Happy Monday

It has been such a big week! My grandma's funeral, a lot of family time, flights to and from Brisbane, catching up at work, the final planning stages for a blogger meetup I have happening on Tuesday, working on a new project- just so much going on. It has actually been a very lovely week. The funeral was quite small and simple, just as grandma would have wanted. I managed to slip some funny little stories into the eulogy which I think she would have liked. Seeing my family is always good, even under the circumstances, and my impending aunty status felt very real with my sister in law sporting quite a baby bump (16 weeks along).

Things that made me happy this week:

:: How awesome is flying!?! I used to be scared of it then one day I just randomly got over it and now it is a solid two and a half hours of relaxation. I never have two and a half hours of relaxation! I decided not to allow myself wifi use on the plane so I had some serious reading time and gosh it was marvellous.

:: Baskin and Robbins. You know how much I love ice cream and I think the true devotion started with Baskin and Robbins back in high school. There are only three stores in Victoria and none of them are nearby so my mum takes me to her local for a fix every time I am in Brisbane. I could eat the peanut butter chocolate ice cream by the litre.

:: Walks with my dad. My dad isn't much of a talker and my mum is a supertalker which means that dad doesn't usually say much. When I was at high school Dad and I would always take the dog for a walk on a Saturday afternoon after we finished work. I loved it so much because it was just us and we would have real conversations in amongst the frequent financial advice (yep, I was still in high school :) Now when I go to visit I always suggest we go for a walk in the afternoon. Sometimes we even borrow my brother's dog. I will always cherish these times with my dad.

:: A morning spent playing with flowers. When my grandfather died Grandma was horrid to hear that the funeral home bins the big coffin-topper arrangement, so she took it home with her. When you grew up in the depression and lived through WWII I guess you really cherish luxuries like flowers. Anyway, we did the same for her. It was quite lovely to pull apart the arrangement and fill all the vases in my mum and dad's house with glorious colour.

:: Going through my Nana's (other grandmother) recipe book with my mum. Nana was an amazing cook and this is a very cherished book. Look at the front cover- an index typed on a typewriter!

:: Getting home to my boys. Gosh I missed them.

:: A night at home with The Bookworm, a huge cheese platter and a bottle of wine. Perfect.

:: A Mary Poppins breeze. I was walking Ted one morning in a humid heat when suddenly a cool breeze blew in. My mind is always firmly rooted in the stories of my childhood.

:: Help from a guardian angel. I am working on a bit of a side-project and was plugging away when my website crashed spectacularly. I was chatting to a web developer online about some work-related stuff and she just jumped in to help, leaping great hurdles of disobeying plugins, and fixed it for me. I offered to pay her because it took a while and really was a mess but she just asked me to recommend her to others. So here I go, if you are looking for an amazing, considerate and incredibly clever website host in Australia, get in touch with Little Hero Hosting. The name really does say it all.

How has your week been? Have you done or received any random acts of kindness?

Happy Monday