:: You've Got Mail ::

I'm not going to lie, this past week has been pretty awful. I've been cooped up inside with bronchitis and have been spending a lot of time in my room with my asthma nebuliser. Oh, isn't that sorry image! But then, on Friday afternoon Mr LG came over like a knight in shining armour carrying in his arms some parcels that had never looked more exciting after a week of seeing only the inside of my bedroom walls!

The first parcel was some of the most vibrant and lovely miniature roses I have ever seen. Yellow, orange, and a wonderful combination of yellow and red in the one rose! Tell me, have you ever seen red and yellow roses like these before? I sure haven't, apparently they're from South Africa!

The next two packages were my first pen pal letters! So exciting! Both of my lovely friends from New Zealand (Jess and Hayley) came to my rescue and helped brighten my week. This first package is from Jess and contains some wonderful things all made in New Zealand - red licorice, butterscotch chocolate, a recycled notebook, a New Zealand pencil, sunflower seeds (which I can't wait to grow in my garden!), stickers and a letter! I can't wait to send a package back to her!

The second letter came from Hayley. We met through the Dear Darlings pen pal swap. It was written on the prettiest of paper (and she has the coolest hand writing!) and the shimmery green envelope was right up my alley! I can't wait to write back to her!

I have some mail outgoings too, but I can't show you them just yet for risk of spoiling it for the lovely recipients!

I hope you are all having a fabulous weekend!

Much love.

:: Food, Glorious Food! ::

Food, glorious food! Don't care what it looks like ...

Okay, so that's not entirely true. You see, whenever I have a get together with family or friends my first instinct is to take photos of the food. Does that make me weird?

This scrummy, yummy food is from about two weeks ago when Mr LG and I went to my brother and sister-in-law's house to watch the last few episodes of the first season of V. They cooked shallow-fried whiting for us (Mr LG and I aren't big on any sort of seafood) and oh my goodness, it was delicious! I was pretty much in a food-induced coma for the rest of the afternoon. I'm not yet fully converted on this whole 'fish love' thing some people seem to have going on, but I have to say I don't exactly hate it either. My next seafood related quest is to conquer my dislike of prawns! I will let you know how I go.

Do you have a food you can't say no too? I'm a huge fan of savoury foods - soft cheeses, olives, semi-dried tomatoes, sporessa ... mmm! I can never say no, even if I'm so full I'm about to burst!

:: Baby Shower ::

Last Sunday was my younger sister's baby shower. It's hard to believe that in about 5 weeks time my sister will be a mother and I will be an Aunty. The Baby Shower had a jungle animal theme, so we had elephant cupcakes (among mountains of other delicious food) and the most adorable animal carousel as a table centrepiece. We played some fun games like captioning pregnancy based comics, guessing baby animal names, and guessing the baby's name, weight, length and due date.

Gluten free elephant cupcakes!

'Normal' elephant cupcakes

Animal carousel centrepiece

My younger sister

My seriously cute next-door-neighbour

Look at her huge tummy!

My sister and her boyfriend still can't decide on a name for their little boy. Any suggestions are definitely welcome!

:: Brisbane - UQ, St Lucia ::

There aree so many things I love about Brisbane, and one of them is the University of Queensland at St Lucia. I studied at UQ for six years and I never got sick of the sandstone buildings and amazing greenery. It is also one of Mr LG's favourite places in Brisbane, so last weekend we went there for a picnic. We sat by the lake and ate yummy food while we watched the ducks.

Mr LG with the big, bushy beard he's currently sporting :/

She was not happy I was standing near her babies

It was incredible to watch all the othr ducks in the area rally around the babies to stop them going into the water where there were eels hanging around. You can see an eel in the background of this photo. Yuck!

It was the perfect afternoon.

:: Lavender ::

Back in May Mr LG and I planted some daisies and some lavender in pots on our front deck. Neither of us are very skilled at anything plant related, except perhaps, on how to accidentally kill them :( True to form, our daisies aren't looking so good. But, our lavender has it's first flower! I am so excited (and kind of amused that my future namesake is growing just fine).

Look, look!

I can't wait 'til it's a full pot plant of amazing smelling lavender. Do any of you grow flowers? What are some fail-safe flowers we could grow?

:: Royal Show - The 'Ekka' ::

Once a year every capital city in Australia has a royal show. The show is full of fun rides, show bags, games, farm animals, fashion parades, fireworks, and many other fun things. In Brisbane our royal show is called The Ekka, because it is held at our Exhibition Grounds. This year I went with Mr LG, two of my sisters, my brother-in-law, and one of my friends.

My favourite part of the Ekka is Sideshow Alley at night time. I love the bright colours, the screams of delight (and possibly fear, haha), the smell of fairy floss and dagwood dogs, and the crazy carnies who try to get you to play their games.

What is your favourite part of a carnival?

:: Stationary Stationery ::

I love stationery. My love for stationery started when I was in primary school. Whenever our book work was particularly neat or we answered all our questions correctly we were sent up to the principal's office to show him our good work. My first primary school principal gave shiny stickers as rewards. And, being the hoarder I am, I still have all of those stickers. I can thank him for the extensive (or is that 'expensive'?) sticker collection I now have.

I moved schools in grade four and my new principal gave out pencils. I quickly became obsessed with collecting different types of pencils. The very first pencil I was given - it was holographic silver - has survived a move across the country and now sits amongst a few hundred other pencils. I have pencils from around the world, and I hope to have a touristy pencil from every country (and state, if possible) one day.

By the time I was 10 we had moved across the country and I started my love for snail mail. This was in 1993 and was well before the days of email. I wrote to all my friends and even to my grade six teacher (I'm a little bit of a nerd, hush). It was so exciting to come home and find an envelope, usually covered front-to-back with stickers and drawings, with your name on it. I would sit for hours at the kitchen table writing rough drafts of my return letters to make sure my reply was perfect (I am sounding nerdier by the second, oh dear!).

By the time I reached high school I only had one penpal left (my best friend, so loyal!), so I packed up all the letters my friends had written me and put them away (a sad moment, let me tell you). I still have all of their letters in a box in or storage room. My interest turned to journals around grade 10, thanks once again to school. We had to keep a 'diary' of sorts for English and we had to write a minimum of 400 words a week on whatever took our fancy. By the end of grade 12 I was the only student in my grade who continued writing in my journal!

In grade 11 and 12 my friend and I each bought a journal and did our own version of a journal swap. We would write in our journals for a month and then swap. We would then write in the other person's journal and swap again at the end of the month until we filled up the books. I still have those journals - full of Hanson, Backstreet Boys and our school crushes. Hilarious!

By the time I hit Uni I had less time for snail mail and journalling, so I used my stationery love to organise my Uni notes. Every subject had a specific colour - each colour had a book and folder to store all my information. For every assignment I wrote I made sure I had co-ordinating post-it notes and highlighters to make the final draft easier to collate. I turned to LiveJournal for all my journalling needs and met some awesome people from around the world.

Now I have entered the concrete jungle and my work desk is covered in pretty post-it notes and fancy pens. Everyone at works knows where to come if they need a higlighter or a fun piece of stationery-related goodness. It's a source of much amusement for the 'boring' types who use pale yellow office-issued post-its! All my work colleagues laughed when we received new work-issued stationery, because they knew I would love it.

But really, what's not to love about it? If you're going to have work stationery, it might as well be a little bit fun. I love the cliched slogans and asked if we would be getting an eraser with 'Erasing our past' written on it, ha. Apparently not :( Sad.

For the past few years my stationery collection has been sitting in my drawers, gathering dust. I have written to interstate friends before, only to receive an email response. But then I found you lovely people! I now have a reason to write again and I can't wait!

Gracie and I will be doing a journal swap which I am so excited about.
Also, over at Gracie's blog is a 'Just Because You're Lovely' swap. Check it out!
I am eagerly anticipating my first letter from Jess.
And, I have also signed up to be a part of the Dear Darlings penpal group over at O, My Darling.

And so, my stationery will no longer be stationary! It sounds so nerdy (but I think we're slowly establishing that I am a nerd, so that's okay), but this makes me so happy! I'm glad I'm not the only snail mail fan left in the world. I can't wait to look in my letter box and see envelopes addressed to me that don't contain bills or statements telling me how poor I am.

Do you have a love for something like this? Does gardening make you happy? Are you excited by the prospect of trying out new recipes? Do you obsess over jewellery? I'd be interested to hear about it!

I hope you all have a magnificent weekend. I am off to the Ekka (our Royal Show) on Sunday, and I can't wait to tell you all about it next week!

Much love.

:: Backyard Demolition - Part Two ::

At the end of last year Mr LG and I bought the cutest little house. It was propped up on stilts and made entirely out of wood. The polished floorboards gleamed with possibilities and everywhere we looked we saw endless potential. After a few weeks the rose-tinted glasses came off and as we looked around we still saw the potential, but also the work we needed to put into the house so we could turn it into our home. We have made some minor changes here and there, but so far the biggest change has been our backyard.

About a month ago I told you all about our jungle. I'm so excited so show you what it looks like now!

Step One:

Step Two:

Step Three:

Step Four:

We finally have a blank canvas to work with! We can't get over how big our backyard actually is. The amount of sun that filters into the house now is incredible. Once again our rose coloured glasses are back on as we stand on our back deck and stare at the potential in front of us.

Obviously the first step is to fill in the holes left by the trees, and to attempt to flatten the yard a little (it slopes up on the sides), and then a fence on the right-hand side to even up the yard. We'd also like to cover the fence at the back because it's a little mismatched (some wood, some corrugated plastic, some big rocks to plug up holes). We also have plans for grass, and lots of it. I'd like a few raised planter boxes so I can start a vegie and herb garden, and we can now put up a clothesline and have the clothes dry without being covered by leaves!

What would your dream backyard have in it? We'd like an old pizza oven one day so we can have friends and family over to eat home-made wood-fired pizza on the back deck.