Holiday renovating

Mike and I were both home together this school holidays. To my delight, and Mike's dismay, this meant that i was able to put into action some of my plans for putting together our entertainment room.

The Mess before we began, with all the bags containing my books to the left

We have this lovely large room in our house, that has quite a nice feature wall painted in a plummy purple colour. I mentioned a while ago that my mother was packing up all of my childhood books for me to finally take with me. The books arrived, along with 3 large white bookshelves

I decided that the best way to us these would be to cut them down, so that i had a low line of bookshelves running along the feature wall. This way i could have all of my books, as well as a lovely spot to put together little trinkets i find.

Mike also wanted a place to hang his framed sports pictures and to put his old plasma (we brought a newer one for our lounge room).


Mike's first job was to cut the shelves down. He did this with the help of his Uncle, who is very handy with these things, They did a great job and they all came to the perfect height. Mike and I then tided the shelves up by applying a laminate strip to the tops of the shelves.


It did take a while to put in all of my books and decide on how to arrange them. I sorted them loosley by genre, with the genres being:

Old Favourites (I have a tonne of Enid Blytons, Trixie Beldens and Baby Sitters club!)

Pre- Teen literature
Modern fiction
Australian Literature

Sci Fi and Fantasy
Historical fiction
Historical investigation/ Biography/ Autobiography

I then put little bits and pieces on tip of the shelves. Mike also assembled a TV unit for our TV and we put an old bed cover on the lounge that semi matched the colour of the room.



What do you think? I am pretty pleased with the overall look, although there are still a few more finishing touches to come.

Peace

Veggie shopping

How much do you think all of these veggies cost?

6 Bananas
400g Rhubarb
1 Soup Pack
400g Baby Carrots
1 Bunch Shallots
8 Apples
1 Cauliflower
3 Capsicum
Large pre cut fruit salad


$20? More?

I got the whole lot for $15.50!!! Yep .. that's right!

My husband and I are going to be living off my wage for a while. Due to this i am looking at ways that i can cut down our budget a bit. I figure if i save money on groceries then we may have a bit more leftover so we can save AND still have a life.

I needed to grab some fruit and veg as we were running very low. I remembered that one of the fruit and Veg shops at my local shopping centre often has a mark down section, so i went to check it out.

As i had a look at the veg there i was really surprised at the variety that was there, and also the quality. Most of it still looked very fresh, with very little of it looking wilted or mouldy. There was a huge variety. Here are a few of the other items on offer

- Corn
- Pineapple
- Mushrooms
- Beans
- Squash
- Pumpkin

None of these items were over $2 for a tray. I loaded up my basket until it was too heavy to keep going and skipped off to the counter. I had worked out in my head that it may come to about $20, so i was very pleased when i realised it was $15!

I know some people don't like to buy fruit or veg that is even sightly bruised or wilted. However i figure that particularly in winter this isn't a bad idea. Given that many dishes are slow cooked stews, curries or roasts, the less than perfect appearance maters less. Plus, there is a huge variety of reasons why stock is reduced, and it doesn't always mean that they are no longer any good.

So next time you head out fruit and veg shopping, have a look at the markdown section. You may be surprised!

Food Blog Love

I ADORE food blogs. It stumbled across the blog Not Quite Nigella one day when i was searching for a cupcake recipe. She had me hooked! I love reading about her food escapades, from restaurant reviews to her recipe commentary. I love how she begins with a little annecdote and then goes into her beautiful story. When i realised that this blog was updated daily it became one of my daily rituals. I now read this blog every day without fail, either in the morning with my brekkie or in the afternoon with a cuppa. It still remains my all time favourite blog.

It is from here that i then decided to go in search of some more food blogs. I prefer Aussie blogs as i feel i can relate to them more, plus they also have ingredients i know i can get here!

Here are some other food blogs that i frequent (and drool over)

Chocolate Suze

Suze also gives very funny anecdotes, and i have come to love her catchphrase 'nom nom'. She does not post daily like Lorraine of NQN (yes, i feel as if i am on first name basis) but does post frequently. Suze also frequents many sydney markets as she owns her own biscuit company called Biscuit Tree. She always has plenty of pictures for you to look at.

Kitchen Wench

This blog is written by the lovely Ellie. This also features little stories, with some hilarious vignettes of her family and their tendency to sneak bits of her food. This blog often weaves baking in with raditional korean dishes. I love the step by step photos that she presents with any of ther recipes.

LemonPi

I found this blog a while ago but i forgot to tag it. I came across it again recently and was hooked once again. This time i remembered to tag it!

This blog is vastly different from the others, as the blogger is a trained pastry chef. If her posts are anything to go by, a bloody good one at that!

Her blog is one i simply enjoy looking at as her presentation of her food is always a complete work of art. Many of her recipes are definate 'restaurant quality'. I would LOVE to try one of them some day. You really must check it out for yourself!

These are just a very small handful of food blogs. If you like cooking i would definately recommend that you check some out for yourself!

But be warned... they are strangely addictive!

Kind Over Matter

I have found some BEAUTIFUL quotation cards from the blog Kind Over Matter which i will share with you from time to time. It is a beautiful inspirational blog.

R rated cake...

Ok... firstly.. if you are easily offended you may not want to keep reading.

Still here? Intrigued by the title? Well you should be! hehehe

On Saturday night we had my a-fore mentioned friend Maree's Hen night. Maree has a wicked sense of humour so we had though that it would be really funny if we made her a... ahem.... penis cake!!

I was disturbed taken by the idea and began planning and researching this cake weeks ago. Firstly, I had the PERFECT cake tin that i knew i could use, a Key shaped tin. With some careful carving and an additional round cake... i knew that i could get the right shape.

Next i began thinking of the design. I did a bit of googling ... which, by the way, typing in penis cake brings up some pretty interesting images, and alot of unusual looking cakes.

I had to begin the cake making process in advance, as i knew that i had some very busy events at work in the days leading up to the party. I baked the two cakes and set them aside. The next night i ganached the cake. I did have a few problems because i did not make quite enough ganache, but nonetheless... a definite penis shape was beginning to emerge.

Last came the covering with the icing. This part was tricky... mainly because i had spent the previous day/ night with 50 wide awake teenagers at the school's winter sleep out.. which involved NO sleep. Fast forward to a very tired me, attempting to roll out cheap icing without it ripping. As the cake was so large i found the icing too heavy to lift up without it causing too many large holes ( i curse myself for not finding time to go to the cake shop and buy proper icing, instead i settled for the supermarket stuff...). However a very tired and emotional me did finally manage to cover the cake... apply the 'hair' and voila!

Penis cake!!

Books Galore!

Recently went to my parents place and finally picked up all of my books, and accompaning bookshelves. You see, i have loved books ever since i was a little child. I still remember the first proper 'novel' i read in first grade, called Amelia Jane gets into trouble by the lovely Enid Blyton. I was hooked!

However i was so hooked that i refused to get rid of ANY book i ever owned.... so now here i am with 6 mega garbage bags filled with books. They range in every possible genre and thickness! When i moved out with my husband (then fiancee) i left my books behind as i anticipated that it was going to be a huge job, and that i would need a place to put them all.



My mother always shared a love of reading with me, so when it came to taking the books we had to have a few negotiations over who got to keep which books. She allowed me o take all the Enid Blytons but she got to keep Raymond E Fiest... i tried to con her into giving me the Anne of Green Gables series but she didn't budge on that one *Pout*

We do have a dilema though. I was planning on making a bookshelf wall on the far end of our 'entertainment' room. I say 'entertainment' because it is currently a room housing an unused weight set, various boxes and our old plasma which we plan on eventually mounting on the wall.

Anyway, i digress, our dilema is that the antenna port and electrical socket for said TV is on the aforementioned wall. We are unsure at this point whether to a) move the antenna and electrical socket b) cut a hole into one of the shelves or c) choose another spot... sigh...