Ag May ...

Caramel Popcorn - devil's food, I'm sure.  I am addicted to this stuff.  Once in a while, I buy that awful stuff from the supermarket and binge on it.  Sadly (or thankfully  - I don't know!!), I seem to be the only one in the family to love this stuff.  I thought I would try to make some at home.  So...   I made a batch on Tuesday night - one jar full plus 4 and a 1/2  brown bags full.  I gave away one bag to a neighbour.  I gave the 1/2 bag to my husband for work.  And I "shared" (as in I think I ate the lion's share of it) one bag with some friends who came over on Wednesday.   I was surfing Pinterest last night.  And on Thursday morning, I wake up and this is what I'm left with... Before the photo shoot... After the photo shoot (I took about 3 photos!!)... And that's it - no more after this jar is emptied!! On another note, I had a go at creating "art".  Art, as in something to hang and display.  What do y

Food amazes me.  Eating food amazes me.  I mean, who would have thought to pick the apple from the apple tree and bite into it?  Who would have picked out the basil plant and discovered its gloriously delicious leaves?  And who thought to pick wheat and ground it up to make flour? And then, add to that, who would have thought of putting simple ingredients together, say like flour, butter, sugar and eggs, to create cake?  Cake - nothing like flour, nothing like butter, nothing like sugar, nothing like egg - something new created with totally different properties from the ingredients that make it up.  Food alchemy!! Sure, we now have pound cake, cup cakes, sponge cakes, Angel Food Cake, Devil Food Cake, cakes galore, but how ingenious was that first cake?  That first cake upon which formed the basis of our cake baking... how truly genius and amazing was the creation of that first cake? Yep - food amazed me.  And it continues to amaze me. Simple ingredients such as Marie

Sometimes I find that it easy to get caught up in the chaos of life and forget to stop, breathe, and appreciate what I have.  So, I've borrowed this concept for today to show snippets of my day and the beauty in my life.  Enjoy!!                       A special thanks to A Bit of Sunshine for sharing this project.  I can relate to how this project came about; and it spoke to me in a way that nothing else and no-one else has been able to.

Apparently, short people are predisposed to sleeping poorly.  It is a well known fact that tall people sleep longer (ba-da-bing). Poor joke aside (provided by my Dear Husband and had me cracking up.  And then, after a minute of chuckling, had me asking if that was supposed to be a pun or a real fact, which, in turn had him cracking up at my gullibility).  As I was saying poor joke aside, I do sleep poorly.  Not quite an insomniac, just a bad sleeper. And how do I remedy this, especially in the middle of the night?  I turn on my brightly lit iTouch while in bed and activate a puzzle app.  Yeah - thinking puzzles are the best way to get back to sleep.  Even better are the puzzles that time you, so that you keep trying to get a better and better time.  Nothing like those competitive juices to relax you and get you back to sleep. Like this one - it's called latkin, but it's actually a game called KenKen.  It's like Sudoku, but it incorporates arithmetic.  Just the

Come Sunday dinner time, our apartment looked like a bomb site.  So we brown-bagged our dinner, shut the door on the mess and hoofed it out to the park.     A couple of toasted sandwiches later, some fruit and a refreshing run around the park, the mess in the apartment didn't look so daunting and was cleaned up in a flash.  Woohoo - score one for procrastination!! Please excuse the confused Spanish Donuts with Chinese Tea Cup combo.  Call it eccentric. Now Spanish donuts or Churros... you don't need to wait for these.  You don't need to rush out to the Queen Victoria Market for these.  You don't need to fight for a carpark in your shopping centre for these.  You can make them.  Yourself.  Now.  Because I know you have all the ingredients in your cupboard/fridge already.  No excuse.  No procrastination.  Let's start! It all begins with your basic choux pastry.  Fancy words; basic technique. Heat your water, milk, butter, sugar and salt in

Going to Ikea can be a family treat in this family.  We wander around together; look at furniture together and have a little bite to eat together after all that walking.  It can be great... until we want to buy something big, and then it becomes a logistical nightmare. With a small sedan storing a stroller in the boot and two small children needing huge car seats in the back - buying a bookshelf together is impossible.  So, it is with much guilt that I instruct my Dear Husband to empty the car of the stroller and car seats and send him off to Ikea by himself with a list of things to buy (yes - I am an I.C.A (Ikea Catalog Addict) so I have a list). And I have also asked my Dear Husband to stop off at the local baby store to see if the stroller we were interested in buying is available. Oh, the guilt of sending him off to run these errands for me. Until...  Until I realize that I am the one at home entertaining an energetic pre-schooler and a curious little bub. 

We enjoyed a long weekend away in Tasmania to celebrate the long awaited wedding of our dear friends. From the generous welcome pack (especially after a long drive up the mountain)... To the final farewell walk around... It was a relaxing, fun, touching, surprise-filled weekend, set amongst the glorious scenes of the Tasmanian mountains and surrounded by loving friends. Thanks D and S for a wonderful weekend.  We loved everything about it - the Gallery Reception, the Cheese and Wine tasting, the Corvette, the Buffet Breakfast, the Dress (!), the mountains, the Reception food (amongst the best ever at a wedding!), the company, and the radiant bride and ever-so-proud groom. We can't wait to see the photos. xoxoxo