i have a ruby pear shop blog now.

www.therubypeartasmania.blogspot.com

come visit xxx

Dogs Breakfast

Bluuuuuuuuuuuuuurk, i feel like a dogs breakfast:( And I'm complaining, hahaha, i just realised what i was writing and how it relates to yesterdays post, hmmmmn. Well, back to this dogs breakfast business...... I have a confession to make - I am addicted. . I am addicted to Kettle Chilli Chips. Not only am I addicted, i have pushed chilli chips onto my friends, knowing the power that they hold, and they too are now, addicted. I have convinced myself that there is nothing wrong with eating these chips, they are one of the better potato chips that you can buy and I tell myself that chilli speeds up your metabolism and so balances out the fat content. See, see the excuses, I told you i was addicted. I swear every packet is my last, i swear it as i roll off whatever furniture i have sprawled myself on whilst gorging on these little chilli delights. I swear it as I look mournfully into Jeremys eyes, imploring him to somehow, someway find a painless way to kindly have my stomach pumped. He scoffs at me and tells me he has no symapthy and I try to convince him that i will never, ever eat chilli chips again. Not only did i eat almost an entire, large packet of chilli bloaters, I also polished of a soy icecream strawberry thickshake, it doesn't matter that it was packed full of fresh strawberries and organic soy milk, fact is i consumed my share and half the neighbourhoods share, and you can tell, i am a bloated behemoth and i feel like a slug. So, I swear to you, all you people in my fantasy world that actually read this blog..... I WILL NEVER EAT CHILLI CHIPS AGAIN, NO SIREE I WILL NOT, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE.

Enough of that rubbish, today was a glorious day:)
Chilling out at home with the always fine Mr J, (i don't usually call him that, but i might start, i like it!), the gloriously delightful Miss Maggie, our doogles Rastas, Misha and Annie and cats Babs and Master Chief. (only 2 more sleeps til Miss Amy and Miss Alice get back from their Dads, yay, the house is never the same without them xxx) Gemma and Edie came to hang out and Jeremy made us all delicious cacao cake, oh lordy this is the best cake on the planet and once we get all our super healthy ingredients on board, it will be even better. Check out www.biodistributors.com.au for some fantastic organic vegan supplies.

Gemma and I have come up with some fantastic ideas for our creative collaboration and I am so happy and excited and eager. I am looking forward to being able to design more and I love being inspired and inspiring and inspired some more. Lots and lots of work to do but it is all good I tell you, its all good.

Enough silly rambling for one night xxx

p.s did you notice that i didn't keep my promise again???

Looking for the magic

Think this place looks magical? Well it is. This is Princes Square and one of my most favourite places, i visit here almost everyday and the minute I walk through the gate its beauty just takes hold of me. This is my 'church', this is where i come to clear my head, where i come to get perspective and where i can come and feed the birds. I love feeding birds, when you lay on the ground and hold out your hand and if your really still the birds will come and eat out of your hand. Its nice and its a nice thing to share with your kids. Miss Maggie and I came here yesterday morning, nice and early and it was such a lovely way to start the day.

Maggie extended her breakfast...
and tried demanding that the birds do the same.... by running at them.
they weren't persuaded. Try explaining quiet to a toddler;)

There is magic everywhere, another one of those cliched, bumperstickers, but its true. Many people forget to look for it or don't believe it has any merit in todays world, these are the same people who complain all the time. So next time you feel like complaining, look around, find something you do like and comment on that instead. It will get easier with practice and soon you will find that you don't really have much to complain about anyway and plenty to appreciate and in all seriousness, its pretty uninspiring being around someone who complains all the time, so be uplifting instead!

I had a terribly uninspiring morning this morning and instead of getting out of the house and wandering up to the park or to the gorge or any of the other beautiful parks in this city, I sat in my work room and alternated between lamenting how terrible my work is and how messy i am, with breaking needles on my machine and making fine examples of the worst work i have ever done. Seriously, why we choose to complain I will never know and I see no point in trying to analyse it. fullstop. What I do know is that next time I will make the better choice of, going for a walk with my family, appreciating the fact that my partner has a day off, enjoying the sunshine and looking for magic or even better letting magic find us. I am glad that the complaining bug only catches me occasionally these days and that i am pretty good at shaking it off. It hasn't always been that way and i am glad for the contrast. (and i bet my family and friends are too, how they handled being around me when i was gloominous doom i will never know!)

This afternoon ended with the promise of wonderful days to come in the shape of a creative collaboration with a wonderful friend and i sincerely look forward to sharing this. See, magic surprises are always around the corner, aren't you glad? xxx

Well, I have no real idea what i have written here, it could all be a load of gobbledy gook but apart from Gemma I'm not so sure anyone is reading it anyway, hahahaha, its very strange.

This blog is meant to have some franrosie relevance somewhere but since I haven't made anything today there will just have to be hope that tomorrow will be more productive and that I will have loads of franrosie pics to share. Oh and the vegan recipes!!! Yep, will have one of those too xxx

love, sunshine and home

Sunshine is what every great friendship should offer. I know a dear girl that you can find most days here, toiling away in her most beautiful little shop, Content. Minnie is her name and she really is like sunshine to me, she is one of those glorious people that always brings a smile to your heart, without fail. Even when she is being all doomy gloomy, she has a habit of saying 'its so hard' and 'its all bad', she is still sunshiny. She is one of the sweetest people on this planet and I am proud to call her my friend and for my children to call her their Aunty Minnie. She is ultimately a joy seeker which is why she is always such a pleasure to be around, she is always beautiful and always inspiring.

Home, is what my family is to me. I am so grateful to this glorious world for providing me with the most wonderful children. They light my everyday and inspire me always to be all that i can be, it sounds cliched but there is a reason why people refer to their loved ones in this way, its because its truth. And you've got to love truth:) I wake up everyday knowing that life is great because I have these wonderful people as my family. I could go into detail about each of my daughters but I will save that for another day...

Love, Home and kisses that still give me tingles are my wonderful Jeremy. I can't tell you how great it is to see him every morning and feel glad that he is in my life. Seriously, this guy drives me crazy but life wouldn't be quite so shiny without him :) I always rant at him about how we have nothing in common and to be truthful on paper we really don't have much in common but he gets me, he never really knows what i'm talking about and he doesn't really share my vision for most things but all that aside, he gets ME, the me that i thought no-one would ever get and if they did they would run a mile. He gets me and he loves me for it and for that i am so glad xxx.

Always remember to have an adventure

Well, I'm not really sure where I'm going with todays entry so I will just keep typing and see how it evolves..............

I have had a pretty great day today, Mr J started work at seven so it was an early start for him, but Miss Maggie and I stayed in bed 'til 9.00, this is huge for us as our normal time to get up and at 'em is around 6-6.30. After some pottering we meandered down to Royal Park and then met beautiful Gemma, Edie and Duncan at the seaport and then had a wonderful stroll through to the Esk Market, with a bit of building perving on the way. I love checking out old buildings, I could do it all day everyday and never ever tire of it. I should take some photos to share soon, yes i will, i promise:)

Now, this book of mine that i want to write is hopefully going to be about how wonderfully a persons life experience can change when they choose to only focus on the good stuff and i thought if I can jot down my day to day joys and challenges it might inspire others or at least make it more personal than a how-to self help book. So here i would like to share a little story about making the most of each day and trying not to hide behind that pushy little friend called shyness, you know that turd of a friend who is always telling you to shoosh and stop drawing attention to yourself, well, tell shyness to bugger off and be you, because remember only you can be you and if your not being you well we are all missing out on something special xxx

So on to this story of mine, its about a girl called Gemma. Mr J, Magnolia and I were out at Evandale Market one lovely Sunday morning when i stumble across a stall selling the most WONDERFUL, vintage inspired, little girls dresses that you ever did see. Gemma is the creator of these dresses and is also one of the bestest girls i have ever met, anyway i compliment her on said dresses and ask for her card and she remarks that she has possibly seen me around and i am too shy to really say more and off we wander with me raving in Jeremys ear about how lovely she was and how beautiful her dresses are and how when we are all cashed up I'm a gonna get me some! On the way home in the car I wrote Gemma a text message asking her if she would like to catch up sometime and quickly sent it before I lost my nerve and tried not entertain any thoughts of 'as if she would want to be my friend', turns out Gemma never got that message as I had typed her number in incorrectly but my little ladies and I ran into her at another market a week later, in the meantime i had read her blog but then for some reason thought that would seem stalkerish (??) so didnt let on that i already knew heaps of stuff about her and thought she was fabulous but obviously way too witty and cool for me, but still I put on my brave boots, told her about the message and asked would she like to catch up for a coffee (i drink decaffeinated tea btw!) she said yes and I was so excited, but i tried to keep it cool, hahaha. Anyway to cut this ridiculously long story short, six months ago, or maybe more, I would never have had the nerve to do this and would have lamented my lack of confidence, but this time I took a chance and have made a friend for life, this is a girl i fell in love with almost immediately and I know a good friend when i find one, I have had the priviledge of falling in love with a few goodens. And not only is Gemma the bomb, she has a wonderful husband Duncan, a fabulous mum and a beautiful little lass, Edie, who is only a couple of months younger than my Magnolia!!! These guys have enriched our lives so much and now we couldn't imagine life without them, So if instinct tells you to go for it, whatever it is, then go for it, you really don't know what you could miss out on.

Catch you tomorrow with more words of wisdom, bahhahahahaha xxx

p.s remember to pop outside and appreciate the wonderful full moon x

Getting Started

We all have to start somewhere don't we? So here goes, I'm a little bit shy about starting my blog, but its better to be shy and starting than not doing it at all, well that's what i'm telling myself anyway:)
Firstly, please excuse my lack of correct punctuation and grammar, if i was waiting for that to improve this blog would NEVER come into existence!
I have been thinking about writing a book for a little while now and that book would be like a journal of my life for a year or so, we have also been talking about (we being Mr J and I) writing a vegan cookbook. Well I am thinking that if i set it up as a blog, it gets me started writing, i can share my recipes, my franrosie designs and hopefully make some delightful friends in the process, ones that i wouldn't make scribbling away in my journal. I really know little to nothing about blogging so hopefully its not too steep a learning curve. I'm thinking that today i will share some franrosie news and maybe tomorrow i can share a delicious recipe.....

New design for franrosie-
Yesterday in the mail my lovely young ladies received a stunningly beautiful ribbon each from a beautiful, beautiful lady that i met at 'niche market', she posted these to the girls as a surprise gift just because she is so sweet, Thank you Ann. To say thank you i have decided to design a new range with bows on them and post one off to Ann.
All my franrosie bags and wallets are made from recycled leather, now i don't know if recycled is really the correct term to use but by recycled i mean that i am reusing something that would otherwise be used for landfill or something similar. If it's not recycled, it's organic. All my work is made without a pattern and no two items are the same. They are currently stocked in Cocoon in Launceston and should be on etsy but in the past I have been too slack to list them, must rectify this:)