A cluttered space makes for a cluttered mind.

Hello and welcome to 2013!

I've made up my mind that 2013 is going to be the year that the clutter gets tamed! I haven't got horrible before pics for you to look at and this isn't going to turn into an organization blog cause I'm just not that kind of girl!  So all you get is a post that says I'm cleaning up my act and a request for encouragement.

Someone once said a cluttered space makes for a cluttered mind, and that thought really stuck with me.  I already have ADHD... so there is enough clutter in my mind without the added visual clutter in my space.  So come along for the ride and clean out the corners of your house too!

Don't worry, I've been on vacation and have tons of pretty colorful posts coming up. Stay tuned!

Happy 2013, I hope you have a banner year!!!

Happy Halloween!

Somethings you take for granted.  Like Halloween.  And then you move to Australia, and it's all screwy! Halloween is HOT here! HOT!!! And nobody really celebrates it.  We saw one kid in a costume.  He was a ninja.  That was it.  We didn't get any trick or treaters at all.  It was a rather bah- humbug kind of Halloween. So I made some bunting to cheer it up!  

 

It says "Trick or Treat"

 

 

Which is of course completely different from the Halloweens of my childhood.  Growing up in Washington state, we lived at the end of a cul-de-sac out in farm country.  And almost every Halloween this really spooky low lying fog would roll in and it would be really cold! I remember wearing long johns under my costumes. LOL.  The weather really set the Halloween mood for me as a child. 

 

So in an attempt to bring some Halloween fun to our Aussie friends, we invited Ray and Louise over to carve pumpkins! And that meant that of course we had to decorate!  Because we LOVE decorating for holidays.  Yeah most of it was 1950's fantastic, but you know what, it was festive and fun! I think people under value the "hey it's a PARTY" factor that streamers bring!

 

 

Here I am intently watching Ray as he makes his first incision. LOL

See the awesome 50's decor. So cool!

 

I was working on a paper while Joe was decorating, and he asked me about the fake spiderwebs, I was like, just stretch it out and hang it.  Not thinking that maybe he had never seen it before, as they don't decorate for Halloween here. So he asked me to come see and he'd put the whole bag on one cabinet.  It was so cute.  I then clued in and showed him how to do it properly.  I think it turned out pretty good!

 

 

Such scary spider webs! I NEVER clean the house... can you tell?

Good work Joe!

 

 

Here's Joe carving our Australian Blue pumpkin. 

Those are for eating, not for carving as we found out. Yes, they eat pumpkin here on a very regular basis.  We fed pumpkins to the cows, so eating it is a bit strange. tee hee.  Unless it's in a pie of course. :)

 

 

My Aussie Blue Pumpkin

 

So our friends told us that the grocery store had American pumpkins and they got one.  We were slackers and thought they would have a whole bunch of them and that's how we got stuck with an Australian Blue eating pumpkin which is WAY too thick and hard to be a carving pumpkin!

 

 

Louise gets her first feel of pumpkin guts... not sure she liked it. :)

 

 

EEEEKKKKK!!! It's the headless horseRay...

 

 

Louise and Ray and their first ever Jack O Lantern! Pretty cool!

 

We had a wonderful night! The guys played xbox, Louise and I sat in my craft room and talked and drank cocktails and everyone left with all their fingers! It was a super fun time with awesome friends! Hopefully next year we can throw a proper Halloween party!

Until then. Happy Halloween from down under.

 

 

 



Easy Chicken Dinner

I was so looking forward to curry for dinner tonight.  Got home from work and discovered I forgot to get coconut milk at the store.  So no curry for me! :(

On to plan B.  I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make Easy Chicken Dinner for dinner. That way I could take pictures while I made it  for Joe's Cookbook! YAYS!!!

 

I've decided to create a visual cookbook of sorts for Joe to use while I'm gone. So he doesn't starve.   Not that I'm not cooking and freezing a ton of stuff... but he might want to try his hand at cooking one night!

So here is a super easy chicken dinner. I remember eating this as a kiddo, it's yummy, easy and makes a great weeknight meal.

 

OK Turn your oven on right now!!! 

Most ovens take 15 minutes or more to "pre-heat" and you don't want to eat pink chicken! Ewww...

162˚ Celsius and 350˚ Fahrenheit

 

Ingredients:

 

1 can cream of mushroom soup

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1/2 cup rice

2 tablespoons water

1/8 teaspoon mixed herbs

1/8 teaspoon garlic salt

10 turns of black pepper from a grinder

1 cup frozen peas

tin foil

8x8 baking dish

 

 

Spread the rice out in the bottom of the dish

Add 1/8 tsp mixed herbs and 1/8 tsp garlic salt

 

 

 Then add 10 turns of black pepper out of a pepper grinder

 

 

Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of water over the rice.  Make sure it goes where the chicken will be as that is the rice that the soup doesn't always reach.  And you don't want crunchy rice... trust me. Its gross!

 

 

At this point I always rinse my chicken off... My Mama taught me to be a chicken washer with horror stories of icky chicken bugs, so I always rinse it off. You don't have to, but make sure to trim off the yucky bits.  (note the chicken bugs are not actual bugs, apparently this needs clarifying)

 

 

OK place your two chicken breasts side by side and pour the can of cream of mushroom soup.  Spread it all out, making sure the chicken is covered.  Joe named this bit "slime the chicken", but you can name it whatever you want! ;)

 

 

Add 1 cup of frozen peas to the top, just make it random, we're making dinner... not designing the next space station here. LOL So just toss 'em in there!

 

 

See... just tossed in there. No rhyme or reason at all.

 

 

 

Cover the whole thing with foil and pop it in the over for an hour.  But for goodness sakes, check the chicken and make sure it's done! If it's still pinkish, put it back in the oven!

An hour usually is enough time when I make this dish.

 

 

This is what it looks like when it comes out of the oven.  I like to "plate" it so that it looks a bit yummier, put some rice on the bottom of a large flat bowl, then put the chicken on top and add sauce/peas over the top of that.

 

And then... enjoy.

 

 

In other news, our cat is insane. He's currently chasing his tail in the bookshelf. Yes you read that right, he is sitting on the bottom shelf of the bookcase chasing his tail. Silly little monster!! I tried to take a picture, but before I could get my camera he got bored and wandered off.

So here's picture of his giant fat belly with his toy on top.  It will have to do.

Yes,we know he's fat, he's on a diet.

It's not working.

Oh well.

 

 

 

Hope he doesn't starve...

So I'm off to see my Mama in November and I can't WAIT!!! I'm so excited! It will have been a year since we moved and I miss her like CRAZY!!!

Here she is with her Mom at her favorite place in the world... Disneyland!

 

So I'm all set to go, can't wait to leave! Only one problem...Joe can't cook.

Yep this amazingly talented and handsome man can't cook a thing.  So I'm worried he might starve! Or live off dinty moore stew... ewwwww.

 

 

Sigh...what am I gonna do? Anyone have easy man friendly recipes they want to share?

Or people could drop off casseroles. LOL. Do people even do that anymore? Poor thing.  I might have to teach him a few tricks before I go. 

 

yummy Thanksgiving

 

Although... right now he thinks my being able to cook is magical... like I'm a wizard because I go into the kitchen and put things in the oven box and food comes out... and it's good!  I'd hate to dissuade him of the notion I'm a domestic goddess.  I'm a good cook, but by no means magical.

 

Shiny new All Clad pan... love love love it!!

 

Will teaching Joe to cook for himself lower my status as a domestic goddess? Or just make him more useful around the house?

 

Anyone want to feed my hubby while I'm gone?

Sweet curry Hanukkah pie...

In an effort to share American culture (we have culture?!?!?!) with my new Aussie friends, I took a pumpkin pie from Costco to share with them.  Ooooohhhh my.

 

 

Firstly they couldn't remember the holiday associated with pumpkin pie, with my awesomely funny boss referring to it as "Sweet curry Hanukkah pie."  Apparently to someone who didn't grow up eating it, pumpkin pie tastes a lot like a sweet curry.

 

 

 

Then there was the issue that they actually EAT pumpkin on a daily basis here.  So there were expectations of a savory dish, and they got sweet. 

 

It was very funny to see their reactions to such a classic American holiday dish.  But as I've been made to eat Vegemite on a number of different occasions,  I didn't mind making them eat "Sweet curry Hanukkah pie."  I think they got a better food to try.

 

 

Lost in Oz...

Where have we been for the last 7 months???!!!  I'll try to catch you up over the next few posts. 

 

We've moved to Ryde, which is a bit north west of Sydney.  So much easier for Joe to get to work and there is a TAFE right down the road for me to finish my HR course at. YAY.

 

We've been settling in, working, going to school and enjoying being close to friends and family!

 

It's a holiday weekend here, Labour Day. (yes that's spelled right) We spent most of the weekend finishing unpacking but yesterday we went to Mt Tomah botanical gardens with some of Joe's friends from high school. 

 

  We had a potluck picnic, but it was a bit unorganized.  Hence the plethora of chips. LOL

 

 

 

The botanical gardens were beautiful! See...

 

 

Joe and I enjoying the lovely rhododendrons.  Just like in Washington state! :)

 

Supposedly this is a rare black Kookaburra, but let me tell you, there are a lot of "drop bear" type jokes played on "new" aussies like me.  So I'm a bit doubtful. I think the beak looks too small. 

 

The Blue Mountains.  Yes, they really do look blue sometimes.  It's cause of all the eucalyptus trees, they give off oil and when the sun hits it, it looks blue from a distance.  It's pretty neat to see in person.  I had a total blonde moment driving to Joe's grandparents house one day.  I looked over and they were BLUE! So I yelled out... "HONEY! The blue mountains are BLUE!!!"  He gave me a look and said "yes dear, why do you think we call them that?" Then he called me a silly duffa.

Neat rock wall, kinda looks like a snail.

 



 

Beautiful tree.  I didn't get the name but thought it looked like some kind of cherry.

 

Joe took this. So beautiful!

 

That was the fun for this long weekend.  The rest of it was spent trying to find the floor. LOL.  Thankfully we are almost done unpacking.  The Rat Cat isn't happy about it, he liked the boxes.  See...

 

 

He's a bit territorial about his boxes... lol. Silly Cat.  Well that's all for now. Cya later! 

 



The Great Chicken hunt of 2012

Chickens... I'm not really fond of them.  When I was a tiny girl, like 2 years old, we had chickens.  Mean Chickens.  All I remember about them is that I had to go in everyday and get their eggs.  Everyday I got pecked on my tiny little 2 year old hands.  So I'm not really fond of chickens.

This morning after breakfast, Joe looked out and said, um Honey the chickens are in the backyard. And the chicken round up began.  Before I could get the camera, Joe was leading most of the chickens back to their pen like the chicken pied piper.   I'm almost tempted to let them out again just so I can get that picture... but then I would have to round them up again.  So the lone chicken below will have to do.

White chicken in the middle.

I'm ready to get the darn thing... too bad they can fly.

We tried everything to get the last two chickens back into the pen.  We poured a heap of food on the ground and waited for them.  They were far too smart for that old trick.  They would swoop in for a bite and then run away flapping and squawking.  So Joe reached for his go to animal wrangling tool... the broom. 

 Joe is ready for them.

 Do you see the sneaky little red out the back?



 There he is!  On the move!!

 ACK!!!!  I caught it!!!Now what do I do with it!!!!!

 Bitty Rat was quite disappointed to not be included in the Great Chicken hunt of 2012.