sausage dogs

goodbye old friend.

It hasn't been a good couple of weeks for us. Two nights ago we had to let this guy go. 

Masaki was 14, and suddenly slowed down very quickly and lost interest in food. We found out he had cancer in a very bad way. Only hours later it was apparent that the kindest thing to do was have him put down. Poor Tim took him in the middle of the night, and we buried him yesterday.

There is something so heartbreaking about losing a pet. Masaki drove me completely crazy at times - he loved to bark his ear-splitting yelpy bark, and more recently decided our raised veggie patch was the best place to do his toilette. But he had such personality, with his mopey Eeyore expression. He was funny and gentle and loving. He put up with Gus' constant kisses and hugs and attempts to wrestle. He's been Tim's faithful companion for 14 years. 

The house feels empty without the familiar black blob on the mat in the corner, and less like home.

arnie.

This beautiful woman left the world last week. My last grandparent Arnie*.

She wasn't your typical grandmother - no daggy clothes, blue rinses, or knick knacks cluttering her home. She was an incredibly elegant woman, her clothing, home, garden and even cooking were all beautiful and considered to the last detail. 

The last few years have been very hard on Arnie. But tomorrow we'll farewell her, and we'll remember rolled up sandwiches, brandy snap baskets filled with stawberries, Mr Bean videos, a spoilt Scotty dog, trips to the cinema, her 'dislike' of 50c coins she saved to give to us instead, singing "the flies crawl up the window", and homemade strawberry icecream at Christmas. 

She was such a wonderful grandmother to us, going to her house was like going to a luxury resort with 5 star service. I'm so pleased Gus got to meet her, even though she didn't know us. We'll all miss her very much.

* Her name was Hilary but Arnie was what her grandchildren called her ever since the eldest had trouble pronoucing 'Granny'. (Quite funny when Tim thought that was her real name)

happy Easter.

My bro and his girlf are in town for our annual extended-family easter holiday. We are off to Daylesford and there will be a cozy 25 of us. Gus was spoilt by his auntie and uncle with another Bajo vehicle to add to the collection they have started for him. Love these cars.

Check out the (not very Easterish) Easter chocolate I have bought my family. Mm, algae. This could really go either way.

meat free week.

I often proclaim "we barely ever eat meat" and then Tim says something like "what about the cutlets we had last night?". But I maintain that we eat very little (except for the sausages at a party yesterday.. and the bacon pasta I had saturday night.. hmm) so taking part in meat-free week should be relatively easy... I think. 

If you're keen to do the same, I've given you no notice at all, but Meat Free Week has a website here. To inspire you along, the Sustainable Table has released a very tasty looking free PDF recipe book you can download here.

Maybe it'll be the first step towards us becoming vegetarian. Whilst I enjoy a tasty piece of lamb I block out where it has come from and how, and that doesn't sit well with me at all. We'll see...

UPDATE:
I'm not sure why the cookbook contains a recipe for muffins - I don't normally eat muffins containing meat do you? (I think they're providing a bacon frenzy breakfast alternative). Anyway, I just made the Sweet Potato and Blueberry Muffins. They're gluten and sugar free, and I'm here to report that they're yum! I know, I'm as surprised as you are. There's not a single bad thing in them, so I've happily eaten 50.

endless summer.

We're basically never coming home. Went to Wilson's Prom (again), home for a night, off again to Sorrento with Gus and my newly retired dad (whilst poor Tim brings home the bacon). Tough life.

Enjoying this unseasonably hot weather by day, lying awake stressing about this unseasonably hot weather by night. (We've just broken all sorts of crazy 100 year records here in Melbourne). 

wilsons prom.

Gus and I snuck off to my favorite place ever last week - to crash my parents' holiday. We both loved it - Tidal River is made for little kids! The best thing is that we'll be there again on the Labour day long weekend in a couple of days, hurrah!

I have recovered all my photos thank goodness, not without dramas though. My backups were imported 4 times over, so I had over 40,000 at one point. ARGH!

back up your photos.

Right now. Do it.

Just having a mild breakdown that I've lost all of mine... (A long story involving 'backing up' to Dropbox but actually moving library to dropbox and cancelling halfway making everything disappear) (stoopid stoopid). I have two external harddrives with all my photos so I think I'm ok. I haven't updated them since Christmas, but managed to get photos since then from photostream (including Gus hugging his bunny above!). Fingers crossed it's all going to be ok...

We need the occasional reminder about these things - consider this yours!!

fair food veggie box.

Last week I ordered my first Ceres Fair Food fruit and veg box*. 

I only got the small fruit and veg box for $35 but it was plenty! You can also order additional groceries, in this case I added some eggs and bread. It all looked and tasted great. We don't eat nearly enough vegies so it was a bit of a challenge to get through it all, but we did. It was actually quite satisfying thinking of different recipes. Plus I'm wanting to change some of our eating and shopping habits (namely healthier and with less cash going to the two big supermarkets) and this seems to be the perfect solution. The only problem is you can't choose what you get/don't get in the set boxes so we might double up a bit with the stuff we grow ourselves (zucchini overload this week!) but I think we'll manage.

We got our second box today and it's quite fun unpacking it and seeing what we've got. Gus enjoys it too and does some quality control (taste testing) and unpacking (into the back of his truck).

*If you haven't heard of it:

Ceres is a "not-for-profit educational organisation located on 4 hectares of rehabilitated landfill in East Brunswick Melbourne". They have gardens, cafes, a produce store and run markets, workshops and sustainability initiatives. you can see their website here: http://www.ceres.org.au

Ceres Fair Food is an initative that delivers organic and locally grown fruit and veg to distribution points in most Melbourne suburbs from where you can pick up the box yourself (alternatively you can have it delivered). It's about reducing food miles, supporting small growers, employing and training disadvantaged workers, and promoting good eating! You can read more here: http://www.ceresfairfood.org.au/why-fairfood/

the not-baby-shower.

My good friend is having her first baby soon. I was adamant that she have a baby shower, she was less enthused, so we held a 'welcome-baby-afternoon tea'. (It was totally a baby shower, sans games).

The mama-to-be is an amazing gardener/horticulture teacher, so I went with a veggie/gardening theme (love a theme). I had way too much fun. Terracotta pots of lollies, seed packet invites, and mum helped me do the flowers (thanks mum!). 

My friend coped with the whole thing, even when she was given about 10 tubes of Lansinoh, haha.

oops.

So somehow that turned into a nearly two month break... 

Happy 2013?

And there's nothing all that exciting to impart. In short:

• High fived myself all January for marrying a teacher - all school holidays were spent at various other people's beach houses. Heaven.
• The home improvements continue, we're not doing anything major but it's totally overwhelming. We're still going backwards in order to go forwards... (so we tell ourselves).
• Gussy is 15 months tomorrow. He's been tentatively working on walking, and only in the last week or two is he really walking around. He now says teddy, bye bye, yes and no. He's getting more adept at expressing his displeasure if things don't go his way (loud screaming). He's also several shades browner after all the time at the beach, oops.

And that's it. I don't know if you're still there...