Saturday 30 March 2013

Switching Gears

Autumn, such a beautiful time of the year. Days get shorter, morning sunlight changes to that beautiful golden colour, leaves change, fruit and vegetable ripen. It becomes cool enough to go for picnics, bush walks and to wander through all of the markets and fairs that seem to pop up this time of the year. Not to mention Easter! All of that beautiful baking, crafting and chocolate making! I just love it!

It's a time to slow down and appreciate life just that little bit more. We've definitely been switching gears around here. Evening walks after dinner have started back up after a looong hoooot summer with maximums being reached at around 5-6pm! Today we visited a local school fete and purchased some second hand books for the girls and My Little Ponies.

One of the best thing about this time of the year is the abundance of fruits! The other weekend we went and picked a bucket full of olives from a grove of trees on the side of the road. They currently reside on my kitchen bench soaking in salty water waiting to be put into jars for our pizza nights. I did a bit of googling on preserving olives and this is the "recipe" I decided to follow using an accumulation of what I found.

Preserved Olives

bucket of olives
salt
water

Fill a bucket of olives with water. I put enough to cover the olives but not too much that it spills every time I move it. Add 1 cup of cooking salt. Change the salty water daily for at least a week. Bite test and if still bitter keep soaking in salty water until they reach your desired taste, be it salty or still a little bitter. Put into clean sterilised jars and fill with salty water to cover. From what I can gather these should last for a few months, but I'll let you know how we go! I'm sure you could do it with a smaller container as long as the olives are immersed in the water and just adjust the amount of salt you use :)

Another fruit that is perfect at this time of year is lillie pillies! I think they may also be called chinese apples?? I'm not sure...maybe it's just an Australian thing?

Either way my Mum and Dad have a tree FULL of them so during the week while Chloe was at school Eva and I popped down for a coffee and picking session! My Dad got out his ladder and we filled a bucket.

Eva ate a decent amount too! I decided to turn them into jam using a jam sugar. It is absolutely delicious but we aren't particularly jam people so I'll be gifting a lot to my Dad I think! Mind you it'll go well with the fresh sour dough that's rising in the sunshine at the moment! I'll do a post on my sourdough soon too when I discover if it's worked or not! Off to do some eating now I think!










What's your favorite thing about this time of the year? Autumn or Spring depending on the hemisphere you live in!! :)


Sunday 17 March 2013

Luck of the Irish!

I don't know about you but I love to celebrate holidays! Anything and everything! Christmas, Easter, Valentines, Chinese New Year, Talk Like a Pirate Day, Solstice, Equinox, Birthdays, May the fourth be with you, St Patrick's Day! Any excuse to do fun activities with my girls. And this year St Patrick's Day was no exception.

We had some fun craft in the morning, which was scrunching up some green tissue paper to glue on a shamrock. As well as some leprechaun puzzles and writing.

I quickly whipped up some sparkly felt shamrock clips for the girls to wear too! Super easy hearts cut from felt and hot glue gunned to a clip with a sequin to finish off! Chloe wore a rainbow dress and Eva a green dress and we headed up into Perth on the train to check out the Perth Homegrown Market.

It was such a nice morning. We had coffee, checked out the market stalls, bought some AWESOME organic sourdough bread, tasted and then bought a raw chocolate ball kit from moderndayhippie.com.au. By then it was getting pretty hot so we all had a play in the new water labyrinth. Have you been there? If you live in the area definitely go check it out! It was heaps of fun not to mention hilarious watching Chloe try to get out  only for a wall of water to appear in front of her!

After the train ride home we had a quick lunch with the sourdough bread before a rest in the afternoon. The city was full of green colorful people and we all had a ball!

How do you celebrate St Patrick's Day? A pint of Guinness? Some green food? I'd love to know :)















Friday 15 March 2013

Student....again.

So I decided a few months ago I wanted to go back to study...for the third time!

I have a degree in Psychology and Justice Studies and other than working in the local Magistrates Court for a few years I don't use it. Hubby tells me I use the psych all the time because I read into people, but I don't realize I'm doing it. Then when my eldest was 1 1/2 I decided to go back to study law! I surprisingly got in and absolutely LOVED it but after a semester and some soul searching I decided that I could never meet the demands of being a lawyer. My family come first for me. I don't think I could do the work/home juggle I get the guilts way too much and way too bad for that (by the way I totally admire women that do it, I'm just a different sort of person).

That brings it to a few months ago. As I've said my eldest is now full time school, and my youngest is due to start part time school next year. Add to that there is a new library being built a 10 minute drive, 20 min bus ride or a 30 min bike ride away. I love book, I love reading and I love libraries! So after a bit of online searching I found open.edu.au. It's an online uni that offers courses from Universities all over Australia, completely. online. PERFECT! They offer a Graduate Diploma in Information and Library Studies. Again PERFECT! I didn't expect to get in being a post grad degree, but I did! So one year of study, some prac and I can be a librarian. Just when both my kids start full time school!
I'm a bit scared, it's a whole new part of my life about to begin. One that I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to start, but I gotta do it some time or another!
So wish me luck! At least I have until August to prepare myself! (I missed the cutoff for start at the beginning of this year)

Edited. I think I might change my start date to next year. Then I get the whole last year with Eva at home before she starts school. :)




Sunday 10 March 2013

I won! I won!

So a friend of mine keeps winning things. Anything from tickets to a local show to a $400 gift card! Her secret.....ENTER EVERYTHING!! It takes you what 5 seconds to enter and really what have you got to lose. So I took her advice and you know what, it's working! I was super lucky enough to win two kids patterns from Petite Kids Boutique. I chose the London Pants and the Bella Blouse. Go check her out at http://www.etsy.com/shop/Petitekids super cute designs! That was courtesy of the amazing Jess over at craftinessisnotoptional.com (P.S. that girl is AMAZING!!). I can't wait to try them out! Then I won an "I love trees" tee from http://www.treeoflife.com.au/! Can't argue with that! Let's hope this winning streak continues!!

(All totally my opinions, I just love these shops/blogs!)