Our Own Tree Cat

Hey Stanley, move along, we have our own tree cat now so don't overrate yourself. Our little Hobie (that is not so little any more) proves herself to be a real tree cat. Whenever we have coffee or tea on the deck, she will follow and into the garden. Next minute, we will see her little face in the ti tree meowing at us. She also likes the Australian frangipani; that one has bigger branches and she can easily jump up and down on to the fence. We are glad we adopted her and give her a happy home.

On Christmas' Eve, Bob delivered bags of cat food and treats to Melanie's of Franklin Cat Rescue from where we adopted our own tree cat. He told me there were already piles of cat food and chocolate at the front door. He left our gift to the pile. Isn't it nice a lot of people support what the FCR is doing? If you cannot adopt any kitten right now, just donate a little bit to FCR, either in cash or in kind. Your gift will make a big difference to the kitties in their care.

Summer Treats: Super Easy Ice Lollies

They are very yummy and very easy. All you need are Lewis Rd Creamery's Whitaker's Chocolate Milk, ice block mould and sticks (of course, you also need a freezer:)

We love Lewis Road Creamery's Chocolate Milk (they also do Coffee Milk and Vanilla Milk but Chocolate is the wickedest one:). It's rich, so you can only drink a small glass at a time. I just pour the milk into the ice block mould and freeze until firm then insert sticks and freeze further until solid. It's beautiful - if you have guests for lunch or dinner this summer, no need to break sweat over complicated pudding. Serve your guests, young and old, with these ice lollies and watch the smiles on their faces!

Goodbye, 2015 and Hello, 2016

This is the last sunset of 2015 just behind our place. New Year's Eve was pretty quiet around here with only a few pathetic fireworks. As we have had two consecutive long weekends, I guess a lot of people went away and unfortunately, the weather did not play nice. We had rain and strong North Easterlies from the first day of the year.

We don't have New Year's resolutions - we don't smoke, we eat reasonably, we exercise regularly and drink occasionally. When we decided to quit smoking ages ago, we just quit and didn't think of it as a resolution - with a little help of medication (gladly prescribed by our GPs:) we did it in 3 weeks and no looking back. A packet of cigarettes is now $22 as I have seen on the news. Ouch! That's twice as much as it was when we were still doing it. Two packets a week will cost more than $2,000 in a year. And with 2 of us, it will total to $4,000 plus - we can have holidays in Hawaii for a week! 

I think New Year's resolutions are somewhat cliche - they are easy to make but not easy to maintain. They are more suitable for celebrities to be in the news or magazine writers to fill the pages. You don't have to wait for a new year to improve yourself and when you slip you can make it better the next minute or the next hour - just don't wait for another year.