Dictating memories and Designing Roosters

 

testing testing 123123123 this is the third blog or rather the third week of the genie life in lockdown blogging challenge I was really pleased to see Jill bull Ball take up the challenge and demonstrate her love of learning bye by trying out c Carmel's tips and tricks to aid with genealogy practice by dictating her first blog post. I have decided 2 to emulate her this week by dictating my blog post using speech to text In Word. So far so good. It is still early days for me and I'm not entirely comfortable with dictating. Particularly telling the machine punctuation marks! But by degrees, I'm getting there. (I've left in the typos so you can see how accurate it is or not.)

So what have I achieved this week family history was wise? Not much I confess. 

 

But I guess what I have been doing he's is creating memories. Having had my second Etsy (ha ha AZ) shot like late last week, I was able to babysit Frankie this week. We created lots of memories together. He had his first bath at our house. And on Friday morning we went for a walk.  I showed him the neighbours' beautiful azaleas and camellias and then we went to a little park just around the corner which was perfect for his age. They were two little bucket swings and a tiny slippery dip and lots of sand! Frankie was pretty ready for an app (for a nap)  so I think he was a little perturbed bye by his experience off of swinging and sliding down a slippery dip, but it was a start.

 

Of course I have continued 2 to submit posts four for QFHS social media accounts; on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Mostly about how to save money by joining QFHS during NFHM; no joining fee !  

I tuned into the QFHS members meeting on Wednesday night via Zoom and suggested recent acquisitions to the library that might be relevant to the topic which was researching ancestors education records. Jeff Geoff Morgan's talk was great and I learned what a few acronyms mean e.g. easy EC stands for Established Church and vice means "replaced" e.g. in newspaper reports talking about head teachers being replaced his new headteachers Jeff Geoff also suggested reading town histories and publications like fox is Fox's history of QLD to flesh out our ancestors lives if they were teachers.  These are great suggestions which I will follow up.

 

But I confess this week has mostly been about sewing. I made a cloth book for Frankie which was a huge achievement for me. I am not a great seamstress. Somehow the presser foot on my sewing machine had disintegrated recently so it was with great trepidation that I got my sewing machine out and looked at it. Assembling the class cloth book was relatively easy and it was good to practise my rotor cutting skills. However, when it got to the final assembly, i.e. stitching together three thicknesses of wadding, I realized I would need to install a walking foot which I had purchased for the princely some sum of $40 seven years ago. I was told this was an essential item for quilting so, with much sucking of teeth, frowning, twisting and turning my head upside down, I finally managed to install The Walking foot and with great ease sewed the cloth book together. Just like a bought one !  Frankie seems to like it.

Today I started sewing what I hope will become an heirloom - a quilt for my son Caspar's birthday.  I attended a Rooster workshop with BFF Loani through my stitching group - Schoolhouse Quilters.   My husband Robert has always referred to Caspar as the Rooster, as in "Have you spoken to the rooster today?" or "How's the rooster?" - so this seemed very apt.  Today was about drawing a design and coming up with a template and then letting the fabric help us along the way.  What do you think?  I came up with a number of designs.  Do you have a favourite? I'm leaning in favour of Roo Paul Rooster but I like Exotic Rooster too.

Slightly flustered rooster

Exotic rooster

Completely comfortable in his feathers - Roo Paul Rooster

 

How are you going with your blogging challenge ?  Have you had a chance to tackle the quiz from my first weeks blog? I've got two entries now.  And what about family history bingo ?  Have you managed to take anything off the list? I really should share a family recipe so I will share the chilli chocolate brownie recipe I made this morning and then that means I can tick off two things on my family history bingo sheet.  I've written a blog post and I've shared a recipe oh and I've also scanned some photos.   I can also cross off using a new resource i.e. dictating.  So, with one week left to the end of August I have got to plan a research trip, record an oral history interview, preserve a family heirloom and order a certificate.  Haha!  Not much to do at all huh?

Here is the recipe )

Chilli chocolate brownies (from Spirit House Restaurant on the Sunshine Coast)

 

Ingredients

225 g dark chocolate broken into chunks

140 g unsalted butter

200 g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground star anise

1 tsp chilli powder

45g pine nuts

1 punnet fresh raspberries

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

100 g rice flour

Dutch cocoa powder for dusting

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a 20cm square tray with baking paper. In a heatproof bowl, place 200g of the chocolate and all the butter and melt over a pan of simmering water. Stir once, making sure the butter and chocolate have completely melted. Stir in the sugar, vanilla, star anise, chilli powder, pine nuts, raspberries and the extra chocolate chunks. Mix well, then add the eggs and sifted flour. Bake for 35 minutes then cool (in Queensland this means put it in the fridge, otherwise you will never get it out of the tin). Cut into desired size pieces. To serve dust with Dutch cocoa powder.

Enjoy!  I certainly have wonderful memories of some excellent meals at Spirit House and I think Dad loved the gift of a cooking class I gave him one year.

Thanks for swinging by the blog today.  I'd love for you to leave a comment below and look forward to seeing your posts online.