In The Garden… mostly ornamentals

The garden is home to so much more than just the vegies I regularly blog about. We have a lot of work to do in prettying up the garden here but we have made some small inroads. Cooler weather and some rain will help to get a few more little projects under way.

Lavender flowers bordering the back deck. They survived the harsh summer on a daily dose of baby bath water.

A salvia in bloom. The sole survivor of the six I planted; the rest succumbed to the 40+ degrees temps for days on end. Seems no amount of water could save them. But this one is now quite happy.

Matter. A cat on a log. Every garden should have one.

Anti-matter. A cat that spends the day sleeping in the chook run, waiting for little birds to fly in and eat the chook pellets. Very, very naughty. Matter and Anti-matter repel each other very strongly.

And finally, La Luna. And some pretty cool cloud formations if you look closely.

How is your garden looking this week?

I'll be doing this post weekly, on Friday's, so if you would like to join me and share something In The Garden, please do! Any and all gardens, plants in pots and balconies, the gardens at your local park, any garden will do. Leave a like to your blog in the comments so we can take a look. Simone from With Vintage and Me has been so consistent with her In The Garden posts [thanks for joining in Simone!] and last week had some great photos, including a little visitor!

Inspired to Create

Recently I was lucky enough to win a giveaway over on Be Creative Mommy, and lovely Joanna sent me these pretty crochet coasters, complete with little love hearts, for sharing tea with my love. Something we were lacking in this house too, so these have filled the hole very nicely.

Apart from being just lovely to have, I've also been inspired to pick up the crochet hook and yarn again myself. Years ago on a mountain biking trip around New Zealand, a friend taught me how to crochet a beanie. And then I made lots of beanies, and a blanket which still keeps me warm every night [although arguably now belongs to the cats].

But then more years passed, and I forgot how to work with the little hook. When I picked it up it felt foreign in my hands, and I thought the art was lost to me. Over the past week I tried again, and it took a few goes to get it right, and even then it only happened when I turned my brain off and let my fingers do their thing. But I remembered!

I'm so happy to be working the little hook again, and my head is so full of ideas of things I want to create. Thanks to Joanna, for the coasters and for the inspiration to have another go at my forgotten pastime. 

What I Miss Most About Working

So I'm a mum at home with a new baby. I think for some, it is a really challenging stage of life, when you suddenly stop going to work every day and instead spend most of your time in the house. Less so for me I think, as I left my day job 12 months ago, and spent much of last year feeling housebound, before it passed. And I love my lot in life, seriously, I would not change a thing. Except perhaps ask Mother Nature for a bit more rain. But every now and then I miss having a day job. 

Mostly, I miss having someone to talk to. Not your deep and meaningful kind of conversation or a close friend or anything. It's the little banter, and being able to chat about really quite irrelevant things. And never more so than on a Friday, when I'm doing my footy tips [good little Aussie that I am], and I have this need to ask: who did you tip? [Specifically, Melbourne vs Gold Coast, who did you tip?] I don't do it to copy by the way, I just have an intrinsic need to verbalise.

She refuses to tell me who she'd tip.

I remember being in Grade 5 and being made to sit by myself all year because I talked too much to the kid sitting next to me. Funny thing is, I never thought of myself as someone who talks a lot. I suppose it may be true. I do love a good chat. Anyway that's what I miss most about going off to work every day. Not the career, or the status, or earning the money. Just having someone who will reply when I ask silly questions about things such as football. 

I guess I don't miss my day job very much at all then. And for the record, I'm tipping Gold Coast. Enjoy your weekend!