Out.....

As the weather has cooled a little we have been out a little more.  Last weekend we attended a talent show at Education City and were amazed at the extreme talent.  I have to admit that Mr Beat Box was astounding.    This weekend, amongst many other activities, I was suffering from a dropped feed dog and went into crisis management mode.  This involved denying the breakdown and going out to the Souq for dinner.  The following morning saw realisation hit as I made my way back to behind the Souq to find my Mr Friendly Repair man.  Hmmmm, I also stopped in at the electronics trading emporium to find out how much I would need to spend if repairs were unsuccessful.  Needless to say, there will probably be a post in the near future displaying the positive or negative outcome of my feed dog saga.

A movie lunch with friends

This is how sad a girl is when she has Hubba Bubba gum stuck in her hair!

Not the star of the talent show!

Loving Dad

Taking Bella out too

Pastry and a bit more pastry...

Sadly I am an ingredient list shopper.  Certainly, I am not much of a greenie, nor do I think that organics are worth any marketing energy, rather, I am a "particular" cook.  By particular I mean that I have learned through my time working within the food industry, that there are substitutes and extenders in food and that will extend the volume, the weight, to cheapen the input price or to lengthen the life of the product.  Thus, as I select food for our attempt at simple lives, I do not choose to purchase puff pastry using palm oil, other oils, colours or unnecessary preservatives, it must be made from butter (hey, I did spend 17 years in the NZ dairy industry).  Hence, I have returned to the good old Edmonds Cook Book and the New Zealand Presbyterian Cook Book and seemed to have delighted both two legged food critics in the house!

Fake - on and egg pie: great for dinner and cold on lunch!
Beef pies: fabulous hot and when made in mini-muffin pans, two put into Teagan's lunch seem to be enough to replace the sandwich and is rather filling.
Beef pies: in normal sized muffin pans make a great cold pie finger food for a poolside picnic.

My next task is to write up the recipe for the pie fillings as they were rather good!  (lean beef mince (browned really well sprinkled with flour), onion, garlic, pureed tomato, parsley, teaspoon of regular tomato sauce per pan, and plenty of salt and black pepper)

Dad was working late....so the girls went out to play...

Teagan and I enjoyed a gorgeous evening together.  Once home from school, Teagan asked if we could swim after karate so we struck a deal; a picnic tea and swim until dark provided she went straight to bed after coming home.  True to our plan, homework was completed, picnic prepared and I accompanied Teagan to karate and then we ate and swam.  The temperature was delightful, the pool quiet and we enjoyed "pleasant" conversation, a new emagazine (Jane Austin Knits) and some new poems from a school book - what else could a lucky mother ask for!

Getting a grip on time....

One has had to gain a better grip on time for this school year.  How on earth can I possibly be retired and have too little time?  Rather easily, it seems.  As the household items have matured, the daily dynamics have changed.  A certain someone appears to need a tad less sleep and is plenty big enough to look after herself.  So One has been working within a 24 hour time allowance window to facilitate the household activities and general needs.

Of course, as my darling husband stresses, One could get some help around the house to ease time pressures.  To me, this seems absurd, who can manage a household as well as I can?  Am I not good enough to take care of this most precious of units?  It is more than just mopping floors!  So rather, we are now car pooling with some friends within our compound, that has freed me up by 1.5 hours every morning and leaves me far less stressed as I do not need to navigate the inadequate free-for-all roading environment that encompasses our fair city.  Teagan happily (well bravely) joins into a car-riding-breakfast with her spanish friend Claudio for a well buckled in chat enroute to school as I sit down to a leisurely breakfast at 7am (deserved, I hope as I have been up since 5.15am).  Of course, that is only the start of the day.

In the afternoons, we now have "activities".  I am hesitant to engage Teagan in many of these as she will need to be taken to and fro and will have too little time to be a general 6 year old.  Well, it appears the solution arrived at our door in the form of "giraf tay" (normally spoken as karate).  Teagan got herself semi-sorted into the activity held within our compound, takes herself there and back and will generally not acknowledge that she has a parent keeping a distant eye on her.  The photos are not that great but if you look along the line and look for the midget kid, that is Teagan!