Thai Red Curry Recipe and Birthday Boy Connor

Today is Recipe day. I thought I would share with you a family go to, and it's a popular with all, except our vegetarian. It is such a simple one to make, and it's one of the first things the twins learnt to cook for food technology.

Here is the beauty of this one.

You can interchange whatever vegies you have, so utilise what you have left in the fridge, and use the produce you are growing in your garden.

Thai Red Curry
Chicken breast chopped
Onion
Thai red curry paste
Tin can of coconut milk or cream
Broccoli
Silverbeet
Book choy
Carrots
Sweet potato

Fry the chicken breast in some oil, either coconut or olive oil. I add the curry paste now.
Add the onion and stir for a few minutes.
Add the rest of the vegies and stir for a little. Pop the lid on and steam the vegies for a few minutes.
Add the coconut milk, pop the lid on, turn down low and cook until the vegies are to your liking.

We either have this with rice, I sometimes spiralised zucchini and fry them up with it, or, in this case, I didn't put the sweet potato into the curry. I sliced it and popped it into the microwave for 5 minutes with a splash of olive oil, and salt and pepper.

You may notice I don't have amounts. The beauty of this one is that you add what you have. You know how much meat you will need. And just use the vegies you have. I usually bulk this up with vegies, and I usually pop two tins of coconut cream or milk into it. It goes kind f like a soup, and it's one of our family's favourite dinners, yet it's so simple.

On another note. Today this gorgeous boy turns 18. Where has the time gone?
I still have the gown I had to buy for hospital. You see, I went in early because I was having trouble with my liver levels and other vitals were not behaving. I was in hospital for a couple of weeks before I had Connor. I was a pin cushion, as the specialists even didn't know what was going on.
I found out after Connor was born early, that I had a very nasty toxaemia called HELLP Syndrome. It made me very sick and is no picnic for the baby either. Usual treatment is instant delivery of the baby, but they didn't know what it was. It's well known in the hospitals now. I even had all these specialists coming to smell my breath on a regular basis. They also were doing blood tests every half an hour. I still have scars from the needles.

I digress. I am blessed to have this gorgeous human in my life. Such a placid nature, a sweet soul, a friend, and inspiration.

Happy 18th birthday Connor.

I love you so much.

Chopping off My Nails

Seriously...I have never had my nails done. So, almost two weeks ago, I went to one of those mal places and had some acrylic nails put on, and hadn't black painted on my nails.

It cost $55 and thought, that's ok, just over $1 per year. I can handle that...hahaha

Well, before I had even paid for  them I had pulled my right thumb nail right back and it was on the verge of breaking.

My nails hurt so much. Who would have thought getting your nails done caused pain.

And, let me tell you....I COULDNT HANDLE HAVING LONG NAILS.

I went to get my bank card out of my wallet....and couldn't.

I went to sign my name for a parcel and couldn't hold a pen.

I wanted to draw but....Couldn't.

I couldn't wash my hands, nor put on my make up, nor do my jeans up nor put on a bra.

 Couldn't prepare food, nor type on my phone and iPad.

I couldn't Garden, and I had trouble turning on taps.

I felt like I had these alien things and the end of my hands and I didn't like it one little bit.

I thought you needed special scissors to cut them and I thought I needed to go back and for them to redo the polish before they cut them.

Just yesterday, as I was trying to draw, I had a little freak out attack, got a pair of scissors, and just chopped the damn things off. They are still longish, and they still feel like these little weird extensions that don't belong to me...but they are soooo much better.

I had the experience....I didn't like it...I won't do it again.

Here is an interesting article on the risks of getting your nails done

http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/answered-questions/safety-gel-and-shellac-nail-manicures.


Here s a link about safe nail polishes. We all know they have some harmful chemicals in them...what can I say?! I got carried away and forgot when I was getting mine done.

https://wellnessmama.com/17833/non-toxic-nail-polish/

Rather a random post I know....

Oh...and here are my first radishes ever...a little soft, but oh...how pretty is that colour....

Ok....well that's it from me

Don't forget, if you don't want to miss a stimulating and interesting post from me...click over to the right on the "follow me by email" .

Until next time

Lots of it

Mandy

Xxx

Newtons Laws (and birthday week)

 Have been a bit slack this week. It was my birthday on Wednesday, I had a busy weekend, headed to Sydney for my nieces hens night, medical appointments for my miss and just general life. So much to always do and I just couldn't find the spare time to get to my blog.
Check out the link to paint party friday to the right sidebar.

So, here is a catch up post.

For those visiting from Paint Party Friday, firstly thank you, and, here is my art for the week. A quick little pen and watercolour painting , with a prompt word of home. Home is wherever my kids are. This was inspired by a little photo I took of the twins and Connor many years ago.

Thanks for popping by and I can't wait to see everyone's art this week.


For those visiting for home schooling. A bit of annoying news. The wonderful atomic bond kit I was getting has been lost. I mean, it's lost without a trace. They offered to send it out again but I told them by the time its sent out it will be too late, so I got a refund. On two items actually.  Also, the DNA knex kit has gone missing too. I just don't get it. At least they have given me a refund.

I am always on the lookout for science kits that help the kids learn concepts through actively participating. I recently purchased a wonderful kit from Amazon that teachers Newtons Laws, which is one of the content recommendations of content in the NSW syllabus.

I love it when the kits come with great booklets. Takes much of the hard work away.

Here are some useful links on Newtons Laws.

Fairly high level worksheets.


http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~kennethp/nkdievid2.pdf 


A big unit with lots of reading and activities.

http://www.scuc.txed.net/webpages/pparris/pre-ap_physics_resou.cfm?subpage=42028


Another clear explanation of the Laws, and working samples.

https://www.bangor.ac.uk/ccm/GCSE/GCSE%20Science%20-%20Physics%202.pdf 

A simpler way to look at the Laws.
https://mnliteracy.org/sites/default/files/curriculum/unit2.10_review_newtons_laws__forces_final.pdf

A very simple explanation

http://www.physics4kids.com/files/motion_laws.html 

NASA site


https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/newton.html


Another good site

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Physics-Tutorial/Newton-s-Laws


Crash course on YouTube


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKKM8Y-

Hope these help.

I got some wonderful birthday presents off my family. I had a lovely birthday dinner with my sisters on Tuesday night. hey gave me some birthday money, and so far, I have bought these gorgeous Peter Alexander Toy Story pyjamas. Just so cute and so comfy. No idea what else I will buy with the rest money.

I also got these amazing David Bowie high tops.

Kids got me some gorgeous Harry Potter things, and socks and chockies and two bunches of flowers. A book, Down to Earth, by Rhonda Hetzel, and miss Maddie cooked my favourite dinner, rissoles, baked potatoes, corn and broccoli with gravy.

Jessica also came home from being in Europe for a month. It was so good to have her back home, and she is already planning her next visit.
She got me a fabulous Platform 9 3/4 hoodie. I think I have worn it every day.

I have been sick all week, with it now being the snuffles, but it did start out as a bit croupy, so I have been keeping well away from Jacob, and so far, he has stayed well. Think we are in the clear...yay...for those that don't know, Jacob has a thing where his airways get very narrow and almost close when he gets unwell. it still happens, and has been a real challenge. So colds in our house are not good.

Has anyone discovered the hilarity of snapchap filters.I am feeling considerably  miserable with this virus. Puffy eyes and nose, you know, the usual symptoms of a cold. Snapchat filters make you look hilarious, so, I will leave you with warped images of me, because honestly, playing with them always makes me laugh out loud.

                         

Until next time
Lots of it
Mandy
Xxx

Meal Prep and Recipes

I have tried many food programs, perpetually in the process of putting weight on and losing it. At the moment I am in need of losing it. I have tried several meal type ones that you prepare yourself, and the ones that are aimed at you losing weight, and specifically paleo meal plans. I am yet to find one that I find tasty, going as far as throwing out some because I disliked them that much. I couldn't even get Raymond interested in them.

So, I had heard of a new one, foober, that does meal plans and it looked delicious and had heard it tastes good too. So I get on the site,  check out the meals, swap them around a little, and then proceed to order. Guess what! They don't deliver to my area as yet. 

Oh well...their loss. So, I decided to go down to the shops, buy stuff for me to cook, and proceeded cooking. 2 hours later, and 19 meals are prepped. And, I have bought a punnets of strawberries and some date rolls crusted with pistachios. Snacks for the week.

I cooked 4 meals.

Spaghetti Bol with spiralised zucchini

Thai red curry with cauli rice

Chicken cacciatore with sliced sweet potato

Bacon and vegetable frittata 

From home, 

1/2 cauliflower

4 onions

Some greens from the garden

Herbs from the garden

A small sweet potato

2 tins of coconut milk

Squeeze of tomato paste

Olives

Handful of sliced mushrooms

Streaky bacon slices

From the shops I bought

4 packets of plastic containers which I will re use $8

Grass fed mince $7.93

Chicken breast $8.66

Garlic $2

Chicken lovely legs $6

Bag of capsicums $3.30

Broccoli $1.35

Zucchinis $1.20

Bag of carrots $1.20

Bag tomatoes $5.10

free range eggs $4.20

Diced tomatoes $1.10

Strawberries $2

Date rolls $7.00

=$59.04

Now, I only used half of the tomatoes, not all the containers, nor the capsicums and carrots.

So I would take off $4 for that giving a total spent of $55. Now, this got me 19 meals, which is about $2.90 per meal. Yeah, maybe add another $10 if I had to buy the items I already had at home. Regardless, it's still a very cheap paleo Week.

I'd love to share the recipes over the weeks to come, but I will share the bacon and vegeatable frittata.

2 cloves of chopped garlic

One chopped onion

One red capsicum chopped

2 small zucchinis chopped

2 carrots chopped

Some spinach, maybe 3 leaves, 

Half a broccoli
3 tomatoes chopped

Fry that all up in some olive oil an drew pop it into a rectangle tray. Make sure you rub olive oil onto the container to make for easy removal.

Cook up about 5 strips of streaky bacon and then cut up and spread over the top.

Crack 12 eggs into a container and half a tin of coconut milk. Stir well then pour over the Bebe and bacon mixture.

.my coconut milk had some hard chunks on the top so I broke these up and spread them over the top, along with some cashew cheese.

Bake until cooked. 

Well, I hope you have found this helpful. Let me know if you give this paleo recipe a try.

Would love to hear if you have any good paleo recipes I can try for my next meal prep session.

Until next time

Lots of it

Mandy

Xxx

Swing

I wish I could tell you I had lots of wonderful crafting time this week. But it just didn't happen. I was so busy. I have a special event over the weekend and needed to do a bit of shopping for it. The kids had their first Week back of learning for term 3 and I had loads of paperwork to catch up on. Miss M had a whole day at the hospital on Thursday, which brings me to now. 

I do, however, have a little painting I did on Thursday for the 52 week illustration challenge.

This week's prompt was SWING.

I think for next weeks challenge I will try and change how I paint just a little....it's all about growth and finding what you are capable of doing and how you paint the best. If  I don't change how I paint then I will never know if I can get better and paint more meaningful pieces.

I immediately thought of a tree swing out in the country. I think I would have loved growing up in the country. The girls face I tried side on, and I just couldn't get it right....so I turned her head face on like someone was taking a photo of her having fun on the swing.

I originally wanted her hair swinging along the ground, but that just didn't quite happen either.

But I like her, just the background went a bit splashy...lol...

SWING

Thanks so much for popping by. I am linking this to paint party Friday, you can see the link on the right sidebar.

You can also subscribe to my blog and never miss a post. Also in the sidebar at the right.



Thank you for stopping by.
I appreciate your visit.
Mandy
Xxx

Refurbished Chest of Drawers

I am very into saving on creating waste, in case you didn't notice...heeheehee

So, I am on a site or two on Facebook that has free stuff on offer. I have only used it a few times, and given a few times too...it's a pay it forward type page. It's a great feeling to pass on things you no longer need to someone who will find them useful. 

A little while back I picked up this lovely little chest of drawers. They lovely lady who we picked it up from said that it was once her mums, and she was a little older than me, so it is pretty old.

Here it was, after a little sanding. Raymond and I sanded it back and then picked up some bees wax from Bunnings to wipe over it. It came up a treat. One of my favourite pieces in the house.

Gorgeous right!?

It's amazing what a bit of hard work creates.

Do you have an reclaimed furniture you've done up? Would love to see it. If you pop a link in the comments I will head on over and take a look.

Don't forget you can subscribe to my blog by popping in your email in the subscribe spot. 

That's about it for today.

Until next time

Lots of it

Mandy

Xxx

Thoughtful Shopping

Saving money is fun. The more you save, the more you want to do it. Whether it is out of necessity, or whether it is because you are wanting to save for a bigger purchase. Whether you are worried about wastage of resources and the effect that it has on the environment, and by not buying much you indirectly save. Or saving to accumulate wealth. I think saving money is a good thing.

For me personally, I am all about saving for the bigger things, and about the effect that buying "stuff" has on the environment, so I indirectly save. 

I recently watched a series on Australian ABC tv called War on Waste
I am sure it is still on iview to watch, here is  another link that may be helpful.


War On Waste

Since watching this, I have certainly changed my ways around the house.

But, I digress.

My point is, that the less you buy, the less you will spend so the more you save. It is so very simple.

Really think about whether you want to buy an item or not. Try not to impulse buy. Mull over the item. Ask yourself do you really need it. Do you have something similar at home that you could make do with? Think about the resources wasted to make the item. Think about whether the item will last you a while, or only give you some instant gratification.

I'm not saying don't buy anything new. Just think about each purchase. 

It's such a simple thing but it really works. Thoughtful shopping. I recently read somewhere that 80 billion clothing items are made each year, and of that 15 to 25% goes into landfill. That is a scary thought. It also means we buy a lot!

I know that I will be shopping to purchase quality things from this point on, and I will be making do with what I own for a while. No more " disposable fashion" for me for a while. 

 I have written mostly about clothing, but this can be for anything really. Phones, TVs, furniture. The more thought you put into a purchase, the more likely you are to realise that 9 times out of ten you don't really need it, and in doing so, buying less and saving money. 
Trust me, no one is going to notice that the shoes you are wearing to the hens night were the ones you wore to your  nieces wedding...😉

Give it a try.  Let me know how you go with your "thoughtful shopping".

Oh...so excited to read this. I did put a lot of thought into this purchase. I was going to 
borrow it from my local library, however I decided that I will buy it as I want all of my children to learn about how to save money...a terrific investment as far as I'm concerned. 

Anyhow, that's it from me...

You can subscribe to my blog and never miss a post.

Until next time
Lots of it
Mandy
Xxx

Chemistry For Home Schooling

My kids have tried many Science curriculums, and they have completed quite a few kits, lots of  experiments and learning. At some point during the rest of this year the kids will be completing more of their NOEO Chemistry as in each work.

This is a very comprehensive curriculum I bought several years ago. It cost me almost $400, however, I think it was worth it. It is actually a little different to this set shown in the photo, but this one is the latest one.

It has a 36 week lesson plan, which we will be using only some of these as we have previously done much of the historical aspect of chemistry, the upcoming work will be more experiments, looking at metals, non metals, chemical reaction, atoms, molecules just to name a few.

I have made a little booklet for them to go with it, as well as them writing up experiments they will be doing. This should more than cover the outcomes for Stage 5 science, and, along with this wonderful looking thing, can't wait to let them play and learn all about chemistry.

I

It was purchased from Amazon, and cost close to $100 but it will be worth the money as I believe it will be fun to use and very educational. I am awaiting very impatiently for this one...lol...

As a note, I make no money for promoting these resources. I just hunk hey are great tools to us for high school home schooling.


Here are some great links for activities, information and worksheets.

https://www.myips.org/cms/lib8/IN01906626/Centricity/Domain/8123/atomic%20structure%20and%20periodic%20table.pdf

This link uses lego.

https://edgerton.mit.edu/sites/default/files/media/chemical_reactions_student_pages_4-6-14_color_0_0.pdf


 Video on chemical reactions

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/chemistry--of-life/chemical-bonds-and-reactions/v/chemical-reactions-introduction


A game to print off on elements.

http://www.ellenjmchenry.com/homeschool-freedownloads/chemistry-games/documents/QuickSix_12_11_000.pdf

Another game

https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/outreach/kidschemistry/the-chemistry-name-game.pdf

Lots here




Chemistry worksheets

https://www.thoughtco.com/printable-chemistry-worksheets-609242

Periodic table battleship game

http://www.thetech.org/sites/default/files/chem_post-lab_activity_-_periodic_table_battleship_fy17.pdf


Bingo Game to print

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/explorelabscience/Periodic_Table_Bingo_403152_7.pdf



Lots here to look at

http://www.cea.asn.au/chemistry-resources

There's  so much available online.

If you have any questions I am happy to answer them, and don't forget to subscribe to my blog. That way you won't miss a post.

Until next time
Lots of it
Mandy
Xxx

Busy Busy

So, the weekend went by and for the last couple of weeks, and today, I have been sorting out resources for the kids new term of school work.

My go to place is AMAZON, and sadly, it is still cheaper getting the resources from there as opposed to buying here in Australia, even including postage.

I love games and manipulatives that can go alongside their learning. Even when they are older. Science by far has the best resources. 

I will show what I have for them when its home school day...lol...

I feel a tad disappointed as I usually head off to a local market, and was heading to an open day at a local museum, to show Miss Maddie some artifacts that were dug up at a local historical site, since now she has a huge interest in archaeology. But, she had other plans and thought sleeping was a better idea. We should be able to see them at another time so all is not lost.

A few days ago I had a lot of oranges that I had picked and decided to make some cordial. Yeah, its got lots of sugar, but hey, I had a little try of it and it was delicious.

All I did was juice 15 mini oranges, which was about 600 mls of juice.
I then placed into a pot 600 mls of water, and one cup of sugar. Heated it up on the stove until the sugar had dissolved, constantly stirring. 
I then added the juice and about a tablespoon of citric acid. It gave it just the right amount of tang.
Stirred until combined and let it cool a little. I then poured it into a bottle from ikea, and made up a couple of diluted bottles of cordial for the fridge.

I made another swap of home grown produce over the weekend. I am so happy with how the group is going, and I tried turning these and some oranges into marmalade. As it turns out, EPIC fail. Got to them this morning and they weren't set. So rebuild and forgot about it and it boiled over, I spent a least one hour cleaning the stove AND it appears I cooked it too long and it's a very dark colour. Bitter as....but at least it actually set...lol...
Not everything works out.

I actually had a small amount left in the bottom so as I was sterilizing more jars I left the jam on. These seemed to have turned out well...they are the two to the left.

This is a two in one post...weekend ramblings and a frittata recipe.

BACON AND VEGIE FRITTATA

4 trimmed and chopped pieces of bacon

However many leafy greens you have chopped

One leek

Some herbs (I used mint, some fennel tops and curly parsley)

A couple of garlic cloves

12 free range eggs

1/3 a tin of coconut cream/milk

Fry up the bacon, and then add the herbs, garlic and veggies. Cook.

Cover the pan with some coconut oil and then place the cooked food evenly across the pan.

Crack the twelve eggs into a bowl along with the third of a tin of coconut cream. Whisk.

Pour over the bacon and veggies.

Cook in the oven on about 180 degrees Celsius until cooked. I had mine in for about 20 ish minutes.

Yum

Until next time

lots of it

Mandy

xxx