The week that was - 7th February 2016

These gorgeous birds and 13 other members of their flock kept us amused the last evening of our trip.

Back into the swing of things after our lovely week away.

Picked lots of tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant and beans from the garden.

Made a big batch of moussaka using the veggies I picked. Froze two large casseroles and six individual serves (these are great for the nights Hannah works late). These are totally free meals, a real blessing to us and our budget.

Donated another two boxes of kitchen items (glasses mostly) to the op shop. We have glasses coming out of everywhere. We've been married 27 years and I still have boxes of unopened glasses we were given as gifts. It's time to move them on.

Pulled the lettuce that had bolted out of the garden. Had AJ dig in some compost for me. I'm getting this bed ready to plant parsnips for winter.

The weeds went crazy in the paving while we were away so I put some vinegar in a spray bottle and I've been spraying them every second day. They're well and truly dead, ready to be swept away tomorrow.

Cooked all our meals from scratch using ingredients from the pantry and freezer.

Wiped over a cereal bag and then cut it into squares to use as freezer go between.

Made a double batch of burgers and used the cut up cereal liner to separate them while frozen.

Used veggie peelings to feed the worms.

Made a batch of yoghurt and flavoured it with passionfruit pulp - yum!

Rinsed a raspberry jam jar out with some milk, poured it into icy pole moulds and froze it. We had raspberry "ice-creams" for dessert on Wednesday night.

I've given in and now have an ironing lady. Well not really - my mother has early dementia and she is very bored. She's forgotten how to knit and sew, two things she has always done to keep her hands busy and is finding the days long. To keep her busy I take some ironing over to her and pick it up the next day. It also gives me the opportunity to check on her without "checking" on her. She's been much happier this week and I think it's because she feels needed. We don't really have a lot of ironing but it's an easy thing to do and it saves one of us a chore.

Filled both cars up with petrol using discount dockets when it was 95 cents a litre.

Caught the shower water and used it to water pot plants, floors and scleaning.

Re-hemmed some towels that had frayed on the side hems.

Tried a new recipe - Lime Chilli Chicken Wraps - family liked them so I'll add it to my regular recipes. Didn't have to buy a thing for it either - huge bonus to find new recipes that use ingredients on hand.

Downloaded 14 new free ebooks from hundredzeroes.com.

What I'm hoping to accomplish this week:

Finish the cards for the February card swap and get them sent off
Make three "thinking of you" cards and get them sent off
Pull out the finished beans
Trim the tomatoes
Make pasta sauce with tomatoes from the garden
Dice eggplant, capsicum and zucchini from garden and bag for casseroles
Give the citrus trees a spray with white oil
Dig more compost into the  gardens
Trim the roses along the driveway
Plant more lettuce and spring onion seeds
Make fig jam
Make riccotta
Baking- Whole Orange Cake, choc chip muffins, Lunchbox Cookies

That's what I hope to accomplish. What actually gets done may be totally different, but it's a starting place.