seasons

Almost all the bloggers I read are heralding the change of season - autumn in the south and spring for anyone in the northern hemisphere. It seems we are all obsessed, with either orange leaves or pink blossoms against amazingly blue skies. I am not immune to it either. I walked to the library this afternoon and happily crunched my way through the fallen leaves on the path. What caught my eye this morning though is more spring than autumn - these cosmos have sprung up along our side path. They made me realise I need to sow some wildflower seeds pronto if I am to have more flower-y loveliness throughout the year.

sam

 

Despite yesterday's blog post which gave a glimpse into Sam's darker moments I am loving having a seven and a half year old son.

He is kind and has a sense of humour that makes me laugh all the time. He talks through problems more often than not. He takes an interest in the world and has a curiosity about everything that I hope he takes into adulthood. He loves running more than anything but dancing makes him happy as well. He is a really good reader but I have yet to find the book to really hook him into reading for pleasure (I am hunting and will take any suggestions). His handwriting is immaculate and this week he has a best friend called Steve. He is a perfectionist who wants to get things right the first time he does them. He would rather wear sneakers than school shoes and will wear short sleeves all year if I let him.

Seven and a half is a great age.

mornings

It is 8:30. I am writing this blog post because at 8:25 despite going through his morning motions at the pace of a snail Sam declared he was ready and wanted to go to school early. I told him I hadn't finished eating breakfast. He yelled at me. By 8:27 I had eaten breakfast but I need to make him wait for me for a while longer. I also need to remind myself of lovely things because being yelled at before half past eight just isn't a good way to start a day.

Update- he has just looked at my breakfast bowl, ascertained that I may be taking my time and started weeping quietly. I am immune.

Instead, I am looking at photographs of vintage stationery. Because it makes me happy.  (photo from here).

It is 8:40 and I think I have made my point. Time to go....

good stuff this week

 

~Seeing Milly start to knead dough with some proficiency. She made Sam a pizza for dinner which was declared "flat but tasty" (she tends to get carried away with the rolling pin and her final product is a little thin).
~Michael painted a bookshelf for Sam to display his lego creations. Once his minifigs (lego people) were lined up in rows he declared the whole effect "satisfying". He is still the same boy who would absentmindedly line his matchbox cars up perfectly rather than zoom them around.
~The first mandarins have appeared in the fruit shop. At the moment there is a love/hate relationship going on as they range from sweet to sour. In a few weeks they will be super sweet and the kids will hurl headlong back into their seasonal addiction for them.
~Sunsets and sunrises this week have been amazing. I'm a little less enamoured of seeing the sunrises as the mornings have turned cold as we settle into autumn proper.
~I saw The Artist this week. Gorgeous film that transported me out of my world and into the 30's. It made me smile throughout. As for the love I have of seeing a film on my own - that is the stuff of an entire blog post. It is truly my happy place and has been since I was living alone in Adelaide and rewarding myself for finishing work at home with Sunday afternoon sessions in the Norwood cinema.
~Finally - remembering recipes that haven't been cooked for a while. This one is red lentil dhal served with poached chicken, we ate it twice last week.

thrifted treasure (not mine this time)

I haven't been foraging in an op shop for ages so my last thrifted treasure post was a while ago. This morning @kitandnancy of the blog www.kitandnancy.blogspot.com posted a few pictures on instagram of her latest thrifted finds. They included this shot (which she kindly gave me permission to use) of Johnson china she had found.

This is the pattern of my childhood. I am not sure how many meals I ate on these plates. They were often meals made following recipes from the original 1970's Women's Weekly cookbook (a personal favourite was tomato chicken bake (with tinned champignons). I am sure I never appreciated the beauty of the plates as a child. Now though? I am tempted to ring Mum and see what she has left over in the cupboard. I suspect not a lot. Someone like @kitandnancy has snaffled them up in an op shop after a clean out. I hope they are being loved.

him and her

Michael has been home from work for a couple of weeks and I am not sure I have found my groove of being a stay at home Mum with a stay at home Dad lurking around. Frankly, it has been a bit strange. Not quite achieving the things I normally would but at the same time not feeling like it has been a break either.

This afternoon we picked up Milly from Kinder and went to a coffee lounge (not a cafe but a self described, old school "coffee lounge" - remember them from the 80's?) for coffee and a milkshake before the school pickup. It made me think I may have been better off doing this for the past two weeks rather than huffing and puffing about lack of jobs being done or having someone around to trip over as I try in vain to clean the house.

crabapple jelly

I spent half an hour atop a ladder reaching into Amber and Russell's crabapple tree on Saturday where the fruit was blushing pink and the branches were laden with fruit.

Deciding that two enormous pots of crabapples boiling was enough I put the left overs with some cut branches on the kitchen table.

Armed with a recipe, multiple layers of muslin for draining overnight, lots of sugar and sterilised jars  I made Crabapple Jelly which has a tang that is delicious and perfect for the scones Michael made (and has been making every day since).

The whole process was thoroughly satisfying as it was as beautiful as it was tasty. It felt like a perfectly autumnal way to spend the weekend.

For the jelly making inclined - I would recommend not removing the stalks from the apples, I didn't and the juice ran clear. There was a fair bit of scum to skim from the boiling jam but that was a whole lot less problematic that the time it would have taken to de-stalk them.

autumn seeds

While I had good intentions to take control of an autumn veggie garden Michael went one step further and actually planted. At the moment the homemade wire cloches are making pretty patterns but soon we will have an array of seedlings doing their thing.

administrivia

A boring blogg-y side note - I am having problems with consistent layout of my photos. I am about to back up and then play with layout and templates and other html-ish code type thingies. Wish me luck, if all goes well I will have a revamped site by evening's end.
Carol x

UPDATE: I seem to have momentarily conquered html code and fixed my photo placement glitches. Here's hoping I can remember it all when I post again. I have also played with the blog layout. For now I am liking the clean and simple (photo-free) header at the top. I am not sure it will stay like that for too long but at the moment I am happy. Did you notice anything different?
Cx.

long weekend

Our annual trip with friends to Inverloch was fantastic ... kayaking, tree climbing, drinking, sand excavating and catacomb building, climbing, laughing, swimming (it was COLD), talking, eating, snorkeling, fishing (Sam caught his first ever fish), playing, reading, girls club (4 girls taking over the caravan and being left to their own devices playing house with abandon), walking ... we did lots yet it was relaxing. A perfect way to spend a long weekend.

5 years old

 

Emily turned 5 today. This involved treasure hunting, lego construction with Dad, delights from the postie, busting Sam out of school for a family lunch following by swimming, friends calling in with more gifts, not one but two bunches of pink flowers, finding even more gifts on the door step when we got home, painting a new canvas, walking and scooting, and a secret expedition for an ice-cream cake. 

And a new T shirt from Amber (with sequins) which just about made her head explode with happiness as this photo shows:

her favourite things...

all in one shoe - the colour purple, sparkles, stars. A trip to Chadstone was a winner for Milly yesterday.

7 days

Last week we made cake, read books, watched the Oscars, pulled out tomatoes, corn and sunflowers, watched the rain from the verandah, had friends to play, thought about painting a bookshelf, harvested potatoes, pulled out knee rugs and discussed turning on the heater, coloured in, walked the dog to and from school, took turns having a bout of gastro, baked bread, lost a sense of balance with work and brought too much home for the second week in a row, started to contemplate moving bedroom furniture around, wisely kept contemplations of moving furniture to oneself, and went to bed a bit too late in the evenings.

This week we will go to Melbourne for a jaunt, prepare for our camping trip, continue thinking about painting a bookshelf, resist moving bedroom furniture around, sew more of the quilt top, watch some Oscar winning movies (The Help, Beginners), get haircuts, colour in some more, try some new recipes, make cake and hope the rain stops long enough to mow the lawn.