preparations are being made...

Oh yes, there's a big day happening around here tomorrow. 

It'll be all Pamper, Polish & Princesses for Gretta's big 4th.

We've got pom pom's, petit fours and plenty of shrapnel around to make little girls squeal. (Just check out those butterfly cookies that Liz made for her!)

And for the mama's - mimosas, cups of tea, and a our beautiful massage therapist, Edith doing 1/2 hour rub downs on tired mama's backs and shoulders.

There'll be pedicures for little princesses in the dining room, painting and primping and being little ladies with plenty of delicious treats - chocolate dipped strawberries, petit sandwiches, deviled eggs, ham rolls, and of course Birthday cake Lepage - in a flowerpot theme!

And yes, I will most certainly be taking the day off from eating sensibly to celebrate my darling daughter and all that is wonderful on the day. (Okay Okay - I had to sample the chocolate covered strawberries today too - just to be sure they were perfect...)

How's that for pampering?

heart's desire.

It is absolutely completely necessary that I have one of these.

It's a dutch tub. And I don't know if I can live without one.

How ace is it!? 

My old pal, Lesley got me onto the Avett Brothers last year, and I'm in love with this one.

Happy Weekending. xx

Good to be two.

Monty had a terrific day yesterday turning two. We had a very quiet day playing, sleeping, playing, eating cake and being happy and chilled out. Monty waited to go into the kitchen where his bed and presents were until Nic came in from Milking. The big kids gave him some new blocks to play with to tide him over!

His first little nap in his new big boy bed. Peaceful little ratbag, eh? 

Blew out his candles like a champ and had a good gutsfull of "Birthday Cake Lepage"

I thoroughly enjoyed my piece of cake too - tasted super sweet after 6 weeks of very little sweets!
I'm down 12 kg (27 pounds). Hurrah!

Raining Raining Raining here - meant to be getting 4 inches or so - on totally saturated muddy ground already. Joy.

What have you been up to? I'm off to grow my fins. xx

Baby Baby Baby

My most wonderfully sublime baby child turns 2 tomorrow.

huh-what?!!??

We've done up his great-grandfather and grandfather's junior bed for him. He'll be chuffed. He likes all other "real" beds and I think secretly at night he longs for one of his very own.

This bed was found in the rafters of the family shearing shed in New Zealand before they sold the family farm. Nic and I rescued it, wrapped the crap out of the header and footer in cardboard and trusted Virgin Blue to bring it back to Oz. We have since then made a new base for it, bought bedding (because, NO I am not clever enough or have enough brainspace at the moment to quilt one like some of you crafty overachievers...! P.S. I love your crafty overachive-y-ness, just feelin' a bit jealous bout that.) and had it powdercoated in flame red.

I think he'll be pretty darn wrapped.

and then rip into the other wrapping as you do when you are two!

Do you think I will have to stop calling him baby now? Please tell me I don't. I don't want a broken heart.

little ones, logistics, labels, love and mud = life

Hello, how are you!?

Sorry for my slow blogging at the moment (mom!), but we are a hectic little family. 

School holidays have been good fun - so nice doing Lego, Yoga, building, playing, etc with the smalls. Baxter and Monty have hit a great little groove of being able to play together - it's so lovely to not be breaking up fights as much anymore. Gretta is busy doing all of her girly girl things and chucking big spacks - she's such a mirror for her mother! After the tantrum, however, we are back to our lovely, wide eyed little darlin - busy making amazing stick figures everywhere we turn.

We have been busy little bees frantically getting our new Ruby Hills Bath Milk on the go.

Who knew Logistics were such a pain in the bum!? There a lot of boxes to tick before it happens, but fingers crossed, they're nearly all ticked... Just finalizing the terrifically complicated refrigerated transport details from the sticks to Melbourne.  The good thing is that we are incorporating my egg deliveries with the milk, so I will be gaining 52 extra days in my year that I won't be behind the wheel truck-drivin' in Melbourne! Hurrah!

I hope this Full moon will send all of the organizational vibes it can down to me to get the show on the road!

I'm continuing to do well on not eating crap. I feel great, I'm sleeping better (even with my 2-3 cups of divine coffee everyday...), and I have great intentions of moving more - sometimes it works out and I do, and other times I get bogged down in the daily necessities to get the movement in.  Yoga soothes my soul and stretches my bod. I wish I had the discipline to do it 3 times/week as 1 class per week just isn't cutting the mustard - but at this stage, it's better than nothing!  With a bit more sunshine, hopefully some more walks and kiddo bike-rides pop into the playing field. Hey - look at my op shop find! I love my new green handbag - and it set me back four bucks! Add my lovely little Elk sparrow on the front, and voila. A handbag that I love.

Don't you just love those pretty little eggs in my hubby's grubby farmy hands?!

Totally blessed.

One must you-tube before beginning projects

I have been inspired more than a million times by the most wonderful Soule Mama, as I'm sure that most women on this planet have been. I mean, cluck cluck cluck on that new Annabel, eh?!

Anyhoo - I've been collecting our old clothes for a while now, and have decided that since my "creative basket" has been VERY empty lately that I would sit in front of the fire with Masterchef (how good is this season!) and my hubby on these cold evenings and make our very own Paul Family Rag rug.

There's a fair bit of maternity shirts in there - hard-worn hubby overalls, jeans and workshirts - all in neutral darker colours. I've googled rag rugs, and I've seen my fair share of stunning white rugs. Albeit beautiful - what kind of moron makes a WHITE rag rug? Aren't they meant to be made from rags?

Google is the key here. The first attempt was unstiched at about 15 inches in diameter because the string I was using to bind the braids together was breaking. Never fear - I dived back in with a hardy yarn and went to stitching it back into a lovely oval. You would think that by unstitching the first time I would have done a bit of Youtubing to see about the pitfalls of rag rugs, but no. Off I went, and then I had a larger rug that was looking more basket like. I have now learned that the braid needs to be done loosely.
Not tight enough to be waterproof. ahem.

and so now - after Masterchef lastnight and a bit of harumphing I now have a very large pile of unstiched, unbraided rags to assemble LOOSELY into a rag rug. (Good thing, too - as the red was really not working for me. I've decided to set aside all reds, oranges and pinks to make Gretta a rag rug for next to her bed. Me thinks - next year....)

Good thing it's early in winter, eh?
Have you got any winter projects on the go?

P.S. I'm changing to an IMac Computer.
Do you do apple? Have you changed from a PC? What do you reckon??

hello sunday.

Hello. What have you been up to?

We've been listening to a bit of this: (whacky whacky video, but wicked song.)

We've been fighting with a lot of this:

I've been doing Kinder Fundraisers left right and centre:

Why Why Why? I really hate stickers that don't remove without giving up your life savings and youth appearance.

End of Financial year brought us our Organic Inspection with NASAA, 

new bank, new files, 

Organic Dairy Farmers Meeting, new logo, new pricing structure, 

new labels...... and almost the beginning of a dream coming true:

More on that soon...

There has been a lot of dancing, movie watching, snuggly warm fire cuddles, hot baths, naps, cleaning, washing mud off of everything, and some awesome sibling play here of late. 

There has not however been baking and cooking. There has been a frustrated mama, but holding steadfast and not succumbing to the temptations of floury sugary consumption. I have been on the trail, and being good to myself.  There has been a little break in exercise with all of the office work that had to be attended to, but I'm enjoying walking with my little bike riders, and sneaking a walk in wherever I can.
Feeling good, tempted sometimes, but good.

With school holidays on, and some sunshine (fingers crossed!) we will be out and about, doing projects, stoking the fire, stacking wood, climbing trees, taking walks and rides,
gardening and all business farmy.

What are you up to? xx

New Logo!

Hello. We've got a clever lady up our sleeve and she's designed us a new logo! 

What do you reckon?

feelin' great!

Have a look at these great op shop finds in Melbourne this week! Pyrex Agee - can go in the oven! But... I was thinking that I'd have to buy some more kiddo bowls as we only have 3 in use at the moment - and voila! How ace are these! 

And here's yesterday's lunch for hubby and me. I am feeling SO good. 

I'll share a secret - I've lost 7.8 kilos! (that's 17.2 lbs for you Americans!)

Life is good. Tremendously busy, but it feels so good to look after myself as well as everyone else now. 

xx

June Farming @ Fish Creek

Good Morning. And it really is - the sun is shining again today!

There's heaps more farmy pic's on our other blog, Ruby Hills Organics.
Pop over and peek at what we do... 

Have a Happy day.

xx

Light all my Lights

terribly excited.

I get to go see these lovely ladies with a big ol' group of country town friends next month in Meeniyan.

How cool is that!

Here's my favorite song.

It reminds me of that handful of really really special friends I've got stashed away in my heart...

How's your friday? Mine's great. I feel great, sticking on track to my lifestyle changes. Had a lovely walk around Leongatha today in my super duper new shoes. 

These are $279 top of the line running shoes. 

In last year's colour. Red (which happens to be my favorite colour!) 

A bit over the top you say?? I got them on sale for...... wait for it......

a hundred bucks.

Yay me!

.... anyway- I really like walking around the neighborhoods. I actually prefer to walk around a town rather than a bush track (probably because I'm always in the bush here on the farm). We have a most spectacular bush track here that goes for miles and miles called the Rail Trail. It's only 1/2 K from our house too. I just like the change and to perv on everyone else's stuff and gardens. I'm creepy like that.

Then I went to the op shop and found some shoes and book treasures for the kidlets. 

Baxter is right into everything "factual" whereas Gretta still likes a bit of imagination....

And we've got a garlic stuffed fresh venison roast warming away in the oven. 

(*Vegos tune out now!!!*)

What's cooking with you?

xx

no. more. baking.

I love to bake. and bake. and bake.
I love to see my loved ones gobble up goodness and know that they are happy that I made it for them.

but.... unfortunately, all that lovely goodness has been in QUITE too much abundance of late, and has seemed to stuck itself all over my arse. (and everywhere else!)

{image from}

Game plan?

Zumba on Monday's, Yoga on Thursdays, Walking on Fridays and Sundays. After I'm feeling a bit more energy, I'm going to do the Couch to 5 K.  Yes, that's right. I'm going to start running.

I'm also revisiting my plans with Atkins. I tried Atkins almost 10 years ago. At that stage in my life - I didn't have a clue about nutrition. I had already spent time doing "Slim Fast" and diet pills since I was about 12 years old.

Sad, I know... But... back to the Atkins days.. I was on day 3 and I was the grumpiest, tired grumpy pants, and I threw a calf feeder at Nic's head. He demanded I go and eat a bowl of cereal and calm the hell down! So, I'm going on a more gentler approach, mostly because it suits my life and the food that we already eat. Minus the flour, sugar, rice, etc. - Organic or not - it's sticking to my guts and it needs to get the boot.

I am not disillusioned that I need to be skinny. I do not want to be skinny. I just need to shift some of this extra chub and aches and pains that prevent me from feeling good. That's it.

Wish me luck. I can't believe I just spilled my guts on my blog, but, that is where the honesty needs to go. It's better here than spilling over my pants! I need support. So, stop posting those damn pictures of warm muffins, thank you very much!

Thursday.

Hello, how are you?

This snapshot of the contents inside my handbag are a great representation of my life 

and brainspace at the moment.

Scattered and random!!

I love reading fellow blogger's post's about the contents of their bags... 

Like - "oh what a mess! I have my knitting needles and my wallet, and oh dear! how messy of me - 

I have a spent tissue!" -- the horror!

Get a load of the crap in my bag. I especially love the scattering of my Arnica that I keep in my bag. Little white pillules rolled out everywhere. 

I'm surprised that there was not a used nappy in there with a mouldy apple.

Anyway - the sun is shining today, and is at least making my scattered and hectic life a happy sunny one.

Hope yours is too.

xx