Wordless Wednesday 8 January

I can't believe that is 2014 already.  I am ready to blog more regularly but of course starting this weekend we will be on holiday so you will have to excuse my absence.

Anyway while trying to blog, scrapbook, take memories during the school holidays we are trying to paint the inside of our house.  So to start off the photo journey of renovation here is my disabled son with my DH who is working on the cathedral ceiling in our lounge room.







Now excuse my photo as blogger is playing up a little but anyway.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys

Happy Wordless Wednesday

Monday Menu 6 January

Here I am the week before going camping back on track.  I will try and post my camping food just before going away.

So on to this week.

Monday  Chicken meatball salad

Tuesday  Lemon Grass Skewers with fried rice

Wednesday  Peppered steak and green salad

Thursday  sweet and sour chicken

Friday  Zucchini loaf and salad

Saturday  (we are camping)  The packet plan for the first night

Sunday  sausages, grilled potato and salad

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

Carers Fatigue

Carers fatigue is something that really catches up with those of us who care full time for the disabled, at some time or another.  For me at the end of the school term when I am really tired and have been run off my feet. My husbands job makes this more challenging because it takes him away from home overseas, frequently. 

Now don't feel sorry for me.  That is not what I intend you to feel. 

How do I recognise what is happening to me when I have a complete melt down, carers fatigue.    As I sit here and think about these events I acknowledge that they are triggered by a number of things; exhaustion, no time to take time to do something for me, an immense feeling of isolation,  I over eat and grumpy.  I know this list anyone could feel one or more of them.  But when I get to the point of carers fatigue I feel all of these at once. 

While I don't seem to be able to prevent these moments I am trying to do a number of things to help manage them.

• I have a part time job.  Essential for me, giving me time out of the home environment that causes the melt down moments.
• I try and exercise.  This one is not always easy so I am trying to come up with a plan for exercise at home in the evening when I am alone with the children and have been working.
• A more extensive list of baby sitters so my husband and I can go out every now and again.
• I am working at getting more residential respite care.  Not sure how successful this will be but it is worth having a go.
• Finally I do art journalling.  This year I was looking at happiness as my focus for this hobby.  So take a look at Octobers pages I have done.  I am going to get them all printed into a book so I can refer to them when I need to.

The credits for these pages can be found here at my Scrapbook Graphics gallery

If you are a carer of someone full time what do you do to look after yourself?

Fridays Faboulous Finds #44

Here I am with great long list of all those links I have been saving for when I have some time to

 

(image source)

• For those of you into recording your childrens thoughts and growth then this cute printable New Years resolution is perfect from Thirty Handmade Days
• With the long summer holidays here making kites with paper from your printer is great and easy.  It was a very successful afternoon we had when we made these the other day.
• This blog is written by a woman who has a child with disabilities.  It is well worth a read.
• How about the children doing a little baking in the holidays.  These Hidden Kisses are perfect and easy to do.
• How cute are these scented leaves, a craft project by Vinnie Pearce.  In fact her blog has heaps of easy to do crafty things.

Can you believe it?

For three years we have had a beautiful antique Chinese piece of furniture.  I have never been happy about how it looked once I had wiped it down.  I could always see the greasy finger marks I had just tried to wipe off.  Just so frustrating.

So now that we have finished renovating our lounge room it was time to put the furniture back.  Oh boy why I had not done this before but I decided to Google a cleaning solution for the lacquered finish that was causing me frustration.  Success.....I now have one really clean piece of furniture.  So here it is;

Furniture Polish

equal parts of white vinegar and lemon juice.  Mix and there you have it.

I just love the results.

Welcome in 2014

With a very small touch of celebration in my house and 2014 arrived.  Sadly no baby sitter arrived as my one had a bad tooth and could not leave her house.

Then my faith in humanity was truely restored when the gathering we were supposed to be going to arrived down at  our house.  Yes the gathering was at the top of my 1/2 kilometer driveway and they walked down to my house.  Fabulous friends to have.


So here we are with my children having a little fun to celebrate the beginning of yet another year.

(with gentle participation my family participated in this photo shoot.)

Why is it.....?

(source Tiger Philosphy)

Why is it just sometimes I feel really lonely.  At the moment I can not tell why or how this came about but I guess it has been brewing for some time.  Maybe it is because I am tired.  Maybe because I feel isolated and limited by what we can do in life with my disabled son.  Maybe I just need a holiday.Whatever it is it is time to do something about it.

In my house the first challenge is finding someone who can look after Hayden in the evenings so we can go out.  Maybe that is my challenge.  I have been thinking about it the wrong way around.  Perhaps we can have people come around and do the entertaining and that way keep up with the world outside of the house.  Maybe I need to work harder at finding a good baby sitter as that seems to be the biggest problem.

Maybe it really is all about the state of relationships inside my house at the moment and I need to spend a little time reflecting and working on them. 


Whatever it is it is time to take action and start by loving myself a whole lot more.

Traditional Food at my table.

With Christmas only one sleep away I am sitting here pondering what traditions I have instilled in my family.  What will my children carry on when they are adults and creating their own traditions.  There are many things that I hope my children will carry forward but tonight it is all about food.  With us living in a nation where Christmas is a early summer event.  No snow for us and plenty of unstable windy, hot and sunny and even wet days are possible.

So with that in mind I would share What is in my oven gently cooking at the moment ready to take with me tomorrow to our family Christmas.

Meringues  yes I know.  While in New Zealand the Pavlova is proudly claimed as its own although history is debatable and states that it was a dessert that was invented after Anna Pavlova had been on tour with her ballet troupe traveling around New Zealand and Australia.  Whatever the case it was invented in Australasia.

As an upshot of that dessert, which coincidentally I don't like very much, I have made the tradition in my house to make meringues.  Just like a pavlova it is made with egg while just smaller and crunchier.  I guess this why I like the meringue over the pavlova. 

So without wasting anymore words here is my recipe for meringues.

Meringues

In preparation you need to make sure you have the tools you are using perfectly clean and dry.  Your egg beater and bowl both need to be grease clean and dry.  Water, grease and fluffy egg whites do not combine well.  

That also brings me to another point.  Humidity and meringues do not combine well together as well.


Now I have got these two things out there let us begin.


4 egg white  (room temperature)
a pinch of salt
1 cup of castor sugar

Steps

1.  Place 4 egg whites into a metal bowl (maybe an old wives tale but I was always told it should be a metal bowl) and beat until the egg whites form peaks that can stand on their own.

2.   Next add in the pinch of salt and tablespoon at a time the sugar.  Beat until the sugar has disappeared before adding the next tablespoon of sugar.

3.  When all the sugar is in you will have a glossy looking mixture ready for spooning onto your tray covered in baking paper.  Don't forget you will need to have lovely looking peaks too.

4.  Place in an oven pre heated to 120 degrees celcius and then cool the oven temperature down to 90 degrees celcius.  Bake for about 1 1/2 hours and then turn your oven off leaving the meringues in the oven for 3 or so hours. 

5.  Store for up to 3 weeks in an air tight container.


I will be covering mine in a berry coolie with the option of light cream and fresh fruit.  Self assembled.

Mondays Menu 23 December

Finally my life has some time to do things that I love to do.  So without further ado here is my menu for this week.

Monday    Fahita   (home made recipe)

Tuesday   Curry Chicken Pasta

Wednesday   Christmas Day....we are out at families for the day.

Wednesday   Ham steaks with baked potato and garden salad.

Thursday  Spicy Beef salad

Friday   homemade pizza with leftover vege on it. 

Saturday  Bbq Chicken Chopped Salad

(Image source Iowa Girl Eats)

Sunday  leftovers

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

Wordless Wednesday 30 October

There is nothing like spring.  The Thrush that laid these eggs got scared of our lawn mower and has not returned sadly.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.