Knitting Beauty...

My project updates are on their way. This has been a great motivation and I'm looking forward to sharing with you where I'm up to.

For update #2, hopefully one of these will be included. Thank you Purl Bee:

Just beautiful, right?!

Itchy Feet...

There's no denying it. It's in my blood. The irrefutable feeling of 'where to next?'.

My husband and I have lived in 5 different houses since we've been married (that's 5 years). Obviously, the changes have occurred due to circumstances but I think secretly (or not so secretly) we like new spaces, new scenery and for me, somewhere new to decorate.

My current destination craving is for Scotland. Joel and I were considering moving there before we bought our current house. We have family in the UK whom I'd love to be closer to for some part of our children's lives. Every now and then I think 'what if?'.

Photo:  http://remodelista.com/posts/a-remote-scottish-bolt-hole

Photo: http://www.bestourism.com

Photo:  http://revprs.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/late-summer-bank-holiday.html

I can just imagine eating here, running through this field, and hopefully, casually bumping into this man!

Lovely days...

What a weekend!
Thank goodness, it was filled with family, friends and gosh darn whiz bang kitchen appliances.

A friend held a thermomix party (incredible and incredibly expensive). The host was bubbly, full of food admiration, and we ate throughout the entire presentation. Bread, lime butter, risotto, a beetroot salad*, sorbet, a herby dip with crackers - YUM!

Joel and I made it to the movies, read the paper over breakfast, watched this little one strut around in her beads...

and filled my pantry with some deliciousness!

* Beetroot, carrot, apple and lemon juice, process into small chunks and serve.
**Check out Merle's Kitchen for some lovely baked goods.

Projects - 3/3...

After my post last week about never having enough time (and some lovely support), I decided to get my groove on and start some projects.

I have three things in mind...

Our bathroom renovation:

Our current tiny, pink bathroom

The veggie garden:

The weedy, soon-to-be veggie garden

And some creative knitting/crocheting projects like these:

I"ll focus on completing some angle of these projects, however small, and will keep you in the loop about where I'm up to each week.  Hopefully, my interweb peeps will be the motivation I need to keep going...

...even when my floors are crying out to be scrubbed!

Pumpkin Soup or Stew...

My poor little Nora fell and hurt her tooth on Tuesday and so that night we were awake...a LOT. At 3am, when I had resigned myself to the fact that it was now the start of my day, I made some coffee and toast, bundled Nora onto my lap, turned on ABC iview and started watching my new favourite cooking show Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers. It was the 'Hot and Cold' episode, which includes lamb and natural yoghurt, caramel apples with apple ice cream, hot porridge with cold milk and a lovely pumpkin dish with sour cream.

With a giant pumpkin sitting in my fridge I knew the soup/stew was a great idea for tonights dinner. The recipe is simple and can be done while doing other things:

Ingredients
40g butter 
2 onions, chopped 
1 carrot, chopped
1 stick celery, chopped (I didn't have any celery so added some red onion and capsicum)
3 sprigs rosemary
2 bay leaves
1 clove garlic, chopped
400g lentils 
1.2 litres vegetable stock
600g assorted pumpkin (total chopped weight) (I also added some sweet potato)
small bunch parsley, chopped
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
4 tbsp sour cream

Bubbling...

Preparation method

In a large pan melt the butter and then add chopped onions, carrot and celery. Add rosemary and bay leaves and after a few minutes add the chopped garlic. When softened, add lentils and pour over a litre of veggie stock. Bring to the boil and then leave to simmer.

Peel assorted pumpkin into large chunks.  Add to the stew, season and then pour over enough water to just cover all the ingredients. Put a lid on the pan and leave to simmer for 30-40 minutes.

When the stew is almost ready, add the chopped parsley.

To make the stew creamier, remove a small bowlful to a food processor and blitz it with 200ml of stock. Pour it back in and the stew becomes instantly more velvety. (I didn't do this as my pumpkin/sweet potato was so soft it turned into a soup just by stirring).

Serve the stew in bowls adding a spoonful of sour cream to each. 

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I also made up a batch of Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough and later added some tomato relish and danish feta for a cheats pizza:

DELISH!

Where does the time go?...

I love reading blogs...

It only started a few months ago and now I'm hooked.  It's inspirational, motivating and gets my creative juices bubbling. My only problem is, I get so swept up in the mummy/working role that I don't seem to have the time to utilize those juices.

The ideal week would include spending time with family, working, researching, cooking, friends and some kind of craftiness.  At present, I'm so exhausted from working that the days I have at home are spent playing with Nora, cleaning and sticking to some kind of routine.

I would really love to be able to create this:

Thank you icandy handmade

and make this:

Thank you Manger

Oh well, at least I have these two lovelies to keep me busy!

How do you make time to be creative? To do the things you love?
I'd love your thoughts.

Good Times...

Hello Hello!
Getting back into the groove after the holiday was a little harder than expected...

Here are some snaps from our trip away -

One of the many beautiful breakfast's we indulged in.

Mushrooms in a white wine sauce, chilli and dill on ciabatta.

Yes....breakfast.

We had a brilliant time away.  Nora was truly amazing at all points of the trip, we're really proud of her and look forward to many more adventures in the future.  Koh Samui was a great destination and the Thai people are beautiful, smiley and so helpful.  We had a lot of time to stop, think, re-evaluate, not think, eat and enjoy happy hour.

We're very blessed...

Leaving on a jet plane...

Today, we leave on our adventure to Koh Samui in Thailand.  We're nervous and excited. Joel's never been overseas before and well...we're travelling with a 15 month old. It feels like we've been planning forever so I didn't think this day would actually come. Now that it has, it feels pretty surreal.

I've bought Nora these cute Fizz Green Native's:

I figured we'd be spending most of our time around water and it is possible that it may rain most days, so these little waterproof beauties should pull through!

Since we have a 7 hour and then another 2 hour flight to get to Koh Samui, I did some trolling through the blogs to find some tips on travelling with an infant.  These were some amazing tips from the lovely A CUP OF JO blog.  Check it out, it will definitely provide some great guidance on your next trip with the bubs.

Do you have any more tips on travelling with children?

P.S. I'll hopefully be having an internet free holiday so will not get to any posts until we return.  I look forward to sharing some holiday snaps with you.  Thanks so much for visiting...