First week of term

Once again the holidays have flown past, but what fun they were, with a snow day right in the middle of them. It took until Thursday for the snow to melt away, but the dogs had fun playing in it as it receeded.

I love how much you can get done during the break (or not get done if you enjoy a sleep in lol). All those little jobs like cleaning out drawers and cupboards, sorting through clothes etc, finally get ticked off the list. And then the next holidays you do them again (well probably not the clothes one :-) ) and you think to yourself, "I'm sure I only did this a few weeks ago!"

See this little machine here? It's called a Dingo and I got a lesson in how to use it from my hubby and I've been the digger driver today, out digging holes for posts to go in so that we can start putting in internal fences on our property. I had the easy job, poor Lyall had to hammer the posts in the old fashioned way with a sledge hammer as the tractor at his work (which he'd use for ramming them in) is out at the moment. He reckons we won't need it, that his sledge hammering has done the trick, however I don't think he realises the damage a cow (or pig etc) can do to a fence and those posts need to be firmly in the ground lol. If he chooses not to believe me then he may just have to find out the hard way!

We've also popped in another couple of fruit trees, just an apple and a cherry. That's five cherry trees now, do you see a pattern there??? MMmmmm love, love, love cherries lol.

I finally finished the last two layouts from Heidi's class, but thought that you're proably over seeing Echo Park so wouldn't worry about uploading them to here. I have a layout of Archie dog on the go at the moment and if I get it done in time I'll pop it on the Southern Girls Challenge blog as this time round it's all about winter.

Well girls have a great first week of term - whether that means you're back to work, or back to normal routines :-)

Challenge me happy

Wow, two posts in one day and it's not even Sunday LOL. Here is my layout for Challenge me Happy.

Non facebookers!

I forget that not all my friends are also on Facebook - so for those that aren't here are the snow photos!

And here's a layout that I've done for Birds of a Feather, July challenge.

This Sunday

Yippee, Sunday is here, the dogs are walked (with snow flurries fluttering down), the chickens are fed and cleaned (and hiding from the said snow flurries). Now I get to blog and then hide away in my scraproom for the day.

This week has seen me enjoy the company of my darling nephew and his girlfriend. We had a fun few days away, except that I've injured my damn back again, and I'm without a car for three days this coming week so can't get to the osteopath. Still lucky I had Russ with me when we were away as he ended up doing some of the driving as I was in too much pain. Anyway here are photos of the cute couple and the cute seals :-)

And another layout from Heidi's class finished.

I've also done my first digital layout thanks to a Jessica Sprague course - now I just need to learn how to upload it to here lol. And nope, I'm not going digi, but I so need to figure out Photoshop and she makes it easily understood, so it's money well spent.

Enjoy your week everyone.

First week of the term break

I hate it when that happens. I just wrote a whole blog post and then it disappeared. GGGGGGRRRRRRRRRR.

So I start again.

It's a stunner of a day here in North Canterbury, so we toddled off this morning and brought ourselves a few fruit trees. We really want to, over time, make a bit of an orchard, just for home use, out in our paddock. We currently have three cherry trees, one apricot and one peach. So today we got an apple, a peacherine, a nectarine and a plum. We hope to buy a few every couple of months. That way it doesn't dent the bank account too much and they'll all mature at different times. I just can't believe the variety that is out there, truly amazing.

As you can see our vege garden is also looking pretty healthy. Lovely crunchy celery in there, or on my plate :-) Poor Lyall, he thinks that we are a bit mad - we eat celery with dip, with cheese, with peanut butter...hmmm yum.

The paddock is a dangerous place and you can't go in there without bodyguards. The fact that you might also dig up a worm or two, or other delectable item is just a bonus :-) Mind you they are starting to earn their keep, my feathered friends - three of them are laying now. Of course in true cat style, Tui must come and have a look too. For she is a cat, and it's her job to make sure nothing is happening around the house that she doesn't know about!

Last night I headed into my scraproom. It was all toasty and warm with the heater going and I finished one of the layouts from Heidi's class. I put together another one from the class, but have yet to add the journalling. I could have done it today really, but I had my shorts on, yes you read that right, shorts...and was enjoying the sun way too much ;-)

I'm off for a couple of days in Kaikoura and Hanmer this week with my nephew and his partner, and I'm catching up with my cousin tomorrow. Sometime over the holiday, hopefully more than once, the dogs and I will catch up with my twinnie and her big puppy :-) and I'm hoping to have a scrappy day with Heidi - maybe early in the second week Heidi? I have to work Thursday and Friday of the second week. So for your enjoyment here are two of those cute little dogs of mine, they got to go to the beach for the morning with Donna, so they are tuckered out now lol.

Have a fantastic week everyone.

In other news...

What a great class Vicki and I attended yesterday. It's been a while...umm actually a really long time, (SENZ last year I think) since I did a layout class. This one was six layouts with Heidi B over at Scrappin Patch. Needless to say we did not actually finish six layouts lol. However two were finished on the day, two were cut out and I just need to find some photos and then put them together and two will be done over the school holidays me thinks. Sometimes it's the simplest things that make you go ahhhh...in this case Heidi used more than one colour of glimmermist on a page. Why had I never thought of that? It's so simple and so logical but it never entered my mind lol. And Vicki and I have fallen in love with a stamp. It will be winging it's way to our houses in the not to distant future.

Here are two of the finished layouts:

My chickens live in a big coop. A big strong coop. A coop that hasn't moved an inch even though a seven point one earthquake hit us, followed by lots of it's friends...Last night the wind was so strong that my coop blew over. Because it was dark and windy there was also driving rain. These things must go together LOL. Of course Lyall and I were out there in this freezing cold, sleet like driving rain and howling wind, with a torch peering in the little door that the chickens use to go in and out trying to see if they were okay. They appeared unharmed and just a little dazed, so we left them in there for the night as we really couldn't do anything else. The coop can only be moved by four wheel drive. In the morning they came out of their little door and had breakfast and Lyall uprighted the coop. It is now back up with it's back against the garage, fastened down as much as we can make a coop that big fastened down...This wind was so noisy and the rain so heavy that Lyall didn't hear the coop fall over - Donna and I di but didn't know what it was, just assumed the only thing we had outside that could crash was the carport or the coop :-)

Enjoy your last week of the term people. Wrap up warm and drink hot chocolates :-)

A recipe

If you're on Facebook then you'll know that the lovely Hannah has oodles of lemons that she's been busy using. I have a delicious Lemony Apple Pie recipe, but as I don't have Hannah's email, I'm sharing it on here. Maybe some of you also might like it. It's very easy and oh so yummy.

Lemony Apple Pie

For the pastry
1 cup of flour
A third of a cup of self raising flour
150grams of butter, cold
2 egg yolks
3-4 tablespoons of cold water


For the filling

2 eggs
Grated rind and juice of one lemon
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of melted butter
3 large Braeburn or Granny Smith apples, grated (no need to peel)
Icing sugar to dust

To make the pastry, place the flours and butter into a food processor and run the machine until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolks, just pulsing machine to combine. Dribble in the water until the mixture clumps together in a ball. Gather the dough and press into a flat shape and then wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for thirty minutes or longer.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Spray a fluted pie dish with baking spray (I just used butter wiped around). Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured surface and line the pie dish. Place this back in the fridge while you prepare the other ingredients.

To make the filling, combine the eggs, lemon rind and juice, sugar and melted butter. Pour into the chilled pastry shell. Cover with grated apple and bake for ten minutes and then reduce the temperature to 160 degrees Celsius, and bake for a further 40-45 minutes until golden brown and the pastry is just pulling away from the edges. Serve warm dusted with icing sugar (I don’t worry about the icing sugar as its pretty sweet!)

The Swannanoa Retreat...

Yep, I know a day late with posting. I was zonked last night. In bed at eight. Fast asleep at maybe ten past eight lol. It’s not like I had a busy weekend either (but I have a hugely sore back so think that’s making me tired..well that’s my excuse anyway!). I had a lovely weekend as the hostess of the now famous Swannanoa Retreat. A retreat so exclusive that it doesn’t even have a sign LOL. It was a lovely relaxing weekend with Heidi and a short but sweet visit from Vicki. There was another lady who was meant to come out but she didn’t make it. You only get one shot at the Swannanoa Retreat so she’s off the list for next year!
I managed two layouts and started a third.

This one is for Challenge Me Happy.

This one was a bit of a scraplift from I have no idea where lol…It was going to be for Scrap Box’s birthday challenge, but I never got it up in time, oh well, at least it tells the story.

Heidi and I headed up for a yummy breakfast at Segars. I had my usual of waffles, with banana, bacon and maple syrup, such an American breakfast, but oh, so delicious. Especially when it’s white with frost outside.

Am totally looking forward to Heidi Barclays class, next weekend. Though I’d better figure out what photos etc to take.

Am counting down now till the end of term. Nine working days Mandy…nine working days lol. Now don’t get us wrong, it’s not that Mandy and I don’t love what we do one hundred percent – but you so need those breaks. The kids need those breaks – we have so many coughing kids at the moment. Not sick enough to stay home, but not really well enough to be busy at kindergarten. They need a week where there is a change to routine, not rushed out the door dropping siblings to school and then off to kindergarten. A few days of laying round in their jammies, playing with their toys on the floor. Enough to give their minds and bodies a break, then they come back fresh and ready for learning and we come back fresh and ready for teaching (and learning) to.

If you have a blog and when leaving comments the commenter has to sign in, then please know that for some weird reason, I can't. I know this affects Brenda, Jane's and Rachel's blogs. So sorry guys, I am reading them, but I can't comment. It won't let me do something I've previously had no trouble doing. I know I have Jane and Brenda's emails and I'm pretty sure I have your's too Rach, so will have to comment that way. And yep, I've tried kicking the computer, but you know what? It didn't work lol.

Have a fab week everyone.