A determined boy on a scooter, a younger brother moving as fast as he can, a mother watching her two boys with pride and a wee bit of concern.
On Friday, Leanne and I made a trip to a scrapbooking shop that was having 30% off to celebrate their second birthday. I came home with a nice little stack of Bazzill and some lettering. After a play in the playground at Maccas, it was home time for little boys to nap and for Helen to go home and have her own nap before going to work that night. Just as we arrived back at the house, Ethan begged to show me his scooter skills and the speed at which he can ride his scooter. Luckily they live on a pretty quiet street which meant that Ethan was able to race up and down the street, whilst I rolled round on the bitumen having a ball taking photos. Joshua was more than happy to to race up and down the street following Ethan as fast as his hands and knees can take him. Leanne got to act as mother and shepard Joshua from not racing too far away 🙂
This is my Mum. Well her interpretation of a drawing that one of her students did of her a few years ago. Mum and a few of her friends are responsible for organising activities for the night meetings of Queensland Quilters. This month’s challenge was to make a self-portrait quilt.
The blue and green fabrics have been painted with sun reactive paints with leaves, lace and shells used as masks. To stitch the face she used the Stitch a Sketch technique by Faye Anderson in the June 2005 issue of Quilters Newsletter Magazine. She has a few more things to quilt on there yet but I wanted to show it off 🙂 I took it along to the meeting on Tuesday night as Mum is currently spending 3 weeks exploring the country west of Longreach and Birdsville. We had a phone call from her the other day and she is having a ball, lots and lots of native plants and birds to look at as well as seeing some very different country side to what she has seen before.
This was the roughly planned itinerary however I know it has changed since they have been out there due to where the rain has fallen and what creeks have flooded etc. I really recommend jumping on to Google Earth or Google Maps or whatever you like to explore the earth from above with.
To start at Longreach on May 2nd and travel to Birdsville by the shortest route. From Birdsville, travel down the Birdsville Track to Goyder’s Lagoon Waterhole where we will spend a couple of nights. From there we go to the Warburton Creek crossing, past which we turn back and travel up the northern side of the Warburton / Diamantina River, between the river and the bottom of the Simpson desert. This route will eventually bring us out at Birdsville or the Big Red sand dune west of Birdsville.
From Birdsville the course will be north by north west to Muncoonie Lakes from where we begin to follow the watercourses that flow here from the north.
Immediately above the lakes, the Mulligan River joins Eyre creek and after negotiating their confluence we will follow the Mulligan north through the western edges of several cattle properties. Crossing the Bedourie – Ethabuka access road we continue on up the river until we are near the source and as far as we are allowed to go. This point is on Glenormiston station and from there we travel back to Ethabuka, where we will stay, provided our interest is sustained, for 5 days. From Ethabuka we will return to Longreach by the most direct route hoping to arrive on May 23 or the morning of 24th.
Another layout! and I even have more stacked waiting to be scanned. This basic design and products for this layout come from one of the classes that Helen Williams taught at the Stitches and Craft shows this year. Everything apart from the letter stickers (MAMBI) and cardstock (Bazzill) are Heidi Grace. Isn’t the HG paper sweet? I coloured the heart with Ranger’s Adirondack Alcohol Ink so it wasn’t stark white.
My nieces and nephews are 15 900km away on the other side of the world or the better part of AU$3000 in travel costs. Which kind of makes it hard when you want to go over and have a play. One of my friends, Leanne has two little boys and they are not 15 900km away in fact they are only 10 mins or so away. Ethan and Joshua are always up for a play and it is always nice to spend some time with Leanne. Ethan is always ready to show me what he has been doing and to play trains or build blocks.
I popped over yesterday for a visit and Leanne grabbed my camera and took a few photos of the boys and I. Well mainly Ethan and I, Joshua is 14mths old and much prefers crawling round to sitting still for very long. Then before I knew it was time for me to go to work and for the boys to have a nap.
I grabbed this one of Joshua whilst he was strapped in the high chair and not going anywhere 🙂
We had a big lunch at work today to celebrate 1000 working days without a lost time injury. Not many stores reach 1000, some stores have trouble getting to 50 days. Not one to miss a free lunch and my boss not one either we re-arranged my shift for today so that it would mean that I would get the lunch 🙂 They put on a nice spread for us with a mini BBQ grill in the tearoom which made the storeroom smell like a BBQ mmm. It made it mighty hard to work though, I was writing up milk credits and this smell was wafting through and making my stomach grumble.
More importantly though today is Tuesday and in two sleeps I will be heading off into the big Blue yonder which is the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival which is held in Byron Bay over the Easter long weekend. I have wanted to go to the Blues Fest year for years now and I am finally making the trip. I am making the trip alone though. I am heading 2.5hrs south of Brisbane to a town which I barely know, to a festival where I know no one for the lesser part of six days.
There is one thing I know I am looking forward to and that is Byron Bay Organic Doughnuts. Sigh those were so good at Woodford. I am also looking forward to spending some time at the beach. I haven’t gone to the beach in so long.
Matthew doesn’t see why I am slightly daunted over the whole shebang. That was till Mum pointed out the fact that Matthew could find and make friends with a broomstick (ok so she didn’t use those words, but Matthew is way more extroverted than I am). We can be walking through the shopping centre or in the city and people will randomly come up and say “Hey Palsson” and start chatting to him.
I may be slightly daunted about the trip but I am also extremely excited. I can’t wait to discover new bands and see old faves for the first time live or for the x time. I mean seeing Bo Diddley will be so cool. We have a compilation CD called Rock Around the Clock that Pabbi picked up for $9.95 at Brashs back in the day (early 90’s) that has Hey Bo Diddley on it. Such a rockin’ song. Closer to home, I am really extremely looking forward to finally finally seeing The Waifs and Paul Kelly and the list goes on and on.
Tomorrow is Wednesday and Andrea turns 21.99726 on Wednesday so we are celebrating. She is taking the off work and we will have fun, till I have to go work in the arvo. Andrea turns 22 on Thursday but I won’t be there, hence the celebration of her turning 21.99726.
My cousin Erica is up in Brisbane at the moment for a training course with her new job so on Sunday we picked her up from the airport and high-tailed it to The Farm for arvo tea with Julie, the boys and Grandad. Then we spent an hour or so trying to display the wedding photos from the other weekend on the TV so that everyone could see them but without the cables to do the job easily we didn’t get very far.
In planning dinner for Sunday night I had to take into plan the Pesco-vegetarian preference of Erica and the red meat carnivore that is my younger brother, who whilst he likes fish would rather eat his own leg before he had prawns or other shell fish. That threw my idea of actually cooking seafood paella in my paella pan which thus far has only been used to make curries out the window. As I was flicking through magazines I had out from the library I came across a recipe for Pasta e Fagioli in the May 2005 issue of Delicious. That looks good I thought and hopefully the men in my family won’t kick up too much of a fuss about the lack of meat in it.
I come from a culinary upbringing (doesn’t that sound swish) where the recipe mostly serves as a starting point and by the time you are eating the meal you are quite a few steps removed from the start. This is mainly due to the addition of extra vegetables in recipes. “What! The only vegetable called for is for a small onion and a stalk of celery? That is not much of a meal. Add some shallots as well and whatever else you can find is in the freezer/fridge/pantry.” Our freezer is a sight to see as it contains many Tupperware containers of chopped celery, shallots, capsicum, mushrooms etc that at a moments notice can be dumped into a saucepan to beef up the nutritional and taste content of a meal. Consequently, my ability to give you an accurate measure of what went into the soup is about as likely as seeing pigs fly. Unless you can follow the measure of half a tightly packed medium Tupperware container? No? I didn’t think so.
Garlic – a couple of cloves, minced. (I mince up garlic and freeze it in teaspoon sized foil packets)
Onion – diced
Carrot – diced
Celery – thinly sliced Shallots
Capsicum – diced
Pasta – soup pasta is good, or any small pasta – 150g or so
Beans – cannelloni and borlotti (3x400g tins or so serves 6 easily, drained)
Passata di Pomodoro – tablespoon or two
Tomatoes – 1x400g tin, whole and roughly chopped
Baby spinach – a handful or two
Vegetable stock – how much depends on how much soup you are making (9/10 times we used powder, it is easy)
Either on the stove top or microwave cook the pasta till it is about 7/8 cooked.
Meanwhile heat some olive oil in a large saucepan and soften the onion. Add the garlic and whatever other veggies you are using and cook for a couple of minutes till the veggies start to soften.
Roughly mash one of the tins of beans and add to the saucepan along with the other tins of beans,tomatoes and a little bit of Passata.
In the empty tins pour in some boiling water and a little bit of stock powder and pour into the soup (you get your money’s worth this way, you won’t be throwing out any little bit of flavour). How much stock you add really is up to you as it depends on a) how much liquid you want in the soup and b) what quantities of vegetables you have used initially.
Bring this to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes and then add the cooked pasta, simmer for a couple more minutes and then stir through a couple of handfuls of baby spinach (basil could also work nicely here I think) allowing it to wilt a bit in the hot soup and serve with some crusty bread.
In the batch I made today I also added a couple of slices of roast capsicum that I had cut into thin strips to give add some more texture and flavour.
Grandad was wolfing it down and I can’t remember he if only had seconds or had thirds as well. The Palsson men didn’t complain too much about the lack of meat in it and the rest of it also quite enjoyed it. For dessert we had a chocolate self-saucing pudding but that will have wait till next time as I have no photo.
