Afternoon tea

I made sultana biscuits this afternoon to take to the in-laws for afternoon tea. But I could not help myself, I had a few with a cuppa just to taste test them. Quality control is important you know.

Also please note my beautiful Royal Doulton Countess tea set that I bought on ebay and had shipped to Australia at huge expense last year. So worthwhile. I just love it. Now if I could just learn to love washing it up!

Mobile Phone Race Face

Have you ever noticed (Gosh that sounds like a stand up comic) the look on peoples faces when their mobile phone rings? They get this funny look of intense concentration. I call it the mobile phone race face.

Women are especially bad mostly because they know the ring tone is coming from the depths of their purse and it will take all their skill and luck to find it before it stops ringing.

I have done it myself many times. Usually I get to the phone just before it diverts to voicemail and it is all I can do not to answer with "What?" when I pick up. There is usually a sense of "why are you calling now? I was nowhere near my phone and had to scramble to find it". The irony is that I have the mobile so that people can call me anytime. But to be fair I often prefer text messages - which I can get to in my own time.

Mild Vegetable Curry

Ingredients

1 large brown onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon keens curry powder
2 carrots
2 large potatoes
1/4 small pumpkin
4 sticks celery
1 head broccoli
3 cups vegetable stock

Method

Heat oil in pan, add chopped onion and curry powder. Cook over medium heat 2 minutes. Add stock then carrot, potato, pumpkin and celery. Cook over medium-high heat for 20 minutes. Add broccoli. Cook for further 10 minutes. Serves 4

I am singing the assignment blues

I handed in two assignments this week. And I have another due next week which, based on the last assignment of this type, will be huge. But I am lacking the motivation to really get into it.

The pressure of the due date hasn't set in yet. I often rely on that last minute "oh my goodness this is due really soon" panic to drive my uni related motivation. But today is a still a while from the due date so I am just not feeling it.

I think I am just going to close down all other avenues of entertainment (log out of gmail, facebook, blogger, taste and send Tom into another room) and force myself to do this thing.

*sigh* Here goes...

Weekday Vegan

I love meat. I love chicken. I am reasonably keen on fish when served with chips. But during the week I am a vegan.

I eat no meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk, butter or cheese. I do this to maintain my weight and because I LOVE VEGETABLES and eating lots of them makes me feel great.

My staple week day meals are pumpkin and spinach lasagne, vegetable curry and avocado on toast. I also make a mean burrito and potato & cauliflower soup.

Tom is addicted to my vegan sultana biscuits and I would make them more often for him if only so many of them didn't end up in my little belly.

On the weekends it is more difficult to not eat animal and animal products so I just eat what everyone else is eating. More often than not we eat out on the weekend and go to our families' place for dinner. I don't like to make a big fuss about what I am eating so I just don't usually tell people about the vegan thing.

I do not eat a mostly vegan diet because I am concerned about the treatment of animals. It is not that this does not concern me, it just isn't the reason I chose to eat mostly fruit and vegetables.

The best thing about eating vegan during the week is that I don't have to worry about how much I am eating. I can pretty much eat as much as I feel like. I can eat carbs. I love pasta, rice and all things bread related.

I also eat mostly organic food. It just tastes better.

So there you have it.......my complicated diet explained in one small post...

Cosmetic purchases

My fabulous beauty therapist recommended a website http://www.strawberrynet.com , which is run out of Hong Kong and sells big brand cosmetics at vastly reduced prices.

I was brand loyal to Estee Lauder for about 10 years but this year I have changed over to Christian Dior. Why chose Dior? Because there was someone at the counter to help me. She spent time with me choosing a foundation for my pale white skin.

I am really liking the DiorSkin Forever in Ivory and it is SPF 25, which will hopefully help keep my skin pale white. But it is pretty expensive at about $80 a bottle - which lasts me about six months. So on my beauty therapists recommendation I ordered some from strawberrynet.

It arrived about 7 days after I ordered it. Unfortunelty I didn't order Ivory. I ordered Light Beige - idiot. Must be more careful in future.

Anyway when it arrived I emailed them and they said to post it back for a full refund. Now that is a good returns policy.

I have since also ordered the biggest bottle of toner you have ever seen in your life (who knew 400ml was so much?) and the correct colour foundation. Both of which turned up with zero hassle.

Now I am thinking that I need some more lipstick....

Spare time

Where did my spare time go? I think I must had dropped it running for the bus or maybe I put it through the washing machine to many times?

I used to have heaps of time to relax, watch TV, surf the net, read home-maker magazines, experiment with recipes, review my plethora of recipe books, reorganise my china collection, alphabetise my DVDs by the director's country of origin and generally indulge in whatever activity I wanted.

It seems that the choices I have made in my life have led to a marked decrease in the amount of spare time that I now have. I now get approximately none (note Yes Minister reference)

Why?
I chose to start some more study.

I only have two degrees which is clearly insufficient, so I have decided to go for a trifecta and do another one. This one specifically relates to my work. So I have also decided to change jobs to one that is much less related to my study. The move is due to take place this Thursday. I am still wondering if this move is the right decision but that is a topic for another post....

I realise that it is entirely my own fault for not having much spare time anymore. I make choices like working full time, studying, eating food I have prepared myself, washing my clothes, spending time with my family and family in law, and sleeping which make my life busy.

This realisation does not make me any happier about the fact that there are still 8 seasons of the x-files that I have not yet watched and that I will not have time to make veal schnitzel with dill potato salad for quite some time.

Trench

I bought a funky new trench coat in royal green from Jacqui-e today. It is a great fit and despite the fact that it will no doubt be out of fashion by the time I finish this post I am very happy with it. Now if the weather would just stay cool long enough for me to wear it a few time before it gets put away for summer that would be great.