Monday Madness

I am always overcome with this urge to make things.
I want to make some of these cupcakes:



And these beautiful coffee filter roses!



This gorgeous child's travel pillow:



This super pretty whirl it lampshade:



Crochet some of these slippers:



Make some of these delicate paper cherry blossoms (I even have the branches ready to go!):



I'll eventually get to them.... Someday!
:)

Things Look A Little Different Around Here!

You may have noticed I did a major overhaul of my blog yesterday. I used the new Blogger Template Designer and I really like it!
There were so many great options to choose from and with a live demo it made tweaking so much easier.

But that won't be the only change around here. I am aiming to do more frequent posting and be a little more organised. Though I can't make any promises yet!
I have lots of photos of crafty goods to take and share, and even a special giveaway coming up soon. It is so gorgeous I know it will be hard to part with, but I would love to give it to a new home!

I have also added and "About Me" page, just click on our little family photo on the right hand side and it will take you there. It's not an essay of my life, just a few short and sweet notes on me and my family. I like to read about the people I follow so I thought it was about time I shared a little too.

I hear my girl calling.....
:)

Saturday Is For Sharing

I'm feeling like sharing today.
Saturday, sharing, yes, why not?
This is an amazingly delicious vegetarian lasagne recipe.
My favourite.
Ever!


(This is it the next day, it keeps well in the fridge and should freeze well too, though it never lasts long enough in our house to try!)

Creamy Vegetable Lasagne

Preparation time 20 minutes plus 20 minutes standing time.
Cooking Time 40-45 minutes.
Ingredients

900mL Milk
2 Shallots, sliced
2 Sticks Celery, sliced (I use the middle scrawny ones)
2 Bay Leaves
250g Broccoli, cut into small florets
2 Tablespoons Sunflower Oil
1 Onion, chopped
1 Clove Garlic, crushed
250g Mushrooms, sliced
2 Zucchini, sliced
3 Tablespoons butter
45g Plain Flour
125g Cheddar Cheese, grated
Black Pepper
180g Egg Lasagne Verdi Sheets (I use the instant Lasagne sheets as they are cheaper and much more long life in the pantry!)

Directions:

Place milk, shallots, celery and bay leaves in a pan, bring to the boil, remove from heat, stand for 20 minutes. Strain, discard shallots etc and reserve infused milk.
Cook broccoli in boiling water for 2 minutes (I do this in the microwave to save dirty dishes). Drain and set aside.
Heat oil in a frying pan, saute onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes until soft. Add mushrooms and zucchini and cook for a further 4-5 minutes. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Melt butter in a large pan, stir in flour to make a paste, add strained milk slowly, bring to the boil, whisking. Reduce heat, simmer for 1-2 minutes until thickened. Set aside about a third of the sauce. To the remmaining sauce add half the cheese, the mushroom mixture, broccoli and black pepper.
Spoon half the mixture into a shallow ovenproof dish. Top with half the lasagne sheets. Repeat and pour over reserved sauce, sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until golden and bubbling.


Even though (unlike most of my cooking) there are many dirty dishes left behind afterwards, this recipe is still a favourite at our house, so much so we had it three nights in a row when I first got the recipe!
:)

More Sweet Things...

Today was another busy day....
I guess I should start a few days ago when all this mess began....
Wednesday.
I stumbled out of bed as the baby monitor gurgled at me.
She was up. It was cold. Very cold.
I had a vague memory of my husband getting up and leaving for work and the bed was cold and empty without him. I stumbled out into the kitchen to get things going, bypassing the loungeroom to get the heater blasting.
Boil the kettle.
Heat up some milk for Eve's weet bix.
Toast on, two for me, two for Eve.
Butter in the microwave to soften from it's brick like state.
Vegemite out, lid off, ready to go.
One of the most important: Coffee!
Cup ready with the perfect amounts of coffee, sugar and cocoa powder.
Ok, so I'm ready.
As I headed off to get the little girl out of bed I heard a funny noise.
Must be my sleepy brain sloshing around up there.
I continued to change and dress Eve.
We both clung to each other for warmth as we huddled in the kitchen, me multi tasking like you wouldn't believe, while Eve did her usual HOW-DARE-YOU-PUT-ME-DOWN scream in my ears.
MUMMY CAN'T MAKE COFFEE, WEET BIX AND TOAST WITH YOU IN MY ARMS!
She gets bored, comes to the conclusion that this is not getting her anywhere and goes off to the fridge to play with her Bananas In Pajamas fridge magnets.
I continue to ignore the whooshing noise and concentrate on my coffee.
Breakfast is done!
I load up Eve's highchair with everything but my precious caffeine hit and wheel her in it into the now slightly warmer lounge room.
I sit.
I sip.
Mmmmm.
Oh hello Vegemite on toast!
Eve and I eat in peace, she stuffs her toast in her mouth faster than you could imagine. I check my emails on my little laptop and slowly start to wake up.
But that wooshing noise is still there.....
I put down my empty coffee cup and went to explore this curious noise...
It was loudest in the kitchen.
The window doesn't open in there, it is blocked off so I went to the closest one, the bathroom, next.
I opened the window and a blast of icy wind smacked me in the face.
The ground was white.
Except underneath me.....
I poked my head out and saw the problem.
Some genius had put water pipes on the outside wall of our house.
They were small, had a tiny patch of insulation and had bust open, gushing water everywhere.
I called it my temporary water feature.
So I hurried into some shoes and ran out to turn the water off.
Would have been a smart idea to fill up the kettle and water jug before dooing so but in my defence my coffee hadn't fully kicked in yet....
So I did a text a round to get our landlords number, messagged her, she called and somehow through some static I heard that a plumber would be there very soon, about 45mins.
This was at 930am.
He arrived at 230pm.
The pipes were so old and rusted they had just cracked open right under the insulation. A combination of the cold and dodgy pipes the plumber told me.
So happy to have the water back on I piled mountains of washing in the machine and looked at the pile of dirty dishes that had patiently waited for me.
Hot tap on.
Cold.......... Cold............Not even close to warm.
Turns out the pipe that burst was the one to our hot water system. Who knows what time in the night/morning it burst but we were left with no hot water until the following day.
Of course with lots of kettle boiling I managed the dishes, but poor Eve did not get her nice warm bath that night.

The next day we noticed something was wrong........ Our toilet was broken.
The cistern wasn't filling up.
Our toilet is old, very old, plastic and has the thickest calcification in the bowl it is quite DISGUSTING! It always had trouble filling up if it got too low but this time nothing was happening at all.
So I contacted the landlord.
Waited.
Waited.
Then finally today the plumber came.
Hello again!
Turns out the pipe was blocked with rust and a valve had busted too.
Yummy, RUST!

Oh and the weather took a turn. After I hung out the three loads of washing that had been waiting for me...... It decided to rain.
I reluctantly put Eve's clothes in the dryer. She needs them too much to wait.
So that has been our frustrating week so far...... This house is quite literally falling apart around us! But at least we have a roof over our heads, even if it does leak in three rooms. :)

Today I decided to break my routine breakfast. Mainly because I woke at 540am and couldnt get back to sleep. I was dreaming of pancakes......

My Breakfast:



Eve's Breakfast:



I made some of these "Watermelon" Cupcakes:





Sweet toothed little girl!



Looking forward to tomorrow as a friend and I are leaving our kids at home with the men and going off to check out some garage sales! Woohoo! Of course I have no money to spend but it'll be fun anyway.
:)