I is for….

More info here: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

So the whole clan know I am blogging through the alphabet it’s up there with “Mum have you finished your bible Study this morning?” next to “Mum have you blogged today? what letter are “we” up to?“

So I asked them all “What can I blog for letter I?”

The overwhelming result was “Ice-cream” come on guys, “How does that relate to family?” and the next over whelming response was “we all love it!” true that! Star Son loves chocolate, Amber likes boysenberries, the Bloke is an old-fashioned kinda guy he loves Vanilla plain and simple, but me, well I like to mix it up and try new things, like the other week I had limecello gelato yum!! Now IF I were blogging about ice cream, I could make this post nice and short look only 141 words so far and that’s about all I could say on that subject so I’m NOT blogging about ice-cream!!

Instead I am blogging on “I am“

Whats that mean? who knows.. I am going to share with you a kind of theme song of mine by Helen Reddy called “I am woman” because yes I AM a woman!

When I was a little girl, well a young teen, a school teacher asked me “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I said “A Bricklayer like my Dad” I wanted his business cards to say “Scarffe and Daughter“ rather than SONS. She went on to tell me that “girls can’t do that!” and so I went home and told Dad, so come Parent teacher night he marches down to the school and asked to see the Careers teacher (not normally on the list of “to see” teachers” and he quietly and calmly told her that she had NO RIGHT to tell his daughter what she could and could NOT be, if she wanted to fly to the moon she could! And then he went on to tell that teacher that he would be removing me from that school and putting me into a trade school where I would be appreciated. Back then I was horrified and embarrassed and almost kind of ashamed but now I look back and I say “Wow, he believed in me all the time”  He sat me down and told me about his job, I knew a lot of it because I’d been to work with him on Saturday mornings, but he went over the designing aspects of building houses and scaffolding and the likes and then he showed me his hands and said “look at my hands cement and lime are hard on your hands” to which I (13 yrs old knew everything right?!) replied “I can wear gloves Daddy” For a while I was going to be a Builder and walk in his footsteps, but then I discovered boys and finger nails and make up and suddenly the idea of wearing overalls and steel capped boots just didn’t sounds like fun… so that dream went away.

My next career choice came the next year when again asked that question, I REALLY don’t remember but my cousin Lee swears by it.. I apparently replied “I want to be a Mother a house wife” I went from one extreme to the other… well I am pleased to report, I have fulfilled that prediction, I AM a wife, Mother, and a housewife” and it took me until I became a Grandmother to accept that this might be all I will ever be. For so many years I’ve gone through my daily life asking “Is this all? What am I supposed to be?” and I had this discussion with a friend and he said “Maybe you are RIGHT where you need to be, maybe it’s your job to guide your family and make them their best, maybe you are doing it, all this time you have been doing what you were put here for” I suddenly had one of those light bulb moments, I AM alright, I AM doing what I AM supposed to be doing, I can stop worrying…

and then I discovered the Lord and he said: Exodus 3:14

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”

I am..

his Lover and their Mother, I am his daughter

I am…

a Child of the Lord.

I am…

A Grandma and a support person

I am…

an Artist and a reader

I am…

a Sewer, a crocheter

I am..

a Traveller…

I am…

a documenter of family stories

I am…

a music lover, and a chocolate lover

I am…

Passionate about my family, they are my world

I am…

a Penpaller and a writer.

I am…

a Sports Mum tragic

I am…

happy in my skin and if you don’t like me it’s OK

I am.. Just me…

I am watching… Redfern Now (on my Ipad)

I am reading: “Adam’s empire” by Evan Green and “24 hours that changed the world” by Adam Hamilton

I am listening to: The Eagles assorted music.

I am Making: a painting my first in oils “The girl with the Pearl earring”

I am feeling: Nostalgic, April brings the sad out in me, too many memories of my Dad gone on the 8th of April for 23 years, I miss him!

I am planning: our next trip Sept- Nov 2015, over to the West Coast of Australia

I am loving: those precious Grand-babies everyday, when does it wear off??

I am also watching this… I AM GIRL!

Oohhh Look a short post!! yay I did it, under a thousand words!

I am … Me!

Green thumb Thursday’s- Garden update!

I am so excited I just had to share.

It’s summer in Australia and the past few days while not super hot they have not had much moisture so we are watering each night to keep the “babies” happy and healthy. Remember in my last post https://kimlhine.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/green-thumb-thursday/ I told you about what was planted…

• Tomatoes,
• Rosemary
• Basil
• Corn,
• Broccoli
• Rockmelon
• Carrots
• Sweet Potato
• Mint
• Zucchini
• Cucumber

So up date.. the carrots all died, something ate most of the Zucchini, I have one loner left, we went away for a week to Bel Far Niente and come home to this explosion, I am so proud of my “babies” they’ve graduated to “Teenagers” Rockmelons are looking sickly, but we will watch them and see how they go.

I’m excited.. had to share.. even though..

It’s NOT green thumb Thursday..

Guess what I just brought?!

I’ll show you!

More vegetables and a FRUIT!! Dutch carrots, Sweet Potato (never even though to grow any kind of potato) and I went to buy Mint and herbs to create a wild place in the corner behind the pond where no one goes… I was going to let herbs run wild there but only got mint and then I found.. ROCK MELON!! my Star son loves Rock Melon!! not me so much but hey smoothies could be good!

Then I went out to the back yard and happened to spy “Bella” she is a Totem Ballerina Apple tree, which simple means she is tall and thin for smaller gardens and she has babies!! LOOK!

The Bloke stands 5 ft 10 in and she is way taller than him!

So I apologise to anyone who is not enjoying my Gardening tales.. I’ll be back later to post something else but I was “excited” is that the same as “joy”?

Excitement (ɪkˈsaɪtmənt)

n- 1. the state of being excited

2. a person or thing that excites; stimulation or thrill

joy (dʒɔɪ)

n- 1. a deep feeling or condition of happiness or contentment

2. something causing such a feeling; a source of happiness

3. an outward show of pleasure or delight; rejoicing

4. Brit success; satisfaction: I went to the bank for a loan, but got no joy.

vb- 5. (intr) to feel joy

6. (tr) to make joyful; gladden

[C13: from Old French joie, from Latin gaudium joy, from gaudēre to be glad]

Alright..not the same but let me say I feel “Joy Filled” at the excitement of these new plants, tonight I will plant them in the cool of the evening!

Thursdays are now known as … Green Thumb Thursday!

 

I made myself a little avatar for it as well.

Throughout my previous posts you will see posts about my new garden, they are all listed under this category..

Greenthumb Thursdays

So update on the garden.. the final garden bed which was “L” shaped has been reduced to just _ the rest of I we will keep separate. So that has been dug over a few times and fed horse poo and dug over some more, we’ve had some good over night rain so I’ll dig it over again today and add the sugar cane mulch and that bed is not being planted with anything for another week or so this weekend is way too busy for gardening. (Zentangle art class Saturday, and Sunday Event Extravaganza The Grand babies 1st Birthday Party, it’s promising to be bigger than Ben Hur… check back for those photos and details.. might add another category “party planning”)

As of this morning, I went out and took some up to the minute photos.. we have another strawberry flower, so that makes three. One of the Purple Capsicum plants has a flower… baby purple capsicum coming up!! Never grown capsicum so I am excited about that. The Snails are eating my marigold which were supposed to be companion plants for the tomatoes.. but I figure if the snails eat my flowers they are staying away from my tomato plants…

Does anyone have any suggestions for removal of snails besides poison snail baits, as I have dogs and a cat and they are all very excited about Mumma’s garden! I am very excited about all my goodies.

 

 

So if any  “Green thumbs” are reading, please comment on

• Pet friendly snail deterrents.
• What are you growing in your garden that I need to plant? All suggestions gratefully accepted.

Salad Challenge… Last day! Recap!

I DID NOT make the above salad I found the image on Google..

So today brings us to thirtieth of November 2014, which means the end of the #SWR30daysofsaladchallenge

I have really enjoyed this challenge, and found myself eager to make my daily salad and thanks to the gorgeous weather, sometimes two a day! It also brought up the challenge of finding a salad I could eat (Due to my The Daniel Plan) while out shopping or out of the house. KFC and McDonald’s helped there.

So here’s a pictorial recap on some of the Salads I made, (I printed off recipes to make some ‘exotic’ ones but never ended up doing that!)

Hmm, for whatever reason I only have 24 photos… Friday lunch I was so hungry I ate half of the chicken salad wrap before remembering to take the photo, so no pic for that the others I must have deleted.. but rest assured I’ve checked in each and every day!!

So Have I learnt any lessons?

• Challenges are fun, and keep me on track.
• Most people were interested in what I was doing.
• New Viewers came to my blog and instagram it’s all in the #
• I enjoyed the challenge of finding a salad in places I would not normally have thought to look.
• I lost at least 3 kilos I’ll check into tomorrow, (Monday) with my official weight loss for #The Daniel Plan

Would I do it again?

• Absolutely!!

You can read the original post here: https://kimlhine.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/blogtoberfest-2014-day-27-wedding-plans-10000-steps-and-salads-galore/

So from now on it’s

• Spiritual Sundays (I just made that up) This is when I will update y Bible reading plans and my lessons from studies I am doing, makes sense since it’s Sunday and we go to Church on Sundays.
• Motivational Mondays– Because let’s face it no one likes Monday.. I wonder if we would like Monday more if the weekend started on Tuesday and Wednesday?! Poor Monday.. support for Monday please! Personally I like Mondays because it means all the family piss off and leave me alone.. off to school off to work off to their lives and leave me with mine AND ” The Daniel Plan catch-up”
• Tuesdays of texture It’s on day a week.. might help my blog become more readable. We get to mess around with photos of texture.. I can do this like Bricks, or dirt, or bark or beach sand or beach shells or my favorite tree! Hey I’m giving away all my good ideas!  This Lady can’t go past a patch of Moss without taking a gazillion photos of it.. and here I was thinking I was the Only ONE!! Find out more here: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_event/tuesdays-of-texture/
• Weight-loss Wednesday (I just made that up) I’m going to tell you all about how my weight-loss, Daniel Plan and recipes etc are going.

Okay, so that leaves Thursday, Friday and Saturday.. does anyone want to suggest topics for those days?

 

 

 

Gardening Update…

I am still at it.. some how I have this burst of inspired energy. I am growing food. I don’t know if it actually works out any cheaper to grow your own on a small-scale like mine, but gee, my front yard looks pretty. So this weekend I did some more planting, I planted purple capsicum, broccoli and corn, to go with the tomatoes, parsley and rosemary I planted last week. So now three garden beds are complete and I have started working on the fourth one.

I had to remove the black weed matting again and so I decided to cheat and cut it away from under the Agapanthus, remembering the fight I had with it last week and the three days of sore muscles (yes I am that unfit!) I had the following days. But you know what? I was NOT going to let it beat me so I started digging, by this time it was 7.45 pm and starting to get dark, so I was just going to “start” digging it.. but then the Bloke came along and remembering my sore back last week he took over and within a few minutes it was all done. So now it’s time to flood the bed with water and add the horse poo and the sugar cane mulch and let it stew for a few days, next weekend we will plant something else… I’m thinking maybe some more herbs or celery or something.

Do you garden? and if so what vegetables or herbs are you growing?