Feeling the love

What a day we had yesterday. We partied like it was 1999. Translation: I renewed my driver's licence for another five years, Hanno took me to the lingerie shop and bought me a new winter nightie and we had lunch in Caloundra.  ;- )  I received a lot of wonderful phone calls from friends and family, I loved reading so many comments full of love here and felt truly special on a beautiful autumn day. Thank you for the warm wishes and generous comments you sent yesterday. Each and every one of them made me smile and it put in place one more piece of the puzzle that is you. I build a picture in my mind's eye of everyone who comments here regularly and every comment plays a part in constructing my image of you. I don't know if it's accurate, and maybe I'll never know, but it is my way of personalising this blogging thing so that I feel I'm surrounded by warm-hearted and like-minded friends.

A while ago I was contacted by the folks at kidspot.com.au to tell me that Down to Earth was one of about 700 blogs nominated for inclusion in their Voices of 2013. Recently, they contacted me again to say I was in the top 100 Australian bloggers. I'm in the Creative and Home category along with 25 other creative and home-type bloggers, including the beautiful Katie and Reuben from House of Humble. All the judging and announcements will take place much later in the year. I haven't checked out many of the other bloggers yet but those I have look fabulous and interesting and all those things you want a new to you blog to be. I thought it would be a good idea to highlight and feature of few of them in my weekend reading in the coming weeks. 

Off to the big playground with Opa.

I had a bit of a chuckle when I looked at the photos of the other bloggers. I'm the only old duck by the look of it so I'll hold the flag high for all the grandmas and opas out there. It's nice to know that my blog is considered relevant alongside all those written by younger women.  Still, I would have liked to see a few more older women there as well.

Full grain rolls ready to go in the oven.

So let's get back to basics again after all the palaver of illness and birthday celebrations. I haven't done a cooking post in a long while so tomorrow I thought I'd share a very versatile whole chicken and vegetable recipe that will warm the cockles of your heart. I love easy food, as long as it's delicious and nourishing. Tick and tick for this recipe. I hope you like it as much as we do. See you tomorrow in the kitchen.