March catch up

Back to catch up on March with more gratuitous kitten pics, although the kitten is getting bigger.  Buster Q has really settled in, looks rather comfortable in his plush new bed too I might add.

Oh to be a kitten with not  a care in the world

He looks rather relaxed doesn't he?

We tried for a family photograph.

I don't know what we were thinking.

It was never going to happen.

This is as best that we got.

Lucky had been suffering from allergies and grass seeds, apparently it was a bad season for dogs in our town, so we booked him in for a hair cut.  Oh dear.  He doesn't look impressed.  It only marginally stopped the scratching.  He looks like quite a different dog.

But at least peace was reigning supreme in the house.

Buster probably thought there was a whole new dog in the house!

Mike and I decided to go up Mt Noorat. 

Well for me it was a training run, hills!  Get some strength in the legs.

For Mike he wanted to take some pics.

However some kind strangers took this one in front of the crater.

Yes it is a volcano.  

My training run had me jumping for joy.  

There are electric fences and narrow pass throughs (to stop the cows from getting out.  Plus some climb over areas too (kind of like a stye).  It's a great walk around the crater, an amazing view from the top, and really windy up there too.  So lovely that this privately owned mount is open to the public to appreciate.

On the garden front Mike's grape vines started fruiting.

I think it's still going to be another year before the grapes taste nice and sweet though.

I went to a CWA craft day and was thrilled to make a three tiered cake plate.  It cost me all of about $8, op shop plates and the handle fitting.  So scary though drilling into the plates, how on earth they all don't break is beyond me.  It involved water and a diamond tip drill.

And I made this folded paper art book, whatever on earth it's called.  I gave it to mum and she loved it and thinks I'm super smart.  But I tell you, it was such a painful exercise for me to make this, all the measuring and folding, that as soon as I finished I threw the instructions away never to do it again.

And really March was pretty uneventful.  Some lovely Autumn evenings, long afternoon runs after work before day light saving finished.

January catch up

So how to catch up on my blog being that we're already past half way in 2017.  How about a monthly catch up, it might be the easiest way.

So we finished 2016 on yet another loss in our lives when our beautiful Bo Bo girl passed away on New Years Eve.  We had started 2016 with the loss of Molly and ended 2016 with the loss of Bo Bo.  Then a few days into the year and this happened ...

We still hadn't had time to process the loss of Bo Bo and step-daughter number 2 turned up one evening after having driven 2 hours with this little bundle.  He and his siblings had been found in a car boot at the wreckers in the summer heat.  The call had gone out to find homes and ... well ... as much as we weren't ready, Mike has always said when a cat needs a home they will find you.  Looks like this little bundle had found us through my step-daughter.

It didn't take long for Mike to fall under his spell, I took a little longer.  We named him Buster Q.   He looks like a little Buster, don't you agree?  The vet placed him as about 6 weeks old, way too young to be without his mama cat, so Mike and I were surrogate parents and we had to bottle feed him the first week or so until he started chewing through the teets of the bottle.

       

And let's just say it took a LOT LONGER for poor Lucky to fall under his spell !

Oh boy we were in for some fun and games.

Lucky would get the whole crazy eyes and body shakes happening with Buster's tiny high pitched meow.  I think Lucky would have ripped his head off if he could.  If Lucky was out of the house, Buster could roam.  If Lucky was in the house we had to have one in one room, the other in another.  We halved the loungeroom with a wire fence, yes we got that desperate, until Buster learnt how to climb.


During the month Mike and I ran the Surf T Surf in Warrnambool.  I ran the 10km and Mike the 6km.  And we got to chat to the famous Steve Moneghetti, always a treat.  Feeling very proud running in our Aths Club shirts.

We dedicated our 16km total to Mike's Uncle Frank in Scotland

who is ill with cancer.  He was chuffed to wake up and see our photo on Facebook.

Although words of  "why run when you can drive missy" would ring in my ears.

In the meantime we had a very special visitor when Miss Aleyna came for a visit.  Already a month old and just as sweet as can be.  Grumpy was definitely under her spell.

  

During the month we could have both Lucky and Buster in the room together under a watchful eye and hand.  Still not able to have Buster roam around with Lucky on the loose.  Still some stressful times.

Stressful not just for us, but for Buster too - keeping a watch out for Lucky...

   

Mel and I had made it to the back page Sports section of the newspaper!

Woo hoo.  Always knew one day it would happen  ;-)  ha!

One might think we were running so far out in front with no other runners in sight.

Ummm, more like bringing up the rear!

And January saw Mike's veggie garden start to fruit, 

and soon we would be swimming in zucchini and tomatoes.

    

And that's a wrap for January!  

Big breath

Big breath alright, silly title of the post, but this morning was fantastic.  I hit the road early and left Mike in bed.  He's suffering with a sore achilles at the moment ... too much too soon perhaps?   And of course the Scot that he is all I get is "eh, I don't need to pay to go see a physio, I just need to take it easy a few days" (rolling my eyes here).  So I have strapped it with rock tape which helped a bit, but he's still limping, doesn't help that he works on his feed in steel capped boots either I guess.  Anyone got any ideas for achilles problems and relief, I'm all ears.

So yes, back to big breath.  It's been so humid lately.  On Friday I popped into Warrnie and met up with my friend Mel, both on a day off to make it a long-long-weekend so we donned our Run Downunder tops (twinsies!!!) and hit the road.  I had 13km on my plan as a drop back week and Mel had 17km on her plan to run.  So she ran 2km to meet me at a pre-arranged carpark and off we went.  Talk about a lather of sweat, we were like puddles by the end, I'd done my 13km and Mel still wanted to run the 2km home.  It wasn't pretty, the air was thick and hard to breathe, only a short respite around the water front, but done, pretty proud we both could tick off what we planned to achieve.

So are you still with me, the reason I titled this post 'Big Breath' is this morning and getting back to me going out early leaving Mike in bed.  I took a look out the back door and it was misty drizzly rain and it was grey but it wasn't cold.  And oh THE AIR WAS BEAUTIFULLY CLEAR.  I popped on my cap, grabbed a plastic bag to put my phone in, in my spibelt, and off I went.  I felt almost drunk gulping in the lovely clear air.  No heaviness or thickness, which is my way of describing what the air has been like lately running.   It was sensational.  I got wet.  I didn't care.  The cows weren't bothered by the drizzle, why should I be.

I ticked 8km off and this was the long road back to town.   Early Sunday morning, there was only one car which passed me, so I didn't have to jump off the road and into the grass.  No trucks at that time.  Well it was either go back on the main road, or head up the flipping big hill I'd just come down and go home the long way.  That lane with the hill in it, my nemesis Cairnlea Lane, and I ran it the full length again without stopping.  I think I can call Cairnlea Lane well and truly conquered now.

More zucchinis are springing from the garden, it's doing my head in.  Mike comes in all proud "look honey, more!!" and I just think what on earth more I can do with them.  More zucchini slices, jars of pickled zucchini, zucchini soup, zucchini chocolate cake...

And what's this, a new recipe - zucchini lemon cake.  Still yet to be tried, we will have a slice for dessert tonight with a dollop of yoghurt on it, will review it tomorrow, but all indications it will be lemony delicious.  I'll once again cut up the remainder for the freezer.  I've linked the recipe here.  American glazed icing looks so much nicer doesn't it, maybe because their butter is whiter.   Thanks to Trina for putting me onto this recipe.

And last bit of news, last Thursday I had a hair appointment and I said the words to my gorgeous hairdresser who I love with all my heart ... "chop it all off, do what you want".   Oh heck Nadine Scissorhands took to my hair with such gusto, I called her turbo.   She said she was getting as much off before I had a chance to change my mind.  Then she set about doing what she does best, and I love it.  Nads knew exactly what I needed, something that would run well, hahaha yes it all goes back to that.  Well I've run with Nadine here in my first year of running you may recall, so she knows how crazy I am about running.   So easy to maintain, it doesn't get in my face or my eyes.  I truly love my rock star hairdresser.

And with that I'm off to make yet another zucchini slice, which we shall have for dinner with a side salad.  I'm about to turn into a zucchini I think.

5.92km fun run!!

What a night last Friday was!  Noorat to Terang a funny distance advertised as a 5.92km!!  Yes I'm not kidding you.  Why they don't just start up the road, call it 6km and be done with it I don't know.  I mean how many others out there have a 5.92km PB???

Very relaxed you enter on the night and they put an age category on your hand.  Yes V for Veteran!! How rude.  I told them they need to change their categories I think Legend is more apt.  They looked at me aghast when I said it, like it's been done this way for years, how on earth could I suggest to them to change it !!  

Even more fun tonight was that Mike was going to run it too.  We would be each running our own races, but he had been training for this, a good follow up to January's SurfTSurf.  Yep, he was ready!   We had parked over in Terang and took one of the courtesy busses back to Noorat to the start of the race.  I love these types of races when you run from one town to another, through lots of countryside.

My friend Floss was going to be running this too, one of our beautiful ladies from the 12WBT Runners Connect group.  A quick pic for the group - unwritten rule when you meet up with someone.

So the walkers take off at 6.15pm on the walking track with the runners on the road starting at 6.30pm.  Last year the sweeper swept me off the road into the track and I was aiming for that not to happen this time.

Off we start and I went with the flow and did the smaller faster steps again.  I feel like I've struck the secret that works for me.  My work friend lives on the route midway and a couple of workmates were in the front yard cheering for me as I ran past which gave me a boost, arms in the air I whoop whooped as I ran past.  

I looked at my watch and was astounded I was in the 6's again for my average pace.  I felt really strong.  I didn't stop at either of the water stations.  Still no sweeper in sight.  Some kids were giving me the irrits.  They would run past me and then stop dead in front of me and walk, I'd go around them and then it would continue, until I grrrr'ed at them.  I must have been scary, they stopped.

I had hit Terang and was so happy. Some people outside their homes were cheering the runners which was lovely.  Turn the corner and see the finish line down at the RSL and off I flew and over the finish line with the ladies there yelling 'you're under 40'!!  My best run at this race was two years ago at 42:41.  Yahoooo PB tonight at 39:20!!!  

Grabbed my certificate and water and back to the finish line as fast as I could to see Mike come over in 43:41.  Darn phone, I couldn't get the camera up quick enough.   He did scare me though, he got across the line and then dropped his hands to his knees and bent over gasping for breath.  He was struggling with his asthma.  There had been a smell from silage in one of the paddocks and he said his asthma had played up from that moment, to the point he was almost drinking his ventolin in.  Calmed him down and his breathing got easier and he got his certificate and a water and, despite being red in the face, he got his breathing under control.  A doctor's visit is in order to re-check his asthma I think.

After the run, pretty stoked.

When I had stopped my Garmin at the finish line it started firing off all these records - told me I'd set three records - fastest km, fastest mile and fastest 5km.  Couldn't wipe the smile off my face.   

   

And check out my average pace!!!  What on earth is happening to me.  

Got home and Mike got nicely lubricated with a couple of ciders and we had the yummy sweet & sour pork I had made earlier so we just had to heat it up in the microwave.  What a night!


So in other news, we are inundated with zucchinis at the moment.  Yes you may look at these and wonder what they're like.  I myself suggested they would be either woody or full of water.  But they're not, they're brilliant.     Proud veggie gardener...

I have pickled zucchinis in jars, made an enormous amount of zucchini slices for lunches for the freezer, an awesome zucchini chocolate cake (strange but oddly nice) which I've cut up into serves and frozen for snacks and this ever so yummy zucchini soup.    Absolutely delicious.   Recipe HERE, you will thank me for it.  Mind you it doesn't turn out as thick as the pic in the recipe, but oh my it is delicious.

Anyone have any other suggestions for zucchinis lay it on me.  Other than that I'll go to the excess produce swap on Saturday that the CWA runs in Warrnambool and take some and perhaps bring some rhubarb or pears home.

Fresh veggies anyone?

Well not quite yet, but our veggie garden (our VERY FIRST veggie garden) is coming along splendidly.   And after consulting google, Professor Mike has made his own organic garlic and chilli spray to keep the bugs away and it's working!  After seemingly growing plastic bottles for an age, well it looked like that as the little seedlings came up inside cut up pepsi 2 litre bottles (kind of hot house like), everything has taken off.  Can't wait to have our first veggie from our garden.

Peas, snap peas and broad beans.  

What can I say, I wanted to take a pic of him watering the garden and he decides to ... 

well ... you can see below!

I promise it really was the garden hose.

Why on earth have we not done this years ago.  We've had this area up the back yard sitting, doing nothing.  I'm so proud of Mike doing this, considering we have no idea what we are doing.  Pinterest though has been handy.


Righto so in Scrapbooking I haven't shown a layout for a while.  I've finally started my USA album from my trip over there last November.  Okay so all good things take time right?   So I'll spatter some of the upcoming posts with those pages.  Yeah yeah, like we loooooove to see people's holiday (snore) snaps!  tee hee.

I'm going with Blurb which has been my book maker of choice, so these pages have been created with the largest landscape sized book in mind.  Plus I always leave the cover and title page to last, so my layouts have started at page 2 and 3 below.

Click on the page if you want to read the journalling.
Credits for the goodies used Designer Digitals.