Weekend Recap

What a lovely relaxing weekend away I have just had. A whole weekend at Camp Elim (near Forster NSW). It is a similar style to a sport and recreation camp, mostly designed for school groups and definitely not five star, but when you have the opportunity to work uninterrupted on your albums all weekend and someone rings a bell and feeds you, then that is quite okay.

On Saturday evening I walked down to the lake and took some photos as the sun was going down. It really is the most beautiful place to sit and ponder life.

Of course, I had to sneak a photo in of my work table all set up. It didn't look like this for very long.

It was lovely to get away, but it was also lovely to return home. Now I'm off to do some unpacking and sorting and to get out into my garden. It was really warm yesterday and I feel the need to till the soil!

The Smell Of Spring

Have a look at my beautiful sunflower. Boy has it been a long wait! I remember planting the seeds and wondering whether they would come up. Since then the garden has been flooded twice and I had weeks where I didn't even glance at them due to sickness and a series of other unfortunate events.

Add to that the fight with the galahs. Can you blame them for flying in and attacking them - they are like giant lolly pops screaming 'eat me, eat me'.

This afternoon I am heading off on my annual girls weekend away. Each year we go to "scrapmania" a weekend of scrapbooking and crafting. I am looking forward to going through my photos, reconnecting with them and making some great albums for us all to look back on and treasure. I love having the time to sit and think and write.

The camp is held at 'Camp Elim' which is just outside Forster on the banks of the most beautiful lake. I will take some pictures to share with you all.

Most of all, I am looking forward to some relaxation and renewal time. An opportunity to recharge my batteries. I have so many ideas for our garden and I smell spring in the air. I feel that it is almost time to plant. Just need a few more warm days to heat up the earth a little more before I plant the seeds.

I hope you all have a great weekend as well.

Reconnecting With Your Photos.

One of the reasons that I make albums of my photos is that I love to RECONNECT with the memories that the photos provide. I love to record what the photo means to me and the memories that come flooding back as I drift off into each image.

I just had to share this one.

It was eight years ago. After giving birth to a very sick baby I was finally able to bring him home. He was yellow with jaundice. His big brother had already taken ownership of him and as a family we felt a total feeling of completeness.

I have always loved this photo, but today, in preparation for a scrapbooking weekend away I dragged it into photoshop, sharpened it up and took out all the colour. Sometimes a colour image holds a lot of distractions. Turning it greyscale allows you to study the image in depth and see its purity.

When I look at this image I can remember the sense of joy I had. I can also remember that feeling of total exhaustion that only the mother of a new born can understand.

A New Space

I have found myself a new space.

I used to have a creative space in the small office that we have. It used to be one of the boys' bedrooms a few years ago and I loved the bright blue walls.

Since being so sick, I found it really difficult to go and work in that space. It only has a small window and I was having trouble seeing the true colours of papers I was working with. I could match two pieces of paper and then view them in different light and see that they were two completely different shades of the one colour.

When I was so sick I was drawn to the light. Wherever the sun was shining, I had to be - curled up under a blanket. As the sun moved around the house I followed it, starting for a couple of hours in my bedroom and then slowly moving around the house until it started to shine through the lounge room window and I could curl up on the lounge.

I decided that I would take over the front bedroom. It used to be my youngest son's room, but he decided to move in with his big brother a few months ago. They had been using this room as a 'games' room. It had lego and toys and their play station and piano keyboard.

On one of the days when I was feeling better I worked like a little ant to swap the rooms over. I would pick up four or five books from one room and shuffle them into the other room and bring four or five books from there back to this room. It was a very slow process, but like a little ant I just kept shuffling along moving things from one room to the other. It took a long time.

Now I have this fabulous spot to work. It is right at the front of the house. I can look out and see the chooks pecking around in the front yard. I see people walking past with their dogs and kids riding their bikes. If you look at the photo you will notice a little rose - that is where the sun peaks over the horizon every morning. I love to sit here and greet it.

I haven't got the room set up exactly the way I want it yet. I have to sit around in here for a while and do a few projects and get the feel for it. Then I will reorganise it to suit me better. It's all about feeling glorious in your space and not feeling cluttered and overwhelmed. I need it to be functional, yet highly motivating and inspiring.

For now, I am loving sitting here with a hot cup of tea and looking out at the world. I love the light. I am so glad that I found this space. I can't believe it has been here all along.

It just goes to show that changes come from within. Sometimes, the things that we are looking for have been here all along.

Bread Recipe - Cafe Style

I made this bread a couple of days ago. It was meant to be a long bread roll. As it rose on the tray before baking it grew as wide as both my hands put together. I thought I would continue, warning everyone that as it rose in the oven, be prepared with an escape plan in case it grew out the oven door and began to overtake the kitchen.

Although it was nothing like I planned, it came out looking lovely and sure smelt good. After a few taste tests and then a few more ( just to determine the correct use for this style of bread) we decided it would be perfect to make garlic bread with. We would just slice it up, toast it a little and then spread with a mixture of butter, crushed garlic and Italian herbs and pop it into the over for a few minutes to brown up. Beautiful cafe style garlic bread!

....... and just for the purposes of further testing - you can also through it into the toaster and spread it with vegemite..........delicious!

TO MAKE:

Use two bowls. In the first bowl put a cup of boiling water, one tablespoon of butter, 1/2 tsp salt and one tablespoon of sugar. Leave aside until it cools to luke warm.

In the second bowl put 1/4 cup luke warm water, one tablespoon dry yeast and 1/2 tablespoon of sugar.

When ready, mix the two bowls and stir in about 3 cups of plain flour. Leave it to rise for about 40 minutes and the roll out flat onto a floured board and then roll it up until it forms a long sausage. Cut three to four slices across the top and leave on a baking tray for another 30 minutes. Paint the top with a mixture of egg and milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

If you do have a go, make sure you come back and leave some feedback. I am sure you will have a way to improve this trial recipe. Maybe you would like to try it with wholemeal or a multigrain flour.

Part 12 cups boiling water2 T butter2 T sugar2 tsp salt Cool to lukewarm.Part 21/2 cup lukewarm water2 T active dry yeast1 T sugar

Handmade Cards

As you know, I love working with colour and making handmade cards. I have been working with the colours above. I have been trying to move outside my comfort zone, usually bright colours, to try and make some more subtle and traditional designs as well as using colours that I would not naturally reach for.

Changes At The Dinner Table

Sitting around the table with my in-laws this week, we struck up an interesting conversation. The topic of the conversation was for the benefit of my children, particularly the youngest son. It started like this:

" Poppy, when you were a kid, what did you do if your mum was cooking tea and it was still twenty minutes from being ready and you were staaaarving?"

"nothing.... you just had to wait" he replied.

"So, you didn't go and get a few biscuits out of the cupboard or eat an apple or grab a small packet of chips ?" We asked as youngest son's eyes began to get wider.

Pop told us all about the ways things were. You always ate everything on your plate because that was it! If the meal was cooking.... you waited. It was as simple as that. The meals were simple but adequate. They ate the same things all the time, there was no need for anything gourmet or new.

When I think about the 'old way' of eating there are a couple of things that always come to mind. Firstly, how the food was supposedly 'bad for you', - all that butter, bacon and dripping and yet only a very small proportion of the population was overweight. Secondly, the rhythm of eating - breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and supper. It sure seems to be a lot of eating!

What strikes me about the way we eat today is that we are NEVER hungry. I see mothers with prams pull out all sorts of weird and wonderful things - it seems that kids can't go anywhere without having an emergency box of barbecue shapes in their backpacks or a six pack of juice poppers because the label says they are good for us.

Is it my imagination or are we just grazing all day long ? Is food too readily available for us ? Has food become a pacifier to young children and is it to comfort rather than to nourish ?

It always seems strange to me that people ate traditional ways for such a long period of time, yet since food companies have been telling us how to eat more 'healthy' we are the unhealthiest we have ever been! Sure, we may be living longer, but we pop a lot of pills and have lots of replacement surgery in order to carry on.

Ockham's Razor ( a radio programme on ABC) featured a programme called Fructose recently. It was an extract from the book Sweet Poison by David Gillespie. You can find it here.

I was particularly interested in the way he looked back at how food intake and health changed in a relatively short period of time.

It was not that long ago that there were no gym memberships, no diet magazines and no meal replacement programmes. I think you will enjoy the glance backwards.

As far as our family goes, I want to talk more to my kids about the ways things were. I want to be more rhythmic in our eating patterns and stop for meals and morning/afternoon tea and enjoy the ritual of those events as well as the food intake. I may even bring back dessert! - home made of course!!!