Love is...

I must apologise for being away for a few days, this week seems to have flown.  I have spent many hours fiddling with Photoshop Elements 7 and have totally lost track of time.  I have spent hours on the phone reconnecting to a friend whom I haven't spoken with in several months.  I have spent many days calling another friend for her birthday and missing her everytime, still....

I have spent as little time as I can possibly get away with and still look like I am actually doing it, doing the ironing.  Honestly the bane of my life I hate with a capital H ironing.  And I have spent oodles of time scanning hotels in Cannes and booking them and booking our cooking class in Paris and just day dreaming about that incredibly exciting trip.  Umm I believe it is 84 days till we depart, not that I'm counting or anything.  No never, how childish would that be?  I have slept and I have read and I have watched this week the entire 3rd season of CSI, my husband got hooked at Christmas time when our eldest daughter gave him season 2 on dvd and so now he is a Grissom fan.  I have also spent lots of time thinking about houses.  We are on the hunt, again.  I say again becasue honestly I think I have some Gypsy blood mixed in with my good old English blue.  We are never in one place very long it seems.  We built the house we are in just over 4 years ago.  So hey that's long enough I think.  Actually we have two ideas simmering away and one is some space and a little bit of country.  We have looked at 2 houses in the last week on acreage.  One 2 and a half acres with its own rainforest how cool is that?  And one on nearly 9 acres with 5 horse paddocks.  No I do not ride or even really like horses that much.  Not that I dislike them now, but they are mostly big and have really big teeth. . eeww.  So we are going back to the horse paddock one tomorrow and taking Ashleigh and Danielle for a little look.  It has a pool as well and isn't a bad house, but I don't love it.  And usually when I find a house I want to buy I love it, really love it.  I even bought one house twice.  Uhhmm I sure did, crazy you say, well not really it worked out great for us, but I know it isn't the usual thing to do.  At this point in time the other house is under a contract waiting for finance approval and I just had a feeling we would still be getting it, the house is nicer and the granny flat too, so who knows what will happen.

Anyway love is in the air with Valentine's Day only a week away and over at Lensustogether the post for this week is Love..... here is my contribution..Have a great weekend all.

Love is everywhere all the time, we just need to look for it.

Baking

I used to bake a lot, cookies for the kids and Adrian, muffins for me I really love nice, fresh, hot muffins.  I like them too much that's the problem. Sweet ones, Orange & Poppy seed and Savoury Cheese were, are my favourites.  Then a while back we started going to Weight Watchers so we would be lean and fit to go on our tour earlier in the year and I kind of just stopped baking.  Then when Lucas died, well I just didn't feel like baking.  I knew I had to cook meals, but for some reason baking was like a comfort.  Choosing, measuring, mixing, blending, forming and cooking, all were kind of a pleasure, a treat and I just didn't have it in me to do it anymore.

I don't know if that makes sense to any one but that's how it feels.  Then this week one of the blogs I follow LensUsTogether and contribute to has the phrase "Looking Up"as the prompt for our photograph. Naturally my first thought was to photograph the sky, the treetops, birds in the sky something like that, but there was this niggling thought in my mind.  Looking Up, to me that means things are getting better, you know how we say, that to each other.  Today I even did a scrapbook page. I haven't done that for ages either.  That is really something that I have to be feeling well to do.  Not well pysically so much but well emotionally.

So I am thinking perhaps things are looking up.  We have booked our tickets to France in May next year, my friend Gretchen has booked hers and I'll get to hang out with my buddy again.  We are doing a cooking class in Paris and most likely going to hang out with another blogger and visit some anitque shops in Paris.  We are going to stroll through some vineyards and wander through art galleries and museums. 

I am excited about that of course.  One of my girls has started to see a guy.  That's always interesting in this house.  Our first daughter didn't date much at all, she had a feew coffee and movie outings with maybe 3 guys before she met and married our wonderful Paul.  Danielle went out with a guy for a month two before she went overseas last year, and Ashleigh, who is going out now hasn't really dated anyone at all.  We are a bit old fashioned I think, we all run to the window to see if the young man is opening the car door for the girls and if they aren't well that's one strike and we all know you only get 3 strikes and your out.  Paul was a door opener, he also paid for the outings he and Alicia went on.  We liked him he treated Alicia well.  Chris the new guy on the scene didn't open the car door, ahh not a great start, but he has paid for everything so while he got a strike he scored in the paying stakes.  He hasn't tried to get to forward with Ash either so that's good.  We don't want an octopus hanging out with our girls, old fashioned well maybe but that's the way it is.  I think Ashleigh would say things are looking up for her at the moment.  Danielle started a new job about 3 weeks ago and she loves it.  No boys on the horizon but she isn't concerned at all.  One at a time I say.  Both girls are going to Perth, the other side of Australia just after Christmas and they are so excited about that.  Danielle would say things are looking up as well.

I spent 3 hours with a girlfriend I haven't seen in nearly 4 years a day or so ago.  My heart is still a little heavy and my eyes tear up now and then, I know I will always miss Lucas, I will  miss being a nanny until I am one and then I will miss not being Lucas's nanny for ever.  But somedays the pain is not so bad.  So things are Looking Up.  Oh and the Thumb Print biscuits are delicious.  Things are looking up.