and so it happened

It seems that every time I reach a new decade in age, major changes are afoot.

When I turned 20 I fell pregnant and became a single mother.

When I turned 30 I finally left a crappy relationship, started studying and met my future husband and father of my youngest children.

I thought of this as I approached 40 last year. I could feel that change was around the corner, or was I imagining it? If there was change was it going to be good change? Boy I hoped so.

I was tempted to write about it but just couldn't find the words.

I even think things were changing as far back as June last year when I wrote this post, I just didn't know what it was.

Now I do.


I won't go into big details, as they involve my boys as it's for them to tell the world these things not me. But they have both been struggling at school. The school has been great and accommodating where possible. But due to red tape and all that crap they can't provide what my boys are needing right now.

But we can.

So after MUCH consideration and deliberation, we have made the decision to Home School.

We don't plan for it to be forever at this stage. Our aim is to go through to the end of next year and reevaluate. We will use this time to get our boys the help they need whilst continuing their education. We hope that once they are skilled up and and can deal with mainstream school then they'll return to their old school. If not, we'll continue to Home School. Whatever is best for our boys is what we will choose to do.

The second big change is that our second eldest, my first born, has decided to move out of home. This has been coming for a while and I think it will do him the world of good. But as a Mumma Bear I am anxious for him.

So that is it. I have no idea what it means for my blog, for my Facebook page or anything else for that matter. Right now I need to just focus on getting in to a totally different way of life and see where that takes us.

We are very excited, albeit a wee bit nervous, about where this is taking our path, and hope you can be excited for us too. I know Home Schooling can be a rather contentious issue but I hope that you can all remain respectful of our choice to do what we feel is right for our family.


Take Care
Becci
xoxo

This weeks Planner Theme

This year I am using a Kikki K Large Time Planner in Mint to keep myself organised and motivated.
I made some pretty dividers the other week and have been choosing a different theme to decorate my WO2P inserts each week. This week I chose a colour theme. Yellow, Black and White.

 

Most of the goodies came from two Kaiser ranges. Hello Today and the new Shine Bright. Other bits came from my stash like the washi, a yellow spot from October Afternoon and some Project Life cards that suited the theme.

 

I love my WO2P inserts. I can see my whole week at a glance which helps me to keep track of things better, but I miss the room my Collins 24 hour Planner had last year. So this week I decided to add some PL cards to the sides. They are stuck with some printed cardstock washi from the Shine Bright range. The plan is they can fold in when I need to close up my planner to take anywhere but the washi stickers are a little too thick and don't bend very well. I used them because they matched the theme but in future I think I'll use normal washi as that is much more pliable.

 

One of these extra inserts is for my menu. I'll be creating a new menu before shopping on thursday so it's only part completed. On the back I'll have a list of what Baking I'd like to do.

 

The other insert is for craft projects to do this week. I had been writing them into my daily sections at the start of the week but then some projects took longer than others and others shorter so I think having a weekly goal list will work better. Most days I work on my projects any way and have a rough rule of crochet monday to thursday and knitting friday to saturday.

 

In previous weeks I have colour coded my activities. Green for yarn projects. Pink for home caring. Blue for writing etc but that wasn't going to look very nice this week so I went with basic black. I am using a little diamond shape to bullet point my to do's. Each diamond will get coloured in when it's done.

So that's this weeks planner inserts. Do you use a planner? do you like to decorate it?

Take Care
Becci
xoxo

Menu Planning Mondays

 

Sorry for my absence. Start of the school year has been a bit crazy for us. Eli has been having a bit of trouble adjusting and is only doing half days on top of the usual adjustment of routines. So some things have been let go temporarily while we get used to things.

I'm not going to worry about a catch up post, will just jump in with this weeks menu plan.

Mon ~ Chicken snitzels and veg with diane sauce
Tues ~ Spaghetti and Meatballs
Wed ~ Easy dinner
Thurs ~ Lamb chops and veg
Fri ~ Chicken snitzel hawaiian burgers
Sat ~ Takeaway pizza
Sun ~ Mince stew on toast or rice

The Hawaiian burgers were yummo! I cooked some extra chicken snitzels and frozen them. They just needed reheating in the microwave and put together with some salad ingredients, including an apple cuccumber from our garden, pineapple and grilled bacon. Everyone loved them.

We've finally had some decent summer weather here this week so not much baking. I did bake a batch of Butterfly cakes for the schools Fun Lunch on thursday and a double batch of chocolate choc chip muffins for FIL's birthday (his faves).

What's been on your menu this week?

Take Care
Becci
xoxo

Menu Planning Mondays

Oops! You'd think with school back that I'd actually have more time to blog. Somehow I seem to have less time right now. Hopefully things will be better once we are back into the swing of things.
To be fair my days are a little shorter. Eli is having trouble handling the longer days so he's been coming home early. Only gives me til just after lunch to get everything done, then I'm flat out for the next 6 hours or so!

Mon ~ BBQ lunch for Australia Day

Tues ~ Spaghetti Bolognaise

Wed ~ Steak sandwiches

Thurs ~ Hot Chicken Rolls

Fri ~ Chicken snitzels and veg with mushroom diane sauce

Sat ~ Homemade pizza

Sun ~ Easy dinner

Not the most nutritious of weeks really. Can you tell Daddy was working?


Do you Menu Plan? What's on your plan this week?


Take Care
Becci
xoxo

Tucker Tuesday: Recipe ~ Lemon Meringue Cheesecake

I have been doing a bit of a cull and organising of my recipes lately and came across this recipe scrawled on a piece of paper. Sounded good and with Australia Day coming up I thought it was the perfect time to give it a go.
I have no idea where the recipe came from. It was my writing so that gives me no clue. If you know the origins of this recipe then please let me know so I can give credit.

It was a fairly easy recipe. I had made baked cheesecakes before but had never attempted a meringue top. I made one mistake. I was out of caster sugar so used normal white sugar, which of course didn't dissolve into the egg whites properly and has cause the cheesecake to weep a little. Still tastes fine but next time I'll make sure to use caster sugar. By the way I used white sugar in the filling and that was ok.

Lemon Meringue Cheesecake
1 pkt Nice biscuits
140g butter, melted
500g cream cheese, at room temperature
300g sour cream
3/4C caster sugar
1T finely grated lemon rind
2T lemon juice (was less than half a lemon)
3 eggs

Meringue
3 egg whites
3/4C caster sugar

Line the base of a 22cm round spring form pan. I like to rip off a big square, place it over the base then attach the outer leaving the baking paper sticking out from the bottom. This makes removing the cheesecake from the base easy later on.
Crush biscuits in a food processor, add butter and mix well.
Press into the base and sides of prepared tin, the refrigerate while you prepare the filling.
Preheat oven to 160C.
Place the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, lemon rind and juice in a food processor and process until smooth (mine didn't go too smooth at this stage, I risked it and added the eggs, then it all came together phew!).
Add the eggs and process until well combined.
Pour into the prepared base and bake for 1 hour.
Leave the cheesecake in the oven to cool with the door cracked open for 2 hours or until cooled completely. This will help prevent it from cracking. I used a potholder to hold it open and left it over night.
Place in fridge and chill for 4 hours.
To make the meringue whip the egg whites until firm peaks form. Slowly add in the sugar a tablespoon at a time and beat until thick and glossy.
Spoon over the cheesecake making nice peaks.
Bake in a 200C oven for 508 mins or until lightly browned.
Chill fro 2-3 hours.

I wanted this for Monday lunch. So saturday night I made the base and cooked the filling. Then sunday night I did the meringue and chilled it over night. Worked a treat!

This cheesecake was so delicious. The filling isn't too sweet either for those that don't have a sweet tooth, you could easily leave off the meringue and have it just as.


Enjoy!
Becci
xoxo

Menu Planning Mondays

Apricot Chicken with a twist

Last week of the school holidays this week. I've been busy doing some back to school baking so dinners have been fairly simple.

Mon ~Sausages and veg

Tues ~ Pasta Ala Panna

Wed ~ Homemade Hamburgers

Thurs ~ Apricot Chicken Sausages

Fri ~ Apricot Chicken and veg

Sat ~ Rissoles and veg

Sun ~ Pizzas

Baking:
Lots of back to school baking happening:
~ Nannas Pinwheels
~ Mini beef and veg meatballs
~ Hawaiian pizzas
~ Chicken snitzel strips
~ Chicken wings
~ Savoury Impossible Pie
~ Banana Weetbix muffins (sultanas instead of choc chips)
~ Honey and Carrot Muffins
~ Nut free Date balls


Do you Menu Plan? What's on your Menu this week?


Take Care
Becci xoxo

Menu Planning Mondays

Weather was very mild this week so no BBQ's, although I'm starting to itch for one again.

Mon ~ Fried Rice and Chicken Wings

Tues ~ Apricot Chicken and veg

Wed ~ Homemade Hamburgers

Thurs ~ Quiche, Chips and Salad

Fri ~ Easy dinner

Sat ~ Chicken snitzels and veg with Mushroom Diane Sauce

Sun ~ Roast Chicken and veg

Baking:

I started some back to school baking this week. I baked some more chicken wings and cooked a few extra chicken snitzels for lunches.
I also baked this yummy Custard and Apple Teacake for snacking at home.

Do you Menu Plan? Would love to hear what's on your plan this week?

Take Care

Becci

xoxo