Autumn Lovlies & Green Day 19...

Here in Raindrops land the weather has been foggy, damp and miserable

but we did have a blue sky on Sunday
Happy days

♥ In the Kitchen...

baked some cakes but they were demolished very quickly by the 3 men in this house

 I could bake everyday and it still wouldn't be enough to feed them!

I made a coffee and walnut loaf (my favourite)

 and

out of the same mix

I made a chocolate and orange loaf and a zingy zangy

lemon loaf

easy peasy lemon squeezy!

To make 2 loaves you need the following ingredients
4 eggs, 8oz caster sugar,  8oz soft butter, 16oz self raising flour,
 add about 4 half egg shells of milk and just beat the lot together, voila!
 If I want lemon cake I add grated lemon rind  and substitute some of the milk with lemon juice
for coffee cake I add some coffee essence
 for basic light fruit cake, grated orange zest  and some of the juice and a packet of mixed dried fruit,
Orange and chocolate chip - add orange rind and a packet of chocolate chips.

All baked in a loaf tin at 160 fan oven for approx 35 minutes.
This mix can be used for buns too

I love baking,

measuring out the ingredients

putting the mix into the tins and popping  them into the oven

the wonderful aroma that fills the house

but

after I have baked my kitchen always resembles a war zone

 and the washing up, oh dear, oh dear oh dear!

*** is it just me or are you a messy cook too?

Because I ♥ cakes I needed a stand to display them on

so I bought this one for €18 in Dunnes Stores

it is so pretty with or without cakes!

I bought a mug to match for when I am having my cuppa €3

and the cutest little delph spoon - 75c ♥

 

♥ Home & Garden...

The orchid I got during the Summer is thriving

and I think that for €8 it was certainly good value!

" 

Ordered one of my very  favourite dvds from Amazon - Captain Correlli's Mandoin

brilliant  soundtrack, scenery, love story and Mr. Cage comes across as very manly and a bit of a hunk.

Not a huge fan of his in anything else but in this he just hits the spot.

What's your favourite curl up on the sofa movie?

♥ Where I live

photos from my walk with Mr. Raindrops yesterday

♥ and finally an Award...

Thank you to the lovely Natasha who has given me The Versatile Blogger award

I really appreciate this award, thank you Natasha.
Natasha has a wonderful blog Made by Natalie visit her and drool !!
I will pass the award on next week as this post is so long
 and I'm sure you have read enough of my ramblings at this stage!!!

 Green Day 19

Well it's Friday and so it is Green Day

The usual rules apply...
Thank you to all who participate I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do
Raindrops and Daisies

all kinds of everything...

Good morning friends,

it's Friday and so welcome to another Green Day

It is so long since I blogged that I really don't know what to say 

or where to start....

♥ Family 

 My Mum is a lot better now and thank you all for all of your good wishes,

she is on the mend and happy and smiling again which is great!

♥ Home 

The farmers have finished their harvest and so the animals have 
returned to the fields. 

This beauty and his friends are in the field at the back of our house.  

It is lovely to see them run up and down

Isn't he a handsome fellow?

The weather here has been a mixture of sunshine and showers 
along with some early morning frosts.

but wow we have had some wonderful autumn sunshine too!

♥ Buys 

 I went shopping the other day and bought a lovely black and white dress in Penneys 

it will certainly suit the cooler weather.

I can put a black or white top underneath,

 wear it on it's own or with a fine knit polo when it really gets cold.

It looks great with black tights and heels or  with my black boots.

 I was delighted to find that it only cost €25 so happy days!

♥ Garden

 My patio is still looking pretty, 

 I have planted up a few new pots and so hopefully will have colour throughout autumn/winter

♥ Pets

On a very wet day I heard a loud crash, hmmm....

I wonder who broke my terracotta pot when racing by.....

♥ Kitchen

 I made a cake the other day and was hoping to post the recipe and some photos,

 but by the time I got to taking the pics

 most of the cake had been demolished by 

the 3 hungry men of the house, 

these are the only pics I got!!!

Next time I make it I will try and be quicker with the camera 
and hopefully get to share the lovely recipe!

♥ Blogging 

While I was driving home from work the other day I stopped to take this photo.

 I don't think anyone saw me (I hope not)

 as they would think I was bonkers stopping the car to take a photo of a sheep

but you know that I do believe a lot of us bloggers are  bit bonkers 

as most of us will seize any opportunity 

to take a photo...

so what do you think
 are we all a bit mad???

ps the red on his back is the local farmer's marking

so as to distinguish him from other flocks in the area.

have a lovely happy week full of
 sunshine, smiles and lovely things 

xoxox

♥ Green Day

why not link up with us today...

Blogging, awards and playing catch up...

I have to apologise but I way behind with blogging this week and that's because I'm back to work fulltime and barely have time to dress myself!

I am very late in acknowledging two lovely bloggers, but better late than never

and I will try and play catch-up (once again) over the next week or so.

I have been given awards from two very special people.

Evi at Sexta-Feira awarded me the lovely blog award

and Demi at Aussi Dimi decoupage has awarded me the Kreativ blog award

Both Evi and Demi have wonderful blogs and both are well worth a visit. 
I love visiting them, having a read, looking at their lovely photos and exchanging comments with them.

Evi and Demi have become special blogging friends to me over the last few months and I would like to thank them both for the awards and for their friendship. 

7 things about myself -

* I'm a worrier

 I worry about things before they even happen

and usually they never do...

luckily I am married to a very relaxed man

who takes things as they come!

*   I have green eyes

* I like the colour lemon

it always reminds me of

when I was pregnant

 with my first child

and because I didn't know if

it was a boy or a girl

everything I bought was lemon

she wore lemon clothes for  years!

* I love to sit and relax with

a glass of red wine 

I love the colour of it,

the taste of it

and even the smell of it

makes me happy!

*   I find candlelight so relaxing

and so most evenings 

I have a candle lighting. 

*  I sometimes have a chew

on my nails-

not a nice habit...

but if I start nibbling

it's hard to stop!

* I never go out the door

without my lipstick on

never, ever ever ever

 my natural look would scare

small children away!

*  I don't want to win the lottery

my life as it is makes me happy
and if I could live the rest of my days
as they are now
I would be a very happy woman.

I am going to award the lovely blog award to all of the blogs

that participate in Green Day,

you have all been a wonderful support to me and I love looking at your beautiful photos. You all deserve the "Lovely Blog award"

It is difficult to give awards to some blogs as they are award free

but

I'm going to be really bold and ignore this!

The Kreativ blog award goes to...

Karen at  My Little Home and Garden 

Mildred at Maple Lane
Barb at Grandma Barb's This an That
Renae at Simple Sequins
Lynne at Irish Garden House

Mary at Merrydotandy
Ellie at Ellie's Place
Barbara at Two Birdies blog

Please visit them along with Evi and Demi

and I bet you will agree they are all great.

I'm off now to pour a glass of vino and  read the posts that I have missed

Have a lovely weekend my friends

end of Summer....

and today I am linking up with Mary and Renae for their Tuesday EASY blog hop.

Eating well I'm doing too much of this and am going to have to 
tape my mouth shut soon.

I don't know what it is about this weather but with all these wet and dreary days 
it just makes me want to eat and eat and eat!

At this rate of going I will have to pretend 
I have turned Muslim and wear long loose black clothing to hide all my 
newly acquired lumps and bumps.....

so it is going to have to be less of this

and more of this....

even poor Charlie is fed up with  the rain...

August is at an end 

and I am sad to see summer go

even though we only had it for about

a week or so here in Ireland!

These flowers always bloom in the last few weeks of summer and are a reminder that Autumn is on the way and that the days are getting shorter.

 

 Mr. Raindrops came home after working away  he was home for 3 days 
but has gone back to Spain this morning

 but it was great to see him.  

We had lovely family time together 

and went out to our favourite restaurant

  chatted, laughed with the kids and had fun

and of course I got him to do a few little jobs around the house and garden 
just to keep him busy 
and make him feel wanted!!

Sunday-exhausted...

 after a late night I was'nt feeling the best,
too many glasses of wine!

I am too old for late nights!
How about you? 
Can you cope with late nights?

So on Sunday it was a quiet walk along the lake in the afternoon and a lazy dazy day

Yippee I am so lucky because I won
the giveaway over at

The Crafty Gardener's Blog

Linda has a beautiful blog and it is one that I love to visit. 

The prize was a My Memories Scrapbooking program

I am so delighted because I have never won anything, 

never, ever ever ever.....

I think maybe I should do the lottery this week.

I am going to use the program to display some photos for my Mum.

My brother took his own life a couple of years ago and my Mum has never really got over it, well being honest none of us have, so with the memories kit I can put photos of Cíaran into it and do you know what my Mum will have a smile 
as wide as the ocean when she sees them.

Thanks Linda for a great prize.

A favour please.....

any of you who have word verification on your blogs can you remove it
please please pretty please?

 It is so difficult to decipher

and even with my reading glasses on it's impossible and usually takes me 3 or 4 attempts before I get it right.

It is easy to disable and you won't get any spam, honestly...
 but I bet you will get more comments

To get rid of it is easy peasy

go into settings...

posts and comments

word verification - click no

 save your settings 
and hey presto it's gone!

Wishing you all a lovely happy week
full of
 sunshine, smiles and lovely things

♥♥♥
 

Word Verification Woes

I am posting this as I have seen word verification on many blogs and now with the changes it is making life very difficult -

Below is a post written by TexWisgirl and I hope it will encourage bloggers to remove the Word Verification

WORD VERIFICATION WOES!

Okay, Blogger users, Blogger has switched their word verification format. Instead of legible, repeatable letters, we are now faced with deciphering the 'Captcha' format of letters placed in sometimes indiscernible bubbles and shapes. IT IS MAKING US CRAZY!!!

And just what would be YOUR guess?!

I'm sorry, but I'm just going to be honest, here. If you use word verification on your blog, I will probably stop leaving comments. Not only is word verification very time-consuming, now it is downright frustrating! My eyes don't decode spy messages! And if I now have to try two or three times to repeat the gobbledygook that is being passed off as word verification, I'm just not going to bother!

Sorry if this offends any of you, but I've not used word verification for over a year and have had almost NO problems! If Blogger does one thing well, it is spam filtering. I don't allow Anonymous comments on my blog - you have to use an I.D. of some kind - and that has been more than sufficient.

If you are worried about spammers or inappropriate comments left on your site, then PLEASE switch to comment moderation! I'll be happy to continue to leave comments and let you moderate whether to publish them or not, but at least then you're doing the policing of your site and I'm not driven to madness by spy code garbage!

Just being 100% point blank, here. I follow between 300 and 400 blogs. I leave a TON of comments all over Blogland every day. I CANNOT CONTINUE TO DO SO IF I RUN INTO WORD VERIFICATION AT SO MANY SITES! I don't mean to be rude, but my time is better spent in other pursuits than decoding and typing nonsense. Let's face it, we all have limited time to give to blogging (and I already give too much!)

I don't want to stop leaving comments. We all love getting them on our posts! PLEASE remove word verification altogether or switch to comment moderation, if you feel you must have some stop-gap control. BUT I MAY NOT LET YOU KNOW I'VE STOPPED BY IF YOU HAVE WORD VERIFICATION ENABLED! If you're not certain whether you've got word verification on your blog, check your settings!!!

I have not switched to the new Blogger Interface (tested it, didn't like it, and switched back, at least for now). I hope it allows for easy switches to comment settings. In the old Blogger Interface, settings can be modified through Settings - Comments.

* I use 'Registered Users' so that Anonymous comments cannot be posted.
* I suggest using a pop-up box or full-page format rather than 'embed below post' as that setting so often causes folks problems in trying to leave comments.
* I click NEVER for comment moderation, but you can select it if you wish.
* Click NO for show word verification on posts!
* I have my comments delivered to my email address so I can respond to commenters directly via email if they have email published (which I also highly recommend!) To link your email to your profile, go through Dashboard-Edit User Profile and click 'show email'. This will allow folks to respond to your comments and questions via email!

If any of you faithful Bloggers want to spread this message, feel free to copy and re-post any or all of my ranting or link back to this post. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP AND FOR MAKING WORD VERIFICATION NON-EXISTENT!!! Keep spreading the blogger love without spy code frustration!

Printed with permission from Tex Wis Girl, Run.A.Round.Ranch

{ Awards }

 ♥

A big thank you to two special people -

I would like to thank Jill

from Chillin with Jill for awarding me the Liebster Award,

I really appreciate you thinking of me Jill

and also thanks to Izdiher from Izdiher for awarding me the Enchanted Blog award

Pop over and visit Jill and Idziher and have a read of their lovely blogs for yourself ♥

I am going to break the rules by passing the awards on to all of my fellow bloggers.

You have the most wonderful blogs and I am so glad to have found you.

Thank you for your friendship ♥

May God grant you always...
A sunbeam to warm you,
A moonbeam to charm you,
A sheltering angel, so nothing can harm you.

{old Irish blessing}

A huge thank you.......

for two awards that I received recently.

I received the Tell me about yourself award from Claudia.  

Claudia has a lovely blog called The Story and I am so glad that I got to know her through blogging.  She is a lovely person and I always enjoy reading about her life.  Pop over and visit Claudia and you will be glad that you did.

I also received the

from the lovely Izdiher

Izdiher lives in Pakistan and has a wonderful blog full of interesting details about life in her country.  Visit her and I know you will enjoy her writing.

The terms of these awards are such that I must tell you 7 things about myself and then pass the award onto 15 other bloggers.

Well here goes for the 7 things about me.....

I work with children with special needs.

I drive a silver car 
which never seems to have any petrol!

I am not afraid of spiders, or snakes 

but rats or mice make me feel faint with fear.

I wear make up everyday and wouldn't go outside withut lipstick

Even though I give out about the rain, I find the sound of it very soothing.

My favourite scents are citrus, lemons, oranges, and lime, Y-U-M

I would love to live near the sea and wake up every morning to a view of the ocean.

~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much Izdiher and Claudia for the awards and although I would dearly love to pass them on, it is impossible to pick winners from the blogs that I follow because all of your blogs are truely special to me and I love reading each and every one of them and I couldn't pick just 15!

It has been lovely to be a recipient of these special tokens and I am so grateful to you both.

F I O N A

XXX

Sweet Blog Award

I have just been awarded the Irrestibly Sweet Blog Award by Ellie at Ellie's Place

Ellie is a keen photographer and has some lovely photographs on her blog.

Pop over and have a look.  Ellie thank you for this award.

There are rules that go with this award. 

They are:  tell 7 things about myself and pass award on to 7 other bloggers. 

So here goes -

1    My favourite day of the week is Friday

2   I would have love to have another daughter so that my one and only would have had a sister.  I have no sisters, my Mum had no sisters and either had my Dad so girls are in short supply here!

3   I love red wine.

4   I love the colours pink and turquoise but have to admit that my winter wardrobe consists mostly of black!

5   My favourite season is Spring.  I love to see all the new flowers appearing and the baby lambs arriving .

6   I love wearing lipstick.

7   I don't relish the thought of reaching 50!

Now on to part two - pass this award on to 7 other bloggers.  Not easy and I'm afraid that I am only going to be able to pass it on to 5 others as I'm still new to this!  I hope that is ok?

If any of my 5 don't want to take part that is perfectly ok.

My 5 other bloggers are -

Anne at Frayed at the Edge

Sush at First do no Harm

Thisisme at Southhamsdarling 

Bethe at Daily Journey
Sherry at Indigo Girl

~ Fiona ~