Busy, busy, busy...

As always...
Back to school means back to the school routine and making sure everyone is where they should be and doing what they ought to be doing.... when they ought to be doing it.
Not one of my strong points at the best of times, so concerted effort is most definitely what's called for.

It's a little after 8 pm here in Algiers and as I type, this is the scene around me...
I have DD20 knitting arm-warmers next to me...

DS14 has just left the room singing, looking shady with his homework and ignoring requests to bring water for someone..

DD8 is doing her best to dodge dinner again, and is sitting at the table taking the longest time over meaty bechamelly pasta....

DD12 is arguing with DS14 who are now both upstairs... no hang on, she's down here now complaining that he's doing high kicks at the upstairs basin while she's trying to make wudhu, so absolutly nothing unusual there!

DS 21/2. who has just been potty trained is taking great delight in scaring his unsuspecting siblings with a bit of his anatomy he ought not to be scaring people with..

 and DD21 is just off to wash the dishes and has just very kindly offered me some tea... which I think I need... rather than want.

And that's just the past five minutes mashallah... there has also been bread making .. tidying...  a latke lunch, a trip to the secondary school, a trip to a friend for the use of her blender to make peanut butter, and of course the company and tea are always nice mashallah... then home for the homework tantrums, shoving people out of the door for madrasah in the masjid, more homework tantrums, recycled pasta, hopefully inshallah a bread pudding for break tomorrow, and a sit down and quiet think about what I need to get done tomorrow....

a pretty quiet day now I read it back to myself....

I have some goals for October to think about... I was re-reading my journal the other night... and I was shocked to see how little I actually push myself these days in terms of goal setting and personal achievements. So I'm really wanting to do some positive change in that area this month inshallah...

If there's time I may be back later with that... but for the past three days I've been a really good girls and have taken great pains to try and turn my sleeping habits around and get to bed  early, and actually sleep instead of reading, thinking or writing too far into the night... so i'm not promising anything.. don't want to break my new good girl bedtime routine this early on do I?

What I will leave you with is a recipe...

It's a pizza scroll, and I started making this in ramadhan this year.  And now it's a firm lunchtime favourite, and it travels well to school for break-time too mashallah.

For the dough,
Measure out 4 1/2 cups of flour, to which you add, 2 tablespoons of yeast, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt, 2 tablespoons of oil and roughly 2 cups of lukewarm water...

Work into a dough, kneading for about 10 - 15 minutes till it's smooth and elastic.
 And leave it covered, until doubled in size then knock back and roll out to a large oblong.

Then the only things left to do now are, cover it with your regular pizza topping faves... we used tomato sauce, cheese, olives and tuna... and roll it into a large sausage.. like a jelly roll.

Cut into segments about 2in deep and place close together cut sides up on a lightly oiled, floured baking tray... sprinkle with a little more cheese if you have and then bake in a moderately hot oven for about 20 - 25 minutes...

throw some olive oil over when it comes out of the oven, and there you have it... fairly quick, stupidly easy and all that messy pizza sauce is self contained in a gorgeous little scroll.

and now I really have to go and get that bread pudding sorted... if there's no break-time snack I will have a mutiny on my hands for sure!!