family – Page 6 – helenthura.com

December 30, 2009November 14, 2011

Christmas Eve 09

Another year, another Christmas. This year Christmas was much, much smaller than last year. Christmas Eve it was just the four of us and Christmas Day it was just us four and Grandad.

I woke up on Christmas Eve to see this. Strangely enough, now that I’m on holidays I’m typically up at 5, you just can’t ignore those birds! When I’m at work though it’s the alarm that wakes me some time between 6 and 6:30. I was pulling back the curtains, and saw this most delightful reflection on the window next door.

159/365.

That was the start to a bigggish day. I had presents to wrap, bags to pack etc etc. It was only six days ago but I know I did something of semi-importance before heading to Mum’s (I think it is kind of weird how even though my brother and father live there as well in conversation I will say going to Mum’s, carrying on though).

Christmas Eve, means Mahalia Jackson, a fancy afternoon tea, presents, four pots on the stove and waiting for it to get dark enough to have dinner. One of the downsides to having an European Christmas is that well we don’t have short hours of daylight in summer do we???? Dinner is of course, smoked lamb, mashed potato, peas, glazed carrots, cauliflower and broccoli au gratin with rice pudding for dessert. At some stage during dinner I asked Pabbi if he had ever got the almond. As it had come to me that I didn’t think I had seen his name in the book. Pabbi’s response was not since coming to Australia. I spoke to soon. As is always the case, Pabbi stirred the almond into the pudding and dished out pudding, making his usual comments of you sure don’t want more….. Well this year Pabbi got the almond! (Mum/Pabbi, has this been written in the book?)

We had a new addition to the table this year. For many years I have adored the Swedish Christmas Candelabra/Candolier that we’ve had but I don’t ever recall seeing it plugged in or lit up. This year, I pulled it apart, stripped out all the wiring and replaced the fake candles with real candles.

So pretty! Adds a fair bit more light to the table as well when paired with the four candles that we usually dine by at Christmas.

Once the washing up was done it was of course time for the tree. I got a 3L mixing bowl form my Kitchenaid, some biscuit tins (a pretty old Sunshine powdered milk tin and a collectible Milo tin from 2003 when they had the 70th birthday celebrations) and a bag to match my quilt.

Mum had asked me during the week if I had any brittle left from the packages. I said of course I do. When I arrived on Christmas Eve, Mum asked if I had any left….. I said no. One of Mum’s presents was a container of brittle!

That is Christmas Eve….

December 14, 2009

1 Pom, 2 Pom, 3 Pom, 149/365

I love the look (and the taste) of pomegranates.

I had the day off today so I was able to attend (great) Aunty Lil’s funeral. As it always is with such things it was nice to see family that I hadn’t seen in a while but it always is nicer to catch up in more pleasant environments. Grandad is now the only one of his siblings left. He turns 90 in Jan.

May 20, 2009May 21, 2009

a mish mosh of life’s adventures

Yesterday I took an RDO to renew my drivers licence as it expired today. My last photo was taken five years ago (though my fingers thanks to work want to type 60/12 instead of five years), I was wearing a high school music shirt, I was on the left side of the frame and I didn’t have braces.

SE QLD has had a lot of rain the last 36 odd hours. This is what our backyard looked round noonish today. (photo by Ryan Sodziak)

I picked up my Food Connect box yesterday arvo and I haven’t posted a photo of the last box, here is the box from last fortnight and from yesterday.

I’m off to the orthodontist tomorrow and I’m at a point where I really just want this whole metal mouth experience that has been going on since 1996 (more than half my life) to be over. I know that I am on the last stretch now and I only have about 12 months ( sounds less than saying one year) to go with braces and then I can get an implant but I want it to have been over by now. I want to move to new horizons but it is impractical to move from Brisbane when I have to go back to the orthodontist in the city every 4-6 weeks. It is like the pause button has been pressed on one part of my life but not the other parts.

Mum left for Central Australia today, she is going to spend the next 2-3 weeks tripping round the centre looking at all things interesting. It was only a few weeks ago that she came back from her big trip round the South of Africa.

The Townsville trip was really fun. I had a great time hanging out with Sam, exploring Townsville, getting lots of work done, paying the final money on our Bali trip and generally having fun.
Here are my bags waiting for the taxi at my parents house.

The view from my room 🙂 It was very pretty looking out over the boats.

And here is Sam at the Watermark on Friday arvo just before I left.

My Amazon order arrived today 🙂 Full of some books for me and some books for Matthew. I am looking forward to spending some time reading in the next few weeks.

I am now up to watching the fourth season of The West Wing – I have watched three seasons in about three weeks… Just plain good drama. I love it.

It was Charlie’s birthday at work the other week. Charlie and I sit with our backs to each other on a connected desk. During the day, I sometimes swivel round on my chair and say “Hi Charlie Girl”. Charlie just laughs. Charlie had said she didn’t want a cake for her birthday so I made biscuits instead. They went down very very well and I now know that offering pretty biscuits to people will get me just about anything I want.

I really like this quote that is floating round the net at the moment.

Until you dream, there isn’t a mold. Until you speak, there isn’t a promise. And until you move, there isn’t a path

April 26, 2009April 26, 2009

Becoming a Granny at Brown Owls

Today I went to my first Brown Owls meeting and we crocheted granny squares 😀 I used the instructions out of the Meet me at Mike’s book. I did about 8/10 of the first square at the Brown Owls meeting today, and then did the rest whilst sitting beside Grandad’s hospital bed this evening until I ran out of yarn. I picked up the same yarn in three different colours and will need to go back and get some more. I plan on making a decent size rug out squares in the four colours.

The meeting was such a fantastic experience. Getting to meet a whole bunch of other crafty ladies, some whom I know a little bit through reading their blogs and others for whom I knew nothing and left knowing a little more. In addition to the crafting there was some fantastic baked treats that were on offer for snacks.

some photos 😀
most of the collective squares

taking photos, Alischa from Bespoke Press, Steph from Bondville and Katie from Miss Kitty Boo Boo

A little snippet of Melanie with some of the other girls in the background

And here are my squares

and a closer view

Grandad is doing well, they did six skin grafts on his lower legs after removing the skin cancers and they removed another two which were just stitched up. He was moved to a different ward yesterday which is much nicer than his last one. It is soo handy living as close as I do to the Wesley, I can tuck out of home and less than five minutes later I am sitting beside Grandad in his room.

April 22, 2009

Fruit, Veg and Grandad

I was picked up from work this morning to take Grandad to hospital, a couple of hours later, Grandad was in the surgery waiting room waiting to go under for more skin grafts on his legs and I was back at work. I went back to the hospital a little ago to see him after he came out of surgery and he was safely tucked up in his hospital bed -> it is very handy living sort of semi across the back fence from the hospital he is staying at. It means I will be able to visit him each day after work. Don’t know how long he will be in there for yet but last time it was two weeks. So we shall see.

Last night, I picked up my first Food Connect box, I had ummed and ahhed about various fruit/veg boxes for a couple of months now but kept on coming back to Food Connect in that they seemed to provide not only a good value for money, but I liked the newsletter they supply to let you know what is happening with the farmers they use and the office.. Last week though I decided to give it a whirl and called the office, I spoke to a very friendly lady who answered my questions. I settled on the mini mixed box for 4 pick-ups over 8 weeks. This is what I got.

I got 3 avocados, 5 bananas, 2 onions, 3 potatoes, 4 apples, 1 broccoli, 1 celery, a few leaves of silverbeet, a bag of snow peas, a punnet of sprouts, 6 tomatoes, 2 carrots, 5 mandarins and half a cabbage. I think that is all. I am pretty impressed with the swag of produce. It will be interesting to see how it suits me. I know just from my first box that it will force me to eat more fruit, eat a bigger variety of veg and mostly get me to use things I wouldn’t normally buy.

Last night for dinner I made a pot of lamb shanks with lentils, peas and tomatoes. I haven’t eaten many lentils over summer and I had forgotten how much I like them 😀 Dinner was yum.

April 5, 2009

A Saturday at The Farm

We went to The Farm (as we do) yesterday and I had a glorious time basking in the sun, taking photos and reading. Matthew cooked a veal roast, which was quite a treat. Grandad has two pecan nut trees planted in the lawn and currently they are in season so to speak. Each week I methodically work the lawn picking up the nuts. Yesterday I made a heart with what I had collected.

Whilst I was collecting the pecans though I got a little side tracked though taking photos. These are the photos I took.

This is the Fried Egg tree otherwise known as Gordonia. It is named as such because when the flowers fall to the ground they look like eggs sunny side up.

Aren’t they so pretty?

Then these balloons caught my eye. They are from Christmas Day, when the trees were full of streamers and balloons. This trio had long lost their air but had stayed hanging on a branch, fused together in the sun, swinging in the wind. Then I pulled the branch down.

Between the two pecan trees is an African Tulip tree, it is also flowering at the moment.

This is my hand and the sky. My fingers look quite slim and long for some reason in this photo.

I know Mum will hate this photo when she sees it when she returns from Africa. I was laying on the grass looking at the world upside down and out of focus and took this photo. I strangely like it.

One plant that I closely link to The Farm is crucifix orchids. A large mass of them grows on a tree stump outside the kitchen window.

This is Matthew, yes that is true, a photo of Matthew. He was on the lawn finding the strongest wireless signal. He didn’t know I took this picture. 🙂 He is in his final year of uni this year and had dived into this honours year.

This little frog gave me a scare as I was putting stuff into the car, he jumped from the tree, over the top of me and onto the bonnet. He was such a little darling of a frog.

This photo is from the week before but I will share it today. The passion fruit vine at the farm, is not just on some joe average trellis or fence, but it runs wild over the avocado trees, a gum tree and some other trees in the same patch of land. These passion fruit grow high in the canopy, metres off the ground. When they are ripe or a wind has gone through, they fall to the ground below, finding little homes in the leaf litter till they are collected.