Hmmm

Well I'd like to say I am enjoying my rest, but it turns out I was sick. Flat on my back for two days and then TC started coughing up blood so as mothers tend to do, I got up and got on with it. She has a lung and upper respiratory infection and has been given some pretty strong anti-biotics in the hopes of helping her heal. She has improved a little today but is still pretty sick. Not the best time with her year 12 assignments due and a major artwork not quite finished but due on Monday! Arggghhhh!

Any healing vibes sent our way would be much appreciated.

Hugs xoxoxxo

WILL......where are you?

Once again I find myself saying sorry for not being here! Its not that I don't want to be! So much is going on in my head and I often find myself writing witty posts up there in my headspace, but then when it come time (you know when I actually have time to sit and write) the will is gone! I just cannot seem to sit and write what I feel.

Its been an emotional roller coaster down here the past couple of weeks, dealing with the first of our brood leaving the nest. I had got myself strong and ready for the event, not taking into account her emotions/fears/second thoughts/ last minute jitters etc. I have to say, I held it up there though, I encouraged her to give it a go (the whole time knowing I did not really want her to go), I reminded her that it was HER dream, what she wanted. I had to keep reminding her dad, who at the last minute really seemed to freak. He is normally so good at hiding his emotions so it was more of a struggle for me to watch him suffer through the first few days.

My kids like anyones are pretty normal, they fight like crazy, complain about each other to mama, but when it comes down to it, they love each other very hard! Each and every one of them cried and wanted their sister back...the minute she left. I tried to comfort each one as they needed it and still kept my cool ( I don't know how). Adem has been the funny one..."She better come home for xmas! OR I will cry!")

Today I awoke feeling really down, I don't know why. I am happy for my girl and I hope she has a lot of fun learning her way, independently! I know she can do it! I believe in her and I hope she fulfills all her expectations and dreams. But today I do not feel very well and for some reason I suddenly broke down. I just want to hug her and I can't! I am used to hugging her multiple times in a day in passing! Sometimes we talk a lot, sometimes we just hug! :-(

In the last 24 hours 4 different people have asked me what was wrong with me...I thought and answered "nothing, I just feel tired" and I do, and I really do not feel well, but I am beginning to wonder if maybe its all just catching up on me? I do have a habit of taking on everyone elses emotions along with my own. This time it is really weighing me down. So please forgive me if I am not here for a bit. I think maybe I need a little quiet and healing time!

Today, I did a lot of nothing! Laying around, trying to summon the urge to do "something" ...nothing appealed. My kids needed feeding and attention, the dogs yapped for theirs AND the stray cat, remember him? He has totally taken over my life! He is so bloody demanding for a stow away! He even seems to think he owns MY bed! ????? And he likes to be fed 50 times a day too! Not any cheap or other cat food by all means,, he wants real food, like french toast, tuna, white herring or perhaps a little steak if you please? And if one is not willing to oblige he just says....NAWWWWWWWW!!!! really loudly in your face! Right this moment he is licking his butt right in front of me! EWWWWWWW!!! Okay he just made me smile! LOL

I am off to wind down and get ready for bed! Hope all is well in your end of the world.

Much LOVE, hugs and smoochies xoxoxo

Who wants pie?

A recipe post (you may all thank Sandy as she requested the recipe....oh okay I know a few of you are still waiting for recipes but Sandy was in the right place at the right time so she gets priority!)

Disclaimer: We all know that Karisma does not know how to follow a recipe OR cook the same way twice, so she takes no responsibility for stuff ups! However, in this case she mostly followed the recipe (believe it or not! Small changes...oh lets just not go there...Enjoy!)

POTATO AND LEEK PIE

Ingredients

225 g/8 oz plain flour (ahem... 1 3/4 cups will do it!)
pinch of salt (yeah a few clicks of the sea salt twister)
150g/5 oz butter, cubed (and softened)
50g/2 oz walnuts, very finely chopped (I pounded mine in the pestle)
1 large egg yolk


For the filling

450g/1 lb leeks, trimmed and thinly slices ( I used two medium sized leek, sliced down the centre and chopped)
40g/1 1/2 oz butter (I used 50 g, 40 did not cut it, a bit dry)
450g/1 lb large new potatoes, scrubbed (I used four small-medium sized pontiac's peeled, cooked them whole then sliced)
300ml/1/2 pint soured cream ( Yep a 300g sour cream did the job)
3 medium eggs, lightly beaten
175g/6 oz Gruyere cheese, grated (NO it was far too expensive, used tasty cheese here....I would have gone fresh parmesan but did not have enough left over).
freshly grated nutmeg (who has that? I used ground and added a shake in the mix and then some more on top for good measure...I told you I can't follow recipes!)
salt and freshly ground pepper (okay I have that! hehe!)
fresh chives, to garnish (sorry fresh out of those!)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 200 c/400 f/ gas mark 6. about 15 minutes before baking. Sift the four and salt into a bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Stir in the nuts. Mix together the egg yolk and 3 tablespoons of cold water. Sprinkle over the dry ingredients and mix to form a dough.

2. Knead on a lightly floured surface for a few seconds, then wrap in clingwrap and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. Roll out and use to line a 20.5 cm/8 inch sprin-form tin or a very deep flan tin (ahem.....I don't have one of these and used one of those silicone cake pans....nice idea in theory, it fitted but it was a bit of a challenge upon trying to extract it neatly onto a plate! :-) )

Chill for a further 30 minutes in the fridge (this is the part where ones pastry comes out nice and firm, unless one puts it in a silicone cake pan...then one has a giggle at the funny shape as it was sitting on top of something else in the fridge and came out a little wonky! Meh! Push it down and continue with the cooking process...no-ones perfect after all!)

3. Cook the leeks in the butter (don't forget we used a little bit extra.. cough cough..) over a high heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly (this is where a passing child comes in handy, they make for good stirrers!). Lower the heat, cover and cook for 25 minutes until soft, stirring occasionally. (No sorry, my cook top does not cool down fast enough I put on the lid and turned it off...it cooked beautifully). REMOVE leeks from the heat! (we don't want them to melt after all).

4. Cook the potatoes in boiling water for 15 minutes, or until almost tender. Drain and thickly slice. Add to the leeks. Stir the soured cream into the leeks and potatoes, followed by the eggs, cheese, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Pour into the pastry case and bake on the middle shelf in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

(OKAY...my oven does not like to conform to society...if you have a stubborn oven like mine..it may take a little longer to bake...I cook most baking type foods at 180 c due to the fact that any hotter tends to burn on the outside and not cook the inside. So I did bake this pie on this temp...it took around 40 minutes. I checked it regularly for "spring" in the middle and kept an eye on the golden outside factor. AND as it turns out I did not read the last part of the recipe! Woops! My bad!...so
here it is for those peoples who DO follow recipes..........)


5. REDUCE the oven temperature (yes I totally missed this bit) to 190c/375 f gas mark 5 and cook for a further 30-35 minutes (oh there you go...hehe) OR until the filling is set. (well I did that right haha!) Garnish with chives and serve immediately! (Well I did not have any chives but I did put extra nutmeg on the top does that count?)


The finished result......well its not so pretty because it had to be turfed out of the cake pan...but it sure tasted gooooooood! mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

HEY? Who ate my pie??????

As you can imagine! Around here you have to be quick! 2 seconds later, even this bit was gone! Geez!!!! (And seriously, I must get me one of those spring form pans! This pie could have looked pretty too! Not that we are prejudiced around here or anything!)


This recipe was mostly followed from the "Every day cook book - Vegetarian" by Gina Steer...you should totally buy it~It has quite a few AWESOME recipes on board.

Now I would totally love to stick around but my dear son, Zak, would prefer me to come and build a house for his little bean people! So..so long..farewell, I'm off to build a house!

Hugs and smoochies xoxoxoxo

Smarty Pantz

ADEM: "Hey Mum, Did you know......

Alveoli are surrounded by blood cells and have very thin walls. Oxygen from the air you breathe in passes from the alveoli to the blood. This is carried to the cells in your body. Carbon dioxide is passed to the alveoli and is breathed out. "

ME: "Really?"

ADEM: "Yeah, and did you know, I just wrote that down for handwriting and when I finish this page I will have written a lot about the respitory system. Therefore, that will cover my English (writing, reading) and Science (The respitory system) for today, Oh and I read that out loud to you so that should count for something!" "Okay, so lets watch a movie"

ME: (Sounds like a plan! Hang on while I grab my knitting, hehe!) "Hmmm! Maybe"


Gotta give him an A for effort! We are going to watch a movie but first we did a little reading on WW2 and the diary of Edie Benson. We discussed what it was like for children who may or may not have been evacuuated from cities in England and what happened to a lot of them. We compared some of the diary entries to stories my own nana told me of her experiences during this time. Zak was rather concerned about war right now and what was happening to the children in Afgahnistan and Iraq.

Right now Zak is creating a comic strip in a scrap book and Adem is writing about UNITY. Most of his writing tends to be revolved around the computer. Now where is my knitting? I spent a whole day yesterday cleaning the house and garden so today a little rest is in order and some cooking I think!

Hope you all have a great day! Hugs and smoochies xoxoxox

But why?

There is a very fine line between life and death and for most people its a line that no-one wants to acknowledge or even think about. But every now and then it will creep a little closer to home, giving you pause to think. And sometimes it will even knock at your door. And that's when suddenly the line is crossed and the "but whys?" begin to surface.

We are all born and eventually we all must die. Depending on your spiritual or religious beliefs, or even your lack of any belief you will deal with it in your own way. But more than likely, no matter what you believe, you will question why anyway.

Personally, I believe we come into this life knowing what we are in for. We choose our path or lessons and they will play out ultimately leading us to the place we need to be in our spiritual journey. I don't see death as an end, merely a crossing to something new. But I am a human being and have human emotions, therefore when someone dies it still makes me sad. Not because the person died per say, more because those left behind are so lost without them.

Life without someone we love is a bit hard to imagine. So naturally if they are taken away, we are going to grieve.

This week we were faced with quite a few "but why's?" and even I found myself pondering it myself. You see, this week a little girl not quite 3 years old suddenly got sick and died. She was up until then considered a healthy happy little girl. She left behind a twin brother who does not understand where his other half has gone and some bereft parents. This little girl was Ninjaboys cousin. So when he and Cameragirl went to the funeral the other day, the questions started pouring out.

"Mum, why did she die? What was the purpose of her life? What could she possibly have learned? She was just a baby!"

I have to admit, I wondered myself but then I remembered a dream I had recently. I often get messages from children in dreams and this one was no exception.

I was looking down at a small boy of around 6 years old. He was standing on a diving board, facing me, his back to the world. He was not standing over your average pool. There was a very small body of water, a very long way down, surrounded with rocks. I remember thinking "Oh my god, what is he doing?" All the time willing him to not step off the board. I wanted to pick him up in my arms except I did not have any. I was not really there (in body anyway).

As a mama, I was thinking of all the things that could go wrong, in a real life situation he would be an absolute gonner! There is no way he could survive such a fall. And he was not even looking where he was going!

So I closed my eyes and imagined him safe and well. When I opened my eyes, he was in the pool at the bottom, he swam to the surface and was fine. I wondered how he got there. How did I miss the actual jump, the journey down? I felt relieved but at the same time a little lost and confused. It was like time had just disappeared, in the blinking of an eye. I knew it was there, but somehow I had lost it.

The next thing I know the kid disappeared and I suddenly saw him fly onto the board and stand in the same position he was before. It was like a tape rewinding however I only saw the last seconds as he regained his place. He was staring at me with a rather annoyed look on his face, water dripping off him. Then he said " She should not have done that!! You cannot alter the time/space continuum! It is not allowed!"

I was confused of course and wondered what he meant. Then it came to me that he was telling me that he had to jump. He had to take the journey that he was destined to make and only he could do it. It was his life path. Sure, he might land on the rocks but then again, he might not. But it was in the jumping and the journey to the bottom that he would learn his lessons.

So why am I telling you this? Because you see I used this dream to answer my boys questions. This small boy like many others in my dreams was here to teach or remind me of something.

Some souls come to this earth, not to learn but to teach. We may not understand why it was time for her to die so young when maybe she may not have had time to learn any lessons. But maybe, in her short sweet life, she was here to bring a lesson to someone else or to help someone on their own life journey.

I wish her spirit a peaceful and happy journey. Fly free little one.

Namaste

Okay Red....I'll keep watch......

You steal her food !

Its cold outside......

Awww....come on dad, let him stay inside.....

Okay Humans! Now we got that sorted!
This is MY boy.....

And this is MY chocolate! Hand it over.......

That was the one battle he did not win today! Zak drew the line at him trying to reef the chocolate out of his mouth! And he certainly gave it a good try! Some things apparently are NOT for sharing with cats! He totally won the best spot in front of the fire though and is now snuggled up there with his new best friend!