Now, where were we again…

Hmm. That’s right. Housework and all that stuff. Doing ok-ish generally, I am. The house is clean for at least a couple of hours a week (yes, that period of time between the cleaner leaving and anyone getting home), the washing is done (although the machine does a better job if I actually TURN IT ON and not just think I have!) and {gasp} meal planned a little. We’ve just got ahold of another fridge for the shed and it has a freezer, so I will be able to reassess my shopping habits including maybe buying more bread so we don’t have a Breakfast Situation. And speaking of shopping habits… I didn’t for AGES, then practically had to sell a kidney to pay for the million bucks worth of groceries I had to get!

Although the kids were pretty chuffed going into school with their two completed earn and learn thingies in the first WEEK! Eh, not going to do it again for at least four weeks, so the two completed sheets are probably the ONLY sheets we’ll complete in the next month or so. Ah well, these things happen. And now we have toilet paper, and toothpaste and tinned tomatoes and chocolate, everyone is happy.

Meal planning – well, I did something sensible before I even started it this week. I did a MEAT INVENTORY! This was partially in preparation for swapping meat out to the new fridge, and partly because how the hell does one work out what one is going to eat if one doesn’t know what one has in the freezer. Then I wrote a list of the meals I could make and arranged them in some kind of order. WHAT?!?! You mean that’s how EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE meal plans? It’s so damn simple, dude. Ok, in my defence, normally I am trying to do this and work around shift work, two meal times every night, forgetting to get meat out in the morning – or the night before in summer when it’s too hot to leave meat on the sink for ten hours… for the next month or so, there’s someone home early enough to get the meat out if I forget!

• Saturday – the sauce from here but with meatballs from the supermarket. (Troops were under-whelmed, although I am blaming the supermarket meatballs  and lack of chilli and will try them again with home made meatballs and chilli)
• Sunday – hamburgers with vegies for the boys and salad for us
• Monday – Italian chicken mini roasts for the grown ups and things on sticks for the offsprings
• Tuesday – Spag bol
• Wednesday – Potato pie for the three of us what likes it, and left over bol for the one that does not!
• Thursday – Steaks
• Friday – Chicken Schnitzel for the boys, chicken stir fry for us
• Saturday – Recipe Night
• Sunday – lamb roast

How’d you like them thar apples, hey? Not only have I meal planned for an entire week, I’ve thought about next weekend as well. The cunning plan is that I try out a recipe on a Saturday when I don’t have loads on.  And it doesn’t matter so much of a Saturday if dinner’s pants… something else can be acquired and the kiddies can go to bed late if I try to poison them.

OOh, and I’ve even baked! Hedgehog, chocolate cake, rocky road and dodgy jelly slice. I’ve made the jelly slice twice now, and while it tastes ok… looks weird. Last time, tried to pour the jelly straight onto the gooby white stuff. This time, I moved the stuff away from the side of the container to see if it set. Jelly UNDER the biscuit bit. Weird. Memo to self. Don’t do that again.

Possibly should stick to the chocolate. I am GOOD at chocolate. (So good, I appear to have run out of cocoa. Oops.) I have been searching for an easy chocolate cake recipe to make for lunch boxes and I appear to have struck solid gold with the one from Merle’s Kitchen. She was on Masterchef – last year, I think, and is the Queen of the CWA. I was a bit suss on the chocolate cake – it’s basically chuck everything into a bowl, whiz it up and bung it in the oven. Awesome. (Recipe to follow because I am too lazy to drag myself away from Eurovision! Summary: too much wind machine, not really enough acrobats, needs more death metal. But you should buy her book anyway. SIMPLE recipes with normal ingredients. Noice.)

Not too horrid all up. I could possibly rest on my laurels for a minute or two… Sunday night, house is reasonably tidy, last load of washing is creating havoc in the machine, lunch boxes are made, there’s food in the cupboards and treats in the fridge… family stuff happened, social life happened and stuff got done. I call that a win.

Oops, I did it again…

Forgot to post, that is. Well, I’ve been busy… no, really. I actually have been busy. Busy being a bit emo an’ that. Yes, I, Harriet Archer, raconteur and bon vivant, mis-user of commas, albeit reasonably good with the apostrophe – which is, if you look at it from the right angle, an upside down comma, so in theory, I should tend toward overuse. Or not, as the case may be – but I digress, I have been in the grip of a Funk.

May is not my favourite month. Despite having not one but two primo gift receiving occasions coming my way, it’s the month where annoying and bad stuff generally happens – boyfriend bust ups (two or three), family deaths, car debacles (srsly, who really wants a new windscreen for ones birthday, hmm?), you name it - if it’s crap, May is the month it will happen. As a result, May is a month I tend to slink through, keeping my head down, the emo hair in my eyes and the sad sack looser tunes on high rotation on the ipod. It’s a month where I have discovered I should really avoid the champagne as it just leads to trouble (not to mention the racoon eyes and horrendous hangover) and stick to beer which I get sick of before it makes me cry!

However, aside from the odd champagne-induced hangover, nothing particularly bad per se has occurred in May for at least a couple of years, so this year, I accidentally decided to take a different tack and shop my way out of my devastation. This was sanctified by the sad and sorry state of my wardrobe.

Personally, I like to wear the same sorts of clothes all the time – bit of a ‘classicist’, I suppose and the clothes I wear regularly range from newish to 10+ years old. I like natural fibres, classic cuts and neutral colours. I tend to have two or three pairs of jeans in varying stages of repair, a vast number of cotton shirts, and a selection of tshirts with varying sleeve lengths in black, grey and white. I’m a fan of the cardigan and the v-necked jumper (both preferably in fine wool), and while I like dresses, the lack of a defined waist means I have but a few. For work, I have a selection of trousers (again, varying lengths) and skirts… Most of them are still perfectly fine, and mostly meet my very strict criteria of plain, simple designs in natural fibres.

However, over the last year or so, I may or may not have relocated some lard to the vicinity of my already well padded arse. And rather equally unfortunately, this had reduced my work clothing down to one pair of acceptable work trousers, one pair of dodgy work trousers, a few skirts and a couple of shirts. My long sleeved tees are all three or so years old, so getting to the point where they’re getting a bit shabby for work. Oh, and I have a couple of really dodge cardies. Hrrm. Not Happy, Jan. And not Happy Harriet due to the above mentioned general emo-ness I have been undertaking due to my May Issues. What to do, what to do?

Well, it all started with a blog post, which lead to a) discovery of www.nextdirect.com, their tall section and their free postage to Australia, and b) the purchase of a pair of trackies that not only reach my feet but are actually a lot more flattering than trackies generally are and a pair of cropped trousers that end on my ankle bone. Niiiiice, mate! Then, I got a super deal on a pair of jeans (needed to replace the ones with no top button) and I was feeling a little frisky in the shopping department!

So I did a quick assessment of the work clothes situation, figuring that relegating the older work t shirts to the home pile would cover off what to wear on the weekend and decided that what I really needed was a pair of grey wool flannel trousers and a navy blue v necked jumper or cardigan. Ok, shouldn’t be too difficult.

Bit of a trip to the Big Smokey and stepped off the train to the tune of a text message landing on my phone – oh. One of my favourite shops is having a sale. 70% off their ridiculously expensive but seriously gorgeous Egyptian cotton shirts. But their sales are always nowhere I can get to…but wait a minute…ummm….that’s right there. RIGHT across the road from where I’m standing. Oh, I’ve got twenty minutes, I can walk across the road and have a little look…

Two shirts and a cardigan later…

Well, that was strangely satisfying. Not grey flannel trousers, and the cardigan was azure rather than navy, but satisfying all the same.. And the shirt has PANSIES on it. Totally gorgeous. Couple of days later, I was wandering past another shop I like to frequent, and whadderyouknow…25% off everything. So a couple of long sleeved tees followed me out of the store. And the enabling shops I frequent like to send me little treats to encourage my bad habits – yet another sale and a $20 voucher and I’m the proud owner of a red skirt I’ve had my eye on for months.

So that’s umm, two shirts, two t shirts, a cardigan and a skirt. And what was I shopping for again?

Bumped into a friend while actually attempting to find the aforementioned and desperately needed grey flannel trousers…and a lovely little wrap skirt catches my eye. And a ridiculously expensive scarf (that I am almost too scared to wear. Oops.)

So… two shirts, two t shirts, a cardigan, two skirts and a scarf… NO grey flannel trousers, NO navy blue woollen something or other. And now I also need a plain white shirt.

Ok, the plain white shirt was easily accommodated. And then I sorta half thought about just how nice both skirts would look with a nice pair of long black boots. Now, I have NEVER owned a pair of boots (aside from Blunnies in the 90s – and I didn’t even have Blundstones. I think I had Rossi or something – skinny feet and ankles). There’s a couple of reasons for this… one is that I do in fact have fairly skinny feet and ankles, and the other is that well, when boots were first REALLY big (I’m talking late 1970s here… yes, I am the second oldest person on teh interwebs), I had my heart set on a pair of boots. They were brown. They were BEEEEEAAAAAUUUUUUUDIFUL. I wanted them. I begged, I pleaded, I cajoled and finally, Mrs Archer took me to the shops. I tried on these things of glory and…

She laughed.

A LOT.

Suffice to say, did not get the boots. And I’ve never even looked at another pair of boots since. Ever. Until now. When I think I would like a pair of long black leather boots with a little heel and maybe some buckle-y bits and bobs. Tried on a million pairs, discovered that my legs are thinner than I thought (yay) and my feet are smaller than I though (hrrm – jury’s out. 9 1/2 is VERY popular) and I don’t think I look totally ridiculous in boots either.

So, now I still need a pair of grey wool flannel trousers and want a pair of black knee boots (I came across a navy blue jumper while looking for boots. As one does. They are just so totally similar. Really. Of course one will find them in the same shop.)

Thinking a Proper shopping trip to the Big Smokey may be called for. Soon…

 

‘ello ‘ello ‘ello, wot’s all this then?

Eh, is a blog post. Shuddup. I have been busy, castles to build, kingdoms to maintain… Yes, I know. I should get my priorities straight, look after you lot and then look after my kingdom. Oh, and I have been shooting a few bubbles as well. Man, it’s no wonder I am so far behind with this blogging business – I think it’s been almost a month since my last proper post that wasn’t just a recipe! Anyway, you can thank your lucky stars I am back on track. Ish. More or less…

Now, what have I been up to aside from the shooting and the the kingdom maintenance? Well, right now I am making jelly slice. This is momentous because a) I have never made it before and b) I don’t particularly like it. I have however got some tips for next time (assuming this one is edible and people who like this sort of thing request that I make it again – or I may well leave this to Mrs Bloke to make)

Lemme see…

Washing – pretty good. Weather is pants, but I’m managing. Airers are in full use, as is the dryer, and I really think I will invest in two more airers which should see me out. I mostly only dry socks and jocks and the towels and sheets, so it’s not too bad. I appear to have fixed the washing machine when I extracted a ha’penny and two bobby pins from the filter. Obviously, the washing machine is linked to a gap in the space time continuum, thus enabling ancient currency and hair devices to get stuck in the machine (I have sported variations of a bob for about a million years, and do not own ANY bobby pins!). I have also discovered that the Little Gentlemens will assist with the folding of washing in exchange for cold hard currency. This is a win. I outsource many things, so I don’t see why I can’t pay someone else to fold the bloody washing!

Meal planning – surprisingly, this has been going quite well. Ok, it normally involves me landing at the butcher five minutes before they close and getting four of everything then working when we’ll eat it when I get home BUT we’ve had some awesome meals lately. Last week, we ate out of the freezer, and again with the awesome meals! The Bloke laughs at me uproariously as he thinks it looks like I am playing some kind of bizarre game when I move around packages of meat into some kind of random order. Which reminds me… if we want to eat a delicious meal this evening (and subsequent evenings this week), somebody is going to have to go hunting for the family this afternoon.

Organisations – eh, well. Nobody’s perfect! I haven’t done filing for an age (since about last time I posted, actually – two credit card statements, but only one of everything else, so I would hazard a guess and say it’s been just over a month). The three cupboard thing is working nicely, and the Bloke and I have decided to see whether we can find a nice roll top desk for our room. I think a roll top would be rather good because they’re an attractive piece of furniture in their own right, they don’t have an available flat surface so can’t readily be used as a crap repository, and most importantly, they can be SHUT!

Generally pretty good all around, I think. I could probably do with spending an hour or six in the spare room and doing some serious chuckage of crap; and at some point, I would really like to reclaim a cupboard. The Little Gentlemens have some space in their play room where I could move the toys in the toy cupboard in the lounge room, and then I could move games into the toy cupboard and I could have the space in the toy cupboard for stuff I keep up in the Very High cupboard. Win there too, I think.

And I’ve been doing a spot of reading as well. I will have to update my 50 book challenge. April was perhaps a little light on – but I think I read three books which is pretty good (couple of wizard detectives and a ‘proper’ literary type book that’s won awards and the like). Right now, I am reading Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham. 100 or so pages into it and loads of explosions. The more stuff of his I read, the more I think he a) really likes women and b) really likes blowing stuff up. And I think also c) really likes women who blow stuff up. It’s ace.

So, a challenge? Or is that stretching the friendship? Hmmm. Maybe this challenge can be to post more often? This is not just about my organisational skills (or lack of them!) but it’s supposed to be an opportunity to write a little as well. So – challenge is three (non-recipe) posts for May! See how I go, hey?

Vegetarian Lasagne

Mrs Archer is a vegetarian. This means I have a reasonable repertoire of meals for which I can make a vegetarian alternative (and this also means Mrs A does not starve). Probably the star dish in the repertoire is my version of a vegetarian lasagne. And seeing as this is a recipe I’ve more or less made up as I go along, the quantities of the individual ingredients should be taken as a guide, depending how many starvin’ hordes you need to feed. This will make four big serves or six smaller serves.

You will need:

• Onion
• Garlic
• Ground Cumin
• Allspice
• Eggplant (one medium sized)
• Zucchini (one medium sized)
• Capsicum (one medium sized)
• Tomatoes (fresh or tinned – probably about six – eight fresh, or a couple of tins of whole peeled tomatoes or bit of both.)
• Tomato paste (small tub)
• Milk (about three cups)
• Butter (tablespoon)
• Plain flour (two tablespoons)
• Parmesan cheese (grated finely – about half a cup)
• Tasty cheese (grated – about a cup)
• Olive oil
• Lasagne sheets

Methodology:

• First, set the oven at about 175-180C
• Chop vegetables into small pieces (including removing peel from the eggplant)
• Heat olive oil in a decent sized pan
• Fry off onions and garlic in the oil once it’s hot.
• Add cumin powder and allspice to onions and garlic
• Fry for a couple of minutes
• Add eggplant and cook for 2-3 minutes
• Then add the zucchini (cook for a couple of minutes)
• Add the capsicum (cook for a couple of minutes)
• Add tomatoes and tomato paste and stir
• Simmer for 15-20 minutes until it’s reduced

While the sauce is simmering, make the cheese sauce

• Melt the butter in a saucepan
• Add flour and mix until it makes a nice roux
• Add milk and mix a little at a time while stirring constantly until all the milk is added
• Once the sauce starts to thicken, add most of the cheese and stir in until it melts

Now, it’s time to build your lasagne. I’ve found that leaving the sauce to cool down will give you a more solid lasagne. Grease the dish, and layer up sauce, cheese sauce and pasta sheets until your dish is full. Finish with a layer of cheese sauce and sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Serve with green salad and garlic bread.

Scoff.

Rocky Road

Aghast! Two posts in a weekend AND a recipe to boot! Ok, this can really only be described as a recipe in the sense that those four ingredients cook books are recipe books…

You will need:

• 500g cooking chocolate
• One bag of Pascall marshmallows
• Other stuff to go in it

You need to:

• Melt the chocolate in a big bowl
• Chuck the marshmallows and other stuff in the bowl
• Mix it all up
• Stick it in a container in the fridge to set.

(See, this is totally NOT really a recipe!)

Now, I use a bag of dark and a bag of milk chocolate Cadbury melts, because that seems to be a good, semi-sweet mixture. And Pascall marshmallows – well, the bag is the right size for that much chocolate and other stuff, and the marshmallows themselves are just the right size as well. Don’t be messing about with those swirls – bag is smaller than the normal pink and white ones so you won’t have enough marshmallow-y goodness in your rocky road.

(Chocolate melting tip for young players – skip if you’ve heard this before! Chocolate doesn’t lose its shape when it’s heated, so if you’re doing this in the microwave, I recommend heat 500g of chocolate for ONE minute, test it by giving it a stir, then heat another 20 sec at a time, stirring each time you pull it out, until it’s completely melted. Mine took around two minutes to melt – but I wouldn’t whack it in for two minutes in one go because it will probably burn. But 60-20-20-10-10  seems to work a treat!)

The batch I made yesterday had a bag of dried mixed berries* (cranberries, blueberries, cherries and something else) and a bag of flaked almonds. It is seriously delicious and just the chocolate-y goodness one needs when one is slipping into a diabetic coma from the over indulgence of chocolate this weekend anyway!

I’ve made it before with glace cherries, slivered almonds and a slug of something interesting and liquerish; and I’ve made a little kiddie version with straight milk chocolate, jelly babies, snakes, clinkers (they’re cool – when you cut it, you get a flash of colour!)

But for a very easy (and impressive) sweet treat to make… it’s really quite awesome (even if I do say so myself!)

* I just had a scruffle around in the bin in the vain hope of finding the packet for the berries. I found everything else… but no idea what brand the berries were!

Keeping Control. Sort of…

“It’s astounding, time is fleeting
Madness takes its toll
But listen closely, not for very much longer
I’ve got to keep control*”

It’s been a while… I’ve been BUSY! And yes, the last couple of weeks have been a succession of “those weeks” – and all of those “one of those weeks” have been separated nicely by one of those weekends. Complete MADNESS, I tell you. Madness. This resulted in a Decreed Pyjama Day yesterday and I have to say that it was indeed Very Nice to do absolutely NOTHING what so ever for an entire day (although I did do three or four loads of washing and baked a cake. And made hedgehog. But I didn’t do anything else, promise.)

This do nothing approach to yesterday resulted in BOTH offsprings sleeping in ’til a time that could almost be described as civilised (instead of their pre-sparrow farting habits of the last week, when at least one and generally both were up well before the first crack of dawn. The change-over from daylight savings is supposed to be conducive to the sleepins, yes? Well, not so much for my kiddies! I will probably just get them all caught up when it will be time to go back to school and getting up at 6.45am again. I would like to get rid of the matching sets of luggage they both have under their eyes before then, though.

Ok, as for the houseworkings… I think may be best described as head above water. Just. I have struggled valiantly with the concept of meal planning. While I am not prepared to declare that battle completely LOST, I am not far off. I just cannot seem to get the act together enough to say “Right, we are eating this, this and that this week” and sticking to it. The best effort I have done over the last six weeks or so was when I rocked up to the butcher five minutes before closing and bought four meals worth of meat that we worked our way through for the rest of the week.

I seem to have got myself into a rhythm with buying food. (And shock of all shocks, have a work in progress shopping list on the fridge as I type). I do a fruit and veg run on Tuesday night on my way home from work, and do a grocery order from HomeShop about every two to two and a half weeks. Whenever there’s enough on the list to do an order. Saturdays, I hit the bakery and grab bread and whatever fruit we’ve run out of during the week. That is good.

Just need to beat the whole meal planning idea into submission and take it from there!

Ok… Here’s a proposed rest of this week and next week plan. Ish.

• Saturday – pizza
• Sunday – left over pasta bake for us, burgers for the boys
• Monday – Tacos
• Tuesday – Spag bol
• Wednesday – out for dinner
• Thursday – steaks and vegetables
• Friday – Things on sticks
• Saturday – new recipe (to be determined)
• Sunday – Eggs

Ok that wasn’t that hard. Let’s see what happens during the week! I’ve had a request for sausage rolls as well, so maybe that might happen on Sunday as well.

The washing has been more or less under control most of the time – even now, it’s all washed. Just waiting on some folding – it started with the thunderbolts and lightning (very very frightening) so I just grabbed it off the line and chucked it in the baskets. In fact, I should be folding RIGHT NOW. But I’m not. (I am reigniting my writing mojo, so ner.) But yeah, one basket that needs folding and then I have two baskets left to put away.

In not unrelated news, I think my washing machine is a trifle under the weather. It sorta smells weird when I wash all day – like last weekend for instance… I turned it on about 7,30am, and stopped when it really smelled bad about 3.30pm. I suppose it’s not really designed to run for eight hours without a break. BUT that’s how I do ma washing! And you should smell it when I do heavy loads – two loads and it’s not pretty. I have requested the bloke cast a beady eye over it, and will start to investigate the possibility of a new one. Unlike the dishwasher, a washing machine is NOT an appliance I am prepared to do without for five months!

As far as the writing mojo goes… Well, my job is a bit write-y, a bit mucking about on the interweb-y, a bit doing tricky sums (well, I make the man in the computer do them, then I write about them) and a bit being nice to people. Just lately, my job has been VERY write-y (15,000 odd words for one piece and 3-4,000 for another piece in the last six weeks or so) and you know what, I think I’ve just run out of words, and my ability to construct a sentence, let alone 1,000 scintillating words for you lot seems to have flattened into oblivion! But it appears the write-y bits at work are dropping back into their more acceptable and usual position (you know, coupla thousand here, coupla thousand there…), so you never know – I may have some more words to spare for blogging!

And I have been reading quite a lot – more silly books about wizards, mostly, and a couple of teen fiction ones. One I couldn’t finish. I’m supposed to be reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt, but I haven’t been able to get hold of a copy! I am sure I have one, so I am loathe to buy it again – but I think I am going to have to!

Another ‘problem’ I’ve come across with the e-reader… never quite sure when I’ve run out of things to read until I run out of things to read!

*Lyrics from “The Time Warp” by Little Nell,Richard O’Brien,Patricia Quinn

It’s probably down the back of the couch.

Busy and stuff. Usual programming will resume soonly. Assuming I can find my way out of the washing, that is…

Summary:

1. Been ok with the food purchasing (except that we ran out of BREAD)
2. Been sucky with the meal planning (how unusual)
3. House is a bit trashy (but fix-able, assuming I get to it soon)
4. Washing is taking over the asylum (Knee high piles, I tell you!)
5. Read a couple more books. (one better than expected, one worse)
6. Been hot.
7. Then not (hence washing stockpile)
8. And had a social life (also leads to washing. And lack of postage)

Conclusion:

BACK SOON!

Not quite Martha’s Baked Ravioli

In my last post, I told you I made this…. Well. More or less made that. I had to tweak the recipe a little bit – like convert it to modern measurements and halve it as I was feeding two adults and two smallish children – not four to six GIANTS!

So here’s the recipe I more or less used

Ingredients

• slug of olive oil
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 1 cloves garlic, minced
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper (or not – I always forget the salt and pepper)
• 1 teaspoon  dried oregano
• 2 1/2 cans crushed tomatoes (two would be enough if you don’t simmer it as long as the recipe suggests)
• 500g store-bought frozen ravioli (I used tortellini. It was good)
• two handfuls of grated tasty cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and season with salt and pepper; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add oregano and tomatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, breaking up tomatoes with spoon, until sauce is thickened and reduced to about 2-3 cups, 15 minutes (less if you only use two tins of tomatoes).
2. Meanwhile, cook ravioli in a large pot of boiling salted water just until they float to the top (pasta will continue to cook in oven). Drain pasta; return to pot.
3. Toss sauce with pasta. Pour pasta into a large dish, and sprinkle with cheeses. Bake until golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool slightly before serving.

It was really delicious. We’d definitely make it again, and I think it will be a good pre-night-shift meal in that the halved version makes four good sized adult meals, and only one kid likes it – so there’s dinner for the grown ups and dinner for the next night as well. Perfect! It’s a bit time consuming due to the baking for it to be a quick during the week meal, but it’s not bad for me to make and bake to eat later.

I’m calling shenanigans…

I think I deserve an A+ this week… You know why?

Because I think I have done EVERYTHING. Oh, I didn’t make lunchbox snacks, but I have a suitable (albeit bodgy) alternative. And, I technically have an alibi for the lack of groceries until Monday, too! And the only way everything really important gets done is if there’s obvious shenanigans at work.

Starting at the start… The Bloody Washing. Well, that’s done – except for the load on the line, that is. But everything else is washed, dried, folded AND put away. Not only is this week’s washing done and dusted, the basket from last week that I started scruffling around in about Wednesday is also sorted, refolded where necessary AND put away! I have not one but two completely empty washing baskets.

Food. I even have food. Fruit and veg run was completed on Saturday morning (and a top up tonight – the local fruiterer is under new management and can I just say seriously awesome F&V. The Fruit Bats at my house have been going completely mad and consumed 3/4 of the fruit I bought and we would have run out completely by Wednesday, I would think). A grocery order was also completed and delivered last night, so we have other food and stuff as well. AND…

I MEAL PLANNED!

Crikey, should be breaking out a drum-roll for that one, I think. And not only that, two days in and we’ve eaten as planned for two days in a row.

• Monday – Spicy snags and vegies
• Tuesday -Spaghetti Bolognaise
• Wednesday – Burgers
• Thursday – Steaks/Chicken sticks
• Friday – Tacos
• Saturday – Out
• Sunday – Scratch n sniff

I’ve “shopped” for meat out of the freezer – everything we are having this week is from the freezer (and if you’re wondering what “scratch n sniff” is… it’s have a scratch around and see what you can sniff out! We’ve got loads of eggs still, and bacon and all sorts of other bits and pieces so we’ll have what we have!)

Oh, and last weekend, I made a RECIPE!!! Crikey, can I have two pluses to go with my A? Or a medal? I made Baked Ravioli except for not having any ravioli and using tortellini instead. Now, the recipe says it serves 4-6. I am not sure what sized four to six people it served – possibly giants. Because I halved the recipe, and it made four decent adult serves and two kid serves.

And best of all, the house was tidy. It was all bitty when I got home Friday, plus I had a couple of piles of Stuff that were setting up camp here and there – like on the  kitchen table and on the bench. And the desk that was in the playroom and is now temporarily living in our room and not staying there because I know for a fact it will accumulate CRAP is um. You guessed it, accumulating crap. I am trying to keep it at bay, but flat surfaces appear to have some kind of crap magnetism at our place. Not so happy about that!

But in summary, we had:

1. Clean, dry, folded clothes in their correct locations
2. Ironing done
3. The last few bits that needed labelling – got labelled
4. The kitchen table was resurrected and is now functioning as a bench again
5. Three beds were stripped and changed
6. Groceries purchased.
7. Fruit and vegetables purchased
8. Meals planned.
9. Made sandwiches for the week
10. Made stuff with leftovers for lunches.

Anyone would think life was calm and serene at Chez Archer…

Well, it really was if I think about it. Even though I had to be in two different places at the exact same time – it was only for a couple of minutes and the two places were only a couple of hundred metres apart. The Little Gentlemens didn’t feel the need to get down each other’s throats at all over the weekend – which is always a plus.

Wonder what this week will bring?

All roads lead to errr….the Market Place

 

Yes. You guessed it… We’ve been to IKEA. And it was good.

And even more miraculously, despite wandering about for the best part of three hours, we came out of there with only ONE thing that wasn’t on the list. I think that is worthy of the celebration in itself (and I am using the thing in question, so it’s all good… isn’t it? And the whole thing about the Ikea Market Place is that it’s chock full of things you didn’t know you needed)

Part of my mission over the last couple of weeks has been to improve the storage situation in this house. On paper, and if you look at square metres of storage – this house is CHOCK full of it (and if you compare it to my old house that had one single wardrobe and three small cupboards when I moved in… this house is amazing!) I think it was the going from the house of no cupboards to the house of many that lulled me into believing this house had the copious storage facilities.

As well as this, we’re all aging, maturing (allegedly) and changing our interests. Therefore our needs are also changing. For example, a few years ago, I was content with shoving all my papers into a basket and hoping for the best ( which would most likely require a direct hit of a very specific nuclear device to sort out). Over time, this became less than satisfactory, and I {gasp} started a filing system that I could work with – I loosely based it on a Kikki.K system that I couldn’t justify spending a squintillion upon (‘specially as basically, it was just a couple of lever arch files and some dividers) and voila, I had a system that worked for me – one folder for bills. One folder for warranties and the like. Magic.

BUT the folders are shoved in a dresser and hutch – very unattractive.

The Bloke’s hobby has also become a trifle more space intensive; necessitating his taking over of the dining table at least a couple of times a month. And the kids are of an age where the dreaded spectre of homework has raised its ugly head (and that is also a topic for another day… I am not the yugest fan of homework, and specially not when it’s a re-run of last years!)

However, I am digressing again… We had ONE cupboard, taken up mostly by storage of the kids craft-y stuff and the Big Kid’s models as well as  a few other miscellaneous bits and bobs that need a good home. This is the aforementioned dresser and hutch – which, while it could be an attractive piece of furniture, is a bit downtrodden and shabby.  This was partially remedied by acquiring one more cupboard – but still, it wasn’t enough. SO another cupboard has been ordered. It’s due any day… and I AM EXCITED. This new cupboard is going to be my “office” for want of a better term.  Things are going to be rearranged. Things are going to have Official Homes. I will be able to whip out the stalking gear on a moment’s notice. Crikey. I can’t wait!

And this, in a round about fashion, leads me back to Ikea (and the Market Place). The Little Gentlemens have a play room – it was originally a closed in porch that we zested up a little bit when we first moved in. I used it as a bit of a study in the early days, but as the kids got bigger, it became their playroom. We scavanged the odd bit of furniture here and there, and it did them quite nicely. But their interests have altered (who would have thought…) and they’ve grown somewhat (funny about that) so their little fold out couches were a tiny bit small. So, we’ve got rid of the crappy old desk (also known as the Crap Repository); the bazillion year old computer (as an aside… my first computer had a 2.2GB hard drive. My mobile phone could EAT IT FOR BREAKFAST!!! Ye Olde One had a 70GB hard drive – massive, hey?) is destined for the axe (literally…) and the snotty old entertainment unit that we got from somewhere or other… well, it’s going to be flat packed! We managed to acquire a small couch from a dodgy furniture seller – small, cheap, sturdy enough to take being climbed upon and wide enough for two very small arses to sit on together while playing Speed Racer or whatever it is they get up to.

After much discussion and trekking around every single solitary shop that sells furniture of any kind, we discovered we could go relatively cheap and seriously ugly; or we could go for the attractive piece of furniture and sell one of the childrens.

Or we could go to Ikea.

Which we did.

A long, skinny Expedit book-case was purchased, along with the 4×2 version  - which makes a perfectly reasonable TV unit with enough storage for game paraphernalia, dress ups, music bits and bobs… Perfect. And for quite a bit less than the really ugly cheap cupboard that was going to have to “do”.

And we got to have meatballs!

Seriously, I loves me some Ikea meatballs.