Back in Action!

Boo!

I'm back. Sorry I've been away. What seems like 1 day has been about 5 months. Suffice it to say.....I've been busy!

Last I posted, I was making all the children's Christmas prezzies for Christmas. We also made our niece & nephews prezzies (they were visiting from Singapore), and my Mum-in-Laws prezzie.......well, I got swept away in 'making things' and then my sister came to visit from the states in January!! The trip went by wayyyy too quickly, and I can't wait to see her again. I'm homesick but just too broke to travel with a family of 6.

The rest of my time has been consumed with a new job at IBM, but I won't blog about that 'cause I don't want to bore you.

I'll go ahead and fast forward to today. I promise to post more now that I'm not distracted.

I began baking our bread every morning a month or so ago, and while bread is

rising I get an hour of yoga in.......this new lifestyle has done wonders for me physically and mentally. Not only am I learning patience and perseverance (baking bread will teach you that!), but early in the morning I get to listen to beautiful dawn chorus. I also get to enjoy observing lovely nature from our back sliding glass door where I do my yoga. Most exciting is a pair of cold tits that have nested in a bird box hubby built out of some cedar he found laying in a skip (the tits have babies!). A pair of blackbirds also have made a nest in the maze of our back garden. We watch the daddy blackbird hastily collecting worms in the garden...many MANY worms so we know there's babies. We also have robins and sparrows nesting, and a family of pesky (but cute) squirrels. This morning I even met a fox who came to visit.

This year I am also stepping in to the world of 'Gardening'. I've always had "black thumbs" (as they say). Cactus' and plastic plants didn't even have a chance with me. But, I'm determined this year. So far, it's going rather well, other than the fact that I've been a bit over ambitious with sowing too many seeds. They've all sprouted nicely, and this past weekend I got them all planted in the ground or large containers. I even built a 'Bean Teepee' with some bamboo and broad bean shoots. Here's a photo taken before it was completed. I'll post a photo in future when it's fully bloomed (I'm incorporating runner beans on additional poles this weekend)

The children are all excited about these new projects and get in on the action as well. They made those Eggheads (at the top of this blog) last weekend using a packet of Cress seeds. Indigo and Cypress also planted a 'Creepy Crawly' flower garden using seeds designed to attract butterflies and other interesting bugs. As they were digging, Indigo kept uncovering baby yellowjackets living underground, so we figure we found a nest of them. The children also collected big juicy worms as I dug up the earth to put in their now 'Worm Home'. The home is a clear narrow container we picked up last year at a charity shop that's designed to put layers of dirt/gravel/sand then you pop in a bunch of worms and watch 'em 'live'. Other than that, the children also planted a patch of sunflower seeds. Can't wait to see them grow!

I'll close for now with some baking I did yesterday. Now that I bake all of the children's snacks, bread, etc, I'm getting more creative in the kitchen. These are some Cheese Crackers I made for yesterdays snack. I used local farmhouse vintage cheddar that comes from nearby Cheddar, England (yummy), some flour, salt and water....that's it!. So simple to make the dough, chill it, then roll it out, and cut out shapes. I used hearts and stars pastry cutters, then used the pizza cutter to make squares (so easy to just roll the cutter along the dough). The children took over making the hearts & stars. Then just bake them a few minutes and Voila! nice and crispy cheese crackers that taste much better than those store bought ones.

I suppose I can't really catch up on 5 months in one blog, so I'll leave you with my tasty Cheesy Crackers for now. Stay tuned, I'll be back real soon!!