Australia Day and Australian of the Year

Well my dad would've been very proud that Lee Kernaghan has been honoured with the title of Australian of the Year for 2008. My dad and Lee's dad were the best of mates as young men in country Australia. They used to get around together singing and racing around in great old cars. Dad was Ray's best man at his wedding, and his parents were guests at my wedding a few years back. I must dig out the wonderful old photos of Lee and I in the snow together when we were toddlers, apparently I planted my face in the snow as soon as I got off the bus. When Lee's little brother Greg was born I was born two days later and the new mums shared a room in the maternity ward. I remember when Lee first appeared on the local TV station as a 'new talent' act when he was a teen, he sang 'Great Balls of Fire' while playing the piano, he was very talented even then. It was always fun at the Kernaghan home, lots of music, good food, lots of goofing around in their music room or riding mini bikes in the park next door. I haven't seen Lee for many years but I know mum and dad followed his career and kept in contact with his parents but sadly my dad passed away 8 years ago and has missed this wonderful day. I have to say I am not much of a country music follower but you have to give Lee credit for the work he has done for rural Australians suffering so much during times of devastating drought. Well done!

Here is dad (left) singing with Ray (centre) and another friend in the late 50's.

This is...........

..........what scares me! It's not the spider that scares me it's walking into one of these perfect webs that gets to me. This morning I walked out through our driveway and if it wasn't for the sun shining on this sticky web I would have put my nose right into the centre of it..........yuck!

Remember it's not too late to join the "This is.........." posts with Three Buttons.

The deep blue sea........

...........is the place to be if you are are as keen on surfing as my Surfer Boy. He has a wetsuit tan, sea ulcers on his feet and sun bleached hair from too many weeks of continuous surfing, 2 or 3 times every day. You could say he is addicted, he often wears a favourite T-shirt that states 'Surfing is my Religion' and I can vouch for that being the truth. His middle name means 'born beside the seaside' and we never realised how much of a bearing on his life the sea would have. It is however keeping him very fit and out of most of the mischief young teenage boys can get up to. Wish I had the wash board ab muscles he has! This series of local surf and surfing photos I bought at a local beach side market and have just framed them up so I can bribe Surfer Boy to remove all the surf and surfing posters from his bedroom walls. Also hope to hang a really bright convergence quilt I made a while back that was inspired by Ricky Tims book below, it echoes the colours of the surf and sun, hope he appreciates my effort.

Fresh is always best

Baby butter beans in the making, our first ever rock melon and some sweet basil in our very small but productive little vege garden. The sweetcorn silk is browning off and the cobs are getting fat. Two tomatoes have been picked and enjoyed. Lots of lettuce coming on. Fresh beetroot is going well. Yesterday I picked a huge bunch of flat leaf parsley and made brown rice tabbouleh for lunch and some left over for today.

We were gifted a big bag of passion fruit recently and I made that up into a wonderful sauce for pouring onto ice cream, divine. Here is the recipe I used, it is from Jackie French via Burke's Backyard archives. This might come in handy when you are given a whole lot of these gorgeous fruit and the only thing you can think of is freezing the pulp in ice cube trays. Darling Daughter also made Passion fruit Butter Biscuits which are very scrummy also.

Passion fruit Sauce

Ingredients

1 cup water

2 cups white sugar

1 cup passion fruit pulp

juice of 2 lemons

1 teaspoon tartaric acid

- Put the water and sugar into a saucepan and boil for 5 minutes.

- Add the passion fruit pulp, lemon juice and tartaric acid. Boil for another three minutes then take off the heat.

- Strain out the seeds and pulp, and pour the mixture into a clean bottle.

- Keep the bottle of sauce in the refrigerator, and use it within a month.

"This is..............

............my favourite cup." I found this little weekly bit of fun at Angela's blog called Three Buttons and hope that I can keep up with the challenge of posting a photo of the current 'This is.............". As I don't drink tea or coffee I am a very rare cup user. This little Arzberg Chromatics cup came from a church jumble sale and it is small and just fits my hand perfectly so every now and then a cup of lemon herbal tea is very enjoyable in this my favourite cup!

Summer holidays

I haven't been getting out of the house much but here are a few things I have seen lately at home and in the neighbourhood. Won't be long and we will be enjoying fresh sweetcorn and new lettuce seeds are in the making, summer vege gardens are full of interest.

Borderless

Another day with my nose to the grindstone.............or quilt that is. Nearing completion, just borders to work, apply and quilt some more. Meander quilting is fun once you get into the right groove, I want to do more now but need to add the borders first. Tomorrow! Hope you can see the quilting a bit better now that it's out of the machine, click for a closer look if you dare. This quilt is an introduction to machine applique and quilt as you go techniques which makes producing quilts infinitely cheaper if you can get the quilting done yourself. A great skill to add to your repertoire.

It's a small world

This has been the sum of my world for the last few days. So sorry for the lack of blogging but I just need another day in the week and some peace and QUIET. I am busily working on finishing a quilt ready for hanging in the shop this week. As I have said in the last post it has been terribly difficult to get the quilting mojo happening with a houseful of family and other assorted bods hanging around. I think it's possibly a little early in the day to start drinking my preferred drink (red wine) before I have breakfast so I grabbed a piece of 'red' fabric and got my meandering happening before I tackled the quilt, you need to be very relaxed to get it flowing evenly. I just used up all the odd rolls of thread going around and around relaxing into the free motion quilting thing. It's working, nearly done with the quilting and guess what I am even enjoying it! It does tend to make your world very small when you spend your days working away under blue light for hours on end getting the BSR foot (affectionately known as my Bloody Stitch Readjustor) which is a wonder of modern engineering that had lots of input from women quilters I'm sure when it was in the design stage. The Bernina Stitch Regulator is a machine quilters dream come true, it keeps you working at a steady pace because there is an alarm if you go too fast and all this results in much more even stitch length, and it really does work!

2 weeks down 3 to go.............

We are almost halfway through our summer holidays at home with the kids. I had a phone call yesterday, my house was in chaos and my caller (my boss) could hear it all imploding around me. I told her it feels like I'm living on Central Station (constant arrivals and departures of various children, not all mine either!) and I had spent the night lying, not sleeping, beside a steam train (aka Snoring Dear Husband!) so it wasn't a great time for her to talk with me about work. Christmas holidays are a very trying time for mum's in Australia, granted it is 1 week less than the 6 we used to have when we were kids but it is a real test of any mothers endurance still. My boss who I might tell you is single and childless just laughed when I said how difficult is to just survive here let alone make an entire quilt ready for teaching in February with all this happening around me. But to her credit she had a solution, she sent me to go and look at a video on YouTube and it certainly made my day so I must share it with all of you holiday weary mums who understand just how I'm feeling.

"The Mom" song, sung to the William Tell Overture, by Anita Renfroe. This is what a mom says in 24 hours, condensed into 2 minutes and 55 seconds! Hilarious and talented! Lyrics for "The Mom Song" below just in case you missed any or you need to practice!

"The Mom Song"

Get up now

Get up now

Get up out of bed

Wash your face

Brush your teeth

Comb your sleepyhead

Here's your clothes and your shoes

Hear the words I said

Get up now!

Get up and make your bed

Are you hot?

Are you cold?Are you wearing that?

Where's your books and your lunch and your homework at?

Grab your coat and gloves and your scarf and hat

Don't forget!

You gotta feed the cat

Eat your breakfast, the experts tell us it's the most important meal of all

Take your vitamins so you will grow up one day to be big and tall

Please remember the orthodontist will be seeing you at 3 today

Don't forget your piano lesson is this afternoon so you must play

Don't shovel

Chew slowly

But hurry

The bus is here

Be careful

Come back here

Did you wash behind your ears?

Play outside, don't play rough, will you just play fair?

Be polite, make a friend, don't forget to share

Work it out, wait your turn, never take a dare

Get along!

Don't make me come down there

Clean your room, fold your clothes, put your stuff away

Make your bed, do it now, do we have all day?

Were you born in a barn? Would you like some hay?

Can you even hear a word I say?

Answer the phone!

Get off the phone!

Don't sit so close, turn it down, no texting at the table

No more computer time tonight!

Your iPod's my iPod if you don't listen up

Where are you going and with whom and what time do you think you're coming home?

Saying thank you, please, excuse me makes you welcome everywhere you roam

You'll appreciate my wisdom someday when you're older and you're grown

Can't wait till you have a couple little children of your own

You'll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly

But right now I thank you not to roll your eyes at me

Close your mouth when you chew, would appreciate

Take a bite maybe two of the stuff you hate

Use your fork, do not burp or I'll set you straight

Eat the food I put upon your plate

Get an A, get the door, don't get smart with me

Get a grip, get in here, I'll count to three

Get a job, get a life, get a PHD

Get a dose of,"I don't care who started it!

You're grounded until you're 36"

Get your story straight and tell the truth for once, for heaven's sake

And if all your friends jumped off a cliff would you jump, too?

If I've said it once, I've said at least a thousand times before

That you're too old to act this way

It must be your father's DNA

Look at me when I am talking

Stand up straighter when you walk

A place for everything and everything must be in place

Stop crying or I'll give you something real to cry about

Oh!Brush your teeth, wash your face, put your PJs on

Get in bed, get up here, say a prayer with mom

Don't forget, I love you

And tomorrow we will do this all again because a mom's work never ends

You don't need the reason why

Because, because, because, because

I said so, I said so, I said so, I said so

I'm the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom!!

Ta da!!!

Now back to your everyday lives as busy mums just like me who really do say all of the above and more each and every day, no wonder we are tired and frazzled. Ring a girlfriend tomorrow and get together for some girl time or you won't survive the next 3 weeks!