Energy bars

I made up this recipe the other day. Three out of five of us voted in favour! If you'd like to make them, or a variation, here it is.....

2 cups rolled oats
2 cups wholewheat pastry flour
half teaspoon salt (Celtic, sea or Himalayan)
half cup sunflower seeds
half cup coconut
1 cup raisins
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup ground almonds
three quarters of a cup coconut oil
three quarters of a cup agave (or maple or rice syrup)

Mix all together, press into a 9 x 13 inch pan lined with baking parchment, bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Very easy and good for snacking.

Win a beautiful quilt

You may have noticed a new picture over on the left - I have temporarily added it to my sidebar to tell you about this contest AND to get myself more entries into the contest!

Dana at Old Red Barn Co is giving away this beautiful quilt - I don't know how she can part with it - she admits herself she loves it so much she wishes she could keep it!

Go visit her blog and leave a comment.....but bear in mind there are over 1000 entries already.

My gratitude list

I keep a virtual post-it note on my computer desktop that has a list of some of things for which I'm grateful. Here's the current list, not in any particular order...

husband
sons
being alive
sunshine
rain
comfortable home
duvets
pillows
deep green grass
flowers
trees
hammocks
swings
modern plumbing
fire
clouds
friends
family
snow
knitting
warm clothes
scarves
hats
mittens
ocean
mountains
photos
good memories
good health
airplanes
bicycles
clean air
clean water
the sound of a creek
birdsong
evening walks
hot baths
hand-knitted socks

What are YOU grateful for?

At the beach

The day after the storm, the sun was hot, the sky was blue, the lake was.....cool! I guess the cooler temperature and the strong wind stirred up the lake on Thursday.

We met our friend at the beach and spent three lovely hours here.


It's a small beach access, no facilities except a dock, some sand and a couple of picnic tables.


We took a picnic lunch.


We swam off the dock (and hey, no weeds or slime).


Lots of time was spent collecting rocks.

The boys enjoyed digging a channel in the sand, making dams with sand, rocks and a brick, and then pouring water down.


We enjoyed it so much, we're going to do it again soon! (Even though I did get a little bit of a sunburn.)

Storm

We had a huge storm come through the valley today. The boys and I were at the dining room table this morning doing "schooly" stuff when we noticed the trees getting blown about, then the rain came. (That link will take you to the local news website.)

We had to rescue a few things off the deck so they didn't blow away. My laundry was out, carefully pegged to ensure it didn't blow away, but of course it's now wetter than it was before!

We have heard sirens on a regular basis - the emergency services going out for fallen trees, car accidents, grass fires.

I walked up to the bakery in the rain to find the shops at the plaza closed or closing as they had no power. I just made it in time to pick up my sub buns for dinner - luckily I had cash as they had no way of accepting plastic.

I just checked the forecast for tomorrow, as I have arranged to meet a friend at the beach, and it's supposed to be sunny and 30 degrees Celsius, so that's good.

Ninja Boy, Lego Nut and I had a productive morning, once Lego Nut got over his resistance to doing his math. I wouldn't back down, he had to do the pages I gave him, and it eventually was finished. We finished reading about Rome and the Romans in our Usborne Time Travellers book, and I gave them a spelling test of 15 words each - aimed to challenge them a little. They then went next door to watch movies with the neighbour's boy, taking some popcorn with them.

The weather seems to have settled down now. Time for me to have a little game of Bookworm...

New yarn, new inspiration

When I get stalled on my knitting, it usually means I'm bored with my current project. And as I only have one project on the go, I felt I needed to inject a bit more interest by ......

buying more yarn!

I don't keep a stash, so a visit to a yarn store was necessary. Such hardship!

I knew what I wanted. Something girly and something masculine for two birthdays coming up later in the year.

I bought this yarn on the way to the beach today and made sure I took the right size needles with me so I was able to cast on for this scarf straight away. This is one of my favourite yarns - James Brett Marble, 4.5mm/#7 US Boye Interchangeable needles, 35 stitches, basic garter stitch - makes a lovely scarf.

The pink shade will become fingerless mitts - my basic pattern over in the sidebar.

Abbreviations, acronyms and annoyances

Someone left a comment, anonymously, on one of my posts the other day. They told me that "by the way" should be "btw".

Regular readers will undoubtedly have noticed that I tend not to use abbreviations, shortcuts and acronyms. Many people are new to blog reading and would be totally confused by LOL, DH, IMHO etc. In addition, LOL really irritates me!

There's a great thread on Ravelry where people post about things that bug them on forums in general. It's good to see that other people (not just me) are annoyed by crappy spelling and grammar!

TTYL!