How to survive the post-holiday slump

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Hello to all my wonderful readers, you may have noticed I fell off the radar again this month. Once I finally got over all of my various illnesses, (except for the conjunctivitis Miss K so kindly shared with me two weeks ago) I discovered the silly season was well and truly upon us, and I needed to get my ample bottom into gear to get ready for the celebrations. I'm sure you'll all appreciate how crazy things get around this time of year, so even if I did attempt to write anything, it would have come out as a crazed stream of consciousness, complete with rambles about tinsel and presents for a family of 15. But now with the endless stream of parties and gift giving ceremonies almost behind us for another year, I sit here eating what's left of the plum pudding in an empty room, wondering to myself now what?

We hosted Christmas at my house this year, and in a stroke of what I can only call pure insanity, mum decided the party needed to be beach themed this year. So I spent a crazed week crawling through Pinterest trying to find beach themed decor I could do on a budget of free hugs and my most charming smile, and managed to cobble together a beach themed party that even a mermaid couldn't fault. Then our annual Boxing Day party got moved from my big sister's house to our house at the last minute due to inclement weather, and the fact that we have a larger living space to accommodate all of the slightly larger bodies thanks to the feast we put out the day before, so we ended up having two parties in two days at our house. On top of that I spent three hours building a kitchen for Miss K at 9pm Christmas Eve, went shopping every single day for a week for more Christmas essentials, and also cleaned the house so that we weren't shamed by the fact that for 364 days of the year we live like someone from an episode of Hoarders, Buried Alive. So sitting here now, with nothing to do is kind of hard to do. Add to that the fact that Miss K has now gone to Melbourne for a week to have Christmas with her father and his family, and I am as lost as a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. So I have decided to share with you some of the techniques I have learned over the years to get over the post-holiday blues that always hit at this time of year, to help you guys achieve the balanced calm I so clearly show on a daily basis.

Me on a good day

Go shopping

Now that gift giving season is over, you really have no reason to go shopping, but that is exactly why you should get out now, more than ever. Beside getting to take advantage of the opportunity to return any practical gifts that well meaning long distance relatives bought you at the last minute so they didn't show up at your house empty handed, you can witness human beings at their absolute worst, thus making you appreciate your empty house and it's lack of festive feelings all the more. The long line of customers all coming to complain about the over priced child's toy that broke five minutes after being removed from it's packaging only makes you love your own family all the more, because they aren't that obnoxious man at the front of the line loudly proclaiming that this is the last time he shops at this particular store. 

Clean up your house

You've just spent the last month complaining that if you stepped on another bauble the whole tree was going into the bin, so now is the time to make good on your promise. Pull down the tinsel, drag every strand of angel hair out of your carpet, and throw all of it in the bin (or into storage if you can't stand the thought of having to replace it all again in ten months time). The sight of you going into a cleaning craze will send your children running outside just in case you get the bright idea to give them any jobs to do of their own, so now is the perfect time to "lose" any of the irritating noise makers or cheap plastic toys they were given by the same well meaning relatives who thought a life time supply of micro fibre cloths was the perfect gift for you at the same time. This is also a good time to search for any stashes of chocolates the kids have hiding in their rooms, and add them to your own stash of chocolate hidden in your bedroom. You need the sugar more than they do, as you're the one who spends your life chasing after them trying to get them to act like civilized human beings. 

Put on some tunes and dance alone in your living room

Just because the party season is over, doesn't mean you need to pack away your best moves for another year. The lack of audience apart from your children is irrelevant, as you can always embarrass them, no matter the time of year, so get your boogie on and keep the party going as long as you want it to. If you didn't get to do the Nutbush this year because you got vetoed at the last second by someone wanting to do the Whip Nae Nae (whatever the hell that is) then put that song on repeat and Nutbush until you can't move any more. You deserve it after all the hard work you've put into these holidays.

Eat all the party food in the house

If you were too busy to eat during Christmas because you were hosting the party, now is the time to get yourself a big plate of whatever is left over and eat it in front of every one. Diets are for the first day of January anyway. I personally like to buy two plum puddings, simply because I am a horrible pig who doesn't like to share my food, so I always have enough pudding to last me several weeks once all the parties are done with. I don't need to buy any breakfast or lunch foods for ages now because I spent an extra $4 a week ago. That's not only smart, it's economical. 

Start getting ready for the next big celebration now

If you've been bitten by the party bug but Valentines Day is too far away from you, get on Google now and find another holiday closer to today you can prepare for. For Australians, Australia Day is always a good one, as it falls on 26th January, meaning there is plenty of time still left to start preparing our barbeques and best Australian Flag decorated party supplies for the big day. For something even closer again, check out Earth Calendar which tells you exactly what you can celebrate every single day of the year. For example today is St Stephens day in Bulgaria. So if that is enough reason for you to party, get out your best duds and celebrate St Stephen as only you can. 

Sleep

If all else fails, get into your pyjamas and go back to bed. 

Well that should be enough to get you through the next few days, so if you'll excuse me, it is currently the Stanley Sports Day in the Falkland Islands so I'm off to hit a tennis ball against a wall to honor this special day. 

The Importance of Nutrition During Pregnancy

Hi guys, I have another guest writing for me today, on the importance of nutrition during pregnancy, so please welcome Orlaith Costello from Koster Clinic.

Image Sourced: http://goo.gl/WZcL4i

There’s many things that a woman needs to be concerned with when she becomes pregnant, and one is diet. Now she’s eating for two (or more).

Maintaining a balanced and healthy diet is important for living well; however, now you have an extra incentive. Proper nutrition ensures that all essential nutrients (carbohydrates, fats, protein, vitamins, minerals and water) are supplied to the body to maintain optimal health. You need to make sure that you have the right nutrients to get yourself and your bundle of joy through what is a traumatic time for your body. You are creating life inside you, the least you can do is treat yourself well and give yourself the right kind of fuel to do your best.

During pregnancy, your energy and nutrition levels decrease. The pregnancy takes its toll on your body, depleting your fuel resources. You need to consume foods that will give you that boost so you have the energy reserves to optimize your overall health and strength. Did you know that women need to consume 240 more calories per day in their second trimester and 452 calories per day in their third trimester of pregnancy to enable healthy foetal growth? As well as 975 milligrams of iron needed to produce foetal and maternal blood? Having the right reserves of energy will help to ensure the mother’s strength and health through her pregnancy.

Need more incentive?

A well-balanced and nutritionally rich diet can help stave off health risks both for the mother and the child. A mother’s diet can play a larger role in foetal development than genetic factors. The foetus will respond to whatever you consume, meaning your child can adapt its metabolism to cope with an under-nourished diet. This can result in the foetus reducing glucose and insulin production, slowing the rate of growth and increasing the risk of low birth weight and can even lead to diabetes. Another side-effect of under-nutrition can be that the foetus will conserve blood flow to its most important parts – like the developing brain – depriving other major organs and muscles, which can go under-developed or not developed at all.

What can you do?

Some women are pre-disposed to have a less balanced diet based on their own health issues or dietary restrictions. If you are a woman who has conceived, or is hoping to conceive, you need to build up your nutrition levels. This can mean cutting out unhealthy habits like drinking alcohol, ingesting too much caffeine or not ingesting enough fruits and vegetables. If you suffer from a chronic illness which restricts your diet like IBS or Crohns disease, diabetes or food intolerances, speak to your health provider or nutritionist to organise an appropriate and nutritionally beneficial diet for you. I would suggest the same for vegan or vegetarian mothers, as pregnant women need an increased amount of protein in their diet. If you’re not getting it from meats or animal by-products you need to source it from another avenue. Supplements can help but it’s always more beneficial to have natural foods. For you and your baby.

You can do this

Pregnancy is a wonderful, illuminating and scary experience. Remember that no matter how scary or over-whelmed you get, women have been doing this since the human race came about. You are the next in a long line of courageous women who have continued the human race. This is the most natural thing in our history, all you need to do is play out your part. Look after yourself and your bundle of joy!

Authors Bio:

Orlaith Costello writes for Koster Clinic, she graduated with a Master Degree in Journalism, Media and Communications, and writes for several publications in Australia and abroad. Orlaith also writes about health and well-being including women's health and parenting in the hope that she helps others like her better understand the world around her.

Disclaimer: The above is general advice only and not intended as medical advice. You should not delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information in this article.

A special care package

So I've said time and time again how wonderful the women I share the blog swaps with are. They're such a supportive and loving group of women, it's impossible not to feel special being a part of this group of women.

One woman in particular has become a very special friend over the past few months. We chat on a weekly basis over Facebook and email, we go to each other when we're feeling stuck or uninspired with a current blog post, and even when we've got problems in our day to day life. She's been a sympathetic ear and an awesome cheerleader for months now, and I am pleased to consider her a friend. I'm talking about the unstoppable Tamara at Confessions of a Part Time Working Mom.

Recently during one of our conversations I mentioned how jealous I was that she had free access to all the Swiss chocolate she could ever want (given that she is a Swiss native). One of the more expensive chocolates in Australia is Lindt chocolate, which in Switzerland is as cheap as Cadbury chocolate is in Australia. This got us talking about the different foods each of our countries had that were unique. In the end we decided to do each other up a small care package of national foods. We gave each other hints as to what foods would be best, and went on our merry ways. I spent weeks getting my care package together because unfortunately for Tamara one of the foods she especially requested seems to have been discontinued right before I started shopping for her, so I had to find a suitable replacement.

Shipping my parcel was especially exciting for me because I've never had to mail a package overseas, the farthest any of my mail has ever gone has always been between the shores of Australia, so I had no idea what I was doing when I went to my local post office. Luckily the woman who served me helped me go through the customs paperwork and I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. Then all I had to do was sit back and wait for my parcel to arrive.

Well I arrived home yesterday morning from dropping Miss K off with her father for the weekend to find a pretty gold parcel waiting for me on my coffee table.

So pretty

It was postmarked 21st March, which was several weeks before I even got my package to the post office, so my first thought was that Tamara still had ages to wait for her present. Of course all of that flew out of my head as soon as I opened up the box to see what I'd been given.

Soooo much chocolate...plus a pack of mug cake mix.

All the Swiss chocolate I could ever hope to eat in one sitting. Of course the little pink bunny in the corner is off limits, because that one will have to go to Miss K. She absolutely loves Kinder Surprises, and it's a rare trip to the supermarket when she comes out without her little white and orange foil wrapped egg, so she'll be very happy to see that little fella when she comes home tomorrow.

Later on that night I received a message from Tamara just to say she'd received her parcel a day before I'd received mine, leaving me to marvel at the wonders that is the Swiss postal service, especially when compared to the Australian postal service, but closer inspection of the box revealed a stamp which stated that my present had been misplaced and ended up in Canada. It only fell 14,143 km short of its intended destination, but at least I know my sweets are very well travelled. 

As for what I sent Tamara, she received a tin of Milo, a pack of Tim Tams (which I have instructed her MUST be used to make Tim Tam straws), a box of barbeque shapes, two Cadbury Twirls, which are my absolute favourite chocolate bars, plus a jigsaw puzzle in the shape of Australia for her little boy to enjoy. I've already seen pictures of him putting it together, so I'm pretty sure I picked well. 

So if you'll all excuse me please I'm off to eat an entire box worth of Swiss chocolate. If you don't hear from me, just know I died happy. 

Recipe - Potato, Chicken and Leek pie

Hello again and welcome to another recipe Monday. For all of my Aussie friends, sorry that I didn't get this posted in time for your dinner tonight, but there is always tomorrow night. And given that it will be Tuesday, maybe you'll be in more of a mood to cook. I never feel like cooking on Mondays, sadly my local pizza store has also chosen Monday to be the one day out of the week that they don't open, leaving me absolutely no choice but to throw something together so that Miss K doesn't stare at me like a starving lion.

Now the recipe that I am about to share with you is definitely not something that I'd cook on a Monday, it's more like a Friday or a Saturday recipe. I need a lot of energy in me before I tackle anything as challenging as a pie. (For anyone who isn't completely impotent in the kitchen, you can do this every single day, I just have special needs as a cook.)

Ok so to make a potato, chicken and leek pie, you will need several things first.

2 sheets Shortcrust pastry for the base (or 2 sheets puff pastry if you prefer puff pastry and are happy blind baking it, I have given instructions for both methods.)
1 sheet Puff pastry for the top
500g chicken breasts diced
1 leek sliced
3 - 4 medium sized potatoes diced
1 and a half cup roughly chopped mushrooms
2 tablespoons of plain flour
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup cream
Salt and pepper to season
Milk or egg for the pastry crust

Serves 4

To make your pie:

Pre heat your oven to 200 degrees celsius (390 degrees farenheit) or 180 degrees celsius (350 degrees farenheit) if you have a fan forced oven.

If you are going to blind bake your bottom layer of puff pastry, do it now. It is fairly simple, just grease your pie dish and lay down your puff pastry sheets so that the entire tin is covered, including a lip at the top. Trim off any excess pastry. Pierce the pastry in several places to prevent it puffing up while it cooks. Place a sheet of greased baking paper or tin foil over the pastry (greased side down) then cover the top of the paper/foil with a layer of pie weights, or a generous amount of rice, making sure that the coverage is heavy enough to keep the pastry flat. Bake in your pre heated oven for 15 minutes, then remove the pie weights/rice and paper/foil covering and bake for a further 10 minutes until golden brown. If you haven't placed enough pie weights or rice on your pastry and it has puffed up, just press it down lightly before returning it to the oven. 

In a fry pan pre heat some oil, then cook the chicken for 5 minutes until it is lightly browned.
Add the leeks, potatoes and mushrooms, and cook for another 5 - 7 minutes until the leeks are softened.
Mix the plain flour into a small amount of water, to make it easier to combine with the other ingredients, then pour the liquid into the fry pan. Cook for another minute stirring.
Add the chicken stock and cream and bring the mixture to the boil.

If you are using shortcrust pastry, grease your pie dish now and line it with a layer of short crust pastry, ensuring that it has a lip. Trim off any excess pastry.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared pie dish, and brush the edge of the pastry with milk or egg.
Place the top sheet of puff pastry and press the edges down with a fork or your fingers.
Cut a small slit into the top of the pastry, then brush the top with egg or milk to give it a nice shine. Remember that the heat from the mixture inside will make the pastry quite soft and fragile, so you need to be gentle when brushing liquid on top so that you don't tear it.
Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

Now that right there is one slice of pure delicious. Sadly it didn't last long in our house, but I always take that as a huge compliment.

And now it's your turn. Go and make this pie and impress your friends and family with the ancient art of pie-making which is really being lost in this day and age, especially with the freezer section of every supermarket full of row after row of machine made pies. 

Well I'll be back again tomorrow with another life hack, but until then, stay awesome.

Life Hacks Episode 3

Well here we are again at another episode of Life Hacks. In this series I give you a heap of quick and easy tips designed to make your life just a little bit quicker and easier. If you are the kind of person who still types www at the beginning of every web address you visit, then pay attention because this series is for you. (Little side note and nothing to do with today's episode, stop typing www at the beginning of every web address, seriously you just wasted 3 seconds of your life by doing that. You'll get to exactly the same place if you just start typing the address after the www. Go ahead and try it, I'll stand here and wait for you.)

For episode 2 click here

Now today's life hack is something that I know everyone has to deal with, and that is preventing clogged drains in your kitchen. Thanks to our laziness, most of us just tip every little bit of fatty, dirty, food infested water straight down the sink, and then curse our stupid plumbing when it all comes flowing back into the sink after you turn the tap on full.

Image source http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

I told you you can't flush an entire pumpkin down the sink!

Now there are many ways that you can actually prevent all that nasty fatty scrappy gunk from being washed down your sink. You can always tip fluids out into the garden, or go out and buy a tiny strainer for your sink, or you could use something that you probably already have in your kitchen and are about to use to scrub out your pot anyway. 

So to safely empty a dirty pot of crud into your sink without blocking your drain, you will need the following

1 pot full of scummy water (or a whole sink full of dirty dish water)

1 steel wool

1 rubbish bin

Now I Googled steel wool before I wrote this because I'm never sure if these life hacks will translate into other countries, but I'm very happy to find out that Australia isn't the only country that sells steel wool. So way to go the rest of the world, you can do this too! However the type of steel wool you use may end up producing different results, I have used a very coarse steel wool that is already well loved, so there is plenty of room for the water to drain out of it while the scum and crud stays put.

So to save your drain and your sanity, plug up your drain with a piece of steel wool BEFORE you start emptying the water out. If you are emptying a pot, this is simple, just plug up the hole. If you are doing this while the sink is already full of water, it is still simple, just make sure you use two hands, one to pull the plug out, the other to jam the steel wool into the drain hole.

Voila! one plugged up sink hole, and a perfectly timed drop of water splashing into the sink. How awesome is that?

Note that I have taken a photo before anything is tipped down the sink, because truly that is a nasty sight. Once you have emptied all the water, take the steel wool over to your rubbish bin and shake all the crap out into the bin where it belongs. If you are a squeamish person who can't stand the thought of actually touching a dirty scrubber feel free to use gloves while you do this, or even better find someone else to do it for you. 

The beauty of emptying out water in this manner is that while it saves you from having to unclog your drain in the future, it also helps keep our waterways cleaner and reduces the amount of work that water treatment plants have to do once your dirty water reaches them. It truly is a green tip you can feel good about doing it.

Well there you have it, another short cut for you done and dusted. I'll be back again tomorrow with our next episode of Spotlight on Mental health, and for once it isn't a family member i begged to write something for me so be sure to tune in tomorrow for that. 

Recipe- Toasted Banana and Nutella Sanga

Hello again my wonderful audience, I am back with another super dooper awesome recipe for you guys to share. Now I am feeling incredibly lazy today, which explains why I am so late in posting this recipe, as well as why I have chosen a simple meal to share with you guys today too.

So as you can tell from today's recipe, I'm showing you guys how to make a toasted sanga. For any of my audience who doesn't call Australia home, this term may confuse you, so to confuse you guys even further, I'll tell you that I'm either toasting sandwiches, or an Abyssinian Ox. I'll let you guys decide while I post this picture.

For anyone who guessed I was cooking an Ox, you are awesome, PM me now, we need to talk!

Yep I am so lazy that today my recipe is a toasted sandwich. But this is a toasted sandwich that takes a certain amount of skill. Because it's one thing to smear some Nutella on a piece of toast and walk to the lounge room while chewing on it. It's another to combine the Nutella with hot melty banana and eat it without ending up looking like a two year old who is still learning to eat properly.

This is usually how I look after eating one of these bad boys.

Ok so to make my favourite breakfast/lunch/snack/comfort food, you will need the following.

2 slices of bread. 

Margarine or butter to lubricate the bread

Nutella or other similar choc-hazelnut spread

1 medium to large banana

1 Sandwich press or grill

So to make a toasted banana and nutella sandwich, first spread your butter/margarine/olive oil spread/Nuttelex on both slices of bread

Smear a generous amount (read; shitload) of Nutella on one slice of bread

Mash the banana and spread it on the other slice of bread

Slap those two babies together, being careful not to spill any banana, that stuff is precious.

Put the sandwich in the sandwich press, or under the grill until the bread is golden brown and crispy, and the banana is nice and warm and soft

This bad boy feeds one, but don't be surprised if you start getting hungry eyes from everyone within a ten metre radius.

image source http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

I'm so hungry I'm going to stab this melon....ladies

Well that's all from me for now, I'm off to go do something productive, like make another toasted banana and nutella sandwich. Later y'all.

Recipe - Tuna Pasta Bake

Hello again and welcome to another recipe Monday. Today I have another firm favourite meal from my family vault to share with you. This is another one I can usually guarantee that Miss K won't turn her nose up at, but I haven't made the mistake of serving it every week yet for fear that she'll get tired of it and start refusing to eat it like she did with the Dim Sims. So sit back and grab a pencil and pad while I teach you how to make a Tuna Pasta Bake.

Again apologies for the terrible photo, if any of you would like to donate a DSLR camera to a good cause I'm happy to give you my mailing address...

You'll notice that this meal isn't nearly as caramelised as the taco lasagna that I showed you last week, that is because this one is a lot quicker to cook, so you don't need tin foil on the tray to protect the cheese from becoming a fossil. So despite the terrible photography, I don't need to rely on Martha Stewart to make my meal look good this week. Success!!!

Alright before I send you off to the kitchen to cook this, I will send you to the supermarket with a shopping list that looks like this.

2 cups Penne pasta

1 400g tuna in springwater

1 tin tomatoes 

2 cups grated cheese

1 - 2 cups chopped mushrooms

1 sachet of chicken chasseur flavouring (or similar tomato based flavour packet)

salt and pepper to season

So you've gone up the street, you've bought your ingredients and they're sitting on the bench staring at you. Now what? well be patient and keep reading and prepare to be amazed.

First pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. (That's approximately 356 degrees Fahrenheit for any of my American friends.)

Boil your pasta according to the instructions on the packet. 

While the pasta is boiling, combine the tinned tomatoes, the sachet of flavouring and half a cup of water in a saucepan. 

Bring the tomato mixture to the boil then remove from the heat.

Add the tuna and mushrooms (and any other vegetables you feel like sneaking in there) to the tomato mix and stir well. Season the mixture with salt and pepper as desired

Once the pasta is boiled, drain out the water, then combine the tomato mix and the pasta and stir well.

Transfer the mixture to an ovenproof dish and sprinkle the grated cheese on top. If you want to you can sprinkle cheese into the mixture as you are spooning it into the dish as well, just to make sure the cheesyness spreads throughout the whole dish.

Bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes, until the cheese is golden brown.

And there you have it. A meal for 4 - 6 people, depending on how big you like to slice things. This is one of my all time favourite meals, and I hope you guys can enjoy it too. 

Well that's all from me today, except to let you guys know that the lovely Jamie from Being Positive with a Depressive Soul has accepted her Liebster Award today on her blog, so you can go check it out now. The lucky duck got two nominations this week so there is twice as much fun to see.

Recipe - Taco Lasagna

Hello again my wonderful readers, I mentioned in an earlier post here that I was going to share a recipe with you guys for taco lasagna. I am actually hoping to make recipes more of a regular thing around here, possibly sharing one of my recipes a week with you guys.

The thing with food around my house is it isn't fancy. The meals we eat around here are usually quick and easy and cheap. Given I have a fairly fussy and demanding two year old on my tail for most of the day, I don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen. So the recipes I will be sharing here will be pretty basic, but they are tasty, and for the most part they pass the taste test of the toughest food critic I have ever met too. Today's post is basically just to test the waters as it was, so I'm not pulling out the big guns just yet, I'll save the fancy meals and the decent photography for future posts.

So todays recipe is pretty outside the box. I've only actually cooked this meal once, and I buggered it up too, so you guys have the added bonus of learning a few do not's in the process here. I'll start with the photo first, and hopefully that will explain the big mistake for me.

Photo courtesy of the incredibly low resolution camera on my phone.

Now in my house, we call this process caramelisation, because burnt is just such a horrible word. I have a theory that if you put a terrible meal in front of a well known cook, it automatically makes it look better, so here is Martha Stewart holding my lasagna.

Image Source

I'm guessing she's used to caramelised meals after her time in prison.

So to make a taco lasagna, you will need a few things.

1 pack of lasagna sheets (I use dried sheets because they are cheaper)

500g minced beef (I think Americans call it ground beef?)

2 jars tomato salsa

1 sachet of taco meat seasoning

1 onion

1 - 2 carrots

1 - 2 zucchinis

2 - 3 cups sliced mushrooms

Grated cheese (as much as you want)

Aluminium foil (this is absolutely vital if you want to avoid caramelising your own lasagna)

A deep sided oven proof dish

Pre-heat the oven according to the instructions on the lasagna sheets. 

Finely chop up your onion, and fry it in a pan until it is brown and soft. 

Add the minced beef and the taco seasoning to the fry pan, as well as however much water the taco seasoning sachet tells you to add. 

Cook until the meat is browned.

While the meat is cooking slice your vegetables thinly

Once the meat is cooked properly, take it off the heat. In your oven proof dish start layering the ingredients, starting with sheets of lasagna. You can really do it in any order that you desire, but I usually go pasta, meat, cheese, salsa, vegetables, pasta etc...

Once your layers go to the top of the dish (or until you run out of ingredients) sprinkle the top with a generous layer of cheese

Cover your entire dish with a sheet of foil, and bake according to the instructions on your lasagna sheets. To brown the cheese, take the foil off for the last ten minutes.

And that is it. One taco lasagna ready to serve. Hopefully without the black layer on top that needs to be removed with a jackhammer. If any of you are brave enough to try this recipe, please feel free to let me know how your meal pans out. If you can think of ways to improve it, I'd love to hear them too. 

Oh and I know that technically this isn't a real lasagna, and if Miss K's nonna ever sees this post we will probably be disowned from the family for crimes against Italian food, but I seriously don't have an hour to waste making bechamel sauces and tomato sauces and rolling my own pasta like she does, so I'm sticking with my hacked version.

So from me and Martha Stewart it is good night, and I'll see you guys again soon.

A small victory is still a victory

So when you are a mum, the littlest things can be the greatest victories. For me today the greatest victory was getting Miss K to eat her dinner. For any of you who have been in my audience since day one, you will know that Miss K and I have been having fights about food for ages now. For any of you who haven't been here since the beginning, please feel free to visit some old posts, namely this one and this one. At first the fight was getting her to eat food that hadn't been pureed. Then we had to encourage her to feed herself. Now I am trying to get her to eat foods that she doesn't like. Namely vegetables.

Now I will admit that I have gotten lazy. It is much easier on my stress levels and ears to let Miss K get away with not eating her vegetables, and instead give her a Nutella sandwich or a bowl of cereal. But according to the experts, vegetables are good for you, so I decided today to start getting tough and forcing Miss K to start eating them. (Well actually it was decided some time ago that I needed to get tougher on Miss K, but again, lazy.)

So tonight's menu consisted of taco lasagna. (It seriously is nicer than it sounds, and I'll be sharing the recipe with you guys soon, so you can see for yourselves.) I have given this to Miss K a few times, with the same results. The combination of minced meat and vegetables means that she will have a few mouthfuls and then push the bowl away. But tonight that wasn't an option. I started by letting her sprinkle a generous amount of mozzarella cheese on top of her meal, as this sometimes is enough motivation to get her to eat a meal. But this time all she did was try to pick the cheese out and leave the rest of the meal behind. So I tried putting her in the naughty corner. All this did was cause her to chuck a massive tantrum. The last thing I could think of was feeding her myself. We had tears, we had choking, we had smacking (and Miss K wasn't too happy either.)  But I finally managed to get about half a bowl of healthy food into her. At this point we had been "eating" dinner for over half an hour and I was ready to give up. But she had eaten a decent amount of her dinner, and she was happy and full of energy until bed time, so I'm calling this one a win.

But like the baddies always say at the end of the movies "The battle may be over, but the war isn't won." This is a fight I see us having for years and years to come. So tonight's post is really just a reminder for future me, you've done this fight before, you'll do it again, and you can win.

Image courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

SHE ATE THE VEGETABLES!!!!!!

Easter and page views

Howdy Y'all I'm back again. I hope everyone had a great Easter, I'll get to Miss K's Easter shortly, but first I had to share some randomness with you guys. For anyone of you who have a blog, you'll probably spend a bit of time checking out your stats occasionally to find out exactly how many people you are reaching, and which posts are the most popular. I check mine every day (even though the experts say you really should only check them once a month) just to see where my traffic is coming from. Early on it seemed that most of my audience was comprised of Russian spammers who were only hitting my website in an attempt to get return clicks. For a little while they disappeared, but it seems they have come back today. I don't really mind, as it drives up my traffic, but it's always a bit disappointing to think that my audience didn't even read my awesome writing before moving on to the next target.

Now the thing that surprises me the most about my page views is my most popular post to date appears to be this one giving a list of all of the cutest actors in children's television. It seems that there is at least one other person out there who has a major crush on Gavin Stenhouse, because that is the name that appears the most in the Google search words list. On a slightly different note, Iconicles is back on Aussie television right now, so I get to enjoy watching him on a regular basis again. But it isn't as exciting anymore since I started following him on Twitter, as now I get up to the minute updates on his life any time I log into Twitter, so that's even better.

Now, on to Easter, as that is the real reason why I came on tonight. I made an agreement with Miss K's dad before her birthday that we would spend the whole weekend in Melbourne with his family, in exchange for me getting her to myself on her birthday. This was an ideal arrangement for me as Easter has never been my favorite pseudo holiday anyway, so I didn't mind sharing Miss K for the weekend, and I got to enjoy her birthday alone which was also awesome. So on Saturday Miss K and I hopped onto a train with about a hundred other people (not my first choice of transportation, but both Miss K's dad and nonna's cars crapped themselves last week, so we had no other way of getting to Melbourne.)

My relationship with Miss K's nonna has always been a bit tempestuous. When I was dating Miss K's dad, she and I butted heads on several occasions as she seemed to think I was always too hard on him, whereas I thought he was a lazy selfish no-hoper who was wasting his life away on porn websites. We have continued to butt heads on and off over the past three years, but have called a truce of sorts recently so that she can have a proper relationship with her granddaughter. Of course this means regular trips to Melbourne for Miss K and me, and weekends spent in a tiny house with the man I once refused to marry, and his mother. I try to take a step back when we're there so that Miss K and nonna can spend some quality time together, but this is hard for me, as I seem to be the only person there who thinks that children need boundaries, so I spend a lot of time either making Miss K cry by not letting her break every rule I have set out for her, or watching her nonna undermine all my hard work by letting her get away with everything.

But apart from biting my tongue all weekend, I got to watch Miss K have a lovely time, and here are just some of the photos of our weekend.

This is a real ashtray, not just an empty cigarette package being used as a makeshift ashtray. I had to take a photo, just because I thought it was so cute. 

This is three hours into our first afternoon. All that sitting around on public transport really takes it out of a baby.

This is the most delicious cider I have ever had. I only took this photo so I can remember the name the next time I find myself in the bottle shop, but I don't mind if any of you get there first and buy me a case...

A very blurry photo of Miss K and her dad bowling

Miss K's new Luigi doll that her dad won for her in a claw machine. One thing I can say about Miss K's dad is that he is an expert at winning arcade games.

A traditional Italian Easter cake that nonna made for Miss K. It did have a chocolate egg on the top at one stage, but Miss K got to it before I could take a photo

And sadly that is all the photos I took of the weekend. There was so much more going on, including lots of chocolate being consumed, me sumo wrestling with a 12 year old (and kicking his butt I might add) and a second birthday party for Miss K. Nonna's great nephews stayed with us on Saturday night and were completely charmed by Miss K, to the point that the thirteen year old actually volunteered to watch High 5 with Miss K while I took a break. There was also lots and lots of food, which is standard whenever the Italians get together to celebrate, and I'm certain I gained weight this weekend. 

So that was our Easter. I can't say I enjoyed myself completely, as I did have a very unsettled two year old to deal with, as is the case any time our routine is disrupted, but we're back home now and getting back into normal life nicely. 

I'd love to hear if any of you have any nightmare in-laws that you have to deal with on special occasions, especially if you can give me any coping strategies to help me get through the next visit, which will probably be Nonna's birthday in July.

I'll be back again tomorrow with a new spotlight on mental health, so be sure to come back to hear Becc's story, but until then, as always stay awesome.

Miss K turns 2

So I will apologise now for being so quiet the past few days, for anyone who has been hiding under a rock for the past week, Miss K turned 2 yesterday, so between madly rushing around getting everything organised, and then hosting her afternoon tea yesterday, I haven't had much time for extra curricular activities lately. Even last night after everything was over and done with, I was so tired I was in bed by 7:30 and I didn't surface again until my alarm clock went off this morning.

So for anyone who doesn't get excited for photos of a toddler's birthday party, now might be a good time to step away from the computer, because between me and my sisters, I got over 100 pictures of yesterday's fun and games, and now I get to share the highlights with you guys.

The fun started (as most fun does) at 1am on Sunday morning. That is when Miss K woke up for the first time on her birthday. Now I had a feeling this would happen, because mum and I had decided to put up her biggest presents before the morning, to save her having to open boxes and then wait an hour for all the toys to be assembled. It was a good thing we did this, because her absolute biggest present, a mini trampoline thanks to grandma took forever to put together, and even then needed to be pulled apart by my brother in law and reassembled when they showed up later in the morning. So Miss K got an extra 2 hours on her birthday to play with her presents.

The new trampoline thanks to Grandma

The new bike thanks to Aunty Kim

The new drums thanks to mum because I know how much she likes loud noise.

Then when we all got up for the second time yesterday morning, she got to open the rest of her presents, and spent the rest of the morning running from toy to toy, trying to play with everything.

Tiny Tim has nothing on Miss K's mad ukulele skills

An Elmo book because why not?

A computerised Magna Doodle type thingy. The voice is very, very annoying.

After lunch, because I am an eternal optimist at heart, I tried to get Miss K to go down for a nap, and while she didn't argue with me, she certainly didn't sleep, and we ended up getting her out of bed while we were still madly trying to get everything ready for the afternoon tea. 

Don't ask me how I managed it, but we got everything ready for 2:00, including the donut cake (as previously mentioned here) and we were ready to start partying when everyone started arriving.

This is the last photo of Miss K without a face full of chocolate thanks to my decision to serve every chocolate biscuit under the sun for afternoon tea

Miss K's new keyboard thanks to Aunty Sam and family

Let the chocolate moustaches begin. Miss K and her cousin.

My attempt at a donut cake. I love how this photo looks like it could have been pulled straight out of a magazine. That is how awesome a photographer my big sister is, she can even make my terrible attempts at baking look good.

Miss K blowing out her candles. I spent three months training her to wait until after the singing was finished to blow out the candles. She almost made it to the end of the song before she started blowing, luckily we were too far away from the candles.

There is no clean way to eat donuts, especially when they are smothered with chocolate frosting. 

Miss K offering my big sister (behind the camera) half a donut. At least she shares.

By 5:00 everyone had gone home, so Miss K and I jumped into the shower to hose off all the chocolate, then we both went to bed, absolutely wiped out. 

Well that is another birthday over and done with. I cannot believe that my baby is two now. I can still remember the day she was born (but everything else after that just seems to be a blur.) It's still impossible for me to comprehend that the following photo is 2 years old now.

Pictured: something I thought only happened yesterday. Not pictured: where the hell the last two years went.

Well that's all from me for now, I'll be back again once I've recovered from yesterday, I'm thinking I need three days of sleep right now just to get rid of the extra baggage that has appeared under my eyes this weekend. 

Lessons in parenting from a one year old

I'm back again. Call it a need to overcompensate for the three months of complete silence but I just can't stay away tonight.

So for anyone who has been paying attention recently, you would know I am elbow deep in the middle of raising a toddler. A toddler who has hit the terrible twos with such gusto you'd think there was an award given at the end of it. For the past two years I have tried to prepare myself for the first glimpse of the monster that would take over my lovely daughter for the next two years, but nothing in the world can prepare you for this. Not even babysitting my wonderful nieces and nephews when they were two (or still are in one niece's case) was enough to even make me aware of what I was in for.

Of course it doesn't help that most children behave better for the babysitter than they ever do for their parents, even if the babysitter is a close family member. So apart from the occasional bout of tears when they wouldn't get their way, my eldest niece and nephew were an absolute dream for me during the terrible twos. Of course I got to hand them back to their parents after a few hours and return to my blissfully ignorant life as a single and carefree woman. These days I don't have the same luxuries and instead I am the one being handed a screaming and belligerent toddler who is both angry at me for ignoring her and begging me for cuddles at the same time. Top that off with the sudden and urgent clingyness which means that not even her father is good enough for cuddles any more and you end up with one very stressed and frustrated mum who can't even use the toilet alone anymore.

Dinner time is usually the worst time as most mums will attest. It is the end of the day, you have been chained to each other for up to ten hours already if you gave birth to the most dreaded of children, an early riser, and you now need to juggle the task of playing with fire while distracting a tired and demanding diva with pleas to go back into the lounge room and watch Bananas in Pyjamas while you get dinner ready. And then after half an hour of prepping and cooking the meal (or five minutes of jamming it into the microwave and pacing the kitchen while you wait for the bell to ring), your spawn of Satan darling child becomes a haughty food critic, turning their nose up at your offering and pushing the plate away. (Or worse putting it in their mouth then spitting it straight out again and holding it out to you horrified, as if you had just tried to poison them.)

We had gotten to this taste test and spit out point in our evening last night when I finally snapped and my head exploded. I had run out of ideas at this point for how to get Miss K to eat her pastie and I was exhausted. I had tried emotional blackmail, I had tried reasoning, I had tried bribing, I had even tried yelling. She just sat in her chair looking at me like I had just told her the truth about Santa and crying. Given that the last weapon in my armory had been defeated I finally had to give up and walk out of the room before the whole ordeal escalated into anarchy and name calling. I decided to head to my bedroom for a quiet minute to collect my thoughts and have a quick cigarette. I had almost finished the smoke when I realised that things were quiet. Giving yourself a haircut with scissors you found under the table quiet. I rushed to the lounge room to see exactly what Miss K had managed to destroy in my absence only to find her sitting quietly in her chair eating the last few crumbs off her plate.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I had won the battle, but I still can't figure out if I've won the war. Did Miss K finally start eating because I had finally gotten off her back about eating and she could now enjoy her dinner in peace? Had she forgotten that five minutes ago she hated pasties and decided she was hungry enough to eat just about anything? Or did she finally realize that her darling and eternally youthful mother was indeed right to lecture her about eating her vegetables because they are just so gosh darn healthy and tasty? I can't for the life of me guess the answer and Miss K certainly isn't one to discuss the motives behind her actions so she's absolutely no help to me right now.

I have decided for now not to look a gift horse in the mouth and simply celebrated the fact that she went to bed with a tummy full of (mostly) healthy food. Now all I can do is prepare myself for the next episode of "I'm two and I know what I want, and I want it NOW" As long as she doesn't look at me like this again I can overcome anything...

You would think after two years I'd have an easier time saying no to this face. It never gets easier.

Welcome to the temper trap

So right now I am sitting in a living room crowded with people. The adults are having a Coke bottle fight, and the children are quietly entertaining themselves with empty nappy boxes and cardboard books. For some this chaos would be overwhelming, but in this house it is normal.

I am back ladies and gentleman!! Did you all miss me? because I missed the hell out of all of you. We finally have a fully functioning internet connection again so I am back in the 21st century. So much has happened recently that I don't know where to begin.

Miss K had a rare opportunity to spend time with her Nonna at the end of last month, as I decided after 18 months of zero contact that I would finally make the two and a half hour trip to her place for a weekend of Italian food and loud conversations. Miss K warmed to Nonna immediately and the two of them had a wonderful time together. Nonna even taught us how to make tomato sauce from scratch, as our visit coincided with tomato day. Miss K also had her first visit to the beach where she got to discover the joys of jumping in the waves and collecting shells. She even got buried in the sand thanks to yours truly, because I feel it isn't a real trip to the beach until you have sand in absolutely every crevice possible.

More on Miss K, we had a return visit to the optometrist last month as well, and while her eyes are getting stronger, he still isn't happy with her lazy eye, so she now has to wear an eye patch for an hour each day to speed things up. We have turned this into a game, and every day both Miss K and I are transformed into pirates, and we do lots of piratey things like watch TV or make nature collages. (Hey she's two, she doesn't know what real pirates do).

The other real big news with Miss K is the full arrival of a terrible two year old. And a month early too. While Miss K has had her bad days in the past, complete with the occasional temper tantrum and a stubborn refusal to change her mind, the past few weeks since we have returned from Nonna's house have been full of some of the hardest moments I have ever had as a mum. From smacking anyone and everyone who displeases her to screaming the house down when she doesn't get her own way, my beautiful, easy going baby has been replaced by a wildcat. At first I was fairly easy on her, given that she did need four days to recover from our visit to Melbourne, but when she had recovered finally, and the mood swings still hadn't disappeared I needed to become the bad guy and sit on my daughter each and every time she tried to pull her nonsense. (Metaphorically of course, I would never condone really using your children as furniture.) One of the drawbacks of having a baby that is part Italian is that her temper is quick and fierce, and her screams can make the ear drums of death metal rockers bleed. But while I can see a very long road ahead of us, I am quickly learning how to diffuse potentially lethal situations, and more often than not, I see my sunny little girl instead of a hellion.

Miss K's attempt to put her hands on her hips. This is the first sign that she isn't happy. 

Well a stacks on has just been initiated at the other end of the lounge room, and I have the sudden urge to jump on top of a pile of adults and children. It's good to be back.