Orlando Gets A Friend

Posted on February 8, 2014 by thecontentedcrafter

We got Happy Mail today

Oh! Big broad smile as we discovered a new ‘Mini Orlando’ a tiny crocheted kitty, especially made for us….

Isn’t he gorgeous?

Our friend gentlestitches and I did a swap – and we got the better deal 🙂

The detail is amazing – he even wears a collar and identity tag like the real Orlando used to until he lost it couple of weeks ago….

This is the most amazing little hand made animal I have ever seen! Sharon’s pictures of her work are always quite mouth watering, but when you actually get to hold one in your hands – it is quite spectacular! The colour, the detail, the character – it is quite wonderful and words are failing me!!

Orlando was also quite impressed, Mini Orlando was given the seal of approval, a gentle head bump – which is, I believe, the feline version of a high five! I get one every morning at breakfast time 🙂

The two friends then commenced to sit and stare out the window at the Saturday morning activity …..

….while I wrote a blog post!

Thank you Sharon – if you haven’t gone by her blog yet, it really is worth a visit!

Thanks for coming by today, I’m so happy that you did 🙂

Better Late Than Never

Posted on January 31, 2014 by thecontentedcrafter

If you’ve been puttering along on this blog for a bit you will be aware that our Summer has been a bit of a no-show, a non-event, AWOL even….. I’ve whined about it here and there and it has been the subject of endless comments between myself and the lovely Alys and several others.

My gardening plans for the past three or four months have also been no-shows, non-events and AWOL – I was too busy painting, or it was raining, or, or, or – and nothing got done.

Poor Sid presided over a random collection of raggedy – desperately in need of a good haircut – climbers and a motley crew of assorted dead or dying herbs, perennials and wild flowers and his meditative Guardian Cat was weighted down by the neglected sprawling of a lavender gone wild. The spiders were having a field day and spinning webs from one side of the courtyard to the other and growing extremely large on the bounty that was thereby captured. The pots sported a random assortment of dead plants and sprouting weeds.

In short my beloved pocket handkerchief outdoor space was a woeful sight and I was feeling somewhat ashamed of myself.

However, as we know, all things pass and finally – some two months after it disappeared, Summer has returned to us. It has shown up hot and heady and rarin’ to go – better late than never, I said happily.

And so, on a warm and sunny morning, with the help of my YD who is enjoying two weeks vacation from her highly intensive job, we decided to set to it, fix it up, return it to a fraction of its former glory and give it a do-over.

I was thinking to just have a tidy up, a clean up, to make the best of a bad thing and let it go this summer. YD had other ideas and reminded me of my wish to do something with the inspirations received from the blogs what are writ by the likes of the previously mentioned Alys and Narf7 and Wendy and Robbie – ‘Better late than never’ she said. So off we went to Bunnings.

Bunnings has become her favourite store since the Outdoor Entertainment Area adventure – which I must mention to you, my dear friends, I have still have not spent an evening in due to the inclement conditions of our Yuletide Celebrations and subsequent weeks. The rain would have been okay but the bitter cold and howling southerly winds were quite another thing to deal with!

From the garden centre at Bunnings I purchased punnets of lettuces and perpetual spinach, parsley and lobelia [the deep blue, hanging variety] I saw a well grown 25cm pot of petunias and something else I’ve just forgotten the name of for less than $10, a heliotrope ‘Black Cherry’ which I had to have as soon as the scent hit me [I grew several of them in my Wellington garden and am still totally in love with them] and YD bought me a little fushia with the most gorgeous pale pink and purple flowers…….Which was quickly nestled in alongside Sid and his Guardian Cat

I also purchased two brightly coloured plastic containers that look like quite deep baby baths for $4 each and two super dooper large bags of organic compost mix with the bio-grow stamp of approval.

Back in the courtyard we maneuvered carefully around each other and the assortment of goodies and began the cleanup. It didn’t take long, the whole thing is no larger than six pocket hankies sewn together. The dead matter was pulled, the soil turned and composted and the colourful tubs had holes vigorously punched into their up-turned bottoms and were also filled with soil and a goodly amount of compost and the seedlings all transplanted into them.

Sid was given care of the three wild thyme plants I had filched whilst up in the high country just before Christmas. He seemed to be somewhat thoughtful about that ….

If you look here though you can see the new growth despite the lack of care this one has received since coming into my possession…

The existing furniture was given a wash down and any remaining spiders hastily moved on to find new places to spin their webs.

Same chair, just panning to the right:

And now you have done the full 360 degrees 🙂

An hour later it was all done and I was waiting for the sun to go down so I could give everything a good drink. The bumbles were already dropping in to say hello and then were buzzing off again to spread the word – good times have come, good times have come!!!

Orlando, who had watched the whole frantic debacle from the safety of the conservatory, refusing to come out until the place was all tidy and ship-shape again. When at last he did emerge, he just as quickly disappeared again.

As a final job, I was about to get a clean bucket of water to wash down my cobweb infested Bay tree when I noticed this:

Can you see?

If you still can’t see, click and click again and peer past the assorted webs to the far side….

Just the perfect place to get a bit of Vitamin D in the late afternoon sun!

I think that by the time Winter arrives, my courtyard garden will be looking most fecund – almost as good as all those fecund gardens of you real gardeners ….. All together now “Better late than never!” 🙂

Happy Mail

Posted on January 14, 2014 by thecontentedcrafter

It’s a lovely thing to get unexpected gifts – and my life is rich in them at the moment.

Just prior to Christmas I received an email from another blogging friend Katyoparty over at ArtOutWithYourHeArtOut telling me she had a few spare gelatos and they were winging their way to me, along with ‘a few other bits’ she thought I might quite like.

If you aren’t an arty-crafty type, gelatos are a newish product somewhere between a pastel, a crayon and a paint. They come in something resembling a lip gloss tube, are richly pigmented, easily moved about with your finger and are water soluble. You can use them like a crayon, an oil pastel or watercolour paint. They are a lot of fun and in my part of the world anyway, exorbitantly expensive.

I was very excited – I didn’t have any gelatos and had never received ‘Happy Mail’ before.

The courier delivered a box to my door a few days ago. It was battered and beaten and torn open at the top – it looked as if it had been round the world twice and through a few storms along the way.

The first thing I saw was a beautiful wooden box – a cigar box, just perfect for altering.

And here is what was inside the box or packaged alongside it, all piled on the little table for my delighted eyes to feast in.

There is an array of flowers large and small, pretty papers, sundry embellishments, templates and masks……… and of course the gelatos.

Here is the pretty hand made card Katie sent and just peeking out from beside it is – I’m guessing – some of her own delightfully hand painted paper.

And here are more embellishments and masks and some die cut flowers and sundry bits and bobs:

It quite made my day! I sift through them as I go about my daily art task of recording a word a day – I’ll show you some of those in another day or two.

So, many happy thank yous to katieoparty – it was a real treat! Do check out her blog and her videos if you get a chance.

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did 🙂

Technology Freezing and Me – An Update For Your Amusement

Posted on January 9, 2014 by thecontentedcrafter

Do you remember the recent post ‘When Technology Freezes – Could I Be the Cause?’

I have the answer to that question!

Stick with me kids, I hope you’ll enjoy the ride!

You know Esmeralda was cured of her freezing ills. She now runs like a wild horse over a golden prairie. She glitters and sparkles and does everything I want and even more – she has not frozen – or even chilled out – not once!

You remember the fridge that thought it was a freezer? Well, here is its story.

It’s probably close to a month now since I first noticed the fridge was running a bit too cold. I adjusted the thermostat and waited for it to return to its proper temperature.

Some time later I noticed the temperature inside the fridge was still colder than it needed to be, so I moved the slider a bit further down the scale.

Over a period of days I noticed no decrease in the chill level and kept adjusting the thermostat downwards until I had reached the bottom of the bar. The freezing was just getting worse and salady type foods were now icing up overnight and inedible. A fresh organic chicken put in one evening was frozen solid the next morning. My breakfast was made with frozen berry fruits and frozen yoghurt.

Trying to outwit the freezing fridge became a daily event. What could be stored in the fridge and how could I store the other items? I gave up trying to keep salad and vegetable items longer than a couple of days in a cupboard and slowly emptied the fridge of its contents – much of it ending in the trash.

Finally realising that being unable to store food in the fridge in the middle of summer was probably a silly status-quo to stick with – and realising I was wasting food and not being able to stick with my preferred food types, thereby compromising my well being, was just as silly…. I decided to bite the bullet and get the darn thing fixed.

I spent some time and gathered together a list of appliance service numbers with the aim of a) finding someone open and b) finding someone I could afford.

In one of those serendiptitous moments we all have, I had found the Owners Handbook for the fridge when sorting through last years paper work. Another moment of genius had me decide to actually look at the book and check the trouble shooting page before making the calls to service agents.

I didn’t get far with my reading, for on opening said book, can you imagine my a) amazement to find I had taken out an extended warranty at the time of purchase [I never take out extended warranties!] and b) unbounded joy to discover there was still 13 days before it expired! Thirteen days!!

Well, hallooy, hallay!! Oh Joyous Day – just in time baby – a fridge repair at no cost!!

I capered vigorously around my tiny house and took Orlando with me – he purred and I sang and then we made the phone call.

In an amazingly short amount of time a service tech arrived, he looked like an older statesman in a techie suit and was polite yet remote. He asked me to explain the problem and then, without hesitation, opened the fridge door and looked inside.

He stuck his head further in and almost immediately pulled it back out. His face was stern and his voice disapproving,

“You know you’ve got your temperature set at the coldest point” he said and he put his arm in to move the gauge.

“What?” I said – looking, sounding, feeling like a stunned mullet.

He stood aside and ushered me in – if I squinted my eyes, blinked and stared I could just make out the words ‘warmer’ at the top of the scale and ‘colder’ at the bottom.

I pulled my head out of the fridge “I’ve never seen those words before in my life.” I said to him vigorously.

He ‘tsked’ at me and shook his head. I buried my face in my hands and wished the floor would just open up and swallow me …. He busied himself hunting through his hi-tech tool-bag and said – “This isn’t covered by the warranty you know.”

I think I groaned out loud. “I’m not usually this ditzy….” I think I said, in a vain attempt to raise myself in his estimation. He would have none of it. Just returned an icy silence.

I heard myself give a little moan as I berated myself for being a Bear of Little Brain – apparently out loud, for he looked up at me and said “Winnie-the-Pooh. I used to read those stories to the grand-kids.” He looked momentarily wistful.

I apologised for wasting his time – I could see he thought I was an absolute idiot. And he was, of course, completely correct! I told him I absolutely agreed with his every damning thought – I was indeed a person of very little brain – just like Winnie-the-Pooh was a bear of very little brain – and finally he unbent just a little and cracked a smile.

While I silently contemplated a bill with several zeros after a two or even a three, he finished packing up and writing out his notes on his electronic thingy-ma-jig. Eventually he was finished and printed out the invoice with an ominous whirring sound.

As we walked to the door he said “You should probably take a few minutes and read that owners manual.” He handed the invoice and a business card to me, “I’ve put down that the three point plug was faulty and I’ve changed it.”

He smiled politely, nodded his head firmly at me and left.

I quietly shut the door and with my heart in my mouth, looked at the piece of paper he had given me.

Job: refit loose plug at defrost element. Test ok.

Call Out charge $0.00

Labour $0.00

Parts $0.00

Thank you for your custom, have a nice day!

The business card held his names and contact details and bore the title ‘Company Director’.

How much more good fortune can one brainless bear have?

I paid attention to how I was feeling. In amongst the mix of shame and elation was that wonderful heart opening sense that another disaster had just been averted, that I, with all my shortcomings, shortsightedness and general idiocies was still, somehow being carried through to a happy ending…..

That seemingly humourless and remote service tech was obviously not a service tech at all! He was the company owner, probably understaffed, obviously stressed, and needing to fulfill an urgent extended warranty job that turned out to be neither urgent nor even a job…… And he did have a heart – he knew a genuine ditz when he saw one – and he liked Winnie-the-Pooh!

So, to my original question – can I be the cause of technology freezing? It appears the answer is a resounding Oh, Yes Indeedy! 🙂

Geez!!

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did! 🙂

When Technology Freezes – Could I Be the Cause?

Posted on January 3, 2014 by thecontentedcrafter

I have decided – a little late I admit – but better late than never right? – to take some time throughout January and document my daily experiences and thoughts. A bit like a diary, or a journal, but public.

I’m doing it because of the thought I caught running through my head on the morning of January 1st which I wrote about here. I was a little appalled at how easily and quickly I had forgotten to respect and enjoy the blessings of my life and was falling into ‘Not enough’ and ‘Not fair!’ mode. Negative thoughts are the root of all evil in my opinion and I have spent the last twenty years learning how to recognise, change and adapt my life style to overcome this tendency in myself.

I am also starting a daily art project, a word a day to document my journey through 2014. Inspired entirely by following a link my blogging pal AJ put up on her blog yesterday. It will be a challenge for sanguine artist-me to stick to something like this, so I am not aiming high – just one word a day, playing with colour, shape and pattern.

I’m stating it in my blog so that you will keep me to it – I hope – that’s what friends are for, right? Well, even if you don’t, it’s out there and, being of the Virgo persuasion, I shall feel the need to keep my word to myself and do my best to achieve my goal.

Here is the first installment of my January journal – it covers events that began prior to Christmas up to yesterday.

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Just before Christmas my fridge, barely four years old, decided it no longer wanted to just be a cooler and overnight became a grown-up freezer. Being a gal with more dash than cash, and more than a dash of Scarlett O’Hara in me, I thought ‘I’ll think about this tomorrow’ and, being a gal with a positive set of mind I also hoped it might get tired of maintaining such a cold life style and would soon revert back to its original and proper state of being.

Alack! I was mistook!

I tossed out two containers containing three trays of freshly grown alfalfa sprouts – frozen and limp – the vegetable drawer full of frozen lettuce, tomatoes, capsicums, carrots and other life affirming fresh foodstuffs – all hard as rocks and speckled with enchanting ice crystals.

Tray after tray of previously good edibles froze solid overnight and became sludgy waste as they unfroze on the counter-top.

I have enjoyed frozen yoghurt on my breakfast cereal as a summer delight accompanied by frozen strawberries and frozen blueberries. I find if I wait long enough – about an hour – between the making of breakfast and the eating of it, there will be some softening of said ice crystals and the meal becomes somewhat more palatable….. It makes for a lovely, slow start to the day.

This morning, as I chipped off some frozen milk to add to my first coffee of the day, I realised the freezing rate is increasing rather than abating – a bit like the weather in Canada as I understand it from Linne and Boomdee’s blogs.

Of course here in the Summery Southern Hemisphere, this is exactly the time of year when the entire country closes down for Christmas, followed by New Year, followed by Summer Holidays There will be nary a tradesman around who will not charge double rates and take six weeks to get back to you.

I curse my naive belief that technology has an inbuilt ability to nurse itself back to health.

But then the unthinkable happens – the freezing, it appears, is contagious! Esmeralda decides to join in and freezes too. She doesn’t drip ice everywhere, just plays possum, refuses to move and refuses to shut down so I can restart her.

I do all the things we have all so painstakingly learned to do with our PC’s over the last decade. I hit ‘control-alt-delete’ once, twice, three times. Nothing. I push the power button – nothing. I turn her over to extract the battery, it’s a non-extractable battery! I pull out the power cord and wait for the battery to go flat. She sits and looks at me with her pretty blue desktop screen and refuses to budge.

Half an hour later she turns herself off, then on again. I open the desktop with a sigh of relief. She freezes.

For three days, my shiny new laptop froze three times in succession every morning and every three hours thereafter, refusing to move until I unplugged her and waited for the battery to go a little flat when she would turn herself on and pretend to be good for a bit.

The fridge is a freezer, the laptop freezes what’s going on?

I said to YD “Is it me?”

YD looked at me thoughtfully and slowly nodded her head.

Sometimes you just get someplace odd in your soul life and affect the running of things that normally just run properly and do what they are supposed to do. Its a sign….. I’m freezing everything! It’s always the mother’s fault!

“Ahhh, crap!” I said ………..I don’t know what to do about that at the moment .

So yesterday morning Esmeralda found herself stuffed into a nicely padded and very comfortable computer bag with all her cords and bits and was briskly marched back to the shop. Where not one, but two Geeks – or Nerds – I’m never sure which is which – set about trying to see what the issue was.

Ignoring my offer of cords and bits she was set up on the desk, turned on and ran splendidly. I talked them through the things I would be doing when she froze and the Head Geek pushed the right buttons, opening and closing programmes, zipping through the internet and Esmeralda sparkled along happily with them.

Just as the two bemused geeks were trying to find a polite way of telling me there appeared to be nothing wrong with my bright and shiny and ever so clever new laptop, YD wandered up.

“Why don’t you try it with the cord plugged in, that seems to be the issue to me” The Geeks, or Nerds, looked at her with their mouths open and glazed eyes. “You said,” she said to me “that when you unplug it, it starts working again – therefore, surely the cord has something to do with it.”

I nodded, bemused.

The geeks, also looking bemused, but ever so polite, agreed that was worth a shot.

Out came the cords and Esmeralda was plugged in, turned back on – and froze!

Need (Photo credit: Daniel Conway)

I jumped up and down and clapped my hands. I patted Esmeralda fondly “Good girl!” I said. The Geeks smiled painfully at me.

‘How did you know?” they clamoured to YD – I could see she had just been elevated from eye candy to extremely smart Geek/Nerd Heroine status and at any minute they were going to do the “I’m not worthy” bow to her and possibly hoist her on their shoulders and parade around Harvey Normans proclaiming her Geeky Goddess Incredibleness.

YD made a hasty escape back into the furniture department where she had found a wonderful lamp and an amazing chair neither of which she needs, has room for or can afford…. but which sure were pretty!

I stuck it out with the Geeks and Esmeralda, who was now plugged in and extraordinarily helpful. She froze at the slightest command. The Geeks ended up scratching their heads and pulling faces at each other and saying things like “Did you twiddle the whatsit and the wheresit?” “I checked the farflung and the diddly and they seem good” “Try turning off the heresit or even maybe the doanythingbit and see what happens” “Perhaps the fezidge isn’t connecting the bletherybit with the togmeister……..”

They both suddenly turned and looked at me and said in unison “It ‘s a restore I’m afraid.”

I surprised them by being prepared for such an eventuality. Will over at Technoblog had already prepared me for just this moment. I’d done the backup of all the files on my trusty USB and they were free to do whatever they needed to do.

I could see that momentarily I too had been elevated from ‘Horrendously Non-Geek’ to ‘Almost There’. I felt quite proud – thanks Will!

The restore took much longer than expected and Esmeralda is still in the hospital while I write this post on my newly respected aged laptop who is behaving rather nicely as if to say ‘See, you shouldn’t have been so quick to write me off – I may be slow to start up and I may be hopeless at the spin games but I get there in the end!’

‘Like you’ve never frozen!’ I say in a stern voice and Flat and Shiny becomes quiet. Oh, yes we remember those days – she didn’t just freeze, she crashed and took everything down with her….

I’m looking forward to Esmeralda’s return. I’m hoping her issues with her cord have been resolved and that the damage is not long lasting…… I am hoping we can find an amicable way for them to co-exist together that will not involve freezing, crashing, slowing or any of the other ills PC’s are vulnerable to.

Next I’m going to see if there is a cure for my wayward fridge – YD is convinced it’s ‘just a sensor’ whatever that means……….. but she is to be listened to in these technology issues apparently.

And I’m certainly going into therapy immediately to attend to my issues around coldness!

What an interesting year it is already! And I haven’t even begun my year long art project or my daily yoga practise yet….. Must start, must start, must start!

Have you entered the Give-Away yet? Three days to go!

Thanks for dropping by today, I’m so happy that you did! 🙂

Double Celebrations and a Holiday Retrospective

Posted on December 28, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

I hope everyone is having a wonderful and magical and inspiring holiday!

I certainly am – not only did I have the first holiday break in four years with both my daughters at the same time, closely followed by being extremely spoiled on Christmas Day [hint: I’m writing on it now 🙂 ] but also something really amazingly generous and wonderful and quite magical has happened for me, my readers and The Contented Crafter Blog altogether!

A few days before Christmas I received a sale notification from my Etsy Store and a wee note which said in part Pauline, please don’t send this to me; I want you to use it for a give-away in the New Year………

You may well imagine, I was totally overwhelmed. If I hadn’t already been sitting I would have sat – splat! The donor has asked to remain anonymous and I [reluctantly] respect that. Here is what is written on the Contented Crafter FB Page

‘I am donating one of Pauline’s inspiring prints for her to use as a give-away. I’m choosing to remain anonymous because this is about her and her lovely work, not about me. I rarely give money to large institutions, but like to use a wee part of my income to support a variety of efforts that come to my attention. I love supporting people who are artistic, alternative, creative and more. Anyone making a positive change in this world deserves support. I hope all her readers and followers will enter to win this lovely prize. Good luck, everyone!’

Isn’t this the most amazingly unexpected, wonderfully kind and generous and Christmassy Spirited thing? It’s like we have our very own Christmas Fairy!!

paulinekingblog.wordpress.com

So we get another give-away 🙂 Which makes me happy – and you too I hope and one lucky person will get to choose a print, and I hope they will be happy too!

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And – as I discovered as I began this post – this is my 100th post – so, double celebrations!! I’ve been blogging for a full 10 months already and so much has happened – not least the amazing people I have stumbled upon, so many of whom have become new friends 🙂

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We went to Queenstown to celebrate YD’s mumbley-mumble birthday. It has to be said she is now older than I think I am. Perhaps the Time Lord has been zipping around in his Tardis and completely destroyed linear time in favour of concurrent and eternal time [?]

Any-hoo…. it was a chilly morning when we set off with me as official back seat driver and the two lovelies up front

Our road trip took us through some pretty amazing scenery and some of New Zealand’s early history too. If you travel this route you will soon become familiar with the beginnings of European Settlement in this country. Rich with gold, the hills are high and rocky. Schist is piled precariously atop schist and always makes me think of some wild and ancient god such as Thor, haphazardly throwing rocks about. The scenery will remind you of Greece, of Tuscany, of England – all in the space of five minutes. The lakes are huge, one is man-made and a village was drowned to make it – and the colour is spectacular – aqua waters shine out against stark brown hills..

It’s wild, it’s barren, it’s breathtakingly beautiful!

First stop was at a great favourite of mine, Lawrence where the original gold rush took place in the early 1860’s. Gabriel’s Gully is on the outskirts of town, but it was a bit too cold to do the walk.

We stopped for lunch in a pub garden in Alexandra, then pushed on to Clyde.

Clyde is in the middle of nowhere, high up in the mountain plateau. A stunningly beautiful, stark, rocky, brown landscape with an aqua lake, a hydro dam and little picturesque villages that could come straight from the English Cotswalds.

I snapped ED standing and staring

What she was entranced with, and you can’t smell is the wild thyme. Those dead looking clumps in the background are wild thyme. This part of the high country, where the topsoil is thin and the bedrock is on the surface, grows wild thyme. It goes from the waters edge up the sides of rocky cliffs, along the road side and over the hills. It is abundant, it is dried, it is redolent and

I picked me some 🙂

We drove on, past the drowned town of Cromwell, stopped at Roaring Meg for a few moments and on to Queenstown.

We arrived about 4 pm – just in time to see the last of the beautiful warm summer days they had been enjoying. But we were not concerned. We settled into our uber posh hotel and enjoyed the view

Queenstown nestles itself on two sides of the beautiful Lake Wakatipu It is small, it is hilly and it is entirely a tourist spot. Sam Neill calls this place home, Shania Twain built a ranch house on several hundred acres on the outskirts and there is scarcely a Hollywood star who has not spent at least two nights nestled up in any of the twenty or more ultra luxurious, inordinately expensive, privacy guaranteed hotels.

We settled for a very nice 5 Star and had a thoroughly enjoyable time with our discount vouchers and savings coupons and lets not forget the trusty credit cards!

It has to be admitted up front that we spent the better part of the next two days eating and drinking. We wanted to stick with the theme – so it was mostly an endless array of delicious and extraordinarily fresh seafood and fine Otago wines.

We did make the trek half way up the mountain to catch the gondola that took us all the way to the top – vertically! YD and I are okay with being in tiny little orbs that look alarmingly like a storm troopers helmet that sway about in the breeze and travel in a series of jerks and rushes. Not so much ED, who began to sing ‘Soft Kitty, warm kitty’ in a tremulous voice – which just made us laugh even more.

The view was worth it. This is what you see immediately below the space age viewing deck

The wilding pines and wildflowers are found all over the mountain sides around Queenstown and were looking particularly pretty. [Wilding pines are self seeded and unwanted invaders in National Parks. There is a huge push to handle them properly so that the native forest can regenerate and the wildings be stopped in their tracks. When I first came to Queenstown 28 years ago, there were few pines growing up the mountain sides – now they cover them.]

This is a panoramic shot taken by one of the daughters clever phones. [ 🙂 ]

The view is quite stunning and we repaired to a small wine bar to admire it some more.

We chose a spot where we could see the storm troopers whizzing past and I amused myself by trying to take an arty shot. You had to be really quick!

Eventually I got this one and had to be happy with it or I couldn’t enjoy my chardonnay!

That evening we celebrated YD’s birthday at a very fine lakeside restaurant where we ate copious amounts of fish, drank not quite copious amounts of white wine and took silly photos with ED’s new iphone to the amusement of the servers and several other tables of diners.

The next day, Christmas Eve, we reluctantly packed up and headed back across the thyme covered mountain plateau to a cold, wet and windy home city and readied ourselves for an exciting Christmas Day.

Meet Esmeralda, my new, silver, ultra sleek, super fast Personal Computer.

She has just finished her first successful and very happy blog post 🙂

Thanks for coming by today and taking the time to read – I’m so happy that you did! 🙂

Seasons Greetings One and All!

Posted on December 25, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

We got home from our road trip last night – utterly exhausted, but very happy!

We celebrated YD’s birthday in style

……with copious amounts of seafood and chardonnay and silly picture taking

And now it is Christmas morning and there is Champagne to be drunk and presents to open and more family time to be indulged in. The full story of our adventures must wait for another post.

Merry Christmas my friends, thanks for making these past nine months so much fun!

I love you all xoxo

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did! 🙂

An Outdoor Entertainment Area

Posted on December 15, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

What a week or two it has been!

The ‘silly season’ has kicked off with a bang – the weather has been hot – too hot for me – the traffic has doubled and just when I was feeling quite smug because I had everything in hand YD decided she was going to create an Outdoor Entertainment Area [note the capitalisation folks] and I was designated the position of chief adviser and consultant.

The down-side of having an unexpectedly Good Idea for an event that is alarmingly close is there is no budget for it. There are other Good Ideas that were thought of a reasonable amount of time prior to the coming event and all spare monies have been allocated to them.

The event in question is something that occurs two days before Christmas and is down purely to very poor planning on my part, more years ago than any one cares to mention now.

It is YD’s birthday.

A plan had already been hatched for this momentous event, for the first time in over four years my daughters and I are having a girls weekend away. [The last one was the celebration of my 60th and we went to Melbourne for 10 days – that was the most fabulous holiday of my life!] This time we are staying quite close to home. We are off to Queenstown [the stunningly beautiful tourist capital of New Zealand] for three days to stay in a posh hotel, undertake a few of the more sedate adventures on offer and to over indulge in good food and wine.

So, you may well understand how the latest Good Idea, whilst a very good Good Idea, raises a few issues around budget.

How do you turn a three-quarter enclosed carport into a stunning outdoor entertainment area in double quick time and with very little money? YD had four days off in which to accomplish her Good Idea and my promotion was intended to ensure that she achieved her aim.

The lofty elevation in my status therefore involved three days of investigating what we might possibly get for as close to $0 as possible for lighting, covering the floor, how best to enclose the car-port that is being utilised for said Outdoor Entertainment Area – also for nothing – and the most cost efficient manner in which to decorate the enclosed space.

The starting place was lighting. YD wanted to get some solar powered Christmas lights and we trekked around all the stores being shocked silly at the prices – then we happened upon Bunnings. Bunnings had just the best and cheapest array of lights imaginable. We got all kinds of lights, multi colours and white, balls, drops, dragonflies and stars and…..

We blew the budget.

Closing of all or part of the front of the carport became a big issue, we trekked, we talked, we thought, we debated – but everything cost dollars that we did not have. Creative thinking to the rescue and a hunt through my fabric storage cupboard found a solution. A huge piece of white cretonne once used as a couch cover was the perfect size for a fabric ‘wall’.

Flooring was the next issue – outdoor carpets, plastic grass [yech!] We considered fencing panels, laying them down would certainly be easy, but not that pleasant on the feet.

We trekked and searched second hand shops for carpet off-cuts, old floor rugs – but there was nothing that we could even consider.

We were down to wondering could we get cardboard boxes, open them flat out, paint them and tape them down. It seemed like a lot of work for something that would attract damp should it rain and become a home for a myriad insects and spiders over the course of the summer.

Then we stumbled purely by accident on the Barbeque Mats. Designed to stop the barbeque splattering and dripping fats over your lovely wooden deck and staining it – soft, latex backed and a nice big size. Less than $10 each. We purchased three with looks of triumph and raced back to the Outdoor Entertainment Area – Huzzah! Perfect fit. The latex grips the concrete and won’t move. We taped the three mats together with duct tape to keep them tight and the floor was done.

A couple of tables were ~~swiped~~ borrowed from my place, my spare art table has been called from retirement to became a side board and various plants, sundry paintings [all done by the clever YD], ornamental bits and bobs have been re-located to add beauty to the Outdoor Entertainment Area par excellance!

At this point in the post I was supposed to have a roll of photos showing before and after – but somehow that plan went awry and it appears a whole run of photos have gotten lost somewhere – there are only these which may give a bit of a hint, but nothing of the stunning ambiance…..

This is the early set up phase, YD has begun to hang the lights, moved a side table in and a pot plant…… look at that floor!

The old couch cover has been called from retirement and hung across the front of the car port, a second table, a vase of flowers and a long neglected bundle of curled twigs begin to fill the empty spaces

Coloured bottles, a couple of sandstone blocks and the BBQ mats complete the cosy corner

The lights on

This is where we will be ~~partyin~~g celebrating the lovely Summer evenings of Christmas 🙂

I’ll post some photos later of the stunning Outdoor Entertainment Area when it is in full use.

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did! 🙂

On Kitties and Cooking and Healthy Living

Posted on November 12, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

I have spent the past week pretty much involved with dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s – sometimes getting muddled and crossing my i’s and dotting my t’s – just because I had the really good idea of opening an Etsy shop!

It’s been quite demanding – requiring me to think everything through and do a lot of research into really boring matters like the cost of postage and how best to package things. You know, somebody might actually want to buy something and then you have to not let your first customer down …..

Anyhow, today I had other things to attend to, so I stopped all that thinking and fussing and decided to spend the morning in the kitchen replenishing my dwindling supply of healthy edibles.

It’s all very well being a Contented Crafter intent on becoming an artist – and the hours at play are fun and sometimes even rewarding – but neglecting ones healthy lifestyle choices, not so good!

I had rushed off first thing this morning to see to Stanley – Stanley is YD’s companionable, confident and highly opinionated puddy-cat. YD has taken herself off to Christchurch with tLK for a week of racing and socialising and general good times and I am in charge of the kitty.

This is a photo of Stan catching a few zzzz’z in a reusable grocery bag:

And this is Stanley resting a while on the guest bed – luckily no guest in need at that particular moment.

When left in charge of said kitty, I try to spend an hour or so sitting with him and, it must be said, he has come to expect this. After my flying visit this morning he accompanied me to the car belligerently demanding to know where I thought I was going because he was up for some good times if I cared to sit down on his couch for a bit.

I declined his charming invitation, promising to return later in the day and canoodle with him and left.

I have stuff to make!

My new friend Wendy over at quarteracrelifestyle recently published a post which had me all excited to try and yesterday I had finally made it to the local Organic Store to refresh my depleted supplies of walnuts, chia seeds, coconut chips, rolled oats etc etc etc.

Already in process was the mix for a nut and seed bread and another mixture of pepitas and sunflower seeds had been put into water for activating – both these tasks done around 10.30 last night.

I put my seed bread into the oven, mixed up a batch of organic yoghurt, put it in the yoghurt maker and got on with my muesli mixture.

I dry roasted the rolled oats, browned the sesame seeds and toasted the coconut chips. I do all this in my large super modern cast iron fry pan, just moving the bits around over a moderate heat until the colour starts to change and, in the case of the seeds and coconut the oils are released and a delicious aroma starts to fill the air.

I have learned not to walk away from this job. Once I went to put something in my craft room, got side tracked and some fifteen or twenty minutes later, smelling the unmistakable odour of charred oatmeal rushed into a smoke filled kitchen and a pan of black inedible chaff. Not good!

When all the browning and toasting and releasing has been done I toss everything together along with a goodly amount of cinnamon, a couple of cups of activated nuts and seeds and voila, breakfast is taken care of for the next couple or three weeks.

With the muesli made it was time to turn the bread – apparently something that this loaf needs, so I’m all for doing it right and proper – well, the first time anyway. This was a bit fraught however, as it is perfectly possible my mixture was a bit on the wet side and while the loaf exited the pan easily enough, turning it and getting it back in was a bit trickier – it wanted to crack and fall apart.

But, “No!” I said firmly and hustled it, almost intact, back into its container. Another 20 minutes in the oven for it and I made myself a lovely batch of Cheese and Oatmeal cakes.

This is my bread substitute and I make up a batch a couple of times a week. If you are a long time reader of my blog you may possibly remember a post about this back in March I think. Its a recipe I’ve been making on and off since the 70’s.

My kids were raised on these things – and sourdough bread made from a real sourdough bug! [Ask YD about that and watch her face wrinkle up in disgust] Once upon a time I was a real back to nature, clean, green, don’t-eat- it-less-you-made-it hippie mom and my kids ate food that was Good For Them! Then I lost my way a bit in the teaching and teenage years [shudder] but now I’m kind of back there again…..

Anyhow I have recently modified the recipe a tad, and now add a good teaspoon of cayenne pepper to the mix which just about blows my head off, but sure does keep me regular. 🙂

The cakes are made, the bread is done and now the activated seeds go into the oven to dry out and crisp up.

At this point I deliberately toss a couple of seeds onto the floor.

Why? Because throughout this entire process I have been maneuvering around another pussy cat, a marmalade one this time, who has been shadowing my every move, purring encouragingly and making the odd dart at nothing to get his point across. Something has to be dropped so that he can play too.

Now I have time to get down on the floor and hunt out the seeds that get shot under the rug, the cooker, the fridge. We both spend a large part of this activity with our heads down and butts up peering hopefully for a needle in a haystack.

After a bit he has lost all his seeds, I’m bored and he wanders off to have a wash. I check the remaining seeds, give them a stir and turn the oven off.

I take my three tier seed sprouter from the window sill where the alfalfa and energy mix have been enjoying a couple of hours of light and transfer them to three tubs. I eat some as I finish they are so crisp and juicy. This is a major player in my daily salad and I credit fresh sprouted seeds, chia seeds and good old fashioned chicken soup with my full return to health in less than six months. That and deleting all processed sugar and most forms of wheat from my diet.

And that’s it, I’m done. I have my staple foods ready for the rest of the week. There is still chicken stock from my last batch in the freezer and the fruit bowl overflows with all kinds of salady yummies.

Now I can go play – the paints are calling!

But oh no – I forgot about the other kitty.

Stanley.

Better go – I think he’s waiting!

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did 🙂

The Music of My Life

Posted on August 1, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

Earlier this week my blogging pal Char over on Lesie’s World put up a post titled Friday’s Five Favourite … Albums, which I meant to go back to and comment on [as is my want!] But I never got round to it due to the fact that I had far too much to say about what I was listening to, and why ………. I am so thinking of re-titling my blog ‘The Opinionated Woman’!

Any way, in the end, I decided to write this post – and I do hope you will follow the link and see what Char is listening to as well [when you’ve finished reading this] 🙂

When I am at ‘work’ in my craft room there is always something playing either music or audio books or inspirational talks – but it’s mostly music.

The soundtrack of my life is a complex, wide ranging, genre hopping trip going far back in time and then racing up to today’s chart toppers – at a brief glance you will see my CD and itunes collection includes Robin Thicke, Pavarotti, Faith Hill, Boyzone, Emeli Sande, Nick Cave, Van Morrison, Adele, Leonard Cohen, Kiri Te Kanawa, kd Lang, Matchbox Twenty, Placido Domingo, Bob Marley, Sting, Johnny Cash, Dire Straits, Bee Gees [pre and post disco only], Rolling Stones, Bruce, Eric, Elvis, Kris, various opera collections, some jazz, some folk music, country rock, country blues, all kinds of blues, and a bit of Mozart, Bach and Brahms, songs from shows, Irish music, Celtic music, Reggae music, Gospel music …… I’ve got New Zealand musicians and Australian musicians, music from years ago and the latest releases from the latest new comers……….. and that is a brief scratch of the surface, it just goes on and on and on.

About the only genre that I cannot give ear time to is that thing called gangster rap –

In short there is music for every occasion and every mood and sometimes there is the random play option [especially on itunes] which delivers an astounding variation of musical sounds……. one minute I’m rocking out to the sound of the late, great Clarence’s sax on ‘Thunder Road’ and the next I’ve got tears in my eyes listening to Cecilia’s version of ‘Amazing Grace’

Orlando has a preferred play list too – certain singers come on and I get hassled to dance with him – well I dance and he is carried about in my arms, purring and looking particularly pleased with himself and harrumphing in a happy kind of manner from time to time. For some reason he really likes Faith Hill and if I’m super busy I try to get to the computer and skip over her before he clambers up my leg …..

A couple or so years back, to celebrate my mumbly-mumble birthday we all had to make a play list of our top ten songs of all time. Then we had to make a presentation of said play list complete with reasons why each song had been chosen.

I tell you, we all worked at this task for weeks if not months! Me especially – after all it was my birthday and I had all those mumbley-mumble years of magical musical moments to sift through! [ooooh, alliteration!] And of course, I was over thinking it!

But in order to stay with the theme and keep this post under some sort of time control I will only give you the top five from my latest amended list, so here we go:

No 1: Eric Clapton – Layla

The weeping guitar solo in the original version has to be among the greatest riffs ever! I was still very young and romantic when I first heard this and it absolutely broke my heart. In the right space it can still do so.

For a live, but different version this is a good watch :

No 2: Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah

I love this song and collect versions of it. In my humble opinion it’s pure poetry and one of the greatest songs ever written. My ED took us to see him live in 2011 [on the occasion of yet another birthday] and I cried all the way through…..

There are so many great versions of this song – but kd’s is one of the greatest greats – do yourself a favour and have a listen to this: