Organising

I mentioned my new cleaning schedule last blog post and thought I would write a bit more about it today. Growing up my Mum seemed to spend a lot of her time cleaning or cooking and not enjoying herself, maybe she did enjoy cleaning but I know it's not top of my list of prefered activities!So I have always struggled with this whether I have worked full or part time there are so many distractions in life, wanting to spend time with my children, read a book, work on the various craft projects, the garden, the allotment, see friends and that's before we get to the distraction of blogs, facebook, pinterest to name a couple! Anyway I am digressing, a few years ago I decided I would do upstairs one day and downstairs another but still didn't work, so ended up dividing it into rooms, doing a room a day, this works well, for me, everyone knows what is needed to be done. So I made a list of rooms to be cleaned, the sort of jobs that would be needed to be done in them, so for the girls and their room it looks like this

• sort any clothes that are on the floor
• general room tidy
• dust
• strip and make beds
• hoover

Simple really but breaking it down everyone can see what they have done and needs to be done, yes we have tick chart up covering the week. So I then think of what my working week is like, outside activities the children attend, on the quieter days we tackle the rooms, that take longer e.g. the kitchen, as that involves:-

• general tidy
• clean worktops
• clean door fronts
• clean sink
• hoover floor
• wash kitchen floor
• sort fridge
• menu plan

With my work I tend to hoover most days, this is quick hoover the space and then a more thorough hoover of the room it is that day to clean. O is old enough that he does his own room, he works shifts that vary every week, so leave him to sort out his own rota. For me this works well, doing a small amount each day means we tend to keep on top of things better than doing a once a week blitz, anyway the more I declutter, the easier the whole process is.

So weekly plan looks like this :-

Monday - hallway and landing

Tuesday- sitting/dining room

Wednesday - my bedroom

Thursday - girls' room

Friday - kitchen and back porch

Saturday - bathroom

Another area I like to plan and organise is our main meals, I do a weekly menu plan, I love to try new recipes, so it varies every week. I tend to bulk cook some meals, to make life easier, like tripling the shepherds pie base, so I have 2 in the freezer for another time. Meal planning is interesting as I am vegetarian, 2 of my children have a nut allergy and youngest is allergic to nuts, peanuts, dairy, soya eggs, legumes, sesame seeds and bananas, plus another is on the autistic spectrum with sensory insures which does affect what they will eat, this is improving with age though! So this weekend I made L a batch of her dairy and egg free yorkshires, they freeze and reheat well, ok they don't look like my egg based yorkshires but she loves them and it means I can make real yorkshires for the rest of us!

 Sorting through the freezer found a packet of quorn mince, so thought I would make up some veggie chilli for the freezer, ended up using pinto and kidney beans as I didn't have enough kidney beans!

Saturday we had butternut squash curry and also enough for the freezer.

Butternut Squash Curry

I onion finely chopped

1 butternut squash, peeled and chopped

2 to 3 tbsp mild curry paste

600ml vegetable stock

160g red lentils

400g can tomatoes

1. Heat oil and gently fry onion for 5 minutes until soft
2. Add the butternut squash and fry for for 2 minutes
3. Add the curry paste and mix well
4. Add vegetable stock, tomatoes and lentils, bring to the boil, then simmer for 30 to 40 minutes until squash is soft.

Our menu plan for this week
Saturday - butternut squash curry plus enough to freeze some portions, meat and rice for L
Sunday - roast
Monday - left over meat, fresh pasta sauce and pasta, veggie option from the freezer
Tuesday - meat or veggie chilli
Wednesday - home made fish cakes, veg
Thursday - wraps, chicken or cheese choice of salad
Friday - Lentil and parsnip cottage pie and meat version for those that don't or can't eat lentils, which is in the freezer already.

On a gardening front, our peas are all coming up well, the brussels sprouts and broccoli look like they have been happily transplanted. In the greenhouse we have planted out tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, aubergines and a melon plant, the other 2 melon plants are under a poly tunnel in the garden.

L is doing really well with her planting and can be left to get on with planting with minimal supervision, she loves being independent and then sharing what she has done. She has planted out another rosemary plant, some sage and marigolds around the allotment with hope they will attract some friendly, beneficial insects.

Spotted lots of cherries on our cherry tree, hoping we get some lovely fruit this year.

Plenty of red and white currants too and one blueberry bush has lots of blossom on it, the other hasn't any!

 A small amount of sewing has been done, coat now has pockets and front and back of skirts are sewn together. Hoping tonight to get the outer bodice and skirt pinned and sewed together.

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Story Time and Gardening

We enjoyed a busy bank holiday weekend, celebrating my husbands 50th, his hope of people forgetting his age didn't happen as every card had 50 on it! He had a bottle of scotch whiskey from work, labelled with his name then aged 50 years and his work colleagues names on it, which was a lovely gift.  We have also spent some time up the allotment, rather windy but not raining, planted out some broccoli and brussel sprout plants and sowed more peas. L has been busy planting up my pots, we had a trip to the garden centre and I let her choose which ones to get, then she spent time deciding which plants to plant where and where to plant them, very pleased with the result. Hopefully we will have a lovely colourful display throughout the spring and summer.

Our story this week from A Year Full of Stories, is from India and called The Cracked Pot, a lovely story about a man who collects water, one pot is perfect and the other leaks, the pot asks why does he still use him if he is broken and leaks. The man replies that he has planted flowers all along the path on the broken pots side and as he walks the pot waters the flowers so the man has a lovely walk. So though the pot couldn't do his original job for him perfectly he did another one brilliantly. We spent some time looking at Maps book on India and they were fascinated with the painted elephants, I found some outlines to colour in and then watched some clips on you tube,  this one on painting the elephants and then a couple of the festival in Jaipur. M and I read through this page with lots of interesting facts behind the festival and Hinduism. I found this bit about why Hindu's worship elephants very interesting "When Hindus worship the elephant, they symbolically worship these admirable qualities of the animal. Obedience, ability to not repeat past mistakes and respect and care towards peers. The elephant represents qualities of a good disciple in the Hindu culture. The big ears of an elephant are symbolic of how one should listen more than speak. When he needs to accomplish a certain task, physical pain, tiredness, hunger and thirst are no obstacles and elephants do not fear anything or anybody, and yet, they are extremely docile beings."

I thought I would get some clay out to make some pots with, the plan was for the little ones to make thumb pots and the older ones coil pots but they all decided to make thumb pots.

I then gave them some clay to make what ever they wanted, so we have a vulture, L and I were reading about them the other day and a man walking on tight rope.

Followed by having lots of fun in the garden with the bubble machine.

On a home education front, we have been discussing with M her options for GCSEs, we have decided to enrol her on a correspondence course for her GCSE maths and English. We had been trailing a pre IGCSE English course which she is really enjoying and I had already hoped that she would use the same tutor for IGCSE level as I was finding the whole idea of doing the studying English at exam level all a bit to subjective.  L has found some of our first phonic readers and she has been trying to read one or two a day, she likes trying to read but does say the books are rather silly, which yes they are if you are used to listening to The Wind in the Willows, to then read, the cat sat, Mat sat etc is rather basic!

On a crafting front, joining Kat a day late for Unraveled Wednesday I finally got round to cutting out fabric for L's winter coat, I am getting ahead of myself but also making the most of the last steroid injection I had in my hip as this time it has worked and really made the difference in pain level. I have been trying to ignore the arthritis in my right hip but reached a stage where it wasn't letting me ignore it any longer!! Anyway back to L's coat, I am making design D but without the tail bit and lining it as well, which isn't in the pattern, so making 2 coats one from fleece for the lining and one from some lovely purple fabric. She is very happy that I have found the same fabric that I made the first version in. So darts sewn, and bodice put together, next stage pockets and sewing the skirt together.

Finished knitting her cardi, this was wool from my stash, don't think I have ever cut it so fine with the amount of left over wool, literally just enough to sew up with! I did decide that as we were in town I would pop into the fabric shop as they have a huge array of buttons and fell in love with the butterfly ones, also came out with 2 lots of dress fabric I have knitted a few more rows of Granny's favourite and a little bit of cross stitch. I have finished reading Smoke and Mirrors and enjoyed it, the series doesn't yet have the atmosphere that the Ruth books have but if I forget about this serious then the Stephens and Mephisto is a good read. Now reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, a controversial subject of a family desperate to save their daughter Kate from cancer, decide to have another child Anna through IVF treatment so the child is a perfect genetic match. Then Anna at the age of 13, having had enough of the operations and feeling like her whole live is based on saving her sister and not having her voice heard. Hires a lawyer so she can get medical emancipation. The chapters vary with who is telling the story sometimes Anna, her parents. lawyer, older brother etc, which makes for interesting but sometimes confusing reading as they also jump in time!

On a housekeeping front, realised I had lost my rhythm for cleaning, tidying yes but proper cleaning no. This is partly down to change of work hours, then change of working days, coming on top of the time that O was in hospital etc. Now realised that I needed to actually sit down and write out a schedule, I know it sounds either very boring or very organised but I find if I Clean a room a day we stay on top of the housework. O sorts his own room out, the girls do theirs with some help and we all do bits of the lounge and the kitchen. This way the children learn what needs to be done now and ideas on how to maintain house as an adult, plus I am not inundated with everyone's bedding as they have decided to all strip their beds on the same day., yes they each have day for stripping their beds. We have never had a tumble dryer so drying washing and organising the washing does take some thought but we have managed and that includes the use of washable nappies when my own children were younger.

Also linking up with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On

Unravelled Wednesday

Joining Kat for her Unravelled wednesday, well hoping there isn't too much unravelling going on, I am enjoying working on a cross stitch that I bought several years ago. It was on of those wonderful moments were you pop into a craft shop during the sales and find a cross stitch kit reduced to £6. At the time we were fostering kittens so the design was just perfect, there are four sections one for each season, at the moment working on the Autumn section. I put this away when I became pregnant with L and started knitting baby bits instead, so 5 years later, think it's time to start it again!

I am still trying to use up some of my stash before I buy anymore wool but gave in today but will write about that in a minute. I discovered two balls of white wool, so thought I would use them to knit L a cardi but not sure if there will be enough or not, so knitted the back to the shoulder shaping, then left it on a spare needle, then both the sleeves, now working on the front, depending on how much wool is left over, will determine the length of the cardi. I am enjoying reading  Elly Griffiths Smoke and Mirrors. I have loved her Ruth Galloway mysteries and have come to love the characters and was well as the stories they are involved in, her writing is very atmospheric, you really feel you are there with the characters. I still have one of the Ruth books to read but saving it till she releases the next one, as I don't want to be left without another Ruth book to read. I know sounds strange but then chatting to a friend that I had recommended the books to and she has done the same, so maybe not such an odd thing to do! Anyway back to Smoke and Mirrors, it is set during the 1950, the main characters are friends that served together during the war, one now works as a policeman the other as magician, a good story but doesn't have the same sort atmosphere and characters as the Ruth books.

Now I was determined to not buy anymore wool until I had finished some projects and wool from my stash but I was browsing patterns on pinterst and L spotted this cardi and asked if I could make it in grey with bright pink patterns. So I bought the pattern 2 weeks ago and resisted the pull of the wool shop until today, I needed to pop to the shops to buy some wrapping paper for my husbands birthday, it's his 50th tomorrow, he is trying to ignore the fact it's his birthday and has banned us from making a cake! Anyway the wool shop is right opposite the card shop, so thought I would pop in and see what they had, found some lovely wool, saying I wouldn't start it just yet. Well came home and 30 minutes later I had cast on and knitted a couple of rows............. This is the first time I have knitted a top down cardi, so looking forward to seeing how it takes shape, think I might need to circle the size I am doing as the pattern does from newborn to 12 years of age and covers several pages.

On sewing front, I am planning on making L a larger version of the purple winter coat I made her two years ago, pleased it has lasted her two winters. I have got as far a sorting out the pattern and the fabric I bought last year but not got much further partly due to the fact that I am not exactly following the pattern. The original pattern had ruffles and large fur trimmed cuffs and wan't lined, so I did away with the ruffle and cuffs and lined the coat with fleece to make it warmer, it worked very well but the sleeves need to be a bit bigger so it is easier to fit a thick cardi underneath. I will get there just need to be in the right frame of mind to juggle pattern etc.

The Little Red Hen

Today I had my friends girls over for a morning of activities based on The Little Read Hen, we read the story, made some bread, talked about what yeast does and the different types of bread you can get, which ones we have tried, liked and or made.

While the bread was rising we watched Come Outside Bread, as we watched this I talked about how flour was made, a long time ago people would of used a quern to grind their bread, then later windmills or water mills would of been used before the factories that we saw in the program. I found some photos of a quern and we talked about how long it would of taken to grind flour compared to the factories today. Could of also talked about in how in some parts of the world people still grind their flour by hand. We then watched this short film that looks a bit more at the process of wheat to flour and then looked at some resources that we got from grain chain, one was little packets of wheat as it goes through the different process, which they found fascinating.

They then enjoyed creating their own farm yard and playing with their set up.

They also spent time drawing pictures based on the illustrations from the book we read.

and finally the cooked rolls, the girls have asked to come again and have another session with me, which is great, I really love doing small group sessions like these.

Just love the way one simple story could have so much potential for different idea :-

• making different types of bread
• looking at bread from different countries
• history of making flour, farming etc
• the lifecycle of wheat, for older chidlren the pros and cons of different types of farming, genetics
• how windmills and watermills work, cogs and gears

to list few, I am sure there are lots more ideas but these are just a few on what we touched on today, who knows were it could lead.

Sad News

I went to let our pet rabbit, Frodo out this morning and got no response, he is getting older and takes his time to come out but this morning there was no movement at all, he must of passed away in his sleep last night. We are all upset but L is absolutely devastated, she loved Frodo and was forever collecting dandelion leaves on our walk for him. All the children used to love to go out into the garden and chat with him, find him leaves etc, so have messaged all the parents to let them know what has happened. This is the first time in over twenty years that we do not have any pets, when we moved in here we had 5 cats, fostered kittens, later added rabbits, chickens and a rat, so the house feels very empty tonight. Though we do talk about death and dying, it is a whole other thing when it is your beloved pet, so for L this is really the first time she has had to deal with it. We have had lots of questions of why did he have to die, can't I make him breath again, wake up again, in the stories people die and come back to life again, so had to talk about most of the times these stories someone has cursed them or poisoned them and they are asleep, waiting for someone to magic them awake, this is real life and it doesn't work that way. In between this she has been asking if we would get more rabbits and a kitten and then more tears. This afternoon we went for a walk and L collected lots of dandelion flowers, I suggested we could use them to paint with and make flower pictures of the type of garden Frodo would like, he did like to eat my flowers! So we did manage to have a lovely time painting lots of pictures for him, in rabbit heaven. Tonight we buried him in what will eventually become our secret flower garden and she has chosen a lavender and rosemary bush to planted there. This is the very sunny spot at the bottom of the garden that used to house our chickens. After she went to bed my husband commented on a book that we have Always and Forever and how in the end even though Hare's friends are sad that he is gone, they remember the good times and build a garden to remember him by, one to find out and read to her in a couple of days, as I think it will help.

St George and the Dragon

Ended up with a quieter end to last week and weekend than originally planned as L came down with a mild temperature, sore throat and cough, so she spent a lot of time needing cuddles or sleeping. So I have spent a lot of time sitting on the sofa with her, reading stories, watching films and crafting while she sleeps, which means I have knitted her a pair of the workhorse mitts in some teal green wool I had left over and also managed some cross stitch. She is hopefully on the mend now, still a bit croaky and was rather tired by bedtime tonight. Any way yesterday we read Saint George and the Dragon and today we read two dragon stories from A Year Full of Stories, one from Britain and the other from Poland. The end of the Usborne book has a nice map and talks about were St George is patron saint of and some other nice info that we read through.

I had planned some bread making in dragon shapes and maybe painting or chalk pastels but the children decided to draw some pictures of the dragon, love the different facial expressions.

We've been doing lots of counting and L and one minded child seems to have really learnt all their numbers to 10, so today thought I would see what they could remember, so out came the crochet bowls, button pot and some number cards. They love sorting buttons into the bowls, so this is a fun activity for them and I am pleased to say they can recognise their numbers one to six and add the right number of buttons to the bowl. This is the  pattern for the rainbow nesting bowls

I then added some mirrors and coloured lollipop sticks, this is great way to introduce the idea of symmetry, reflection, half etc in a fun way, love the oh wow when I demonstrated how you could turn half a lollipop man into a whole man. They then had fun creating their own patterns.

In the garden the sunflower seeds we planted the other week are just peeking up above the soil, the peas are doing the same at the allotment and some of my Californian poppies that seeded themselves last year are now flowering. The children love these and have been watching how the buds develop, open and now seeing the seed cases form, at some point we will have a dried seeds that they can then plant.

L's fingerless mittens, she is really pleased with them, the colour looks really blue in the photos but it is a teal green in real life! Hoping we won't have much need to wear them until the Autumn! Joining Frontier Dreams for Crafting On

I came across an eggless carrot cake last week and L and I had to give it a go, it is really delicious and moist. It's great to find another dairy and egg free cake to add to my list, the recipe can be found on Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth blog  Carrot Crazy cake we didn't ice our cake as I find it a bit too rich. My photo of a little slice doesn't do it justice but had to show that it isn't a dense cake at all, which I sometimes find when trying eggless baking as you don't always get that light fluffiness that you get with eggs.