Author: Oana

On baking bread

Published by

I have been musing over half a year on the possibility of adding another dimension to my blog. I love cooking, I have said it before and I love counting calories(not that I use my knowledge in keeping my weight down!) so I am going to launch two new categories of posts: cooking easy meals and cooking light for your family. If you like them, let me know. If they inspire you to cook healthier for your family, even better. Today I will post my super easy recipe of soda bread. When I first moved to Northern Ireland Alex encouraged me to take some cooking lessons and the recipe comes from there. But I have adapted it a little bit so it’s foolproof and delicious. I use: 500g self-raising soda flour almost half a pint of buttermilk, 25 grams of butter about half a jar of sun-dried tomatoes(I buy mine from Home Bargains for about 69p per jar). Put the flour in a big bowl, mix the butter in(with your own wee hands or if …

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

Published by

Bless you, Eleanor Roosevelt, I couldn’t have said it better! As a mum who needs to make constant choices towards my three year old’s happiness, safety, contentment, education, entertainment, nutrition, I constantly feel EXACTLY like that. The latest example is my choice to do a little part-time, temporary job in the afternoon, looking after two other children. I thought it would be ideal for us, as a mama and daughter team, as Emma could come along so she wouldn’t be separated from me. I would earn some cash, she would earn new friends, winners all around, right? Aaaaaah, nope! Monday was bad but bearable. I saw it coming from the moment I picked her up from playgroup. “I want crackers and cheese!” was screamed at me as soon as she got into the car. Naturally, as the afternoon progressed, so did her moods escalate. But they were manageable. Yesterday was bad. She didn’t get to nap, played hard in Funky Monkeys so by the end of the afternoon when I left the kids’ house I …

At War

Published by

Since my last post I had a lot of responses from dear friends regarding my current situation. Friends who love God encouraged me to persevere through it all and wait for His perfect timing and solutions. Friends who don’t or have forgotten what it means to love Him encouraged me to believe in myself, send good vibes and carry on. But the best response was from Him(no offence, everybody!). On Sunday morning, during worship time ( if you’re not a Christian or haven’t been in a liberal church before, that’s the time we bellow out to Him, some more aptly than others, trying to forget our pressing situations and focus on His greatness) He spoke to me through an image. A warrior woman, hitting her shield with her sword: “Boom! Boom! Boom!” I could almost hear it. And then came the words: “I haven’t forgotten you. I have been preparing you for war. Worked on you, strengthened you so you can go and attack the enemy’s camp. The warrior you saw? You know what’s she’s …

Positively fed up

Published by

It’s been three months and two weeks since we left Greece with many plans and hopes for the future. We were going to come to Ireland, find work, make some money to put aside for our retirement and a little home of our own. On top of that I had a strong sense that I was coming back to Ireland to help with a children’s or women’s ministry of some sort. Broken down into smaller steps, I was going to find temporary work as a substitute teacher, as I had done in the past, look after my little one the days I would have no work and in the meanwhile try and figure out where God wanted me to help. Three months, two weeks  and some days later I have achieved NOTHING of what I had planned. I only had three(yes, THREE!!!) days of work since we came back as a substitute teacher. In consequence I started looking for alternatives but apparently selling yourself for less doesn’t get you more in this country: I am …

2012 in review-Thank you friends!!

Published by

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 12 years to get that many views. Click here to see the complete report.