Around here - Tiny House Video

I've mentioned before that I love Bryce from New Zealand's "Living Big in a Tiny House" YouTube channel and I watched this video yesterday of this tiny house in NZ with an add on deck and spare room.  This design is incredible and I love that she and her daughter have their own bedroom vs a loft where you are crawling on your knees.  Everything in this tiny home has been thought of carefully and it has a huge big comfy couch with space around it, another thing that can easily be comprised in a tiny house.  This video runs for 22 minutes and you won't want to miss one little bit so grab a coffee and sit and watch it. 

What a wonderful home for her and her 7 year old daughter to live in, not to mention the amazing location.  I hope you enjoy it.

Around here

We've had a little bit of rain this week which has been lovely and we've also had some hot nights for June as well.  I think summer will be here before we know it.  Only one more week of Term 2 until the school holiday and it's strawberry picking time so we are going to go to one of the strawberry farms on the holidays.  The strawberries are expensive, however you can't get much fresher when you pick them yourself and I always consider this as an experience and an outing as well as purchasing the strawberries.  My kids also love the fresh strawberry ice cream and that's all they are talking about at the moment when I mention we are going to the strawberry farm.

This was our first time strawberry picking back in 2014 when the kids were little.  The strawberry industry did it tough in 2018 with most of the crops having to be destroyed costing strawberry growers $12M in losses.  It was absolutely heartbreaking for the growers and the customers.

Here's a few photos from our week.

Not much growing in the garden however I harvested this bowl of cherry tomatoes.

 

This is the Orange Trumpet Plant which flowers May/June although it was a bit late this year.

Tomato ready to be picked.

Some more tomatoes ready to be picked.

The Trumpet Vine.

Home made baked beans.  If you've never made them before I urge to you make this recipe so yummy.

Salmon noodle dish which was quite delicious.

Home made chocolate slice.

Around here - Sheppard - Thank You

I was looking at this beautiful video clip of Brisbane's Band "Sheppard" again this week and I thought I would post it here.  The 3 siblings George, Amy and Emma Sheppard are all in the band and you might know of one of their most famous songs called "Geronimo".  They have all been in ISO together in Brisbane and have been writing and recording songs at home.

On May 8th ahead of Mother's Day the band released the song "Thank You".  Written as a song of gratitude for their amazing Mum Linda and for all the other incredible, generous, selfless, beautiful, strong, loving, super hero Mum's around the world.  Raising a human probably the hardest job there is [and you don't even get paid?] so to all the wonderful Mother's - THANK YOU?

The band said "In May 2020, while planet Earth was locked down during Covid-19 pandemic, making music videos was challenging.  We asked our fans to send in clips of themselves spending time with their Mothers/kids for this music video.  Thanks to everyone who sent in footage.  This one is for our beautiful Mums'.  Happy Mother's Day!"  The above words were part of this article.

I loved the nostalgia feel to the clip and that fans were involved and the song is beautiful.

Here are the words to the song "THANK YOU"

Thank You

When I couldn't fall asleep
You'd read to me
And lay right there at my side
If I grazed a knee
From climbing trees
You'd comfort me as I cried

Made my lunches every day
And though you were running late
You would walk me all the way to school
Building castles out of sand
Way too young to understand
That life was easy all because of you

So I wanna thank you
For making me half as good as you
And as I get older
I understand what I put you through
I misbehaved, I made mistakes
But you never turned away
So I wanna thank you
For all that you do
For all that you do

As a teen, I lied
Ignored advice
Pretended I didn't care
I should let you know
It was all a show
I loved you more than I shared

I put your patience to the test
But you always did your best
You were tough but you...

Around here - Sandgate

Yesterday afternoon it was low tide at Sandgate which is always good for having a walk on the beach, taking photos and having fish and chips.  The moon last night was AMAZING, so huge and orange and spectacular however moon photos are hard to take and real life is way better, so for now here's a few other pics from our afternoon.

Around here

What a world we are living in this year which has been off the charts.  As for peaceful protests in America there seems to be more unrest than peace.  Here in Australia whilst everyone has a right to peacefully protest, express their opinions on important matters I am extremely worried about a second wave of Covid-19.  The Prime Minister and Premiers are asking people to stay at home as it is impossible to social distance in a group of 15,000 people which is expected at one of the protests today.  We didn't all shut down for 2-3 months and only have 10 people booking at a cafe for thousands of people to come together in the one place.  It is very sad what has happened over the past couple of weeks and my heart goes out to these causes however Covid-19 does not know a gathering of people together is for a good cause or not, and I can see numbers spiking overseas and here in Australia in the next couple of weeks.  I think if there has to be a second shut down it will be more damaging than the first.

NSW went to the High Court to get the protest banned due to health issues which was granted.  It wasn't about banning the protest for the protests sake, it was purely about the health and stopping the potential spread of this invisible deadly disease.  I'm afraid only time will tell how this all pans out as NSW will be protesting regardless of the High Court Decision.  Apparently 15 minutes before the protest the High Court overturned the Governments Health directive with an appeal and the march was going ahead legally.  Everything in lock down was done via the web, surely they could have come up with a safer constructive way to support these important causes.  Now that is out of the way I thought I would post some links for you.

I have been following Hopewood Home and her beautiful bespoke quilts she makes and sells from her cattle property in South West Queensland.  She is now selling a pattern to make a baby quilt or a throw quilt with instructions.

Have you seen the ads on TV for "Dear Australia" for people to send in letters about their time in lockdown for the Australian National Archives.  I think I might write one myself and send it off as an important time in history.

Check out this amazing tiny house in Brisbane [I think from memory] Megan designed the kitchen and it's stunning for a tiny house.  Check out all the hidden wall storage that Colin built it's amazing.  This video is 19 minutes long.

And this one too is amazing I love watching these videos.  This video is 18 minutes long.

Gillian from Tales from a Happy Home does beautiful embroidery and usually does a sampler of their holidays.  She has done an ISO sampler and it's amazing, go check it out.  This is her Instagram Account if you would like to follow it.

Bess is from Brisbane and has started doing embroidery and is now selling a rainbow pattern and starter kits as embroidery has really taken off when everyone was in lockdown. 

Hope everyone stays safe and has a good week.