Routine

We are really back into routine now, working out that I do need to be up at 6 if there is to be no stress over leaving on time. Thankfully that is only on the three days that I work, on Wednesdays and Thursdays I can sleep in a little and have a more relaxing morning. This is Bethany showing me how she sleeps on the floor (some afternoons I do find her asleep wherever she was playing in her room).

She has started being very quiet when I drop her at daycare on the mornings I work. Yesterday she actually cried and had to be held while I left. She was having a great time when I came to pick her up, as usual, but she is feeling sad in the mornings. My work is still very enjoyable, thankfully, because it would be awful to leave her to go somewhere I hated. Though it has nothing to do with local studies (I am the local studies librarian for those who don't know) I have been working on a new book club service with Chrissie. It has really taken off. The Riverina Regional Library, of which Wagga is the main branch, serves nine different councils and we thought each branch would have a club. Wagga has at least seven! Chrissie and I chose the books and we put together tubs with 10 copies of one title plus background notes on the author, the book and discussion questions. I find most of the discussion questions online but I have had to make some of them up myself. We are planning to have a staff book club as well, but I have been reading all the books already. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is brilliant, I enjoyed The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith and also Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky.

While I am reading Andrew is rediscovering his love of puzzles. The one he is doing now is called a Wasgij and the picture on the book is only a clue to what the puzzle picture is. This one has a picture of a young man proposing and the puzzle is them in the future - there appear to be lots of babies. Also pictured are Jossie and Toby's new lunch boxes...yes, lunch boxes have moved on from hard, plastic boxes. Jossie's is a full-on satchel! We may have space problems in their bags when they start getting homework!

Today Bethany and I have done some cleaning and cooking. Tomorrow bible study starts up again and it is Racquel's birthday so we made a chocolate Marsala cake. I can't tell you how much I love my Kitchen-Aid. It is a bit hard to tell, but this foamy, moussey substance of enormous volume is just 4 eggs and some sugar.


I'll show you the finished product when I have put the ganache on. It is, of course, a Nigella recipe and it is so good. Bethany enjoyed the bowl so much even her forehead got in on the action.