We dropped Hannah at church on Friday night to go on a waterski camp with the youth club. She was so excited to be going I thought she was going to push me out the door. We only live about 5 minutes from the church and she didn't have to be there until 6pm but from 5.30 on she was asking if it was time to leave so I finally gave in and we left home at 5.40. We were the first ones there of course and then she had to sit and wait. Waiting can be agony for a 12 year old, especially one who can't wait to get together with her friends. After all it had been 2 1/2 hours since they'd seen each other!

I had to really think about letting her go on the camp. After all it wasn't an essential expense but we did have to pay for it. As it turned out she had some Christmas money left that she was happy to use and as they were all contributing to the food she only had to take a bottle of tomato sauce for a pasta dish. That was easy, it came out of the store cupboard and I'm pretty sure we had the cheapest contribution to the menu. The pasta sauce was bought on sale for just 99c/750ml bottle last year. I stocked up at that price and bought 4 cartons of the stuff. I make pasta sauce during summer when we have a glut of tomatoes but towards the end of each year we run out and we are back to the bought product so getting it on such a special was perfect timing.

While the girl was away I had a lovely time in her room. I spent a couple of hours in there this morning, sorting out clothes, tidying books and toys and changing things around for her. I even washed the curtains and windows and wiped over all the woodwork. All in all the room had a really good "summer" clean (it's way to late to be called a spring clean) and it looked so nice and smelled so fresh. The best part was a little surprise I've had for her: an new quilt cover and valance with matching cushions and a gorgeous fluffy throw to go on the end of the bed. It's bright pink with purple and blue butterflies on it and has splashes of lime green to break it up. Very girly without being babyish - just right for a 12 year old who has started high school. Best of all was the price - $17.99 at a Target sale in January. I found it on the clearance shelf and couldn't find anything wrong with it and it's so cute I knew she'd love it.

I had to go looking for another lamp for the bedside table. The lamp that was there was apricot with an apricot shade and it looked wrong. I didn’t want to spend any money on a new lamp and it is still Essential Spending month so in the end I found some butterfly and flower stickers and stuck them all over the base. Then I used a piece of white sheeting and some pink crystal organza I found in the material stash to cover the lamp shade. I hot glued a length of beads around the top and bottom of the shade and it looks quite nice. Total cost absolutely nothing , everything I used was leftover from other projects. Gotta love free decorating.

I just know my girl is going to be so surprised and so excited to have a nice new bedroom and it's been so much fun doing it. Even Wayne likes the way it's turned out, even if he did huff and puff when I had him moving furniture around for me. I'll try to take some photos in the daylight and you can see just how pretty it's turned out.

We had a lovely piece of roast beef tonight, I know it's not what was on the menu, but I found it lurking at the bottom of the freezer and decided to cook it instead. I made a crust from plain flour, mustard, ground pepper and garlic and spread it over the meat. Then Wayne put it on the spit and cooked it over the bbq for me. The crust keeps the meat so moist and the mustard and garlic flavour it beautifully. Considering it was only a small piece of bolar it was delicious and there were no leftovers! Best of all was no cleaning up for me. Wayne and I have a deal, he cooks outside, he cleans up. If I cook inside then I clean up. I love barbecues, we have them all summer long and if I could figure out how to convince him that winter is the ideal time to be barbecuing then he'd be cooking outside all year round.

With all the roadworks going on around us at the moment the dust is just terrible and my poor car was looking particularly sad and uncared for this morning so I took the micro fibre glass cloth and a bucket of water and washed all the windows inside and out and the mirrors and it looks much better. It will be safer to drive too now I can see where I'm going. When I was finished I used the water to wipe down the sidelights at the front door and they're sparkly again too. Then it went onto the garden. It's still so dry it just disappeared. I sure wish some of that rain up north would find it's way down south.