The Perfect Pizza

I have to thank Ree Drummond for my affection for pizza. Prior to discovering two of her recipes I could take it or leave it. The first one I tried was from her debut cookbook and involved using sliced potato instead of pizza sauce. Crazy but amazingly good. The second is one we make more often and which was perfected last week.

Layer one: Pizza Dough

Layer two: Pesto

Layer three: salt

Layer Four: Mozzarella

Layer Five: Tomatoes

Previous incarnations of this particular pizza have been delicious but very messy. Turns out that by half heartedly following instructions by memory didn't really work for this dish. The crust had been too thin, I forgot the salt, and I used too much of everything else. This time I remembered to nag husby into spinning the dough differently, remembered the salt and looked at her pictures when placing my Mozzarella and Tomatoes.

It truly was a beautiful thing. The fact that we got to make and eat it after Toby went to bed, while watching a movie together? An added bonus.

Babycentre nonsense

I get weekly emails about the status of my pregnancy from babycentre.com and this week - week 36 - they made me absolutely livid. For the first few weeks of nursing Toby I was told that it shouldn't hurt and therefore I must be doing something wrong, great support huh? Finally a lactation specialist said to me, "of course it will hurt to begin with - your body hasn't done this before. Discomfort is normal, it just shouldn't continue to hurt." That was one of my biggest stumbling blocks because I found it quite uncomfortable, especially at latch on.


So when Babycentre emails me this week and says:


"Once you get started, remember that nursing shouldn't be painful."


I wanted to smash my computer screen.


How many young nursing mothers are put off by incomplete information. Certain types of discomfort are normal in the first few weeks. Your breastfeeding experience for that first month will have radically changed by the beginning of the second.


IT WILL HURT. But it won't always hurt. YOU ARE NORMAL!

When Silence is not Golden

Before Toby was born, my Grandmother began knitting for my baby. Before Toby was even an idea in our minds, my Grandmother began knitting for my baby. By the time I was pregnant with Toby, she had two suitcases full of knitted clothing. Ranging from newborn to about four years old, in all different colours. It's wonderful. I still have a tote box full of clothes he has yet to go into. I almost missed the boat on this yellow sweater, the sleeves are a little to short for him.

My boy is a bit of a cheeky monkey. He plays hard and loud. So the other day at daycare when they realised he was sat quietly in the corner, playing, with his back to them, they got suspicious. Someone went over to see what he was doing. He had found a loose thread and had very proudly begun pulling at it. He pulled and pulled and pulled and by the time someone got to him, his sweater was partially unraveled. Guess we'll never know how Charlie would have looked in this one! 

It's not working

Last week we were going over our family budget. Apart from the realisation that I've been doing the groceries et al on the assumption of x amount, while Husby had actually budgeted x minus $20 a week, we realised that my new system is NOT saving us any money.


Since November I have been doing a monthly shop, visiting Sam's Club and our local grocery store, spending a LOT of money and then each week we only worry about bread, milk and produce. I like it. I have 3-4 weeks of menu plans made out and it is so much less hassle for me to only have to think about that nonsense once a month. I thought we were at least breaking even, which would be worth it for the hassle it saves.


Turns out we're spending more this way. I have no idea how! We're going to see out this month and see how we manage but we may have to get back into the weekly shop. Clipping coupons dehumanises me. It takes up so much time that I usually use for things I enjoy. I hated it. BUT, it saves money, stupid system!


I just read Crystal Paine's book, she blogs over at moneysavingmom.com. I kinda think she's crazy most of the time but I am taking her up on a few of her tips.


1. Starting a price comparison book - so that I can always know if it's worth skipping across the street to the other store for an item we need. So that I can know where my coupons are best spent.


2. Setting aside an hour - on hour - uno houro - on Friday night to menu plan the week and clip coupons. This Friday will be the first one - let's see how it goes...
I need a personal shopper - they come cheap right?

Converting an ugly Scrapbook

I had originally planned on scrapbooking every moment of Toby's life. When I got pregnant again in 2011 and was only up to month 6 of my two year old Toby's life I realised decisions had to be made! I decided that as long as I could fully scrap the first year of each child's life I would be happy. Thanks to a well timed crop and a scrapbook set up at home, I reached Toby's one year mark in December. I also reached the fourth of the actual scrapbooks themselves. 

I keep several on hand but considered most of them ugly. I was planning on covering an ugly one in fabric but then my mother in law gave us some multi-coloured duct tape and I had an easier idea:

I'm really happy with the outcome, though I am considering using this for something else and getting a D ring binder for Toby's last book, so that I can add a page or two here and there without needing to reorganise the whole thing each time.


I'm currently scrapping our 2010 trip to Acadia National Park. I do a camping scrapbook each year and am many years behind!

That's funny right there

My son is obsessed with Pixar's Cars. He loves both movies and they are good enough that I can bear to watch them repeatedly. I'm not a big fan of Mater, red neck humour never really appealing to me outside of a few Jeff Foxworthy lines. However, there is one thing that Mater says that I find hilarious, not when used in the movie, but when used in real life.


"That's funny right there."


I don't know why, it's just one of those things that tickles me. Any quotables you love that otherwise annoy you?