Glammed up

You've got to love the ability of photoshop to make yourself look good! ;-)

DH has been playing with portraits and did one of me. He's removed the bags/wrinkles from under my eyes, smoothed out my skin, removed zits.....

Before












After (heh heh, if only this was really what I looked like!)


















Moral: This is why you should never believe those photos of models in fancy magazines. ;-)

Number 2 Baby

I'm "outing" myself and announcing that number 2 is on the way. Here it is at 13 weeks. :-)

Which wife are you?

Here's one of those cheesy personality quizzes you get sent now and again.

I found it via Rosina Lippi's blog - she writes as Sara Donati (the Wilderness series) as well. I enjoy her books. She's just brought out a new one called Tied to the tracks.

It is surprisingly accurate for me ! LOL!





Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?


this quiz was made by Lori Fury


Actually I don't press flowers... but I used to make pot pourri. Still do now and again. ;)

Heart-melting words

My baby has learnt to say it at last!

"My loves you Mummy." [usually accompanied by a hug]

Excuse me while I swoon with love...

It makes up for the times when he's less than good:

• Throwing toilet rolls in the toilet bowl
• Smearing arnica cream all over himself and everything else
• Undoing the zip on the beanbag so all the beans come out
• Having meltdowns in the supermarket

Speaking of supermarkets - I was in the local Kaitaone yesterday and trying to locate some gruyere cheese (ended up having to get an expensive Swiss one because their selection there is hopeless - I like to buy local NZ ones) when I see DS crawling along the floor beside the freezer. What on earth! You see - he has this "thing" about fans. And the freezers all have fan vents in their bases. So he was crawling along looking at each one and confirming to himself that they were working.

Does this mean I have a future ventilation engineer?

I am enjoying...

this book: The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater ( available at Amazon of course).

My sister got it as a gift and I have borrowed it for a little while. I know I'm kind of obsessed when it comes to food, but this is the type of book you could read like a novel. But then, I read cookbooks like novels too so I'm probably not the best person to make that statement!

I find his writing evocative. It is annoying that the seasons are all turned around for us in the southern hemisphere, but I've managed. There are a number of recipes I want to try and I'm pleased to see he uses lamb quite a bit . I do wish we had access to a Farmers Market near me that was open at a time I could go. The ones I know about are a bit of a drive away, and not on days that I'm able to visit.

It's that time of year. The rain is constant. The lawn is a swamp and all we need are some flax and pukekos and we'd have our own wetland out there. We wake up in the dark, and it doesn't get light until about 7.30am. Well okay - that's probably not so bad really. Imagine living closer to the pole - brrrrrr! Reading Nigel and the winter weather inspired me to make a spicy beef and carrot stew last night with apple & boysenberry crumble to follow. Comfort food. I made the stew using a recipe from Cuisine magazine and it was supposed to be for a pie filling, but I felt like having it with potatoes so I modified it slightly! Just as well our power was on unlike the rest of the city. Shocking really.

Spicy Beef & Carrot Stew
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Stewing beef (about 700g), chopped into large chunks
2 carrots, peeled, halved and sliced
1 tsp each of paprika, ground cumin and ground coriander
2 cups beef stock
2 T cornflour

Saute the onions in olive oil, and once the raw smell disappears, add the garlic. Stir a few times and then add the beef. Brown the beef (or at least stir it around so there is no red left). Add the spices and stir to cook them as well as coat the beef. Add the carrots, stir, and then the beef stock. Bring to boil then turn down to a low simmer. Cook, stirring now and again until the meat is soft. Mine took about 1 hr. Thicken with the cornflour and 1/4 cup water, and stir so the cornflour cooks.

Serve with mashed taters or rice. I also served it with cabbage lightly sauted with a few fennel seeds.

As for tonight - I've got some Boerwoers out of the freezer. I got them from a butcher down the way, so I hope they are "real" ones. They looked like it in the shop. Not sure what I'll do with them yet. Maybe Nigel will have a suggestion.

Temptation...

Made these Peanut Brownies in my new oven. I love the fan forced feature - it means I can cook 2 trays of biscuits without having to swap them over halfway so they cook evenly.

More list challenges

Alison S is at it again... setting list challenges!

List 1: List What's Wrong With Men.
Let me count the ways... LOL! No - seriously I love my man tho' he does know how to push my buttons at times [cough... that sounds rude].

1. Why can't they take hints? Why do I have to spell out things like what I want for my birthday. Sometimes it's nice to be surprised by.. I don't know.. flowers or summat.
2. Their awareness of housework that needs to be done is at a different level! [giggle]
3. One thing women do better is network and support each other. Men seem to find this difficult which is a real shame because they need to support each other to be men. The feminisation of our society bothers me at times (especially in our school system), and I think men need to be given permission to be male, to be different to women. To be a man is a glorious thing and nothing to be ashamed of - just like it is a glorious thing to be a women. We will always be different, better at some things than the other and why should that be a problem? Vive la difference! Can you tell I'm the mother of a son? ;)

List 2: List all the Ways the Government Lies to You.
hmmm. Don't know if I can think of anything for this one. It's more like they make grandiose statements which sound grand but the reality is far more in the range of mediocre. For e.g. they make a big deal about working families getting a childcare subsidy which is great... but there is a cap on the maximum you're eligible for, so essentially it works out (for me) to be about 2 weeks free childcare for the whole year. I realise they have to cap it, but it almost isn't worth me applying KWIM?

As for wiping interest off student loans... that made me so mad having spent all but 3 years of my working life paying off my @#$% student loan. Seems unfair that I essentially took a paycut for 7 years. Oh well... whinge whinge. I suppose I did get some parental leave payment out of my taxes during that time.

Enough of that.

All boy...

The other day Stihl had a brochure in the paper. I showed it to DS since he likes looking at mowers and weedeaters - he calls the latter "weetys". He spent hours looking at the brochure - talking about the different attachments displayed there. "Look! Weety!"

He was quiet for so long I went looking and discovered him in my bed reading the "weety book". So cute!

Couple of layouts

Did these the other day. Nothing spectacular.

First one was at Cathedral Cove, Coromandel. Second was from a visit to Butterfly Creek Farm.