Things we're doing

My husband reads my blog. I know that, because the other day this arrived in the mail. Have I told you lately how much I love him?

If I'd known that I was really going to get one of these beautiful jigsaws I probably would have chosen one with a more defined picture and less pieces, but it has me hooked, and I have been spending far too much time at the games table this week.

Do you like jigsaws? We all do around here. A beautiful jigsaw is one of my traditional Christmas presents. It wouldn't be Christmas without a puzzle or two.

Because I have been spending too much time working on uniting the states of America I haven't been blogging. Naughty me. I have been doing a few things though:

1. Enjoying the scent of bunches of lovely early narcissi from our garden. The paler one is Erlicheer. Anybody know what the other more single one with the egg yolk yellow centre is? It was here when we bought the house. I think it is lovely.

2. I have the urge to do some more crochet, this time a quilt of squares for Jemimah's bed in bright tweeny colours - bright pink, purple, turquoise. I won't let myself start, though, until I finish up some of the projects that are patiently waiting attention. This one is a grannie stripe cushion cover. It really only needs a cushion insert so that I can check the size before joining it together, but I also need to stitch up Bennett Blanket, which Jemimah and I knitted last winter, and buy buttons for a couple of cushions. I also have a scarf on the go, but I think I will be knitting that forever, and so I will just keep plugging away. It is very pretty but oh so s.l.o.w.

3. I have had a pash on baking these pastry pie things with a variety of different toppings. This one is silverbeet and onion topped with thinly sliced potato and cheddar cheese, but pizza topping of tomato cooked with pinenuts, onion and garlic, pesto, goats cheese and fresh basil is probably our favourite to date.

4. We are still doing school even though it is the Victorian school holidays. We have been enjoying the slightly different routine, though, without all the regular sporting commitments in the afternoons. Jemimah is currently competing in a full day badminton tournament, which breaks up the week a little, as does her 'summer' photography camp which began yesterday. There are a few of you doing the course with us. I hope you're enjoying it!

You'll notice a little black furry Flossie head on Jemimah's knee while she does her maths. That's where you'll find her most days. She is really cute, even though she does cry loudly during the night, and you really shouldn't get me started on toilet training...

We have three more weeks to go until term two is finished. I can't believe how quickly the years pass.

5. None of us have been doing much reading. I don't know why that would be - it predates the jigsaw - but we read for pleasure not as a duty, so no doubt we will get into it again. I am reading How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis Schaeffer. It's an oldie but a goodie. I am enjoying it so much more having studied AO History with Jemimah, because it touches on so many people that we've been getting to know quite well. I am also reading Snow Country by Japanese Nobel Prize winner, Yasunari Kawabata. It is hauntingly beautiful, but I can hardly bear to keep reading as the characters and their relationships self destruct. It is so lonely.

You'll notice I gave up writing about my year's reading in about March. Slack, I know.I can't blame the jigsaw for that either. Oh well.

What have you been up to? Have you been cooking or gardening or reading? Are you on holidays? Have you, pehaps, been doing a jigsaw too? Do tell.