Kapiti Island Today 7th November 2012

Kapiti Island today ...

I had a crazy attack this morning and ended up at the beach at 6.15 am with The Hound with a view to running along the beach! (We did run, intermittently between picking up poo and chatting to other hounds.)

I nearly came up with enough excuses to talk myself out of it! The clear, blue sky's meant it was fecking freezing and the early morning wake up call from a sweet little boy (baby not hubby) was nearly reason enough to stay snuggled up in bed. BUT I knew I would be annoyed with myself if I didn't go.



I'm really glad I did. It was a beautiful, crisp, fresh morning. I took the pictures at the beginning, middle and end of the walk. I didn't realise how different they looked until I went to pick my picture for the post! What a difference 20 minutes makes! I couldn't resist posting them all. It never ceases to amaze me how awesome my iPhone camera is, however imagine the beauty I could catch with a fancy camera!



Island Fact of the Day - make that story of the day. I saw this new report and thought I would share it, click here.

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Meal Planning Monday 20th August 2012

Sunday - Busy afternoon planned so easy peasy pasta with garlic and pesto sauce, mushrooms and bacon.

Monday - My Mummmys Chicken Curry, check out my blog post for the recipe.

Tuesday - I'm working and Lovely Hubby is Cherubsitting. Seeing as I'll just have myself to get ready I'm going to do a beef stroganoff in the crockpot. I'll put it all together before work and it'll be ready when I get home. Means I can think up another job or ten for Lovely Hubby to tackle instead of dinner!

Wednesday - Lentil Dahl.

Thursday - Grilled chicken, roast potatoes (in our magic potato roasting machine) and curried mushrooms. the curried mushrooms are Lovely Hubbies speciality so seeing as I'm working today he can do dinner!

Friday - Pasta, probably be the same mix as Sunday

Saturday - We're really enjoying our grilled pesto chicken so I'll make this tonight and serve with potatoes and veg.



I'm linking this up At Home With Mrs M, the host of the Meal Planning Monday Link up xx

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Oreo Pops

I saw these ... 

 

on the MamasStyle Facebook page and thought 'ooooh these look like a cute, EASY, addition to the menu for Darling Daughters Rainbow Care Bear party'.

Silly me!

Ok I just went by the pictures, I didn't look up any instructions. But come on how hard could it be just get some Oreos, lolly sticks, sprinkles and melted chocolate and put it all together.

No, no, no.

The first step of putting the lolly sticks into the middle of the biscuit sandwiches resulted in not only splitting the sandwich apart but breaking the biscuits too.

I wasn't amused to say the least but I managed to salvage the situation.

I rescued the Oreos that had just split in half and still had in fact biscuits. I laid them on some grease proof paper and used the melted chocolate as glue and poured it over them sticking the sandwich back together with the lolly stick inbetween! I poured over the sprinkles, let it dry, turned them over and did the same to the other side.

I ended up with six cookies stuck together with chocolate and six lolly sticks sticking out. It didn't look great but I just used a sharp knife to cut them apart!

 

The method wasn't quite what I imagined but they looked pretty cool. Lovely Hubby was very excited by them and insisted I save one for him!!! The kids quite liked them too but I don't think anybody (except LovelyHubby) managed a whole one!

I just poped them in a pint glass weigheddown with left over pebbles and M&Ms...ta da ... My effort ...

 

 

 

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Cookie Time Round 2

I'm trying to be a good mummy and have yummy cookies for my Darling Daughter to munch on. I have visions of her gazing up at me adoringly munching said cookie with a glass of milk and sporting a cute milk mustache!

I've also recently learned that both my sister (who lives with us) and Lovely Hubby love peanut butter.

To my delight I discovered that peanut butter cookies require minimal ingredients and faffing around.

I have mastered 'Melt in your Mouth Peanut Butter Cookies' from the genius that is 'One Good Thing By Jillee'.

Check out my previous post 'Cookie Time'. They are yummers and only have 3 ingredients....my kinda baking. If a recipe has more than five ingredients it tends to be a disaster!

The ingredient limit made this next recipe a bit daunting but ...

Here you have it...

...Nom nom nom!

First time for everything, usually I fail big style at baking but after a few false starts with ingredients I now have a biscuit box full of yummy, less basic peanut butter cookies.

Only complaint on my part is I wish I had a bigger baking sheet. It took forever to bake all the actual biscuits. I had to do it in five batches. It's my birthday soon, mayhap I will ask the birthday fairy for an extra big baking tray. (bloody hell what a rock and roll life I lead!)

Em...my only other complaint is that they are a bit soggy. A trait I like but assumed noone else would BUT Lovely Hubby, Darling Daughter and Lil' Sis' love them too! So it's not really a complaint as it doesn't actually matter.

Next project is to perfect choc chip cookies, suggestions welcome xxx

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Make a Plan Monday 25th June 2012

Review

The plan for last week was to survive, follow 'My Life Schedule' and enlist the help of Lovely Hubby and Lil' Sis'.

Well I survived! I was worried about keeping on top of things given the fact that I had work to contend with as well. By getting the major tasks done at the beginning of the week and keeping on top of the little tasks daily meant that things didn't get too out of hand. This meant that I stuck to 'My Life Schedule' as best as I could.

One thing that helped was that Lil' Sis' and I were at the pool doing some laps at 6.15am Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Oooh get us eh! It was great, it meant that I was showered and dressed by 7am! Ready to take on the world!

As for roping in Lovely Hubby to help. I can't really complain. Poor man! On Thursday he had the Cherubs all day...I didnt get home until 7.30pm! He was ratty before I even left but he had a great day. His highlight was being proud daddy at Darling Daughters swimming lessons, not sure how or why but she is the star pupil, he quite enjoyed basking in her glory! Much to my delight and relief both Cherubs were bathed and ready for bed on my return.

I left a list of the daily tasks I do (how is he meant to know what to do if I don't tell him but 'telling' him would be construed as nagging so next best thing write it down). I didn't tell him about the list I just left it on the kitchen work top...subtle as a brick, I was a bit scared to tell him given how ratty he was already. And lo and behold he lived up to his name. He did everything apart from the hoovering and mopping (I just shoved it on the list just in case he got round to it). Pretty good going considering there was very little napping from the Cherubs.

The jobs I lined up for Lil' Sis' never came to fruition. I did the hoovering myself on Friday. The dog was away getting groomed so I whizzed round while he was out of the house. The other thing I hoped she might do with the Boyf was walk the Hound but he has been in the wars and has a split and punctures in his paw *winces* so he is house and garden bound until that heals. She did me a massive favour chumming me to the pool and Cherubsitting while I worked on Saturday so I can't complain!

The Plan

This week the plan is as follows

1. Try not to loose any more electrical equipment! (post on this to follow).
   
2. My tiny little boy Second Born Son is starting daycare in two weeks so I am hoping to spend plenty quality time together and maybe see if I can help him improve his sitting up.
3. Get to the pool 4 mornings again and do the 'Trig Run' on Saturday morning. The aim with swimming is to do it for the next 6 weeks at least. By then the mornings should be getting lighter and I can get running down the beach again with the Hound!

If my calculations are correct this is week 2 in my little pattern. That means this should be an ok week.

Look out next week it will all go to shit!!

 

Meal Planning Monday 25th June 2012

In case anybody is interested here's what The Simpson Clan are eating this week...

Monday - Popeye pasta, this was on last weeks plan but we never got round to having it.

Tuesday - Grilled chicken (I'll need to brace myself for the mess, I've recently rediscovered my George Foreman grill, it makes yummy chook, but it's messy), roast potatoes (more gadgets, I'll use my actifry to do this), accompanied by curried mushrooms. Lovely Hubby will have to make the mushrooms, these are one of his creations. I'll get him to show me how and I will blog it later.

Wednesday - Pasta with creamy garlic and pesto sauce (out of a packet but yummy), with crispy bacon and some grilled courgettes/zucchinis. I'm working all day so nice and easy.

Thursday - Chilli with tacos. I'll make a big batch earlier in the week and freeze portions for future use. Tis used to be Lovely Hubbys speciality but I took over not long after Darling Daughter came along. I love chilli. We have it with tacos, baked potato or nachos. Topped of with cheese, sour cream and of course, the Simpson staple, jalepenos

Friday - Chicken in a bag. We had this last week and Darling Daughter ate with us and she loved it. I'm making it later in the week so that I can use up the veg I have left over after making mush for Second Born Son. There is a specific list of veg your meant to put in the bag but I don't stick to it. I aim to put in potatoes, leek, sweet potato/kumara, butternut squash and carrot.

Saturday - Lentil Dahl. May make something else depending what's kicking around the cupboards but if I'm stuck I always have what's needed for this.

What's everyone else having. Pop on over to At Home With Mrs M by clicking here to join in with this great Linky x

 

 

The 'Trig Run' Tracker

Don't suppose anyone noticed there was no tracker last week.

The crazy ladies that are Super Fit Mummy and Actual Super Mummy instead opted for the equally lovely challenge that is the Tough Guy And Gal Challenge! A hideous sounding assault course kind of thing that leaves you caked in mud, freezing cold and down one pair of trainers! Oh dear what a pity I had work so I couldn't participate. By all accounts though they had a great time, crazy I tell you crazy!

Lovely Hubby isn't called Lovely just for the hell of it. He is actually Lovely! Not only was he willing to stand in for the girls and do the 'Trig Run' with me, he was willing to do so after a sleepless night with the eldest Cherub. But I didn't think he would still want to go so I left him sleeping in Darling Daughters room. A bit naughty on my part but a week off is not the end of the world.

I got back on the wagon this week though. Just me and Super Fit Mummy again this week.

Eek it was dark. Running through the first bit you have to go under an arc of trees which was lovely this week, I didn't have breakfast but that was rectified when I got a mouthful of cobwebs and goodness knows what else running under the arc of trees.

The only problem with it just being the two of is is that I really can't run up 'Mount Paraparaumu' at the best of times let alone while trying to talk as well. I tried to keep running and talking as far as possible but it wasn't very far. I was in front (by chance not skill) so I was able to dictate the pace and the pace I chose was a brisk walk. Good choice I think!

Here we have the view from the top...

A lush view as usual. Reason enough to traipse up the 'Trig Run' hill each week.

I had all my gear ready to go the night before to minimize faffing around in the morning and maximize sleep time. But Sleepyhead Simpson (that's me by the way) still managed to forget to put the strap that goes round my ribs to measure my heart rate even though it featured in the pile of clothes I had laid out! So this week I only have a time to report...46minutes, sleepiness also meant I forgot to take a picture of the heart rate monitor watch at the end.

Please note although we walked we still finished faster than the last time which was a walk too. (Clutching at straws of success me thinks)

Until next time, TTFN...(that always makes me smile, sad creature that I am).

 

Make a Plan Monday 18th June 2012

Review Week 4

Last week was a much better week. I have a feeling, in fact I am sensing a pattern in my life, not sure why but I think I am going to have 2 good weeks, get all smug and be pleased with how I am going then let it all go the 3rd week, do a shit job then have to get motivated again. So on and so forth...

I wasn't angelic last week but The Cherubs and I kept busy and I stuck to my steps. Granted I didn't get up and organized every morning but on the mornings I didn't I had busy house days. When I was exposing myself to the public during the day though I got showered, dressed and make up on, best not scare the locals now!