Ken would not be the janitor service!
How wonderful! I snuck in an extra hour of sleep last night and only rolled out of bed at five o’clock this morning! What a wicked wench!
Shamara was not amused. My poor feline.
I fed her and then went to my studio to have my Quiet Time and start my day.
After I had got myself dressed and ready for the day, I did a load of washing and hung it out to dry. I love the sound of the flap-flapping of wet washing in the breeze – that crack-snap-and pop sound. It was soon dry, but I left it out and in the hot sunshine and the stiff breeze to catch all that today could offer.
I began to pack some of the books I had sorted out to give away to the second-hand book shops, but I did not have enough boxes for them all. So, I will have to try to pick up some boxes in town tomorrow.
I need to clean the area where Matt’ sleeps in the shed - or at least make a pathway to his bed! There is so much of everything everywhere that making a pathway has become a necessity! There are tools, old windows and frames everywhere, and the shed is being divided up but only halfway so far, but it is only a temporary mess.
I tried to clean the walls and the grout in the bathroom shower, but I think the grouting needs to be redone, so that will have to go onto one of my To Do Lists for after Christmas!
Next, I went up to my studio for a while before it got too hot, to work on my menus and what I needed to get grocery-wise for Christmas, (before and after) and to write out lists for that. I am banking on catering for eight of us for about ten days. Therefore, I need to be pretty organized as there is no dashing down the road to pick up anything I have forgotten to buy!
I can almost hear the clock tick-tocking, and time whizzing by, so I decided as it was getting hot in my studio to go downstairs and work in the kitchen area.
I began in the crockery cupboard – taking everything out, washing, dusting and wiping the shelves before putting everything back neatly. Then onto the grocery cupboards – pulling everything out – checking nothing has expired date wise, and again washing, dusting and wiping down the shelves.
I want to buy four more of the white plastic mesh baskets as it is so much easier to pack them and pull the whole basket out when looking for an item, instead of having to scratch through a whole stack of bottles or cans. I already have several of these baskets and I use them for particular items – for example, all the different oils, or soups/stock and lentils, or jams and spreads et cetera. I am all in for making things easier for me in the kitchen.
I only managed to do one and a half of the grocery cupboards and will have to continue tomorrow when we get back from town.
Apparently, Matt’ is coming up to the farm tomorrow, as he and Peter Garrett (a good friend of ours) are going to be working on Tamryn’s container – cutting out windows and sliding doors and so on. Shame, I think it is going to be seriously hot work if the weathermen are correct in their forecasting!
I contacted Matt’ and he will be here at about lunchtime tomorrow but will sort out his own lunch as we will be in town for the day.
I also contacted the school (Long Flat Primary School) to make sure how many more days I can be teaching this term. I cannot believe how fast this year has gone! Schoef! And the year is almost over!
I only have three lessons left this term and also with the children moving up to High School next year - I will miss these kids. I have been blessed to have been able to teach most of them since kindergarten up to Year 6
The school is putting together a Recipe Book and so I must get my act together and submit some of my favorite recipes for that project.
In the late afternoon I sorted through more recipes, as I am beginning to choose different salad recipes for our Christmas Day lunch. Every Christmas I like to try something a little different just for variety and also a challenge! So far I have chosen a beetroot salad with fennel, radishes and oranges; a pea medley with mint jelly with sugar snap peas, garlic, red chilli, mint leaves and sugar snap pea and avocado salad with celery, cucumbers and sprouts so on. I always serve the favorite tossed mixed salad, but now I need a different potato and also a rice salad or maybe tri-colored quinoa salad. I normally cook all the meats beforehand, so we have them cold as it is normally a fairly hot day – we have lamb, ham, turkey and chicken. That allows us to eat leftovers for a few days – which equals no cooking! (Did I ever mention I can be sneaky in my planning!)
Ken has fixed our lawn mower – hallelujah! I am beyond delighted – I am ecstatic. Never knew I could be that excited over a working lawn mower, but I am … I am … I am! The thing is, the grass is so long and really thick and there are snakes everywhere on the farm at the moment and I cannot see the slithery things which means there is a lot of goose stepping going on when I walk outside!
Which is very tiring!
While I am in this tidying up mode, I am also trying to go through any frozen meals in our freezer to make more room for when everyone is here. So tonight, we have a now-unfrozen chicken curry and I will cook the rice and serve it with a fruit chutney and buttered bread later.
Today has been pretty warm – in fact, I put the air-conditioner on when I was working on the kitchen cupboards because I worked up a serious sweat.
In the early evening Ken began to cut the grass and I did the whipper snipping as Ken had chased a red belly black snake from our front door this afternoon! That was enough to galvanize me into action.
What lesson did I learn today? To plan, write it down and then do what I have written on my To Do List for the Day.
What am I grateful for today? An old air-conditioner that is working like a charm!
My saying for today is …
Comentários