Wishing you all a healthy and peaceful New Year

Here are my New Year affirmations - all that other stuff about exercise, diet etc. I work on all the time not just New Years, but New Year is a good time to look at the big picture.

Have a great celebration tomorrow night !!

Christmas Day

So Christmas Day has come and gone and we had a really enjoyable day. We started off with a light and healthy Brekkie with Lou, Jeff and Tate and then went to share Christmas Lunch with Jeff's family. First there were lots of gifts for the 3 grandchildren - amazingly all born in 2006. Then we feasted on cold meats, salad, trifle, cheesecake and of course Christmas Pudding and brandy custard. The weather was cool but fine so we were able to sit outside by their beautiful pool area and just enjoy ourselves. Here is Tate unwrapping his gift from us - a toy lawnmower. After this the rain started and the weather has been wet and overcast ever since. I feel very sorry for all the people holidaying at the beach, all getting cabin fever. Seems like they are hitting the shops instead so its all good for the retailing and restaurant industries.

Yesterday Santa arrived for me in the form of a bald headed courier delivering my Christmas present - a huge 22 inch monitor from Dell. He laughed when I said he didn't look like Santa! All set up now and I am still using 2 monitors with my old 17 inch Samsung as my secondary monitor. Woo Hoo, its really great to have so much real estate to play with - a must for a Digital Artist. Santa brought Alan a `fishfinder' for his boat. Seemingly it detects schools of fish..... So time will tell :)

Happy 80th Birthday Doreen

Tomorrow my mother Doreen will be 80 so I have done a digital collage for her for her Birthday. She won't be able to see it and if she could and if she didn't have dementia she would probably make some disparaging comment about it.......... Anyway this is how I like to remember her. All 5 of her children will raise a glass and propose a toast to her tomorrow.

Enjoying December

December is such a wonderful time of year - lots of social times where you get together with the people who mean the most to you - just to enjoy yourselves and be reminded of how lucky you are. Yesterday was our turn to entertain - we hosted our street Christmas party and all the neighbours came. We are blessed with absolutely wonderful neighbours and it was a real pleasure to have them all as our guests last night. The weather was perfect, not one mossie or bug of any sort, no rain or wind and we had a really enjoyable barbie. This photo was taken just before the guests arrived, I even decorated a conifer, you can see it in the background. This was the first time we have ever entertained more than a small number and our outdoor area coped really well. To top it all off we were treated to a great 20 minute firework display at the end, put on by a local church :)

I have also included a photo of one of my roses in full bloom, another reason I love summer. I have a vase full of them in the house and they looked great with some red tea light candles beside them last night.

Tate at Noosa

This is our little grandson Tate at Noosa in October - he has since started walking :)

A visit to Eumundi

Yesterday we decided to pop down to Eumundi for `Second Brekkie' and some retail therapy. We started off at Eats with home made Panini toast with home made strawberry jam and some excellent coffee. Then Alan and I split up and I headed off to the bookstore. Yes BerkelouW's are now open in Eumundi - Woo Hoo, I could easily spend all day here :) Anyhow I bought `Kevin Rudd - The Biography' by Robert Macklin and `No! I don't want to join a Bookclub' - a very funny book about growing old disgracefully by Virginia Ironside. Now I'm reading both at the same time.

My favourite quote from the Rudd Biography comes from his opening address at the Labor Party's National Conference in April: `My name is Kevin; I'm from Queensland and I'm here to help'. There should be some interesting times ahead.

Nature's Christmas Decorations

I absolutely love the onset of Summer in Queensland. So many trees are flowering and the ones I love the best are Poincianas. These aren't native to Australia but hundreds were planted by our forefathers and like Jacarandas they can now be found everywhere. There are Poincianas in every street and some streets are lined with them. They are like huge brilliant umbrellas and they flower just in time for all the Christmas preparations. I have also noticed Frangipanis, Bougainvilleas, Ixora, Agapanthus and Hibiscus, a riot of colour and fragrance, especially from the Gardenias :)