Life is a Journey not a Destination

This is my Granny’s recipe for shortbread. Since she’s Scottish it’s the real deal. Everyone who tries it loves it. And it really is easy to make..

You will need:
250g of plain flour
125g rice flour
125g caster sugar
250g butter, room temperature

METHOD:

1. Preheat oven at 170 degree

2. Sift flour,  rice flour and sugar into bowl.

3. Add butter and work well until soft and pliable, but not oily.

4. Place in a greased and papered baking tin.

5. Prick well all over with a fork.

6. Bake in the centre of a steady oven till it begins to colour. (around 45mins)

7. Cut shortbread into lengths of about 7cm x 2.5cm.

Enjoy

I’m having so much fun with the new video camera and putting little movies together - but please feel free to tell me if I’m doing to many.For some reason I can’t get the video quality to transfer to Youtube. This was taken yesterday morning. It was Bailey’s first time at the beach as you can see he loved it.

I’ve mentioned a few times about how we’ve moved over to a cash budget and one of my readers asked for some more details.

I’ve being using the Simply Budgets program for a number of years now and love it (if you need to change any amount it does all the work for you and you can see your cash flow for the coming year). Any budget program will do but you do NEED a budget. However, having a budget and sticking to it is another thing. In fact, we were not able to EVER stick to our budget while putting most purchases on credit card. Yes, we did pay off our credit card every month but I was continually having to rework the budget to be able to do this.

During the year I started watching Till Debt to us Part and the first thing Gail does is put her “clients” on a cash budget. Eventually getting sick of continually running out of money (the crunch came when Kevin had a $1000 dental bill and we had no SAVINGS), I decided we’d try the cash budget.

I bought seven little containers for our main categories - Beauty (covers skin care/makeup, hairdressers, beauticians), kids, entertainment, clothing, household, pets and Libby (personal spending money - mainly for magazines and books). I also have a small purse for groceries and gifts - these stay in my handbag.

I added up how much money I needed to withdraw each week and once a week I’ll get my money and divide it up. Some categories - like food - get used up weekly, but most accumulate so I can buy things when needed. Our bills, like water, electricity, etc are still paid on credit card and paid off monthly.

The first few months were a little tough and I had to shift “cash” around from one container to another. This was mainly becuase I had to accumulation to start with. Now as you can see there is quite a bit of money in some containers - I’ve been especially working on the entertainment one so I’ve got spending money for the school holidays.

Now that Christmas is over I expect things to really settle down. I don’t like parting with my cash now so I really do think about my purchases. Just the other day I told Christy I’d look for a new Christmas book (to replace one that was damaged). The one I liked was $32 so I quickly put it back on the shelf. A few months ago I would just have bought it on credit card.

The best part is not only do I no longer have to rework the budget to accomodate my overspending but in the 4-5 months we’ve been doing to cash budget we have managed to save $5,000!!!!! Some is in my travel account, some in long term savings and some will pay for my new kitchen table.

Honestly, if you have trouble sticking to budget I suggest you try a cash budget. I was a doubter for many, many years but this is only thing that has worked for me. And you know the crazy part? Even though we have had to say no to buying things we really haven’t done without. I don’t feel like I’ve been deprived. I’m not wanting. Which just shows that that $5,000 we’ve saved would have been spent on stuff we really don’t need !!!

A video of our new chickens.

Yesterday the girls had a Fun Day at school and it was certainly fun. They had rides and stalls and crafts.Christy had her hair sprayed pink and Amy’s was black striped. I ended up spending more time with Christy as Amy was happy to go off with her friends.

I ended up selling fairy floss for a while - not sure why I look like I’m in pain!!!

This year I thought I’d do a video tour of my home. Hope you enjoy it. And don’t forget to click on the above logo to see more home tours.

Today I awoke about 5.30am (after a great nights sleep on our new mattress). It had cooled down overnight and was now quite windy. I debated going for walk but decided I’m feeling too lazy after my busy day yesterday (doing lots of baking). Instead I stuck to my usual morning routine of letting the dogs out to the toilet and getting a cup of tea to enjoy while playing on the computer. I check my e-mail, twitter and some of the my fav blogs. Saw that A Vision Splendid now has a e-book so I bought that (good value for $12 I think).

I then worked on our budget. It’s a pleasure doing it now that we’re on a cash budget and are moving forward rather than backward. Such a wonderful feeling, esp. at this expensive time of year.

And most of my little containers even have money in them :-).

At some point I put on a load of washing and at 8am I headed up to have a shower and get ready for the day.I found Christy out of bed so got her ready and told the girls to go check the advent calender. Todays treat was a visit to see Santa and go out for breakfast.

We left home just before 9am (to avoid the crowds).  It was great as when we arrived in David Jones their was only family having their photo with Santa so we didn’t have to wait long at all.

This is a great Santa - and one we’ve been too most years. He spent quite a bit of time talking to the girls - which Christy loved and Amy is still happy to do.

After photos the girls were allowed to pick a Christmas ornament. This was on the advent a few weeks ago but we didn’t manage to do it that day. I also got myself a nutcracker. For reason I decided I wanted one this year and thought this fellow was cute (but when I got home I realized he really needs a friends…oh, well, next year).

Next up was a quick trip to the newsagents so I could get some envelopes for my Christmas cards. The girls also got a kids magazine each. We bought some cheese rolls for Christy and headed to Gloria Jeans for breakfast. The only seating was in the smoking area but no one appeared to be smoking so we sat there. Kevin and I shared a cheese & spinach roll and we each had a small iced chocolate. Just as we were finishing some people sat near us and started smoking - so we quickly packed up and left.

It was a nice treat for us since we rarely eat breakfast out (though Kevin informs me he does). Christy was especially excited by the whole thing and I think this will become a new Christmas tradition for us.

On the way home I suddenly realized we should stop at another shopping center so I could pick up some frames I had had made. Since parking was difficult I just went in and got them while the girls and Kevin waited in the car.

We got home just after 11am and Kevin was good enough to put up the new frames.

I then finished putting together the gift baskets for today’s Christmas lunch with family friends.

I did all the baking yesterday, plus made a potato bake and desert. I also hung out the load of washing, tidied the kitchen (didn’t want to come to the mess) and unpacked the dishwasher.

Christy had fun rolling over the bubblewrap that had been around the frames.

Just after 12pm we headed next door to my Mum’s. We had a lovely afternoon with some very good family friends. Mum hosts this every year and we always a lovely time.

We sat outside to start with, then moved indoors for lunch. I forgot to take a photo but I had some potato bake, a bread roll and roast pumpkin salad.

For desert we had white chocolate and coconut cheesecake that I made, followed by tea/coffee. The tray below shows what I made for the gift baskets - shortbread, caramel fudge, cookies and xmas puddings (I’ll try and post some recipes later)

We exchanged gifts and chatted and laughed. Chirsty had a great time playing with a belated birthday present - Find it. The tube is full of things and you have to see how many you can find in a certain time. Apparently their is a penny hidden inside - which we could not find. Jenny, who gave the gift, was going to take it back to the shop. But when Kevin looked online apparently the penny is VERY hard to find and if you find it you can type in the details of the penny. So we will keep looking.

We eventually came home about 6pm. I bought in the washing and sorted it out.

Kevin replanted the mandarin tree he bought yesterday (and planted to close to our ornamental pear), and watered the veggies for me.

I started to upload todays photos so didn’t take any more. I got the dogs their dinner of leftovers (from Friday nights party) and a bowl of potato bake for my dinner. Then Kevin and I sat down to watch a couple of episodes of True Blood. I’ve been reading the books since the first one came out but the TV series is a lot more serious. Seems pretty good though (though some of the sex scenes are a bit too much).

We headed up to bed about 9pm and I put Christy to bed (Amy had fallen asleep on the couch and I’d sent her up to bed earlier). I read for a bit before turning out the lights and drifting off to sleep.

Yesterday was my Mum’s birthday but since I was on canteen at school and she was out to lunch we decided on an early dinner to celebrate. We gave her our presents - which included some photo christmas ornaments, a gardeners hand scrub and this Creative Memories magnet board. We then had a light dinner of pumpkin lasange and veggies, and of course birthday cake for desert. The girls made the cake all by themselves (all I did was put on the icing).

I’m hoping to do more of a catch up post later today but like most of you it’s busy around here. So if I don’t manage it here’s some video of Christy’s Christmas performance last night - grade 1 sang Wombat on a Surfboard. The was the second performance at night so i think she was getting a little tired. They also sang other songs with all the infants classes but she was hard to spot. For some reason year 1 was behind year 2. Don’t quite know what they were thinking. You’d think they’d arrange them by height wouldn’t you? Still was a nice night and it really feels like Christmas/end of the school year now.