today

Things have been busy here. Each of us have had at least one turn at being sick in the past fortnight. Add to that a fortnght where we had a host of different commitments that couldn't be evaded.

Today for the first time in weeks we woke up with nothing planned and noone sick. We slept in, dropped muffins off to friends who are in the middle of packing / moving house then headed out for a drive along the Great Ocean Road. We drove round the bends, played roadtrip games, wandered around some rockpools, collected shells, played at a playground then came home.

Once home we hooked up the projector (borrowed from work) for movie night. Throw in dinner (toasted sandwiches) in front of the screen and everyone was happy.

baby J

Friends had a baby 15 days ago. He is very cute but not as cute as Milly is every time she gets a chance to cuddle him.

daydreaming

I was in my study today, organising and cleaning. To make an otherwise mundane job interesting I started daydreaming about what I add to/change about the room if i had access to an umlimited budget...

 

This Arne Jacobsen chair in the corner, positioned to catch the sun through the french doors. I could happily sit and read in this chair for hours. The blue is beautiful.

 This mobile which I think is so lovely.

This set of oak drawers to keep the paperwork under control. I have never seen one this tall but they must be out there. I can only imagine the price-tag. I paid a fair bit for my 6 drawer set so thinking exponentially - this would cost a bomb.

I love the over the top turned legs, not sure I would give my trestle table a second glance as it was carted away.

And for the floor - I would love this, but oversized so it almost touches the skirtings.

 

In reality though (and it may not show up from these dodgy photo taken with my phone), I do love my study. The view is lovely when I am sitting at the desk, to my right I see the Japanese Maples and straight ahead I look through the double sliding doors past the lounge room out to the Silver Birches.

one foot in front of the other

The highlight of my Mothers' Day was not my macarons or lovely gift. It was completing a 4km run in lieu of breakfast in bed - the Mothers' Day Classic fundraiser for Breast Cancer. I have been training for a month, running 4 or 5 times a week. Using an iPhone app. that helps me build up fitness and shift from walking to running in challenging but achievable increments. Today was the halfway point in my training (by the end point I will run the 6km run Sam and I walked last year (see this post) - if my time was relevant I would post it, but honestly, the best thing was that I finished it and had enough energy to wave to my (larger than expected) cheer squad at the final corner.

next project ?

I have had an idea lurking in my mind for a while. A quilt for our bed from the denim of old jeans. I have been gathering cast offs and buying from op shop bargain bins for a while and have quite a lot of fabric. I love the hues of blue found in old jeans. The idea has not formed into anything definite yet. I think it will be a rectangle quilt (it's the best use of the fabric - jeans' legs). I borrowed a book of Kaffe Fassett's this week from the library and found Stripescape. It is pretty close to what I have in mind, but you have to squint to focus on the rectangles, trying desperately to ignore the riot of colour that typifies his quilts. I think it may be time to start cutting. I fear I will discover that I need a lot more fabric. But this shouldn't deter me from making a start.

Perhaps while I am cutting and piecing this quilt I will be inspired to start on my vintage sheets. I think it may be a seasonal malaise I am inflicted with in regards to those sheets - this denim quilt tells of a cosy winter bed, the sheets are a riot of spring.

french flavours of mothers' day

Making macarons was on my holiday to do list - I mentioned it here last month. I also mentioned that I didn't really like the taste of them and I think it was this (and painting the fence) that meant it dropped off my holiday list. Yesterday Michael went to my favourite emporium of French loveliness (both new and vintage) and brought me home a Choc Hazelnut Macaron. It was a delicious, crunchy exterior-ed, chewy centred hit of Nutella.

So today I made them. There were a couple of size issues: they really didn't expand much more than my (precisely measured and marked onto the baking paper) 2cm piped discs so are more petit four than large biscuit. My piping height was also a little inconsistent so I had a variety of sizes (albeit all small). The only other issue was more related to family gluttony - I piped 75 which made 3 dozen complete macarons but the four of us happily ate them as they cooled down and we only ended up with 3 each for dessert (remember, they were very small). There are none left for Sam's teacher (who has Coeliac Disease so these are one of the few treats I can send to her). There are none left for lunchboxes tomorrow. There are most definitely none left for the morning tea I am hosting in a couple of days. As I type this there are 9 packed tightly into a lunchbox to be posted interstate tomorrow but Michael is making overtures toward them.

With as much humility as I can muster at a time when I am very pleased with my accomplishments, I will tell you they were delicious and looked fabulous. I am well pleased. I adapted a basic recipe replacing almond meal with hazelnut meal and made a chocolate buttercream for the filling. When I asked Sam what he liked most about them he responded: "Mum, I don't even know what to say about them. I just love them".

And the other reason for my reference to France? Look closely at the photo and you will see my Mothers' Day present, a beautiful vintage French cheeseboard from the aforementioned emporium. It is very large and very beautiful. I am very lucky.

bliss

 

There was a moment of bliss (actually a lot of moments - about an hour and a half) this evening. Michael was cooking rissotto for dinner; the kids were playing twister with a granny square rug; I was sipping red wine and sitting in my favourite chair reading the new Elinor Lipman novel. It managed to be both a glimpse into the future where kids are old enough to require very little from us and a nod to the pre-children past when we spent many a Saturday night in just this way.

love my library

We have been hitting the library hard lately. It is a quick walk (less than ten minutes) from home. Every few weeks Sam books an hour on the wii and plays wildly while either Mike or I sit and read. On one memorable visit in the holidays we were playing a game of draughts in the corner and another kid (later revealed to be a high school kid - cue: adoration) came and watched - he ended up playing against Sam for an hour while Milly and I perused and wandered. I have been known to pack my basket full of Year 9 assignments on a Saturday afternoon and sit in the anteroom to get work done in peace. Yesterday I went along with Sam's class on a community walk that included a stopover at the library to listen to stories told by Lee the Children's Librarian who knew Sam by name. At the moment though, I am most excited by the fact that I am next in line for this book. Can't wait.

royal wedding

We had a great Fun Family Friday night watching the Royal Wedding. The kids stayed up until the newlyweds entered the palace and then woke asking to see "the kiss". This morning Milly and I went to the supermarket, at the entrance we were met with the full array of weekly womens' mags and their 'commemorative editions'. She asked if she could have one to cut up to make princess and prince pictures. I was too amused to deny her and so threw it into the trolley with her. She then spent the entire shopping trip hunched over it, not reading but studying, the pages. Once she had finished looking at all the photographs she declared that she would not be cutting it up, it would be kept. Forever.

globes

I have a couple of globes in the house, someone told me that if I have a collection like the photo above (from here) my house will become the 'crazy map lady house'. While I do have a few vintage maps hanging on my walls (and a LOT more in my garage), I am (amongst other things) a Geography teacher. If anyone can have maps and globes in their house it is me. Right? So I am going to start curating my collection. Lots of sizes and colours and textures. I even know where I will put them. Keep watching, I will post my own photo once I have them sorted.