The year that almost wasn't

A year ago, I almost gave up blogging. I was reflecting on the new year ahead, having a growing toddler on my hands and working full-time at a demanding job.

I wondered if my heart was still in it. If I still had the time to write. If I'd be able to find the balance.

Obviously, I didn't give up.

A year later and I look back at the 12 months that have just passed me by. To be honest, I thought that moment was 2 years ago because it seemed like forever since that moment. It's funny how a year can seem like so long ago, yet it seemed to roll by so fast.

Without this blog I wouldn't have been able to take the trip of a lifetime to Disney World. We still talk about that trip almost every day. It was magical. It was the time of our lives. Perfection.

Without this blog I wouldn't have found a beautiful friend in Sarah. We talk almost every day and took a trip together to the States. We're meant to be, Sarah and I. She's a friend I treasure and adore. I am so lucky that the internet helped us be friends. We had the best time in San Diego {thanks Lenovo for sending us} and made many memories.

Without this blog I wouldn't have such an amazing community. Thank you being here, reading, supporting and cheering me on. Thank you for sharing your lives with me as well. I am honoured that you choose to spend your precious time reading my words and looking at my photos. Thank you.

I'm looking forward to an amazing 2012. I put together a few words into a manifesto for what I want 2012 to look like. Here it is:

Wishing you a magical Christmas and a fab new year. I'll be taking a break with my little family and returning in the new year.


What are you wishing for in 2012? What would you put on your list for a perfect 2012?

Win the Jacob's Creek Cool Harvest wine range!

Head over to my Facebook page to enter today.

I am having some trouble with the app at present. This should be fixed tomorrow morning. I will be extending this competition 3 days so that those who wanted to enter can do so. Thanks for your patience.

{boring bits}
One entry per person
Competition closes 11th January 2012 at 11:59pm
Competition open to Australian residents only
Comeptition open to entrants 18 years and over

The lucky winner of this competition is Tess Howard. Thank you to all of those that entered.

Super-easy Snickers Rocky Road

I hadn't planned on sharing this but it was so super easy and amazing that it felt naughty not to. There's a story to this Snickers Rocky Road, so bear with me while I take you through it's origins. Soo.... recently I organised the Social Media Secret Santa where around 140 bloggers & twitterers swapped Christmas gifts. As a thank you for organising it a lovely lady named Amy sent me some rocky road. You can see where this is going.

It was THE most delicious rocky road I've ever tasted. Hubby declared the same. So I thanked her, and then saw that she was tweeting about the recipe. So I followed a link and found myself at my friend Lorraine's site, with my eyes on the recipe. Hubby sent me to the shops in a hurry for the ingredients. We made some changes - used chopped nuts and added some raspberry lollies {and halved the marshmallow quantity}.

You can find the recipe here. I'm making it for my family Kris Kringle. I know she'll love it. If she doesn't, well I know a few other people that will happily gobble it up {Hubby & I!}.

Do you ever give food as gifts? If so, what are your favourite recipes?

Our star

You know that feeling you get when you wake up and you feel excited, and you can't quite remember why you're all filled with a humming buzz of anticipation. And then through your weary state, once the fog starts to lift, you realise that it's your birthday, or it's the weekend, or you've got a great day ahead planned or perhaps it's just that right now your life is pretty darn amazing.

For some instead of excitement, there is sadness. You wake and feel an underlying sense of sadness and can't quite remember why, and then before long it hits you. The reason for your sadness presents itself, and you go on with your day with the blue haze lingering.

This is how it feels for me to lose a loved one. In the early days it's hardest, after passing out at night with mental exhaustion, to wake and almost feel like things were normal… and then to realise that it wasn't. That life wasn't the same. That sadness wasn't some sort of uncomfortable dream, instead here to stay.

This year, 2011, hasn't been the kindest of years. It's had it's moments for sure, seeing Lacey grow into a little girl, my sister getting engaged and married, career highlights, friends becoming parents, traveling overseas and more. But in May when my father-in-law, Bluey, passed away there's been a big hole missing in our lives ever since. He was a big, big part of our everyday. He is so missed. Just the other day Lacey said from the back of the car, "Mama, I miss my Pop-Pop."

Tears instantly feel down my face and I nodded, "I know."

There's not much more I can say than that. We've explained where he is. That he's always with us. I try and talk about him with her, but it hurts.

I've always known that it's often hard at certain times of the year for people who are living without a loved one. I never realised how hard. For those who are setting one less place at the table this Christmas, I send you my love. I wish you joy and strength.

_________________________________________________________

When Bluey first went into hospital and we knew (thought) he'd come home - he talked about the video we made last summer. He was so fiercely proud of us, whatever we did. He was the sort of father-in-law that would talk with pride about us to anyone who would listen. He was everyone's friend. At the time he was in the hospital he hadn't seen the video. He held my hand and joked that he was a movie star and needed to come home and see himself starring in the video.

He never came home and he never saw the video. I hope they have the internets in Heaven. Here you go Bluey, our star. xx

Make for Christmas: Soft sugar cookies

I'm going to let you in on a little secret I have when it comes to baking. As I scour recipes in magazines and cookbooks, oh and online too, of sweet treats I always look for one ingredient in the list - sour cream. If you've never tried a cake with sour cream, you really must do so. I'll share a recipe next year that will make you salivate. Seriously.

When I saw that these sugar cookies use sour cream, well I knew it was meant to be. And they are. Absolutely deliciously perfect. Make them. Now.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 & 3/4 cups plain flour

Method
♥ In a bowl combine butter and sugar. Beat until creamy. Add egg and vanilla. Beat.
♥ Add sour cream, beat until combined.
♥ Combine salt, baking powder and flour in a bowl. Mix. Add to butter mix. Mix with a spoon until combined.
♥ Lightly flour a clean surface. Roll out dough until it is about 1cm thick. Cut into shapes. My circles were about 6cm in diameter - so adjust your cooking time if you're cooking smaller cookies.
♥ Gently place on to a lined baking tray and bake for 7 minutes. Get them out of the oven then. They won't look cooked {ie they're not brown} but this is how you want them to look. Place them on a wire rack to cool.


Once cooled, it's time for icing and decorating. This buttercream icing recipe is a good one. I add vanilla and a dash of gel food colouring. You could decorate these cookies with a hard icing, but this soft one just makes it so much more delicious.

{Here's Lacey's creation. She didn't have colouring in her frosting}

Notes
♥ This recipe makes about 15 big cookies. I halved the original recipe, so double it if you like.
♥ I also froze half of my batch for later and it defrosted well and then baked perfectly.
♥ If your mixture is too sticky, add in some extra plain flour until it is easier to roll out and cut.

♥ You must {it's an order} taste-test the dough. Seriously, it's the best dough I've ever tasted. Sorry waistline.

Photo a day challenge: January 2012

If you ask me to do something, there's a good chance that I'll do it. Especially if it involves being creative. Recently Leah asked if I could create a photo-a-day challenge for January. So I did, happily. Here it is below:

How to play?
Use the list above as a guide, and as inspiration, and take a photo each day. You can take it with your point-and-shoot camera, your big, fancy-pants DSLR, your iPhone {or equivalent} or whatever photo-taking-device you own.

You can upload you photos to Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, Path, Facebook, your blog or just keep them on your desktop {and not share at all}. Whatever you want to do is totally fine. You can take the list above literally and stick to it, or take inspiration and go crazy.

If you're sharing them on Twitter or Instagram - you can tag them with the hashtag #JANphotoaday so that everyone can follow along with you.

You can find me on:
Facebook
Twitter
Flickr
Instagram


Will you join me? If so, share your Instagram/Twitter/Facebook/etc names below so I can stalk you!

You've got the new Facebook timeline, now what?

You may have noticed that Facebook has officially started to roll out the new timeline. If you don't have it yet, you may have noticed friends TOTALLY FREAKING OUT that Facebook has had the audacity to go and change things on us ... again!

Before you start getting up in arms, let me talk you through it. I enabled mine back in September so I'm a well-seasoned timeline user. It lets you see your whole life {that you've shared on Facebook in the past} rather than just letting you see your recent activity like the wall has in the past.

Here's what you need to know {and do}:

♥ Get yourself a coverphoto. You can see above that mine is of the cloudy sky. This was created to give your page a feel. Don't worry about photo sizing {but do note using a small sized photo will result in a grainy, blurry cover photo}. To upload a cover photo just hover over the bottom right-hand corner of your current coverphoto until you see 'Change cover'. You can choose a photo from your albums or upload one from your computer. Once uploaded you can reposition it until you're happy, then click 'save changes'.

♥ Organise your favourites. Above, under my cover photo, where you can see friends, photo, map and likes - this is known as your favourites. Click the down arrow to the right of the favourites and it will drop down to reveal all your favourite boxes. You can swap around what appears in the top, and remove some too.

♥ Hide things in your timeline. You'll notice that everything in your timeline is more visible. Your entire Facebook history appears in your timeline, so you'll probably want to go through and censor or tidy your past. If you want to hide anything that appears in your timeline just click the top right corner and then select 'Hide from timeline'.

♥ Ditch the pesky ad. For some reason, I'm guessing it's because of my blog name, I get loads of ads on Facebook telling me how I can lose weight. Annoying. You can click the 'x' on the top right corner of any ad to get rid of it. Take that diet pills!

♥ Show off the good stuff. Say you've just taken the best photo of yourself that the world has ever seen, or should see and you want to show it off. Or less egotistically you gave birth, got married, read a great article or found something neat and you want to share it. Once something appears on your timeline and you want to put it in the spotlight, simply hover over the top right corner until the star and pencil appear - and then click the star. This will make whatever it is you want to share become a feature, taking up two columns.

♥ Subscribe to people you're not friends with. Say you want to know what's going on in someone's life but you're not friends with them. If their profile is set to enable subscriptions you can subscribe to their public updates. Type the name of the person you want to subscribe to in the search box and once you arrive at their profile just hit the subscribe button under their coverphoto.

♥ Revisit your history. On the right hand side of your page you'll notice a list of years. Click any one of them to revisit what you were doing on Facebook at any given time. You'll be able to see photos, check-ins, status updates, who you friended and more.

So breathe. Calm down. All will be OK. If not, there's always Twitter. Or Google+.

The bridesmaid's diary

Tuesday
I'm writing this from my eyebrow lady's salon. I'm camped up with my laptop on the lounge while she tends to everyone's brows for the wedding, while I work. I have a to-do list about a mile long lingering at the back of my mind. Tonight I have to write 100 labels for the lolly bags {Lil Sis is a lolly lover and is having a lolly buffet at the reception}. Lacey gets some eyebrows drawn on. It's tradition. She always wants to be like the big girls.

Wednesday
Today is my last day of work for the week before we head off for the wedding. I have a heap of things to get through for work before I disappear and log-off. Anxiety is starting to creep in amongst the excitement. I've never really been comfortable with the idea of being bridesmaid. This will be my first time. I don't like being in the spotlight, not that I will be entirely, because the bride will hopefully steal all that. And for the first time since being a child I'll have someone else decide what I wear, how I'll look - and I won't be able to wear a cardigan... oh, here comes the anxiety again. We're off to get our nails done tonight. Our nail technician {?}, Tina, tells us she has the champagne on ice ready to go!

Thursday
AM: It's an early rise to make a cheesecake and a choc-cream love heart cake for the pre-wedding BBQ today, and then off for tans. The weather is horrible and I'm starting to worry about the rain for the big day {while keeping my cool and assuring my Lil Sis that it'll be perfect and sunshine-y on the day}. The car is packed to the brim and we all pile in for the road-trip down south.

PM: We checked out the venue for the wedding and ran through ceremony with the celebrant. The spot has the perfect backdrop. The weather cleared and it ended up being nothing less than perfect. A few people got burnt during the ceremony practice. Whoops! We headed back to the house we rented for a BBQ with all of the immediate family. The house is amazing. It makes me realise how confined apartment living is. I meet some of Nath's family for the first time and realise that I went to pre-school with his sister-in-law. The world really is a small place.

Friday {Wedding Day!}
I'm the first to wake {what's new?} so I tip-toe upstairs and wait patiently for someone to wake and join me. Thankfully it's Lil Sis, the bride-to-be. We're quietly excited {so not to wake the other sleeping beauties}.

We drive into town to get some supplies for lunch and while we have the photos taken. I go out of my way to tell anyone and everyone that my Lil Sis is getting married today. They're all so excited for her.

We return back to the house and I shower and am first to have my hair and make-up done. The make-up lady, Cindy, brings this sign and places it in sight so that we don't forget to relax.

Lacey takes a moment to practice singing. She's totally come out of her shell this weekend and it's been so nice to see her excited and happy. She's more confident than ever too. Hubby and I love it.

The day seemed to go on forever, but eventually it's time to get dressed and get ready to go. Lil Sis is helped into her dress and we also get into our bridesmaid's dresses. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. The aisle we walk down is a steep grassy hill. Hubby has $5 on me to stack {fall over whilst walking down the aisle}. I'm known for being clumsy but I'm determined to not let him win $5.

We pile into two cars. Hubby drives me and the bridesmaids, while my brother drives Ma, Lil Sis and Lacey. I don't really remember the drive. I was too nervous. I remember standing and waiting for my turn and walking down the aisle. Lacey was too nervous to take on her flowergirl duties, so she walked beside me scattering rose petals as we walked. Thankfully I didn't stack it. Hubby owes someone $5.

The wedding ceremony was perfect. The sun was shining. It was a little windy, but I'm not sure the loved-up couple even noticed. Before long they kissed and were announced as Mr. and Mrs. I walked back up the aisle with my partner Dave and we had champagne and some photos taken, before moving on to another location for more pics.

We all partied until late in the night. Lacey partied like it was 2011. She wiggled her hips and didn't even mind if at times she was the only one on the dance floor. I've never seen her so happy, or exhausted. I promptly put on my cardigan at the ceremony. Ah, I'm a creature of comfort.

Ma made a speech, Hubby and I danced, Lacey and I danced - everybody danced. I forgot how much I loved to dance. And then we headed home after an exhausting, perfect day.


And then we all tried to guess who would be next to get married - when can we do it all again? When was the last wedding you went to? Do you have another coming up soon?