Strolling on a Sunday evening

Do you ever go strolling on a Sunday evening? We like to :-) Such a nice way to end the weekend/squeeze every last bit of relaxation before a new work/school week starts.

Makin' the mosta of a coaster!

These are coasters made for me by my Pa. Does your Dad do stuff for you that (pretty much) no-one else would? Gotta luv Dads hey?!

Family Fun @ the Farm

Today we're going for a bit of irony and checking out some family fun (@ the farm), 'cos it aint much fun here in this family today!

Reflections on the dam

 Got time for some reflection???

Simple picnic = quiet house!

On the weekend the house was LOUD! I needed quiet. So I invented a simple picnic for small people and it provided a lovely quiet house...

Brown paper packages tied up with string

Today I bring you brown paper packages, tied up with string!

It's a cow's life!

It's Friday - yay! We're at the farm. And it's all about cows, clover, oats and a fence.

'Camping' and making tracks...

What do the small people in Australia do during their spring holidays? This is what ours did...

5 Bikes & a Basket

Last weekend we acquired 5 bikes and a basket... for $30...

Breeding like-minds

Funnily enough, it seems we've bred small people with like-minds to ourselves...

Recipe for Life - Rissoles

Look at this bonus box of bounty... found in our vegie garden... used to make a Recipe for Life...

Curiosity @ the creek

Last weekend we went to the creek and had a bush BBQ. The BBQ was explained yesterday, the creek and our curiosity I saved for today... here it is.

A Bush Barbecue

Here is how our family does a Bush Barbecue (also known as a Barbie or BBQ here is Australia)...

Recipe for Life: Pavlova

Want a great dessert recipe. For Pavlova, Australia's favourite dish! Ah yes, we lay claim to it ;-) 

Recipes from Life - 2-4-6-8 Cake

Earlier this week I promised you another Recipe from Life. A recipe that I know by heart, that I use all the time, that is part of our family life...Just like these scones, mentioned way back here.

Thursday's Thought from my life

Today you're getting my Thursday's Thought on a Friday! That's normal isn't it?! It's a true reflection on the state of my mind this week!!! My 'to-do' list is just ridiculous. So, without further ado... here is Thurday's Thought.

Sometimes around here life is just tea and toast. Or, just toast and tea. With the littlest one and me. That's it. Nothing gourmet or fancy-schmancy about that. Or our daytime life. The littlest one still sleeps in the daytime and so we grab a quick bite to eat before it's time for the 3pm school run. The afternoon deadline of all school mum's. Which then leads in to that dreaded period of the day when everyone is tired and oh-so-grumpy! So, to get my psyched up I decided to make a nice, pretty and yummy 'toast and tea' for just the baby and me! And take some pics to make it look lovely! Here it is...

The littlest one is here too. I'll show you in a minute. We'll just stick to the pretty end of the table for now.

This is our dining table without the sun shining on it! It's featured on a few other posts, see here, here and here, but normally the light is reflecting off the protective plastic (necessary on a table where small people eat) that sits on top of the maps. In this shot you get to clearly see the map. When I first put the maps on it resulted in a number of mealtimes being a circus! And that wasn't due to the small people! Talk about inspiring! We planned all sorts of trips, all the maps are of or in Australia, these plans included the very long drive I told you about yesterday.

On the table we have a woven placemat that I've had for so long I don't remember anything more about it! A plain white $2 plate from Kmart - yay for basic china! A serviette courtesy of my last birthday, I'm rationing them! A Casa Domani 'Damask' bread and butter plate, I have one of each size plate and bowl, I use them for serving. Plus our favourite Jasper Conran mug. These mugs are a bit of a splurge item for us. We love their colour, size and thickness. So I add 1 or 2 to each Peter's of Kensington order, we generally get big presents from there (wedding pressies). That way no-one notices it in the total on the bottom of the bill ;-)

I just popped some multi-grain bread under the grill, toasted it on one side and turned it over. Added tomato sauce on the littlest one's, and maybe on mine:-) A layer of cheese on each and then grilled it again for a few minutes. Yum! Definitely best eaten warm though...

And definitely to be enjoyed even when mum is trying to get your fingers in focus!!! When I play with the aperture setting it makes the focus look shot, especially when small fingers wave about, but I like the 'busy' effect you get. That toast must have been good, or the cheese was stringy, cos she gave up on the fork and used those good old fashioned cutlery - the fingers. I love little fingers, see some more here.

Sure, I know it's just toast and tea, but it tastes good and twas enjoyed by both the littlest one and me! Sometimes it's just the basic stuff, simple living, that makes life satisfying. Do you agree? Rhonda's thoughts on her simple living in this post are great! She writes about a quiet contentment. That's what I'm aiming for. In the mundane bits of life. That's why I take photos of the everyday stuff. The simple stuff. That we all live through, with and because of. Sometimes the picture doesn't capture the full scene; we don't always need to remember the mess or the chaos. Sometimes the light isn't great, though GIMP helps with that a little, and I need all the help I can get! And sometimes we forget to take the camera... but we can still have that quiet contentment. Or just the contentment if it's after the school run! Or we can wait 'til everyone has left the house the next morning and then make a cup of tea.

Hope you enjoy your tea and toast! I'm off to clean the house for the house-sitters....

A Quote from Life

It's all about the little things this Tuesday. And getting outside....... Enjoy it all won't you? We're shortly going to be sleeping outside, but not in this chilly part of the country ;-) In another part of our great country..... I might just tell you tomorrow where it is! 

For last week's quote from a stylish Australian women click here.

Tea and Me

Alright. Here and now I will confess to having an addiction to tea. I do think it is an addiction to 'having a cuppa' though, rather than the tea itself. Does that make sense? I do love tea, and I drink maybe 4 cups of it each day. But I am not against coffee and enjoy a nice latte when out. In the evenings I drink herbal teas too. So it's not an addiction to tea itself. Well not much anyway. I will only really admit that my addiction is to the act of making and drinking a cup of something warm. 

You see, tea means that I stop. And I've found that stopping does a lot for my sanity! Now as a mother of young children, in a lively little community, with a house to organise, I don't stop much. Oh I know I'm not running a multi-million dollar company, or saving the world in any way (though I might sometimes argue that last point). There is just always something to do. Someone or something to be washed/cleaned, smoothed out and/or put in it's place. So making a cup of tea means I stand still for a few seconds to pour it and then I sit still for a few minutes to drink it.

Generally this time out consists of just a cup of tea. An extra strong Dilmah teabag, temperature warm but not boiling, no sugar (cos I'm sweet enough already, of course!) and a good bit of milk. The Scottish bit of me doesn't get a say in the milk - I know it's not the norm but I live in Australia where for half the year it's fairly warm. And I'm only 1/4 Scottish! 

If I am on my own I'll sometimes grab a scotch finger biscuit - there's the Scot coming out in me ;-) When I am feeling like I need a bit more than a 5 minute pick-me-up I love a kingston arnotts cream biscuit. If some-one else is here too I might try for something a bit fancier. I'll use the teapot and set the table. I might even scratch through the cupboard and find something nicer than a plain old biscuit!

Here are some recent shots of slightly fancier cuppas (Australian slang for a hot cup of something, generally tea or coffee) that I've had lately - all in the name of blogging. What a great excuse to have some fun hey?! Blogging is a bit like having a cup of tea for me, time out to create something that is just mine, that stays clean and that I can share. For more about my blogging background click here.

This Australian Afternoon Tea blend by Twinings comes courtesy of our most recent ex- priminister. We all know that politics allows for plenty of tea-drinking moments, but creating one's own blend???? He did it all for charity of course, I quite like the blend, so no harm done. At least not in terms of tea ;-) The choc chop biscuit is homemade, the recipe is brilliantly easy and makes hundreds. Here it is, courtesy of Rhonda from Down to Earth.

Twinings features again in the next shots, with a good classic English Breakfast blend. Yum. And a little touch of europe to go with it from our local Harris Farm greengrocers. A little bit of glaze goes a long way hey?! The cloth here was a gorgeous gift from a gorgeous friend who found it at this lovely little spot : Little Nest Albury.

 

I do have some self-set and self-managed rules about tea and me;

• In the first one of the day, generally brought to me in bed by my lovely Mr, I have about 1/4 of a teaspoon of sugar. A little kick to start the day. But after finally managing to kick the sugar habit that is the only allowance I have for the day. Not even in coffee, or if I am out.
• The total number of cuppas consumed in 1 day must not exceed 5. And a coffee counts as 2! This rule comes from those days of babies when sleep was extrememly limited and tea just about got me through the day... without this rule I'd still have those habits and be drinking 8 or so cups.
• The 10am cup, or morning tea, must not be made until the morning jobs are done and the littlest one is in bed. 
• The last cup of the day must be made no later than 5pm. If it later than 5pm if must be herbal. Generally some sort of pink herbal (cos it's pretty!), peppermint or lemon/honey. 

Such self-discipline hey?! Well, I do try and stick to the rules. UNLESS the night has been horrid, or some-one in the family is sick or I need a lot of time-out ;-) Us girls have to have flexibility in our lives, everyone expects it of us!

On that note, it's nearly morning tea time. I just have to hang a load of washing on the clotheshorse (it's a very grey day), empty the dishwasher and put the littlest one down for a sleep. I'll need that cuppa!

I hope you get some time-out today, even if it's just for 5 minutes.

 

Dishwasher Powder!

Here we are at the beginning of a new week. A new week following a special weekend for us which involved using lots of this dishwasher powder! Let's just say there were lots of lovely people in our house :-) For meals. That is just the way I like it.... friends and food!

So, why did I decide to make powder for the dishwasher? Well, the short version of the story goes like this; a family of five use a lot of crockery. And this equates to a lot of washing up or using the dishwasher. We do both. I use the dishwasher as much as possible for the sake of my sanity, and our marriage! But for everyday crockery we use the dishwasher. We have a older model dishwasher and she needs a hand with heavy duty stuff, a bit like me :-) So we hand wash the heavy duty crockery about once a day. Exhibit A...

For the dishwasher I used to buy powder in bulk. Kilos of the stuff. After careful calculations (I have an exciting life!) I worked out powder was the cheapest option. And it was not too much harder than throwing a tablet of detergent in. BUT. One day I went to buy my usual bulk brand and it was gone. Consternation ensued! I searched the shelves, got my phone calculator out and did some quick maths and hoisted the littlest one in the family a bit higher on my hip. But I didn't like any of the answers and so we left the shop... Time was running out though, there was less than a kilo of dishwasher powder left in a bottle under the sink. Hmmm.

The other little consideration to throw into the decision-making process is that we like to buy Australian. We live in a great country and we want to support it. This is easier said than done as so many products available in Australia are made by an international company.

Serendipity, or whatever you'd like to call it, then stepped in and one of my daily blogs (Down to Earth) happened to feature a great post. So I read the comments and some-one mentioned that they just happen to make their own dishwasher powder. Google quickly revealed a 'recipe' and I happily trotted out to the supermarket to get the ingredients. Yep, they are all available at the supermarket - perfect for one-stop-shoppers like me. You see, it means I only have to get the littlest one in and out of the car once! Here are the ingredients just waiting to be mixed.

In my supermarket the Borax was in the cleaning section, near the cloudy ammonia and surface cleaners. The Bi-Carb Soda and Citric Acid were in the cooking section, between the flour and the cooking chocolate. Who doesn't know where the cooking chocolate is?! The essential oil was near the candles and the salt I had in my pantry cupboard. Not too tricky at all - yay!

The best bit about the ingredients, for me, was that the Bi-Carb and Citric Acid were definitely Australian owned and made! Very exciting!!!

 

So then came the mixing. All ingredients are added to the one receptacle, anything as long as you can close it properly. And then you shake it up. Nothing tricky about that hey? And it would have only taken 5-10 minutes to make if I hadn't been taking photos along the way!  I am liking this powder more and more. At this point I had my fingers crossed it would pass it's test by actually cleaning everything in the dishwasher!

And so we loaded up the dishwasher. I admit that I made the first load a kind load. I really wanted this stuff to work! It was easy to make with convenient ingredients. The first load's cleanliness was (almost) fantastic. Everything came out sparkling. Except for the rings in my tea cups... So I must rinse my tea cups or give them a quick spray of vinegar before putting them in the dishwasher. This sacrifice I will very willingly undertake! Although, in my next batch I am going to put a bit more salt and see if that helps. 

I even gave away a jar of the stuff for further testing and the recipient has since asked me for the recipe - I think it's a winner for her too. If you'd also like the recipe check out the first photo at the top of this post. That is all it is - really! Just mix and shake. Then add 1-2 tablespoons to your dishwasher load. We put a good heaped spoon in the dispenser, and if it's a heavy load I toss a bit more over the bottom of the dishwasher as well - just for good luck! I doubled the recipe when I made it too, this means I have to make it even less frequently.

The price breakdown is quite exciting too. 

1 jar of Borax (500g)                     $4.46

1 1/2 jars of C. Acid  (75g each)   $3.45

     - 1 jar is $2.38

1/2 box of Bi-Carb (estimate)        $1.83

     - 1 box is $3.65

Salt (estimate only)                       $0.40

                                    Total       $14.61

This bottle below shows how much powder was made. I estimate it will last about a month, let's say 30 loads in the dishwasher. So that makes it about 34c/load. Quite a bit less than a reasonable quality tablet! And this powder has integrity - great ingredients made with my fair hands!!!

So there you go. A simple solution to an everyday problem. I like it. Sorted anything out like this yourself lately? The Down to Earth blog has other great options for home-made cleaners if you're keen... I am when it's convenient and makes life better in some way. Or when it gives me more time to have a cup of tea. More about tea and me on Wednesday... See you then.

PS. If you knew me in a previous part of my life you may well find the concept of me making my very own dishwasher powder rather hilarious - so do I! So join me in giggling about it!!!

PPS. The essential oil is only in there for the smell, so feel free to leave it out. I do like the citrus smell it gives though.