Well, I promised myself yesterday that by 4pm today I would have all the things below done or at least mostly done.  So I’m pleased to say the house is looking less like a bomb!

Everything I needed to get done (results in bold):

- Bedroom: new organic bedclothes put on, side tables cleaned with items moved to their proper location and not just shoved in drawers! Continue laundry of all dirty clothes (Done - still needs to be dried though).  Put the clothes I am keeping back into the wardrobe.

- Lounge: Tidy coffee table, dust and polish all furniture, organise decorative shelves, finish putting up Christmas cards, tidy the sofas, put up one of Chris’ photographs (this has been put off for months…) All done, even flowers have been placed on the coffee table!

- Kitchen: Ooooh…. this is the most daunting, but the one that feels best when finally done!  Put away the clean dishes, wash the rest of the dirty dishes and put away, super wash the kitchen benches, clean the fridge,   Mostly done - I have the last load of washing (I’ve been micro-cleaning all appliances, so all the dehydrator trays….) to put away and then I’ll make a mess again preparing food! clean the pantry (again…), organise the cupboards, clean all surfaces. Still to do the pantry and cupboards.

- Open plan living / dining area: dust and polish everything. Put away christmas wrapping stuff, throw paper rubbish out, put rubber under dining table to stop it moving on the tiles, put the stuff on the sofa where it’s supposed to go, Done find the tree decorations and finish doing the christmas tree. Couldn’t find the tree decorations so went and bought new ones (thankfully now on sale) and waiting until Chris comes home and we’ll decorate the tree together.

- PREPARE FOOD!  As Chris is working we need to go to the shops to buy fresh food, thankfully our favourite conventional produce shop is open 24 hours tonight (in Perth, no proper shops are open 24 hours) so once the fridge is cleaned we’ll get over there and pick up everything we need. Bought the food last night, had the fridge cleaned so now its full of beautiful fresh produce nom nom nom :)

I haven’t done these yet:

- Laundry/Bathrooms: Clean and tidy any mess, wipe down all chrome fixtures.

- Front of house: Mulch, plant new plants (dwarf lemon, chilis, some pretty flowers), prune existing plants, feed roses, harvest passionfruit, sweep, find a way to keep the wasps at bay (there’s a nest right outside our front door and we don’t have the money to pay for them to be got rid of!).

- Back courtyard (pictured above, as you can see its tiny): clean BBQ, clean table, get rid of cobwebs, weed, make plants happy (it is summer, they’re all burnt out due to water restrictions), put up fairy lights.

- Home office / bedrooms: tidy but unfortunately these will have to wait until next week to get an extreme clean.

So, what’s on the menu this Christmas?

I’m lucky in that there will be 3 raw foodies at lunch tomorrow and being summer it is excellent weather to have a Raw Christmas!  And if I’ve got time to be a bit more creative, I might even print up a menu!  So what we’re having is:

For The Omnivores

BBQ Barramundi with butter, lemon and rosemary

Potato Salad

Czech Christmas Sweets

For The Raw Vegans

Basil and Ricotta Rawsagne

Oriental Stuffed Avocados

For Everyone

Vegan Christmas Cake (bought from Tempting Thyme cafe, and looks absolutely delicious)

Grapefruit and Fennel Salad

Pear and Walnut Salad

Cheezecake

Flax-Chia Crackers with Guacamole (nibbles)

… and some kind of cookie or chocolate, I have a few recipes in mind but haven’t decided on one yet.

So this Christmas Eve I wish you all a very happy festive season, full of fun and laughter!

~ Kate