Re-Inventing the Backyard & Patio

Now I'm not working, I've been able to invest more time into my hobbies. My hobbies include gardening, scrapbooking, cardmaking, cross-stitch, crocheting and baking.
A friend of mine's 4 year old daughter comes over once a week during school term and we have lots of fun together as we like doing the same things.
Gemma and I have planted a lot of flowers, a couple of citrus trees, sweet peas and normal peas together, but this week she didn't come so I made a small pond for just under $40.
A large plastic tub for under $5 from Bunnings and a couple of water plants for $10 and you've got an instant water feature in your backyard.
I've also been researching the benefits of duckweed this week, and the stuff is amazing!
Check out http://www.duckweed.com.au/ . So off I went to City Farm and made a donation for some duckweed and about 10 tadpoles! I think they're motorbike frogs - well I hope they're motorbike frogs.

Here's a pic of a motorbike frog I found in amongst my sweet peas the other night.

Best ever short film

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1l4z8_cane-toad-what-happened-to-baz_shortfilms

Perth Women's Convention

Well the time is upon us again.
Perth Womens Convention, run annually, is on this Saturday. Once again, I am on the music team, playing Bass guitar. It's always great to play in a band of more than 10 people. The combined effort is beautiful! Aparently there are almost 500 women coming this Saturday, so to be able to play with that many people singing along gives me such a buzz. Then add to the fact that we're all singing praise to God, is absolutely awesome!! It's like a small small taste of what singing and praising God in Heaven will be like.
Also, this year, we're looking forward to hearing Maxine Cook teach us about the Kingdom of God.
Bring on the Day!

http://ccowa.org

The Fiji Experience - Part 2

I miss Fiji!!!

Just had to put that out there... Ok, on with the story... =)

Stepping out of the plane meant being hit with the heat (relatively) straight away. Stepping out of a air-conditioned, pressurised plane always means being hit with reality as soon as you get off.

Anyway, no problems getting through customs and getting to our hotel. As soon as we got to our room, off came the long pants and jeans and jumpers, and on with the shorts and t-shirts. We decided to go for a walk down to the beach and so off we went.

- the Beachside Resort where we stayed when we were in Nadi.




The vegetation of the country was beautiful. Everything was lush and green, and this is during the dry season! There were also a lot of clouds moving in over the west of Fiji, and so the sunsets every night were absolutely breath taking. The vast array of colours was a sight to behold, but actually, Fiji in general is a sight to behold.

- the view walking from the Beachside Resort down to the beach.

- amazing displays of light

- and beautiful sunsets



When walking along the beach, we saw lots of beautiful shells and animals - the crabs were amazing because they were the same colour as the sand, and you had to look closely at what appeared to be a fleck of dirt moving across the sand to see that it was actually a crab.
However we also saw a lot of rubbish. This was a shame to see really. Twistie packets, McDonald's packaging, cigarette butts... and it wasn't even a tourist beach. From all appearences, it was simply a local beach that the public knew about, which was even more disappointing. To see that Fiji has such beautiful landscapes and environments and they don't treasure them enough to pick up after themselves, yet they're concerned enough about global warming, because if the sea levels do rise, most of their islands would disappear under water...

Anyway, that night we met the rest of our group we would be travelling around Fiji with, and our group leader - Kim.
We're an interesting group! Darryl and Jill are from Bondi Beach, although they're not 'native Aussies', like Jane and I. Darryl is from NZ and Jill is from England, though they've both spent most of their lives in Australia. Giles is from Bristol in England, and is about 5 years older than me. He's on a 6 month sabbatical from work and is travelling all over the world. Fiji is just another location on his trip.
Kim is our group leader, who is from NZ and has quite a thick accent, which at first is sometimes hard to follow, but she is a great leader, a wealth of knowledge, and fills us in with what to expect and what will be happening so there's no surprises. She's also a lot of fun and great to talk to, as she's been nearly everywhere too!!

Rent Inspections

Rent Inspections. A necessary part of renting a house, but completely fustrating and time consuming.
I spent all day today getting the yard and plants in general, in order. Mowing the lawn, hedge trimming and whipper snippering I can handle. But digging old, dead plants out of the pavement is just ridiculus! Especially when the Property Manager complains about them, cobwebs and other very trivial things and wont fix the leaking roof, the problematic airconditioner, the hole in the pavement, and the broken tilt-a-door.
Well, I think and hope that everything is in good order. Rent inspection is tomorrow.

Home Again. The Fiji Experience Part 1

"I don't want to go home!!" Is what Jane heard the most on the last two days of our holiday.

Fiji is a great place to visit and we had a great holiday.

The plane flight over was another story. Everyone told us that the midnight horror flying Virgin Blue was indeedly horrible! People said it was freezing cold and most uncomfortable. We found it too warm, and were peeling off the jumper and any other possible layers. We had blow up pillows, so the comfort factor wasn't too bad, but we also had a guy, a couple of seats behind us, intent on keeping everyone awake! Jane got up and told him off, saying it was 2:30am and people were trying to sleep, could he keep his voice down, THANKYOU!

As most people know, Virgin doesn't serve you food unless you pay the extravagent prices for it, so we brought our own snacks with us.

This is a picture of Jane preparing our bread and cheese (very tasty bread and cheese I might add) snack food at the Domestic - International Train station at Brisbane. Local time - 6 am. WA time - 4 am or thereabouts.

Many hours later and we were off to Fiji. This plane flight was a lot better, I got a lot more sleep, and the view of the islands and reefs as we were descending into Nadi (pronounced Nandi) was spectacular!

2 - 1

"2 down, 1 to go" is the current phrase in use in my family.

Out of all us three kids, I'm the only one left in the state and by Sunday, my brother will be the only one left in the country.

Peter - my youngest brother flew out to the UK last night!

Mum, Dad and I went to see him off at the airport. Parting is always hard. Now I think Mum is counting down the days till he comes home...

Peter's the one who will be gone the longest. He's got a working holiday visa for 2 years! I guess that means that we're going to have to go and visit!

Andrew is over in SA working on a mine somewhere there (he did tell me, but I've forgotton) so he can travel around the world...

I'm only going to Fiji for 12 days. A very short amount of time in comparison, but enough time to get away and relax.

One more sleep to go...

Can't Hardly Wait

Yay!! Only 2 more days till Jane and I fly out to Fiji!!
Can't hardly wait, been looking forward to a holiday (a real holiday that about relaxing, seeing the sights and being with friends) for a long time.
We're flying with Pacific Blue to Fiji, I'm usually a QANTAS girl, but cheaper prices have seduced me away from tradition.
We're travelling around Fiji with Intrepid, a great organisation that allows you to see the country and experience the culture. This will be for 8 days, then we've allowed ourselves 4 days to relax and do whatever it is that we want to do...
Personally, I'm looking forward to spending most of the day on the beach, either in the water snorkelling or swimming or in a hammock with a good book in one hand and a pina colada in a coconut shell in the other.