People watching...

A couple of weeks ago I flew to Melbourne for work.  I decided to go from the Sunshine Coast airport, even though that's not my preferred option.  I was there early enough to have a coffee, some lunch and a lovely sit around so that I could do some people watching.

A lady caught my eye and I found myself wondering a bit about her.  She was older, but not old old, I would estimate maybe 60 or so. She was dressed like a well off sort of a traveller, but a traveller.  She had on a white polo shirt, olive cotton style (possibly quick dry or even light moleskin) pants, sturdy walking shoes, and she had a waist bag and a quality backpack. 

Her clothes and her backpack and shoes were good quality, her hair was well styled, but short (easy look after) and she appeared like she had enough money for whatever she wanted to do.  She was neatly attired, a belt on her pants and shirt tucked in. 

What made this lady stand out to me is a couple of things.

1. She was travelling alone.  Yeah, ok, nothing strange about that, but this lady looked like she was almost going backpacking - or heading off to undiscovered lands or at least third world countries.
2. She had obviously travelled a lot before.  She had on her wrists several different things like you would get from the third world countries - tribal plaited wrist bands, leather style bracelets etc., as well as some around her neck.  So, that told me that she was perhaps off on an adventure again.

I love people watching - so many stories, so many experiences, and you can either make them up or deduce them from how they look and handle themselves. 

I hope that this lady is enjoying her travels!!!

On my mind... Holidays!

This is a Friday photo feature that anyone with a blog can join, courtesy of Rhonda's Down to Earth Blog. It opens the door to us sharing our lives through these photos and gives us all a new way to discover each other, and maybe form new friendships. Your photo should show something at home that you're thinking about TODAY. If you're in another country you should join in when you read this, even if it's still Thursday.

To take part, all you have to do is post a photo on your own blog, write a short caption explaining it, and link it back to Rhonda's blog. Please write a new post, don't link to an older one. When your photo is published, come back and add a comment below, with a link to your blog photo so we can all find you. Please visit all the blogs that appeal to you and leave a comment. Slow down, take the time to cruise around and enjoy your cyber visits.

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It's that time of the year again when I start to think about holidays.  Gai and I are going back to Thailand this year - I am really looking forward to it.

I know that for some people, air travel doesn't fit in with their lifestyle, be it for whatever sort of a reason.  I don't have a problem with flying and overseas / within Australia travel.  I don't purposefully offset my carbon emissions, I feel that the lifestyle that we have here and the choices that I make offsets enough carbon for me.  I believe also that we should learn to live with the technology and conveniences that we have - within reason. 

I don't travel often - probably once a month or two within Australia, and once a year or so overseas.  I get so much out of these trips that I intend to continue taking them as long as I can...

We went to Thailand and one of the places that we visited was the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, near the Bridge on the River Kwai.  This place is dedicated to conservation of Tigers, and I learnt a lot about these magnificent creatures, even though it just looks like we're playing with them... which we were!  The babies were just like little kittens - only 2 months old!!!

We're going back to Thailand later this year and this is on the list of things to do!!!

He weighed about 200 kilograms I reckon!

2 months old... how cute!

They are bees on Thai desserts - they were after the honey

At the floating market, this gentleman was one of the boat rower/pushers.  I love his face!

If you would like to see the all incredible photos that we took, here is the public link to my Facebook album... 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.412471114006.182907.547769006&l=08b9997e68&type=1

The forgotten cupboard - the journey continues!

Tonight I have done a second 15 minutes.  I can see progress, but maybe you can't...  I've tackled the top 3 shelves, and have started pulling things out, chucking some things, and putting like with like to get a handle on what's in the cupboard.

Here's progress so far:

I'm kind of sensing a theme for the main problem here in the cupboard.... Can you see it now that "like's with like"????

Journey to the forgotten places...

As you may have heard me mention before, I am a member of an Australian/NZ savings site, called Simple Savings.  One of the threads that I post to as often as I can is "Organised Chaos". 

The gorgeous ClutterCath spends the whole week dreaming up what bit of our chaos we're going to organise the next week, and then on Monday she posts it for us all to participate in.  We've done all sorts of stuff - last week it was organising for Christmas, this week it's the journey to the forgotten places. 

Some of these are vewy vewy scarey.....

Here's her lovely opening post from Monday this week:

Morning to all! Time to start a new thread and a new week and a new month! Gosh golly! I hope you enjoyed a quick visit to Christmas-time - the star on the top of the tree went to Chatterbox who organised and even WRAPPED some gifts!! Great job!

Well it's a slippery slope downhill towards spring now, so let's get started on a few of those forgotten jobs in the locations we dont check on often! When was the last time we remembered some of the following.....

* top of the fridge/freezer
* bottom of the crisper
* under the front door mat
* inside the letter box
* back pockets of the car seat covers
* under the washing machine
* lint filters
* tops of picture frames
* under the sink
* inside the BBQ
* the range hood
* the spice rack/drawer/basket
* bottom shelf of the wardrobe
* coat rack
* whats hanging behind all the doors?
* bottom of the handbag
* inside the microwave (oh the shame as I think of my own...)
* the glovebox
* top of the clothes dryer
* under the lounge cushions (that money is MINE!)
* cleaning the phones
* smudgy light switches
* the bottom of the craft basket
* the bottom of the shower curtain or track
* inside the kitchen bin or compost container
* inside light fittings and tops of fan blades
* shake out the keyboard?

There are probably some other forgotten places in your house you could travel to - let us know in case we have forgotten them too! Some of them are, to use a technical OC term, quite blerky. But necessary all the same. So own up, step up, and see what we can encourage each other to wrangle this week.       

So anyway, after I had run away crying, picked myself up & dusted myself off, I decided that this week would be the kitchen storage cupboard.  And in the true spirit of the OC thread, I have decided to post a picture here of my very scarey kitchen storage cupboard.

We had the cupboard put in when we moved in to give us more storage.  It's become a dumping ground though, for stuff...

Time for it to change!  Stay tuned!

More homemade.....

We had leftovers for dinner tonight.  Leftovers from two nights ago - stick sausages from the SS forum.  Gosh they were yummo!!!

The real recipe is:


STICKY SAUSAGES  (serves 4)

Ingredients

8 thick sausages
4 tblsp tomato sauce
2 tblsp dark brown sugar
1 tblsp mustard powder
2 tblsp soy sauce
Garlic

Method

Set oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Mix all marinade ingredients in a shallow ovenproof dish. Add the sausages and coat them in the marinade. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes. Serve with mashed potato.



What I actually did though was use thin sausages, and dijon mustard (didn't have powdered kind). They were good all the same.

It was a lovely way to dress up a plain jane ingredient like sausages!!! I was quite surprised actually at just how good they actually were.....  Do you have a quick, easy & cheap recipe that you love?  Do share if you do!!!!

Home made always tastes better...

We hear that a lot.  Home made always tastes better than shop bought...  But do we really believe it?  Or do we think, deep down, that shop bought, because it's shop bought, has to be better?  I know that kids have a hard time accepting that something that's home made is actually superior to anything shop bought.

I think it's because we say it tastes better.  It doesn't necessarily taste better, but it certainly will taste different. 

For me, home made is always better, because I know what's gone into it.  How much sugar, butter, cream, eggs etc.  I know the eggs are home laid, from the girls out the side.  Most of the time whatever I make is cheaper, although if I factored in electricity and make time, it wouldn't be... 

So - why am I rambling on like this???  I know I'm sick, but no, I'm not running a fever (I think anyway).  Last weekend, my brother showed me how to make home made apple pie, and gosh it was good!  Pastry from scratch, pie apples (ok, it was all we had) and some spices & sugar.  55 minutes, from start of process through to taking the pie out of the oven.  And it was great!

Did it TASTE like the store bought ones?  Nope - it didn't.  I like their pastry better, but I'll also bet that the pastry we made was an awful lot better for our waistlines than the store bought pies. 

My brother, Mick, feverishly working on destroying my kitchen while Ken looks on in the background with a drink (onya!!) and the gorgeous Lorraine is cleaning as fast as Mick's messing...

He did make a mess, but the pie was good!

Here it is - sprinkled with some caster sugar, decorated with leaves & some cinnamon.  Mmmmmm...

High Top Apple Pie

1 cup self raising flour
1 cup plain flour
2 tablespoons of sugar
Milk
125 g of butter
Custard powder
Cinnamon



Rub the butter into the flour untill it looks like sand.  Add milk to the flour until you have a dough that doesn’t stick to the sides of the bowl.

Knead till smooth (< 5 minutes)

Combine 1 large and 1 small can of pie apples together in a bowl with sugar to taste and dried fruit (if you like it)

AND - here is the secret to the difference between a good pie and fantastic pie - add custard powder to thicken around the apple as it cooks

Roll out the pastry till thin, either put it into a deep pie dish, or onto an oven proof plate, fill with apple mix, cover with pastry. 

Make an egg wash (egg & dash of milk) and wash the top of the pastry. Sprinkle top of pastry with some caster sugar and cinnamon. Bake on 220 degrees for about 40 minutes. bake in a moderate oven untill its golden brown (aprox 45 min to 1 hr)
serve with thickened cream

Kids!!!!

A couple of weekends ago, we went to the Gold Coast to celebrate Ken's Niece's 40th birthday, which was held at a hotel at Broadbeach.  We had such a fun time!!! 

It was most interesting to see who was there though - I'd even go so far as to use the term bloody amazing!!!  I won't go into too much detail, but let's leave it as one person's ex husband and new girlfriend turn up together...  How's about that!!!  I don't have a problem with someone having a new girlfriend, but to take them to a party where ex wife is going to be, when the split is actually quite new?  Bad taste in my view...  (there's more to it but I don't want to go into too much detail...)

Henrik came to me this morning asking where his long sleeved jumper was - the one he had worn when he came here to Australia.  I have a feeling it's gotten mixed up with other stuff down the coast.  Kids!  There were 6 of them staying the night, so it turned into a large slumber party for all the boys in the lounge/dining room.  When I got up on Sunday, I had to go and take a picture - check this out!!!

The beds.  None of them made, or even thinking about being made...

All on computers, phones or other electronic equipment. 
Note the piles of clothes in the back left hand corner of the room....

So - is it really any wonder that clothes are missing???  No, I don't think so either!

I've not been well the past week, and I came home from Melbourne on Thursday afternoon last week and drove immediately to the doctors.  I have a severely infected throat, and it has inflamed my whole face.  Antibiotics, panadol, asprin forte later, I felt much better, but it's not budging yet.  Grrr.... I've drank enough lemon & honey drinks to turn into a lemon!!!