Dining Room Love

You can probably tell that I LOVE our house! For a few years after building it, I would pull into the driveway, stop, sigh, and say, "It's so cute!" Much eyerolling from four children would begin.
I know you don't get tired of looking at my house, so here's some photos of just the dining room.
I love how that wax cascades over the side of the candlestick. Lavender from my good friend Charlotte.


Pewter in the early morning sun.
A corner of a long mirror hanging above the double windows at the end of the room. Got it at a yard sale for $30.
Sunlight reflecting off my new Spode Italian dishes. They were a gift to my husband for 35 years of service to his company. Wasn't it sweet of him to let me pick the gift?
Curtain rod from Pottery Barn. I love the weight of the wooden finial. I also love the bullseye corner block and the fluted window trim.
Next time I'm showing you my new granddaughters. They may be as cute as my dining room! You judge.

Home Is Best

"A man travels the world over in search for what he needs

And returns home to find it."

George Moore

Green

The sun badly messed up the above shot, but it took a lot of work to get there. Yesterday was one of those ultra-humid days that only happen in Queensland. It was a day in which you could cut the air with a knife if you could only find one sharp enough, a day on which breathing felt like swimming underwater. Some might scoff at the wisdom of cycling 238km on such a day, but since I was going to feel the same regardless, I decided I'd ride anyway.

I started off heading south, but taking detours, firstly along the Tweed River, followed by the Tweed Hinterland. This area really is very scenic, and a place I never get tired of riding. On the other hand, I probably didn't really need to accumulate over 1,000 metres of climbing by the time I reached Mullumbimby.

This was where the ride really started. A steep climb out of Mullumbimby led to another world that I hadn't realised existed previously. A world of rushing creeks flowing through forests, of mountains covered in a green carpet. It might have been stinking hot, but the surroundings compensated.

I also found a little cafe tucked away in the hills. For such an obscure place, the food was surprisingly good, and surprisingly filling. It's not often I order a meal I can't finish. In fact, the only time that's happened since childhood was a particularly bad Greek restaurant in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley (even then I ended up ordering a Pizza from somewhere else instead). This, on the other hand, was a genuinely good feed. I would need it going home.

Once I returned to Mullumbimby I realised I was going to get blasted by the northerly wind that made it so hot and humid in the first place. I took a hilly route home through Burringbar, Urliup and Bilambil (finishing the day with over 2,500 metres of climbing). That offered some protection, but for the most part it was just a case of trying to be the immovable object in the face of the unstoppable force. Stalemate.
Fortunately for me, I'm sufficiently boring to find Stalemate to be a remarkably invigorating concept, one that can keep me amused for hours. This is probably just as well, because my physical fitness isn't really what it should be right now, and it really DID take hours.
In that respect, I'm glad to have this ride behind me with the ASH Dash now just a week away. On the other hand, it's unlikely to be anywhere near as hot and/or humid as this in Hobart. I'll look for a bit more climbing through the week to finish off the preparation.

Henry Miller on Light

The writer Henry Miller, who made his home in Big Sur, California, had this to say about light: "There are two magic hours of the day which I have only really come to know and wait for, bathe in, I might say, since living here. One is dawn, the other sunset. In both we have what I like to think of as 'the true light': the one cold, the other warm, but both creating an ambiance of super-reality, or the reality behind reality....Everything is brush and cones, umbrellas of light-the leaves, bought, stalks, trunks standing out separate and defined, as if etched by the Creator himself."
Since so many of my photographs are taken at these two magical times, I most assuredly agree with him. I love the warm nature of the slanted sunlight. It makes everything delineated and magical; sharper and softer at the same time.

Wedding Day!

Jessica and I got married today! We had a beautiful ceremony filled with friends, family and love. It really was a perfect day. We'd like to extend our thanks to all those that helped make this day perfectfor us. We appreciate and love you all!

Special thanks to Timothy Young for officiating, Staci Drouillard for the incredible cake and our friend Paul for taking beautiful photos throughout the day! And a very special thanks to Carah Thomas, Rod Dockan and Al Oikari of Cook County's Most Wanted for providing the awesome music for our ceremony. You guys were incredible and we totally loved the "Joy of My Life" song... you guys are the best! Thank You :-)

R.I.P. Geckie

She was a good gecko.
I think her poor vision contributed to her not eating very well, especially lately. Or possibly something else was wrong. Leopard geckos can live to 25 years in captivity, and she was only eight, if the guy we bought her from was telling the truth. (She was supposed to be two when we bought her.)
She always went through periods of not eating, but would always snap out of it and make a comeback. But not this time. She died yesterday.
In this picture she was shedding her skin. Look how fat her tail was! (They store excess fat there.)
I think we're going to have to move her cage. Out of habit, I keep glancing down every time I pass it, expecting to see her. I didn't cry when we first found her dead, but that dang empty cage gets me every time.

Tour of trees

At one of the homes we toured last weekend, my friend S. and I enjoyed the sight of the huge trees as much as the home and all the decorations.
How I could have neglected to note exactly what type of trees these were, I'm not sure... I guess I was afraid that the shuttle would leave us. Looks kind of like an oak though, I think. You can click to see it better. (I blurred my friend's face so she wouldn't kill me.)

Another nice one on the other side of the house. Wish I had trees this nice and spreading. (If you're local, you might recognize this as Mitchell Farm.)

On the walk back to the car, we passed a couple of trees with last-gasp color. (That smaller farm manager's house is really more my speed.)

The trees near the Ruby Radish were bare of leaves. The better to see the good bone structure, though.

This is the view from Mitchell Farm - it gives you an idea of the winter forest look in my limestone valley. Almost everything green is a cedar; there are few pines.