Turning 28

At the beginning of the week, I wasn't feeling so good about having my birthday here in Canada, with none of my family and friends around. By the middle of the week, I had a meltdown that would rival Chernobyl. But somehow by Friday, I was feeling restored, and actually had a very satisfying birthday. Here's how it started, with Gord buying me a dozen red roses. Indeed, one of his presents to me (yes, I got multiple gifts!) is to buy me some flowers each month for a year. Very cool, given it's not his forte, except for the fact that the flowers here are all flown in! He'll be doing lots of wildflower-picking in the summer!


Actually, I got eleven roses and Piper got one...


Inspired by my new Nigella cookbook, I was keen to cook a little feast for my birthday. It happened to be Winter Fun Day at South Oaks, the school were Cassie, Rae, Makenna and Zach go, and Sharon took Mason, Piper and Ty to join in the fun. Gord took the arvo off work and came with me to Jeff and Sharon's, so we looked after Taelyn and Jasper while Sharon and the kids were gone. I pottered around in the kitchen all afternoon. Gord knitted while the babies slept. Very domestic! This is me chatting on the phone to my parents, holding my un-iced (sunken!) sponge birthday cake...


My soul-satisfying feast... organic roast chicken with crispy roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, maple-smothered parsnips, fresh salad and grated beetroot, and, of course, gravy.




Happy Birthday to me! And the good old Moonee Vale addition, a happy birthday to you, a happy birthday to you...!

Week 3

I cheated this week. I kept forgetting to take a shot per day. So Gord took some of these - shock, horror! Oh well, big deal. Also, I have been reflecting on the inherent contradiction of creating a polaroid from a digital photograph. The beauty of a polaroid is how it captures a moment and replicates the image there and then. What you took is what you get. No chance to crop or add contrast or resize or all the other things I do to these shots. So yes, I'm aware of this paradox. However, one of the reasons I will continue with this little idea is that I want to print off the images and stick them on the wall, and I reckon they'll look good as polaroids. Better than they do on screen, anyway. Maybe I'll take a "polaroid" of our wall of "polaroids", once I get it up and running. (And then I could take a "polaroid" of our "polaroid" of our wall of "polaroids"! Man, this could go on forever!! Like mirrors...)

This week's been a bit all over the place, a bit pre-menstrual, shall we say! I finally caught up all our finances yesterday. What a frickin' achievement, seeing as I hadn't done it properly since September! Yes, I discovered how much I've overspent by! And yes, I'm the kind of honest person who is going to pay it all back! I love a challenge! Had Uncle Bill, Auntie Ev & Matthew over to watch (pansy, pillows-up-their-jumpers) gridiron yesterday afternoon (oooh, did that get anyone's goat?!) - very pleasant. Consumed some schnetki (like scones) that I'd made the night before when Jeff & Sharon & the kids dropped in. I'm looking forward to my birthday (coming up this Friday). Can't wait to cook a bit of a feast and a sumptuous cake from this book! I was also excited to hear this week that this book is finally, finally coming out - my friend and I have been waiting for it for maybe ten years!!

My Australian faux pas for the week was asking the checkout chick what time she was going to knock off. After an odd look, I clarified, and she said, eight-thirty, but I walked away thinking she probably thought I'd asked who'd knocked her up! Oh well. Gotta love this cross-cultural criss-crossing communication!

Oh, and in BREAKING NEWS! Gord is learning to knit!!!!! He's knitting himself a beanie. Doing very well, he did a tension square and everything. I've had to do a bit of saving, but I'm impressed all the same. He loves the reaction he gets from most people, ranging from disbelief to curiosity to enthusiasm. He's not entirely sure if he's doing it for himself, or to impress me (I thought our sex life was good enough, this is going to blow us away!), but the more he knits, I reckon he'll be doing it for the pure joy of creating something from nothing! Damn, I should have taken a photo of his efforts for this week. Oh well, there's always next week! Anyway, without further ado, here's our hodgepodge of images...