1. On the 'What personality are you?' quiz I have a 1950's personality. 2. On the 'What animal are you?' quiz I am a dolphin. 3. On the 'What Disney/Pixar character are you?' quiz I am Dory (and Hubby is Mater...ha ha ha). 4. I have wasted an awful lot of time on quizzes. 5. I have no idea how to do a 'food fling' - but the mud pie chocolate cake looked good. 6. I have managed to have contact with people I haven't seen or heard from in ages - and that has been good.
At the moment it's quiet. Really quiet. After a typical day here in the Q family household I really appreciate the peace. .
Every year about this time we have two trees in our front garden which bloom and every year at dawn we're woken by the noise of a huge number of rainbow lorikeets as they come to feast on the nectar. They may be very pretty parrots but they squawk like parrots too. One morning as I was reading my Bible on the patio in the sun they seemed to be having a fight, judging by the noise they were making. I could almost imagine the conversation: .
Bird 1: Hey you! That's my branch you're sitting on.
Bird 2: You had a turn last year, it's my turn this year.
*birds start chasing after each other, settle on a different branch and resume conversation*
Sometime around 7 am, Anika starts her piano practice and we hear Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Joplin in turn. I don't mind the piano music but Mike sometimes 'helps' by going in and plonking on either end of the keyboard. Around dinner making time Anika plays again, but this time with an accompaniment by Hubby who's just come home from work and is playing a new ukulele tune. The problem is that it's a completely different tune to the one Anika is playing.
Added to the noise of the day is that Mike is in a particularly talkative phase at the moment. Whenever he has the opportunity he likes to talk at length about the entire plot of a recent DVD he may have watched, what he's going to do in two weeks time on the holidays, what Puppy thinks about life in general and so on.
Mike can be incredibly cute though. It's become his responsibility to set the table for dinner. I have a set of cutlery which has flowers on the handles. It's a fairly cheap set that I just bought for cooking. Then I have a set (without flowers) that is the table set. Mike does not know this and if he did he probably wouldn't stand on ceremony anyway so he just puts out whatever comes to hand in the cutlery drawer. A couple of nights ago, whilst setting the table, he dropped a knife on the floor when setting my place. I got a clean one out of the drawer and gave it to him. When he saw it had no flowers he said, "That's not right Mummy. I have to give you the flower one because that means I love you." I washed the flower one and handed it back to him.
Tonight while I was frying fish Mike asked me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I asked him to clarify and he added, "You know, like a builder or a nurse guy or a cooking person." I was a bit stumped about this so we talked about it over dinner. Hubby suggested that if Lloyd 'grew up' much more we'd need new ceilings. Lloyd then told Mike that he wanted to be a skyscraper when he grew up.
After a bit of thought I've decided on what I want to be when I grow up. I'd like to be a Grandma.
1. The Qing family are always asking, "What can I eat?" 2. The laundry pile is like Mt Everest each day. 3. Mrs Q looks around wistfully at the house and imagines a roaring fire. 4. We all crowd into Anika's room to do schoolwork.
Yes, winter has hit. I know I was born in Britain but I really feel the cold here. Today it was 12 degrees celcius in our lounge room at 8:30 am. In England you'd never have your house that cold - you'd heat it somehow. When we lived in the country we had gas heating which was fabulous.
I can't complain too loud. The main bedroom and Anika's room have reverse cycle air-conditioning so we all cope by spending most of our time in there.
I was aghast yesterday morning when the parcel delivery man arrived. He was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. I opened the door dressed in 5 layers of clothing. I asked him how he could possibly not be cold without a jumper on. His response was, "Yeah, it was a bit nippy first thing this morning."
This reminded me of a time about 6 years ago. Our minister at the time was Canadian (born and raised in Quebec). I never saw him wear a jumper. One Wednesday night he turned up for Bible study and I pretty much asked the same question as I asked the parcel man. He said, "Yes, it is cold, that's why I'm wearing this." *points to acrylic knitted sleeveless vest over a t-shirt and shorts*
I remember one Sunday morning when we'd had frost and he told us that none of the congregation would survive in a blizzard in Quebec. He took his Australian wife back there to visit his mother and decided to teach her some French before he left. One night he told me in French what phrases he was teaching her to say. I knew enough French to translate "Close the eggs" and other such phrases. I quietly told her later not to say any of these sayings in Quebec or she'd be laughed at. Such a spoil sport I am.
Last week I was very busy with appointments and preparing for Hubby's 50th party last Saturday but this week things are settling. After Matt had finished a mammoth French session with Anika this afternoon I played some games with Mike and Matt joined in.
We were playing the "Hide the Puppy" game where we take turns to hide Mike's puppy and then the others have to find it. As each finder looks the hider has to say "cold, warm, getting hot" etc depending on how close they are to the hiding place. Mike gets really excited when I say "freezing cold" or "boiling hot". He got so worked up when it was his turn that he said "freezing hot" when I was almost on top of Puppy's hiding place.
Matt had the next turn at hiding Puppy and he must have been thinking about what "freezing hot" would be because guess where Puppy was hidden?
And yes, we do drink a lot of milk. Puppy has a sore paw according to Mike, hence the band-aid.
I seem to spend a lot of time in the shops staring at food ingredient labels. Matt and I are the gluten-intolerant type, Anika is allergic to nuts, especially peanuts, in a big way and my Mum is allergic to fish so when she visits I need to keep that in mind too. It can get rather time consuming but if I'm not vigilant Matt and I could be holding our stomachs in pain, Mum's face could swell up like a balloon and Anika could stop breathing.
Our family's intolerances and allergies are a source of interest for our budgie. Before I realised that Matt had inherited my gluten problem our budgie learned to imitate Matt's, "I've got a tummy ache!" The poor budgie confused this saying with, "Hello Rachel" (Anika's friend) and turned it into, "I've got a tummy, Rachel." I'm sure Rachel was delighted to know that.
So it was with great pleasure that I went to the "Irresistable Gluten-Free Show" on Saturday morning. It was so nice to go in and sample all different varieties of plain bread, fruit bread, chocolate cakes, plain cakes, chocolate, muffins, pies, gingerbread biscuits, custard cream biscuits....need I go on. I'm just glad I didn't feel like eating breakfast before I went. And I didn't have to check any labels before I ate anything!! I came away with free sample bags and products that I bought at a good price. I can't wait to use the mix for white chocolate cream biscuits.
While there one company gave away free samples of 'Free Nut Smooth' which is a gluten-free, nut-free alternative to peanut paste. It is made from sunflower seeds and looks, smells and even tastes like peanut paste. The representative assured me that every batch is tested for peanut protein. Anika was interested and asked to have some on bread for lunch. It didn't work for her. Because it smelled, looked and tasted like the real peanut deal she felt funny about eating it. There was no reaction but I guess it's just the psychological element of it. Hubby and I liked it though so Hubby's cravings for peanut paste can perhaps be satisfied without risking Anika reacting to the smell of a sandwich.
Hubby and Lloyd have cast iron stomachs. I often tell them how thankful they should be.
I'm off to have some yummy tea biscuits made by the company who make the pretend peanut paste.
This week Matt was attaching a story he'd written and printed out to some paper that he'd decorated. As he was cutting the double-sided sticky tape he asked me, "How much double-sided sticky tape would it take to cover an elephant?" I have to say that this question has never occupied my mind. My response was, "Why would you want to cover an elephant in double-sided sticky tape?" Back to Matt who said, "Because if it fell over it would stick to the ground." I could not help the further question, "Why would you want to stick an elephant to the ground?" Matt suggested, "So that you could go into a Ripley's Believe it or Not book."
At dinner tonight Mike was telling us all about the scary book that Matt was reading today. Anika disappeared for a while and returned with the French-English dictionary. She then told us that there is no French word equivalent to the word 'spooky' but that the phrase used is, "that which gives you the skin of a chicken." It makes sense. At least it makes more sense than wondering how many metres of sticky tape it would take to cover an elephant.
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And in case you're wondering, the larger font is for a certain person in our family who's about to have a huge birthday next week!
Anika was just chatting with one of her North American internet friends today over Skype and I jokingly offered her some trifle over the video call. Anika's friend had no idea what trifle was and, to our surprise, neither did any of her friends nearby. It's a great dessert for those of us needing gluten-free food. So, in case anyone is interested, here is a basic recipe:
First you need to make up about 500 ml of jelly. By jelly I don't mean jam, I think Americans call it jello. We like raspberry jelly. When it's set you can make the trifle.
1. You need a largish bowl. At the bottom put some cut up sponge cake (a jam roll works well - perhaps it's called a jelly roll there). Due to Matt and I needing gluten-free we substitute some sweet, no-wheat biscuits called "rice cookies" for the cake if we don't have gluten-free cake. We'd put around 10 biscuits on the bottom.
2. Soak the cake/biscuits in about 1/2 a cup of whatever you like. We use either port or rum but if we have visitors who don't like alcohol we substitute the juice from a can of sliced peaches.
3. Put whatever fruit you have on top of this. Today I used canned, sliced peaches but you can use fresh fruit if you have some available.
4. Cut up the jelly (jello) and place on top of the fruit.
5. On top of this put about 500 ml of custard. I sometimes make my own custard, but just lately I've been buying it ready made as there are a few gluten-free brands available.
6. Top everything with whipped cream (about 400 ml).
7. Grate some chocolate on top. Fresh strawberries go nice on top, but they're not in season here at the moment.
8. It's ready to serve. When we have visitors I use two large bowls and double up the amount of everything.
I should have taken a picture to post here, but the bowl was scraped clean before I had a chance.
