Insomnia

The dreaded 'I' word.


Definition from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/insomnia in·som·ni·a

n.

Chronic inability to fall asleep or remain asleep for an adequate length of time.

Do you suffer from it?  What triggers it in you?  What do you do to relieve it?  

The past three nights I have not been able to sleep for any length of time.  I go to bed at the normal time, perhaps doze for 15 minutes or so and then I'm AWAKE.  I'm awake when I need and want to be sleeping and resting.   AHHHHHHHH!!!!  It's o.k. really, just feeling a little loopy, hazy, dim witted, sluggish, oh and did I mention tired?

On a completely random note, I found this image of my dream laundry on Pinterest.  So ordered, so tidy, so pretty, so impossible!

Source http://gardenviewcottage.tumblr.com/post/4987629945

How about this one?  This is really more what I'd love, bold, bad and brassy.  How could the laundry get you down if you had these bright colours to wake you up as you walked in the door?!  (Perhaps I need red in my life today to wake me up.) 

Source http://www.decorpad.com/photo.htm?photoId=90978&relatedPhotoId=90367&index=1

This Pinterest business is very addictive.  I started a board titled Bohemian and now have 226 followers. WHAT!!  All I do is look for bold, bright, colourful, eclectic, hippyish......anything goes type decor images and pin them.  I can really let my hair down 'virtually' so to speak without offending my family with my artistic, decorating urges just waiting to burst out.  (I find it so hard to be retstrained at times.)  I've often though it would be nice to have two or five houses that I could decorate in different styles that I love.  Now I can do that vicariously on Pinterest.  Hubby should be very pleased that Pinterest is saving him lots of money.  :)

Do you have to restrain yourself?  What ideas do you have to reign in?

Sorry this is a bit of a scrambled eggs type post, that's all I'm good for today.

Enjoy your Sunday and I hope you had a good sleep last night!!

Anne  xx

Domestic things

Guess what?  I've brought the Western Australian weather home with me to Victoria.  Actually it's not so bad as our mornings and evenings are cool and we do have an air conditioner in our main living area if the heat becomes too oppressive.  

The warm weather has me thinking about salads so last night I made a watermelon, baby spinach, feta and mint salad.  It is suppose to include spring onion but as my stomach can't tolerate any raw onion, I didn't include it.  The salad had a lovely simple dressing too.  Recipe found here.    I also decided to make falafel for the first time ever and they were sooo yummy, recipe found here.  I added a little more salt before eating and then they were perfect.

Baking has been on the agenda too.  One of my favourite shop bought biscuits are Arnott's Venetians and the following recipe it the closest thing I could find.

VANILLA CURRANT COOKIES

Ingredients

 125g butter

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

3/4 cup (165g) caster sugar

1 egg

2 cups (300g) self-raising flour

1/2 cup (45g) desiccated coconut

1/4 cup (35g) dried currants.

Vanilla Icing

1 1/2 cups (240g) icing sugar mixture

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1 1/2 teaspoons soft butter

1 1/2 tablespoon milk

Method

Beat butter, essence, sugar and egg in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Stir in flour, coconut and currants.  (My little tip is to mix the currants in before adding the flour and coconut, they mix in better then.)  Shape 2 rounded teaspoons of mixture into balls; place about 5cm apart on greased oven trays (or baking paper lined), flatten cookies with hand until 5mm thick.  Bake in moderately hot oven (190C) for about 10 minutes or until browned lightly; cool cookies on trays.  Spread cookies thinly with vanilla icing; place on wire racks until set.

Vanilla Icing - Combine all ingredients in small heatproof bowl, stir over hot water, until icing is spreadable.

Makes about 40 (I made 30 'cos I like big biccies).

Recipe from the The Australian Women's Weekly, Sweet and Simple Biscuits and Slices

********

Yesterday I felt the need for a little colour in the house so picked this little posy of summer flowers.

In the posy are four different Pelargoniums, Trailing Lantana, Roses, two varieties of Salvia, Echinops Ritro (that's the purple spiky one) and Snapdragons.  Rather a lot of flowers to pack into one little posy don't you think?!  Some are hiding on the other side so you can't see them.


Look what I found hiding in the vege garden.

One very round and fat zucchini (courgette).  It's a different variety than what I usually plant and at least I have one zucchini with another growing.  We have a few lettuce growing too but not much else in the way of veges.  :(  Maybe next summer will be better.


Wishing you all a lovely weekend whatever you get up to.


Anne  xx

Home again

Hello, I'm home again in Victoria and back to cooler temperatures of 26C instead of 39C.  I actually feel like doing something, I had forgotten how much the intense heat saps your energy.

While I was on the farm I bought Mum a new bougainvillea plant.  She expressed a desire to look at the lovely blossom while doing the laundry in her outside wash house and I had so much fun creating an easy care patch of garden for her to make this possible.  My big strapping nephew very kindly cut down and grubbed out a dead privet shrub making space for the new garden.  I used whatever I could find including an old discarded 44 gallon drum, wire from some chicken netting, an old piece of trellis, some garden tie wire, stones from the farm, other pot plants from Mum's garden and a white pot for the bougainvillea. 




Mum and I both love the rusty drum although Dad thinks it needs a paint.






On the last Monday I was staying with my parents, my brother came over in the morning to deliver fresh milk, have a cuppa with us and was then on his way to move some sheep.  I hitched a ride with him so I could watch his amazing sheep dog Jessie in action.

It was an absolute joy to see her working and my brother says she is very mature for such a young dog.

Late Monday afternoon my brother took me, my nephew and the two dogs to Lake Baandee for a swim.  It is a salt lake which rarely has water in it due to the low rainfall in the area.  There has been water in the lake for the past two summers although previously it had been dry since about 1999.
My brother swimming with Bonnie.


 My nephew with his snorkeling gear on.  There was nothing much to see except a few mosquito larvae, he had fun anyway.
Gorgeous Bonnie with a salt and sand encrusted face.

 After swimming for a bit, Jessie decided it was time to go home and sat in the back of the ute.  She had to wait for us as we were having too much fun.

 Sun setting over the water.

 
 

 This is my favourite.


We came out of the water very crusty with salt but as I managed to float on my back for the very first time due to the saltiness of the water, I didn't mind. :)

I had a good flight home to Melbourne from Perth and passed over these salt lakes, one in the shape of a heart which I thought was rather lovely.

Flying over the township of Esperance.

Beautiful coastline along south eastern Western Australia.

So now it's back to the routine for a few months and then hubby and I are off to Europe for a couple of months.  There is a lot to do between now and then, so I had better get cracking.  Thank you for taking time out of your day to catch up with my blog.

Anne  xx

Evening sky

One of the wonderful things about visiting my parent's farm is being able to see 360 degrees.  There are no trees obscuring the view like where I live in Victoria.  On a clear night you can see millions of stars and tonight I went outside to get a star fix.  I could see the Southern Cross, the Two Pointers, the Seven Sisters and the Saucepan.  There were stars near and far, some twinkling and some blazing, such a magical night sky with the Milky Way clearly able to be seen.  No light pollution out here.

Last night I stepped outside to take some photos of this sunset.

Allow me to introduce you to Hector and

Humphrey.

These two gorgeous farm cats (pets) were very hot and flaked out on the pavers trying to get cool.  It was nearly dark so I used the flash to get decent photos of them.  Hector or Hecky as he is called is timid and not too keen on strangers getting close.  Humphrey is a sook and will take all the attention you give him.  He is quite happy to sit in the wheelbarrow and go for a ride up to the wood heap which is rather cute.

Today has been another hot day of 38C with a cool change tomorrow and a temperature of 36C expected.  :)  Two degrees make all the difference I can assure you.  

Anne xx

Where it's hot!

Hello from Western Australia where it is hot and sunny.  I am very happy to say that my Dad is looking much better than he was in January.  He is not out of the woods but is feeling like doing a few things he use to. Some more tests will be done soon and hopefully he can have some treatment so he can maintain reasonable health.  Mum is looking good too and I have a lovely photo of her but she doesn't want me to post it here so I won't.  :(

I've been wandering around Mum's garden enjoying the different type of plants that grow in very dry conditions.   I particularly like this display of succulents, the contrast between the colours and plant structure is lovely.

Mum doesn't think her garden is very much at all, but when you live in very dry conditions, water is scarce and you don't have the same energy you use to, you work with what you have.  I like this photo of some bougainvillea, purple flowering shrub and the wheat silo in the background.  The sky really is this bright.

Of course there are plenty of pink and grey galahs in the trees around the yard.  I do love them, so Australian.

I'm not as keen on these Golden Orb spiders.  They are everywhere and are huge.  YUCK!!

  The beautiful nectarines and grapes were grown by my brother and are delicious.  He has a nice orchard and grows some wonderful fruit.

While I'm home visiting, I'm doing some jobs for Mum that are hard for her to manage. 
This morning the couch covers came off for a good wash and are hanging on the line.  With today's heat of 38C, I'm sure they'll be dry by now.  Old farm houses are very hard to keep clean.   They are dusty and have nooks and crannies where insects and spiders get in and reside.  So I've declared war on all Daddy Long legs.  There is something rather therapeutic sucking up webs and spiders in the vacuum cleaner and they love getting up onto the ceiling where they can't be reach easily.  They've got no chance when I'm around.  Mwahaha!

 I'm doing some cooking too and introduced Dad and Mum to Kumara and Chickpea patties for dinner last night and were well received.  Mum wants the recipe.  Tonight I'm going to make and apple and plum crumble, the plums in the freezer are from my last visit home in January when my sister and I stewed them and popped them away for a rainy day.  It's not a rainy day today, but I think a crumble will be enjoyed by all.

I'll catch up again with you all soon.  In the meantime take care everyone and thanks for stopping by.

Anne  xx
So

Mismatched

It was only after breakfast this morning while still in my pyjamas that I realised I was wearing these.

The really sad thing was that it didn't even feel like I was wearing different shoes.  It was only when I looked down I realised what I was wearing.  Once when the girls were in primary school and I was doing the morning drop off, I had left the house in one black and one dark brown shoe.  I'd put them on in the darkness of my bedroom and in the rush hadn't realised they were a mismatched pair.  My friends all had a good laugh as did I.

What is the worst/funniest thing you've worn out without noticing until it was too late?

Anne  xx

Trying something new

Good morning.  To everyone in the northern hemisphere who is in the midst of very cold and snowy weather, I hope you are staying warm.  To those in hot conditions in the southern hemisphere, I hope you are cool and to those in parts of flooded Queensland and New South Wales my heart goes out to you as some of you are experiencing the second flood in as many years.  Everyone please take care and stay safe wherever you are.

It's time to move out of my crochet comfort zone.  Although I'm still learning the basics, learning how to switch between U.K. and U.S. terminology and have to refer to my books as I can't remember how to do some of the more complicated stitches yet, I felt I needed a challenge.  So I've been teaching myself how to do this.

It's not a rug, throw, cushion cover, poncho, scarf, cardigan or a jumper, it's a .............to be revealed when it's completed.  It's going to take me some time to finish though.  I just hope it works out even though I'm following a pattern, otherwise I'm going to have egg all over my face.  :)

Have a wonderful day,

Anne  xx

Bunting Ta Dah!

Good morning, how are you today?  All is well here, the sun is shining, the garden is looking happy after rain and I've finished my bunting and it's hanging in it's new home.

Remember these little hearts, I made them to sew onto the bunting.

I'm very happy how the bunting turned out and elated to have finished a project so quickly.  The bunting pattern can be found at Heather's love blog Pink Milk.

Unfortunately my photos don't show the colours of the yarn I used very well, but it's vibrant and I love it.

Thanks for stopping by and having a peek.


Anne  xx