end of term

School term finished yesterday, I have spent the past few afternoons taking the opportunity to read in the sunlight of the front room - peace and quiet may be hard to come by for a while. We head to Adelaide tomorrow to play with grandparents and cousins and friends. I also have a list of favourite hometown places to visit as well as a few new places to discover.

There is adventure to be had...

seeing what we see

I woke up this morning not really embracing a day of chores so I exercised my finely honed avoidance skills and  sent Amber a text to ask if she was interested in taking a drive to see what we could see. She was. We had a glorious day.

Driving around the countryside, stopping to look at whatever took our fancy, patting ponies in paddocks, stickybeaking into the windows of an old mansion, playing 'guess who' in the car, admiring a bull but being a little bit scared when he pawed the ground and bellowed at us, eating a delicious lunch in a great cafe, talking to a local about the urbanisation of a lovely seaside town (in his opinion - a beautiful lady turned into a cheap tart), finding playgrounds in the middle of nowhere, remembering places to come back to as a family for our Adventure Sundays.

No plans, no agenda - just driving around to see what we could see. And we saw lots.

two is the perfect number

 (image from here)

I work two days a week. Every now and again I have a moment of madness and a need for a funds injection and I take on some extra days for a while.

Last year I thought it would be a good idea to earn some extra money and became a census collector - one of those yellow bag toting people trudging through the rain explaining why the census is compulsory by law and begging you to do it online so they didn't have to come back to collect the paper version. Cue the most awful 6 weeks you can imagine. The children still tell stories of when Mum was doing the "yellow bag work" and they hardly saw me for a few weeks. I was the perfect census collector, I had systems, maps, spreadsheets, checklists for my checklists. My Area Supervisor loved me - I was his star collector. I was also insane - my anal, obsessive compulsive tendencies were fueled by the never ending ways to tally and crosscheck. I made it all consuming. My hyper-vigilant approach to it also meant that the quite good hourly rate for this work was diluted to less than we pay our babysitter because I spent hours and hours on those systems and crosschecks.

With the census money I went to Brisbane for a week with no children and gave the kitchen a budget facelift (which is still not finished).

In the middle of the census I taught full-time for two weeks. Anna, the friend I job share with took long service leave and I was happy to fill in for her. It was an arrangement made long before the census decision and I had no idea the two things would clash and I would be left a wreck. With the extra teaching money I paid our nanny enough money to fund her holiday to America, bought take away food, outsourced the ironing and had to buy clothes because I only have the work wardrobe of a two day a week career gal. I think I actually lost money on that fortnight.

Next month Anna is taking long service leave again. I have told work I wouldn't be able to give them a decision on whether I could cover her until close to the time. The time is now and work need a decision. I have decided not to do it. The extra money would be great but I think that it is time to learn from mistakes made in the past. You may see me wearing the same clothes I was wearing last winter; our budget kitchen facelift may still be incomplete; my underwear may come in a pack of 5 from Target and I am the Queen of budget shopping at Aldi supermarkets but I will be sane. I've told work I can't do it and I feel good about it.

Two days a week is the perfect number, it means we have less but can BE more. I need to remember this.

fire and water

We started Sunday at 13th Beach, letting Sadie run along the shore chasing birds and getting horribly wet and sandy while we braved the wild wind and had what can only be called a bracing but happy walk to the Bluff.

The cold afternoon and evening was dedicated to a backyard bonfire with lovely friends, fat marshmallows, Michael's scones and glasses of scotch.

A completely lovely weekend.

holiday browns

South Durras, NSW.  June 9th - 16th, 2012

melbourne museum

A last minute decision to spend a cold and windy day at the museum was a good one. Every time we visit something different catches our eye - today it was the anatomy exhibition that saw us cross the line from fascination to horror and back again (digestive tracts - who would have thought?). The usual things took our fancy - dinosaur skeletons, taxidermied beasts, live spiders, phar lap and the rainforest. A day where the kids spent most of the time engrossed in wonder, necks craned and eyes large.

torture

Definition according to Sam : wearing long pants to school on a day when it is forecast to be 10 degrees.

Tears have been shed.

We are the worst parents in the world.

holiday greens

 

South Durras, NSW.  June 9th - 16th, 2012

brisk

The walk to school this morning was freezing cold. We bumped into a friend at the library on the way home who cheerily told us that that it was 7 degrees. We had been out walking for 40 minutes by then so I am guessing it was probably 5 when we set off - keeping in mind that Sam was in shorts and short sleeves (with a singlet - his one concession to winter).

Our elderly Italian neighbour was standing on his step ladder pruning his fig trees when we passed and we stopped and conferred on the weather and techniques for getting the most fruit from a tree. I told him our plans to plant a fig in the chicken pen next month and he offered to come down and help us when it was time to shape it into a lovely broad canopy. For the first time Milly rode her scooter all the way down the hill without using brakes and was flushed with joy at her achievement.

Home now and we have milk on the stove to make warming hot chocolates. We could still see our breath as we walked in the front gate. Definitely a winter morning.

at the moment I am...

cooking...

lasagna for dinner tonight. There is nothing better than walking home from school pickup knowing that dinner is already cooked. I think my mojo may be lurking around the kitchen again. I am planning on trying a new recipe for lunch tomorrow when a friend comes over.

reading...

lots of books from the library. I read a book every day while we were away. Lots of holiday-friendly, read it in a day novels with a couple of recipe books thrown in to help me with the mojo. I remembered how lovely it is to lie around and read for a few hours every day.

considering...

cancelling our paytv subscription. Do we really need it? What would happen if we didn't have it? What would we do with the hundred dollars a month we spend on it? Too much to think about, inaction will surely result.

washing...

continuously. The glory of a holiday is not doing laundry for a week, but even with a loose interpretation of what could be considered clean and re-wearable we have come home to a mountain of washing.

holiday blues

South Durras, NSW.  June 9th - 16th, 2012

reunited

Sadie has spent a week in doggy heaven. Four days with a family full of energy and a huge back yard followed by four days in Amber and Russell's luxury Drumcondra retreat. Tonight will be the first time she has slept outside for a week. We have had updates through the week via photos - see above: Sadie lying on the spare bed looking pleased with herself. Even Sam and Milly were agog at such treatment. This morning was the happy reunion and the kids have spent the day exhausting both her and themselves.

home

Ten hours and one minute in the car today and we are home. I have turned into my mother and the washing machine is already into its third load. My phone has started the process of syncing the hundreds and hundreds of photos and at some point I will weed through them and choose what to post here. What I will write for now though is that if you get a chance to go to the Murramarang National Park on the coast, about 15 km north of Batemans Bay in NSW - do it. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Sublime.

holiday

The second tent above Batemans Bay? That is where we are going. A big part of our holiday plan was a desire to get away from the world and this means internet access will be non-existent. I hope you have a lovely week.

If my telco performs beyond my expectations I will be posting over here via instagram. Failing that, I will be back in a week and half, ready to regale you / bore you with tales and photographs of our adventure.

sounds

I went off message this week and spent money that was unbudgeted. Big Stuff - $10.49 for the Paper Kite's EP Woodland. It's great. If I could embed a YouTube video I would and then this could play inside my blog but html stuff is beyond my ken at the moment so click here to listen to it and watch the lovely video.

lost - one cooking mojo

I have lost my dinner cooking mojo. It was last seen on Anzac Day when I made a delicious dinner of lamb shanks and gnocchi for friends. At the time I didn't appreciate it was a last supper. I suspected my mojo had left me when, a couple of weeks ago,  I made a decidedly average lasagna when a group of friends came for lunch; something when awry when I doubled the bechamel quantity. I knew without doubt it was gone when, this week, I made chicken and sweet corn soup. It was, without exaggeration, revolting: thin and flavourless with the appearance of a bile-rich vomit.

I didn't appreciate my mojo when I had it, but since it has been gone I am aimless, standing at the kitchen bench holding random tools - a potato ricer, microplane, cherry pipper - none of the tools needed to prepare an evening meal for the family. I can regularly be found reorganising a pantry that is already organised, hoping in vain that a magic ingredient (or better still, a fully cooked meal) will jump out at me.

I am struggling daily, the innocent question "What's for dinner tonight?" has me staring blankly at the child who has asked it then looking around wildly for the person who has the answer. Because I don't.

At a time when the nation has tuned in to MasterChef and is experimenting with sous vide and ceviche I am making eggs on toast for dinner. And not just for the kids. Last week I made chicken schnitzel twice. Milly was so relieved to have a proper evening meal she asked for a repeat two nights later when I was standing at the kitchen bench looking at the defrosted chicken breasts and wondering what they were.

I have completely forgotten my winter repertoire. I have no idea what we ate this time last year but it can't have been toasted sandwiches because we didn't have scurvy by spring time. We go away on Friday and I will be cooking in the caravan where thankfully sausages in bread is a viable dinner option. When we get back I will need to make a concerted effort to remember how and what to cook. Tomorrow night we are going out for dinner to celebrate a friend's birthday. That just leaves tonight - chicken schnitzels anyone?

The photo above is of a fantastic cast iron roasting dish I found at the op shop last week.  Thus far I have not used it, if my mojo doesn't come back I will plant some succulents in it and keep it on the kitchen bench.

getting ready

I am making some extra large wheat bags to pack for our trip today. We aren't fans of the hot water bottle here at #55 but big squishy wheat bags made from old flannelette sheets to pop in the microwave are my ingenious idea for keeping us warm. I am imagining the kids cuddling up to them in bed or holding them on our laps as we sit in the annexe playing cards while the temperature drops in the evenings (current forecast for 1 degree overnight). I think I will also make some small ones to pop into our pockets for freezing morning walks to watch the sun rise over the ocean.

Not long to go. The forecast is for cold and rain but we don't care - we are giddy with anticipation.

Mad? Probably.

reading rituals

He reads to her after dinner in the evenings.

not just pretty flags

{ photo by alysia cotter }

It's the Queen's Jubilee this weekend. So many of the Brits I follow on instagram are posting photos of bunting and village parties and victoria sponge cakes. It looks incredibly beautiful.

I am getting sucked in by the loveliness of it all. I was tempted to hang my op shop found linen union jack teatowel on the front door. Then I remembered I am a republican. I also recalled that this week the Queen (or Lizzie as my Father calls her) gave former Prime Minister John Howard an Order of Merit which meant I had to hear his horrible voice on Radio National as I drove to work. I also discovered that the O.M is a really big deal, not like a knighthood or damehood handed out to rockstars and actresses, it is limited to only 24 living persons at any one time. And she chose John Howard. Which appalls me.

So I am not going to get sucked in by the beauty and pageantry. I will remember that personal belief systems are more important that pretty styling. That said, I will wish for sunshine for the people of Britain as they celebrate something important to them in pretty village greens and streets lined with beautiful buildings.

I am off to google the other 23 recipients of the O.M and I fully expect a list of people I am most likely to argue with at a dinner party.

today

We are planning on working in the garden together, cutting back, pulling weeds, mulching, and perhaps having a sneaky peek at the neighbours' furniture as they move in next door.

It is a gorgeous winter morning, cold with rays of sunlight making the shadows long and the world a little bit golden. Later it is going to rain, by then we all will be curled up watching Hugo and seeing if it lives up to the hype.

goodbye autumn, you were kind of great

 

{bushwalks} : {last courageous swims in cold water} : {sewing} : {turning 5} : {jam making} : {bread baking} : {canoeing} : {reading in bed on a saturday morning} : {walking sadie} : {adventure sundays} : {breathtaking colours} : {backyard bonfires} : {crisp days with sharp sunlight} : {music}