Monday Menu 6 August (posted on the 7 August)

Here is this weeks menu.

Monday  Devilled Sausages on rice.

Tuesday  Cold corned beef with baked potato and salad

Wednesday  meatloaf (got sausage meat in the freezer which needs using) with green salad.

Thursday  meatballs on spaghetti

Friday  frittata and salad

Saturday  chicken curry 

Sunday  Leftovers


I am linking this page to I'm an Organising Junkie

July in Numbers

Here is my month in numbers.

July was one really busy month.  You would have thought with a two week school holiday break I would not feel like I have just run a marathon.  Then when I sat down to looks at my notes for this post I was left thinking that I must have been exaggerating about my month.  Who knows but this is what it looked like.

6 weeks after our little airport car (DH works at the airport) we finally get it back and it is looking like nothing had happened to it thank goodness.

14 days of school holidays during the winter school holiday.  It was cold but fine with those chrystal clear winter days.  -1 being the lowest morning temperature.  The frost in the cows water trough was so frosty it was still icy at 10 in the morning.

2 children spend on wet day during the holidays telling me that they are baking and they know what they are making.  So I sit back and let the excited duo go to it.  At the end of the mornings baking, two different batches of cookies later my kitchen was completely cover in dishes of the dirty variety.

1 is the number of days Hayden had to spend in hospital with a last ditch effort to prevent the need for surgery.  An all day stay in Day Stay at Starship Hospital hooked up to a fluid to thin blood just incase the blockage was a stubborn blood clot.   Luckily we had the help of the Clown Doctors to entertain us as well as the Play Therapists

This school term is seeing a committment to 4 consequitive days of hockey for McKenzie each week.  I am not sure who it is harder on, her or me.  This effort is partly her club team and partly for her Auckland representive team.  Luckily it her that loves her hockey.  Pity her little 11 year old mouth is not coping so well.

McKenzie player her 1st representative game of hockey this year.  Not a pretty photo but all I have at the moment.  I have to say after moving associations it sure looks strange with her dressed in blue and white and not the Counties Manukau colours of red, black and white.

1 is the number of new all terrain buggies the Health system of New Zealand has generously provied us with so that I can continue to take Hayden out when I exercise and when the saturday sport is rudely early and his medication is not finished.  He looks very little in it but I know he will never out grow it as he is unlike to grow any taller than 140cm.

143 photos is what I took in July.  I am trying to capture a reflection of daily life.

and finally a little bit of everyday life

2 is the number of alarm clocks I have in my bedroom far across the other side so they are not turned off in my sleep.  One is set for 0130hrs and the other for 0530hrs. 

I am linking this post to Notes on Paper so pop on over to have a look at what othes numbers are like.

 

Wordless Wednesday 1 August

Spring is here.  This lamb is about 1 day old.  He is in our neighbours paddock.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

Monday Menu 30 July

Here is my menu for this week.

Monday  spaghetti bolignaise

Tuesday  freezer meal bacon and egg pie and salad

Wednesday  chicken stir fry (creamy coconut sauce flavour)

Thursday  easy stir fry rice

Friday  sweet and sour chicken and noodles

Saturday  lunch box chicken curry pasta

Sunday   leftovers.

I am linking this post to I'm an Organising Junkie

Don't for get to Dream, It might just come true.

My daughter McKenzie plays hockey.  I have written about this before many times.  This year we decided, as she is very passionate about this sport, to move her club registration out of where she had been since she was five, to a new club falling under a new provincial structure.  This decision too my DH and I much thought and discussion.  What really helped seal the decision came down to these few things

• she is passionate about the sport and we needed to make sure she had all the opportunties avaliable to her.
• under the club and provincial structure she was in she was going to run out of girls/ youth to play in a team with thus leaving her to play in adults team once she was in Year 9 (13 years old).
• we were looking long term for a health club environment to be involved in so she could form friends outside of school in a positive sporting environment.

So this year was a year of new for both her school and sport. 

She has been playing representative hockey for a few years and this year with the move and many more girls participting she might not have been seen as good enough by the decision makers this year to play representative hockey.

So after 3 trial days, 95 girls attending, and total exhaustion on her part, she was picked in the team putting her in the top 16 girls in our new province.  I have to say right here and now I was stunned, and excited, to see her picked.  I know that my daughter is good and well skilled.  She trains hard, listens carefully and is really brave out there on the turf.  The reality this year was that she was relatively unknown this year which just might have made a difference.  I had been trying to tell her she needed to dream that she was good enough to trial and be picked but also if she was not picked it was only those three men decision and next year was another year.  A very fine line of support to give.

Anyway to cut a long story short.  Her team played their first game in the weekend.  My very excited but somewhat nervous daughter put on her new strip and off she went.

Now I just have to remember to actually take my camera out when I am watching her play so that I can get some action shots.

So I guess that the moral of my little post is to make sure you dream.  You just never know, it just might come true.

Fridays Fabulous 5 # 15

It has been a couple of weeks since I made this post but here we go for this week.

1.  If you have children studying Planet Earth and Beyond this little link might just come in handy.  The comparison of size between me and the universe


2.  I love this post, Shells around the Home,  from Simple Homemade.  Might just have to get out all those shells we have at home at have a go at something.

3.  Then there is How Stuff Works.  Especially for my very enquiring son.

4.  10 Simple Things to Make You Happy was a good read especially as we are in the middle of winter and simply hanging out for spring to arrive.

5.  If you are up for a simple desert try berries and meringues.  These were very successful.

Wordless Wednesday 18 July

Our yard is covered in sycamore tree seeds at the moment.  They are just facinating seeds to look at and watch.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys with Trish

The Game of Life

Just sometimes my life looks and feels just like this.  This term being full of winter sport, homework and all the other things that children do in between their weekend, breakfast and bedtime.

(links for this page can be found here at Nuts4Digi)

I am simply exhusted thinking about what each day, week, weekend will look like for the next 11 weeks.  So inbetween being a taxi driver, working, more taxi driving, catching up on homework monitor and everything else I can't remember as I type this.

Now just to remember to chill out every now and again.

Monday Menu 16 July

School is back, term 3 has begun, and we are up and running around.  In fact it does not feel like we have had a holiday at all.

Here is my menu for this week

Monday  Beef Caserole (my recipe invented)

Tuesday  Easy stir fry rice

Wednesday  sweet and sour chicken on noodles.

Thursday  korma curry with a green salad

Friday falafel in pita

Saturday  One pot Italian Beef Stew

Sunday Left overs


I am linking this post to I'm an Organising Junkie

In the Kitchen

As my daughter will not do food technology at school, don't ask why it is a long story,  but needless to say I thought that it would be important to a make sure she could not only bake cookies but could make a meal.  I had the idea to start simple and for her to make a meal with me and then move on from there.

So Thursday was going to be the day.  I thought we could take a good look at something simple salad and baked potato and chicken (a change from my menu plan) but my two children decided that they would like to be in the kitchen, baking.  I couldn't smash their idea and so off they went.  I left them to their own devices as recipes had been picked and an action plan formed.

Hmmmm as you can see I think that a little more practise on how to keep the kitchen somewhat tidy as you go might be necessary before the next cooking venture.

As for the cookies, my bakers thought that they tasted great and they were pleased that some cookies were in the tin ready for the start of school.