Winter Soup....

Ok guys.... I need your favorite soup receipe of the moment....

Winter is here tomorrow, need to get the stock pot boiling...

I made at least a pot of soup a week.. but I need a little variety..

I am good at just throwing in what is in the fridge and pantry, but a soup with a little more thought and planning into them taste so much better...

Big fan of red lentil and pumpkin soup... curry chickpea soup (that is what I have at the moment...) please comment with your favorite for me!!!

Another wet day here... the is fantastic to see. I have just sent the kids out to get some fresh air while the rain has paused!! Better go and check tea~

The girl has muscles....

How long have I been going to the gym for??? a month.... 5 weeks??? and i can already see the difference, especially in m upper body. Not wanted to look like Thomas from Big Brother, flexing in front of mirrors, but I can tell...

I really wish I was reading a book at the moment. It is raining and windy, a day to stay inside. When I read a book, Nothing else gets done. I become a little obsessed... so I don't start unless I have the time to finish.

Today, we don't get to stay home. Laura is booked in for her 4 year old needle and assessment, then I need to take some photos of a little baby then I think I will head to Horsham to have them printed. I had a busy day on Sunday with my photography, so have quite a few films that need to be put through the lab.

Our crops look magic... Jack go them in before the rain and they are going really well!!

I am really struggling with my water intake.. it is so hard to drink when it is cold!!! A friend of mine has started Ultra lite and going great guns, but she had to stop coffee etc... I wish I could ..

Anyway... will be back soon.

Craig says it all...

I have been working on a post in my head for days and each time I start to write it, it sounds bad, so still working on it!!

For today, I ask you to read Craig Harper's post.... My Body is not who I am... just where I live...

Will be back with my post soon...

Cupboards are bare....

I really need to go shopping....

My freezer is over flowing with meat, but running out of basic staples... I really don't think a chickpea and icing sugar dish would appeal to anyones hunger!!

I was chatting to a friend the other day about how I need to bake, fill the lard (as my grandmother would have said). I usually have at least a cake, slice or sorts here for the kids and Jack. My friend start to explain that "god, your good.... my baking consists on buying the 'fresh baked' biscuits at safeway... you can't tell me that you can bake 12 biscuits cheaper then $4.00???"..

Well.. i could... but that isn't the point.

Either you are into cooking or you are not. Eventually, she agreed that she is terrible in the kitchen, and doesn't even have FLOUR in her pantry!!! I started to wonder what in hell they ate, but my memory opened up and started to think about what I used to eat... kantong, frozen fish, meat and veg, kantong, stir-fry that just had to be heated up - vegies already in there, frozen chips, take away, kantong, sausages, kantong... not a huge variety that didn't need a heap of preparation.

Just ask Jack, I was very BAD in the kitchen. I tried to make soup twice in about 5 years. Both time resulted in a saucepan being burnt beyond the point of no return. Now, it is a twice weekly event. It is a wonder in the early years of our marriage, I didn't give Jack food poisoning. I even had one of Jack clients show me how to make mash potatoes, how embarrassing. But he walked into our kitchen once when some had boiled dry and the smoke had just begun to billow from the room.

It didn't even really improve once I left work to have Emilie.. still LOTS of Kantong, the Laura came, then Hugh and after the little man arrived I am guessing that my weight was over 90kg.

My turning point was joining Weight watchers... I did enjoy cooking before then, but once I UNDERSTOOD food, I enjoyed preparing food more. I loved being able to say that I cook healthily, well balanced meals, with the kids not missing out on nice home made snacks.

EDUCATION is the one and only key to long term health. I don't know if the timing was perfect, but once I embarked on losing weight, I sucked in as much information as I could. I can even remember being cross there for a while... "Why didn't anyone tell me all of this before.. surely there was room in my secondary school education for it". There was and I did study "health" . But I didn't have a weight problem at High school.. didn't sink in. Timing mustn't have been right. I would like to think that my habits will be natural for my kids. My chocolate on weekend rule and each time the kids pick a piece of fruit out of the fruit bowl they get a response of "Great choice"... in instilled in them. Time will tell..

I really don't think Jack misses Kantong...

Just a quick hi to Mummy-licious, many of you will know her, just a great new uplifting blog as she strives to become a Yummy Mummy... I know where she is, as many of you will also be able to relate on getting that pre-baby bod back... Please go and encourage her. Thank Kit for the shout out on your blog... still makes me smile when I see a link on someone elses posts!!

Just also a Gym Update - Can't believe how much I love it. I get there with all of the Granny's mid morning and have a great chat and work out at the same time. I am sure they have enough numbers to keep going. Thank you to Jodie and Jenny for thier advise. I feel better with the program as well, now I understand how I should feel after a workout... thanks girls..

Karma....

I am a BIG believer in Karma.... You get what you put out there

You put out good.... you get good in return

You put out bad.... watch you back....

So.... just a message to the thief that has taken 20 tonnes of fertiliser out of one of Jack's clients silos... I hope your crop gets hit by a cyclone...

Random...my washing...

Things that I am anal about # 1

Ok... Washing and ironing... such a housewife thing to start with...

We have good clothes and I look after them. Anyone that is lucky enough to be on the receiving end of my kids hand-me-downs would know that!

• Clothes have to be sorted (dark denim, light denim, white, lights, under ware, towels, farm clothes..)
• Soaked (if needed)
• Stain removal used, (I love that oxy action preen stuff that mixes together just as you use it)
• Fabric softener (always use a good brand, not a concentrate)
• Turned in the right way before washed and inside out again before hung out.
• Always do a full cycle on the washing machine. Figure if I am using the water anyway, might as well let it wash for the 90 minutes it is programmed to. (We have a front loader)
• All our clothes have a certain way of being hung. Jeans from the legs etc..
• All clothes are given a good flick at the line. Find it helps with the wrinkles.
• I never hang under ware on the line. This a habit I formed when we lived in town. But I guess NO ONE but the sheep see what is on my line now! (and my undies are 4 sizes smaller...)
• i iron EVERYTHING!!!! Looks so much nicer in the warerobe (i get a lot of grief about this..)
• Just as a shower of rain hits, it also reminds me that I don't put clothes other then farm ferals into our clothes drier... they go onto clothes horses if it is wet. I reckon drier wreck clothes..

This may not seem bad to some reading, but i really notice it when my mother is here. She will do my a favour and 'throw' a load of washing in for me. She will through everything that the kids have had on straight into the machine, without sorting, soaking, spraying or separating, or even turning the socks in the right way.. usually, if I get there before she hangs it out, I will resort and rewash.. (why?? I am not sure, i am sure they are clean...) but if she hangs them out, things are hanging any which way, towels pegged up with joining pegs, 4 socks with one peg... my god. How did we survive as kids!!!

I am sure you are thinking I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but what can I say.. I am anal about washing!!

What are you anal about?????

Bouncing Baby boy...

We have a new nephew... Little Thomas has arrived. ..Jack's sister, Tess (some who might remember went into labout about a month ago and it stopped again...) Only 49cm long and weighing 8 pounds, I am guessing he will make a nice rugby player!! Can't wait to meet the little man!!

Have been back to the gym twice since last posted. I do enjoy it and i think that it fantastic that there are so many people using it, but, I feel like the programme isn't hard enough.... not sure what to think. When I walk out, I feel the same as when I walked in. I want to feel a little buggered, like I have had a workout.. Any suggestions, or am I not used to it????? I guess if it toned up my body a little, who is to complain...

As mentioned in my last post, the kids and I had a tour of the public school here in town. For years, we have been leaning towards sending the kids to the private shcool, but after my visit I am on the fence!! I was totally blown away with the resources the public school has!!! The private school (that is catholic) has about 60 kids there and the public has 230 or so. My main concern with the private school is that they have combined classes (prep & 1, 2 & 3 and a 4, 5 & 6) The fact that they are combined doesn't concern me, but with my kids being so close together, they would be sharing classrooms and in the 4 - 5 - 6 year they would all be in the same class... anyway, I don't need to make a decision yet and I want Jack to check out both of the schools.

Jack will be working sowing our wheat all weekend. More rain is forecast for next week and would be nice to get it in before then. Hugh is on the tractor with our neighbour at the moment.

Had a huge meat buy up this morning, all in the freezer now, but have enough for about 25 meals.. Okay.. better go

Yahoo... we have lift off...

I am quite excited!!!!

We have a gym now in town.... with trainers!!!!!

**Jumping up and down clapping with joy**

Headed in this morning for assessment and program writing... it was cool to train with 20 or so other woman for a change!!! Our local shire have a basic gym at the basketball stadium in town and two trainers from Horsham have just leased the gym from them.

Very cool... will keep you posted how it all goes... but so far so good!

Food has been great and even got a little exercise in over the weekend..

Jack put in the barley at home over the weekend... the oats are already a couple of inches high. Looking really good.... fingers crossed the season is normal!!!

We have a tour booked at the local state primary school tomorrow morning. I have been thinking for a couple of years that our kids will go to the private school in town, but it doesn't hurt to check out the other schools... so that it tomorrow morning. I will have all three kids, so it will be interesting!!!

Kids went swimming over the weekend, girls where great and Hugh is a sook!! Just hugged me the entire time telling me "Don't like it!!" He was so funny this morning when Jack left for work.. "Daddy, you are evil!!" - we often tell him that he is evil (you know... in the cute evil sort of way...) funny...

This weekend my sister is coming home from Melbourne for mum's birthday on Saturday and we will go out for lunch. Jack will be hopefully sowing wheat, so it will be just the kids and me. Friday night I am going to see Julie Cross speak.. she came down a few years ago.. very warm and fuzzy speaker... anyway.. I better go and do some more housework.

Almost forgot... look what I brought from Peters of Kensington... how cool hey! I brought my mother the "gorgeous grandmother" mug to add to her birthday present from the kids...

Time for focus again...

I have just re-read a few months posts and hardly any mention of health and fitness... not sure why some of you are still reading.. (maybe it is my cute kids....)

It hasn't really been a major focus over the past few months, and I can feel it. Sure, I still eat well and exercise, not enough!!!!!! I am losing a little bit of my tone, but the worse thing is my energy levels are dropping...

So, enough is enough... time to move it!!

My Weight has stayed the same... might go up 500 g one week but it is gone the next. Food hasn't been an issue. My habits have changed for life with food... just need to exercise more!!!!

At the end of August Jack has is 20 year reunion at his boarding school he went to in Adelaide, so that will be a little extra motivation to keep going!

Jack has a couple of busy weekends with putting in our crops, but after that I think we will head up to Halls Gap for a mini-break. It is only about 1 hours drive to Halls Gap from here, nice and close! Jack is so busy, he will need to take a breath by then as well!

We are going to 'wag' playgroup this morning.. Have some washing that needs to be done, and a toy room that looks like a bomb has gone off. Kids are back at swimming in the morning, so I need to be organised. I find, if my house it clean and tidy, I am in a much better frame of mind... Taking some photos on Sunday, and Jack will be working here. He does well to juggle working full-time and farm after hours and weekends. We did really well with the lambs that where sent to market on Wednesday... that along with all of the rain has brought a smile to our faces!!!

Have a great weekend and drive carefully!!!

"The Boss"

Em was the "boss" last night... be it all of 10 minutes, but she took her role very seriously....

Jack and I had to mark a couple of lambs last night (ring their tails) that where to little to be sold at market... long story... but we took Hugh down to the shearing shed with us and told Em that she was the boss...

Just as I left the house Laura said to her "Come on Em, lets play barbie...."

Em... ""No Laura, Bosses don't play!!"

Little giggle to myself and left them and headed down that back... 10 minutes later I return to the house and she has washed all of the lunch boxes for me... "Cos, that is what bosses do"

I like her work ethic!