Fresh is best and cannot wait

Two posts in one day!!  But this is fresh and cannot wait!!

My salad garden is doing so well that I selected some bits from it tonight for dinner.  Well, fresh is best you know!!  TOF was cooking schnitzel so I threw my salad greens in a bowl, added strips of carrot, slices of celery, chunks of tomato and red capsicum,  some of my freshly grown alfalfa, some goats milk feta and pineapple.  All topped up with (all you vegetarians close your eyes now) beef schnitzel cut into small bits.

Just like a restaurant one but so much cheaper!!  Talk about healthy, no dressing, no wedges!!  

Next thing I will take up exercising?? Yeah Right!!!

♥ Bye ♥

If I try really hard I can smell summer

Last night we launched ourselves into daylight savings!!  Launched may be a slight exaggeration, as most things around here automatically update the time.  So I stood on a chair to move the hands on the kitchen clock to the current daylight savings time this morning.  And it feels great.  Even the sun is out, good sign of things to come!! Positive thinking here people!!  Work with me!!

Yesterday morning Sue W phoned and said she was coming into town and I did I want to play.  Did I want to play?  Is the Pope a Catholic? Does a Bear shit in the Forest?  And play we did.  The cute as childs cane chair I scored for $2 and I will be on selling as I need to get cash together for more playtime.  The fabric came from Spotlight, all on sale.  In fact they have a sign that I love to read "CLEARANCE".  Gets my attention anyway.  The Russian dolls and stripes are going to be cushion covers for my outdoor chairs, dolls one side and stripes on the other.  The tapestry chicken one is going to be made into runners for on top of my Entertainment cabinet, china cabinet and roll top desk.  So much easier to flick the dust off and replace!!  Such a slave to my housework I know!!!

I had myself a good old nana nap yesterday afternoon as me and TOF were heading out with friends for dinner in town.  I thought woo hoo a night on the town, better have a nap so I can keep up!! But alas it was only dinner, no one wanted to go into some of the other bars and clubs, and they all said "NO" to my idea of Ice Skating.  Skating rink has been temporarily set up in Garden Place, more of a square now rather that a place of gardens.  Our Council has totally stuffed that one up.  Used to be beautiful but now, big thumbs down from me.  Oh and don't get me started on the so called artistic piece of horrendously expensive junk that our rates contributed to!!!  Oooops sorry, momentarily digressed!!

Dianne and Grant, Corrin and Alister,and TOF and me.

We went to Lonestar, and the meal, drinks and company were all great.  I just wasn't ready to go home to my knee rug, slippers and cup of tea!!!

♥♥ I'm 50 young not 50 old ♥♥

PS: I have just noticed that obviously I like my own blog so much that I have joined it so I can follow it?! One way to have more followers I guess, not quite sure how I accomplished that.

Put your left hand up if you love Friday!!

Mines up!!!

Even tho' I am currently not gainfully employed more than one day a week I do still love it when Friday comes around.  Today was mild but not the nicest day, slightly dull weather wise.  Not dull in the activity department for me.

With my kitchen scissors at the ready I went and cut some fresh flowers and things from my garden to put in my new jug.  Winter roses, Grannies Bonnets, Daffodils, Poor mans Orchid, Calais Lilies, Rosemary, and some others I cannot name but love to grow.  I think they look super duper and I love the mish mash of colours all thrown together in the jug.  My sweet peas are amping at the moment and they will be so beautiful when they are tall and flowering.  I think my favourite flowers are the old fashioned jobbies and especially the fragrant ones.

I have another jar of Alfalfa on the go.  This is only a few days growth so not long now and I will be able to bag it up and consume it.  So nice in a sandwich or in a salad.  I learned from my last lot to not put so much into the jar - I gave 3 snap bags of it away as I had so much.  Hopefully this weekend I will harvest a few salad greens from my little salad garden.  I gave the girls some of the silver beet this morning which they appreciated.  By mid morning I was over tootling about at home so I snuck in a quick visit to Habitat.  Found a nice book on Morocco, some fabric, a cute bell, and a cool as Union Jack pencil case.  Just down the road from my house is a church that I keep forgetting has an Op Shop.  So I popped in there today as they were about to shut shop.  The dear old lady said to carry on as she was in no rush.  I found a doily and a small cloth, that she wanted only 50c for.  I only had a $1 so said nah lets make it a dollar.  She told me to make sure to come back.

My collection of goodies, a skirt I forgot to mention, love the fabric, spots, stripes and wiggly lines, and a close up of my bell.

I have quite a few lovely German colouring in pencils.  My first lot I bought years ago at a Rudolf Steiner School Fair, they even have their own wooden pencil sharpener.  These are beautiful to draw with and they desperately needed their very own pencil case, which they got today!!  When my friend Leonie was living in Germany she found me some more of these so I have quite a collection.   I wrote a short story and illustrated it for my great nephew Kyden when he was a pre schooler and love to dress up as things like super hero's like most wee boys do.  It's all about him and what he got up to in my back yard. He used to come here one afternoon a week before Kindergarten kicked in.  

He may get a kick out of reading about his imaginary adventures that he used to have in my back garden when he is older!!

Anyway, I took a drive out to the Webber Country Estate this afternoon for my sneak preview of the freshly decorated bedroom and dressing room.  OMG!!!  All I can say is WOW, WOW, WOW!!  The dressing room is to die for and I could not stop saying WOW!!  Every girls dream would be to have a dressing room like this.  If you follow her blog then wait when she shares photos of this beauty.  I think I am going back when the curtains go up for a ribbon cutting opening Ceremony.  Honored guest is what I will be!!!  Wonder if we will do tea in posh cups and cup cakes?

♥♥ Enjoy your weekend ♥♥

It's not my fault, you should have taken the car

Being on somewhat of a roll yesterday I conjured up a cunning plan that incorporated a few more op shops whilst out and about doing my B's and P's today.  Before I put my plan into action I had my morning chores to deal with.  Obviously I am easily amused and amazed, proof in the photo of the range of eggs my girls had produced.  I thank them every morning when I feed them and collect their efforts of producing lovely jubly free range eggs.

I am also easily distracted.  Making the bed I realised how dam gorgeous my Sylvac container really is.  Pride of place on my dressing table and the new home for my watch, Mala, and Labradorite ring while I sleep.  Then I remembered how I didn't share with you all the two new jugs I bought with my shop credit from work.  I worked in the shop on Tuesday as well as Monday this week and Viv, I call "Antiques Road Show" because she knows everything about collectables was there.

She was pricing up stock for her part of the shop.  It is so much fun seeing what wonderful thing she will next unpack.  Ex Antique Dealer so she tells me she has a major amount of boxes to unpack.  I fell in love with this jug, so fat, and the Wisteria is very sweet.  Some fancy brand but I cannot remember. My preference is jugs rather than vases for fresh cut flowers.  And I have alot of lovely flowering plants in my garden so they will be picked and plopped into this I am sure. The little jug is part of a Royal Winton Breakfast set, worth squillions if you can get the whole set. This one is only about 8cm tall.

Have a look on trade me at Royal Winton Breakfast sets to see how insanely amazing they are and how much money is being sort for them.  Way out of my price range so happy to settle with the little jug!!

So side tracked I took photos of inside the part of our TV cabinet that should house a stereo but not here, it has my whimsies.  The pic on the right shows my dads old builder wooden ruler and his wooden planner that he made when he was an apprentice.  When he died these and his old blue handled Estwing hammer were the things that I asked to have. He built lots of things for us over the years so these things were my forever feel good about my dad things.

This gorgeous thing is the result of one of my missions today. I won this on trade me and had to go collect it.  But first I had to wait for a couple of buyers to come here to collect and pay for stuff I had sold them. Also there were 3 Camellia shrubs I won for $6 that needed to be collected.  In between all of this I visited a few op shops in the areas close to my pickup zones.  My wooden privacy screen was out in the countryside at Tauwhare about a 15 minute drive from home and just down the road for my niece so I visited her while I was in her neck of the woods.

Lonnie and Tank sitting ever so beautifully, Arlo, and Basil the cat.

The chicken coup, the flashest one ever.

Arlo and some of the chickens and the paddock with Jade's sheep in it.

There is nothing quite like fresh country air to make you feel alive!

I was even back in town in time to collect TOF from work.  But unfortunately this meant he saw the back of the car well full of goodies.  I don't lie to him about my buys but I probably alter some of the vital information like how much!!

Darling old fashioned framed print $5, hand embroidered book mark 50c, 2 sets of TTTE for my toy box only $2 each.  Everyone loves Thomas!!

Hand embroidered table cloth $6, each corner has this in different colours.  My Lighthouse has a tea light candle inside so when lit all the windows light up, $1.  TOF is going to take me to the Lighthouse over on the East Cape over summer.  I quite fancy Lighthouses!!

Floral top $4, Purple top $5 and skirt that I have already cut the top layer off to reveal plain black and the spotted ruffle and tulle was $8.  But I want this as a petticoat so the $$s didn't matter.  None of these look like much on hangers but they will be grand to wear in summer.  It is on its way you know.  Has to be because day light savings kicks in this weekend which means the Northern Hemisphere have finished with summer, have packed her bags and are sending her south to us lot!!!  I don't mind her taking her time as long as she remembers what she is here for when she arrives.  She has a job to do!!!

My pets are being introduced to a raw food diet as I am fed up with the expense of all the processed pet food and as a Naturapath told me, raw food is what they used to eat.  Lucky for me both dogs and the cat like fruit and veges so raw meat, chicken necks and uncooked bones are now on the menu.  I have also decided that the dogs will not be vaccinated every year.  My vet will not be able to upgrade his car or have that overseas trip now!!

Looking at this you would think Oscar is gagging on his carrot but in truth this is the look of ecstasy!!!

Plan is to head out to the Webber Country Estate tomorrow and have an advance viewing of the newly redecorated bedroom and dressing room.

♥♥ Toodles ♥♥

couple of old bags big day out

SuesDay yet again!!  Yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

We scrubbed up for our day out too!!  Both our out fits are all second hand.

Quick photo shoot before we headed off to the "DUMP". 

From the Dump we went to Frankton and then into town to JC.

The building where JC is, is a rather doozy old one.  Lovely Mosaic tiling on the floor, wide sweeping stair case, and flash plaster molding everywhere.  Cool Lighting also.

From there we headed to the Salvo in the main street and we were parked outside a French Cafe, one run by some lovely Asian girls.  We treated ourselves to a spot of lunch as we had been on the go since 9amish and we felt we deserved a bit of a sit down and a feed.  I ordered us Spinach and Ricotta in Filo which was heated up and served with a salad.  Trust me it was DELISH!!!

Our well deserved rest was over so we headed off to the SPCA op shop and then to another Salvo.  Last but not least was our all time favourite, Habitat!!

The things I could not say no to today are the following:

Cute old as kitten framed picture on half price for $2.50, super gorgeous Sylvac dish with lid that had an asking price of $10 but it had been repaired so the lady let me have it for $2, and the dinky little wooden stool/plant stand for $2.  Tall blue glass bottle $3, cute leather coin purse $2, and dainty little doilie for .50c.  Wooden trug style tray $2,  just over 2m of floral cotton fabric $3, and 2 outdoor furniture cushions $1 each.

Ultra large plastic woven bag for $7-50 and 2 big paper fold out star lights for $1.  They will look great hanging somewhere or another!!!

My clothing finds are, colourful TS14 top $4, beaded cropped jacket $2, and EGG maternity dress $8.  NO I am not in the club, I was fixed a few years back and it fits really nice.  The clothes look much better on but they all need to go into the wash.

All in all another very successful and entertaining day out with the other old bag.  Forgot to say we were models in the Salvo window for about 5 minutes, entertaining one of the lovely ladies that worked there!!  I was worried she was going to lock us in the display area so we gapped it back to the safety of the shop.  Told her a slightly filthy joke, left her laughing and we made our escape.

♥♥♥

Goodbye