Saturday

It was a most glorious day today.  It was a sparkling sunshiny day to celebrate and this morning, by the water, was positively exhilarating!

Unfortunately, I had to spend most if the day inside studying ... but I did get to do some reading on the garden swing in the fresh air.

This afternoon, when it got a little warm, we spent the time on the couch watching the football, which was pretty relaxing.

So, with no news to share, I have some facebook quotes instead!

I'm all footballed out, so I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

That's My Team

I'm watching a very exciting game of NRL football between South Sydney Rabbitohs and my team, Brisbane Broncos.

The score is 28-26 to South Sydney with 30 seconds to go.  Ugh!!

Rabbitohs have won.

Some poor refereeing decisions .. especially in that last few minutes .. so there is a little controversy, according to the commentators.

Ah well, you win some, you lose some!

Not much to report for the day.

Oh I sold a photo!

Somebody who bought a photo from my exhibit in 2012, contacted me to ask for a photo of a pelican, so I took all of my pelican photos to their house today, and they selected the one they liked best.

While I was there, I got a shot of a lorikeet in their back garden ..

So, selling a photo .. that's pretty special!

We didn't win anything at the club tonight.

It's 10.30pm and I think I will go to bed and try to rise early for a sunrise.  I've heard that they've been pretty spectacular lately, but I have been sound asleep every time.

Let's see what happens tomorrow!

Nite all.

Late Night Feature

Adoring Husband and I are sitting here watching the movie "Rocky Horror Picture Show".

We've lost count of how many times we've watched this movie.

I think I had watched it at least 50 times before I met AH and we've watched it at least a dozen times in the last ten years.

We had a fancy dress party for AH's 49th birthday and the theme was Rocky Horror.   Everybody dressed up .. AH as Franknfurter.  He started out wearing an overcoat to cover the skimpy costume, but after a few beverages, he soon loosened up and discarded the coat!

It was a great night.

I think we should attempt another Rocky Horror night soon.

I received a very large pink box in the mail today, from the Chicklet family.  It was my birthday gift and when I opened it, this is what I found ..

.. it's to make my desk a happy space to study at :)  I LOVE it!!

Here is my herb garden, created by Adoring Husband for my birthday ..

I still have some herbs, rosemary, thyme and mint, to transfer from the back garden to the pots yet.

Aren't I the lucky one?!

Anyway, back to the movie!

Nite all.

Happy Birthday to Meeeee

LOVED the movie 'The Other Woman' - got some good belly laughs out of that one!

LOVED lunch at Aquavue ...

It's my favourite meal there :)

Tried to buy some clothes but couldn't find anything that I wanted .. don't ya hate that!?

Adoring Husband gave me my birthday present (a rather large hanging herb garden) earlier in the week, and Kaz gave me some delicious looking hand made soap yesterday, but luckily, I got to open a gift this morning .. from my friend Lady Lynn.  I loved the sentiment on the plaque AND the sentiment in her words on the card.

The highlight of the day, was a phone call from my little Chicklet, who sang 'happy birthday' to me, firstly on a voice mail on my mobile, then in a message on my home phone and then she sang it again when I finally answered the phone!  Sooooooooo precious!!

I got lots of birthday greetings on facebook from various friends and family, as well as phone calls from my kids and my little sister.  Texts from other friends.  All in all, a pretty great day!

I squeezed in just a little study this afternoon and now I am ready for bed.

Another birthday done and dusted .. happy to have reached 54 big ones!

Nite all.

Pre-birthday gatherings

I had a really nice day today.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to sleep until after 2am, so it was quite late when I woke and I missed my time at the Seat of Knowledge, but I did make it for morning tea with the girls .. two sessions of morning tea in fact!

This meant that I didn't get home until after 11am, but I hit my workspace immediately and got a few of hours of study in, before we gathered all of our goods and drove to the Lion's Park by the river for a pre-birthday barbecue .. there are a few of us that have birthdays in April/May, but the others won't be in town to celebrate, so we toasted everybody's birthdays this evening.

We were treated, by Mother Nature, to a beautiful sunset that lasted for a long time, with colour changes every ten minutes ...

Now once again, it's after midnight .. let's see if I can fall asleep before 2am!

Nite all.

Recovery

It's been a fairly lazy recovery day after our dinner party last night and the abundant levels of alcohol that passed 'our' lips .. and by 'our', I mean Adoring Husband's lips *insert cheesy grin here*.

I was awake at 8am, but chose to stay in bed, pretend it was Sunday, and enjoyed some idle stacked pillow time!  I didn't get out of bed til 9.30am and that was because Adoring Husband cooked a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, tomato and smoked salmon for me!  What a nice surprise!

After breakfast, I sat outside with my ipad enjoying a take away coffee that he drove to the shops to get for me, before taking on the task of grooming what started out to be two dogs, but ended up being just one dog.  I spent too much time teaching Colli to 'sit' and by the time I'd finished with her, my level of dog grooming enthusiasm had waned sufficiently for me to concede defeat.

I will attempt to groom Ruby tomorrow afternoon.  She shouldn't take too long.

I had a lovely chat on the phone with my little Chicklet and Vegan Chickie this afternoon.  After they tried to phone me on my mobile and then attempted a 'facetime' call on my ipad, neither of which I answered because, as usual, I was blind and deaf to my mobile technology .. they eventually got me on the home phone!

When I answered the phone I heard Chicklet's voice shouting "She answered!  She answered!"

It's time for me to organise another visit.

Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to morning tea with the girls and then a barbecue dinner at the park in the afternoon.

I'm surprisingly lethargic after my lazy recovery day, and I think I will attempt an early night :)  (have you noticed how often I 'attempt' an early night?  I have too many early night fails.)

Nite all.

The Party's Over

Here I am at midnight, sitting at my desk after clearing everything away from our dinner party this evening and feeling very happy.

I had such a good night.

We have lovely friends ... you know who you are!

My only fail for the meal was the crackers that I attempted to make for pre-dinner nibbles.  Somehow the buzzer on the oven timer went off without me hearing it and the oven turned itself off in the middle of the baking process.  My crackers were a very sad and sorry sight that could not be saved.

*insert sad face here*

I made a Baba Ghanoush (eggplant dip) and then had veggie sticks for dipping (instead of the crackers) carrot, celery and capsicum.  I also made little nibbles of celery with peanut butter in the curve and cucumber slices with smoked salmon and home made mayonnaise.

Entree was pumpkin soup with sour cream and sprinkled with walnuts and bacon bits.

Main was a little late because I forgot to put the chicken in the oven before I served the entree (I will never again make fun of contestants on MKR or Master Chef!  It's very easy to get distracted and miss steps in your plan!).  Lemon and wine chicken drumsticks with sweet potato/potato mash and broccoli and snow peas.  I made up a lemon, leek and tomato type gravy for the chicken.

Then, thanks to Pete Evans' cookbook, we had Raspberry Mousse Cheesecakes for dessert .. I added strawberries and cream on top.

I don't think there was any food left on anybody's plates, except my dessert .. I just couldn't fit anything else into my belly .. and I only ate half of it.  So I'm pretty pleased that I didn't fail at any other of the courses!

We had a little visitor during the entree, when a rather large flying ant (so large that at first, we mistook it for a dragon fly) landed in someone's bowl of pumpkin soup!  What we thought was the end of his life, was really just a brief nap.  While we were waiting for the main meal to cook, he began to stir and after giving him a bath to clean the pumpkin soup off his wings (yes you read that correctly .. a bath to wash the soup from his wings), some TLC and a little coaxing, he was soon hovering over our heads again!

His wings still have a bit of a pumpkiny colour to them ...

We listened to some great old music, with a couple of new songs here and there, while we all laughed hysterically at Adoring Husband's tales of disasters, broken bones, pub brawls and town exiles, caravan fires and car accidents.

Everybody shared some life stories and we had some good laughs.  Excuse the quality of the photo .. just a quick happy snap.  I didn't even think to take some food photos *forehead slap*

It's almost 1am, so I think I might head off to bed.  Tomorrow is dog grooming day.

Nite all.