Busy pottering

It was a bit of a mish-mash of a week (and previous weekend) which truthfully has been quite fine with me.  

Last week was quite busy-ish week so when Saturday rolled around I decided that it would be a nice At Home day for the kidlettes and myself.  Daddy was away at work so it was just the three of us and we were happy to potter around.

I admit that I encouraged x-box playing a bit so that I could play in my happy place without too many interruptions.  As we have the one x-box and kids who argue a bit when they play together, we set the timer for each child.  We give them a fairly decent go on it and once the timer goes off, it's time two swap over.

There was plenty of outside play when it wasn't their turn on the machine (especially for Little Miss R).  Master M headed to his room and played with his lego and later on in the day there was plenty of outside play with the neighbourhood kids.  All extremely noisy but fun.

I took the time to go through my stash.

There's not much to my stash these days as I got so sick of the clutter and odds and ends that I had a very good cull of some of my crafty stuff a couple of months ago.  There's still plenty of other things to cull but my yarn stash has been depleted.

I've been eyeing off some projects that I want to sink my teeth into.  I'm having to contain myself a little because I will confess I do have some more yarn on order from the UK.  I have definite plans for that yarn and have been really trying very hard to be patient while waiting for the delivery but it is getting a bit difficult.

The waiting got to me and in the end I couldn't help myself.  I found some yarn in my stash and decided to make the above shawl with it.  

It felt so good making those first few rows.  You won't believe how good, especially as I hadn't picked up a crochet hook in over 6 months!!

Yes, I had truly lost my mojo for nearly everything but it all seems to be bouncing back now and I've got plenty of projects running through my brain.  I'll let you know more about them when my package arrives.  It's all very exciting!

I also made a batch of tomato relish.  It's not my Sweet Tomato Relish which I usually make up a big batch of.  I've pretty well got that recipe down pat and will probably make a batch of that soon.

This recipe uses only 500 grams of tomatoes, enough to make one decent bottle full.

I've been playing around with the recipe for awhile and keep making adjustments to the amounts until I get it just how I want it.  Unfortunately I only make this one every six months or so and can never remember which variation I like best.

Then I was give this wonderful bounty by my lovely mum.

So over the first few days of this week I've made up a couple more batches and adjusted the amounts in each batch or the kinds of vinegar I've used. The difference in the flavour is quite astonishing really when sometimes only a small change is made.  I've given some of each to my mum and dad so that they can taste test for me and we can work out which recipe we like best.

In between doing all that I even took the kidlettes to the movies to see Storks.  (That was on Sunday.  I can't believe we're already halfway through the next week!)

We all really enjoyed it and my brother and his boys came along too so the kids all got to spend some time together.

I also tried out a recipe for some Onion Jam which is really yummy.

I've given some of that to my dad too and will get the verdict later this week.  I think it's bloody good though.

The next few days will be busy too.  We have a birthday for Little Miss R coming up so there'll be cakes made for home and school.

The neighbours have given me some tomatoes and I've still got a container full from the earlier bounty even after all the relish I've made.  This time I'll make my big batch of Sweet Tomato Relish which uses about 2kg of tomatoes and I'll make sure I preserve it properly for Christmas gifts or just for future use as we do go through a bit of it.

Hope you are all having a lovely week and I'll show you how my shawl is going when I get the chance to photograph it.  

xx Susan