Holiday Shopping

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I rarely purchase impulsively because on the days I am in the office I am simply too busy to be interested in wandering around the city to look for stuff to buy.  Since we live in a semi-rural area I have to make a specific trip for what I need so unplanned buys rarely happen.

Holidays seem to be a different story because I actually have time to stop and look around.

This is a fun post to share my purchases from today.

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Peanuts, pomegranate molasses, facewash and moisturiser was my haul for today.

We went to the A1 Lebanese Bakery because my daughter wanted pomegranate molasses for a salad she is making for Christmas lunch.  It seems to be a relatively common ingredient in Middle eastern cuisine and since I was not sure how easy it would be to source at home, I bought a bottle.

The peanuts were from a stall at the Queen Victoria Market and I thought the price was pretty good – $7/kg so I bought a kilogram.  I plan to use these to make my own peanut paste in my new blender.

Finally, the facewash and moisturiser are Sukin, which is the regular brand that I buy.  The small chemist next to the entrance to the market had a special with 20% off all Sukin products so I could not pass up an easy saving.

I am not sure that I would have ever bought pomegranate molasses if I had not been here as would not have known what to do with it but the other things would have been bought at some time.

Do you buy ‘different’ things when you are on holidays and more relaxed?

 

Christmas Cheer

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Unlike some other years I have written very little about Christmas this year.

We decided not to put up the tree this year as we will be away for Christmas.

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Yesterday we had a small Christmas celebration with my immediate family as we will not see them on Christmas Day.  We went out for a casual lunch, then went to the local playground so that our 2 granddaughters could use up some excess energy.  Finally, we adjourned to my brother’s place were we shared some sweet nibbles and drinks while we opened our gifts.  It was a low-key but perfect day.

The only thing that I had not done was send cards/letter/emails.  This afternoon I sat done and wrote a generic letter, added a couple of relevant photographs and sent it off to various corners of Australia and overseas with a couple of clicks.  I still have a small number of cards to post and I will do that tomorrow and hopefully they will still arrive in time for Christmas.

I am not sure how many blog posts will happen over the next week so I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a safe and peaceful New Year.

 

Tomato Trial

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I apologise for the break in posts but my computer access has been somewhat curtailed due to some repairs to the main computer.  It is all resolved, thanks to the local computer shop, and we are back in business.

Today I want to share my latest success in preserving our bumper harvest of cherry tomatoes.

After removing the stalks and rinsing the tomatoes, I blitzed them in the blender.

My dehydrator has solid sheets for making fruit leathers so I poured the resulting puree onto the sheets.

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Here is the same tray after drying for about 8 hours.

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I removed the dried tomato and broke it up.

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It was quite leathery and pliable so still had some moisture.  I returned the pieces to the dehydrator and dried them some more.

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Finally, I ground the dried pieces in the blender and this is the result.

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From a couple of kilos of cherry tomatoes I have 1 jar of powdered tomato concentrate.  This can be blended with water to make tomato paste which I can use on pizzas or added directly to casseroles or soups.  I am sure there will be a hundred and one uses for it and the great part is that I have a single jar which stores easily in the door of the refrigerator.

What I Wear – First 2 Weeks

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It is almost 2 weeks since I began my latest project of keeping track of what I wear.  The purpose of this exercise is to identify what (if any) clothes just hang in my wardrobe without being worn.  I don’t think there are any that fall into this category but I want to prove that to myself.

Since I began recording what I wear each day (via Instagram), I have worn 4 different dresses, 2 skirts, 4 tops and 5 pairs of shorts/trousers.

The weather has been quite changeable so the jeans and 3/4 sleeve top from last Friday were set aside when the weather became quite hot during the week but today has been cool and wet so I was back in the jeans and top.  In fact, tonight I have even dragged out my polar fleece jacket which has not been worn for several months.  Conversely, the shorts and top from last Sunday were worn again yesterday when it was 34C.

I have one more week at work before 2 weeks of holidays so it may well be the New Year before I repeat any of the outfits I have worn to work so far.

This is one of the dresses I have yet to wear this month.

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My next challenge will be working out what I need to pack for 6 days in Melbourne over Christmas.  I will leave my final decision until the day before we travel so I have a better idea of what the weather is likel to be while we are there.

I am working from the rather slow laptop as we have some issues with the desktop computer so posts may be somewhat intermittent until we get that sorted out.

Breakfast

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I am working from home today and I had time to try out my new blender for the first time.  I decided to make a green smoothie for breakfast.

Here are the ingredients all prepared and ready.

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There is kale, celery and an orange from the garden, pineapple which I had already chopped so it is probably a bit smaller than necessary, 2 cubes of frozen passionfruit pulp.  This was from our vine a few months ago.  The small bottle contains powdered ginger.  The root ginger came from my sister’s garden and I dehydrated and ground it.  I added a teaspoonful to my smoothie.

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Loaded into the blender and ready to go.  I added about 300ml of water.

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The end result.  I had a large glass of this for breakfast and have enough for tomorrow as well.

This was an easy and successful introduction to my new, high-speed blender and I am looking forward to using it to create many more healthy options to add to our diet.

It’s Here!

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After much debate and research, I finally ordered a high-speed blender on Sunday.

3 days later it is here.

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Out of the box and set up.

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Bright, shiny and red………of course.

There are instructions to read and recipes to try, but that will have to wait for another day.  I am at home on Friday some perhaps I will be able to try it out then and share some more details then.

Weekend Washing

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You all know the never-ending cycle of housework – washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning.  That seems to be the routine every weekend as I ready myself for the week ahead.

This weekend was all about washing, and not just clothes, although I did that as well.

I washed my car which is a fairly rare occurrence.  It positively sparkled in the sunshine by the time I had finished.

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Then GMan and I washed 3 sides of the exterior of the house.  The long side which faces the street and the 2 ends are done and we will tackle the long, back wall next weekend.  The part that we have done is relatively easy as there is verandah on those 3 sides so access is not difficult.  The last side is a different story as the house is high-set at the back.  We will assemble the scaffolding to reach this part.  It takes a lot more time as you constantly need to move and re-position the scaffolding along with climbing up and down but it will be worth it.

Finally, I washed and cleaned all of the kitchen windows.  There will be more to do once the back wall is cleaned but it is definitely a job worth doing.

Christmas – Traditions & Expectations

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It is less than 3 weeks until Christmas and there is no doubt that it is one of the most stressful times of the year.  This is partly due to the pressure we put on ourselves as a response to the media and advertising hype that invades our lives.

The images and expectations are thrown at us every day but reach a crescendo at this time of the year.  Perfect gifts, on-trend decorating, mountains of food and joyous relationships are portrayed in all types of media.  We have been exposed to these expectations for our whole lives so we continue to burden ourselves with our quest for the ‘perfect’ Christmas.

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Then there are traditions.  The definition of this innocuous little word is:  “the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way”  Many families have traditions around Christmas and this can be a lovely touchpoint, especially for children.  It could be putting out reindeer food on Christmas Eve, hanging stockings on the end of your bed, going to Midnight Mass, viewing Christmas lights in your suburb or putting up the Christmas tree on a certain date.  All of these and many other little things are what can make Christmas special for your family.

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The problem with traditions is that they can actually be a cover for a guilt trip.  You know the scenario – “but we always have hot turkey lunch” – when you would really rather be playing cricket at the beach and eating a burger from the deli across the road.  That might be a bit extreme but it is an example of the sort of situations that arise every year in many families.

Expectations need to be modified as children grow and families take on different forms.  What is a fun activity for a 5 and 8 year old might be utterly tiresome for those same children 10 years later.  Trying to force them to conform to ‘traditions’ that you set up will only drive them away.

The addition of partners adds a whole new dimension as they have their own family and that needs to be respected, too.  In time there will be grandchildren and the whole cycle begins again.

The end result of striving for the perfect Christmas is generally less than perfect and can be downright horrible so perhaps it is time to reassess.  Set realistic goals, enjoy the moment and don’t set yourself responsible for the behaviour and happiness of others – that is their responsibility.

What is your experience?  Do you have traditions?  Are you prepared to let things go as circumstances change?

Votes for Women

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Tonight GMan and I had the opportunity to see a pre-release screening of the film, Suffragette.

While current discussions are centred around the gender pay gap and domestic violence against women it was interesting to take a look back at the struggles of women a century ago.

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This was a powerful depiction of the violent struggles of women in Britain during the second decade of the twentieth century.  Some of the messages are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago.

I would highly recommend this film.

Tracking 2015 – November

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November blew the averages completely out of the water!

BudgetingJanuary – $5,144.53
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,350.56
April – $2,385.31
May – $5,961.54
June – $2,939.07
July – $3,537.09
August – $3,601.19
September – $9,406.95
October – $7,490.03
November – $15,707.97

This was a huge month in terms of spending but one that we knew was coming up.  I mentioned in September that we had paid $3,050 for a deposit on a hybrid battery system for our solar panels.  The system was installed a couple of weeks ago and we paid the balance of just over $12,000.  This outlay will reap benefits in increased refunds for the power which we feed back to the grid.  Our monitoring system is showing a significant change already.  Our meter was read a couple of days ago so the next 3 months will tell the story.

Food accounted for just over $600 this month as I stocked up on bulk dry goods which I tend to buy every few months.  We bought travel insurance for our 2016 trip as well as attending a family funeral interstate.

The year is coming to a close and at the end of next month I will collate the figures for all of the categories and then add in the fixed spending such as mortgage, insurances, rates and so on to discover how much we actually spent in a full year.

There have certainly been some revelations during this year of tracking our spending.  I will not be documenting our spending in detail on the blog during 2016 but I am inspired to continue the process for our own interest.  It will be good to compare year on year, too.

Do you track your spending?