Life is a Journey not a Destination

….allowed me to get outside and check up on our vegetable garden. Unfortunately it’s not looking very healthy at all.

Things started to go bad when we were away January and Kevin only watered the garden once all week – despite having some pretty hot days. Then for the last week we’ve had lots and lots of rain.

So the tomatoes are on their last legs – the big ones have gone rotten (I assume from all the rain).

The celery stopped growing ages ago and looked like this after a week of no water.

Still no sign of any viable zuchinni (the one thing we’ve always had lots of success with), cucumber plant is dead and our pumpkins never got going this year. The only thing still looking good are the onions, carrots, capsicums and some of the strawberries. It’s been a very mixed year with the tomatoes (until we went away) being the most successful. Now need a dry/sunny day to get out there and give it a good tidy up.

Fresh summer fruit…what more can I say. My favs. are mangos,cherries, watermelon & raspberries.
And strawberries fresh from our garden!!

Of course, you can always put it on pavlova nests with cream for a REALLY yummy desert.

Then we have salad…I have this for lunch nearly every day during the Summer..changing it up a bit each day for variety.

and plenty of barbeques…especially when entertaining and when on holidays…

And lets not forget my current favourite breakfasts…cheese on toast…

and green smoothies…

and corn thins with hummus…

Then we have dinners made with produce from the garden – zuchinni slice…

and feta & cherry tomato frittata…

and lastly we have the yummy treats….banana goji muffins…

and of course nothing says Summer like a bowl of  ice cream…

and even better is homemade ice-cream.

Hope I haven’t made anyone too hungry and for those of you currently experiencing Winter…hope this gives you something to look forward to. Most foods I will eat year round but there are definitely some seasonal favourites. It will be interesting to do a Winter favourite post and compare.

What are your favourite foods to eat during Summer?

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

9	

Timestamp: 2010-02-06 04:26:43 UTC

————————————–

So the lucky winner is Vanessa of Green Ness. Congrats Vanessa. Please send me your address at libby@withnall.com and I’ll get the mag/book in the mail to you ASAP.

Still working my way through the house – one room each week.

As my long term readers will know I’ve been wanting to try digital scrapbooking for a few years. Finally I saw a real opportunity with Renee Pearson’s Just the Basics class. Class started last week. I immediately discovered we had Photoshop Elements 5 and I needed 6,7 or 8 for class. Kevin finally got me version 6 so today I was able to complete week 1 (just in time for week 2 to arrive). Having Renee talk it through step by step is wonderful and just what I needed. I watched the videos, then listened to them while I followed on PSE (switching back and forth as need). The result 2 digital layouts that I am rather proud of, even if it’s so totally not my normal style. The theme was robots but luckily was neutral enough I was able to find photos to go with it.

Who knows in a few weeks I might even be able to complete the few online classes I started that were largely digital!

*****You can tell I’m new to this. Design credit for the digital kit “Arbot” goes to  Jackie Eckles of www.littledreamerdesigns.com

***** To make it very clear all I added was the photos and title/journalling .

Kevin is a bit like me and not really into birthdays but we always try and make it a little special for him. This morning the girls gave him a few presents and tonight Amy (or should I say I) made fondue. We started with cheese fondue with bread sticks for dipping.

Then an hour or so later we had chocolate fondue.

Christy ended up eating some of the chocolate with her spoon. This was the result.

Okay, it’s not like I really have time to waste but that’s what I did this afternoon. One of the very first websites I stalked “Cassworld” has just started a blog. While exploring her new updates I started watching her Disneyworld video which got me thinking of our own videos…. can you see where this going? I found and watched video from our WDW trip 2002. Two hours later…..

But how fun seeing both the girls as “little girls” again – Amy was 3 and Christy just 5 months. It bought back so many happy memories. Then of course I wanted to share some of the Disney magic with you all so I had to create a mosiac….another hour or so gone…

Weren’t they just so cute? Why does the time go by so fast?

Don’t worry, I did get all the jobs on todays list done. But now I’m wanting to track down, and watch, the rest of our videos….. And there was the most gorgeous clip of Christy laughing madly at Amy playing with a balloon and I’d love to share with you all….

Emma of The Syders was kind enough to pass on a meme to share my favourite photo. What a hard thing to do. To make it a bit more challenging I decided to choose from the photos not shared on my blog (as far as I can recall). This was taken on our Mexico cruise back in 2007. I had started blogging but did not yet know how to add photos .

I’d to see what you all choose for your favourite photo so please play along and be sure to let me know if you do.

Well, when I set the goal of a blog post every day within a week I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage. However, now that we’re at the beginning of February I have a growing list of ideas. It really is amazing how the more I’ve had to challenge myself the easier the ideas seem to flow. Now, let’s see if I’m saying the same thing in a couple months time.

When I opened the mail today and recieved the two free back issues that came with my magazine subscription to Clean Food Organic my first thought was to do a blog post to make sure all my fellow Aussies know about this great magazine. It originally started out like more of a book (which was expensive) but is now a magazine ($8.95 per issue).

My second thought was I already have one of these back issues so therefore I can do a giveaway on the blog. Yay!!!  So any of my Aussie readers who are interested in checking out the mag (book in this case) please leave a comment and I’ll do the draw on Friday.

It’s been the most lazy two days in a very long time.

Basically, Kevin and the girls did this…quality time playing the same game together .

I’ve done a few chores. And yesterday I went to my book group and today I’ve worked on plans for our UK trip and drunk lots of tea!

We did take a little time out for an early celebration for Kevin’s birthday – lunch out with Nan, Pop and Granny.

If you look closely you can see the birthday candle that came with his ice cream .