Roller Skating - Lots of Laughter!!

Last weekend we went roller skating. We were given a family ticket and it had to used by the end of April. DS12 hasn't been skating in years and this was DS4's first time. My friend and his daughter came along to help the boys as I can't skate since I have a bunged up knee.

Here DS is trying to get across the rink without falling over..... see the concentration on his face!

Here he is just trying to get the hang of the skates when we first got there.

Here is DS12 (in the white t-shirt) on the railing trying to get the hang of the skates.

Here's a game that everyone played, you have a partner and one rides on the little board thingy and the other has to push. It was hysterical watching the kids trying to get their balance to get going....

And then there were these pro's....... show

offs!!

Spinning - On the Wheel

I've been doing some spinning lately after a break where I got a lot of crochet charity blankets done. I bought some multi-colored Jacob roving from a friend and this is the color of the water after I washed the spun yarn!! This was from roving!! I always thought that roving was clean but have learnt otherwise. The color of the yarn is quite different to the color of the roving now the dirt is all gone.

This water is a similar color to the water when I wash fleece and very unexpected considering roving is cleaned when it's made from the fleece into the roving.

This is the actual yarn from the Jacob, it's just lovely and the photo really doesn't do it justice. It was amazing how much softer the yarn was after all that dirt was washed out too!

Here's some odds and ends that were on my Country Spinner. You can see the yarn at the very left, that's the above Jacob yarn, see how different it was before washing?

The next one along, the brown one is some Bond roving that I bought at the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show in 2008. It was a lovely spin. The next one is some Wensley/Teeswater Hand-dyed (not by me) and the last one, the blue/purple, is some roving I bought at Spotlight that's actually meant for felting. I just loved the colors so much that I bought it for spinning!!

This week I've done some dyeing but I haven't downloaded the pics yet. I'm using up my stash as much as possible this year and trying reeeeeally hard NOT to buy more fleece/roving/yarn until my current stash is under control.

I've used up at least 12 tubs of yarn on the charity blankets, and recently I spun up two full tubs of a lovely crossbred fleece. I've almost finished washing a couple of kilos of white fleece too, that will be the next one I'll spin.

Anyway back to the dyeing.... I played around with some food dyes again and am very pleased with the results, I have some nice effects over some white rovings and am looking forward to spinning them up. I'll take some pics tomorrow in the daylight.

My Little Spiderman

My little one was watching the Spiderman this afternoon and decided HE was going to be Spiderman too....

And here he's trying to see the Spiderman marks on his own face.....

Just Chatter

Hi all, I wanted to share a few pics tonight, these first two are of a caterpillar and a snail that DD14 made with DS4 last night. DS4 was REALLY grouchy and I was trying to cook dinner and tidy up and check school bags and and and...... well if you're a parent you know how it is. So she amused him with the play dough. She did a pretty good job I think.

At our house I'm doing a de-clutter/get-ready-to-move-if-a-house-becomes-available-dejunk, so there's LOTS of stuff going out of our house and I'm trying reeeeeally hard not to bring stuff in!!

This is the pile that I took over to the Vietnam Vets Op Shop. I love taking stuff there as they are always SO friendly and have a chat and say thanks. When I used to donate to the Salvos I was lucky to get a grunt let alone a thank you. And then a couple of people actually had a go at me because I took my couple of boxes to the donating bins at the front door as I always had, instead of the side door! That was the end for me, I no longer donate there and will not ever again. A simple polite thanks means everything.

And the other day when DS4 and I were out and about, we came around the bend on a road a few suburbs from home and the shine was beating down on these beautiful Autumn trees. The pic doesn't show the true brightness but you get the idea. I just had to take a pic as they were so lovely!

What's your chatter today?

First Attempt at Menu Planning

Hi all, I’m currently having my first proper go at menu planning. Last night I went through my freezer and was surprised to find enough for at least a dozen meals! It’s amazing what one finds poked away behind the frozen veggies and the ice cream!

So I made my list of what was there, and then worked out a menu plan for about the next ten days or so. All the dinners are now covered and I’ll only need to buy potatoes, veggies and rice and it’s all organized.

It’s funny as today was my first day working off my menu plan and I forgot to defrost the chicken schnitzels, so I changed tonight’s meal for another night and we had meat pies instead, all fixed and I didn’t go to the supermarket, yay!

I’m finding that I seem to be going into the supermarket a number of times a week and it’s really annoying me. I always work off a list but because my meals aren’t organized, I need this and need that, to have what I need for the meals I’m making. Or it may be something as simple as today we ran out of bread, so it was off to the supermarket and I bought ten loaves!!

I’ve done really well with getting my grocery budget down to around $100 a week and that’s for myself, DD14, DS12 and DS4. That $100 includes everything: toilet paper, cleaners, food items, fruit and veg and cat food. Now I just need to get the menu plan going and then I can start to work on cutting the shopping trips back. My current goal is to work towards shopping once a week and then when that’s going well, then go to fortnightly shopping.

This weekend my DS17 and his girlfriend are coming home to stay on Sunday night. Usually when he comes home I go out and buy heaps of food. I’m not sure why I do this as there’s always plenty of food here anyway….

So included in my menu plan is Sunday nights meal. We’re having Spaghetti Bolognese, and I’ll make a breadmaker loaf so that I can slice it chunky, spread it with homemade garlic butter and make garlic bread. Dessert will be a big chocolate pudding done in the microwave, with ice cream. These are all my son’s favorites plus they’ll be filling too.

On Saturday I’ll bake some homemade biscuits and a couple of cakes so there’s snacks on hand. Hmmmm I think some cheese and bacon scones might be the go too.

It’s going to be interesting how things go with following my menu plan. I already do a lot of double cooking, for example I always cook a double batch of spaghetti sauce and freeze some, and I always do the same with chopped onion when I have to fry some onion too, this way I don’t have to go through the tears twice. I love making homemade sausage rolls and big batches of homemade soup and stews during the winter too. The more ready-made meals I can get into the freezer the better. I’m a single Mum of two Autistic boys so the less time I have to spend cooking dinner, the better!!

Well I was hoping to end this with a lovely picture of an Autumn tree I saw the other day, but I just cannot get the picture to load, it keeps coming up ‘upload file failed.’ Hopefully someone might be able to help me….

Seeya!