NZ Dares

I've had a very busy and creative day today. 6 layouts completed, including one that was done for the new NZ Dares blog.

I picked out an old photo of Grace for this challenge, she was only about three and she had the biggest grin on her face when I found her, I couldn't help but laugh and grab the camera. I don't do that nowdays when the kids eat my chocolate!

************************

I've been quiet with the blog lately due to sick kids. It's been a long winter and I'll be relieved when it's over. Still, it means I've been home a lot and had a chance to catch up with my reading. I finished Jodi Picoult's latest, The Tenth Circle, in two and a half days. I haven't read that fast for ages. Not one of her best books story wise but still a very good read. I'm reading Beverly Lewis's The Preachers Daughter now and enjoying it heaps. I love reading Amish stories!

*****************************************

The other thing I have been reading are people's blogs. I want to share two here with you today. One is BooMama who is doing tours of people's homes on her blog. I love looking at homes and how they are decorated, not because I'm nosy, lol, but I look for ideas that I can use. At the moment there's links for over 150 homes!

The other blog is A Gracious Home. Sallie has just announced the winners of the Blogs of Beauty Awards. Lot's of blogs to check out from here too.

Oh, there's another one, a really good scrapbook one. Scrapability. It's written by a Kiwi chick living in the UK. Beside's her blog which you click on opinions to read, she also has a huge list of scrapbook blogs for you to check out.

Hmm, maybe I haven't blogged so much because I too busy checking out everyone elses! lol.

The usual end for school hols

The kids are getting on well with each other now istead of the constant bickering at the start of the hols and of course one of them had to catch a cold. Poor Alex fell asleep just before tea and woke up looking with watery eyes and sniffing and sneezing. He's lost his appetite as well, thankfully we had chicken noodle soup in the kitchen cupboards.

Today was another busy doing not a lot day. Bit of shopping, bit of reading, preschool for Beth, cooking and cleaning. The usual stuff. Oh, I discovered that all the kids like lamb chops! First time in ages that they all like something. Why they didn't like it the last time I served them lamb chops I don't know and fingers crossed that they'll like it next time.

The weather here has been warm and sunny the last couple of days, almost spring like. I have the urge to get out in the garden but the ground is far too wet. I did pull out some weeds between the path and the shed yesterday and the lawn was mowed so it looks a little better. Can't wait for spring to arrive!

Bad Bananas are Bad.

Bad Bananas, as in really ripe and brown, are truly bad for me. I keep forgetting to give bananas to the kids when they are 'perfect' looking and then the kids don't want to eat them because they don't like brown bananas. The browner they get the guilter I feel, until eventually I take pity on them and make a wicked banana cake out of them that we all love, but my figure does not. lol.

So for those who forget about bananas until it's too late, and for those who love a wicked banana cake here's the recipe. It's from Jo Seagar's book, All Things Nice.

Moist Banana Cake with Lemon Icing
125g butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
3 bananas mashed
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons hot milk
2 cups of flour 1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the mashed bananas and mix well. Stir the baking soda into the hot milk and add this to the mixture. Lastly, fold in the flour and baking powder.

Pour into a well-greased 20-30cm tin with base lined with baking paper. Bake for 45-50minutes, until the cake springs back when lightly pressed. Cool for 15 minutes in the tin, then carefully turn the cake out and cool it completely on a wire rack. Ice with lemon icing when completely cool.

Lemon Icing
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon butter
2 cups Icing sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

Heat the lemon juice and butter and stir until the butter has melted. Mix all the ingredients together to reach a smooth, spreadable consistency (add a few drops of water if it is too firm).

This cake will do my 4 kids at home and myself for 3 servings each. (ie, 12 servings). It's gone down a treat at parties too.

Banner Lessons

My first banner creation! What do you think? I don't like the text but haven't figured out Paintshop pro enough to learn how to change the font and colour so I'll muck around with that later. Finding the instructions to do all this was the hardest part!

Lindsay Teague has some very clear instructions on her blog for photoshop users but I didn't find it difficult at all to use paintshop instead.
http://lindsayteague.blogspot.com/2005/06/how-to-1.html Is the how to make a banner and then visit http://lindsayteague.blogspot.com/2005/07/how-to-2.html for the instructions for putting a banner on your blog. Thanks a heap Lindsay!!!

Today's wee lesson for me is on how to add images. This layout was done for a scrapbook email group I'm on as part of some challenges a week or so ago. I'm not thrilled with the design of it but the journalling makes me happy. I showed it to Jonathon and was surprised that he clearly remembered this from eight years ago! He got a chuckle out of it. I must get on and scrap some more of his younger years before I forget the details.

Slow Start, huh?

It's not like I'd forgotten about my blog really. It's just that there's a bit of a perfectionist streak in me who wanted to get it all looking great from the get go, but the reality is sinking in slowly, this will be a learning experience that will take some time and one that I want to enjoy the of process anyway.

So a little bit of blogging at a time instead of fluffing around trying to do everything and ending up doing nothing.

I want to share a little about a book I'm reading. I picked it off the library shelf and had one of those moments where I knew this book was important and I had picked it up for a reason. Does anyone else have those moments I wonder? The book is called Everything Happens for a Reason by Mira Kirshenbaum. It's about finding the true meaning of the events in our lives. Now I've been through some truly awful times, like most people, and have had trouble thinking why would God allow this to happen to me? Those events hurt so bad that it is hard to see how any good could come out of them. This book is speaking to my soul and giving me a new perspective and for that I'm very thankful.

Kirshenbaum found there were only ten answers to the meaning of why things happen. There are diagnostic questions to see if an answer applies to you, but I have gotten something from each meaning, even though they are not the meanings for the events in my life. Here's a little snippet from Chapter four about bringing you to the place where you can feel forgiveness.

"No one intends to be unforgiving. In our society it's more something we feel we "cant' help" than something we're proud of. But that's the point. It really does seem like something we can't help. We're just stuck with it, like someone with an abscessed tooth and no dentist to provide relief. But don't imagine only how painful that would be. Imagine how you wouldn't be able to live a normal life with such a toothache. That's what happens when we're stuck unable to forgive someone else or when we can't forgive ourselves.

We see this every time we open the newspapers these days. Almost every troubled part of the world is a place where violence feeds on unforgiveness. The cycle of violence is utterly dependent on the inability to forgive. Our world is deformed by unforgivess."

My reason for my life events isn't about forgiveness, but this really got me thinking. Such a big topic that I had never really thought about before. It's something we can all relate to in one way or another. Lots to ponder with this book. Highly recommend it.