Monday, June 4, 2012

Nice things

Nice Things have been happening in the Accidental House.

Mr Accident arrived home yesterday after three long, looooong weeks away. Usually I am superwoman while he is gone, but this time it was just hard. Damn hard. Two small kids and a new puppy, with no backup, is a challenging proposition to even the most aproned housewife. But time finally passed (as it does tend to do) and now he's home again. Hooray!

He was excited as I was - he ran the whole way home from the bus lugging more gear than I could get inside in two trips. Seeing his face again, all lit up at seeing me, made my entire month. And since the girls were napping (I told Peanut that she had to sleep to make Daddy come home - apparently he's channeling Santa Claus now) Mr A could scoop me straight up and take me to the back of the house, to chastely hold hands and talk about the state of the economy.

Not my children's father
Another nice thing was buying new clothes. I didn't mean to (I never do!) but I went into our local chain store to find new trackies for Bug, and there was a remarkably nice, dark blue, knitted, cowl neck dress for a very cheap $20. The only hitch was the nasty black shiny plastic belt, held on by over sized loops. Two minutes with some scissors and the bin, and it was fixed. So fixed, that when I wore it to help out at playschool another mum asked me if it was FCUK. Ahem. No. It was BIGW. Win!

Nice thing number three? Panzer is growing up, both in size and maturity. She is still strafing my floors with her "presents" but now at least she has the dignity to look ashamed when I catch her in the act. I count that as progress! And she hasn't nipped a small finger in at least an hour. This is good, as if she didn't stop soon, I suspect the girls would have difficult learning maths with only three fingers between them. Size wise, she is growing like a juicy story. Mr A reckons her growth is exponential, but I bloody well hope not, because we can't afford the kibble to feed a forty foot dog.

The last nice thing is that the chicken eggs are coming in at an average of 53g. (Wikipedia says this is a medium sized egg, but the chooks reckon they feel quite large coming out. I'm going to take their word for it.) The reason I know this, is because I have a lovely new electronic kitchen scale. It's bright red, and even looking at it makes me feel cheerful. I've been weighing everything. This makes my recipes accurate, but they actually taste worse. I think the "oh, 170g is close enough to 150g of butter" devil-may-care attitude my previous, wildly incorrect scales encouraged made for more delicious cookies. I will have to spend a joyously long time weighing the amount of ingredients I actually use in my recipes and then update my secret recipe book.

So that's the happy happenings here. (Ughh, alliteration, so twee. Apologies.) What's been happening in your neck of the woods? (Do you actually live in woods? That was very presumptive of me. We can't all be Eeyore.) Do tell...

23 comments:

  1. No, I dont, (live in the woods) but I would like to...and I planted two more trees in my yard on the weekend, so it is looking a tad more 'woodier' than it was last week....I love holding hands, cough, cough....and am so glad Mr Accident is back after such a long haul...

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    1. Glad to hear your woods are getting woodier, I'm surprised you have space down the back there!

      Cough cough indeed ;)

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  2. The state of the economy ey? LOL
    Awesome to hear your girls are putting out....ours have just started laying again after moulting and being miserable for a while - they are popping out HUGE eggs but they feel so light. They are an ex-battery rescue job so old birds, possibly they've decided laying shells is good enough at their age, I haven't checked yet.
    Your scales sound brilliant - I am the same with my oven though....it is such a rubbish oven that if I ever get to cook in a proper one again I am going to incinerate everything I reckon.
    Speaking of which I made a roast tonight and banged on the tanks to find each one a third full - yay!

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    1. That's great about your tanks!! I grew up on tank water, the level of water directly correlated to the stress level of the family, we had no backup. So it's great you're sitting pretty, yay indeed!! What kind of roast? My oven is shocking, I need to sit it on 210 to get 180, and then the right side gets hotter anyway... *sigh*. At least I get a new one next year when we move.

      So nice of you to rescue battery hens, I'm sure they appreciate it!

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    2. Jeepers - we may have the EXACT same oven - not an IAG is it (we believe it may be LADA as an oven)?? Never buy the cheapest oven (wish our landlord didn't ignore these points).
      Beef roast with roast vegies, skipped the yorkies though as the oven doesn't get hot enough to make perfect ones. I plan to get me a woodstove and take it when we go...heat the house and cook too!!
      The old girls were even de-beaked - I'm with Missy Higgins, time to clean up the egg farming industry (or just get everyone to have a few chooks and get rid of it?). I plan to get some Barnvelders just so I have posh chooks as well:)

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  3. Hooray for Mr Accident being home. Three weeks is a long time even for superwoman. Hope you've got a nice stretch of time together.

    And woohoo for nice things, cool clothes and busy chickens. I think it's the small things that make life grand. Oh, and butter. Butter makes everything better.

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    1. Butter does make everything better! Especially if you count bigger as better, when discussing waists... ;)

      He's only got one more trip this year. I can deal with just one more, since next year he will have none. NONE!!! He's going to hang around like a bad smell, driving me crazy, eating all our food.... It will be wonderful!

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  4. So romantic! I love picturing Mr A running towards you with his face lit up, I'm such a sucker for a love story. Please tell me...was he wearing a uniform?

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    1. Yes! And I was wearing an apron, and I had a flower clip in my hair. He scooped me up. It was wonderful! :)

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  5. There should be more chaste hand holding and discussions of the state of the economy, the globe would be a nicer place.
    My 'neck of the woods' includes chickens just coming out of moult, a poddy calf, a crazy 18 month old cattle dog, too much garden and a herd of sulky cows who want hay even when they are grazing in the lucerne paddock. Mr C works away three days a week so we also have national (and occassionally international) economics to catch up on. It's much easier than when he was RAN and I was Army (several centuries ago - we were one of only three interservice marriages in our day). Kids have grown and moved on, life is less chaotic.
    Love it while you can. Each stage is wonderful, but different.

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    1. I do agree! Hand holding makes everything nicer.

      Sulky cows - now there's an image that makes me laugh.

      Inter service relationships would be insanely hard. Especially with one of you in the RAN! It's an absolute credit to you two that you made it work. Army - Army was hard enough, especially with little ones.

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  6. Aw. Homecomings are the best! Woolmerhof came home from a week in DC last week and it was F's first time at the airport where he could actually scream "Daaaaddy!" and go running up to the arrival gate like a crazy person. It was quite cute. He's away again (of course) but we're eagerly awaiting our next airport movie scene on Friday when my sister arrives.. and then we're off to Mexico for a week! I'll say, I saw one of Nam's pics of a cooooold street at your area.. complete with fog.. and I got all goosebumpy and cold. (except now we're calling it "chicken skin" like our dutch neighbors taught us because it's way cooler!) Always enjoy reading about your adventures - you put my mummying to shame! I need to be more creative!! Xx

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    1. P.S. I stole one of your buttons for my blog ;)

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    2. Awww, F running to Daddy would be so cute! Peanut was woken up by her Daddy, I swear she levitated from the bed into his arms. Then she wouldn't let go :)

      Are you taking Woolmerhof to Mexico, or just having a girly trip?

      It is BLOODY COLD down here. And really really foggy. And occasionally frosty. And it's also raining. Gah! I like reading about your barefoot summer :)

      Thanks for the button grab!

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    3. Aww that's too cute! :) Woolmerhofs coming too - we said he could come, only if he looked after Felix while we shopped at the bargain outlets on the way to New Orleans! I swear I am way too tight to pay full price for anything these days!!

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  7. Glad Mr. Accident is back and that you two got to finally hold hands again.

    We don't live in the woods here in Kansas, although my backyard does have a creek running through it beneath a thick fringe of trees. Everything else is flat. And hot. And increasingly dusty, since we haven't had any decent rain in a while.

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    1. Oh, I dream of a backyard with a creek running through it! Also heat. I dream of heat. My poor, frozen toes...

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  8. Yay - glad that Mr Accident is home with you all.
    My neck of the woods this week is a busy one. We spent the weekend out of the house and another will follow. nothing gets done when we are away and those cleaning and washing fairies are clearly visiting other houses and not ours.
    I bet the girls are glad to have Dad home.

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  9. That's lovely - and soooo romantic. I expect that having him away makes having him home so much better. I tend to take my hubby for granted a lot, but sometimes we remember how lucky we are to have each other.

    No woods here either (though my lawns look like they're trying to be woods :P) And it is c.o.l.d! Not a big fan of winter either.

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  10. My neck of the woods involved my sister staying for the weekend and turning my children into psychopaths. And hence there was nowhere near enough chaste hand holding and discussion. However, there was chocolate cake and Mexican food, so that was good.

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  11. Close-enough cooking is my kind cooking! ;)
    Can't say there's many happy happenings in our neck of "the woods" today: My dog snores. Actually, so does my SJ, but I don't actually hear the dog snoring if I'm already asleep by the time he starts. But what really annoys me is when my SJ wakes me at 2am to complain that the dog is snoring and to tell me he's going to sleep in the spare room. And then I notice the dog is snoring and I can't get back to sleep. It makes for sleepless nights and sleep-deprived days. Not fun. :(
    But I have coconut milk, sago and maple syrup in the cupboard so tonight I'm going to attempt my sticky sago pudding. That should make me feel happy. Or bloated. Or perhaps a strange combination of the two?
    ~S.

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    1. My dog snores too!! So loudly. Actually, they both do. Mr A was trying to convince me that the snores would cancel each other out (HA!) but instead they snore in each others lapses. It's like one long, never ending snore. Luckily, this is kind of like a cheap white noise machine, and I find it easier to sleep now than before. Has S considered kicking the dog into the spare room? Without telling you? That seems like a kinder option...

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