Surely someone somewhere is cataloging all the worlds? I found this one near Daiso in Sydney. This is a world I could spend some serious time in when it is summer.
But it is decidedly NOT summer here at the moment. After a long streak of utterly gorgeous blue sky days with mostly warm weather – certainly warm for May! – the temperature has plummeted this week and we got over 100mm of rain in the space of 24 hours.
I sent out a plea for Beerenberg to my South Australian family members. My Aunt was headed our way because she is filling in at work for someone who took a spill from their motorbike and broke many bones. They will be off work for at least 6 weeks.
When we went to pick my aunt up at the airport, something happened to me. Back when I worked in Adelaide my day would start by catching the train into town and then picking up a Hudsons Coffee on my way to the call centre. I’d have another one for morning tea, some days! I always really loved their coffee and I have missed it enormously, though they update me via my Facebook feed.
For the most part in NSW they can be found in hospitals and airports. While it is fantastic that those in the airports and hospitals can get a great cup of coffee, these are not usually places that are easy to visit if you are not picking someone up at the airport or visiting someone in the hospital.
When I walked into the arrivals hall at Terminal 3 and saw there was a small Hudsons kiosk.. I completely forgot about everything and made a beeline to the counter to order all the coffee. Plus I got this lovely keep cup which despite appearances is not glass. This is a Marble Mocha which was my standard order back in the day. It was as good as I remember.
It was a very South Australian day as there was a 2 litre flagon of sauce in the suitcase for us. Now we can sausage roll again without fear of running out.
I’ve been taking on a new role at my work just lately as someone is going on holidays and I need to cover for them. It has been a steep learning curve for me. So posts over the next month or so might be a bit light in content even though there are a lot of things I want to post I might not have the time to write. Sometimes you might just get a photo.
I’ve been doing some art classes during winter. I did succulent wreath making – I think River would have LOVED that class – I found you one South Australian option here and here is a how to do it yourself guide! – and playing with polymer clay.
I struggled with the wreath making to be honest, but the polymer clay class was totally my thing. It was five hours long but it felt like five minutes. I could have kept going another five hours without even blinking. I was so completely absorbed in what I was doing, I forgot everything around me and focused in. Sometimes you just need a mental circuit breaker and this was perfect for me in the midst of learning all this new stuff..
I hope you are all well and happy. I may not have as much time as I would like for blog reading and commenting in August, but I will try to keep up as much as I can.
For every post you get from me, there are at least 1200 unwritten, unsaid things that happen which I do not share with you. I cannot share my every thought with you, ain’t nobody got time for that. :) Sometimes they might be things I mean to share but never get around to writing a post about. This photo above was from Eat Street the first time we went and I could have sworn I wrote a post about it but when I searched for it, I could not find it.
I tried Kombucha and I liked it. I meant to tell you, but alas I thought I had and somehow I forgot.
Last Wednesdays True Story Time was written in January but I put off posting it. I wasn’t sure I ever would post it. It was a very long post and still I did not mention how that particular kind of car stalked me for months afterwards, and it still does now. I can’t help but notice them with that identifiable rear tail light stack.
I was seeing them everywhere. I could not go for a short drive without 5 passing me. They even showed up in my Facebook feed, either involved in accidents and pictured via the local police or for sale, and then the kicker was spotting one in a movie I was watching.
For some reason my Aspie skills decided I needed to be aware of all Holden Captivas in the Shoalhaven and I had no idea there were so many, but like the Volkswagen Polo I can now tell you where many of them regularly park, where those I see nearby actually live, and my Aspie radar lets me know if I have seen that particular one before or not.
Then there are the things I don’t share because they are private, like work related stuff. I was at work recently and I took a photo. The Other Half saw it and said you’re not going to post that, are you? Of course not. I have carefully drawn a line between my work life and this blog. It is partly for my own safety, and partly because while I find my own work fascinating and enjoyable, I sincerely doubt anyone else would. As much as I might like to share these things, I simply will not.
There are things I don’t share, like local art classes, because they end up on Facebook via another means and that could make me somewhat identifiable. As much as I want to tell you, I won’t.
I do have many stories of past work life I could share, and a couple written as drafts but not posted. Maybe one day. I would like to talk about how my Aspergers has affected my work life. I have been unpacking that very carefully with my Qualified Adult for some time now.
I don’t talk about my Qualified Adult here. She is a psychologist, and wonderful. I have been seeing her for some years now, sometimes we take a break when things are going well, sometimes I need to go back and check in when things start to Go Not Well.
I don’t talk about my political or religious views here. They are my views and I keep them to myself. Sometimes I might mention things in a comment on someone else’s post, but the reality is my general view of politicians is they aren’t much use. We do have a local guy here who gets shiznit done, and I have a lot of time for him. But the rest of them I don’t have a lot of time for.
I don’t talk about my friends or family very much. I don’t recall if I have mentioned here that my nephew is now training to be a pilot at University. I don’t remember if I mentioned my parents will soon retire.
I don’t often talk about visiting my doctor or – as happened last week – the dentist. 12 years ago I had a root canal done after an amalgam filling put in by the School Dentist in my teenage years cracked the tooth around it like an eggshell. It is a common thing to happen apparently. This past week I have finally got around to organising the restoration.
Well, a blackcurrant fruit pastille made it necessary, as it chose to take a chunk of my broken tooth with it as a surprise. As I sit here I have a temporary crown and I was told to be careful with it. I am wondering if a diet of protein gelato might not be my best course of action, for the next two weeks.
He did tell me that my teeth are doing very well. I was shocked and quite pleased not to receive the usual telling off, for not brushing correctly or long enough or in circles, or whatever. I will have to go back in two weeks for a permanent crown and some cleaning.
It does make me wonder though, who decided that the Blackcurrant fruit pastille should be available in packets on their own. What about the other flavours? Are they not worthy of their own packet? Was the red one not quite awesome enough? That flavour would have been my pick for a separate packet. These are the kind of thoughts I would normally keep firmly inside my own mind, or remark to The Other Half about, instead of write here. Thank my interior editor, folks! ;)
Sometimes I might not tell you about something because I don’t have photos to go with it. Several recipes sit and wait for a time when I remember to take photos as I make that thing, including my INCREDIBLE chocolate, peanut butter and coconut crunch slice which is almost like a chocolate crackle only I like to pretend it is more healthy thanks to coconut oil.
Maybe you will have to just settle for photos of the completed item, if you can do that I will post it. But also with a lot of recipes I fly by the seat of my pants and don’t have set amounts of ingredients. I don’t share every photo that I take because 95% of them are of the cats and cute as they might be, they get an occasional Friday post.
I have not told you about the current chicken kerfuffle at bedtimes because I don’t want to take flash photos of the girls at night and I have been hoping The Other Half would set up the motion camera and I could take images from that, and maybe even show you a video, but he has been busy installing new perches in an attempt to make everyone go inside the coop of their own accord at dark time, and we have had to employ The Scary Stick to force the uncooperative inside and shut the door until they settle.
I don’t tell you about every occasion of eating out or traveling, though you do get a fair bit of our day trips and this past weekend we went up to Sydney for an overnight which will come to you likely next week.
I have 60+ posts still in drafts which may or may not make it to being posted. I have a number of possible drafts floating around in my skull brain. Will they ever make it to your eyes? I don’t know.
This post was partly inspired by some posts by Sooze at Her Indoors, Him Outdoors.
I would like to take a moment to thank those of you who read here regularly. I don’t know how many of you there are and how many of my posts you read, so if you want to take a moment to delurk on this post and say hi, I would appreciate it, especially if you have a blog I can read.
READING: All of the Agatha Christie mysteries in the order of detective and when they were written. I’ve completed the 12 books of Miss Marple and am just a few books away from completing the 45 books of Hercule Poirot.
WATCHING: Every Sunday night 13th Street presently is airing one episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot with David Suchet. I am not sure whether I enjoy them or hate watch them. A few of the episodes take well known stories and changes them for unknown and seemingly zero reasons at all which makes me side eye this show so hard. Some of the episodes are true to the original story and some of them feature quite the cast – Murder on the Orient Express was one of the better ones with Jessica Chastain.
HATING: myself for getting sucked into Married at First Sight this year. This is truly trash television, it is so bad but I can’t look away. Thank the deities it finished last week and I can “reclaim my time“.
COOKING: I made a version of Chicken Cordon Bleu which was epic. I coat the chicken in Dijon mustard and pan fried, then towards the end I placed Beerenberg Cheeseboard Chutney spread underneath some very sharp cheddar that was left over from a cheese platter we had in February which needed to be used up. On the top I placed freshly cut smoked ham from Aldi.
LOVING: This Cordelia Street dress from TVSN, but #yobn2018 means I cannot buy it. There are some dresses which are the essence of me put into a dress and this is one of them. It is sold out in my size now. I feel like this is a great price and I probably would have bought it, if not for my current challenge.
CREATING: More choc-honeycomb no-bake cheesecakes.
WORKING: out very hard with the workout I have nicknamed “Yvette Hell” – I have chopped it into bits with Handbrake, so I can repeat the bits I most love until I master them. I just started on the Jenny Ford Hawaii workout last week and with any step workout it takes time for me to get the steps right.
MASTERING: There are some super challenging combination steps in my workout videos and every time I get one right I feel like I am winning at working out. Coordination has never been my strongest thing but I am getting better at it every day. I do enjoy these workouts.
MOURNING: The loss of my afternoon coffee mug. I was taking it out of the dishwasher and it hit another mug, and the game was over. I could go and buy another one from Few and Far for around $7, but we have plenty of other mugs I can use, and #yobn2018.
PLAYING: Diablo 2 with The Other Half. I am old school when it comes to games and this is one of my favourites. I am not a fan of the newer games. I prefer to play the older games that I know.
CLEANING: out the freezer in preparation for autumn and winter.
FREEZING: all the mushrooms. That has to be the best thing I ever learned to do.
Yes, it has been a while – not because I have nothing to say, but because I have far too much to say and not enough time and energy to say it.. :)
Recently we did a redesign of The Mudflats. I was very nervous about this however it turned out awesomely.
There has been much kayaking, many summer type outings, a lot of cooking and chores done. We went on holidays back to Twin Waters at Maroochydore. We went to Adelaide for a flying visit to go to the birthday of a very good friend.
My nephews have been to visit a couple of times, and we went to visit them. We took them to Laser Skirmish which was awesome fun. I used to go to the laser skirmish in Adelaide when I was probly mid teens and they had an overnight lock in session, you would stay there overnight and play laser skirmish the whole time.
Serverguy dropped in from Japan, and got hisself married to a gorgeous and awesome lady. They visited us here and we spent several days “toodling” as my mother likes to call it, eg visiting local beaches, markets, little towns with shops, winerys. The other half is sadly not cut out for toodling, it exhausted him!
While in Sydney we took them to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and managed to get charged $32 for parking, for a total of maybe 20 minutes. The place we parked was I believe the Opera House parking lot. They had a sign saying flat rate parking for $15 when we entered, and yet when we left the machine charged us $32. It seems the flat rate was for the night before. Well how about getting rid of the signs then, geniuses?
Although I will say I don’t mind paying it because the 20 minutes we spent there was somewhat magical. There was a dj playing in the bar right next to where we ended up and the music was awesome. I kinda wish we’d stayed for longer.
Now the plan is for me to get a car. In some ways I like this plan, it will be handy for doing my local errands and I think I will try to get out for a beach walk each day. The best beach to walk on is quite a few kms away from here even though we back onto the water, that water doesn’t feature any beaches.
In some ways I do not like this plan – we have one garage and I’m going to have to learn to reverse into it. For this reason I am trying to get the smallest car imaginable. The other question is, do I want a manual or an automatic? I can’t quite decide.
The other half found a game on Wii that I have become quite addicted to. It is called Rune Factory Frontier.
We have had some visits from lizards recently and the cats have been encountering them in the garage as a surprise. I am not certain whether they like this surprise or are scared by it. They fluff up for hours afterwards and jump at anything touching them.
There is a new icecream shop not far from here which has gelati and it is awesome. For anyone reading this who is actually in Sydney, you want to go to this website – Pure Gelato. They deliver! And they have a massive range of flavours. And they have a learn to make gelato night. I want to go to that! ;)
Tonight we are off to Sydney to pick up some family who will be visiting for a few days. We’ve done the Sydney/Home run quite a bit lately.
Oh, and here is something *incredible*. Last weekend the nephews were visiting, and the oldest nephew had just got a new pair of skate shoes. Very pretty they were also. I liked them a lot, and I thought just for fun I would try them on. THEY FREAKING FIT ME. He is maybe 14? And I have size 10/11 womens feet, which is like a 8/9 mens. Jeebus!
It seems to me that with all the earthquakes, volcanoes, and the fact that my nephew now has feet the same size as me, that the end of the world is nigh. Prepare yourselves for eternity, or whatever they reckon happens next! ;)
Hai!
Where did I vanish to? It has been a busy couple weeks here. I’ve been helping get the new I Heart The Mudflats site up and going, reading books, baking, aromatherapy and menu planning. ;)
Doesn’t the site look cool? ;)
Each morning I wake with a lime and spearmint blend of oils, and as the day goes on I add patchouli and things like grapefruit, tangerine, mandarin or lemongrass.
I have been baking cheesecake brownies which are to die for – and biscuits of various kinds.
I have been planning the menu to the point that we are shopping once every two weeks at Aldi with a very small brands we can’t quite let go of shop at Woolworths. I am actually surprised at my talent and skill of planning – I only need to go and buy fresh bread and milk in between shops. ;)
Oh, I did not mention my little i-phone games addiction, did I? Nope. Excellent escape! ;)
Much news. where would I begin?
I could tell you about –
– my sister and nephews visiting, and a shopping spree of enormous proportions.
– being obsessed by the US elections.
– watching the episodes of Dexter Season 3.
– craizy live chats during the debates.
– learning a huge amount more about Simple Machines Forums thanks to The Mudflats.
– losing over 5 kilos thanks to Sean Hannity and his unpleasantness inspiring me to get on the exercise bike instead of throwing things around.
– sitting for over an hour with two bearded lizards on me.
– sooky kitties trying to sit on me with my laptop on my lap.
– endless washing chores.
– warm weather returning yay!
– daylight saving yay!
– The Other Half’s new Iphone.
– watching a new show called In Treatment on Showcase.
– getting a new frypan.
And much more. But instead let me tell you about something wonderful that happened and it is possibly safe enough now to mention it without Jinxing it. My Dad got a nasty flu / viral infection thing. He was away from work for a week, and so unwell that he was unable to smoke for all that time, and it seems that he has finally managed to give up smoking for good.
The same thing happened to me back in 2003 when I got pneumonia, I was so ill with it that the nasty withdrawals happened while I was completely out of my senses, delirious and sweating and unable to sleep lying down and demanding Garlic Prawns at 4am. When I was feeling better, I tried to smoke but just was not able to. Yay! It has been nearly 5 years (will be 5 years in December) and I have kicked the habit for good.
Oh, and before I go.. you can join us today at for a live chat during the Presidential Election at The Mudflats, click on Live Chat now available 24/7 right here in the top right hand corner). We’re using Mibbit, which has a built in translation option. I have been using it to remember me some Norwegian, which is one of the most beautiful languages on the planet in my opinion.
A few bits and pieces from the web and my home.
On a recent blog topic, Sephy has posted Where Did WordPress Go Wrong?
The Other Half has been doing Yoga on the Wii Fit – and loving it. There is no possible way that he would have tried Yoga without the Wii Fit. Isn’t technology wonderful?
I love the Wii Fit myself – in particular the step aerobics.
This last couple of weeks I’ve been on a bit of an upside down schedule. I’ve been doing a lot of work and staying up later than usual. I’m typing this at 12:49am on Thursday morning and as I am typing it, I have these little headphones on.
This is the Blueant bluetooth wireless headset. I am completely wireless. The little transmitter is plugged into the home stereo amplifier and I am able to go pretty much anywhere in the house and still hear the sound. In fact you can also plug in a microphone and use it with Skype if you want to. I can put on a dvd, the radio, cds, music, tv, whatever I like. Mostly I watch.. err.. listen to tv. Right now it is Law and Order.
What I’ve learnt is there is a lot more to the sound of most shows than you usually pick up just listening to it through speakers. You can hear so much more with the headset.
This way I don’t miss any of the show – I can go to the kitchen and make a snack (or cookies!) – grab a glass of water – go to the bathroom – if I need to run back to the computer to do something I can, plus the other half isn’t kept awake with my “noisy” shows. Yep, by that he means The View. Cos he doesn’t like all those women talking over each other.
I recommend everyone gets a bluetooth headset thingy. :)
I’m not really feeling the most inspired today. We went shopping, cleaned out the fridge – a job that makes me quite antagonistic and snarky, and soon I’m going to go watch a dvd with the other half. It’s my pick today, I pick out 5 movies I’d like to see from the shelf, and then he chooses one for us to watch.
Tomorrow I am going to have a major blog commenting day, the other half will be at work so I’m setting myself a target of 100 blogs to say something on, and that’s actually type something, too. I usually comment on as many as I can but I ignore the livejournals as I don’t have a login and it won’t let you comment, and I also steer well clear of myspace.
I have the new Rockstar:Supernova CD, I really like it.