What I can get done in (less than) two hours when the kids are not here

Before:
Before

During:
During

After:
After

Not pictured: the two garbage bags of toys to donate and one of rubbish.

Humpday Holiday: Tasmania

Today’s Humpday Holiday is in honour of my brother and his wife who are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary. Five years ago we travelled to Tasmania to be at their wedding (from Scotland!) No, they don’t live in Tasmania, but they love it there. It was my first visit to Tasmania and we barely even scratched the surface. I’d love to go back one day and see more.

wedding

The ceremony took place on  a beach in the Bay of Fires near St Helens.

on the beach

A really stunning location.

madeline on beach

Lillian came too, in my tummy. I was about 16 or 17 weeks pregnant.

happy ending

Happy anniversary Tim and Zoe!

On Wednesdays, for a bit of mid-week escapism, I go on a Humpday Holiday. Guest posters are always welcome!

 

A Family Motto

Week 3 of Simplify Your Life was about coming up with a family motto, creed, vision or statement. We came up with Why not laugh? kind of by accident and a bit flippantly but it’s grown on us all. It started on the way to swimming this morning when I mentioned this week’s task in the car. Dave immediately scoffed and made a joke and then said, “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.” Lillian piped up from the back, “Why not laugh?” and we both said hey, that’s a pretty good statement actually! Humour was number 4 on my list of values and laughing is certainly important to us as a family.

In Deb’s post she lists a series of questions to discuss as a family to help come up with ideas for the statement. We had a chat tonight while Dave was cooking dinner and I thought I’d share some of Lillian’s answers (she’s four and a half.)

What is important to us? What do we value?
Lillian said that cleaning the bathroom was important to her. We said sorry we’re letting you down there.

Are there things we see other families do or how they behave that we would like to have in our home life?
Have dessert every night. Eat choc-chip cookies every day. Have toys in my bedroom. Does this mean we’re going to do this now?

If people talked about our family how would we want them to describe us?
We’re always happy and draw love hearts every day. Always friendly all the time even to a stranger and say hello, what’s your name? (I love this answer.)

As a family we are at our best when we ______ .
When we work together.

If you could create a perfect day what would it include?
Playing with friends. Playing soccer. Lots of finger painting. Eating choc chip cookies.

We are most happy when ________.
On my birthday.

So I think Why not laugh? fits her answers well. I’m going to print this out and stick it somewhere to remind us all.

Pumpkin, Potato, Feta and Native Spinach Frittata

We live walking distance to a great community garden and often head down there on a Sunday afternoon for a wander (and sometimes a beer.) Last weekend we came across a garden bed full of Warrigal Greens which reminded me of Tricia’s post about this plant. Dave had a chat to one of the gardeners about it and was told to take a bunch home. So tonight, inspired by Tricia, I cooked a pumpkin, potato, feta and native spinach frittata loosely based on this recipe.

Here are the greens all ready for blanching to remove the toxic oxalates.

Warrigal Greens

Once blanched I squeezed out the excess water as you would with spinach. I cooked some butternut pumpkin and potato in the microwave, fried some onion in a pan, crumbled some feta and whisked up 8 eggs and some milk. Then I chucked it all in one of the two(!) new quiche dishes I got for Christmas.

pre cooking

I baked it at 230 degrees c for a bit over half an hour but our oven is on the cool side. When it came out it was nice and brown on top and smelt amazing. Even Lillian asked what was smelling so good, and better still she actually ate some of it.

cooked

Yummo. I think we’ll be taking some Warrigal Greens home again next time we visit the garden.

Humpday Holiday: Galiano Island, Canada

A friend of mine lives here and posted a link to this video on facebook. I must visit one day.

 

On Wednesdays, for a bit of mid-week escapism, I go on a Humpday Holiday. Guest posters are always welcome!

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