Blog Love

There's nothing I love better than sitting with a cup of Irish Breakfast tea, possibly a chocolate biscuit or two, and a list of blogs to read.

I love blogs about design and decorating, home improvement, home renovation and anything country of course! 

There is so much to look at online, but I have a few favourites that I'd love to share with you today.


Fun and VJs

Lots of fun, decorating and design, with plenty of humour thrown in.  Just what I like.

And because this family is renovating their Queenslander, 

I am especially drawn to it, as we are building our own modern Queenslander.  We can all appreciate the beauty of Vertical Join Wall Lining!

Desire Empire I've only recently discovered this blog and there is much to love!

Full of style and beautiful photos, Carolyn is passionate about what she does and it shows. 

Beachy pics, gorgeous flowers and table settings...it's all so delicious!

A Country Farmhouse Well the name says it all..you can see why I adore this blog! 

Classically beautiful to look at, with the most gorgeous photos of their country house.

I love reading about Trina and sharing her passion for old houses and a simple but healthy life.

The House That A-M Built Kitchens, porches, gorgeous little nooks to sit and read, and a wonderful online shop featuring lighting that I just adore!

I am such a visual person, and I can sit with my cup of tea and just gaze at the images on this blog, and dream.....and be inspired.

I'd love you to check out these blogs and fall in love with them as I have done.

Do YOU have any favourites you'd care to share??

Just Country

I'm happy to share some country images that I see every day!

Enjoy!

What Inspires You?

I'm so happy to share another instalment in my series What Inspires You?

Today I'd love you to meet Lisa.  I just adored this post, she is an amazing writer!  Enjoy!


Hello! I am Mrs BC and I blog over at Mrs BC's House of Chaos.

Many thanks to Michelle for hosting this series on Inspiration; I am delighted to take part!

I am inspired by all sorts of things, for all different reasons, at all different times. What is inspiration,anyway? Is it a lightning bolt from fate, a glimpse at the green grass of possibility, or just a little tickle of your creativity muscle? For me it is all of these things.

Although the written word has a special appeal, I am, like most people, a visual person. This means that generally I like to see something so I can understand and appreciate it. Looking at images of things – interior design, a home decor idea, furniture up-cycles, gardens, fashion, are some of my favourite things to look at. They spark my creativity into light bulb moments of things I can do, or at least plan to do.

My favourite places to see these images are the blogosphere, Pinterest, and magazines. I get hassled all the time over my magazine addiction/collection; if I had to print out all of the blogs and Pinterest images I peruse I think this might give people other things to harass me about. I’m thankful there are online scrapbooks so that I don’t have to kill a forest, and so I can keep this other addiction relatively hidden. Anyway, I’ve run out of storage. (I saw some great storage solutions at the Organised Housewife the other day...)

The thing that really inspires me to be my best self is stories of other women, women who successfully juggle a family, a business, some outstanding feat of humanity. These women sometimes blog, sometimes they are stories in the media, sometimes they are public figures; everyday women who just roll their sleeves up and get on with the business of living. I am inspired by their organisation skills, their juggling prowess, and their achievements. Sure they have obstacles, and not everything goes to plan, but they pick themselves up and keep going. Not glossing over the pain of it but still making it look easy. The Pioneer Woman comes to mind, as does Oprah, Dr Fiona Wood, and Aung San Suu Kyi. Just Google inspirational women, there are hundreds that you might relate to. Woman everywhere, that changed their (and maybe THE) world by the sheer power of their will. These women don’t just have the vision; they have the fortitude to make it happen. They are a tough act to follow, but they are incredibly inspiring.

Image Credit

Chook House Palace

What a beautiful Autumn day!

I've been down at the chicken house, or as us Aussies like to call it "the chook house". I wanted to tidy up and cut back alot of overgrown plants inside, because I'm sure the chooks can't find each other!

When we moved to the farm 4 years ago, this amazing chicken house complete with occupants was part of the deal. We have no idea how old the hens and roosters were, and we have lost some to old age along the way.

Except for the time we introduced the neighbours hen, named Ellen who happened to be a rooster, who had a fight with our rooster who subsequently died from his war wounds.

Sorry where was I?  Oh right!

So our hens have given us alot of eggs during the years, but now they are happy to live out their lives in the sunshine in their chook house palace.

Footnote:- There is a particular skirt that I love which is a burnt orange colour. The chickens hate it. Everytime I wear it, they peck me.

I'm now using it as a cleaning cloth.

House Update

Every day we are one step closer to living in our dream house. The Money Pit is almost done!

We are not counting down in years or months, but in weeks!

Today I booked the tiler to finish the bathroom tiling, and that will be done this week. The plasterer is coming in a couple of weeks to put the gyprock up and finish the garage.

We have ordered the three bathroom showerscreens and they arrive in three weeks!

The Hubbster has been busy building stairs, for the front, back and side of the house, and today he installed the sink in the garage.

The rangehood is up in the kitchen, but not yet finished. And the holes - all three hundred and fifty plus! have been drilled into the verandah posts!

So what else do we have to do this week? Oh that's right! Order the stainless steel wire for the verandah handrails.

We are on the home stretch now! For my new readers I wanted to backtrack a little and explain why it means so much to finally move into this house!

Four years ago, we decided that a move to the country, from suburbia, was what we needed to do. We bought our 75 acre farm, sold our very comfortable house and moved into a shed, right next to a house that was started by the previous owner.

The bearers and joists were done, and the shed was big, open and dusty. It was surrounded by temporary "dongas" or site sheds, and we have made these our home.

We have a loungeroom, a kitchen, a bedroom, a computer room and a storage room for everything we own. We walk out of these rooms into the central area that is our shed.

We have been living very simply...most things we own are in storage, we all sleep in the same room, we have no storage for clothes or personal belongings and if I have to wipe any more gecko poo from my dining table I'll scream.

The shed gets dusty and dirty, and we've had snakes, spiders, frogs and annoying stick insects called Kevin.

From this:-

To this:-

Not too mention the odd cyclone, wind and rain that comes in sideways into the shed, making it impossible to walk to the bathroom without getting soaking wet.

Three and a half years we have been living like this.

I've been frustrated, impatient, and embarassed by our living arrangements, but you know, we are so much closer as a family, and believe it or not, I'll remember these times as heart warming family memories that I'll never be able to replace.

People tell me I'm crazy. Or patient. I think I am both.

I know that once we move into our house, everything will be worth it.

Our house is a 550sqm Queenslander with wrap around verandahs. It is big, and airy and beautiful.

I long for the day I can sit on my verandah with a book in the breeze, and a feeling of satisfaction that we really did it.

That moment is not very far away......

New Life

We have yet more guinea fowl babies.

I've lost count of the number of batches we have had.

I don't want to think about the babies we have lost to those pesky tree snakes!

The kids and The Hubbster helped catch them on the weekend, thanks to our fishing net on a stick and they are safe and sound in our new and improved cage with their two mummies!

We have 17 brand new keets, including 3 white babies, the first ones we have ever had! Look at the difference in the colours!

We are keeping these ones and I'll sell the rest....interested?? :)

What Inspires You?

Inspiration.

What inspires you?

Dreams? Creativity? I want to know!

I am so excited to start a new feature on Farmers Wifey....


I'd love you to share what inspires you? I have a few ideas of my own but today I'm so happy to welcome Trudie.  I"ve only recently discovered Trudie and she is so passionate and creative, I just adore her!

I'm so thrilled to be popping in here to Michelle's blogging adobe to talk about what inspires me. For those of you who don't know me I'm Trudie and I blog over at Journey To Bliss and My Vintage Vow.

Sheer madness some may say that I have two blogs that I try to keep updated each week, but I like to write, I like to share and I'm inspired and driven so much in my life.

In fact pinpointing just one thing to say that inspires me is a difficult task. I'm a visual person, but aside from that I take inspiration in life and all it's experiences, it's highs, lows, and everything else in between. Since starting my journey to become a mum and now that I am a mum, I feel I am living a more inspired life than ever before.

As a parent, a mother and a women I have been inspired by so many other mums through my motherhood journey so far. One of the single most inspiring stories that has impacted my life was when I learnt of a women through an online friend, that had lactated to feed her adopted baby daughter. So when I was faced with my son trying to latch onto my breast after 3 months on a bottle and the day after I returned home from hospital (after my second miscarriage), I made the decision to try and relactate, bouyed in the knowledge that anything was possible.

That decision resulted in a relationship which overall saw my son breastfed for a total of just over two half years, as well as feed through his sisters pregnancy and tandem feed with her until recently. If it wasn't for others stories and lots of support I wouldn't of had, nor been inspired in this unbelievable second chance, and for that I am eternally grateful.



As a parent I I'm further inspired by other women and families who have come through significant obstacles, struggles and losses as we have as a couple, to carve a fulfilled and contented life despite some of the most horrific tragedies in their journeys to parenthood and throughout. I'm inspired to live beyond the tough times and live big, because of others stories.

Finally though when it comes to fulfilling the creative urges in my mind and soul, well nothing is safe, I am inspired by so much. From the simple to the extravagant, from real to make believe. Colour, patterns, shadows, words, sound bites, textiles, clothing especially vintage and retro designs, colours and patterns. All of these and more send my mind when I am in quiet times into a slide show of vision and inspiration boards that live in my head, flicking by at great speed but leaving me with impact, drive and ideas for projects.



I really don't know how else to describe all my inspirations in life, other than to say I just sit back and let life and all that I come by and experience have its affect on me organically, I don't search out things, I just let them come to me.

Many thanks to the lovely Lisa from Life As We Know It for the What Inspires You? button xo

The Written Word

Do you read?

I'm not talking about trashy magazines....

I mean books. Hard cover. Soft cover.

Fiction or non fiction.

I am a reader. I love books.

To be swept away into a fantasy land by words on a page.

My bookshelf is full of books. If I see one that I like, it's not enough to borrow from the library. I must have it and own it and place it on my timber bookshelf.



My love of reading began when I was a child and I adored my Enid Blyton paperbacks. The Wishing Chair, The Magic Faraway Tree..The Book of Fairies..

I can still remember being taken away into this fantasy land of goblins and magical creatures....how I adored this!

The two books I remember clearly from my childhood are Tom's Midnight Garden and Z for Zachariah.

I've reread these two books as an adult, but they didn't have the same impact as they did looking through the pure eyes of a child.

I adore Stephen King. I love travel books about America.

Bill Bryson makes me laugh out loud.



I can easily read my favourite books more than once.

And I do.

I am halfway through The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris.

And I have this pile of books just waiting to be read.



What I have found, however, is that I prefer the book...rather than the movie.

Especially with Stephen King....to be able to understand a character in a book before visually seeing..it's very satisfying......

The power of the written word is undeniable.

What books do YOU  enjoy?