Fairies and angels grow up …..

... much, much too quickly. Fortunately, rather like Madonna or Kylie, they can reincarnate/reinvent themselves :)

If I’d had any idea just how shortlived my girls’ fairy days were going to be, they would have been fairies every day of the week LOL Kate was a fully fledged member of the girly girl club, besotted with fairies and all things pink right through to the inevitable Barbie and Disney princess fetish. However, Amy and Sophie only tolerated the hand-me-down fairy costumes until they had enough language to complain! Amy knocked ‘em back at the tender but determined age of 2 and by the look of it, I put it straight on baby Sophie LOL Just didn’t take though, look at that expression in the tragic studio shot – we ended up with female cowboys, pirates, superheroes – life has never been stereotypical around here since.

But fairies, angels and other winged creatures can come back to the flock, with a whole new tween twist of course. This photo is for my generous friend K8 whose daughter’s wardrobe is one of fussy Amy’s very favourite places to shop ;) – she treasures them and wears them until they literally fall apart. These latest angel wing acquisitions made me sigh with sentimentality and reach for old (pre-digital) photos to scan. Apparently if Amy dresses like a fairy or angel in our garden (whether 2 or 10 years old), gorgeous shafts of light will fall on her and make her really look the part ;)

Amy's risotto

AKA would you like some rice with your parmesan cheese?

My girls love love love this risotto with a passion and it is wonderfully simple and a great springboard for any number of variations. It can work as a main or a side dish. They love it simply as is, or with pieces of bacon or chorizo or mushroom mixed through and especially when I can be bothered to take small spoonfuls and cover in egg and breadcrumbs and fry it into delicious arancini (rice balls). Warning, I am making this up as I go and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to read like a professional recipe or anything, ok? LOL

Get your favourite big cooking pot, a good heavy based one that browns well is always nice. Give it a good splash of olive oil (don’t skimp here or use a spray, live a little) and throw in some finely diced onion (you could substitute spring onions or shallots or even leeks, whatever takes your fancy) and minced garlic to taste (you know how garlicky you want it). Brown them a little, then add 400 grams of uncooked Arborio rice and push it around for a couple of minutes so you slightly toast it.

I’m pretty sure that the original, very worthy recipe on which this is based called for warmed stock, but that has long fallen by the wayside in this kitchen without terrible consequences – can you be bothered? Anyway, I just add 1.25 litres of room temperature :P chicken stock (hey if you want to be Martha, you can make your own or just buy a carton or two and pour it in like I do), about 150 ml at a time, stirring regularly (but not constantly if you’re me and easily distracted/listening to an 8yo read her home reader/chatting on the phone etc). Then as each lot of stock is absorbed, add some more and stir etc etc ad nauseum or til your arm falls off. I love watching it transform from individual pearly beads to a full, heavy, fragrant mass. Oh, nearly forgot, I wildly shake pepper and Italian herbs (not from a home-grown herb garden unfortunately, just a jar from the supermarket) over the top of it at some point during the process. Don’t usually salt it because of the parmesan added at the end, but if you’re a salt lover, go for it…

Towards the end, it really is a taste and see process for me, if it’s not done, I just add a little more stock. Once it feels al dente (yes, I know that’s pasta, but you know what I mean), turn off the heat and add a couple of tablespoons of butter and stir it in. Then, you need between 75 grams (if you want a subtle parmesan flavour) and 150 grams (if you’re serious about your spew cheese) of grated real parmesan. Do yourself a favour and go and buy a wedge of the real stuff and grate it fresh yourself, none of the plastic crap – it really will make a difference. Pour it in, work it through and inhale and sigh happily. Ignore children round your ankles demanding a taste LOL

As I’m a multi-tasker extraordinaire, I often do two pots of this simultaneously – if I’m going to stand at the stove for 20-30 minutes stirring, may as well do a big pile of it and freeze for a future manic week. Or I put it on the back burner and do pancakes on the front (another stand-in-front-of-the-stove dish) – and yes, I mean the shaker pancake mix ;) – and flip and stir, flip and stir.

So thought I’d take a pic of the latest batch, but it’s so sad – it looks so awful, hardly likely to inspire anyone, is it?! It looks like a highly unappetizing blob of oatmeal or something – what a pity you can’t scratch and sniff the screen because it smells heavenly… ;) Going to have to start sending my meals cross-country to Carrie to photograph for me and get those glorious salivatingly saturated colours she does so well LOL So you’ll just have to take my word for it, sigh, at least the bowl looks pretty LOL

Today is a joy

Today is a joy
Because this is
just one third of the beauty
I live with

Every day
This is the face
that looks into my face
and falls into my heart
Every day
This is the connection
that makes everything make sense
And these days I see it
Every day
Love is not blind
eyes open wide as the heart
Every day

Today is a joy

How to create a culinary rod for your own back

Step 1

Decide that being inner city dwellers in the good food capital (Melbourne of course), we are absolutely obligated to bring our kids up appreciative of all the wonderful cuisines on offer literally at our doorstep. Take aforementioned children to Italian, Greek, Chinese, Turkish, Mexican, Vietnamese, Indian etc restaurants and introduce them to everything from noodles and curries to wraps and tortillas of every shape and texture. (please just note that I am not cooking any of this, merely purchasing LOL)

Step 2

Pretty much sprain my wrist back-patting myself smugly at what cosmopolitan citizens of the world we’re cultivating.

Step 3

Listen to aforementioned cultured, cosmopolitan citizens of the world bemoan what boring, uninspired, bland sandwiches fill their school lunchboxes. “Why can’t we have chicken and noodles in a thermos Mu-um?” “Could you make fried rice/lasagna/thai beef salad for lunch tomorrow?” Aargh! “Annabel’s* Mum makes her marinated chicken wraps” (bless Annabel’s Mum, clearly a domestic goddess and someone we all need to either aspire to or slap).

Step 4

Curse my short-sightedness under my breath LOL

Our school lunches start off ok as I make a couple of days worth of sandwiches on a Sunday afternoon with a little more time, energy and varied ingredients than later on in the week. By Friday, we are reduced to the vegemite or jam or cheese on slightly stale bread sandwich or I just give up altogether and reach for the school canteen menu. ;)

My girls are the victims of mixed messages and a mother who is very occasionally utterly inspired and aspirational in the kitchen, but for the most part, pedestrian and going through the motions. So one minute, it’s vanilla bean cupcakes with Persian fairy floss or freshly made churros or truffles followed by 6 months of only arnotts marie biscuits and sakatas crackers in the cupboard. LOL One brilliantly planned and co-ordinated dinner a month amidst a sea of those embarrassingly awful, but sinfully convenient sauce jar creations.

Oh, and I have to confess that while my children have wandered happily around the culinary world, we did have a wonderful disaster a couple of months ago. My birthday, no babysitter and I refused to relinquish my dream of a French meal – after all, the French invented the French Fry, so how could it go wrong?

Have you ever noticed that French restaurants are really very quiet and filled with romantically inclined couples? I guess that was the attraction in the first place ;)

Maybe I just imagined the restrained dismay on the maitre d’s face as he greeted us. But I couldn’t fail to notice that the seating arrangements had our family of five in one corner and every other customer in the opposite corner with an ocean of space in between. Not that it was enough to protect them from the verbal assault of my 8 year old with the booming voice and laugh. Then my fussy little sh.. – sweetheart ;) decided that she “couldn’t like” French chicken, calamari, lettuce, carrots - you name it, she couldn’t like it and ended up with a plate of solely white food – fries, bread and cheese! Thank goodness for the 12 year old who was happily nicking smoked salmon from her Dad’s plate and béarnaise sauce from mine. We cut our losses and had dessert at home LOL

*All names have been changed to protect myself from the schoolyard mafia Mums

Perspective

Thanks to Carrie for passing this sweet idea along http://carrieyoung.typepad.com/love_laugh_live/2008/02/perspective.html and to Sarah Jane for the inspiration http://sarahandken.blogspot.com/2008/02/perspective.html

Perspective

My dining table is covered with blankets and sheets and we’re eating dinner on our knees

My younger two play for hours happily in their tent/cubby wonderland

I am getting up a full half hour earlier than I need to/did last year each weekday morning

Before anyone else gets up I share a sleepy, but lovely and quiet window of time with my capable 12yo and she lets me braid her hair before she leaves for high school

There are soft toy animals all over the playroom floor – it is a sea of plush

Sophie comes to ask me seriously “is $86,000 a good price to pay Amy for 6 snow leopards Mum?” LOL

There are days when I feel like someone has questioned or argued with every single word I’ve said

I have three confident, articulate, stand up for themselves, ready-to-argue-in-the-Supreme-Court opinionated daughters

It always takes twice as long to fold all the sheets with my youngest

We whoosh every sheet up in the air, run underneath them and let them float over us, giggling madly, she wraps herself up like a mummy and I forget that it is a job

I have cooked and prepared food til my legs are tired

I have three dinners cooked and 2 days of lunches all ready and packed this week for when life gets manic and I’m a weekday single parent and that makes me feel so relaxed and ahead of the game

The bathroom is afloat – water, discarded clothes, toys, bottles of soapy concoctions, limp towels waiting to be rescued from the floor

Aforementioned younger two are happy, shiny, fresh, brand new, sweet-smelling naked angels, the bathroom is a small price to pay

My three girls are still awake too

Sisters are having a much-loved sleepover together, giggling and whispering as sisters have since the dawn of time

My husband is snoring

My husband is here

It all makes me sigh,
it all makes me smile

What's it all about...

I’ve been pondering this sudden creation of mine since its hasty, almost accidental birth – what do I have to say? To offer? A good friend has started hers explaining that it is essentially for herself (v. glad she’s sharing though) and maybe if I look at it that way, it’ll reduce the intimidation and cringe factor. It’s like starting the very first page of a beautiful, pristine journal – what thoughts could possibly be worthy?

Anyway, what will there be? Photos aplenty – note these are family snapshots with an appalling paucity of light, focus, composition, ummm (I guess if you can’t even name the elements missing from your photos, you know you’re in trouble). I am strictly an enthustiastic, snap-happy Mum – I won’t be pressing my point and shoot camera up close against a flower and calling it art anytime soon – promise LOL I am blessed with friends of stunning photographic skill and creativity to admire and enjoy. Fortunately they are also the kind of friends who will smile indulgently but absolutely genuinely at my woeful snaps because they love me and especially my darling 3 subjects of choice ;)

What else – the obligatory family news of course; maybe some recipes when I’m in my pretend-I’m-Martha-or-Nigella mode :) ; books (or trashy mags depending on the current brain function level); movies (ha – that implies I actually GET to grown-up movies more than once a year LOL I think the last movie I saw in a cinema was Enchanted and I was thrilled and relieved that at least it wasn’t Alvin and the Chipmunks!); links to lovely things to covet and make me say mmmmm…; maybe if I’m brave enough you might see some odds and sods that I’ve written – whether it’s stories for children, non-fiction or poetry (might have to work up to that!) and last , but not least thoughts. Without sounding wanky, I love to be thoughtful, love to take things apart in my head and my words and try and find reason, meaning, some way of trying to make sense of this strange journey and the ways that connections and patterns emerge if you look around. I know that the way that my brain processes is to discuss, talk, write and then I’m able to work out what I think. Communicate first and understand what is true. Which is the opposite to my darling logical husband who would always work out what he thinks BEFORE he opens his mouth – but he’s learned to live with me :)

Spreading my wings and trying a pic...

..... or three




Sophie, my very cheeky monkey





Amy, my big on the inside angel


Kate, my gorgeous big little girl

Not too late to join the party...

It's really oh-so-easy, isn't it? Just click on create blog and suddenly I have one. Not at all sure what I'm going to do with it, not even thrilled with the title, but I've always been a sucker for a little alliteration. Maybe I should have just called it work in progress - that's me. :)

So many things have been pointing to me needing to write, but I have no discipline and any "nice to do's" just fall off the precipice of my mountainous lists. Maybe a blog will shame me into contributing thoughts, memories, (atrocious) photos, news - I need a ball to start rolling, gather me up in its momentum and hurtle me towards inspiration!

Really can't even begin to imagine strangers wanting to read extraneous ramblings of a middle-aged mother, but I feel it would be rude not to introduce myself. I am Sue, an Australian mother of 3 gorgeous, fun, spirited girls, blessed to have married a good man who turned out to be so much more and who is the steadying hand on my roller-coaster life. I work with children with special needs which fills my heart on a daily basis and practically speaking it's as convenient as it could be, working at the same primary school as my two younger daughters, less than 500 m from our home. There is more to this story, isn't there always? Grazing the surface, but don't want to frighten anyone away already LOL

I undertake to find out how on earth to make this work - as half the world as I know it already blogs, I should have plenty of help and advice on hand. Look forward to sharing some pics and idle thoughts and family news.

talk soon
Sue
xxx