in debt to the bank, but my thought is you've got to pay someone, whether it's a landlord or a bank. I'd rather pay the bank and be able to do things to make our living space how we need it to be, and for it to be useful and welcoming for people. And to be able to go on a fun trip is just the icing on the cake.

Greenish thumb

I love being out in the garden! I don't always have success with growing things but the willingness is there. At the moment our garden is exploding with gorgeous growth, and sitting outside just drinking in the green and the sunlight is quite delicious.

I didn't really have my act together last spring to plant vegies. Well, I planted some tomatoes and basil but nothing else really. This year I'm a bit more organised. I joined the Diggers Club a while ago, which has marvellous and interesting heirloom plants, seeds and trees, and lots of advice. It took me a while to actually decide what I wanted to order from them, because I could spend an absolute fortune on setting up a garden, quite happily.

I tried to raise seedlings from seed and that hasn't really gone so well; I think the initial spot I had my seedling trays was too hot and the seed raising mix dried out too quickly. A shady spot on the ground next to the laundry door seems to be working well. I'm also trying to propagate some French lavender from our happy lavender bush. Apparently it's easy...but easy to some is not always easy to everyone! There are also some daisy plants that our lovely next door neighbour propagated and gave to me (most of them died but three have survived!).

Seeds and cuttings, passionfruit, lime tree

I planted some Diggers potatoes in one of the empty half wine barrels the previous owners left, and they're taking off. Our citrus trees seem pretty happy too, and the cripps pink and granny smith apple trees I also got from Diggers are finally starting to look like more than twigs in dirt.

Cripps Pink apple tree, tub o' zucchini, minty gardenia type thing that I've forgotten the name of

Yesterday I bought a bunch more seedlings (from Bunnings...though I was delighted to find they stock Diggers tomato seedlings) to kick start the vegie growing. So I'm doing zucchini, four kinds of tomato, spinach and basil. There are carrot and capsicum seeds attempting to sprout; hopefully they do!

Herb barrel, potato barrel, cat grass (no barrel)

There's also a passionfruit vine and a grape vine that will hopefully bear some delicious bounty. Though apparently the local possums have thwarted our neighbour's attempts to get his passionfruit going.

The cat is not especially interested in any of it except for her cat grass, which she picks over and nibbles like a true connoisseur.

moving auto-style

I know it matters little, but I've moved back to blogger. I just got fed up with my wordpress site getting hacked and not understanding or caring enough to keep on top of things. My move back wasn't entirely painless - I've lost all my comments and photos. There was probably a better way to fix it but as I said, care factor = very low. I fixed the photos on the first few posts so that it doesn't look completely rubbish  and I'll get around to the rest sometime. I'll put my craft posts up here too rather than keeping a separate site for that, because although I had some plans for the other site, I just don't have the energy to do anything with it.

I hate feeling inept about web stuff, but I have to accept that it is not a bad thing to use the tools that make life easier, instead of trying to control and modify everything! It's a bit like driving an auto versus a manual...yeah, it might give you more control and whatever driving a manual, but really, the auto gets me where I need to go with a lot less stress.

Hatter's Hope: sparkle

Hello! Happy period-between-Christmas-and-New-Year! This time is always a bit of a blur for me; I never remember what day it is, I rarely do anything before midday, I have trifle for breakfast every morning...in short, it's proper holiday time!

It also means I have time to post - I meant to do this last week but it got sucked into the Christmas vortex.

The current challenge over at Hatter's Hope is sparkle (why don't you give it a go?). For this one I got out my embossing powders, which I haven't used for a while. So I thought I'd show you how I use them!

These are my embossing powders. I've got sparkly ones, black ones, and metallic ones. The black powder is best used with stamping rubber stamps on an embossing ink pad; the finished result gives you raised lines you can colour inside and a shiny outline to your image. The metallic ones are good for outlines, or having solid blocks of gold or silver. The glitter ones are good for things like this sparkle challenge!

So first of all I coloured up Sammi's Fairy Set. The digi has her fairies, LilyRose and Charlotte Rose, in two sizes, so I did the bigger ones in foresty greens and purples, and the little one in a red dress - like a forest berry perhaps?

Then I coloured in their wings and the little one's red dress with the clear embossing ink. I have a pen for this purpose - looks a little Copic-like with the double ends. I wondered whether the ink would change the colours of the Copics I'd used, but it didn't change too drastically.

You only need a tiny amount of powder to cover the image, but it's hard to be precise. So the best way of doing it is to pour the powder over the whole image, then tip the excess onto a card and pour it back into the container. I've used these powders a lot in the past and haven't had to buy refills yet - they go a long way! Once I've shaken the excess off, I brush over the parts of the image I don't want to be embossed with a small, soft paintbrush, just to loosen any stray particles and give the embossed bits a clean edge.

Lastly, you heat up the paper to melt the powder, which sticks it onto the page and gives it a shiny finish. You can use any heat source that won't burn the paper; I used to use a toaster to heat it from underneath, which was quite effective. I do have this heat tool, which blows very hot air but a bit more directed than a hair dryer. You have to be careful if using something like a hair dryer, that the powder doesn't come unstuck and blow off the page. That would leave you with a very blotchy result.

And this is how they look after their heat setting!

Much less messy than using glitter and glue, as the glitter doesn't fall off once it's been heat set.

Then I put the card together, with the fairies sitting in a tree, daydreaming. I used some cloud stickers and sentiment from a kikki.K sticker book. Now I have it sitting on my bookshelf and I feel quite pleased when I see it as I come down the hall to my room!

Hatters Hope: the Magical Tree

There's a new release at Hatter's Hope, inspired by Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree! These were definitely my favourites of her books...I didn't really like the Famous Five or the Secret Seven or the Egregious Eight (okay I made that last one up). But The Magic Faraway Tree was somewhere I wanted to go, with its silly folk and yummy-sounding snacks and the amazing places it led to.

Sammi obviously loved those books too! Her range of stamps include the Silk Fairy, Pan Man, Mr Moonhead and assorted fairies and mushrooms. I chose the Silk Fairy with her long, golden hair to colour - mainly because she has the snacks! I decided to colour her in a bright, storybook style.

Unfortunately when I was putting the card together, I was very tired after a long week of work and carols and busyness. I just couldn't get it to look how I wanted. I wanted to do a kind of woodland-feeling card but of course hadn't used the right colours for that, the birds washi tape didn't look strong enough, and the oak leaves I punched out with my hole punch looked a bit messy and so I started pulling it apart and...well, the card actually no longer exists in this form anymore. It has been reduced to its component parts and awaits a time when I have a bit more creative energy!

PS. I came across this 2006 article talking about the 'sanitising' of Blyton's books. I agree with the article's author: "it is all palpable madness".

mi casa

It's been a week of home improvements, of the expensive kind. But it's been largely successful, so I feel some spruiking is required.

A bit of background - our house used to be one whole dwelling, which was used as an accounting firm/home/teddy bear making facility (don't ask). There was ducted air conditioning, an alarm system, a quite extensive sprinkler network throughout the big landscaped backyard and front yard, and backyard lights. When they couldn't sell the whole dwelling, they decided to turn it into semis and just put a line down the middle. So they blocked off the air conditioning, cut off the alarm, and took all the vital operating bits (such as pumps and connectors) to the sprinkler system. Andy's side (926) has the controls for air con and the alarm. Our side just has the dud vents and blinky alarm detectors that go on and off but do nothing.

We decided to get air conditioning installed and it seemed to make sense to use the vents/ducts that were already there. It took a while to organise the money to do it, but this week I got the chaps from J&J Metro West (whose office is right next to ours in Rydalmere) to come and install a new Daikin system (they ended up replacing the ducting but used the existing vents). They were really friendly, professional and well-priced - I'd happily recommend them to anyone.

Of course, since we had the system installed, the weather has been rather cool (much like how when you get the car washed it invariably rains). So I feel that has been our service to all of you living in Sydney: installing air conditioning has brought a cool change, rendering the air conditioning unnecessary. You are welcome.

I also had someone from Magnetite come in and quote to retrofit double glazing in the bedrooms, to cut the traffic noise down. But it's unlikely to be installed til January, so I will let you know how that goes (I am SO looking forward to that happening).



The last thing I had done was to do an all-out offensive strike against the ant armies that are encroaching upon our domicile. The place had been fumigated before we moved in, and we even had the dude come back under warranty because there seemed to be more ants than were normal, but he wasn't really much help.

Mum tried spraying, laying ant baits, putting down ant rid, ant sand, magic ant chalk (given to her by someone at work and, as it turns out, illegal in the US)...anything with ant in the title really. But after an initial cull, they would just cut a path around whatever measures we had taken, scoffing and laughing at our puny attempts. She has been getting increasingly stressed about the ants, their cunning and their evil. I had to point out that ants didn't really operate under any sort of moral compass, but she didn't want to have a bar of it.

The day they invaded the kitchen cupboards was the last straw. Although they did not breach our impenetrable Tupperware line of defence, they were everywhere and it was kind of gross, really. 

I didn't really know who to call, so I just did some googling. Nationwide Pest Control's site impressed me, mainly because it was well-laid out, provided the relevant information (ie, what the service entailed and how much it would cost), and allowed me to book online. I got a call the next day confirming the appointment, and a call on the day to say the guy was on his way.

He was friendly, confident, took care of business and seemed to know his stuff. I made a point of telling him what I thought about the website, because I think positive feedback ought to be passed on, and he seemed very proud of the whole business. He reckons after a month of the ants carrying poison back to the nest and gradually dying out, we should be relatively ant free for at least a year, if not longer. Hurrah!

When I mentioned mum's ant paranoia to the pest controller he said "yeah I'm pretty sure we're not at the top of the food chain, we just exist to serve the ants." Which of course reminds me of this:

http://youtu.be/eKbFb6TPVEA

But not for another year at least! Mwa ha ha!

Hatter's Hope challenge: Bring on the bling

Here's Poppy! And as if I needed a challenge to use bling on a card. The sentiments and the snowflake paper are from a book of papers by Kaisercraft.

I think Poppy is my favourite of the Hatter's Hope Christmas gang. She has such a sweet face!

Why not join the challenge over at Hatter's Hope? You could win the very first rubber stamp produced by HH!

Hatter's Hope

So I've mentioned her a few times; Sammi is one of my (few?) readers and a close friend. As well as being the boss lady at Mad for Markers, tonight marks the launch of Sammi's own range of stamps under the label Hatter's Hope. Her drawings are whimsical and sweet (a bit like their creator) and are manga- and/or storybook-inspired. I also like that she has some more Australian-themed Christmas designs!

Congratulations Sammi! I'm really proud of you!

If you're a papercrafter, be sure to pop over to Hatter's Hope, join in the regular challenges using HH stamps (the first challenge kicks off tomorrow), and buy an image or two!

The light

Here's another Kaylee from Some Odd Girl, this time a digi (digital 'stamp' = an image you print off yourself on a printer, rather than a physical stamp you'd stamp with ink) called Bright Lights Kaylee.

I think I like her with blue hair the best (maybe because I coloured the blue better than the pink!).

I used some of the excellent washi tape I got recently at the Papercraft Festival at Penrith when I went in to help Sammi on the Mad for Markers stand. We were right across from the Papercraft Hub stand, and they one whole 'wall' of their stand was just rolls of washi tape (a kind of Japanese paper tape) in all kinds of patterns. The temptation proved too much!

I love the informal yet sweet look washi tape gives to cards (I remember first seeing washi tape in Pentimento Bookshop in Newtown years ago, and coveting it desperately but thinking "when would I ever use that? I really can't justify buying it just because it looks pretty." It was quite expensive too, but now it's far more common and much cheaper and I need less and less justification to buy pretty things!)

I printed out an appropriate Bible verse to stick on - Jesus is the light that came into the world at Christmastime (and of course it's also a lame pun because, well, fairy lights). I don't like a lot of the 'sentiment' stamps that are around at Christmas, mainly because they're so bland and generic. As a Christian I love to celebrate Jesus' birth so I am pleased to take the opportunity to say more than 'Merry Christmas' or (worse) 'happy holidays'!

 

PS - hopefully it doesn't seem too condescending if I occasionally explain a term...it's easy to just use jargon and forget that not everyone will know what things like digis and washi tape are. I mainly am aware of this because that's how I feel whenever I start exploring a new craft and I'm too scared to ask questions!

It took me SO long to feel familiar with crochet patterns, for example, and I was always thinking I was doing everything wrong. But eventually I realised that even if the way I did it wasn't 'right', it was still getting good results! Starting to get back into paper craft has been a bit of an eye opener, because there are a lot more commonly available tools and different techniques around than when I used to run Christmas card making workshops at church...I suppose the images I made up and printed out to use were digis, but I didn’t know that’s what they were called!

I think we get hung up on right and wrong ways of doing things and forget about the joy of just making stuff! A lady at the Papercraft Festival was watching one of the girls colouring and said wistfully, "I used to love colouring in with my son when he was little. We had so much fun! But I'm so not artistic, I could never do anything like this." I said, "Artistic has nothing to do with it! If you enjoy it, that's one of the biggest reasons for doing it!" That's advice I would do well to heed myself sometimes...

 

Organisation is a beautiful thing

Thank you to Virginia for dropping over my new Copic wallet. No more rummaging in a box for my pens and never being able to find the right colour! (the rummaging worked okay when I only had a few markers, but as one gets deeper into a craft, all the surrounding paraphernalia starts to make sense...)

Not quite perfect...

Another Tree Trimming Kaylee card, but this time with purple hair. Purple and red is one of my favourite combos!

[side note, I have often wished I had purple hair but have been put off by the thought that I would have to peroxide it first. Why regular toxic hair dye isn't a problem for me, I don't know. But I have visions of my peroxided hair becoming straw-like and crumbling to dust and I don't think I could rock the bald look AT ALL.]

This card didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, but hey I'm not just going to post the stuff here that makes me look like I know what I'm doing. Full crafting transparency, people! I also wanted to show how just a different colour palette can transform an image; I keep forgetting this is the same stamp as the one on the last card.

The coloured baubles (a Kaisercraft clear stamp that I can't find anywhere to link to online so it must be out of 'print') are fine, but I wanted to echo their shape in the background by stamping with red ink onto the red card. As you can see, that didn't quite come out as clearly or as elegantly as I might have liked! I might try it again sometime, but I'll practice first.

But still, there's something about this card that pleases me. Must be the purple hair.

Merry and bright

I love, love, love sticking things on cards. Wait. Let me be more specific. I really like stick on gems and pearly things, which I guess are collectively referred to as bling (even though I never really liked that word...not really sure why...but I guess I have to learn to love it, it seems to be here to stay!). I found these really cheap red and green pearls at a Hot Dollar store - the reason they're cheap is because the adhesive is terrible and comes off all over the backing paper. But no matter. I still got them to stick.

I also bought a giant pack of coloured card at Costco (that's a good tongue warmer upper...try saying it several times fast if you need to do some public speaking) so I've been enjoying cutting card sizes that aren't 'standard'. This is a long narrow one that stands on its end, opening up rather than out. And I cut the edge with my crinkly scissors that I think I've only used one other time ever. What a wise purchase that one was.

But the star is, of course, is Some Odd Girl's Tree Trimming Kaylee stamp, coloured with my trusty Copics. I really like Some Odd Girl's style - the characters always look so cheerful! (Although a male friend thought Kaylee was holding a bomb...I think the wire at the top of the bauble looks like a wick because it was too hard to cut around and I thought I was using my 0.2 multiliner to redraw it but it turned out to be the 1.0. Whoops!)

May your days be merry and bright!

Colour

I've always loved coloured pencils, pens, crayons, pastels, mainly how they look all lined up. The possibility of what someone could do with all those colours.

So I was very excited when my lovely friend Sammi set up her store, Mad For Markers. A close source of colour goodness! Mad For Markers came out of Sammi's love for Copic markers, an alcohol-based, refillable marker from Japan that allows you to do a lot of fun stuff with blending and shading that you can't do with normal markers.

 

[caption id="attachment_128" align="aligncenter" width="491"] Me and Sam at a recent event our church, Wild St, was part of (we were colouring Christmas tags and, er, wearing silly hats)[/caption]

I coloured my comics for Kinds of Blue (Labyrinthine and Eating the Blues) with Copics, but I'd only just started playing with them and wasn't very artful in the way I used them. Looking at the pages now I wish I could do them again, but they're out there now, and c'est la vie. I just need to draw some more comics to give me a chance to do a better job, I guess!

I decided this year I would make a whole stash of Christmas cards to get some good use out of my markers, and to encourage me to do more little creative things. I'm still working on a crochet project, but it takes me longer to finish those. The nice thing about colouring and cards is I can finish something I'm reasonably happy with in a short time. Sense of accomplishment, hurrah!

Here's one I made for mum's birthday in October:



I'll be putting up Christmas ones in the next few days, to engender a sense of Christmassy spirit, despite it only being November (when you intend to make things to give at Christmas, you have to start early!).

our house

Well hey, it's the middle of the night and I can't sleep. Not even drowsy. Wide wiiiiide wide awake.

So why not write?

We've been in our little South Hurstville house for about a month. Man, that went fast! There is still a pile of mouldering cardboard boxes outside that the removalists promised to pick up and never did. But aside from that, the boxes are unpacked, pictures are hung and most things have a place.

It's a marvellous house, really, and it immediately felt like home. The first couple of nights I was a bit frustrated by the road noise when trying to sleep, but now I hardly notice it (I had little choice but to get used to it once I investigated the cost of double glazing the windows!). Right now, it's completely silent, which is nice.

Mum graciously gave me the larger room, because I had so much STUFF, despite weeks of culling before we moved. The wardrobe I was going to use broke in the move, so after a mad dash to IKEA with Lachy I got a brand new one and put it together with help from Amelia. I haven't quite worked out the best way of storing all the craft and Tupperware stuff but it does fit. Mum has reached frustration point with her bedroom so I think another trip to IKEA is on the cards in the near future.

The garden is going to be a constant source of joy and toil, I think. The back third of the yard is a total rainforest, save for the little path winding its way through the spider webs and ferns. The previous owners had owned three houses in a row and landscaped the backyard as one big yard, so the vision has been somewhat truncated by needing to divide the yard back into three separate blocks. Even so, I love our little wilderness. I've done a few hours each week and it's starting to look useable again. I even have a garden elf (aka Virginia) helping me on occasion - in fact she did a masterful job of clearing a very enthusiastic jasmine plant on our first day in. When I get another burst of energy, I'm going to start growing vegies again, as I have missed the excitement of watching things grow (and then eating them...mwa ha ha).

True, it isn't perfect, and we're still getting used to the area. There is a bit of an ant problem (I discovered a comprehensive ant nest inside a curtain rail this morning, which was most unpleasant). Most of the windows don't open thanks to a careless painter. But they are really very small things. We're living in our own house! It's marvellous!

planted

[gallery link="file" columns="4"]

Yesterday I finally won my battle with a bed base.  In an effort to recycle and save lots of money and have a neat looking garden bed, I had kept an old bed base from a bed we'd had since we lived in Singapore, and thought it would be easy to rip it apart and turn it into a garden bed.  Well, some of it was easy.  But those things are surprisingly well-made!  I just couldn't get the springs out from the base, as they'd been nailed and stapled in very firmly.  In the end I just took to it with a hammer and whatever brute force I had and pulled it apart. [insert Amazonian roar here]

And so I replanned my existing garden beds, extended them a bit and laid some more no-dig garden beds.  So you can see in the pics, there are already some mature plants alongside the seedlings.  We've already got maturing spinach, leeks, red onions, spring onions, parsley, broccoli and rhubarb.  I planted tomatoes, basil, capsicum, zucchini and eggplant.  Doesn't that sound like a delicious salad?

spring from our garden

In case it's also rainy and cold where you are, thought I'd share with you the spring flowers from our garden. Hooray for growing things! That's a very heavy daffodil (it's dirty because it was slumped onto the ground from the weight of last night's rain), a different coloured daffodil and a little pink sweet pea poking out.

Enjoy!

elsewhere

I have been missing France lately. I really enjoyed it when I was there in April - possibly because I was striking out on my own, I had arranged it all myself, I was being entirely independent and seeing what I wanted to see, and experiencing the joy of new things. I got to catch up with beloved friends. I wandered around and enjoyed exploring. I ate well. I stayed in lovely places. I revelled in the beauty, in the otherness of the surrounds. I delighted in the sound of that beautiful language.

Sometimes I wish I was there still, but I have to keep remembering that if I lived there, eventually I would catch up to myself. I'd still have to work through the issues that I'm working through, and life wouldn't be like it was on holidays because, well, it wouldn't be holidays anymore.

At the same time, I've been feeling so grateful for our house and the level of comfort mum and I enjoy, living here. It's so strange feeling at home somewhere, but feeling restless, like maybe you belong somewhere else at the same time. I think that's part of the Christian thing as well, that we live on this Earth for a time, but we really do belong somewhere else. This isn't our home. Maybe that's why it feels so hard to be here sometimes.

But in the meantime, I have to keep thanking God for little joys. And maybe I'll go and watch Amelie again...

Saturday morning...who's gonna play with me?

cornucopia

I know I've said before how excited I am to be growing my own food, but now things are starting to ripen in abundance I'm upgrading from excited to thrilled.

Many tomatoes are ripening on our vines, and once I have a good swag of them I'm going to make some tomato pasta sauce. I haven't gotten fed up with the zucchini yet, even though most growers seem to find the things take over and they can't get rid of them fast enough. Of course this might be because I've been picking them before they're very big, and we only have two plants.

Next to come: beans and mushrooms!