How quickly the days are going

I know I've said that before.  But since my last post we've had a big event for the G Family.  Miss Tabatha's 21st birthday.   The theme was "Hollywood Glam" and she asked me to be the papparazzi.  Woah, pressure was on.   But I'm so pleased the some of the photos I took, I think I captured family and a whole lot of fun for her.

Here's a sneak peek.  Shhh, even Miss T hasn't seen them yet.  She's getting them tomorrow.

The birthday girl and her proud dad

Joined by her very tall boyfriend

Yep, we did go Hollywood Glam, even her grand dad had his tails on!

Yep, there's me, I got in front of the camera for once.

Err, someone was enjoying this Hollywood thing a little too much, he actually walked through the restaurant like this to the function room and lapped it up when the restaurant patrons applauded him, oh dear, we've created a monster!

I was aiming to get a really fun photo of Tab and her friends, I was delighted with this fun one.

Mike and his sister, he's trying to look cool, suave and sophisticated.  Right.

How do you spell suave anyway?

SCORE!   My oldest and very serious stepson never smiles in photos, but I caught him by surprise here!  Love it.

And this very beautiful cake, what a shame to cut it, but it was delicious!  I had the smallest piece.

Such a fun night was had by all.  Then Sunday afternoon Mike came down with the fluey-cold-hacking-cough-sore-throat-thing.  And he's been down for the count since then.  Touch wood, I'm still fine.

The weekend that was

Again with another quick weekend flashing by.  Urrrgh.   Mike is chasing the yellow stuff today, I wonder what he'll bring home, if anything.  I've just been pottering, as I like to do.   Molly is back to her normal old self, with a vengeance.

She disgraced me earlier, both of them did.  We have new neighbours across the road and they could see me out taking photographs in the front yard.   Well they popped across the street to meet me, having already met Mike during the day one other time.  Along trotted their little fluffy white dog.   OMG it was on.  Bark bark bark, I swear the whole neighbourhood would have heard it.  Until their little white fluffy dog decided to just sit on the naturestrip and not say boo, and yet Lucky was still doing back flips which egged Molly on.  Oh dear.  Finally when we paid them no heed they all stopped and we could talk, or at least hear ourselves talk.   Yep, nothing much wrong with Molly now.   She's worn herself out with all that barking and has plopped down on the floor in the bedroom and gone to sleep.  Ha!

I did want to document the difference in photographs so of course have done a couple of scrap pages to put in our album, the photos you've already seen.

All products from Designer Digitals.

Well nothing much else to talk about, how boring of me!  We are moving office at work next week so some long days packing.  Mind you we're only moving 2 doors up the street.  Looking forward to the new office, but not looking forward to the actual move. 

Time for a cuppa, I'll go boil my new kettle  :-)

Oh, not red you may notice!!!  Gaah!  I got a message from the store that the red had sold out and wasn't available from the manufacturer for a month or so.  So red really does go fast, straight off the shelves.  I supposed I could have waited until I was next in Geelong and checked in Myer, but you know what I like this just as much.  

Have a good week everyone.

What a difference

Thanks to everyone who has thought good thoughts from the Molly Girl.

Just to recap, this was Wednesday evening ...

And this was Friday afternoon ...

One might say she got over the effects of the anaesthetic quite well!  She has totally bounced back and with a vengeance.  Completely different girl.  She's so happy, she's so good getting the cream in her eye (which looks so good), she just sits there and doesn't even blink and takes it, all for a treat of course. ha!   In the meanwhile Lucky runs a mile and hides under the kitchen table in case I want to put a drop in his eye too!   It's so funny.  He gets the panic dear in the headlights look about him.  

So hopefully everyone had a lovely Mothers Day.  I took mum to lunch at the Empire Grill in Geelong.  A beautiful three course meal which I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we agreed it was probably up there as one of the best meals we've ever tasted.   Simply sensational.  

It was a set menu with three items from each course to select from so we made sure we picked something different each so we could have a try of each others!  Be prepared to salivate.

Entree for me:  House made gnocchi, confit lamb & tomatoes, pine nuts, snow peas.

Entree for mum:  Butter nut pumpkin soup with crème fraiche & dukkah.

Main for me:  Char grilled 200gm eye fillet, dijon mustard mash, baby greens, bordelaise sauce (OMG that sauce was so good).

Main for mum:  Crispy skin Atlantic salmon, smoked barramundi dumplings, herbed cauliflower, cointreau & pink peppercorn sauce.

Dessert for me:  Chocolate trilogy:  warm chocolate brownie, white chocolate panacotta, chocolate mousse.

Dessert for mum:  Vanilla bean crème brûlée, fruit salad, biscotti.

All of course when I'm being good with my diet.   Ouch!   But it was a special day right.

Photo taken by camera precariously balanced on the top of the back of couch, propped up by a couple of books and me running back into the shot!

Hope everyone else had a great mothers day too.  

Molly

Darling Molly.   She's feeling very wonky, very wobbly, very sad and sorry for herself.  Mike picked her up at 5pm and carried her to the car as she had the shakes.  She's not a light weight, she weighed in at 36.4 kg!

We set up one of her mattress beds in the living area and she has slept nearly all evening in the warm loungeroom.  Oh except for when I was cutting up the cooked chicken for dinner.  Funny how her stomach kicked into overdrive and woke her out of her stupor.  Well I guess she hadn't really eaten for 24 hours as her last meal was 6pm last night, so she was treated to some warmed chicken.  Lucky girl.

I've just come down here to the other end of the house to type this blog post and upload some photos and lo and behold she staggered in here not five minutes after me and loyal as always is laying by my feet.

Okay, so end result was apparently the growth was on her third eyelid.  I understand that is the eyelid on dogs that goes sideways under the ones that go up and down (I think).    And apparently dogs don't really need that eyelid really (I'm ready to stand corrected if I'm wrong), but in any case the vet has taken the growth and that section of the eyelid out.

Good news - no stitches!
Even better news - no bucket head!

She just has to rest up after the affects of the anaesthetic and we have an anti-bacterial ointment to put in her eye three times a day.  I am so relieved it's all over, lets just hope we have a few smooth days ahead getting her over the anaesthetic.

Rest up baby girl, sleep tight.  We love you.

Tomorrow is just another day, right?

Molly is having an operation tomorrow and to be honest I still don't know we're doing the right thing but we are going with our instincts. Back in early 2010 you may recall she had a growth on her eyelid and it got bigger and bigger and it was pushing her bottom eyelid out and she had it cut out of her eyelid. Here is the blog post from back then. Well she was miserable after that, it took her quite a while to bounce back, it knocked her about a lot in the recovery phase. We swore black and blue we would never put her through another op.

Well another growth has come back in the inner corner of the lid of her other eye this time. A visit to the vet and the two options were to get it cut out or just leave it, with the chance it would get bigger, interfere with her sight, grow roots, etc. We told the vet of our concerns and he checked her right over and surprisingly for a big 13 year old dog (well we think she's at least 13) he said she had a surprisingly strong heart and he felt she could have around 2 to 3 years left in her (I hate them talking like that). But this put her in a whole new ball park. He was confident whilst the growth was small it was a simple op for him, only if it grew bigger would it be more major.

So we're going ahead with it. But I'm scared witless. I'm looking at her laying on the floor next to me all so comfortable and snoring away and thinking tomorrow everything will change for her. So please my blog friends, think very good thoughts for my best friend here, just pray that it all goes well and that she recovers from the anaesthetic okay. I know you know how much I love my big old girl.

What happened to the weekend?

I swear I flitted it away somewhere.  I haven't done much this weekend at all, and yet here it is pushing onto Sunday evening and I've not got much to show for it.  And it's cold and the fire is going and what have I planned for dinner, but chicken and salad, yikes!  I didn't plan that very well did I?

I'm too-ing and fro-ing over television viewing tonight with Masterchef starting.  What to do?  What to do?  I love Masterchef, but it's such a big investment to get sucked into a series that will last nigh on 3 months or so.  With Biggest Loser about to finish, I was going to have a break from reality TV for a while (is that even possible?) and now Masterchef is hot in its heels.

You know I will get sucked in, don't you?

Our new driveway was laid last Friday so it's been down just over a week.  Let me backtrack.  Mike had taken me past a house that had salt creek stone laid.   Now we have quite a wide driveway and I knew I didn't want it concreted.  Up until now it's just been dusty hard dirt and we're sick of the dust swirling every time the wind gets up.  So I quite liked this stone driveway I saw.   So finally we've got it down, I was very excited to come home from work to see and mind you when I arrived home it was nearly 6pm so not the greatest light.

OMG, it was horrible.  It was no better than what was there earlier, just a different colour.  I nearly cried, all that money wasted.  Poor Mike, I walked in the door and before I even said "honey I'm home" I took onelook at him and said "I hate it".

Well ... apparently we have to wait until it looks like the driveway we had previously seen.  Over the course of the rain during winter, the sand (which was what I was seeing) will settle to the bottom and the lovely creamy, grey and salmony pink stones will be more prominent.

I am reserving judgement.   Photos forthcoming.

On the digi front...

So my step-daughter is an absolute hoot.   She comes out with the best one-liners as status updates on her facebook, and I just knew I would need to save them on a page in her album.   I have chuckled all the way through making this page.  Oh and I have "borrowed" her profile pic to make the page complete.  :-)

Credits Designer Digitals.

I could quite easily make a part 2 to this page, I really had a lot of funny status updates to pick from.   Such a goldmine.  And if the page looks familiar, I did do one very much like it some time ago for my step-son's album.  

Now, the last thing I am planning to do tonight is go kettle shopping.  Oh the joys of online shopping.   Isn't this pretty, and you do know that red will go faster, don't you ...

Pssst Sharon, if you are reading this, they had "Sharon Green" kettles too!

Enjoy the upcoming week everyone, won't you.