"Dressing" the cups

Going on our picnic yesterday, I wrapped the cups in face towels. I usually pack tea towels around them ready for when they get washed up, that's when we are going camping/caravanning. Didn't need tea towels so opted for the small towels.

I hate tea and coffee in plastic cups, only use china crockery. Which brings a hassle with possible breakages. I had a thought, to make the cups their own cover, thinking esp for the caravan. I had a little green felt like fabric left over from making the cushion cover so this morning I set about it.

I measured several cups in the kitchen cupboard and decided that the length should be approx 25cms by 10 cms. Yes! I had enough to make four and I was sure that I could find enough buttons for four (ended up for three the same colour and one is blue but the size and shape are the same).

The covers should work to protect them from breaking if they happen to knock together and should help to keep the beverage hot or cold.

I needed elastic to attach the buttons to hold them around the cups. Damn! I have waist elastic which is two or three times wider than I want or I have hat elastic.Surely I have some normal size elastic, I don't want that much. I search through all my resources (I have several) finally the only place that there could possibly be some was Mum's sewing box that she gave me a few years ago.

What a mine field I don't often go there as I have enough stuff of my own but I found cotton on wooden reels, goodness knows how old they are. I really should go through it all. Just when I had about given up, in the bottom corner was a piece of elastic, exactly what I was looking for, except that it was sewn together to make a loop. Good grief, I think it was what I used to use to keep my socks up when long white socks were the thing. Again just enough if I was careful.

Here are the finished cup covers, the one in front with the elastic and button showing, great size for the glass mugs but I had forgotten that the cups are squat. At least I don't have to be concerned about breaking now only if some one drops a cup.

My Dream house

Driving past I saw it, my dream house!

I have always wanted to live in a to story house. Living areas downstairs, bedrooms upstairs. Cute windows to look out of, (don't think about the logistics of cleaning them)

On the way home, Warren stopped so I could take a picture of it (I didn't even ask!) He knows my fantasy and also knows that its not going to happen but hes happy for me to dream.

Isn't that just the cutest thing to see? Its like "the verandah out the front and gum trees out the back and the rocking chair" that's probably not the right quote but it does sound like one of our (Aussie) icon songs from way back.

Our Weekend Jaunt

After a few days of feeling blah! I requested that we go on a picnic. Just an aside, I cant think of the word picnic without being reminded of something I was told at the IT department the other week. I went with a student hoping that an adult presence would help to get the problem solved (it did!). The ID guy said to me that often IT problems are a PICNIC, standing for Problem In Chair Not In Computer, which is pretty funny only if they can fix the problem on the spot.

We drove to Mt Mee lookout and realised that it had been years since we have been there. The drive up is very pretty and the roads sign are all aimed at bikers as it is a well known loop for bikers to use on a day trip from Brisbane. Surprisingly we didn't see any on the road, the reason was evident when we pulled into the lookout, they were all parked there enjoying a coffee from the coffee van that is new since we have been there. Good business sense for the coffee van man.

This is from the lookout itself with the Glass House Mountains in the background.

The creek twists and turns.

When I suggested a picnic, my first thought was What have we got to take to eat? A forage in the freezer soon turned up, two muffins, a bacon and ham bread roll, some rice crackers and the rest of the garlic dip and then I cooked a couple of fish cakes that had been bought for one of those nights that I don't want to cook. A flask, coffee sugar and milk and we were well covered. 

It was cold up there thank goodness we had both taken jackets and we weren't the only ones in shorts and jackets.

One last photo from our picnic table, it doesn't show up as dark as it was getting. We turned for home before the rain came, we did have a few spots on the way home and it has been raining quite solidly for a couple of hours now. Glad we got our picnic in before it came and we do need the rain.

Just Clowning.

Our oldest grandson does drama at school and each term they put on a performance at school. A few weeks ago we arranged to attend.

Its after school but on school premises and starting at 6.30 pm. There are four classes and all I knew was that his class was not the first one.

The school took the opportunity to put on a sausage sizzler as a fund raiser. I don't like sausages that much but do like the sausage sizzle so that was dinner.

Had to sit through two performances before Jordan's but they were entertaining. All members of the class were involved and they were all different. The costuming was good and quite funny.

Finally Jordan's group was on and it was bizarre to see our grandson burst out of a box in a purple curly wig and purple tight.

In all groups there were some acrobatics, juggling, plate twirling and magic. For kids to get up and preform a piece that they had only worked on for a maximum of a term was really good to see. All were in year ten so fifteen to sixteen years of age with quite a difference in size as well.

Sick!

I hate being sick and I have had the last two days at home in bed sick. It started with a bit of a cough on Tuesday and I went to the chemist in the afternoon and bought some cough mixture to knock it on the head. It didn't! All day Wednesday all I did was cough and I was feeling like crap too.

Thursday was much the same and during the evening I was thinking that I would have to go back to the doctors to get a medical certificate if I needed another day off. I woke up after a nap at about 8pm and felt at least half human again.

I did go to work today taking cough drops and lollies with me so that if I started coughing, something might soothe my throat. No way did I want to start coughing again as my stomach aches from previous coughing.

After spending almost two full days in bed and eating very little it was an effort to go to work but I felt better as the day went on.

I rarely get sick but twice in two months is annoying. Thank goodness I did have a flu jab earlier in the year and now "they" are saying that having the flu injection can help with heart health, bonus!

Oh and to top off being sick, my ears have become blocked again and its still like hearing in a fog.

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully I will feel even better then and hopefully the fog will clear so that I can hear! I have a dread of speaking too loudly when I cant hear but I think (hope) that I am the other way as I have had to repeat a few things.

Tiny canals

I was at the Doctors on Monday to get my regular six months worth of tablets and I asked him to check my ears as I still can not hear properly. He told me that I had tiny canals, ear canals apparently, the nurse also told me that. Wow , there is something about me that is tiny!

The nurse gave them a water bath and it seemed to help but the next morning I was and still hearing in a fog.

The Doctor, new to me, told me that I could get one two tablets put together therefore only having one tablet and also halving the cost, how good is that.

The problem with having "tiny"canals is that they do block up easily, just my luck!

How I have "saved" a $1000.

We have always wanted to go to Tassie and have had plans but then changed them as something has cropped up. We have a spare week next month so we are booked to go. I had been looking at package deals and the like for awhile and had almost settled on one to book. It was eleven days, car hire and hotels for $1040 each person, I thought that sounded a good deal.

I like to check things out before going to a travel agent so that I don't get shocked and then commit to something that I don't really want to pay.

$1040 for car and accommodation was pretty reasonable but then I realized that it was each! To fit in with the dates, the plane tickets were quite high over $1200 for both of us to go and come back.

Got the fingers walking on the computer and have come up with air tickets to suit us for time and price for $900, have a car booked and while I haven't booked the hotels so that we can be flexible, I have looked at a chain that averages around $100 a night. Oh the $900 includes travel insurance.

All up about $2300 as apposed to $3300, doing a happy dance!

Reading Materials

I like to read a LOT! The library is my go to place for books and I frequent the big print books. I can and do read the regular font sized books but most of my reading is done at night and with the big print books are easier to read in bed.

Last weekend when we went to Sydney, I didn't take any books, not even one (I went to the library last Monday and I am already on my fourth novel that I checked out, that's pretty standard for me, one novel in two to three days). As we were only taking carry on and I knew that we would be walking a bit, I didn't want the extra weight or a book taking up space.

I bought a magazine at the airport and as there was no on board entertainment I had read that and done the puzzles by the time we landed. In bed that night I remembered that I had downloaded some books onto my tablet awhile ago. I don't particularly like reading off the tablet but any port in a storm....

Settled down to read and getting into the book and it ended, what the......? Damn, I had downloaded a "free" book but it apparently was only a sample.

Last night I tried to find the book online to buy the rest, I am not very good at finding my way around the Play store probably because I don't do it often. Anyway when I went to the adult books and tapped in fiction, there on the screen was an author that I wasn't familiar with but the front cover which was shown was a picture of Miss Fisher from Miss Fisher Mysteries. I know that series from TV, didn't think that there was novels.

I made sure that it was the whole book and tapped yes, I wanted to buy it for $5. What an interesting read, I am up to chapter ten and have changed my mind about reading from the tablet. This is the first of the books and explains how and why she is in Australia and how she has become an investigator.

Now I know that I don't need to take actual books with me on our big trip as long as I have the tablet and a little bit of power sometimes. Yippee! I had been thinking that I would need to locate second hand book stores.

From rice to flour.

Warren is gluten intolerant and while he can have some ordinary flour, I do try to stay away for too much of it for him. I read in Annie's instruction book that rice can be ground into flour.

I have a big bag of brown rice in the pantry that I don't particularly like, its takes for ages to cook, I know that it is good for us but...... Up shot is, I bought other rice to use and the brown rice sits there. I couldn't throw it out as that would be wasteful so it just sits! I probably bought it early in the year when we had five visitors from China staying here for a few days. They wanted to eat Western food but at least it was there.

I decided to see if I could make that brown rice into flour and then into a pizza and yes it is possible!
The recipe asked for 400 gms of flour which would make four pizzas bases, I don't want four so I halved the recipe. Apparently if grounding grains into flour its best to do no more than 250 gms at a time, that suited me fine.

Ninety seconds was all it took to go from the brown rice on the left to the fine ground flour on the right.

I continued using the recipe and got the pizza made, even though I used yeast it didnt seem to rise very much but it tasted good. I just added a couple of mushrooms, a spring onion and some ham with grated cheese on top. Didn't even taste like gluten free.

Tonight I am making a shepherds pie, I cant remember the last time I made one. Mashed potato is done and sitting in the heat pot. Its a stainless steel bowl with lid that keeps food either hot or cold.

A bonus that I have found already with Annie, is that once its on, such as for the potatoes, it doesn't need to be checked on, no pot boiling over and it doesn't over cook if I get busy doing something else. 

I took the opportunity to put everything away that I had out on the bench and packed the dishwasher then sat down at the computer knowing that it will "ding" when its finished as well as turn off.

Although Warren told me that I should send it back this afternoon as I was in the kitchen juicing by hand some oranges to make a hot orange juice for afternoon tea as obviously it doesn't juice oranges.

 He was joking!

A very expensive bowl of soup

After Annie (my new thermomix) arrived at home I didn't know what I wanted to make first. First things first I went through the recipe book that came with her.

Warren came home and told me that he had sort of had lunch. Did that mean he wanted lunch or not? It seemed that he had had a big morning tea rather late so no, he didn't need anything. Damn, there went my plan of making him a great lunch with Annie.

I hadn't bought any special foods to use her so it had to be something that I had in the cupboards and fridge, I also wanted to cook only using Annie so no cakes or slices that needed to go in the oven.

Soup, I could make a soup. Warren was instructed to watch while I made it, he choose mushroom soup, thank fully I had everything needed.

This is the left over soup, we had a small bowl served with some parsley spread over the top. It was good. We will be having soup for lunch today as well with the small bowl going in the freezer for one of my work lunches next week.

As it was my first thing to make, that made it very expensive but as I make more meals, the cost will come down. 

For dinner, I took a recipe from the book and changed it to suit and use what I had, it was a sauce to go with spaghetti. Looked a bit bland but the taste was good. Had to use the reverse on Annie so as not to cut the spaghetti to bits, worked fine. So so easy to clean after use!

Later today I am going to make some rice into rice flour and then attempt to make pizzas bases from it.

"Annie" has arrived!

I had to buy some vegetables to make a vegetable

stock, this was to be done under instruction. Parsley, basil and rosemary came from the garden and I had the oil, salt tomato, onion and carrots. The recipe did call for 150gms of rock salt but we thought tat was too much so only put in 100gms, I had a taste and oh boy so salty.

This is what it turned into and because of the salt content will last for a long time. It is used instead of stock cubes, not that I use them anyway because of the gluten and/or preservatives.

So this is Annie, the thermomix. I used some of Mum's money hence the name.

We were talking about songs and lyrics the other day and I remarked how some tunes don't seem to fit the words. Warren asked me to explain what I meant. A song that I like and I play it occasionally I would describe as "sweet". Sweet is not big in my vocab or personality so it is unusual for me to like a song like this one.

I couldn't remember the name but I did know who sang it, Nick Cave of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Warren did look at me as though I was nuts (don't think I'm there yet). He asked if I meant The Nick Cave. Yep, I know he usually is a pretty hard rocker. I told him that we owned a copy. That would be hard to know when we have such a lot of CDs, but as we only had our own music to play when on community radio, I knew that we owned it on a compilation CD.

This is just some of them, one side of a four sided rack.

Anyway Warren researched it on the computer, (all of our music is on the computer). Nothing came up and I reminded him that he (Nick)sang it with Kylie.

The song is a sweet love song about a rose or so I thought until one day when I was playing it on the radio and realized that  he actually lures her to the river and while showing her the wandering rose he shoves her into the river and drowns her. The music is very soft and lilting but the words are deadly. He found it and I still like it.

 I had learnt a lesson while playing music on the community radio, in regards to actually listening to the words. One day I interviewed a couple about coping with Parkinson's Disease, the woman had started a new course of treatment and had overcome while a lot of her tremors. During an ad break, they told me that they were celebrating 40 years of marriage that day and were going out to lunch. With their permission, I did mention it on air and congratulated them. After they left, I rummaged around in my bag of CDs to play a song for them and found something that I thought would be suitable. It was called Band of Gold, sounded like a good one but to my horror it told the story of a woman who after a divorce was left with only her wedding ring. After that I made sure that I knew what the words on songs said before I played them.

The Coat Hanger

Along with the Opera House, we saw this.

Just a little peek between  the trees.

And a little more.

We decided to have coffee and chips and do some people watching.

Last one.

Can see a group of people walking on top of the bridge (on the left of the left flag pole).

An Aussie Icon

Leaving the conference on Sunday afternoon, we headed left and found ourselves at the botanical gardens.

This statue was just inside the gates and further around on the statue was an explanation. 

Our own Captain Phillip.

Then I spied this and I took a photo as I thought it would be the closest I would get to our Opera House.

Silly me!

The Conservatory of Music to the left but I took the photo for the flowers. (and in the middle of the background is another Aussie icon, the famous coathanger!)

Another ten minutes of wandering thru the gardens and there it was in all its glory and just look at the tourists! I didn't realise we would be so close.

A Quaint Hotel

We were able to get a room in the Sydney CBD for $115 a night. Quaint is not a word I use often but that was what came to mind when I saw it. We had to go to the bar to check in and it was tiny probably six or seven tables and the bar was in the corner.
Then we had to go to the fifth floor, lift was across from the bar.

It was a manual door, this is the first door to open.

This was the second door and yes, either use two hands or both of us had to push it open. There was a sign inside to say that the lift could hold twelve people, it would have been like sardines if twelve could even fit in there.

Our room had a shared bathroom, wash basin inside, toilet down the hall and two bathroom across the hall, one was in better repair than the other. It was clean, plenty of hot water from the shower, also a bath if we wanted to go down that path.

Everything that you could want oh, except air con or heating but we were only there to sleep, beds were comfy.

The breakfast room. This was on the third floor and open 24/7 with bread for toast, cereal, tea and coffee, milk and juice in the fridge. They did ask that we wash our own dishes after use.

A pretty building across the street from our breakfast table, the green was brighter in reality.

On Saturday night there was a birthday party and a bucks night happening between us and the bar and although we could hear the music, it wasn't so loud that we couldn't sleep.

The hotel was a seven minute walk (when we went the right way lol) from the conference, a real bonus.

Walking to the conference on Saturday morning (we actually went the wrong direction) we came across an interesting little court, probably tourists to the area or people who live there know of and about this but for us it was a real find.

They are bird cages and the street was Angel Place. As we walked down and under the cages bird calls sounded and on the ground was the name of the bird. It was magical.

Thank goodness we had the time to wonder down and marvel at the sights and sounds.

Then we came across Martin Place and then made our way to the Sofitel Hotel where the conference was being held.This was quite early morning, the buildings are magnificent .

The Dreaded Blue Light.

Funny thing happened last night on the way home. Sheridan and I had been to Sydney and driving home to her place, she was driving my car. Damned if I could find my way from the airport to her house.

Chatting away she was in the left lane and there was car in front but in the right lane. Another car pulls alongside and goes ahead and suddenly blue lights are flashing in the back window. It was an unmarked Police car. The car in front and the Police car then then move over in front of us and made their way to the kerb. Sheridan says to me, "Is it me?" "I don't know" I replied, not ever been pulled out and never seen a car suddenly put on their blue lights, we didn't know the protocol. She decided to pull behind them just to be on the safe side.Three car doors open at the same time and coppers get out, Sheri rolls down the window and asks "Do you want me?" The back door copper looks over, shakes his head and says "No, not you." Sheridan pulls out and around, both of us feeling very relieved. Not something that you want on a late Sunday evening.

The other car didn't seem to be driving fast or unsafe so wonder why they had pulled them over, guess we will never know.

Teddy bears picnic

Yesterday I went with Sheridan the boys and their other Grandma to a teddy bears picnic which was held at South Park. Beautiful sunny weather when I left home. Sheridan drove in and got a car park quite close and it was an almost empty car park, amazing to see, all these car bays empty!

Heaps of families were there and of course teddy bears as well. Part of the day included a gourmet lunch complete with picnic blanket.

Didnt take a photo before lunch but these were the two baskets that lunch was served in. Cheeses, cold sliced meats, crusty bread and crackers, pesto,olives were just some of the tasty morsels.

Grandma took the boys on the big wheel and they had a wait to get on and then several revolutions which we had to wave to them each time. The weather turned and when they finished on the wheel, we decided it was time to go. 

Driving out of the car park, large spots of rain hit the windscreen and during the drive the heavens really opened up and it was difficult to see the road in front for a few minutes. Luckily it didn't last long and then the sun came out again. 

Strawberries

Strawberries were on special when I went shopping on Monday. They were $2 each so I bought two mainly  to serve to our visitors but didn't use them.

I have a habit of "saving" strawberries for a special occasion and ended up throwing some of them out when they have been in the fridge for too long,so I cut up one punnet tonight for dessert.

This one was at the bottom, it was massive!

Tasted pretty good too and no bad bits, we will probably have the other punnet tomorrow.

Visitors for Lunch

Warren's brother Barry and his partner Maureen came for lunch today. We last saw them two years ago, since then they have been backwards and forwards to NZ and have both had heart attacks and recovered.

Because of their health issues, I was concerned about what to serve for lunch. I figured the best and easiest thing to do was to make a platter of food and let them choose themselves.

I got the lettuce with the small cups and filled them with coleslaw, these are so easy to make and look good on a platter. There was roast pork, silver side and ham, fresh bread and chutneys. I made curried eggs and egg and lettuce sandwiches with steamed potatoes. Dessert was watermelon. I love serving the watermelon, this is from China, meals would end with watermelon slices or sugar cane.

As usual I over catered so dinner was left overs.

Barry and Maureen are living in a motorhome up on the Sunshine Coast for the next few weeks before they take off again to the wild blue yonder.

Oldest electrical thing

Years and years ago I bought Warren a clock radio alarm and TV, all in one. Cant remember how much it cost but probably a fair amount mainly because of the TV. He was going away a lot at the time for work and staying in transit lines on Army bases. Very basic things in those rooms, bed and wardrobe maybe a chair if lucky. I thought that it would be good for him to have and take with him.

I think it would be about twenty five or a bit more years old. Definitely the oldest electrical piece of equipment that we own. It didn't get packed and taken on many of his jaunts mainly because of the size and weight, he had other stuff that had to go first.

Anyway that was his choice at least he had the opportunity to take a little personal TV with clock,radio and alarm. It has always taken up residence on his bedside table and used as clock radio and alarm. It has been used as a second TV at times and we did used to take it camping with us for a TV in the camper van.

The open novel on top gives some idea of the size, the TV is four inches squares (about 10 cms).

Often we use the radio as we are going to sleep, it has a one hour or a continuous option. 

Last weekend when I was on my own, it was quiet and I thought I would put the radio on to go to sleep. Pressed a button which I thought was the radio button and yes, I got radio but I also got the buzzer alarm sound. I pressed a few more buttons, thinking how hard can this be? I just want music! I gave up after a while and decided to go without.

I was rudely wakened at six o'clock the next morning with the alarm going off and the TV screen lit up with a bright light! What the? Slid a couple of slides and thankfully it shut down and I did manage to go back to sleep.

Getting into bed on Sunday night I said to Warren "You probably need to adjust the clock and radio." He laughed when I told him what I had done. A couple of clicks and we had nice music to send us to sleep, the following morning at six am, woke up to music. Bugger why couldn't I do that!

Crossed off the list.

Yesterday I had a great day when many things crossed off my list. I don't have an actual list but I do think about things that I want to get done in the day. Most days I don't achieve even half what I set out to do.

I said to Warren Friday night as we prepared for bed, that I was going to stay in bed in the morning and finish my book. it was a rather intriguing story.  He said that he assumed I would want breakfast in bed, my reply "well that would be good."

Woke up reasonably early for a saturday and started reading, I had figured out who dunnit but needed to make sure that I was right. ( I was but always satisfying to have in confirmed).

Breakfast was served about 7.30am an egg on toast and coffee. It was good as after I got up I could start on my tasks for the day.

 Checked my emails and wrote a couple of things, then moved on to tidying the spare room, I had things out looking for a particular thing earlier in the week but then didn't have time to pack away.

Moved into the sewing room where I completed the items that I had started last weekend, six journal covers, stuffed the last teddy bears that I had knitted and sewed on their scarves and eyes.

Did two months worth of ironing (sounds pretty impressive!) two shirts and two pairs of pants.I don't ever have a lot of ironing and can't be bothered to get the iron out for one thing but as I had it out to iron my sewing things I thought I might as well finish them.

A jacket of Warren's was in my sewing room, he wanted me to make inside pockets in it so I did that, took about five minutes, why hadn't I done it before and got rid of it.

Then I made a Christmas gift!!!! I know it is only August and Christmas is a long way away but I had a thought the other day and decided to do it while it was fresh in my mind. We take along a gift to the value of no more than $5 for Red Hats so I bought a purple notebook and made a cover for it.

This is the result. I had everything else on hand so the cost was only $5 and a bit of time.

Lunch was something from the freezer heated and we went to friends for dinner so I was able to get a lot done, even some knitting in between.

Visitors on our lawn

Warren has had a couple of magpies in the garden over the past week or so. These turned up this morning. He gives them a little bit of cheese to eat.

I got some grated cheese and threw out on the lawn.

Then one became two, we think they are young ones as they appear to have down on their chests although one is bigger than the other.

This is how close they were to the patio, they stayed for awhile, ate the cheese, I didnt like to give them any more. I did burn some toast later and instead of going in the bin, Warren put it out on the lawn for them.

Mystery Tour

It was seven years this month that our Red Hat group got going and the Queen, myself and 39 (third in line) planned some thing different for the occasion. Well, it was 39's idea and she put it to us Queen and Vice Queen, which we thought was a great thing to do. She had a place in mind to end up but wanted something to do along the way.

About two months ago we set out with pen and paper ( I was the scribe, 39 the driver and the Queen being the Queen). We set a route and found lots of things places etc tat they would have to find or locate as they went along.

One month out and we had no takers to come along so we suggested that husbands, partners or friends be invited. In the space of a day or two we had seven cars, methinks some people were very vary of this mystery tour, thinking that they could not do it.

It was less than a 50 km drive with 30 things to look out for and the navigator had to tell the driver where to go, I'm sure some of the girls delighted in telling their husbands where to go! They were all given a sealed envelope with the meeting place just in case they got too lost. The cars were sent off at five minute intervals and arrived at around the same time of five minutes apart but not in the same order. No-one needed to open them.

The three of us on the day had a set of tasks, 39 sent everyone off, she had done all the instructions and did the finalization at the end to get the winner. Queen did up the certificates for the tour as well as our birthday ones and did coffee and tea. I organized and bought the food and went direct to the park to set up for lunch.

Thankfully everyone came in smiling and said what fun it was, they took between one hour and three minutes and one hour and seventeen minutes. The last car who I thought would be quite fast as she is a fast driver had stopped and made a detour to her house for a "comfort stop"

Our lunch was at the beach and although it was cool there was little wind and it turned out a very nice day. A husband and wife team won and received a red car for the driver and the navigator, a notebook and pen in the shape of a red lipstick.

Blocked ears or am i going Deaf?

All this week I have woken up not being able to hear properly from one ear. Telling Warren off breakfast on the second morning and he was very sympathetic and then proceeded to tell me something only mouthing the words. Annoying fellow, of course he got a thump on the arm for his troubles. he did go and buy me some ear drops later though so he's not that bad.

I think or hoping tat my ear is blocked after the cold I had a couple of weeks ago and this is just the aftermath. Years ago when we lived in Canberra I had trouble hearing and really did think that deafness had set in. The doctor laughed and ended up flushing them and it was great suddenly I could hear birds singing in the trees!

When this ear is blocked, its a real muffled sound which is annoying, eventually it has cleared after time and it is getting less blocked each day but just wish it would return to what ever is normal.

Manners and kids

So many people complain about "Young children today" have little or no manners. I do find that some kids are not taught manners or respect for others and other people property.

Saturday morning I went to the library and its a little weird as I drive and park and then walk in and take the lift to Ground. I have just walked on the same level but no, apparently I was at Lower Ground and need to go up to Ground, see weird!

Anyway I got my bag of books and went back to the lift, pressed to go down, when I saw the lift go past on its way up with two young girls in it. They looked to be about nine and eleven, both holding books so I assumed that they wanted the library.

A few seconds later the lift came down again, there is only lower ground, ground and first floor, three levels so it doesn't take long to get back. The lift doors opened and the older girl smiled and said to me very politely, "Sorry we missed you, we hit the wrong button". I didn't expect an apology, didn't even think one was necessary but thought it was so nice of her to say so. I thanked her and wished them a good day. The younger said they were off to get new books to read and off they skipped into the library.

Demo party

I was invited to a demo party on Saturday. A girl friend wanted a demo of this thermomix with a view to buy one. As it was a look see and taste, she had invited three others.

I had heard about these machines but never seen one. The demonstrator came and talked a little about it and then started cooking. In the space of a few minutes she had turned frozen mango pieces into smoothies, it was like eating ice cream. Then she made a dip which we ate with rice crackers while she made a pizza base in the machine. It made two bases but we only used one, 30 minutes to prove in a wrap that comes with the machine. While the pizza proved she made a salad from raw beetroot a carrot and an apple, coriander was in it as well and it wasn't my favourite thing but I think it was the coriander that I didnt like.

Then she prepared the pizza and cooked in the oven, while that was cooking she made a risotto in thirteen minutes!!!! I have only made a couple of those things and they take forever and have to stir it all the time. This risotto was great, A slice of pizza with cheese tomato and basil, as her husband  needs gluten and lactose free, she made it all like that as she had brought all the ingredients.

Finally she made a chocolate custard, I don't like custard buy decided to have a taste anyway, oh my goodness, it was great even though it was warm, would have preferred it cold. It tasted between yoghurt and mousse.

In two hours she made fruit smoohies, dip, pizza, salad, risotto and custard.Needless to say I didnt eat dinner that night, I did make a sandwich about 8pm. My friend ordered one and as we do get invited for dinner every so often, I am sure that I will get to eat more mel from it.

Home Alone

Not the movie but this weekend it is a fact for me. Wow, how can I just do things for me? Yesterday I went to the library as I had nothing to read, despite having three full bookcases, I still had nothing to read.  I went shopping for a few odds and ends that I wanted ( I was going to write needed but it was more a want than a need). Attacked the drawers in my bedroom, this has been on my list to do for quite awhile. Interesting what I found, a couple of things that I thought, why is this here and why did I buy that? Could be a bit of out of sight out of mind.

The bedroom is getting crowded and I prefer space so something has to go and that something is the set of drawers.

Meals just for me meant a sandwich for dinner Friday night, last night I made an omelette. A curry is cooking for tonight's meal, back to usual.

The house was so quiet on Friday night that I didn't sleep that well, rather annoying as I had great plans to get so much done. Last night I was used to being on my own and slept well even waking and ready to get out of bed at 6.30am, very unusual for me.

My plan for today is to finish all the things that I started yesterday (I am not that good at finishing things) so complete the bedroom make over, finally unpack everything from the caravan, and I have a couple of sewing projects to complete before my mind goes off on another tangent for another idea.

First though I will make a cup of coffee to take outside and sit and ponder, I do have a new bag of books to read.

20% off

That is a good marketing ploy/trick call it what you want. I am a member of Spotlight, it was free to join so I did a few years ago. Spotlight sells homewares and all things to do with fabric/materials. Membership gives me a small percentage off what I buy in store when I produce my card and I am sent their brochure every couple of months.

The last one I received had a scratch card on the front, probably about nine panels to scratch and reveal a number underneath, get three the same and that was how much would be given off the next purchase provided it was in the next two weeks.

My first three I scratched showed up 20% on each one, yippee! think of all the things I could buy and get 20% off. What a bargain! Hang on a minute, I did not need or want anything, I am trying to reduce the things in the house and the stash of fabric in my sewing so why on earth would I go and buy more? Yep, that's right so I can get that discount!

Good sense prevailed and I didn't go shopping and card now has expired but I'm sure that others would be drawn in.