Birthday afternoon tea.

Oh yes, gorgeous fresh strawberries covered in glossy delicious dark chocolate. Tasted as good as they look.

How to deal with different food likes and dislikes.

When it comes to salads our family all like different things. So when I make a salad there is a lot of food swapping on plates when it is dished up at the table. So having a BBQ dinner I decided to make individual salads according to preference. Worked so well.

Pink Lamington cake made from Real Raspberries

Aaron's birthday today and I had bookmarked a cake to do. A while ago Lauren (who's blog I follow) made this for her husband's birthday and it looked amazing.

Let me tell you it tastes stunning, like summer in a mouthful. Using real raspberries makes this a very glamorous cake. I did not have quite enough raspberries so I used boysenberries too. I put jelly in with all the berries and let it set a bit, then mixed some of that through the cream. Click on the link for the recipe if you want to make this too.

Absolutely gorgeous and worth doing again. Thanks Lauren

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My Father in Law may rue the day!!

Well.... Have you seen the flowers on my tomato plants... some close up's included just in case you missed it.

That sentence is for my father in law. The family have a long standing tomato competition for the first tomato of the year and I am feeling confident!!!

For my birthday this year my Father and Mother in Law gave me a mini propagator. Love it. All the plants are looking good. I wonder if he bought one for himself too????

Eli and I spent time potting up some hanging baskets. This on with strawberries, two others with flowers that he chose.

I have even risked planting a tomato outside!!

Great family weekend away

Eli decided to carry the big 20kg pack

We took the Coastal Pacific train from Rangiora to Kaikoura, spent two nights and then took the train back home again. A great start to the school holidays. The train is such a smooth trip it is a shame NZ doesn't have more of a rail network.

Waiting at the train station

Aaron spent quite a big of time being sick in bed

If he wasn't in bed then he was here. Two lovely warm spa pools. The
boys spent time in the spa's but also the normal pool. Brrr 26 oC.

Rather than going walking with me the boys spent time putting
their bodies on the line

We had a gorgeous hot Saturday, rainy cold and snowy Sunday
 and cold but clear Monday

On Monday I found a walk in the Dunes by the beach.
Rugged up tight as the wind of the snow was freezing!!

Wow it has been two years since we could do this

The garage has been so chokka with stuff that we have not been able to play table tennis for at least two years!!

 It has had a house lot of second hand carpet, a little bit of reclaimed rimu from Aaron's parents demolished house, and just piles of junk.

One and half years ago Aaron told me to clear up all my stuff in the garage. I did a HUGE job and had a garage sale. Then slowly in the spare space people put stuff. Slowly I sell, junk or remove it.

We laid the carpet in the house, used the Rimu for shelving in the laundry and today the boys and I cleared out all the rest. A great productive school holiday day.

The boys really enjoyed rediscovering the table tennis table. Today more stuff is going on Trademe and I have yet to persuade Aaron to sell the gym. I talked to him two months ago about the possibility and he has not used it since!! (ok so he has been sick!)

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Embroidery

Well I started and finished this but don't understand why I even did it? The night before going to Kaikoura I decided not to take the stitching I had but took some Hardanger material and flax thread and a pattern. As soon as I started I knew I did not want to do it, but I had a three day holiday and no other stitching. So I made a point of finishing it on the train home. Now what to do with it? Hmmm

I link to these places.

Thai chili beef salad

Getting down to the last of the beef. Wanted to do something different. This gorgeous dinner was from all the bits we had hanging around.

Made a salad base with iceburg lettuce, shaved carrot, shaved cucumber, coriander, spring onions then added thinly sliced fast seared beef which had been marinaded in lemongrass, fresh ginger, garlic and fresh ginger.

Delicious.

I am a starter

Yes I confess, I start gazillions of projects and heaps of them do not get finished. That is why I end up with "orphan quilts". All those blocks started with the intent of trying something new, being enthused and then either not liking the result, finding it boring, or surprise surprise - finding a new cool project to do!! My starting and not finishing has gotten worse since going back to work fulltime. I want to do inspiring stuff only.

This is some of what I have started in the last two weeks.

 Started this project to use the scraps from the projects below.

 Started this and decided to make it into a cushion cover. I might?????? be able to finish smaller projects.

Could not decide whether the low volume above or this bright look was the best. So did both!!!

Yes I am getting on with this. But still don't know what to do with it. Any ideas?

And I helped Eli to start a project of his own.

Linking to these places

Gorgeous Angora Rabbit wool

The Angora rabbit wool jersey which I got from the Op Shop, unpicked and re-balled three years ago has finally all been used up.

Well my finishing of things is not legendary. It is well and truely spring and I have finally finished a winter woolly hat for Jakob. He even went on a school ski trip and I could not get it done. So we are now ready for next winter.

The jersey has done well. It had enough wool to make me a cowl, Aaron a scarf , a couple of new born baby hats and now this hat for Jakob.

Linking to these places and Crazy Mum Quilts.

Reverse bricking

For those of you who are crafters', have you heard the term "reverse stitching"? There is no "unpicking" in my world, it is all stitching no matter what the direction.

The path and garden beds slowly being constructed

Well the landscape gardening we are doing has suffered from some "reverse bricking". I have been teaching myself to be a brickie (I will never make any money from it as a profession as it takes me over an hour to do about 16 bricks!!). Anyway, I have been merrily bricking the surrounds to the new garden bed. (sometimes not so merrily). While Aaron was in Australia for work I thought I would crack on with it.

Just a little fix to do after the reverse bricking.

Sigh, when he came back he pointed out the some of the brick was in the wrong place. So out with the chisel and we peeled away four bricks and there is only one hole to fill, which will be easy.

We have also redesigned the path, so part of the first section of bricking I ever did is going to have to come under the chisel for a bit of "reverse bricking". I got very frustrated with pulling down what took so much effort to put up. But hey - the altered layout will be heaps better.