TOY CAR GARAGES

Before my father in law had his stroke in 1981 he spent many hours tinkering away in his garage making things.  He must have had a preminission of what was to come as he was well prepared with a few items.

He made wooden tables and chairs for the grandchildren, toy car garages for the boys and the eldest grand daughter had a beautiful dolls house made for her.

Our son was born in December 1980 and he must have already had a table and chair set and a garge made or else he worked mighty hard in the five months from the time our son was born until he suffered his stroke. Its just a pity he didn't already have a dolls house made and put away for our daughters.  My son still has his garage which he values so much his own son is not allowed to play with it.

Anyway my husband unfortunately didn't inherit his dads skills for making childrens toys. Now we have 7 grandchildren of our own and we have cheated but wanted to keep up the tradition of giving a toy garage to the boys.  We were lucky to find a great little toy shop that sells beautiful wooden toys.  To our surprise they sell similar designed garages to the ones my  f-i-l  made.  So at the time we found them we had three grandsons, so immediately bought three and hid them away. They have all been given as presents now and the boys love them.  We now have an extra grandson to buy one for and hide until he is a little older. Hopefully the shop is still there and selling the garages.

These garages are nice but it makes you appreciate all the effort my father in law went to in making the children's toys.

FEELING LONELY!

It's lonely out here in blog land.  Although I have five followers I wonder if it's worth while doing a blog????? Particularly as my five followers are 3 family members and 2 friends of my eldest daughter.

I feel like climbing Mt. Kosciusko and yelling out 'COOOOEEEE' to listen for a reply.

Recently a few ideas for blogs have popped into my head,  then I think what's the point.  It's wasting my time writing and obviously everyone elses time reading my blogs.

I am not throwing a pity party here but would love more followers and feed back on the blogs that I write.

As the Maroon 5 song goes -:

Is there anyone out there cause its getting
harder and harder to breath

So IS anyone interested in my blogs beside my five followers or am I taking up too much cyber space cluttering up your computers???? 

RESPECT YOUR RELATIVES

I think my daughter did a similar blog a while ago about being called aunty and uncle.  Why is it that non blood relatives are given the title of aunty or uncle?

The reason I am blogging about this is as part of my family were sick on mothers day I didn't receive a present until a week later when I was minding my grandchildren.  Whilst opening the prettily wrapped present to discover a gorgeous  hand painted mug  by master 6 and miss chatter box 3,  I was informed that Nanny Lyn was getting one also.  I had to ask the kids to repeat that statement as couldn't believe my ears.  I said are you sure its not Nanny Nella and they both insisted it was Nanny Lyn.  The reason for my shock was that Nanny Lyn is their uncles mother in law. This made me feel very hurt and took the specialness away from the mug they had made for their real Nanny.

I have never understood why they have to call her Nanny anyway as that is a special title both my daughter in laws mum and I should have, not just anybody. These two grandchildren also call their mothers friends aunty and uncle yet until recently haven't actually called their proper aunts and uncles that title.  This practise must make it so confusing for children not knowing who their real relatives are and I find it disrespectful.

I was always introduced to my parents friends by their christian names and thats how I also brought my children up. Why do you have to give an adult a title?????

FEJOA CAKE

COOKING WITH JACK JACK

COOKING WITH JACK AND NANNY

LETS HAVE SOME FUN!

FEJOA TREES

LEAF OF THE FEJOA

When our girls were little we planted two trees outside their             bedroom  window to give them privacy from the neighbours and also to   provide some shade in summer. Both Jen and Cindy left home many moons ago and the trees have only just started to do the job they were supposed to do years ago.  The trees are FEJOAS pronounced with a Y  as feyoa as in  Jana is actually Yana.  The past few years they have produced fruit which we basicly left. Last year our maori neighbours from a few houses up the road came and asked if they could have the fruit as they knew we didn't pick it, so they stripped the tree bare.  This year we decided to look for a recipe for fejoa jam,  the only recipe I could find was for a fejoa loaf.                                                                                                                                                

FEJOA FRUIT

                                                     

Last week whilst Jack was here I decided to try making a fejoa loaf, so asked Jack to help me. Firstly Nanny had to peel and chop all the fejoas.  Ouch my aching hands and arms, then we measured out the butter, sugar and water and put all this ingredients in a saucepan to boil.

 

MEASURING THE BUTTER. IS THAT ENOUGH JACK JACK?

 

. PEELING THE FEJOAS WITH JACK LAUGHING AS IT HURT NANNY'S HANDS

MORE PEELING WHILST JACK PLAYS WITH THE SCALES

IS THAT ENOUGH YET NANNY?

JACK SUPERVISING NANNY STIRRING THE POT.

THE MIXTURE BOILING ON THE STOVE.

After the mixture boils for five minutes we set it aside to cool. Then add flour stirring it in so it doesn't go lumpy and beaten eggs. Jack thinks this is so funny, then we are ready to pour the mixture into the pan and cook it in the oven.

NOW WE LINE THE TIN  RIGHT JACK JACK?

WHAT A GOOD LITTLE CHEF POURING IN THE FLOUR

HELPING HANDS

ADDING THE EGGS

IT LOOKS SO FUNNY NANNY

POUR THE MIXTURE INTO THE CAKE TIN

SCRAP THE SAUCEPAN CLEAN

MMM  LOOKS DELICIOUS

SHOWING OUR CAKE TO MUMA

YUMMO! A PIECE FOR EACH HAND.

Thank you to my little apprentice chef Jack Jack we made a delicious Fejoa cake.  We will be keeping that recipe.   

MMM!                                                            

CATCH A FALLING STAR

Last Friday night I arrived home from babysitting at 11.30pm to my sick puppy.  So we spent a good hour out the back whilst she ate grass to try to make herself feel better.  I gazed up at the night stars when all of a sudden a tennis ball sized star shot across the sky which appeared to be about tree level. It was amazing but I forgot to make a wish. Grrr! Ever since I have had Catch a Falling Star music going through my head.

                                   Catch a Falling Star

                                   ~ Perry Como

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Never let it fade away
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Save it for a rainy day


For love may come and tap you on the shoulder some starless night
Just in case you feel you want to hold her
You'll have a pocketful of starlight
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Never let it fade away
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Save it for a rainy day


For love may come and tap you on the shoulder some starless night
And Just in case you feel you want to hold her
You'll have a pocketful of starlight
(Pocketful of starlight, hm,hm,hm,hm,hm,hm)


Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Never let it fade away
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Save it for a rainy day
(Save it for a rainy, save it for a rainy, rainy, rainy, day)


For when your troubles start multiplyin' and they just might
It's easy to forget them without tryin'
With just a pocketful of starlight


Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Never let it fade away
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Save it for a rainy day
(Save it for a rainy day)
Save it for a rainy day

Apparently there is an annual meteor show around this time called April Lyrids. A falling star has nothing to do with an actual star.  These amazing streaks of light are caused through tiny bits of dust and rock called meteoroids falling into the Earths atmosphere and burning up. The trail of light the burning meteoroid produces is called a meteor.  Meteors are commonly called falling stars.

Meteor Alerts
The Lyrid Meteor Shower
SpaceWeather.com Global Notes: This is a northern hemisphere shower.
Every year in late April Earth passes through the dusty tail of Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1), and the encounter causes a meteor shower--the Lyrids. This year the shower peaks on Wednesday morning, April 22nd. The best time to look, no matter where you live, is during the dark hours before dawn. Forecasters expect 10 to 20 meteors per hour visible from dark-sky sites.
Lyrid meteors appear to stream from the bright star Vega in the constellation Lyra:
In fact, Lyrids have nothing to do with Vega. The true source of the shower is Comet Thatcher. Every year in April, Earth plows through Thatcher's drawn-out dusty tail. Flakes of comet dust, most no bigger than grains of sand, strike Earth's atmosphere traveling 49 km/s (110,000 mph) and disintegrate as streaks of light--meteors!
Lyrid meteors are typically as bright as the stars in the Big Dipper, which is to say of middling brightness. But some are more intense, even brighter than Venus. These "Lyrid fireballs" cast shadows for a split second and leave behind smokey debris trails that linger for minutes.
Occasionally, the shower intensifies. Most years in April there are no more than 5 to 20 meteors per hour during the shower's peak. But sometimes, when Earth glides through an unusually dense clump of comet debris, the rate increases. Sky watchers in 1982, for instance, counted 90 Lyrids per hour. An even more impressive outburst was documented in 1803 by a journalist in Richmond, Virginia, who wrote:
"Shooting stars. This electrical [sic] phenomenon was observed on Wednesday morning last at Richmond and its vicinity, in a manner that alarmed many, and astonished every person that beheld it. From one until three in the morning, those starry meteors seemed to fall from every point in the heavens, in such numbers as to resemble a shower of sky rockets..." [ref]
What will the Lyrids do this year? The only way to know for sure is to go outside and look.
Experienced meteor watchers suggest the following viewing strategy: Dress warmly. Bring a reclining chair, or spread a thick blanket over a flat spot of ground. Lie down and look up somewhat toward the east. Meteors can appear in any part of the sky, although their trails will tend to point back toward the radiant--i.e., toward Vega.
Vega is a brilliant blue-white star about three times wider than our Sun and 25 light years away. About 14,000 years ago Vega was the North Star. Earth's spin axis wanders: Now it points at Polaris, then it pointed at Vega. You might have seen Vega in Carl Sagan's movie Contact. It was the source of alien radio transmissions to Earth.
next time I must remember to make a wish and catch it and put it in my pocket for a rainy day.

four legged and feathered family members

Recently I went to visit a cousin who just lives close by BUT I hadn't been to her house for over 20 years.  As I am the youngest in my whole family my cousin wasn't sure how I would be with her two dogs, as I wasn't allowed to have pets growing up. Mind you they were only little dogs and they were both really cute.


My brother brought home a stray kitten one day but that disappeared quickly.  So you could say I have made up for the lack of pets as a kid by having a menagerie of pets now.


Over 12 years ago I decided I wanted a little black and white fluffy dog which I was going to call Jamie.  I searched all the pet shops for ages trying to find a doggie that spoke to me 'take me home'. Until one day I found a litter of golden coloured fluffy dogs.  So I took the family out to look at them and every dog had poos on it except one. That was the one I decided to adopt and take home, she cried all the way home in the car.  We decided that she didn't look like a Jamie so her name is Maizee, she was such a tiny fluff ball.

                           Maizee watching the world go by 


   
Bruce had been wanting a chocolate labrador for a while so we kept an eye out for one.  We saw one advertised in the paper an hours drive from here.  So one day Bruce and I set off to look at these chocolate labradors and adopted a cute one which we called Maggie. On the drive back  I had Maggie on the floor near my feet and she kept biting me all the way home. Maggie turned out to be a kelpie X and nothing like a labrador. Maggie and Maizee became really good friends and loved to sleep together. Maggies favourite pastime was chasing a ball, she had endless energy for this.  Unfortunately poor Maggie contracted a disease which had the vets puzzled, had so many tests, skin scrappings, injections and special washes. Nothing worked and she lost most of her hair and had a weird smell.  She only had a short life. R.I.P. Maggie Lee!

                                        enjoying a cuddle


                             
Then the kids all had their pets. So we had a cockateil Moe owned by Jen, a budgie Woodstock owned by Warwick and a rabbit charcoal owned by Cindy as well as the two dogs. The poor rabbit cooked in the sun and lived up to its name charcoal. After that Cindy decided she wanted a cat. One of my friends cats kept having litters which she gave away.  It happened to be Warwick's birthday the day we adopted the cat which Cindy called Zoie. So she decided to give it to him as a birthday present but he didn't want it. Anyway Zoie turned out to be a boy but as he was used to the name he is still called Zoie.  He cost Cindy an arm and a leg, as he got involved in a cat fight which damaged his left eye.  After two operations the vet had to remove his eye as it couldn't be saved. So he is a one eyed cat with a girls name. LOL!

our one eyed Zoie                           

Maizee and Zoie have a funny relationship, they can be good friends sleeping close by one minute then fighting the next just like kids. Also Maizee seems to get rather amoures with Zoie thinking she is a boy and does naughty things.

The kids all moved out taking the birds but some how we were left with Zoie.  As I missed the birds so much Jen bought me a budgie for Christmas in 2005 which I called Joey.  The following Christmas I decided Joey needed a companion so I bought a yellow budgie and called it Elfie. Strangely enough the kids have all had several birds over the years which don't seem to last long but my  two are still alive and flying.

Joey seems to be the boss of the cage and tends to bully Elfie quite a bit by pushing her off the perches.  They are both very distructive, no matter what I put in their cage it gets wrecked.

Joey and Elfie

I keep checking pet shops for the black and white fluffy dog

I wanted before adopting Maizee but still can't find one.  Never mind Maizee has brought me so much love over the 12 years, I wouldn't change it for the world.  She is looking like a little old lady lately with thinning hair and has less energy.

Easter Bunnies

                                                                    circle of bunnies

This Easter I decided to make all the grandchilren something as I think they usually get far too much chocolate, then feel sick after eating it.

So I remembered seeing a little bunny made out of a washer on my mother in laws dressing table at the club. Jen also decided to make her Easter presents, so we got together for a sewing day.

I embroidered felt faces then tied the waher together with a small egg in the middle, and sewed it together.  The kids all thought it was good and once they ate the egg wore the washer on their arms.

                                          7 bunnies for the grandkis and one for Bruce