My Hope Picture

For some reason I love this photo. My old camera is dying. Yes, yes, it's a sad tale but the other day when I wanted to take a picture of the rain, I whipped out my mobile phone in the hopes that it would take a couple of ok pictures for my rain blog post. I love my mobile for a number of reasons (the first being that it took me ages to convince Dear Husband that I needed more than the base model, being the technology queen I am almost becoming!). Anyway, one of the photos I took was this one and it's just so clear for a little phone camera. And it shows hope, too....hope for a backyard photographer that one day she'd get a fancy new camera and hope for a pot plant that's been dying of thirst for months now. Now if only I'd remembered to remove the little saucer from the picture that my darling daughter put there to 'feed the ants' it might have been perfect! *sigh*

A Pie to Remember!

I am not a gourmet cook. In fact, I am the type of cook who prefers to just throw something on and have it ready in a few minutes so that I can then get on with the rest of the pressing matters that consume my day. A few of my friends are the same, so when I gave them this recipe (which by the way, is a skinny recipe!) they were delighted and now make it as regularly as I do.

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Fry 1 chopped onion and 2 teaspoons of minced garlic in a pan. When soft, add 2 cups chicken stock, 1/4 cup chopped parsley and 2 teaspoons dill. Stir well.

2. Then add 1 cup chopped mushrooms and 1 packet frozen winter vegetables. Heat through until cooked. Fold in shredded chicken meat (minus skin) from 1 whole cooked chicken. When all warm, pour into a flat casserole dish (I have used a big lasagne dish at times).

3. Cut 12 filo sheets in half. Scrunch each half piece and place on top of cooked chicken mix until entire top is covered. Spray all filo with cooking spray. Bake for 25 minutes or until pastry is golden.

I have served this when visitors come over with a light salad and crusty bread and I have also made it just as a week night special and usually end up having left-overs for the next day!

Enjoy!

Happy Queensland Day!

Today....6th June....is Queensland Day. What a great day to celebrate this state that I live in! And why today? I pulled this off the Queensland Government website to explain:

Queensland Day itself acknowledges the birth of Queensland as a self-governing colony, the anniversary of the date on which Queen Victoria signed documents granting Queensland the right to its own representative government and appointing Queensland’s first Governor, Sir George Bowen.

So what do I love about living in Queensland? I have brainstormed my top ten list. I wonder if any other Queenslanders can add their own ideas:

1) Sunshine! Hey...it's not called the Sunshine State for nothing! Ok, so we have had too much lately and are currently running short of water...but hey....there is nothing like a Queensland blue sky in the middle of winter and a hot balmy night in the middle of summer!

2) The beaches! Any are fine. I love Coolum Beach and most of the Sunshine Coast ones, but the Gold Coast is supposed to be the tourism mecca of Australia so they are ok, too! Just watch for stingers and crocodiles if you visit the ones in the northern part of the state.

3) The people! I'm bias but we are friendly and happy most of the time! And our driving is not as scary as our southern counterparts.....I wouldn't even dream of driving in Sydney for fear of my life and my car! Lol!

4) All things maroon! I'm not a footy fan but I've put this in for the males in my house who are!

5) The Glasshouse Mountains and Australia Zoo! I've spoken in another post about my love of these mountains and their proximity to Australia Zoo, but if you haven't been I strongly recommend a visit cause the zoo is amazing and so are the mountains.

6) Powderfinger! Another thing I've posted about before, but any place that produces talent like Powderfinger has to be doing something right! ;)

7) Mangoes! I know that you can get these anywhere in Australia, but thank goodness for Bowen - Qld birthplace of the very best mango around. And perhaps I should be putting bananas in here, too as most of the country's banana crops are in Queensland....so we found out after Cyclone Larry toppled Innisfail and most of us were paying up to $10 a kilogram for a bunch!

8) Brisbane! Any place that can be lovingly nicknamed 'Bris-Vegas' and get away with it can't be too bad! And situated on the Brisbane River with the entire Southbank distract a stone's throw away means that there is plenty to see and do. I stumbled across this I Love Brisbane blog which I just love to check in on, too.

9) The wildlife. Did you know that the koala is the Queensland fauna emblem? No, you don't see koalas in the city, but I live in the suburbs and they are around! In fact, my work is situated in a koala corridor. It is not uncommon to see them in trees around the buildings. Just the other day I had to side-step koala poo while walking down a path. I also have a friend who lives about 3 minute's drive from my place on an acreage block, who sees them in her yard periodically. That said, we also get the most amazing birds here. Lorikeets, galahs, cockatoos, kookaburras are all regular visitors to our area and anyone who says that magpies are ugly just hasn't heard them warble! And lizards have also taken up residence in my yard. I especially love the little blue tongues...once I realise that they have legs and are not snakes!

10) Number 10 is tricky. I can think of so many things. I originally started off by saying 'the overall lifestyle' but then I thought...what about the Moreton Bay bugs to eat?....what about the fact that AB Banjo Paterson wrote Waltzing Matilda in outback Queensland?....what about all the authors from Queensland?.....the famous swimmers?....the actors (Geoffrey Rush!), singers (Keith Urban)?......what about the Great Barrier Reef which is the most amazing place to visit or the rainforests from as south as the Gold Coast hinterland to as north as the Daintree? So pick one and add it to number ten for me, will you!?

Happy Queensland Day to my state!

The Rains Are 'Ere!

You know that you are living in a drought foresaken place when it rains and the following takes place:

*The local radio refers to the downpour as 'a rain event'!

*Young children and baby animals get excited because they've never seen so much water in the one spot in their lives before!

*You don't feel guilty when you forget to redirect the washing machine water onto the lawn!

*There is a sell-out on umbrellas in the local store because no one can remember where they stored their old ones...it's been that long!

*The biggest topic of conversation around town is how much water your rain water tank took last night!

*People are standing in gutters and collecting the water run off in buckets (and yes, I actually saw this happening!)

*Everyone parks their cars out in driveway rather than in the garage as it's the first time in ages that it's had a good wash!

*The grass takes on a green tinge!

*And finally, what used to be a time when you walked around feeling gloomy and miserable has suddenly become a cause for celebration. The fact that our water catchment took 50mms of water overnight has everyone hopeful that more rain is on the way. Fingers crossed!

We're Going To The Zoo, Zoo, Zoo!

Once your children enter school, you realise that there is one job that, as a stay-at-home mum (whether part time or full), you are expected to undertake! Yes...it's the 'parent helper' job. Now, in my books, the job description for this lovely new career should read something like: be expected to regularly sacrifice what precious little child-free time you have to undertake all the jobs that the teacher really doesn't want to do! Be expected to attend all excursions and can expect to have aching limbs and feet - not to mention ears. Panadol carrying a necessity!

So today, as a parent helper, I kindly volunteered my time (well, read into that that daughter would have howled if I didn't) to go to the local zoo. Imagine 100 little uniformed kids tearing around the small and friendly zoo, with anxious and exhausted parents in persuit (while the teachers had a lovely child-free day, I might add!). That pretty much describes it.

And why is it that your child, who normally (so the teacher says) is a model of good behaviour, suddenly brings out a whole other personality once you are around? She became loud, excited, silly, and completely full-on. Ok, yes she was very excited by the whole going on a bus to the zoo thing, but seriously, I spent my whole day trying to reign in her excitement on the one hand whilst carrying maps, drink bottles, camera, mossie spray and you-name-it in the other!

Now let's face it, had it not been for Miss 7's class, there is no way I would have been going to the zoo today. But all-in-all it was a great day. We saw so many animals including, monkeys, bears, kangaroos, koalas and snakes. I think that we walked the length of the zoo at least 6 times to visit all the displays and talks. And as we tiredly waved the school bus goodbye from the car park which was filled with the few poor kids whose mummies and daddies were working, Miss 7 delightedly turned to me and said......great, now we can keep looking cause you are here to take me home!

So after a day of so many exotic and unusual animals, I asked Miss 7 what her favourite one was when we were on the way home. Was it the baboons or the spider monkeys? No! Was it the baby crocodile? No! Was it perhaps the tiny marmoset with the baby on its back? No! So what was it then? Her reply: the baby chickens in the farmyard! Ohhhh, someone pass me a Panadol!

Enjoy the pictures of the kangaroo, marmosets and lace monitor!

Fair's Fair at the Fair!

Today was our school fair. Now, this is not just any fair, but one of the biggest primary school fairs in Brisbane. Every year the school expects approximately 30 000 visitors to the site to partake in all the fun and games.

Now, the lead-up to the fair is something else.....selling raffle tickets, donating bottles for bottle stall, organising costumes for the class dances, cooking, volunteering time, and the necessary creating of a bear for Bear Cottage.

Every year for Bear Cottage, I race around a night or two before the due date, making a masterpiece out of an old teddy bear, a box and whatever else we can find. In the past, we've managed to make a pirate bear, Ned Kelly bear, Lley-Ted Hewitt, an Aussie bear and this year's entrant........Jamie Olive-Bear! Now our little Jamie didn't take home any prizes, but like his real-life counterpart, he was certainly one of the talking points of the bear-filled display room!

And like a good mum, I did volunteer two hours of my time to help take orders and hand out coffees to weary fair shoppers. In fact, I think I'll be dreaming about lattes and skinny cappucinos tonight!

The kids had a ball. They both did dances. Miss 7 shopped at the second hand toy stall, played games like Pick-A-Stick and Pass the Ball, scoured through the second hand books, ate and drank some of the many foods, got her hair painted and our course, lined up in the huge queues to go on the many, many rides. Master 11 did what most of the kids his age were doing.....hung around with each other to go on the many rides and fill their faces with as much junk food as they possibly could! *sigh* Thank goodness fair day is only once a year!

So as is typical of most families at the end of fair day, we have arrived home and immediately spread our treasures across the lounge room floor. Show bags filled with chips and lollies (great!) for the kids, second hand books for me and bottles of wine for Dear Husband who, I'm sure, spent about $25 just on this one stall but managed to pull in a bottle of whiskey and a few bottles of wine for his efforts! Hmmmmmm...think he'll be drinking them on his own for the next year or two as I rarely touch alcohol! Lol!

All in all, it's been a good day! I've included a few pictures of the sideshow alley, the Jamie Olive-Bear creation and the hair painting. Unfortunately, my camera is a little on the sick side and I am in the middle of deciding what my next one should be, so the pictures aren't as good as I had hoped. Regardless, we will all sleep well tonight after a fun fair day!

The Morning of Desperation

What happens when you wake up at 7.20 am - late! - and realise that you have slept through the alarm and the 11 year old has a school band rehearsal at 8 am? Mad panic is what happens!!!! And this morning that is exactly what happened!

Now my children are not the quickest little cherubs in the morning. In fact, I don't think they are fully awake until around 9. So this morning it was a quick dash to do the shower relay, throw uniforms on, toss something that resembled lunch into a couple of lunchboxes etc etc!

But Master 11 is the toughest to get out of bed. I prodded, shook, cajoled and even threatened a glass of ice water as a new addition to his pjs but at 7.40 he was still unmoved!

So, in the face of adversity, I did what any good mother would do....ummmm...right?! In total desperation I offered to buy them both a McDonalds breakfast if we were in the car before 8am! You should have seen them move! Needless to say, he was only a couple of minutes late for band (miracle!) and all of us were fed and happy!

Sometimes a mother's gotta do what a mother's gotta do! Now if only he hadn't left his homework sitting on the kitchen bench, my plan would have been perfect!!! :)