Emily's 18th birthday party

At the end of January, Emily celebrated her 18th Birthday with about 30 girlfriends.

Originally supposed to be a Garden Party, (for which we did considerable work on the garden), the party moved indoors at the last minute after a few  intermittent showers. Emily decorated the living room with the streamers she'd made for the front garden, and made tissue paper flowers, thank you favours and cute drinks labels.

That's my girl.

I can see she will make a great wedding planner one day :)

Laura and I worked hard while the girls chatted to provide a feast with vegetarian, nut-free and vegan options, while Steve was off playing quartets at music camp. At the end of a great party, we three girls tidied up and then collapsed on the sofa for a TV dinner.

Lately ...

I haven't posted lately, but I have ...

... picked flowers from our front garden for a posy

... made a belated birthday card for my sister 

photographed Emily as she headed out to a high tea

... been preparing for a Christmas Cardmaking Night at church,
this was my photo shoot for the advertising.

... had gastro that strangely hit 5 members of our bible study group simultaneously

36 hours after we met, and spread from there, but lasted longest for me :(

 (fortunately no photos of all that)

... bought a lovely old secondhand mirror

(which prompted another reorganisation of the study)

... dressed as femme fatale Fiona Volpe for a James Bond 40th birthday party

(such a fun night!)

... tried to support Steve as he helped his parents as they move in and out of

hospital, respite care, another hospital, and home again - a busy time for him

... been getting up at 6.00am, which is much earlier than I used to get up

and finding I have more time for a whole lot of things, such as walking

... been feeling very well and energetic most of the time, now that my diet is

basically Paleo - meat, fish, chicken, eggs, fruit, veges, a few nuts.

... celebrated Laura's 15th birthday yesterday

Fifteen! More in another post ...

... been influenced by Japanese sewing books and food lately:

making paleo eggrolls, and starting sewing this dress

  

... made plans to welcome a Japanese student into our home for 5 nights from this Friday.

... started thinking about Christmas and noticing signs of its approach

... and watched Emily dance beautifully today in her annual concert.

What have you been doing lately? 

Birthday Week

Tuesday was my birthday, and as it turned out, I had a week of social outings.

Monday was a Spring Morning Tea at Jacqui's, quite a tradition now.

On Tuesday I was awake early for a presents in bed - DVDs, earrings, bowls, all sorts of nice things -

and then later headed out to see The Hundred Foot Journey with Tanya, followed by lunch. Loved the movie, just perfect.  (And I would love to be Marguerite, cycling to work by the river, wearing a fresh cotton dress for each day of the week.)

After the movie and lunch I dropped home for five minutes or so and a friend arrived just then with a happy bunch of gerberas. Catherine is so good, she never forgets a birthday.

Laura and I had chiropractor appointments, 45mins from home. But we arrived early and actually had a moment to drop in at the beach.  All these appointments and the beach has been just over the hill, out of reach.  As we pulled up, we saw a rainbow out to sea. We jumped out and had a few photos, in the freezing cold wind.  An unplanned birthday portrait:

 All through the day I had texts, facebook messages and phonecalls. It's so nice to be remembered on your birthday (I really must be more organised with other people's birthdays!).

Emily made me this sweet card, hand-drawn.

Steve arrived home from work with a bunch of beautiful pink roses.

We went out for dinner, to a local bistro where I could eat a steak and salad, and we managed to find food for each of our varied diets.  We laughed a lot, and made up stories about other people in the bistro, good fun.

On Wednesday I celebrated my birthday with Mum and Dad - more presents, another movie and another lunch! (How spoilt am I?) This time we saw Magic in the Moonlight, which was enjoyable, but not brilliant. Very pretty to look at, but lacking subtlety or sub-plot, I thought. And the heating wasn't working in the cinema - eek! (But once again I would have been happy to be the heroine and wear pretty dresses in picturesque locations). We had a delicious lunch afterwards of lamb salad at one of my favourite restaurants. By now I was completely exhausted already from a few days of outings, and socialising, plus not feeling so well.  I went home and crashed on the sofa for a bit.

That afternoon Emily and I saw the most amazing sunset on the way home from her saxophone lesson.

On Thursday I taught recorder and went to bible study as usual, my friend Deb treated me with a delicious morning tea spread that I could actually eat - a rosewater, lemon and almond cake, sunflower & sesame crackers, maple rosemary nuts, and roast vegetable chips. I could barely lead bible study between stuffing my face with such yummies. (Just joking).

On Friday I went to a local open garden day, I'll save that for another post.

Saturday was getting ready for Fathers Day, and, since I enjoyed The Hundred Foot Journey so much, I dragged the family out to see it so we could all enjoy it at the theatre (which we did).

We arrived early (my mistake) and were amused by the antics of the cinema cat. You might be able to see her walking along the candy bar (!). This time the heating was working (phew). And did I mention that I saw Begin Again the previous Friday night? Four movies in 8 days for me, so out of the ordinary!

Sunday was Fathers Day, presents for Steve in the morning, then after church, a wet-weather picnic in my parents' rumpus room with some of the family, followed by games. So all in all, it's been a good week, but a busy week. Lots of love, and friendship, and good times.

This week, it's back to normal life for me. Emily is half-way through her Yr 11 exams,

and Laura is home with an injured ankle. On Saturday I'm accompanying Emily's saxophone exam,

so we both have plenty of practising to do. 

Afternoon Tea Party

Afternoon tea today for Mum's birthday.

Chips, crackers and dips

Sausage rolls and party pies,

Cheese and spinach savouries.

Homemade gluten-free sausage rolls

(yum)

Sandwiches: egg, chicken, pesto, cream cheese & sultanas

(gluten-free & regular varieties)

Blueberry Almond Birthday Cake GF

Swedish Chocolate Cake GF

Caramel Creams GF

100s and 1000s biscuits GF

Armenian Nutmeg Cake GF

Choc Chip Cookies

Peach and Date slice

Chocolate Cupcakes

Everyone brought a plate of food or drink,

I made most of the gluten-free foods.

We decorated the table with some butterflies

(cut from an op-shop copy of Pride & Prejudice)

and pretty labels for each dish.

I pulled out all my pretty vintage china

and a vintage embroidered tablecloth.

I bought some pretty pink-edged lizianthus,

and my aunt & co. surprised me with a lovely

arrangement of proteas in a gorgeous pot.

(a late "thinking of you" gift for my surgery!)

It was lovely to see most of the family again,

there were about 20 of us, and to celebrate Mum's birthday

A good way to spend a winter afternoon.

And a good way to spend this winter evening:

eating leftovers and watching To Kill a Mockingbird.

2 weeks on

It's been 16 days now since my surgery,

and I still feel very much a patient.

My days are spent mostly sitting,

watching Downton or movies, reading blogs on my iPad;

and reading books or magazines (when my eyes can cope with that).

Which all sounds ideal, until it's all you can do.

Sometimes I've had to go back to bed, too tired for anything.

 I'm still enjoying flowers around me.

Above are the last of this bouquet from some of my students:

I think I like them better as they are now ...

Yesterday I spent an hour ordering groceries online,

with the aim of getting our non-perishables for the next month delivered,

plus some fresh food for the next few days.

Now my kitchen is filled with 37 bags of groceries 

I'm not allowed to unpack

(because of the bending and lifting).

But at least I won't have to send Steve out to the shops 

quite so much for a while.

Thank goodness I've been able to crochet these weeks,

I think it has kept me sane.

This was one of my projects, you might see more of it later.

I've also finished my poncho and started knitting a cowl,

projects for another post.

Another little project I finally managed was making 

a little shower cap for my ear!

I still can't get my ear wet, so a shower cap works fine for most days, 

but after about a week I really need to wash my hair, 

and am nervous about just using

a vaseline-soaked cotton ball (standard post-op protection advice)

so I cut up a shower cap and added elastic to make this itsy-bitsy ear cap,

and tried it this morning (plus the cotton ball and vaseline) with much success. 

Lunches have been haphazard, depending how I've been feeling,

this was one of the best ones - leftover potato

and a chickpea omelette.

Laura has been home sick with headaches and nausea

four out of days this week.  Meaning she has missed most of her Year 9 NAPLAN tests.

The thought that we might be headed for a repeat

of last year is just too much for me to cope with, at the moment.

I'm thankful she is old enough to look after herself

and have never been more grateful for the invention of the iPod.

Hopefully she might improve when things go back to normal with me,

she's a sensitive (but sweet) little thing that way.

 In my mind, today was to be the last day of my convalescence.

(I finished Downton season 4 just now, so it must be time to get better!)

Next week I plan to ease back into my normal activities,

starting with piano teaching. 

But I still feel foggy and tired and sometimes dizzy for a lot of each day.

I'll see how I go on the weekend before I confirm anything.

Fortunately I usually feel much better in the evenings, somehow,

the other night I cooked most of the dinner and dessert by myself.

So, I'll keep rolling with the ups and downs a bit longer,

ever grateful that my surgery has been successful,

I can hear well, and the sun is shining.