the secret life of insects

I made paella for dinner tonight, and when I sliced through the 

middle of the capsicum and looked inside, there was a little green 

caterpillar (and about a thousand little green caterpillar eggs). 

It just managed to miss the knife somehow. Phew!

It was like a scene from this cute little french animation series....

Ari and I have been watching these together after school lately. 

I think the caterpillar's my favourite of the Minuscule creatures.

Ari calls it 'The Secret Life of Insects'.  Hehe.... so cute! More here.

Paella!

(vegetarian paella)

3 cups (750ml) vegetable stock

2 cups (500ml) water

pinch saffron threads

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 medium tomatoes (300g), seeded, 

chopped finely

1 medium red capsicum (200g), chopped finely

1 medium red onion (170g), chopped finely

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1¾ cups (350g) arborio rice

1 cup (120g) frozen peas

1 medium zucchini (120g), chopped finely 

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Combine stock and the water in medium saucepan; bring to the boil. 

Remove from heat; stir in saffron.

Heat oil in large frying pan; cook tomato, capsicum, onion, 

garlic and paprika, stirring, until onion softens. 

Stir in rice then stock mixture; bring to the boil. 

Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, without stirring, 20 minutes.

Sprinkle peas and zucchini evenly over surface of rice; 

simmer, covered, about 10 minutes or until rice is tender. 

Remove from heat; stand, covered, 5 minutes before serving. 

Serve paella sprinkled with parsley.

image and recipe courtesy The Australian Women's Weekly

Lisa Larson

I love looking at pictures of artists at work- in their studios,

workrooms, ateliers, gardens. These are some of my favourite

creations and photographs of Swedish designer Lisa Larson. 

Many of Lisa's designs are still in production. 

You can visit the website and shop here and view more 

of my favourite artists at work, and their ateliers here.

I hope you're enjoying a lovely start to the week! 

We've decided to shift our field journal posts to Wednesdays

and will be posting entry four in our little project then, if you'd

like to play along with us. Happy Monday Everyone! xoxox

image credits: one, two, three, four, five, six 

These are a few of my...

favourite things. 

 

Things that make me happy.

Things that I love.

Things that I'd love to own.

Things that I do own.

Things that I enjoy.

Things that I enjoy doing.

Things that resonate with my sense of aesthetics.

Beautiful kimonos circa 1930s-1950s via.

If you'd like to create a post about your favourite things,

feel free to link to it in the comments.  I'd love to know 

what lovely things inspire and motivate you to create... xo

field journal

Entry Three:  Flowers in our garden

.................................................................

.................................................................

Ari collected these beautiful flowers from around the 

garden earlier today and arranged them to photograph.

There is such a wonderful parade of colourful blooms

outside his window, just now.  It's truly a lovely sight. 

You can view other journal entries here and, as always,

feel free to create your own and link it in the comments.

xoxox

These are a few of my...

favourite things. 

Things that make me happy.

Things that I love.

Things that I'd love to own.

Things that I do own.

Things that I enjoy.

Things that I enjoy doing.

Things that resonate with my sense of aesthetics.

Friends are like flowers, beautiful flowers

Friends are like flowers in the garden of life.

Are you a Daisy? Are you a Rose? Are you a Dandelion?

You can be what you are and I willl be what I am

We can be friends in the garden of life.


I have vivid memories of gleefully belting out this 
little number on my guitar in the church choir when I was 
a child... the hippy undertones resonating in my soul.

If I were a flower, I think I'd want to be one of the strange 
and beautiful creations above. I can quite imagine the 
Dr Seuss-like gardenscape they'd call home.


plaques by herman marie, pillows by colette bream

cute spooks

There is a colourised version... but I love the old B +W classic!

We saw some rather cute spooks out Trick or Treating last night. 

 I love that Halloween is finally starting to gain momentum,  here 

in OZ. The kids had so much fun terrorising the neighbourhood!