Exciting News!

(especially for Easter)

Disclaimer: This is NOT a pregnancy announcement, nor have I won the lottery (darn it!)

Today I discovered a cool new tool online - a free PDF converter. It means that I am able to make available Lizzie’s Home original articles, spreadsheets and other documents as PDF downloads direct from this site. I’m really chuffed I have worked this out - I have big plans for using this feature, including writing my own ebook (its even in my 100 Things post - see? Number 82!) It offers up a whole new way of sharing with the world my infinite wisdom - grin - and not only that, I’m now able to control the way in which my documents are handled on the opposite end. Up until now, I haven’t known how to make the templates and articles widely available without the question of plagiarism or misuse by others being forefront in my mind.

So, pleased as punch, I offer you the first installment in what I hope will be a regularly updated feature here at Lizzie’s Home. Look in the sidebar to the left for available articles and downloads - you’re free to save these files to your own computers and to link back to them. Enjoy.

Cheers,
Lizzie

March 31, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments 

A Wee Little Problem

(Miss Moo at age 2, munching on some Subway - she’s now 5)

I woke up this morning to find Miss Moo standing on my head.

She was trying to climb over me to snuggle, but slipped. Mid-manoeuvre, she realised she needed to go to the toilet and jumped down, asking if she could use the ensuite bathroom (as a general rule we keep this for Mummy and Daddy’s use only). I murmured a ’sure’ from where I was rubbing my head. Our ensuite door is a little stiff and when she couldn’t turn it immediately, she panicked. When she panics, her muscles relax.

End result: Wee on floor. What a way to wake up!

I strip her off and put her in our shower, then drag out the mop and clean up. I thank (once again) the previous owners of this house for their obviously superior flooring choice (our master bedroom has floating floorboards - the only bedroom that doesn’t have carpet) and as I’m coming back from the laundry room after putting the mop away, I hear her sweet little voice singing away in the shower.

Awwww, I thought. Just as off-key as Mummy. That’s my girl!

The song she was singing?

“Skip to the lou my darling.”

Cheers,
Lizzie

March 31, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

Rejuvenation

It’s the weekend! Yippee!
Down in my neck of the woods, the weather seems to have finally turned for the season. A couple of weeks ago we were still getting 30-34ºC (or 86-93ºF) a couple of days a week. We’ve just come through a particularly warm summer, with water restrictions coming into force (Australia is in the middle of the worst drought in recent history), the gardens are looking positively anaemic (if not totally dead), lawns are yellow and things just needed a good spruce up in general. In the last week or two, we’ve had two or three days of measurable rain, and today, the temperature was more like 20ºC (68ºF). I go a bit loopy in the heat. Today I was in my element, LOL.

The upshot of this cooler weather (apart from the rain which has already spawned new growth) is that I’m no longer paralysed with heat exhaustion (okay, flimsy excuse!) and I can actually see myself being able to potter about the place and work up a bit of a sweat with some scrubbing. A month or two ago - no way. On ‘bad’ days, we could get up to 42ºC (107ºF) and just about everyone’s primary concern revolved around slothing out on the couch for the day. We live just 3 or 4 minutes walk from the kids’ school but even that would build up a healthy (and very icky) ‘glow’. For me, it was torture twice a day :P

So I have plans. Lots of them, LOL.

I reworked my Routines (again!), simplified my Home Management Binder (condensed some pages) and checked the weather forecast. Cool weather all week long! Hooray!

Saturday is my ‘big’ washing day. I wash our regular clothes during the week but Saturdays are set aside for school uniforms, work uniforms, towels, sheets and other bedding. Sometimes this gets done during the week (I aim to do two loads per day, but if there isn’t enough clothing for that second load I’ll usually roll it over to the next day and pick some towels or bedding to wash instead) but most of the time there’s a moderate pile come Saturday, maybe 3 or 4 loads. We have an itty bitty washing machine, which has just a 5kg load (I’m not sure how this works in the US but it’s around 11lbs), so there’s a fair bit of rebooting going on, but I set the timer and keep going back to the laundry room as needed. While this is all going on I also do 1hr on a Home Project (sometimes broken up into 10 or 15 minute segments) - I have a list in my HMB.

Daddy’s working tomorrow so I thought I’d take the kids to the school grounds for a kick of the football and a picnic morning tea - if it doesn’t rain that is!

Boofah leaves on his school camp on Monday so also on the agenda this weekend is a bit of packing. The list they gave the parents is fourteen pages long, sigh.

And on Sunday, I am determined to get some baking done for the freezer. Hillbilly Housewife’s Fudge Brownies will absolutely be on my list. I’ve made them for every one of the kids’ cake stalls since discovering the recipe last year and I’ve never had so many compliments on my cooking before! I thought freezing them would stop me sneaking the odd one (or three!), but have you ever tasted these right from the freezer??? They are rich and even more fudgey, if that’s possible - groan. The best thing about this recipe is that it doesn’t require ‘fancy’ ingredients. We don’t keep chocolate chips in the pantry as a general rule (and so many other brownies recipes contain them or bar chocolate) yet you’d never know the difference with this magical recipe. I’ll probably make some cheese crackers that day as well - I’m experimenting with making more things from scratch. This sort of thing doesn’t really come naturally to me!

Hope your weekend is relaxing and productive,

Cheers,
Lizzie

March 30, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

Kneading It

That’s it…I’m going to do it!

I’m going to bake bread today. Why? Well its a bit cold and blustery where I am at the moment and I feel like getting all ‘country mama’.

Speaking of breads, ‘my’ new Pizza Dough recipe comes very gratefully from Mrs Catherine. I’ve tried making pizza dough before, with little success…until I found this recipe. It has worked every time and the kids think I’m a genius. I, of course, do not disagree :P

I need to begin making an effort with meal planning again. Several weeks ago I made up an eight-week menu plan that was going really well, but I’ve sort of coasted for the last week and a bit. Grocery spending is way above what I would like it to be, too. I’ve been tracking our finances extensively over March (ala The Spreadsheet Queen *grin*) so that should shine a light on various things to address. But groceries are always the biggest money drain for us (after the fixed expenses) and I’d really like to pare this back to a reasonable level again. We’re eating far too many commercial snackfoods and a few more dinners than I’d like contain frozen or convenience foods. There’s always room for improvement :)

Cheers,
Lizzie

March 30, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

School Camp? He’s Only Six!

Boofah Boy is going on an overnight school camp next Monday. I have to keep reminding myself that while he’s just 6 chronologically, he’s more like 7 or 8 intellectually and this is no big deal. Kids of that age spend nights away from home all the time, right? Except that Boof is this little imp of a child, easily the smallest kid in his class without the skipping grade thing…and did I mention he’s only six years old?

When the camp idea was first floated earlier in the term I took him aside and explained what it would entail. A night away from Mum and Dad, but it wouldn’t be like spending the night at Nana and Poppa’s. The camp is just far enough away that driving down to pick up a suddenly-apprehensive child would be difficult at best. Of course we would do it in a flash if need be, but we wanted to make sure he understood what it was all about.

He does…and boy, is he excited. They’re going to a pioneer farm to milk cows, make butter and ride horses. He’s positively beside himself with glee, as little boys of that age are apt to be. And I’ll wave goodbye to the bus with a smile on my face but a pang of concern inside because by nature of his abilities, he’s already growing up faster than most kids his age and I figured I had another couple of years of the apron strings being tied very securely in a a double knot, LOL. I can feel them being loosened as I speak! And that’s wonderful and everything, but…

…did I mention he’s only six?

Cheers,
Lizzie

March 26, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments 

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