Red dress on, long black hair

Hello, I'm 6 weeks into isolation, how about about you?

During the week, I've been busy working from home and navigating the new way of teaching through video meetings. I've been trying to limit the time I spend on my phone as I'm spending many hours looking at a screen for work and I don't want to completely ruin my eyesight. When I first started teaching, some teachers and I joked that I'd have glasses soon enough, like most of them did. 3 years on, and I'm glad my eyesight hasn't suffered!

As soon as the working day is done, I like to do a bit of exercise, read or do some gardening. I've planted broad bean, leeks, coriander and spinach. I can't wait 'til they grow. I've been cooking the broad bean leaves in vegetable dishes. Did you know that you can eat broad bean leaves? They're very handy when you're running out of greens.

I've been re-purposing bottles as flower vases... 

and I even painted my very own I Dream of Jeannie bottle! I ran out of green and pink paint, so I used nailpolish. Here's the original:

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I've also been cooking! My mum and I wanted to try spicy noodles after reading fabulous Vix's blog, so we googled a recipe and I tried it out. I'm usually good at cooking (promise!) but I really screwed up! I put way too much peanut butter in the sauce and we all felt sluggish after eating it. We had an additional 2 noodle packets in the fridge, so a few days later, I tried cooking it again. This time with only 2 teaspoons of peanut butter and whole peanuts stirred in with the sauteed capsicums - delicious! The next morning I was going to eat the leftovers but someone (my dad) ate it all!

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Although I am trying to limit my screen time, I do love watching TV (and compared to constantly being on your phone, I think it's the lesser of two evils). Any chance I get, I watch an episode or two of my new favourite Everyone Loves Raymond. It's hilarious and now my sister and mum have started watching it with me. Watching TV is is not an easy feat in my house as we've only got one TV (I know, shock horror in this day and age!) 

On Saturday mornings, I like to make a big breakfast and do some reading. Then I sit in front of the TV and continue with my embroidery. I embroidered some pillow cases for mother's day this Sunday. Thank goodness I also bought my mum a bangle prior to isolation. She found it at a secondhand market and I'm a big believer in buying people presents early when they spot something they genuinely like and then saving it for special occasions (rather than buying something meaningless at the last minute).

For mother's day, my sister and I will make a nice lunch and a

cake, perhaps a cheesecake. Actually, my mum and I have declared May as our celebration month as it's our birthday month! So I suspect we'll be in celebration mode quite often.

I wore this outfit when the sun was still making an appearance.

It's actually a vintage skirt that my mum bought at a market for a few dollars, even though I warned her that it was too small and wouldn't fit either of us. When we got home and tried it on, of course it didn't fit (I'm pretty good at knowing what will fit me just by seeing a garment) so I decided to turn it into a strapless dress! It has the a lovely daisy pattern and red is my colour (and everyone else's for that matter. I've never seen anyone look bad in red!)

What are you doing to keep yourself entertained and creative at home?

Title: The Loved One by INXS.

(A great song- worth listening to!)