Wishcasting Wednesday

Credit: Jamie Ridler at: http://jamieridlerstudios.ca

It is Wishcasting Wednesday, which is held by Jamie Ridler every week at her website Jamie Ridler Studios at
http://jamieridlerstudios.ca
.

This weeks question is: How do you wish to nurture the creative within?

A lovely question which I have been exploring this year. I have found the Artist’s Way to be a fabulous book providing the tools of morning pages and artist’s dates as great ways to nurture my creative within. It also has many exercise within the book that have allowed me to explore the creative within and get to know her. Another book I have been having so much fun playing with is Wreck this Journal, here I get to play with all my art supplies, create for fun without any expectations. I get to be really silly. Then I think another way I nurture the creative within is through being open to new activities and ideas, and exploring new places. Also through appreciating other people’s creativity, and noticing the beauty that is all around me. Plus allowing time  for myself to play,  draw a picture or think creative about the meal I will prepare that night.

It is never to late to learn to draw.

So I wish to nurture the creative within with creative play and activities, and by acknowledging the importance of creativity on a daily basis. I also just wish to surround myself with more creativity and creative people who can encourage and teach my inner creative, to be even more creative. 

This weeks Artist’s Date I found this lovely new wool shop to explore. It was totally dedicated to knitting,crochet, cross stitch and embroidery. It had the most beautiful wools that I have ever seen or felt. The variety was totally amazing.  It had a beautiful selection of books to choose from. It looked totally lovely, felt warm and cozy. It made me think I want to knit, a nice scarf would be good. So my latest idea is to purchase so nice wool, ask my Mum for knitting needles and a lesson, and get stuck into knitting.

Gorgeous knitted eye candy and cross work pieces.

Wishing you all a wonderful day and may all your wishes come true. 

 

Ten Blessings

It has been a busy few days working. Finally a day off, to relax and catch my breath.

This weeks ten blessings are as follows:

1. I am so blessed to find more wonderful books from the library to read.
2. I am so blessed for the appreciation showed for my hard work and effort, at my paid job. Sometimes I have to put that extra effort in to things that really mater, because I always want a good outcome.
3. I am so blessed to be able to afford to take Mighty Mouse to speech therapy, and spend time with him developing his language repertoire.
4. I am so blessed that I could sleep on the weekend, and rest up before going to work. It makes a difference being well rested.
5. I am so blessed to have an abundance of food, and to be able to enjoy yummy meals each night, when so many people go without.
6. I am so blessed to receive a thank-you for a small voluntary job I did. I really felt the appreciation in her email.
7. I am so blessed for the comfy bed I sleep on, I really enjoy my nights sleep, being curled up in a comfy bed on a cold winter’s night is just the best thing ever.
8. I am so blessed that my husband is so clever, and put up my hooks so they were strong enough to hold up my big heavy bags.
9. I am so blessed that it was just a bit of moisture in our gas pipe causing the problem and it quickly resolved so I can still use our heater. I really hate being cold.
10. I am so blessed  to enjoy conversations with my boys. They tell me nothing if I ask, however if I stop and listen I find out quiet a lot at the most random times.

Well it has been another wonderful week, which included Toastmasters, working, family and even time at home caring for my home, family and self. Life is truly abundant and full of wonderful moments.

What was your ten blessings for the week or day?

Wishing you all a wonderful day and week ahead.

Composting ~ Project 1 of Journey to a Greener Life!

Project 1. Composting ~ our first step to greener living. 

I have been lazy and selfish. I think part of being a Happy Suburban Chick is living a more sustainable and ethical lifestyle.I want to live greener, I want to be kinder to our planet, and I want to set a good example to my children. So I recently went to a couple of green living work shops on gardening and reducing food waste. My first project was to set up my compost bin. It will provide good soil for our garden beds and is good for recycling a lot of our food scraps. We can also put our grass clippings in there as well. It was very easy to set up I put a layer of shredded news paper in, then a layer of grass clippings and now I am doing a layer of food scraps. Then once a week it gets all mixed up and aerated. In six months time we should have some good composed soil for our vegetable garden. My next project is to get some seedlings for the vegetable patch, and figure out ways to buy more local foods. I recently went to a Farmer’s Market, we have two a month on in our area. Another idea is the local market, I am told you can buy a lot of fresh local food from the weekly weekend market. So my journey begins, I will let you know how I am going through my blog.

Wishing you all a wonderful day!

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Wishcasting Wednesday!

Credit: Jamie Ridler at: http://jamieridlerstudios.ca

It is wonderful Wishcasting Wednesday! Every week Jamie Ridler from   Jamie Ridler Studios at 
http://jamieridlerstudios.ca
, asks a question. This weeks question is: What do you wish to discover?

At the moment it is early in the morning, a wet winters day and it is freezing. I am so cold! So I am totally preoccupied with discovering what is wrong with our gas meter. It is making a humming sound that sounds like a siren. So we are not keen to use any of our gas until we discover what is wrong and get it fixed. So I sit here and freeze. The next thing I wish to discover is where I put my beanie, scarf and gloves, I think I will be needing them today. No heating, no hot water, and no stove for cooking. Great! So I wish to discover that our gas providers provide a quick and prompt repair service. I know it is very materialistic and shallow. However it is too hard for me to be deep and philosophical  when I am  freezing cold.

Well I can be a little philosophical. I  would love to discover what is that I really really love to do.Plenty of things I like to do, however nothing I really love to do. That thing that I  would just want to devote time to every day no mater what. A dream, a passion  an idea that something.

I also love to discover new places, new activities, new ideas and new adventures in my life.

Whilst I always enjoy discovering new books to read and explore.

Wishing you all a wonderful day!

 

Walking Adventure

I love the look of big fluffy grey clouds.

It looked like it might rain. It was dark and cloudy. Still a perfect day for a walking adventure. I really appreciate a cloudy winters day, it has its own beauty, and the coolness of it makes it perfect for long walk.

Another lake!

Yes I have been on another walking adventure around my suburb. This time I discovered a new lake, play ground and sporting area. It is amazing that it is just across the road and I had no idea it was there. I live in a new area with new estates and houses popping up everyday. When we brought our house our estate was meant to be the end of the line. The area beyond our estate was green zoned. Shorty after we move, the area was re zoned residential. So all the farms and cows are disappearing. Estate after Estate is going in and filling up with houses. My walking adventures help me to discover the changing face of my local area, sometimes they are delightful and other times a little frightnening.

Dirt tract for local walkers and bike riders.

I found a dirt tract to walk along in went in-between the new estates, it was a big long tract. I had no idea where it might go. My curiosity got the best of me, I had to find out. It was a lovely long walk, often being pushed aside by enthusiastic families on there bike ride. It was annoying in one way, however good to know a number of families still get outdoors and spend time together. Something my own family should take note of and start doing more of.

Walking past suburban houses!

Eventually I stepped off the track and into the suburban landscape of houses upon houses. I discovered another lake, more playgrounds and park land.

Another park, another play ground.

I wish my boys were younger. They used to love going to play grounds. These days in this area there is a multitude of play grounds to choose from. You could make a day of it and take kids for a play ground crawl.

A place to sit and rest.

It was a long walk, my dog Little Miss Popularity was struggling to keep up, so we stopped and had a rest. At least there are lots of places to walk my dog in this area. I did offer to walk the boys, however they declined. The dog is always keen and excited to go for an adventure walk with me.

Another lake.

Yes another lake. The trend in the area these past few years is too use the storm water from the estates and recycle it creating lakes and waterways. Providing natural environments for residents  to enjoy and wild life to inhabit especially birds and frogs.

Sadly not many people out enjoying these man made nature environments.

I love discovering new areas, new parks, new lakes, and new places to sit, rest and enjoy nature.

I can not wait until my next walking adventure.

Could you have a walking adventure of your own, discover new parks, new shops, community areas, even new streets that are interesting?

Wishing you all a wonderful day!

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Art Excursion The Archibald Prize.

It was a long weekend in Victoria, we had a Public Holiday for the Queens Birthday. Although in my family it was my Dad’s Birthday so we enjoyed having a small family party for him. On the Sunday we went for an excursion to the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery to see the Archibald Prize for 2013. I knew a little about this award, it always made it into the news each year. The Archibald Prize is an award for the best portrait of a distinguished Australian. The variety of ways artist chose to do this with their work was fascinating. The people they chose was often interesting and not so obvious. Whilst the winner was Del Kathryn Barton’s painting titled ‘Hugo’.  Whilst it was not my favourite it was certainly well done, and very detailed. That is the thing with art, people like different pieces. My son liked the one called ‘Jo’ because it had lots of animals in them. I thought they were all very interesting.

Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

After looking at all that art, we went to the gallery cafe, enjoyed a delicious lunch, whilst listening to some delightful live music. We then headed down through the rose garden to the Oak Hill Gallery, a local gallery run by volunteers, to see the Little Archies Portrait Prize exhibition.

Sculpture in the rose garden.

We got to enjoy more art, it was such a visual delight. Once again totally amazed by the methods different artist use to do their portrait. Once again interesting, and delightful.

Oak Hill Gallery

It was a lovely day filled with art. I love going new places and seeing new things. It was such a wonderful experience to finally see the Archibald Prize exhibition in person and not just on the news.

It makes me wonder what other amazing adventures await me in the weekends ahead.

Wishing you all a wonderful day!

Links:

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2013

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Ten Blessings

This past month has left me feeling stuck and muddied. I have been feeling frustrated and irritated. Life has been an effort and quiet challenging.  I just have not been able to get back into the swing of things. I must admit I have not been feeling like a Happy Suburban Chick, more like a crazy woman pulling her hair out. So I think it is time to make some new changes. Until I figure out what I need to do , I will just have to work through the stuckness and muddles  of my life.

However  there is always something to be grateful for so, here are my ten blessings for the week.

1. I am so blessed for my young Mighty Mouse have a great week back at school, after a shaky start the week before.
2. I amI  so blessed for a snuggly warm bed to sleep in on these cold, cold nights.
3. I am so blessed for the sustainability workshop I got to attend which has inspired me to set up a compost bin.
4. I am so blessed that my son loves speech therapy, although he tried to trick me when doing his practice. He pretty tricky when he wants to be, and so very funny.
5. I am so blessed for all my lovely smelly candles that I burn, which make the house smell so much sweater.
6. I am so blessed the wonderful inspiring podcasts that I got to listen too this week. Also for the Hay House World Summit audio’s that I have got to listen to.
7. I am so blessed for a few sunny day’s so I could dry all my washing outside. I love it when I can use my clothes line.
8. I am so blessed that the cake I made turned out and even tasted yummy.
9. I am so blessed to spend time with family celebrating my Father’s Birthday, love family birthday parties.
10. I am so blessed to have gone to the Mornington Art Gallery to see the Archibald Prize 2013.

There is one more blessing I didn’t mention above, on Friday I saw the most beautiful perfect rainbow. Life has been raining a lot lately, yet the sun always comes out and delivers a big perfect rainbow.

What was your ten blessings for the week or day?

Wishing you all a wonderful day and week ahead.

Ten Blessings!

My Son finally went back to school last Friday, so slowly getting back into my routine. Last week was pretty quiet. We managed to get out one day to the shops to do some errands and enjoy a coffee and milkshake.

I am so blessed for the following:

1. To see my son’s smiling face when I picked him up from school, he was so happy to see all his friends again.
2. I am so blessed to be able to spend time with my family and go on family adventures.
3. I am so blessed that it stopped raining long enough to take my dog for a walking adventure around the lake on Sunday.
4. I am so blessed that I was able to do a guided mindfulness meditation on the weekend.
5. I am so blessed to get my son back into speech therapy and that he loves his new speech therapist.
6. I am so blessed that I could get back to the gym on Friday, after about three weeks off and do the Sh’bam class, I really needed to dance and feel silly.
7. I am so blessed to get three new books from the Library that I really wanted to read. Saves me so much money if I can simply borrow them from the library. Also for the experience of seeing live music on Music Sunday.
8. I am so blessed to been able to take my son and dog for a walk and see sparkly water, the sun shone through the clouds and was making the water glisten with sparkly white light just beaming up from the water. It was so magical to look at.
9.  I am so blessed to be able to curl up in an arm chair with my purple blanket and purple hat and read a book.
10. I so blessed to have a sense of curiosity and a desire to find new places to visit and new things to do, like going to the Alfred Nicholas gardens. So blessed to have a husband who  took me and the boys there, and then took us out for coffee at a lovely coffee shop with open fire, just down the road from the gardens.

So many things to feel good about in my life. Of course I do think to myself each evening of all the things I have to be grateful for the day. Gratitude is a key element of living a joyful life!

What were your ten blessings for your week or even day?

Wishing you all a wonderful day!

Beautiful,Peaceful Alfred Nicholas Gardens

This weekend on a beautiful Autumn day we visited the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens in Sherbrooke in the Dandenong Ranges. Picnic areas, open grass areas, and lovely walking tracks. Entry was free. Autumn leaves vibrant in colours made the gardens totally picturesque. The day was a little cool and we needed to rug up, however the walk was quiet steep at times, so we soon warmed up. The best was down the bottom of the gardens.It was a lovely ornamental lake, with gorgeous bridges to walk over. On the day the lake was covered in autumn leaves and just looked magical. There was also a little boathouse. Mighty Mouse knocked on the door however no one was home. It had lots of beautiful areas to check out, I totally recommend going in Autumn because it was a spectacular sight with the colourful Autumn leaves. Although I think it would be a gorgeous place to visit in spring and summer to have a family picnic.

I can not believe I never knew about these gardens before, all these years I been visiting the area and going for walks, and never knew about this treasure. Since starting this blog, I have made an effort to search for and research about interesting places to visit near to where I live. I have found so many treasures, and it has made life so much more colourful and exciting.

Finally today I visited the local library to listen to live music being performed. It was on the classical and folk music style. However it was totally delightful to watch them perform with their instruments and listen to their music.

A totally delightful weekend!

What delightful events or places did you experience this weekend?

Wishing you a delightful week ahead, may it be full of happy surprises

 

Link:
http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/alfred-nicholas-memorial-gardens-gardens-of-the-dandenongs

 

 

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Ten Blessings!

It has been a week of healing for my son. A week of cooking lots of different soups for him to help him recover. Each day gets stronger and stronger. His surgery site is healing well, so we are happy about that. This has meant life has been very quiet couple of weeks mostly spending time at home, resting, catching up on sleep, watching movies, reading and doctor’s appointments.When life seems a little tough it seems extra important to be grateful for all the good things in life.

 

 This weeks my ten blessings are as follows:

 

 

1. I am so blessed to find out my son loves soup, all different types of soup. He has been such a fussy eater when it comes to eating vegetables. Know I have found the answer, soup.
2. I am so blessed to go for a walk out along the lake in the rain to find I had the lake all too myself, and a bonus was the sun came out for a while and made me feel so good. It was such a beautiful pick me up
3. I am so blessed that my son’s doctor appointment went well and his surgery appears to have gone well.
4. I am so blessed to find out my other son is going well at school, getting reasonable marks, and trying really hard. He got good remarks from his teachers so that is a good thing.
5. I am so blessed to enjoy some beautiful guided meditations and classes on mindfulness which I found on the internet.
6. I am so blessed that my Mum rings up to see how we are going, and is always willing to help out if we need her.
7. I am so blessed to be able to spend a morning having a coffee with my son who was enjoying a chocolate milk shake, it was nice to get out of the house for a while.
8. I am so blessed to be able to have time to sit and read with my son and watch movies with him, he has such an infectious laugh.
9. I am so blessed to have lovely warm pyjamas, it has been so cold lately
10. I am so blessed to have a lovely warming candle that brings warmth to my table at dinner time when I light it, and also to have a beautiful bunch of flowers that my Dad gave me from his garden.

There is always so many things to be grateful each day, however these are the things that stand out for my week.