A Winter Play Date!

Greetings to all of you gorgeous creatures from the top of our grey, overcast & wintery 'hill' this freezing Tuesday. It really is a bleak old day here ... Perfect for snuggling up in front of the fire & catching you up on the crazy carry-ons from the Meares' Madhouse. :0)

Last week saw the winter solstice come & go amidst some of our coldest, nastiest winter weather yet ... 1-3 degrees at 8:30am for three days in a row is NOT the sort of temperature that makes this summer gal happy! BRRRRR! Thankfully, it warmed up a bit for the end of the week, just in time for a sleep over play date with my Bestest-Buddy-Since-We-Were-Nine Lynette. YAY! :0)

Friday saw us hit our usual haunts in Toowoomba of second hand & antique shops, with a yummy lunch at The Springs cafe/nursery/gift shop. No treasures discovered, so we headed home for adult beverages in front of the fire. :0)

Saturday saw us convince my Beloved Geek Boy to take us on a little drive north to Cooyar (it's a pretty small dot on local maps) to visit a lovely lady I found through Gumtree, who has a mini collectibles/bric-a-brac shop set up in a shed & who opens her shop by appointment, as well as selling treasures online. I met Julie a couple of years ago & finally got around to introducing Lynette. FUN! :0) We both found some goodies to adopt ... Lynette found a pink Depression Glass vase & I found ...

... A pretty sandwich platter & six matching plates. The platter has been damaged & repaired, but the colours were so pretty that I just had to bring it home with me. :0) We then popped in to Bunnyconnellon olive grove & winery for ...

... A little wine tasting. Well ... Lynette & GB tasted ... I'm a bit of a wine barbarian ... I only like sweet wines. :0P .. So I had mineral water. We then decided to put an order in for lunch & find a comfy spot in the sun to warm up & wait ...

... & enjoy the serenity. :0) It's not showing up in the photo, but there was a mob of sheep down near the fence, but other than a few stray "BAAAAAH" sounds in the distance, it was quiet & peaceful ... The perfect spot for ...

... Devouring a DEEEEEEEEEELICIOUS ploughman's platter ... Fresh baked bread, crumbly vintage cheddar cheese, olives, cherry tomatoes, crisp cucumber, ham off the bone, crunchy pear, fruit chutney, boiled eggs ... YUMMO!! :0) 

Nothing left but an empty platter & crumbs. :0) It really was a lovely way to spend a Saturday ... & did I mention there's a wonderful gift shop, too?? :0) If you're looking for a nice spot for a lazy weekend lunch, I'd highly recommend a visit to Bunnyconnellon. It's just north of Crows Nest so an easy country drive from Toowoomba, Dalby, or even Brisbane. They have a FB page but for some reason I can't get the link to copy/paste properly. TECHNOLOGY!! 

So ... That was my weekend ... What did YOU get up to? Whatever was on your agenda, I hope you enjoyed some time with your favourite people. And since its already Tuesday, the week is off & running at full speed, with more crazy busy stuff at my grown up job being compounded by my office being given a facelift ... I'm excited about it, but since it's a small space (my office is a donger that was set up as a 'temporary' office space about 20 years ago!) & I'm still having to work in the chaos of moved furniture, drop cloths & paint fumes, it's a wee bit challenging! :0P Still ... I can't complain about being bored! :0) Enjoy the rest of your week! Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!

KRIS

Ambushed! ... Again!!

A croaky, sniffly, coughy hello to all of you gorgeous creatures out there in blogland. I hope you're all well ... Which is something I'm NOT at the moment ... DARN IT! I've been ambushed by my second head cold of winter & feeling rather miserable. I usually manage to get through winter with just one head cold but this one was sneaky. SIGH!

So, between feeling miserable, not sleeping very well due to breathing apparatus not functioning at full capacity & longer than usual hours at my grown up job, there hasn't been anything creative happening here. I had thought today might be a sewing day, but I keep having long blinks ... In between snuffling & coughing! So I've given in, put some "Easy Air" essential oil blend in the diffuser ...

... And am snuggled under my trusty flannel blankie reading a Nora Roberts book ...

... In between long blinks! I may just stay here til spring. :0) If only I had someone to bring me hot toddies & bowls of homemade chicken soup. Ah well ... Will have to make my own cuppas & settle for chicken noodle Cuppa-Soup, I think. :0) Hopefully this cold clears up soon so my sewing mojo comes back ... Maybe next week. :0)

I think it's time to crawl out to make one of those hot cuppas so I'll sign off for now. Have a fabulous weekend, everyone & watch out for lurking lurgies! :0) Til next time ...

SNIFFLY BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!

KRIS

Last Weekend!

A big hello to all you gorgeous creatures out there in blogland! Here we are, it's Friday again. Have you had a good week? I confess that mine has been another challenging & crazy-busy one with some big changes happening in my grown up job & lots of after-work errands needing to be run this week. It's been a bit of a topsy-turvy ride again, to the point where it's the weekend again ... & I'm just getting around to telling you about LAST weekend! I really am starting to meet myself coming as I'm going! :0)

So ... Last Saturday saw my Beloved Geek Boy & I crawl out of our warm cosy bed fairly early ... On our night-owl scale of measurement! :0P And we headed off down our 'hill' on one of our mini road trips to Nambour to meet up with my Bestest-Buddy-Since-We-Were-Nine Lynette & her Sweetie to explore the vintage & collectable offerings at Collectorama. I think the husbands thought their presence might stop Lynette & I adopting TOO many goodies ... Not sure that theory worked! Tee! Hee! Hee! I wasn't TOO naughty ... But I DID find a few pretty treasures to adopt ...

Both Lynette & I seem to have a strange attraction to pretty jugs. :0) The little rosey jug is very close to the pattern on a couple of trios I've had for years, so it had to come home with me. The trio of jugs was a VERY good price, marked down a bit because the smallest is slightly damaged ... If you look very closely ... I just love the thatched cottages. :0) And the biscuit plate was too pretty to pass over ... I love the creamy background with the pretty flower colours popping against it ... Plus ... It's a nice practical plate for special afternoon teas.

After Lynette & I had adopted all of the pretties our budgets would allow, Lynette's Sweetie suggested a lunch destination he'd heard of in nearby Palmwood ...

Rick's Garage is a VERY happening place on weekends & we were fortunate to get a table ... Parking was a bit of a challenge, but after a hike up a VERY steep hill, I felt like I'd earned my lunch! :0) Rick's is a 50's/garage/mechanical themed eatery, with the decor & grounds sporting mechanical paraphernalia ...

... Like the penny farthing above the sign created from an old bicycle tyre. 

Here's the four of us ready to dig into our yummy lunch. (PSSST! Don't you think GB & Lynette's Sweetie look like they could be brothers? :0P Their birthday is even the same day, though a few years apart ... Pretty funny coincidence, right?!)

And the food?

... Was DEEEEEEEELICIOUS!! I had the chicken salad which was lovely & fresh & flavoursome. There were four clean plates at the end of the meal! :0) After a lovely relaxing time of chatting over adult beverages, we parted ways & made our way back up the 'hill', enjoying the lovely scenery along the way ...

It was a perfect day ... Sunny & warm, perfect for showcasing the Glasshouse Mountains.

Aren't the colours gorgeous? It's very dry & brown here, so we enjoyed the lush green along our trip. Thanks to my Bestest-Buddy & her Sweetie for such an enjoyable day.

After our very full Saturday, we had planned to have a quiet Sunday to catch up on our grown up chores ... But the best laid plans of mice & men ... We ended up hosting GB's folks for lunch & having a couple of his friends pop in as they were passing by. And during lunch GB's Mum received a call from the nursing home in a nearby town where her 102 year old Mother, GB's Gran Kent, resides, to say she'd been a bit low & perhaps family should visit ... Just in case. So, we jumped in the car & headed off.

GB with Gran Kent. She roused several times while we were all there & even ate some of her dinner, so that was good ... & this week she seems to have been a bit brighter. Family is precious, isn't it?!

So ... With several busy weeks being sandwiched together with equally busy (though lots more enjoyable!!) weekends, GB & I are planning a quiet catchup weekend at home for the next couple of days, though I think there might be some sewing snuck into the schedule there. :0) Speaking of sewing ... My GORGEOUS OPAM Partner-In-Crime Sweet Peg has done the prize draw ... Have you checked in with her blog? If not, maybe you should. :0)

Right now, however, I hear the kettle calling my name. I think I'm going to snuggle under my blankie with a cup of tea & something to keep my hands busy & enjoy some episodes of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries ... I love the series starring Essie Davis & Nathan Page, as well as the books by Kerry Greenwood the series is based on. Murder mysteries with 1920's style, fashions, music, panache & clever humour ... Gotta love it! :0) I wish you all a fantastic weekend spent doing something you enjoy with the special people in your life. Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!

KRIS

PS I'm not sure if blogger/Google have sorted out the comments issue, but thank you to all who leave comments & visit my little corner of blogland. I do read & appreciate all comments, even if I don't get to respond. :0)

GRRRRRR! Technology!

Hey all! Just a quick pop in before I keep a long overdue date with my pillow to let you know that Blogger & Google aren't playing nicely at the moment & apparently aren't sending comments left on the blog through to blog owners via email the way they're supposed to. So ... If you've left a comment on posts in the last week or so & not had a reply from me, please rest assured I'm not being rude ... Blogger & Google just haven't passed your comments along. Now that I'm aware of the issue I'll work around it to get back to you all in the next few days. In the meantime, I hope you're all having a fantastic week. :0)

Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!

KRIS

Some Sewing At Last!!

Hello to all of you GORGEOUS creatures out there in blogland! I hope your week is off to a great start. Life here in the Meares' Madhouse still resembles two hamsters in a madly spinning wheel ... Hopefully it will slow down a bit soon or I suspect we'll be flung out of the wheel like a slingshot! Tee! Hee! Hee!

The good news is ... I've actually managed to do some sewing in the last few days ... YAY!! My Beloved Geek Boy is an audiovisual technician in his grown up job ... He didn't end up with the nick-name "Geek Boy" for no reason! :0) So ... His backpack is invariably stuffed with cords, cables & connectors like you wouldn't believe, which can make it a bit tricky to lay his hands on the RIGHT cable/cord for the job. 

It looked like an upended bowl of spaghetti in there! :0) During one particularly frustrating game of "where's the cable?" GB said ... "I should get you to make something to help organise these cables!" Hmmm ... Challenge accepted!

My solution was individual drawstring pouches, different sizes for different types of cables. GB was pretty chuffed! :0) Not only did he report that the pouches wee working a treat, he asked for a few more ... And said his workmates were just a bit jealous of his classy organisational tools. :0) Nice to have your work appreciated, isn't it? And good to get some finishes on my sidebar list.

Just in time for ... The end of the month OPAM tally. So, calling all OPAM gals ... Get those sidebar lists up to date & email your tallies through to me & my GORGEOUS Partner-In-Crime Sweet Peg.

Righto ... Time to get the dinner on the table, so, til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!

KRIS