Food Waste Friday (and a new appliance!)

Every Friday I join in with The Frugal Girl and Simply Being Mum to confess any food I have wasted during the week, in the hope of reducing my food waste through increased awareness of what is in my fridge (and public accountability!)









Firstly, I apologise for my absence! We have had school holidays and have been busy having fun! (another post on that later :) )

Unfortunately, I did have some waste this week.

Waste Item 1: A squishy Orange! It looked fine in the bag, then I picked it up...

Waste Item 2: A squishy Kiwifruit. Again, it looked fine in the fruit bowl! I need to remember to check ALL the fruit before picking one up, so as to use up the ripest first.

I did have to make a save along the way:

Save 1: Greek Yogurt
Once again I had some Greek yogurt about to go past it's best. Once again, muffins solved this problem :)

Now for the fridge photo:

You may notice something new on my middle shelf. That's right! Supermarket bread! Only a few weeks ago I was sharing my favourite recipe for Simple Bread, but, in typical Clare fashion, shortly afterwards I changed it! 

While we were on holiday the kids ate supermarket bread and, as usual,  they loved it. They requested politely that I start buying them supermarket bread again, and with less work for me, and at only $1 a loaf, who am I to argue? Especially as my stand mixer was on it's last legs!

Which led to the purchase of my new favourite appliance (not quite pushing the vacuum cleaner out of top spot...I will write about my vacuum another day!): The Breadmaker!

I never thought I wanted a bread maker, but it really has made the process so much easier. It's taken me a few weeks to get the hang of it and perfect my recipe, but it seems to be working!

So, not a perfect week waste-wise, but not too bad :)

Food Waste Friday

Every Friday I join in with The Frugal Girl and Simply Being Mum to confess any food I have wasted during the week, in the hope of reducing my food waste through increased awareness of what is in my fridge (and public accountability!)










Or No Food Waste Friday!! There was no food waste here this week! Hooray!

I did have to make a couple of saves along the way:

Save 1: Greek Yogurt
Once again I had some Greek yogurt about to go past it's best. Muffins solved this problem, and the yogurt made them especially fluffy :)k

Save 2: Bread crusts
These were turned into rough, rustic crumbs and frozen.

It would appear all this writing down of my food waste is working :) Here's hoping for another food waste free week next week!

Food Waste Friday

Every Friday I join in with The Frugal Girl and Simply Being Mum to confess any food I have wasted during the week, in the hope of reducing my food waste through increased awareness of what is in my fridge (and public accountability!)

This week, despite being sick, I have managed to keep my food waste to a minimum! I am so happy about this because, in the past, when I have been sick all attempts to minimize food waste have gone out the window!



The fridge this week: Nothing out of the ordinary in here this week. Everything is in date and in good condition and has a use planned for it.

Top Shelf: Flax seeds, the much coveted chocolate and M&M's boxes have been joined by a container of chocolate finger biscuits (it was one of those weeks!),  hummus, yogurts.

Middle Shelf: this is my 'leftovers' shelf housing: vegetables for lunch, half an orange ready to go for my daughter's lunch tomorrow, a container filled with tinned peaches,  and the containers we use to store lemon halves.

Bottom shelf: eggs, all in date.

Drawers: vegetables on the left, fruit on the right, all still in good condition

Door: Spreads, cheese, condiments, water, rice milk, milk, all still in good condition. The lite milk has been joined by some pink milk this week!

Now onto the food waste and some saves!

Waste Item 1: Left over stir-fry that was supposed to be for lunch on Monday. I was feeling completely off my food and the thought of eating eggs and vegetables for lunch was just too much! I had a jam sandwich instead (and a chocolate biscuit...not great for my immune system, but it's what I felt like!)

Waste Item 2: A lemon. It was in a bag in the fridge and from the top it looked fine! When I lifted it up however, it had turned. It has been a good reminder to check ALL the lemons instead of just grabbing one when I'm making dinner, and using up the ripest one first!

Waste Item 3: An orange! Again, in a bag in the fridge. 

Waste Item 4:  There was a serving of yogurt in the bottom of the container that had gone past it's use-by date. Again, when I was sick I really didn't feel like eating it. Normally this wouldn't happen because I love Greek yogurt! (and I forgot to photograph it...)

But once again there was a save!

Save Item 1:  Hummus again! Writing on the lid is really working for me! We had a tub that was about to be past it's best, and once again it made it onto our dinner plates as an added condiment. The kids actually exclaimed 'Ooh! hummus! I love hummus!' when they saw it, so I may have to do it more often!

I definitely think that being mindful of my food waste during the week and actually writing it down is working! Here's to another reasonable (or better!) food waste week next week!

Clare

Simple Bread

I mentioned briefly in my Food Waste Friday post that I make my own bread every day. Making bread has somehow got labeled as a 'difficult' task, but, in my opinion, that couldn't be further from the truth! I usually mix my bread just before I start making dinner and in 2 and a half hours it is done, all while I have been home doing other things.  If I know I am going to be out or especially busy the next day, I make two at once, and there is very little hands-on time required.

As well as, in our opinion, tasting far superior to supermarket bread, an added bonus we have noticed is the absence of the 'intestinal discomfort' that so often accompanies mass produced bread products. We can eat home-made bread with no side-effects (and it's cheaper!)

The recipe I use was inspired by this recipe at Taste.com.au, but I have tweaked it a little over time to make it more to my liking.

INGREDIENTS:

500g High Grade Flour
a pinch of salt (or to taste, I hardly use any)
2 teaspoons (around 10g) active yeast
375ml lukewarm water
Olive oil

Measure 500g High Grade Flour into the bowl of a stand mixer. (of course, you can mix and knead by hand, but it is a bit more work!) Add the salt, yeast and water.

Set your stand mixer to 'Fold' and, using a dough hook, knead for roughly 10 minutes, or until a smooth dough is formed.

Pour 1 - 2 teaspoons of olive oil into a large ceramic bowl.

Remove the dough from the mixer and roll in the olive oil until well coated. Add more oil if necessary.

Cover the bowl with either plastic wrap or a tea towel and stand in a draught-free place to rise for 60 minutes. It should roughly double in size.

Either line a loaf tin with non-stick baking paper, or grease the loaf tin thoroughly with oil or butter.
Pre-heat the oven to 200C (around 400F)

Uncover the dough and punch it in the middle to release the excess gas then knead for a couple of minutes in the bowl until it is back to it's original size again. 

Place the smooth dough ball into the loaf pan and flatten slightly to fill the tin. Stand in a warm, draught-free place for 20 minutes. 

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 35 minutes (this may vary depending on the oven), then remove and place on a cooling rack until cool. Store in an air-tight container. 

There you have it!

Are you a regular bread baker? Do you have a favourite recipe? Share in the comments!

Clare

Food Waste Friday

Every Friday I join in with The Frugal Girl and Simply Being Mum to confess any food I have wasted during the week, in the hope of reducing my food waste through increased awareness of what is in my fridge (and public accountability!)










First off, after having spent the last few years snooping around SimplyBeingMum's fridge, I thought it was only fair to do the grand tour of mine :)

Top Shelf: Flax seeds, the much coveted chocolate and M&M's boxes (though I have noticed the chocolate box is nearly empty! Must.not.hyperventilate!), hummus, yogurts (a small container with cheese in it that  my daughter forgot to take to school)

Middle Shelf: this is my 'leftovers' shelf housing: tomato soup, vegetables for lunch, tofu for my Husband's dinner, half an orange ready to go for my daughter's lunch tomorrow and a container that will soon house half a lemon.

Bottom shelf: This shelf is reserved for eggs and meat (either fresh or defrosting, like these pork medallions are).

Drawers: vegetables on the left, fruit on the right, all still in good condition

Door: Spreads, cheese, condiments, water, rice milk, milk, all still in good condition.

Now onto the food waste and some saves!

I really though I was going to do brilliantly this week, what with my renewed enthusiasm for sharing my waste online! I am somewhat of an 'achiever' and I was determined to have no waste!
Then I cleaned out my fridge...

Waste Item 1:

I was so annoyed about this one! I am usually so careful about checking the dates when I buy something, but I was doing the grocery shop in a hurry and I only glanced at the date, thought 'that looks ok' then realised when I got home that I only had one week to use them all up! Needless to say it didn't happen and half the box ended up being disposed of after the best before date.

Waste Item 2: half a lemon that got forgotten about. (but I didn't photograph that)

But I did have some good saves!

Save Item 1: Being mindful of my food waste, and noticing a tub of hummus that was about to expire led to an extra condiment being dished up on my children's dinner plates. Chicken, with tomato sauce AND hummus :) Both being hummus fans, this was a big hit and it looks to become a regular addition to their dinner plates!

I have also started writing when I need to use it up by on the lid with a sharpie so if I see it's time is nearly up, I can use it up in a hurry.

Save Item 2: No photo of this one, but I managed a save with some stale bread. Again, knowing I was going to have to own up to my food waste made me more mindful of it during the week. I make my own bread every day and when slicing it up I had made the crusts at the end a bit large. My husband is the only one who likes eating the crusts and he was away, so I decided to use them to make a crumb topping for our vegetables for dinner.  Rather than getting out the food processor from the bottom cupboard, I just made 'rustic' crumbs by crumbling them up with my fingers. The bonus of stale home-made bread is that it crumbles easily and they went very crispy in the oven, topped with a little cheese :)

So, not the perfect week I was hoping for, but much better than I would have done without the motivation of accountability! Here's hoping for another almost (or completely!) waste free week next week!

Clare

How I stay organised

I have tried so many different ways of staying organised and on top of things at home over the years!

Over the last 15 years or so I have worked hard to teach myself to be organised and implement systems that keep surfaces clear and jobs completed, both at work and at home. At work I am very focused, but at home I am somewhat of a 'scattered' thinker and without systems in place, jobs don't get done! I'm not fantastic at sticking to my systems all the time and I often use the 'scheduled' parts as a guide rather than strictly following times, but no one has ever run out of underwear (whew!) and everyone always gets fed, so I must be doing alright :)

These are my current favourite ways of organising my jobs, calendar and the miscellaneous pieces of paper that are inclined to disappear when no one is looking!


Before I made any schedules or planners I made some goals which I display on the inside of the wardrobe door so I can be reminded of the things I want to achieve. I know I won't achieve all of them at once, but I find being reminded of them helpful as I know where I am heading.

Flowing on from that is the schedule displayed on the kitchen wall that gives us a detailed outline of what we need to do to get important things (like getting to school and getting to bed) done on time. I definitely don't always stick to these timings! Right after I made this chart I came down with a nasty virus that left me absolutely exhausted and both kids came down with a different virus and one came down with a throat infection! Needless to say our morning routine hasn't looked much like this as we have been trying to get as much sleep as possible to recover! This has been one of the times I have used this as a 'suggestion' rather than a schedule :) But as we did something similar last school term with morning timings, I know it does work really well for us when we are all fit and healthy! As someone who is not naturally a morning person, having the schedule and 'trying' to stick to it is more successful than not using one at all :)

This is the job planner I keep on the kitchen wall to help me make sure everything that needs doing gets done in terms of laundry, cleaning and lunch preparation. I originally decided to display it there so that if I am not home or am unwell my husband and kids know what jobs need to be done, but now they can see it, they are helping most of the time anyway! The kids particularly enjoy setting out the placemats and the napkins at dinner time.

For to-do list items, I have a diary that sits on top of the printer (sometimes on the kitchen bench) that I use to record what needs doing in terms of errands and general jobs and cross them out as I go (which I have always found very satisfying!)

One of my favourite organisational tools is my version of Karen Ehman's Brain in a Binder .
With so many notices coming home from school and birthday invitations and such things, I find it so much easier to keep them in one place. 

I use a ring binder with plastic folders and plastic sleeves inside to hold important documents until the are no longer relevant. 

I have one of these fantastic plastic folder sleeves for each person, plus one for receipts, shopping lists, and sections for craft ideas, cleaning tips, takeaway menus and calendars (which we display on the fridge and I store here when finished. We use a print out of our Google calendar, so we have it on our computer and phones too, but things always end up getting added in pencil and I like to have a record of them).  I love knowing where everything is and it makes finding things so much simpler!

Lastly, I keep a shopping list in a plastic sleeve in the pantry. I am terrible at saying 'oh dear we've nearly run out of  'xyz', but not writing it down and then forgetting when it comes time to make my shopping list on Tuesday night. By having one out and ready to go, I record things as soon as I notice they need to go on the list. (and yes, I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to making my shopping lists. I loathe forgetting things and having to go to the supermarket again!)

So there you have it! My organising systems, for the moment, until they change again :)

I really enjoyed Amy Hack's Life's youtube video about how she uses her filofax, and I am keen to try using one myself, like a mini version of my 'brain in a binder'. I'll let you know how it goes! 

Do you have any organisational tips or tricks that work brilliantly in your home? Please share them in the comments :) 

Clare

I'm back!

I originally started Doing it Simply in 2012 to communicate and share with other simple living enthusiasts and aspiring minimalists, but, ironically, my desire to simplify my life led me to close down my blog! 

But now I'm back and starting afresh for the simple reason that I really need accountability and community to keep me on track! 

Doing it Simply focuses on our attempts at embracing a kind of 'moderate-minimalist' way of living, an intentionally simple lifestyle.  The blog will feature ideas on (amongst other things): 

• decluttering (I love the William Morris quote "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” and this has inspired many a decluttering frenzy!)*
• systems and routines that help make life simpler at home, 
• ideas for simple family fun 
• and every week I will be participating in Food Waste Friday over at www.frugalgirl.com and www.simplybeingmum.com. 

*disclaimer: Our choice to live with less stuff is certainly not a judgement on other people's lifestyle choices. This is what works for us at the moment. We certainly have many things that other people would consider clutter and a true minimalist would be horrified with the size of our CD collection! But that is why I believe the 'useful and beautiful' part of the Morris quote is so important. What is 'useful and beautiful' to me (I have lego displayed on my piano...) may not be to you, and vice versa :) 

Thanks for following along and I would love to hear any thoughts, tips or tricks you have for simplifying, organising and reducing your food waste in the comments!

Clare

Simple Parenting Links

There have been a couple of posts I have just LOVED this week.

This post by Amy at Frugal Mama inspired a new level of simple organisation and responsibility for my kids, both for the mornings and at bedtime. We've always had job charts, but they have been ones with tick boxes and I always forget to wipe the whiteboard marker off (by that time it has dried and I have to use cleaner to get it off...) so we stop using them. I love Amy's idea of SIMPLE lists that empower your kids to take control of their mornings, any my kids have been loving them too!

and this post by Dr. Laura Markham has completely changed the way I respond to my tired and cranky kids after school.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Food Waste Friday!

Avoiding food waste and keeping to a grocery budget are two things I'm really keen on and menu planning is my number one way to make sure they happen, from planning snacks and lunches to all our dinners for the week. 

So, how did I get on this week?

As predicted I did go over budget on my groceries  (NZ $50 over), but things are looking a bit more normal this week and I am confident I will do the groceries in under NZ$200.

On the food waste front, not quite as good as last week!

A little bit of hummus left in the tub, one bun which got pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten about, and a small bag of mandarins (I have to confess the bag of mandarins in the photo is not the bag that got disposed of. They got put in the bin earlier in the week, but I forgot to take a photo!). There were a few lunchbox items that didn’t get eaten, but I’ve decided not to worry about the whims of my children’s appetites in regards to Food Waste Friday.

So all in all not too bad. However, it could have been worse!

Thursday lunchtime I still had a couple of handfuls of baby spinach left that I didn’t want to eat raw and I didn’t want to throw away, so I pureed them into the baked potato I was having for lunch! With a sprinkle of cheese on top, they were surprisingly yummy (and not too alarmingly green!). Food waste problem solved :)

The Fridge

Not much to use up this week! The soup on the top shelf is for lunch today, the tofu on the second shelf is for dinner tonight, the peaches on the second shelf have just been opened and all the milk, cheese, eggs and condiments are in date. The fruit and vege in the bins are still good so they will be used up as snacks and meals in the plan below.

Menu Plan

When planning my menu I have to take a few things into consideration. I am catering for:
One person who is gluten-free
One is wheat-free (and many-other-things-free) 
One vegetarian 
One who will eat anything (particularly if it is covered in tomato sauce!)

So what are we eating this week?

Tonight it's Chicken and veges (nice and simple as I teach after school), with tofu for the vegetarian.

Saturday is homemade Pizza and chips.

Sunday is a stirfry (using up the left-over chicken) 

Monday is Steak, baked kumara (sweet potato), carrots, broccoli, with tofu for the vegetarian.

Tuesday is a vegetable Frittata (eggs, feta, pumpkin, potato, spinach)

Wednesday is tuna and vegies stirred through mashed potato (a simple but effective way to get my slow, picky eaters to eat up quick. Wednesday dinner is always a bit late as my daughter has art class until 5.30pm). Once again, tofu for the vegetarian.

Thursday is soup night! Pumpkin, potato and celery with lemon juice and mixed spice is the favourite at the moment.

Lunches: The kids will be having sandwiches all week.  Grown-ups will be eating leftovers and sandwiches depending on the day and what is leftover.  

Snacks are: date and walnut loaf, mini-muffins, corn-thins, sandwiches, chickpea chips, frooze-balls, assorted fruit from the fridge or fruit-bowl.

So there is my food week! 

How did you get on?

Thanks again to The Frugal Girl and SimplyBeingMum for the foodwaste and menu-planning inspiration.

Food Waste Friday

I have been playing along at home with The Frugal Girl's Food Waste Friday and Simply Being Mum's  No Waste Tastes Great for quite some time and now I have a blog I intend to join in each week and continue to reduce our food waste! Nothing like public accountability as a motivator! 

Avoiding food waste and keeping to a grocery budget are two things I'm really keen on and menu planning is my number one way to make sure they happen, from planning snacks and lunches to all our dinners for the week. 

I already know I am going to go over budget this week. With the wee lad starting school I have been experimenting with his lunches to see what gets eaten and what doesn't and now I have a plan I am pretty confident we will be back under budget next week.

I probably won't do this every week, but seeing as how I have been snooping around SimplyBeingMum's fridge for quite some time, I thought it was only fair to let you all have a look at mine.  After being on my to-do list for quite a while, I have finally cleaned my fridge. Not just a quick wipe down with a cloth, a proper 'pull all the drawers and shelves out and wash them in the sink' kind of clean! I intend to give it a good wipe down every week from now on so I don't have to get to this point again!

So here it is: my sparkling clean fridge! 

Top shelf: flax seeds, soup for lunch, water
Middle shelf: extra margerine for baking, container of tinned peaches, bread
Bottom shelf: eggs
Door: mayonaise, Jam, margerine, cheese (you can't see it in the picture), tomato sauce, soy sauce, and milks (all in-date)
Fruit and veg drawers: celery, carrots, tomatoes, apples, lemons, mandarines: all still good!

The one thing that didn't get used up this week:

It doesn't look too bad in the picture, but it's much slimier in real life. Eugh! 
My daughter loves lettuce in her sandwiches but she was the only one who ate it this week. Next week I will be planning more uses for lettuce so I don't have to post more pictures of wilting leaves! Oh the shame!

So what will we be eating this week?

When planning my menu I have to take a few things into consideration. I am catering for:
One person who is gluten-free
One is wheat-free (and many-other-things-free) 
One vegetarian 
One who will eat anything (particularly if it is covered in tomato sauce!)

Every week I set myself a $200 (NZ) budget.  I would love to get under that, and have tried many times, but it has just resulted in there not being enough food in the house. However,  since I started menu-planning we are saving over $100 (NZ) on groceries per week!

Tonight it's Chicken and veges (nice and simple as I teach after school), with eggs for the vegetarian.

Saturday is a stir-fry with the leftover celery, carrots and some frozen corn from the freezer.

Sunday is a bit of a messy night as my husband has a concert on that we are all going to and my daughter is at a birthday party until about 7pm! He will eat pizza with his band kids at the venue, Zoe will eat at the party, and Alex and I will have chicken sandwiches and chips. Guaranteed to be eaten quickly!

Monday is a stirfry.

Tuesday is Steak, baked kumara (sweet potato), carrots and beans with tofu for the veg.

Wednesday is tuna and vegies stirred through mashed potato (a simple but effective way to get my slow, picky eaters to eat up quick. Once again, tofu for the vegetarian. Wednesday dinner is always a bit late as my daughter has art class until 5.30pm)

Thursday is soup night!

Lunches: Monday, Wednesday, Friday are sandwich days for the kids, Tuesday and Thursday are pizza. Grown-ups will be eating leftovers and sandwiches if there are no leftovers. 

Snacks are: date and walnut loaf, mini-muffins, corn-thins, sandwiches, chickpea chips.

So there is my food week! Here's to no foodwaste next week!

Thanks again to The Frugal Girl and SimplyBeingMum for the foodwaste and menu-planning inspiration.

An ode to my i-pod

I'm sure all of us have possessions we love and wouldn't part with no-matter how committed we are to living simply and living with less stuff. Given that I base what stays in my house on the William Morris quote "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” I would like to base today's post on something I love!

So without further ado, my 'ode to my i-pod'!

I love my i-pod. I've only had it a few months, thanks to a generous gift from my mother-in-law, but I can't imagine living without one now. For me, it is not the fact that 'I have an i-pod' that I can't live without, but the experiences I have now I have one.

I am a musician, a music teacher and a music fan and for the past 7 years, most of my music listening and making has been heavily influenced by either my jobs working with small children or my own children's tastes. This wasn't so bad when my son was obsessed with Gorillaz and the Beatles (aged 3), but even then, the day we listened to this album from 9am until about 4.30pm? There comes a point when even the most ardent fan has had enough of The Beatles!

With my i-pod came the opportunity to listen to music again, just for fun! And to listen to the music I wanted to listen to. Snuggling in bed with a child who is a reluctant sleeper? No worries! On goes the i-pod and the latest Radcliffe and Maconie podcast! Going for a walk? A great chance to listen to some tunes (and sing along whilst walking down the street. I don't usually get funny looks...)

Things I have particularly enjoyed whilst listening to my i-pod this week:

1. Discovering the utter brilliance of the tambourine part in Pulp's 'A Little Soul'
2. Putting my i-pod on shuffle when I've gone for a walk and forcing myself not to skip tracks. Had I skipped tracks I wouldn't have found out that Bjork's 'Pagan Poetry' is a brilliant song for walking to. Who knew! It certainly made the walk a bit more magical!
3. That there is no better song for hanging out the laundry than Arcade Fire's 'Wake Up' (and it has to be plugged into the stereo, because it needs to be LOUD, and I would like my eardrums to continue to work at their best...)
4. That Radio Sport now has an FM frequency and I can listen to the League in bed. Just a pity the Warriors didn't win!

Well, there it is. The 'ode to my i-pod'! In fact, I have some laundry to hang out so I might just go and plug it in now!

Do you have a particular 'thing' you just couldn't live without? 

Minor declutter and holiday fun!

It has been school holidays over here for the last two weeks and, although I initially planned for decluttering madness, it didn't quite pan out like that! So what have I been up to?

Let's start with business: I did some decluttering in our sleep-out at the back of the garage. We have a storage cupboard which is often where things that we don't know what to do with, or that we can't quite get rid of, go to hide. It is much tidier now and quite a few things got put in the recycling bin. I was only out there for about 15 minutes, but in that time I got such a lift and felt motivated to tackle a few other small projects.

One of the other small projects I did was to set up a home-management/planning space at the end of my kitchen bench.

 I used to have one, but decided in a fit of decluttering at the beginning of the year that it looked messy and it had to go.  The area was, in fact very messy, but that had more to do with my schedule spiraling out of control and me dumping school notices, receipts and lists on top of it, than the fact that the planning station itself was messy. Now that my schedule is slower and I have these l-o-n-g days to fill (youngest started school this morning) I thought I needed something to help me structure my days again and to help me plan in advance. 

I love using Simple Mom's daily docket for planning. It is so straightforward and  means you can combine a to-do list and a schedule on the same document. I also use a version I personalised of her cleaning checklist. I don't have so much success with this, but that is because of my lack of discipline when it comes to cleaning, not because of the list!

In the folder I keep the recipes I'm going to use during the week, my grocery list, blank versions of my grocery list and menu plan, take-out menus etc. I love having them all in one accessible place. 

I also have completely re-organised my kitchen, but that is for another post. What I will say though is that we are LOVING the new arrangement! 

Now for the fun! (though, to be honest,  I was already having plenty of fun with the decluttering...)

Despite Homer Simpson's enduring statement that "Good things don't end with 'eum'", my son actually asked to go to the museum! 

They have a human sized penguin that he was desperate to see again. And a fantastic 'house' you can go into in the volcano section that shows you what would happen if there was a volcanic eruption in Auckland, with fake news reports and simulated earthquakes! I enjoyed all this (obviously!), but my favourite part?

The view from the front steps. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day!

That is North Head in the foreground and Rangitoto Island in the background. Two of Aucklands 49 dormant volcanoes.

We also went to the Winter Gardens,

And the Fernery (which I think is my favourite place of all. I LOVE the damp, mossy smell!)

which are all in the Auckland Domain (of which the Museum is part of too).

How has your decluttering been going this week? 

Have you been anywhere exciting/interesting?

Birthday Fun!

We like to do things simply round here and birthday's are no different!

We do our parties at home. Usually they are small, with the birthday person choosing a few friends to come over for some fun and games and cake. This year it was Alex's fifth birthday, which is a big deal over here as you start school as soon as you turn five, so this was reflected in a larger-than-normal guest-list (12 children in total!).

We like to decorate simply. A few streamers and balloons and some decorations that match our theme. This year was a superhero theme so we decorated accordingly. 

One of the best home decorating jobs we've ever done was painting one wall of our kitchen with blackboard paint. Normally the kids draw on it and we write messages etc, but at party time it gets a special message and drawings to match our theme. My hubby is the artist responsible!

My very creative Hubby also spent the morning of the party decorating the deck where the party would take place:

We also played some simple games: Pass the parcel (played the 'old-school' way with only one present at the end!), Pin the Bat-wing on Batman (played by pinning a cardboard Bat-wing onto the Batman drawn on the blackboard wall), a Kryptonite hunt (finding green blocks hidden  in the garden), and the favourite game of the day: Super-Villan Bowling! We bluetacked printouts of super-villans onto bowling pins, set them up on the deck and let the kids go for it! Here are the super-villans being used as decorations before the game.

The thing I was most worried about was the cake! I have never tried icing with fondant before, but Alex had his heart set on a Superman cake so I decided I would give it a go and here are the results! I had to make two cakes as we had two parties, one for the kids in the afternoon and a quieter affair with the family in the evening.

This was the kids cake:

A few cracks and I didn't trim it very neatly, but no-one noticed. They were too busy eating it!

And this was the adults cake:

This one was much smaller as we had fewer people to feed. 

We only did very simple 'party bags'. I'm not really into the concept. When I was a kid, playing some games and having some cake was enough. I didn't need a plastic bag full of cheap plastic toys to make me feel like I'd had a good time. I did little parcels consisting of two chocolate frogs and two balloons wrapped in cling-film (I forgot to buy cellophane...) and tied up with curling ribbon. And it was enough. No one complained that they didn't 'get' much and a good time was had by all. 

How do you do birthdays? 

Slowly making progress

After my week of letting it go and accepting the clutter, I had plans for this week to be a decluttering frenzy! But life happened again :) I came down with a cold on Sunday (first weekend of the school holidays...typical!!) and snuggling up in bed has been much more appealing than re-homing transitory stuff, but despite my sniffles I have managed to get a couple of things done!

Last Thursday evening this was my kitchen:

This was my kitchen this afternoon. Don't you feel calmer looking at this one? I sure do! The kitchen really is the hub of our house and the clutter (or lack of it) makes a big difference to how we all feel.

I would like my fridge door to be a little less 'busy', but it's the most direct place to keep birthday invitations and we are having a bit of a birthday boom at the moment. 

I also did a little work on our telephone table and craft box and have re-homed rather a lot of pencils...not sure where they all came from! I don't have a before shot for this one, but it used to have the phone and pencil jar on the top shelf, the sellotape dispenser, paper cube, calculator and an eraser on the middle shelf and a couple of extra books on the bottom shelf. 

So despite not getting nearly as much done as I would like this week I have still made some small steps in the right direction. 

And I know it's only Wednesday, but my 're-minimalism-ing' my house is going to have to take second place to the Superhero party on Saturday to celebrate my youngest turning 5 and the cake I need to create!

Jo at Simply Being Mum wrote a great 'Not Buying It' post about birthday cakes. I have (almost) always baked my own birthday cakes. This is the last one I made for my daughter's 7th Birthday back in April.

 It was a simple cake with royal icing out of a packet from the supermarket, and it was pink and did the job. The one this weekend is going to be my first 'fancy' cake with fondant (roll your own) icing! I have actually been having nightmares about this cake so please send good cake-icing energy my way! I promise to post pictures (even if it looks terrible) because if I can do it, anyone can! *once again, no affiliate links in this post*

Have a great week everyone!