Finding joy in the everyday

Source: http://www.thetomkatstudio.com/2012/04/polkadotbakingcups What a brilliant idea — serving little cakes in tea cups for afternoon tea.  Delicate, feminine and very pretty  I love this idea.  What do you think? I love anything pretty and girly so I just love these ideas.  How many people have old fashion tea-cups they never use (me) included collecting dust in the cupboard and they don't know what to do with them. Here are a few ideas from Pinterest that I found that would be perfect for an afternoon tea.  If you didn't want to put food in these cups, why not use them as a centrepiece on your table. Aren't these so pretty? Thanks Pinterest for the great ideas

Mondays get such bad rap, people generally hate Mondays and moan and groan a great deal about getting up on Monday morning. In fact it is the most complained about day in the week and the one day people are late for work or take a "sickie". It is not really fair, as Monday has done nothing wrong at all, it is just another day in our seven day week but treated so poorly.  Why do people hate Monday — people live for the 2 days of the week (Saturday and Sunday) where they can do whatever they please (which isn't really true anyway) and hate the idea of having to return to the drudgery of Monday (which is how many people see their work or school).  Its rather sad that we complain about Monday . . . and Tuesday . . . and Wednesday  . . . getting slightly more happy by Thursday . . . feeling good by Friday . . . love Saturday and Sunday and then back to MONDAY.   How we waste our lives, waiting endlessly for two days of the seven day week. Its rath...

Art Friday: Visiting the art gallery  Contemporary Indigenous art Last week I wrote about the importances of taking children to the art gallery (LINK). Another reason to visit art galleries is to look at art from our Indigenous population. In Australia most people have very little contact with Australian Aborigines and when asked about Indigenous art they also have a stereotypical idea — paintings like the ones above. However, the South Australian Art Gallery (where I went to in January) have a modern collection that is very different to these more traditional "dot" paintings and I was very impressed by them.  They aren't to everyone's taste and perhaps "too" modern for some, but these were my favourites.   George Tjungurrayi - Western Australia. Untitled painting. Ray James Tjangala and the painting is called "Snake Dreaming at Karilwarra" Tony Albert, Alair Pambegan and the installation is called "Frontier wars...

Last week I wrote about " Ways to Love and Save a Marriage " ( LINK ), this week, as we approach Valentines Day I thought I would look at " keeping the romance going" — not just on Valentines Day, but every day of the year. When we are tired or weary, it can be hard work to almost impossible being romantic — the house is looking messy, dust is everywhere, the kids are noisy, the bills are piling up, dinner has to cooked, washing to do and don't mention the dishes  . . . feeling grumpy, overweight and unattractive and husband is oblivious to it all. I think we have all been in this space more times that we want to admit during our marriage.  But . . . its not a space we want to be in for long as it is not healthy for us and nor is it good for our marriage.  We need to pull ourselves together and get romantic because part of maintaining a healthy loving marriage is the romances. And we don't want to be another statistic. Firstly —...

I've been a busy girl in the sewing room — no not really much in the way of sewing, more about re-arranging things and buying new furniture for the room in hope that I will do more sewing!!! The two big purchases were from Ikea — the trolley now contains all my projects in one place and it very handy (and stylish too!). The other purchase is the two sets of drawers. One lot contains all my sewing (finally in one location) and the other all my stationary and paper — once again, all in the same place for once. My son was so kind and put everything together for me whilst I rearranged the room to fit the new furniture in.  I really only went to Ikea to buy the trolley with no intentions of buy drawers but these looked so useful and they are very deep so contains lots of space. I had to buy two because Ruby (yes, the cat) needed to be able to lie on top and stretch out. As you can see below - she fits beautifully and loves her new space (bed) near the window!!! What one does ...

When I write these sorts of blogs posts I tend to get very few comments and very few visits, I am not sure why — is it because you strongly disagree or has this made you think a little about how you perceive women like me. Please read so the next time you meet a woman who works you will engage in a conversation rather assuming that our activities as a working woman are unGodly and that we don't love our homes and children as much as you. My parents sent me to school when I was 5 years old, I attended the local public school before moving to an independent private school for the remainder of my education. I was a hopeless student, but I loved all my friends.  My children attended child care and then to school. I have friends who went to boarding school. Other families home school with mothers at home. As parents we are making decisions about all accepts of our children's lives, including their education and its very important to understand that your dec...

Art Friday: A trip to the art gallery I love visiting art galleries and a big believer that all children should visit art galleries as often as possible to develop a love of art. It allows children to see the changing styles of art, ask questions about different art styles and techniques, do research into the stories behind particular paintings they see, research the history of times that these paintings occurred, learn about different artists etc..  For older children, they can research the sort of music was being written at the time these artists lived, the politic landscape, the value of art, who did these artists paint for (some were in the employment of the King or Queen), famous authors who lived at the time of these artists (for example Dickens was great friends with a number of famous artists). How about art theft and art stolen during the Second World War.  Younger children may not have the attention span to see the entire gallery all at once and it is best...