Feeling more beachy than bloggy lately

                                  Been feeling more beachy than bloggy lately

 Tsunami fears not withstanding-I kept my car keys in my back pocket the whole time and parked the car pointing to the exit, we still relaxed and had fun digging holes and chasing seagulls.

Yes! The weather is good at long last, and what with the earthquakes keeping us all awake I can't be fagged blogging or doing much else other than having a good time with my whanau.

The river feels safe, although i have heard since heard a rumour that Tsunamis travel up rivers...

Nothing, of course keeps me out the oppy.

I found this cool Alaskan doll this week. Now I'm not a doll person as a rule, but I am a fur person. That, plus a combo of the creeping effect of having a little girl, renovating a doll house, and being in the midst of reading Kathryn Harrison's The Seal Wife made me certain I should take her home. 

Not sure what I'm going to do with her now she's here, though apparently they're quite collectible. This one isn't signed on the bottom and has a darker skinned face than most of the ones I've found on the net so far. 

I'll be looking out for more Kathryn Harrison books though-there were some gorgeous, lyrical descriptions of people and place in it that I kept going back to re-read and savour, though the story itself didn't really grip me. Re: reading, I've just signed up to Goodbooks, to get some book recommendations after a short, but frustrating-when-lying-awake-all-night-alarmed-by-earthquakes, drought of decent reads. 

I did read about half of Ferenc Mates enjoyable-if-a-crock book on about what the Italian village lifestyle can teach us about happiness: grow vegges (check) and talk to your neighbours (check) and all will be grand apparently (erm, really?), The Wisdom of Tuscany. Motivated, I lurched out of bed the following morning and made some redcurrant jelly from the meagre pickings on our bush after the bird had had their share. 

Can't say I noticed any radical improvement in my happiness quotient, though the neighbours did wolf down the tarte aux fraises I made for Claudines bithday party in December, glazed with last years batch of redcurrant jelly, which looked wonderful thanks to the colour intensification effect of the redcurrant jelly. 

They didn't taste that flash to my taste though, due to over-mixing the dough I think-kinda gluey, though everyone was too polite to mention it.  Last years were too crumbly and needed to be eaten with a spoon, in a bowl. 

If anyone can point me in the direction of a good, tastes like the crushed biscuit base on a cheese cake but sticks together, recipe, or a good book for that matter, it would make my life much happier.

Happiness is  nearly completed dolly house project.

I did a bit of work on it over the Christmas hols, though I've since resumed a state of doll housing inertia and am unlikely to have it totally completed to my exacting satisfaction for the I'm a Giant Challenge extended deadline. Copying the colour scheme of the mini doll house I painted the exterior  in Resene's Athens grey. 

AFTER

BEFORE

It looked ace, if a bit prim, so I added a few hand-painted embellishments

                                  And, in another pin-ing real life moment, this time in miniature,
       
                                                                         inspired by this

I made some circular shelving for the ball bedroom from those little freebie pots of gunk you get from The Body Shop.

I'm really want to do something similar in Claud's bedroom to house the soft toy overload that's driving me mental, but I haven't found anything suitable down the oppy...yet! 

I also made another tulip table. And a giant eyebrow. Hmm. 

And a mirror and pot plants for the once-a-jewelery-box chest of drawers.

And in a final bit of second hand joy for the week I found something on my 'dream finds down the oppy' list at today's Riccarton market

A fabulous old school roll up wall map, of Paris to boot.

Ahh, maybe that's the secret sum for happiness:- family+veggies+neighbourliness+oppyshoppysuccess!