Christmas - I Love This Season

Merry Christmas!

I love the Christmas period. I love selecting and wrapping gifts, and I mean really love it. There's something about making the wrapping neat and tidy, getting the corners right and decorating the present that I love. I'd happily work as a gift wrapper.

The other day I walked past the charity gift wrappers in the shopping mall and I was like "that's crazy, why would you want to pay someone to take away the fun" and I seriously meant it. I'd happily hand over a donation instead of missing out on wrapping my gifts. I may have a slight gift wrapping problem ;)

Next year I want to set up a traditional tree and a book tree too. How awesome are these?

I haven't had much time to blog much lately. David and I are sorting out our engagement party (including a long saga over printing out the invites), and we've been meeting with mortgage brokers and looking at potential wedding venues. It's all been very hectic (and to be honest quite stressful). I'll be glad when we don't have so much on our plates.

We are basically ready to buy a house now though (very exciting!), so just waiting on the right house at the right price.

How to Turn a Disaster Into a Success

I recently made chocolate banoffee pie for some friends. All was going fine, my pastry wasn't perfect but it was very passable and it was all coming along nicely until the cream incident.

Since I'm a lazy cook, I put my cream into the mixmaster and stepped away to chop up the chocolate. I looked across a couple of times and it was still happily whipping, when all of a sudden liquid starts flying out of my mixmaster, and in my bowl was buttermilk and butter.

I couldn't believe that I'd just made butter. Historically butter was challenging to make, and involved a lot of time and effort. Without even trying, I'd made it and with my last full tub of cream too :(

my newly made butter - draining the liquid

I made an SOS call to my nanna who told me it couldn't be saved. Both of us were laughing so hard on the phone that we could barely talk. My Nanna told me if I drained the butter to get the buttermilk out of it I could possibly use the butter.

Luckily I had a half a container of cream in the fridge so my dessert could still be saved, and despite the huge mistake it turned out quite nicely.

 The finished product - Chocolate Banoffee Pie

The next day David and I felt like making pancakes for breakfast. One of the key ingredients listed was butter, so I got to use my new creation.

Melting the butter

 Finished product - rosewater and strawberry pancakes. With a drop of butter.

In conclusion, homemade butter is awesome! It turns out that it wasn't such a bad mistake to make.

Library Gossip

  National Library of Congress- Photographer maveric2003 

See License Terms for this image

I'm really liking the 5 rules of library etiquette, it's really true. If only people would follow it, then we would get far less complaints about mobile phones in particular. 

I'm thankful that even my worst day at work is never anywhere near as extreme as this library discovering bedbugs in a DVD in the return chute *shudders at the thought*. The only thing I ever had to keep an eye out for whilst working at the public libraries was discarded needles (apparently this did happen for time to time but fortunately never while I worked there) and that would have been bad enough but bedbugs would have to be one of the worst things to find. The bugs are now gone thanks a vigilant pest control inspection.

Pima County, AZ, Public Library has just hired the first dedicated library nurse in the USA. I think this is amazing, and often needed. Libraries attract an amazing diversity of people, including financially struggling and mentally ill patrons. It's a great community incentive to have a dedicated person to help these people most at risk. You can read the full article here.

From Little Things Grow Big Things

I've always liked gardening but renting has been really restrictive for me. I don't want to plant anything I intend on keeping in the ground, so I'm growing a small garden in pots.

I have to reign myself in so that I don't have too many pots. This is hard because I'm attracted to so many different plants and vegetables and it is easy to think 'just one more plant can't hurt'. Knowing that we will be buying a house I really don't want to deal with heavy pots. Moving is hard enough without moving a garden too.

I couldn't resist growing strawberries though. Strawberries are my second favourite fruit (after cherries) and they are relatively easy to grow. Like most plants all they want is a little water and some sun, and they give so much back.

This has been an experiment for me though, because I don't know much about growing strawberries at all (just that they taste delicious). So you can imagine my delight when I got to pick my very first strawberry. They look a little odd (or at least not like the immaculate ones in the shops) but they taste 10 times better.

There are lots more blossoming and about to ripen

My gardening bargain though, was my pomegranate tree. It was in the 'sick bay' of my local hardware store. My grandmother has always taught me that most of the plants that end up in the 'sick bay' are inadequately watered by the stores and just need some sun and a good watering and they'll recover. So since it was significantly reduced in price I took it home, gave it some TLC and here it is today:

I wish I had a before photo. It was once the saddest, scrawniest little tree imaginable.

Latest news and things I have been reading

I'm loving these secret bookcases, partially because if money were no object I would totally have one in my home. The Narnia inspired one is my favourite, but I love the idea and practicality of hiding a messy laundry.

I really love this opinion piece by Annabel Crabb to the AEC.  It's so true that we take for granted how well run our electoral system is.

In other news, I recently got engaged♥ It's taken me a month just to get used to wearing the ring (and I still gaze at it sometimes). I'm super excited though, I get to marry my best friend in front of the people closest to us.

Planning a wedding is still quite a daunting prospect. Unlike most young girls I never thought much about my wedding as a child, or had it all planned out on my head. I have stocked up on wedding planning books thanks to my local public library and I'm beginning to feel a little more like I know what I'm doing.

Whilst at the library looking for wedding books, David found me this book on the shelf:

I've only read part way through but I have to say it is pretty good. I totally chose it originally though for it's awesome cover.

On My Wants List...

A dolphin experience at Coffs Harbour. Swimming with dolphins is on my to-do-list.

This birdhouse from storybookdesign.

Scratch Map - scratch off countries as you visit. Potentially very rewarding (and expensive).

This garlic zoom, sure beats the ordinary garlic crusher.

Britain as Florence Tells It

David and I got back from Britain and Ireland at the beginning of this month. I could bore you with details of our trip but I think Florence tells it better in pictures:

About to leave Sydney airport to begin our adventures.

 No visit to London would be complete without visiting the Library

 Getting Lost in Hampton Court Palace maze

The famous Tower of London Bridge, before protestors closed it for a few hours

High Tea - Because that's what you do when in England!

National Leprechaun Museum - Only in Ireland ;)

Cardiff Castle in Wales

 Bath

 Stonehenge

Whitby

Stirling Castle in Scotland

Best Thing on the Trip: By far, for me it was visiting Scotland. Partially because it is my heritage but mostly because the scenery was stunning. The heather on the hills was breathtaking beautiful. I can't choose just one location though because I enjoyed them all.

Worst Thing on the Trip: Getting sick. Dubbed the 'superbug' or the 'plague' we both got a terrible cold (I don't think I have ever been so sick from a simple cold) and we both got secondary infections from it. It's always expected that you'll get something overseas but it really makes exploring hard some days.

Weirdest Thing on the Trip: Being on the Tower of London Bridge exhibition when protestors started jumping out of a window right in front of us. You can read the news story here

An amazing day!

Guess what I did today? It's something I've always wanted to do.

Hint: It involved danger (or so my brother thought, he sent me a text to say it's been nice knowing me).

It also involved:

And This:

Cheetah - Photographer James Temple. See License Terms for this image

And it looked like this:

I can't speak highly enough of the National Zoo and Aquarium's Meet-A-Cheetah experience! It was so amazing to go inside the enclosure and meet such a beautiful animal. The Cheetah's purring was so loud David thought it was construction noise at first.

More to come on my overseas trip soon. We didn't get much internet access while we were away and it was surprising liberating.

Not Long Until I Hit the Sky

So my long awaited UK trip is getting so close. In my world this means the suitcase needs to come out and some serious consideration needs to go into what should (and should not!) go into it. In David's world this means it is still 24 whole days away. You can probably tell which one of us is the crazed organiser.  

Knowing that I'm also about to sit on a plane for a whole 22 hours, (which is torturous by the way - people who say they like flying have only ever been on short flights) I'm loving How Commercial Planes Are Currently Laid Out vs How Commercial Planes Should Be Laid Out. If only the airlines would adopt it someday.

Have a Desperate Need for a Library at 3am? Sydney will soon have you covered!

Now this concept is interesting. Sydney is considering a 24 hour library. This is all part of Sydney's plan to increase the night time economy.

My first reaction was "oh those poor staff members having to work those late night hours!" and my next was "I wonder how many homeless people will take advantage of that in winter" and who could blame them, winter is brutal.

The more I think about it, the less I think it will be patronised all that often to make hiring the staff financially viable. At the library I work in we close at 9pm and it's very quiet in the evenings, particularly after 8pm. I also can't really imagine the crowds who are out that late being frequent library visitors either. I can see a number of students taking advantage and doing assignments at the last minute, but they don't study all year long.

You can read the news article here

Latest Wants

It's been predicted for a long time, but the first flying car will be on display at the New York Auto Show. At $300,000 it doesn't come cheap but I want a flying car anyway. Since I don't have that much spare cash lying around I guess I'll have to be content with waiting for it to become mainstream. I hope the new models become automatic and drive for you. I might as well dream big :) Read the article here

I really want to Trench Coat. I'm going to use the excuse that I live in a cold climate and I'll be traveling to Scotland later in the year, which I hear can be chilly even in September.  We'll just ignore the fact that I already own enough coats. Problem: I can't find one that has lining inside and I can't wear a coat without lining. I'll be found on the Canberra streets completely preserved in ice.

This house is awesome and just tantalizingly in reach although more than we would like to spend. It's got 4 bedrooms, a living room and a separate family room, a loft and a sunroom plus a rumpus room. Additionally there is room for 3 cars and according to the pictures a backyard. It's nice to know houses like this exist.

I really like this dress, and think it could make a nice addition to my work clothes.

Red Poppy Shoe Clips - These are so versatile. I love that I can make my ordinary shoes look more interesting.

Open Houses and Real Estate Agents

David and my search for a home took us to 5 open houses 3 weeks ago. Since then we've had Easter and my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary to attend (yes you read that right - 60 years! Still holding hands whilst watching TV and still totally in love with each other. It's the most amazing, beautiful and inspiring thing to watch).

We came away quite depressed at the price of homes in Canberra (got a spare $450,000 minimum to spend anyone?) but overall we liked some homes. We can't agree though on the kind of home we like. I like modern homes because there's no immediate renovating to do and they have decent kitchens. David prefers the older style homes which are nice but often require lots of maintenance and have sad looking kitchens (cosy as the real estate brochures like to call it) and outdated ovens.

We have come to the conclusion that we need to pick one area and really check it out in detail and then look at others. It's kind of nice that we can't buy for 6 months because it has taken the pressure off and we kind of enjoy sussing out the other buyers and the blatant sales talk of the agents.

Here's an example of great agent customer service recently:
David (picking up phone): Hello
Agent: Hello, I'm calling about the X property you viewed recently. Did you like the place?
David: Well the garage was a little weird (it was a fake garage because it had been turned into a study on the inside) but besides that it was nice.
Agent: Well that could be easily fixed, the study wall could easily be knocked down. The yard is not too big, the maintenance would be ok with you?
David: Well we are actually ready to buy anything at the moment and won't be ready for sometime.
Agent: So you don't have your finances ready yet?
David: No
Agent: Ok bye

Agents, got to love them...

Adorable Puppies

My grandparents recently adopted a puppy. I'm incredibly jealous because I desperately want a dog but can't have one while I'm renting. Fortunately my grandparents are happy to share Sammy whenever I come and visit them. Sammy is a Shih Tzu x Maltese, and is full of mischievous energy and character.

I went and saw Sammy two weeks ago, and here's some photos from a day in the life of a spoiled puppy.

After coming over to me and climbing in my lap while I was taking photos of him I was all "oh you are such a cute puppy". Then Sammy ran off and suddenly I realised I didn't have my camera case anymore. Note that my first instinct was to take a photo of him with my camera case before I rescued it :)

Sammy gets a new toy from my grandparents. I took this photo in the 30 seconds between receiving the present and then destroying the monkey.

 So cute! Sammy in a rare moment of sitting still.

 The life of a puppy is so tiring.

From camera cases to shoes, if it is banned then it is more appealing.

What 7 Years and 82,000 words gets you...

After 7 years and 82,000 words David submitted his PhD yesterday. He still has to have it examined first by the markers before it is published in its final form but we had to celebrate such an amazing achievement! Celebration = wine and cake plus dinner and presents yet to come.

There are still many more opportunities to celebrate, and there will be a graduation to attend in December this year. I get to see David wear the floppy PhD hat that looks a little silly on anyone despite the seriousness of the occassion. I think David can pull it off though ;)

All Things Travel and Real Estate

I started my blog while working at ACU last year. I loved blogging so much I always intended to continue.

Enter lots of distractions, like booking an overseas trip to the UK and now having to work out an itinerary (travellers will sympathise with me as fun and exciting as it has been, it's also time consuming). Thank goodness August isn't here yet!

Then there's the compulsion to scrapbook in my limited free time, and I can spend hours at it. Plus the hours of thinking about scrapbooking and purchasing (unnecessary but totally needed!) supplies online. Drool.....

I've also changed jobs, and I felt bittersweet about it because I did love ACU but a fractional income and trying to get ahead financially did not go together well. I now truly know the value of a regular wage, even if it means working full time and having less time for fun pursuits. It's totally worth not having so much financial stress. Fortunately in my new job I'm working with great people and I love the actual work itself so it has all worked out perfectly.

The biggest thing in my little world at the moment though is the decision to buy a house sometime in the next year. David and I have been hitting a couple of open houses but we haven't been able to do too much yet. I'm building up an idea of where I want to buy and I plan on hitting open homes with more regularity soon.

I am under no illusions that my future house will be as grand as this one, but there's no harm in daydreaming occasionally.

Oh and for anyone looking at buying (or even just for a laugh) I can't speak highly enough of this book:
The Property Diaries: A Story of Buying a House, Finding a Man and Making a Home... All on a Single Income! Antonia Magee

Seriously I was laughing out loud (my housemates probably think I have gone mad). I'd read most of it in one night (it really was that good!). Plus it gave me some good advice. As a complete novice to buying a home, my reading has been limited to real estate, property investment books or budgets. I will succeed though, and I can't wait to have pets again and be paying of a mortgage rather than dead rent money!