Fishpond

If you haven't finished your Christmas shopping and are looking for books, DVD, music, toys etc try Fishpond ( for Aussies). I have been using them and find the service to be excellent.

There is free postage for order over $49 plus I seem to get a $5 voucher each time I purchase.

As one of my affiliates, by supporting this Australian online business you are also supporting A Vision Splendid and I sincerely THANK YOU

According To Martha ....Six Things To Do Daily

According to MARTHA who has positioned herself as THE world wide authority on all things 'homey' we should be doing the following 6 things every day in the home.

1. Make The Bed - because tidiness begets tidiness, meaning if you make the bed you will feel like cleaning the rest of the room.

2. Manage Clutter - we are meant to grab clutter every time we walk out of a room and encourage other family members to do likewise.

3. Sort The Mail - open, read and sort as soon as we bring it inside.

4. Clean As You Cook - rinse and pop things into the dishwasher as you are cooking ( great advice for those that actually HAVE a dishwasher )

5. Wipe Up Spills While They're fresh - almost anything is easier to remove if you attend to it straight away.

6. Sweep The Kitchen Floor - every evening after you have finished cooking so that dirt and grime don't build up.

Well..... sounds easy enough when you read it in a pretty little list. How do you rate in the Martha stakes ?

Back From My Blogging Break

Ahhhhhhh!!! { Standing and Stretching}.

Time to return from my blogging break. It has been rather nice to have a break from writing, although my brain didn't take much of a holiday. It is always churning through philosophical analysis of events that are taking place around here.

Thank you to all the readers who sent me emails worrying about where I was {lol} I didn't realise you cared so much! {blush}. Your kind words were very encouraging.

One of the fabulous things about working from home or for yourself is the ability to take time out as required, depending on your family's needs or the need for a personal sabbatical.

So..... what have I been doing ?

Well, quite a bit actually. I have been teaching a lot more card making classes, organising ourselves for Christmas, 'gyming it' every day, learning lots more 'from scratch' recipes, planting lots of things in the garden ready for summer and selling excess possessions on E-Bay to create extra spending money for the holidays.

I am hoping that you are all ready for Christmas. You may enjoy reading Seven Steps To A Simple Christmas that I put together for the ABC radio interview last year.

And lastly....... I have written previously about having problems with my email system directing emails from the website to my inbox. I have been able to access the emails ( particularly the newsletter email form) from inside the site and there are over 200 emails yet to process! I am working through them, but please be patient if I take a little while to get to yours. I will do my best to respond.

Stop! Thief!

More Handmade Christmas Cards

Hope you like them !

Splendid Saturday Splendid Sunday

What a fabulous weekend we had. It was SO busy. We got up early on Saturday morning and went down to the river for a ski. The water was like glass.
When we got home we cleaned the boat and put it away and headed down to the gym. The boys swam while I went into the gym.
We them headed home for a breakfast of bacon, eggs and homemade bread. By this time it was actually one o'clock , so I guess it wasn't really breakfast.

We then headed out into the yard and decided to move the chook pen to create a bigger space in our 'farm' area.

Luckily the iron for the roof renovation hadn't arrived yet, so it wasn't too difficult to lift up and move around.

After working in the garden for a few hours I came in and created a birthday card for our son's friend. He was having his party at the bowling alley. I also made some yummy french onion dip and water crackers to take to a friend's house for dinner.

We had a great night out and headed home about 11.30pm


Sunday morning is latte morning. Every Sunday I am delivered my signature coffee (vanilla latte on skim) in bed. I know I know!!! I am totally spoilt!!...... what can I say.....??

After hanging around in bed reading for a while, I made everyone pancakes with chunky blueberry sauce. They were perfect! The sauce was just fresh blueberries thrown into a saucepan with a tablespoon of water and a tablespoon of sugar and simmered until they broke down and thickened up...... this will definitely be on the 'keep' list.


We did a few jobs around the house and garden and then headed out for a Sunday drive. We headed up to one of the local lighthouses and were looking out when youngest son spotted the whales frolicking just off the shore line. They were coming up and crashing down with a big splash! I don't have a zoom lens with me, so that photos I have are just flecks in a grey ocean.

It was sooooo windy up there. My hair was standing straight up!

When we got home I organised things for dinner and got everything ready to start another week. We had an early dinner, a beautiful roast. We were all exhausted and had an early night.

What a jam-packed weekend it was..... but definitely enjoyable!

Garden Update: Tears of {Onion} Joy

I will be crying tears of joy when I finally chop and cook this little baby! Actually, it is not so little. They are remarkably huge!

This is the first time that I have grown onions. I always had it in the back of my mind that onions take too long and they take up too much space. But..... the time was going to pass anyway and I don't believe they took a lot of space. They are now ready to be pulled out, tied and hung up until we need them. I will be planting more for sure!

  Everything else is plodding along nicely. This silverbeet is going much better since a relocation into a much wetter area.

Rows of beans are powering now that the weather is warming. So too is the sweet corn. This year we are really trying to get our succession planting worked out. We always struggle with feast or famine when it comes to our garden so this year we are determined to try and stagger the plantings and have an ongoing supply of produce.

Tucked away there is the shadow is a little pumpkin that wasn't there yesterday. They say magic doesn't exist, but how was there nothing yesterday and today there is a pumpkin ? That is a miracle in my books!

There are also some exciting chook house renovations happening to prepare the girls for a luxurious summer in their new penthouse. Stay tuned for further updates.

A question for you.... how do you plan and/or organise your succession planting so that there are no gaps in your backyard production ? I have been really encouraged by the show River Cottage and borrowed the DVD from the town library. I like the way Hugh has his seedlings starting again as soon as the last lot go into the ground. He has a great system worked out.

Do you have any fabulous system for what to plant when ? I'd love to know what you do.