Breakfast food of champions... or something

Yum.

I'm re-discovering the joys and challenges of shopping and cooking for one, on a limited budget. One of the ways I want to achieve this is by purchasing fruit and vegies in season. Not only are they way better for you -- no nasty cold storage for three to six months, thank you! -- but they're also the cheapest. I'm hoping that eventually I'll be in the habit of picking my fruit and veg from the local markets on a Sunday, but Sundays are busy around here and I haven't made it to the markets in ages. In the meantime, go supermarkets go?

I'm not sure if the picture above looks yummy or not; I can only remember what it tasted like, and that is influencing my conception of how appealing the image is. Yesterday I had half a tiger loaf left over from the day before, and was also determined to use up some more of the small tub of pears I'd bought through the week. I sliced the pears lengthwise and cooked them in my enormously heavy frypan in a little bit of butter, until they were just starting to caramelise. After removing the pears, I cooked thick slices of the tiger bread (dipped into egg and milk for french toast) in the same pan. The juices from the pears mingled with the butter and made a thin little toffee to fry the bread in, crispy and naturally sweet.

I served the french toast with the pears on top and man it was good. And I took smug satisfaction in the fact that I totally made up the idea out of necessity.

(If you want to see pictures of breakfast foods in which there is no doubt of their gastronomic appeal, go here. SO MUCH YUM)

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Conversations:

Samantha R -- the fireworks were perfect.

Jessica -- sprung! I was tired and lazy and could not think up any interesting captions whatsoever. In future, I shall not make the same mistake. ;)

Hetzelhouse -- I am enjoying it so much; thanks for sharing that joy!

Laura Elizabeth -- Yes, my Easter long weekend was great.

Weekend XXVIII :: easter

Fireworks seemed the most appropriate way in the world to celebrate life's victory over death.

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Conversations:

Anonymous -- I love it, too :).

Carla and Alastair -- thank you! Come see it sometime :D.

Samantha R -- thanks for sharing my enthusiasm :D

Laura Elizabeth -- as IF you could ever sound like a stalker! You just sound full of squee, which is just perfect, because it gives me permission to be all bouncy and excited, too :D.

Meaghan -- please come help me mess it up! I mean, I can do that all by myself, but it's much funner with friends.

Katie -- my pleasure!

Rebecca Simon -- it's attached to my parents' new place, so the best of both worlds! Nesting is fun. Enjoy!

Staish -- thanks for visiting me, you. xxx

eweight -- :D :D :D

Abbie -- yay! Your warm little candle is on my kitchen benchtop as I type :).

Step inside:

On Thursday night my precious friends Elizabeth and Miriam came to meet the Housie*, to eat Oreos, and to watch Sherlock. Last night, a bunch of friends arrived for dessert and lots of high-speed conversation and laughter. Today, I welcomed my twin goddaughters and their beautiful mum and dad. We've known these guys since long before the twins were even a hoped-for dream and they know us in and out. They rejoiced with us over the new place and the garden and the happy possibilities. And now, seeing as all of these people have had a tour, it's time for me to show you guys around. So come on in! (And thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, who gave me a gleaming stainless steel kettle last night, I can make you a cuppa).

This is the abridged version of the tour; it's only a little space, but I seem to find too many nooks to take pictures of! In the top shot, you can see the kitchen (and those cute red-and-white tiles), the dining area, and the couch (which was a freebie but which has proven to be super comfy and such a cool blessing). In the picture below, you can see the same space from the other end, with my piano and my bookshelf (and yes, some boxes of books, yet to be unpacked). I love how airy and fresh-looking the space is, and I especially love the timber floors and blinds.

Below is the little tv nook and my dorky collection of paraphernalia, including a broken vintage camera and flash.

And the beautiful leadlight lampshade is one of my favourite little extras...


*By the way, it's got to be official now: the first piece of mail addressed to The House arrived this week -- an adorable housewarming package from Abbie! So since there's mail arriving and all, the christening process is complete. Housie it is!

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Conversations:

Bethany -- I loved that you recognised the "lightbulb" quote -- Despicable Me is exactly where I got it from! :D

Jessica -- it's so true. I think the saviour/hero storyline is a concept we are all (or mostly all) innately drawn to.

Katie -- huzzah indeed! I'm having lots of fun :).

Confessions of a reformed zombie:

Bear with me for a moment; I’m going to get religious and I’m going to talk about bad, creepy TV. The former will bother some people, and the latter will bother others. You have been warned.

Last night, I had the TV on for ‘noise company’ and with half of my mind watched a pretty stupid show while the other half of my brain engaged in a book. I’m not going to tell you what the show was because it was that stupid – cheesy acting, poor scriptwriting, a dumb storyline, and in spite of all that, still too scary!

(Did I cancel out the negative points of watching a stupid show by the fact that I was reading Henri Nouwen? Unfortunately, I doubt it.)

Here’s a basic outline of the program: an evil virus began to overtake the entire world. One by one, ordinary people were being transformed into hideous, zombie-like monsters. These zombies then turned on the rest of the population. Their only goal was to stay alive (stay undead?), and to do this, they fed on others (I told you this was creepy). They were terrifying, and really, really, really ugly. What was worse is that there seemed to be no antidote to the virus.

Then, some science-y guy made a discovery: the blood of one man, half-alien, was the only thing that would stop the spread of the virus. What’s more, the hero’s blood could actually reverse the effects of the virus. The only problem was that for the scientists to be able to extract this man’s blood, he had to die.

‘Lightbulb!’

The parallels to the gospel story were at once incredibly obvious. I guess the writers were scratching around for new story ideas and decided to re-hash one that is very old. No surprises there. But what stood out to me was how amazingly apt the zombie virus is as a picture of sin’s work in our lives. Sin is infectious. It has spread to the whole world. And it turns its victims into flesh-devouring monsters, doing whatever it will take to keep itself alive. Its whole point is itself, and it doesn’t care about how ugly it becomes, if only it can stay alive. Oddly enough, though, that’s not really living.

In the TV show, the antidote didn’t miraculously turn the victims into super-people; they were still going to make mistakes and they’d still succumb to the occasional cold or flu. Rather, the miracle was that the hero’s blood saved the people from a life of living death.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that without the sacrifice of Jesus, I’m just a crazed zombie feeding on the flesh – basically, a dead girl walking.

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Conversations:

Jessica -- :D House Jr. is pretty cute, too!

Cara -- thank you, lovely friend! Naming inanimate objects is one of my weird quirks :).

Samantha R -- solidarity! It's fun to name things :).

Elisabeth -- thank you, lovely lady!

Rebecca Simon -- yes, pictures shall be forthcoming!

Mitanika -- ooh, I confess I quite love 'houseling'. Good call!

Asea -- oh voice of the masses, your wish is my command! Photos soon :).

happy little home

I’m moved in! Well, I’m mostly moved in – by which I mean that the living area and wee kitchen look like a normal person’s house with some boxes and random things here and there, but my bedroom still has some of that I’m-inhabited-by-a-fourteen-year-old-male look clinging to it. I’m working on that.*

I’ve been living here for about a week now and I love it. It’s so fresh, so neat (apart from all my stuff, I mean), so adorable, so cute. Next on the agenda is to come up with a name for this little spot. I’ve been calling it the Housie, secretly, to myself, because everybody else thinks that’s just foolish. To me it makes perfect sense. Baby versions of lots of things end with ‘ie’ sounds: puppy, kitty, bunny, you know how it works. This is a baby version of a house, so why not housie? Or houseling? Houselet? I know; I’m ridiculous.

Since I'm still unpacking and tidying, no pictures of the Housie yet (I'm going to use the word in writing as often as possible, because I can't see you all rolling your eyes) -- but I'll leave you with some shots from the garden, the beautiful, beautiful garden. I eat my breakfast out on the little deck and get to look at this stuff all the time. There are so many butterflies! And so much birdsong! Plus, actual bees actually buzz. Thank you, God. Thank you, excellent parents who actually want to move into a house with a little attached flat and all this prettiness!

*Correct when I wrote this earlier today, now officially wrong. My room has morphed into something resembling a normal adult woman's bedroom with occasional juvenile touches and uncomfortable Spartan wall decor. I'll keep working.

lately (four):

I have to tell you: moving house is srs bsns. Not that I didn't know this already; if I hadn't moved about fourteen times and experienced it previously myself, my Mum's experience -- something like twenty-four moves, give or take -- would have enlightened me anyway. Nevertheless, I still forgot to prepare myself for broken fingernails, bumps and bruises, sore ankles, confusion brought on by multiple box-packing, brain-deadness, cleaning, mouldy curtains, and the inevitable tears that seem to accompany any transition stage in my life. So there's that.

However, I also forgot to prepare myself for happy discoveries, the slow falling in love with a new place, the sense of overwhelming generosity of my parents, the struggle to articulate anything remotely approaching the right level of thankfulness, the kindness of a treasured friend (--bearing lasagna, no less!), the happy feeling of melting into bed each night, and the chance to actually pull forgotten treasures from my glory box and set them out in the new wee kitchen.

^ Also, there are red and white tiles.

lately (three):

'The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.'

Stephen King [via]