hands

Hers: helping to make a bench cake for the week's lunches

 

His: finishing homework, spelling the months and learning abbreviations

sam and sadie

It seems that 7 and a half years old may be the perfect time for a boy to get a dog. He talks to her, takes her for walks, sits with her on his lap, feeds and adores her. She returns his love with total adoration.

hot

The stinking heat of the past three days broke 10 minutes ago with rain and thunder and lightening. We have spent the past days clammy and uncomfortable, inert from heat in a way that reminds me of growing up in Adelaide. With only 4 days of summer left I am already daydreaming of autumn. Planning the garden beds, thinking about eating lovely home baked bread with soups. Perhaps it could hold off for a few weeks to allow us a March long weekend of sun at the beach, but after the 12th - bring on autumn.

today

Milly had her regular swimming lesson in the morning and then we had a busy day of outings with Amber. This evening we had pancakes for dessert. The kids needed to be convinced that I was not making up the concept of 'pancake day'. Happy Shrove Tuesday (is that a thing - saying that?)

update as promised

The baking of the first loaf pictured resting in the previous post involved what Michael is calling a "thermal incident". Which I am calling "when he dropped the *#!?-ing dishcloth in bottom of the oven and we heated it to 450 degrees F". There was smoke, there was char, there was smouldering, there was stink. Luckily - no flames. Unluckily - no bread. It had to be removed from the oven early to allow for extinguishing/smothering of the dishcloth. If you ask him how he managed it and he explains in a way that makes sense, can you let me know? The kids are curious too, all they know is they were kicked out of the house with the phone speed dialled to 000 in case of flames and then had to play outside for two hours while the stink and smoke cleared.

However. Loaf 2 (above) was good. The kids declared it delicious, Michael and I ate it for lunch today and the kids used the last of it to mop up their puttanesca sauce at dinner. It has a sourdough texture with a very mild sourdough taste. Yummo.

Loaf 3 has just been pulled it from the oven. It was happily singing and crackling at me as I took this photo. I used double the dough mix and  tomorrow we will all have it in our lunchboxes.  Stay tuned, by the end of the week I will have this French Boule recipe (page 26) conquered and be on to the next recipe. The holy grail is to bake a loaf of Challah. I can not begin to describe the joys of that buttery goodness. The recipe is on page 180 and I do not think it is merely the whim of the publisher that has put it 154 pages away from where I am starting. But at least I am starting.

bread

I am waiting the requisite 40 minutes as dictated by what I am assured is a life transforming book called Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. I am waiting for the little ball of dough pictured above to rise on my makeshift peel. In 40 minutes I will dust and slash the top, then slide it easily (thanks to the liberal sprinkling of corn meal on the peel) into the oven where it will bake for 30 minutes. Upon cooling it will have a 'custard crumb' and crisp crust and be a delicious French Boule loaf.

If all goes to plan I will repeat this process (which really does take about 5 minutes) daily and never buy bread again. Once every couple of week I will be required to make a quite sloppy, yeasty, bubbling mass that is my dough mixture and store it in the fridge, removing grapefruit size hunks for the daily ritual.

Can it really be this easy? I doubt it. Last night while letting the dough mix fester rise on the bench for three hours it overflowed the enormous tub I had it in and required transferring into a tub that is normally used to store kids' toys. The mess was manageable but significant. I will persevere though as the thought of making our own bread free from preservatives and bleaches and whatever else goes into a supermarket loaf really does appeal. More photos to come - hopefully with some success to report.

pretty distractions

I am struggling with stuff at work at the moment and need to put it aside and not give it air to rage out of control inside my head. Instead I am cleaning up a storm (the upside of inner turmoil, the house gets a thorough going over while I distract myself). I am also looking for lovely things in my day. Cake cooling on the bench. Eggs laid by chickens who have made peace with the dog and lovely yellow Craspedia in the hallway...

i am meant to be...

working on developing some tasks that take into account different learning styles and utilise a flexible learning space whilst aligning marvellously with the agreed learning standards. Ergh.

I am trying, but when I got out of the armchair where I have been re-reading the novel that this pedagogical masterpiece is to based upon I noticed the roses and hippo on my coffee table. Then I noticed the circles of the pouffe and the coffee table. So I took a photo. And now I am posting it.

Posts here have been a little few and far between lately as I try to slip back into work mode without compromising the play, sew, relax, cook, read mojo I developed in the holidays. I will work it out soon and be back with a vengeance I am sure.

back to routine

It's the first full week of school term so this is our proper return to routine. Which means I am in my own little OCD happy place where I can predict what will happen each day with a fair amount of certainly.

So that means that so far today I have walked to school, caught up on the gossip in the school yard (another school mum has started selling Tupperware - Good Grief, for the life of me I can't understand the call of the plastic). I've been to swimming lessons, done some shop type perusing with a birthday gift in mind and am now eating lunch in front of the computer before I clean floors and bathrooms (it is Tuesday after all). I am aiming to squeeze in some time at the sewing machine between cleaning and walking back up the hill to school; at some point a friend is calling in.

Not a bad routine once holidays are over. As I sometimes think to myself but would never utter aloud - holiday from what? This is actually pretty bloody nice.

flower friday

I have not posted a Flower Friday for quite some time - these are the harvested Drumstick Allium which grow wildly in the front garden bed.  Our flowers are becoming more sparse and being replaced with beautiful dried heads which are full of seeds. I have a slight problem in that I bring the dried flowers inside and put them in vases, bottles, jars, anything that will hold them. I am not sure if they are beautiful in this state or I am just remembering their former glory. They stay inside long enough for me to get sick of them, then they hit the compost. In the meantime I am planning flowers for winter. Besides Hellebores, what are my options here in Victoria? Time for research.

the day before school

The first day of February and the last day of school holidays was spent at the beach - making sand boats, collecting rockpool creatures, swimming (half heartedly - it really wasn't too warm). Throw in some icecreams and a round of mini golf. Cap it off with a dinner of fish and chips at Amber and Russell's. The recipe for a a great day before the school routine starts again.       

(photo and feet by Amber)

grade 2 begins

Sam woke me at 6am in full school uniform. At 7:30 he remembered we had to remove his holiday nail polish. At 7:45 Milly was in tears pondering the misery of Sam's absence during the day. By 8:00 the tears had subsided and Sam was released from his cuddle duty long enough to stand for his Grade 2 memorial photograph...

At 3:30 we picked him up. One day in, Grade 2 has rave reviews - Generally speaking the day was "fantastic". More specifically: the teacher is "really friendly", work is "good, not too hard yet", and the other kids are "awesome".

By 4:30 we were at swimming lessons. Thus the routine has begun. Tomorrow is Milly's first kinder day as well as my first day back at work since December 19th so I am trying hard to suck it up and go with a smile on my face.