August arrives, Cully May turns 7, and a memory...

 Yesterday was Cully May's 7th birthday. Can you believe it? Many of you have followed along here since Blossom was 14 (she'll be 30 next birthday) watching her grow into the beautiful woman, daughter, wife and mama that she is now. Along the way there was so much excitement when her long-held dream of becoming a mummy became reality with the birth of precious Cully May in 2016...and now that ever-smiling cherub is seven. 

The most often expressed comment on the blog when I share photos of Cully May is her smile...and to be honest, it has brought me to tears at times when I read how her God-gifted smile made someone's day, or lifted them out of a dark place. What you see in this young lass is exactly who she is...a positive ray of sunshine, happiness and fierce loyalty, and a girl who loves Jesus. We are so blessed that she was born into our family, and I give thanks also for the times she has brought joy to some of your own hearts. If you're a believer, would you join us in praying that the Light of Christ will shine brighter and brighter through her life with each passing year? ((thank you))

AUGUST GARDEN...

The final month of our Australian winter, a month here in the northern tropics where I live when we begin to prepare for the end of beautiful warm days and slightly cooler nights, and plan how to care for the gardens when the intense heat of mid-spring arrives. 

Hubby built a new raised bed near the citrus trees last weekend, so I took the rocket, flowers, herbs and beetroot seedlings out of the very large bed behind the laundry and re-planted them in it. 

Then hubby turned the soil in the original large raised bed and added a lot more fertile soil to it in preparation for late winter planting that will see us into the end of spring. Yesterday I planted out mignonette lettuce and cucumber seedlings in that bed, dwarf beans seeds and winged pea seeds. Today I'll visit Bunnings for flower seedlings and plant them in it as well (no time to wait for flower seeds to sprout as I need good bug attracting flowers before the cucumbers and beans produce fruit). 

I pruned the roses right back in autumn and now they are healthier and producing some gorgeous blooms! One of the ways I give myself a blessing is to fill vases of home-grown roses and display them around the house where they delight my senses with their beauty and fragrance. Do you have a special blessing you gift yourself?

(These roses in the vase are Blue Moon on the left and Perfumed Passion on the right - Perfumed Passion is my favourite rose because it has such a strong and heady fragrance and blooms abundantly most of the year. I bought a second one of these roses last month, a bareroot one, and it's just beginning to burst forth with lots of green leaves and new stems.)

(This red rose is called Black Madonna, and is a long stemmed rose for cutting, As the flower opens wider it gets darker and darker. So lovely!)

(This rose is a Blue Moon and was the first rose I grew about four years ago. It starts off a vibrant pink, then as it opens wider a blue tinge comes into the pink. You notice more if you hold it next to a true pink rose.)

I always know when spring is around the corner because that's when the chives begin to blossom. Last year I made chive blossom vinegar and it is so good...I will make more this year. 

EARLY AUGUST STITCHING

Well, it's been a few years since I had my original online Stitchery Club, which ran successfully for almost five years. The decision to close the Club was difficult, but we'd just bought this house and had a complete blank slate when it came to building gardens because there was none here...so I knew my time would be needed elsewhere for a while.

But, after much prayer, and more than a few in-depth conversations with my dear husband, I have decided to open a brand new online Stitchery Club. It won't start until October, so there are no sign-ups open yet, but I am busy each day working on some lovely projects for the Club which I hope you'll love. But I shan't say anymore about that until September. 

Sneak peek...

EARLY AUGUST KITCHEN (and READING)

Earlier in the week I roasted a whole chicken with lots of veggies for a yummy dinner, then the next day I made a large pot of the most delicious herby chicken noodle soup from some of the leftover chicken meat.

I've never added so many herbs to a chicken soup before, but wow, this was incredible! Into the broth I put generous amounts of fresh rosemary, parsley, bay, sage and native thyme...plus three times more garlic than usual. To serve I scattered more parsley and native thyme across the top. Hubby loved it, and the next day I had another bowl for lunch with some of that delicious grape focaccia bread I'd baked last Sunday. (I cut the focaccia into generous pieces and freeze it the day it's baked and then take out pieces during the week for times such as this.)

One of the books I bought for a couple of dollars at the op-shop recently has become my lunchtime reading. The stories inside have caused me to shed a few tears sometimes, but they are so inspiring, these strong Jewish women who survived Auschwitz and immigrated to Australia to begin a new life, a life which helped them rebuild their Jewish customs and faith through traditional Jewish food. They share their stories and their recipes throughout the book...

The remainder of the roast chicken is in the freezer to be used in a cous cous salad later this month, and the bones are simmering to make bone broth.

We've already eaten some of our own home-grown beetroot, and the next crop is not ready so I had to buy a bunch of good beetroot from the store this week as my husband simply loves the stuff when it's roasted or pickled. What I love most about beetroot are the leaves because I use them to make pesto. 

Upon cleaning out the fridges I was able to use up the last of the parmesan cheese, pine nuts and a handful of macadamia nuts, along with fresh garlic and plenty of perennial basil from the garden. A good lug of olive oil, salt and pepper, a lemon from our tree, and now I have a large jar of pesto which will last all month. I also added a 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast at the end for some extra cheesiness due to not having enough parmesan. 

Years ago I always made protein balls for my husband, but since moving here in late 2018 I'd succumbed to the store bought versions. Really not as nice, but quite convenient because over time I didn't even think of making my own again. Until now, when I assessed all the 'regular' items on my shopping list and made decisions about what not to buy anymore. 

These are so easy to make, and my husband is a very happy man! In a food processor I blend up natural almonds, fresh medjool dates, cacao, coconut, hemp seeds, vanilla essence and dried cranberries - all ingredients which are permanently found in my fridge or pantry. I can make forty large protein balls for the same price as buying twelve tiny ones from the supermarket. Double bonus - healthier and cheaper. 

I'm a cake kind of gal. Love a good cake. My man is a biscuit fellow (cookie). I do make them for him every so often, though I'm more inclined to bake a slice (traybake/bar) because that's a middle ground we both enjoy...but after considering 'why' I don't enjoy baking bikkies very often, it became clear that I don't want to spend too much of my precious kitchen hours mixing and baking fancy ones. Well, that was eye opening!

So a couple of weeks ago I baked a batch of "plain" gingernuts and hubby loved them. They are simple, plain, and stay crips for about ten days. This week I baked "plain" malt biscuits (cookies) because we've long enjoyed a store bought pack with a cup of tea (and they dunk well, a must for plain biscuits in our house)...

Not surprisingly these were delicious, and so now I'm on a roll of baking bikkies every 9-10 days and no longer buying any. 

I save bananas that are over-ripe in a bag in the fridge, and when I cleaned out that fridge yesterday I counted nine bananas. Oh. Wanting to bless Blossom, I chose to bake two of Donna Hay's banana breads, which quite truly is the best banana bread you could ever eat. 

The banana skins go into a very large sealed jug of water for about five days, then I use in as fertiliser in the garden, especially with my roses...they love banana water.

I also baked more of the Cypriot Pitta bread...

...and made another batch of mayonnaise

We're getting plenty of purple and white sweet potatoes from the garden so I baked what was left of the most recent harvest with some beetroot and carrots, plus leftover baby zucchini and very ripe cherry tomatoes. All of these became dinner last night (with the fresh mayo on the side)...

Lovely Queensland winter strawberries completed the meal! In my state we grow strawberries in winter because it's a lot like spring, and in August especially they are abundant and cheap. In another couple of weeks I'll buy loads and make jars of jam to last the next year.

For those who asked, Charlie was much improved until Cully May's birthday yesterday when he spent much of the day vomiting. His immune system took a beating last week and so he caught a tummy bug rather easily after Cully May had it the other night. She wasn't very sick, and bounced back quickly, but it knocked little Charlie around yesterday so we had to cancel the family birthday dinner for a few days. He's a lot chipper this morning Blossom tells me, but for the time being she's going to focus on quiet activities. Thank you so much for praying. xxxxx

I don't know why, but the past few days I've been remembering my Pop a lot. I have talked and shared a lot about Nana here on the blog, and a little about my dear Pop, but maybe not enough. I was reading from 1 Timothy this morning and in chapter 3:3 this just captured my heart because it perfectly described my grandfather..."not an excessive drinker, not a bully but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy."

I started to weep and a concerned look came over my husband as he asked what was wrong. I read this to him and shared a bit about Pop, about how I never once heard him raise his voice, how he was the gentlest man I have ever known, how he adored Nana and I, how he worked a very hard low-paid job to support us and not once did he complain but saw it as a privilege, how his greatest joy was to sit at the table with us every morning and evening and share an unhurried simple meal with a big pot of tea and slices of buttered bread being the ever present side-dish. He was a small wiry man, a man nobody would notice. But I did. And I am so grateful that God chose him to play such a pivotal role in my childhood. I very truly have not one bad word to say about Pop...only praise, through these escaping tears which mirror a heart that still misses him so much. 

Dear ones, tell those who are special in your life just how much they mean to you, and tell them why. 

(Nana and Pop just before I came into their life)

God bless and may your weekend overflow with the goodness and grace of the Lord!

hugs

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My Pop and his wonky world; a free block...

In early 2009 I sketched a cute little house and proceeded to stitch it simply. 

I called it my 'wonky' house because it reminded me of my Pop, the step-grandfather who along with my Nana, raised me as his own child. He was as blood kin to me, loving me with a pure and fierce protectiveness. 

 ~ Eric John Matchett ~

Pop passed away in early 1985, unable to push on any longer after Nana's passing a couple of years earlier,  and I still miss his gentle and assuring presence in my life - especially when something triggers a memory of him.

Recently a number of emails have come through requesting that old Wonky Houses pattern again, and so I have been taken back in my mind to this dear man and his declaration that anything a bit 'out of kelter' was quite simply, a "wonky". 

My Wonky House design from back in 2009 was directly inspired by this wonderful man, and grew to be four different 'wonky' houses that I displayed in a simple pieced wall hanging.

As an answer to those email requests, and in tribute once again to my Pop, I'm going to share a block a week for the next few Fridays. Perhaps if you never made this 'way back when', you might like to stitch it now?

Block 1 

Download it free HERE in my shop. 

(I don't own the original any more, because my daughter Kezzie ran away with it a few years back and will never part with it. I'm so glad. Pop loved that little girl to pieces, too!)

If you've been after some of the white hanky linen I sell in my shop, more was listed this morning. It sells out very fast, so if you miss out don't worry, I'll be re-ordering more today...

 Hanky Linen can be purchased HERE.

It's Friday and I am home alone, which is nice after such a busy week. I have a floor to mop, parcels to post, washing to do, and some general household catch-up chores before I sit down to stitch more of Block 3 from my Shabby Roses 'Beauty' BOM....

This block will be in the "Sweet Dreams" issue of Elefantz HOME e-zine, or as single PDF purchase in my shop, on July 5th. 

Can you guess what it is?

God bless you and hold you close,

hugs,

Jenny

xx