A breath of fresh air...

Disclaimer: This post has nothing much to do with ZOE but just a lot to do with me... sorry 'bout that!
Last year I wrote a post, 'Fresh Air Anyone... Yes Please!' on March 19th.  
Well we're facing the same dangerous levels of pollution at the moment.
I think most people around here, if asked what they'd like right now, would say "a breath of fresh air".

Living here has made me appreciate so many things that I used to simply take for granted, clean fresh air being one of them.  When we return to Australia, it is one of the first things I notice and I drink it in- like that feeling when you go camping or you're bush walking... oh, how I could do with a dose of that right now.

Anyway, on to the HIGHLIGHT of my week now.  
Something else that I always took for granted was having an oven.  I mean who doesn't have an oven, right?  
Well, we have been living in this house for 7 months now without one {which is common in Thai homes} and it suddenly hit me, whilst having breakfast on Sunday, that ANZAC Day was fast approaching and that this would be the first year that I would not be able to bake ANZAC biscuits for my children to take and share at school.  Sad, huh? {Well not really sad, more of a first-world-problem actually}
But, not wanting to be a whiner about it, and hearing my own words to my kids ringing loudly in my ears... just be content, I mentioned it sheepishly to Dave.  He agreed that maybe we could get a small bench-top one.  
Unbeknownst to me while Tobi and Dave went out getting haircuts later that day, they were also researching ovens!  By Sunday night, there sat my new little oven just waiting to be used.... oh, and HAS IT BEEN USED!!!!
I feel so excited as I keep remember all the things we haven't eaten in a while and, as my English teaching has stopped due to school holidays, I am finding myself with more time to "play" in the kitchen.  
Seriously, I am one happy-little-housewife right now and my family is enjoying the produce being pumped out of our new friend the bench-top oven.

So whilst the smell from the smokey air is enough to have us all huddling inside, the scents coming from our kitchen our comforting our stomachs at least and we are enjoying the baked tastes of yumminess!

The biggest dilemma is, what to bake next?