Beautiful Kitchen & other

It’s been a gorgeous day so far, I woke up to a clean kitchen for the first time in months.  The reason is that I actually took the 15 minutes to wash up after making supper last night instead of leaving it until this morning.  I had forgotten what a joy it is to wake up to a clean counter ready for making my morning coffee.  I even had a cup of filter coffee today instead of instant coffee.

 

I’ve been recreating my daily routines list.  I am attempting to get my life back into order after being so sick (on and off) for the past 2 months.  I want to get organized again (even if it is marginally).  I also want to discover peace of heart and mind in my home.  To be a proper homemaker, and not somebody who ambles from one moment to the next. 

 

At the moment the washing machine is buzzing away with a load of laundry that I’ll hang up to dry when it is done.  The new townhouse has an outdoor washing line.  I’m so excited about moving there so I can hang my laundry outdoors! 31 days until moving day!

 

My coffee is almost finished and I am ready to start my day with a shower and getting ready for work. 

 

I have 5 things on my To Do List for today, they are:

~ Spend some time dusting the bookcase in the living room

~ Email copy of the deposit slip to owners of the townhouse

~ Get a new bank card

~ Send a work email

~ Fetch my scooter from William’s grandparents house.

 

I think I should be able to get those 5 things done.

 

Yesterday was a pleasant day.  I dressed up smart (all business-like), then William and I went to pay the deposit on the Townhouse at the bank.  Smooth sailing.  Since we were at the bank in the shopping mall we went to Wimpy for breakfast.  I just had White Hot Chocolate and a muffin, William had a full breakfast (Eggs, bacon, sausage, toast etc.) and coffee.

 

We took our time in the shopping mall.  I bought The Sims Medieval from CNA, and William bought a book called “Aquariums and Aquarium Fish” from Exclusive Books.

 

I took the day off work, and we came home.  I spent time playing my new The Sims game (I’m slightly disappointed, I was hoping that there would be more free-play), and William fiddled with my fish-tank, which is now his fish tank.  He wanted tropical fish, so I handed the tank over to him.

 

There is also a new budgie addition to my home.  She is bright blue and I have named her Stitch (from Lilo & Stitch).  I’ll put a photo up when I get one.

 

Now I must continue with my day. May God bless you as you have blessed others.

Moving Plans & other news

It is official, William and I have signed the rental contract for the two-bedroom townhouse.  We can start moving my stuff in from the 1st of May.  This means that my current home is going to be “On Show” soon (for the new tenants).

 

Yesterday I spent part of the day cleaning the bedroom.  William helped me move my bed from the centre of the room to the wall.  It is more convenient for me to have my bed in the centre of the room, but the room looks larger when the bed is against the wall, and that will come in handy when trying to find a new tenant for the house.

 

We also managed to find a larger bird cage for my two budgies, now I won’t be letting them free all day every day anymore.  The new home will have a lot more windows than my current home, so it won’t be safe to let them roam free all day while I am not there.

 

Today is going to be a busy day.  William has a job interview which is currently on the go.  I’m keeping him in my thoughts and prayers since he really needs this job.  Other than that, I also need to stop by the bank and pay the deposit for the townhouse today.  Finally I need to get the license disk for my scooter and fetch it from William’s grandparents house.  I’m looking forward to driving it again.

 

As far as housework, I plan to make sure the kitchen is spotless by the end of today too.  I want to finish getting my home ready for people to look at it.

 

May God Bless you as you have blessed others =)

Recipe: Macaroni Cheese

This is a really easy recipe and because it serves so few people it is easy to double or triple the recipe to serve as many as you need it to serve.  I’ve been using this recipe for Macaroni and Cheese since I moved out of my parents house and I have never needed to try another one.

 

Serves 2 – 3 people my size.

Ingredients:

• 250ml (1 cup) macaroni (uncooked)
• 1ml salt (1/5th teaspoon)
• 25ml Margarine (2 tablespoons)
• 25ml flour (2 tablespoons)
• 250ml Milk (1 cup)
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 250ml grated cheddar cheese (1 cup)
• 1 tomato, sliced

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (360­°F). Grease an ovenproof dish
2. Cook macaroni in fast boiling, salt water until tender and drain in a colander (approx. 15 minutes).
3. Place Margarine, flour, milk, salt and pepper into a microwavable container (a glass measuring jug works well) and cook for a minute on high. Stir and cook again. Repeat until the mixture is thick but still runny.
4. Mix half the grated cheese into the milk mixture.
5. Mix macaroni and cheese sauce, pour into a greased ovenproof dish.
6. Place sliced tomato on top and sprinkle grated cheese over tomato.
7. Place in the oven for 10 minutes. Brown under the top element for 2 minutes. Garnish with parsley.

Budgie Photo’s

Here are some pictures of my 2 budgies:

 

 

The green/yellow budgie is Luke.  He was bought as a companion of the yellow budgie.  The yellow budgie’s name was Leia, until I found out she was a he, now his name is Lee.

 

The budgies love sitting on the blinds rail in the living room.  Occasionally Lee will fly to the bathroom and sit on the shower rail, but they mostly stick to the Living-room area.

Here is a picture of their cage, which I feel is way to small for them, so they only use it to eat and sleep in.  During the day they are free to roam my home as they please.

 

Another one of Lee.  Lee is the most tame out of the two.  He will sit on my shoulder, or hair, or hand and actively tries to get my attention when I am busy cleaning or doing other work.  However, he hates to be forced to do anything he doesn’t want to do.  He will not come to my hand when I want him to, but rather waits until I am busy to decide he wants attention from me.

 

And those are my pets!

Recipe: South African Pancakes

Makes: 12 – 20 (depends on the size of your frying pan)

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs (beaten)
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons margarine (melted)
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method:

1. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl
2. Add the wet ingredients and mix together until lump free. Leave to stand for 20-30 minutes.
3. Heat a frying pan on a medium heat. Use a non-stick spray if needed, or heat a little oil in the pan and pour it out between pancakes.
4. Pour enough batter so that there is a thin layer (1mm – 2mm thick) of batter over the bottom of the pan.  These pancakes won’t rise like the American style pancakes.
5. Leave batter in pan until air bubbles start to form.  Then use an egg-lifter to turn the pancake over.  If the pan is properly coated with non-stick spray or oil and the pancake is ready to turn this should be easy.  Sometimes it will take 1 or 2 attempts to grow accustomed to when to turn the pancake.
6. Once turned, leave the pancake to cook on the other side. Once the second side is ready there should be some brown spots on the second side of the pancake. Once cooked the pancake should still be soft and easy to roll up (like one would roll a newspaper).
7. For savoury pancakes, turn the pancake onto a plate and put cooked minced  meat(with tomato and onion sauce) in the middle, sprinkle with cheese. You can use Chicken and Mayonnaise. Have fun experimenting with different fillings.
8. For classic South African sweet pancakes, mix cinnamon and sugar together in a bowl and sprinkle over the whole pancake.  A dash of lemon juice can also be added if wished (some people like it, others don’t).
9. Roll the pancake like a newspaper and serve.  Some shops serve the pancakes with a spoon of cream or ice-cream. Below are the rolled versions of the Minced Meat pancake and the Sweet Cinnamon pancake.

The batter can be stored in a fridge overnight.  I have also heard it can be frozen, but I have never tried this.

The sweet pancakes are so cheap and easy to make, they are often sold at church/charity/school fund-raising events here in South Africa.  4 outdoor gas stoves, 4 pans, and 2 cooks can make a lot of pancakes quickly.  Wrap them up in grease proof paper for eating with ones hands while walking around a flea-market.  They are normally sold for R3,50 (US$0.50) each over here in South Africa.

The Ring

Here is the photographs of the engagement ring.  I am so sorry I don't have a better camera, this is the best I could get with mine.

This was the best photo I could get of it.

Bible Monday’s: Galatians 5:16-26

The other day I was sitting in my bed having some me-time with God.  I was just flipping through the index of my New Testament NLT Bible.  For some unknown reason I just felt like using that version on that specific night, normally I read an NIV Bible, but I have various versions in my home since some translations explain certain passages better than others, so if I get stuck on the meaning of a passage I try a different version.

 

So anyway, I was flipping through the index of my New Testament NLT Bible and stopped on the entry for “Alcohol”.  I read down the list. I’m not 100% sure why I read that list but it might have something to do with the bar fight over the previous weekend that I wasn’t present to see but heard all about the next day and had flashes of previous sins in my life which resulted in me making the decision to never touch alcohol again unless it is in medicine or is a glass of champagne/wine at a wedding/other celebration.

 

I read down the list:

Romans 13:13-14.  Becoming drunk is sinful. – yip, I know that already.

Galatians 5:19-21.  God hates drunkenness. – huh? it really says that? *page to Galatians 5:19-21*, and end up reading the whole section from Galatians 5:16-26.

 

Now I strongly recommend going to this website and comparing the NLT version to the NIV version.  I’ll even include links here to make it easy for you:

 

NLT version:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%205:16-26&version=NLT

 

NIV version:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%205:16-26&version=NIV

 

In essence they are the same, but the NLT version is written in a way that a teenager (or young Christian) can understand it.  The NIV version is (in my opinion) a little more advanced… I don’t know if I want to even try and look at the KJV, but for the sake of completeness here it is with a link:

 

KJV version:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%205:16-26&version=KJV

 

Now remember at this stage I had only read the NLT version, and it took my breath away.  Who would have thought the words “wild parties” would be in the Bible?

 

I compared the list of the desires of sinful nature to myself – I can count 2 things that I have recently been able to overcome with God’s help.  One or two others are going to be ongoing battles for a while (remember, I am not perfect).

 

I am proud to say that the night before reading this passage God had confronted me (well I think it was confronted because I was in prayer and I just got an unmistakable urge to do this) about the alcoholic drinks that had been sitting on the shelf untouched for over a year.  I hadn’t thrown them away because I don’t like to waste.

 

Something in my brain clicked that I was never going to drink it, and I was never going to offer it to guests so I might as well throw it down the kitchen sink, and that is what I did.

 

I think that Galatians 5:16-26 (in the NLT) gives a nice well-rounded list of “Do’s and Don’ts” for new and old Christians.  So often I have just asked God “Why couldn’t you have given us a list of basic everyday life things that you like and don’t like us doing, in black and white?”  Well, guess what, he did give it to us, just some of us haven’t found it yet.

 

Then we go onto the next part, the Fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  I think that overall, a lot of us can say “Yes, 60% of the time I am those things, some of them I am 80-90% of the time.” But there is always room for improvement. 

 

For example, I am extremely patience while waiting in lines, but I am impatient while waiting for God to answer prayer – I need practice in that one.

 

There was a saying: “Never pray for patience because God will make you practice it!”, but I say we have to look at our weaknesses and pray that God will give us opportunities to practice our weaknesses.  I know that my weakness is self-control and I have a friend whose weakness is peace.  He is so eager for arguments, he’ll take the opposing view just to have a good argument with someone (whether he believes the opposing view or not)!

 

Then the next question is what is your biggest strength?  Mine is peace, I try to maintain the peace in all situation, I strongly dislike arguing and would rather say “Well, we can agree that we disagree” and end the discussion there.  My not-so-little-anymore cousin’s biggest strength (in my opinion) is self-control, but with him it is difficult to pinpoint his strength because he just seems to be overflowing with love, joy, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  I don’t know if he is patient, but I’ve never seen him impatient.

 

The point is to cultivate your strengths and improve your weaknesses.  Think of the school situation.  If you discover in Grade 4 that you are above average in Maths, but below average in reading, the teachers recommend extra lessons to improve your reading skill.  And a good teacher will acknowledge your strength in Maths and recommend you enter mathematics tournaments to encourage you to build on your skill.  In the same way we need to focus on both our strengths and our weaknesses.  Pray for opportunities to practice our weaknesses and pray for situations to use our strengths.  I’m going to.

 

This has turned out rather long, so I would like to congratulate you if you read the whole thing.  I intended just to write a few paragraphs and it just flowed into an essay.  Each time I finished off one section, it flowed into a new one – but that is how my train of thought works.

 

May God Bless each of you!