Hello Dear Friends

Hello again my dear friends,

Im sorry that I have been very slack in the blogging department, unfortunately life had a tendency to spin out of control and i guess I was a little stumped for what to write....

I have noticed from the few blogs that I read all the time that they have retained my interest because while being about the author's day to day life they also have a particular theme to them. You will see what i mean if you flick over tohttp://emmascrafty.blogspot.com/ and http://www.blogger.com/Green these two are at the moment my fave blogs, Emma at A Little Crafty inspires me to get 'a little crafty' and Vanessa at Green Ness is making me think a bit more about green organic living. So I have been thinking about what I could write about that will keep you, my friends, coming back and reading more.....

I recently watched Julie and Julia, you know the movie where Julia decides to do a blog on making all of Julia Child's recipes in a year? The movie was sweet (although Julia's (played by Meryl Streep) voice drove me to distraction) and coupled with my shame and disgust to admit that my family has become far too complacent with eating takeout or frozen dinners most nights a week has served to inspire me......

I am a fiend for cook books, recipes and recreating meals that I have had in restaurants....below is a photo of i think about half of my collection of recipes (the box at the front is an old women's weekly box of recipe cards, not sure how many but the index is 52 pages...)

So if you havent guessed already dear friends i will tell you, I am going to set myself a challenge. My challenge is to cook dinner using a recipe from my collection every night and then blog the recipe, rate how easy or hard it was (1 being easy 5 being hard) and the family's reaction. If im not super busy that day you may find a few recipes that I have had time to play with...

We are as a society are becoming far too dependent on the fast and easy meals, whether they be from the golden arches or from the frozen section of the supermarket... I hope my blog can serve as an inspiration for you and your family's dinner choices...

Mixing work with fun...

On saturday DH had to do a site inspection in Blackheath. Normally he would get up really early and go by himself and then wake us ladies of the house with coffee(for me) and hotcakes for the little misses, (who had by then taken over his side of the bed and some of mine too!) This site inspection however was different...

When DH told me he needed to go to Blackheath, I could barely contain myself...you see when I was just a young fresh faced 17 year old I was lucky enough to work at the Victory Theatre Cafe on weekends. Now most people wouldnt get so excited about visiting their old workplace, but for me, the VTC and Blackheath itself is a place that gave me some of the best experiences, you know the type that you look back on and can vividly remember the sights, sounds and the tastes (omg, the tastes) and whenever you hear the name or something related to it your mind just automatically goes into nostalgic mode? Well this is one of my special places(you'll find I have a few).

Why is Blackheath so special? well to start, the train ride to Blackheath is a gorgeous one and something that I actually enjoyed about working so far away from home. Secondly and even though I am miss suburbia these days I am a Mountains girl born and bred. Thirdly Blackheath is the first and only time I can remember seeing snow (even though I had lived in the Mountains for 17 years) and for me snow is magic, it makes eveything look cleaner, you have an excuse to stay in and sit in front of a fire and read all day long if you want to and lets not forget the hot chocolate and marshmallows to keep your insides warm and well I just look cuter in a beanie than I do in a bikini :P

One of my other fave experiences is my first taste of the VTC BLT....honestly there is nothing tastier than this BLT. I have tried for the last 11 years to find a decent replacement BLT but none have even come close to being as good...

So we went to Blackheath, I didnt see snow but I did get my BLT and even though the staff has changed and quite possibly the management as well, the VTC BLT still tasted exactly the same!

Anyway enough about the food and nostalgia - we did do other things while we were up there :) After lunch we went into the VTC antique store, and let me tell you this place is huge! Word to the wise though, trying to look at antiques is really difficult with two little misses that just want to touch EVERYTHING!! so we didnt stay long there (although dh who would normally scoff at the practice of antiquing has promised that we will go another day soon - sans the princesses)

After that we ducked into a quaint little toy/gift shop to check out if they had any cutesy little pressies would could get miss g for her birthday - they did, but that will come in another post :)

We then headed off to the site inspection which ended up being really close to the little duck reserve and playground area. The girls were in their element here, 3 different playground areas, pretty ducks to look at and lots of feathers or fellas according to miss g to collect. Although it felt bizarre to say 'come on miss g lets go find you a fella'! As they say a picture paints a thousand words so check out the fun we had!

If you are going to Blackheath or even if youre looking for something to do I recommend you check out:

Victory Theatre Cafe

Victory Theatre Antiques

Iris and Mays toy and gift shop

My first visit to blogland...

Hi I'm Sam!

So if you read my about me section just over there on the left? right? well if i was actually in the computer then it would be my left but because I'm not lets just go with the section on your right...go on read it, I'll wait...........

Welcome back! So what does all that mean? Well it depends on who you ask...some might say that I'm insane, some say i'm a glutton for punishment, I'm pretty sure the men in white coats would say that I have a supermum complex or the gobbledygook version of that anyway. For me its just who I am, I'm a bit of all three. I get the supermum thing from my mum - she is the original supermum and my hero...love you mummy.

As for the other two, well lets face it, most mums are a little insane and seem to be gluttons for punishment - if we werent, there'd be only children all over the place!

So I've created this blog for a few reasons:

a) I apparently dont think I have enough to occupy my time already

b) I think my husband is somewhat bored with me telling him the same thing over and over again

c) I think it could be a nice thing for my babies to read and be inspired by when they get older or it could be a useful guilting tool at the very least :P

d) I do a fair bit of quilting/patchworking and the occasional crafty thing and lets face it, what good is a blog without some shameless bragging/self promotion

e) I hope that as people read my posts, they get a little chuckle, a slight smile or even if reading my post while having a cuppa (i'll have a skim latte thanks) their day gets a little brighter....

so...I am hoping that I wont be the only one reading this, because really, that would just be really really lame...

s

xoxo