Rosemary teacups

This morning on my way to work I noticed a teacup planted with rosemary on the windowsill of the new building opposite King Street on the Terrace. I was thinking how surprised that I was that the retail space of building was still empty, and wondering what kinds of interesting shops could end up there. I noticed the little teacup and rosemary, and also noticed that it had a tag. Without the tag I would not have thought more of it, but I stopped to have a look.

I counted seven more cups on my path to work, all numbered and all with the sweet little note. It made me smile, and I noticed one or two others stop to see what the fuss was about.

I was not sure if I was meant to take a cup or leave them, so I left them there for everyone else to enjoy!

The cups were left by aMoment and it appears that 100 have been left around the city. The philosophy of aMoment seems to be to help us to remember to stop occasionally and take the time to reflect.

When I walked past again on my way home this afternoon, all of the cups had gone. I hope that they went to good homes

Manning Farmers Market

We finally made it to the Manning Farmer's Markets. They have been running for over a year now and we have been meaning to go for almost that long.

The market is on Saturday mornings at Clontarf Campus on Manning Road, open from 7.30am to 12.30pm.

We did an initial lap to scope out the market and see what was on offer. We had come with fruit and vegetables in mind however in future we could also stock up on eggs, preserves, bread tea, flowers, plants and many other delights, as well as enjoying breakfast or morning tea.

We bought from a few different producers, and soon filled up our shopping bag. We left with two types of plum, nectarines, organic figs, onions, beans, carrot, broccoli, cherry tomatoes and tea.

We were impressed with the variety and the reasonable prices for fresh food! Now we just need to get ourselves into the habit of Saturday morning grocery shopping...

For more information check out their website.

Updating Perth!

The state government today announced the latest plan for the Perth waterfront. They have been talking about doing something for years. The previous government's grandiose plans included an island in the shape of a swan. Thankfully that has been toned down somewhat! There is still an island but it seems to be more rabbit shaped, and the site of the development is conveniently located next to a train station, bus station and also ferry terminal.

There will be hotels, promenades, bars and cafes and it will hopefully help to reenergise our city.

For more photos and information see The West or the ABC.

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Happy Valentine's Day!

Truly I am not a huge fan of this day. I think it is a lovely excuse to spend time with your loved one (or ones!) but the whole commercialised nature makes me cringe. My ideal way to celebrate would be a lovely picnic on the river! Mosquitoes and wind permitting of course.

C gave me a lovely bunch of flowers, and that is about as romantic as we got this year.

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Australia Day is not all unhealthy...

Our snack container for the boat on Australia Day. We made it through all of the vegetables. Yum!

C was very excited about us getting one of these snack trays. We have used it now three times - the last three Australia Days! We need to think of other excuses to use it to get better value for money.

BUILD: Starting the earthworks

We came back from our honeymoon last year to find that the builder had started siteworks on our block. It was very exciting!

Our block is not the flattest - from front to back is a difference of approximately 6m - so there is some serious work going in to make sure that the house is properly supported and the sand held back.

The other difficulty is that we are building between two houses, one established and the other being built. Our block is fairly narrow at 12m wide and so access to the block is a challenge for the builder, as well as for us once we move in and start trying to landscape and live.

These photos are taken the day after we landed from Bali. The sand is still being moved around in preparation for concrete to be poured. Yay!

Australia Day 2011

Our Australia Day celebrations this year were on the Swan River once more. Perth has fireworks every year on Australia Day and we have found that a good way to avoid the crowds on the foreshore is to spend the day on the river.

It is a fairly full day, we head onto the water around lunch time and sit and chill on the boat. This year we had four boats all tied up together. The weather was windy and conditions quite choppy. Thankfully it all settled down in time for the big show!

The day is very cruisy, we listen to the Triple J Hottest 100 countdown and chill. As the sun goes down we swap to the commercial stations to wait for the fireworks music. This year we all concurred that the music was worse than ever! Eep.

J with her Australian themed outfit.

C and I. Australian theming is not really our strong point, although there was some green on my shirt.

Homemade hamburgers for our lunch. Yum!

The setting sun over the other boats.

Fireworks. Yay!

Doctor vs Catherine Tate

I love this one. Old but good!

Wardrobe inspiration

Our new wardrobe is going to be 4m x 1.4m. I am looking forward to designing the layout and this wardrobe looks like a good starting point!

Hang about, are those rolls of toilet paper that I spy in the top left shelves? I wonder why they store it there!!

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Best wishes

Best wishes to all of those affected by the recent Queensland floods. The images that we are seeing on the television seem so surreal, and as I watch I can only pretend to understand what people are going through.

Those of us in other states can help in a small way by making a donation to the Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal.

Rejected!

I have too many mailing list subscriptions, so I figured that I would transfer these to my hotmail account, rather than my regular account to cut down on the traffic! I have found that most of the lists that I am on require you to unsubscribe and then resubscribe - there is no way to change over your email address to show your loyalty or continutity!

I have been receiving emails about The Strokes for a few years. I unsubscribed this morning and then tried to resubscribe. The website rejected me with the new address! It then rejected me with the old address that I had been using and said that I was not a suitable candidate for being on their mailing list.

Oh well, one less item of spam in my mail box I guess.

Has anyone else been rejected like this? What reason did they give you?

A late Christmas treat

BUILD: Little update

I am very excited, we have a lovely limestone WALL at the back of our block. The wall is almost finished - a few more blocks to go! I will post some pictures once it is done. The wall is approximately 1.6m tall and it is made of 200kg limestone blocks. Very cool. It will be the backdrop of the scene from our new living space.

We have also had all of our downstairs slabs poured now - the last one was poured today and two had been done prior to Christmas.
I am excited and it is all moving along. Yay!

Goals for 2011

This was meant to be posted on the 2nd January, however I once again got confused about the US date system and scheduled it for 1st February. Does anyone know how to change that??

A new year means a new set of goals. I had written down only one goal for 2010 and I did not achieve it, so it is top of my list for next year!

1. Achieve professional certification.
Embarrassingly, I have not done this yet. I need to finish it before my next performance review in May, as it will be awkward to admit that for yet another year I have failed to achieve it, so there is my incentive!

2. Make a skirt, and possibly coordinating top, using my Ink & Spindle gingko fabric.

3. Re-cover my footstool.

4. Successfully make macarons.
I have to have a cooking achievement in here somewhere, and macarons are something that I say I will attempt but never get around to.

5. Visit a place that I have never been to.
Exmouth in May should cover that goal and I will work on getting to more than one. Actually maybe my goal should be to get Chad to a place that he has never been...

6. Run the City to Surf.
I signed up this year but had a nasty cold on the week of the run. Nasty enough that I had three sick days off work (and should probably have had more), in case anyone suggests that it was an excuse!

7. Get my skippers ticket so that I can drive our boat!

8. Spend more time with friends and family.
This is something that is hard to define. I shall try to keep it in mind however and make sure that I keep in regular contact with friends.

9. Clean something once a week.
Cleaning is not one of my favourite pasttimes and so it can be a long time between scrubs! I shall endeavour to be more consistent this year.

10.

There is still room for one more, I would like a nice, round ten so I will have to keep thinking!!

WWotW: Refrigerator

The word refrigerator is one that is commonly misspelt. The common word fridge has a "d", whereas the formal refrigerator is without. Many people do not realise this, and I cringe at "refridgerated" trucks as they drive past.

I had always thought that fridge was the informal word for refrigerator, however it seems that as far as the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictiony is concerned, it is the other way around!

Refrigerator noun formal for fridge =

Fridge noun a piece of kitchen equipment which uses electricity to preserve food at a cold temperature =