That’s what’s going on

The weather is beautiful today and although I’ve already had a cup of Yorkshire this morning, I’d kill for this bloody mary I had in Portland. Best one I ever had… so I had two.

One kiddo is at kinder, and the other one is systematically painting every part of her body with green paint. It always starts out the same way… they get out the newspaper, paints, paintbrushes, ask for water, paint three strokes on the paper and then ask if they can paint their fingers. Nek minute, they are covered head to toe.

No shit as I was typing this, Smalls painted one entire hand, stamped it on the paper, and wiped it all off on her clothes. She’s standing on 47,000 green foot prints. She’s also singing some kind of adorable song, lost in her own world, so there’s that.

We spent much of yesterday doing arse crahts for some tutorials I’m writing. As much as I’m all about Christmas starting early it definitely was even early for me. But the kids had a ball and I now feel justified watching Christmas-themed movies. To be honest I should have started my plum pudding anyway so for some I’m positively outrageously late. Next week I’ll do a Halloween-themed craft and confuse us all entirely.

I had quite the reminder of little ears and eyes watching me last week as Lunchbox was away in Tasmania and it was just us girls… I was concentrating on something and Smalls kept asking me for her 80th sandwich of the day. After a while I said distractedly “yes Smalls, I heard, you,” and Bigs pipes up “you forgot to say ‘jesus!‘”. I burst out laughing even though she was serious, and I wondered how often I’d let out an exasperated vain name-take that week… or how often I ever do. I know there’s a few under-breath FFSes and even a couple of ‘for chrissake’s bandied about on this parenting a three- and four-year-old gig, particluarly when they call “muuuuuuuuum” on average once every 3.8 seconds and it’s usually when I’ve already gone upstairs.  oh shit the kid is painting her face now. She tells me she was trying to do her lipstick. She must have been watching those Kylie Jenner lip challenge tutorials on YouTube because that shit is in her eyebrows.

I spent much of the week before last trying recipes from the 1970 Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbook, seeing how much of it I could complete in each meal of the week. It turns out there really is only so much canned asparagus you can eat even though you thought you liked it. We did revisit the delights of french onion soup mixed with sour cream as a dip, which has been a lifetime firm favourite. Oh and chocolate mint slice which is entirely rad.

We’ve also not bought shop-bought bread for two weeks now, as I just make a loaf every day or every couple of days in the breadmaker. Which has been a goal of mine since I got that damn breadmaker almost two years ago. I gave myself the first year off even though I made bread pretty religiously in it, I didn’t sleep a wink all that year so was pretty incapable of sticking to any type of goal except don’t die. This year was busier than I expected and when the Aussie Farmers Direct order just kept showing up with bread and I forgot to remove it from the order before the cutoff, I just lived with the bread consequences. Then two weeks ago I cancelled the bread and forced myself to use the threat of being breadless to finally making it constantly instead of only once a week. Challenge successful, the kids eat it like there has never been any other kind of bread, and it’s hardly any work and so much cheaper/more delicious/more filling. I make all kinds of bread, but if you’re getting started, this one is absolutely foolproof. Makes good scrolls too, I make them pretty often for lunchboxes and stuff. I hide veggies in the pizza scrolls so Smalls doesn’t contract scurvy.

Speaking of which, I’m starving so it must be time for second breakfast and another pot of tea. Hope all is good with you!

xo