A.I.H.

Oh man, is this song catchy or what?!

Wish listing...

Well some time in the coming weeks it might be my birthday... and being a picky and controlling person I like to drop hints...

The flavour thesaurus.

This bag.

This ring. (I love pears)

A bicycle basket. (to prevent sweaty back syndrome)

 A pair of shoes from The Horse.

A radio and iphone speaker dock.

A frock.

 A swish umbrella.

Cake. Pretty cake.

I'll always keep on asking for a puppy.

A dinosaur succulent.

New music.

Any of these would suffice...

Things to be thankful for*

* The breakfast in bed my boy made for me.
* Finally getting a sleep in.
* Two more weeks at work.
* It's birthday season in our household, and that means CAKE!
* The experience of being on an interview panel.
* My first red lipstick. Actually my first lipstick really.
* Compliments from strangers about my bike. Makes me smile.
* I live in a country of peace.
* Autumn leaves. Gosh I love them.
* Staying up later than we should and having midnight snacks with my boy.

{1, 2, 3, 4}

More people are being thankful over at Maxabella...

Gr.

Dear blogger.
If you had an arm. I'd punch you on it.
Why won't you keep me signed in? Why can't I write comments? Why can't I even get on to you when using firefox?
It's been three days dude. Three days.
Peeved.
{pic}


EDIT!
I take it all back! Just minutes later it started working again! Hooray!

Link Love for Friday...

 * 20 untranslatable words from around the world...
* Annoying words. 
* It's the little things...
* Beautiful garden design.
* Handy gardening tools.
* And a green living online mag!
* I adore these cute prints.
* More awesome print design.
* Beautiful illustration.
* A cute brooch tutorial by the lovely Angela.
* An awesome travel article. A must read for the adventurous.

Dear Motorist,

(or as I have fondly decided to call you "twat"),

Thanks so much for slowing down enough to yell out of your car window "get out of the way" as I cycled home on a quiet Monday night from a long day at work. Clearly you have never ridden a bicycle. May be you don't  know how? I'd hate to make assumptions... so may be you've just never had someone open their car/van/truck door on you? Yes, actually, I'm quite sure that's never happened to you. May be you have a vision impairment... or a brain defect... (how on earth did you get a drivers licence) because otherwise you would be able to see that my entire left hand side was taken up with parked cars and the entire second right hand lane was empty and open and waiting for you to overtake me in. I take it you where in a big rush to get to that red light waiting for you 10 meters up the road. I mean, how rude of me to stop you from getting to the traffic lights first. How rude of me to travel in the left hand side of the left hand lane rather than on the left hand line of the left hand lane? Or... I'm sorry, you didn't actually clarify where I am meant to get out of the way too... what do you suggest?

Have a safe drive now... moron.

Love me *

{here}

What to bring to a party...

We went to a party on Friday night and it was a "bring something along" type affair. Neither of us had time to cook before hand so we whipped up a big batch of guacamole and bought corn chips. I decided to make the whole thing a bit more special though by popping it all in jars. Much more attractive as a gift for the host, and safer to transport on our bicycles!

My guacamole:
* 5 ripe avocados
* 50gs cream cheese
* 1 lime
* 1/2 a red onion
* 1 large ripe tomato
* salt & pepper

* Glass jars
* Scrap fabric
* String or ribbon

Then:
Scoop out all the avocado into a bowl and mash it with a fork. Add the cream cheese and whisk this in as well. Note: I only use a tiny bit to add a slightly creamy texture, you can add more but it will take away from the avocado taste.
Zest the lime rind in and then squeeze all the lime juice into it as well. Mix in thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste... possibly the tiniest dash of cumin and paprika too.
Chop you onion so it is very fine, and wash and chop up for tomato into small cubes. Toss these in as well and gently fold it in.

Make sure your jars are super clean and dry. Scoop the guac in then cover the jar lid with a pretty piece of fabric and secure with a matching ribbon. Maybe even include a label, so everyone knows what it is (and who made it *wink*).

I think I should also declare at this point that I cycled, in heels, to this party. Yeah! Girls can do anything.

{more phone pictures I know! I can't wait to whip out our real camera again soon!}

More creative spaces here...

Yeah, but what do you eat?

 

{via}

Being a vegetarian is something I'm passionate about. Maybe even a bit militant about... but I've been doing this for 14 odd years. I frequently get asked: "what do you eat?", and its weird because I just eat food. I eat interesting, yummy food. I eat something different to the previous day most evenings. I probably eat a wider variety of things than meat eaters. No honestly.
When we were in Uganda we frequently got asked whether we liked their food "oh yes its lovely" (read: "good god this is the most boring crap bland stuff ever") We lost a lot of weight over there. There's only so much beans and rice a person can handle. Plus its hot so your apppetite dwindles anyway.
But when people asked us about what we eat in Australia, what we grow and eat, well, it's hard to say. It's hard to explain to someone that eats the same carb heavy thing everyday that we can eat whatever we want, but it isn't usually mashed up green banana (matoke). That we don't grow what we eat, we buy whatever we like from a shop.
We found ourselves saying things like err Australians eat... ummm... spaghetti.... rice... vegetables... meat. And they are like "oh okay, so the same as us except no matoke".
I feel the same way when people ask me what I eat as a vegetarian. Seeing as I'm pretty sure I think about food about 75% of the time, it seems strange that I struggle to answer this. The food on this blog is mostly baking... because thats my hobby. But I love cooking dinner, when I'm home. I love thinking about flavours.
I mentioned the giant roast we had on the weekend. I made the vegetarian alternative to eating lamb. A mushroom and brazil nut pie. I will unashamedly say, it was flipping great. When it's Christmas or Easter or big family dinner time I don't miss out, I reckon I win. 1. I have room for dessert coz im not overloaded on fatty meat. 2.  I have a clear concious - (hey I warned you I'm militant)

{via}
Without further ado, a recipe, so that next time its a roast occasion why not think about baby animals suffering for your ten minutes of culinary satisfaction... then think about making this instead.

Things to be thankful for*

* That I don't have a hangover right now, though I probably deserve one.*red wine*
* Getting to go out on a Friday night with my boy, for the first time in forever.
* Having my book signed by my favourite author backstage at work.
* Earl Grey Tea. I love you above all others.
* The feel of the soft fluffy fabric you get inside a new sweater/jumper/hoodie.
* Three weeks left at my job....
* Email chats with my mum.
* Discovering some new blogs to swoon over.
* The smell of back burning in the sydney air right now.
* The way the wind on my face is when I'm riding a bicycle at night.

{1 &2 = mine. 3 = here}
Get on board, write a thankful list, there's heaps more of them over at Maxabella Loves. *s*

Brick

This week is how things used to be a lot. I've got a lot of time to be on the computer in a dark room with not much to do. Except I have plenty to do because... you know... the whole internet exists. Anyway have you heard of this website called floorplanner? You can join it for free but you can only do one room at a time on a free account, which is what I'm fiddeling around with.
So I've been thinking about the downstairs room in my parents house. It's big and kinda a mini gym slash games room at the moment. The thing is, its got hideous carpet, plain besser bricks and a wood panel ceiling. But it does have a wall of 3 sliding glass doors and it's huge (10M x 4M) A big blank slate right? So I've made it my mission to make this space shit hot, without spending much money (well look its not my money or my room so its all hypothetical but fun)...
What I need to know is... Have you ever painted besser brick? Do you think public toilets when you think painted besser brick? Do you think the grey besser brick can look nice with the right surroundings or do you reckon paint the crap out of it????
It's hard to find any pictures and I have a lot of pictures of interiors... So far Im thinking rip up carpet of grossness and paint the concrete/put down fake wood floor/put down nice new not gross carpet. Def paint wooden ceiling white (its a low room, so we need as much height as possible) and I had been thinking paint the walls an awesome petrol blue, to make a real den party vibe.... but now im thinking paint floor black, paint everything else white... but then white = pool cue marks on the wall... plus possibly looking like a public toilet... Who's painted besser brick here?
Hands up. Shout out! Help me out!

{Images}

bread and butter...

It's cold and I'm all about bringing out the big guns when it comes to winter cooking. My boy had a bread and butter pudding craving. I couldn't help but agree it was a good idea. So I whipped one up from the back of my head and the back of the fridge.

You need:
* 12 slices of grain bread with the crusts cut off (give them to the worms/ducks)
* margarine/butter
* 1 pear sliced in 6 thin pieces
* 2 eggs, whisked
* 300ml buttermilk
* 1 cup castor sugar
* cinnamon
* mixed spice
* sultanas

Then:
Heat your oven to 200. I greased my dish, which just so happened to perfectly fit 6 slices of bread on the bottom of it.
Spread one side of each slice of bread with marg or butter. Lay one layer of bread on the bottom of your dish. put one thin slice of pear on top of each piece of bread and sprinkle a few raisins/sultanas on there.
Then put a slice of bread on top of each. I used some little extra bits to plug up a few gaps and holes.
Sprinkle with more sultanas. In a bowl whisk together your 2 eggs, buttermilk and castor sugar plus spices. When they're really thouroughly combined pour this over the bread, making sure it all gets soggy.
Pop it in the oven for about 25mins, when its golden brown and not wet to touch.
I highly recomend serving with custard...
yum. town.

{excuse the crap phone picture... I had to snap a quick one before it was all gone!}

Oh yeah, I'll tell you about the vego pie as well... but later.

I know graffiti is naughty and all... but I think this guy that's popped up round my 'hood is kinda cute!

Weekend away

This weekend we had a party in the blue mountains for a dear friend who is moving back to her country of Canada. We went on a beautiful bush wlk and cooked up a massive ( I mean maaassssssive) roast feast for dinner... oh and maybe watched tangled... (yes a bunch of adults ate roast and watched Disney.) I'm still stuffed. I made a pretty awesome pie for the people who don't eat baby sheep, I'll post the recipe later. So here's some photos...

Things to be thankful for*

 Blogger was down on Friday and I've been away this weekend so here is a belated list!

* Precious friends.
* Roast vegetables.
* Weekends.
* Gloves, hats, scarves.
* Wood fires.
* The way the air smells in the blue mountains.
* The lack of pain in my legs despite hiking.
* Flattering work oppurtunities.
* Our camera.
* Our (very) tidy bedroom.

Baby it's cold outside...

...Gee whizz it's cold on the East coast of Australia right now. How snuggely do these beds look though?

{via}

Speaking of.. I'm gonna get into the best of them all right now... mine with bonus husband for keeping my toes warm.