Another 5 Weeks Go By...................

............... and not a single blog posting!!!  How slack am I?!

We had a shocking end to 2012, so it's taken a while to get back into the swing of things!! 

First off Farmer Phil's 74 year old dad broke his leg in 4 places stepping down off a tractor!  Then we lost our beautiful Jack to a snake bite.  Someone backed into our new ute while I was doing the Christmas grocery shopping and broke the tail light.  Then Christmas Eve there was a short, sharp storm hit our house with howling winds and rain resulting in uprooted hedge plants, a smashed bird house, rainwater coming underneath the roof tiles and into the house via light fittings, a blown in garage roller door, and a 40kg pool cover reel picked up and tossed like it weighed nothing.  I know it's nothing compared to the devastation that has hit the whole of Australia in the last month with bushfires and now flooding, but we thought we must have "kicked a Chinaman" or something for so many things to go wrong in the space of 7 days!!

Anyway, here is what's been happening since my last post!

Christmas Day was at our house with Farmer Phil's family.  My brother in law's 5 children had a great time utilising the pool for the afternoon!

Christmas lunch was outside on the deck

New Year's Eve Farmer Phil and I went to the most beautiful beach wedding ever!!  It was at Moonta Bay in SA.  Congratulations Murray and Nicki!!

Farmer Phil and I in our NYE Glam - minus stilettos on the beach!!

We then had our annual 2 week waterskiing/camping holiday at Renmark, SA where not a single photo was taken but a great time was had by all!  First week the weather was all over 40 degrees with a top of 46!!

Last April I booked tickets for Farmer Phil and I to see Cirque Du Soleil's OVO in Melbourne during January.  Everytime we go to Melbourne and walk past The Hotel Windsor I always comment how I'd love to stay there sometime.  Well we did this time!  It was only for 1 night but sooooo worth it!

The dining room where breakfast was served.

A Superior Room very similar to the one we stayed in complete with huge dressing room, marble bathroom and old world class!! 

The 3 clowns of OVO - "Ladybug, the Foreigner and Master Flipo"!

"Ant" acrobats were absolutely perfect in their synchronisation of kiwifruit!

The "Firefly" diabolo juggler was amazing!

"Spider" Contortionists were unbelievable!

Love duet of the "Butterflies" rope adagio!

The "Flea" acrobatic troupe were amazing!

And now we're back to the reality of getting Emma organised and back to school this week for her very last year of school ever!!!!!  Year 12 and the Higher School Certificate here we come!

Emma has also been busy rehearsing since early November for a show she is performing in during February/March in Wagga Wagga.  It's called "Life in the Spotlight" and is an all singing, all dancing show featuring songs from Glee, Hairspray, The Jersey Boys, Rock of Ages etc with all proceeds going to Telstra Childflight.  She started out having 3 Solo's as well as being the Lead Backing Vocalist, but now she has been given 3 more Solo's to do.  So she's been a very busy girl trying to learn all the songs as well as the choreography and staging!

The upside for the start of 2013 is that we've had no Summer rain here so that means no spraying of weeds over the 5,000ac for Farmer Phil.  Ryan has been busy with his tournament waterskiing events and doing lots of training.  Farmer Phil is happy to have some spare time to go along and help out at the tournaments and do lots of boat driving!

It's been back to our little shop "Kindrawares" for me over the past 2 weeks.  After a very busy Christmas period, it's very quiet at the moment with lots of people still away on holidays.  Hopefully once the kids are all settled back into school routine, then the shop will be buzzing again!!



Shop Website

The website for our new shop "kindrawares" is now up and running.  It has some photos of the stock in the shop but we haven't monetised the website yet as that costs quite a bit of money!

If you see anything you would like to purchase either on the website or Facebook, then all you need to do is call or email and we'll help you out!

Where Does the Time Go!!!!

I can't believe it's been 3 months since my last blog post!!!  I've been rather busy for those 3 months so I'll explain what I've been up to!

At the end of August I came up with a hair-brain idea to open my own little giftware/homewares/handmade shop in my closest town Coolamon.  I put the idea past my sister Lisa who thought it was a fab idea but only if she could come in on the venture!  So here we are 3 months down the track with our own little business together!

We've been open 3 weeks now and the response has been phenomenal with so many people coming in to have a look and buy things.  There have been lots of positive comments about how pretty the shop looks and "it's just what Coolamon needed" comments!

You can "like" us on Facebook to check out all the photos of our stock and the hard work we've put in getting the shop ready.  We are having a website built at the moment, but we're not sure when it will be up and running.  I designed the logo with the help of a graphic designer.  All I knew was I wanted red, aqua and white as the colour scheme, and then I thought about 2 little birds who would represent Lisa and I as family like the birds from the Partridge family tv show!

This is a photo of our opening night window - we had a champagne and nibblies opening for our friends and family, and also other business owners in Coolamon.  The old "Speedwell" bike belongs to my mother-in-law who rode it to school everyday back in the 1950's.  It's in original condition (rusty!!!) but it still had air in it's tyres when I pulled it out of the back shed!

The "dandelion" lights are from IKEA and we get about half a dozen comments everyday we're open about them - they're a real talking point!  The local "Men's Shed" made the pigeonhole shelving for us, the oval table was a $40 Vinnies find which I painted, and the old meat safe in the back corner had been sitting in a shed on the farm for the last 50 years with junk in it.  I pressure-washed it and re-gauzed the sides and door, but basically left it in original condition.

It's a really beautiful shop to walk into with it's amazing pressed metal ceiling, timber floor, and one wall is all mini-orb corrugated iron!  We've stocked it with beautiful things from all over the world as well as Australia.  We've sourced handmade jewellery from Australian artists, beautiful porcelain bowls from the USA, timber jewellery and homewares from Germany, and our Aunty Jenny Newbound has supplied us with some of her amazing artwork.

We pride ourselves on the fact that nothing in the shop (other than Aunty Jenny's paintings) is over $50 and we're going to try very hard to keep it that way!!  Anyway, Lisa and I are having a lot of fun so far and we hope to continue having fun!!