Bread Baking

I had a great day with Mum. She came over this morning with supplies and her bread machine. I have one (a second hand one I was given and have never used) and we decided to use them at the same time to save time.

We made 2 dozen wholemeal rolls.

We used the bread machines to do all the hard work (mixing and kneading), then let them rise in front of the living room window before baking them in the oven. They taste absolutely delicious. I was surprised at how easy they were to make. I will definitely be doing this again. :)

We also spent some time getting the garden sorted. My entire garden is going to be in pots as we do not know how long we will get to stay here.

So far I have lettuce, bok choy and some herbs coming up. I got some more pots ready and will get some more seedlings next time I am at the Farmers Market.

Tomorrow is a study day.

I love long weekends. :)

xox

Holidays: Day 2: Baking

This morning started much the same as yesterday.  Woke up about 7.30 and read for a while.  By about 8.30 I was done reading so I got up, fed the menagerie, then got out the computer to find something to bake.

It had to be something I had the ingredients for.

Time to bake my famous Giant Honey Oat Cookies.  With a twist today.  This time I added a cup of almond slivers, and can I just say - YUMMO!!!!!  Made a massive difference.  I will definitely be doing that again.

While they were baking I sat at the computer for a while.  Next Wednesday is our monthly Paranormal Group Meetup.  Since we are both on leave we decided to stay up in the Adelaide Hills for the night.  So we have booked a room at the Stables Inn in Hahndorf.  It looks really nice.

The other thing I did was register the both of us for the upcoming Rogaine event in 2 weeks time.  It is a 6 hour night event, but our goal is to just do maybe 3 hours then camp the night.  I figure it will be a good introduction to the sport and a way to see if we enjoy it.  In honour of the registration Ross and I headed out to get...

My very own compass!  Plus an introductory book on map reading.  Ross has a compass and he knows how to read maps and everything, but if I am going to do this sport, then I need to learn as well.  I have had my first compass lesson, and I think I could use it to find my direction.  I have started reading the book and it is really interesting.  But there is a lot to learn.  Put it this way, I am glad that Ross will be there to do the actual map reading while I fumble along next to him.  :o)

xox

Busy Weekend

I had a great and busy weekend.  It started Friday night with dinner at Mum's.  Well, the real reason I went was to raid her fabric stash, but dinner was an added bonus!  :o)  I grabbed a whole heap of fabric ready to start my hexagon quilt.  I have been planning this quilt for a couple of years, so it is going to be great to actually get started.  We had a great night catching up.

Saturday morning I got stuck into finishing the last knitted square for the the blanket.  I knitted while watching Season 1 of Charmed on DVD.  A great morning.

Around lunch time Ross & I headed out for our hike.  It was a stunning day.  No rain for the first time in a week, and we even saw the sun!  My foot hurt a little going up the hill, although I found going backward helped with that.  Besides, going backwards I got to watch this amazing view unfold before my eyes.

The stitching together of the panorama isn't great (it gets bigger if you click on it), but you can get an idea of how high we climbed and what we could see.

This is Ross right at the top.  Those teeny tiny building in the background sticking up is the city of Adelaide.

There were birds galore out in force and it was just stunning.

Going back down made my foot hurt a tiny bit, but it wasn't too bad.  We got to the point where Ross likes to turn off, however we couldn't get across.

At least, I wasn't prepared to since I don't have waterproof army boots!  (For some reason Blogger won't let me put that photo in the right way up, sorry about the side view...)

We made it round in a couple of hours and had a great time.  I was thinking of going again, but my ankle was a bit twinge-y so I decided to stop there.  I got home and put my foot on an ice pack for a couple of hours while I finished knitting.  The ice pack seemed to really help, and it is feeling good now.

I got the last square done and laid out the blanket how I am going to put it together.  I meant to take a pic of it all laid out, but I forgot.  Sorry about that.

Sunday morning I went to the local quilt shop with Di to get the backing for the blanket.  I got a nice deep red with a black curly line pattern on it.  It will look sensational.  I spent the rest of the day alternating between sewing the blanket together and baking cookies.  I really enjoyed the whole day.

Tonight Ross & I are heading back up to Shep to do another walk.  We leave in 7 weeks, so I need to walk as much as possible in that time.  Either hiking or just walking in general.

xox