The 1st harvest celebration of the year aswell as the marking of the end of summer (i don't think summer is going anywhere in a hurry around here lol)

It wasn't much of a celebration here this time. I was preoccupied with the girls 1st day of school and to be honest, it crept up on me too quick.

Anyway, i made a loaf of bread but i cheated and did it in the breadmaker. It was just too hot to have the oven on.

I didn't get to make a corn dolly, as i didn't plant any corn at the farm last season. I am looking forard to when i can make one, i've not made one before but they look grand.

We had a simple meal of vegies, not home grown unfortunately but from the local fruit and veg shop which in my opinion is just as good.
As you have read, it was a very quiet day but still enjoyable for me :)

Until next time
Blessings
-x-

I know of a few people who are decluttering their homes. Ridding themselves of items they haven't used for a year or more. I did a bit of decluttering myself when i was packing boxes for our move to a new home. Not only does it make the home more spacious and neater, it gives you a sense of satisfaction knowing someone else will benefit from your clutter, well hopefully ;)

I wonder if anyone's decluttering was as big as what my hubby got rid of? I don't think anyone will benefit from this lot, although i was told the door on the Dodge will be going to a collector, the rest, well, it's giong to wherever scrap metal goes. I probably don't want to know, it'll be adding to landfill somewhere along the line :(



By the end of February he'll have decluttered more car bodies, machinery and large bits and bobs, not just our clutter but those who have lived here before us. If this keeps up i'll want to move back to our farm, it's looking like a new home lol

Until next time
-x-

This is the 1st time i've had to pay an astronomical amount for the girls school uniforms and i'm not impressed! Why? Because the school, which is a public school, has a non-generic uniform policy. All shirts, jumpers and hats must be logo'ed and girls must wear skorts, no dresses, skirts or basketball style shorts. What i paid for 2 polo shirts, 2 hats and 4 pairs of skorts (couldn't get green ones from any of the stores in 3 different towns so had to buy them from the school)i could have brought a years worth of uniforms for both girls from Target plus extras! I still need to buy jumpers for winter and by then DD9 will have had a growth spurt and will be needing bigger sizes *insert rolling eyes*. I don't care what the school says, my girls will be wearing generic shirts and jumpers. They will each have 1 shirt with logo that they can wear for the 1st couple of days of the new term aswell as special ocassions, every other day it will be non-logo'ed shirt. Same with the winter jumper. Will be interesting to see what winter style pants their allowed, all i know is they have to be green.

Ok, rant over.

Until next time
-x-

Well, not until February for my girls but atleast they are enrolled in their new school :)

We had a meet and greet with the principle yesterday (Monday) and a tour of the school. The student population is under 250 with about 12 classes of combined grades. The girls had the choice of being in the same class but both flatly refused lol The building and outside area is HUGE compared to the last school the girls attended, i hope they don't get lost going to and from classes!

Now i have to buy uniforms and half the stationary, the school supplies the other half, different to the last school where they supplied everything we just had to hand the money over lol

The girls are quite looking forward to school starting, they've already made 2 friends who won't be in their class but they can still hang out at playtime.

Now i need to enrol Master Smiley in kinder and prepare myself for days alone :( lol

Until next time
-x-

We have moved! From Western Victoria to Northern Victoria, close to 500kms from home, might not sound a lot to some but for me it’s a looong way. . The house we are residing in is hopefully temporary; more on that at a later date just keep your fingers crossed for us 

Setting up home in a new town is fun but I will admit I am homesick. I miss the farm. I miss my veggie patch – water restrictions here mean I can’t have a garden or even a back lawn for the kids to run around. No animals – the rental is a no pet zone. I can’t holler at the kiddies lol, we are in town with neighbours all around, Most of all I miss having looong conversations with my mum. I can still chat to her from here but I have to be mindful of the costs. I’ve emailed her each day since we’ve been here lol. So yep, it’s bad homesickness for now and no amount of chocolate will compensate for it lol

The town we are in is very touristy. The caravan park is overfull with holidaying families. The river is always a hive of activity with boats and skiers. We’ve sat on the bank and watched, dangling our feets in the water.
Playing at the play park has been a regular morning activity for us. The kiddies enjoy the swings, slides, monkey bars etc while I pound the pavement for a morning walk.
Lucky for me there are no interesting shops hehe, even the newsagent is a little on the dull side.

Next week we will be enrolling the girls in school, and then we will sort out their uniforms and book lists. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a red uniformed school lol so I’ll be purchasing entire new uniforms. My little man will be enrolled in kinder too! How scary!

Until next time
Happy 2010, may it be a goal-achieving year for you all
-x-

Another festive day behind us.

Christmas Eve saw us at hubby's family home. Loads of food, drink and good company. It's always a big affair with siblings, nieces and nephews, cousins, uncles and aunts, great cousins, great neices and great nephews and the odd significant other halves. Santa even made an appearence much to the delight of MasterSmiley(DS4).
We took the kids to look at all the christmas lights around the town. Some people go to great lengths with their displays, it's quite amazing. We then visited a friend for festive drinks and ended up home well after midnight!

Chrsitmas day was an unusually quiet day for us. We'd partied too much on the 23rd and the 24th and could hardly keep our eyes open on the 25th lol. We spent the day at home with the kids enjoying their gifts they found under the Christmas tree and stockings overflowing with loads of goodies.
We had a huge fruit platter for breakfast and a simple lunch of cold meats and salads followed by a store brought christmas pudding with home made custard.
The afternoon saw us curled up on the lounge watching dvd's and snoozing but we were all together as a family and that's what counts :)

Boxing day my parents and siblings surprised us with a visit and gifts all round. I have to say the gifts the kids got from them were the best ever presents this christmas. My mum made them each a lap quilt :)

MissFloss

MissMogs

MasterSmiley


All in all we had a nice few days and now it's back to normality, well, what we might call normality for the moment lol. Hubby is home for a few more days before the call of the road beckons him back to trucking. We will be making the most of that time and may just fit in a short camping holiday.

I hope you all enjoyed the festive season how ever you may have celebrated it.

Until next time
-x-

To the beautiful, warm hearted soul who brought me into this ever changing world, my loving mum :) A milestone birthday at that, 50 years young today.

She was adament she didn't want a big party, infact no party at all, just the usual relaxing meal down on the beach. I was happy with that, my dad and siblings were just as happy. She's very, very lucky to have such festive friends who weren't going to let her birthday slip by uncelebrated lol

Her sweet friend C opened her house to mums close friends to help her celebrate. Most of them C knew, a few she didn't but welcomed them warmly. She put on a spread of cold meats and salads followed by yummy deserts and a mouth-watering red velvet birthday cake, mmmmmm.

I think i can safely say mum was happily surprised, she hates surprises lol The smile never left her face all night as she laughed and chatted with all.

Until next time
get those party shoes on and party hard
-x-