Why do you Blog?

I am still ever conscious of the fact that I haven't really blogged much this whole year!
Does it bother me? Yes a little.
If so then why aren't I blogging much? I really don't know!

Seems I went off line after my op last year and when I finally found my feet again it was just as our world came crashing back down with news of my husbands imminent operation.

Blogging is always in the back of my head but just not as much as it use to be.
I have been looking at all the blogs I follow and looking to see what they blog about. News, current affairs, life, pictures, children, craft to name a few.

It made me take a look back through my blog to see what I had been blogging about?
Turns out it was all about family, mainly because I started my blog to keep my parents and extended relatives in foreign lands (or was that that I was in the foreign land and they were at home?) informed of how the boys were growing and what we had been up to.

I then realised that because of blogging I always had the camera with me. I was always taking pictures. I captured everything we were doing just on the off chance there might be something I wanted to blog about.

So with taking time out in the last almost a year, I have come to realise 1 major thing......?
I don't have my camera with me nearly as much and I think I am missing out on capturing what is going on in my boys life!

I have come to realise also that maybe I was blogging as a way to keep my boys childhood as a vivid memory, something that they can look back on and remember.
Maybe I need to change my focus on why I am blogging and look at it from a different angle.

Maybe I have to remember that I am not only blogging for me, I am blogging for the memories it will give my boys when they are older.

With that said, I need to take the camera with me more, I need to be capturing all of our life more just in case there is something worth blogging about!

Scavenger Hunt Update

1 month in and everyone is going strong.
Wish I could say the same for me!
I have the list printed and hung on the fridge door, there we have noted next to each item a rough idea of where we may find said item. This way we know that there will be some small travel involved to find a few. However this weekend sees the start of the school holidays for 2 weeks. Now whilst I am working the first week, the 2nd week the boys and I will have a chance to race round and visit so far away places to get our pictures.
I also have the list on my phone, and the camera is always with me, because you just never know when you might see that picture on the side of the bus or a bird on a wire!
I do so love the craziness of this hunt! Again I use my line from last year ...."but your honor, it was the scavenger hunt I was trying to complete, it had us doing some crazy things!"

Anyway back to the update....
So far I have been successful in finding the following:

a rack of postcards

A garden gnome

a rural landscape

birds on a wire

a lamp post

I have also found a substitute item but I will not post it until nearer the end of the hunt just in case I do manage to get one of the actual listed items. May be slightly impossible to get though as it is the middle of winter here and all it wants to do is rain! Can't see us finding too many parades anytime soon!
I am a stickler like that, try really hard to find the actual required items before I will substitute.
Hey we've got 3 months you just never know!

I am, of course the person who set up the Facebook page for the Summertime Scavenger Hunt.
I have so many friends on Facebook that are always showing us their fab pictures, so thought I would give them some things to actually challenge them to find and picture.
It has been lovely to see so many people join in the hunt who are not bloggers. I do still enjoy going round the links and visiting the blogs as this is where it started but I am enjoying seeing some friends, who would never have completed the hunt, post pictures of their life surroundings too.

This is after all a scavenger hunt for bloggers and I hope it remains for many years as everyone seems to thoroughly enjoy completing it and always seem to be counting down the days and months till it starts again. However I do love seeing people who have nothing to do with blogging also having some fun.
I post all my finds on my blog page as well as Facebook and do so hope that all the bloggers who have joined the Facebook page will continue to do the same. However I do hope that Rinda won't mind if we use the list each year on Facebook to spread the enjoyment to others in the world. I do always recognize on Facebook as to where the idea came from and who it belongs to.

I look forward to seeing many more happy pictures from a round the world flowing down the internet wire really soon.
Thanks for stopping by.

Autumn Leaves

We don't have that many trees over looking our garden. In fact only 1 really drops its leaves at this time of the year!
In desperation I told the boys to go and rake up the leaves and then jump in them.
Ben was a little shocked to begin with....'did she just say jump in them?'

So they did and then had a ball.

They actually played 'spot the child' at one stage.

3 - Birds on a Wire

Living in the city there seems to always be enough noise going on for the birds to not stay too long on a wire.
More like you see them there and then by the time you have your camera....they are gone!

Driving back through the countryside after doing emergency dash to youngest son's football game, I followed a wire line along the whole road and saw bird after bird sitting on the wire.
So with trusty camera in hand I slowed right down and tried to get some good shots.
Luckily for me there was nothing else on this country road at 9am on a Saturday because I must have looked so strange slowing down and then stopping in the road, holding my camera out of the car window and then driving off again only to do exactly the same again several meters down the road!

I got several good shots

1 lone bird just snuggled on the wood section

But I decided I like this one the best, so this is my official submitted one for the Scavenger Hunt

How are you finding the birds, are they playing nicely and smiling sweetly for the camera?

Bread Pudding

I am from England and bread pudding conjures up images of bread, milk, eggs and lots of raisins!
Man how I hate dried fruit!! So you can obviously tell that this is not one of my favorite desserts.

I also like finding new recipes and Facebook seems to be a good place to find things. It is amazing what gets posted on there sometimes.
I have Alexis over here to thank for this recipe, she is so good at finding recipes online and then letting everyone know about them.

This however looks amazing and so yummy.
The recipe is at Chef in Training and I have had the privileged of making it twice now, although I think my hips are telling me not to make it again for a while!

It is bread soaked in a cream and sugar mixture. You then lay half the bread in a pan, cover with raspberries and then cover with remaining bread.
Bake for 40 minutes and then serve with vanilla custard or ice cream.
It even tastes great cold the next day!
I did however, find the recipe to be a little on the large size! So I cut it down in the amount and found that it still served 6 quite nicely.

The recipe asks for you to use cut up pieces of bread which I used but I found it easier with slices of bread the next time.

The smell in the house as it was cooking was divine and sweet.

We chose custard and man was it sweet and filling, but just what you need on a cold winters night.

7 - A Rural Landscape

The boys are of an age where football plays a large part of their life.
This means early morning football games for us on Saturday mornings!
Seeing as we have 2 boys we always end up with 2 games and you can bet your bottom dollar they are at different ends of the country, usually at the same time or within 30 mins of each other!
All I can say is........I am so glad we have a spare car at present, makes life so much easier.

Driving out in the grand Waikato countryside and Mt Pirongia stands majestic in the distance with fog and cloud swirling around her base. Can't get anymore rural than that.

Alas what I didn't mention is that the reason I was driving out here was because son #2 had forgotten his boots and mum was on a mercy dash to get them to him!
However the countryside was so beautiful I took my time and snapped a few pictures along the way.
I even captured 1 or 2 others for the hunt on the way back.
All in all a very productive drive in the country.

17 - A Lamp Post

Saturday morning and the feeling is fine for supporting my son at his football game.
Nice school we visited to use their grounds.

Even nicer was the quaint little lamp post in the school grounds.

Christmas Cactus

Of course it is winter here in New Zealand, so all our winter flowering plants are now in full bloom.
I have a Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera) that I got from the plant shop a couple of years ago and it loves being indoors.

A little section of it got broken off 2 years ago! Kids fault.
I re-potted it and left it outside, then moved it into the garage over last winter. This summer I placed it on the deck at the front of the house and it is loving it there.
It has heaps of buds on it but no flower just yet, however when it does finally bloom I will get a quick snap of it and show you all.

5 - A rack of postcards

Definitely had to go to a tourist spot for this one, although it was 5pm in the evening and there were no tourists around otherwise I might have been able to grab #4 at the same time!

We were attending a 1st birthday party in the same building a few floors up.
It was a rainbow party and I think Alex got well into the theme of the party.

2 - A Garden Gnome

Funny how lots of people really don't like these little creatures!
So many comments on blogs about how creepy and sneaky they look!

Luckily we only have 1 in the garden and we gave it to my husband as a Christmas present several years ago.
It happily lives hidden behind the spinach, I think it spends its time discussing world problems with the snails that live behind the spinach too

Happy hunting guys

8 - A tattoo on a person

The picture scavenger hunt has commenced and lots of people all over the world are now racking their brains trying to think how they are going to have to set their alarm clock one morning over summer/winter to rise and achieve 13 - A sunrise!

My family have been eagerly awaiting this list to become available, so it was fun last night to keep watching Rinda's blog until the post appeared.

8 - A tattoo on a person

I give you a tattoo on a person.
For some reason my husband was not very obliging with his tattoo...not sure why. So you ended up with mine, an English Rose to represent the English Rose that I am.

If you are interested in joining in with this picture treasure hunt then slip on over to Rinda's and check it out or alternatively you can join in on Facebook at Summertime Picture Scavenger Hunt 2014.
All rules are there for you to read although at the end of the day it is all just a lot of FUN :)

Photo Scavenger Hunt 2014

Here it is, the hunt it on......

Rinda over at Gallo Organico has created a new list for 2014.
This is the 4th year she has completed this list for us all to spend the next 3 months having fun.

1. A sign welcoming people to your home town (or a nearby town)
2. A garden gnome
3. Birds on a wire
4. A group of tourists
5. A rack of post cards
6. An urban street scene
7. A rural landscape
8. A tattoo on a person
9. A bakery
10. A photo bomb (someone found lurking in the background of photo; the lurker may have intended to disrupt the picture or may be doing it unintentionally, but the background lurker is a surprise to the photographer)
11. A horn
12. A mascot
13. A sunrise
14. A parade
15. A juggler
16. A sign in a language other than English
17. A lamp post
18. A water fall
19. A public garden
20. A bus (not a car, truck, lorry, camper or RV) with a picture painted on its sides.
21. A photograph of you with something representing the season (recognizing that the season will be Winter for our friends in the southern hemisphere). Note: you may not use a substitute for this item.
If you find something on the list too difficult, you may substitute one of the following items for anything on the list, except for Item #21:
Alternative A: A kite, hot air balloon or blimp
Alternative B: A bird house
So we are all very excited to have a new list and have already started thinking about where we can find these items around our town and also some new places to visit to find the others.
Are you joining in this year?

Best Before or Rubbish

It is with a lot of interest I have been following any news articles that are out on whether we should get rid of the 'best before' date on food?

Does it make any difference?
Would it save a lot of food waste?

These are the important questions that are being asked at present by the European Union in their bid to save millions of tons of food that is carelessly wasted each year.
They state that on average, 15% of what we buy from the supermarket will get thrown away!
Most of this is because we will look at the date on it and it states 'best before xyz' so we work out it is past that date and out it goes!

As they have mentioned 'best before' is a guideline. It does not mean the food has to be used by that date, it is a guideline to tell you that they recommend it is 'best before' that date, however most things can be used up to even 1-2 years past this date, it just takes common sense when going to use the food.
Does it look good? Does it smell ok?

Just because those choclate biscuits say best before Feb 2014, believe me I think they will be fine today in May of 2014! Well when I am in need of choclate its good enough for me.

So it definitely gives us something to stop and think about.
How do we feel about the term 'best before'?
How does this affect the food we eat and use in our cooking?
Does rice and pasta really need to be thrown out just because it didn't get used before the best before date printed on the packet?

Definitely going to make me think twice before I throw something away based on the date rather than whether it is something I could incorparate in our menu for the following few days to use up than throw out.

However you have to remember to not get this confused with the 'use by date' on food which is definitely there for a reason and must be followed as it gives the date by which a product must be consumed rather than a recommendation.

Just some food for thought on a Wednesday morning!

Reason

I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason.
Somewhere there is a plan and whilst some things may happen unexpected I do believe if it was meant to be then it would have been.
If it didn't work out then there was a reason why it was not meant to work out, usually because you go on to do something much better.

Take my job for instance.
I got turned down for a job I applied for last year.
This year I got a new job, different company but doing the same sort of thing in a round about way.
However the person that turned me down for the position is now someone who I work with occasionally. So whilst she gets to maybe see that I probably wasn't right for the first job she now gets to see what I am capable of and how with a little bit of guidance and teaching I may have been perfect for the job if given the chance!

For some reason, which I can not explain, last night I decided to check Blogger.
The address is on my tool bar and when ever I am on the internet I see it but I just pass over it.
Last night I felt I needed to view it and this in turn lead to me reading a post over at Notes on Paper.
The post was all about getting into blogging more and how to increase the posts you write.
Now we are not saying that everyone has to write 30 posts a month, just that if you are currently writing 2 posts a month and you would like to increase to 4 posts a month then this post may help you to identify some ideas on what you could write about.

Suddenly I have a series of posts to read to assist me with getting back into blogging.
It is almost as if Julie was writing this post just for me, as an encouragement, a teaching or just a gentle prod in the tummy to remind me that I can do it and here is some help along the way.

Now I have to go off to study and plan. See what is happening in my world that I can utilise and then come at this with some degree of force.

Catch you soon

May May May

May I just say that I am amazed that we are now almost half way through this month!
At the end of April I decided that maybe I ought to get back into blogging, seeing as I have been away for a while.
So when I couldn't sleep at night I would lay there composing posts for the blog, I know sounds odd really doesn't it?
But suddenly I realise that we are half way into May and nothing, nada, nout.

So even though I am trying, I have to make a real effort to sit down and actually write something.

I was firstly amazed to come back to blogging and find that the site I used for my free background was no longer doing free backgrounds!
So whilst I sort something else we will have to go with this plain blogger one for now.

I wish I could say that I have heaps to tell you but we have been laying low whilst hubby recovers from his cardiac surgery so nothing much has been happening.

But that is all about to change....I know it will because I am determined to make it happen!
We will be here with bells on for the 2014 Scavenger Hunt starting in June and hopefully I can find my way around the new computer to work out how to up load photos to share with you all and how to store them in a new file.
Loving the new computer but getting frustrated with Windows 8!

Have changed my job so lots to tell you there, but that can wait for a rainy day post.

Hope you are all doing well and I will try to catch up with you all again soon.

It's Coming Soon

Yes that is right guys, all too soon it will be time for us to be more observant of our world around us as we try to take pictures of everything on Rinda's Summertime Scavenger Hunt

Are you ready?

Going Underground

The other day I bumped into a school mum who I had't seen for a while.
We had a quick chat and a catch up on our families and then she apologized for not being around recently.

Apparently, as she put it, they had gone 'underground'
In other words....her husband's younger brother, who was only 40, had died due to a heart attack and it had caused quite a shock to their system so they hid away and concentrated on their family for a while whilst they came to grips with life.
They had reassessed their life, their work, their family time and what their family stood for and where they were going. They had spent some quality family time together too.

I gave her a huge hug and told her she never had to apologize for stuff like that. It happens to everyone now and then, ok some people don't go underground with it, but I sometimes think more people should.

You hear of people getting themselves so stressed out trying to do it all, when in reality if they had just taken a deep breath and said 'no' for a little while then they would have got through still smiling!

So where have I been for the last 6-8 weeks......?
Underground of course!

I got a little stressed out after my operation and things just weren't running smoothly adding on top of that we got told my husband's heart condition was worse than we thought and that he would require surgery sometime in the next 12 months!
By the way, we are talking the big type of surgery here, not your namby pamby stuff, the big kahuna open the chest and stick your hands in for several hours type surgery! The one that takes you months to recover from.

He is fine, at present, he has no symptoms and all the tests, whilst showing that yes he has a heart condition that will require intensive surgery at some stage, show that he is doing ok and we don't need to panic.
So after going underground and reassessing our own family life, we are now back on top, feeling our way slowly upwards and feeling like we can breath again.

Oh and did I tell you there is threat of his job disappearing in July too!

So life goes on and we just breath slowly in and out and take little steps forward.
By the way....how are you?

Family Time

We are still Geocaching and are now onto about our 15th find.
In fact all the family are enjoying it.

Stealth movement is required at some sites as you do not want 'muggles' (none geocaching people) to know what you are doing.
This is important as you do not want people tampering with caches and stealing or destroying them!

Sometimes you need to just act normal, well as best as is humanly possible......

just chillaxing in the sun and wind

Just watching the planes come in!

Waiting for people to pay more attention to the planes than what we are doing!

Work Reunion

10 years, oh my, is it really 10 years?
Must be we have a 10 year old!

10 years ago Auckland Hospital moved to a new building and we were there, well I was on maternity leave but I knew it was happening!
So much has happened since then.

A reunion was called for and we gladly attended this past weekend.
Lovely to catch up with people you knew and find out what everyone is doing.
Amusing to hear people comment on how big the boys have got! Like they still expected them to be babes in arms!

Quick tour of the operating theatres was called for even though we have been there many times and I did actually work there for a few weeks at one stage!
But the boys enjoyed dressing up in protective clothing so we could go inside the theatres.

well maybe not everyone was impressed with getting dressed up!

but others made up for it with their enthusiasm!

They enjoyed seeing inside a theatre, talking non stop about what took place in there etc.
Although think we may have sparked some career ideas for them....?

budding surgeons in the making?

Better start that college fund really soon!

Hide and Seek

I thought this would be a great game to play with the boys.
However as you all know the boys are now 8 & 10 years old so even though they play this game well I thought they might like it if I upp'd the anti a little?
Maybe in the form of us trying to seek something that was already hidden?
Of course in this day and age of technology then there has to be some techno part to it and so that is why I decided it was time for us to get into Geocaching.

What is that I hear you cry....?
It is in simple terms a game of hide and seek that you use a GPS to find an item hidden by someone else in the town/country/world using coordinates.
There is a whole website dedicated to Geocaching and once you get started it is addictive!!

You can download an app onto your mobile phone and Bob's your uncle you are off!
You look at the map of where you are, locate a cache (item) to find and using the coordinates go off and try to find it.
It is usually a canister of some description that can range in size from a small pill box up to a 10 litre bucket!

However the whole purpose is to do it as discretely as possible so no one knows what you are doing as the cache needs to be found and then left as discovered ready for the next person to find.
You do however log on the paper inside the canister that you were there and also log it on the website so you can keep track of ones you have discovered already.

When you first look at the map on the website, it is enough to make you fall off your seat, there are hidden caches everywhere and I literally mean everywhere, all over the world to be more precise!
There are 12 that I can find that are within 2 miles walking distance of our house!
Stuck in a bush, up a tree, under a board walk even magnitised to a chair in a public place.

But it is just a fence?

Wrong! There's a geocache

The boys have already been checking out if there are any near Grandma's House, near the beach where we spend a lot of our summer time and near their school, although I have told them that they can not search for them without me as they need the coordinates and the GPS on my phone to assist them, however give it a few years and I can probably send them off for the afternoon with a phone and a list and they would happily entertain themselves around the city!