Friday Photo...

Friday June 19th, 2008

Notice that S is wearing the same colours as my gf!! - it's like they planned it.

Strange thing.... when my gf and I worked together yrs ago we often came into work wearing the same colour outfits, so S is just carrying on the tradition - good girl!

Happy Friday everyone.

Learning History...

Wednesday, June 18th 2008

Today I learnt some Australian history. I often use a quote from a former Australian PM - Malcolm Fraser (Prime Minister from 1975-1983) was famous for:

"Life wasn't meant to be easy."

Unfortunately his political opponents seized on the sentence, arguing it revealed the attitude of the privileged and wealthy towards less-fortunate Australians. The words have been fixed to Fraser like a badge of dishonour, but they weren't original.

George Bernard Shaw used them in Back to Methuselah: "Life is not meant to be easy, my child ..." Fraser, however, overlooked the second half of the playwright's sentence: "... but take courage: it can be delightful." It transforms the message.

I'm going to keep on using the original quote with pride, I often repeat it to myself like a mantra when I'm feeling annoyed, overwhelmed or tired. By repeating this to myself I seem to get over my hump and just get on with it.

So that is my Australian history lesson for today... find your own mantra it may help to keep you motivated and focused when you are faced with difficult journey's ahead.

Friday Photo

Friday, June 13th 2008

Well it's black Friday everyone so stay away from black cats, walking under ladders and don't step on a crack!! - lol that is if you believe in superstition's (which I do.)

Some pics from this week with S to make everyone smile.


Have a great w/end.

Friday on my mind - when it's Thursday

Thursday, June 12th 2008

Sorry I've been MIA this week, busy with 4 play dates for S, catching up on my household chores and just generally being Supermum!

Thought everyone might want to see what S does on hot days...

Our Daily Bread...

Tuesday, June 10th 2008

The other day I purchased a bread maker, yeap I've decided to go modern. I was making our bread, but now that it's summer (not officially but close enough) I didn't fancy having the oven on since it only warms up the house and inturn our a/c will need to be turned up higher to cope. So I gave in and purchased it as a "Mother's Day" late present to me... (well that was my excuse).

The bread maker looks like this and makes cute little 1lb loafs, enough for 1 person to eat toast all week or sarnies for 2-3 days for 2 people.

I've used it about 6 times now and its very consistent with the end result. This is my second bread maker - a couple weeks earlier I purchased a "Big Daddy" bread maker but I found the bread to be a little undercooked in the middle and the crust just wasn't brown no matter how high you selected the crust to be, so back it went.

Below are some photos of the end result. - The 2 smaller loaves in the front are from the "Big Daddy" machine which decided not to knead the dough that day, so I had to hand knead the bread and cook it in the oven. The larger loaf in the background was made with my new machine - it's white bread, I've made whole wheat and white whole wheat, all very yummy!

Within the next couple weeks I'm going to make fruit bread and chocolate bread, I'll update everyone on the outcome. Plus the bread freezes very well and is delicious toasted with jam (homemade strawberry of course!).

Nothing is better then the smell of homemade bread, I love the smell of bread cooking. By making my own bread I know what is in it and so I'm not eating nasty preservatives and it does not cost an arm and a leg to make. I worked it out to be about $0.75 cents - $1.25 per loaf depending what you add into the bread. Now I just need to find a recipe book with good bread machine recipes. So that's my new kitchen gadget everyone.

Happy Tuesday!

Friday Photo...

Friday, June 6th

We visited a petting farm the other day & this is what S thought of it all. - yeap not very impressed.

All she could say was "hmmm." - Not sure if it was the smell, or the animals that she was not pleased with. & after her Daddy mentioned it was smelly, S then wrinkled up her nose while we walked around the barn.

Next we ventured outside to see the other farm animals. S decided to let us know she had enough by loudly saying "Aboo" followed by raspberry blowing. Oh dear, looks like my little girl is a City girl, sorry J no camping trips for us!!

K 4, P4, rep till end then P4, K4 rep till end.....

Wednesday, June 4

This is a busy bee week for me with J away this week, no extra help with S. J will be back home late evening on Thursday & is taking Fri off so we can have a fun day as a family, so far I don't have any plans for Fri, I should start putting together some ideas so we can do some fun activities with S. Sometime during the day we need to do our grocery shopping, which S loves - gives her a great opportunity to check everything out and tell me about it, this makes the shopping trip very exciting and entertaining.

Well I've decided that I wasn't doing enough projects! - what with my scrap booking, needlepoint, recipe book (a huge work in progress), being super mum to S and general household chores etc. I've decided to take up knitting.The other day I was inspired by this book, that I found on Amazon and fell in love with the jumpers (aka sweaters). BTW if you knit you will know the title is the secret knitting language. So I decided to give it a go, ordered the book, purchased wool, needles and re-taught myself. A couple winters ago, I knitted a very chunky scarf with my MIL helping me - it turned out surprisingly well.

I was amazed when I started how I remembered so much, it was like getting back on a bike. You soon remember once you start. My first project for S will be a knitted block. It's a nice project each side is a different knit and measures three and bit inches square, so it's fairly quick to knit. Some pics are below.

My new project!

Green - Seed Stitch

Pale Blue - Single Rib

Pink - Stocking Stitch with Ribbing

Pale Blue - Basket weave Stitch (my favourite)

Pink - Double Rib (actually is a tad small so may need to redo this square.)

Green - Garter Stitch
(ignore my fingers, the knitting curls onto the purl side at the moment, once sewn together the curling will stop!)
---------------------------------------------------

My paternal nanny (aka Grandmother) was fantastic at Knitting - she passed down the secrets to my Aunt, who has 4 girls but unfortunately none are interested in learning to knit. If I can become half the knitter that Nanny was, then I will be getting somewhere. Nanny was known for her cables & Fair Isle sweaters they became true works of art - sorry I don't have a pic to show, wish I did.

I find knitting so relaxing, the feel of the texture as the project grows, knowing it's something that you made & hopefully will be passed down. I'm slowly getting a rhythm together though it's not fast enough to hear the click, click of the needles. I know in time that will happen. So at the moment I'm taking baby steps & plan to make 3-4 blocks for S then will progress onto a hat then jumper. Well better get back to my P4, K4 - it won't knit itself you know! I'll post pics of the finished block within the next week.

It's Monday start of a new week.

Monday, June 2nd

Wow half way through the year already, one day closer to the beginning of Summer. MI summers are hot and humid but it's a nice break from the winter which is very long (Nov - May). On the w/end I finally washed the winter woolies, hat, scarfs, gloves and put them away, since they won't be needed till later this year.

I heard this interesting comment on the w/end. Thought I would share it -

"I'm allergic to fat - once I eat it I break out in fat."

-I laughed after I heard this, cos it's true. After hearing this I felt motivated to do something extra this week to improve my fitness and well being. I've decided to get up half an hour earlier in the mornings - 5am to get a mini workout. I'll see how that goes and update everyone.

edited - June 3rd - yeap it's been 2 days and am getting up early to fit in the workout.

Growing leaps and bounds....

Saturday, May 31st

Last day of May & June is just around the corner - yeah! along with summer. Earlier in the week we had some early morning frosts so J had to wrap up his tomato plants in a blankie. Poor J the tom plants have not survived twice now - lucky he has some more still in the seed trays in the basement. So more re-planting both on the deck and in the veggie beds later today.

Thought I would give everyone an update on S - I'm totally amazed at how fast S is progressing and growing - real leaps and bounds. In the last couple of weeks the following changes have happened with S:

• Crawling like a mad woman from Borneo. Watch out world here I come, real stomping around the house, when your in the basement you can hear the thump, thump, thump, thump of her crawling along the kitchen floor, this stops for a second or two for S to catch her breath then it starts again. (& for the grandparents I'll send CD's with video clips within the next week.)
  

• Starting to eat by herself - some small finger food items that contain banana and sweet potato.


• Her first bottom tooth is starting to poke it's way through the gum, I only know it's happening since the other day she grabbed my finger and put it straight into her mouth and ouch I felt a little sharp thing. Won't be long till I can clearly see it in her mouth.


• Sitting in her new big girl buggy (aka stroller) - thanks to S's economic stimulus payment!


• Nearly growing out of her 1 year old clothing
  
• Sitting upright in the bath tub so longer using her baby bath


• The crib is now lowered to almost lowest point, S has started to pull her self up, only for second or two.

I can already hear the world of Toddlerhood knocking on my door!

The last couple of weeks have been a total whirlwind to me, our house is 95% S proof - just have to finish the other 5% ; I ran out of safety items and had to purchase more in the week. I'm hoping she doesn't start walking before the end of this w/end!

Happy Saturday