Finding joy in the everyday

Give thanks unto the LORD We should never forget to GIVE THANKS to the LORD, for everything, no matter how big or how small. Sadly in our busy world, as we race around, trying to beat the clock, we forget to thank the Lord.  My mother, when she found a car-park at the busy shopping centre, would thank the Lord.  I often do this when I am at a busy intersection and there is a break in the traffic allowing me to safely drive across - "thank-you Lord".  He is with us every moment of every day, taking care of us, so it is worth remember to given thanks even for the smallest of things. Give thanks unto the LORD,   call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people.   Sing unto him,  sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works. Remember his marvellous works that he hath done. 1 Chronicles 16:8-9, 12 What are you thankful for this week? This week I thank the Lord that my mum is feeling a little better and was ...

Portrait paintings: Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is regarded as the most important portraiture prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 and won £400.  Today the winning artist receives $50 000 (Aus/USA).  Below are my nine favourites, interestingly I picked 8 portraits of women/girls and only 1 males - this was not intentional at all, I just happen to like these.  The final list of paintings can be found in the link at the bottom of this page - some I did not like at all.   The ones I selected are not normally ones that win - so I doubt any of these will be winners. Jessica by Thomas Macbeth The Country's Woman by Barbara Tyson Self portrait by Pam Tippett Professor Penny Sackett, Astronomer and Physicist by Andrew Mezei (doesn't this one remind you of Vermeer) Dr Anne Lewis , OA by Angus McDonald Portrait of Robyn Nevin by Christopher McVinish White Cocoon by Matthew Doust Portrait of a seated woman by Marcus Callum Richard Roxburgh by...

I have always wanted to make hot cross buns - I love them - they are a big favourite in our house.  But with my fear of cooking with yeast I have avoid giving them a go until Sunday.  Sunday was wet, cold and grey - perfect weather for some cooking.   The recipe I used is from taste.com ( recipe ) - I made 2 changes to the recipe - I doubled the amount of spices and I used an apricot jam glaze instead of the sugar glaze - this is so much nicer ( heat jam in the microwave until hot, spread over top of hot cooked buns ).  I used the KitchenAid to make these buns so slightly modified the order of the recipe. This was taken at the start of the second rise Having a rest!! They only took 15 minutes to cook even though the recipe said 30 minutes. You will notice that none of these buns have the cross on top (made from flour and water) - I was too lazy and didn't think the cross added any improvements to the taste, so I skipped that part.  As my colleague at work ...

In Australia, working mothers are spending 137 minutes directly caring for their children on average a day (including meal time), while fathers spend 69 minutes according to a recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development survey (OECD).  This compares with stay-at-home mums and dads, who manage 236 and 105 minutes respectively.  Working mothers in British spend on average just 81 minutes a day caring for their children (fathers 43 minutes), this compares to 150 mins in Ireland. In Japan - working mothers spent just 1 hour per day with their children and father . . . this is shocking . .  20 mins (but this is probably a cultural things perhaps). Mothers spent 60 per cent of their time on physical care, such as dressing, feeding, changing nappies, providing medical care and supervision.  While fathers were much more likely to spend time on educational and recreational childcare - helping children with their homework, reading and playing games. Why do...

Instead of our normal Saturday rush about - trips to the supermarket and hardware store (my DH loves visiting the hardware store on Saturdays!!), cleaning the house and doing the washing - we decided to go for a walk along the banks of Lake Burley Griffin in the centre of the city.  At 9am it was still very foggy and grey (as you can see by the photo below) but not too cold for walking.  However I wasn't concerned about the fog as it usually clears by 10am, and as you will see from other photos, it did. Very foggy view of the lake looking towards to the bell tower and bridge. This lake was created in 1967 and is integral to the design of the city. A water bird warming its wings, didn't seem to be afraid of us at all. Autumn along the shore line. This lake is very popular for rowing, some of these are our Olympic athletics doing their training. We saw a number of black swan families on the shore, I wasn't sure if the one at the front was going to chase me so I didn't h...

“Silk is a fibrous protein produced in glands within the spider or silkworm and some insects.  What these creatures do is something no laboratory has been able to achieve; control the chemistry so exquisitely that the silk, which is a liquid inside the organism, becomes a solid upon leaving it.  Chief among the advantages of natural silk is the way the proteins are organised.  They are folded in complex ways that help give each silk its unique properties.  Scientists have not been able to replicate the intricate folding ” f rom an article by Henry Fountain, Canberra Times 21 March 2011 To all those who say the world was created by random acts of evolution - the silk worm is not some random creature - it does something so amazing that scientists are still unable to replicate the making natural silk.  And if we look at the silk from a spider - their thread is five times stronger than steel of the same thickness, and can stretch to four times ...

Its Autumn Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower ~Albert Camus Feeling a bit lazy this week, Art Wednesday will be very simple, paintings that reflect my favourite season - all those gorgeous colours coming alive. When I lived in Darwin (tropical north of Australia) we didn't enjoy the traditional four seasons and the one thing I missed most was the changing colours of the leaves and walking through the park and being able to kick the piles of leaves under each tree. There is something special about Autumn.  My sons were born in the tropics and we only holidayed in summer so they didn't expereince their first Autumn until we moved to Canberra when our eldest was 11 - the introduction to the four seasons was magical - they couldn't believe their eyes - it was nothing like the pictures in the books!! by Leonid Afremov, contemporary Israeli painter Victorian Autumn by Thomas Kinkade by Yahong Shen, contemporary artist, traditional Chinese style Autumn on...