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Friday, February 18, 2011

Things I'm loving..


Thanks to Paisley Jade there's a LOT of lovin goin on!
See her post here

on things she's loving!
Here's what I'm loving at the moment..

Cheap $8 boardies found on Trade Me after looking in ELEVEN shops for some black short boardies to no avail!


This beautiful beach that we LOVE holidaying at!


Chocolate Chippies, Choc Chip Slice, Ginger Crunch, Banana Coffee Cake .. these are just SOME of what is in my freezer begging to be eaten!


Whangarei Library .. nothing like free books ;-)


These lovely ladies from Blogland that I caught up with in REAL life! (Thanks Kristy for the pic!)


These lovely ladies that I got to hang out with and had THE BEST time with on Char's hens night (possible post pending .. maybe!)


What are YOU loving?? Link up to Paisley Jade's blog today!

Sima J

Sunday, February 6, 2011

How to .. Make Tramp Safety Mats & a Ladder:

We inherited a tramp at Christmas time (see here).
It has been such a blessing - both the boys spend a LOT of time on it.
Unfortunately for Master K (2yr), carrying him out to the tramp was getting old REALLY fast (since he couldn't get on by himself).
Also I was getting sick of holding my breath every time he fell over, with images of split open heads and trips to A&E at the hospital flashing through my imagination.


SO first .. I priced up some safety mats. $230. OUCH. That is WAAAYY to pricey for cheap ol' me! (I mean come on, you can buy a brand new small tramp WITH safety pads for that price!)
So I decided to do a little DIY and make my own. Off to Arthurs Emporium. Now for those of you who don't know about this place it is AWESOME. Yes, in CAPITALS!! This place has EVERYTHING you could ever want for any DIY project!! Material, beads, chain, wood, STUFF .. lots and LOTS of STUFF!!
So it was the perfect place to get some marine carpet! Even better, when I hung around like a bad smell feeling every kind of fabric and wouldn't go away, the ladies fished out some marine carpet with some glue damage (totally fine for what I wanted it for!) and gave it to me half price *SCORE!*
So for $40 I had my material.
I chopped it into strips and attached it to the tramp. This may sound easy but it really wasn't. First I was going to sew it on. Then I decided that was too hard and hubby came up with some industrial velcro that we ended up stapling on. That didn't work so well so we stapled the strips of velcro round the bars to try hold it on. The staples did not hold on so well. So now I had spikey staples sticking out and marine carpet flying everywhere in the wind.
Bring in the cable ties. Cable ties are my friends :-)
They held it on SWEET - and are STILL holding it on more to the point!

One problem solved, now for the ladder. This was VERY easy for me. Probably because I had nothing to do with it. 1. Ask Carl if he will make one. 2. Say thank you when one arrives next to the tramp.
Easy :-) (Thanks babe!)


So now we have a super fun, safe tramp that the kids can get on themselves YAY! :-)


Sima J

fixed drive ..

Well luckily for me, I can get in and out of my driveway (see here for the original problem!)
I like watching diggers - unfortunately my boys were less sure of the giant machinery and clung to me like monkeys!
Here comes the digger on the old dirt track (which is impassable by cars by the way)


Close up of the machine. I love big machines. Needless to say I was a bit of a tom boy in my childhood days.


Shot of the digging up.


J's (7yr old) photography handiwork.


And here I was going to put in a pic of the finished drive. I wrote this post AGES ago and STILL haven't gotten around to getting the pic! So you're just gonna have to use your imaginations haha!!

Sima J

p.s. Had a GREAT day meeting with some lovely Whangarei bloggy mums. Of course they've nearly ALL blogged about it .. except slack old me! I still haven't edited the pic from last weekends hens party!
Here are their blogs anyway .. I figured there was enough of them already :-)
and Liz (who is like me and hasn't blogged about yet yay!)

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Spring Cleaning (in summertime)

So since school started back on Tuesday I've been in a mad cleaning phase. I see mess EVERYWHERE in my house and can't stop the urge to clean clean clean!! Which is a good thing I guess because it needs it!
One of the things that happened was that a borrowed coffee table had to be returned to it's owner which was actually such a blessing because I scored a brand new beautiful table for $100 off Trade Me. This new table is longer so I thought it was a GREAT place to hide Kohen's toys when they're not in use!
The white sheet was originally to cover the borrowed coffee table from it getting wrecked by my kids and now I want to keep my new coffee table in mint condition so I'm reusing it for that. I'm torn because I want to SEE my lovely new table - but then I don't want it munted so I guess it will just have to be covered until the kids grow up and learn to not draw/scratch furniture?!?
Anyway this is the lounge before the toys were put away:

and this is the lovely new table under that cover:

This is the lounge after the toys have been cleaned up:


and this is where they went:



Easy to get out when needed, and tidy when the day is over YAY - I love tidiness :-)
All that's left where the toys were are his books (in a VERY expensive container.. NOT!)


I've cleaned out the chest in my room since the tv that was on it has also gone back to it's owner and it's looking super clean. I love it! (and we hardly ever used that TV anyway so it's no problem) :-)
ugh now the rest of the house to go (the office is looking particularly messy!)
Sima J

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

berry cooler ..

mmm mmm
I am LOVING this summer sun! (now that my hayfever is over *phew*)
It's beautiful and we are SO lucky to live 15min from this:

In the evenings we have concocted a little drink that is SOO good on the humid nights. You can make it with all sorts of flavours
and alcoholic or non-alcoholic!
All you need is two trays of ice and a blender plus whatever flavours you want.

Some examples we have tried:
Frozen berries and Sprite (fizzy lemonade)
Frozen berries, milk and icecream
Daiquari mix, feijoa vodka and Sprite
Frozen berries, Sprite and Boysenberry Nip (found in the wine section at Countdown)
Frozen berries, Sprite and Vodka

As you can see, you can try all sorts of flavours! I'm thinking Nectarine sounds like it may be my next trial :-)
(FYI you put the trays of ice in the blender, add flavour and
whizz til it's like a slushy)
p.s. make sure you refil the trays again and pop them in the freezer because you WILL want another one the next night! :-)

Sima J



Tuesday, February 1, 2011

vegetarians .. DON'T READ THIS!


Ok, so if you ARE a vege or townie who can't stand the thought of where your meat comes from then stop reading now!
I have started a new running program, and on my way home last night I got a fright when I heard a grunt from a pig right next to me on the last little home stretch of my drive! I then saw 5 wild pigs running away from me. These pigs have been getting more and more game lately - coming out in broad daylight!
Well I really like pork unfortunately for them - and also unfortunately for them my husband has a gun and likes to shoot them!

He actually shot one of their brothers last year and he was DELISH!
So needless to say, we are having piggie for dinner tomorrow night YUM :-)
Also, a big thanks to our friend who butchered it for us (for the price of a roast) and got HEAPS of meat off it - way more than we could ever have got off!

I have got into buying Freedom Farm pork over the last year or so, because I hate the thought of pigs being stowed in sow crates. Well, this is about as freedom farm as you can get :-)
Hope I haven't offended anyone - I did warn you!
Sima J