The Super Sweet Blogging Award

Ahh The Sunshine Scrapbook was just honoured with two more blog award nominations!

Thanks to Steve at Around the World with Blade for picking me for the Versatile Blogger award. I really appreciate the nomination, although I’ve received this award before so I hope you don’t mind if I don’t do the whole thing again :) But check out Steve’s blog for amazing travel stories!

And many thanks to Jane at Talk Kindess To Me for nominating me for the Super Sweet Blogging Award It means a lot! For thoughtful spiritual encouragement, Talk Kindness To Me is one of my favourite places to turn.

So here are the Super Sweet rules:

1. Thank your nominator – Thanks so much Jane!
2. Answer the 5 Super Sweet questions – See below
3. Include the Super Sweet logo in this post – Above and on my wall
4. Nominate other bloggers for this award – See below
5. Notify my nominees on their blogs – Will do

Super Sweet questions:

• Cookies or cake? – Cookies, I think. They keep for longer, they’re easier to bake, they come in more variations, and they look smaller so you can fool yourself into thinking you can safely have a few more
• Chocolate or vanilla? – Vanilla should be my middle name…
• Favourite sweet treat? – Warm pancakes (crepes) filled with crunchy sugar that cracks between my teeth, spicy cinnamon that teases my tongue and fresh lemon juice that turns the cinnamon sugar into a zesty, sticky syrup. Oh, wow. I could eat pancakes every day of my life!
• When do you crave sweets? – Wayyyyy too often. I think I eat something sweet every day, even if it’s a healthy sweet treat such as fresh or dried fruit. And I always crave unhealthy sweet treats in cold weather.
• Sweet nickname? – Ninja has called me his little sugarbird because of my sweet tooth :)

Super Sweet nominations:

I decided to go with blogs that are mainly foodie-related:

1. http://thehungryartist.wordpress.com/
2. http://feedingyourappetite.wordpress.com/
3. http://thehealthyflavor.com/
4. http://gercakes.wordpress.com/
5. http://hannahbakesit.wordpress.com/

Have a beautiful day!

Zest

Soldier boy poses

As promised, here are pics of some of our toy soldier’s poses over the years. I think they show the playful spirit that’s always been part of this marriage

This one of him peeking into the microwave was set up by a hungry Ninja:

“What’s for dinner?”

This is one of my favourites, a funny way for Ninja to let me know that he was too tired to tackle dishes that day!

“Argh, so many dishes!”

This pic was a cheeky way for Ninja to ask for more fruit juice (at a time when I was trying to ration our supplies):

“Juice please!”

Here the soldier is scratching his head, trying to figure out where to store my bandana (he’d been helping Ninja to pack away the laundry, of course).

“Where does this go?”

In this pic he’s reading a card I’d tied to a friend’s wedding gift:

“Don’t mind me prying…”

Nap time! Clearly the end of a long day for our soldier boy.

“Zzz…”

The soldier shows off Ninja’s handiwork in fixing up my broken umbrella.

“There, I fixed it.”

How kind of our soldier to help us set up our first rat cage…

“Need a hand here?”

… and afterwards he sat swinging in the ratty chew toy

“Job’s done.”

This one was funny: at our busiest times when Ninja got home before me, he’d leave me a small fruit juice or some other treat on my desk to welcome me home. But on this day, the soldier drank my juice!

*slurp*

And in the height of summer when Ninja got boiled alive from commuting in full bike gear, our soldier made sure a cool glass of juice was waiting for Ninja.

“It’s sweltering hot today.”

That’s just a handful of the pictures. Ninja and I have had such fun with this guy over the years. Our soldier has also lugged Christmas stockings, held love notes, welcomed guests, hidden objects and invaded cupboards. Who knows what he’ll get up to next?

My top 10 unusual possessions

For a while now I’ve wanted to write this fun post about 10 of my favourite and most interesting, unusual and special possessions. So here they are, in no particular order. Hope you enjoy!

Item #1: 3D-printed coaster and fridge magnet

Item #1 is a plastic coaster and fridge magnet. These are unusual because one of my friends designed and printed these himself using his own 3D printer. Quite impressive!

Item #2: Limited edition painted plate

Item #2 is a special W. S. George fine china plate that I received as a gift many years ago from my aunt in Austria. It comes with a certificate of authenticity and depicts a painting of kittens by Henriette Ronner. It’s a beautiful collector’s item and has special meaning for me because of my relationship with my aunt.

Item #3: Swarovski crystal duck

Item #3 is a tiny Swarovski crystal duckie. It’s precious and unusual for me because this is the first and only Valentine’s Day gift I’ve ever received! Ninja warned me from the start that he didn’t believe in Valentine’s Day, so he’d only be getting me something special for our very first one together

Item #4: A homemade shell necklace

Item #4, a homemade shell necklace, is unusual mainly because I didn’t need to put a single hole in those shells when I made this. They all already had tiny holes in them when I collected them on the beach! This item is also special because I used shells collected during our honeymoon.

Item #5: Cloud Strife earrings

Item #5 is my pair of Cloud Strife Cloudy Wolf/Fenrir errings. Need I say more

Item #6: Earrings from my man

Item #6 is more jewellery: a set of earrings and a necklace pendant. The thing that makes them unusual is that Ninja made these for me himself! He was watching me work with some of my beading kits when he decided to make me this set.

Item #7: Toy soldier

Item #7 isn’t technically mine: Ninja brought it with into the marriage and now I’ve adopted it too. This toy soldier has brought us loads of laughs as we’ve used it to suprise each other. It’s a fully articulating model, so we can make it cling to shelves, hold love notes, hide in cupboards and support items. In fact, we’ve used him in such a variety of poses and situations that I think he deserves a blog post of his own. Watch this space

Item #8: Hat with badges

Perhaps there’s not too much that’s unusual about Item #8 – after all, it’s just a hat with badges. But in my circle of friends it’s very unusual, and one of these badges even started my romance with Ninja! The very first time I met Ninja I was wearing this hat. He shook my hand in greeting and proceeded to read my interesting badges. Once he saw this one…

… he promptly dashed off in search of a sticker. When he came back, he covered the ‘Don’t’ on the badge, so that it read ‘Assume I Cook’. Hah! That was one way to strike up a conversation

Item #9: A small trophy

There’d be nothing unusual about Item #9 if it wasn’t for what it represented. I received this small trophy at an awards ceremony for my Hindi language class. I was the only non-Indian participant and I passed the exam with a distinction. OK, it was only at first-grader level… but it’s still an unusual achievement :)

Item #10: Wooden carving

I’ve saved the best for last. Item #10 is a beautiful and intricate wooden carving of old ships at sea. I absolutely love old-world things like this. I’m astounded by the detail and the time it must have taken the artist to carve this.

Look at the tiny details of the figures on the ship. It blows my mind. Here are some more close-ups:

Great detail on the rigging above, and on the ship’s cannons below:

I also like the rope surrounding the title of this creation. The Drommedaris and the Reijger were two actual ships that travelled to the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. On board was Jan van Riebeeck – the dude who helped begin the European colonisation of South Africa.

Unbelievably, I bought this for the price of your average hamburger at a ‘kitsch’ store that sold all manner of second-hand ‘junk’. I think it’s a treasure I’d love to know the history of this carving. The signature says it was crafted by Chris in 1975. Who was the man who carved it? Did he sell it for a good profit or was it handed down as a keepsake in his family? How did it end up on sale for 30 bucks in a junk store?

I guess I’ll never know, but I’m very glad it found its way to me.

The Sunshine Blog Award

Now here’s an award that’s just made for the Sunshine Scrapbook

Dear Lou from the beautiful and popular Lou’s Labyrinth generously nominated my little blog for the Sunshine Blog Award! Thank you so much, Lou

The Sunshine Blog Award

The rules of the game are as follows:
1. Link back to your nominator.
2. Add the award image to your page.
3. Share 7 facts about yourself.
4. Nominate 5–10 other blogs (and let them know).

 

Seven random facts about me

1. I love dogs but am not overly fond of Rottweilers; probably because I was bitten by one as a kid.
2. I absolutely adore my birthday :D
3. My dream home is a log cabin in a forest clearing.
4. As a kid my favourite series was Farthing Wood Friends.
5. I’ve recently developed a miserable allergic reaction to caffeine: my upper lip gets itchy and flaky :?
6. My favourite Bollywood movie is Kal Ho Naa Ho.
7. Yesterday I slammed my fingers in a closing magnetic door. Owwww!

 

Some sunny blogs I can recommend

1. http://talkkindnesstome.com/
2. http://themarriedtravellers.wordpress.com/
3. http://arielinkawaiiland.wordpress.com/
4. http://chezcateylou.com/
5. http://huongie.wordpress.com/

 

Well, the sun has long since set where I am, so off I go :)

How to ‘green clean’ your oven

Oh, I tried chemical oven cleaner once. Never again.

Although I thought I’d rinsed the oven thoroughly, some oven cleaner residue was lurking still… and it nearly killed us

So these days I use the natural method of oven cleaning, which requires nothing more than some bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar, and a bit of elbow grease!

For those who would also like to steer clear of dangerous chemicals and have a spotless oven, here’s a quick pictorial.

This is what my oven looked like beforehand. It’s not as bad as it could be, but still speckled with baked-on dirt. Yuck!

My oven before

A closer look

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I only clean my oven roughly every six months (hey, stop judging me!). It’s a lot of work and I doubt anyone enjoys the task, but it has to be done.

A last look at the dirt inside

Cleaning the oven with bicarb and vinegar is a two-part process, because you need to leave it overnight (same as with some chemical oven cleaners).

Step 1: Liberally sprinkle bicarb in the oven

For the first step, try to get the bicarb up on the top of the oven and in all the hard-to-reach corners too. You could also make a paste with bicarb and water to get it to stick if needed.

Step 2: Spray the bicarb with white vinegar

Be warned: Step 2 releases some caustic fumes, though nothing compared to the dangerous fumes from chemical cleaners. I spritz the vinegar onto the soda with a spray bottle, which helps to reach odd spots.

The bicarb and vinegar immediately react with a hiss

Now you can leave the mixture to do the hard work overnight while you sleep  I take out all the trays and racks and treat them separately and leave them in the bath. Our oven’s door also detaches easily, which makes the job simpler.

Step 3: The overnight work

In the morning you should see that much of the mixture has dried. Often it will have turned brown in spots, which is how you know that it’s been eating away at the dirt on that surface.

Step 4: The hard work begins

Now it’s time to put on your gloves, grab a scouring pad and start scrubbing. If you did a thorough job on the first two steps, the mixture of bicarb and vinegar will have lifted off a lot of dirt and grease that can just be wiped away. In the pic above you can see a circular area I’ve scrubbed clean without much effort.

A helpful tool: the partitioned bucket

I recently bought a cleaning bucket with two separate sections for clean and dirty water. This was a great help and is a worthwhile investment (although I can’t help wishing it came with wheels too).

Step 5: Scrubbing, rinsing and drying

There’s no secret to the rest of the job: it’s just scrubbing, rinsing and drying. I lay newspaper on the floor to catch the inevitable spills, and wipe up the excess bicarb with paper towels. The roof of the oven is my least favourite part because of the awkward access, but with persistence it comes clean as well.

It’s a tedious job that took me just over an hour (maybe because of all the interruptions for photos?), but you can make good use of the time by listening to music or audio books in the background as you work. The great thing about using ‘green cleaners’ such as bicarb and vinegar is that if for some reason you don’t rinse them off properly, they won’t harm you or the food you cook in the oven afterwards.

And the results are just as good as with any chemical cleaner!

Sparkling clean again

A Mother’s Day tribute

 

Mother’s Day gift

Tomorrow we celebrate Mother’s Day in SA, lauding those hard-working, nurturing souls who raised us.

I’m generalising, of course.

Not everyone has a loving, present or involved mom. But among those who have been blessed with a dear mother in their lives, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone with a mom as unique as mine

My little mommy is funny, eccentric and devoted. She loves the Lord and serves her family wholeheartedly, but she’s no ordinary old-school housewife. Marzipan (as I call her) is headstrong and opinionated, spontaneous and cheerful. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who cared less about what other people think of her actions… and yet it hasn’t made her arrogant.

I look back on my childhood and can only laugh. When other kids’ moms were getting manicures, my Marzipan was climbing the local mulberry trees with my brother and I to get the best berries before the birds did! When other mothers were sending their children to all manner of extramural activities, my mom gave us the freedom roam the neighbourhood and play down by the nearby stream (always praying fervently until we returned safely).

My mom grew up on a smallholding near the sea, so she had a vastly different upbringing to her two city-bred kids. And yet she found ways to give us a healthy, adventurous childhood. Some of my favourite memories are of our family hiking together in the nearby hills and my mom teaching us about the plants, birds and creatures in our area. As a trained horticulturist, her love of nature always drew her outdoors – and often us with her.

She also made sure she instilled a spiritual awareness and knowledge of the gospel in us from an early age. She wasn’t afraid to discuss sin and admit her need for a Saviour, which is something I admired her for as I grew old enough to understand these things. And one of the biggest gifts she gave me was the knowledge that I could turn to my Heavenly Father in prayer anytime, anywhere. She showed by example that faith in Christ is a living relationship with Him, not a formulaic or empty religious ritual.

Marzi is also practical, resourceful and hard-working. I didn’t know it at the time, but watching her while I grew up was good preparation for my own time as a housewife years later. She taught me tricks for storing food and stretching a small budget and turning everyday meals into surprise treats. She showed me that housework and housewifedom wasn’t something to be ashamed of; in fact, it was a goal worth striving for because it led to a balanced life.

As with many mothers and daughters, we did go through seasons when we didn’t agree on much. Life is such that while I was going through the throes of adolescence, my mom was battling with the changes of mid-life. We didn’t understand each other so well back then, but we made it through the rocky patches to enjoy the new relationship we have now.

Now that I’m married and running my own home, I can appreciate my mom from an adult perspective. And we’ve become friends, almost sisters, in the way we connect and tune in to one another. We laugh together, we bake for each other, we think of and pray for each other, and we appreciate each other more than ever.

For Mother’s Day I tried to get Marzipan something she really wanted, so I was delighted to find this beautiful tea towel and some very cute ceramic teacup-shaped teabag holders/spoonrests. And don’t you just love that the box is decorated with the same patterns as the towel?

A gift for Marzipan

It’s just a small token of my gratitude to the best mommy in the world

Ratty noodles

Well, I’ve survived the first few days of being back in the office. Seeing my old colleagues again has been fun, but getting out of bed early has not! Being a housewife sure made me lazy appreciate sleeping in

Anyway, between catching up with housework and preparing for another early day tomorrow, I don’t have too much time to blog this evening. So I thought I’d let the ratties star in this short-and-sweet post…

Ratties L-O-V-E pasta! Gnawing on dry pasta helps them file down their long, ever-growing teeth. And cooked pasta is one of their favourite treats.

Here’s Coffee getting excited about cooked macaroni:

Coffee, want a noodle?

Got one!

And here are two funny pics of the girls hoarding dry noodles

Coffee never does anything by halves: three noodles at once!

Funny little Flea holds her noodle like a cigar

Personal mission statement

Have you ever written out a personal mission statement? Mission statements are a great tool for reminding you of your highest principles and values. That is, they can be great… unless you’re like me and you misplace your mission statement – only to discover it about a decade later!

Years ago I read Sean Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, and followed his advice to write out my own mission statement. I remember spending hours working out exactly how to put my life into words (of course I would use words… I think best using words). I memorised my mission statement and even made a small card version to carry in my purse.

But then I grew up and life got busy and somehow I lost both my card and my mission. Until a few days ago when I found my card stashed away in the bottom of an old storage box

On the one side of the card is a pic of a (rather sad-looking) German Shepherd…

The GSD pic

… and on the other side is the story of my life:

My mission statement

Looking at my mission statement again was like looking into a mirror. If ever a few words could sum up my thoughts of myself and my hopes for my life, here they are. Even the layout is so typically me: neat and orderly and balanced, with exactly five words per section… so pernickety at such a young age, lol!

If you take a moment to read the various terms I chose, you can learn a lot about me.

• For example, my people-oriented side is clear in words such as understand, welcome, repent, forgive, compliment, embrace and love.
• My spiritual side and faith is reflected the terms stand tall, improve, purify, mature and believe.
• The part of me that needs quiet alone time to balance out the others-centredness is shown in the words renew, reflect, define.
• My hard-working, intense and perfectionistic traits are captured in the terms focus, plan, achieve, exercise, sacrifice, strive, advance and establish.
• And best of all, the sunny, cheerful and optimistic side of me glows in these words: shine, laugh, create, celebrate, expand, dream and rejoice.

Two things surprised me about this find. The first is that even after a decade, I can’t say I need to change this in any way. It still encapsulates who I am and who I want to be. The second thing is that even though this has been hidden at the bottom of a box for the longest time, I’ve unwittingly stuck to many of these principles over the years. And I’ve definitely been happiest during those times when I’ve managed to maintain the balance described in my mission statement.

What a wonderful discovery! This card is going back into its rightful place in my purse now.

In fact, the timing couldn’t be better: today is my last day of being a full-time housewife, as tomorrow I begin three months of working in the office. I’m going to need my mission statement nearby to keep me focused on what matters most to me during the upcoming busy season.

And speaking of busyness, I won’t have as much free time to blog in the days ahead, but I will still do my best to send interesting and sunny posts your way – at least once a week or as often as I can!

All the best

Zest

Apple crumble to the rescue

Do you also find that some success stories from the kitchen start out as disasters at first?

That’s what happened with my recent attempt at making oat bars. I wanted to whip up some healthy lunchbox snacks for when I begin working out of the house again next week. So I bought a range of yummy ingredients that I wanted to include, and then spent ages on the internet trying to find a good recipe.

My word. Have you ever tried to find a good oat bar/granola bar/muesli bar recipe on the web? There are thousands and thousands to choose from. There are ones made with egg and there are dairy-free bars. There are soft and chewy granola bars and there are hard and crunchy bars. There are muesli bars that must be refrigerated and those that must be baked. The possible ingredients and combinations are staggering!

In the end, I decided to make up my own mix (which didn’t exactly work, so I won’t give you the recipe here). I used various quantities of rolled oats, coconut, chopped nuts, pumpkin seeds, dried blueberries, poppy seeds, puffed brown rice and honey, syrup, sugar and butter to glue it all together.

My original attempt at an oat bar mix

It came out very soft and sticky, not hardening at all. It did taste amazing though!

A delicious disaster

I didn’t want to waste all those wonderful ingredients, so I crumbled it up and mixed in some flour and a bit of extra brown sugar.

Rescuing the mix with flour

Then I lined a pie dish with sliced sour green apples (Granny Smith) and added some raisins and spices.

The base of my apple crumble

I also added my crumbled failed muesli bar mix on top… and topped it off with a little sweet wine.

Muesli mix apple crumble

Mmmm… the sweet, spicy aroma filled the house as it baked. I couldn’t wait to see if my patch-up job had worked.

Out of the oven

The results were fantastic! Crispy crunchy oat crumble on top of soft spicy apples. The toasted pumpkin seeds were a highlight for my tastebuds :)

Apple crumble to the rescue

The weather was quite chilly when I made this, so what better treat for a cool autumn evening than apple crumble and custard:

Apple crumble and custard

I was even naughty and made up two tiny bowls with a sample of crumble and custard for the ratties:

Teeny ratty portions

They were glad I shared the love!

Nom nom nom

Success I rescued all those lovely ingredients by turning them into something even better. But if those pics have got you drooling, don’t worry – I wasn’t about to leave you without a recipe! Here’s my mom’s fail-safe apple crumble recipe, which I based my rescue recipe on. The pink ingredients are those I added to adjust her original recipe. Enjoy!

Crunchy apple crisp

50 g oats

50 g flour

100 g brown sugar

50 g desiccated coconut

25 g pumpkin seeds

1 T poppy seeds

60 g butter, melted (I increased this to 100 g after adding the extra dry ingredients above)

7 large apples, peeled and sliced (I used 8 large Granny Smith apples)

70 ml sweet white wine (mine was a low-alcohol version, but I’m sure any sweet wine would work)

30 ml water

Ground cinnamon and ground cloves or pimento (I used a generous sprinkling of cinnamon and mixed spice (allspice))

Seedless raisins

 

1. Grease a large pie plate or casserole dish.

2. Mix the oats, flour and sugar with the melted butter.

3. Place half the apple slices in the pie plate.

4. Sprinkle these apples with spices and raisins.

5. Add the rest of the apples.

6. Cover with the oats topping.

7. Pour over the wine and water.

8. Bake for 1 hour at 180 °C.

Have you ever…

…tried these toppings on your bread or toast?

Tasty toppings

This is my lunch: two slices of wholewheat bread with two interesting toppings. The first slice is covered in mashed up avocado pear and sprinkled with salt. Avo is one of my all-time favourites: I enjoy it plain (it complements curries quite nicely), salted (as described above) or mashed into a zesty dessert with sugar and lemon juice. Yum!

The second slice of bread is topped with cheddar cheese and celery sticks. It’s a delicious combo that my mom introduced to our plates when I was young. Somehow the tangy cheddar and crunchy celery work really well together.

Since my mom has been baking her own bread for decades, our family ate a lot of bread – which of course led to lots of experimenting with different toppings. Here’s a list of a few of the most creative ones I’ve tried over the years. (Warning: not all are healthy, and some are an acquired taste!)

• Thinly spread mayonnaise sprinkled with mixed herbs
• Chutney and cheese
• Banana and cheese
• Marmite (a salty yeast spread) and cheese
• Apricot jam and cheese (yes, I really like cheese!)
• Chutney and lettuce
• Fruit mince (it’s especially amazing on crispy toast)
• Cottage cheese and bell peppers
• Strawberry jam and cream
• Sardines with lemon juice
• Honey (best on toast)
• Cottage cheese and cucumber
• Pastrami and gherkins
• Grated apple and spices (on toast, baked in the oven)

Have you ever tried any of those? What’s your favourite topping for bread or toast?