Chalktober

This is my little girl at the zoo on Saturday. They loved the exhibits, her and her older sister who is 12. We used to go to the zoo regularly in Melbourne. We lived three hours from it previously. Since moving here nearly 6 years ago we have only managed to go to the Wagga Wagga zoo, and because my little girl hadn't been to a zoo, we took her to the Canberra zoo early last year I think. I had seen the new plantings and car park, was totally surprised at how things look now. Nothing has been radically rearranged, I still knew where I was, but wow. The section we were in had lots of Indonesian signs I think. It was the section with the elephants, pelicans and the butterflies. The butterfly house now has a gorgeous mosiac entrance to appeal to all those fairy loving girls out there and I suspect a few ladies. The kiosk was made to look Asian. Boy, the elephant handling section is a cross between a dairy and a jail. A bit scarey. But lovely statues and places to sit, it is like being in colonial India even in places. There is also an Asian vege garden, it is all too gorgeous. Old-fashioned. Some things in the buildings look like they have come out of people's sheds, but I still think it was all well done! My only complaint is that I didn't have much time in the Japanese garden as there was a wedding in the beautiful weather we had, then photos. There was a lot to learn in there about plantings for the home garden.

We felt the kids really needed to go to the zoo. My older girl was disappointed we didn't have more time there. They got a great zoo show bag for $20 that was worth more I thought. My little girl took the beautiful stuffed toy from the bag to school today. It is nice to have something to show the other kids who often go places and have things to write about. My little girl wants to extend her writing to be longer as another girl writes seemingly reams. I loved all the water features at the zoo.

Flying Visit to the Zoo

We made it to the zoo, I wanted to be there before the carosel closed, but didn't think we would make it. We are getting slower. Our daughter's would have loved a longer visit. They got a zoo show bag, and enjoyed what they did see.

Walktober

I will be walking at the zoo when I am supposed to be posting for Octoberfest. So I will have to post some pics later!

Freezer Free

This morning I woke up thinking that I could only put 2 meats in the freezer at the other house as we won't have the opportunity to visit, and could only buy one meat to take home here to the fridge, based on the idea they would only last 3 or 4 days at the most in the fridge. I had already bought prosciutto so my days were cut down from that as well. Anyway, I found some chicken sausages with a long lead time and other things. May have to go to the local butcher and get some more nice sausages.

Thursday ~ Macaroni Cheese Prosciutto
Friday ~ Prosciutto (Lentil & Cannelini Bean Soup)
Saturday ~ Mince & Cabbage Stir Fry
Sunday ~ Chicken Sausage & Red Lentil Soup
Monday ~ Tuna Casserole
Tuesday ~ Beef & Chorizo Nachos (Fruit & Vege order comes)
Wednesday ~ Penne with Salmon & Broccoli
Thursday ~ Chorizo Impossible Quiche
Friday ~ Tuna & Cherry Tomato Spaghetti
Saturday ~ Pumpkin & Pancetta Risotto
Sunday ~ Pies, Potatoes
Monday ~ Italian or other sausages

I filled in the chorizo recipes etc. but have less money than I thought. So now we are having left over curry one night and Minestrone Soup with Chorizo from the pantry etc. I need to work out two more recipes from the pantry.

Dancing in Indonesia

Although my daughter is visiting Malaysia it is to learn about Indonesian customs. She is learning this dance. It seems similar to Hawaiian dancing. What do you think? How do you think dancing fits with simple living? I know when I was growing up dancing was a big part of everyone's social life.



If you are worried as I was about this, there are other poco poco videos like these four.

Poco Poco in Tokyo

Modest Dressed ladies not that the others aren't

Wedding

Having fun with friends

It's Been Snowing

These hills outside our house this morning had snow on them. It is very fresh outside still. Other news today is that the new Vegemite is called Cheesybite.

The Good Report

I found this at Pardon my Chaos who found it at the GOOD REPORT.

I have not been able to keep up to my Thankful Thursday's lately, maybe there have been too many things going on having school holidays and trips etc. etc. We had sewerage mains put in at our new house and lots of things happening. However little things crop up that have been nice.

1. Not sure how long ago I heard it now, but at 11pm for a few nights I heard the mopoke owl again. We have even figured out which tree he lives in (pictured).

2. Last time we came back from our new house we had to slow down for a family of ducks that were crossing the road, yes, seriously. It was in the same place that the plover and her baby came out of the grass, or nearby.

3. It is dreamy and flowery outside.

4. I was able to see my daughter overseas via Facebook

5. Blogtoberfest

6. Having money for the times when we need it

7. My daughter has a mild case of chickenpox, and would have had a bad case if she didn't have her injection

8. My husband being willing to sew up my daughter's skirt, she is enjoying wearing it to school.

Frocktober

Today I thought I would talk about my sixteen year old daughter. She is currently overseas in SE Asia on a language study tour. Today will be her second day at school there and she returns before school starts next week at her school in Australia.

Yesterday by the magic of Facebook her sister called out to me that her sister had bought her three bottles of nail polish. She couldn't get the blue they had seen in a shop last shopping day when we went to the regional centre. Then she mentioned to me she had a photo of her. She was sitting with her host family who look lovely in a restaurant looking just like herself lol. The last picture I saw of her was a picture my husband took on the weekend at the airport with the group of kids that went with her. Apparently apart from a girl she has been emailing who lives in the same area as us, but an hour down the road (an hour is nothing here) a boy came up and started talking non stop about Pokemon, which my daughter is fluent in lol. She also looked like she had bought herself a new t-shirt!

I thought I would show you the dress she made recently at school. It is the first needlework classes she has had I think. Very ambitious, my Mum top stitched the zip and did the hem that was already pinned up. She was to finish it at lunchtimes but was unsure about something. She was only allowed to sew for half a year and had to wait until Year 10 to do it.

I went with her to our shop to choose the material, pattern, etc. I am not sure they sell patterns here anymore. Here is the pattern.

Flocktober

This photo was taken by my son and his girlfriend during the last week or so of September I think. It is a black swan and cygnets. He tells me it was still part of Floriade from memory.

Woktober

Today's suggested theme for Blogtoberfest is Woktober, or stirfries.

Traditional stirfries don't feature that much here, off the top of my head. I'll have to think about that though. Firstly, strips costs more than other meats. I don't buy chicken much because I am worried the antibiotics will make it possible antibiotics won't work when we need them, real or imagined. The strips are hard for me to bite into as one relieving dentist caused my overbite to be worse and but didn't give it a second thought.

So one day I found something cheap and very delicious despite original misgivings. It comes from the ABC site.

Sausage Stir Fry

You need:
500g thin sausages
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon finely grated green ginger
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 cup sliced cauli florets
1 cup sliced broccoli florets
4 shallots, cut in 5cm lengths
1 red or green capsicum cut into strips
Stock (optional)

Method:
Fry sausages in oil until lightly brown all over, remove from pan and cut into diagonal slices. If desired, return sausages to pan to brown and crip cut sides. Remove from pan and keep covered. Fry ginger and garlic for a minute or two, stirring constantly. Add cauliflower and broccoli and stir fry until almost tender.

Recently I tried Beef & Cabbage Stir-fry. It is cheap as well as it is made from mince. The feature is the addition of those Chinese fried noodles. I first tried them in the Wombuk salad on the packet that I found on an Aussie blog, The Old Dairy. I got excited when I found a different packet of Asian ones in cakes.

I do buy pork mince a lot. One of our favourite stirfries is Pork Mince with Brussels Sprouts. I love the Chang's recipes on that site, well the pork recipes.

Family Life

I was watching Austar during the last few days and came across the ads for the new shows starting up. One was about the family unit. Not sure I like it, but it looked interesting. It is called The Family.

Since I am posting on this blog every day this month for Blogtoberfest, and the theme if desired today is clocks, I will start there today.

I woke at 3.30 this morning. I was expecting the alarm to go off at some point. My daughter and my husband were to leave home at 5.30 to be at the airport about 11 to have lunch and be in time for 12 when the others turned up. The alarm worked fine, then woke me to say goodbye. I finally woke at 9.30, the fire had already been stoked for me which is just as well, and I had one hour before I had to take our youngest daughter who is 7 to a double birthday party.

At the airport, the other early bird was a girl who lives an hour down the road from us on the way to the airport. Her parent(s) couldn't sleep and decided they may as well drive. My husband made very good time, he may be home before tea, or around 7. We have been having tea later and later, and I don't suppose it will improve with daylight saving tonight. I think they may as well have permanent daylight saving rather than keep cribbing weeks off each end, a little this year a little the next, you know. It makes it really hard where I live, sort of a slow death by tiredness. Maybe I will just have to buy an evaporative airconditioner to make summer a time to recoop from the early rising springtime. Just glad I don't have babies anymore. It used to be quite hard, don't think I would have survived the change in daylight savings then. Anyway I have forgotten what I didn't like about it particularly these days as winter has the habit of making you forget summer. I just know originally at the date it was every year it was a nice family time when it changed back, this was going back before it was first moved for Moomba.

As I write this my daughter is going on her first international flight. I hope the warmer temperatures help her cold and that the jetlag (if you get it for a shorter flight) doesn't make her feel awful with the cold. My husband has a 5 1/2 hour drive home, but I think it only took 5 hours to get there. The last bit is the hardest with the real danger of roos on the road. Joolz said one day they are no match for cars, which is true. But, I was in a doctors surgery once and there was a very shook up guy who had had a recent prang with a roo, and he was talking about it with the others there. At the time the roos tended to eat grass right next to the road as there was a drought on.

I have a bullbar just in case, though I am quite careful. I remember years ago that the fan? in our car went through the battery, not sure what we hit. Apparently that doesn't happen with the newer cars. That was what I was concerned about. The plastic over my lights has been broken on one side, I should really see if I can get a replacement.

Anyway, my husband is stopping off at my Mum's for a break. Mum has all these clothes that other people in the family can't use anymore, like shirts which may come in handy when my son leaves to go to his brothers. He wants to find work there for the summer. I'm not even sure he has a button up shirt. I need to go to the regional centre 1 1/2 hours away to get him something nice to wear to his high school graduation this year. He has already graduated VCE, he is repeating English (unit 3 or 4 well both something to do with a sequence), but still doing a full load since there is no 10% penalty anymore. He will pick up a 6th subject. He is repeating chemistry, methods and specialist, this time doing specalist by correspondence. I think this is great as there is low contact hours at the uni he wishes to get into.

He is picking up biology. Mid year exams he got an A for Chemisty and a B- I think for Biology. So it is worth thinking about if someone is in a similar situation with a bright child who hasn't done as well as you would have liked first time.

So while we are waiting for time to tick down my 12 year old is doing cupcake experiments, rather proper patty cakes, for a school project. While her sister was at the party we walked to the shop to get some ingredients, then she bought eggs, as I haven't had a fruit order for ages. I had a very exact menu plan, I got some extra money I am supposed to be saving, but it has gone on last minute things for the trip, well not all of it. Also, airport parking. Hopefully it didn't cost the whole $49.