sunday suppers.

i managed to survive my first week of first time work! i even managed to attend a few social gatherings and rustle up dinner most nights too! more than a little bit proud of myself...
this week i thought i'd keep myself on track by getting a bit of meal planning happening, i've even got a theme to cook by...




cooking from the freezer!
our freezer is looking fairly packed at the moment... after a few bulk purchases of meat, over a fair few weeks, we're well and truly stocked up and i think it's time we start getting through some of it!

on monday we'll have homemade chicken kievs (chicken breast with garlic butter in the middle wrapped in prosciutto and tin foil and baked for an hour or so), teamed with a heap of salad and maybe some potato rosti too (need to get through our potatoes!)
for tuesday i'm thinking some lamb cutlets, some steamed vegies and maybe some smashed potatoes with fresh rosemary from the garden.
wednesday, i've got the day off so i might fish a roo roast out of the freezer, and fix it with all the delicious roasty trimmings :D
thursday, i've another day off, but have a tutoring session arranged for the evening. sausages on the bbq and some salad. too easy!
and friday, i'm working til late so maybe some kind of fresh fish, with some oven chippies and a big whack of salad.
saturday, i'm dining alone! thinking of a chicken stirfry, lots of vegies and some noodles. that way there'll be enough for dinner and for lunch the next day :D
and sunday, well i might play that one by ear... i'm not sure if bb will be joining me or not, so i'll wait and see before i plan anything!

do you meal plan? kate, wrote about her meal planning the other day and i must admit, it has inspired me more than a little. i only wish that our meals were planned around what was in our garden and coming fresh to our plates. something to look forward to for the future perhaps...

getting my wool on.

so as i anticipated, full time work is taking some getting used to...
i'm still managing to get time to get my daily fix of wooly crafts though...

a row here and there on my granny stripe.. with every new row it gets a little warmer :D




and i've started joining my bamcal squares together too! it would most definitely be ridiculously overwhleming if i left them til december when they were all done!




oh and i'm working on another beanie too, this one will make my tally 5. i'm hoping to get it finished at ncb tonight and maybe i'll have a bit of a show and tell tomorrow?

how's your week going?

catching up.

oops, it's been a week! and looking through my phone, i don't even have any photos taken to play along with sunday snippets!
i've been keeping up with my goal (of two weeks ago!!) to be more of a morning person, and it's coming along nicely. i managed to drag my butt out of bed at around 7.15-7.30 that first week, and then 7 this week just gone. it's resulting in more breakfasts being eaten (also cooked, bb is loving it!), lunches being prepared on occasion, and a fair bit of housework getting done too!



the only issue i'm having, that by dinner time, i'm absolutely exhausted! i'm not game to admit how many times in the past week we've had take-out. i'm more than a bit disappointed in myself.
i think i may need to start working dinner organisation into my morning routine, that way when i get home from work and am absolutely pooped, i have something ready to pop in the oven or a pan.
hrmmm yes, might be an idea.




in other news, i start official full time work tomorrow. i've been working casually my entire working life, so this full time thing might take a bit of getting used to... but not the holidays and sick leave, that will be awesome ;)



i've also started on a new crochet project. after seeing some crafty ladies getting their granny stripe on, i just HAD to get in on that action!




the photos from this post (with the exception of the crochet one, that was a progress report from the other day) are from a whirlwind trip to the country where i managed to squeeze in a night drinking with my mum, a quick op-shop trip with brianna, a ridiculously fancy fine-dining lunch, a pub trip with many games of pool, oh and driving there and back! big 24 hours!

how has your week been? any quick weekend trips? new crafty endeavours?

sunday snippets.

a snippet of my week, in the form of terrible quality iphone photos.



delicious chocolate mousse. definitely big enough to share though, will know for next time ;)



pedicure turned spa pedicure to while away a lonely saturday night.



breaking the third opped frame, bought to frame the beautiful tea towel that i received in an op shop swap. bb is convinced this third break is the universe trying to tell me something... i'll give it one more go though.



a delicious birthday cake for a co-worker. made from this recipe. cathie assured me this was a very forgiving recipe, even when i was a quarter cup of flour short and own the dodgiest oven around. and she was right! it rose beautifully and was scrumptious and so rich and moist.



and finally, brunch from this morning. so. very. sweet.

what have you been up to this week? you can share some pictures and join in!

you so square!

once again, i've managed to get my bamcal squares done at the very start of the month.
i think my quick hooking is to do with the excitement of the patterns being released at the very start of the month, it's a bit like christmas morning, logging onto ravelry to see if they've been released and what they are. might be just me though...

i was pretty pleased with myself for getting these ones done. they all presented a bit of a challenge as they all had something a little bit different to them. i learned some new things!



they still all need to be blocked out, they're all looking a bit wonky...

and i think i might start putting them together soon too! if i wait until they're all done in december, it'll probably seem like way to big a job and they'll just sit in piles forever!
just have to work out how i'm going to join them...

do you have any joining recommendations?

outside.

this morning, i headed outside. i had some spare time before i started work because i'd gotten up nice and early (morning person routine, getting established :D), so i thought i'd make a start on a gardening project i've been putting off for a looooooong time!

there's a narrow garden bed that runs between the fence and the driveway that has been in a state of utter neglect for a little while. my neighbour that sold up and moved out at the end of april last year was the sole caretaker of this little garden strip and i don't think it's really been touched since! poor little garden bed!

so today was the day, i had a spare half hour, and i made a good start! i've gotten a good two metres clear of weeds.
i left a few bits and pieces where they were, namely a cute little daisy and some baby sprigs of ivy. hopefully they'll grow and grow and provide some nice ground cover :D




and hopefully i'll get a bit more time this week to tackle the other 15 or so metres of garden bed there is left to weed...




there's a LOT more plants in this section but there is also some almightily large weeds.
this one might take me a while...

playing along with my place and yours again. you can join in too!

what i'm reading... february.

one of my 2012 goals is to read a book a month. last month, i successfully (finally!) got through this book, which took me almost a year! it wasn't a bad read, i'm just a bit of a spontaneous reader. i'll be in the mood for a read, read a third of a book and then not touch it again for a month or two!
this one took me even longer to read because i managed to lose my copy in june, only to find it in a second hand book store again in august!

this month however, i'm making a flying start!
i've chosen to read...



after a fair few people had said some good things on 'the twitter'

it was actually the first purchase we made on bb's christmas present...




a kindle! thanks to the delightful wes, for tweeting about the super bargain price!
i'd never used one before and was a whole lotta skeptic, but i do kind of love it :D
it takes all the awkwardness out of reading because of the buttons on either side.

i'm over half way through this book and although there's been a couple of moments where my inner prude has recoiled somewhat, the large majority of the text is quite easy to read. there have actually been a couple of instances where i've laughed out loud, scaring the crap out of bb, or whoever is on the train/bus next to me.

definitely a page turner, er, button clicker, so far. i don't think i'll have much trouble getting through it by the end of the month ;)

what are you reading at the moment?

this week...

i'm going to try being a morning person on for size.
i am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a morning person. generally i roll out of bed at most an hour before i start work/have planned commitments that day and then spend that hour or less frantically getting myself ready to get out the door.

this week though, i'm going to try and change that.
my plan is to wake up that little bit earlier, actually get out of bed a bit earlier, and seize the day a bit!
maybe i'll get some housework done, or go for a walk, or, heck, maybe i'll have time to write some blog posts!
this early morning lark should help with my goal from a few weeks ago of eating breakfast daily too... after that one week of breakfasting, i fell off the wagon miserably. but these two goals should go hand in hand :D




i'll also be finishing off a beanie (hopefully) when i head to SAY tonight and NCB on wednesday (again, hopefully. last time i said this on my blog, i failed to make it to either!).
and i'll be finishing up my BAMCAL squares for february. i've finished two, just one to go now :D

what are you up to this week?

green love.

thought i'd break this little bloggy drought i've got happening by playing along with vic and her meme, my place and yours. the theme this week is green. i thought i'd share some of my green growth as the other day, when i was searching my blog archives for a suitable before picture, i stumbled on a few pictures of my fledgling garden. oh how it's changed :D

i shared these 'before' pictures in dec 2010.


when i first planted the jasmine vine in the ground after i saved it from a building site (which funnily enough is still a building site, 14 months on and they're still building...)


and when i first started training the ivy to grow along the fence to cover it up! boring fences are boring!

but look at them now!


the jasmine has gone crazy! i think the regular 'trimmings' that it gets from the local possums is contributing to it's mammoth growth :D and i'm in the process of training it to grow along the fence too! soon there'll be no fences to be seen! and because it's not my fence, i don't have to worry about what the weight of the plants is doing to the structural integrity of the fence, huzzah!


and check out this ivy! there isn't much fence to be seen on this side any more! now to start training it to grow up the garage wall and around the corner to the next fence :D

thank goodness for plants that grow like weeds!

do you have anything green to share? you can join in too!