Adventures and owies

That's right kids - contrary to what you may have been thinking, I'm not dead. I've just been crazy busy for the past week. I finished work on Tuesday, spent all day Wednesday cleaning (and nearly fell asleep at dinner with my parents), and packed the van and did more cleaning on Thursday. Which included giving myself a rather spectacular bruise on my left knee because I dropped my end of the (rather weighty CRT) TV, and used my knee to stop it smashing on the ground. We had the final inspection on Friday, followed by the 7.5 hour drive to Melbourne. Let me just say, the Hume Highway is REALLY. FREAKING. BORING... When the highlights of a drive that long are a town that's about 3 hours from the coast and which features a giant submarine, and a tree shaped like a chicken, you know it's dull.

After unloading the van and filling the garage up with all my junk really important stuff, I wound up going to stuff myself with pizza and watch the footy with my brother, C, and a bunch of his mates. Not actually AT the footy, you understand, because that was in Adelaide. But at one of C's mate's houses, which meant we could make really terrible jokes about the commentary and watch South Park during half time. SCORE!

(Oh, and speaking of really terrible jokes, there are two fish sitting in a tank. One turns to the other and says "So, how do you drive this thing?". C told that on Friday night, and as terrible as it is, I'm milking it for all it's worth!)

Over the weekend, I went crazy and wound up going bushwalking. Twice. Saturday was a trip out to Werribee Gorge with Ness and Jamie (Also? Chrome's spellcheck is telling me that Werribee should be spelled 'Werewolf'. AWESOME). Seeing as how I had NO idea where any of my clothes were (other than "somewhere in a box in the garage"), I wore my most appropriate outfit - jeans and a t-shirt that has puffy sleeves and little hearts all over it. And yes, it's TOTALLY necessary to have puffy sleeves on your shirt while bushwalking. Didn't you know? ;) I did manage to locate my hiking boots though, so at least my footwear was appropriate!

Werribee Gorge

Werribee River

Taken by Jamie, who's not too lazy to stand up during lunchtime like I am a much better photographer than me

Oh, and if you DO go to Werribee Gorge? The park map that's available online shows the unsealed roads in the same colour as the contour lines... #whosegeniusideawasthat

Then on Sunday, I went out to the Christmas Hills with my parents and one of their friends for a jaunt up Mt Lofty. There were nice views:

And dead trees which led me to play with monochrome mode:

And weird fungus:

And then I fell on my arse. To be fair, it was going down a hill that was covered in slick mud and a whole lot of moss. But I still went out walking with a group containing two people with Seniors cards and *I* was the one who fell down. Nice work, Kirsti...

But it was all okay, because we went out for lunch in Yarra Glen afterwards. Pear cider and a steak sandwich makes any Sunday afternoon better!

How've you guys been while I've been off gallivanting about the countryside?!

K xx

30 Days of Books - Day 30

So I should probably be going to bed instead of blogging, because I'm moving out tomorrow and still have a crapload of cleaning to do, but pfffffff... I spent all of today cleaning, and I'm pretty sure I now have the most spotless cupboards and oven in all of Canberra! Everything hurts now. I sat down at dinner with my parents and nearly fell asleep at the table... But you know, having to buy a ton of cleaning products hasn't been all bad - I just entered a giveaway on the paper towel packet to win $20,000, so fingers crossed!! ;)

Anyway, it's been a long time coming, but I've finally made it to Day 30. Yay!! Okay, it's taken me like a millionty days to get through it, but whatever.

Day 30 - Your favourite book of all time

You know what, this is a no brainer. 

Source

Harry Potter. And yes, I'm counting them as one book. It's my blog and I can do what I want, dammit!! ;) Every time I read the books, I get something new out of them. For example, when I reread them in the lead up to the release of Deathly Hallow Part 2, I came across a bit in which Ron throws a crocodile heart at Malfoy during a Potions class. I have absolutely no memory of EVER reading that before, and I've been reading Harry Potter for 15 years now! It's a rare book indeed that you can read time and time again and still find something new in it every time. If I'm ever stranded on a desert island, Harry Potter is what I want to keep me entertained! 

Appropriately, I'm currently using paper cups and plates that say "Happy Halloween" on them as I've packed all my crockery and glassware. I think J.K. Rowling would approve! Now if only I could learn how to do Accio so that I never again sit down only to find that I've left my water bottle on the other side of the room, all would be right with the world...

What's your favourite book of all time?

K xx

Day 01 - The best book you read last year

Day 02 - A book you've read more than 3 times

Day 03 - Your favourite series

Day 04 - Your favourite book of your favourite series

Day 05 - A book that makes you happy

Day 06 - A book that makes you sad

Day 07 - Most underrated book

Day 08 - Most overrated book

Day 09 - A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving

Day 10 - Favourite classic book

Day 11 - A book you hated

Day 12 - A book you used to love but don't any more

Day 13 - Your favourite writer

Day 14 - Favourite book of your favourite writer

Day 15 - Favourite male character

Day 16 - Favourite female character

Day 17 - Favourite quote from your favourite book

Day 18 - A book that disappointed you

Day 19 - Favourite book turned into a movie

Day 20 - Favourite romance book

Day 21 - Favourite book from your childhood

Day 22 - Favourite book you own

Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't

Day 24 - A book you wish more people would've read

Day 25 - A character you can relate to the most

Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something

Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending

Day 28 - Favourite title

Day 29 - A book everyone hated but you liked

Day 30 - Your favourite book of all time

A work in progress

So remember how last week I said that all the furniture belonged to my housemate, D? Yeah. Her movers came this morning, and now I have a WORLD of no furniture and it totally looks like I'm taking a leaf out of Sam and Dean Winchester's book and squatting in an empty house. Want to see?

Here's the living room last week:

And here it is as of about 15 minutes ago:

As it turns out, giant cushions on the floor aren't especially comfortable as a computer chair... Oh, and that flat cardboard box on the right? That's my kitchen table. I move the cushions over to the cardboard and put my plate on there so that I don't spill stuff on the carpet. And the pile of phone books you can see just above the giant cushions? I was standing on those to change light bulbs and clean the heater. A lack of furniture leads to some creative approaches to step stools, that's for sure! (Oh, and that's not a tissue between my 'office chair' and my 'kitchen table'. It's a piece of packing paper.)

Here's the dining room last week:

Apparently I deleted the non-scribbled on version...

And now:

That box on the left? Is filled with recipe books. It weighs a metric ton. Possibly more...

Considering that I now have no microwave and a whopping *one* saucepan, I'm going to be eating tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner every night between now and when my parents arrive with the moving van...

On the other side of the equation, we have my bedroom. Here's last week:

And here it is now:

It kind of exploded everywhere... I have no idea how I'm going to go to bed tonight. If it weren't so bloody uncomfortable, I'd convert my giant cushions from an 'office chair' into a 'sofa bed' and just get out my sleeping bag!

And now for today's piece of randomness. When D left earlier, she presented me with this:

Yup. It's a Dumbledore stamp. Apparently she bought some stamps to put on postcards when she was home in Scotland a few months ago, and couldn't bring herself to use them because of how awesome they were!

Sorry about the not-very-excitingness of this. My brain has been fried by cleaning product fumes... Which will probably just get worse tomorrow, as I have to clean the oven... *shudder*

How was your Saturday?
K xx

Moving requires packing

I know, right? Who knew?! Considering I've got less than two weeks left in Canberra (SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!), and considering my work mum dropped round a bunch of packing boxes yesterday, I figured I may as well take advantage of having nothing to do this afternoon and get things under way.

So far, I've packed my books and my DVDs, and cleaned out part of my closet. Here's the before pictures with annotations showing the SUPER important bits. (Don't ask me why all my 'writing' goes downhill to the right. I have no idea):

My room.

Also my room.

Living room.

Dining room.

And here's the progress I've made so far:

Feel free to judge my taste in films... And yes, those boxes JUST contain DVDs

ALL those boxes have books in them...

Not particularly impressive, I'll grant you. But it's a start! There'll be more progress pictures next weekend when my housemate, D, moves out, leaving me with a TV, some cushions, and the stuff in my bedroom. It's gonna be GREAT - like I've been burgled, only not..............

How's your Sunday been?

K xx

A brief hiatus

I moved house yesterday, and so have spent most of my evenings over the past week putting things in boxes and suitcases and wondering just how much packing tape you need to put around a box filled with 15 kilos of recipe books to stop the bottom falling out of it when you pick it up.

As a result, I haven't had the time to continue my experimental baking posts. But rest assured, regular programming will recommence shortly!!!

K :) xx

Experiment 2 - pizza dough

Right - the dreaded unpacking is done, and despite the giant pile of empty boxes in the living room waiting to go to the dumpster when it's not -3 degrees outside, my new apartment bears some resemblance to tidiness and normality!

And so I declare it time to return to our regularly scheduled programming. Baking. Whatever. Let's make some pizza!! Here's the cast of characters:


Start by placing 1 cup of warm water in a bowl. It needs to be warm rather than hot, otherwise you'll kill the yeast. And that leads to badness...

Next up, grab the yeast. You can use the stuff in the sachets, but this massive tin of yeast was on sale.

Place 2 teaspoons (or 7g, which should equal 1 sachet) of yeast into the warm water, along with 1 teaspoon of caster sugar.

Give it a stir:

Mmmm, looks delicious, no?? :S Then cover it and place it in a warm place for about 10 minutes or until it's frothy. I stuck it in the microwave, being the only warm place in the house!

While the yeast's doing its yeasty thing, place 1 teaspoon of salt into a large bowl.

Then sift 2.5 cups of plain flour into the bowl:

And give it a mix to combine:

Then take the yeast out of its warm place and marvel at the frothy weirdness that's occurred.

Dump the yeast into the bowl and mix it through the flour and salt mixture until it forms something vaguely resembling dough.

Dump the resulting mixture onto a floured surface

Then knead the dough until it's smooth and elastic - it took about 10 minutes of solid kneading.

Then coat the sides of a large bowl with olive oil:

Place the dough into the bowl, and turn it once to coat the dough in oil.

Then cover it and stand in a warm place for about an hour. Or, in my case, two hours while you go to the gym... It should roughly double in size:

Dump the dough back onto a floured surface:

And knead it again until it's smooth:

Cut the dough into four equal portions:

Roll the dough out into 15cm rounds. Or, in my case, some kind of vague shape that may or may not measure 15cm in some direction or other... I really do need to work on my rolling pin skills!

Cover the dough in pizza sauce, and then add a thin layer of cheese to hold the toppings on:

Add the desired toppings. In my case, capsicum, cherry tomatoes and sweet corn:

Top it off with a little more cheese (okay, normal people would add a 'little' more cheese. I like cheese rather too much for my own good...)

Then stick the pizza in the oven at 220 degrees for around 15 minutes:

Then pull it out of the oven and leave it to sit for a couple of minutes before cutting it. Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum:

And that's all there is to it! Making the dough is a bit time consuming, what with the leaving it to sit and expand, and the kneading and all. But it was totally worth it. And not just because I conquered my fear of yeast. Well, maybe not the way it smells. But baking with it, at the very least!

Next up, decorating techniques. Beginning with a practice run using instant mashed potato, of all things!!

K :) xx