Category: Photos

The loaded question

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Is it just me, or do mothers-to-be get asked more loaded questions than the general public? Here is an example of a question that I don’t mind being asked:

“Are you riding your bike to work, Wifey?”

Here is an example of the “question” that I have been asked about 30 times since moving to Wangaratta and, shock horror, have been riding my bike to work:

“Your not riding your bike to work are you Wifey?”

“Well yes, is a matter of fact, I am. Wanna make something of it?”

Shouldn’t I be being commended for wanting to keep active and fit during my pregnancy instead of being told I should be driving the 1.8km to and from work every day?

Now, granted, I did blog recently about how I’m a bit unco on a bike, so when Hubs and I found a commuter bike at The Ceres Bike Shed a couple of weeks ago in Melbourne, I was in love. I’ve been meaning to blog about Ceres for AGES – ever since we bought our bikes from there 18 months or so ago, in fact. Ceres is basically a hippy farm (sorry, no offence) and amongst other things they have this totally awesome bike shed. Basically, you rock up, pick a bike that you want, which may be in good condition and just in need of a bit of tweaking (my first bike just needed a new seat and adjustment of the breaks) or at the other end of the spectrum, you can build a bike from scratch out of all the recycled bike parts. Cool hey?

This is what the “bike shed” looks like:

There’s also more of a “shed” looking thing where all the tools are kept. There are volunteers on hand to help you out, but the idea is, they give you some guidance, and teach you so you can learn how to do it yourself. The first bike Hubs chose only needed the gears replaced (or so we thought) but after 2 hours they realised it was actually beyond repair, so he had to choose another one which just needed some minor adjustments. That was our first encounter with Ceres, and we walked away with 2 bikes and a 12 month membership for $100. Not bad hey?

This was our second trip to Ceres about 6 months later when my peddle broke and I needed a new one. I replaced them myself and it cost me a whole $5. I felt very clever indeed.

So our third trip was a couple of weeks ago when I found my new little baby. Her name is Daisy. This is not the best photo, but how cute is she???

Hubs spent about 2 hours putting in the gears and new brakes while I just stood around and looked pretty. I can’t believe I didn’t take any photos of him working on the bike!!!

Every time I ride Daisy I feel like a clown in a circus (in a good way!) and have the circus tune in my head. You know the one. Just imagine a clown on a little bike with a honky-honky horn and it’ll come to you. I’m going to get Hubs to take a video of me riding this thing. I just love it! It’s so easy to ride and I feel so much more confident than I have on any other bike.

Now. There was a point to this post. Aaaah yes. The loaded question. Our neighbours, God bless them, are very concerned about me and Littlefoot, and worry when they see me walking to work each morning. And don’t even get them started on me riding my bike. “I don’t believe women in your condition should be riding bikes.” I actually waited until one of the drove out of her driveway this morning before I left so I wouldn’t get a lecture! I felt so naughty!

So yes, I am riding my bike to work, kind neighbour; I did ride my bike to work, concerned colleague; and I will be riding it home again this afternoon, for anyone who wants to ask.

Another Swap Meet

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After going to the swap meet in Shepparton a few weeks ago, I wasn’t about to start doing cartwheels when Hubs said there was another one he wanted to go to in Melbourne. “But this one’s a VW only Swap Meet” he says. Like that’s supposed to make it better?

I was a little sceptical but we got up at 7:00am on the Sunday after the game as we wanted to “fight the crowds” and “get a good parking spot”. The swapping and meeting started at 8am and we arrived around 8:30am at Williamstown. As we were “looking for a park” we saw a few VWs and then drove right past the venue – there were parks right outside!! Obviously this meet was a lot more low-key than the last which was absolutely fine by me!

We actually had a really nice time chatting with fellow kombi and VW owners about this and that and Hubs bought himself some carbis!

I’m not sure that he needed all 3, but considering he also wanted to buy a whole “new” engine that I talked him out of, I let it slide. Thankfully there wasn’t the junk at this meet that there was at the last meet, and it was wholly VW-related. Some of the cars were just gorgeous!

And some had the potential (maybe… eventually…) to be so:

And one kombi in particular, around the same model as ours (1977) was fully restored. It was nice to see what our kombi could maybe look like one day…. (but, you know, with our own kids…)

And of course there weren’t just kombis! It was a VW affair after all.

I had some photos of some beetles as well but don’t seem to have them with me right now. But you all know what they look like šŸ™‚ It really was a nice way to spend a Sunday morning and afterwards we went and had a coffee and cake, but that deserves a post all of its own.

Bringing back the Macaron

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Hubs informed me the other day that Macarons are “back in vogue”. I wonder if thatĀ happened before or after I baked them a few months ago, and then again a few weeks ago. I don’t like to say I’m a trend setter, but that seems like too much of a coincidence if you ask me…

You see, the thing about macaroons, is that they are a LOT of effort, but the reward is seemingly worth it because they are just so damn good. These are pretty muchĀ as far from “3-step-baking” as you can get. The first time I made them, they were a bit of a novelty. I doubled the batch as Hubs’ cousins said that the recipe didn’t make that many. It took me all evening to make them and probably half of them were fit for other people’s consumption, and the other dodgy half were consumed by Hubs and I over the next week or 2.

A few weeks ago I volunteered to provide morning tea for our staff meeting here, and decided to make my stock-standard pumpkin choc-chip cookies and choc-dipped strawberries andĀ some cheese scones. I thought I should make one more thing so decided on macarons. I had all the ingredients, so why not?

Why not? WHY NOT??? Cos they take freaking FOREVER!!! It’s one thing to have a whole evening to cook them,Ā but to try and fit them around cooking and preparing 3 other things was not one of my finest ideas. At one stage when I was half-way through making them, andĀ making noises of “I can’t BELIEVE I did this to myself”, Hubs said something along the lines of “I did think you were being a little adventurous/optimistic/CRAZY baking those.”

Here’s the process, simplified as much as possible: Mix dry ingredients, beat egg whites, mix all together, put into awesome piping tube, pipe 3cm circles (that look like little turds) (sorry, that’s gross) (but I’m leaving it in), bang baking tray down to flatten them in to 4cm turds circles (this didn’t work very well for me),Ā dust withĀ icing sugar,Ā bake for 10-15 minutes or until slightly brown on top, cool on tray, then take off baking paper. Repeat until all mixture is used (I made about 70 “halves”). In the mean time (cos you have nothing to do while they’re baking… yeah right) make or reheat your ganache. The first lot I made I used the jaffa ganache I had leftover from Hubs’ birthday cake and it really added a great flavour to the finished result. Then you match up the halves into equal sizes, (and end up with 10 random ones at the end)Ā and spoon in the ganache and put them together.

And in pictures:

See? Just like that. This is certainly a recipe to make when you have time and patience andĀ a good playlist runningĀ on your media PC. But as I mentioned, the end result is very impressive and delicious and I got thumbs up all round for my baked goods. I don’t think I’ll be making them again in a hurry. (har har…)

Oh what a game

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Even if your life doesn’t revolve around AFL, that is, you’re not a Victorian, you would have heard about the drawn grand final on Saturday between St Kilda and Collingwood. Hubs and I were with friends at their friend’s place in Melbourne, so we only knew 3 other people out of the 30-odd who were there, but that didn’t stop us from cheering like mad. As I’ve mentioned, you either support Collingwood, or you hate them, so most people were hoping the Saints would win.

St Kilda were behind for almost the whole game, and at one stage by 3 or 4 goals, but we were never out of it. We never lost hope of being able to come back. And in the 3rd quarter, named “the premiership quarter” we came back and kept Collingwood goal-less. It was incredibly exciting and certainly the best game of football I’ve ever seen in my life. When we hit the lead for the first time, the room, bar the 3 Collingwood supporters, went absolutely nuts! But it wasn’t won yet. Both teams stepped up to the challenge and played like they’ve never played before, and to be honest, a draw was one of the best results possible. What I mean by this, is that you just couldn’t separate the 2 teams on the day. They were both deserved winners, and Hubs thinks they both should have been able to take a trophy home and be done with it.

But that’s not how it works in the “real world.” When the final siren blasted with the scores deadlocked at 68 all, we assumed extra time would be played. But no. That’s not how they do it in the AFL. They started talking about “coming back next week to battle it out again.” Say what now? I have to go through this all over again??? I barely avoided labour this time around!!!! (People at the party kept looking at me and a few asked “when are you due again??”)

So that’s the way it’s going to be. This Saturday at 2pm they will have a re-match. In a lot of ways, it’s no big deal. Another game of footy to watch – what’s wrong with that? But if you consider all the things that are planned for the week after the AFL grand final, Victoria is a mess! All the grooms who have said to their brides-to-be “as long as the wedding isn’t in September, that’s fine” to which they reply “okay honey-bunny. We’ll make it for the first weekend in October.”

Oh boy. There would have been a lot of nervous brides at full-time.

Anyway, the main point of this post was to say how amazing the game was and how much Hubs and I enjoyed it and how it was all people could talk about afterwards. We witnessed history and it was great to be a part of that. Now we just have to go through it all again this Saturday. GO SAINTS!!!

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.

To Do

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Hubs is away on a retreat this weekend for med so it’s my opportunity to “get organised”. I’ve written myself a TO DO list (one of my favourite things “to do”! ha ha ha ha…) and blogging isn’t on that list, but boring things like vacuuming and washing and cleaning are, so it’s no surprise to find me here. I’ve prepared myself for doing lots of the things on my list – I have 8 hours of music lined up (currently listening to The Panel Live), I have a belly full of breakfast, and I have a speck of motivation which will hopefully be enough to at least get me started.

I’ll be good and keep it short (for now… I’ll probably be back later) and share with you a belly shot in a skirt that our good friend Mel made me. The photo doesn’t quite do it justice, so let me tell you how comfy and cute it is, just in case you can’t tell!

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.

Another baby shower!

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I headed up to Brizzie a few weeks ago to visit with my family and friends to share this whole “growing a baby inside my belly thing” with them. A few of my girlfriends were really keen to throw me a baby shower, so how could I possibly say no? Hubs wasn’t able to come up with me for this visit, so I went solo. It takes longer (obviously) to get to Brizzie from Wang, than it does from Melbs. Throw in a cancelled flight and more delays, and you have one tired Wifey arriving in Brisbane at 6:30pm, after getting on the bus from Wang (to Melbs) at 6:30am. It was totally worth it though!

We went and visited Nanny in hospital (she’s much better now) on the Thursday night after I arrived, then I had a lovely sleeeeeeep in on Friday and had a nice day with Kate and Alex (mmmm….. baby cuddles) and then had a nice relaxed evening at home with Mum and Dad. Dad and I watched the footy and had an early night. Then I had brunch with Ma and came back to Mum and Dad’s place for lunch before the showering began!

It was so lovely, as always, to see all my girlfriends and rellies. We played a couple of games, but mostly I just got to hang out with the most amazing women I know. There were lots of belly rubs (which, as you know, I don’t mind!) and oooohing and aaaaaahing over delightful gifts. I felt quite overwhelmed by all the love and support, and it certainly made leaving the next day harder.

Some happy snaps from the day:

The Belly Shot

Two Mums

Another 2 Mums! (Nanny’s still not happy that we live in “Victoria”)
With Ah-del and Bethie
The Nappy Cake (guess how many nappies!!)
(Bethie, you’ll have to leave the answer in the comments section cos I can’t remember!!)
I have some other photos but am having uploading issues, so I’ll hopefully share them another time! (And if you have any shots from the day, please feel free to email them to me!)

We then headed over to my bro’s birthday party at his place which was lots of fun. I got to catch up with a few of his friends whom I haven’t seen in a long time, and I met some lovely new people as well. It wasn’t a late night, and I was certainly ready for bed when we got home.

The next morning I had a leisurely brekky with Mum and Dad and then I had to sort through the 4 vacuum-sealed bags of clothes that Kate had left for me! That was quite a task! I picked out a few things that I thought might come in handy early on, and left the rest for when we stay in Brizzie over Christmas. There was just so much!! We left for the airport for my 1pm flight and arrived with plenty of time to spare. I was trying not to think about the actual leaving side of things, but as we walked to the security gates I lost it. I couldn’t stop crying and didn’t want to let go of Mum and Dad. The security guards told them to come through with me, which just meant I had to go through it all again once I had to board the plane!!

I managed to somewhat keep it together until I got on the plane, and then the waterworks began again. I was trying to be discreet, but it obviously wasn’t working as a flight attendant came over to me while everyone else was boarding to see if she could do anything for me. I just told her I was just a little bit sad and she looked at my bulging belly and said she understood.

Anyway, I made it home safe and sound around 10:30pm that night and was utterly emotionally and physically exhausted, but oh so happy as well. Hubs had texted me to say he had made me something and this is what greeted me on my arrival home:

I do love this man oh so much. If I remember correctly, it may have started the tears again, but in a really lovely way. Thanks again to everyone who came along on Saturday and sent their best wishes for our family. We know we’re a long way away, but I feel so close to you all and can’t wait to share more special times with you.

Gone shootin’

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Okay. So this is a post that I started writing on the 2nd of February 2009 (yes, 2009) about an activity that took place on the 2nd of January 2009 (yes, 2009). I know I know. I’ve been busy! So the story goes: Hubs wanted to do some shooting at the rifle range while we were on in Brisbane for Christmas holidays almost 2 years ago, so Dad offered to take us. He owns a few (registered, legal) hunting rifles, so we invited Lsl and NephNath along and headed down to The Queensland Rifle Range at Belmont.

After a (very brief) safety demonstration, we waited for a break in the “traffic” and set our targets up.

Ready Hubs?
Ready Wifey?
Ready Lsl?
Aim NephNath and Dad, and FIRE!
We even managed to hit some targets! I think this was one of mine?
I didn’t like to use the animal-looking ones… That’s so mean!
All the gun shots left me quite on edge and to be honest, I was quite happy to leave. We had a great time though!

Rusky Business

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One of the things I was most looking forward to about having our own place was all the cooking and baking I was going to get to do. And it has been fabulous! I have been baking up a storm of pumpkin choc-chip muffin cookies, ANZAC bikkies, macaroons, and last weekend, rusks. Being married to a man with South African blood in him, rusks were always something that I wanted to learn how to make. So armed with a recipe from his uncle, and assistance from his Ma, I went to work.

On a side note, I had gone to a garage sale that morning and seen one of those huge ugly silver mixing bowls and thought “hmmmm…. might that come in handy? Naaaaaaaah…” As soon as I started mixing the ingredients (which included almost 2kg of dried ingredients) I was kicking myself for not buying it!!

Anyway, back to the baking. I had to mix the dry ingredients together, then the butter, sugar, eggs and buttermilk.

Note to self: need larger mixing bowl so as not to spray buttermilk mixture everywhere while mixing
Next I mixed the dry ingredients with the wet ones, using my hands and making a huge mess. FUN! Again, I had to mix in 2 bowls and then combine the 2 at the end. I lined 3 baking trays but only ended up needing the 2.
Then I pressed the raw mixture into the trays
The recipe says to bake for 50-60 minutes but after an hour I smelt the goodness and checked it out. I really should have swapped them over half-way through, cos one of them was VERY well cooked and the other wasn’t done in the middle so I had to put it back in.
Then you let them cool for an hour or so and cut them up. The next process dries them out to crunchy-goodness.
Pop them in the oven for 4 hours at 100 degrees with the oven door slightly ajar to let the moisture out (thanks Ma)
In the meantime, cook yourself an awesome omelette with your farm-fresh eggs you got for $3 a dozen from a lady at work who has her own chickens. (see the rusks cooking below?? The smell was heavenly.)
And bring them out, nice and dried, and wait impatiently for Hubs to get home and be mega-impressed!
Remember for next time: don’t have the oven open so much, to increase drying-out; use bigger bowls; buy a bigger tin (this one only fit half of them!); let them cool more before cutting them so they don’t all crumble on me; cut them into longer pieces.
I’m hoping these last us at least a couple of months, though, the way Hubs has been going through them I might be making the next batch before too long. The idea is, you make a whole bunch (I probably made about 100) so you don’t have to make them very often. It was lots of fun, but I’m not sure I’ll be lining up to make something like koeksisters any time soon. Not without the expertise of an experienced SA cook at least!! šŸ™‚