Happy...

Happiness is: bright pink toes, sparklers, great food, a perfect beach, cold beer, good company and a smashing read. Oh and no phone or internet reception for a couple of days. Happy new year my sweets.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas Dinner.

We had an early Christmas dinner with my family while we were away on holiday with them. It's so nice relaxing somewhere new and different for everyone. We settled into a big old beachy house on the Sapphire coast. I decorated the table with what I could find around me, grasses, ivy, agapanthas and gardenias from the garden, sea shells and those grassy balls from the beach and everything else happened to be in the house. As we are all vegetarians (except for my brother) we cooked up a huge plate of slow roasted veggies (potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, zucchini and capsicum), my ma made a nut roast with cranberry sauce. Chocolate red wine cake with brandy butter, raspberries and cream for dessert. Oh and wine. And port. And chocolate.
Afterwards we watched Red Dog. Have you seen that movie? Man, I damn near cried the whole way through. I'm so sentimental about animals!
Coming up this week, more chocolate, more family, more christmas dinner.

Sunday, Sunday

Don't you love it when one person suggests scones and another suggests gin and then it all comes together in beautiful harmony? Thought so. I brought the straws.

Occupy

Love a small town with a sense of humour. Yup. Occupy Cobargo. Woot!
Finally today the sun has come out! We've been to the beach, plummeted down the water slides at Magic Mountain and... yes... my husband just offered me a gin and tonic! Sweet!
ps. There's been a bit of op shop gold as well!

Heaven.

I'm on holiday.

* Sleeping.
* Eating.
* Drinking.
* Laughing.
* Singing along to tunes.
* Lapping up the sapphire coast. God it's beautiful.
* Sitting by a fire. mmm yeah. Apparently it's December?
* It doesn't matter. I'm sitting by a fire.
* Being a bit silly.
* Being driven in Dad's "sporty little number".

And there's so much more to come. Because we made a schedule. Happiness!

Sometimes I don't have time to blog. Like all of the last 3 weeks. Sometimes I have no inclination. Like now. Why would I be on a computer when I could be doing all of the above. With my husband and my family. Sometimes, actually mostly, I prioritise reading other blogs to writing my own. Really that's what got me here, it's why I'm here. But I like you all being here too. So I decided to share, a bit more about me. A bit more about life. I think that's going to be better. So I'm gonna try and open up a bit more.

Ps. Sorry I missed thankful things this week. I'm thankful for all of the above.

Position wanted: Full time present wrapper.

 

I think possibly my favorite part of Christmas is wrapping presents. I've daydreamed about just wrapping presents as a job. Oh man. Does anyone need me to do there wrapping for them? I'll take payment in the form of mince pies or one or two of these cushions... 

P.S. This is last years wrapping efforts that I never got around to posting... Home made potato print stars, and book present toppers (what are they called?)

Mini succulent...

Inspired by this, I grabbed a knife, a cork from our cork collection (adorning the kitchen door frame) and got to it.
* CAREFULLY hollow out your cork.
* Fill it with fine slightly damp soil.
* Pop in your mini succulent (snap a little bit off a bigger one and strip back the bottom few "leaves").

More Creative Spaces here.

Brown paper packages...

...Tied up with... well anything! I love me some brown paper. It's cheap - don't get fooled into buying it from a fancy paper shop (maybe that only happens in my suburb?) - get it from officeworks or some other mega stationary store then do with it what you will...

 

* Just add confetti.

* Or add string and a tag..

* Make it lacy.

* Draw on it. (This would be amazing in a neon pen too!)

* Stick a letter on it.

* Stick a doily on it!
... and obviously there's always ribbon.
Annnd more idea's than you can poke a stick at here...

Scars

I recently met someone with no scars. Like none. At the grand old age of 26 I possibly have a few more than my share but most people have one or two at least right?
Scar 1: Is on my forehead from when I fell over when I was very little.
Scar 2: Is most definitely the most noticeable, being along my neck, in a 'someone-cut-my-throat' kind of way, which actually, they did, but they where a doctor, so that's alright. I had a cyst on my thyroid gland... I had a swollen neck for a good 6 months after that and my 15 year old confidence (HA) was boosted no end by random strangers in the street asking "what had happened because it looks like I tried to hang myself hahaha" funny? Mmmmnotsomuch. (That really did happen. I got over it.)
Scar 3: Is actually 3 scars all from my recent bicycle accident, down my elbow, a hole in my hip and a hole in my thigh.
Scar 4: Is a rather large indentation down my right shin. I dropped a piece of masonite, that stuff is freakin heavy and it scrapped down my shin. Gross. I know. Sorry about that.
Scar 5: Very faint white scar down my stomach on the right hand side where our cat scratched me as a kid.
Scar 6: Hmmm... multiple little scars, a hole in my upper arm from that stupid BCG injection they make you have in England, another hole in my arm from where a friend accidentally stabbed me with a pen, a line on the bottom of my foot from having a verucca removed (gross, but got me out of PE for a few weeks!), another in my thigh that I have no idea where it came from, and one between my fingers from a blackberry thorn.


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Things to be thankful for*

* The smile I exchanged with a stranger on a bicycle as we passed each other.
* Music, bands and music festivals.
* The majority of the Christmas shopping is done.
* Family holidays coming up.
* Finding things that work in the street.
* Bloggers. Those people I don't know but I feel like I do. Thank you.
* White chocolate caramel slice. mhmm.
* The privileged of getting to show people the (our) real Sydney.
* Our amazing amazing house in the middle of the city with a garden and beautiful people to share it with.
* Waterfalls.

{Images of Thursdays trip to the Royal National Park. Yes you can swim. Yes it's amazing. Yes it's 40mins from the centre of Sydney by train. What do you mean you haven't been yet?!}

Link Love: Wreaths

Wreaths. I am pretty excited to have one, just as soon as I have my very own front door. Here's some of my favorite this year, some are home made and some are shop bought. Which one would you choose?

* Sticky wreath

 * Beautiful colours!

 * Love the Australiana look of this one.

* These are so up my alley.

* For the reading type.

* A more autumn feel.

* Living wreath.

My Creative Space*

So last week I had a little (brace yourselves I'm gonna say it:) Crafternoon with my craftastic friend Cat. She is the talent behind our hanging pot in our bedroom. So I thought I'd get her to show me and therefore you, how it's done.

You need:
Some yarn
A pot
A plant
Some soil and a bit of gravel
Scissors
Crochet hook (optional)
A friend (also optional but makes it easy for us less craftelly endowed and first timers)