Monday Menu 11 March

I have one very busy week ahead and my husband is in Vancouver for work so my menu is geared to be the heat and eat variety on a couple of days.

Monday  Shepherds Pie

Tuesday  Shepherds pie (left overs) with salad

Wednesday  vegetable and macaroni pasta bake

Thursday. steak with potato and salsa

Friday  fried rice

Saturday  bbq with salad

Sunday  Leftovers.

I am linking this to I'm an Organizing Junkie

Project 365 February 2013

Here they are finally my Project 365 pages for February.  They have been finished for some time.

 

All the products I have used come from Weeds and Wildflowers.

Wordless Wednesday 6 March

McKenzies school althletics is a big deal.  So her cousin came to our house at 6.00am to get ready.

Hmmmm here are the results before stepping out the door to get on the bus.

The sun was just rising as I was taking these photos so the colour is not good.

 

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

February in Numbers

With February being the start of the school year we have been busy getting back into routine.  I don't know if my numbers reflect this but here we go

• 28 days and no rain....still.  We are verging on drought and have had to buy in water once already to put in our tanks.  Here I am checking the water.  The photo is my reflection in the water at the bottom of the tank before we go the water we needed.

• Auckland, where I live, has had less than 20% its usual rain fall for February.  No wonder we are buy our tank water in.  Of course we are not complaining.  Last year we had no summer to speak of.

• One 5 hour hockey session for McKenzie even though the season has not stated and we are in the throws of a long and hot summer.  She even got to be ball girl when Auckland U21 women played the Australian Secondary School girl.  She is 4th from the left.

•  Andre has started back at junior golf and has played 4 holes 3 times in February.  He is there on the green somewhere.

• We have spent 2 days preparing our fire wood  getting it ready for splitting in March

•  Novopay (the new payroll system for teachers in New Zealand owned by the Australian company Talent2) has paid me once correctly and once I have been over paid.  After six months of getting wrong most of the time I am getting very tired of it all.

•  A melatonin break of 1 week is what Hayden just needed. It was really hard work.  It reminded me why he needs help to unwind and go to sleep.  If only that wasn't the case.

I am linking this post to Notes on Paper

Monday Menu 4 March

Here is my menu for this week.  I am trying a couple of new ideas but all in all simple and quick are the summary of my recipes.

Monday  chicken drum sticks with baked potato and mixed steamed vege.

Tuesday  freezer meal.

Wednesday  slow cooker beef and broccoli  served with noodles.

Thursday  Falafel skewers with hommus and tabouli

Friday   Vegetarian quesadillas

Saturday   We are out 

Sunday  Hamburgers homemade.

I am linking this page to I'm an Organizing Junkie.

 

Fridays Fabuous Finds # 31

This week I was already to post this on Friday....really organized I was....and blogger was not co operating.

Anyway I am here for today with some great links.

• I think that this you tube video speaks for himself.

•  I am looking at lots of new blogs at the moment.  I stumbled across Meet at Mikes.  I love it.  It is worth putting just a little time aside to take a look at her retro feel blog.
• I am in the market for some fridge magnets and I think I might have just found some DIY ones.
• Since my One Little Word for the year is Happiness I thought I would share this article from Life Optimizer
• Finally since I am plodding away at my garden I thought that a watering system should be planned for.  So here we go with a few ideas.  I think some people are so creative.

Wordless Wednesday 27 February

This photo shows Andres homework.  I structure made with creative solutions to hold it together.

 

He struggled all week with his idea and finally decided that he could do glue and a rubber band.  We discussed it a little and decided to use homemade glue (water and flour).

 

 

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

Pineapple

Today I thought that I would blog something just a little different.

When I was living in Brunei one of the thing I loved was all the local fruit.  No I am not taking about the vomit smelling durian fruit.

 (image source here)

 

 

I am talking about the pineapple.  Truth be known the pineapple I bought was probably imported but we very cheap none the less.  One of the most painful things about pineapple is the cutting of the skin off.  I always seemed to leave bits of that tough skin on the edible flesh.  So I asked a friends wonderful amah Bless if she would show me how to cut the pineapple the local way and this is what I found.

• Firstly you take the pineapple and cut the skin off.  Now we don't grow this fruit in New Zealand so I thought I would post the photo of an unpicked fruit.

(Source here)

 

 

Then you run your knife around the pineapple following the little bits of skin left and you end up with a fruit looking like this.

 

 

 

 

 

Next you quarter your pinapple down the verticle line.

 

 

 

 

Next you notice that a pineapple has a hard core which can be unplesant to eat so cut it out.

 

 

 

 

Finally you cut your pineapple into bite size bits.  I slice down the long line three times and then cut into the size you enjoy.  That is all there is to it.

 









 

 



Monday Menu 25 February

Here I am this week on my own and rushing around with the after school activities.   So my menu reflects this moment in life.

Monday  chicken (cooked in the crockpot) with potato baked and green vege

Tuesday  Crockpot  beef stew on rice.  Based on the recipe on my blog.

Wednesday  Beef stir fry with a soy and ginger sauce (scroll down to see the recipe)

Thursday  Vegetable and Macaroni Pasta Bake

Friday  Zucchini Loaf and salad

Saturday  lemon and herb marinated chicken with potato and salad

Sunday  leftovers.

I am linking this to I'm an Organising Junkie

Fridays Fabulous Finds #30

So here we are will some more of my finds for the this week.

• check this little idea out for home.  Simple and easy to do and found at How about Orange
• Oh I love this little idea.  Just a pity I don't have a tree like that really close to my house but in the cows paddock.  But I still love the idea from Oh Happy Days.
• I love this little idea for the car but my handbag might benefit from a first aid kit like this.
• What is it about a smile?
• then what about those photos and becoming better on those overcast days.

What great links have you found this week?