Art for Heart's Sake

The Last Day of 2010

Hi there, well it's here at last - the last day of a very unsettled year for many, whether it be for personal reasons, natural disasters or other outside forces.  I, for one, am happy to see the end of 2010 and am looking forward to 2011.  Today I will take some time to reflect on the past year and look at my hopes and dreams for the coming year.  Right, enough of that serious stuff, smiles!

Yesterday we did grocery shopping and also had a look around some market stalls which was fun.  We got cheap cherries and blueberries - yum!  The rest of the day was spent helping my neighbour and cutting back the foliage on our black grape.  Wow it is laden with grape bunches this year, as is our seedless green variety.  I will take some photos soon.

Oh one thing that happened while we were away, there was a gale force sw wind that caused one of our eucalyptus trees to hit the deck (giggle, sorry new zealand for hitting the ground - not our deck!) and at the moment John is using his chainsaw to saw it up.  We've been here for over six years and this is the first tree that has fallen down.  I'm hoping it is not a sign of things to come as we have oodles of these trees.  Luckily the predominant wind blows the trees away from the house.  Crikey!

Tonight we are out to dinner and then to a new year's eve party and possibly on to another one in our road as well.  Hmmm will I be able to stay awake??  I'm not very good with late nights at the best of times.  Right I'd better get outside as it is going to be a very hot day.  I need to make truffles to take tonight too.  Big smiles...

Great Therapy!

Hi everyone, wow it's almost the end of 2010 and around this time I always find myself reflecting on the past year.  This year has certainly had many ups and downs, mainly because of the uncertainty around John's job.  We found out in February that changes were definite, but it took until late October/early November for John to be told his finishing date.  This DEFINITELY made for a stressful year as we were constantly toing and froing about the future.  As this year comes to a close at least we can look ahead to 2011 with a little more certainty and that brings me to our next challenge - THE PUPPY! Giggle.. crikey we must be mad.  Our wee lad, Chester, is absolutely gorgeous.  He will arrive by plane around 17 Jan.  Here's the first of MANY photographs.  Chester is the largest of the litter and yes is rather roly poly - he was the first born and hogged the milk supply apparently.   He is 8 weeks old.

We sat with 12 puppies frolicking around us and at one stage John had five attached to a stick, they were just too cute.

Yesterday I started cutting back some perennials and pulling out things left right and centre.  I can tell I am going to get around 20+ wheelbarrow loads of debris out of the perennial border.  I didn't get terribly far but it looks better already!  This morning we are off to a local market day so I'm hoping to get into the garden this afternoon.  The weather is hot and sunny so I need to garden in the shade where I can.

I hope you are not too cold in the northern hemisphere.  We have been seeing news reports of major snow in all sorts of places.  I find weather absolutely fascinating (always have) so I watch weather patterns with a lot of interest.  Big hugs and smiles for your day/night..  

 

Oodles of Weeding to be done!

Hi there everyone, well I have a confession...  ermmm we went away for 8 days so my last 8 posts were written before we went!  I hope you don't mind, I wanted to keep my blog going while we were away (I had no computer access) so I blogged ahead...  Could you let me know if you could tell?  Did I sound odd?  Giggle

We were up in the North Island at my mum's house (she's 83).  I really wanted to give her a traditional christmas dinner as she hasn't had one for a few years (in terms of roast turkey etc).  We left two days earlier than we intended because a darling friend's husband died and we wanted to go to his funeral last Tuesday which was in Wellington (capital city of NZ on the bottom of the North Island).  On Wednesday we drove 4 hours to New Plymouth.  All in all quite a lot of travelling for me. 

I adored cooking Christmas dinner and it was such fun.  I'll post some photos as soon as they are loaded onto the computer.  Needless to say on our return home the lawns are hugely long and there are weeds EVERYWHERE!  I am going to spend as much time as I can in the next week or so, in the middle of my perennial border cutting back perennials and throwing weeds over my shoulders.  Speaking of which I'd better get out there!  Oh we also saw our gorgeous puppy for the first time and he is absolutely adorable to say the least!  Pics soon too.  Hugs and smiles..

Settling Down At Last!

Hi there, phew things are starting to settle down at last.  I will be back in the swing of growing more sweet basil and a few other herbs for Mapua Country Trading in the next few days which will be great.  I also need to give some tender loving care to my trillium collection.  Over the past year my collection has suffered a bit and unfortunately I know some of my treasures have died.  I feel very bad so am determined to give the ones that are surviving a different pot (or a spot in the garden) so they can thrive!  I hope they forgive me!

I was going to upload a photo of our pet thrush' babies that was sitting on our verandah recently, but I can't get it to load for some reason.  I'll do it as soon as I can.  Hugs and smiles... do you have a New Year's resolution yet??

 

A Photo of an Anniversary Gift Tag

Hi there, I've been meaning to post this photo since our 4th anniversary on 2 December.  Here it is!  I promise my posts will get longer really soon.  It's taking a while to settle down after Christmas!  Smiles...

 

Boxing Day (here in NZ)

Hi everyone, I hope you had the most amazing Christmas Day with family and friends.  In our household boxing day is a day for reflecting on how much we shouldn't have eaten the day before and sometimes going on a picnic.  I love left over turkey and one of my favourite things to do is a cold turkey salad, YUM!

However you spend your day or if you are still enjoying Christmas Day, have a good one.  Smiles..

Today I Only Have Two Words...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Love to all with hugs and smiles (hhmmm that was 9 words, giggle). 

It's Christmas Eve!

Oh how I love Christmas Eve!!  I remember as a child the excitement I felt right from the moment I woke up in the morning.  I still get that feeling now, at the great age (giggle) of 48!  I love the anticipation or christmas morning.  

When I was growing up we always spent christmas eve quite quietly, mainly because we were all members of our anglican church choir so it meant a very long night ahead.  I can remember Mum putting us to bed at around 7pm, hoping we might catch a few zzzzz's before we left for the service at about 11pm - but NO.  I distinctly remember being far too excited!  These days I don't attend church much at all (I respect everyone's religious beliefs totally though) but I LOVE midnight service and christmas for me just wouldn't be the same without it.  I can't wait...  big smiles and hugs.  How do you spend Christmas Eve?

Two Days to Go!!

Hi, I hope all of your arrangements are going really smoothly for your christmas celebrations with family and/or friends.  It's such a busy time of year!

To get back to my favourite christmas goodies, I wanted to share one I'm not very fussed on.  I love rich, dark Christmas cakes but cannot STAND glace cherries or mixed peel!  I adore real cherries and citrus fruit but just can't stomach the candied sort.  When I make my cake I use my mother's traditional recipe but I just use plump dark raisins, currants and really good quality sultanas.  We don't tend to eat a lot of fruit cake in our house so last year I froze one half of my cake and I'm going to take it out of the freezer this week.  The other thing I struggle with is marzipan and white icing on festive cakes - I find it too sweet.  SOOOOOO I make brandy butter icing and slather it on my cakes, sometimes topping it with beautiful edible glitter.  Rich and decadent yes, but gorgeous!  Hmmm will be working hard at the gym from early next year again I fear!  I MISS ZUMBA!!  Smiles...

Favourite Christmas Goodies??

Hi there, happy Wednesday the 22nd.  What are your favourite Christmas goodies?  Is there something you simply couldn't live without at this time of year?  A special childhood memory maybe?

I adore Christmas fruit mince pies.  Our family tradition was Dad and Mum would make the fruit mince pies together about a week before christmas day.  Dad used a prepared very good brand of fruit mince (no longer available, sob, sob, sob) and would add a good slug of Drambuie and some lemon juice to it.  This gave the mince a wonderful zing and cut through some of the richness while giving a hint of alcohol!  Mum used to roll out the pastry and line the tins and then Dad would fill them, with Mum following along behind putting the tops on and crimping them etc.  It's a great memory and I used to love watching them do it.  I haven't made fruit mince pies this year because my Mum is making some and hers are always nicer than mine.  

More on this tomorrow..  Smiles..