Fleur de Sel Caramels and a Sweet Bookshop

My friends, I'm spilling all my best secrets on my blog. Like this one: the most amazing homemade Fleur de Sel Caramels. Honestly, if you learn how to make them and share with friends, you'll get regular requests. I hear this a LOT: "Will you make me your salted caramels as my birthday present?"

It's the perfect balance of sweet, salty, creamy. One pan of these caramels and you'll be hooked.

But first: something even sweeter...Libby Armstrong's beautiful bookshop in Avalon, Beachside Bookshop. My Aussie friends, have you been there? I dropped in recently to tell Libby about my new picture book, Jacaranda Snow. Libby has curated the greatest selection of novels for adults, children's books, beautiful new releases, young adult novels and more.

The shop smells like hyacinths and looks so good. In winter, it's warm and toasty inside. In the summer, it's close enough to Avalon and Newport to drop in and grab a good book for the beach. 

Best of all, Beachside Bookshop has this incredible old-fashioned vibe. You walk in and feel loved. It's Libby and her team. She told me this:

One last pic of the window seat... I have always wanted one! When I was there, the cutest little girl was curled up with her Mum reading. (For all you Mums out there, Happy Mother's Day!)

Now...on to the caramel-making!

Fleur de Sel is a little hard to find, so you'll need all this below, plus butter, cream and white sugar. And yes, you do need the candy thermometer. You won't get the right consistency without it.

Have a sweet weekend, my friends.

Love Catherine x

PS.

If a friend sent you this email, you can sign up for your own weekly dose of happiness here, on my author's website! All welcome!

And just for fun...potentially my favourite photo of my mum, the original Catherine Greer (I'm Catherine Greer Version 2.0). She rode a camel in Australia at age 85. I plan to be just as awesome. Happy Mother's Day, Mum.

Classic 1960s Lemon Bread

I know food isn't love.

But let me say this: some nights, when your teenage rower is so tired after training, when he still has hours of Latin to study for his Half-Yearly exam, when you tell him to go to bed for 30 minutes and you promise to wake him up to do homework, sometimes then, food becomes love.

Tonight, love was Lemon Bread in the guise of a deliciously old-fashioned recipe from the 1960s.

As I whipped the butter with the sugar, squeezed two lemons, folded in a cup of flour, I remembered this son at four, not seventeen.

He used to love my Lemon Bread fresh from the oven after preschool.

Now he's in Year Twelve.

Soon he'll be gone, grown into a man.

Every mother knows the old cliche: the days are long but the years are short. It's been around forever and it's true.

Classic 1960's Lemon Bread

You can mix one gorgeously light, fluffy lemon loaf in a few quick minutes, and when it's done baking, you can serve up love to tired hearts.

You'll need two lemons (or lemon juice!) and butter and eggs, flour and sugar, baking powder and milk. You likely have all this right now.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees fan forced. (350 F in North America). 

• Cream 1/2 cup butter with 1 cup white sugar

• Add 2 eggs

• Gently mix in 1 1/4 cup plain flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 cup milk and 1/4 cup lemon juice.

• Put batter in a loaf tin, greased or lined with baking paper.

• Bake for 45 mins (fan forced) to 1 hour. Check with a skewer...your oven may bake faster or slower.

Spread your love.

Enjoy your weekend!

Catherine x

P.S.

Hi to everyone new! If a girlfriend sent you this email, you can get your own weekly email here! One fun happiness note every Saturday night or Sunday morning. (I'd fit you ALL at my kitchen table for Lemon Bread if I could.)

Almond Raspberry White Chocolate Cookies

Hi, friends!

A shout-out to two of my fabulous sisters today: Dar and Cookie (yep, it's a nickname!).

Dar smuggled several jars of homemade raspberry jam into Australia. It's probably illegal but she is a superior jam-maker. Think luscious Canadian raspberries, very little sugar, packed to the brim in a mason jar. And Cookie (of course!) gave me this recipe. 

We use Almond Raspberry White Chocolate Shortbread Cookies for one of our favourite Christmas traditions.

I made it up. And it's hilarious.

CHRISTMAS NINJAS.

On Christmas Eve, the four of us dress up in embarrassing matching outfits. The first year was Onesies. One year was Aussie flag boxer shorts, t-shirts and Christmas hats. And this year....well, this year is a surprise, in this package.

The boys open the ninja gift on Christmas Eve, then out we go in matching outfits to "ninja deliver" cookies.

The mission? Drop off cookies, ring the bell and run like...crazy. And never, ever get caught. 

We've had to scale walls, deal with dogs, commando-crawl across front gardens. And best of all, our Christmas Ninja tradition gave us the most hilarious dinner party story EVER. (But it's got lots of swear words in it, so I can't tell you unless you come over.)

You can see why kids love it. Right?

Feel free to steal the idea, moms-with-little-kids. I think it's the best holiday tradition I've ever created.

Almond Raspberry Shortbread Cookies

• 1 cup butter
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons plain flour
• raspberry jam
• white chocolate 

Cream butter and sugar. Mix in almond extract and flour. Roll into (1 inch / 2 cm) balls and place on cookie sheet. Make an indentation and fill with jam. Bake at 170 C fan-forced for 14 mins (Australia) or 350F for 12-16 mins (North America). Cool. Drizzle with melted white chocolate.

Then package up and be Ninjas. But only if you want to!

Sending you big hugs this Christmas.

Love, Catherine x

PS. We celebrated a major milestone this week...Ls to Ps. I love teenagers. I truly do. Can you see that big grin on Luke's face that spells FREEDOM? Ha! (And just for you, more fun recipes... best chocolate cake and best salad ever ...or take a peek at what I've been up to on Instagram.)

Artolution

Guys, so excited to tell you that Max is back!

This time, he's painting with two Aboriginal communities in Australia. 

Max and the co-founder of Artolution, Joel Bergner, are staying with us next weekend for a mini-rest...and we can't wait! 

Curious about Max's story? Jonathan Fields has just featured him on The Good Life Project, a hugely popular American podcast.

Click here to listen.

Want to help take art to the world's children-in-need? You can donate here. 

Thanks, as always, for reading...and thanks for letting me share what I care about most. 

Catherine xx

PS. I've been doing a little tidying up of my website, with some new author photos and info. If you want to see my online home (actually, my REAL home, too ... check it out here!) Many thanks to my talented photographer and friend, @merilyn

Everybody Knows A Lady Like Jen

Here's Jen. She's a beautiful ninja.

I don't know her personally but she is far, far more than this short story: a few years ago, Jen rescued herself and her Littles. Then she got up and started a charity called the Beauty Bank.

Jen gives life's little luxuries to women in need. She takes the unused beauty items we ALL have lurking in our bathroom cupboards and wardrobes and packages them beautifully to give to our sisters.

Share, share, share our stuff

I don't need to give reasons for why we should help. We know.

Some of our sisters are worried about getting shoes on their kids' feet. Or they're trying to find a safe way to leave...so they are not exactly buying themselves scented soap or mascara or cute earrings. We have extra hidden in our drawers; we can bless the universe. You see how this works?

Find a box & fill it

You ready? It's not hard.

Get a box, walk to your bedroom / ensuite.

Put in all your unopened soaps, body wash, make-up samples, candles, jewellery, pre-loved but lovely scarves, belts, handbags etc (see full list here). Or throw a few new items in your cart when you're in the cosmetic aisle. Easy. Jen will make beauty packs for women in need.

Go to the post office (Cost: $10)

I know.

The queue.

But while you're there, think about this: you are a good egg. You are blessing the world. You are doing what you can for somebody who is scared or lost. She may be a stranger. She may live next door. (Or...she may even be you. If it's you and you're reading now, reach out. Take a baby step forward. Here's the number in New South Wales for domestic problems: 1800 65 64 63 and the website is here. People are ready to listen.)

BEAUTY BANK PO Box 991 Sutherland NSW 1499. (Postage costs $10.25 within 50km of Sydney for a box under 22 kilos)

Let's rescue some beautiful prisoners

A little kindness (body wash, mascara, scarf, earrings) goes such a long way when life is hard.

Can you see -- we're not giving soap, we're rescuing prisoners? We're dropping keys into their laps. 

Thank you, Easter chickadees

Thank you, Aussie girls. And for all you overseas readers, Dr Google will show you a charity in your own hometown that does the same thing. Please say you will.

Sending big hugs. I hope you pilfer all the mini chocolate Easter eggs you desire this weekend. 

Catherine xo

ps. Thank you for following my Happiness Blog. I hope you feel inspired to be yourself and love your world. If you like it, there's more here!

Mummyville: 5 Ways I Got It Wrong (& Right)

Oh, I could write a book on this one.

But for some reason, in nearly a year of blogging, I haven't written a single post on Parenting. Or a book, either. I think that's because I don't see myself as a Parent-er. I spent a good chunk of my 20s and early 30s as a high school English teacher. Then I became a copywriter.

At 34, Mummyville.

Here's my experience. (Yours may be different!)

Kids are beautiful, frustrating and not as fragile as we imagine. You love them; they gut you with equal parts worry and joy.

They are everything. They are everything that scares you and scars you and thrills you and stabs your heart a zillion times a minute like no adult ever could. American poet e.e. cummings wrote this about being in love, but to me it's about being a Mum:

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Carrying someone else's heart is heavy labour. Here's what I wish I'd known...

1. Your Littles are their own selves. With a life path that's got surprisingly little to do with you.

That's all. Understanding this truth is everything.

2. Sleep. I never got ANY with babies. And I was crazy.

Crazy. I cry to think of it now. If you know a mother who isn't sleeping, go to her house, take the baby from her arms, send her upstairs with a stiff gin and tonic and force her to sleep. Feed the baby pumped milk, formula, green smoothies, anything. Take it outside if it cries. Just HELP. (And do not ever, under any circumstance, say IF YOU WERE MORE RELAXED, YOUR BABY WOULD SLEEP MORE.)

Honestly, if you are one of the people who said this to me, I still haven't gotten over it. Sixteen years later.

3. You're not their Teacher or their Parent-er. You are their Mum.

Whoa, Lordy, I got this one wrong. I still do. I didn't know HOW to be a mum but I knew how to be a Teacher. So I taught. Proper names of flowers. Latin words. Poems in the playground (Blake and Keats, not nursery rhymes). And whether it was my exceptional parenting or who he was or what, I do not know, I took my oldest son to preschool at age four and thought the other kids were... this is putting it nicely... UNEDUCATED.

I was way way way too proud. And then one day, when he was 13 and truly fed up with me, my son said, "Just be my mother, okay?"

(Pause with me while I get a little teary.) While I was doing all this Teaching, I was also trying really really hard to do Perfect Parenting. But now I know: all they want is a mum. Not someone to foresee any future difficulty and prepare them for it, not someone to read them Julius Caesar when they are 12 so they'll be ready for high school, not someone to core every apple before they eat it. Not someone to guarantee that every adult will say, "Wow, you have really nice manners."

My advice (to you & me): ditch the Parenting. Be yourself. Your real self. Margarita drinker. Lazy on occasion. Overlooker of whether fingernails are too long or your kids are perfectly polite to adults. It's okay. It's probably better if you're this way. The worst thing that can happen is your kids will think you're human & imperfect.

Because we are. Human. Imperfect.

4. Schools matter and don't matter. (For Aussie mums)

Yes, education is important, and  here in Australia we talk about schools a lot. (For my overseas readers: many Aussies try to send their kids to private school. It costs a bomb.) From what I know when I was teaching in Canada in the 90s -- though it may have changed -- Aussie curriculum is about 2-3 years ahead. So any school here is tough for kids, and Mums wonder constantly if their kids are happy. But ask yourself these questions: who was your Grade 4 teacher? Do you think about Year 11 Biology much? How many friends do you still hang out with -- in real life -- from high school?

Then please, give yourself a shoulder massage and relax. It's all going to be okay, no matter what school you choose or can afford. Your child will forget about a lot of it. Just like you did.

5. For everybody (Including MUms): are you any fun? 

I've said this before, and it matters.

Get yourself a cup of tea or a glass of wine, and exhale. Take a few minutes to think about it. If you're not fun to live with right now, that means it's time to find yourself again.

It's terribly easy to lose yourself, especially in a family.

It's okay, my darling. Take baby steps. If you're in the middle of something crummy, think: what can I do to make this more fun? Do whatever it takes to get your fun self back.

You deserve to shine. 

Sending you hugs from rainy Sydney!

Catherine xo

For Captain Oliver...

'It was a beautiful death,' my friend told me, sipping her sauvignon blanc. She was describing how her mother died. 

I hope one day someone can say the same about me.

A man I still mourn died six years ago today. He also had a beautiful death. As he lay dying, he asked the people who loved him most to go and have lunch together, saying he'd be just fine. Then he died peacefully while they were gone, so he wouldn't cause them pain watching him sail away.

He was Captain Frank Oliver, the father of a student of mine way back when I was a young English teacher. He and his wife became my dear friends.

He was the person who showed me -- by example -- that a man could be good, through and through.

Captain Oliver's achievements are amazing (global, inspirational, heroic) but they're not what I remember.

What I remember is this: how dearly he loved to laugh, that he made the best martinis (and called them 'mar-tune-ies'), how he adored his daughter, Alexandra, and constantly fed her mind with books and pens and notebooks and experiences, as if he knew for sure that her mind held the key to who she was. 

I remember how he loved welcoming us in to his 'Captain's Bar' in their beautiful historic mansion on Vancouver Island -- but how, when we settled in with a cold drink in our hands, he would say, 'Catherine, tell us all about how you did this thing or that thing...'

He always got us talking about our own lives.

He made everyone feel important. Treasured. Beloved.

He loved to laugh. He saw the best in people. He held our hearts in his hands.

His wife, Judy, loved him with ferociousness and frustration and joy. She still does, I think. She laughed with him always. Years later, I can still hear her saying, 'Oh Frank!!' and laughing like a teenager at his crazy ways. Above everything else, she trusted him, yin to his yang, and I'm guessing she'll belong to him always. 

'I talk to Frank every day,' she told me at our favourite Indian restaurant when we were last in Canada, the night before the restaurant was closing forever. 'Even though he's not here, I still believe he is. I feel him with us.'

Frank Oliver was not the kind of man to leave. He was the kind who stayed. Who took care. Who saw the good in people and loved them...stormy weather or calm.

I know we all have our beliefs about death and living, but here are mine. I believe that somehow, in some tangible way, death doesn't separate us from the people we love. It's like flying through grey clouds but knowing that -- above us -- the blue sky is there, closer to the sun.

When you have your own beautiful death, and pass through to the other side, don't be surprised if you meet our beloved Frank Oliver. He'll be the one at heaven's gates, welcoming you into the Captain's Bar, asking you to tell him your story.

Rest in peace, dear Captain. I wish you fair winds and following seas.

Cupcake Days

Today was a good day. A cupcake day. But our youngest son will be heading to high school in Jan 2017 (Year 7 in Australia), so my cupcake days are almost over.

Only yesterday he was the little boy who painted this with an art teacher...

And looked like this when he went to school:

Last night I had plenty of hours to think about my fleeting days.

We were up all night with the girl in the family. She had an allergic reaction to tick medication. (Did you know this could be a thing with little dogs? It's like they're having a stroke. Awful...but she's feeling better now, thank goodness.)

Sleep deprivation used to be routine and came from this little boy, but like the cupcake days, those days are over. (Maybe when he gets his license in December, the sleepless nights will start again??)

Canadian singer Joni Mitchell sang it best (way way back in 1970...)

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone?

Yesterday I complained about walking the dog. Sunset, crisp winter air and me, grumbling. Today I wish she were bursting with energy so we could run... 

All our days are over so soon.

Too soon.

Was it the last time I'll bake cupcakes for school? Maybe it was, and I barely noticed.

I need to pay attention.

To the buds while I'm walking the dog...

To papaya and lime for breakfast while I still have two boys sleeping in at home:

I need to pay attention before it's gone.

I hope you have the best day noticing your sweet moments, too.

Cousins

Last month, I turned 50. Today, my cousin does. I remember her as blonde and beautiful, a singing, dancing dynamo always in motion.

She was pretty and pretty much perfect – in my eyes. She was the little girl I wanted to be. Tiny. Blonde. Adorable. Beloved.

We shared an imaginary world in our Grandparents’ basement, where, on weekends, we performed operas, opened a flower shop, snuck into the unlocked Catholic church next door and examined the items in the vestry.

Later, we talked about boys, had sleepovers, dreamed little girl dreams.

We wore the same pink foam curlers in our hair at night.

Growing up and apart, like branches on a tree, is a sad thing. We flourish, but what we leave behind sometimes feels like a tragedy.

Our childhood selves. The smell of a summer morning. A sleepover where you barely sleep, then get up early to bake cookies in the morning. Secrets. Cousins. Connectedness.

A gorgeous Italian woman I know was also born in 1966. She and her cousins call themselves the ‘66 Babies. That’s how I’ve been thinking of myself, and of my sweet cousin ever since.

66 Babies: yes, we grew apart in two different worlds, but we both did a good job with the growing.

Happy 50, Alana. You're starting on the most exciting half.

(Everybody: if you can, hug your cousin/s today. A virtual squeeze will do.)