Being a Busy Bee

Sometimes there are those days you can't remember what you've been doing all day, but it was busy.
Monday was such a kind of day for me. I'm homeschooling DD13, so I can still remember I read up on some subjects like keeping chickens and square foot gardening, and helping DD11 pack her things for the schoolcamp.Oh, and of course sorting the postround for tuesday.
Well, tuesday I woke up very early, due to DH's alarm, and then I fell asleep again, and of course overslept.
The good thing was DD8 & DD11 were already wide awake when I finally woke up, so they got themselves dressed quickly when I told them we were late, and we managed to get to school in time/almost in time...
When I got home again I felt up to cleaning out the pantry, so that's what I did:











Considdering how much stock we have I think it's quite amazing I only found a few items that needed to be tossed, and don't worry, the oats and oatflour were almost finished, which probably is why they got out of date, because it was just not enough to make anything with it, so it was only the jar of mint sauce which really was a waste.













I also found a couple of items with a short date, so will now have to look for recipes to use it up:

This is what my pantry looks like now:

To start with I used up the almondpaste to bake "gevulde speculaas", a typical dutch treat, basicly it is almondpaste between 2 layers of gingerbreadcake, with some almonds sprinkled on top:

Very rich, very yummie and very addictive!

Last night was not much better then the day before,I woke up too early again (around 4.30 am) and gave up trying to sleep at 5.15 am. So, I got out of bed, folded some laundry, and hung some laundry as well, and even worked on the ironing pile. When it was just over 7 am, I woke up DD8 & DD11, as it was the big day: DD11 was going on schoolcamp!
She had to go there by bike, so I took her luggage and that of one of her schoolfriends to school by car, and other parents were bringing all the luggage to the final destination.
I forgot to take my camera with me, so I only have some piccies in terrible quality, which I took with my phone.

the luggage & the bikes

DD11 with one of her schoolfriends

A last hug for her little sister

And off she goes!

After that I went to an acquaintance, who had just moved home, to help her clean her new kitchen.
All too soon it was time to get DD8 from school again.
We (DD13, DD8 and I) had lunch at my parents, and after that I had another practice session for the foxhunt on friday. I really have to get the make-up right for the character that I'm going to be.
Both girls are convinced I won't be easily recognised, and in fact my act freaks DD13 out!
Back home again I cooked us a simple dinner.
When the girls were to bed I remembered I had seen something inspiring on my postround. So I had a look in one of my boxes of stuff and found those 2 little birds which were just perfect to finish my table piece I had been working on  before:

I think they look supercute like this!

Cauliflower

Last Friday, when I was grocery shopping, the cauliflower was on offer for 59 eurocents each.
Of course I had to take advantage of that, so I bought these 2 nice and big cauliflowers.

We had already eaten cauliflower on wednesday (yes, also a 59 cents cauliflower), so I wasn't going to have it for dinner over the next few days, but I had already been doing some research on the web, to find out how to freeze it.
So my mission for today was to get it prepared for the freezer and freeze it.
I ended up with 4 bags of cauliflower, so that will be approx. 30 eurocents on vegetables for 1 dinner for our family of 5.

Frantic Friday & Fun

Yesterday was a kind of lazy day with not much to blog about and nothing to take pictures of.
I cleaned the windows at the front of our home, helped a lady from church who has a hernia, so I did some dusting and vacuming for her. In the afternoon I had 2 hours just for me alone, in which I dressed up and put on some heavy make-up, to practise for next week friday. In those 2 hours my parents came over to visit me, so I opened my frontdoor for them, dressed up and acting like, well, the character I'm going to be..... Dad didn't even recognise me at the first sight, so I think it's going to be a good disguise.
Thursday evening was kind of busy, as DD8 will have balletlessons and tapdance lessons, and then DD11 will have her tapdance lessons whilst once every 2 weeks DD8 will go to a club from church after tapdance, and DD11 will go to another club from church after tapdance. So after playing mums private taxi, I did some small repairs on the girls clothes.

Friday is almost always my most busy day of the week.
On friday I walk my postround, and go to 2 different groceryshops to get all my groceries for a week (unless I forget something... muahaha!) and there is also a charitiy shop that is only open on friday, so I try to go there as well, you never know what treasure lies hidden there.....
After bringing the girls to school this morning, I went to the first grocerystore, where I met the mum of one of the other girls from DD11 balletclass, so had a chat with her about the girls practising points. When I got out of the store it had started to rain, oh no!!!!!!! And I had to walk that postround!!!!!!!!!

DD13 is homeschooled, but she wasn't very motivated today, so let's say it wasn't really a great start of the day.I did do a part of the postround, but had to get the girls home for lunch all too soon.
After bringing them back to school, I went to the second grocerystore and picked up the rest of the groceries, and went to the charityshop right afterwards, where I picked up this fabulous book end.

When I got back home, Garden Patience had arrived, what a super cute doll! I had so much fun with her!

Of course she will get her own real photosession and some more attention in my dolly blog.
But I still had to finish that postround, which I didn't manage before school was all finished, so had to wait until DH arrived back home from work, so he could look after our DD's .
As you may have guess I haven't been doing much in the kitchen today, DH even cooked dinner whilst I finished my postround.
The only thing I did was make some more apple compote.

Inspired by my sisters decorating for fall The Greedy Minimalist, I decided to do something with the old stuff I had lying about:

the old stuff

As you can see, I had quite a fun project for this evening.

A Wonderful Wednesday

As you may have guessed, I've had a lovely day today.
DD8 & DD11 woke up before 7 am, and told me to stay in bed, while they would prepare 'breakfast' for me. (I told them I'm not very hungry so early in the morning, but that I would love to have a rice cracker and some tea) After some 20 minutes they came upstairs, with a nice cup of tea & 2 rice crackers. They decided to have their breakfast upstairs in my bedroom with me. DD11 also had 5 minutes of points excercise in my bedroom. So we really had a very enjoyable start of the day.
They arrived at school in time, and I went back home, trying to figure my plans for today.
I started a load of laundry, relaxed a little while behind the pc, had a real breakfast and saw a big bowl of apples on my kitchen counter, so decided to have a go at making tarte aux pommes with the recipe I found here: tarte aux pommes . Of course I had to have my own go at it, and added some cinnamon to the pâte brisée and sprinkled some on top of the apples as well.

I also made apple compote with the rest of the peeled apples, but I forgot to take a picture of it, and the jar got finished over dinner.
When I was working on my tarte aux pommes, I found out I didn't have almonds anymore, so had to go to the grocers for it. While I was there I remembered I needed potatoes, and saw sweet potatoes were on offer, so I bought a bag of sweet potatoes.
I also bought a basket of flowers, to brighten up our entry.
As I had used 2 eggyolks for the tarte aux pommes, I had to figure a way to use up the egg whites as well, and found a recipe for meringues: meringues

I think they turned out quite well for a first time, and my 3 DD's love them.
I even managed to remember that load of laundry I had started in the morning, and folded it somewhere in the afternoon.
Those lovely empty laundry lines didn't stay empty for long yesterday, so today I folded everything that had been hanging there since yesterday too.

So now those laundry lines are almost empty, apart from some bedlinens and the new placemats that came out of the laundry very lovely and clean.
After dinner we went to another charity shop, where we donated the stuff I had ready in my donation box and where I bought an outfit for a foxhunt next week. (DD11 will have schoolcamp from wednesday-friday, and the foxhunt will be on friday. I'm so looking forward to dressing up!!!!)
This weeks missions from FlyLady have been a breeze, as this weeks zone is the kitchen, so on monday it was wiping down the trashcan, which only took a minute, tuesday I was supposed to scrub the countertop. As you may have figured, when working in the kitchen and preparing food half of the days, scrubbing the countertops is something that I do a couple of times a day. Today I should have shined the sink and scrubbed the faucets, but again, when working in the kitchen so much that's something that  happens automatically, so I don't really feel like I've been doing any of the missions. Instead I scrubbed the kitchentiles over the counter and the bottoms of the hanging cabinets, which was something that does need to be done every now and then when mixing, cooking and baking away.
I think the only thing to do for now will be setting the table for tomorrow and lay out my clothes for tomorrow.

Tuesdays Troubles and Treasures

I had an early start today, woke up too early and got out of bed around 6 am.

I had lots of laundry hanging at the attic, so decided to start folding.
Around 7 am the attic was looking like this:

So I went to my bedroom to get dressed. (Yes, I know it isn't the FlyLady way, I should have gotten dressed first and do the folding after that, but that isn't how my mind seems to work at that hour of the day)
I think having empty laundry lines can count as the first blessing of this day.
The next great thing that happened was that DD8 had a little school outing (a trip into the forest), so she was really looking forward to it, and got dressed withouth the usual fight.....
I managed to get the girls at school in time and went back home and had a little me-time behind the pc.
Of course I still had to walk that postround, which DH had sorted for me last evening, so that was next on my program. I was so happy it wasn't much at all, compared to the usual amount of post!
When I was walking in our street, all of the sudden I saw a laundry basket which was obviously thrown out, and mixed with the plastic that was to be collected today. The laundry basket is exactly the same as the ones I have, only it was in much better condition, so I took this one home, and threw out the one that was in the worst shape. (I think someone up above just winked to me) It is a plastic laundry basket, so quite easy to clean.

Usually I bake my own GF bread, and I made the dough before starting on the last part of my postround.
When I got back from getting the girls home for lunch, I put it in the oven. (So I had a late lunch myself)

As you can see the bread turned out beautiful and I can assure you it is delicious too.
When DD8 & DD11 were back at school again, I went to the second hand shop near DD11's school and found the following treasures:

Of course the placemats need to be laundered, but I love the warm colour.
I really only just went there to look for a nice big glass jar, as I still have tons of apples to work with, and I found a recipe for apple vinegar, and needed a big glass jar for it.

This is wat it looks like right now, but it should turn into apple vinegar in 2 weeks time.

Another little job that was still waiting for me, was sewing the ribbons and elastic to DD11's points, so that is exactly what I did this afternoon, although I had to wait for her to be back home again before I could sew the elastic at the right size. She was really quite panicky when she found out she could hardly squeeze in her feet, so I called her ballet teacher about it, and she assured me it would all be allright when she would put them on at the lesson, and so it was........ DD11 told me it was a very weird feeling when she had to stand on her toes and felt her feet move further down the shoes, but she really enjoyed her first points lesson.

A Busy Monday

Yesterday I had already planned lots of activities for today, so I thought I could use a little help.
The thought occured to me that I could use some of Fly Lady's routine's to help me get everthing done I had planned.
FlyLady has a lovely concept of routines that might help you get through the tasks of managing a home, when you're a side-tracked home executive. The first time I started with her program, must be approximately 5 years ago, and I have been using some of her routines ever since, or maybe even before knowing about her.
Well, the program got a bit at the background over the past years, but when I had to empty the drawers of my old dining set, I found my control journal, and I decided it could still be useful, although it needs to be adapted a bit to how my days look now, compared to 5 years ago.
One of the things to help me through my busy day is to do stuff the night before.
So I set the table for breakfast, packed the girls schoolbags, laid out my clothes for tomorrow and even a bathrobe, as I wanted to take a shower in the morning.
Although I went to bed at a decent time, I didn't really sleep very well. (I might have been drinking too much coffee on sunday, as I was so tired the other day, that I just wanted to have a nap, but instead took a cup of coffee, each time I felt up to taking a nap).
My alarm was set at 6.45 am, and usually I'm up even before it goes off, but this time I just had to struggle to get out of bed, so it was already 7 am  when I got up.
However, I knew everything was ready, so I went to the bathroom, did the Swish & Swipe and had my shower. When I was ready to get dressed, the girls were getting themselves dressed too and we managed to reach school just in time. (this due to the fact that DD8 was having one of her I don't want to get out of bed days)
When I got back home I started a load of laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, got meat out of the freezer for tonights dinner and started on peeling apples.

And by the end of the morning this was the result....
I always have the girls at home for lunch, so I didn't really have much time to do anything else with my apples, apart from making some dough for an apple pie.
When the girls were back to school, I went to the post office to send off a parcel to New Zealand, and found out the hairdresser was open on monday, so I finally had my much needed haircut. I'm quite pleased with the result, and the hairdresser understood my choices completely. (I've got psoriasis on my scalp, so like to cover that up a bit, but my hair is very fine and thin, so needs to be quite short to make it look ok-ish. Also when cutting it into layers there won't be much hair left for the bottom layers......... On top of that I've got a very naughty crown on my hairline, so that needs to be taken into account too)
I went back home quite pleased with myself, as I had been able to build in some me-time in my day.
I finally baked that apple pie, which is really delicious.

There was also a basket of laundry that needed to be folded, and I still had some time for it, before it was time to collect the girls from school.

DD11 had been buying a pufferball (or whatever it's called) on saturday, but yesterday it was already leaky, so after school we went to the town centre to bring it back.

Back home again I started cooking dinner. I had decided on 'hete bliksem' (on old dutch recipe). I had a quick search on the internet and combined 4 recipes into a recipe of my own:
-a big pot of peeled apples
-enough potatoes to make a stew with it
-an onion, finely chopped and glazed
-bacon
So I cooked the apples in one pot with a couple of cm's water, cooked the potatoes in a different pot, with some more water.
chopped an onion and glazed it. btw, after some 20 years I'm still very happy with my multi-mix quatro, which is doing every job I think a kitchen machine might be able to do, but takes up much less room.

As you can see it did a great job on my onion.
When everything was cooked I added some salt, pepper, cinnamon, grounded cloves and nutmeg to the stew and I just loved the result. (the girls not so much, as they had never eaten it before...)

After dinner DH sorted my postround for tomorrow, whilst I took care of getting the girls ready for bed and tucking them in.

Somewhere during the day we managed to sort through the hats, scarfs and gloves, and got some ready for donation:

Now the only thing I ought to do is get DD11's points ready for her first balletlesson with points tomorrow.

I might probably do that tomorrow, and just get everything laid out for tomorrow and go to bed at a more or less decent time now......

A new dining set

On friday my sister got a new dining set.
She knew that we were looking for new chairs for our dining set, so she asked me if we would be interested in her old one.
Well, of course I was interested, I always loved her dining set, and although you might not see much difference between our old one and hers, there definitely are some differences.
So on fridaynight my DH went over to my sister, to collect her old dining set.
He wasn't to sure about keeping her table, as it is slightly longer than our old one and our old one is a bit wider. The old one also has 2 drawers in it.
On saturdaymorning I told DH we really ought to keep the set complete, as it is looking much nicer that way.
I took some pictures of the old set and put it on the internet to collect for free.

So now both my sister and I are enjoying our new preloved dining sets.