A nice relaxing vacation

Yesturday we whent to our friends's cabin/house to spend the weekend and the national day of independence. The two geese over were blocking the way out there and we had to stop to let them pass.

The weather here is wonderful! And it's so nice to relax and not think about housework for a while.

The cats are also here. Right now they are outside chasing seaguls.

Tip of the week: storing minced meat

Thanks to my mother-in-law for teaching my husband this tip so he could teach it to me. :)

Have you ever made taco or some other dinner and ended up with a small piece of minced meat leftover? I have, and it's really annoying when you nead some minced meat and have to thaw a whole bunch of small pieces. It takes forever to thaw them, so instead of tossing them out, or just putting them in a bag and putting it in the freezer take the meat (and only the meat) into a plastic bag and press it flat. Just squeeze it until you have a flat piece of meat about 1/2 inch thick. Then put it in the freezer. When you need minced meat now you can break of what you nead or you can take several of these "discs" out and thaw them. It only takes a minute.

Writing into the night.

This Tuesday (today or tomorrow... it just turned Tuesday here) I have a paper due. I have been uterly lazy this week and postponed the reading to the final days... I now regret it.

I end up doing the same thing every time we have an assignment! I always get distracted by something else entirely and the studying gets put in second line, or third... And now I am chained to my desk. Tea at my side, pens, papers, books, glasses, eye drops and painkillers for my back. I am learning ^^. The paper is now due in 11 hours and I have only finished 1 of 4 to 6 pages. *sigh*.

And to top the whole thing off... Tomorrow we get the exam papers. We have one week to write 10 pages of first rate material on a subject still unknown. It freaks me out just thinking about it!


Oh well, time to get back to work.
Sleep tight everyone. Dream nice dreams for me, and rest in the knowledge that while you sleep I toil on.

Garden Project: Miniature kitchen garden. Part One

It's almost that time of year again. That time when the snow melts, flowers pop up and the trees start budding.
Fresh herbs are hard to get in the store, and the vegetables are less tasty than they were 4-5 months ago. So what do you do when spring comes calling and you find yourself in a small apartment with no garden to tend. Well you make your own indoors miniature garden 'course!

The first thing first: Planning the garden - getting what you need.

Seeds, pots, gravel, soil, tools. What do I need?
Well, earlier I found a picture of a light bulb terrarium and thought that would be something I'd like to try. And also I found some beautiful pictures of some miniature gardens. And naturally no miniature garden would be complete without a miniature tree like a bonsai tree.

The Light Bulb Terrarium

This image is from thehipsterho.me

There are a lot of good tutorials on how to make these out there, and as soon as a light bulb goes out here I'll see if I can use it for a terrarium. I'll also see if I can find some nice vanity bulbs when I'm shopping next week.






The next thing: The miniature garden.
Oh I have lots and lots of ideas for this, but I'll have to limit myself a little bit. I also have to narrow down to what i have need for.
I use some herbs very often, so they should be the first ones i grow. Some of these are Oregano, Dill, Basil, Parsley and Rosemary. I have decided on getting small and individual pots for each herb and have them standing on trays in the window over my kitchen counter.

Tip of the week: portioning meats

When I go shopping I often find "family packs" of chicken breasts and meats that are for sale. And that is perfect for being frugal. You get more for less, and it lasts longer that way.
The problem with big packages of food is that when you only need 2 pieces of chicken and you take the pack out of the freezer, and lo and behold, they are all frozen into a big lump of chicken. It's the same with fish, lamb, pork etc. If you have bought pre-cut meat spend a few minutes when you get the meat home to re-package it into freezer safe packaging. I use Freeze foil and plastic bags, or luch-pack paper and plastic bags.

Always start with wrapping the meat in something that protect it from damage and keeps moist in. Baking paper or lunch-pack paper (it's a norwegian thing) will do nicely, but ideally you want "freezing foil". It's a metallic foil with a plastic layer on one side. Ours is blue on one side.

You wrap the meat with the plastic in against the meat, and then you place it in a plastic bag and  close it properly with either a rubber band, a knot or masking tape. I prefer masking tape, 'cause then I can write the contents of the pack and when it was wrapped on the outside of the bag, easy to read for later.

Just always remember to mark the bags properly so you don't have to rummage through all of them when looking for something specific.'

Lazy spell over.

The last week I've been incredible lazy. I've relaxed and done everything but work. My husband have been in Italy on a choir competition and today he comes home. The house is a mess, I am a mess and I'm all out of energy... What do I do? I put on my "house cleaning music"!

My mother always played the same CD when we were doing the saturday-cleaning. It was a cd of hits from the 50's and 60's  and unfortunately I no longer can find my copy of that disc. But I do remember some of the songs, and thanks to spotify I can put them on the stereo on full volume, cleaning away. :)

It seems like it's so much easier to do housework when you have some speedy music to listen to, so this will be my tip-of-the-week: Music to the work.

Here are the songs I have right now on my playlist:

Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
Rockin' Robin - Bobby Day
Sixteen Candles - The Crests
Stand By Me - Ben E. King
Born To Hand Jive - Sha Na Na
Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay -Danny & The Juniors
Rock Around The Clock Tonight - Bill Haley & The Comets
Diamons Are A Girls Best Friend (Swing Cat Mix) -  Marilyn Monroe !I have the original version too!
Hit The Road Jack - Ray Charles


These are not all on the cd in discussion, but I do know for certain that Pretty Woman, Stand By Me and Rockin' Robin are on it.
My Mother has promised to call me after she gets home from her hike to give me the names of all the songs so I can find them and make myself another record.


Do you have music that you listen to when you clean?