Review

I thought it may be helpful for me to provide a quick rundown at the end of each month on what has happened.  I want to focus on the positive and the good and pat myself on the back for what I have achieved in terms of my two operations and to fire myself up for the next month.

For the fertility side of things I have managed to weigh 1.3kg less.  I have also been a lot more mindful about what I eat and my 'toxic load'. I manage to drink 1.5L of filtered water on most days and I am happy about this. For February I want to focus on exercise, just walking like I did before things became a little too busy.  I will also be planning my meals (which I have done) but making more of an effort to stick to the plan.  If you fail to plan you plan to fail but then as I have learnt this month, in order for a plan to work you kinda need to stick to it :)

As for the house/home, it has really been a lot of little things, just ticking off a few things that have been sitting around for a while.  Clearing out the filing cabinet, getting the paperwork into a manageable order and lots of cleaning.  I have been out in the yard most evenings attending to my hedge, looking after it and I am pleased to say that it is growing, each plant has lots of new growth and I am looking forward to reaping the benefits at the end of the year.  February is going to be a big month in terms of the house.  We are back into the garden on Saturday with another 15 plants arriving and we are arranging quotes for the deck.  I think also February will involve a little bit of painting too.  Our breakfast table is pine and it has been stained honey.  I love timber and I like honey timber, but just not pine, whenever I see pine I have to paint it, this is what I am wanting:

Image

January has been a good month, going with the flow and pottering about doing lots of little things, and really getting ourselves ready for February, I have looked at my diary for next week and already it is packed.  Bring it on.

Duck Fat Potatoes

Jamie Oliver taught me to boil and use duck fat, but it was Gordon Ramsay who taught me to rinse and heat.  Here is what I do to achieve the perfect baked potato.

Peel the potatoes and cut into desired sizes, once cut rinse under water as this will get rid of all the excess starch.

Then boil the potatoes to a point where they are half cooked, this will ensure they are nice and fluffy inside, I boil them for around 10-15 minutes.

While boiling preheat the oven and pour a generous amount of duck fat into the pan and put in the oven to get the fat nice and hot.  I struggled to find duck fat in the shops, however after some googling I found Gourmet Goldmine which had exactly what I wanted, duck fat (from France) a few clicks and a couple of days later it arrived.

Once the potatoes have boiled for long enough remove, drain and allow to cool slightly (around 5 minutes). Take the pan out of the oven and pop in the potatoes.  I put them in and then flip straight away with tongs to ensure full fat coverage.  Put in the oven, I have the oven on 200°C and put them in for 15 minutes, but it will all depend on your oven and the size of your potato pieces.  As a side note I don't follow recipes, I look at recipes and then vaguely follow while being guided with what I see, smell, taste and feel.  After 15 minutes take out and flip them over before popping in for another 15 minutes.  

And voila.  Perfect duck fat potatoes (with just a slight sprinkling of sea salt).  And if you are concerned about cooking with duck fat (and this is a moderation food not a daily food) perhaps have a read here.

A special thanks to my brother who was up on the weekend and took these photos.  He is much better than I am.

Waltzing Matilda

Happy Australia Day (for tomorrow) it was only appropriate that I make an Aussie cocktail. However, when you think of Australia and booze you think of a bloke with a beer and 'shrimps on the barbie' or you think of wine with the highest alcohol content around.  The closest we come to having a cocktail would be 'Bundy and coke'. But after some searching around I stumbled upon the Waltzing Matilda.  Not only is this the perfect drink to serve tomorrow but I have added it to my list of things to make again.

4 shots dry white wine
1 shot gin
1 1/2 shots passion fruit juice
1/2 shot orange curaçao
Sparkling ginger ale

Put all ingredients except the ginger ale into a cocktail shaker with ice.  Strain into a Highball glass and top with sparkling ginger ale.
(Note: I tried very hard but was unable to find straight passion fruit juice so I used an orange and passion fruit mix)

Hubby: Not too bad, mild flavour essentially wine with ginger, 3/5

Me: Perfect! Mild, refreshing, easy drinking, does not taste like a true cocktail, reminds me very much of punch, but I love it, 5/5

Perfect for: Australia Day! Any BBQ would be ideal, I would serve as a punch and sip away while soaking up the sun and enjoying a serve of lamb.

Try it: When you cannot decide between wine or a cocktail, also handy for making a bad wine drinkable.

Waiting

I am sitting here in my study waiting.  I have the front door open and a few windows and I am waiting for the rain to start.  I can feel it in the air and the sky is grey.  There was a slight preview on the way home and now I am waiting for the the water to come flowing from the sky and for the air to change.  The house is feeling stuffy right now and I want fresh air to run through the house and brighten it up just a little.

I am also waiting for dinner.  I have duck fat potatoes roasting in the oven.  This is my third attempt at them, the first two times just have not worked out, but thanks to Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey I am hoping I am going to be enjoying them tonight.

So I sit hear waiting.  Hubby is playing the harmonica in another room and I am here catching up on blogs with my mind ticking over as background noise with little reminders of things to do and as I wait I see my list getting longer and longer.  And so often with waiting comes procrastination.  I could start crossing a few things off my list but right now it feels nice to just sit with my meandering thoughts looking out the window.  

The Boys are pottering about, Raz has just walked in and found an envelope that must have fallen behind the cabinet, and he is happily chewing on it and waving it in front of his brother, teasing him, waiting to start a game.  

I long for the day when I can do this all over again but sit out on my wraparound deck and look out onto rolling green hills spotted with livestock.  For now though, my potatoes need checking and bills need to be paid and the wait is over, time to get on with living.

Snickers

Yes there is a heatwave going on.  I know this because at noon today we lost power at work which equals no air con.  I remember back when I was a kid at school and going through the yearly heatwaves.  My uniforms (100% synthetic materials) would stick to me and I would be on the train with a red face all hot and sweaty (nothing has changed much now really).  Of course as soon as I arrived home, mum would treat us with an ice cream.  Tonight I thought it was time to make something with cream, something sweet, something to cool off with:

1 shot Butterscotch Schnapps

1 shot Kahlua

3 shots Cream  

Put everything into a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake, serve in a Martini Glass 

Hubby: Wow that's good, creamy and tastes just like it sounds, 5/5

Me: Liquid dessert, just like the chocolate bar great for a sweet craving, 5/5

Perfect for: Summer afternoons with the girls reliving all things 80s (or whatever childhood decade is appropriate for you)

Try it: When you have a little bit of cream left in the fridge and you just don't know what to do with it, also when you need a sweet hit.

Embracing

(I don't have a habit of letting Mr C eat my shoes, I turned around and this is how I found him)

Lately things have changed a little.  We seem to have found our niche and spot in this world and we are embracing just who we are.  In all honesty I have never been one to try and fit in with the crowd, I have never felt that I was ever in the crowd, but more standing back doing my own thing and occasionally glancing over at what everyone else was doing and thinking "What's the big deal?".

Our house will never be featured in a magazine, the walls are not white and I have a thing for colour.  We don't fill our house with things from the shops, things that everyone else has, and I really am not too fussed about throw cushions.  Aside from our bed and rumpus lounge, our house is full of second hand furniture, either from family or from second-hand vintage warehouses.  And the items that fill in the gaps are hand made and we have been fortunate enough in some instances to have spoken to the creator of the items themselves.  Our style is organic, natural, and most importantly, unique.

I do not like shopping.  Every now and then I would love a day in The City (with an unlimited Credit Card) to spend with my mum where we shop to our hearts content and have lunch at David Jones by the window overlooking Hyde Park.  Outside this I am not a fan.  I go to the shops when I need to, and by that I mean when I cannot get something online.

Some weekends are spent at home, we lock ourselves in our house and just chill with The Boys.  We don't feel the need to go out all the time, being introverts we get our energy from just being at home.  We are homebodies to the extreme and lately I have thought, why fight it?  What is so wrong with wanting to spend a day with my husband at home, pottering and snuggling on the couch watching Seinfeld for the 100th time?  In fact I really love getting up early on a Saturday morning and doing housework, to me it feel so satisfying, I would rather do that then go off to Westfield.

When we are not being homebodies we are out indulging in food and wine and antiques.  We love to explore country towns, popping into antique stores, we love to collect old books, for Hubby it is Engineering and for me it is Agriculture and Australian Classics, for most that would seem weird, but we love it.  We love to eat at good restaurants where they grow the food on site and where someone talks to you at the table to explain in great detail about your meal and of course to enjoy the meal with a great glass of wine.  I get a real kick from boutique wineries were we are the only people at the cellar door and the winemaker/owner takes the time to tell us their secrets and stories in each bottle of wine.  We seem to make instant friends with those who are as passionate about these things as we are.

Monday morning as people discuss their weekends at work I cannot help but think how different we are.  But why fight who we are?  We are now finding ourselves as a couple and embracing everything we have in common and all our passions and I could not be happier.  You really have two options when you wake up each day.  Choose to be happy and true to yourself

Cold People

There has been a bit of a heatwave going on around here lately, although it is difficult for me to know.  I wake up and turn the a/c on, get into my car and turn the a/c on and when I get to work (and park underneath the building) the a/c is also on.  Then after work back into the car and then home.  When clients come in and tell me how hot it is I smile, hoping it conveys the message that I can relate, when really I have no idea.

Hubby and I are cold people.  We love the cold, Autumn and Winter are our seasons, we prefer to dress in many layers that to wear a single cotton layer for the day.  I have friends that are hot people, they are loving it right now, on the weekends they are out at the beach or at the lake on the boat, they are in their element in this heat wave.  For Hubby and I, this weekend was our second weekend in a row where we stayed indoors.  We did pop out briefly for the required Vitamin D hit and fresh air, but most of the time was spent inside with the a/c on, nesting, cooking, cleaning, reading, relaxing and napping.  This is what we do.

But as soon as the air changes in late March/early April that is when we come out of hibernation.  I love getting up at the crack of dawn in those months and opening the front door and letting in all the fresh, cold air.  I LOVE the chill in the air, the crispness of it hitting me in the face.  I love to layer myself in wool and more wool.  I love to be out and about doing stuff, yes we are that couple in the coffee shop sitting outside in the morning air while the hot people cling to their hot coffees inside around the heater as if they had hypothermia.  We go out every weekend, to the beach, the lake, country day trips filled with wine tasting or antique hunting, we are in our element.  Oh how I long for those days.  

For now and the rest of summer we are retreating inside.  We are working on the house, quietly, and talking about our dreams and the future.  This weekend we have found ourselves nesting and making lists on what we want to do on the house for the rest of the summer and using this time the best we can because when the air changes it will then be time for us to step out and thrive.

The Real Midori Illusion

Ahh Midori, you bring back so many memories.  All of them from my uni days, that was a while ago now, and then of course you did make an appearance at a few 18th Birthday Parties in my final year of school, that funny shaped green bottle really takes me back.  The most popular was the classic Midori and Lemonade, but it was almost always premixed as the student budget didn't stretch to buying the actual Midori.  Hot summers, being stuck in rooms without air conditioning.... I might have some memories but there is no way I would go back. 

 

1 shot Bacardi Rum 
1 shot Cointreau
1 shot Midori
1 shot Vodka
1/2 shot Blue Curacao
Pineapple Juice
Lemonade   

In a highball glass mix over ice and top up with half pineapple juice and half lemonade.  

Hubby: Very nice, perfect for a hot day, is a strong alcohol taste, 4.5/5

Me: Whoa!  High on the alcohol, very fruity and refreshing, great tropical taste but definitely leave it at one, 4.5/5

Perfect for: Sitting by the pool late in the afternoon and sipping slowly while watching the sun go down.

Try it: On a hot day when you need something refreshing, just make sure you don't need the car afterwards.

To Travel Or Not To Travel

 

Just over 2 months ago my supervisor took on another role for 2 months and I was asked to act up in her role.  She then took another role for 3 months and I am staying on her job for the next 3 months.  Yesterday my boss asked if I was happy to stay, I said yes, assuming he meant if on the odd chance she didn't come back I could stay in this role, but then he asked about travel.  Would I travel or would I stay in this office.  Because he felt if I wanted to go for this same role in one of our other offices, such as the several offices in Sydney, I would have no trouble.  And it has me thinking....

Having now been in this role for just over two months, I like it.  Really what is not to like?  More money, more responsibility, more respect and I have increased my skill set exponentially in the last 2  months.  Let's be totally honest, it will be very difficult for me to step back down after having been there for 5 months.  I would like to stay in this role and my boss is telling me I can if I am prepared to travel.  But I have done the travel thing.  When we first moved up here I was working in Newcastle and that was 1 1/2 hours each way.  I would get up early, get dressed and go to work, I would come home at 7pm have dinner, and go to bed.  When the weekends rolled around I had no energy and spent most of the time bumming around at home.  Outside work there was little time for much else.  

But, I keep thinking about it.  About staying in this role permanently.  Is it worth it?  Will all the benefits outweigh the travel?  And then I remind myself to look at the big picture.  My future is not with this company or with this industry, my future is with myself as boss and lots of rolling green hills.  I like my job, I really like it at the moment, but is it worth commuting to The City each day for when, in the big picture, it isn't even part of my dreams?

Babies

One of the girls at work returned back to work yesterday after almost a year on maternity.  Today another girl was announing her pregnancy.  The new mother and the new pregnant girl started talking baby when suddenly my friend at work appeared at my desk on the verge of tears.  I took her outside and she told me she was pregnant, but miscarried at 7 weeks and her due date was a week after the newly pregnant staff member.  And right now she couldn't handle the baby talk.

It has stuck with me all day.  Firstly, she is the nicest person in the world, nobody ever says anything nasty about her because frankly there is nothing to say.  She is that girl who is bubbly and positive and you really want to dislike her but you just can't.  Secondly she is the healthiest person I know.  Literally, she goes to the gym almost everyday and her lunch would make the Dr proud.  Whenever there is cake at work she turns it down every time.  Then, as she said to me today, we walk through the streets at work and it is full of dole bludgers, addicts and alcoholics who are pregnant and with children.  Just doesn't seem fair.

I guess with Operation Fertility on my mind the whole thing bothers me, but maybe also because of the crushing pain I could see in her eyes.  She is hurting and is aware of how unhelpful the pregnant colleague is going to be, knowing the whole time that could have been her, she told me it was going to be hard.  I cannot relate, I have never been in that situation, all I could offer her was my ability to listen and I told her I would bring in a book I had just read on fertility that I had found helpful.

I have babies on my mind.  As my friend said, at least she fell pregnant, and she is right.  I hope she gets what she wants very soon.  She will make a wonderful mother.  It makes me think about my situation.  I haven't ovulated since I came off The Pill in November and my PCOS symptoms are starting to show.  I am very aware of just how messed up my fertility is.  And I feel I am only just seeing the surface.  Tonight, I have babies on my mind.

Scotch Fizz

Welcome to this year's blog project, Friday Night Cocktails.  I am not much of a cocktail drinker as I never had much on hand to make them with and I thought this would be a great excuse to get mixing.  Friday night is when we come home, have a glass or two of wine and chillax on the couch after a long week at work, this will be the same, except we will have a cocktail in hand, which may mean we have to rethink the couch/tv thing as cocktails usually call for a little more glamour.

Are you wondering what to do with all that left over sparkling from New Years?  How about trying a Scotch Fizz:

1 shot Single Malt Scotch Whisky

1/2 shot Cointreau

Sparkling

Shake Scotch and Cointreau with ice, serve into champagne flute and top with sparkling.

Hubby:  Gives champers a kick with a slight after burn thanks to the Scotch.  4/5

Me: Refreshing and ideal for a little something extra, enhances the dryness of the sparkling and leaves a little orange aftertaste in your mouth.  4.5/5

Perfect for: A pre dinner drink or sitting at a bar sipping slowly, not one to share with the girls.

Try it: When your Hubby wants Scotch and when you are over all the sweetness of most cocktails.

Resolutions

All the goals Hubby and I have set can really fall into one of two categories, or as I will refer to them, as Operations.  That is right we have two Operations this year that will be our focus and take up our time, energy and money and with all things going to plan have us in a much better position in 12 months time.

First up is Operation Fertility.  Note the word Fertility not Baby, there will be no baby this year (although I understand not everything is within my control so of course if something was to happen it would be celebrated with more joy than our wedding).  This year is about getting my health on track and getting PCOS to disappear so next year we will be in optimum health for Operation Baby.  The biggest goal to fall into this category is to reduce my weight by 30kg.  Other goals include having my fasting blood glucose test result to fall into normal range and some financial goals because my current 1996 model, 2 door car with no room for a baby seat (or two, twins is in the family) just won't make the cut therefore having some money for the inevitable bigger car purchase is needed.

Second is Operation House to Home.  Changing our house from something that looks (and even feels just a little) like a display house to a home that is welcoming, inviting, personal, comfortable, private and when you open the door you feel that you are walking into a family home.  Goals that fall under this category include building the deck, finishing the hedge, landscaping the front yard, putting photos up on the walls, changing the Baby Room from a junk/storage room to an EMPTY room, finding suitable storage for our collection of books and finally, sourcing a retro bar/drink cabinet.

On top of these two things I also want to be a better blogger.  I do neglect this space and have so many blog posts in my head, yet when I finally do sit down they don't seem relevant anymore or I cannot remember them.  So I want each month to have at least the number of blog posts in the double digits and for every single person that takes the time to comment and say hello I will take the time to say hello back.  I want to start regular posting as well, some common post every week, I am thinking about Friday Night Cocktails as it will be a great excuse for me to actually start making some (and would also be a great reason to find the retro bar sooner rather than later).  

Here is to a wonderful, productive 2013, I have a great feeling about this year.