At My House

Image from here

It's has been very lonely in our house last week, and will continue for the next four weeks, as the husband is working away from home during the week. As much as I love coming home to a clean house, and cooking what I want for dinner, I do miss coming home to a roaring fire, and having someone to cuddle with on the couch of a night.

Thank goodness for iChat and mobile phones!

Head on over to Buttons by Lou Lou and play along.

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I like cheese

and Wallace & Grommet it seems!


Whilst in Tasmania the husband and I took a trip to Bruny Island Cheese Company.


Bruny Island Cheese Company is owned by Nick Haddow, who is an artisian cheese maker who uses both cows and goats milk. They have a recently Nick and his wife set up a cellar door on Bruny Island, which was our first stop of the day.

mmmmm, room full of yummy cheese!

Lewis (goat) and Tom (cow) cheese - I found it amusing that the goat's name was Lewis too!

Almost ready Tom

Tom (left) and Lewis (right)

My favourite was Tom. 

Tom is a simple guy. He is in the tradition of the Tomme cheeses made in the mountainous French Savoie region. He is not complicated by tricky cheese making or complex maturation techniques - a cheese of simple integrity to be left on the table and eaten everyday. On the outside he has a natural grey rind that develops over five months of ageing. On the inside, he is really just great milk. Tom is a fast maturing hard cheese that shows both freshness and developed characteristics. He gets along famously with everyone. Tom likes being rubbed. 

They also had an amazing soft cheese named Saint

In the central plateau of France there are a number of cheeses that are all named after the local Saints. Like our Saint, they are all surface ripened, soft oozy cheeses with a light bloom on the rind - not a thick carpet of single strain white mould found on more commercial cheeses. This cheese can be eaten younger, when the inside is still firm and the flavour more delicate, or wait until the curd breaks down completely and the flavour gets more pungent. 

Now given we had a good three days of touring before we came home, buying a lot of cheese was not going to end well, so it is mighty lucky that there is a cheese club! I am thinking of joining just to have more yummy cheese delivered to my door.
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A Change in direction

This is our block. Yes, all of it! We live in town, on an acre and a half. Which for the last five years, we have done nothing with. It has always been in the back of our minds about sub-dividing, but it was too hard to even think about.

Until a recent discussion at work brought up the subject of sub-diving and the associated costs. And it didn't see overly daunting. So we rang a conveyancer, and had a bit of a chat.

We always thought we would only divide our block into 2 sections, however he suggested we would be better off financially dividing into 5 large house lots.

Of course with every development comes costs, and those costs mean building a house has put on hold. But once the blocks are sold, it means we would be in an incredible position.

So there you go, house building on hold, but property development on the rise!

Wish us luck, we have to go to Council this week to find out the cost in upgrading the road. This could be interesting!
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A joke

Image from here

A chicken crossed the road & met James Bond, 


'What's your name?' asked the chicken, 'Bond, James Bond. Whats yours?', 


'Ken, Chick Ken.'

Ok, so I know it is really lame, but when a friend of mine shared it on twitter I spend a good five minutes giggling over it. I love lame jokes.

Go on, tell me your favourite lame joke

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Wallpaper

modern powder room design by san francisco architect Feldman Architecture, Inc.

I do wish the husband would come around to the idea of wallpaper. I would love something like this
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Tea and Cake anyone?

My niece loves to offer me a cup of tea when I visit. And you can't have tea without cake, so we have cake too.

So I couldn't resist buying a little wooden tea and cake set from Send-A-Toy. We have brought a few toys from them at my work, and they are incredibly well made, durable, and oh-so-adorable!

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April Loves...

Glasshouse Fragrances

Remember my friend Britt? Remember how awesome I think she is? Well tomorrow she becomes extra awesome as it is her birthday.


Which brings me to something I love, which is my Glasshouse Strasbourg candle, which Britt gave me for my birthday last year. 


Rather than smelling of Strass (ewww, why would one want a candle smelling of processed meat?), it smells like a giant slice of spiced apple pie! A dash of nutmeg, two pinches of vanilla, a barrel of pink lady apples and the secret ingredients of grapefruit and mandarin make Strasbourg simply unforgettable.

Apple + Cinnamon = a kitchen that smells like I have been baking when I have really been sleeping on the couch! Winners all round!
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Dare to Bare - Part 2!

I am back home, with a promised photo of me sans makeup, and as an added bonus for my lateness, some flaws too!

So here I am, with crazy 'I forgot to pack my hair-straightener on my holiday', wearing my trackies in our terribly cold house, with not one, but two pimples that Tasmania gave me!

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Laundry Love

Someone sent me this link recently, and suddenly it was 3 hours later and I was still drooling over the beautiful rooms.


These were the standout laundries for me. I would love to have something similar in our new house, but I don't tend to spend a lot of time in our laundry. So I guess it would be wasted. But you never know, I might discover a love of doing laundry

contemporary laundry room design

eclectic laundry room design by other metros interior designer Veranda Interiors

Both from Houzz
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Paper Cuts

Kyleighs Papercuts

I recently saw these featured on Etsy, and was amazed at how cute they are. And they can be made to say any saying/lyric!

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You are my sunshine....

jessgonacha

Oh how I love that song! It takes me back to watching Beaches as a child during school holidays.
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Dare to Bare

Yeah, ok, its a crappy shot. I remembered to pack my camera, but forgot to bring the cables to connect to the computer! Doh!!! So I have pulled out a photo from our trip to Paynesville. I will come back with a better shot in a weeks time. Someone remind me of it though ;)

My good friend Telle from FatMumSlim alerted me to a trend a few days back about bloggers going without makeup and posting it on their blogs. I admit, when I post photos of myself on here a lot of effort has gone into the selection process. Normally I like to have "some" makeup on, brushed hair, and nice clothes. And I avoid photos with my chins on show, I try to find a flattering photo, even if it means I have to wear a scarf in summer!

So ladies and gents, here is my contribution. Are you willing to bare your true self?

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April Loves...

Ok, so we all know that I blog about things I like, things I want, things I think you might like. But there are a few things that I love to buy time and time again, as they make me happy.

From Mummys Favourite

Hand Wrapped soap bar from the latest MOR collection - the Emporium range. Unwrap a remnant of 17th century decadence and indulge with this creamy triple-milled soap. Inspired by the exquisite ornamentation of bygone days, it will leave skin feeling velvety soft! 

I first fell in love with MOR soap when I receive a bar as a gift for attending a friends wedding. I treasured it, and only used it on the days where I wanted to feel (and smell) special. Unfortunately the husband got desperate for a bar of soap one day, and used it to scrub himself clean. I eventually hunted down another bar and hid it from him. And then I was addicted. I am currently using the Frangipani soap (pictured), but the last bar was Snow Gardenia, which was devine! Best of all, it the smell will always take me back to the memories of my dear friends wedding.

Do yourself a favour, pick up a bar if you ever find the chance.


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Hall Tables...re-visited

A while back I mentioned how I wanted a hall table. Somewhere to put the mail, a potted (fake) plant and a photo-frame

Well after months of looking. And looking. And doing some more looking. I have given up. See, the issue is that although our hallway is wide, the spot for the halltable is only 300mm deep. Most hall tables are  between 350 and 450mm deep. See the issue?

So what does when do when handed a problem like this? They beg their incredibly kind and loving husband to build them one. Basically all I want is something that looks like this Malm Ikea one

Surely it can't be too hard! It is only three bits of timber, except I want a shelf on the bottom.
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Mix and Match Eggs

I do love eggs, especially these ones

The Toy Bug

Apparently you pull apart the tops and bottoms of each animal, and then play a mix and match type game. Seems like hours of fun to me, especially when you start making up your own animals, like a dook (dog + chook).

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You know you live to build/renovate when...

You have the perfect taps chosen prior to even buying a block of land!

My current love is these taps, as featured in the beautiful Crown Metropol

If only I could find them in a store :(
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Zebra Cake

Remember when I made the rainbow cake back here, when I still had an ugly kitchen (yes, it is the first thing I noticed!)? Well this is similar, be ever so much cooler!!!

Not Quite Nigella made hers into a cheesecake sort of thing, but given I am not a huge fan of cheesecake, I might stick with buttercake. I will come back and report how it went (and tasted!)


PS - Oh. My. God. How did I not know about NQN? A truly amazing cook!!! Pin It

Mobiles

From My First Room

One day I want to have a little girl. Not only because I want a child to love. But because there are so many pretty things out there for little girls, like this lotus mobile.

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Hello...I love you

Given that we know I love tragic tv shows, it should come as no suprise when I tell you I watch Glee.

So, since catching up this week, I have been wandering about the house singing The Doors song "Hello, I Love You". And then, whilst searching for a digital scrapbooking text page, I found this on Etsy

From BluLima

Is it not the cutest thing you have seen today!

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5 Star Luxuary

I admit to being a little bit of a hotel snob. When I stay in the city, I always head straight for the 4.5 to 5 star hotels on Wotif. Luckily for my husband (and credit card), I don't stay in the city very often!

However, this weekend I was celebrating. Celebrating the woman who brought me into the world that is! Remember how we went to High Tea at the Langham? Well it was followed with a stay at Melbourne's newest 5 star hotel. The Crown Metropol.

Now, I have never booked a mystery deal on wotif before, but I thought I had this one pegged. In my mind it was the new Hilton. And I was a little bit disappointed when I found out where we were actually staying.  Until we got there! It was amazing!!!

According to a lady at work, there is a team of staff who are dedicated to cleaning all those windows. It takes a whole week to get around the entire building! And let me tell you, there is a lot of windows!

The white passageway links you into the first floor of the casino, at the family food court entrance. I wish we had discovered this prior to walking the long way around! Luckily Melbourne turned on the weather for us, and it was unseasonably warm for mid-April.

The rooms were amazing. Talk about space! In our room (the basic room) there was a couch, a chair, a desk, a king sized bed. And there was plenty of room to spare. Each room features floor to ceiling windows, which when teamed with the worlds most comfortable chaise lounge, makes for hours of fun of people watching (except for when you see old people on their balcony naked!!!).

As for the bathrooms, talk about elegant. It was a mixture of dark black and dazzling white stone. The toilet and shower are enclosed in 2 metre cubes of rippled effect glass, which make for an excellent feature, but also incredibly practical! 

If you ever get the chance, make this hotel a MUST! You will not be disappointed.
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