seamstress dreams

This Zac Posen frock is calling my name {and then it's snickering behind its hands saying, "yeah, as if you can afford me... Rude!} All the more reason why I intend on mastering the skill of sewing.

I could create the perfect frock, in the most just-so fabric and would know that nobody else will be waltzing down the street in said number.

Hmmm, perhaps it really is time to bring out the ol' Singer sewing machine...

feeling better now

Phew, it's amazing what a glass of lemonade and a sausage roll can achieve {do doctor's prescribe such things? They should}. I'm now feeling much, much better - but think my day would be eminently improved with peonies such as these on such a lovely benchtop {and those wee tarts too, mmmmm}. When in doubt, take a spoonful of pretty.

nothing to see here...

I'm not feeling too hot today. Just a lurgy, that's making me feel bleurgh-y...

Not what I need at the moment, but maybe it's a sign to slow down and de-stress. I did sleep in this morning till 10am while my husband and daughter got ready this morning - that helped. And I've washed my hair and got dressed - which nearly always makes a difference - except not today.

Sigh.

Oh well, I'll drink lots of water to flush it from my system and go sit out in the spring sunshine for a bit. Surely that'll make me feel better...

wisteria lane

Our wisteria is in flower at the moment and I thought I'd best stop to appreciate it - and grab a couple of shots so you could too.

Isn't it just gorgeous! Pretty soon the vine will be covered and the delicate scent will waft over me as I walk up the stairs. I really have to thank the former owners for planting this, I don't think I would have considered it.

I have a productive week planned. I'm not as frantic as I was the last two weeks so I'm determined to get back into menu planning and spend some time getting the house in order. We have some leftover chicken provencal from last night's family feast, so that will do us for dinner tonight - and from tomorrow I'll be meal planning like I do it for a living.

I had a coffee catch-up this morning with my best friend from primary and high school - who I haven't seen in 20 years!!!! She hadn't changed, and has just become more lovely over time. Sometimes it's worth revisiting the past.

Hope you've got a lovely week planned.

oh what a night

Twas quite the ball last night. As you can see I cracked open the box and my beautiful Manolos came out to play. They had a lovely time...

I'm proud to say they've come home in pretty fine condition - no heels went through any cracks to get scuffed and scrunched.

We sipped on an amazing champage - Rodier pere et fils - which I shall be tracking down as it was utterly delicious... The food was sublime too. Morsels of duck and salad on spoons, teeny demitasse cups filled with seafood chowder and oysters to nibble while sipping champagne. Smoked salmon parcels first, followed by the most delicious pork belly dish ever {and that's saying something!} with a beef and scampi man. All rounded off with a delicate pavalova that was more like snow eggs in texture. Perfection.

We've just had the father's day pressies and breakfast in bed - with husband now going back to sleep for a tad. I'm about to start cooking provencal chicken for 16 for dinner at my in-laws' tonight. I've never catered for that many, particularly when there are two other hot dishes, oh well, best too much than not enough.

Happy father's day to all those blokes out there enjoying the day.

woo hoo it's the weekend

Who doesn't love seeing a weekend stretched out before them? We've got lots of lovely plans this weekend, including a ball tonight which is ever-so-exciting! It's on the harbour so should be pretty darned magnificent.

Sunday's father's day, so I'll be collecting our gal from her cousins' early sunday morning {after her sleepover Saturday night} and we'll make breakfast in bed and lavish daddy with gifts.

Then I'll be cooking up a storm as we have a family dinner on Sunday night. I'm making a huge pot of chicken provencal and taking baguettes to serve with it. Yum.

My husband's turned into quite the home handyman and has managed to paint lots of the pavilion and the outdoor table and chairs on the back veranda, giving them a gorgeous fresh, white look. We're inspired now to get as much of the garden finished by Christmas - including the side!!

Now I need to pull my dress from the closet for the ball tonight to make sure it still fits after a winter of comfort food. Otherwise I'll be buying a couple of pairs of spanx...

Enjoy your weekend.

i feel like dancin'

Nothing, NOTHING makes me happier than dancing, which is why I cannot believe that I have never been informed of THIS

I saw a compilation clip on GoFugYourself the other day and haven't stopped smiling since. Oh, and I've been over to YouTube and checked out about a dozen different versions which have all caused me to break out all cheshire cat-like.

Happy.

fabulous friday

Cor blimey Charlie, it's the start of another weekend. Okay, now seriously, did this week just zoom by at a super-dooper speed, or was that just me?

It's grey and drizzly today, not how I like to start my weekends - but the garden could do with a soak, so shan't complain...

We've set the daybed up in the pavilion now and as soon as the sun comes out and makes it look all photo-shoot ready I'll nip up and start snapping away.

I'm already planning my summer's entertaining. And how cute is this idea for holding water? We've got the champagne fridge in the pavilion, and I must say that water consumption is always secondary when it comes to the choice of champagne bubbles or l'aqua. However, don't you think that a vessel like this would make water seem like the chic-est choice?

bite of bliss

I don't have a lot to thank my maternal grandfather for, he really wasn't that great a person... However, I shall always be thankful for two things.

1. I seem to have inherited his baby skin - I swear his first wrinkle appeared when he was in his 60s, so I shan't be needing botox anytime in the future.

And 2. He grew the best darned tomatoes in the world. Even now I can still taste the most perfect snack ever: slices of fresh, ruby red tomato on buttered Sao biscuits, with lashings of salt and pepper. Only slightly bettered by fresh white bread, buttered, and generously laden with slices of tomatoes, salt and pepper.

My husband and daughter aren't keen on tomatoes, probably because they never tasted my pop's. If they had, they too, like me, would be on the ever elusive hunt for the perfect tomato.

I reckon that when my vegie garden's in full swing I'll have found it. I'm going to hunt through every heirloom seed company's stock till I find the perfect beefstock tomato - and force my family to try a taste of heaven...

frock on

I really, really need this dress.

bright out

It's a strange ol' day out today. Kinda grey, kinda misty... could go either way. So I thought I'd put a zing in everyone's day with these lipstick red beauties. They're by Brian Atwood and I found 'em over at net-a-porter if you're in a shopping frame of mind. They suggest pairing them with a pair of denim skinnies, which would look mighty nice, but I'd love to see them with an emerald green sunfrock. That'd bring out the sunshine - even if only in your immediate vicinity.

bluebells for beth

Because everyone needs a little bit of pretty in their day...

and so to bed

I'm not a great sleeper. Ever since having our gal, I've slept lightly, with the slightest sound waking me - and keeping me awake for yonks. Last night I was just so tired I was tempted to go to bed at 7.30 and thought, darn it, maybe I should!

I'd felt sluggish all day, and even though I forced myself to go for a 30 minute walk at 5pm, I still felt erk.

So I forced myself to stay awake till 8.30, read a chapter of my bedtime book and snoozed until 7.45am. Bliss on a stick.

Now I'm refreshed and ready to take on anything.

spring fling

Oooh, it's the first day of spring - quite possibly my fave season {but I also like autumn, and winter, and now I've got the pool, summer...}

Here's a pic of my gal from a few years ago when we were checking out the gardens in the Southern Highlands. I adore tulips, but here in sunny newcastle it's too warm for them.

Not to worry, just gives me an excuse to buy a bunch in spring. Must say, I'm loving having pretty fleurs on my desk - makes the working day go by much more pleasantly...

time-saving tuesday

I'm not going to bore you with talk of how busy I am - mainly because I'd much prefer busy than chasing work! But even though I've got bucketloads of work to do, I still have find the time to do the essentials. So here's what I'm going to do...

This may sound shocking, but I'm going to cut back my television viewing to the bare essentials. Yep, I'm going to go through the TV guide and choose my must-watch NEW programs and only watch them - no repeat viewings, no mindless watching-the-least-offensive-crapola...

So if I'm not sitting in front of the telly, I'm doing something productive - good huh! I'll also be scheduling in my daily walks which are the only thing keeping me sane lately. I played a hellishly tough game of netball last night, in a very active position so I'm feeling a bit creaky today. Luckily I know that a good, brisk walk will lubricate the ol' joints again.

I'm still sticking to my timeline too - where everything's broken down into pieces. It really helped me get all four articles that were due on Friday in on time. Woo hoo.

Have a happy Tuesday!

busy with a capital B

I was really busy last week - and now, this week, I think I'm going to be even busier. Gotta be happy with that though! Hopefully I've got everything in place to make it a success - but if not, I'm afraid I'm going to be like that ol' deck of cards...

I've already had one stumble. Yesterday our indoors-only cat escaped, and somehow managed to get a grass seed or similar in his eye. Now his right eye's all puffy, weepy and swollen. So that's a 9.15 emergency vet visit on the cards.

I'm also going out for lunch with friends for a birthday and citizenship celebration which I shan't be cancelling - I didn't work through my Sunday to give friendships a miss!

Wish me luck {again} and let's hope I don't wear any dangly bracelets that'll cause my house to fall down {totally a Brady Bunch reference for tragics like myself who saw every episode, oh, about a hundred times...}

sunny sunday

When it's already 18 degrees at 8am you know you're in for a warm ol' day...

We had a most productive shopping day yesterday, tiring, but amazingly successful.

Firstly we went to the hell that is IKEA {seriously, are there people that actually enjoy walking that 10 kilometre trek through thousands of fighting punters? Not this little black duck...}. But we had success and bought this cute little 'butcher's block' that we're going to put in an unmanageable corner in the kitchen {after painting it white} and it's going to be our coffee zone - housing the espresso machine, cups, grinder, canisters... Freeing up a lot of bench and cupboard space and looking cute.

Next, we went waaaaaaaay out Bankstown way, to a place called Yagoona, to look at a white cane daybed for the pavillion. I wasn't holding out much hope for the fabrics. Waterproof, UV-rated stuff is often stiff, and even these days, while it has a range of colours, not much take our fancy {we are serious fusspots. Serious.}

So when the bloke toddled out and we told him what we were after, he said, "Oh, I've had some cushions made up for a photo shoot that look great on the white daybed" and I, being a cynic, thought "Yeah, right."

Now, imagine how I feel when the EXACT fabric I wanted {in my head mind, I didn't even know it existed} comes out in his hand. And instead of it being in the practical three separate cushions {that I knew I should have wanted, but preferred the look of one, long cushion} it's in the one whole cushion. Maintaining a poker face was difficult.

So now, we're getting the daybed delivered on Wednesday, he's even painting it the way we want. Woo hoo. So that means my husband's going to be out with a paintbrush today putting the final coats on the pavillion so the new daybed has a worthy home. Ooooooh, the lazy sundays I'll be spending lying on that little beauty reading the papers on a weekend, while our gal swims in the pool.

Bliss.

tonight's the night

Uber-excited as tonight I'm heading off to see Coco Avant Chanel. Woo hoo. Our gal's off to her bestie's for a sleepover as we're off to Sydney early in the morning for a shopping day, so we thought we'd take advantage of the free babysitting and head off to the movies. We might even be super-sneaky and take advantage of the local cocktail offer our local restaurant Lime has: a cocktail and a tapas plate for $15. A totally balanced meal non?

Enjoy your weekend xx

frugal friday

Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of what's good value. My gal loves mangos - eats them almost every day of mango season, and when they're out of season, is aching for when they come back into season. So on Monday, I'm in Coles and I see the first of the real mangos have hit the stands. But they're $4 each so I nearly walk past them. However, I stopped to think about it and realised that I'd be happy to spend $4 on a cupcake - so why shouldn't I spend that on something that's delicious and nutritious?

I picked one up, took a sniff and the heady aroma made me swoon. I bought one, lovingly took it home and for her afternoon snack one very excited gal had fresh mango cheeks to feast on {while her lucky mum got to gnaw on the flesh around the stone - mmmmm}.

Treating yourself and your family with something so glorious is to easiest way to breeze through a frugal lifestyle. You just need to step out of the confines of what it's acceptable to spend on - and what it's not. The $6 bunch of freesia's I bought on Tuesday are sitting on my desk still bringing me joy days later - that's $2 for happiness each day - and I think they'll last till at least next monday - under $1 per day.

Sometimes it's the little things that make you feel spoiled isn't it?

so amazingly yummy

I really should have taken a photo of tonight's dinner - that's how amazing it was. Here's what we did though {a day late, cos last night we had a hospital visit - and bbq chicken and salad for dinner}.

So, tonight, gremolata and panko crumbed pork cutlets. So, so good they bring tears to my eyes, and I find myself constantly patting myself on the back. Yep, that good.

Firstly my gal made the gremolata on her mezzaluna {doesn't every nine-year-old have a mezzaluna? They do when they spy one in a kitchen shop and sigh, "Oh, I've wanted one of these forever..." Yes, she's quite the Nigella fan...} So, 1/2 cup of flat leaf parsley, rind of one lemon, two fat cloves of garlic, all mushed together.

Then, the cutlets. I flattened them out a little, getting out some aggression with my fists, then salted them. Next, they were dipped in a beaten egg mixture and then popped on a plate where I'd mixed equal quantities of panko bread crumbs {if you've never had these, run to the nearest store and buy them - they're japanese and utterly delish}. I pushed them right into the cutlets and then placed them in about a centimetre of hot olive oil in a frypan and fried each side till golden {one minute each side?}.

Then I finished them off in a 180 degree oven for 10 minutes till they were cooked through.

Tender, crispy, lemony, garlicky... seriously, what could be yummier?