what was i thinking?

my tafe folder arrived last week and sat ominously on the corner of the desk, fungus's uni stuff taking up the rest of the, well, whole room actually. and the kids were sick and demanding, and we were already having a busy week and an even busier weekend coming.

why did i think that a light bit of study to keep my brain active and a new career path meandering out before me would possibly be a sane decision!!!

breathe breathe breathe

ok, then i read and re-read and re-read my tafe assignment, emailed back and forth with my tutor a few times, begged for my access password, frantically reserved textbooks from the tafe library that everyone else had already borrowed (and diligently read probably) and then went aaaaaaaaaahhhh i get it now.

so it's fine. today was the day from dream planet family. the day i always thought i'd be living. the children played quietly and imaginatively with each other with barely a squabble, i whipped thru the house with an enjo dusting tool, pegged out the washing, made a(nother) coffee, and sat down with my tafe folder and did a few hours work, drafting up my first assignment (1 of 9 due december). and all by 11.30am. so it can be done after all. and next year mr H will be at prep and miss S at kindy 2 days a week.

and the jacaranda "popped" with flowers last wednesday. this tree overhangs our driveway and is the only jacaranda in our part of the street. it's the reason i wanted to buy this house 8yrs ago, well part of the reason anyway. and the air was warm coming in the windows all day. spring, i love it.

swell sculpture festival, currumbin beachfront

it's that time of year again, and the swell sculpture festival is once again on. about 40 sculptures are displayed along currumbin beachfront, some near the path, on the grass, on the beach itself. it's on for a week so get along if you can. we've already been 3 times!

big drawings

this is the latest fav activity, drawing on the floor ala lola (of charlie and lola fame).

i've got this big plastic tablecloth fabric remanant from spotlight (chilli varieties all over it so not bad) which we use on the dining table for indoor painting etc. and big architectural drawing pages from daddy's work. sometimes they ask me to draw a basic picture which they colour and add to, sometimes its mad scribbling. H loves to use lots of colours, S likes a nice sharp lead pencil.

i made them some pencil rolls, my first ones and made them up as i went along. the inside is felt and the outside are fabric remnants from spotlight. so they're a bit wonky. i've since made myself a rather gorgeous knitting needle roll. i'll have to photograph it another time. i love these pencil rolls. we take them and a few drawing books to the park and draw each other and the trees, flowers, birds, swings. it makes a break from the play equipment and extends our park visit to an hour or so.

we have a great park that we can walk to from home, via a shortcut thru a "jungle" and along a "creek" (an overgrown track running between back fences and a stormwater runoff). we make the trek a few mornings a week now that it's spring, in summer it's too hot be walking back at 11am so it becomes an afternoon walk then. and yesterday we found a huge mulberry tree and picked a container full of nearly ripe mulberries. i lightly stewed them with a bit of sugar and the kids had them with custard after dinner last night. they looked so gorgeously red in the yellow custard. we're heading back to the tree later this week as the fruit is just starting to ripen, so hopefully we can beat the birds to some more. i haven't had mulberries for years, they were amazing.

choccy

it's rocky road for grownups. i finally got around to making this. i saw it in an "insideout" mag ages ago. they used white chocolate which looked beautiful. this just looks evil in dark chocolate!

shredded coconut, pistashio nuts turkish delight, dark chocolate - amazing flavours together. the photo doesn't do it justice. the turkish delight looks much more pink and yellow sitting here in front of me.

a tip - leave it in the block, just chop off what you want to eat, it takes longer and makes you think harder about how much you need to eat. if it's nicely cubed up it's easier to grab one each time you open the fridge...............

but we've finally got strawberries in the strawberry pot. this pot was a wedding present 10yrs ago and it's always had lovely plants in it, just never strawberries. we've eaten a few already and the kids love checking it every day to see if there's one to nibble.

the "vege" patch

i use this term loosely as it's more like a "green things that spring up and we eat them" patch. having said that i can pick around in there and put together a salad or spanish omelette (or envelope as the kids say). there's a mixture of rocket, dill, basil, coriander, chinese cabbage, parsley and this other chinese spinach that springs up everywhere. it's an amazing veg, we eat it raw in salads plus add it to a stirfry. weird but yum.



however i wish it was filled with delicate, exotic, useful vegetables, a tee-pee frame covered in sweetpea in the centre, flowers for the table, and some stepping stones for reaching the stuff in the middle. i guess it's my next project. but it would be nice if someone sent up a chap from the village to do it for me. dream on pen.

i can't even remember winter now

it's amazing, spring really did officially start on 1 september! we were all in summery pjs last night (albeit under quilts still) and tshirts today. when i walked out the door to go to the gym at 5.15am, the sky was lightening, the birds were singing and i was in my tshirt, the car telling me it was 14 degrees. a month ago i was wearing a scarf and jumper, it was still dark when i was returning home at 7am, and the car was telling me it was 6 degrees.

i love these first glorious day of spring.