The Fun Things

I have been enjoying the summer.  I am enjoying the break from routine and having time to enjoy myself and indulge in some of the things I love to do.
I have been:
Cooking for fun as opposed to having to cook to feed the hungry kids. A few of the things on my Project 52 list involve cooking. Middling munchkin loves macaroons and since making macaroons is on my list I decided to give them a go, with his assistance.  We followed our recipe to a tee ... measuring exactly, heating our sugar/water mixture to the exact temp, beating the egg whites for the exact time etc. 
We were really careful not to over beat.  Then we piped the mixture onto the tray and allowed it to rest.

At this stage all looked well. But when we came back after the 30 minutes at room temperature and those neat little circles had spread into one another.  After they came out of the oven they were flat and didn't resemble macaroons!  Bascially it was a fail but they did taste good and we had fun trying.  Middle munchkin and I are determined to try again and succeed!

Reading for pleasure I have finished reding Maos Last Dancer  by Li Cunxin and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now I am reading The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas and it is also a brilliant book.  As soon as I have finished reading it I plan on watching the tv series.

Sewing For Creative Wishes For Christmas from my hubby I got a brand spanking new sewing machine (an Elna 7200 for those that want to know).  It was a complete surprise and he did a fantastic job choosing it himself (with a bit of input from the sales assistance I believe).  I'm so in love with it!  It replaces my 20 year old singer sewing machine which had a few issues with tension and would break the noise barrier easily!    It has lots of fancy stitches and I have made my first sewing project with it.

It is a bit hard to see from the photo but the  princess crown has fancy flowers stitched to the bottom.  The wand is handstitched.  I have had plans to make some crowns and wands for a while and after trying to come up with some patterns finally settled on this design.

Harvesting from the garden I admit I haven't spent a lot of time in the garden but I have been picking ripe tomatoes, a kent pumpkin, sugar beans and peachcots from the fruit tree (a cross between peaches and apricots).

  How have you been enjoying your summer?