Pumpkin cashew dip.

One of the things that bothers me in this first world is quantity discounts. The 2 for $6 bags of freddos, the 2 for $6 cashew dips. Which inspired me to try and MAKE a cashew dip.

I looked at the bottom of a delicious dip Anna brought to work, roast pumpkin cashew and parmesan. In the ingredients it said 35% pumpkin, 30% cashew, then canola oil, garlic, white vinegar, 4% parmesan, chilli and spices, preservative. That's pretty much a recipe! And I already had pumpkin, cashews and parmesan!

Here is my recipe adaptation, made with my George Foreman grill and pestle+mortar.

Pumpkin 35% ~ 1/3 cup cooked
Cashews 30% ~ 1/3 cup crushed
Canola oil ~ olive oil, enough to make it soggy
White vinegar ~ maybe 2 teaspoons
Parmesan cheese 4% ~ 1 tablespoon
Garlic ~ 2 cloves cooked and crushed
Chilli ~ "Mexican spices" I found in the spice cupboard
Salt
Water

It's dip is about as easy a guacamole. And it would be quite impressive in a social situation, to bring it home made gourmet cashew dip. And not expensive once you have vinegar and spices.

Christmas.

Yay! I'm tired and it's over. I finished the working week with dinner with D and JK (Skara Bar meat platter!), and then JK and I swam the next morning at Coogee. The waves looked yucky, all sea-weedy, so we went to the ladies pool instead, which is really lovely. Crabs scuttling around and old ladies doing laps. Still 20 cents entry. We had brunch, and JK ordered corn fritters, which we agree is a risky order. They sound good, but they can be so disappointing. Hers were good. I had fruit toast. Then we went home and I finished packing and we went to the bus stop and I went to Central and then Maitland on the 12.15.

Grandma and Julia were already at Maitland. Mum, J and I did Jillian some days, J and I went for a swim at Newcastle with the bro on Monday because it was hot, I bought a dress from Jacqui E (the end of the no clothes shopping thing). I was in 2 minds about it afterwards, but now I think it is a good dress. It ticks all the boxes, it's just that it's a bit different for me.

I introduced Dad to myfitnesspal.com and that was more exciting for him than his actual Christmas present. We both weighed and recorded our food, and timed our exercise, every day. Thus Christmas was not too fat, this year. Life would be so much easier if I didn't have to work, and I could just spend my days doing exercise and weighing my food and doing cross stitch. I made a lot of progress on my bike cross stitch. I have one main section to go, so I can see the end now, and it's much faster. I want to finish it by my birthday. I'm racing my braces.

The piano had 2 sticky keys, so my brother took the piano apart and we fixed it, mainly by just lifting the keys up and shaking them around a bit. That was very good.

This is the birthday cake for Jesus, made by Julia. I accidentally blew out all the candles for Jesus.

I finished listening to my audiobook Spellbound. Book III in the Grimnoir series comes out in August. It's called Warbound so will probably be just as magically gory.

I caught the XPT back on Thursday afternoon, because it can be a bit more peaceful to have more legroom and a table to do cross stitch on. As it happened though my table was a bit dirty, so I read instead, or dozed listening to music, except that I was sitting next to a very friendly young man. I learnt quite a lot about him as he was talkative. Not the whole time, but he took every opportunity. I'll share it with you because I don't meet people like him very often. He is 19, from Tamworth, has good taste in music, and has been working in Sydney for 9 months as a steel joiner (he showed me his hands) and makes about $250 a day and lives in a boarding house in Petersham and recently crashed his Lancer and lost his license and is still a bit lonely and lost in Sydney and still seems overwhelmed by the multiculturalism but can swear in a lot of languages now and is going overseas for a holiday next year. He pointed out the windows at various apartment blocks he built, which must be a nice thing to do, contribute in such a big way to the city around you. He also built the platform awnings on Newtown station. He explained why the carpark at Eastgardens collapsed and says all the Westfields were built dodgy by Adco. The things you learn. The whole world is on the train. I myself don't talk on public transport if I can help it because I don't like being eavesdropped. Even though it's harmless, I find it off-putting having an audience. Answering my mobile and blowing my nose included.

When I got home I went food shopping and bought a half price turkey roast. It's turkey week! And last night I slept terribly. And this morning I got asthma doing Jillian after only 2 circuits. It's a nuisance when occasionally I feel sick and have to stop after I make the effort to get out of bed early. Breathing problems are very unusual, though.

Looking forward to new year's eve and summer school!

Fireworks.

I was walking home down my street at 8.50 last night, and I had a splendid view of the Coogee carols fireworks display. Perfectly timed magic. Sweet way to end a fun night of carols with my church. Especially since I was trying to be thankful and not give into the post-event tired and gloomy crash. O Holy Night sheet music is put away for another year.

Exciting Thursday night.

Gave blood after work. But it was a bad experience. I've been giving blood easily for 10 years, I don't know what's happening lately. There is a note on my record now. Skinny veins or something. One more chance, nurses, or I'm quitting.

Then a friend and I went to hear a jazz trio launch an EP. Ah, the wonderful world of tiny music venues in Marrickville. The place was called the Newsagency because it was one, it's a bit larger than my lounge room, and had about 25 kindergarten chairs. The music was good. Dubious Blues Trio with excellent support from the little brothers trio (I forget their real trio name). Then we went to Coogee and convinced a cafe to make us Chai Lattes. Good finish to the night.

Made after Melbourne Cup: doona cover.

I answered the phone at work last Friday and it was actually a friend, Mike, and while we were catching up he asked me if I had started and finished something after Melbourne Cup. Remember that time I blogged that? Don't just spend the end of the year winding up; tick something off? Mike was all over it, doing something handy with insulation. Impressive! I was planning on using up leftover varnish on my bed frame, but I can't decide. I need a second opinion. However, I have been making a new doona cover! I bought a big piece of fabric in Africa which has been in the cupboard for 6 months. On that really hot Saturday I bought 2.5m of sheeting for the back and sewed it together. I finished it off this weekend.

The thing is, personal projects don't have strong deadlines like the things you do for work or for other people. You sometimes just have to have a deadline so you can get the thing done and out of the way, once the first burst of initiative has worn off.

Here is the making of the doona cover. Put front and back material on the floor, and put the old doona cover on top. Cut around it, with a bit of extra space for seams.

You need 3 sides sewn together and a hemmed opening at the bottom.

Raid the random button collection for 3 big plastic press studs saved from a previous doona cover.

Sew them into the opening while you watch DVDs.

Enjoying:

There are several things I am excited about but have been slow to post or late on the bandwagon so I'm not the first with the news. Firstly:

The Lizzy Bennet Diaries: a youtube blog version of P&P which has been running most of this year. I was slow checking it out, and I regret not getting on board sooner. If you start now you can catch up to shortly after Darcy's unwelcome declaration. It's really well cast, in fact they have made Lydia so loveable (adorbs) that I wonder how they can bear to bring her down. If you are an Austen expert there are a lot of clever little nods to minor characters; all the characters have twitter/pinterest/tumblr as appropriate, which reveal interesting clues: we haven't met Gigi Darcy yet but her twitter account has been going since April, full of breakup songs… hmm! I'm obsessed with a certain hat of Jane's.  Hats I can't have make me sad.

 You can watch a fun summary of all the Darcy dress-up.

Oil painting.

I had a great idea once, of doing small oil paintings from instagrams. Which turned into getting a photo my friend took on holiday this year (from facebook, above) and painting it in oils for her birthday this week. I was extremely happy with the result (small framed picture below). I also tried to do one of roses which was a failure. That's how it goes.

Fancy lights.

• A 50 bulb light strand.

• 1 metre of gold organza.

• Scissors.

I started by tearing fat strips of organza and wrapping it around the light strand to hide the cord. That used about 2/3 of the fabric.

Then I cut squarish pieces of what was left, and poked them through the cord at the base of the light bulb, between the bulb and the little ring that holds the cord together. Turns out like a bow on each light.

Then I wrapped it around the easel.

New old music.

I felt like I needed some new music today so I started clicking ads on Spotify. The 2nd one was Jake Bugg. One of those young people making old sounding music.

My Christmas tree.

Cost: $6 for lights, $10 for 1m gold organza.

James Herriot.

Saw an ad this morning for The Young James Herriot. Looks kind of like Call the Midwife meets All Creatures Great and Small. Surprised it starts next Saturday and I haven't seen any other ads for it.

Christmas tree.

Living in a small unit, and going back home for Christmas, I haven't seen need to get a Christmas tree. They just aren't the sort of thing that is very efficient. They are so big to store for the 90% of the year that is the Christmas off-season. My parent's Christmas tree is my Christmas tree.

But last year the lovely lovely homewares shop at the top of my street had lots of really awesome bare-branch light-tipped trees. Minimalist and life-like with tiny lights built in to the tips of the branches. Soooo pretty. I really wanted one. I would keep it up all year. They have even more realistic ones this year… but a very short one costs $160. Hard to find them online, but something like this.

So anyway, the seed was planted. Christmas trees are pretty and they can be very minimal; in fact, all you really need is a prop for the lights. My frugal talents are itching to be used, because fairy lights are CHEAP.

I'm thinking of using my easel, it's basically a tripod which is sort of tree-shaped. I like some of the other ideas here, the bicycle wrapped in lights is pretty and so is the 2 dimensional tree shape on the wall made out of lights. I'm thinking that idea 17, tying scraps off cloth around the light cord before I wrap it round the easel, would be a bit pretty and doable. Maybe some organza.

I watched a fantastic not-new episode of Big Bang Theory last night. Physicist Sheldon didn't think his girlfriend Amy's accomplishment in the field of biology was as exciting as him having 100 twitter followers.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ooh, 101! Air’s getting a bit thin up here.

Leonard gives Sheldon advice:

Leonard: Sometimes with women you want to listen to what upsets them and then show them that you can grow and change.
Sheldon: Nuts to that. What else you got?
Leonard: I don’t know what to tell you. Buy her something.
Sheldon: How does that work?
Leonard: Well, you skip over any attempt to repair your emotional connection and you win back her affection with an empty financial gesture.
Sheldon: Well, that approach has Sheldon Cooper written all over it.

Penny takes Sheldon to the jewellery shop to buy something for Amy. Sheldon buys himself a pocket watch also, because it makes him look like a train conductor.

Sheldon gives grumpy Amy a present. I was expecting lame. lol.

Unpredictableness.

I'm trying really hard to stick to my good routines. However last night I got home to do Jillian and eat my healthy dinner, and had no house keys with me. It was so poetically pathetic, it was cold and rainy and I was locked out. I should make a spare key plan. I spent the evening with some people from church until after 10, which was really nice of them, it was a good time actually.

I amazed myself, got up at 6.15am and did Jillian before work. The whole thing.

My favourite song today.

Today's interesting music and video… a story song, a 6/8 time signature, and two marionettes.

The Curse by Josh Ritter.

Baby sitting.

I got a call on my bus home yesterday, to pop over and mind a baby for the evening. I was relieved to not do Jillian. Also, it was rather nice that I was needed like that. I mean, I know I'm needed to do my job at MM, and fill the roster at church. But it was more special to be needed in a spontaneous way.

I don't do much with babies and children. It was my sort of baby-sitting, because the baby cried for 10 minutes and then fell asleep, I didn't even lay eyes on her. I just watched Glee and Gypsy Wedding, and drank tea and ate chocolate.

Daily word doodles.

This is cool.

by Charles Santoso

Song: Back to you.

So this is Ingrid Michaelson's husband. His newish album has several duets, and I love duets a lot. The other thing I love in a song is tricky timing, when a song twists a time signature, mixes them up, or does anything other than straight 3s or 4s—in this case, 5/4. It's why I've been so obsessed for the last month with Punch Brothers 'Don't get married without me'.

Anyway, here is Greg Laswell singing 'Back to you' with someone called Elizabeth Ziman. He made this video himself apparently.

...
I wonder if my best
Would have ever been enough for you
And how it all went down
I'm all through putting all of that on me
...

Braces update: after appointment.

Well, the Dr was disappointed that the gap had opened up again. He is going to leave it now though since it's not hurting anybody. At least food won't get stuck in it. So we have the "wasted most of this year closing a gap that opened up in a week" result. I asked what was the plan now, and he said he is tidying up the top teeth. My next appointment is in mid January, at which time I might have an xray, which has something to do with taking the braces off. So we can probably expect the braces to come of next year some time.

Other notable features of the visit were me trying to enter the office through the wall, and having made the fatal error of putting my hair in a ponytail this morning. Ponytails just don't work for lying in a dentist chair. I'd say "rookie mistake" except that after 3 years I know to do a braid or something.

Braces update: before appointment.

Have you been wondering what's been going on? I've been avoiding the truth: since my screw was removed 5 or so weeks ago, the screw that was closing the gap, the gap has now bounced open to about 4mm. This seems to me to be a disaster, but maybe it's all part of the plan. If it is a disaster, either I'm getting a new screw to close it again, hello 6+ more months of braces, or the whole gap closing thing was always doomed to fail and has been a waste of most of this year. I go to the orthodontist in one hour to find out.

I can't help falling in love.

I ummed and ahhed about trying to find someone to see Ingrid Michaelson (I have blogged her before) when she came to Sydney. I tried the last time she came but didn't try this year. I wish I had. I don't know all her songs but I think she'd do a lovely show. I've been listening to her on youtube today, various covers and duets with her husband and stuff. This one gave me goosebumps and a few tears in my eyes, 2:40 a lovely moment.

Nails.

I'm into decorating my fingernails at the moment. This is a silver polish with a matte topcoat. I like the matte topcoat a lot, it evens out the mess a bit and feels smooth. I did it myself, bought a bunch of polishes on the weekend. It seems to be lasting better than the shop manicure from the weekend before, but I like the shop colour better. They always look so different in the bottle to on your nails. Also I think my hands are too brown and wrinkly to look really nice with nail colour. But it is still fun!

I tried the thing I saw on 'snog marry avoid' about painting your nails messy and then Washing it off your skin when you wash up or have a shower. The colour then goes right to the edge of the nails. It worked well I think.

I was a hero.

On Saturday morning I was planning to scoot over to a cafe past Rosebery for brunch but the ground was wet. So I was walking instead, and on the footpath I saw a lorikeet, sitting on the side of the path. Since it didn't fly away I thought it might be either an escaped pet or a baby. So I picked it up, and it flapped and bit me but didn't manage to fly away, I don't think it had enough proper wing feathers. As I kept walking I looked back and saw a cat come sniffing around, so I must have come along at the right moment. I put it under my cardigan to keep it quiet and walked to the vet in Kingsford which was on my way. I really hoped the vet was open because there was nothing else I could do, I'd have to put the poor thing back on the ground. Fortunately they had just opened and took the parrot, to hand on to a wildlife carer. I went on my way to brunch, feeling heroic but also parroty and gross.

Brunch was at Sonoma, off Gardeners Road behind Bourke Street Bakery. It is a sourdough bakery, and although I don't prefer sourdough myself because it is chewy and undignified to eat, the food is good and the cafe is large, and although busy and trendy you have enough personal space and the service is very good. The turkish eggs were delightful. As was the mixed juice of the day.

Then we went and got our nails done. A girly thing to do. I have decided that I will not let anyone cut my cuticles again, though. What pointless barbarism. But still, my nails are silvery and pretty. Turns out I play the piano wrong, though, because I smashed the colour off the tips of my right fingernails at church last night. Shouldn't have been playing on fingernails at all.

I also went out for a friend's 30th. It was at a pub in Surry Hills. When I left at 11pm there was a queue at the door, which is a first for me I think, being at a place that had a queue to get in when people should be going to bed. It was a nice place with good food and lots of fancy people, but too loud for me.

No clothes shopping update.

I've had two breaks: I bought at $6.50 t-shirt in Big W when I didn't pack enough shirts for a weekend away, and I bought a $3 wool jumper in an op shop on holidays, more as a souvenir really because I won't wear it in this weather.

Wardrobe consolidation.

This is such a slow process. Really, throwing things out is very hard for me but I know I feel great afterwards. So I just need a long long time to prepare for a Bin Event.

I shall remind myself of my reasons.

• I traveled for 4 weeks in 2 different climates and I lived out of a suitcase. I wondered, what am I doing with all those OTHER clothes? I'm such an over-consumer.

• I looked at the amount of space/furniture clothes storage takes up in my bedroom. I have a built in wardrobe, a chest of drawers, and a suitcase under the bed. Again, this is ridiculous if all I need is one suitcase of clothes.

• I want a "work uniform". A bunch of clothes that I can combine without much thinking required in the morning.

However, sadly this dream can not happen unless I Get Rid Of Things. Favourite trousers that are old and baggy. Threadless t-shirts (which I plan on turning into the coolest exercise shirts ever). Clothes I bought but haven't worn and feel wrong not getting value out of before I get rid of them. I'm currently giving clothes every last chance possible to be worn or turned into something else. It's almost like shopping without shopping, wearing things that I never wear.

Craftspiration.

I've been flat and tense for 3 days, as if a storm was building inside me, up to last night when I felt like crying but was too dry and had nothing to cry about anyway. Woke up today a lot relaxed, for some reason.

I've had lots of craftspiration today from the internet. Karen shared this place with me on facebook, I'd like to have a look if I'm ever around there. It's the sort of shop I'd like to have close to home, but the East is not a creative people place.

I like these fancy paint rollers. Would be a lot cheaper than wallpaper and matching upholstery fabric. They are beautiful designs as well. I wonder how hard it is to line up each stroke of the roller. The coolness of them is really in the paint applicator part of the roller so that you don't go dry as you roll along.

Thinking of buying this blouse pattern. Peter Pan collars are in at the moment, which is good, I don't think chinese collars really do much for me and that is all I could get for the last few years, so I've had my eye out for any other sort of collar at all. I'm not sure if I'm to old and big for a Peter Pan collar though. It's good to see different people sewing it and wearing it, patterns are such a risk.

Thursday.

I thought I'd blog a weekday, to balance out the lovely weekend stuff. It wasn't the quietest day as it happens. It's normally just breakfast, bus, work, lunch, work, bus, dinner, tv, junk food, bed. With possible variations of jillian, bible study, or eating out. Hence, this will be a super boring read, but I want to post in the interests of a fair representation of my life.



It's going to be a hot day apparently.

I got up at 6.30 to hang washing outside to dry. My earliest wake-up since daylight savings! High five for me.

My radio is on Eastside.

I got dressed in a dress and cardigan, had breakfast while reading a detective book, put lunch in bag, closed the curtains and windows to keep the heat out of the house today, and went to the bus stop.

I got a seat on a bus at 7.35.

I was the second one to the office. I read a psalm and prayed a bit.

I started work, reading emails and stuff.

Martyn arrived and I asked if he was a JP because he looks like one. He is!

Martyn certified a copy of my ID. Today I am posting in my tax bill cheque and a form to consolidate super (requiring certified ID, to move $13.44 worth of super.)

My neck is stiff.

The Frenchman is in the office today. He is the one who tipped me off about a new pillow for my neck cricks.

I'm working on making bible studies into pdfs people can download, A4 size, US letter, and iPad size.
It's copy and paste stuff.

I'm listening to Willy Mason on Spotify.

I'm wearing socks that I took to work because my feet get cold in the aircon.

It is a colleague's birthday, so S brought in cake for afternoon tea. It looks like a kid's cake with smarties on top.

I ate a big morning tea because bored: some cashews, a banana, 2 milk coffee biscuits and a few m&ms.

I posted my letters across the street to see if it was hot, it wasn't hot.

I had a salad for lunch.

We had birthday cake at 2pm, including trying to sing Happy Birthday to the tune Ride of the Valkyries.

We did weekly office prayer time.

At 3.30 M asked me why I hadn't cleaned my teeth yet, because he sets his watch by my 2pm tooth brushing. So I cleaned my teeth.

Cake coma. Listening to new Paul Kelly album on Spotify. Sleepy.

4.30, someone found champagne in the fridge and we drank it for the birthday girl.

5pm I went home.

I got in my washing.

A friend came over to do Jillian with me, she's a beginner so we did a bit over half. It's our fortnightly catch-up.

Shower, dinner + lunch prep, tv, dessert, crochet, flatmate chat, cross stitch, bed at 10pm.

Rai on piano.

My weekend, reading out loud.

Oh, how I love to relive my weekend on a Monday by typing it into my blog. I cherry-pick all the parts that sound most productive or creative, for my own pleasure. If my blog is of no interest to you, at least I can tell myself that I have a very nice life.

On Saturday afternoon I met Becky in the park and we read a book, taking turns to read out loud, for about 2 hours. I also crocheted. We read the first 4 chapters of The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett. It's a YA book, so it moves quickly and is light and quirky. We are both pretty good readers. I would like to start a club for reading out loud, but only people who are good readers would be allowed to read. Anyone could come and listen.

 

On Sunday I watched Insiders and Inside Business. I avoid the news all week, and then watch some politely moderated civilised discussion. I find it very restful, like reading the newspaper. I did some oil painting (finished one and decided another one was a failure to throw out) and some cross stitch while listening to the Hard Magic audiobook. I walked to church.

It wasn't all perfect. I ate too much junkfood. It's been getting too bready and junky for a couple of weeks. My stomach doesn't like it. I am going repent and eat kinder to my body. Fruit and salad and vegetables.