A sneak peek...

Of the beginning of our banner for the market. Looking a little rough now, but trust me, it's going to be Awesome! I should have taken photos of the process, but with Rainbow and my two nieces dipped in green and brown paint my SIL and I needed all our hands free for damage control!

Miracle pie!

Miracle 1) it was made with the ingredients of a very bare pantry and fridge! It has torillas as the crust, and the filling is eggs, cheese, tzatziki, tomato, spring onion, parsley and zucchini. All the vegies were from my mum's garden, and as for the tzatziki, I was a little sceptical myself, but it needed bulking out a bit and my choices were the dip or mango yogurt! Anyway, it was yum, but miracle no 2) is the big one. RAINBOW ATE IT! Not just ate it but downed in quicker than I've ever seen her eat, then asked for more! She normally eats like a little bird, tiny amounts and vegies don't really come on to her list of edibles. Miracle 3) was when crystal finished but had left a circle of zucchini on her plate and Rainbow leaned over and grabbed it and shoved it in like she thought someone would stop her. I wonder if I can get away with cooking this pie every night? Tempting!

You may never see me again!

I've made an important decision. You may remember one of my New Year Decisions was that my house would be cleaner? I thought it would be easy! With all my new found free time! Who was I fooling?? It's actually been worse than ever, really really untidy and that's fine if you're into mess, but it makes me feel out of control and depressed. So after one too many unexpected drop ins that leave me blushing, my very important decision is that I will not get onto the computer unless the lounge and kitchen are clean. And if the play room and bathrooms aren't clean I won't stay online for more that half an hour. And if the bedrooms aren't clean then I won't stay online for more than and hour. I think that sounds pretty reasonable! If I make myself promise not to go online unless my house is spotless it just wont work, I think this way is far more do-able! Just to prove I'm living by my own plan, here's my kitchen and lounge.

Ok, so the lounge is a little messy, but the pile of stuff in the corner is a car seat that I'm sewing a new cover for tonight so I need it there under the sewing machine and a huge bag of goodies I'm taking to the market on Sunday. That's my defense and I'm sticking to it!

And now I think I better go. Obviously I'm on a half hour time limit at this point! Messy MESSY floor!

Cleeeean!

I have emptied and cleaned out my pantry, freaked out by the prospect of little mice sharing our food, and boy, what a difference! I discovered that yes, I do have some coconut, don't need to put that on the shopping list. In fact I have about 3 kg of coconut. I think impossible pie will be on the dessert menu from here until eternity! Also have 3 tins of beetroot, as well as the container in the fridge. And enough curry paste to last me at least 6 months! Other than that my cupboard is pretty bare, I'm in desperate need of a big bulk shop but I haven't done one for ages. Now I have room to! I've organised the pantry like this:

TOP SHELF LEFT TO RIGHT: cereal in the glass jar (we don't eat it for breakfast, it goes in the girl's lunch boxes, the big red tin is for bread, followed by spreads, snacky type things - wasabi peas and pepitas etc, soups (I have a secret cup of soup addiction. I know they are horrible and full of chemicals but they are so yum! I don't give them to the girls though!) next to that is sauces, worchteshire, ketchup manis, soy etc, the pink basket is full of curry paste sachets, the hello kitty packet at the front is nori cut into hello kity shapes, my brother bought it back form Japan I don't want to eat them because they are too cute) then next to that more curry!

SECOND SHELF LEFT TO RIGHT: baking stuff, bread mix, baking powder, cocoa, about 3 types of sugars, all that jazz. Next to that coconut, semolina, polenta, felafel, brown rice, pastas, red lentils in the big jar and brown in the small.

THIRD SHELF LEFT TO RIGHT: the black tins are full of bulk things - flours, rice and rolled oats for our porridge, then the tinned section which is looking rather sad at the moment! We have beans, lentils, tomatoes, spaghetti, beetroot, spinach, water chestnuts, coconut cream.

So that's it! It seems a bit indulgent doing a blog post on my pantry, but I figure I'd like to read someone else's blog on their pantry so why not! I'm a curious type! I might do another pic when I've done a shop though, it is looking so sad and bare. But cleeeean!

I vaguely remember I agreed to no more pets...

Indigo and Jemima
Crystal and Ginger. I didn't name the kittens, I would have gone with something a bit more exciting than ginger! But Ginger is Crystal's cat. His name originally was Sleep Night because he apparently will sleep at night (can't fault the logic there!) but she changed her mind so now he's Ginger.

But it was so long ago, how can I be expected to remember all these thing? We have a mouse problem. Not just a little odd mouse in the cupboard but a full blown cable munching (stereo, salt lamp, tv and one electrical outlet so far) problem. At night I can hear them scurrying, When I sit in the lounge at night and all is quiet I see them dart across the room, and I hear them squeaking when I try to sleep. One morning we found one in the bath. They are horrible disgusting little vermin and I want them out of my house! Yuck! I set traps, but they're smarter than me, in the morning the traps are unsnapped but all the peanut butter has been licked off. I got one of those high pitched noise electrical plug ins, THEY DO NOT WORK PEOPLE! I even went so far as to look at chemicals and poisonous baits, but I couldn't do it. Partly because I don't want chemicals in my house, partly in case Rainbow found one and munched on it, and partly because I don't want to stress every time the rabbits are in the house. What to do, what to do? Then it hit me - I needed a cat! When we had a cat we never had a mouse problem! Simple! So after looking at the trading post (nope, don't really want to spend $500 on a pedigree that would probably think mouse hunting was below it's class level) gumtree (lots of free kittens, don't really want to drive a few hours to go collect them though) I finally found some on freecycle that were not too far away, so I picked Indigo and Crystal up from school and surprised them by going to get a kitten! But when we got there they were SO scrawny and wild I felt sorry for them and I couldn't leave one behind so we came home with two. So welcome to the family Ginger and Jemima! We hope you have a long happy life with us and we hope your farm upbringing means you are going to enjoy living here where there's mice a plenty.

dentist time

Ugh, the dentist. Last year I had a tooth that needed to come out but wouldn't after 2 hours there was still roots in there and the dentist had to just stitch my mouth up and tell me I'd need surgery (which I chickened out of so if I end up in lots of pain it will be my fault) So I have been putting off and putting off taking the girls even though Crystal has quite bad teeth - really crowded, she'll be a braces kid before too long. Indigo has always had lovely teeth, straight and white and hole free, I wouldn't let her brush her own teeth until she turned 7, as recommended by the dentist, so she has fabulous teeth. The thing that spurred me out of my reluctance to take them was when we were in the pool one day, laughing and to my horror I saw Indigo had a black spot on two of her teeth, a few back from her front. Then I remembered how she'd always get food stuck between those teeth. And how I wouldn't know now if she still did because she's been brushing her own teeth for the last 2 1/2 years. Whoops. So off we went, to the public dentist that we hadn't used before and I must say, really un child friendly! Each girl had a separate dentist, both female (I thought that was cool!) but neither really seemed to know how to calm a frightened child. Crystal went first, and she hadn't been frightened going in, she was bounding to get in there! This is the same child who when she needed a needle once asked for another one in her other arm. Weirdo. But she needed a hole in her baby tooth filled :( and cried when she had the needle. Indigo on the other hand was TERRIFIED and hated the whole ordeal, poor baby needed a filling but to reach the tooth the tooth next to it, which was wobbly, needed to come out. Not nice. It really highlighted the difference between the two girls, Crystal, although 3 years younger than Indigo was stoic and brave. Indigo at 9 was hysterical. It took every inch of self control for me not to say "Why can't you be more like your little sister? She didn't throw a massive tantrum and refuse to open her mouth!" But she's not her little sister, she's Indigo, and a true Indigo child in her temperament. I was scared when I went to the dentist. She was scared. I don't want to teach her that when she's scared she has to lie there and take it. She can scream and cry if she wants. The funniest moment was when the dentist put her tooth in a little bag and said "The tooth fairy will be happy to have this tooth" and Indigo shouted "You're a liar! There's no such thing as the tooth fairy!" She hasn't forgiven me yet for laughing at her.

Tiny dancer!

Rainbow had her first dance class today! She was so excited last night she wanted to wear her fairy dress to bed. She was a little nervous at first, but Indigo got up and stood next to her and danced too, and before long she was having a great time. My little baby is growing up! Sniff!

Chicken Coop!

I waited 3 years, yes 3 YEARS! for my husband to build me a chook pen. In the meantime the chooks have be free ranging in the backyard, and collecting eggs was like a daily scavenger hunt. But finally I said no more! I don't need to wait for a man to build me a chook pen! And so I knocked this one up. It only took about 2 hours, I'm really annoyed with myself for waiting so long to make it! It's made from an old loft bed we've carted around from house to house, planning to use again one day when we didn't have little babies sleeping with us every night. But the wood was getting a bit weak, at one stage it was stored in a shed and got water on it, and I didn't think I'd ever come to a point where I could sleep safely 2 meters up in the air on water damaged wood! So it was a very cheap (hehehe, get it? Cheep? Sorry, I know that's dodgy ;) ) chook pen to build, all I needed was the wire and some fire engine red paint to make it go faster. (I'm full of good jokes today yes?) It's just big enough to comfortably house our6 chooks and 2 chicks, but I'm going to put another fence around it so they have a bigger yard to scratch in when I let them out, but no more stepping on chook cr@p when I walk outside. And there's an old cupboard in there that they lay their eggs in, so wonderful and I don't have to race the dogs to get the eggs! My next backyard project is building a similar one to house our lovely rabbits, they have two cages joined together with a pen, but they are masters of escape so something a bit more permanent and rabbit proof is needed.

Technology my Friend!

Indigo flashing the peace
I don't normally post naked pics of my girls, but I think they're far enough away from the camera! Squint! This is camping in Warburton.
Baby bottoms don't count as naked pics. Rainbow near the river, this was the awesome scene that welcomed us from our tent. This is before the near drowning!
Crystal eating devonshire tea at a beautiful wedding in the hills.
Crystal just generally being adorable.

I'm not so good with technology. Really really quite pathetic actually. All the more pathetic since I work in an electrical store. Well, I just mastered bluetooth! Yay me! My phone died a horrible death in a bath of coffee a while back, so I got a shiny new phone, the most basic cheapo that money can buy. But now that we're in the future even the bottom of the range came with a camera and internet. Wow! I feel so futuristic, I wish I could go back in time and tell my childhood self that I would grow up and have a phone with internet, video and camera! I wouldn't have believed myself, especially since I would have no idea what future me meant by internet. So I've had this phone for a few months and have taken the odd photo, more now that my poor camera has passed into it's next life (toybox camera) but I had no idea how to get the photos off until my husband told me of the wonderful bluetooth. How. Freaking. Cool. I can beam my photos onto the computer! I feel so space agey! My husband just think I'm a tool for not already knowing I could do it. So here are some wonderfully fuzy phone pics. I think it's like 1.3 megapixels so not the clearest of photos!

Hello brother, Goodbye brother

My little brother - the one in the bottom two pics - has been living in Japan for the past 5 years or so. He's been back a couple of times on visits, but not enough for the girls to really know him. We missed him! But he's come home, and his lovely girlfriend is staying here too from Japan. Nice. Have the whole family in one spot. Yeah, for about 2 months! Now my older brother, the one in the top pic has moved to the USA to marry his girlfriend! One in, one out! I'm going to miss him, it sucks that the girls won't get to see him and their new Aunty very much at all. But I am happy for him, and I think he's going to have a great time over in the States, so that's the main thing. But man, I feel like the boring sibling, I'm just here, living in the same spot year after year! Well, we've been here for 3 years now and for a wandering gypsy like me that is huge! Aaagh! Need to do some traveling STAT!

Cooking Dinner

Yum! Cooking up some spinach and ricotta angnolotti

Indigo cooks dinner for us one night a week, and I've got to say, I love it! She banishes me from the kitchen and always puts a lot of effort into thinking about what to cook and presenting it nicely. I think it's great she's getting competent with cooking and chopping and serving, and she thinks it's great to have at least one night a week that is guaranteed lentil free!

Having a shoddy week

Well, the day after Rainbow nearly drowned was also a really horrible day. It was the girl's first day back at school which I wasn't looking forward to, I'll miss them! Rainbow managed to spill a cup of coffee all over myself and her - scary but it wasn't hot enough to burn thank goodness. Then the sweet beautiful Peonie got sick and died all in half an hour. So with little children crying we went for a wade in the river, trying to make sure Rainbow isn't traumatised and developing a fear of water, which was lovely, I would have taken photos of this spot we found, so secluded and shady and full of awesomeness, but my camera died. Then playing at the park Rainbow fell off a slide at 2 meters onto her back. There was about 5 seconds where she wasn't moving and all I could think of that her neck was broken. But she's fine, I decided to call the nurse hotline rather than take her to the hospital 40 minutes away and they told me what to look for - which I already knew but sometimes you need another person reassuring you. So now after a night sitting up and watching her and cuddling her hopefully we (I! She's bouncy as ever!) can recover from the shock. I think I need to down some Rescue Remedy today, I'm feeling a little PTSDish, I'm in a weird slump I need to get out of.