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 1: A Relaxing Day At Home

My holidays have started with a lovely relaxing day.  I got up early-ish - about 7.30.  I didn't really feel like getting up so I grabbed a new book from my library stash.  I paid a visit to the library yesterday and stocked up for the holidays.  I plan on doing a lot of reading in the next fortnight.  I grabbed a Laura Childs book.

Her books are pretty light on, but I have just read a couple of fairly heavy books so I need a break.

I spent the morning on the computer, just playing games and reading emails.  While at the same time watching NCIS on DVD.  And reading a chapter here and there.  It was lovely.

I also went out and took some photos of our garden.  While we did lose quite a lot of seeds in the storms several weeks ago, our snow peas and dwarf peas survived and are doing incredibly.

We also seem to have pumpkins coming up, which is interesting since we did not plant any.  LOL  We did put down compost that had pumpkin seeds in it (from pumpkins we had eaten) but that must have been enough.  We were going to plant them anyway, so I guess this saved us the effort.

Last weekend Ross and his Mum also dug out a new patch ready for us to use.  It needs some more preparation, but it is getting there.

Bit hard to see in the photo, but half the front yard will soon be filled with veggies.

I spent the first part of the afternoon doing some spring cleaning.  This will no doubt be a theme of the next 2 weeks.  We have quite a lot to go through.  Plus we have to go to our storage shed and get our summer clothes out and store our heavier winter clothes.  I ended up washing our summer quilt.  Since I hadn't taken a pic of it before I figured that I might as well while it is hanging on the line.

I made this when I still lived in Qld, probably 9 or 10 years or so ago.  It is one of my favourite quilts.  One of the few I made that I am still in possession of, most have been given away.

So I spent the rest of the avo sewing hexagons.  I have now done 24.  I have 48 to go which means I am exactly 1/3 of the way through the flaowers.  Considering I have only been working on it for 5 weeks, I am incredibly impressed with how many I have got through.

Overall, my holidays have started on a great note, and I am looking forward to the next 2 weeks.

To say good bye for the day, here is a pic of our youngest (and biggest) cat Starr.

xox

After the Weekend

I had a good weekend.  I did not turn the computer on once.  It has been ages since I have done that and it was actually a really good feeling when I got to last night and realised that without even thinking about it, I had done it.

Friday night Ross & I were meant to go for a hike.  But the torrential rain we have been having, and were still having Friday night, put an end to those plans.  Instead we just spent a lovely evening in.  I was up until 2am reading.  I kept thinking - at the end of this chapter I'll turn out the light - but then I would get sucked in and before I knew it I was in the middle of the next chapter.  So I ended up finishing it. :o)

Saturday I spent at my Mum's.  I needed to use her big table to pin the knitted blanket to the backing fabric.  Since I was there I also ended up using her sewing machine to sew the binding.  Now all I need to do is tie the top to the bottom, which I am doing with cute little buttons.  I am about 1/5th of the way through that.  Hopefully I'll be finished the blanket within the next week or so.  Finally! LOL

Sunday started off beautifully.  Weather wise.  I went out to check on the veggie garden.  The snow peas and dwarf peas at about 2 inches high.  They look sensational.  The lettuces were coming up but one of the cats used it as a litter tray so they are pretty much gone.  I need to get a wire frame to put over to top of the pot before I put more in.  The rest are starting to sprout we think.  We have lost a lot of top soil due to the heavy rains we have had for the last couple of weeks, so I will probably have to put the rest in again.

Around 11.30 the rain kicked in and was settled for the whole day.  We went to the Nursing Home to visit Grandad.  It was hard.  He had no idea we were there.  He has shrunk and has aged about 20 years.  I don't think he has much time left.

Yesterday was especially hard for Ross.  It was his first Fathers Day without his Dad.  And then seeing his Grandad getting so frail before our eyes made it even harder.  But he tried to keep his spirits up.

This morning the last book I ordered from the Book Depository arrived.

Fast Food Nation.  It was one of the one recommended from Food Inc.  I am looking forward to reading it and will let you know what I think when I'm done.

xox

The Weekend So Far

Well, we are heading toward the end of the second day of the long weekend. It has been an interesting couple of days, some good, some challenging.

It started Friday night. My MIL got a call that her Dad (Grandad) has been in a car crash. Only a minor one thankfully, however at 92 years old a minor crash can jiggle things around. By the time she got up there the paramedics had been called. They got to the hospital and my MIL finds out this is the 2nd crash in the last couple of weeks and also that he has had 2 falls in his house in the last week that he has not told us about.

Grandad lives a good 45 minute drive away if there is no traffic. He lives alone and until recently has been doing fine. MIL saw him last Sunday and all was well. However when she got to his house to pick up a few things for him things were different. A week of Meals on Wheels dinners were lined up on the counter unopened. The cat had been locked inside with no kitty litter. The cat food was dried up and had been there for days. We don't think he had eaten for a week or had he fed Blondie (the cat). He was in the same clothes he had been in the previous week and no PJ's had been used. He had burned his pillow so he is smoking in bed again.

The hospital in their infinite wisdom wanted to send him home after 2 hours. MIL managed to talk them into keeping him overnight. However considering he can't get up or down on his own, can't shower, can't go to the toilet unassisted I am truly disappointed that he was sent home the next day. We explained that he lives alone. They pretty much said take him home. MIL said he would be sleeping on the couch as we have 3 adults living in a small house and they said that will be fine. Not happy.

So Grandad has been here since yesterday. Thankfully he is eating now but he still needs a great deal of assistance. He sleeps about 18 hours a day. I am not sure if he is going to be able to go home. We talked about me and Ross moving up there but the logistics are too hard. I would have to leave for work at about 5.30am and would not get home until after 7.30pm including a 30 minute walk at night through a very unsafe neighbourhood. Plus there is the fact that with both of us working and with the extended travelling time we would not be there enough to take care of him anyway.

I am not sure what is going to happen but for now he is here and a neighbour is taking care of Blondie. The poor old thing is so frail. None of us are sleeping as we are all listening out for if he gets up in the night as we are so afraid he will fall. Hopefully we can get him into care fairly quickly.

OK, so on to the good parts of the weekend so far, and there have been some.

Yesterday morning I decided to skip yoga and go for a run. I haven't been out for 3 or 4 weeks. I didn't realise it was that long, but geez the time goes by quickly. I decided no more shuffling, I am going to run! I lasted 3 minutes. My legs hurt, my lungs hurt. So I started walking, I did a few more spurts - running, not shuffling - and got home sore.

After some breakfast and a clean up I hopped on the tram, switched to a train, and took myself out to visit my Grandma, who has been in a Nursing Home for a while. We never really got along, so I have been a bad Granddaughter and not visited for a long time. But she was really friendly and we had a wonderful visit.

I came home and helped MIL with Grandad and helped with dinner. We had an early night.

This morning I got up early to help Grandad get up and get him some breaky so MIL could have a sleep in. I got all the animals fed and got cuppas ready for Ross & MIL. Then I got myself ready and headed in to the city to go to the Botanic Gardens to meet my Mum for a walk and to take photos. We spent a few hours and had a really good time. She also bought me this wonderful book from the Botanic Shop.

Ross and I have had several attempts at starting veggie gardens, that have had varying degrees of success. This book was written by a South Aussie, so all the planting times and everything are very specific to where we live. I am going to start getting a garden bed ready tomorrow so we can put some spinach in, which is one of the only things we can plant at this time of year. Hopefully this one is successful.

Tonight I am going to make some parsnip soup for us all for dinner. Ross is working early tomorrow on the other side of town so he will have an early night. I will be here all day so I am going to try and get MIL to go out for a while, at least for a walk with the dog or something, just to get out for a while. Ross is staying at Mums tomorrow night as he is working just a few kms from her place tomorrow and Tuesday.

That's it from me. I'll leave you all with a few pics from this mornings wander....

xox