Just going back a few months....

to Anzac Day.

I started my blog after Anzac Day so i didnt report on what we got up to. We attended the Cronulla service as it was closer for my sister to meet us at (dont even ask what time we had to get up!)

This note attached to a simple posy of flowers has stayed with me, i feel the sadness and the longing in the words each time i look at this photo. Im feeling greatful tonight.

Catch Up!

Well, its been a while. I apologise, i have been stricken with a rather bad cold, but i am back! Almost 100% and ready to catch you all up in the happennings of my little life. I'll do it in point form, it will be easier. Let pick up from Saturday 20th:

*Got my delivery of Tuppaware goodies from my party (my mother in law bought me some biscuit containers as my birthday present which i was thrilled to receive) and started to notice i was getting a sore throat.

*Head to Bunnings to collect our chosen door paint. Change mind, I start looking at orange and red shades, husband gets annoyed with me and we agree upn a browny-purply colour called 'coffee house'. Get home, look at the colour again and decide to rename the colour 'choclate yogo'. IK! Apply first coat and hate it.

*Caught up with some friends over dinner at Little Italy at Blacktown. I had high expectations and was kind of let down. By the service mainly. And i thought it a little pricey for pasta at Blacktown. Wont return.

Sunday 21st
*Woke up to the worst cold in history. I think it may even be worse than man flu (NO! i hear you all say), aching back, temp of 38.1, stuffed head. Feel. Really. Awful.

*This has now ended any chance of any baking i had planned, retire to lounge and stay there while the husband collects dinner and makes a pretty good nurse.

*Husband continues to paint door. Still hate it.

Monday 22nd
*No work, couldnt possibly make the drive into Parramatta in one piece. Back to bed to watch infomercials on the "Sham-WOW" and consider ordering 1 (would have been 2, because i would have gotten 1 for free!) Did you know it holds 12 times it weight in water!

Tuesday 23rd
*Back to work because the thought of sitting in a medical centre's dirty waiting room to declare my symptoms to my GP so he could tell me to go home and rest and keep up my fluids for the sake of a medical certificate is too much to bear (this work place policy really grinds my gears, having 2 consecutive days off for having a common cold should be mandatory and shouldnt be accompanied by a medical certificate. Maybe if its an employee who constantly takes time off, but i have a mountain of sick leave i have accumulated over the 9 years, yes 9!, i have been with the company. Doesnt that count for anything? ok rant over)

Wednesday 24th
*Witness the demise of the NSW origin team. Shame, shame, shame. In bed before full time.

Thursday 25th
*Do you know i couldnt even tell you what i did.... Can tell you i still hate my door.

*May have passed on my cold to the Husband, oops.

Friday 26th
*Wake to the news that Farrah Fawcett has lost her battle with cancer.
*Reverse out of my driveway and slam the brakes when i am told Michael Jackson has passed away. What?
*TGIF! But for me and another lady i work with its a late finish (10pm) as we try to get our office in order for another financial year. This is re-occur for many Friday nights to come....

Saturday 27th
*Sleep in, oh lovelly sleep. Skip house work. Get stuck into baking! Karen Martinis salted peanuts and chocolate chip biscuits. (I now use the unsalted peanutes as husband couldnt warm to the salt and chocolate combo)

Tools of the trade - its all done in the food processor!

Creaming the butter and sugars

Blitz!

Add 1 egg, cinnamon, honey and vanilla

Blitz! And again with oats and flour

Mix with heaps of choc chips

And because the husband wanted some with and some without nuts, make separate batches.

Try not to eat them all at once!

I also managed to make a cheesecake, its still in the fridge. Untouched. I'm tempted to dig in, but i will wait for tonight.

*Meet my brother in law for Thai (last week was cancelled so it was now this week). It was delish! We let him order as he knew what was what and we dined on Pad Thai, Beef and veg with Chilli Jam and a red curry chicken thing that i cant remember the name of. It was wonderful. I can recommend Saute in Phillip St Parramatta.

*While there i suggested we go to Max Brenner after for hot chocolate. Then i looked over the road and spotted a new cafe called The Chocoalte Room. Hmm decisions. We decide to walk to Max's, but spot the massive que and walk back to The Chocolate Room. Oh. My. God. I will have to go back and remember to take my camera! The little chocolates are like mini pieces of art. The hot chocolate is rich and decadent and so many varieties! Must return soon!

That brings us to today. Another sleep in, yay! Sun is shining so more laundry is being done and my mammoth pile of ironing just wont go away, even wishing with all my might, it wont disapear. Damn. Think of me as i tackle my most hated part of house work, oh how i hate ironing!

Pop Quiz

After reading Jo's from http://youarenearlythere-joanna.blogspot.com/ answers on her pop quiz, i though i would answer them too.

What do you have in your handbag right now?
Wallet, keys, phone, lip gloss, some pens, my last shopping list. The usual.

What was it about your husband that attracted you to him... and what keeps you with him?
He makes me laugh, we laugh often, which i love. I couldn't live without him so i keep him around.

Who was the last person you received a text from, and what did it say?
My friend L, after i told her i couldnt bring around her tupperware order.

When was the last time you travelled on public transport?
I caught the bus after doing some errands for work. There was a sign in the bus on "cough etiquette". Shudder.

What's the best party you've ever been to?
My 21st. It was a fancy dress and we were all so silly, it was a great night.

What makes you angry?
People throwing cigarette butts out the window or a car, on the street, in a garden bed. It makes my blood boil.

When were you happiest?
In the days after our wedding. We hadn't lived together before so it was all very exciting being all grown up and in charge. Also i was happy having my life back after 2 years of wedding planning!

Who was the last person to make you cry?
My husband on my birthday when he suprised my with my present.

What item would you never throw out?
My wedding dress.

What's your biggest indulgence?
Food.

What keeps you awake at night?
Car hoons that think the speed hump near our house doubles as the starting grid for their "lets see how fast we can go down a suburban street" drags.

Which famous person is your all-time greatest crush?
Probably Jon Bon Jovi.

Yesterday driving to work....

it started to rain, while the sun was out. Not only did that make it very glarey, it also gave us peak hour ants a pretty rainbow to look at. Pitty about the servo in the foreground though.



And not to leave out the drive home, this is the usual view, lots of brake lights!

Today is Friday. To say this week has flown is an understatement. I will be back tomorrow with our meal plan, havn't had a chance to put one together yet. Tonight we are going to a Thai restaurant. I've not tried Thai before (gasp! i know!) I'm told its very good though.

We dont have anything planned this weekend, actually i plan to do a bit of baking so i might be back with pics of my creations.....

What are your weekend plans?

Hope you all have a great day

DC xoxox

Mid-week baking

Choc chip cookies, and they are gooooooooooooooood!

Weekend wonderful/27 candles

2 blogs entries for the price of 1 today. bargain!

Weekend wonderful
The niece came over on saturday for our little slumber party (which i was hoping included a full night slumber from the wee one) aka operation "dont go home with too many bruises from hitting your head on the coffee table".

Im happy to report there were no bruises, plenty of giggles and i even managed to get a sleep in til 8am! (oh boy sister wasnt happy with that! cheeky lady usually rises at 6.30 for her! oops)

She is a pretty easy kid to look after. She was happy running laps around through the kitchen, down the hallway back through the lounge room and around again, all without hitting many obstacles in her way. Pretty clever actually. Here are some pics to show her off

Playing "round and round the garden" with her nan aka the reinforcement.

Then on Sunday her mum and dad, and my mum and dad came over for an early birthday celebration lunch. I made the lamb rack again and it was soooooo much better this time around. We had it with a really nice and easy potato bake and a warm mushroom salad. Oh and the sticky date pudding for desert/cake.

27 Candles
Yesterday was my birthday. I got a sleep in by husband not going to work early which was wonderful. I had been very firm in my request for no presents this year, i dont neet/want anything, and i wasnt doing the normal chick thing and then pout when no present was given. I really meant it.

But to my absolute delight, husband had gone above and beyond (by that i mean he drove all the way to Miranda! hey, its not close to us!) to buy me a beautiful pair of earings. They are lovely. Im glad he ignores me sometimes. hehehehe.

I also got the happy little bird Pandora charm from my sister and mum is taking us to see Chicago the musical (not Peter Cetera).

And last night we went out for dinner. Us "westies" are lacking in restaurant choices out here. Unless you like a yeehaa steak house, or KFC you're pretty much out of options. Sure there is Church St in Parramatta that has many restaurants to choose from, but they are all overpriced and last time i tried to enjoy a meal in Church St, someone decided it would be funny to scare the crap out of all the patrons by throwing a setting of fire crackers out their car window. OK, so after all that we decided to try good ol' Black Stump at Wentworthville.

The restuarant is pretty new (used to be Chillis) and is really nicely deocrated (no pics, left the camera in the car, too cold to go back and get it). We both ordered the rib eye on the bone and it was delicious. So tender and just perfect. But not more perfect that desert! Ah my favourite course. I had the waffles and husband had this icecream concoction thing. Both were really nice, but husbands was the best, because it had peanut butter through it. Ah my 2 favourite things; icecream and peanut butter, only better when combined.

Promise when we go back i will take pics

DC xoxoxox

p!nk

Yesterday was a long day.

Now i think about it, i was awake for 20 hours. Yikes, no wonder i was tired today.

Husband and I wake at 6am so it was an early start, then eventually, bed was 2am. I walked in the door at 1am, after a hot shower (OMG, do you know how cold it was early this morning!) my head hit the pillow at 1.30am, but i tossed and turned and replayed all my favourite concert bits in my head till about 2am. Yawn!

I spent the day with my sister and niece before we headed into the city to see p!nk.

I will be honest, i dont own a p!nk CD. Actually i havn't bought music in years. Not that i dont like music, i love music, but i tend to have my favourites already at home so it must be a great new release for me to want to buy it.

I think i might need to buy a p!nk CD now. Oh. My. God.

She is an amazing performer, if you have the chance to go, go. Seriously, you wont regret it, its fabulous. Our seats werent too bad, considering we were lucky to even get seats at all.

2 new shows have been anounced for late August at Acer Arena (thank God, closer to home!) that my sister and i would love to take mum to. I think she'd love it.

Anyway here are some pics.

For a sell out crowd at a p!nk concert, it was the most boring crowd ever. On your feet people!

Can you see that silver slippery dip in the middle of the stage? So cool!

Im on the left, sister on the right

She sang 'Sober' whilst on a trapeze, whilst being flipped and dropped and caught by the male trapeze guy. I, on the other hand would just be screaming my head off.

So tomorrow, is another day of recycled office air, phones ringing and paper to be pushed. The end is in sight. And it looks good!

Enjoy your Friday!

DC xoxo

Happy Days!

I love long weekends, sadly there wont be another in NSW until October, but thats ok, just means we have to make the most of our spare time until then.

This weekend has startly superbly, and is set to end that way to because it is exactly 1 week till i turn 27.

So yesterday went swimmingly at the Tupaware party. I didnt have many people here (but you wouldnt know by the total of the orders!), I scored some freebies because i was the host and because my guests bought so much and all the food i made went down a treat! Check out the finished mars bar slice

And before i go any further, last friday was 'create new meal plan' day. So here it is.

Oh and Friday next week is supposed to read "homemade meat pies w/mash". Silly me!

This week is going to be a cracker. I can feel it.

*Today the husband and I went to Westfields (husband is awesome to go shopping with, he is so patient) and i managed to find 2 pairs of new work shoes, both on sale! And at the moment I have a pot of red lentil soup on the stove that smells divine.

*Tomorrow we are back at work, but thats ok, because

*Wednesday I am having off and spending the day with my sister and niece before we go and see P!nk (which isnt before we have dinner somewhere in China Town, yay!)

*Thursday, Friday will be work again, but

*Saturday mum and I are going to the Growers Market at Castle Hill to find some goodies, then my niece is coming to spend the weekend with us! YAY!

*Sunday all my family are coming over for a double birthday celebration for Mum and I so there will be a yummy lunch

*Monday - my birthday!

Hopefuly it turns out as good as it is in my head!

Wishing you all a wonderful 4 days until the next weekend!

DC

xoxox

You win some, you lose some

Today i am hosting a Tupaware party for a family member who is starting her own party-type-business-hosting-gig.

So with that comes the task of catering for the event, and because i rarely do anything by halves when it comes to cooking and entertaining (read: always makes way too much food, and usually about 8 different dishes) i was really determined to plan this one right.

Its such cold weather lately (being winter and all) that i am really concious about serving my guests something warm, not some ribbon sandwiches straight from the fridge. I would have loved to have made some little cups of pumpkin soup, but i thought they would go cold if people didnt have them straight away. So i stuck to simple finger food that i could easily prepare and leave at room tempreature. Genius! So the menu for today will be:

*Spinach, ricotta and mushroom tarts - we have a bigger version of these for dinner sometimes so i know the recipe well, I served with a tomato and pine nut salad, for this event i am making miniature ones, sans tomato salad

*Tomato and basil bruschetta - simple and yummy

*Corn fritters topped with avacado salsa - i LOVE corn fritters so this was an easy choice.

*i cheated and bought a packet of yum cha - only because i needed to get a bottle of sweet chilli sauce for the above salsa and because we usually dont have it at home, i wanted to serve it with something so i wouldnt waste it.

And because i cant help myself :

*Mars bar slice

*Tea cake - was supposed to be Julie from Master Chef's Lemon Diva cupcakes but i ran out of normal sized cupcake cake cases so i thought i would be smart and use the small ones, and just put them on a baking tray. I thought wrong. This is what i found in the oven 10 minutes after i put them in

So that explains why i am serving tea cake bought by mum from the bakery on her way over. So that makes the husband officially the better baker of this house (for this week, anyway).

So that was my lose. Bloody cupcakes!

But, my win was my lovely mars bar slice, so easy, wanna see?

1. Melt these over low heat

2. Mix with this

Like so

3. Press into a slice tin

4. Cover with milk chocolate

Then cut them into squares or rectangle, what ever you want and try not to eat them all at once!

Oh, and if you are wondering why i am blogging at 4.30am, the husband has gone fishing with some of the other Tupaware husbands and i couldnt sleep with so many things to do today, so i'm up, blogging and about to do some ironing.

Have a lovely Sunday, oh and Monday, because its a long weekend! YAY!

xoxox

Who knew $5 could bring so much joy.....

and help to make a bad day better?

oh, and thats not a ginormous doughnut, its a small coffee!

and, my day got even better when i walked in the house last night to the smell of baking. In my house. And i just got home. Who could be baking? The husband! Oh, i was so excited. Ok, so it was only a Better Crocker packet mix, but the house smelt amazing, he washed the dishes, AND started dinner too! And i thought i was the domestic one.

Whenever i bake cakes, they always end up sinking, i dont know why, but just they do. So i was uber impressed with the husbands effort (and so was he, bless him)

So its Friday, YIPEE! I'm not celebrating early because i still need to get through today, which for us is a big deadline day at work. But i will get through today minus doughnuts, cant promise minus the coffee, sorry!

Have a wonderful Friday!

DC

xoxox

My little lamb.....rack

I love lamb. Who doesnt?

Actually a few people i know dont, apparantly it has a strong flavour. It does if you think about it, but oh man, i just love lamb!

Saturday night on the meal plan read: macadamia crusted lamb rack with warm potato and bean salad.

This is what was served up (it was also a trial run for mine and my Mums birthday lunch in a few weeks)

The lamb was delicious. Ok so the crust looks a bit like a polenta crust, but i will add some fresh herbs next time and maybe not use the cornflake bread crumbs i used without realising (it did make it nice and crunchy though!) and yes, thats 5 cutlets you can count. Dont judge me, i love lamb.

And the warm potato salad, waaaaaaaaaaay to vinegar-y for me.