Category Archives: food

WIP Wednesday #240

Posted in cross stitch, family, food, goals, grateful, lavender & lace, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Project Life, scrapping challenges, stitch from stash, stitching patterns, Teresa Wentzler by

20190202_195150.jpgHello everyone! I’ve been super busy this last fortnight, stitching, walking, reading, cleaning, running around after family members & I can’t wait to take a break! One highlight was a repeat dinner with the Harpur family, who brought Aurora with them. Two weeks ago she was the length of Simon’s forearm/hand – now look at her! She’s 5 weeks here.

I didn’t post last week as my pieces were all over the show as I worked away at the various #schoolofmagicalstitchesandliterature tasks. All up, this last fortnight has seen the start & finish of Hello March (500 for words), 200+ more stitches on Nantucket Rose (enabled), 600+ on Shakespeare’s Fairies (various challenges) and 700+ on Tapestry Cat (two challenges). I have just stitched more on TC in a week than I did in all of 2018. He nearly has a tail! This is a lot of stitching but with our national holiday, Waitangi Day, I got extra walking and stitching in. And market shopping. Nom nom on the Whitestone cheeses and Selash cured meats. And perfection at the Franked stall – imported, handcrafted items from Cambodia where there is a story behind the item, & it’s helping differently abled people.

I also finished my January Project Life pages. I’m choosing to do these in a 6*8 album as it’s more personal to me, not for the family. There’s some stuff that involves others (I asked Mase to fill in the Back to School card) but they won’t get this until I’m passed. Mase does look at it, but he knows if it’s hidden journaling, it’s private to me & he’s not to read it yet.

And on Sunday, Louise & I got up early and walked around the harbour on Tamaki Drive. We started at St Helliers, went up to Achilles Point & watched the sunrise and a cruise ship come into the harbour, picked up coffee at Mission Bay and eventually got collected at Royal Akarana Yacht Club. 7.2km in all of super-quality time with my girl.

Hope you all have a lovely week!

Merry Christmas!

Posted in Christmas, family, food, friends by

I’m not planning on being online tomorrow, so #merrychristmas to you all! I hope you & your families have a wonderful day together.

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And if your cracker joke sucks, here’s one from Simon. “My mate was walking thru the cemetery & noticed four guys wandering around carrying a coffin. A few hours later he saw them again, still with the coffin. He said to me ‘I think they’ve lost the plot’.” Boom! #dadjokes

Bonfire!

Posted in family, food, friends, grateful by

Last night was the Second Annual Tasker Bonfire, and like last year hosted by my FIL down at his Hobsonville farmlet.
Highlights: the boys (3 generations!) made a guy

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And carried it down to the fire

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Friends came over with their families. There were 9 kids from three 15 yo all the way down to Mase just kicking the balls around, making up stupid jokes and having a great time.

After dinner it was dark enough to light the fire.

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Perspective proves it really was that high to start with! But it soon came down enough to make steve-style smores; toast/burn/obliterate your marshmallows, slap between two Griffins chocolate this and eat. Nom nom.
Apart from sparklers and some other fancy stuff,

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no one was really interested in the fireworks. There was the noise from Whenuapai base but everyone was content to sit and be. And watch a neighbor release beautiful Chinese style lanterns.

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It was a good good night.

Book Review: The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather

Posted in books, food, growing by

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Subtitle: How I lost my job, buried a marriage and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering and eating locally (all on forty dollars a week)

Mather was a food writer and critic for several publications over a long period and the book is essentially a story about her return to contentment after a horror week that involved her husband announcing that he wanted to divorce and being made redundant from her role at the Chicago Tribune.

She doesn’t dwell on the miserable and looks to find the good, even in the little things. Thoughtfully written and thought provoking. My takeaway lesson from the book is that I need to buy local more, grow more and eat more seasonably. Unless I get a glasshouse, it’s not OK to have salads in August.

Author blog (which hasn’t been updated in a while, TBH) : http://thefeastnearbywordpress.com and there’s a Q&A session here: http://www.domenicacooks.com/2011/06/q-a-with-robin-mather-author-of-the-feast-nearby/

Also it’s well worth perusing the blog and book for the recipes included – several have a long family history. You know those will become favourites!

Wednesday WIP

Posted in family, food, Nora Corbett, stitching patterns by

Oh my. I’m all wrapped up! L has given me a hand with the Santa presents and we’ve had a good laugh while doing so. The ham is cooling, half the potatoes are done (I cheated and threw them in the honey glaze) and other stuff is all ready to go.

WIP wise has been slow; I had to frog about three hours work. Don’t stitch and snooze! But I’m happy with how he looks. Still planning how the others will fit on the fabric but that may well wait until the new year.

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Merry Christmas to you and your family and friends. Hope you create some wonderful memories and have an amazing joyous holiday season.

Achoo!

It’s Called A Day Off Work. Really? – NaBloMoPo eight

Posted in books, family, food, friends, Journal, me, NaBloPoMo, Nora Corbett, Project Life by

It’s Saturday, Saturday, hey hey it’s Saturday…

Yeah, nah. Today I plan to:

  • Sleep in until the luxurious hour of seven. Usually foiled by some berk turning the lounge TV on real loud or fighting over the channel/remote or a craving for coffee.
  • Sort out my personal planner for next year. I am designing my own Project Life planning pages to fit a personal Filofax – let’s see if they work!
  • Clean the fish tank – vacuum gravel, water change, filter media change
  • Get the men to the hairdresser
  • Get some of the excess metal to a scrapyard to pay for the haircuts!
  • Download some books for next week
  • Iron some summer clothes and get the new dress off to the seamstress – it needs about 6 inches hemmed as I am a shorty
  • Download some podcasts for next week
  • Sort out threads for Arezzo so I can continue with the roses
  • Cook, then cool chicken, potato salad etc for tonight’s bonfire at the FIL’s
  • Prepare everything else I need for tonight’s meal
  • Process loads of washing in between everything else

There are no TAB odds as to how much will actually be achieved. Food and scrap metal yes as these will match Si’s priorities but the rest is family dependant. But I brought myself some time – this was written & scheduled yesterday 🙂 while at work too – tut tut!