Rejuvenation

It's the weekend! Yippee!

Down in my neck of the woods, the weather seems to have finally turned for the season. A couple of weeks ago we were still getting 30-34ºC (or 86-93ºF) a couple of days a week. We've just come through a particularly warm summer, with water restrictions coming into force (Australia is in the middle of the worst drought in recent history), the gardens are looking positively anaemic (if not totally dead), lawns are yellow and things just needed a good spruce up in general. In the last week or two, we've had two or three days of measurable rain, and today, the temperature was more like 20ºC (68ºF). I go a bit loopy in the heat. Today I was in my element, LOL.

The upshot of this cooler weather (apart from the rain which has already spawned new growth) is that I'm no longer paralysed with heat exhaustion (okay, flimsy excuse!) and I can actually see myself being able to potter about the place and work up a bit of a sweat with some scrubbing. A month or two ago - no way. On 'bad' days, we could get up to 42ºC (107ºF) and just about everyone's primary concern revolved around slothing out on the couch for the day. We live just 3 or 4 minutes walk from the kids' school but even that would build up a healthy (and very icky) 'glow'. For me, it was torture twice a day :P

So I have plans. Lots of them, LOL.

I reworked my Routines (again!), simplified my Home Management Binder (condensed some pages) and checked the weather forecast. Cool weather all week long! Hooray!

Saturday is my 'big' washing day. I wash our regular clothes during the week but Saturdays are set aside for school uniforms, work uniforms, towels, sheets and other bedding. Sometimes this gets done during the week (I aim to do two loads per day, but if there isn't enough clothing for that second load I'll usually roll it over to the next day and pick some towels or bedding to wash instead) but most of the time there's a moderate pile come Saturday, maybe 3 or 4 loads. We have an itty bitty washing machine, which has just a 5kg load (I'm not sure how this works in the US but it's around 11lbs), so there's a fair bit of rebooting going on, but I set the timer and keep going back to the laundry room as needed. While this is all going on I also do 1hr on a Home Project (sometimes broken up into 10 or 15 minute segments) - I have a list in my HMB.

Daddy's working tomorrow so I thought I'd take the kids to the school grounds for a kick of the football and a picnic morning tea - if it doesn't rain that is!

Boofah leaves on his school camp on Monday so also on the agenda this weekend is a bit of packing. The list they gave the parents is fourteen pages long, sigh.

And on Sunday, I am determined to get some baking done for the freezer. Hillbilly Housewife's Fudge Brownies will absolutely be on my list. I've made them for every one of the kids' cake stalls since discovering the recipe last year and I've never had so many compliments on my cooking before! I thought freezing them would stop me sneaking the odd one (or three!), but have you ever tasted these right from the freezer??? They are rich and even more fudgey, if that's possible - groan. The best thing about this recipe is that it doesn't require 'fancy' ingredients. We don't keep chocolate chips in the pantry as a general rule (and so many other brownies recipes contain them or bar chocolate) yet you'd never know the difference with this magical recipe. I'll probably make some cheese crackers that day as well - I'm experimenting with making more things from scratch. This sort of thing doesn't really come naturally to me!

Hope your weekend is relaxing and productive,

Cheers,
Lizzie