Love, bubs and life on our little farm

Now this is not a sponsored post (I wish!) - more about making sure you get a good deal that I have been enjoying...

You may have noticed, one of my favourite clothing stores is Witchery. They suit my now-30-and-mother-of-two-kids-want-to-be-fashionable-but-not-mutton-dressed-as-lamb style and tend to use good quality fabrics that fall well. And more to the point, I love my Witchery card - so easy to join - check it out here. You get 5% of sale items with your card and free shipping over $200 online shopping - always a nice bonus and it does add up, I buy a lot of sale items as they do great discounts and I think their prices can be a little high when not discounted so I prefer to wait for the mark downs. But even better - three times in the last 6 months, they have put $20 on my card. No fine print - no minimum spend, just $20 for me to shop with. Nice. I bought a great sale top - got the 5% discount, then the $20 off from my card and I handed over a $2 coin to finish paying for it. Better value than the $2 rides the kids normally coerce me into spending my coins on!

I just spent my last $20 reward they have given me and used the instore promotion of Buy Three, Get One Free. I got a gorgeous tan leather belt, a delicately beaded headband and a funky zebra striped dip dyed scarf (yay for transeasonal dressing!) for $13 out of my own wallet - the actual full ticket price of the three items added up to $125.

I am always up for a bargain :)

And because I was on the Witchery site for that link, I may as well put up a few pretties from the sale that caught my eye and I would snap up.

Scoop Neck Tunic - on sale $29.95 - perfect for getting ready for Autumn dressing - add a scarf and leggings

Grecian Tank - on sale $29.95 - effortless elegance, I would wear this with tailored shorts and some tan sandals for lunch out on the weekend

Jersey T shirt - on sale for $34.95 - throw on with jeans and ballet flats to take the kids on a playdate

is rarely dull...

We have had incredible amounts of rain in the last few days - over 300mm has fallen at our place. More than our tanks can handle, more than our dams can hold and more than our paddocks can drain. It rained so hard the other night, ALL night that I barely slept. I was so worried that my very excited little 3.5 year old would not be able to get to her first day of Kindergarten. Everyone is obviously jumpy from the extreme floods of 2011 so there was an extra element of stress.

And sure enough when we woke - our driveway was flooded, our yards under water and roads and schools beginning to close. We had no internet, minimal phone reception and even our tv doesn;t work well in heavy cloudy weather. So we had AM radio to figure out if we could get through to Elka's school. We could only get our 4WD across our flooded driveway so Jase wasn;t able to get to work and we knew we had limited chances to cross the water anyway. So we piled the super excited child decked out in her spanking new uniform, the toddler, the husband trying to continue to work from his Blackberry and me into the 4WD in the pouring rain and set off hoping we could get out of our property and get the 20mins to her school and home again.

We made it much to Elka's delight - we had to drive through two sections of water but it could have been way worse. I got a little teary at just how excited Elka was at starting school and what we had to do to get her there - not quite the normal suburban school drop off!


We didn't want to go home and then find we couldnt get back out to pick Elka up, so we stayed out waiting for her 1/2 day of school to end and stocked up on milk and bread. She had an amazing day and we were pleased to find the rain eased as the day went on.

Elka all ready for Kindy and Bronte posing along with her

Setlling into school

One of the dams overflowing

At the top of our driveway looking back at the house and the water we had to cross

All is well that ends well, though the continuing wet weather and possible cyclone forming doesn't bode well for future flooding. Though, as a Mum I am happy - nothing ruined her first day of school.  And it makes it even more memorable,  I guess!

Jase is worried - he is well and truly outnumbered by girls in this house. It's sure to be expensive. Particularly when Elka often demands to go shopping, is drawn to pretty things like jewellery and bedazzled shoes and then raves about "it was on sale!".

And it seems Bronte is following in the same footsteps. She loves handbags. And this is how she insisted on sleeping the other day.

Why do they make me so happy?! Buying clothes is a satisfying experience but a shoe purchase leaves me cheery for the rest of the day...

I have a wedding coming up - a beach wedding that involves a weekend away (a kid free weekend - smile). I have a great Cue dress, my husband provided the jewellery (see an earlier post), my hairdresser is booked for the day before and so that left the shoes...

The dress is white with red lines and it just demands red shoes - hot red shoes. Confession - I actually bought some gorgeous diamante white flats from Forever New for the beach ceremony but decided that I just had to have hot heels as well. So I bravely took the two girls to DFO today and had one of those good shopping days.




And yes I hit the Diana Ferrari sale. 30-50% off already discounted prices - love. And look at these little sweeties I got.

Terrible photo - I really need a full length mirror to go with my snazzy walk in robe (hint hint awesome-husband-who-reads-my-blog)

Now I just couldn't not buy these SO comfortable clogs either - perfect for our up-coming holiday to Cairns/Great Barrier Reef, and $15 down from $130 - cha-ching! So I had to buy them in tan too ;)
Special mention to Forever New as they were packed with bargains of the dress variety that I managed to resist. But I did weaken and buy a lovely kaftan patterned top for $20 down from $99 - practially a necessity for the approaching two beach getaways.

Love new shoes. Love life.



Finally Angelina in something other than a black sack - very glam despite the skeletal factor



Helen Mirren - how we all want to look at age 66!



Jessica Alba leading the pale/nude colour fad in Gucci and doing it beautifully



Nicole Kidman - I am not a fan of this look, she looks tight and uncomfortable



Love this from Nicole Ritchie, very cute yet sleek

Week 2 challenge: Go through the process and define your top 5 core values including ranking them.

 I have been thinking about this challenge all week. I find I am a little Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde between my working week and my family-centred weekends. My focus and priorities tend to shift between the two personas. But I think I have covered both my "lives" in these values.

Please feel free to add your own values in the comments if you want to play along. There is no right or wrong. I am sure regular readers of my blog will not be surprised by my list - I think I am fairly open and predictable in how I try to live my life. And I totally understand that these values may not suit others, but I have tried to explain my outlook/backgroun on each of my 5 core values.

1. Love
2. Health
3. Success
4. Empathy and Compassion
5. Environmetal awareness


1. Love: Not an uncommon value, I know. But it is most important to me to have love in my life - love in all it's forms, the love of a life partner, the love of a mother, the love of having children, the love of being a sister and the love of friends. I think anyone that has lost family or seen people grieve the loss of someone they love, will believe my conviction that little else is right with the world when you don't have people to love and love you. Being a trillionare would be pretty empty without feeling that you are special to someone. How do I live my value? Well I don't sweat the small stuff with those that I love, I am quick to forgive and forget, it isn't worth the effort to dwell. I choose to try and embrace those around me warts and all.

2. Health: Life is precious and I subscribe to the theory that your body is a temple. I refuse to have a body that is unhealthy in ways that I can control. I exercise, I never eat fast food, I do not drink soft drink, I feed my family healthy balanced meals, we do not buy chips, lollies or chocolate. I live rurally and I spend hours outside being active breathing fresh air under a clean sky and close to bare earth - good for every part of my body. I can't stop myself from getting many illnesses but I can control these things and I live my life accordingly.

3. Success: This is not as materialistic as it sounds, I promise. My husband and I are both ambitious people who thrive on challenge and hard work. I feel  rewarded when I am achieving in my career. It is hard to explain but for my mental well-being I need to be working and good at that work. It makes me content and content is all I need to be, to choose to be happy.

4. Empathy and Compassion: I try to live my life without judging people as much as I can - hard but practice makes perfect I tell myself! The best way to do this is to try to understand other people - a little empathy goes a long way. I felt that Compassion was similar enought to be combined as a value- in particular I live with compassion for animals and their voiceless plight. I stop for injured animals on the side of the road - my blood boils that people will hit native animals and not even stop, as if their lives and their suffering is worthless. Don't even get me started on how upset I get over animal cruelty stories. I take rescue animals into my home - one of my horses is an ex-starvation case, my cat rescued from death row, our chickens saved from culling at a battery hen farm. You gain when you give. And giving time costs nothing. I volunteered for years with a mobile soup kitchen, offering a listening ear to those who just wanted to chat - I learnt how quickly you can fall in life and why it is so important to look at people with an open mind and heart.

5. Environmental Awareness: It is a value that needs work in my life but I do try to embrace it as much as I can in my everyday life. I do not believe that we should live our energy heavy life without trying to lighten our footprint. I avoid turning on air conditioners - it pains me hearing how little thought people have on how environmentally unsustainable this style of living is. Our home is built with thick insulation, ceiling fans, cross breezes, and wrap around verandahs to keep the hot sun off. Modern homes are too often built practically eaveless with useless windows and no cross ventilation - that is not the right design for our climate but is "stylish". I recycle everything I can. All of our food waste is composted - I have never lived without a compost bin and being at other people's houses where food goes into the regular bin always shocks me as I am so used to composting! And my biggest pet hate of all - people who throw cigarette butts on the ground or out car windows - uuurrrrghh!!!

Well I got to cheat and work in my 21 degree air conditioned laboratory, which has to be kept that cold for all of the expensive machines we run- yes whilst its 37 degrees outside, I am wearing a singlet under my blouse and have a cardigan draped over my legs when I sit at the computer. I literally freeze at work.

But for those not that lucky - like my poor horses, well they got a treat while Jase was irrigating the garden.



And because someone asks - it is not cruel to have rugs on them in Summer, it is actually humane as the light fly mesh rugs they are wearing keep the sun off them and stop them being bitten all over by the horse flies and midgies we have here, their legs often have blood on them where the flies have landed and bitten they are so fierce. The big chestnut, Sam is so allergic to the midgies that where ever the rug doesn't cover him, he scratches down to bloody open sores.

They also love to take themselves swimming in the dams when it is hot. They have it pretty good!

Readers of this blog will probably have gathered that I have been so lucky to marry a particularly romantic man. Even eleven years into our relationship, he will arrive home with a bunch of flowers spontaneously or organise a surprise weekend away.

What I love is that the romantic gestures aren't necessary - we have a great relationship and the little things he does, like quietly wash-up every single night so I can rest my broken finger or care for the girls alone for hours so I can have "me-time" with the horse, are the gestures that make me feel like I fall even more and more in love with him.

However, the icing on the cake is his generosity.

So there I was last night, slumped on the lounge exhasted after a hens party the night before and an interstate trip home, looking terribly unglamorous and rather suspicious as he emerged from our bedroom with his hands behind his back and a strange rattling noise coming from behind him. I was not in the least expecting the lovely jewellery box from my favorite jeweller that he whipped out and announced that it was "just because" present.

My "just because" present

A ruby and diamond necklace that he bought to match my new red and white Cue dress that I had just bought for a weekend away beach wedding. I had been agonising over my accessories as I don't wear a lot of red. And it is just perfect. He really does shop nearly too well for a straight man!

It was the most beautiful end to a gorgeous weekend. And its kept a smile on my face into the working week. Love my husband and love his amazing spirit.

Thanks to Amy at My Life is Cake, I have been inspired to join in the blogging challenge "52 weeks to simplify your life".



I am a big fan of living for and loving the little things in life and I think taking the time for some appreciation and reflection is very rewarding.

Week #1 Challenge: Create a list of everything that went “right” in 2011

As I have already blogged, I had a very happy 2011.

- I "made it" through Bronte growing from a baby to a toddler whilst juggling a tricky two year old. It only gets easier as they get older and I loved every minute of watching them grow.

- We made our beautiful new house extension/renovation more homely with furniture and landscaping outside.

- I eliminated a major cause of stress in my life - my competition horse with his bad foot and instead tackled a new exciting challenge with a new young horse.

- I got my body back to pre baby fitness and lost so much weight (not intentionally just from pure hectiness) that I am the lightest I have ever been. Nice to feel that having two pregnancies is not a death knell for ever being slim again (particularly since I am not a celebrity with a nanny,chef and personal trainer!)

- My career flourished and I got to to throw myself back into it, knowing I didn't have any long hiatuses for maternity leave to interrupt my development. I have had the opportunity to reshape an entire area, lead scientists, advance my publication record, travel interstate for some great work trips, be a superviser to multiple post graduate students and lecture in a number of university courses. AND I smile when I get to work - it just fulfills me.

- I got to spend another year married to my husband. I still marvel at how easy we just "work" - no fighting (bickering doesn't count!) and just endless support and understanding for each other. Not to mention, he is a very romantic man who spoiled me wonderfully with such thoughtful gifts and surprises.

- My family all spent 2011 in good health - this is a true blessing.

I could actually list wonderful things on and on but these are the big ones. We work hard for our success and happiness but I also give thanks every day for the things out of our control that also contribute to our contentment.

Why don't you join in? Here

Seriously who springs a hens night, nay a COSTUME hens night on someone 5 days before it is scheduled?! 

That is what has happened to me - its interstate and requires dressing up in 1920's theme. Feel free to throw suggestions my way. I might also point out I go back to work tomorrow and I have zilch free time or shopping hours. Soooo at this stage I am thinking of wearing a column shaped beaded lack dress with long beads, a beaded headband with some feathers and some stacked black heels that do up with a button and channel the 20's somewhat.. thank god I already have a bob haircut hehe


Mild annoyance at dropping a themed party in my lap on my last day of holidays aside, I am am muchly looking forward to a cocktail party and girls night out dancing. I am guessing I am going to need a few drinks after this week back at work nursing my damaged finger and a huge workload....

The holidays were brilliant and I am almost feeling recharged but also a little sick at thinking how much needs to be achieved in the next couple of months, not to mention the fact that Jase is acting in his bosses position for the next few weeks so he will be working ridiculous hours. No easing into this year it seems!

It has been a busy year - no where as crazy as last year with the whole having a baby and extending our house but still very intense.

It has been Year of the Career - with both Jase and I dealing with promotions and really throwing ourselves into being the best. I went back from Maternity leave to find myself made head of a lab with three scientists and one technician to manage... part time. I bumped my work days up to 4 and with overtime etc I have been working well over 5 days of hours a week. Jase has had a lot of national, international and statewide travel - sometimes on one to two work trips a week. I have learnt to juggle the two girls, long hours at my work, the farm and working at night and despite a number of people telling me it wasn't sustainable, have been fine although it has involved learning to function on 6 hours sleep a night.

We have taken our house extension/renovation from new and empty to a lovely homely house - staining decks and french doors, adding furniture, wall hangings and electrical items, putting up curtains, landscaping driveways, planting new gardens and building over 20 metres of new retaining walls. Our home and land are lovely, it is know everything we dreamed it could be five years ago when we bought it (besides the pool, outdoor woodfired pizza oven/kitchen and extended horse arena that are our next dream projects) and I am so content when I walk around soaking up the peace and quiet of the snowy gum trees waving over our dams.

Before

After (and curtains have been added since!)

I sold my competition horse as his bad hoof was just not holding up to the unforgiving hard paddocks on our property. He is now a much loved Pony Club horse on the Sunshine Coast and looks wonderful. I had a difficult hunt for a new horse, requiring 100kms of driving, vet checks and aborted sales before I finally found the perfect horse 5 minutes down the road, unadvertised, sold through word of mouth of a horse friend.

We had our first flying holiday with the girls to Sydney and Jase and I enjoyed some weekends away to ourselves thanks to my parents babysitting. I visited Tasmania for a conference, Jase had a surprise work trip to Paris. We had interstate friends come and stay and have planned a number of trips for next year already. We threw a New Years party to kick off the year, hosted our combined 30th Birthday party and had a Teddy Bears Picnic themed Birthday for the girls 1st and 3rd Birthdays.

The girls have grown and grown. Bronte has  changed from a 6 month old baby barely crawling to a independent communicating 18 month old. We have taken her through hearing aid fittings, umpteen hearing tests, endless speech pathology and a general anaesthetic cat scan on her head. She is developing on target for a child of her age with normal hearing, and that is all we can ask for. We have been through all the preparation for Elka to start school in a short three weeks - hard to believe we are that stage.

The difference a year makes

The girls have discovered what it means to have a sister - being the best of friends and the worst of enemies. I love having two little kids rather than babies - they constantly delight me with their little quirks and funny mannerisms. I am excited to watch them both continue to develop into little people in the next year.

Sisters

We were blessed with good health - my broken finger is as serious as our injuries and sickness have been. We were spared the worst of the SE Qld floods thanks to a new dam being built on our river system the year before. We did suffer some trees down in some severe storms but no structural damage.

Life has been very good to us. We work damn hard for it but we wholeheartedly appreciate all that we do have. I believe in siezing every moment and making the most of it. And I can say we truly have done that this year.

2012 is a year concentrating on our health - we want to make sure we are eating fresh foods, concentrating on balanced nutrition and taking time for exercise. We have a lovely holiday to the Great Barrier Reef planned for our wedding anniversary (7 years!) and another couples-only weekend away booked for a friends wedding. We are planning on taking the kids on a family trip to Canberra and surrounds to see old friends. We are also thinking of another short trip to Sydney. Jase and I both have work trips already booked for the first few months of 2012 and of course more to come, our careers are only advancing not slowing down. I have a number of publications currently submitted and more to write. I have two Masters students to supervise as well as all my staff. I plan to get this finger healed and get some time to compete my new horse. We have plenty more landscaping plans for the property and gardens to fill with plants. Elka starts school and I have to adapt my working schedule to accomodate this somewhat. Bronte will turn two and we will face the parenting challenges that come with that.

But right now - well its time to get off the computer and get into a party dress as we will be heading to a New Years Party very soon!

Happy New Year to all my followers :) Thank you for all of your support and great comments xoxo

So prior to Christmas I had a fall whilst showjumping - I ended up with a mild concussion that included nausea, passing out and blurred vision and speech. I also had a terribly sore and swollen finger from getting it caught in the reins as I fell. I am no stranger to falling from horses - showjumping and Cross Country tends to result in higher chances of falls during high speed air-bourne maneuvers. But I tend to land on my feet - years of practice you could say! So I was yet to have a fall on the hard clay paddocks we have here. And now that I have, I discovered two things - One, its way harder than the soft volcanic soil of the Byron Hinterland where I grew up and Two, you just don't bounce like you did when you were a teenager!

  So I tucked myself into bed expecting to feel better in the morning, like I always did. And I did - the concussion anyway! But my finger only got worse, so swollen the skin was pulled tight and shiny and it turned black and red. I have a high pain threshold but I was struggling to do things with the girls and the farm and with looming public holidays, I decided it was time to visit a GP clinic. Long story short, he immediately sent me for X-rays, where they found a fracture in the middle joint and I was sent to hospital to check for tendon damage. I was in a sling and bound up. I "rested" as much as any mother of little kids on a farm who is hosting Christmas can (ie not much) and got increasingly frustrated at the constant pain and lack of improvement in the finger.

I was asked to visit the outpatient clinic today at the hospital and the orthopedic registrar was also not impressed with the state of the finger. So off I went for more X-rays, more waits and more orthopedic consultants. Lo and behold, they found that in the top joint, the tendon had torn from the bone and pulled away a piece of bone at the same time. A "mallet fracture"
Untreated - it results in a permanent droop and bend in the finger as the tendon is over stretched and won't reattach properly. Treatment - 6-8 weeks of being splinted and taped, that CANNOT be removed, not even for showers. One bend of the finger without the splint in that 6-8 weeks puts you back at day 0 with 6-8 weeks of treatment again. Wow. This is going to be tough. It is my right hand and I am a molecular biologist - all I do is write formulas and calculations, pipette tiny volumes, open small tubes, handle highly infectious bacteria wearing tight gloves (double layers!) and write reports and documents. Nevermind that I have two kids under four and a farm full of animals, including my new young horse in training. And my birthday, wedding anniversary and two beach holidays away in that time. Aaarrrghh.

The pain of the finger being bent straight is nothing to the pain of being told you are useless and can't do anything. Sigh.

Of course, could be way worse. But definitely not what I had planned for my two weeks of holidays!

Life always has a way of throwing you something unexpected!

Broken finger and all, it was a gorgeous Christmas. It all started with a peaceful Christmas Eve (although Jase and I were exhausted from a very stressful night before - but that is a whole blog post in itself!), with family arriving all day to settle in for the celebrations. Our farm work and landscaping was completed and we enjoyed grabbing a few last minute groceries, soaking up the chaos and christmas spirit before settling onto the deck for sparkling wine and cheese platters.

We tucked two super excited girls into bed at a respectable hour before we knuckled down to cooking the Christmas dessert (me) and constructing the piece de resistance Santa present, the trampoline (Jase and the other men). I found the horses in the dark paddock to get them to leave bite marks in the carrots left out for the reindeer and cajoled my Dad into eating the bright green xmas tree biscuit Elka had left out for Santa. Jase and I marvelled at just how much we had spoilt the kids when we packed up their Santa sacks and stockings before we all fell exhausted into bed.

It was delightful to be woken by the happy voice of Elka exclaiming that Santa had bought her bubbles, but it wasn't so delightful that it was 5.20am! However, we somewhat blearily watched the girls dig through their presents, laughing at Miss Elka peering into her Santa sack and announcing that "oh Santa hasn't given me a trampoline". We constructed an excuse to get her to the back door where she stood in shock looking at her shiny new trampoline before turning to us with tears in her eyes - it was beautiful.

We had Jase's family tradition of ham and eggs for breakfast (doesn't go quite so well with my family tradition of a two course hot lunch but I guess excess is somewhat suitable at Christmas!) before finally tucking into the massive pile of presents overflowing far from under the tree. I was spoilt with a great new laptop, Peter Alexander Pjs, a one-off handmade art-deco bracelet, perfume, dayspa voucher, Horseland voucher, expensive eye cream, books and so on, so on.

My big hot lunch was a success - the lemon and garlic butterflied lamb was the biggest hit although the turkey served with roasted plums was a pretty close second, the fetta, pancetta and green bean side was delicious and the Christmas trifle was lovely. The french champagne way too easy to drink and we settled in for an afternoon of chatting and laughing at the girls playing with their million and one presents.

We finished the celebrations with Boxing Day at the sales (I scored a great Cue dress and some lovely Forever New shoes for over 50% off). And we are now throughly enjoying the quiet of our holidays, we have hit the beach, met with friends and have plans to spend tomorrow at Dreamworld as a treat for the girls. I can't believe it is almost time to think about New Years! I haven't even picked an outfit for the party we are going to!

Christmas is just magical with little kids and I was ever mindful of just how lucky I am to have such a peaceful celebration with my healthy family. Sometimes I feel like I can't contain my appreciation, like my heart is just overflowing.

Such a blessed Christmas.