Busy, insanely busy. That pretty much describes things at the moment. I'd love to give a proper updated but my net access is limited to work (which is busy) and the brief snatches of time when I come to college and use Nick's laptop.
- The new house is working out well
- I haven't unpacked the kitchen yet as it was filthy and thing have been so busy.
- Work is going well but by boss and the other girl in customer service have resigned - so might be a bit of upheaval there.
- Nick is liking college but sleeping dreadfully
- I sucumbed to the cold I have been fighting off for the last few weeks but so far have only needed one day off work
- We went away for the weekend with most of the people in our class to Woolongong. It was really really nice and I'll post about it later. Very restful and encouraging.
- We are liking living in Newtown and apart from one incident with roadworks starting outside our bedroom window at 4am, it's pretty quiet and nice.
- We started going to the newcomers Bible study group for our church, it was interesting and a good learning experience seeing our minister get through the study and deal with a lot of people who don't know each other and hold very diverse opinions.
Will update more soon ish. We're getting NakedDSL so it will be a while before we get the net at home but when we do we'll also have free local and nation calls all the time which will be awesome.
Am off to get takeaway as we're both a bit too tired to cook. God is good, life is busy and we're shambolling along ok.
Nearly There
Moving day approaches....
Boxes are getting packed, items are getting crossed off lists and our experiment with easy meals has been pretty successful (a few vegie cravings but I'm pretty good at ignoring them!)
In other news, we had a flying visit from Dan and Mikey. They were up for a conference on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was absolutely awesome to catch up with them. And catch up we did! On Tuesday night Fiona, Nick and I met the guys in the city and had Korean BBQ (gotta go again - am hooked!) We even bumpted into another Tasmanian, Leigh R who some of you might know from Crossroads days of old, and he came to dinner with us as well.
Dan stayed at our place, camping out in our lounge room among the packing boxes. On Wednesday morning we all met up again for breakfast, this time with Des and Bernie and Jonno as well.
It was so great to see Dan and Mikey. Makes us miss our friends and family in Tassie all the more. It was wonderful for Nick and I to have a chat to Dan about college and how things are going. Over the years Dan and Miranda have been so helpful, encouraging and wise. They really helped us in preparing for college - not just practically but psychologically as well - and they continue to give us good guidance and wise advice. (thanks guys!)
Boxes are getting packed, items are getting crossed off lists and our experiment with easy meals has been pretty successful (a few vegie cravings but I'm pretty good at ignoring them!)
In other news, we had a flying visit from Dan and Mikey. They were up for a conference on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was absolutely awesome to catch up with them. And catch up we did! On Tuesday night Fiona, Nick and I met the guys in the city and had Korean BBQ (gotta go again - am hooked!) We even bumpted into another Tasmanian, Leigh R who some of you might know from Crossroads days of old, and he came to dinner with us as well.
Dan stayed at our place, camping out in our lounge room among the packing boxes. On Wednesday morning we all met up again for breakfast, this time with Des and Bernie and Jonno as well.
It was so great to see Dan and Mikey. Makes us miss our friends and family in Tassie all the more. It was wonderful for Nick and I to have a chat to Dan about college and how things are going. Over the years Dan and Miranda have been so helpful, encouraging and wise. They really helped us in preparing for college - not just practically but psychologically as well - and they continue to give us good guidance and wise advice. (thanks guys!)
Go Tassie
Not only did the nice guys at Mealopedia reply to the email I sent them, they also found the post I did and left a comment!
Awww - that's nice! I hope these guys really take off. I know I'll certainly be using the site next time I need some inspiration (although that might be a little while - I'm currently reading some awesome cookbooks which I got from the local library)
Hi Bron,
Glad to hear that you like the site - your ideas are excellent and you'll be pleased to know that some of them are actually under development as we speak.
I just wanted to let you know that we've recently added the ability to tick off ingredients that you already have on the shopping list so you don't have to cross them off (which is especially difficult when you get them SMS'd to you!)
Keep an eye out for more in the coming months as we're always adding new features.
Keep cooking!
Josh S
http://www.mealopedia.com
info@mealopedia.com
Awww - that's nice! I hope these guys really take off. I know I'll certainly be using the site next time I need some inspiration (although that might be a little while - I'm currently reading some awesome cookbooks which I got from the local library)
All Quiet on the Northern Front
It's not a war zone, it's just that we've been busy - hence the lack of posts. My first week of work went well. I learned lots, got to know my workmates a bit and had a pretty good time. My dreams of working part time and being the perfect housewife are still far from being realised though!
This coming week we'll be packing, cleaning and getting everything organised to move. Saturday is moving day. We'll be borrowing a car for day, hiring a truck for the morning, and hopefully with the help of a few friends we'll get everything done in one load. There really isn't much stuff. When we moved up here everything fitted in 7 packing boxes.
I've planned 5 of the easiest possible meals because I know it'll be cheaper to buy easy stuff now than have 'tears and takeaway'. For a bit of reader interaction, what are your favourite easy meals? I'm talking total convenience foods, the kind of thing where you're in the kitchen for 5 minutes max.
Back during King St days I can remember a few awesome ones. Heidi used to make homebrand Chicken Noodle packet soup and add a few frozen peas to it. Emma used to stick chopped up vegies in a frypan and scorch them. As for Rob... well, every meal was convenience food of a sort. Rather than horrify you with tales of bachelor food I'll stick to a good example: smoked salmon and a few dollops of cream cheese went on a pita bread an under the griller for an easy pizza. While we're on the topic of bachelor food though, I can remember Gwyd making a microwave hambuger once. I don't think the experiment was repeated though!
So what's on the menu?
- Omlette
- Fiona's smoked salmon pasta (ok, this isn't quite as easy but it is quick)
- Nachos
- Packet Ravioli with Sour Cream and Tomato Pesto
- Japanese Restaurant
This coming week we'll be packing, cleaning and getting everything organised to move. Saturday is moving day. We'll be borrowing a car for day, hiring a truck for the morning, and hopefully with the help of a few friends we'll get everything done in one load. There really isn't much stuff. When we moved up here everything fitted in 7 packing boxes.
I've planned 5 of the easiest possible meals because I know it'll be cheaper to buy easy stuff now than have 'tears and takeaway'. For a bit of reader interaction, what are your favourite easy meals? I'm talking total convenience foods, the kind of thing where you're in the kitchen for 5 minutes max.
Back during King St days I can remember a few awesome ones. Heidi used to make homebrand Chicken Noodle packet soup and add a few frozen peas to it. Emma used to stick chopped up vegies in a frypan and scorch them. As for Rob... well, every meal was convenience food of a sort. Rather than horrify you with tales of bachelor food I'll stick to a good example: smoked salmon and a few dollops of cream cheese went on a pita bread an under the griller for an easy pizza. While we're on the topic of bachelor food though, I can remember Gwyd making a microwave hambuger once. I don't think the experiment was repeated though!
So what's on the menu?
- Omlette
- Fiona's smoked salmon pasta (ok, this isn't quite as easy but it is quick)
- Nachos
- Packet Ravioli with Sour Cream and Tomato Pesto
- Japanese Restaurant
My First Day
...was good. Everyone seems pretty friendly and the work is much more admin than phone answering (which is awesome because it means that I can potentially branch out into that more in future jobs)
My manager had to go home sick with a migrane pretty soon after I got there so I just sat with the other girl who does the same job as me (but full time) and watched her do stuff. She was good at explaining things and I actually learned quite a bit. It was a pretty soft start really. A little boring, but a nice way to get into the job.
My manager had to go home sick with a migrane pretty soon after I got there so I just sat with the other girl who does the same job as me (but full time) and watched her do stuff. She was good at explaining things and I actually learned quite a bit. It was a pretty soft start really. A little boring, but a nice way to get into the job.
Lime is the New Black
Well, no... actually it's our new food craze though! When Nick came home with a bag full of limes at first I was a bit hesitant. The only thing I knew was that you could make a pretty nice drink with them! After a few 'long cool drinks' (not all at the same time!) I decided it was time to branch out.Lime and sugar on crepes? Awesome. Replace the lemon with lime in that Dhal recipe - great! I even got carried away and put lime zest on the sweet biscuits I was making. Now, they were fantastic. I'll save that up for a whole other post though because they were worth it.
In other food news, I was tossing around ideas for what type of cuisine to get into this year. Lebanese? Moroccan, Greek? 2007 was the year of Jamie's Italy, discovering Greek and working out what to do with Eggplant.
2008 is going to be the year of simple food. Peasant food, done to perfection. The kind of food that makes a man look like this:
That Mealopedia site that I posted a link to a little while ago is actually Tasmanian! It's a pretty cool idea. For almost all of the 6 years we've been married I've been the one doing most of the meal planning, shopping and cooking. Sometimes I'm really un-inspired. I have no idea of what to cook and can't be bothered thinking of new stuff. This site kind of does that for you.
There are 3 basic parts. One is the meal planner. You can do it totally random, or you can ask it for certain type of recipes (eg, summer, winter, vegetarian, low fat etc). You can also tell it which days you'll be cooking for. Then it comes up with suggestions and if you don't like them you can change them. All of the meals have full recipe instructions. Apparently they even get some chefs from local restaurants to contribute.
Next part is the shopping list. It comes up with a categorised list for all the stuff you'll need. This is where it could do with some improvement - you can't tick off stuff you've already got. It would be good if you had a completely empty pantry. I guess you can cross stuff off though after you've printed it.
After that you print out your list and instructions (or get them sms'd to you). It also has a feature where it links in with google maps and can tell you where local shops are, but this bit isn't fully set up yet.
It's pretty good, but it could do with a makeover and a few extra features. Let me tell you how it would be if it existed in magical rainbow ponyland:
That would be totally awesome. I think at the moment all those features only exist in an analogue version - it's called housewife 1.0!
I'll show you another day how I do it manually. But for now I'm hungry!
There are 3 basic parts. One is the meal planner. You can do it totally random, or you can ask it for certain type of recipes (eg, summer, winter, vegetarian, low fat etc). You can also tell it which days you'll be cooking for. Then it comes up with suggestions and if you don't like them you can change them. All of the meals have full recipe instructions. Apparently they even get some chefs from local restaurants to contribute.
Next part is the shopping list. It comes up with a categorised list for all the stuff you'll need. This is where it could do with some improvement - you can't tick off stuff you've already got. It would be good if you had a completely empty pantry. I guess you can cross stuff off though after you've printed it.
After that you print out your list and instructions (or get them sms'd to you). It also has a feature where it links in with google maps and can tell you where local shops are, but this bit isn't fully set up yet.
It's pretty good, but it could do with a makeover and a few extra features. Let me tell you how it would be if it existed in magical rainbow ponyland:
- You can log everything that's in your pantry, freezer etc so that when you ask it to plan meals one of the options is to get it to make the most use of stuff you've already got.
- You can ask it to co-ordinate meals so that when you buy certain ingredients it makes use of them as much as possible that week so that you're not buying lots of random things that will only get used for one meal.
- Along with that, if you want to try a new ingredient you can ask it to come up with some recipes that feature that thing. Or, if you want to make a certain kind of thing (eg, I want to make biscuits only using what I have in the cupboard) it will give you recipes for that.
- You can set the cost per meal, or approximate cost for the week and when it gives you your shopping list it tells you where those things are on special (yeah, I know - that's only going to exist in fairy land)
- You can rate meals and it will remember what things you like and will suggest them again. You can add all your own recipes too and suggest recipes to friends.
- When it makes you a shopping list it remembers what you've got already and only suggests the things you need.
- And as well as being able to print the list or email it to yourself and limit the list to just shop for the day ahead or certain days, you can email it to 'someone' and have them pick up the things on their way home - cool hey!
That would be totally awesome. I think at the moment all those features only exist in an analogue version - it's called housewife 1.0!
I'll show you another day how I do it manually. But for now I'm hungry!
The big three
At the end of last year there were three big unknowns - where we would be living, where I would be working and where we'd be going to Church.
In the last little while, all three have worked out - thank God. I've already explained a bit about the job. I start on Monday, so I'm sure I'll have more to say on that soon.
As for Church, we have been going along to a Presbyterian Church a few suburbs away. The minister was a bit reluctant to have us at first, as he's already got a few Bible College students to look after. But it has all worked out well now - and Nick may be leading a growth group a little later in the year too.
The house was probably the most stressful of all, especially as we had to pass up the possibility of the house we really wanted because they were too slow in giving us an answer. We had been hoping to share with Pete and Pamela and had even found a house and put a deposit on it (which was an exciting adventure in itself and became a bit Amazing Race... but that's another story).
That same day we also looked at a very cheap one bedroom flat. Initially I was quite happy with the flat as fallback option if the house didn't work out. But we heard back about the flat first, and they wanted us to put a deposit down or we would loose it. I postponed as long as possible and did all I could to get an answer about the other one, but it in the end it came down to a choice between one we definitely had and one we may or may not have got.
We couldn't take the gamble, so we went with the flat. It's got a lot of drawbacks but ultimately it's liveable. It's quite a drop down in size, light and crusty-ness. It doesn't have a laundry either - not even a shared one (I didn't realise this until the last minute - I think I would have been less willing to take it if I'd realised!).
I'll miss our awesome gas stove and gas oven (so what if it's from the 1950s - the Modern Maid is one of the best stoves I've had!). I'll miss the grand faded beauty of our art deco building. I'll definitely miss our 1930s art deco bathroom and huge bath.
But the new place does have hot water in the kitchen. It faces south and it's on the ground floor so it'll be a LOT cooler than our current place. I can't remember but it might even have flyscreens too - joy!
It's also quite close to college, the station and the super-hippy-permaculture community garden. We weren't paying much attention when we looked at it, so that's pretty much all we can remember. Oh yeah, and it's got parquetry floors which is good because our vacuum cleaner died so that means we won't have to get another one!
We move on the 16th. We've had lots of offers of help from our wonderful friends up here and although I had been really disappointed at first I'm feeling much better about the whole thing now. I'm so thankful that all of the stresses which loomed at the end of last year have been resolved. God has truly been so good to us.
In the last little while, all three have worked out - thank God. I've already explained a bit about the job. I start on Monday, so I'm sure I'll have more to say on that soon.
As for Church, we have been going along to a Presbyterian Church a few suburbs away. The minister was a bit reluctant to have us at first, as he's already got a few Bible College students to look after. But it has all worked out well now - and Nick may be leading a growth group a little later in the year too.
The house was probably the most stressful of all, especially as we had to pass up the possibility of the house we really wanted because they were too slow in giving us an answer. We had been hoping to share with Pete and Pamela and had even found a house and put a deposit on it (which was an exciting adventure in itself and became a bit Amazing Race... but that's another story).
That same day we also looked at a very cheap one bedroom flat. Initially I was quite happy with the flat as fallback option if the house didn't work out. But we heard back about the flat first, and they wanted us to put a deposit down or we would loose it. I postponed as long as possible and did all I could to get an answer about the other one, but it in the end it came down to a choice between one we definitely had and one we may or may not have got.
We couldn't take the gamble, so we went with the flat. It's got a lot of drawbacks but ultimately it's liveable. It's quite a drop down in size, light and crusty-ness. It doesn't have a laundry either - not even a shared one (I didn't realise this until the last minute - I think I would have been less willing to take it if I'd realised!).
I'll miss our awesome gas stove and gas oven (so what if it's from the 1950s - the Modern Maid is one of the best stoves I've had!). I'll miss the grand faded beauty of our art deco building. I'll definitely miss our 1930s art deco bathroom and huge bath.
But the new place does have hot water in the kitchen. It faces south and it's on the ground floor so it'll be a LOT cooler than our current place. I can't remember but it might even have flyscreens too - joy!
It's also quite close to college, the station and the super-hippy-permaculture community garden. We weren't paying much attention when we looked at it, so that's pretty much all we can remember. Oh yeah, and it's got parquetry floors which is good because our vacuum cleaner died so that means we won't have to get another one!
We move on the 16th. We've had lots of offers of help from our wonderful friends up here and although I had been really disappointed at first I'm feeling much better about the whole thing now. I'm so thankful that all of the stresses which loomed at the end of last year have been resolved. God has truly been so good to us.
