Sunday

Lots got done today. Dear Hubby has been working on a retaining wall so he can start building his shed. I get a load of topsoil for my garden out of this project so the faster he works, the better for me. Plus once the shed and our verandah are finished, the next building project is walling and flooring our last unenclosed shed bay for my sewing room or 'studio' if you want to sound posh!

It was such a beautiful day today that it remineded me that summer is coming. Chickens can suffer heat stress and stop laying so I rummaged around and found an old piece of shade cloth. A few cable ties later and Chickenritz has a little more shelter in the noonday heat. And yes, that gorse is on the to-do list.

All the chickens had been let out for a scratch around, the only one left keeping a beady eye on things was one of the fluffybutt twins. She's a blue orpington and has a twin sister. I can only tell them apart because one has a bare pink spot on her butt where our neighbour's dog took a hunk of feathers out of her (our neighbour keeps him a little more under control now as I 'politely' told him I would shoot it if I saw it again, not that I know how to work the gun!).

And then a little baking. Mmmmmm, chocolate brownies. My little boy turns five at the end of the week. So begins a busy week of school visits, a couple of night shifts, birthday party planning and cake baking. I thought I'd get in what baking I could while I could!

Chocolate Brownies

125 g melted butter

2 cups brown sugar

4-6 tbsps cocoa powder

1 cup white flour

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

Melt the butter and let it cool a bit. Add the brown sugar, then sift in the cocoa and flour. Add the eggs and vanilla essence then mix well. Place in a lined tin about the size of a sponge roll tin (I make a triple batch and it fills my oven tray size roasting dish). Bake at 180 degrees celcius for 20-25 minutes. If you overcook it, it will be chewy rather than gooey. Hide from children and use it to bribe them to clean their rooms.

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home

I showed William how to point and shoot with my digital camera. I now have about 45 random shots pretty much like the one above! You can also see my daughter's birthday bounty in the background. Second hand toys rock!

My lounge floor was covered today in little hills of clothes. My sister-in-law has three daughters and we get all their hand me downs. Olivia found the bags and had great fun strewing the contents around, which was a pain, but at least it made me sort them out. Second hand clothes rock too, they're just a little more work!

Other things we've been up to. Baking apple pie with apples sent from the same S-I-L. This was REALLY good. I made the pastry from a recipe in Alison Holst's old Dollars and Sense Cookbook, a fantastic find in an Op Shop.

And making bags. This took me one kid-free morning to whip up from a linen skirt. It's been sent off to one of my sister's for her birthday. (Let's hope it's already reached her or she's just had advanced notice!)

I've worked three morning shifts in a row and it was incredibly busy. Postnatal rooms almost full and births happening left, right and centre. September and October are always busy months but this was crazy. I'm working a 12 hour day shift tomorrow, so finger's crossed it has quietened down a little.

Yesterday

This is a pretty good sum up of how I was feeling yesterday. And the kids too. Do you have those days where it's a write-off by 10am and you realise you just have to dig in and survive? Well, yesterday was one of those. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, my kids did grated on my nerves and by the end of the day I just wanted to strangle them. Then of course I felt horrible for not liking my kids. Bad mother, bad mother.

Today, however, was fine.

Thank heavens.

Or I might not have survived.

The kidlets and I embarked on a baking adventure - chocolate cupcakes from my sister's blog, Just This Side of Chaos. A little bit dry, because I used milk instead of sour cream, I think. So I iced them to make them a little more appealing.



Well, I don't know how appealing that gruesome icing is but I was experimenting to see if I could get a pink without food colouring. Sure can - blackcurrant syrup! Makes for a very sweet icing, but that doesn't bother the kiddies one little bit! And, um, I think I need to work on my icing technique.




Then this little bland pic is from today. I've wanted a big, like REALLY big, calendar for ages. I found one one Flylady (can't post a link, it doesn't seem to like me at the mo), but really didn't want to pay the US dollars and then the postage . So I sat down at the computer and it didn't take me long to have a one-month-per-two-page template. Some number inputting and a bit of glue-stick later and I have my own personalised calendar. Now I'm just that little bit more organised.

The folder in the background is my control journal (thanks to Flylady again). It was my life saver when going back to work with a changing roster. It has my week planner, my daycare schedule, my month-by-month calendar, my master grocery shopping list and my to-do lists in it (I never got right into the whole 'zone cleaning' thing of Flylady). But it's not so convenient for my husband to see at a glance what is happening when. Hence the REALLY big wall calendar.

Now I'm still using my control journal, but this is now also where I'm adding my bits and pieces of knowledge that I've found, like green cleaners. I wrote about my worries about losing access to all that wisdom here.


It was my MIL's birthday a little while ago and I got all enthusiastic and made her a present wrap to put her present in. It's made of christmassy fabric on one side - for use at Christmas time - or is that completely obvious? And flowery fabric on the other for non-specific occasions. Right sides together, sew, turn out then topstitch the edge. Simple and effective. Goodbye rolls of garish, designed-to-be-thrown-out, wrapping paper. Thanks Towards Sustainability.

Ug, me big hunter.

Dear hubby came home VERY proud of himself! Terrible photo I know, but taken in the dark with me holding a torch and using the flash, and a grimacing husband saying polite words about hurrying up because it's rather heavy! It's a hapuka which is beautiful eating and lovely smoked.

Son and daughter had just been put to bed, but they heard the boat rattling down the drive and had to come and see daddy's catch - they weren't disappointed.

Not much else happening round here. I've been doing another set of antenatal classes. They always make me nervous to start with and I always wonder if I've told them enough, made it interesting, covered what they need to know, hope I don't offend anyone..........stressful.

Next month I am going to a workshop in Auckland called Breath New Life into your Childbirth Education Classes. Run by an Aussie woman, (whose name I've temporarily forgotten) she comes highly recommended, and as I've had no formal education on giving classes, I'm hoping it will give me a few ideas.

The garden is on hold again (I might just die of frustration!). We've decided to extend the shed. Because we decided to live in the shed, now we have no actual shed - no place to store the tractor, the tools, the wood we had sawn for our house building and all those other bits and pieces you need to keep out of the weather. And, of course, nowhere for the man of the house to retreat to. So, off to the left of the shed in that pic up there (this is before we converted it), will be another big bay. Plus we are going to put up a big verandah extending all the way along the front of the house.

The upshot of all that is there will be some site flattening to do and all the topsoil from that is going to be moved onto my garden site for raised beds. It makes sense to wait for this to be done, but it's sure driving me crazy!