OUR DAY TRIP TO PORTLAND VICTORIA

August 29, 2015 darling downs 5 Comments

Portland is a town on the South West coast of Victoria. If you are interested in reading more go to this site for more information about it’s history.

Portland is about 1 1/2 hours from our home and is about the same size as our local town Hamilton.

The first thing we did was take a trip on the local tourist tram.

This tram took us along the water front, pass the wharf and up onto the hill overlooking the ocean. At the top of the hill is an old water tower that has been converted into a war museum.They had some great displays in there of the different uniforms and weapons used during the war years.They also had some great murals on the wall.There was a lookout at the top and 130 steps to get there and more displays as well but we didn’t have time for that this time, maybe next time.

A picture of the steps and the top of the tower.

Below are pictures of the ocean front and the wharves. Portland loads more than 300 ships per year.

You can see the wharf in the photo below and the big brown mound is wood chips, and stacked beside them nearer the water is bundles of logs. These chips and logs go to China for processing. We visited our Uncle and Aunt for lunch and then they kindly took us on a drive around to the spot where our uncle goes fishing. The weather wasn’t right for fishing that day so we just had a look. Here they are below with my husband and our no 2 son. We are at Shelly Beach look out.Here is a photo from the look out, you can’t see the beach from here but it is on the other side of the shrubs.

We then went to Bridgewater for a cool drink and no 2 son collected some shells, and then they took us to Cape Nelson Light House.

It is a very dangerous sea around this light house and as you can see below they have the cliff fenced off.
We had a lovely drive and then we went to the fish and chip shop for tea. As we were waiting for it my husband found this huge Blue Fin Tuna in a fish waste skip. They kindly agreed to pull it out so that I could get a photo of how big it was.
It was just as well I still had my cold because I couldn’t smell anything fishy.

That was our day out in Portland and we hope to go again and maybe pick a day when the fish are biting.

Blessings xxx

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Diaries of the Heart

APOLOGY TO SUBSCRIBERS

August 24, 2015 darling downs 2 Comments

Dear subscribers to Darling Downs Diaries.

Please accept my apologies regarding any emails you may have received from me or this blog with reference to subscribing or unsubscribing.

I have been trying to organise a weekly newsletter and I am having some difficulty doing this.

Please ignore these emails and any further ones you may receive. I will hopefully have this issue sorted out this week.

I hope and pray you are all well.

Blessings to you all dear friends xxxx

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS LINK PARTY

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS #45

August 23, 2015 darling downs 26 Comments

Welcome to Good Morning Mondays #45.

Another week has passed and August is almost over. Soon September will be here along with more spring weather for us and for you all in the Northern Hemisphere some cooler weather.

Spring is a beautiful time of the year, the buds are coming out and we already have some flowers on our fruit and nut trees. The ground is starting to dry out and we are planning our spring vegetable garden already.

Our daughter and son are home from skiing and it is wonderful to have them back. They had a great time and our no 2 daughter has some awful sunburn on her face and it is only where her goggles weren’t. She does look so cute. It seems that she was really good on skis and amazed everyone with how well she went.

Here she is with the beautiful young lady who took her, she is a sister to our son-in-law and they had a great time together.

Here she is on the ski lift, look at her poor cheeks they are almost as pink as her helmet.

Here is a picture of our two lovely granddaughters on their toboggan. They had a ball going down the slopes and they are wearing the matching beanies I made for them, I am really pleased with how they fit.

I felt worn out just listening to all that they were doing, it sounded so energetic.

We had a quiet week without our no 1 son and no 2 daughter. I had hardly any washing and no 2 son missed them both.

We had our Revelation study on Tuesday night and once again it was a great time spent together in the word of God.

We took a trip to Portland on Thursday and visited my husbands’ uncle and aunt. We had a lovely afternoon together and I will put up a separate post on this trip as I got some lovely photos of the area, unfortunately the weather wasn’t conducive to fishing.

I must admit I was full of the flu earlier in the week and felt rather miserable and we didn’t really achieve too much. We did some jigsaw puzzles and spent some valuable time together just talking and no 2 son stepped up and helped with the chores his sister usually does, he is growing up really quickly.

I think I am ready to get back on track this week with the link up. Sometimes we don’t have any motivation and we just need to decide to do something and then it all comes together. This is my plan for this coming week.

So thank you to all of you who faithfully linked up and stopped by and left me encouraging comments, I really appreciated it.

So onto our link up for this week.

Our top three posts were…

Securing Food When Your Garden Fails by The Farmer’s Wife at Grace Garden and Homestead
A sure fire way to ruin your health by Glenys at Sacrificial Home Keeper: the chronically ill wife Take Charge of Your Time Online, And Become A Better Parent by Women Abiding

Thank you to everyone for linking up, I hope you had a good time reading each others posts.

This week I am giving our no 2 daughter a few days of rest and recuperation. She is very tired so I will let her gel out a bit.

I now have washing so I am going to try and get on top of that and try and get it dry. We have a sewing afternoon later in the week which will be nice as we haven’t been able to get together for ages, maybe we might even finish the quilts!!

My husband and our no 1 son are going to a men’s camp this coming weekend so the children and I are on deck with all the animals, hopefully they will behave themselves this time. They are only away 2 nights but I will really miss them both, my husband and I don’t spend much time apart (except for work).

We have the usual music lessons and church and then I want to be home on Sunday afternoon when they get back.

It is now only 2 weeks until our daughter is due to have their next baby so I think I might put a few things in the car for us so that we are prepared. It is very exciting to think about this new little one coming into the family.

I hope you are all well and that your days are filled with joy and thanksgiving for all that our Heavenly Father has done for us.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my friends. xxxx

An InLinkz Link-up

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Kitchen Diary

SAUSAGE AND VEGETABLE QUICHE

August 23, 2015 darling downs 6 Comments

With our weather starting to warm up a bit, it was quiche on the menu instead of stew.

This is such an easy recipe and the amounts I used can be halved to make a smaller quiche.

Ingredients:

Onions – 2
Zucchini – 2
Red capsicum – 1
Celery – 5 stalks
Sausages – 2 dozen
Eggs – 2 dozen
Milk – 3/4 cup
Cheese
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Vegetable stock – 2 tablespoons

Chop the vegetables and fry in the olive oil until soft. Once soft place vegetables in the baking dish. (I used a rectangle casserole dish)

Fry up the sausages and then cut into about 1 inch pieces and then add to the vegetables in your dish.

Whisk up the eggs and add the milk, salt, pepper and vegetable stock.

Pour egg mixture over vegetables and sausages and top with grated cheese.

Bake in a moderate oven (180 degrees celcius) for approximately 30 – 40 minutes until brown.

ENJOY!!!

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Diaries of the Heart

LIFE IS LIKE A JIGSAW PUZZLE

August 23, 2015 darling downs 31 Comments

Since our no 2 daughter has been away skiing with her older siblings no 2 son has wanted to do some jigsaw puzzles.

I had a box of 10 that I bought from the op-shop (thrift store) ages ago that had never been opened, they are quite lovely and only 300 – 500 pieces each, so not too big.

We have already completed two and we are now onto our third one. As I was sitting placing the puzzles together it came to me that life is just like a puzzle.

When God opens the box of our puzzle and He spreads the pieces out and puts them all the right way round, our life is beginning.

Then God being God He probably doesn’t need to do the border first (like I do) but let’s just say that He does.

So as we piece the border together we see where we are coming from, what family we are placed in.

As we grow the pieces are placed and they become denser with each year that we age.

Each little puzzle piece holds a bit of the bigger picture of our life story.

Some of these pieces are filled with pain and sorrow, some are filled with longing. Maybe the piece that finishes off the picture of our future life partner is a long time coming. Maybe we have our husband or wife and the piece that is our children seems to take forever for God to place, or maybe not at all.

As I was doing the puzzles I was convinced at times that there must be pieces missing because I just couldn’t find the exact ones I was after, the exact colour and shape for what I needed.

There is a great guarantee in our life’s jigsaw puzzle and that is that God never looses any pieces, He has them all in front of Him. Sometimes He has to put pieces in later because of our own choices making it difficult for Him to complete His plans. Sometimes our plans take over and then we have to wait for His perfect timing on placing the pieces exactly where He wanted too.

That being said, the puzzle will one day be complete and I pray that my husband and myself will be in His word and placing ourselves and our family in the right position so that He can place the puzzle pieces without us getting in the way.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Joshua 24:15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Diaries of the Heart

TRADITION

August 23, 2015 darling downs 22 Comments

One of my favourite movies is “Fiddler on the Roof“. I love the music and the story, until the end when they are cast away from their homes.

Tevye’s first song is “Traditions” in which he sings about the way it is and how things have been done the same way for a long time, why change, this is how it works and as far as they are concerned it works well.

Then he is faced with challenges concerning his traditions, that being the marriage of his 3 eldest daughters . The first one pledging herself to her intended (a poor tailor instead of a wealthy man) without the “Papas” approval.

The second one marrying a new ideas educated Jew who was fighting for the rights and freedom of the Jews in Russia. They told the “Papa” they were marrying without his permission – another break in tradition.

Then there was the 3rd daughter who ended up marrying a man who wasn’t a Jew behind her “Papas ” back and was excommunicated from her family and her friends, it was as if she had died.

You can see how with each daughters marriage the “Papa” bent just a little bit and then a little bit more, he struggled with the traditions of his faith and his cultural ways.

What traditions do we carry out because it has been done that way for years?

Maybe it’s attending the same church because our family does. Maybe it’s just attending because it’s a family tradition not because of a living faith.

Maybe you send your kids to a certain school or college because it’s the place where so many family members have attended or maybe you don’t eat red meat on Fridays. There are so many things we do out of tradition, without questioning,

I have been doing a lot of thinking on this topic lately and I think some family traditions are great, daily devotions, meal times together, teaching our children about God and encouraging their own relationship with our Lord.

I also think that we should continually challenge ourselves on our faith and our lives to make sure we are truly connected to God and His leading in our lives, not just living out of our families traditions or our own, and as it says in Philippians 2:12 let us work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.

Philippians 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS LINK PARTY

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS #44

August 16, 2015 darling downs 44 Comments

Welcome again to another Good Mondays Link up. We are up to Week 44 and I have been tremendously blessed by all of you who link up and leave me encouraging comments. We all know that it only takes a few simple words of kindness to make someone feel good about themselves, so thank you to all of you who take the time.

I have had a quiet week, both younger children have been unwell and we even had no 2 son to emergency with asthma last Sunday night. They gave him some ventolin through the nebuliser and sent him home. I think the excitement of the trip made him feel a lot better. He isn’t a run and wheeze asthmatic like his dad used to be but he does get a bit of a wheeze when he has a cold.

No 2 daughter was barking with a cough during the week so we spent a fair bit of time inside trying to get her well enough to go on her ski trip.

So most of the week I was at home. We did have music lessons and the children are so excited to have some new pieces to start on and they have some lovely tunes to learn.

I finished the beanies for our granddaughters and also made one for our no 1 son. He wasn’t around for a photo shoot so I got our daughter to model it for you. It was made out of a thick and chunky wool which was thicker than a 12 ply and I used a size 7 needle, so it was quick to make, it only took a couple of hours and he really liked it. It is wonderful when we are appreciated for our hard work.I make beanies every year and I will probably make a couple of more now and put them away for next year, in case they misplace them somewhere, they always seem to go walkabout.

Now while she was modelling the beanie I got her to put on her ski gear. Here she is all ready to go and by Saturday afternoon she was so excited, and she had trouble getting to sleep last night.

Our no 1 son left last night to stay at his friends house and then they got an early start this morning (Sunday). At 6 pm they were at Mansfield organising their skis and gear and groceries. He has 3 friends with him and one who he hasn’t seen for months and I am sure they are going to have a great time.

We didn’t get to see our son-in-law or daughter and their girls yet and they are off skiing this coming week also, but we will catch up once they get home, so I don’t have any grandchildren photos for you.

So I thought I’d show you a photo of my husband and his new puppy Schnitzel. Isn’t he cute, and the puppy isn’t bad either.

Enough about us, onto our link up.

Our top three posts this week were… Woman of the past: babies by Jo at Stop Have a Chat 20 Blog Post I’d Love To Read by Stephanie 35 Years and Growing by Barbara at My Life As An Adventure

Thank you to everyone for linking up and thank you also for your lovely comments regarding my commenting break at the moment. I am hoping to be back shortly and I look forward to reading your posts again in the near future.

I am sure I am going to have another quiet week this week and I have also caught a cold so I am feeling slightly unwell.

No 2 son is already missing his big sister and I want to do some extra things with him this week and I am hoping we can go to the library at some stage and I know my husband is wanting to visit one of his uncles who lives near the water and maybe we will go fishing at some stage.

All this depends on the weather and it was almost spring like on Saturday, so the fishing might happen.

I hope you all had a great week and that this week coming will be wonderful and full of joy and love.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my friends. xxxx

An InLinkz Link-up

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Diaries of the Heart

IS YOUR DENOMINATION YOUR GOD

August 16, 2015 darling downs 23 Comments

Deuteronomy 5:7 Thou shalt have none other gods before me.

The first commandment states that we should have no other gods other than our God.

Now in our lives there are so many things that can take the place of God, sports, money, cars just to name a few, even our family can become more important to us than God.

But there is another thing that we can place in front of God and that is our Church denomination.

Does the church we attend, the denomination that we hang our hat on mean more to us than God.

At the moment we attend a local semi traditional protestant church and both my husband and myself were brought up in this denomination.

We have had a journey which took us from this church to some pentecostal ones and then back again. That is a long story in itself and will be left for another time

Because of our journey our eyes have been opened to lots of good and some bad things, and we have come to realise that we would rather be known for being Christian instead of a certain denomination.

This isn’t to say that we are ashamed of the denomination of our upbringing, this is to say that we put the word of God over it.

At the moment our church is having some issues that is taking peoples eyes off the word of God.

If our church starts allowing and preaching things that don’t line up with the word of God, what are we to do, do we stay, do we go? Do we follow the word of God or the word of our denomination?? I know that we have been in prayer about these issues for a long time and we are still waiting for direction on this matter.

One thing I do know and that is that God is our God, no denomination will ever take His place in our lives.

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;

Hebrews 6:11 And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end,

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Diaries of the Heart

GOD TOLD ME TO DO IT

August 16, 2015 darling downs 44 Comments

There were a couple of instances last week when I felt that God spoke to my heart. Instances when He told me to do something in particular.

Now I must admit when I hear people say that “God told me to” do such and such I cringe, especially when it doesn’t seem to line up with the word of God.

How do people hear from God?? It doesn’t seem to me to be like Moses in the Old Testament where they met on Mt Sinai and spoke together.

It seems to me it comes more in the form of scripture which speaks to our heart or we get an idea or feeling about something.

Now I also cringe when I use that word “feeling”, I don’t believe we should use our feelings to decide anything.

A couple of weeks ago I had an incident at church with a certain lady. A lady who just doesn’t seem to like me and she had a go at one of our children. Now I don’t know about you but you can have a go at me, but start on one or more of my children and my hackles rise, especially when he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Now I let my emotions take over and although I didn’t really have a go at her my tone of voice showed signs of frustration.

At the time I thought I was justified, my child wasn’t in the wrong, how dare she. You must see where I am going with this I am sure.

I must admit also to harbouring feelings of frustration and annoyance and this stayed with me until one evening last week, when I was in the shower. (I tend to have these thoughts in the shower, maybe it is because I am not focused on anything in particular).

The thought that I had was the following: I shouldn’t have spoken to that lady that way, (even if she was wrong). I should show her love even when she doesn’t like me and last but definitely not least I really felt the urge to apologise.

I believe this was God speaking to my heart and I remember saying to him, really I need to apologise???? and guess what, the answer was yes.

Now you can dodge doing what God wants you to do for a certain amount of time until you just need to do it. So instead of wasting time I decided that I would apologise and I really felt better about the whole thing immediately. Unfortunately our younger two children were unwell and my husband asked me to stay home with them, so I didn’t make it to church. Instead I wrote her a nice card and apologised to her for my words, I didn’t justify myself by saying that my son did nothing wrong, I plain and simply apologised to her for my attitude.

My attitude is all I can work on, I am my own problem, she isn’t my problem, she is in God’s hands.

I also have to come to a place where I can forgive her even if she doesn’t apologise. This I believe to be one of the hardest things, but so very necessary for my own spiritual health.

Dear Lord, please help me to love this lady, to help her, care for her and forgive her. Please help her to forgive me and let us come to a place where we can be friends. In Jesus name, Amen.

Ephesians 4:31-32 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Kitchen Diary

PUMPKIN BANANA SPICE MUFFINS

August 16, 2015 darling downs 12 Comments

I’m on a muffin roll at the moment, they are so quick and easy to make and I made these for my daughter to take on their ski trip this week.

Ingredients

3 cups self raising flour
2 cups sugar
1 jar of home canned pumpkin or cooked and cooled mashed pumpkin
2 – 3 bananas
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 teaspoon ginger
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 – 2 cups cold water

Once again these are so easy. Just mix the dry ingredients, add the wet and the pumpkin and banana and mix until combined.

Bake in a moderate oven (180 degrees) for approximately 20 mins.

ENJOY!!!

PS. I used home canned pumpkin from last season, and I have never seen canned pumpkin in the supermarket here in Australia. With this pumpkin you just need to remember to drain off the liquid.

PPS. These muffins would be great iced with cream cheese icing. I didn’t do this because they had to travel about 7 hours .

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Darling Downs Diaries

Monthly Archives: August 2015

OUR DAY TRIP TO PORTLAND VICTORIA

APOLOGY TO SUBSCRIBERS

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS #45

SAUSAGE AND VEGETABLE QUICHE

LIFE IS LIKE A JIGSAW PUZZLE

TRADITION

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS #44

IS YOUR DENOMINATION YOUR GOD

GOD TOLD ME TO DO IT

PUMPKIN BANANA SPICE MUFFINS

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