"Embrace Me" by Lisa Samson

What is it about?

Valentine is a woman scarred from an injury and part of a human Marvels & Oddities show that tours through the year, except for winter. Whilst she is talented in beaded jewelery making and has a soft and caring heart, she seems to feel that the only way for her to earn a living is to exploit her deformity. Drew is a highly successful, very shallow Pastor of a mega church. However, his dysfunctional childhood, his mother's death and his need for his father's approval have sent him down a path of seeking self importance. Augustine is a tattooed monk who cares for those that come across his path.

What I thought:

Lisa Samson writes compellingly. This book is written in the first person with each of the main characters taking the next chapter. I struggled with this style for the first quarter to third of the book. However, once I got my mind around it all I was hooked and glad I persisted. I was dismayed at the idea of people allowing themselves to be exploited based on their oddities. The idea, to me, is abhorrent. And yet, Valentine feels that this is her only course of action for a very long time. Each of the characters, in their own way, is seeking unconditional love, healing and a way forward beyond all that they've been through. Lisa took each character through to a place in their lives where they could face their past and conquer the battles they each faced.

The book contained surprises I didn't see coming ~ probably because I was too engrossed in the tale being woven! Certainly from the middle of the book onwards I found this one hard to put down. I wanted to see how things were resolved for each person!

I found this a challenging read and probably not one I would go for if I wanted 'nice' or 'easy'. However, the themes of searching for unconditional love and healing of wounded hearts are worthwhile and Lisa explores these with raw reality. The resolutions for each character are realistic and not contrived or unbelievable, leaving the reader with a sense of hope that situations can improve.

Irish Stew

This recipe is very simple, but it is quite tasty. I use whatever lamb chops I can get that won't break the bank. I also don't use leeks. I almost always have red onions in the house so I just use those instead.

Irish Stew

1/4 cup vegetable oil
2kg lamb neck chops (I just use what we need for the 5 of us)
1 medium leek, chopped (or an onion)
3 large potatoes, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (optional)
1 litre lamb or chicken stock

1. Heat half the oil in pan, add chops in batches, cook until lightly browned all over; remove from pan.
2. Heat remaining oil in same pan, add leek, cook, stirring, until just tender.
   
3. Add potatoes, carrots & thyme, then return chops to pan with stock, simmer, covered about 1 hour or until chops are tender.

Or, you can bake it in the oven on about 180C/350F for an hour.
Or...you can chuck it in the Crockpot for the day on low. I use less liquid in the CP though.

Monday's Marvellous Menu

The kids and I were back at school this morning. Hard to believe Term 3 is now in full swing. Mr Busy's classroom had a nice clear, clean blue wall...all ready for this terms General Studies work to go up. They're doing 'Colour and Light'. I got to decorate one part of it with this morning's acrostic poems.

Whilst having breakfast and feeling like it just couldn't be real...that holidays had ended, I did manage to finish this week's menu plan.

Monday: Meatloaf & vegies
Tuesday: Irish Stew (in the CP)
Wednesday: Old Fashioned Chicken Pie (using l/o chicken roast)
Thursday: Cranberry Pork Roast & vegies (also a CP recipe)
Friday: Vegie Rolls, potato wedges & something to go with it
Saturday: Mrs R's Vegie Soup
Sunday: Tuna & Rice Casserole

Now I just have to have a bit of a brag and show you what I made. We had some friends over for lunch last week and they love Asian food, but never cook it. I, on the other hand, cook a relatively large variety of Asian meals. So I did chicken & corn soup (very easy!) with Char Siu Bau ~ otherwise known as roast sweet pork steamed buns. Also easy, just a little time consuming. Here they are. What do you think?! Clever....even if I do say so myself. And they freeze and reheat so well. You just steam them from frozen for 10-15 minutes!

It's Funny How Things Work

Picture from art.com

One of the things this particular woman cannot multi-task in, is singing whilst playing the piano. I just can't. I start to put my fingers in the wrong spot and lose my place in the music. It just ends up a very sorry mess. Unless of course what I'm playing is sooooo basic that I can't muck it up. There ya go...Rel & Fi, if you're ever inclined to watch, now you know my little idiosyncrasy!

So this morning I was playing away quite happily (in church), kinda humming because mucking up with 200 people hearing it, really isn't what you want to be doing. We start a new song and I get this tap on my back. "Trac, he's playing the wrong key". The guitarist who did the intro forgot to move his capo and I can't transpose to save myself, let alone the fact I had no idea what key he was playing in! You know what? I got to sing instead of play. A rare thing when it's my turn to play!

Mr Busy's Odessy

We have issues in our house. Big issues. More specifically the children have issues. They relate to the collection of clutter and general bedroom mess. We have cured one I think. With the reward of pierced ears dangled before her, Miss Mischief spent three months keeping her room "Mummy Clean". I figured three months was long enough for her to have learned a new habit. And it seems to have stuck. Two months on she's pretty good. Not perfect, but way better. Her room is no longer a danger to enter.

So yesterday I chucked a little mental and told Mr Busy to go and clean up his room. "Oh Mum, you have to help me I can't do it". What? Why ever not? Why is it MY responsibility to clean up YOUR mess? A mess I had nothing to do with creating. And why is it that everything gets pulled out and NOTHING gets put away even when that's what has been asked? Does anyone expect you to clean up THEIR bedrooms? I tell you, I had more questions for that boy that he had the fortitude to answer. He knows better. This mean mum is not one to be crossed when she's on a roll of this nature. It's better to just keep quiet than to try and justify what's being questioned. Especially when there is no justification in the first place! I happened to have my hands in dishwater at the time of instruction so I couldn't go and help him immediately anyway. I told him to go and tidy up the shelf he keeps his books on and then look at the wardrobe where his toys are supposed to be stored. Oh woe is him. What an impossible overwhelming idea....nevertheless, twenty minutes later that is exactly where I found him ~ tidying up that corner of his room!

Just so you know I'm not completely off my rocker, here is the before photo! This, my friends is the tip that Mr Busy seemed to think was OK to have as a bedroom.


Once I got in there with him, he worked beautifully. He was happy and motivated. Not at all the sooky chooky he was when I sent him in there in the first place. All I did was gather the rubbish and put it in a bag. Now there is method in that madness. It means that things that are truly rubbish get chucked. Otherwise we'd have a bedroom full of things that are meaningless and hold no real value to anyone, except the mess monsters. We worked together ~ I threw things in his direction and he put everything away. Right where it should go. He organised his boxes and containers so that they were easy to get to. He really is surprisingly good at this despite the look of the room that would suggest otherwise. Once we had finished we vacuumed. Then I spent 10 minutes unblocking a clog in the pipe of the vacuum....that's another story.

This..... Tah Dah....is the end result!

Now there is a new rule in this house. Mr Busy, you can get one thing out at a time...or two, if you block city you built requires cars. But before anything else comes out to be played with, those toys must be packed up first. Make little messes and clean up little messes and then they won't become big messes.

Frugal Friday Ponderings

Picture from art.com by Lisa Audit

It seems to be that things go along quite smoothly and then it all comes crashing down! I had to get my car serviced this week. It needs to be done on school holidays, as it's the only car I can take 3 kids in. Ouch. It always hurts. It's 8yo and has done 190,000km. Stuff needs fixing on it every single time. We own it though, outright, so it's worth keeping.

Yesterday the heater than I never take for granted has died....again. I'm about to call someone to come and have a look at it. The guy who came out last time (who is on his way to Adelaide as I type...darn it!) said the control panel probably needs replacing. The guy before that said the same thing. It will hurt! A lot!

I am grateful that I have an emergency fund for these things. I'm going to have to sit down with dh with a black and white reason why we need to be frugal and carefully replace the funds with have and will withdraw. That and I desperately....desperately want to be able to afford to put evaporative cooling in this summer. Desperately. When it's 40C outside and 35C inside life is not so fun! I'm tired of running away from home because it's too hot!

The Green Research Update

~Deep Breath~ I had a look at solar power yesterday. The kind of system we would need costs around $16,000. Oh, we'd be eligible for a $8,000 rebate. But my golly me. Eight grand is a huge amount of money. Last night as I was trying to keep my nose warm as I drifted off to sleep I was thinking about where we could put slimline water tanks.

Water tanks are between $500 and $1400 depending on the size you want. A lot more affordable I think. Something else to add to the budget discussion! It would certainly be fantastic to have at the very least a tank that would service the summer vegie garden. We have a tap timer thingy for when we're on summer holidays so the garden gets watered. With a tank we wouldn't be restricted to the allocated days & time slots.

Going Green...kind of.

At the risk of starting a political debate (which is not my intention), this is a subject I've been pondering lately.

I saw a story on Sixty Minutes the other night about people building houses to be energy efficient, carbon neutral and generally 'green'. It really interested me, to the point that I've made a little list of things I want to research. Going green isn't cheap when your house is already set up otherwise! But the story was really inspiring. Orientate your house to catch cooling breezes. Use verandas and rooflines to allow in winter sun and keep out hot summer sun. Insulate well. Use solar power. It all sounds so wonderful!

Then yesterday the Australian Government released it's 'Green Paper' regarding Emissions Trading. I admit, I'm not the brightest political mind. In fact, my politics mind is pretty basic and I tend to see things in a detached kind of way I think....dh keeps telling me "it's not that simple". I dunno....I reckon it is. So you can see, I may be way off base with what I'm about to say!

The Green Paper to me, seems all about charging the living daylights out of people for using carbon emitting energy. I can see where that comes into play. Really I can. But wouldn't it be more positive to give people incentives to change to more eco-friendly ways of doing things? In parenting terms, it's like disciplining for bad behaviour without giving any incentive or reward for good behaviour.

I was dumbfounded the other day when a friend told me the LPG Conversion Rebate was being axed very soon. Really? LPG is a cleaner fuel. Why would you not encourage people to do that, if we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? I don't get it. They want to charge even more for using petrol and won't encourage people to swap to gas.

We still get a rebate for installing water tanks. But then you get charged a water storage fee for the rest of the life of the tank. Hmmm....not such a great incentive.

I don't know. In my simple black-and-white mind these things just don't make a whole heap of sense. Wouldn't it be better to encourage people to use cleaner fuel in their cars, make solar power on houses more affordable and not charge us for storing our own water...something we're meant to be using less of anyway? Surely they'd be paying us not to use town water?

So....I'm going to start researching affordable ways to be greener. I live at the top of a hill with no big trees over my house....I wonder how solar power really works. And will Tru Energy pay me for putting power back into the grid?!