Day 121

Netcasting spiders are hard to see unless they plonk themselves somewhere out of the ordinary, such as the screen on our front window.

They aren't venomous and sit patiently during the day doing nothing at all except pretending they aren't a spider , hence trying to change it's appearance by disguising the number of legs it has and not moving.

At night they spin a web between their front legs and 1 or 2 lines from their vantage point to other points crossing where they expect their prey to move/fly etc.  When the prey touches the line/s of web they cast the web over it like a fishing net and bring it back in, it'd be amazing to see it in action!

Day 120

I know i said I'd vary my subject matter a little more, but I'm finding that the time I have my camera at the ready or am motivated to take pics is when Nutmeg is doing a crazy cat impersonation, which is often!


So, more crash bandicoot, but this time not in the cupboard seeking food, today she was chasing her tail, which she does every now and then and it's hilarious!  she pretends she notices it out of nowhere and chases it intently, so intently that just after this photo she fell off the chair.  She got back up and repeated this a further 3-4 times.

Day 119

What to do when the weather gets a little chilly and your owners haven't turned the heating on?  Snuggle in their dressing gown!  She fell asleep here while we veged out watching tv.  Nutty doesn't sit on our laps often, but when she does she goes whole hog and gets annoyed when we move about or when we want to get up.

Day 118

hmmm more nutmeg shots, I need to vary my subject matter, and I wasn't even trying lol!

Love that her tail is curled over in this shot, she walks around with it like that all the time.

Day 117

Public Holiday today, great to have a day off but conscious of the reason we do.

more glorious weather, cool overnight temps and cool but sunny days, i absolutely LOVE this time of year, nearly as much as winter ;)

More nutmeg shots I'm afraid, I never tire of them but you guys might!

She really is a brilliant character!

Day 116

ANZAC day - Lest we forget

mmmm home made pie!  Chicken and leek is the filling, very yum!

I also made some ANZAC biscuits also but the pics are all a bit fuzzy, think I was too close for my camera to focus properly.  They were yummo though :)

Day 115

A birthday today and we went to High Tea at the tea rooms at the Queen Victoria Building in the city, very posh, very lovely, bit on the exxy side but worth it.

The guest of honour himself

Day 114

ahh Friday, thank goodness  it's here!

Nutmeg received a present recently of a little igloo that converts to an open bed, she plays in it when it's up, pounces on the igloo when it's up to push it down and curls up in in on the lounge while we watch TV.

She jumps into green shopping bags so Brendan thought he'd see if she stayed in the bed as he carried her to our room at bedtime.  she did!

Day 113

Nutmeg's fierce look.  She either has a huge canine tooth on this side on the bottom

 or an overbite, but every now and then the bottom tooth pushes her top lip up and it looks hilarious!  If only they made pirate costumes for cats, I can just see her with an eye patch and a red bandana hehe

Nice reflection of her as she stares at the birds flitting around the street and dogs being walked

Day 112

Foggy again this morning, 50m visiblity, love it.

I decided to boil an egg for breaky to make use of the egg warmers that go with the egg timer Mrs J gave me.  They kept the eggs warm for ages while we fiddled around making toast and general breakfast stuff

Day 111

Waking up to find it's foggy out is awesome!  bit cold too, down to 5 degrees over night, so we were loving it!

Day 110

Leftovers, there's so many great things about them, not having to cook when you get home or just reheating some of it for lunch is enough :)

This is a chicken version of a stew I make minus dumplings, though they'd go really well with it.

Note to sally - swap red meat for chicken marylands x the number of people to feed/meals you want to make.  We picked up some at Woolies last week on a super special 4 for $2.50! and threw them in the freezer until we needed them.

Will have to remember to call by every sunday/sat just before closing

Day 109

Today was a day at the Zoo!  Brendan's work is a sponsor so they get a staff day once a year and today is it, unfortunately it coincided with the last day of school holidays and the weather was absolutely glorious!  not to mention the 2 cuties in the photo below which are drawing massive crowds.

Luk Chai is on the left and Pathi Harn on the right (his mother behind).  Pathi Harn was initially called mr Shuffles by the keepers and is something of a miracle (the thai meaning of his name) as he was thought to have died in the womb during birth.  It was 1-2 days later that he arrived with signs of life, he's now 5 weeks old and 156kgs!

Luk chai was born earlier in the year, or late last year and is 400kgs!

So wonderful to see them playing and just to have them there is very cool!

more on them all here - Taronga Zoo

A few extra pics of other zoo creatures.

Day 108

Shopping for fabric and looking at colours for bridesmaids dresses was the sole agenda for today, so 1 bridesmaid and myself shuffled off to Spotlight to see what was on offer.

Some lovely colours and later we checked out some styles online at the shop I have bought my wedding dress from and unfortunately they don't have anything like these 2 colours, but we'll go along next week and  see the colours in real life.

Day 107

Crash bandicoot might have been a better name than Nutmeg as Crash Bang was the noise i heard as I was cooking dinner tonight.  Lo and behold Nutmeg decided she didn't want to wait until her normal feeding time and helped herself by knocking the measuring container we use off the bottom shelf onto the floor.  haha!  She knew she was in trouble so ignored me and hoovered it all up in record time, then had hiccups

:D

Day 106

Pendant light shades in the foyer of the office, I've admired them out of the corner of my eye for weeks, so put them on my list to photograph, they are a series of 3 and simple but the pattern is striking and stands out amongst the beige ;)

Day 105

I've meant to take pics of the Camelias under our bedroom window for a week now, but finally got around to it.  They are one of the few non Aussie native plants I like, so was pleased to discover there's a gorgeous white single with gold stamens and the other has pink blushed buds and opens to a double white.  Gorgeous!

Day 104

Traffic - so I drive to work as I have a company car and often I'm either in the office for part of a day, all day or not at all.  It's school holidays for another week, yet traffic has been ridiculous on the motorway I use, usually in school holidays and out of peak hour it takes 20 minutes from leaving our place to arriving at the office, today it took 1 1/2 hours along the same stretch of road.

During the very slow journey I spotted this truck which has crushed cars on the back, I would have loved to be able to get out and take some better photo's, especially of the square that was the same model as my old car, same colour too.  Must find our where they crush them and see if I can take pics.

Day 103

The glorious weather of the weekend continued today and it was nice and cool overnight and this morning and just warmed up enough to still be cool in the shade.

These clouds greeted me as I left work, I was just able to capture the plane, if I didn't carry my camera in my bag it would have passed by.

Day 102

Some friends were over for a BBQ and it was strange to realise that one couple (Tam and Ryan) had never met one of the others (bear), even though we all talk about each other and see photos of each other etc, they'd never met!

Who would have thought that Bear (aka Rob) would also be the biggest softy for cats!  nutmeg was putty in his hands and he held her like a baby for a while, she's such a flirt!

Day 101

Big day ahead, my first 2 real Tupperware parties (I've sold product just showing people the catalogues so far) and I was a little nervous, not sure why I talk product all the time in my FT job.  The day was a huge success though and I surged into the day and both parties with the attitude that anything I sold was a bonus.  It turned out to be very successful and I was overwhelmed by people's responses to the product and me.

I also arrived home to find Brendan had moved the lounge room around and it feels much better, though a little strange for a while.  he'd also started to put up our house numbers, which a good friend Sally gave us as a housewarming present.....  Looks great Sal!

Day 100

Wow, nearly 1/3 of the way there.  That's a little shocking to be honest, as it really doesn't seem like that much time has passed since NYD and swimming in Lake Jindabyne with friends.

Today we received a Save the Date magnet from our good friends Steph and Jimmy, their wedding is 3 weeks after ours and it's ironic that we've both chosen to use magnetic 'paper' for our save the dates.  We are still finalising ours, so anyone out there reading this, don't worry we just haven't sent them yet!

Day 99

Such beautiful weather lately, I really love Autumn.  It's still warm enough to get outside but it's also cool enough to snuggle under the doona and just not be hot.  It also means winter is coming and it's a gorgeous time of year for light, the golden light of autumn and spring are devine for photography!

This is our shade sail highlighted by the setting sun

Day 98

The weeks seem to be going by faster than ever lately, so I'm really pleased I'm doing this project.

Timing eggs - this was the first time I'd used this egg timer, my dear friend belinda gave it to me last year on her return from her holiday to the UK, before moving over there :(  It's a spinning reel for cotton and she bought it at the UK National Trust along with 2 very cute egg cosy's which I'll post soon.

I like the historic and the reuse aspect of it, and it's an ingenious reuse!

Day 97

Didn't realise until now that I'd forgotten to post a Tuesday photo!

So this is Nutmeg enjoying the sunshine, it's her favourite position to be in, back of the lounge in the sunshine, except at night sleeping on the bed.

I like the way the sun catches the colour in her eye.

Day 96

Nutmeg helping Brendan fix the tension on his new Mountain bike brake

Day 95

We drove home from Jindy last night and arrived to a cool and wet Sydney which continued into Sunday, perfect excuse to sleep in, not that we need encouragement.

mum and dad came over for a very quick lunch and I decided to make scones for brendan and I for a treat. We only had plain flour, and not much baking powder so this was the result.....

I should have made dough boys and dipped them in the golden syrup we have!

Day 94

Easter Saturday

Our goal today was to suss out Lake Crackenback resort for our wedding ceremony and reception, and luckily it's as gorgeous in real life as it is in pictures, so we've booked ourselves in for September! :)  YAY!

On our way back to Jindabyne we called into Crackenback Cottage and Wild Brumby schnapps distillery.

Both pics are special today as the first is of the wife of the chef and owner of our favourite restaurant in Jindabyne, Cafe D'arya, a Persian restaurant with unique food for anywhere, let alone Jindy!

The 2nd pic is of the ducks/geese allowed to wander amongst the raspberry brambles as bug controllers :)

Day 93

Today was a chill out day, Nick and Brendan went for a ride on their mountain bikes and Kristy and I walked to the Mt Kosciuszko look out.

Kristy hadn't seen Kosci before, so Brendan let her know it wasn't very impressive, or she'd be underwhelmed by it....

When we got there the words were "Is that it?" haha

voila folks, the highest peak on the Aussie mainland as sung about by Midnight Oil.  It's the grassy knoll in the background that lines up with where the track heads over the rise.....

Day 92

April Fool's day

We headed to Jindabyne tonight to spend some time with great friends and suss out a wedding venue option.

Just before Canberra is Lake George, on the far side of the 'lake' is a windfarm (you'll need to click on the photo to enlarge it to see to windfarm) which powers the new desalination water plant in Sydney. I think it looks quite beautiful, though realise the locals find it controversial.

Sunset over lake george (which rarely has water in it.....)