That looks like poo

So, because its December and Christmas and I cleared out the pantry (found things in there that pre-dated hubby) and all was good in the world, I made chocolate mousse last night.

Turned out quite nicely (except for the bit where it fell onto the plate and left all the things like ears and eyes in the rabbit mould it came out of) and was embellished with milo and chocolate sprinkles, which frankly raised it to the level of haute cuisine.

"That looks like poo," said Miss five.
"But poo with milo on it," said hubby.

sigh.

Things that have been faintly unsucessful today

Its been a monumentally busy day here at our house.  Sped off to my old workplace, Macquarie University, early on - and found myself as enchanted with the place as ever, oh Mac Uni, I shall return to do my PhD in literature (I mean HELL, like m'sister is going to be the only one of us with a PhD, ahem) - got the documents I needed and then hurtled back to Centrelink to finalise a few odds and ends with them.  Of course being Centrelink there are still a billion other bits of paper they need, but yanno it was worth sitting in that wrist-slitting office with the lighting that sucks the colour and joy out of existence for an hour and a half, because now they believe me when I claim to be an Australian.

You know what really annoys me. REALLY?  The fact that because I was born in the UK I have to endlessly prove my Australian citizenship.  I officially became an Aussie back in 72, at the grand age of around three weeks old. I KNOW. How I could've existed for those first few weeks as a pommie I have No Idea.  And now 37 odd years later I am still waving around a grubby bit of paper that was presented to my mother all those years ago.

I mean I...

• Have spewed out the back of a ute doing circle work in a paddock
  
• Don't know the words to The Second Verse
• Say Fark all the time
• Own ugg boots that smell appalling and squelch even when dry
  
• Know what a boat race is and refuse to enter them because I 'sip like a girl'
• Cannot exist in a world where there is no beer, lamingtons, vegemite (or iSnack 1.0 as we like to call it), and thinks pavlova is tops.
• I even had a boyfriend called BRUCE (alas I kid you not)

But apparently this is all irrelevant in the face of a handwritten, cat pee stained (don't ask) bit of paper issued by Australia House in London. Bureaucracy. I ask you.

Hmm. Yes. Digressing again. So, Centrelink - fairly unsucessful

Then I went shopping, forgot TOILET PAPER - which is a bit of a disaster actually - totally unsuccessful

Picked up the kids (remember them both (success) but both slightly more damaged than when they left this morning - just a few falling-over scrapes and bruises, no biggie - but still mildly unsuccessful)

Promised kids I'd make a strawberry smoothie.  All ready to go when I suggested we add a banana to the mix. Commence screaming.  Lure children from room to watch Barbie Christmas Movie (yes I have no soul), add banana to blender then pour in milk. SOMEONE (remember we call hubby someone) didn't put the seal on the blender. Milk pours out of blender onto bench and floor.  Kids return on hearing yelping. Ignore milk to fish out banana and hide in sink before they see it. Clear up mess. Convince children to return to movie. Fix blender. Add banana. Add more milk. Press on switch. A lot of noise but not very much action. OH GOD NO. Forgot to put blades back in. Kids attracted by noise of blender. Me desperately trying to stand in front of blender to hide banana and shove blades back in, kids equally desperate to Help Mummy.  Much shouting. But...

Get it all working in the nick of time. Smug and happy that children will consume that farking banana. WIN for me.  Such a rare win.

Children reject smoothies on grounds of strawberries (which they asked for) - completely unsuccessful. But I enjoyed them.

Then they decided to do a spot of face painting.

With texta.

That does not wash off.

sigh.

Never let it be said that I have any dignity whatsoever.

Miss Nearly Four: Can I make you look like Barbie?
Me: Knock yourself out.... Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.
Miss Nearly Four: Sit still.
Me: OW.
Miss Nearly Four: Perfect. Now we have to take a photo.
Me: Must we?
Miss Nearly Four: Yes. Right now.
Me: Heartfelt sigh.

Yes, Barbie's twin sister me.

sigh.

ARJVRAPUM67X

Decorating The Tree

Decorated the tree yesterday. Here is our magnificent creation.

Done with much dancing with tinsel and singing of carols and drinking of hot chocolate and me having heart-attacks about the kids smashing baubles and treading on them and then ending up driving madly to hospital as they hemorrhage out of their foot and then holding them as they were stitched up. Oh the blood, the blood...

What? It could have happened.

Three weeks to go people (give or take a day)

Woo hoo, I did it. Oh yes I did it. :) Thirty posts in Thirty days - and only the odd filling in lettuce photo amongst it.

YAY me.

But, there is NO REST for this eager blogger. Oh no siree.

Tomorrow I decorate The Tree with the help of two very small bossy people (and one very tall one). Much sugar will be consumed and probably a lot of wine.

Then its making lame presents for everyone (because we are POOR). Just raised giving second hand presents to the pre-school aged cousins with my mother - SHEESH - you would've thought I'd gaily announced I was giving them a lump of coal or a sock puppet made from one of hubby's Unwashed Socks. Ye Gods, my eyes water at the very thought.

Then there will be a great deal of baking and photos of badly glazed ham, steaming christmas puddings (on a hot day with 98% humidity) and super-saturated solutions of brandy butter.

Then there will be an obscene amount of fake snow and paper snowflakes stuck onto windows regardless of the 40+ temperature outside.

And do not forget the HORROR of school holidays starting in 17 days (not that I'm counting).

Ah its going to be good.

:)

And just whilst I'm on the subject... All I want for Christmas this year is for hubby to get a job - last year it was a tonne of dirt for my vege garden. Funny how things change.

People of the Book

So the Blog This challenge for this week is to write about a book that's caught our interest in 2009.

ACK.

As a writer I KNOW I should have a thousand books I've read, or could recommend, or are sitting beside my bed in a to be read pile. But sadly I'm usually so busy researching and writing that I don't get time to read as much as I'd like.

Still, never fear. I do have a recommendation...

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Liked: Engaging story, easy to read, brilliantly researched, the prose just lights up the page and you feel like you are there with the character, looked forward to picking this one up each evening (which is more than I can say for Nora Roberts's Tribute, what a yawn fest that was).

Didn't Like: Awful ocker heroine, pathetically weak and perplexing ending, over use of stereotypes. The fact they wrote "A Novel" on the cover - er, thanks but its bleeding-sodding-obvious.



Speaking of covers...


I'd like to include a couple of my favourite covers for 2009. Both of them made me snort coffee out my nose all over the screen at some point this year.


:)

<- Check out her hands if you haven't spotted it.

Mellow Harshed.

Home.

To a trashed house...

And a dust storm.

Sunday Breakfast

Breakfast mark ii

Breakfast!

Saturday at Avoca

Lunchtime. :)

Well i managed to remember that i can blog from my phone. Here is the hot misty muggy sticky view from the flat. Yes. Not exactly enticing. But i have plan b...

And here is where i plan to spend the day. :)

Friday night at Avoca

Avoca. My footprints in the sand.

Off for the Weekend

Mother's Group and I are off for the weekend.  Yes.  If you happen to be in Avoca this weekend and hear much cackling then that will be us.

I am not taking my laptop.

However, I will be back on Monday with ALL the gossip.

Yes, yes. I know I'm doing NaBloWriMo and this means I'll miss the last two days. This pains me deeply. HOWEVER, in the run up to Christmas and the January school holidays I shall be blogging frequently - so brace yerselves for bad photos of lame decorations, things boiling over on the stove and me ranting about life with pre-schoolers.

Also, if hubby doesn't get a job soon the bank's going to be repossessing the house, which will give me heaps to talk about. YAY.

sigh.

Thankfulness

Anyone not under a rock or in a cave has probably noticed that in the States its Thanksgiving (well in a few hours, I think. Timezones perplex me).  Hubby knew, but only because of the fuss made about the "black friday" sales and the fact you could buy some laptop (I went a bit hazy then) for some incredibly low price.  Whatevs love.

Hmm, anyway, I digress.

Thanksgiving is not an Aussie holiday. Nope.  You won't find me wishing anyone Happy Thanksgiving on Twitter, because its their cultural event, not mine. (I will however eat the Pumpkin Pie made by an ex-pat US friend of mine - because yanno, its nice to be neighbourly - and also it's DIVINE - yes, yes, my stomach knows no international boundaries, cultural or otherwise)

Oh look, not only digressing, but now not even making much sense.  Excellent.

ANYWAY. I've been pottering around a few blogs this evening, and have been reading about the days of a couple fellow bloggeresses (or Goddesses bloggers as I'd like people to call me, or just Your Worship for close friends and family members, yes, finally I am getting tired of She Who Must Be Obeyed).

Okay, I'm tired, but I have a point.

I don't want to put up some cheesy post listing all the things I'm thankful for, I'm not one who counts my blessings - oh WHAT? - I may not count them, but I know them and I hold them close to my heart - I just don't go trumpeting them about the place.  

And the fact I'm rabbiting on about being thankful has nothing to do with Thanksgiving, its just a coincidence.  

But tonight I've been reading the blogs of women who have children who are autistic, or have Aspergers syndrome, one whose little boy has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, and another about a woman going through divorce and has just put up her Christmas tree, without her kids, for the first time.

They are amazing everyone one of them.  Their frank and straight-forward approach, their compassion, their strength, their patience and their fundamental resilience make me wonder how on earth I can begin to moan about my own children without the words catching in my throat.  

Not to put too fine a point on it, these ladies are teaching me that I don't know shit.

And I thank them for it.

I love my blog. I love prattling on about my kitchen disasters and my vegie garden and the latest 'terrible' thing my kids have done. But the reality is that I have two happy, healthy kids and a marriage that whilst it is something of a work-in-progress, is built on solid ground.  And MY GOD am I thankful for this. 

:)

Normal programming will resume tomorrow with photographs of the cat poo on the clean laundry pile that greeted me at 5.55am this morning. (Kidding, kidding)

Fermenting things

I do love a good ferment.

However, sometimes a good bacteria goes bad and you end up with a smelly mess.  And sometimes things that ferment get forgotten about and die of neglect.

This would be a case of the latter. And if you think this attempt at home made vinegar looks bad you should smell it.  On the upside I think I've invented penicillin - so really I deserve another Nobel Prize (yeah, got the first for irritability and general foul temperedness - but I don't like to boast about it).

Luckily I can start again. I have a couple more vinegar mothers that I can add to red wine and try to turn it into vinegar.

For anyone remotely interested you do this:  Place vinegar mother in a container with 1.5litres: 50%wine 50%water. Taste after 4/6 weeks. Double quantities. Cover container with muslin as it needs oxygen.

Aside from this I have remaking my unset plum jelly.  Has now set beautifully...

But of course it didn't all go according to plan. And no, I did not catch an artery with the cheese slicer, I cracked a jar when I was pouring boiling jelly into it. Spectacular yes?  Why does it always happen when the jar is full?

Then, in a moment of complete BHG-ness (BHG=Better Homes and Gardens) I took to covering cereal boxes with pretty paper. I have no idea why. None.  The house is a tip and the dirty washing pile smells unspeakable. We've eaten nothing but baked beans for days. So what do I do to rectify the situation? Well, results below. Quite pleased actually.

Should've got that Nobel Prize they give out for domestic goddess-ness.

:)

Waiting

When any member of his pack isn't home, Sebs sits vigilantly at the front window, waiting.

Its also prime post-man barking position. Or delivery van, tradesman, neighbours, dogs, cats, birds, butterflies, caterpillers, ants, leaves that Dare To Move... you get the picture.

He spots the offender, flys to his feet in paroxysms of barking and then sticks his nose on the glass and wuffs at them.  See the smearly glass. Nice.  

All that defending of the castle can be exhausting on a small spaniel.

::::::

I'm much improved on yesterday.  A trip to Miss 5's new school uniform shop chased away any residual overwhelm-ness - so cute in her new Uniform. Oh and cooked brownies and madelines for a family afternoon tea this arvo. That's helped too. Probably more than it should.

:)