I'm late this year with writing out new "walk the room" lists for around home, but to be honest it's already felt like a very full couple of months and there's no sensible reason to overload yourself in times of weariness, trial, illness or managing other needful responsibilities. I truly hope you're being kind to yourself if this year has felt a tad heavy so far?
But this week, after making some wise and life changing decisions, I was very eager to print up a set of fresh "Walk The Room" pages and begin my yearly habit of looking with new eyes at each room of our small home and making notes of what I'd like to achieve in them over coming months.
Having a list like this helps me to remember ideas or repairs (because I would otherwise forget at least half of them - do you do that?) and also means I can begin the process of preparation for bringing those ideas to fruition.
You can't see it on the photo above but at the bottom of the living/dining room page I have written extra notes, and one of those was to purchase new fabric to recover the dining room chairs. Now you may remember back in early 2019, not long after we bought this house, there was a flood in our town and though hubby and I worked tirelessly for ten days to keep the water out, some came up through the floor of two rooms and also brought down the ceiling in our laundry. Overall we were very blessed, but we did have a problem with mould which had grown in many places over those ten very humid wet days, mostly on fabric furniture coverings, curtains and any kind of basket weaved item.
I shared on the blog back then the state of our fairly new dining chairs and not being able to find anything suitable to recover them with, so it was months before I finally decided to cut up a set of cheap thick cotton beige curtains with plans to use that fabric until I could find something nicer.
Honestly, you have to laugh because it's been three years now and those rather awful beige covers have not been replaced yet. You know how after a while you can adjust to something and forget your original plan - as though you can no longer see the forest for the trees? But having attended to my new "Walk the Room" files, yesterday I headed off to Spotlight and with a bonus 30% off, I purchased some lovely fabric in a dark teal and this morning began the transformation process.
With a few of Niamh's YouTube homemaking videos playing on the telly to keep me company (and also to inspire my homemaker heart) I started removing the old beige covers and cutting the new fabric to size.
I'm taking a break now as my hands are bit sore, so it was the perfect time to catch up on blog writing and sharing a few photos with you, but I have a feeling this afternoon will see me push through the achy hands and complete all six chairs before my man arrives home.
But truly, don't they look rather lovely now?
An update on my new Instant Pot.
I'm still in love with it and venturing into original ideas rather than the basic recipes I played around with when I first got it. Having never owned or used a pressure cooker before (though Blossom has waxed lyrical about the joy of using hers for years), I went slowly the first few weeks trying recipes from other Instant Pot users and also from a book I bought which was fantastic for a pressure cooker newbie.
Last month I made this delicious lamb and vegetable stew that quite seriously could be called Comfort Food. It reminded me of winter evenings around Nana's table when a warming tasty stew made everything seem wonderful. I grew up in Newcastle (Australia) where there were four seasons, so different to the tropics where I live now, and those simple but delicious autumn and winter stews and casseroles, especially with dumplings, were the best of all meals.
The other day I was telling Cully May and Rafaella about Nana's dumplings and now they both want to try them so I'd best have a practice run this week as it has been about ten years since I last made them.
Tonight I'm making another lamb and vegetable stew and I'll be sure to add dumplings this time...which I think my husband will enjoy too as he likes to have bread with whatever meal I serve, and dumplings are a kind of bread.
Also on the menu this afternoon are Rock Cakes, but this time I'll bake a batch of gluten free ones so I can use up some of the almond meal in my pantry. It's important to rotate ingredients, especially because in our heat things like nut flours can go rancid, and besides, these gluten free rock cakes are delicious!
I shared the recipe a few years back but thought you may like it again as there are many GF readers of my blog who often email to ask for one of my old GF recipes.
You can swap out the first three ingredients for two cups of self-raising flour if you're not gluten free.
The garden outside is not doing well. We've had extreme heat (even for us) for a few weeks now and no end in sight for another week. The daily temperatures have been way above average and on Rafaella's birthday last Friday it was the hottest March day on record in our region.
Just trying to keep plants alive has been hard and many have simply burnt to a crisp, so rather than becoming miserable about it I'm just being grateful for the ones which have still survived and am praying they can hang on until the temps drop down to our ordinary hot days and we get some rain, which is predicted for the weekend.
Inside however, the almost 40 indoor plants are doing well. I've become rather obsessed with propagating cuttings from the Pothos and now have twelve pots of them throughout the house.
I love how they grow long and wild and are perfect for hanging pots or near the edge of benches, windowsills and bookcases.
There's always one or two cuttings in a jar of water, and within a month they have roots and can be planted into pots...
You only ever need to buy one Pothos and from that plant you can fill your home with many more.
Just wait until the Pothos looks like a long vine and cut a piece just below these little nodules.
Pop the cutting into a jar of water and place in a warm sheltered place, not in direct sunlight, though filtered light is fine. Over the space of a few weeks or a month there will appear a root growing from the nodule. Once that's done you can plant into good potting mix and display in a lovely pot. These plants like water so never let them go dry.
Now tell me, are you ready to Walk the Room this month, or have you already done it recently?
If you would like to download your own Walk the Room papers, they can be found HERE in last year's February issue of The Homemakers Heart digital magazine (a free download).
Thank you for all the caring comments and emails about little Bob-the-dog after his passing last week. I won't reply to them, but just know they meant a lot to our family. xxx
That's it for today. I'm going to hang up a load of washing, make a sandwich for lunch, and then get back to recovering those dining chairs...
God bless you,
