more tinkering...

with http://onemoretryandiamdone.wordpress.com

tinkering..

with delishaz.wordpress.com

blerrggg

i woke up with a jolt at 5.30am this morning, freaking out about a work thing. bloody pissed me off because it wasn't as if i could do anything about the situation.. so i just wasted a perfectly good friday night sleep. after convincing myself that regardless of how much i agonise about it, the South Australia government fat cats are not going to come to work on a weekend just to alleviate my worries about getting a permit approved, i fell back into a restless sleep. punctuated by kean's mini snores that aren't even loud, but keep me from fully resting nonetheless.

AAARRRRGHHHHHHH! i'm all grumpy now.

Monday night munchies

being a working woman and all (strange, i can't seem to refer to myself as a woman without feeling a little bit weird) it's an interesting challenge preparing dinners that taste like a proper dinner in an hour or less. there's only so many times you can eat steak and salad.

so this weekend i decided to marinade a whole week's worth of meat so we'd have a decent meal each day that i'd only have to chop onion, garlic and veggies for. i went to the supermarket on Saturday. i love my weekend grocery shop.. or Life's Little Pleasure (LLP) #1. i love going down each and every aisle, even if the stuff in that aisle is not on my shopping list (and oh yes, there must be a list. otherwise i'd end up with a WHOLE lotta junk). my fave way to spend a saturday morning is to wake up, have a coffee and plan my meals for the week while Rage is on tv. (LLP #2). hey, sorry if i'm a homebody!! :) i'll scour www.taste.com.au and www.allrecipes.com for inspiration if i'm not already craving i normally make on a weekday.

and my all-time favourite food blog at the moment is www.thefoodpornographer.com. man, the amount of recipes i've stolen from that site! in fact, i just made minchee on the weekend (mince pork, oyster and dark soy sauces, s&p, onions, garlic and reduced-salt chicken stock). ultimate winter comfort food.

i prepared a salmon pasta bake last week, which in theory was good. canned salmon, green beans, semi-dried tomatoes, fusili, three cheese sauce, breadcrumbs and brie. i steadfastly avoided buying home-brand canned salmon (the last time i bought home-brand fish i nearly retched to death) so i chose some random brand. unfortunately the stupid fish was soggy and mushy, and completely ruined the whole meal, even though it looked ok. appearances can be so deceiving!i had cooked a massive dinner on Saturday as we had Jye's sister Brenda over. I made pork bone, date and peanut soup (first time i've made a chinese soup this year), thai green curry, yummy minchee and fried beans, cabbage and swiss brown mushrooms with Lea & Perrins sauce. kinda wish i took pictures of the meal now.

you can read about the lamb at www.delishaz.wordpress.com

sunday at the snow

i was going to post more pictures of the wye river weekend.. but then i got too lazy.

instead i'll fast forward to the weekend just gone by.. (and yes kae, i did have a much better weekend! :D)

jess and stoff were in melbourne for an extended weekend and we decided to head to the slopes on sunday. i went to hotham just over a month ago and we all know how that turned out..

i was really excited at the prospect of seeing proper proper snow! we woke up at 4am to arrive at jess's hotel at 5. it was pitch black when we arrived at the sofitel so while waiting we took some happy snaps to keep awake..then we were off on our 3 hour drive! as the sun rose stoff grabbed some shut eye.finally we began our climb up the mountain, and as we neared the top this was the view i had this to squeal about..when we got to the top i was adamant i wanted to grab a snowboard instead of skis.i also didn't want to take any lessons despite it being my first time on the slopes.

oh. what a mistake that was.

i wish i could say i started off okay and all went downhill from there.

it just started downhill and went further into the depths of HELL.

i'd give myself false hope..but all too quickly it was over.to the point that i was on my knees or ass more often than i was actually standing up. not even moving, just actually standing up.i even managed to knock jess over. we weren't even TOGETHER at the time!

so after my 20,000th fall, i said adios to the board and grabbed some skis instead. but before heading back out to the slopes i went to grab some creamy garlic prawns, hawaiian pizza and fish & chips with jess and stoff, who were faring much better than i was on their skis. i was so hungry and tired that i didn't offer them my prawns even though they kindly offered me their lunches numerous times! i'm sorry jess and stoff!!!!!!!!!!after lunch i gave skiing a go.

i actually stayed on my feet a bit more.. but the fear of whacking into a tree, or much worse, an experienced skier/boarder, and after a while i thought screw this.. i'd rather walk down the beginner's slope slowly in one piece than flying down the mountain and ploughing into a group of ski instructors.so as i began the long trudge down the hill, i was distracted by a woman yelling at her 9-10 year old daughter about her inability to stay on her feet for very long. the poor girl was crying while the old bitch kept saying "stop snivelling and just DO IT", finally throwing a ski pole at her daughter and making her continue down the run. of course the daughter was terrified, and the situation culminated in her screaming as she lost control, and plunging right into a guy who was coaching some other boarders.

maybe it was because i knew exactly how the little girl was feeling, but i got so angry at the stupid mother for being so insensitive. i mean tough love is sometimes necessary, but not belittling your child and forcing them to do what you want by scaring the bejesus out of them! when the mother went to grab her daughter she kept saying to the instructor "oh i hope you're ok, it's all HER fault"

anyway.. i was THIS close to whacking the mother on the head with my otherwise useless skis. but i decided that it would just be an inconvenience to me if she lodged a complaint so i didn't convert my very vivid mental pictures to actual reality.

i digress.

so after happily willing to admit that i SUCK at snowsports, jess and i grabbed a toboggan each and had a play in the kiddie area. now this is something i'm ok at!

jess and i also made snowballs, snow angels (although i flapped my 'wings' so much that my angel was actually a globe), raced up a snow slope (we tied for the win), and made bob the snowman. we called the boys who were still doing a couple of runs but they refused to see our new friend.. so we brought bob back up to them.buller started to empty out about 4.30, so after a few photos.. (look how we transported bob!)we followed the masses and headed back into the city at about 5. on the way down we just had to stop by the gnome house, one random house surrounded by nothing! the pics are on jess's camera, i'll have to steal one to post up.

we headed to doncaster for chicken rice, beef brisket, spare ribs and singapore noodles. then it was back for a shower and straight onto my lovely warm bed.

all in all while i didn't enjoy the sporting side of it much, i loved spending time with jess and stoff and talking about nonsense in the car! ($42k Jess.. $42k!!)

wicked!

the last time i saw a stage musical, i fell asleep.

this was back at the start of 02 when i came to melbourne on holiday with 'the family' and watched mamma mia.

daveatwork has been waxing lyrical about Wicked for months now, so when pete lim asked if i wanted to go and watch it i thought why not? i must say i had my misgivings when i had to fork over $120 for a good seat.. shoes!! shoes!! a mini shopper conscience was squealing into my ear.

but since this is The Year of New Things for me, i went along for the ride and watched it last night.

and boy i'm glad i did!

i won't spoil it for any of you who haven't watched it.. but i will suggest you read up on Wizard of Oz (the wikipedia entry was sufficient enough for me) and NOT read anything about Wicked itself.

oh how i wish i could sing..

Wildside Weekend - Friday

no, i'm not trying that hard. the property was actually called Wildside!

ange and xm stumbled across this property online and decided we needed a holiday down south. so last friday we all headed down to Wye River (just a bit further out of Lorne) to the beach house. the 1805 crew headed down a bit earlier, and managed to take some amazing photos of the house before we arrived at about 6.45pm.

front of the house on top (ish) of the hill. the bedroom kean and i had.. what an amazing view!!family room where most of the action took place.. the fireplace became my main ally when it came to roasting marshmallows on Saturday :) and LOOK AT THAT VIEW!the other side of the living room.. top deck - where the jacuzzi and barbecue was..and the kitchen. i'm so in love with that wall clock. we had a lovely barbecue dinner, and while we intended to have a big night it kinda died down a little bit due to the boys (ok just kean) insisting that we watch the footy. my god it was boring.. so we decided to have an early-ish night and save the drinking for Saturday.