Wednesday 4 September 2013

Day Of Hope

19.08.2013

Day Of Hope : Prayer Flag Project

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For my baby Ellie - Rose, who was born sleeping on 27th April 2012



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Moroni 8:3
I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying
unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that
he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you
through the endurance of faith on his name to the end.

My favorite and most heartfelt scripture, thank you *C.E.B.
Valerie
xxx

And A Baptism

19.08.2013

I have had a grand old weekend this weekend.  Sometimes I feel they whip by and its suddenly Monday, Duncan is back to work and I begin  a week of cleaning, cooking, walking over the rail bridge 4 times a day to and from nursery school, bath-time, story time and sometimes crochet time.
On Thursday evening Oscar had his first ever friend here for a sleepover, so Friday began with both children being extra excited to walk to school together. When I returned from school I cooked up 2 huge batches of chili, one mild and one hot, and then spent the rest of the day pottering around the house, cleaning up for the missionaries coming for dinner. We have 3 missionaries now, Elder McCarthy, Elder Tinsley and a 3rd companion new in the field Elder Lesuma. Elder Lesuma is a lovely young man from Utah and has just arrived on his mission. I hope he enjoys his time with us here, his companions certainly seem to, we love them all to bits.
Dinner was great, and really relaxed and we all ate lots of chili followed by ice-cream, then we had a lesson based around the prodigal son, (the scripture and the video which can be seen HERE ).
On Saturday I took part in a SERVICE ACTIVITY with the RELIEF SOCIETY, which involved packing up various items for charities. The sisters provided a light lunch, but Duncan had offered to take me out for lunch so we went off into town, with Oscar and ate chinese food. It was pouring with rain and we all got soaked to the skin but by the time I bought an umbrella and came out of the shopping centre with it the rain had stopped. And for anyone out there in a rainy place, I think you should know that red sandals do not go well in heavy rain.



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I also had an amazing personal missionary experience whilst in town which I may write about at another time, but suffice to say I was fairly uplifted.
On Saturday evening we relaxed, ate chips and dips, drank IRN BRU and watched a really good movie Conversations With Other Women, starring Helena Bonham Carter (beautiful and completely crazy) and Aaron Eckhart (a inactive member of my CHURCH). I  am still not sure about the whole church - movies - bad language - love scenes thing, but with this movie as I recall it was fine with no gratuitous scenes and a modarate amount of swearing but no (that I remember) blaspheme (I hope that helps any other Saints who find their way here). Anyway, the acting and story were lovely, so I would reccommend this (we watched it on Netflix).






On Sunday I went to church earlier than usual because there was a baptism, and honestly, baptisms are fabulous. Even if you are not a member and you are offered the chance to attend a baptism at The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints, I would REALLY reccommend it. The Holy Spirit can often be felt so strongly at a baptism it is amazing for all concerned. 

At long last my beautiful missionary Elder McCarthy was able to perform the ordinance of baptism for the first time, and as excited as I was for the new member coming in to the church, I was also very excited for Elder McCarthy to perform the baptism. If  it were'nt against the rules I would have given him a big hug.


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sorry I don't have the members permission to put his photo up here


The rest of my Sunday was spent with my family  (as it SHOULD be for a member of my church). I write my emails for ELDER BUTIKOFER,  so that they are waiting for him on a Monday (the missionaries have a small window on Mondays to check their official email accounts).  And Duncan and I discussed our plans for the coming week (including me getting a TABLET and perhaps a little help with the housework too).
To end on a cheery note I thought you may like this video for Irn Bru, Scotland's number one soft drink (you need the sound, the song is genius!).




Today is DAY OF HOPE : PRAYER FLAG PROJECT and I will be taking part.

Valerie
xxx

This Week

16.08.2013

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We played crazy golf indoors when it was raining outside.



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Nursery School commenced after the summer break (what a fast one it was this year)




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We bought some bedtime drinks for early school nights



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We moved the lounge back to the small room downstairs (because my Mum can't make it up the stairs any more)




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We played at the park, of course



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Oscar got some groovy new shoes - Called Dino Soles




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I got a new printer when the old one failed just when I needed it most (i.e. it let me print off sharks for Oscar to cut out one day and failed to print out church documents the next day).

And I stripped the dye from my hair, but I don't have a photo of that yet because I need to figure out what to do about the silver threads ;)
Hope you have had a good week.
Valerie
xxx

Being Boys

08.08.2013

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Valerie
xxx

On The Cheap?

02.08.2013

I often see websites that give advise to Mum's on feeding the family better food for less money.  Sadly I have found that some of the ideas for cheap meals do not match up with what I consider to be 'cheap'. When I found my way (whilst generally web surfing) to another blog claiming to have budget recipes, I was interested but not overly excited. Then I began to read the posts, and the recipes and I realised that this Mum had finally mastered the fine art of low cost cooking. You can read all about Jack Monroe on her blog A GIRL CALLED JACK. Jack has even been offered a book deal after the publicity she has received surrounding her blog. The book isn't out until next year, but there are plenty of recipes on the blog to get on with (mostly vegetarian but not exclusively).
So, I have decided to give myself a 1 week challenge to see if we can stick to Jack's recipes, and save money, but the store cupboards are fairly full so I will be using up what we have instead of buying low cost versions.
I will be blogging my usual ramblings but look out for the budget meals at the end of my posts.





DAY 1 - Thursday 1st August 2013

Lunch

Feisty Soup, 23p

Ingredients:*

1 carton chopped tomatoes, 31p - (ours - Asda Smart Price 31p)
1 vegetable stock cube, 2p (15p for 10) - (Kallo Organic Chicken Stock Cube - £1 for 6 = 17p for 1)
Slice of ginger, 2p approx (1/8 of a 16p piece) - (Ginger Powder - 44p jar - 2p for a 1/2 tsp)
Clove of garlic, 3p (46p for 2 bulbs, avg 8 cloves each) - (Garlic Granuals 98p tub - 5p for 1 tsp)
2 teaspoons of lemon juice, 2p (60p/250ml)
1 chilli, free (grown on my window ledge) - (pinch chilli powder 2p)
Handful of parsley, free (grown on my window ledge) (pinch mixed herbs - Asda Smart Price 28p tub - 1p)
1 small onion, 5p (from a 1.25kg vegetable pack, £1) - 25p

How To:
1. Peel and chop the onion, garlic and ginger and add to a saucepan.
2. Pour over the chopped tomatoes and add the chopped chilli to taste – i used half of one in this recipe – and simmer gently.
3. Dissolve the stock cube in 200ml boiling water, and add to the saucepan with the lemon juice. Chop the parsley and add to the pan.
4. Simmer away for about 20 minutes, until the onion and ginger have softened.
5. Blitz in a blender to achieve desire consistency, I left mine a bit chunky but can be blended smooth.
6. Eat, and feel better soon!


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Jack says -  "Feisty Soup, 45p, makes two portions at 23p each"
We say - "Feisty Soup, 85p, made 3 portions at 28p each"

Airy Fairy Easy Peasy Soda Bread

Ingredients, Serves 4:
200g self raising flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
200ml semi skimmed milk
Juice of half a lemon
Method:
Squeeze the juice of half a lemon, or 2 teaspoons bottled lemon juice, into the milk. Stand to one side to allow it to sour.
Meanwhile, weigh the flour and add the bicarbonate of soda, and mix through.
Make a well in the centre of the flour mix, and pour most of the milk-and-lemon in. Mix well with a wooden spoon to form a sticky dough. Use your judgement, if it looks dry, add the remaining liquid.
Tip onto a floured work surface and pat into a round shape, kneading ever so lightly. The trick to amazingly light soda bread is not to fiddle with it too much.
Pop it into a loaf tin, score it across the top in three places, and place in a 180C oven for 40 minutes. It should sound hollow on the bottom when tapped, and feel ridiculously light.
Break into chunks and serve warm with butter, or allow to cool completely and wrap in clingfilm 
We had all the ingredients for this, but just for interest the flour was 45p for 1.5kg so works out at 6p and the lemon was concentrate at 50p for 125ml so about 3p, adding in the bicarb and milk may take it up to about 40p  maximum (depending on the cost of milk). So about 40p total for our loaf
We shared our between 3 with the soup.

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Lunch total came to £1.25 total aprox between3 = 42p each
Verdict - Very tasty, even Oscar ate it and he is FUSSY.

Dinner

Creamy Greek cheese and courgette pasta, 28p


Ingredients (Serves four at 27p each)
1 courgette, 30p (£1.80/6) - (Ours from Aldi - about the same price 30p)
1 tablespoon oil (sunflower or vegetable), 3p (£4.50/3l)- (we bulk bought pomace oil £6.37 3l - 4p)
Half a lemon, 9p (84p/bag of 5) (concentrate - 8p ish)
1 garlic clove, 3p (46p/2 bulbs avg 8 cloves each) (Garlic poweder - 8p ish)
50g Greek style cheese (feta or goats cheese – I use a value range ‘Greek salad cheese’ that is very similar to feta), 18p (75p/200g) (the same)
100ml Natural yoghurt, 9p (45p/500ml) (11p)
Fistful each of fresh mint and parsley, free (garden) (Dried - 15p + 10p)
150g green beans, 21p (£1.40/kg) (no green beans so used peas - 98p for 1 kilo - 15p)
200g pasta, 16p (3kg £2.87 = 20p)


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This comes to £1.39.
I added some left over mushroom from the fridge which would have been about 25p worth.
Bringing dinner total to £1.64 between 4 =  41p each.
I was worried this was not going to be enough, but with a bit of bread and butter on the side, it was plenty. It also tasted yummy.
Valerie
xxx

Yarn Along & An Old Fashioned Kind Of Day

01.08.2013




Crochet
This week I have not finished Kat's crochet camp project, but it is coincidentally similar to something I have been making.


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On Saturday, I made this cute little flower for my hair, using a You Tube tutorial. I wanted something to match my new straw handbag, and as you can see from the picture above, I did a pretty good job at colour matching.  You can find the tutorial I used HERE, but to be honest there are quite a few tutorials online to choose from.
I wore this flower in my hair (on the side using bobby pins to secure it), to church on Sunday, and the Sister Missionaries (see yesterdays post), loved it.  With that in mind I set about making some more flowers for the Sisters, which they can either put in their hair with bobby pins or pin on to their jackets as a brooch. I do hope they like them.


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Reading

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These little books are SO cute, but they are more of a novelty read than an informative read. I did enjoy flipping through them, and they will no doubt be used in reference when I need to whip up some scones or get a stain out of a blouse.

Since the day was looking a bit retro with war-time books and hair flower crochet, I did what any good wife would do. I put the dinner on the stove on a low heat, tied a head scarf on........


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And went to meet my husband off the train after his hard day at work


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He was surprised to find us waiting there, and it made his day.
Valerie

Sisters

31.07.2013

Lest you think it is all about the boys, we have some new Sister Missionaries in our ward.  Since I am fairly new to the church I did not appreciate the excitement that swept through the members when they were told that some Sister Missionaries would be coming. I found out later that it has been almost 10 years since our ward has had female missionaries (although we do have female ward Missionaries and a lovely Missionary couple). They are lovely young women and they are a very welcome addition to our church.


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Cake making night with the YSA and the RELIEF SOCIETY in our church kitchens.
Valerie

Lately

30.07.2013

Lately  .........................


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Oscar has been drawing a lot and playing with Lego a lot




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We received our first arts and craft box from WOODLAND CHILDREN



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We went to a friends birthday party and the children had a great time.






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I made Jaffa Cake cupcakes




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I finished painting the chalkboard wall - And Oscar loves it




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I bought Macarons for the first time and I was totally NOT impressed



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Oscar continues to dress up in half a dozen different outfits a day



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I started a new painting (it's almost finished now)



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And of course we had Aimee's baptism (see yesterdays post)

Today we plan on a trip to the beach, a lesson from the missionaries, some crochet (me) and some Scooby Doo watching (Oscar) and some drawing (both of us).
Valerie