Tourist Day

Today Lucky Phil and I played tourists in our city. 

It was fun.  We had a $100 budget and had to occupy ourselves, feed ourselves and get to where it was we were going and do what it was we wanted to do, all within that constraint.  Just as if we were travellers.

We started by catching the train to the Roma Street Parklands for a wander.  We've been talking about checking out the Parklands since we moved back 11 months ago.  Finally we got there. 

They were really pretty and well designed.  Plenty of space and quiet nooks for escaping the crowds.  I can see us returning with a picnic blanket, some cheese and bikkies, and a bottle of wine and plastic wine glasses (the park rules specify that you are allowed to decant your alcohol from glass bottles into plastic drinking vessels but you aren't allowed to actually drink from glass containers.  I can work with these stipulations!).

I was amazed by the frill necked lizard population - they are everywhere!!  I think we stopped counting at twenty when we were only half way round....

Just before we left we came across a tree snake on the walkway - well actually, another visitor pointed it out after we had walked passed it obliviously - but I couldn't stop the whole-body shake I had going on to take a photo.  I don't do snakes at all.  Plus, I don't need a photo of a snake in my camera roll to scare the bejeezus out of me when I next flick through my photos!

We then headed into the city via the Queen St Mall.  Stopped off for lunch outside City Hall and ended up on a tour of the clock tower at City Hall and then a wander through the Brisbane Museum on the third floor.  Who knew that existed, the Brisbane Museum?  Or the clock tower tour?  Best of all, FREE!!

Once we were museumed out, we kept on our track up the mall and joined the queue for a gelato cup (if people are queuing, it must be good right?).  We people watched while we devoured our little cup of sugary, chocolatey goodness - gee the world is full of interesting people .....

Across the William Jolly Bridge and into Southbank for some more people watching.  This time we caught the tail end of a wedding by the river.  Great day for it.  Watched people some more (and lots of kids rolling down grassy hillls - my skin is itching just thinking about it) and then found a bar for a beer and a wine on our way back to the train station.

And now we're back home - happy tired from a good day out and still too full of gelato to even think about eating anything for dinner.  Maybe later.

Definitely going to do a tourist day again - it was fun!

Suggestions for Curing Boredom in Husbands

All suggestions welcome.

Lucky Phil is bored.  Mind-numbingly, wife-annoyingly bored.

It's been that way for about four weeks now and it's killing me!

I feel like mum over school holidays when we were kids, exasperatedly throwing her hands in the air after the fourteenth "I'm boooooorrrrreeeeedddd.  What can I doooooo?" for the morning.  Sheesh!!! 

I keep making suggestions, you know like 'mow the lawn', 'clean the car', but they're not considered appropriate or worthy enough to peel oneself from the lounge and do something.

I have a suspicion that it's because I've made the suggestions that they're discounted in the great scheme of things.  When someone else threw the idea of 'detailing the car' out there, well, consider this afternoon's activity planned....!

I give up.  Here's hopinng we get into our new shop soon now....

On the cusp....

And just like that it's 2014.  And not just 2014 but two whole months into 2014!  Where have I been?!  What have I been doing?! Why on earth has it blown out to four months since I last stopped by?!?!

Short answer - out there, not much, couldn't begin to explain.

I don't know where to begin - I had such high hopes for myself in my last post that I was back into the swing of things, life was going great-guns and I was queen of it all.  And yet here I am, end of February of the following year and not a post in between.  Sheesh.

 

So Christmas has been and gone.  As has New Years.  Australia Day.  Valentine's Day.  Lucky Phil's birthday.  All been and gone, and some time ago too.  In the midst of all that we sold a business and are now waiting patiently (oh so patiently) for the purchase of the next one to finalise (please please please be soon!!!).  

All in all it's now been 6 weeks since we stepped into unemployment - fun at first but the novelty wore off (for some of us) at the end of week 3.  Lucky Phil has been driving me insane since then.  I have plenty of things to keep me occupied - sewing, cross-stitch, baking..... Lucky Phil's current interests lie in the vicinity of drinking beer and gambling. Expensive habits for the non-income-earning person.

We're hopeful that the end of next week will see us gainfully employed again.  Fingers crossed because I'm not sure how much more of the stress and underlying anxiety I can take.  The bills haven't stopped coming in just because we're not working!

We have made the most of our time off together - dinners out, day trips up the coast, visits to family, walks on the beach and the general hanging around the unit annoying each other with the same questions asked over and over again ('what can we do?'  'what do you want to do?' 'what do you want to do?'  'I'm hungry.  What's for lunch?' 'what's for dinner?').  Considering we only had two days off together in the previous 9 months, this has been blissful and I'm not complaining too much at all!

I'm now just waiting for a magical email response in the next few days telling us Thunderbirds are Go!  Come on now....!!!

Hello World!

Hello world!  I'm alive again!!!  YAAAAYYYY!!!

It feels like I've come out of a very long hibernation - hidden away in the depths of the earth under all sorts of rubble and insulating material only to wake hungry and anxious to see the sun - I feel alive again.  Life is good, the future is positive and things are looking up.  

So what have I been up to?  Why have I not been loitering around the internet as much as I used to (and to be truthful, I did loiter a lot.  A lot.)????  Weeellll, pull up a seat, grab yourself a coffee and I'll tell you all the goss.....

Where to start... well, Lucky Phil and I are now living in Bris-vegas.  We moved down about 3 1/2 months ago after doing a day trip two weeks before we had the moving truck booked to find somewhere to live.  Nothing like a tight timeframe to make you lower your standards and loosen your budget. Turned out well despite our expectations - train, supermarket, newsagency, post office and bottle shop (!!) at the end of the street and a 2 minute drive to work...couldn't have planned it if we tried.

We've bought a new business and took over the week we moved down.  This was also happening at the same time as we were closing down our previous business and packing up the house to move.  Stressful much.  We're now in the takeaway coffee game, providing caffeine hits to all and sundry.  Some days I feel like a dealer, publicly handing out dope to the masses right there on the footpath.  A HUGE learning curve for me - I not only don't drink coffee (sacrilege!!) but until a few days before we opened the doors for ourselves, had not ever made a coffee (instant home stuff for family and friends excluded).  Stressful V. much.

What next?  Oh yeah, we are loving the weather in Brissy.  Winter? You call this winter? Okay, sure, I'll take it!  I think I have worn a jumper for a full day only once since we moved down.  I certainly didn't need to pack those scarves and jackets, nor those flannelette sheets!  Mind you, I am most likely still acclimatised to the weather on top of the range (guaranteed to be 10 degrees less than the rest of the state) but this feels a lot like a Toowoomba summer to me.  I'm not complaining either way!  

We're making the most of the city this time around - a conscious decision to find new places and new experiences.  When we lived here last we took it for granted.  Sure, it might not have been as 'developed' then as it is now and it is certainly more multi-cultural now but we didn't actively enjoy it.  For the last six years we've been limited to only one restaurant that constituted our 'night out' (due to it's consistently good food - so many started out great but by the third visit we swore never to return) but now, every place we go serves the most amazing meal ever!  We are yet to have a bad experience (touch wood)....

Life is grand.  Lucky Phil told me at the start of the year that 2013 was going to be a year of change for us and hasn't it been that!  Big changes, good changes, happy changes.  And we're not even finished the year yet - who knows what else is in store for us.  What I do know though is that I'm ready for it!  yay!

Nearly there....

Phew!  What an absolutely life changing month May has been.  

In less than a week now, Lucky Phil and I will be taking the next big active step towards making our world a happier and more fulfilling place....

It started mid last month actually, when an opportunity presented itself that was too good to pass up and was a key stepping stone to changing our lives.  For so long we have preached to each other and to any one within earshot that if you aren't happy with something, you need to actively change it to get a different result, potentially the result you would prefer.  Change will happen on it's own but usually slowly.  You need to take decisive action to force change if you want it to happen any earlier.  And then something happened for 3 years in our lives where we stopped listening to our own advice and sunk into a cesspool of self-doubt and stagnation.  Three years of it.  It has nearly been the undoing of us (not 'us' us - just of our own selves).

But then we had a startling realisation, a light bulb moment, when we saw that this hole we were in was of our own doing and that we had the key to the door to get out of it.....Amazing thing the mind, change your mindset and you change your outlook on life and all of a sudden the clouds  in the sky are pretty and fluffy and a sign of a beautiful day rather than an indication of a potential storm....

And that's what we did.  We changed our mindset and now we are about to reap the rewards.  Last week I worked my last day in my job.  This weekend we pick up the keys to our new place in Brisbane and in a week we will be moving.  A week after that we will be taking over our new business and once again working together, just Lucky Phil and I.  About a month after that, the sale of our investment property will be finalised and our house will be rented out.

All happening at once.  Very exciting.

Now I just have to go through our bits and bobs and accumulated 'stuff' and work out what to keep, what to donate, what to chuck and what to store.  Three bedroom house on land to two bedroom unit.  I need to be very choosy.  

Nothing like a short timeline to really get the blood pumping!  

New chapter

I think I'm getting my groove back.  Actually, I know I am.  I can feel it.

It's a nice feeling.

Some big changes are in the works here in my world.  Plans have been formed on the fly and decisions made in moments.  And it feels good.  Feels right.

The biggest of those plans is the one where we pack up and leave this place where we currently live and go somewhere else.  A big decision at the best of times, packing up and moving, but one we have tossed around for a while and were planning at the end of the year anyway.  But we had an opportunity present itself Monday week ago that was too good to let slip through our fingers.  It didn't take much talking to decide to jump in with both feet!

And so we are.  Jumping without really looking.  No real safety net, no concrete plans, just an idea and a goal.  Irresponsible maybe?  But we are okay with it and willing to take our chances.  I mean, what is the worst that could happen?  We have to change our plans?  We have to come back?  Not ideal but if we had to, we could.

I never would would have thought that I would be okay with this sort of spontaneity, being as I am usually the one to have everything planned months in advance with plans made and written in triplicate, signed and filed well in advance.  And yet here I am, pushing for it, champing at the bit that it is taking so long and the end of next month is sooo far away!

Are we running away?  Or are we starting the next chapter?  Right now, I'm going with the new chapter.  We have spent too long waiting for things to change and they haven't.  So now we are making the change.  Forcing it.  Carving out our own new path.  And it feels good to be making decisions again.  Decisions that will bring about change from what we are doing now which is making us unhappy and miserable.

Lucky Phil always says that you can't expect a different result when you keep doing the same thing over and over again.  At last, we are following our own advice and doing something different.

Different is good.

Here's cheers to the next chapter!

Agileh

Agileh = happy man

Wk 3: Cheesy Spring Onion Fritters and Lasagne

Week 3 already of my Cookbook Cookoff Challenge and I'm on fire!  Am totally enjoying the different meals I've already cooked from my cookbook collection and looking forward to the next.  Most new meals are happening on the weekend given that on a Saturday and Sunday I have not only the time, but also the inclination.

This week has seen the addition of another Donna Hay recipe - this one from her magazine - and a recipe-book version of Lasagne, rather than the made-up-on-the-go version that I usually go for!

Donna Hay's Cheesy Spring Onion Fritters were first up.  Nice and light and easy, I only needed to buy buttermilk - not something I usually cook with.  Everything else was already in the fridge.  I had to fudge a little since I don't like ricotta cheese (it's the smell....) so replaced it with cheddar.  Would no doubt have tasted much better with the ricotta but still tasted pretty damn fine without!

These little gems were incredibly light and fluffy, and very more-ish.  I served them with another summery-greekish salad (seems to be my signature these days!) and some homemade tomato relish.  I must say, I'm not sure if it was the Fritters or the tomato relish or a combination of them both, but this was just plain delicious!  Both Lucky Phil and I went back for seconds and  also polished off the few I had reserved for lunch the next day!!  I'll certainly now be rethinking the gifting of the final few bottles of tomato relish in the cupboard too....!

Second challenge of the week - good old Lasagne   I made this one on Sunday night in preparation for someone's 41st birthday on Tuesday (not mine).  The request for this special meal was submitted last week and of course, being a birthday night, how can one refuse!?!  So I figured, to fulfil the Cookbook Cookoff Challenge, why not make it from a recipe book?  

.

The front of my book has gone all crackly - not sure why but I think it looks pretty.  Unique, anyway.

I followed Stephanie Alexander's recipe from her tome The Cooks Companion.  I've often referred to this book when I have a glut of one form of veg or another and need some inspiration for the using up of it.  Stephanie's lasagne recipe didn't disappoint.  I made it on Sunday night for eating on Tuesday night to give the flavours time to develop and meld (the whole world knows that leftover lasagne tastes better than first night!).

I had to do a bit of fudging on this one too - I didn't have any celery, or bacon, or white wine and instead did without the former and substituted with red wine for the latter (always plenty of that on hand!!!).  I seem to do a lot of fudging with my cooking, which hopefully isn't going against the grain of my Cookbook Cookoff goal.....but I figure that I'm making 'new' recipes rather than playing with different versions of my usual repertoire of six or so meals, so I'm safe.

Anyway, birthday boy Lucky Phil was very impressed with the Lasagne.  But then he always is.  I figured out from a very early point in our relationship that he is happy with cheese on toast, anything more and he is ecstatic!  We demolished half of it last night - with a light salad on the side.  I was originally planning veggies but a) it was too hot   b) I didn't have time and c) I no longer had it in me to cook them by the time we were ready to eat.  Good thing the salad won out - there is no way I could have eaten my small share of the mammoth piece of lasagne I heated up had I done veggies!

Leftovers again tonight....looking forward to it.

The verdict on these two?
Will certainly make again.  There were other varieties of fritters to try - tuna and corn, sweet potato and pea, broccoli and bacon - will try to make sure I have all of the ingredients next time.  And as for the lasagne, Stephanie's recipe called for the addition of nutmeg to the mince mixture which I think made it sweeter.  Very nice indeed - and will be doing that one again too.

*********************************************************************************************
Cheesy Spring Onion Fritters (Donna Hay Magazine, Issue 65, Oct-Nov 2012, p70)
Lasagne (Stephanie Alexander, The Cook's Companion, 2004, p691)

2013 - year of the recipe book cookoff

So I might be a little late with developing some form of goal or plan for the year....and certainly a little late with the sharing of said goals and plans.   But I subscribe to the 'better late than never' philosophy and believe that truly, any day is as good as another to start something, really!

Aside from the usual eat better, exercise more, drink less wine, keep off the sugar gig that I seem to espouse at the start of each year and then eventually admit defeat by about, you know, 3rd March, this year I have a different aim.  And this year, I reckon I have pretty high chances of actually achieving it.  Hooray!

So to my point? My actual goal for 2013, year of change and getting my happy on? wellll,,,,,,,so glad you asked!

You see I have this bookshelf just off the kitchen.  It's been filling for years.  And years.  I'm sure there are books that really want to live on this shelf but unfortunately, they just haven't made the cut and live instead in the cardboard box on top of the cupboard in the spare room.  That the LOML doesn't know about.  

I know there are books that have been culled from both the shelf and the box, thrown into supermarket bags and taken to Lifeline to grace their shelves and hopefully find a new home on someone else's bookshelf.  But there are still a lot of books on my shelf.

Mostly books to do with food.

I won't part with the cake decorating ones.  Those ones are hard to come by.  Especially the vintage ones I inherited from my Aunt.

And I won't part with the recipe books I've currently got up there.  Those ones are the special ones.

I might get rid of a few from the spare room.  But not until later....

So what I've decided to do, to really justify the space my prides and joys are taking up on my shelf (and to keep the LOML, bless his heart, from threatening to take them to Lifeline himself in my stead) they need to be, you know, used.  Rather than just looked at after a few wines when I'm really hungry and in the mood for cooking (food tastes better after a few reds!) but then settle for cheese on toast when I realise I haven't the ingredients or the inclination!

And that's my 2013 goal.  

I shall cook from my cookbooks.  Twice weekly (minimum).  Something new each time.  

And then, to keep myself honest, and to remember what I have cooked and which book it came from, I shall blog about it.  With photos.  Un-photoshopped photos.  

Amen.

Eeek.  

Have I got it in me, to master this challenge of mine????

Watch this space......

Long time, no blog....

Hiya world!

It's been so long since I was last in the blogosphere!  It feels like so much has changed!  Last I knew it was mid-October and my world was gearing up to be quite hectic....but nowhere did I imagine I would fall off the face of the inter-pla-net for near on 10 weeks!!!

So what have I been up to?  What has stopped me from my daily stalking and losing of hours via the internet???  Weeellllll, so glad you asked, let me give you an as-quick-as-I-can-in-one-longish-blog-post rundown....!

Around the end of October I'd finally wound down birth-day-week-fortnight celebrations in time for the startling realisation that my mum was also due for a birthday - hers of the significant milestone variety.  So I whipped up a cake and set to work decorating it.  Eventually, a week out from party-day, the grapevine alerted me that my aunt (cake-decorator extraordinaire whose cake decorating equipment I was gifted a couple of years back xxx) would be at the shindig.  EEEKKKK!  All of a sudden, designs and plans were reassessed in the cold hard light of a higher level of scrutiny and attention...I jest....but in truth, I did feel the pressure a little more.  I managed to complete mum's cake over the course of a week's worth of evening-after dinner sessions (I'm still working full-time in my admin job) and get it to my mum's house despite the rain on the day....and both mum and my aunt were suitably impressed with the results..!  Nice!

Around this time, I was also asked by my soon-to-be-bride sister and her husband if I would make their wedding cake.  Of course, the answer was always going to be YES but that didn't stop the stress levels climb to all sorts of new levels.  I mean, I've now done a fair few cakes - for fun and for celebrations - but nothing to this level.  After a flurry of text  and facebook messages (she lives two hours away), as well as a couple of face-to-face catchups in the middle, we came up with a design that both she and her fiance liked, and that I was confident I could pull off!  My biggest fear around this time was a request for a five tier masterpiece to rival the royal wedding!!!  So then I started....baking fruit cakes, making sugar roses, sourcing cake toppers and ribbon and the like....it's a big job when the pressure is on!

I had learnt to make a flower spray two weeks before I had to do this - nothing like FREAKING ME OUT!!!

Around this time the weather was great.  Nice sunny days with not a hint of wet in the nightly forecast.  That was a big worry - that the rain would come and I would be in all sorts of bother.  Too damp/humid or too hot and the fondant icing melts...and given that my old queenslander house is not air-conditioned and has gaps and holes everywhere, a big concern.  But it held in the end and everything was made and assembled without a tear or a tantrum.  :)  I had a momentary panic on the afternoon before the wedding when came the realisation that the assembled cake (three tiers high) would not go into our car without the need to be tilted - not in this lifetime!!  Luckily mum was over viewing my creation (and giving much needed compliments) and volunteered the use of her little buzzbox (a Toyota Echo) to get it to the reception venue.  That there was only an inch to spare around the base board when the cake was in was by this time not an issue at all. LOL We delivered it safe and sound in the end and at the very moment when it was on the table in the reception room and I'd taken a photo as proof, I swear my blood pressure dropped considerably and I regained a load of much needed sanity!!

Around this time also, in fact the day before the big day, the LOML and I had signed up on a second casual store for Christmas.  To be opened in three days.  From scratch.  A big ask at any time of year but at Christmas time? Huge undertaking given that the madness of Christmas for giftware retailers begins back in September so that stock can be ordered and delivered in time for the start of the buying frenzy.  But we (the LOML) took it in our (his) stride.  Go hard or go home.  We have had two years of tough to get us to this position and we were not going to let an opportunity pass us by (this second store was in the 'premium' shopping centre in town - the BIG one).  So in two days we got it all set up - stocked, signed, staffed - all while I was still working full-time in my week-day admin job.  Insane now when I look back on it.

I couldn't have made it through December without these....and lots of Mega B vitamins!

And so we continued until Christmas day - the LOML working everyday in either store, me working during the week at my job and then working in the evenings at either store merchandising stock or serving or both, both of us working all weekend in both stores (paying weekend wages hurts small businesses)....and then we stopped for one day (Christmas day) where we did nothing (I did the washing and swept the floor), got sick (always going to happen given the hours we were putting in), and then started all over again on Boxing Day....madness.

And so that's it..Christmas is done and dusted, the New Year has been and gone, and before we know it, we'll be bemoaning how quickly 2013 has disappeared and wondering what 2014 will bring!  I must say though, that I am looking forward to 2013.  2010 sucked, 2011 was worse but 2012 turned it around.  Life has been getting better each day so it figures that 2013 can't be anything but good.  Here's hoping.  

Happy New Year world!  Hope it promises to be grand for you also!

Apple tree, worms, scratchits and cake....

I'm a spoilt girl that's for sure.  It was my birthday this week - another year older to be certain - but I sure don't feel it.  It's a shock when people ask how old I am and I have to count the years to work it out.  In my head I feel mid-twenties, in my body not so much, but I sure don't act like my twenties are well behind me!  'Age is a state of mind' is my theory and I'm sticking to it!

I have to say that this birthday outdid itself - the second best birthday ever (*the best being the day I got married - yep, I got married on my birthday - fantastic party!!).  For starters the weather was perfect - nothing like waking to a warm spring day with the sun shining and birds tweeting outside the bedroom window.

I worked, as was usual for a weekday, but there was cake for morning tea.  Sure, I baked it myself but it was yummy.  Chocolate chocolate, double chocolate cake, big enough to feed the masses, of which I had only a small piece (lots of icing) because I didn't want the sugar-low to kick in too early - I had a dinner date that night!

Later the LOML took me out to dinner (Chinese) along with 12 of our closest friends and family.  It was an awesome night.  Lots of laughing, delicious food, cake, wine and more laughing.  I had the best night.  We finished it off with a nightcap at the local down the road before heading home to bed (I was the only one who had to get up the next morning for work - bad planning there on my part!).  

The LOML, bless his cotton socks, knows the way to my heart - he gave me an apple tree...

....and a box of worms!!  So very excited!!!

I also received some other beautiful gifts - very spoilt.  I didn't manage to scratch the set for life or the $500,000 though I did win $36 which I must remember to go and collect.  The LOML says I should reinvest but I'm thinking a couple of cake decorating magazines might be in order!

The best birthday in a long while, and nine years married.  Love it xxx  and love you, LOML xxx

:)

This is where I'm at right now....

Like the ad sang, I'm going to "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don't mess with nothing in between".

The LOML and I have had a few times in our lives together where we've chosen a more positive path and have lost a few people on the way.  Sad as it was at the time, we're mentally healthier because of it.

It seems that time is upon us once more.  

Now, more than ever in our lives, we have no room for negative talk, negative thinking, negative attitudes.  We have chosen to surround ourselves with people who are happy, cheerful, friendly, nice, respectful.....and it's rubbing off on us.

It's amazing how the conscious decision to focus on the good, on the positive, on the bright side can make all the difference.

My glass is half full.

Sydney

The LOML and I were in Sydney a week or so ago.

Whilst there we did a few tourist things...

....saw a few sights...

....and welcomed home some sporting champs....

I think ticker-tape is the benchmark of a really good parade.  My standards have been raised.  Carnival of Flowers be warned..... lol

Falling off the face of August.....

Seriously, where has this month gone.

I'm flailing in my lack of date recognition and the disappearance of the days.  I'm really pinning all my hopes on the longer days meaning I get back on top of things again - in my world, we're only just into the first week of the eighth month...very disappointing, and more than a tad scary, to realize with a jolt that we're nearly into September already.  I'm just not ready.

That being said, a lot has been happening in this neck of the woods lately.  A blog post in each to be sure, but in a nutshell.....(not, as the LOML would say, you're a nut-Shell)....

......it's been Languages and Cultures Festival time again....

.....I've been working long enough to accrue a week and bit holiday - so we headed south and spent a week and a bit in Melbourne and Sydney....

(I loooovvveee hotel freebies)

....saw some sights...

Could I get a bigger pole in the centre of my frame????

 ....made a few donations....

.....welcomed home some olympians....

....did some shopping, met some rellies and then headed home loaded up with goodies....

.....I've since been out in the garden with gusto (this weather is glorious, just plain glorious!)....

.....we've also been cranking up the little Webber on the deck again with the LOML showing off his chicken-stick prowess...

Hopefully now I'm back in the routine of blogging, just like I'm back in the routine of exercising.  But while I despise with the white hot intensity of one thousand suns the necessity which is exercise in my life, (a routine that is a must.  M.U.S.T.), blogging (both reading and writing) is my outlet and my release and I'm glad to be back into it.

Cheers!!