Ah Lydia!

I got a very exciting text this morning, from a girl at work:

YOU WERE RIGHT!!!!!!!!

We have been speculating about what modern George Wickham would pull on modern Lydia Bennet which would be as scandalous and financially beneficial as an elopement, a few weeks ago I thought it would be a sex tape, but then I went off the idea after Gigi told her story... But looks like Wickham thought he needed to up the evil to squeeze money out of Darcy. A website was leaked last night, lydiabennettapes, with a count down. So there you go, everything falls into place. WAtch it in real time on social media. I love that I'm right! Because it's Austen.

Sparkling in the mountains.

We celebrated the day after Australia Day with sparklers, and we had AMAZING results with the long-exposure sparkler writing thing. This was our second attempt, and yes, I did my letter backwards, but I did it right the first time, which should count for something. Anyway this is probably the best one of these things I've ever seen, characterful spelling and everything. Long weekends are hooray!

Walking Kosciusko.

We took the chair lift on Saturday morning, and did the walk to the top and back. It's 13km total, and 1 hr 50 min each way, if you stop a few times for photos and asthma and so on.

It's such a stunning landscape. Like the bleak bits of Middle Earth where a bunch of orcs on wargs attack you. Tiny flowers. Lots of rocks. The path is often a metal grill walkway, like a rusty ribbon.

I re-enacted my top of a mountain pose.

We got stickers.

The weather was nice, and I had to carry all my warm layers for no reason because even with a strong wind it was not cold. But on the way back, a storm cam down the mountain behind us. Just as we got to the chair lift, it started raining and they turned the lift off for a good 45 minutes because of the storm. So we drank the highest hot chocolates in Australia while we waited.

The chair lift is really long, very high, and a lot of fun. It's amazingly serene, floating silently through the air. So, we stayed on and went around again (yes, that was my idea). Why not, it's a very expensive all day ticket. Get your fun while you can.

We went into jindabyne for dinner, at a very expensive and strange italian restaurant. Watched Captain America on DVD. Went to church on Sunday. On Sunday afternoon I did a good couple of hours on my cross stitch, played Bananagrams, and went for a walk around the property... I saw deer, and whacked thistles with a stick and cut my hand.

On Monday my carload left at 7, which was ok because I thought at least I'll have a whole afternoon back in Sydney to go for a swim or do my grocery shopping and stuff. Such plans were doomed, as it turned out we drove into worse and worse weather as we came north, and then there was a lost car keys delay, so I got home after 3pm in the end, and had to make do with putting a load of washing on, having a hot shower and eating a chiko roll out of the freezer.

I really would like to do walks like this more often.

Flying south for summer.

That's a poetic, birdlike way of saying I'm going (by car) down to Thredbo for the long weekend. An unconventional way to spend a summer long weekend, finding a cold place. I'm hoping it's nice, cos I organised it myself—what an achievement! I've got a mish-mash of friends and acquaintances and people I don't know well coming down… more of a walking party than a group of my BFFs… which I think will be nice. I'm a bit worried about the weather. But it will be an escape, anyway. I hope to take nice pictures. This is me, 5 years ago, when I went with some other friends (and I thought it would be fun to come back, but I didn't realise it took me 5 years to get around to it).

My tea.

This is my favourite tea right now. Green chai. And the Scarborough Fair tea bags I got from Summer School are very nice. You can't get a big range of SF tea at the supermarket unfortunately, only a couple of them.

Listening.

I love my audible membership. I used to get one credit a month for $15, but after a year I had bought all the books that were more than $15 that I needed, so cancelled. Then I went back on "Light Membership" which is $9.95 a year, no monthly $15 credits, just to buy audiobooks cheaper than on itunes, which I think works better for me. And there is a sale every few months. It can be a selected range all for $5 or $10, or it can be something really cool like a big % off anything on your wishlist. So I often wait for a sale and then get a few at a time. I don't buy physical books much now, probably 1 or 2 Christian ones a year that I get halfway through, and any new Pratchett books go on my Christmas list. But last year I bought 9 audiobooks, plus a couple of freebies. I've just started the year with 5 for $6.95 each, and saved about $100. This will last a while!

I am clearly a girl into self-improvement and adventure.

The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Monster Hunter International
The Count of Monte Cristo
Unstuff Your Life: Kick the Clutter Habit and Completely Organize Your Life for Good

Walking.

I did Jillian once this week, and then had three days of stiffness. It's been a bit hot to do it, as well. So I've been going for an evening walk instead, after dinner. Just like mum and dad. And then 10 minutes of pilates stretching DVD. My right leg is so much tighter than my left leg.

I decided I needed a walking route just for evening walks, nothing that was like walking to work or church or the shops or the beach, the well-worn A to B routes. So I walk to Bunnings. There is a big hill, and a whole street of shops I've never been to, which is apparently North Randwick. I always thought it was Clovelly, but upon closer inspection, no, it's just more of Randwick, off in the middle of nowhere. I'm a proper explorer. There are different restaurants there and everything.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

At Summer School we sang a new Matt Redman song called '10,000 Reasons'. As we sang the first chorus I thought "this is really good, I should look this up when I get home". That night, I realised that I wouldn't have to look it up, because "bless the Lord oh my soul, oh-oh-oh my soul" was thoroughly stuck in my head and the heads of all my housemates, for the rest of the week, and this week too*. It's that good a song, you almost start to hate it. It'll be the next 'How Great is Our God'. The tune is catchy, and doesn't have too high a range, and the lyrics are fine. The chorus is anthemic and the verses are good too—don't we all enjoy a death scene in the last verse? Yes, we do. I'm going to try the chords out at home and see if it works without a big sound, but I think it's a given. We're all going to love this song, and also get so sick of this song.


*I've found that I can conceal this from people: when I catch myself humming it I quickly turn it into either 'The Lion's Roar' by First Aid Kit or 'And So It Goes' by Billy Joel. Actually, 'The Lion's Roar' has the exact same melodic hook. What are the chances. So I just sing "and the lion's roar, the li-i-i-on's roar" instead and off I go, ear-worm short-circuited.

Dumplings.

I keep frozen dumplings and beans around because they are a very quick Asian meal to steam or boil or microwave up. My friend Caroline gave me a dumpling making lesson last year, and I also bought a dumpling folder at bec's garage sale, so I finally decided to have some dumpling fun last night, mainly because there was NOTHING at all on tv (apart from snog marry avoid, obviously) and I needed food anyway.

So I bought the pasty wrappers, a pack of 30 for $1.70, and 500g pork mince for $6, and a packet of frozen spinach for $2, and also some chives in a tube, cos I like pork and chive dumplings. It's a bit fancy.

The important thing is squeezing ALL the water out of the defrosted spinach. Then mix it with the raw mince, flavour it, and put a teaspoon in each wrapper. The dumpling folder was too small for the amount of filling I wanted, it kept breaking them, so I just folded them myself. Maybe I over filled them, the proof will be in the cooking.

Cost about 30c per dumpling. I'm sure that could be cheaper. Also, if I had more wrappers and filled them less, might be better, I'll find out soon. Interestingly all the shop dumplings weigh exactly 20 grams each. Exactly. Mine weigh 23 grams, average. Well, I find that interesting anyway. I recently got kitchen scales and I am having fun with them.

Here are both sorts of dumplings, ready to freeze.

Here is the leftover mixture. Not that pretty, but you can see what's going on. Caroline says you can put anything in a dumpling, as long as you squeeze all the water out of it. Any kind of mince or seafood, any kind of soft vegetables and green stuff. I'd probably add grated carrot and things next time.

Back to life. Hello 2013.

I went to cms summer school last week. Very good, vision enlarging, mission focusing week of preaching and sessions. Also played a fair bit of settlers of catan. Housemates were lovely. Weather was warm and unrainy. It was very good.

Came back to pass my flatmate like a ship in the night, as she left for mission, so although I have to go back to work and regular routine, I get to live alone. It means, mainly, sleeping with my bedroom door open. Crazy stuff. I spent sunday morning having a really good house clean... I have one week to wallow in a clean house.

I did 4 circuits of jillian last night, and am a little sore today. Legs could have been worse though. I used the 1kg weights so my arms are pretty stiff too. Since the new year I've been getting wheezy from exercise, including walking up the KCC hill, so 4 circuits was my limit anyway. I'm not sure why sudden breathing problems. Hopefully it goes away soon.

I've decided my new year good resolution is to read more, and watch tv less. I'm going to only watch the shows I like, not repeats of Big Bang theory. We'll see if I manage to FINISH any of the books I've started on my summer holiday. And read the bible more consistently.

Love this time of year, having a bit of extra time and energy to play with and get some good habits started.

New Year.

This year I decided that instead of being awake for midnight I would start the first day of the year well. In fact, I was woken up at midnight anyway, so that was nice, I got both. On Tuesday morning, I went for a swim. The ladies pool, even on a busy day, still feels so relaxing to me. I usually swim for 20 minutes and then feel like I'm done, but yesterday I kept going to the steps then thinking "oh, I'll just do some back-floating" then "I'll just swim 4 more laps" and so on, and stayed in the water for about an hour. It was too nice to get out. Then I read Counterfeit Gods for half an hour while I dried off. After walking home, I felt healthy and just perfectly sunned, not a bit burned. It was just amazing weather. Hung out the washing and then spent the afternoon staying cool watching Once Upon a Time on dvd with my flatmate. Bought myself a mango to have with dinner. Ah, mangos. I wish they weren't $3 each. Did some cross stitch too. I've made a mistake and everything is one stitch out, but it's leaves, so it doesn't matter. It's just extra confusing.

What I also love about this time of year is the no traffic. LOVE.