Family Vacay, Anyone?

So. After the last time I invited y’all over to spend some time at my holiday house, I decided to make a few changes. I really enjoyed everyones company, but I gotta admit, I really got sick of hearing a certain scratchy voice call out ‘Pauliieeeeeeeeeeeee!’ constantly. Wouldn’t have been so bad, except it was punctuated with a sickly sweet ‘Maa-arrrrrrrrrkkkk!’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still keeping my leaf house. But next time there is a get together, I will be hosting at my palm house instead.

That way everyone can have their own space.

Don’t worry, I have shark nets.

And I still have the Help.

He knows how to cook, this one. So I’m keeping him.

My villa is the one furthest out on the water, cos I need my privacy.

Everyone has their own spa bath, I got real sick of sharing last time.

And their own lounge too, since SOME people don’t like playing the All-In portion of pictionary. They can go to their own lounge and be lame.

And before you start asking, yes, there is a TV in that cupboard there, for anyone who might freak if they don’t watch Spicks & Specks.

You guys are allowed to come to my villa for sunset drinks on the balcony. But then you have to leave.

I will admit, though, sometimes I get a bit over the whole sun/sand/salt thing. Mucks up my hair. Thats when I cruise back to my forest villa. It’s actually where the help stay, but cos I’m pretty grounded and a totally awesome boss n stuffs, I don’t mind slumming it with them every now n then. But they still hafta deliver me cocktails.

See that fresh water in that pool there? Don’t splash, that shit don’t just fall from the sky you know. If you keep splashing you’re gonna hafta bring a bottle of replacement water with you when you arrive.

And since there is only so much I can handle of you guys fawning over me and carrying on about how much ya love me n stuffs (just trying to scam your way into my will, I’m sure of it), I have this restaurant sorted out so we don’t have to share meal times n stuff.

Hey look dad, a boat!

This chick’s job is just to stick fresh flowers in the water of whatever villa I happen to be on my way to.

I think these chicks might be twins or something, I dunno hey. I don’t pay them to chat.

In fact, this is starting to sound more and more like my kind of family vacay!

A-Z of Me

I came across this post tonight on another blog and thought it would be fun, and a nice little time waster for myself. I would love to see some other people’s answers, too. If you do this, tag me or comment to me or something so I can check it out!

 

A- Make a list of 5 things that are in reach: My mobile phone (or cell for you yanks :p), TV remote, 2 sofa cushions stuffed behind my back, laptop charger

B- What is your favourite holiday? Don’t know if I could pick just one, I have great memories from every one. But one recent trip to spend time with my oldest sister in Vegas definitely stands out.

C- What is your fashion style? I don’t think I have a ‘style’, I mostly wear jeans and tops, or shorts/skirts in summer. I don’t wear much makeup unless I’m going out, and any day I bother to brush my hair is ‘schmick’ day, haha. I wish I could afford to have a style, though! It would be inspired by the inside of Penny’s apartment on Big Bang. It’s so colorful and pretty!

D- Whats your occupation? Right now I’m an at home mumma. Before that I was a destitute student/waitress, before that an international playgirl and before that I worked in admin.

E- What do you hear right now? The ceiling fan making an annoying click, and background music from a movie on TV

F- Who was the last person you hugged? K, who I just put back to sleep. Before that, M, when I put him to sleep.

G- What random song just popped into your head just now? Regina Spektor’s cover of ‘Real Love’ by The Beatles. It’s so beautiful, it’s running on The Biggest Loser ads, which has the potential to kill the song for me 😦

H- What did you do today? Laundry, vacuuming, dishes, cleaned my bedroom, took the boys for a swim, chatted to my mom briefly on skype. Pretty much what I do every day.

I- What was the last text message you received? From one of my best mates, Scotty: ‘I wonder if deaf schizophrenic people still hear voices in their head?’ Hang on he just replied to my reply (‘bahaha wtf where do u come up with this shit!’): ‘Haha a mate sent it to me I laughed so hard, sent it to heaps of people got funny as replies! Yep they still hear voices but they sound funny like deaf people talk, n nah they dont, they just see furious hand signals haha’

J- What websites do you always visit when you go online? CrackBook (of course), GalaDarling, FatMumSlim, Daily Nibbles, PostSecret, Letters of Note, my email account.

K- What is your next big, planned purchase? New front tyres for the Meh-Mobile. Exciting, ya?

L- If you could afford to go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Um, everywhere!! If I had to pick one, it would be to visit my sisters in Hawaii. If it had to be a new somewhere, I think I would go somewhere like the Maldives or Rome or New York, somewhere really luxe and expensive 😀

M- Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Hopefully I will have a degree under my belt, working at a job I love. M will be 13 and K will be 6, so probably still here in Currumbin because M wants to go to PBC High School.

N- Where’s your tattoo/where do you want one? On my left shoulder, it covers my whole shoulder blade.

O- What are you doing this weekend? My friend Jo may possibly be coming to stay, so depending on the weather, probably beaching it with the kiddies.

P- If you could play any instrument, which one would it be? Hmm, never really thought about this, although the other day I momentarily wished I could play guitar.

Q- Whats the one thing you need the most right now? Some money! Ha ha. So I could spend it on tyres, school shoes, uniforms, and a car service. Exciting.

R- Are you a creeper? I have no idea! Like, as in on FB? No, couldn’t be bothered. I’m a blog creeper, I guess.

S- What is your dream job? I would love to be a travel writer or presenter. Doesn’t really gel with my family and lifestyle though, I couldn’t leave the boys constantly. But I would love to be paid to travel.

T- What’s the last good movie you saw? Hmm… Not sure? I saw Happy Feet 2 a few weeks ago, which was not as good as the first. I guess one recent movie I have seen that I enjoyed was watching Bridesmaids with my little sister last year, we laughed our asses off.

U- What’s your favourite quote? Not sure that I have a favourite, but one I read last week has stuck with me: ‘Live in the present and make it so damn beautiful that it will be worth remembering’ and another one that is sort of similar that I do like but not sure if I would say is my favourite: ‘And above all, be a love letter to the universe’.

V- What is your favourite color? I don’t really have a favourite color, but most of my house is sort of done in a red/yellow/deep brownish maroon color. Starting to think it’s time for a change up though, and if I do change up, was thinking maybe tan/blue or tan/green.. Hmm.. What do you think?

W- Give us 3 styling tips that work for you: Haha. Styling. Ok: Shower every day, Wear deoderant, brush ya teeth.

X- What do you love to do when it is drizzling? It would be my idea of heaven to kick back with a good book and some yummy food and maybe a movie after that, but more than likely I’m kid wrangling.

Y- What inspires you? I love GalaDarling, she is very inspiring, so is Sarah Wilson. Steve Pavlina is also great, he always makes me think (He recently posted on FB: If your website attracts anything less than 1000 hits a day, then my brown rice article gains more traffic than your entire page’ haha). If you want to be inspired, go to YouTube and Look up ‘Seth Godin Purple Cow Moment’. That’s not the actual name of the video but that will fo’sho find it for you.

Z- Why the hell isn’t there a Z? Damn, maybe I skipped one! Oh well. Ya get that.

 

Regina Spektor Live JTV XL Real Love

 

Time to celebrate!! Sorta kinda not really but you know…

It is official, I and my humble little bloggy blogness has had over 1000 views. Wowzers. Thats kind of cray-cray.

When I started to  write this, back in May of this year, I thought it would mostly be family checking it out, with the odd random person coming across it by accident. Well, it appears not. Apparently I talk about the kind of stuff people Google. And then Google in all it’s kindness and generosity says to them ‘Hey, I know a someone who knows a something about the thingy you’re asking me about. Why don’t you go check her out. Cos she knows stuff, and clearly she is the shiznit.’ And so they mosey on over and check out the picture of moving boxes, or my rock hand, and sometimes even my off-the-hook hair braids pics. And it is those people, not you, family, but the mosey-ers, who have pushed me up, up and beyond the 1000 mark. Like, seriously. For real. Not joking. Over a thousand.

And just in case any of you random mosey-ers are reading this here celebration post, and blog themselves, and are right this very second thinking to yourself ‘1000, pffft, I did that in my first week’, well you can just shut it. Because this started out as a place for me to vent and complain about most things in my life that irritate me, from an anonymous platform (which I realised as soon as I sent the link to my family was kinda redundant). And it turns out that my rants and raves and occasional picture and recipe are actually kind of interesting to some people. So there.

I do have a place in society. It’s hunched over a Vaio, late at night, when everyone else is asleep and there is nothing better on TV. Lap it up peeps. Cos I am in demand.

 

To celebrate this auspicious event…

(omg my drunken neighbours just fell over something cos I just heard a way loud crash, damn, why does all the interesting stuff happen late at night when everyone is asleep and I can’t share)

… I am going to post this fairly awesome cookie recipe that I came across on a Real Blog. It’s called Fat Mum Slim and is written by a lady in sydney who I have now stolen recipes such as pancakes from, and added them to my pretty cookbook a certain someone made me for christmas a few years back. I should totes take pics of that cookbook, it would make a nice post.

Anyways… They don’t really have a name so I’ll just call them EveryCookies, and I will explain why as I get to the interesting part in the recipe. The recipe made me about 65 cookies, but I did roll them kinda big.

 

Ingredients:

500g butter

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 can sweetened condensed milk

5 cups self raising flour (yes thats right, 5 cups)

 

Method:

Cream together the butter, sugar and condensed milk. Now, I have quite a large bowl I use for making batters and dough etc. I recommend you also use a pretty huge one. I also used a wooden spoon and elbow grease to cream. If you can, use a mixer. Or get someone else to do it.

Sift the flour in and mix it really well.

Now for the interesting bit. What makes these EveryCookies? I can hear you asking. Well, this is where you throw in whatever you want to the mix. Since it’s so big, I divided it in to 3 and made some choc chip, some snickerdoodles, and some jam drops. Honestly, use your imagination. Try fruit, nuts or lollies. Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim has some great suggestions.

Now roll small teaspoonfuls into balls, and place on a greased or lined tray.

Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 14 mins or til golden.

I have 2 fairly large cookie trays for baking, and I did 2 batches, so 4 trays all up, approx 16 in each tray.

OK so I have a confession to make… clearly I like to bake a little now and then… and yet somehow I still managed to burn possibly about 30 of my EveryCookies (not that it stopped me from eating them, burnt bottoms and all). I blame it squarely on the baby. But I also suggest you keep an eye on the oven temp and time. You know your own oven, and you should be able to tell if it needs adjusting.

I did take photo’s of the huge mound aka Mt Cookie-vius but its 1.28am and I’m not uploading them now. But if you make them, link me your photos.

Go check out Fat Mum Slim since I found them there!

 

I also wanted to mention the ghost in my house with questionable taste, but that will have to wait til next time…

 

Nighty night everybody. Happy 1000th!!

I Kill (Eat) Cupcakes for Breakfast!

Today was a beautiful day, after a few days of stormy skies, lightning, thunder, and quick but heavy downpours. We decided to enjoy it by spending the morning at the creek.

 

The eerie color of the sky during the storm

 

Unfortunately, so did everyone else in Currumbin. The place was packed. Luckily though, I managed to get a carpark reasonably close to the waterfront, although it was not the best part of the creek for a dip. Better for people who are kayaking or paddleboarding. At one point I counted 11 paddleboards and 6 kayaks! Oh well. It’s a beautiful creek, and it’s nice that everyone is able to enjoy it too.

Chillaxin at the creek

 

It's COLDD!

When we got home, one of the kids who lives nearby came over looking for M, so he disappeared outside to play. K was having a nap, so I decided to make some Vanilla Cupcakes. I have had a hankering to make cupcakes for a week or so, for some reason, and decided that it was the perfect day to do so.

Halfway through making them, I decided to mix it up a bit and make them lemon-vanilla. Easy enough. They turned out beautifully light, fluffy, and just a subtle hint of lemon, which is just the way I like it. I was really happy with them.

If you make them, let me know how they turn out for you!

 

Lemon-Vanilla Cupcakes

(well actually this is the recipe for vanilla cupcakes, but I popped in when I added the lemon etc)

Ingredients:

125g butter, softened

150g (2/3 cup) caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

188g (1 1/4 cup) self-raising flour

125g (1/5 cup) milk

 

Icing:

1 1/4 cup icing sugar

1 Tbspn butter

1 Tbspn boiling water

 

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c, and line a 12 cup muffin tray with liners.

Beat butter, sugar and vanilla together in a large bowl. If using electric mixer, start on low then turn up to high after a minute. I did it the old fashioned way, with elbow grease. Keep mixing until it gets light and creamy.

 

 

Add one egg to the bowl and continue to mix for a minute longer, then add the other egg.

Sift in about 1/2 the flour (around 2/3 cup) over the butter mix, and stir with a spoon or on low, until just incorporated.

Add about half the milk (around 1/4 cup) and mix in gently, until just combined. At this point, the mix will probably look a wee bit funky.

 

How funky is your chicken, how funky is your chicken, how loose is your goose? Your goose is totally loose!

 

Repeat with the remaining flour and milk. Do not overmix the batter.

It was at this point I decided to make mine lemon, so I quickly grated in the rind of the 2/3rds of a lemon I had left over, after making Renovale some pancakes yesterday.

Divide the batter between the liners. I used my 1/4 cup scoop, which turned out to be quite the perfect size.

 

 

Bake for about 20 mins, or until they are a light golden color, and the tops spring back. Obvs everyone know the rules to the knife/toothpick test. This is no different.

 

 

Allow them to cool a little before transferring to a wire cooling rack, then leave them to finish cooling before icing them.

Icing:

Mix together the glace ingredients. I added a squeeze of about 1/4 of a lemon, just a normal wedge. If the icing starts to set while you are still mixing or icing, add a few drops of boiled water to make it workable again.

Now eat those suckers!!

 

 

 

After I finished icing them, M wandereed back inside, so he and I both ate one. The he went back out to play and reappeared with 3 other friends. Since the cupcakes were still sitting on the bench (mocking me, daring me to eat another. I’m sure of it.), I offered them all a cupcake. Then after dinner M and I had one for dessert. I know, I’m a fat shit. Swear jar. They were just so good!

The Big 3-0

This is my 30th post!

To celebrate, I’m putting up a picture of my new car. Cos I can.

I picked it up today. Yay! It’s actually the same color as the one in the pic. And when the girl at QLD Transport was showing me the difference between the license plates, she let me pick the one that said MEH!!!! So now I’m going to be driving the MEH-Mobile.

Hair today…

I have been thinking about cutting my hair or changing up the hairstyle of late… Not that there is much of a style, as much as a… failure of humanity. I have pretty longish (reaching the bottom half of my back) brown hair. It has this evil wave that is neither proper curly nor proper straight, but somewhere in between. When it wants to play nice it just behaves itself and goes curly (with the help of a lot of product, hair dryer, whip and chair), but it never ever wants to play it straight. Even when I use my super old, super ancient, super…ceded flat iron, it gets this gross, flat, pressed look around the top and towards the ends looks like it is literally waiting for me to lock my front door and then *twang* it’s curly and partying. Of course I could probably solve this particular issue if I had the help of my friend Mr GHD but my budget does not stretch that far (although I will just mention that I know where to buy them for $150, all colors, and my birthday is in October in case anyone was wondering. Just sayin.).

Anyway.

So yeah, I was sort of half toying with the idea of cutting it short but then I’m not really sure I actually want short hair as much as I want a change. And short hair is a commitment for someone who has not had short hair since… I was about 12.

So then I figure I really just need to get out of the ponytail/half-ponytail-half-bun rut. Which is so so true. It’s all I ever do to my hair. Not that the 8 month old or the 8-year-old even notice. What do they care as long as they get fed and watered and played with, right?

So I thought I would present to you all some hair porn. Well. Not really hair porn because if I was going for hair porn then I would probably have all sorts of exciting, far out, serious-work-required-to-maintain hairstyles. Consider this more like… … … Hair home movies. hahahaha.

My hair is sort of like this...

 

OK I lie it's more like this

 

I would love to work out how to do this - it's called a waterfall braid.

 

This looks like a cute 'going out for dinner or lunch or something' type style, but actually I only like it from one side.

 

I actually like this one too even though it is totally not really me at all. Wish I could figure out how to do it.

 

Maybe I just need a dash of color.. Love this but I'm guessing it won't work as well on dark hair.

 

Ah well. Who am I kidding. Even if I got one of these pretty hairstyles going it only lasts a day, with the exception of the tip dyed hair… And then the next day, you know that mess is gonna be in a pony or a half-pony-half-bun.

 

Oh yeah. And White Wings Creamies? Get away from me. Who the hell invited you in? Get out of my house. You are making serious trouble, encouraging me to eat you. And your friends…

 

I might go sneak one in before I go to bed….

5 Things…

5 Things I NEED (ok I guess the word I should have used here is WANT) to buy

–          For the house

More plastic containers – all of my ones are missing their mates – lids ran away with the spoon…

3M hooks – the kind that don’t rip the paint off the wall when you pull them off, so I can hang all my bloody paintings already.

Door snakes, cos it is freezing in here right now.

Cutlery (or else I can just get up off my ass and find the cutlery that is still hiding out in some box somewhere)…

Shower hangers – you know, the kind that you hang on the shower head, that you pile up all of your shampoo, conditioner, and soap in.

–          For the kids

Winter clothes because I seem to have given birth to weeds not children, given the rate they grow at.

A plastic climbing gym for the yard so K has something fun to crawl over. When he starts crawling.

Batteries for all the stupid musical toys, Playstation & Xbox controllers etc, that have all gone flat.

Some dishes for baby food. Or maybe I will raid my mom’s stuff when she goes to raid her own stuff for winter clothes.

Some sort of toy organizing system for K’s room… well he has some big plastic tubs for his toys to go inside; maybe what I want is a kid who keeps his toys organized lol.

–          For meeee

Some new shoes – sandals, boots, runners, I’m not picky.

A new winter coat, even though I really love my big grey wooly cardy/shawl type thingy and wear it everywheeeeere.

Some new tee’s, trackies, and jammies. I get so sick of wearing what feels like the same things over and over again. I only have 2-3 winter jam-jams, and I wear them every night. Summer is ok cos I just wear a big tee or a singlet, but in winter I suddenly realize I don’t have enough warm jammies! Or socks!

Some new sunnies! My last pair broke over a month ago and I have been too tied up with bills to get a new pair 😦

Some new books! Have not bought a new book in… years. Or maybe just an e-reader?? 😀

 

What do you desperately need or want at the moment?

 

Stuff I want to make, but for whatever reason I’m not.

There are so many projects that I want to do, but I honestly don’t have the money for the materials, space to do the project, time on my own to devote to it, or skills to get the thing done. I have started and never finished so many projects in the past that I don’t even bother anymore. I can’t sew, and realised that when I tried to make some patchwork cushions out of vintage kimono material. I suck at woodwork, which became apparent to me when I tried to fix a little folding stool. And I can’t weld and lets just leave that one there… Maybe I’ll just make a little garden my next project? Because I really need to do something. Soon. As much as I like it, I’m sick of watching Ellen and The View every day.

There are heaps of cute little thingies I want to make and have all for myself.

Like this flokati rug, except it looks like it takes ages? But cheap to make! and pretty easy, if a bit repetitive. I would pick a combination of different colors, maybe a peach/pink/lemony sort of sunrise type set, although for some reason I am actually drawn to the grey one she has made.

I want these magnets, except I would go a little further and make them out of newspaper cuttings, photos, origami paper, wrapping paper, almost anything! It would be so cute. But I do really like her idea of just using Pantone chips.

I also want one of these as a hair clip, but I’m not really into the mustard colored one she is wearing. I concede that the mustard thing looks good on some people but I’m not really willing to test it out. It’s freaking mustard! But I wouldn’t mind it in almost any other color. Maybe a nice deep purple or an emerald or something? with a pretty jewelled button in the center. Or a diamante sparkly silvery blackish one. I dunno. I just want one.

And then when I have one of them I want someone to come and plait my hair like thiisssss.

And I want to make nearly every single one of these suitcase ideas, especially the chair, and the vanity is cute too. The chair looks so different, it would be cool in a shabby chic kind of room, not that any room in my house is shabby chic. It’s… eclectic…

And I want an upholstered headboard 😦 I don’t like the fabric she has chosen but I guess it would look nice in a little boys bedroom. I would like to be able to sit up in bed and read a book without 14 pillows piled up behind my head and back. And this one actually looks really really easy – all you need is some mdf or chipboard, the fabric, batting, and a wood stapler.

I want these sushi pillows, and these kimono pillows. I love sushi, and I think these are so fun looking. M loves sushi, so maybe he could have some avocado pillows. That’s his favorite roll. The kimono pillows look so comfy, and I want to throw myself down on that pile. You can almost see that they have this homely, sort of soft, safe feeling. Does that make sense?

I want one of these doily lamp shades, I think a black one would look really different, quite edgy. Normally a black shade cover might be too dark, but since it is a doily and has heaps of light peeking out through the holes, it shouldn’t be so dark, right?

And my very small collection of jewellery is so tangled, knotted, and in different places (some in little dishes and boxes on my dresser, some on my bathroom vanity, the rest still in boxes. Yeah. Still haven’t touched the stupid garage.) So I want one of these jewellery display frames.

Oh for Pete’s sake I could go on all day making a list of things I want but couldn’t be bothered making. So. Can you make me one? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

 

Who’s winning now, Biatch!

OMG I’m watching Winners and Losers and it is frigging riveting! Maybe it’s the fact that I now spend my days watching Yo Gabba Gabba, C-Beebies and The Octonauts, but it is so good to have a decent Aussie show to watch, that is not totally cheezy. Other than Rush and East West 101, there are hardly any Aussie dramas I like. The options are all hospital dramas or police dramas, or about a bunch of people who live in a close proximity to each other… *coughcoughneiiiiiiiiiiighbouuuuuuuuurscoughcough*

For those of you who don’t know the show, it’s about a group of girls who were best friends but drifted apart after high school. They reunite after their reunion, and on a whim, buy a lottery ticket. And win. The show follows the changes in their lives after becoming millionaires. It’s a fun show, with some interesting themes explored.

 

 The episode tonight was about a car crash, and followed each characters point of view during the aftermath.

I really like the girl who plays Sophie Wong, or So Wong, as the bitchy girls from school used to call her. She is so funny in the Dare ad, and I always giggle when I remember it.

So what do you guys watch?

Home is…

I thought I would throw a little get-together.. But I don’t really have room for it here at my house.

So I will have it at my weekend house.

You are invited. But you must bring cocktail fixings.

 

If you get lost trying to find it..

It’s the one thats shaped like a leaf.

 

When you come down the driveway, I want you to realise that this place is for chillaxin. Thats why there are hammocks at my door.

 

 

Pardon? You wanna go swimming? Thats cool. My pool sort of looks like a stem. I meant to do that.

So it’s meant to be green.

 

When we play Quelf we are gonna need a pretty big table.

 

 

This is my bedroom.

 

And this is where I get my massages.

 

If you have trouble getting here, I can arrange transport for you.

 

So I’ll see you next weekend, yeah?