Sunday 26 March 2017

Renovations #2

You guys, I'm drowning in paperwork.  I was an administration assistant when I was still a contributing member of society, so I love a form.  Love forms, love ticking boxes.  

But oh my wordy lordy are there a lot of boxes to tick and forms to fill out to move to New Zealand.  And each form has a supplementary form, and some forms have questions that I don't know the answers to, like, as a random example, the date purchased, price in NZD and origin of all the alcohol in our booze cupboard.  Actually I've solved that one as I will be drinking all that alcohol in the next couple of weeks.  There's no form needed for that.

It's only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about the renovations but oh boy are things coming together now!  I can really picture us living here.  Which is good, because we'll be there in LESS THAN THREE WEEKS OH MY GOD.

Bedrooms

The wardrobes are all in now I think.  B was insistent that we not put doors on the front which I'm pretty sure is going to be a stupid idea but whatever I have forms to fill out and no time to argue.  All I can think is MOTHS.  Moths eating all my clothes.

In the girls' rooms we'll probably use the robes for toys, books, etc, and use their dressers to keep clothes in.  Or we will be putting doors on everything in about a month's time.


Bathroom

Look!  Look!  Look at the shiny bathroom!  Just got the heated towel rail to be installed and we are d.o.n.e in here.  Before you think we're all up ourselves with a heated towel rail, please recall that this is New Zealand.  It rains, like, every day.  Unless we want to dry ourselves with mould spores, a heated towel rail is pretty much essential.


Laundry

I don't think I shared any photos of the laundry last time as there wasn't much to show, but it's going to be so good.  Look at all the bench space!  And on the opposite wall there's a narrow little cupboard to store all my laundry soap and stuff in.  I do love doing the washing and I'm going to extra double love it in this big awesome laundry.


Kitchen/Living

Just awaiting the carpet in the living room, not much to see here...


But the kitchen, now this is where I get quite excited!!!!  I love it.  I can picture my girls sitting up at that big bench.  I can picture myself standing at the sink looking out that window at the little house paddock.  Do you know how many times I have dreamt of something exactly like this for our family?




Pouring rain, sun shining, blowing a gale, fire crackling, muddy gum boots at the door, little girls running up and down the hall, bikes, ponies, flannelette sheets, hydrangeas, roses, snow on the mountain, it's going to be so good.

So good, you guys.

Ok I'll stop now.







Sunday 19 March 2017

The last of the summer snaps

Well, summer is done.  Yes, ok, it officially ended several weeks ago but our autumn break only arrived last week, so now it's really over.  That's the last truly hot summer we'll have for some time and I can't say I'll miss it.

That being said, I think the New Zealand winter that we'll head straight into might be a bit of a shock to my system.  I'm from the Adelaide Hills originally and winters there can certainly get very cold - with frosts and everything - but it's been a long time since I've lived through one.  I've really been spoiled in Perth where we have about 2.5 months of winter TOPS, and the sun still shines most of those days.

One person who I think will really relish the cooler climate is the poor cat.  Poor black cat living in Perth.

This is pretty much how he spends October to March
The garden has come through this summer amazingly well.  B kept up the watering with gay abandon, knowing that we had to get things properly established before we leave.  It's all responded in kind and even plants we thought were d.o.n.e have marshalled themselves for a comeback.

Exhibit A below being this bromeliad which was a gift ages ago from an old colleague of mine.  It's been various states of miserable until we transplanted it into this spot and behold!  A flower!  A pretty cool looking flower too.


Exhibit B is my fiddle-leaf fig, the hipster's plant of choice circa 2015.  Longterm readers with elephantine memories will recall from my old blog that I found this plant as a very sad specimen squashed amongst the $7 flowers at the local supermarket.  It had about four very dusty leaves.  I watered it and wiped its leaves and it grew and grew!  

But then we had a few days' hot windy weather a couple of months ago and its leaves started to droop and die back.  I cut off the dead and dying foliage and B was insistent that it should be re-potted.  It looked like it was on the way out anyway so I reluctantly agreed to give it a go and see what happened.


And behold!  New leaves!  I never doubted you, B!



Because I am super on-trend at all times (see: fiddle-leaf fig above), I also recently started a succulent pot.  Not entirely sure why as we won't be here to see it to fruition but the pot was sitting there empty so hey.  Taa-daa.


My kids generally keep me indoors during sunset doing fun things like bath time and reading Spot books, so I usually only see the best sunsets on Facebook and Instagram.  Somehow the other day, though, I happened to be outside while this was going on.  This was actually taken looking east.

One day my girls will be able to take care of their own ablutions and think how many sunsets I'll soak in then!


Found a recipe for brioche bread in Gourmet Traveller magazine.  If we're friends on Instagram you will have already seen this.  Six eggs and 300g butter.  It smells like a croissant.  I'm pretty happy with how it came out considering that I have about zero bread-baking experience.  It was slightly underdone but totally delicious.


Baby A turns six months old next week this week today.  She's had a very cranky and dribbly phase recently so might be teething but really who knows.  Luckily she's chubby and delicious or I might have been tempted to put her out for the rubbish collection once or twice.




Less than one month until we're in New Zealand!!





Tuesday 14 March 2017

Salted Chocolate Cookies

You get a bonus post this week because I just had to share this recipe!

Original recipe from taste.com.au

We can't take any food, opened or otherwise, with us to New Zealand.  That means over the next few weeks we'll be doing our best to run down and use up our pantry stocks.

The good news is that the moving company will donate any unopened food to charity.  But I keep all my baking supplies in glass jars which means it allllll needs to be used up.  This recipe enabled me to finish off the last of my superior cooking chocolate.  These cookies also happen to be delicious, and I'm a big fan of any recipe that doesn't require an electric mixer because: lazy.  I can never be bothered to drag the thing out of the cupboard.

Salted Chocolate Cookies




Ingredients
275g 70% dark chocolate, chopped (I only had 180g so I also used the last of my dark chocolate drops which added up to about 220g I think)
100g milk chocolate, chopped (I didn't use any milk chocolate because YUCK)
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup cocoa (I always use dutch)
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar (I had none so used the last of my brown sugar and raw caster sugar)
180g salted butter
3 eggs, lightly whisked
2 tsp salt flakes

Method
Preheat oven to 180C or 160C fan-forced.  Line two large baking trays with baking paper.

Melt butter and 100g dark chocolate and 50g milk chocolate (I obviously just used 150g dark) in a medium saucepan over low heat.  Set aside for 10 min to cool slightly.

Meanwhile, sift flour and cocoa into a large bowl.  Stir in sugar.  Add chocolate mixture and eggs and stir to combine.  Stir through remaining chopped chocolate.  Roll slightly heaped tablespoons of mixture into balls.  Place on the prepared tray 5cm apart.  Slightly flatten balls with fingers.  I didn't leave my chocolate mixture to cool for quite 10 min so my dough was quite loose and wet.  I didn't bother to flatten them because they spread on their own.  Bake for 11 min.  Sprinkle with salt.  I was quite cautious with the salt and you can barely taste it.  You could leave it off altogether and they would still be delicious.  Bake for another 1 min.  Cool on trays for 5 min then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Cookies will keep in an airtight container in a cool dark place for up to one week.  Trust me, they won't last that long.

Oh, nearly forgot to mention, yield is about 35 cookies.










Monday 6 March 2017

5:2 Diet

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Since my youngest child is now nearing six months old, and is no longer breastfeeding, I'm running out of excuses to put off losing the baby weight.  I'm not especially hung up about the number on the scale, it's more about how clothes fit, the general level of horror I feel at my reflection in shop windows, and so on.

Also it's good to, you know, set a positive example to the kids re health and fitness and YAWN.

Anyway,  I'd heard about the 5:2 diet, which is where you eat normally - but sensibly - for five days of the week and fast on the remaining two non-consecutive days.  By "fast", I mean that you restrict calorie consumption to 500 or less.

It appealed to me for numerous reasons.  Firstly, I am hopeless at exerting willpower when it comes to food, and as soon as I decide I'm going to "eat healthy" I immediately crave pasta and cheese and hot chips and so I eat salad for two meals and then go nuts on some massive cheesy nuggets blowout feast cos, you know, I've been dieting (cheesy nuggets being my kryptonite food).  But denying myself for only one day at a time?  Well, that I can do.

Secondly, it apparently offers many health benefits besides weight loss.

And third, it's simple.  It costs nothing to do.  It requires no time-consuming food planning and preparation.  In fact, I get so much more stuff done on my fast days because I'm not wasting time eating.  PLUS, I'm not a big drinker but 5:2 means that I automatically have two alcohol-free days per week.  Tick!

My husband B and I have only been doing it for a few weeks but already I'm a total convert.  I'll keep it up for as long as I can.  We missed a fast day a couple of weeks ago due to J's birthday, but whatever.  Sometimes I go over my calorie allowance on fast day, no big deal.  Most interestingly though, recently we had a big indulgent weekend of eating and drinking, and I was actually looking forward to fast day Monday.  For a diet-hater like me that is really revolutionary stuff.


So far, my strategy on fast day is to put off eating for as long as possible because once I do, I'll be starving.  That said, I still have my usual full fat flat white every morning (I don't have sugar in my coffee anyway) because I MUST HAVE MY COFFEE.  It's only 120 of my calories and it's totally worth it.  Then I drink water all day long, as much as possible.

I'm usually hungriest at about 1 or 2pm, and then it tapers off over the course of the afternoon until I'm quite looking forward to dinner, but not desperate.  

We have a smallish dinner of salad or veg with egg, always an egg!, and that's it.  Normal service resumes the following morning when you think I'd wake up starving but here's the thing.  I wake up less hungry than I do on a normal day.  Then usually I spend the day still in "fast mode" and I'm very conscious of anything I put in my mouth (insert usual joke here).


Now that I've got the hang of it I'm working up to a true fast day - zero or as few calories as possible. I suspect that that would actually be easier than figuring out how best to spend my 500 allowance.  Food is off the table (GET IT! OFF the table!) so you just carry on with your day instead of obsessing about whether this food or that is a better use of your allowance.


Look, I'm not really sure why I'm telling you about this.  I'm usually not really a food fad type person.  I'm always rolling my eyes at the whole paleo/quitting sugar/gluten free thing.  And 5:2 could very well be debunked as a ridiculous food fad in a few years' time.  But for now I like the fact that I can have my cheesy nuggets and eat them too.