a new found respect for florists

 Greetings all,

I had a box of goodies i ordered for Christmas from gidgi to play with last night.  We discovered the donkey & cart cardboard holders had plastic inserts = vases, so we hopped on bikes after dinner & went a searching for pathway flowers.  We have lots of cycle & walk ways through our suburb - with fantastic wild roses, gladiolus, lavender & pansies.  Fear not, we only picked a couple of flowers from each bush, there were hundreds.  Most of the flowers are past their best anyway.  If you want karma . . . i came home with lots of bugs & tiny spiders creepy crawling up my arms.

It was so hard to get the flowers to balance, stay in position, look 'together' & mix the colours, varieties, textures . . . florists are amazing, they are engineers, architects, artists . . . i did a pretty shocking job with these short stems!!  Pretty maybe, but it's all Mother Nature.

 Some images i found half decent enough to post to Instagram last night.  The Belle&Boo cart is adorable.

 An arial view of the blooms, i do love the whispy lavender.  I'm hoping to get another practise in before a pretty event i have coming up next month.   

Florists, i applaud you, this was really REALLY hard work.  Love Posie

have a lover-ly day

Greetings all,

Never one to anticipate Valentine's Day with roses, chocolates or gifts - i'm just thrilled if my husband is around (he's not, i'm not thrilled) but i can make it a fun day of love hearts for the children.  My darling husband is romantic in non roses-chocolates-gifts style, our first Valentine's Day he made a card (on folded ruled paper) drew a rose & wrote a tiny poem, so beautiful & i still have it!!     

Kikki-K of course has super sweet stationery, i bought the range in last month.

 We made a big batch of Vanilla Snap Biscuits for friends . . .

 the heart shaped trio cutters are from Gidgi on line (hi Rachael), i dusted the edges with flour for cutting, worked a treat.  I could have iced the finished biscuits or dusted with confectioner's sugar, but they'd end up a sticky mess by recess, so kept it simple. 

 The children decorated CD window envelopes for their teachers & friends, my high schooler made hers funny with "OMG, you give me butterflies" & my son wrote "Mrs Awesome Todd" complete with love hearts for his favourite teacher.  I know she'll adore it, she constantly threatens to kidnap my boy, it's his dimples, just like his papa.  

 I have found some new desserts to try out, so i wrote a comprehensive shopping list & promptly left it on the kitchen counter, so wandered Coles hoping i could remember everything.  Amazingly i remembered all the chocolate i needed, hmmm??

 I see lots of this happening to burn off said chocolate, with my constant companion Khan.  How glorious is dog walking in beautiful weather??    

 Happy Valentine's Day lover-ly folks & a friendly welcome to my new followers, thanks so much for joining my bloggie caper, love Posie

i'm grateful for . . . 'food presentation & home made goodness'

Greetings all,

Poof, what a week, back to school & we all know what that means - enthusiastic school lunches & feeding hungry bellies at night to refuel them for another action packed day of street smarts, sports & socialising.

By Friday night i really felt like a juicey tastey burger, my children aren't big on burgers but i wanted one, i'm the mum/ cook/ dictator, so . . . we had homemade burgers.

 With what little strength i have with my hands (thanks for the carpal tunnel surgery congratulatory comments in the last post, can't believe by month's end i'll have 2 new hands!!) i lovingly sliced salad & cheese, added snag jam & olives, delicous.  Fed the family for $8 - the price of one Milk Bar style proper burger.  Oh i just realised i didn't add beetroot, what is wrong with me??  I only used 4 meat patties for 5 burgers, they are too big otherwise, so i have 4 left, for another round of burgers, this time WITH beetroot please.

 What do you get a dear friend in her very early 40s for her birthday?? 

 So easy, she loves retro, picnics & 70's lollies!!  I found this amazing stacking picnic trio of melamine containers at Myer in Brisbane & filled them with fun.  I've seen Jamie Oliver use metal ones years ago, i've coveted them ever since.  OMG when was the last time you ate TV Mix or Lolly Bananas??  

 I'm trying to perfect the size of my jam drops, i've been baking them with the children - who are trying to perfect the amount of jam they add.  They are so delicious & i make plain biscuits for the non jam lovers, freaks i know!!

 HOW good are the grapes at the moment??  Don't they look even more inviting presented in a Donna Hay Royal Doulton colander??

 While i was away in Brisbane at the bachelor pad, where my husband has inherited all my Tupperware plain white picnic plates & plain blue cutlery (read: plain boring) . . . i wanted to brighten things up a little.

 So the lovely Rachael from Gidgi & A Room For Everyone blog answered my prayers with these amazing cutlery sets.  Choose from mixed & polka dots, i love both & as a thank-you-for-what-your-husband-does-for-our-country, darling Rachael asked if she could send a complimentary set (before i even had a chance to order!!)  Now i have 3 sets & i want more, greedy i know but they are soooo pretty.  Thank you Rachael!!     

 Cannot wait to grow my own fruit like my country brother, herbs sure, but fruit, glorious!! 

 Just couldn't resist adding this last image into a post link about . . . I'm Grateful for 'food', my parents country cottage oven.  I've seen one with a kookaburra on the door at a museum, but this is REAL & in my family.  Mum can't cook like she used to, i wonder if she realises (Alzheimer's) but she was better than Bree Van Der Kamp in perfect execution, dinner parties for 12 - back in the day when you entertained your husband's boss for a promotion & they were judged on how their wives cooked (maybe not so much for Naval officers).  Thank goodness my husband doesn't rely on that - burgers anyone?? 

Now who has a rumbly tummy??  Love Posie