Daily Project Round 9

[SpiritOfEdna]

Hello!

New thread for when we are ready.

Happy New Year, Happy New Thread

Whether you want to do one extra thing a day while the kettle boils or a list helps with a kick up the bum to Get Things Done - all welcome.

@Aria999 @autumnangel @WinterFrogs @crivit @FoolShapeHeart @FourSeasonsLobelia @mumofoneAloneandwell @Mumtobabyhavoc @Peridot1 @petalpower @RunningKatie @SingleThreadJoiner2 @SunnyViper @SydneyCarton

I've got DH in the kitchen making us a fry up😋 💕 and he is singing along to Status Quo at the top of his voice. Fairly tunelessly 🤣

It's hosing it down here!

@WideOpenBeaches were you out wandering the streets all by yourself at midnight? That curry sounds like a feast! I love butter chicken! We had chicken korma and poppadoms.

I've done all the steps I'm going to do today! Apart from a potter round the kitchen making smug soup later.

I have decluttered old emails and pictures from my phone.

Ahh no @WinterFrogs I live pretty rurally so only disturbed a fox. I tucked down the footpath because it was going to shave off some time instead of walking on the road.

Both paths started 50 yards from each other but one veers left (towards home) and the other took me right. Ended up doing 2 sides of a triangle.

Was mainly just cross 🤬 with myself.

In daylight, I’d have figured it out almost instantly!

Morning everyone! 😎
It's a gorgeous day and 5c. Was zero over night. We're all still sick, but not too bad.
Had a fun day with the kids yesterday. Took them to the planetarium in the afternoon; did some Valentine's crafts at home; stuffed our faces at dinner; and finished with chocolate and cake. it was a late night yet I was awake from 4am-7am, slept again until we all woke up around 9 and then got breakfast.

Tasks: folded and put away washing from two days ago and put a new load on. Put a rain suit into the donation box of the kids's outgrown clothes I've got started along with two pairs of shoes. Will need to purge two t-shirts from Havoc's clothes as they are a bit small now, but still favourites. Will need to have a discussion about it. 🤞
Baby used the wand vacuum on I don't know what exactly, but I think one of the couches got cleaned. Havoc has stacked toy bins.

Glad you’re all on the mend @Mumtobabyhavoc Sounds like a gently productive day.

Morning! It's a cloudy 4c on our holiday Monday here. Today is Family Day, a public holiday. Most provinces have it.
We're all still sneezing and coughing a little bit, so I want to do something with the kids that doesn't put us in too close contact with others, preferably something outdoors. 🤔

I've got sheets in the dryer and need to make the bed; two bags of garbage to go out and likely a third; planning to quickly vacuum; and I've emailed product support on the kids' (fairly cheap) karaoke machine which suddenly isn't working well (take note MOOAAW), but is still quite new and hasn't been used a lot. Spent hours trying unsuccessfully to submit a claim to one of my mum's EHP yesterday and then it was just 5 minutes submitting to the other plan. 🙄🤦‍♀️ That has left me feeling a bit burnt out, actually.

I also seemed to get the Valentine's Day curry memo! We have a local takeaway that does a mini thali for £12 including delivery - by mini i mean plenty for one person, with usually a little left over... so you can have the full works even if your DD is a complete wuss and won't eat anything except the bread and rice because 'spice' (and let's face it, i am not exactly hard care myself...!)

Well, so far on my 'I'll do lots on my week off' list of achievements there's
Sleep
Doing a jigsaw puzzle
Finding a new audiobook i like

Although I did make a huge pot of tomato sauce that I use for all sorts of recipes as well as with pasta or on pizza (one of those with all sorts of extra veg, some red lentils to thicken it up etc). DD loves it 😀 and her 'lazy' dinner is to have it with pasta, and i am happy for her to eat as much as she likes because it's Healthy.

And I did a quick vacuum of the living room with the dog pouncing on the Cleaner of Death as I went along, so I can also tick off 'entertaining the dog' 😀

But aims for this week are to move all the stuff in my greenhouse out to its permanent storage (need a friend to lend a hand with a car) and make a poster for a litter pick we're doing in the park in a few weeks. Plus fire up the sewing machine and replace a zip in a fleece and mend my mum's shopping bag. I only have 4 days before being back at work, so it's going to be tough 😉

Morning.

I love the concept of a 'Family Day' public holiday @Mumtobabyhavoc ! how lovely!!

@baital I make a very similar tomato sauce with red lentils that I started making in the effort to get something healthy into the DCs. All my bolognese sauces have red lentils in too. I made a red lentil and spinach dhal last night and we had that with fresh coriander, rice and naan. Yum. Dcs had shove-in-the-oven chicken and roast potatos and veg.

Oh! A tip i picked up from another thread, and which is working brilliantly well for me (at the moment...). DS1 really needs feeding up. He's only 6 and a half stone at the age of nearly 16 and has always had food issues relating to sensory stuff. I started that old fashioned habit of bulking meals out with bread and butter in a bid to get calories into him a while ago. But inspired from another thread I am now using mini pizzas and adding passata, some blobs of buffalo mozzarella and grated cheese on top and having that as a 'side dish' with whatever he eats. I have also been peeling the green bits off courgette then grating the white bit and mixing that in the grated cheese and he hasn't noticed. I always have a niggling anxiety over his eating, so this is working well for the moment. Justw anted to share a mini win!

But pancakes tonight. I'd forgotten it was Shrove Tuesday until a few moments ago. The green eggs and ham went down a storm last week so a repeat is on the agenda. Followed by apple cinnamon pancakes.

I've just realised all my post is about food!

Best wishes to everyone. Hope you all have a great day. xx

I'm planning to make marmalade today. Yes, it's a bit late and I've had the seville oranges sitting in a cold garage for 3 weeks and a couple of them are no longer looking their best - so i neeed to achieve this today.

But first a little rest.

Does cleaning up coffee count as a task today? Baby knocked mine over. 😭
Luckily, only about half was spilled, but I'm low on milk and don't want to go out until later.

Just to add: it wasn't really an accident either. I think Baby was doing a "cheers", but didn't expect my iced latte to tip over. 🤦‍♀️😤

Making marmalade sounds so yummy @BerfyTigot - a couple of years ago DH got me some marmalade with espresso in it. Might need to remind him of that next time I need a gift!
Valentines curry night took 3 hours to arrive. I was ready to eat the table by the time it turned up.
Today I've taken DC2 to buy new school shoes and trainers. Booked in an alarm service and made lots of pancakes.
Tomorrow I need to pick up an order of some new coasters and I might have ordered a nice wintery duvet cover in the sale too!

I forgot it was Shrove Tuesday @RunningKatie Lucky it was just DH and me at home yesterday. Might make some for littlest when she next comes.

Sorry about the latte @Mumtobabyhavoc Thank goodness it was iced though. I put a cup of tea on the edge of a table yesterday morning, fortunately half drunk and vaguely tepid as I caught it instinctively as it started to fall. Cheers Baby!

Good plan with the extra sides @SpringingIntoSummerLobelia I used to do similar with my children though more to give them low demand choices alongside main meals to introduce new food.

Have you settled on an audiobook @Baital? I've developed a real love for them lately but I'm very fussy about narrators. I will listen to anything read by Nicola Walker, and Art Malik is right up there too. I am tempted to give the full cast Harry Potter books a go next time I have an Audible credit.

I have muttered before about doing a new photo book and I have vowed that today is the day that I will do it! And I think I will change the bedsheets as well.

I hope the marmalade making goes well and not too stickily @BerfyTigot!

All the best to all our lovely projecters 👋 ❤️

@winterfrogs I have rediscovered Mary Stewart books for audio when trying to sleep - something very soothing about them!

When doing jigsaw puzzles I quite like Terry Pratchett...

@BerfyTigot I’ve lobbed Seville oranges in the freezer before now and they still seem to defrost and make marmalade. However, my patience levels are such these days I can’t be bothered so kudos to you!

FWIW DH puts seville oranges into the freezer. he thinks it breaks down the cell walls and you get more juice. He does the same thing with sloes for sloe gin. I can't attest to any of it myself.

Freezing sloes means you don’t have to prick them or wait for a frost. I reckon oranges would be similar in breaking down a bit.

I cleaned the oven door today, this one been put off for a while. Tomorrow I’m going to do the pyro on it, but need to wait as ds1 has a friend staying and it’s anti social.

i have to insert an anecdote here. My parents are Australian. They came to visit here once and saw all my spring bulbs coming up. My mother said 'Oh how lovely!!! You must tell me how long you put them in the freezer for before planting out'. I looked at her in confusion. Then it became clear- the dormant bulbs need a good frost in order to trigger growing. In some parts of Oz that means you have to put them in a freezer for a bit. Here, in the UK, I just went and shoved them in the ground then they popped up a year later.

@SpringingIntoSummerLobelia love that! Though… I think freezing garlic to grow is a thing? And you’ve reminded me I’ve got a box of bulbs I need to get in!

Ohhhhh all this talk of preserving things is way out of my league! I'll live vicariously through you all.

@Baital I looked up Mary Stewart as she sounded familiar. I read The Crystal Cave when I was at school. I might give some more of hers a go. I think it was one of the first proper grown up books that I read.

My day has been unexpectedly busy with work and some family stuff to sort. No two days are ever the same which I love. So the bedding got done and then I was out, and got back just in time for tea. Still no photo book but tomorrow's another day.

I love your bulb anecdote @SpringingIntoSummerLobelia 🌱

@FurForksSake what is the pyro? Good on you cleaning your oven door. That's hardcore!

@WinterFrogs my oven has a setting where it gets to maybe 500 degrees and burns off the crap. It’s great but if it’s particularly greasy you get stink out.

I feel your pain.

I seem to constantly battle the oven 😥

The Friends group for the local park i am involved with plants bulbs every year. It's a lovely community event for all ages, and gradually we are populating all the paths and little areas. They are perfect for volunteers because once they are in there's no maintenance but they look.lovely every year!

I have very specific criteria for bedtime stories!

Plot and characters must be well known but not boring, so i can tune in and out as I fall asleep.

Nothing too complex but nothing too obvious...

Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer also work! I keep Terry Pratchet and Dorothy L Sayers for awake things like jigsaws and batch cooking.

Today's project was a poster for litter picking in the park - tick!

Morning! All this talk of bulbs is making me happy! I have daffodils popping up in the garden.
Oh I need to do something about my garden....
This is the year of becoming a gardener! 🙏
It's wasted on me. I met a lovely man last year, at a funeral of all places, and he told me how he started gardenening as an eight year old using books from the library and trial and error. He'd become very involved in the local horticultural group and that's how he knew the deceased. His parents had given him free rein as they weren't interested in their garden. I was inspired!

I am also fussy about which audiobooks to use for sleep @Baital It's still a learning curve for me. DH listens on headphones while he is at work in a busy office. Two screens at once plus a story in his ears. I don't know how he does it! But he says it helps him focus. I am enjoying reading and listening a lot more though.

I've started my photo book. Finally!!

Kettle boiling job: cleaned and decluttered kitchen windowsill 😇

@winterfrogs I like gardening in moderation 😂so most of the garden is low maintenance, ground cover plus some shrubs and bulbs, plus trailing/ climbing 'stuff' on the fence

Having said that I do need to do some weeding - when it's warmer...