Category: Hubs

You can’t catch me…

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… I’m the GINGERBREAD MAN!!!

I didn’t think I liked gingerbread bikkies. I don’t really know why to be honest – maybe the bought ones are a bit too gingery for my taste. For this reason, I’ve never ventured into baking Gingerbread Men, but being married to Hubs means I often broaden my culinary horizons. Oh, and I had just bought a Gingerbread Man cookie cutter, so clearly I had to bake some!

What I didn’t realise, was the the cookie cutter I had bought was actually quite large!

And that I much prefer 3-step-recipes (mix, bake, eat). This was more an 8-step recipe – mix, stand in fridge, roll, cut, (and repeat 3 times) bake, cool, decorate, eat – which took just over 2 hours! It did however, also give me another opportunity to use my piping set that was given to me by the lovely Liza and family and any opportunity to use this set is warmly welcomed!

I tried to decorate the first tray a bit manly-like since Hubs would be eating most of them (or so I thought):

I got a bit more creative with the second tray, adding a Charlie Brown zig-zag shirt, a Superman logo (use your imagination dammit!), a muumuu and an “I(heart)U” Gingerbread Man.

We had one with a cup of tea for afternoon tea and I discovered just how much I actually LOVE home-made Gingerbread Men! Which is a shame, cos they really are a lot of effort!

Not as much effort, however, as macaroons, which I will blog about next.

The Swap Meet

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Ever been to one? Even know what one is? Any interest in attending one? Before Sunday the 12th September 2010, my answers to these 3 questions were “no”, “not really”, “not overly, but Hubs is excited so that’s good enough for me.” Hubs has been working very hard for the last few weeks to get the kombi up and running, and his hard work was rewarded on Thursday night when he had completed all the jobs he thought would fix it, and the beast started. And it hasn’t stopped since!

Over the preceding days we had been talking about buying another car – something a little more “family-friendly”, and one that… you know… was working. But as we were taking the kombi for a test-drive around town on the Thursday night, Hubs with a big grin on his face, I turned to him and said “We’re not going to be getting another car now, are we?…” His response? “HELL NO WOMAN.” And seeing that smile was all the convincing I needed. We were due to head down to Melbourne over the weekend and come back through Shepparton on the Sunday to attend the Annual Goulburn Valley Swap Meet. We still need a few parts for the car (including a centre seat) and thought it might be a fun way to spend a Sunday.

Up until Thursday night, we were thinking we’d have to hire a car, but thankfully I have a brilliant Hubsband who fixes stuff, so we jumped in the kombi on a sunny Friday afternoon and headed down the Hume towards Melbourne. We caught up with friends on Friday night and the Saturday, and loaded up the kombi with all sorts of marvelous baby furniture and paraphernalia, thanks to our wonderful friends the Baileys and the Bakers. We then caught up with Hubs’ uni friends for dinner on Saturday night and watched the end of the Bulldogs vs Swans game – a great night was had by all, and it was so lovely to see all our wonderful friends.

Sunday morning was an early start with the alarm going off at 5:30am. “We” (Hubs) wanted to be at Shep by 8am ish, but ended up getting there closer to 9am. (I slept half the drive.) I was quite intrigued about this whole “swap meet” thing and Hubs was telling me that it was a “Classic Cars Swap Meet” so I was looking forward to seeing lots of restored vehicles and, well you know, Classic Cars!

I was to be frightfully disappointed.

The reality was more like this: Every August, wives of Goulburn Valley start pestering their husbands to “clean out all the junk in the garage” to which the husbands respond “it’s not junk! This stuff has a lot of value!” The wives say something along the lines of “I don’t care what you do with it, just get rid of it!” So the husbands cleverly think to themselves “I know – the annual swap meet us coming up! I’m sure I’ll be able to sell my junk there.” And that’s 80% of what we saw. Junk from people’s garages. The “classic cars” were few and far between, and it became evident VERY early on that we weren’t going to find what we were looking for.

Add in some soft rock playing on a loop in the background (80s and 90s baby – I was in heaven!), some sausages on bread, the odd mullet or 2, more than enough ugg boots, and 1 lone kombi (a 1977 model – one year younger than ours*) and you’re pretty much looking at 3 hours of Wifey being very good at not complaining but wishing she was lounging around somewhere else. Anywhere else!!

Here are some examples of what we saw:

Now to be fair, there were SOME classic cars. They seemed to be either looking like this:

(believe it or not, this one had a “SOLD” sign on it)

…or this…
…or this! (NOW we’re talking!)

(For more fab photos, visit Hubs’ flickr page here.)

So we arrived with the desire to buy a couple of carburetors, a center seat, and a new engine :-). We left with a “new” saucepan ($10), 5 lemons ($1), 2kg of nuts ($20), 2 cook books ($2) and some snow chains ($5). I was excited with my little treasures, but Hubs was annoyed he didn’t get to buy anything manly. The snow chains were a bit of a “I want to BUY SOMETHING” purchase, but hopefully they’ll come in handy.

Hubs has since heard through the grapevine that there is a VW Only Swap Meet in Melbourne in a couple of weeks time, so we’re heading down for that one too, and will hopefully find what we’re looking for. Although, if the last one was anything to go buy, it might just be a whole lot of non-car-related junk from VW owners’ garages. Only time will tell…

*technically the kombi we drive still belongs to Hubs’ family, but Hubs adopted it 10 years ago and has never left it’s side.

The force is strong within me

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I don’t know what it is about being pregnant, but it increases the earth’s gravity both within me and around me. Things that used to stay in my hands are now spontaneously attracted to the floor at any given moment. (Especially pens, my hat, vegetables, pots and pans, tubs of yoghurt… you name it…) Getting up is becoming hilarious, with me giving signals to Hubs to give me a push every time I want to leave the couch. If we were still sleeping on the futon, I would never get out of bed. Bending over is becoming an Olympic sport for me, and often when I drop things, I just leave them on the floor and either ask Hubs (very nicely) to come and pick up after me, or do a big emu parade at the end.

Pregnancy has also increased my clumsiness, though I didn’t think this was possible. It’s gotten so bad that Hubs is actually noticing all the clanging and banging that goes on when I’m in the kitchen, whereas before, he would just tune it all out. Though, he may just be more concerned as he knows that these days, dropping a few carrots on the floor can reduce me to a puddle of tears, snot and incoherent babble.

Having said all this, I am absolutely loving being pregnant. I have had a seemingly very easy pregnancy, with no real unpleasant symptoms or side effects that I’ve read all about. I do still have 9 weeks to go (is that it??) so anything can happen, but while things are going so smoothly, I’m just going to enjoy it.

And be okay with constantly dropping things.

Trying new things

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As I mentioned, Hubs and I have been taking Yoga classes since we arrived in Wang. I wanted to learn some relaxation and breathing techniques, and we both wanted to improve our flexibility. I have been mostly enjoying it, except that I seem to be getting worse, not better. Each week I find the class a little harder and feel like I can’t do as much as the week before, as my belly expands. I do feel I’ve benefited from the relaxation techniques, and have learnt some great “labour poses” (pose of the child, cat pose), and hope that I can apply them when the time comes.

I was watching Hubs do some “Dragon” poses last week and marvelled at how far he had come with his Yoga. For someone who could barely sit cross-legged before we started, he really has loosened up and developed a great technique. I was really quite proud! I’ll just keep plugging along and hope that it pays off in November.

I’ve also started riding a bike a bit more frequently. Now, let me tell you, riding a bike isn’t “just like riding a bike” for me. It does not come naturally, nor easily. Don’t get me wrong – I WANT to love bike riding. I WANT to be one of those people who just jumps on her bike to pop to the shops or to church or to a garage sale, but the thought doesn’t really float my boat. And being pregnant really doesn’t help my cause at all. Not only am I my usual amount of uncoordinated, but I’m now unbalanced (be nice) as well! The fact that I have a men’s bike doesn’t help either. Getting on and off that thing (having to swing my leg over the bar) is not easy, and don’t even get me STARTED on the size of the seat!!!

I found a bike at a bike shop the other day and fell in love. It was purple, it had a massive seat, a little basket on the back, it was a hybrid (whatever that means), and it was oh-so-cute (cos that’s important). And it was “only” $600!! I really think if we were going to be in Wang for the next 5 years I would invest in it, but I just can’t see myself riding much once we move back to Queensland. Mainly because of all the hills! I’ve never owned a new bike before, and certainly not one and pretty and fancy as that one. I just don’t know that I can justify the expense. But every time I have to get on my current bike, I am very tempted indeed!!

I am trying hard to embrace it a bit more, and over the weekend I DID ride my bike to a garage sale on Saturday and to church on Sunday. And it just makes me want that pretty bike even more…

From Newman to Wang

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So as they say, better late than never. I’ve finally gotten around to going through all the photos we have taken the last couple of months, so I’ll be able to fill you in on our big move. First of all, packing up our unit at Newman was a mammoth task that we put off mostly until the Wednesday/Thursday/Friday before we moved. The funny thing about having limited space and trying to move all in one go, is that you end up packing the stuff you hardly ever use first, and have to leave the stuff you use often because it can’t fit in! Ridiculous, no?

I must say a very big thank you to everyone who offered to help and who did help, whether it was by manual labour, bringing over banoffee cakes, packing a trailor load of stuff to take up for us, and taking things off our hands (too many to mention). Oh, and to the cleaners at Newman for cleaning our flat for us on Monday!!! Something I thought I would have time and energy for, but Littlefoot decided to sap all my energy for the weekend so it didn’t get done.

As happened last time we packed the kombi, I just left Hubs to it and he did a great job. Even though it looked like this time we wouldn’t fit half our stuff in!

We were worried about pushing out the windows towards the end! I’m not sure we could have fit another thing in!!!

Deja vu anyone? I wanted a photo with the door open, but everything would have fallen out, so we had to make do. We were all packed by about 10am Saturday morning which was a pretty good effort if you ask me! Now Hubs, where do I fit??

This was a bit unacceptable for little ol’ preggo Wifey, so we dropped by our friend’s place who was already taking a trailor-load up for us, and left a few more things with him. This made for a much more pleasant trip. Victoria put on some glorious weather for us as we drove out of the Newman gates for the last time and onto the Hume.

The next chapter I already spoke about here, but here are some photos to go with our first couple of days in Wang.

Hubs trying to keep warm on our first night
Our lounge room and makeshift bedroom for the first few nights
Where oh where will it all go?

I’ll leave you with the “before” shots to ponder over, and let you get excited that I actually have some “after” shots to show you in the next few days!

The name game

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A conversation currently in progress:

Hubs: “Remember how I used to call you Mags? What name could we give our child that could be shortened to Mags?”
Wifey: “If it’s a girl, Margaret?”
Hubs: “Hmmmmm…. and if it’s a boy?”
Wifey: “How about Magnum”
Hubs: “Middle name, P.I.”
Wifey, giggling…
Hubs: “And then, we can put the Pi symbol as his middle name and he can be called Magnum π”
Wifey, uncontrollably laughing at this stage, but he’s not done yet!
Hubs: “And then!!…….. We can call him….. Magpi!!”

Ba ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

My Hubs is hilarious. Feeling sorry for Littlefoot yet people??

Cracking the funnies

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Setting the scene: Hubs and Wifey are at their first antenatal appointment at the hospital, answering endless questions from the midwife about conception, family histories, health etc etc. Hubs and Wifey are trying to act like mature, future parents. Well, Wifey is at least…

Midwife: “Did you need any help getting pregnant?”
Wifey: “No I didn’t.”
Hubs: “I helped!”

Wifey and Midwife look at each other, and are left unable to speak for some time…

Nuts about Peanuts

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I’ve mentioned my love of Peanuts before (here and here), and my desire to own the complete Peanuts series of comic books (they are still being released!!) and the fact that I am currently struggling through reading a biography about Charles Schulz (that I think I’m going to give up on to be honest). What was my point again? Oh yeah, I love Peanuts. So when we were in Minotaur the other day, and came across the Peanuts 60th Anniversary Book, I went, well, a little nuts 🙂

But I didn’t actually really consider buying it. It was a bit pricey, and such frivolousness at this point in time wasn’t on my mind. But it was on Hubs’ mind. He said something like “Go onnnnnnnn. Let’s just get it. If you REALLY want it, we can say it was a birthday present since I didn’t get you one.” This isn’t really true – Hubs made me a beautiful photo album that didn’t cost much, but that took him hours to put together. Still, who was I to argue?? And since I got to get a new comic book, so did Hubs! (Perhaps that was his plan all along! 🙂 He wanted Strange Girl and the whole series (5 books) was available at a very good price so it was a done deal.

I haven’t even opened it yet. I’m saving it til we move to Wang. The anticipation is kind of killing me, but in a really awesome way. It’s going to be SO goooooood….

All night movie marathon…

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…and a triple espresso so you can stay awake.” Okay, so it wasn’t an all night movie marathon, and it was an affogato, not a triple espresso, but we did stay awake! Hubs has been complaining whinging noting that we have been having an earlier bed time than usual – actually, the comments were around the fact that he had a bed time – and wanted to stay up later on the weekends. So I went one better and planned a night of movies on Friday night. We had nothing pressing all weekend, so I figured we could sleep all day Saturday after staying up all night.

I was keen to see Avatar, but we couldn’t get it working on the computer, so we started with Back to the Future III. We had watched I and II in the last couple of months so we completed the trilogy. We then watched Kung Fu Panda which we’ve been meaning to watch for ages and it was SO good! It had laughs all the way through and a lovely message at the end that we can all relate to. The third movie took a bit of deciding on, but we ended up going with The Royal Tenenbaums which I had seen AGES ago and liked it and thought Hubs might too (I was right).

By this stage it was 4:40am and we decided to call it a night. We had consumed choc-dipped strawberries, bullets (my FAVOURITE!!), and I made some choc-dipped snakes as well so we were pretty buzzy but very very sleepy indeed. We crashed into bed and slept soundly… until the phone rang at 10am! Should have thought to put them on silent!! We had another nap that afternoon (from 4-6pm!) and got around to watching Avatar that evening. It was pretty good! As Hubs calls it, Fern Gully with guns, but I really rather enjoyed it. It wasn’t in 3D but I still got the general gist.

So that was our movie marathon weekend! Now it’ll take me a few days to catch up on sleeeeeeeep 🙂

I should have known

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As I mentioned, it was Hubs’ birthday yesterday (and still currently his “birthday week”) so I had planned to take him out to dinner here. The place had been recommended to us by a couple of people, with the main attraction of “cheap pizzas” ie $4 pizzas from 7-11pm Mon-Thurs. Hubs likes pizza, and we like being cheap, so I thought it would be a great place to go! I was expecting a dodgy little place with mix-matched couches and a casual vibe which would have been perfect, especially since I had my walking shoes on (we had walked the 1.5km from home) and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. This is not the place that greeted us. Instead, it was this rather trendy, though still relaxed, bar and restaurant that wasn’t really “us”. We stood at the bar for about 5 minutes and looked around for a spare table, of which there were none. After not being served for a while, we had a quick discussion and decided it wasn’t really what we were hoping for, so we left.

We started walking down the street looking for something else, and I asked Hubs what he felt like. Then I mentioned the B word. Burgers. His face lit up and he looked at me in his “I’m so cute I know I can get what I want if I look at you like this and talk to you all sweet-like” way and said:

“Honeeeeeeey. You know what I’d really love? If we went home and you cooked us some roo burgers.”

I should have known.

You see, my Hubsband is a man of simple pleasures. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, he is easy to please, but difficult to impress. This goes for most aspects of his life, but in particular, with food. Of course I was happy to oblige. So we swung by Coles and picked up some salad stuff, knowing I had the main makings of the burgers at home. And with a few mushrooms on the side, they really hit the spot. I’ve been making roo burgers for over 2 years now, and I think I’ve pretty much perfected them! Not that I like to brag or anything. We devoured the burgers and topped off a great meal with leftover cake and ice cream, while watching the last episode of The Hollowmen, and a ep of Daria.

Hubs’ take on the evening? “Best birthday dinner EVER.”

And who am I to argue?

(Someone’s looking like a tired little bunny…)