Still Recovering!

Well, we had an absolutely fantastic visit with Laura and Brit!  It was so much fun to show them REAL LIFE in Australia!  OK, well sort of real life… because the reality is that you really don’t spend your days traveling to the vineyards, animal parks, and Sydney by train…  but you do get to hang out with cool people! 

So, anyhow, I still haven’t gotten caught up on my blog because I am still recovering from all of the activities of the past week…  LOL…  we haven’t done that much stuff in the last 6 months, let alone all in one week!  Not that I am complaining!  But, boy are we knackered!  Laura and Brit, I hope you are catching up on your sleep, but from what I saw on Facebook, I doubt it! Football games, indeed!  Hahaha…

I will get caught up, I promise… but today will be spent attempting to find lights for our Christmas tree… and maybe some ornaments so that it doesn’t look like Charlie Brown’s…  I was informed that I needed to put on my Big Girl Panties and put up a tree (thank you mom), even though I don’t much feel like it… I did buy a Santa Paws stocking for Ben this morning!  So, he will not be neglected this Christmas!  Other than that, there are no guarantees! 

Anyhow, stay tuned… photos, videos and blog entries of our adventures are soon to come… I promise!  xoxoxo

Just having too much fun!

Well, this will be just a very quick post (I wonder how many times I have said that?!?!?!) to say that we are having such a wonderful time with our guests from America that I have not had a chance to blog about our activities! I want to be able to upload some photos before I do so, also, so it will just have to wait and I will play catch up!
Yesterday, we took a trip out to the Hunter Valley and hit several of the vineyards… it was an absolutely gorgeous day, and we had a fantastic time!
Today, we will be heading out to Oakvale Farm – where I first met my kangaroo and koala friends when I arrived last year! I am so excited to return! After that, I think we will go to Blackbutt Reserve – another wildlife park and check out the animals there, if we have the energy left…
So, there should be LOTS to write about later! Also, just a reminder that if you want to get my blog posts delivered to your email inbox, you can click on the subscribe link on the right hand side of the screen!
<3

Food Coma!!!!

Well, 14 hours after I began this morning, I am sitting on the lounge with my feet somewhat up, pretending to watch a movie, when really, I am pretty sure I have plunged into the beginning of the dreaded food coma!  I didn’t even eat that much… Honest!   

What an amazing day!!!  For those of you that don’t know, my kitchen has been in a shambles… which for me, is a horrible thing… I love to be in the kitchen!  But we bought a 60 year old house, and it’s pretty much original… the one room in the house that I wanted to change (because I disliked it so much that it bugged me) was the kitchen… The rest of it, while not perfect, just needs small cosmetic work that can be done as money and time allows… but the kitchen?  It was YUCKY!  So, within a few weeks of moving in, a lovely older couple offered us their 5 year old kitchen, as they were getting a brand new kitchen.  That meant that if we hauled away the cupboards, benchtops (countertops), oven, cooktop, sink, etc, we could have it… Imagine!  Being able to exchange a 60 year old YUCKY kitchen for a 5 year old kitchen, that while not super sleek and modern is in beautiful condition, fairly neutral colors and a similar shape to our kitchen!!!  Unreal!  It was such a wonderful gift!  Our kitchen had duct tape everywhere…  I have no clue what the previous owner was thinking, but she apparently LOVED duct tape!  

So, I digress… the point to my story is this…  What was to be a weekend renovation stretched out to nearly a month… Nothing is ever as simple as it seems!  This renovation was no exception!  I will get into the actual renovation story in another blog post another time, when I have the energy to post some photos or a video along with it… But, basically, my kitchen has been in my dining room for a month…  Pantry items stacked on the dining room table, other food items on a card table, along with pots and pans, and baking sheets, etc…  Kitchen appliances on another small table in the dining room… The kitchen itself – No walls for a while, no running water for awhile after that…  No cupboards or benchtop for a long while… No appliances, such as stove and cooktop, so certainly no way to cook… Picture becoming clearer?  Dust everywhere from walls being sanded, cloths draped for painting… UTTER CHAOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The exciting part for me is that as of yesterday, I have new walls, a new ceiling, the newold cabinets and benchtop, a brand new cooktop, new doorframe and window frame… and I LOVE IT!  It is sooooo wonderful that today, I was able to cook a turkey and ALL the fixings – well at least prepare them – for 14 people in the kitchen, and I didnt even have a nervous breakdown!  AMAZING!!!  It was crowded and will have dishpan hands for the next 6 months from doing the dishes about 20 times (this is my plug for a dishwasher if Jeremy is reading this LOL), but we had a beautiful meal!  The turkey was unreal!  The gravy turned out so well I almost fell  on the floor! (Momma you would be SO proud of me!!!)  EVEN MY PIES WERE PERFECT!  (Scott and Lisa – that is ALL thanks to you!!!  If you hadn’t sent me the Libby’s pumpkin, I am not sure I would have made pumpkin pies…  This way, I didn’t have to spend two days making the puree!!!  You are the best!  <3) 

Before everyone got their food, they had to say one thing they were thankful for… It was so nice to hear everyone express gratitude… for friends, for family, for health and safety… ALL good reminders of how much we have to be thankful for every day!

I for one, am so incredibly thankful for the familiar faces that arrived on my doorstep late last night, a bit frazzled from their trip up from Sydney in Friday rush our traffic, but glad to be here!  It’s amazing how quickly my spirits were lifted and some of the homesickness eased!  Although, I cried when I saw them!  What a big baby! I am so looking forward to the rest of the time that we have to spend with them!  I want to make the most of every single second… So with that, I will sign off and get back to it!

I am thankful that I had the opportunity to share a tradition that is so important to me with my new family and that they were willing to support me in it!  They are pretty amazing!

<3

A day to give thanks!

Just a quick post to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving! I feel that I have so very much to be thankful for! At times, it is so overwhelming!
It is hard to believe that so few years ago, I really felt that life couldn’t get much worse, and here I am now – experiencing so many wonderful things that life has to offer through new eyes! Crazy! I am really trying hard to be better about expressing my gratitude mroe freely, because I have learned how important it is to let those you love know how much you appreciate them! Especially now that I live so far away!
This is a really rough time for me! I won’t kid you! I don’t think I have ever been so homesick… This is worse than Christmas last year, which I thought was pretty easy… perhaps because it was all so new and glorious… but for some reason, it just doesn’t seem right being the only person in town celebrating Thanksgiving!
I was at the coffee shop tonight and half the girls in there have never had turkey! Can you believe that? What a riot! And trying to find marshmallows for the sweet potatoes? Oh, let’s not even go there! I had two choices… fruit flavored ones in the candy aisle (and just the look of them made me sick), or teeny tiny ones that are all sorts of colors… I opted for the multi-colored ones!

Brit and Laura at our Wedding!

So, to make a long story shorter…. Laura and Brit, my dear friends from Florida, will be here tomorrow afternoon, to share their honeymoon with us… Nuts, huh?! I am so excited to hear “American Speak!” On Saturday, we will be having our huge ALL AMERICAN THANKSGIVING FEAST with my Australian family! I will go pick up my 6 kg turkey tomorrow morning! In spite of the difficulties finding the things I need to make our American dishes, thanks to my wonderful friends back home, my husband’s brilliant mind and some creativity – WE WILL DO IT!
I hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving! Please find something to be thankful for, as there are so many less fortunate that us!
<3

Meet Mickey Blue-Tongue!

Mickey the Blue-Tongued Lizard

For those of you that haven’t heard, I have stepped WAY outside of my comfort zone and “adopted” a baby blue-tongued lizard that apparently lives under our house…  They are a really cool native lizard that scare the crud out of me – at least the adults… His tongue is a gorgeous vibrant blue… I have never seen anything quite like it!  They are known for being quite feisty and if you scare them, they will rear up and hiss at you…  But they are supposedly easily tamed!

So, I started out by taking apples to him and leaving them for him and then watching him come and take him so that he would get used to my scent and my presence… Then, we progressed to him taking the apples directly from my fingers, but that still makes me a bit nervous!  He snatches it quite quickly…  I don’t squeal, but sometimes I jump!    He also lets me touch him very briefly and then scurries off… 

But now, every afternoon, he is sitting right outside my back door waiting for me… He no longer runs away when I open the door or when I come outside….  And when I bend down to give him the fruit he doesn’t back away!  So, I think we are making great progress!  Who knew that I would attempt to tame a wild lizard?  If he were full grown, I can assure you that I wouldn’t be going anywhere near him!  Maybe this way by the time he gets big, I won’t be afraid of him!

Blogs need makeovers too!

So, don’t mind the changes to the way I look!  For those of you that know me well, you know that every now and again, I get really tired of my hair and just go do something stupid like cut it all off (something drastic) without thinking it through… Well, I did that this week… and it ended up shorter than I have ever had it… I refuse to let anyone take a photo, and have been wearing a baseball cap around if I leave the house… LOL

Well, I have decided I want to give my blog a facelift too… So at the moment, I am working to create a new look for it!  I haven’t been able to find any pre-made blogwear that I can just install on WordPress, so I am having to create my own, using a scrapbooking kit that I purchased from Kimeric Kreations called Wonderful Tonight…  and I am learning as I go..

So, to make a long story short, I am sure that you will see many changes over the next several days before I am satisfied with it… Of course, I will be doing all of this while I should be getting the house ready for our guests from the US!  I just got a message from Laura that they were leaving NZ and heading to AU!  Soooo excited!  Can’t wait to see another American and hear someone that talks like me! 

Well, back to watching Glee!!  Nite Nite!  <3

My little veggie lovin’ singer…

My handsome little fella...

So, a few funny stories about Ben – the nearly newest member of our family… As he settles into our little family unit, we find more and more little quirks in his personality…  All of them very endearing…  One of my favorites is that he will sing along with me…. Seriously!  If I start to sing, he howls along… I am really not sure whether or not I should be insulted, but it is so darn funny, that I nearly wet myself laughing when he does it… Needless to say, I encourage it daily!  Over the last few days, we have been working on Christmas Carols, and I am thinking that perhaps I will take him Christmas caroling with me??  I think it would annoy the heck out of our neighbors!    But it would be some funny stuff!

Last night, Jeremy was off doing something and I was on my computer in the lounge room… All of a sudden, I smelled cucumber…  Pretty amazing since they have such a faint smell…  but it was really refreshing… I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from…  I looked up, and assumed Ben was on his bed chewing on his nylabone… Then I realized that it didn’t look like his bone…  It was long and green…  The stinkin’ dog had somehow gotten ahold of a WHOLE cucumber and was eating it…  We had taken them down off of the top of the refrigerator yesterday to take the kitchen ceilings down and put them on the dining room table… I have been feeding him apples and cucumbers as snacks, and he apparently saw the cucumber and went and snatched it…  I had just fed him half of a cucumber earlier in the afternoon, and he ate nearly a third of the cucumber before I realized what he had done… He was pretty miffed at me when I took the cucumber away and wrapped it up to save for today… When I pulled it out of the refrigerator this morning, he took it from me, and has now eaten nearly the whole thing…

This crazy mutt eats more fruits and veg than I do… At least I know he is getting his vitamins and minerals!  What a good boy!