anyresemblance

The devil made me do it

I'm on my way to Madrid. I loved this cute little Tasmanian devil on the plane from
Canberra to Sydney, 35 minutes down, 20 hours to go....

Distractions

I had a wonderful weekend in Kangaroo Valley. It was magical and relaxing and quiet and thoughtful. I didn't take Charlie and gave my affections to an eighteen month maremma.

A family member has some serious health issues which have me anxious. Be grateful every day for good health.

Fine dining

I am leaving for a long trip next week and while I am away the oldest heads off to the US for two months so we decided to go to dinner last night as our farewell. Canberra has a ton of nice and new restaurants these days but we chose an old favourite, Italian and Sons.  We chose the earlier sitting as she had to leave the house at 6am and I had late night and early morning calls.  It was empty when we got there but filled up quickly.  The ratio of staff to customers is refreshingly high and the service is very good with no complications in the hand overs between servers.  I had the best amaretto sour ever and a glass of very good sangiovese.  We shared the polpette special to start.  I might pride myself on my meatballs but these were so good I had to stop myself moaning out loud (I was nearly crying when I got the bill and realised they came in at $7 per meatball so just as well they were good) then I had the veal saltimbocca and my daughter had spaghetti carbonara.   It was excellent and even better we were home and in our pyjamas by 7.45pm.

I am functioning on little sleep with one call ending at midnight and the next starting at 6am but we seem to be making traction on the project we're doing.

The youngest has tonsillitis and is feeling sorry for herself but soldiering through being sick away from home.  Thankful for bulk billing. Don't even get me going on how much I have spent on dental for the oldest in the past decade.  I ordered an external disk drive so she can watch all the comfort dvds when she is feeling low.  We just finished Royal Pains so will be sending that up to her.  

 

 

Learning from your mistakes

I stuff up with regularity but thankfully I cut myself some slack and hope I learn something from it.  This week's list includes:

1. making Boston Cream pie but not getting the custard thick enough so it all came out the edges.  Ah well, the victoria sponge was excellent so next time I am going with cream and raspberry jam as my mother would have done it
2. using the left over egg whites from the confectioner's custard to make friands but adding polenta instead of ground almonds and not realising until I licked the bowl (in my minimal defence, the packaging was almost identical but I should have realised it was on the WRONG shelf.  It was on the flours shelf not the nuts shelf so I only have myself to blame….) I remedied that one by making a little orange syrup and soaking the cakes in that when they came out and blow me if they weren't orangy delicious like that with a dollop of creme fraiche
3. using beef that was discounted to make beef stroganoff which turned out to be tough as old boots meaning I learned that I should have used the wok but the sauce was good and we had brown rice with it which I had not had in an age

You'll see there is a culinary theme here.  Sometimes amazing meals are produced and sometimes they are, meh.  Mostly, we are up on the good end of the spectrum.

This weekend was kind of meh.  On the upside I did a minuscule run on Saturday (and this morning), cleaned the house within an inch of its life and cooked excellent pumpkin laksa.  On the not exactly down, but not how I like to spend too much time, I watched Steel Magnolias, Mad Max Fury Road (loved it), the rest of season 5 GoT (thank god, that's over) and iZombie.

I LOVE iZombie as it is exactly like Veronica Mars but with a brain eating, kick ass, zombie girl as the lead character.  We're rationing ourselves.

Pondering

 

• Drinking: coffee from Ona who featured my pup this week
• Eating: toast with slices of tomato and black bush pepper
• Wishing: I had spent more time on this report earlier in the week
• Despairing: at seeing marquis/marquee confused in a major piece of work (not written by me)
• Enjoying: walking across the frosty field this morning with a good coffee, parrots in the bare branches, dog joyfully chasing his ball
• Thinking: about the nature of happiness and gratitude for the small things
• Disliking: the casual sexism of young sports stars
• Planning: where to eat dinner if the kid is not tired after work
• Watching: GoT season 5 
• Booking: numerous flights and hotels for upcoming and complicated work/holiday trip
• Researching: the food of Cyprus
• Wishing: we could get another puppy (so tiny! and yes, I am home most days!)
• Hoping: for a return to health for my good friend, chotda (every photo you ever saw of that bookcase arranged by rainbow of colours, you owe to her)
• Enjoying: life, health and happiness

 

Hiatus

I'd like to pretend there was a good reason why I've not been blogging but bleh, that's all.  There's a few things that were blockers but none of them interesting to write about.  

In the absent weeks, I've been to Sydney three times and Melbourne - neither the distance I usually travel but both rewarding just the same.  I caught the Bowie exhibition in Melbourne - I loved it but thought the labelling was super confusing (maybe it is just me in a dim room without my glasses…) , ate yummy stuff at Movida while the couple next to us were having an awkward first date, ate in a garden in Potts Point, had my Ikea fix and seen the kid back to uni.

The other one will be off soon travelling for two months and I'll be gone for a while at the same time so I've been organising a house/dog sitter.

I've not been running but pretty diligent in doing my 10,000 steps plus.  Since I signed up for a run in October, I ought to get that under control.  Good work on decluttering the wardrobe, though.  I've also been speed watching GoT  - since I saw all of season 4 on a flight I know where it is heading but just want to catch up on the details.  

Winter has been good for reflection and prioritisation.  I'm ready for a change and we are plotting stuff for moving house when the kid gets back and looking forward to that.