November's Mission - The Garage!

 

As you can see from these pictures, the garage needs a lot of sorting out. We periodically sort it out and then it ultimately becomes a dumping ground again!

Re-organising this mess is the lynch pin to my plans to be able to introduce some Montessori shelves for the little ones that i child mind every week and make both my outside area and my working day flow a little easier!

It also means that my husband can reclaim the end with the red shelves (as they will move up) ready to house the surprise birthday present that I would like to give him in December!!

It will require throwing away, giving away, re-purposing, selling and a whole lot of mess before it is done!

I made a start tonight with 20 minutes of de-cluttering to kick things off!

Wish me luck.... this is a biggie!!

October Mission Accomplished!

I am happy to say that I have achieved October's mission and had a lot of fun along the way which was the whole point of it really.... for me to enjoy Christmas preparations again!!

So we all made a pile of cards together at the beginning of the month and they lie stamped and addressed ready to go in December.

I have purchased and wrapped all of my gifts, labelled and some parcelled up ready to go to their recipients.

My beloved brother and sister-in-law's gifts are somewhere on the ocean on their way to Cold Lake in Canada. I love what I have got for them.... more catering for Lorri that John but hey ho!!

There was a rolling programme of pudding making one day when lots of people came to make theirs too!

And after my poor unfortunate cake accidentally got incinerated, a good friend offered to make a replacement!

I sent ideas e-mails to people that asked for them.

And just Christmas to wait for and enjoy now!!

Christmas Puddings!!

As per my October mission I have made Christmas puddings today.  I have vivid childhood memories of making puddings with my mother, with all the ingredients spread out across the dining room table, my mother measuring and us tipping and stirring!! I re-created that today for my own children and had friends come round too to share in the fun.  We did two rounds of pudding making and everyone went home happily clutching their pudding basin!! I was especially touched by one friend who had never made puddings as a child and never made them for herself as an adult.  She was so delighted to be making them, possibly more excited than the children!!

The recipe that we used is as follows:

•  225g/8oz golden caster sugar
• 225g/8oz vegetarian suet
• 340g/12oz sultanas
• 340g/12oz raisins
• 225g/8oz currants
• 110g/4oz candied peel
• 110g/4oz plain flour
• 110g/4oz fresh white breadcrumbs
• 55g/20z flaked almonds
• 1 lemon, zest only
• 5 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 150 ml/5 fl oz brandy or rum.
• I also put in a bag of pecans as I love them in my pudding!

Mix together all the dry ingredients then stir in the beaten eggs and brandy well. Grease your pudding basins and spoon in the mix. Cover with baking parchment and foil (creased in the middle to allow for steam) and tie round with string/wool firmly. Steam for 5-6 hours.  I don't have a steamer so I put an up-turned bowl in the bottom of my soup pan and sit the pudding basin on top before filling to halfway up the pudding bowl and simmering for 5-6 hours as above. Cool the puddings then cover with fresh parchment and store in a cool cupboard until Christmas day! (recipe from BBC good food site originally but I can no longer find this particular one to link to)

Each of the children took a turn at stirring the pudding mix as we all said the 'pudding poem'......

Into the basin put the plums

Stir about, stir about, stir about!

Next the good white flour comes

Stir about, stir about, stir about!

Sugar and peel and eggs and spice
Stir about, stir about, stir about!

Mix them and fix them and cook them twice

Stir about, stir about, stir about!

(traditional poem)

Then each child (and adult!!) closed their eyes and made a wish as they stirred. it was so sweet to see the little ones squeeeeezing their eyes tight shut!!

I am pleased to have this done and we enjoyed doing it together. I had to set my alarm for 2am to turn the second pudding off which wasn't so fun but he house smelled divine!!

October's Mission of the Month - Christmas!

 Every Year I find that come December, life takes on a frenetic pace, I become very stressed and all the things that I should find joyful, become a chore that I dread. So this year I am going to do all of the things that might become a chore well ahead of time in order that I can enjoy them and take the pleasure in them that I should be able to. I'm giggling a little because I always scoff at all the shops that start stocking Christmas items in September and here I am joining in but...... October is going to be 'Christmas Month'!!!!

I plan to:

• Buy, wrap, parcel up and address gifts ready to give and send.
• Make Pudding and Cake in good time (capital letters as they are so important to our Christmas traditions here!).
• Make, write, put photos of the children in, seal, address and stamp Christmas cards.

It is the cards that I particularly want to take time over, to write individual letters to cherished people that I don't make enough time for through the busy months of the year!  I love doing the gift shopping, I find it fun and I take a lot of pleasure in giving gifts that people will really like.  I don't buy for the sake of it, or spend a certain amount on certain people.  I buy what I think that they will like!

Then roll on December when I will have time to spend with my family without feeling stressed out and can help my daughter make all the presents that she is planning to give to people!

Mission Accomplished!

I am considering that I have achieved September's mission, which was to have all of my daughter's curriculum planned out in writing and posted on the blog.  Now here come the slight twists..... I realised that doing a formally planned cultural curriculum just isn't workable at the moment given my time commitments so I have shelved all my lovely ideas for reconsideration in February when I will magically have two days just for Eve!...... I also realised that although I would love to post my plans and resources for others to use, that isn't possible at present either due to time, knowledge and software limitations so I am shelving that plan until next year also..... perhaps I could make it a 'Mama's mission' to get it up and running!!!!

I already posted all my work on the blue series of Montessori (see August archives) and the list of maths abilities that i would like to have worked through by the end of the year.  I have done myself a 'skeleton plan' from which to work and that is 'good enough'.  I also consider this a triumph over my perfectionist self that often ends up doing nothing just because it isn't perfect!