Sunday, August 5, 2012

more op shops

It was a big week, ANOTHER assignment and one I had to resubmit with a few changes.  Thats done so back to it.  The end is in sight and I am no where near ready for it.  I have 3 massages to do this week and I am wondering about the time for the assignments.  Either way I need to do both!  Both are equally important.

My Petal is settling into a routine of Occupation Therapy again.  She loves her therapist, my teacher and now her therapist.  I tried to pick the best person that I knew for her.  It seems to be working. I get to see how far she has come in these years and where we are so far behind as well.  It is a roller coaster of a journey. It breaks my heart that most physical tasks are so very difficult for her.  We spent nearly 1 and 1/2 years teaching her to do star jumps.  They are not perfect but quite good now.   Star jumps involve both hand and leg co-ordination. We are doing crawling, using the ipad to do left and right recognition and meditating.  

So what else have we done.  We had Gumbo in the park at Northcote on Friday night, we visited the Radical Grocery shop and bought lots of vegan ingredients and will be using them this week. I will let you know how they go.  We bought some lovely wool for me and I am itching to knit up a scarf to wear with the beautiful blue wool hand spun by Janet.  I left her some purple wool that needs spinning, with the promise of collecting it in a few weeks. Janet insisted that she would teach me how to use the spinning wheel.  I would dearly love to learn so I might be taking her up on the craft and cocktails meetings that she has, AFTER I have finished my study. I am not willing to take anymore on at the moment feeling stretched to breaking point.

My other half has made 2 steps forward and 1 back with my dear friends Kitchen.  Poor love is still without a kitchen and goodness the time is just flying away from us. 

How quickly has this year gone!  

I have a confession to make, we did some op shopping on Saturday to another new shop in our immediate area, one that we have driven past many times and never visited. Well this is our new favourite. I have to confess that I bought ANOTHER pie dish. That would make 4 now. I think I need help.  One is special from Etsy and the rest I have sourced from op shops.  This one is orange made in Australia, pyrex and I promise that I won't buy anymore unless they insist that I take them home or I find a pink one for my Petal. 

Have a lovely weekend, off to get the muffins out of the oven before they burn.  









Wednesday, August 1, 2012

the challenge of dairy free

We are well on our way to having our household now eating almost dairy free. It has been a little challenging at times.  It is when you get a request like Ice Cream that things become very interesting.  I did not feel inspired to make soy ice cream.  I haven't liked the taste prior to this so I have just ignored making it myself.  Our lovely and talented friend and study buddy from school sent me a wonderful recipe. Something i hadn't considered, coconut milk ice cream.  This immediately sounded very appealing. So last night we set to work making our own recipe and seeing what we could come up.  We used coconut cream, some ripe banana's, some sugar, some vanilla beans and some vanilla paste.  (never have too much vanilla!) and some vanilla essence.

The result was an instant hit with the children and the other half.  i think for myself I just like the flavour of vanilla only (so boring). I did enjoy it... just not my favourite.

I have realised that the children have made the transition to diary free very easily.  For me it is a bit more of a challenge. (I love fresh butter, cheese and yoghurt!)  I am really missing butter especially with  baking.