CatsEye

Dave

I had a little tidy up last week.  One of the consequences is that I no longer have my handy ironing board to place mugs of hot beverages on, or basically anything I'd like to keep out of the reach of curious little cats.

I decided that I needed a high coffee table with a small footprint.  Which is a bit of a tall order, I guess (no pun intended).  Ideally this fabled creature should be either beech and/or black to match the rest of the furniture in the living room.  So I braved a trip to Ikea, during the summer holidays, because clearly I tidied away my mind with the rest of the junk.

I guess beech is completely out of fashion these days - as everything was either birch or dark brown.  But in the middle of the sofa section I found this perfectly formed delight:

Black (tick!), with adjustable height (tick!) and I can tuck the legs under the sofa so it's mostly out of the way.  Ding ding ding!  Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!

It's technically a laptop workstation which mean the top will tip downwards at the front (for presumably better ergonomics), but given the amount of stuff that instantly gravitated to it once I had brought it home and assembled it, that feature would be a little inconvenient right now.

But, the thing that really sold me on it, the thing that made me walk round the rest of Ikea hoping to not find anything closer to my original specification ... Dave was my Dad's name.  How perfect can a piece of furniture be?!

Macadamia Fudge (Cup) Cake

I baked cakes.  From scratch.  Well, from a recipe actually.  Beat egg whites into a meringue etc ... and used the soup maker to chop the nuts and mix the sugar, and melt the butter and chocolate. 

I am self-impressed.

Halloween House

I went for a walk round the block this morning, to post a letter.  Strolling down my neighbours' road, I was surprised to see this:

So surprised, and taken with the idea, that when I got home, I snatched up my camera, and walked round the block again.

While I appreciate the celebration of my favourite holiday (admittedly, mostly for the colour scheme - black and orange, what's not to like?) you wouldn't catch me crossing the threshold, underneath that monster.  Brrrr ....

Out with the unused

The pre-moving clearout at Mum's seems to have inspired me.  That, and charities seem to now be willing to take electrical stuff and "bric-a-brac" - whatever that may be. 

There'll be another bag to go on Wednesday, full of kitchen stuff I have rarely/barely used.  (What sort of idiot buys two popcorn makers, anyway?!)

I. Made. Soup.

Those tomatoes weren't just going to disappear, you know.  Next time, however, I will skin and de-seed the little red buggers first, I think.  The soup's still absolutely edible, just a bit ... bitty.  Excellent recipe found here ...

Graze!

A healthy diet is not a phrase to be used in conjunction with me. 

So I have been very impressed (and grateful) to discover this website this week.  A box of healthy goodies (and some even have chocolate included) delivered through your door, up to 5 times a week.

You can exclude stuff you don't like (for me, anything with almonds, brazil nuts, yoghurt or lemon flavours) and rate the rest so that the contents of each box is a pleasant and yummy surprise.

The only drawback I can see for me, is that Postie doesn't get to my house until lunchtime, and so if when I go back to work, I won't have it in time to take with me.

(If you click the link and sign up, you can get your first box for free.)

282. An 8 hour day

According to my Get Fuzzy calendar, today is Eight Hours Day in Australia-TAS.

I have no idea what this represents, but the name turns out to be quite apt, as I inadvertently spent 8 hours today on the Ancestry website, researching my mother's family history.  This is the gift she wanted for Mother's Day, and who am I to say no.

Except, 8 hours in an uncomfortable chair doesn't make for a pleasant whiled-away time.  And there's no way that I'm finished, so I can see a few more in my immediate future.  Oh deep joy.

261. Tea-me

I know that I drink too much coffee (and sugar), so as an alternative, I am tempted by fruit and herbal teas. 

Very tempted.  I think I have a problem.

Let's be kind, and call it a collection.

242. Dad and me

When I bought a proper scanner, Mum let me take home all the family slides to scan in for posterity.  She also passed me a small envelope containing my baby pictures, that she'd hidden in the bottom of her wardrobe*.  This is my favourite one of me and Dad.

It's funny to see my Dad like this, all relaxed and clean-shaven.  When I was four and a half, there was an incident at the depot where he worked.  A tanker containing acetone exploded and during the rescue attempt, my Dad got his face and hands burnt.   The doctor at the burns unit told him that he should stop shaving to allow the skin grafts to heal.  Never was a doctor's advice taken more to heart, as my Dad didn't shave again and kept a full but neat beard for the next 30 odd years.

There are also very few photos of him, as he loved cameras of both the photo and video kind and could always be found behind one rather than in front.  I don't know if this was to escape the attention so much, as he was certainly a very sociable man and loved to help out and get involved with people. 

Many years of been videoed for dancing and drama shows has left me completely camera shy, and with absolutely no interest in videography, but I did inherit his fancy-pants digital camera (2 lenses and flash gun and tripod and all).  Although he didn't get to use it much,  I am trying to rectify that by participating in Project 365 this year. 

* I was born with a cleft lip, and all these years thought that I must have looked just so hideous, that no-one could bear to photograph me before I had the first operation at six months old.  It turns out that Mum thought I wouldn't appreciate other people seeing these photos.  Although anyone who would have been shown them had probably already seen me like it in the flesh, so I don't quite understand the logic.  And I would have quite like to have seen them, especially as the plastic surgery turned out so well.

220. Pasta perfect

I do like me some pasta.  And pizza.  Me and Italy would get on well, I imagine.  But kitchen issues have prevented me from cooking pasta for a while.

By kitchen issues, I mean that the hob has on top of it, a portable hob for the candlemaking, and on top of that I seem to storing the yarn dyes and equipment.  It's a little difficult to get to. 

I used to be able to buy packets/tubs of pasta which you could just add water and microwave but no more.  Maybe microwavable plastic is too expensive ... or unsafe.  Whatever.  I was getting bored of rice, I know that.  (I tried microwaving pasta once and it came out like glue).

Then during an idle QVC watching moment, appeared the Pasta Perfect set.  Just add boiling water.  Steam and drain and serve and scoff.  Yes please.  I'll take one, to go.

Of course, the problem now, is that there's no pasta in the house to test it out with.  Apart from this spaghetti, found in a dark cupboard corner, all forlorn and possibly ancient. 

I'm sure it'll be fine though.  Otherwise I'm having pasta sauce with rice again ...