I thought I’d pick up where I left off on the last post and share the results of my Scandinavian seafood stew 🙂 I made it with prawns because that was the only seafood I had in the house and it worked out really well. Strangely, even though the girls don’t like most food, they love prawns, but they literally picked each prawn out, ate them and left the rest of the meal. It might be a meal to reserve for a date night with myself 🙂 It was therapeutic making it though, adding lemon zest, stirring in cream and dill, and I love the scent that fills the kitchen with every dish that contains wine 🙂
The last couple of days have been quite tranquil. The girls and I went for a walk yesterday morning and called by the shop to get them magazines. I know a lot of people think kids’ magazines are a waste of money, but I find they do all the activities in them and they’re educational without my kids noticing. I also love the look of wonder on their faces when they’re opening them and discovering whatever treasure they find inside 🙂
I’m feeling creatively depleted at the moment and trying to decide which direction to take, so I’m trying to make myself slow down and do things for the pure enjoyment of them. I worked on my adult sticker book last night and finished the first picture. The results look much more impressive than the skill involved 🙂 I listened to French podcasts while I did it. I’ve been trying to brush up on my French because I’m hoping at some point in the not-too distant future I might be able to go back to France 🙂
Today, we went for another walk on the Greenway (I’m starting to feel like I’m reporting the same events each day :)) The ground was coated with a sprinkling of snow. It wasn’t deep enough for snowmen, or even a scant snowball, but it reminded me of icing sugar on a cake and made everything seem to sparkle. The girls are hopeful we’ll get more so they can properly play in it soon 🙂 We spotted a squirrel on our walk and stopped to try and capture it on camera, but it was very fast-moving 🙂 The girls brought a colouring book with them that contained pictures of animals and announced that it was a nature book and that they were searching for the creatures in it. They spent most of the walk looking for a mouse – to no avail, but it still amused them 🙂
After doing some homeschooling, I felt the need to decompress, so I did some cooking and baking. My mum got me a book called “Midnight Chicken” and it’s such a lovely read. I decided to make the “Parisian Cookies,” which were chocolate chip cookies with a caramel chewiness to them. I’ve always wanted to find a recipe that produced the chewy kind of cookies, but usually end up making crumbly ones instead! It was an interesting process, and I wanted to eat the dough when I saw it come together. The girls helped by adding the chocolate chunks and licking the whisks 🙂 They didn’t seem to have patience for any other part of the baking process today, but I was happy to do it alone 🙂 The cookies expanded a lot in the oven and became one giant cookie (but it did warn about this in the recipe and they were easy to break apart :)) I was tempted to eat them as one big cookie though 🙂 I made some carrot and ginger soup too. I find it really warming in the Winter, and bolognese too 🙂
The girls did some magic painting. They love those little books that turn to paint when you use a paintbrush and water. It might be the one time I’ve seen them sharing a project without it ending in an argument 🙂 The girls got a new jigsaw yesterday and I ended up working on most of it alone 🙂 They joined me when they could see the picture beginning to come together and helped me finish it 🙂 I found it restful doing the jigsaw – it made my mind go quiet and helped to keep me calm in confinement with my children 🙂 I doubt I could manage a one thousand piece one though, because that one had two hundred pieces and took me two afternoons 🙂
I’ve wanted to start journally regularly again. I journalled daily for years and got rid of all of them a few years ago. Sometimes I regret that decision – it would have been interesting to read them now. I decided to get the girls involved with their gratitude diaries and drawing/writing the best parts of their day. Even when they aren’t old enough to compose their own entries, I used to get my kids to draw pictures of their memories, etc. I made the girls some berry tea with honey in it. (It’s the only kind of tea they both drink and they both insist on drinking it with a spoon.) We had a little journalling session at the kitchen table and listened to Lester Young and had a little tea party 🙂
I got my kids a tin each from Etsy containing story tokens for Christmas. They are wooden and have little pictures carved into them. You can lay them out and use them as story prompts, turn them upside down for a surprise story, or take it in turns adding a line to the story based on the picture you get. They might be one of the girls’ favourite presents from Christmas time and they look forward to “reading” them to me at bedtime. I love anything that increases my children’s interest in story-telling and supporting small businesses is always a bonus 🙂 One of my kids has a fairytale-themed one and the other has an adventure one. They came in little personalised cases too 🙂 Here is the link if anyone is interested 🙂 https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/729656862/personalised-story-tokens-adventure?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=story+tokens&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&organic_search_click=1
Tonight, we’re going to have some pizza, watch a movie and maybe have a dessert that combines the cookies we made with ice-cream 🙂
The Funky Thrifter 