SMILEY SATURDAY SWAP!

Ok now another Smiley Saturday Initiative from Lightening was the Saturday Swaps. My swap partner A, lives in a rural area, a few hours outside a regional city, as do I (although my rural area is considered a rural city), so I dont know yet wether she has received the parcel from me, it can take up to two weeks to get a parcel to or from my area and this has had two public holidays occur since posting, so I will put up the pics I took of the parcel I sent to her and when I receive the parcel from her in return I will put up another post.

The pics above are of little lavender sachets, that were made from our own homegrown lavender, that has been dried in bunches hanging in our house and then my children helped to remove any stalks or spiky bits, to handmill the flowers to release more oil into the mix and then bagged in pretty sachets. There was PINK (part of the swap conditions) and maroon bags. Added to this two little easter chickens for A's two little boys and a necklace for A, who always has such beautiful clothes and I really felt this would look fantastic on her. The bag was an addition made by my beautiful Boo (7 next month) who thought the swap idea was the most fantastic thing she had ever heard of (pretty presents when its not your birthday!). Didnt have any cards, so printed a letter on dolphin stationery and folded it to fit inside the bag.

Will post pics when I receive my parcel from A.

Hugs,

Erin!

SMILEY SATURDAY!

Ok well I am very slack and have been meaning to write a number of Smiley Saturday Posts recently.

Smiley Saturday is a Lightening Online idea that is just a fantastic way to really think about and express at least one reason to be thankful, happy, smiley etc each week. Thanks for the inspiration Lightening!!

Now, please forgive me, but I am going to combine several Smiley Saturdays into one post.

My first Smiley Saturday, I was thankful and smiling to attend a prenuptual barbeque, being hosted by my 2nd Cousin for her beautiful Daughter J, who was a bout to get married to her longterm partner (sweethearts since early highschool) A.

Now I was even more thankful because J, 23 or 24 this year (my 3rd cousin??) has been battling malignant melanoma that keeps reoccurring in the same place, and this last operation, they found that it was because it was on both sides of the main muscles in her cheek. Now this girl is absolutely gorgeous, could have been a model and still could, yet instead she chose to be a swimming instructor, pool lifeguard and then pool manager, to save kids from drowning.

So, with the last operation only a few months ago and then radium therapy, she has lost a fair amount of hair, has lost the majority of sensitivity and taste from her tongue and has been suffering the sideeffects, the worst being chronic fatigue.


My next Smiley Saturday was to post that the Beautiful J and SHY but funny A got married on a cliff overlooking the ocean in the small beachside town where her grandparents (my great uncle and great aunt) had a holiday unit and eventually moved too. Even more reason to be thankful was that my great aunt was able to be there and was reasonably lucid (she has dementia, diabetes and severe asthma and has had to move into high dependency care) to see her granddaughter get married. Her grandfather had passed away several years ago, but his spirit would have been there no matter what the cost, he was devoted to his daughter and his grandchildren.

A's mother was there and before the wedding, they performed another ceremony, as A's sister was killed in a semi versus car incident a number of years ago (she was a friend of mine from highschool) and then A's father passed away around 12 months after the loss of his daughter, so they had a remembrance for A's missing sister and father, so that even in death, they too could be there for the wedding. This was a very simple, yet touching way to include them.

Another Smiley Saturday, is that my father is now taking an active part in my life and the life of my children again, we had spent the last four years (which is a huge length of time for a kid that isnt 7 yet) with no more contact than four phone calls. He has now had christmas lunch, a birthday lunch for my Moo (10th bday) and then Easter lunch this past Sunday.

HUGS!!

Wheat, Gluten & Dairy Free Pumpkin Scones!

Inspired by the talk of Fresh HomeGrown Veggies and simple baking of delicious munchies such as Scones, courtesy of Lightening Online, Chookies, Down To Earth & Dancing With Frogs, I decided to be adventurous and try to bake some Gluten, Wheat & Dairy Free Pumpkin Scones.

Now this doesnt sound much, but I have almost forgotten how to bake as for a long time with both kids having such opposite food intolerances, it was just too hard and too expensive, I had to get my head around normal things like school lunches and dinners that didnt take me all night to do (one is anaphylactic to egg, dairy intolerant but can eat wheat & loves fish but hates chicken and meat, the other is severely wheat and gluten intolerant, cant stand fish and lives on eggs, dairy, meats and fresh produce).

So, I managed to succeed in making an edible and rather delicious pumpkin scone with my own homegrown Jap Pumpkin and BOTH KIDS CAN EAT IT (although Miss Boo will only be able to have small amounts as it does contain cooked egg, but her medications cover the reactions to trace amounts of cooked egg, so she will only wheeze rather than have anaphylaxis).

Here is the recipe:

1/2 Cup of Sugar (I used ordinary white sugar for this)

1/4 Teaspoon of Salt

1 Tablespoon of Nuttelex ( I used 2 soup spoons lol as I cant find my tablespoon)

1 cup of cooled mashed pumpkin

1 Egg

2 1/2 Cups of Self Raising Flour (Orgrans Self Raising Flour)

Plus another 1/2 - 1 Cups of Self Raising Flour on board to turn mixture out onto

1. Preheat oven at 250 degrees celcius and place shelf at the top.


2. Prepare tray with grease or grease paper.


3. Using an electric beater, mix the sugar, salt and butter to resemble breadcrumbs.


4. Mix in the Egg and then the pumpkin.


5. With beaters turned off, fold in the flour (lighter consistency than icing sugar, so turns into a dust cloud if the beaters are on before its mixed through) , once moist, beat until mixture is consistent.


6. Turn out onto board with the other 1/2 cup of flour and attempt to knead (it is very sticky, reminiscent of CLAG GLUE). At this stage if you think it is too sticky, slowly add more flour and knead a little more.


7. Break into smaller chunks, shape or round as desired (i just made them into rounds about 5 cms diameter and 3 cms high).


8. Cook for 10 - 15 mins dependant on your oven (mine took 13 mins)


9. Place on rack to cool slightly and then serve with some more Nuttelex ( or butter and cream if you can have dairy!)

Ingredients in Orgrans Self Raising Flour are : - Maize Starch, Tapioca Flour, Rice Flour, Raising Agents (glucono delta lactone & sodium bicarbonate) and Guar Gum.

And the results speak for themselves (ignore the burnt bits, my oven and I have issues), the mix made 8 decent sized scones (I have already scoffed two and sent one over the road for my boyfriends mother to try, as we are trying to convince her that gluten/wheat free doesnt necessarily mean taste free).

Cheers!

More Bling! Thanks Lightening!

LOL someone put the nar narnar nar narr narrr song into my head (I am very song impressionable at the moment lol, and somewhat loony going by my last post). So, thanks to a certain Lightening moment, I now have running through my head:

I have more bling I have more bling Nar narnar nar narrr narrrr. (I must go play some music now to get that out of my head or I will dream it too lol).

Anyways,

Thankyou Lightening for my new bling. Tis very Pink too, can see why you liked it.

This award originated from Me and my Drum

{"To accommodate a variety of blog themes, I have created three different “flavors” of badges: Creamy Cabernet, Midnight Oil, and Pink Smoothie.

Earlier this year I was tagged with the blogging tip meme in which the tip I offered was “Be the Blog“. That phrase stuck with me because I think that really sums up what a successful blogger does. And what I mean by successful is that they make it their own, stay with it, are interactive with their readers, and just plain have fun.

Since then I’ve been thinking about creating an award of my own, but with so many out there, it’s hard to find a niche that remains untapped for recognition. So I said, “What the heck?”, and decided to shape the phrase into an award called (you guessed it): Be The Blog."}

There considering tis so pink,

I think Kelley and Nicole must have a copy, Does Bettina like pink?? (Hmm memo to self, must find out) oh and Angel hun, a copy for you and the sweet little B, just save it on your computer, display it on your desktop for B to look at.

SING IT WITH ME!!

I am tired, study is mindwarping and its raining AGAIN!! So instead of finding out if Ovarian Cancers can have teeth (my answer was yes, just have to back it up with a page number for evidence) my head was thinking this little ditty:

Its Raining Again!! I cant hear me over the noise of it pouring!!
Im studying female reproductive disorders while everyone else is snoring,
If I jump into bed, my knee will hurt so much I will NEED to bang my head
And I will still have to get up at some awfully early hour in the morning.

Now dont all gag at once, lol I never claimed to be a poet or a songwriter. It was shorter when i first sang it, but the novelist in me had to put two verses into one, it describes it so much better!

Ok well back to hysterectomies, vulvectomies, kegels, fistulas and other such stuff that i will be required to answer questions on later today. Good thing I am female and already know half this stuff and can answer without blushing. I think that comes from having children, lol after half the medical staff in the area have seen you naked with a kids head sticking out, then there is no reason to blush when saying words like vagina, vulva, penis etc. Funny thing (well from my warped point of view) is our tutor blushed lololol and she is a fully trained nurse and teacher and not exactly young anymore.

Mwuhahaha being wicked is definitely enjoyable. :p

Odd web things.

lol now my last comment on a friends blog apparently upset wordpress, it gave me a screen saying do you really want to post this cause it contains the word cialis. Heres me wondering where on earth they thought this word was (and what does it mean?).

Turns out its part of the word Specialist (which was in my post) lolol and its a brand name for Erectile dysfunction medication. lolol.

Another blog i like commenting on uses those horrid read the distorted letters then type them into this box for your comment to be accepted. Problem is, everytime i type them in, it never accepts them the first time and I have to type them again. I have double and triple checked that I am not using caps-on, spacing them or anything of the sort that might cause an issue, I am sure its just that the blog doesnt like me leaving comments lol (as in the actual blog server, not the blogger, cause I am sure the blogger would tell me if they didnt want me leaving comments).

What weird things have happened to you whilst blogging, posting or internet browsing??

I Love this email!!

Ok now I have NO IDEA who originally wrote this up, but I have had it forwarded to me by so many people and I just love it and want to share it with you all, but I dont really like forwarding every cute thing I get (cause theres at least ten of them each day that I LOVE, as well as ten or more that I LIKE lol).





SO, if anyone knows the actual owner of the below email, I would like to ask their permission to share it but dont know who to ask.





Anyways lol, Here Tis:





Sign of the times?

A little boy goes to his father and asks "Daddy, how was I born?"

The father answers: "Well son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway!

Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe.

We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared that said:

Scroll down...

You'll love this....

'You got Male!'"

I am BAAAACK!!!

Hi My Lovelies,



Have missed you all heaps!!!



Am finally sitting here with computer all fixed up (although its temporarily located in the corner of my bedroom, so no room for comfy puter chair, just horrid old kitchen chair or one of the kids chairs lol).



Just a quick catchup, cause I have to be up at 6.45am every morning now, or the kids dont get to the bus ontime, which is a PITA cause I still dont fall asleep til around 4am (even though I have been going to bed by at least 1am each night) and then at uni at 8am *****just 10 mins after kids bus arrives IF it is on time, leaving me roughly 7 mins to drive 5kms, find a parking spot and hobble at least 1km (IF I AM VERY LUCKY TO GET THAT CLOSE) to my first class or lab.



Anyways,

• we went to Bris for Christmas, was good, more on that later.


• It rained lots and flooded here several times, although my house only suffered minor flooding cause I live ontop of a mountain and only suffered the 2foot deep water that backed up from the front yard and under the house because it couldnt run down the hill faster than it fell from the sky at several points.


• My yard now resembles a waist high jungle/swamp that the mower cant get through as it keeps sinking into the quickslime/mud/used-to-be-a-driveway.


• I never got the painting finished in the loungeroom cause it rains EVERY F***ING DAY!!! and not all my windows are covered by overhanging roof etc.


• Same goes for rewalling the bathroom, very hard to take cement sheeting outside to cut it with powertools and then paint it with waterproofing goo WHEN IT WONT STOP RAINING!


• Oh and the piece de resistance - I rearranged my knee! So spent 2 weeks with a large splinty thing (great nurse I am lol cant even remember what its called) wrapped around it, hobbling on crutches (best investment i ever made when i bought those 10 years ago), doped on pain killers that made me spew all over DBF (Hats off to him, he managed to hold me upright while being spewed on, cause I couldnt use the crutches and hold a bowl and get to the bathroom intime) and have since been slowly getting around, stairs are a PITA lol!


• Mr Moo turned 10, we had a fantastic party for him in Brisbane with my aunty and one of my brothers (the other one didnt turn up - asshat as Kelley would say)


• Mr Moo has almost got his Official Dx (Diagnosis). The Paediatrician has written in his files that Mr Moo is most definitely On the Spectrum. Now we just have to go do lots of assessments to try and work out where and how much and what this means in relations to school fundings etc.


• Uni starts tomorrow, for a 3 week intensive, and I AM NOT READY!!!!

Hehehe Well that is the highlights!!!

MANY MANY HUGS & THANKS to Precious1 for keeping me posted and sane while I didnt have any net access (found the problem today lol, onboard ethernet card had died, added a standalone card and disabled onboard one and all is fixed, yayyyyyy).

Oh and if I dont get around to commenting on any of your blogs just yet, thats cause there is about 500 unread posts and thats not counting Kelleys blog lol (moved while I was away just to confuse me lolol, dont worry, I found it - hehe thanks for the post on the old blog with the redirect lol)

HUGS!!!!!!!!

ME!