Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!

Behold my first attempt at making bread all by myself!



Smells great, looks great, slightly less raised then I'd hoped, but I think that has to do with not having a big enough loaf tin and using wholemeal flour. I'm quite proud of them as a first attempt.

Now the best bit, I'm going to tear a hunk off the plait and eat it with Penny's strawberry jam while relaxing on the couch and reading a novel.

SATURDAY
-Sleep in,
-Baked cake,
-Light housework,
-Played with cats,
-wrote in card,
-"wrapped" present (tied a ribbon round it),
-Made dinner,
-car pooled with vivienne_aster who has been away, yay!
-Will and Rose's engagement party
-"Twistmas in July" dancing at Trades Hall (WAY too crowded, but still fun for a little while)

SUNDAY
-Sleep in,
-Queen Vic Market,
-Jam doughnuts for breakfast,
-Early afternoon nap,
-Made dinner,
-Iced cake,
-relaxed with a book while Seamus mopped and vacuumed
-Made wasabi bread (like garlic bread but with wasabi butter)
-Parents and brother came over, nice dinner,
-Cleaned up and reassembled table after dinner, then relaxed with book and cup of tea and jazz cds
-Worked overnight, did two hours of paperwork but didn't receive a call

Friends, family, baked goods, nice house, not-much-work= pretty darn perect weekend.

Yesterday I had a full day off, all to myself! I decided to catch up on things around the house, the main one being cooking.

I set myself a budget of $50, which I exceeded but only by about $7. I bought mainly vegetables from the local green grocer, then two lamb shanks, 500gms of lean mince and a bacon bone from the butcher, a loaf of bread and 4 small dinner rolls from the bakery and some coconut milk and lemongrass from the asian supermarket.

On reaching home I immediately turned on the slowcooker and made a lamb shank stew, main ingrediants lamb shanks, onion, lentils, potatoes, pumkin, carrots, beans, red wine, canned tomatoes, assorted herbs and spices.

I then set the largest pot we have up half full with water and put it on the stove over a low heat. I threw in the bacon bone, some pearl barley and dehydrated beans and put the lid on. I got out the second largest pot and only filled it about two inces deep with water, then put in lemongrass, ginger, galangal, lime leaves, garlic and chilli. I put that over a low heat with the lid off and kept an eye on it till it reduced by an inch, at which point I turned off the heat.

I made up a bolognese sauce in a third pot and left it to simmer for about an hour, then let it cool.

I cut into large chunks onion, garlic, potato, pumkin, carrots, zucchini, green beans and red capsicum and threw them in with the bacon bone along with a can of tomatoes and some herbs, then I left it to get on with becoming soup on it's own.

I cut up quite a lot of veggies for a stirfry, then put them all in one of my bigger freezable plastic boxes. I poured the reduced thai herb mix over them and sprinkled fresh coriander over that then put the lot in the freezer. When we defrost it we'll just have to throw it tin the wok with coconut milk and be done!

Once the bolognese was cool I made up two lasagnes like dishes. One was a normal straight lasagne, the other differed in that instead of pasta I put in a layer of eggplant, then of sweet potato, then zucchini with mushrooms scattered through. Both of these went into the freezer.

Lastly I made a veggie curry with whatever veggies were left and some lentils, then waited for that to cool and froze it in one-person sized portions, on it's own it will be a good lunch and with rice it would be substancial enough for dinner.

The above took me about four hours, not a bad way to spend a stormy afternoon.

Once I'd cleaned up the kitchen I headed upstairs and started on the bookshelf in the study. Both Seamus and I had kept all of our uni readers, but we did pretty much the same subjects (just three years apart) so I got rid of the doubles (mine- because I wouldn't throw out seamus' stuff without permission) and voila! We have shelf room! I then did a quick ransack for anything op shoppable. We'd only done that a few months ago so there wasn't much, but I still found a few that missed the last cull. I then gathered everything that I could see that needed to be recycled in a pile on the floor. Once the pile reached my chin I started carrying it downstairs to the recycle bin, swearing at the cats along the way who were hyperactive and trying to trip me on the stairs.

I did not quite finish taking the pile out before having to leave the house, so some of it is still on the floor of the study ([Unknown site tag]? It's the pile on the floor behind the computer chair if you have time).

I headed out into the storm to collect Eva and we had a rollicking good time at Go Go dancing. Dancing definitely improvess my mood and I think it will be incorperated into all future plans to fight winter blues. We swung by Fitzroy to pick up Seamus from work then dropped Eva home and gorged ourselves on lamb shank stew and apple pies.

Today I visited my cousin for tea and cake, then when I came home I finished fiddling with the bookshelf. Most books are now grouped by author and also vaguely by genre, and the pile'o'crap at hand level when sitting at the computer has been obliterated. Also dusted the damn thing and gave myself an asthma attack, but hey, that's what ventilon is for, right?

Now I'm back at work today and tomorrow, and already looking forward to saturday as my next day off!

I finished work yesterday at 8am. I was feeling quite awake and hungry, and I knew mc_shamo had the day off, so I rang him and arranged to meet him at Verb (our local awesome cafe) for breakfast. I was slightly late, due to coming out to the carpark to find our car completely iced over. Good Lord it was cold!

After a very yummy breakfast and a long nap we headed out grocery shopping. I had a craving for Tom Kha and chicken satay, so we hit KFL on Racecourse road, a big Asian supermarket. Unfortunately they were fresh out of fake chicken (I refuse to buy non-freerange chicken but alas can not often afford it- so fake chicken is the go) so we wandered over to Safeway where we ran in to mousebane and Will and were able to point them in the direction of KFL, which they had not known was there. We also got fake chicken, woot!

Once home I chucked the stock, water, lemongrass, chilli, lime leaves, garlic, ginger and galangal in a pot and let it boil up to make the tom kha broth while I curled up with Nemesis, the new Lindsay Davis noval (I finished it this morning, unlike the last two it's actually very good but very dark).

After soup we headed out to the Incinerator Art Complex to see a play called Black Face White Mask, it was an amazing experience. Written by an Englishman and a Vietnamese man working very closely for over a year with a group of about a dozen local youths, mostly African, one white, one Afgani, and one I think Italian or Greek. It was about growing up black in Australia, Melbourne in particular (most of the action was set around the Flemington flats). It was well written, though it did kind of peter out at the end. It was also incredibly funny, and the young people in it were obviously very invested in it. I really hope they get a chance to put it on again. I think with a bit of polishing it would make a great Fringe show.

We got home, had the satay and polished of an amazing chocolate tart of awesome each, then after a day of not-much I was so exhausted I went straight to bed and slept through until 7:30am this morning.

This morning I was treated to pancakes a la mc_shamo before he had to go to work. I then attacked the pile of detritus that is our computer desk. It took a very long time, some impromptu filing, a hunt through the recycling for tin cans able to become pen holders, some serious dusting and scrubbing and two episodes of Miss Marple on youtube (so conveniant when working on the computer desk!) and we now have a desk so clean and clear you could eat off it if you were so inclined. I finished up with a satisfied sigh, looked at the time and swore likea trooper as I hurled myself in the shower, through the bedroom for clothes and kitchen for food and out the door to get to work.

So far tonight has been pretty quite, the strong wind means we can only fly south, and as Melbourne is basically at the southern edge of mainland Australia this is not terribly helpful. However, apparently if we did have to go to Tasmania we'd get there really really fast.

So, all you Victorians on my flist, take care of yourself tonight!

I've started making my own yoghurt.

It's pretty good! And this time I'm trying flavoured yoghurt for the first time- I threw some berries in to two of the little jars. I hope it works.

One of the guys called in sick for the overnight, I was the only one able to take the shift. Luckily I only got two calls, so for the last five hours I got paid overtime to sleep. :-)

When we came back from honeymoon we turned our kitchen upside down but could not find our slow cooker. Because I can't live without one I was a bit upset, then today Coles were selling perfectly good slow cookers for $20 because they had damaged boxes. As a slow cooker is usually $60+ I grabbed one.

Of course, as soon as I got it home mc_shamo discovered our old one lurking at the back of the patry behind the plastic tub we keep onions and potatoes in.

So, anyone out there want to give me $20 and take away a brand new, never-been-used slow cooker? They are lots of fun and dead easy to use, and make cheap meat taste good. :-)

Yesterday was amazing and indulgent and exactly what I needed.

I had my feet and jaw seen to by the lovely Dr Anin (otherwise known as dozingquinn's wife Raya), then drove to Abbotsford Convent where despite the heat the shaded paths were cool, calm, fragrant and peaceful. I had lunch at Lentil as Anything then relaxed with a book, a pot of Earl Grey and some astonishingly good jam biscuits in the bakery. I swung by Emily's house and had a good long chat about family and the approaching wedding and our memories of puberty among other things. From there I drove to Williamstown and proceeded to have my first ever dayspa experience. I think I will need to be very careful about becoming hooked. With my wedding as a handy excuse I have booked in a few things over the next two months. I realised it must all be relative when the lady said, "Ok, so that's two facials in the next ten weeks, a "Scrub'n'Glow" session five days before the wedding, and then eyelash tinting, manicure and pedicure the day before?" I was feeling like maybe it was all a bit much and I was being silly, and then she continued, "Wow, you're really down to earth aren't you? Definitely not a bridezilla, and trust me, we've had a few through here!" I liked that she didn't try to upsell either. She suggested I might like the "Never Never Land" package but when I politely turned it down she left it alone straight away.

In the evening a very prettily made up vivienne_aster (who had had her bridal hair and make-up trial) picked mc_shamo, cows_might_fly, fnoo and myself and we headed out to Northcote for dinner and the Guild League gig. Dinner was at a pizza restaurant on High st I've forgotten the name of, it was fantastic though! The pizza bases were spelt or gluten free, and it's the first time I can remember eating that much pizza and not feeling slightly queasy after (which is not to say I didn't feel full, because I did- my God I can eat a lot of pizza) and the Guild League after a shaky start (If Not Now so out of tune it produced many a wince in the audience) were brilliant. It was great to catch up with insomnius who was there too.

By the time we came home I was so tired that I had to force myself to stay awake reading until I found out who the murderer was, then was out like a light and only got to read the deneumount this morning.

( Favourite Food )

I'm a tad peckish...

Comfort-Food-Soup for one

500ml veggie or chicken stock
2 tsp minced garlic
2 tbs cut lemongrass
1 tsp kaffir lime leaves- shredded
dash of lime juice
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1/4 hot green chilli
1 tbs grated ginger
three florets brocolli
four or five coriander leaves
1/2 small carrot, sliced
1 mushroom
1/8 cup red capsicum
1/2 cup light coconut milk

Bung everything til you get to the veggies in a small saucepan and bring to boil.

Reduce to simmer, add veggies, simmer 10 mins.

Add coconut milk, simmer another five minutes.

Consume.

So, since work got crazy I've not been doing much housework. Unfortunately this has coincided with mc_shamo working and rehearsing almost every minute of the day, so when we're home we're a. exhausted and b. more in the mood to spend time with each other than on the house.

Today I had a full day off and was on my own at home, so I decided enough was enough. I have now been doing housework for ten hours, and at the edn of it I have a house that is- while still not sparkling clean- presentable to the outside world and smelling nice. I also have a homemade dinner to eat with Seamus when he finally gets home from work.

I used my old motivation system, working off a detailed list which included breaks and food. If you're at all interested it's under the cut, I'm saving it for posterity, and because it might help next time the house gets in such a state!

( What I've done today )