Hearty soups

Oh, that chill in the air means a few things to me - ankle boots, cardies, sitting in the yard drinking tea and SOUP! Bowls, and bowls of hearty winter soup.

I have already bought out this fine drop, and I have been stirring up a few new recipes, courtesy of Hugh, of course.

I made two of his soups from Veg Every Day!  They were both so scrumptious, hearty and wholesome - perfect for a cold day - and without all of the added preservatives, sweeteners and cream.

Just lovely.

Thank-Hugh.

Pascal perfection

I remember seeing a little post, picture or comment about this poster a while ago.

I saw it, and instantly googled the title, eagerly awaiting when this new film about Walt Disney would be released.

I should have read more into the blurb, because this film doesn't exist.

It is the wonderful work of Pascal Witaszek, and my gosh, do I wish it was real - Imagine it? A beautiful film about Walt Disney, starring Ryan Gosling.

A story of a mouse and a man.

What talent!

Easter Sunday soiree

The rest of our Easter weekend was also really relaxing. After our little fishing expedition ended, our family headed to the Fairbairn Dam on Sunday for lunch.

We enjoyed most part of the morning, and well into the afternoon, lazing around on a hill under a shady tree, while the kids swam in the water, and played with paper aeroplanes. (Good Easter gift, aunty Meghan and uncle Jake).

There were heaps of families out and about up there with their boats, pets and fishing rods in tow. It was lovely to see, and a perfect way to spend the last day off before I headed back to work on Monday.

Lovely weekend, and the Easter Bunny visited everyone too, along with mini saltana loaf cupcakes, passionfruit cheesecake, an upbeat pumpkin salad, and fresh seafood.

*Also, I think I got a little carried away with Easter this year at work. In most of my articles I was trying to work, cool, words and phrases into print: eggcellent day, stock is hopping out the door, and eggstra eggstra, were just a few of those corkers!

* Look at Sadie's chubby little arms. It melts me, like an Easter egg left out in the sun. (Which mine were, whoops!)

Good Friday fishing

I hope everyone had a beautiful Easter, and enjoyed their breaks. I had Friday off, but had to be back at work on Monday because we went to print, but I still had a lovely three days off.

On Thursday night after I drove home from work in Emerald, Jake and I headed into Rockhampton to go fishing on Friday.  We were up early Friday morning, stocked up on some bait, grabbed a coffee to go, and drove out to Fisherman's Creek in Yeppoon.

We ended up heading to Sandy Point a little later on in the morning, and fished off the beach. We stumbled into a sand bed and started catching dart and whiting quicker than we could reel them in. I also caught a few of those pesky little crabs that have spikes on them - they constantly bite Jake on the toes (haha). 

The fish were in so close to the shore, so it was really fast-paced for a while.

I'm not going to lie. After an hour, I headed up to our towels, and read the new Marie Claire.

After that though, Jake and I headed inland a few kilometres to a saltwater dam, and spent the rest of the afternoon there fishing. We backed the big girl Nissan into the water's edge, and caught more whiting.

Jake also caught some herring, and I caught about three mud crabs on my line, however, they got away just as we had the bucket ready to catch those bad boy's. Slippery suckers!

We drove home late in the afternoon, cooked the fish and enjoyed our catches of the day (haha).

Sadie Meg Russell

My new niece, or shall I say, my new favourite girl, arrived a few weeks early on February 23 at 6.06pm, weighing 7lb 12 oz, and has brought so much love to our family, it's hard to even imagine our life with her not in it - happily laying in her moses basket, owled eyes and plump cheeks. 

Sadie Meg is just beautiful; my sister Sophie and her husband Justin couldn't have created a more perfect pink package if they tried.

She's growing quickly, being spoilt daily, and cuddled copiously as our family welcomes my sister's first child, my parent's first grandaughter, my eldest sister's first time at being an aunty within us sisters, and my first niece. *

*Not to mention, Sophie's obsession with bunnies and mice, alongside their own wooden ironing boards, clothes lines and cane chairs. A girl can never have too many bunnies, I say... or in fact hair clips, floral rompers, crochet rugs and vintage pieces, which Sadie has plenty of.

Antiquing

And, no not the flour-type. I didn't spend last weekend sneaking in to people's rooms and throwing flour in the direction of their faces.

What I did do, was spend Thursday, Friday and Saturday with Jake's lovely mum, Leanne and his sister Ashleigh, browsing shops, antiquing, and drinking plenty of coffee.

I was in Rockhampton, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new addition to our family (more on that later), and during those three days, I got to spend lots of time with Jake's family who have a house in Gracemere.

We hit the shops on Friday morning, and sourced the most beautiful antiques. I got a gorgeous bevelled edge mirror (which I've been hunting down for months) and some lovely floral saucers for tea cups. 

We stopped in for coffee, had a jam drop or two, and had a lovely time in each other's company.

It was the icing on the cake, to the best weekend of the year - welcoming my beautiful new niece Sadie Meg. Oh, she is just lovely, and there will be many posts obsessing over her button nose, owl eyes and thick dark hair very, very soon!



Cake in a jar, oh heavens!

I honestly don't know how I stumbled across this post on 15 Dessert Recipes in a Jar, but, I'm so very thankful I did.

Every recipe is so easy, and wouldn't take long to bake at all; not to mention the ridiculously quirky appeal of them being in a jar - convenient, I say!

My favourite is the Rainbow Cake in a Jar.  Imagine how much of a hit these would be at your next birthday party?

The slideshow has plenty of other options too, I'm not going to lie...I've been thinking about the Peanut Butter Cups Cake for days now.

The website should come with the warning, "DO NOT WATCH THIS SLIDESHOW!"

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*I also love one of the links on the Babble page: 10 Ways to Eat Pizza for Breakfast - genius.

Coveting covers

As soon as this cover came out of Gotye's famed hit, Sombody That I Used To Know,  it got a lot of people (namely me) talking about other fantastic covers that sometimes, are better than the original.  Big call to make, but it happens quite a lot.

At most concerts you go to a band will also throw in a cover or two.  We were at Busby Marou on the weekend and they sang their Like a Version cover of Cindy Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and their opening act sang a great cover of one of my favourite Bruce Springsteen songs - I'm on Fire. Covers usually get such a huge reaction from crowds, and more than often, the songs they cover get requested at the rest of their performances.

Triple J do Like A Version and they are great. My vote in the Hottest 100 usually always has a Like A Version cover in there, and Rolling Stone also has a great list of all time covers they've compiled.

I have heaps that I love, but it would take a lot of effort to compile a list of all the great ones, so I've included a few videos below of my favourites, because they're so different to the originals.

There are also a few covers that are terrible. Kasey Chambers, I'm talking to you and your True Colours cover. Eek that was bad.

1. Hugo - 99 Problems (a cover of Jay-Z)

2. Joaquin Phoenix - Folsom Prison Blues (a cover of Johnny Cash)

3. John Mayer - I'm on Fire (a cover of Bruce Springsteen)

4. 30 Seconds to Mars - Bad Romance (a cover of Lady Gaga)

5. Fiona Apple - Across the Universe (a cover of The Beatles)

6. Ben Harper - Drugs Don't Work (a cover of The Verve)

And, because I love this so much

7. Dan Finnerty & the Dan Band - Candy Shop (a cover of 50 Cent)

What are your favourites?

Crazy for Camilla and Marc

I'm currently OBSESSED with the Camilla and Marc Botanical Print Surrender Trouser from their Autumn Winter 2012 line. Obsessed.

I would actually give up online shopping for 3 months if I could land myself a pair of these bad boys. 

But, because half of the fashion pack are obsessed with these printed pretties that have just hit the hangers, they are actually harder to get a hold of than five unicorns wearing ruby crowns. 

So, instead, I will just pine over these easily accessible floral numbers below, and maybe purchase a pair of these instead.

Are you on the printed-pants-bandwagon?

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Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day for yesterday!

I hope everyone had a beautiful day, celebrating all the ones they love. 

I had a really lovely day, I got to report on some gorgeous stories around town (a baby girl born, and some elderly ladies making handmade cards for their sweethearts...it was beautiful). 

I also ate way too much.  We had a red velvet loveheart cake at work, which I made for Bek's birthday, and then I got home and Jake and I showered each other with a very similar gift.

I had made Jake a stack of red velvet heart shaped cakes, and then melted down his favourite chocolate (Cadbury Black Forest) into the shape of lovehearts as well.

I was just about to give him his gift, when I was blindfolded and then surprised with a whole stack of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing and chocolate letters on the top spelling out, "I love you Meghan", it was very cute, and bad boy made everything himself, so now he has no excuses in the kitchen department, I say!

We ate too many cupcakes last night. Shiz.

It was a lovely day. Homemade gifts are the best*, which brings me to my latest online love.  These fantastc DIY elbow patches care of Honestly WTF - Honestly, they are amazing. I wish I had of seen them a week ago, so I could have sewed some lovehearts onto a sweater and gave it to Jake, haha. I would have made him wear it throughout all of winter.

*Jake knows how much I hate red roses. Bless him.

Metallics, sequins and shimmer

I've always been quite fond of a sequinned cape, metallic eyelid shimmer and even a glomesh bag, and I think the fashion world is definitely following suit - sequin suit in fact.

I like metallic in all forms, whether it be a maroon satchel from Oroton, a silver metallic blouse from Sass & Bide, blue midnight shimmer eye shadow from miss Bobbi Brown, or even a crackled gold pair of pumps from DVF (Which are to-die-for, especially seeing as they were halved to $280... and then halved again to $140. They now sit in my wardrobe ready for a spin).

You can be as subtle as you want with shimmer, and I love it.

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I'm just a sucker for the shimmer. Will any of you be indulging in it this season?