Super Saturday

Where would I be without my timer these days?  As Flylady says, "you can do ANYTHING for 15 minutes". 

I've been back into doing things the Flylady way this week and what a change it is making to my life!

Concentrating on one room or one area at a time, I set the timer for 15 minutes and go to it.  I get as much cleaned, tidied and decluttered in that time and once the timer goes off I stop.  It doesn't matter if I haven't finished as I know I'll get to do it another time but it's amazing just how much you DO get done in 15 minutes.

My house is looking so much better, I'm so much happier and more relaxed and have more time to spend with the kidlettes so they're much happier too.  Yay!!

Hubby is at work today so I decided that with both kidlettes home I'd just get a few basic things done which I thought would probably take me all day.  I had some washing to do, some general house tidying and I really wanted to get a start on tidying our carport area. 

I decided that 15 minutes at a time just isn't really possible with my two cherubs around so I cut it down to 7 minutes and decided that would have to do.  Wow!  I still got heaps done and it did help that the kidlettes decided to play with all the blankets and pillows in the lounge....

(they are in there somewhere)

...I left them to it and did a quick house tidy, got the carport cleaned, sorted through some photos and got some washing done.  None of it seemed to take me long and in between it all I still spent time with the kids. 

 By 9.30am I had finished nearly everything I had on my list for the day and it didn't even feel like I'd been busy.  So what to do now with the rest of the day ahead....

Time to look through my cookbooks and start on my menu plan for next week.  I've just started a personal challenge to feed my whole family for only $80 per week.  I was inspired by Sue from this blog and the different challenges she's been doing recently and also the fact that we really have to watch our pennies at the moment caused me to take action.

Last week was the first week and I admit I did go over the budget, by 25 cents!!!, so I thought I did well but I know I can do better.  I'll write more on this another day.

With plenty of time still left in the day we read stories, did puzzles and got the playdough out.

Things were made like snowmen or a snow-woman in this case as Little Miss R insisted that it have "big, pointy boobies".

 We also built some cubbies out of the myraid of blankets on the floor and went outside for some outside play doing more of this...

While the kids were happily playing in the mud (again), I decided to have a bit of quiet hooky time.

Do I continue with the blanket I've already started or do I start something new?

 I think I might like to start on a little something new using this completely fabulous yarn I aquired the other day.  Such pretty colours compared to what I've been using and it's making my fingers itch just thinking about getting in and doing something with all that prettyness....Bliss!

as it was I decided to continue with the blanket I'd already started on as I'll save the pretty stuff for another time (once I've worked out what I want to do with it!)

My sister Sandy from over at Hearts Landscapes came over for a visit so we could take some photos of her.  She's doing an art course and has to do a self portrait soon so I hope at least one of the photos will be good for her to use.  Pop over to Hearts Landscapes and see what she's been up to with her art, it's quite AMAZING.  I'm in such awe over what she has always been able to do and am now in even more awe over what she's creating now.

She also has plenty of citrus trees at her place so brought in a bag of freshly picked mandarines and lemons.  Yummy! 

 I've still got plenty of mandarines left from what my neighbour gave me the other day but his are a different variety and very difficult to peel.  They juice nicely though so I'll squeeze them a bit later or even tomorrow.  Probably later as I'm running out of room in my kitchen for them all!

Then my lovely Mum turned up with some fresh strawberries...

Some zucchinis and some fresh beans and snowpeas from her garden.  There was only one thing we could do with those vegetables....

...put the green veges in the stir fry I was doing with some carrots for a bit more colour and some yummy beef strips marinated in a teriyake sauce.  Served with rice it was absolutely delicious!!!!!

Then I did something that I don't do very often, I decided to make dessert.  There's so many desserts that I always seem to want to make but I never seem to get around to making any of them.

I've decided that on a weekend I'm going to start making desserts and last week I made a jelly and homemade custard which wasn't as much as a hit as I thought it would be.  I seem to have a son that doesn't like custard which I thought was a bit odd but that's my boy.

Tonight I decided to do a Caramel Self-saucing pudding which I got from the third Destitute Gourmet book and was a HUGE hit with the whole family.  It wasn't chocolate so I didn't know how Master M would go but he loved it too.

Such a delicious bowl of warm yumminess made from not much at all.  What's not to like!

That's pretty well been my day and it's been a much LONGER post than I had intended at the beginning but that happens sometimes.  Blame it on Flylady as I now get too much done in my 15 minutes at a time.  :)

Wishing you all a fantastic weekend too.

xxx Susan