Where Have I Been

Well I have been too busy reading everyone else's blog and forgot all about updating my one. I have had a rough winter - been sick for most of it. I am better now which is great as I feel like my old self. Now that I am more myself,I will definitely be updating this blog more regularly. I am even doing more scrapbooking which is great. I have definitely found some balance in my life.

We have been very busy working on our lifestyle block. I have a kitchen garden (right next to the house and separate from the big veggie garden) now - well nearly as I have purchased the veggie seedlings but not yet planted them. It took us all day to get the the kitchen garden ready as we first had to removed heaps of rosemary plants. All done now.

We spent this weekend preparing our veggie garden over in our orchard paddock and it looks awesome - well we think so. It was two separate patches with gooseberry, cranberry and blueberry bushes in between. We have now combined it into one large garden. We still have to dig in fertiliser and then start planting but there are only so many hours in the day or weekend in our case.

I even managed to get in some scrapbooking. I did a layout for the October sketch challenge over at Scrapbooking by Design.



I have just printed out some photos for the another sketch challenge over at Better Scrapbooking. I will up load this layout as soon as I have finished it. Why don't you head over to the Better Scrapbooking site and enter this challenge.

The past few weeks

Isn’t spring just the best time of the year. The fruit trees are blossoming and the magnolia trees have the most gorgeous buds on them and some are already in flower.

As you will have noticed I haven’t updated my blog in ages. Many reasons…

Firstly my DH surprised me with a trip to Queenstown for my 40th birthday. WOW – it was fabulous. He planned and pre-arranged everything from accommodation to a helicopter trip which included a snow landing on top of one the mountains. The views were breathtaking and top of that we had lovely weather – no rain or wind. We also took one of the scenic plane trips to Milford Sound and then a cruise around the sound. The scenery is so beautiful that there are no words really to describe it but it did make me really appreciate the beautiful country we live in. We went up the gondola and had dinner at the restaurant up there. We drove to Arrowtown which was just too quaint for words. We did a spot of cheese and wine tasting. We also discovered this little French café where the food was divine and so was the coffee. It was that good that we went back a second time and we going to go back a third time but unfortunately we ran out of time. We also did the Ernslaw cruise around Lake Whakatipu. What is the first thing a scrapper wants to do when they get home from a trip – download the thousands of photos that they have taken? But my computer, which was working perfectly before we went on holiday, decided to show that lovely blue screen and refused to work, even in safe mode. Thank goodness DH is a dab hand at fixing PC’s. Out came the hard drive and he whipped it into his machine where he managed to read the drive and copied all my files and those precious photos onto his machine. (I was worried for a while there that I had lost all my photos – I know I am supposed to back up all my data, well maybe this was a warning for me!) He performed some tests and all came back okay, so he put the hard drive back into my computer. I booted it up and it worked. Well, we still don’t know what went wrong but at least I lost nothing and it is up and running. Isn’t it amazing how lost you feel without a computer.

The kitchen renovations are plodding along. Slowly for a while there as we had to wait for the pull out pantry to arrive that we had ordered a couple of weeks ago. DH has installed that and a huge pantry next to it as well. The old pantry has been dismantled and is ready to be reused for the rest of the kitchen cupboards. I have started to rearrange the stuff in the kitchen cupboards. It makes me feel so good to have a place for everything and that it is neat and tidy, not jammed into the cupboards where you have to remove half the stuff just to get to one thing. Yes, I know what you are thinking – that I am a bit of a control freak – well my friends would agree with you there. Next for the kitchen renovations is the native wood benchtop for the island.

I was invited to a Stampin Up party just over a week ago, where we made a waterfall booklet (designed by Delys Cram). Click here to visit her blog and look at some of her gorgeous designs –she is one very talented lady.

Better Scrapbooking

The latest newsletter is out over at Better Scrapbooking. Pop over to their site and have a read. There are heaps of competitions happening too and fanastic prizes to win. This months competition closes at the end of July so check back early August for the new ones.

Family Matters

Well on the family side of stuff things haven't been too good lately. My step granny passed away last week. My thoughts and prayers are with her daughter and her family.

This week my dad gave us all a scare by having a seizure in the middle of the night and we all ended up in A&E with him. He is fine and only had to spend a couple of nights in hospital. He had a CAT SCAN and has been put of anti-seizure medication. Apparently this is from the brain surgery he had a couple of years ago for a tumour. He has a follow up appointment with the neurosurgeon and an MRI scan due so we will just have to wait till then to find out more.

My DSD is also in hospital (overseas) with an infection. The details are a little sketchy at the moment but she is fine too. She has heaps of family over there so she has tons of support and we stay in touch through facebook and text messages.

I also have a cousin in South Africa who lives on a farm and she is been constantly attacked. It is just awful and my thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

Update on the kitchen renovations

This is progressing really well thanks for my DH. The oven / microwave unit has been installed. Just a small adjustment to make to the microwave before I can start using it but so far the oven is working. In the meantime I am still using the old microwave which is on the floor so it is really funny everytime I want to use it as I am sure you can imagine me crouching on the flooring putting stuff in and out of the microwave.

The two small units and large corner unit for the gas hob has been installed as well. The extractor is up as well. I have tracked down the colour I want the kitchen walls so that it ties in with the rest of the open plan living and dining area. The colour is Chino and it took a few test pots to get to the correct colour which means that one of the kitchen walls has a few different coloured paints all over it. DH has done a trial run for the cupboards doors. We still need to make a few changes but this is the shape of the insert that I chose for the doors. We will be painting all the cupboard doors white.

Birthdays and special friends

I whipped up a card for one of my friends this evening as a whole bunch of us are meeting for lunch tomorrow to celebrate her birthday. It is tradition for us get together on each other's birthdays. We have been doing this for the past few years and it is one very special tradition. One friend arranges the gift voucher, one the birthday cake, one the restaurant and I usually do the card. This means that I don't receive a lovely card for my birthday so this year I am going to make one for myself and send it off to all my friends to sign and give to me when we meet for lunch.

Kitchen Renovations

Here are some pictures of the kitchen cabinets that my DH is making. These cupboards will go on either side of the cupboard under the gas hob. This is all very exciting for me as I haven't really done any DIY in my life before. The gas hob has not been installed yet but that is next after these cupboards are done. I know they are not much to look at as they are just the shell of the cupboard. DH is making the doors for them and will be adding a simple grove in the doors and they will be painted white. The tool for this arrived today from the States!

I used my new oven last night to cook a roast pork. It was yum and I didn't even need to use the grill to crisp up the crackling. But I was a bit stumped when it came to making the gravy though as I didn't have a stove top / gas hob to make it on. Thank goodness for the microwave.

Check back here each week as I update the progress on the kitchen. My DIY job for the kitchen is the painting part - which I have never done before so that is going to be very interesting and hopefully my poor DH will come through this painting escapade intact. I am going to match the colour with the existing walls in the lounge (as it is all open plan) tonight and then off to buy the paint tomorrow. The kitchen walls are currently painted purple!!!!!!!!!