Thursday, January 16, 2014

January 15th

We spent most of the day out and about - alas, without the camera.  I'm glad I didn't, since my hair was wet and matted from the heat and humidity by the time we finished up in the chiropractor's.  Lugging around an extra couple of kilos around my neck would have been less than fun. 

Being that it was pay day, we headed from the chiro straight down to Better Read than Dead.  I've mentioned previously how wonderful and informed the staff are there.  And whilst browsing the children's section I had the incredible, awe-inspiring, golden glowing thrill of realisation wash over me.  I will be able to claim children's books as a tax write off! Oh my Lord!  I could barely breathe at the thought.

 

I bought the previous release from Eleanor Catton (who wrote the Man Booker prize-winning The Luminaries) which I loved and when I went on a search for how others had found her book I stumbled across many impressive reviews of this novel.  Since the others I was interested in were over $30 and this was $20, it was a winner.  I'm only about 50pp in so far, so will give a review in light of my 2014 resolution to remember what I've read.

Harriet was excited to get a hold of Holes by Louis Sachar, who wrote the WaySide School series that was in her top books of 2013.  Holes, of course, is his tome of note and she has nearly read to the halfway point.  There have been laugh out loud moments, so I'll nail her down on the details that impressed.

There are five books here.  I want to read four of them.

In what some may see as a strange move, we bought Harriet some shampoo and conditioner of her own.  However the fact that she has recently taken an interest in looking after her hair herself means that I don't have to be called in from whatever activity I'm otherwise engaged in to wash her hair.  Bonus!  Also - another step towards driving and moving out with her partner.  Boo.








We ate at a cafe where Ted did not touch any food on his plate due to his extreme fascination with his new 'book'.  And so it was that we came back home and Harriet decided upon her candle-making kit as the afternoon's activity of choice.
 

Harriet explored a few options on heights and lengths.  They looked and smelled delicious.  At one point Ted came up, sniffed them and walked away exclaiming, "I now have that beautiful smell living inside my nose and I love it".  Aren't they serene?



Ted set to work on what he decided would be a project on Star Wars.  He rolled out a long piece of paper in the playroom and set to work laying out stickers and labeling them for the edification of others. It turns out that another essential aspect to his project will be the creation of a lightsaber.  I'm palming that one off to Jimbo, you can be sure.




I thought I'd also take a photo of the cucumbers growing in our small backyard patch.  There are just so many growing that we can't keep up - and my two like to just pick and eat a cucumber like they're strawberries.  They do require a roll on the grass to remove the prickly parts.  That's the cucumbers I'm talking about.  Actually I guess it can apply to the children as well.




Remember how we had no food in the house for dinner the night before?  Well we definitely needed to hit a shop asap and considering that we also needed a few specific items from the supermarket, it was off to our local shop.

Almost as soon as we arrived, Ted went insane.  It was as though he had been possessed by a demon that required high speeds and annoying behaviours to survive.  He kept running from an aisle that held a specific biscuit, to the aisle I was in.  After throwing the box/es in the trolley he would run off with the maniacal cackle that sends cold shivers down the spine of any mother.

It took a while for him to calm down.  I think I had sailed over the cliffs of caring by then.  And when I got back home we split off into our respective domains - Ted to the computer with James to research lightsaber projects, Harriet to the garden to play her Katawungu game and me to the kitchen for extensive cooking and cleaning and putting away.  *sigh* 








I made for dinner the zucchini and green bean salad with tahini dressing that appears on the back cover of the River Cottage Veg cookbook.  Oh my - it was delicious!  Highly recommended.

And then, after James went to trivia and the children finally slept at about 9pm, I emerged to write up blog posts, supervise bread baking (James is currently making a sourdough that is so tangy it tastes like yoghurt; YUM!) and generally slowly crumple.

*yawn*

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