As part of my remuneration package, I get a professional development bonus to use for continuing education expenses. If you don’t use it by the end of two years, they pay it out minus the tax of course. Of course, I could use it for a conference or perhaps for continuing education since they’ve paid it out but I figured if there was something I was interested in doing, I would have spent it on that already. Besides which, the only course I would be even remotely thinking about doing would cost far more than that.

I’ve been thinking about getting an external flash and another lens for my DSLR for a while now and because the funds are there, it’s very hard to resist the temptation. But then comes the big decision….which one to choose? Do I get another zoom lens? Or a macro lens? Telephoto? There really is a lot to choose from and it is really easy to justify a use for all of them. I finally made up my mind and decided to go with a Canon Compact Macro lens. I still wouldn’t mind another zoom lens….but maybe that can wait until I get my next personal professional development bonus.

January 17th, 2009 | Category: Photography |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (1)

So the first fortnight (plus a bit) is over and I’ve still managed to take my photo a day. Woot! I might even last longer than I did at the last 365 challenge. I put my little collage together and then realised that I didn’t  put them in the right order that they were taken. You’ll survive I’m sure.

Left to right, in rows: [1] Rusty old tools; [2] Sky over Milton; [3] My potted frangipani in flower; [4] Some horrid weed in my yard; [5] Mojo looking “happy”; [6] My dolphin calender from Leigh; [7] Hitler’s diet scrawled on paper; [8] My fender bender; [9] Flickr on a tee (also from Leigh); [10] Bunnings, favourite weekend shop; [11] Drive by shot of an acreage property; [12] Interior decorating in the work office; [13] The dash of my car; [14] Turkish Delight; [15] The fish tank; [16] Max, asleep as usual

January 16th, 2009 | Category: Phoney Photos, Photography |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

So I decided to get a little bit more serious about the whole weight loss thing and I said casually to my doctor that I might want to see a dietitian. I imagined that I would go there, sit down and go through what I currently eat and be told the things I already knew – like chocolate not being one of the main food groups. Anyway, doctor thinks it is a great idea and asks me who I want to see. I had not the foggiest idea so I asked for who she would recommend. I should have had a little inkling of suspicion of what I was in for when she recommended Hitler (not his real name obviously) because she said he had achieved some fantastic results with people she thought were lost causes.

By no means do I consider myself a lost cause, but sheesh, if he could transform a 180kg person into a svelte (by comparison) 80kg person, he’s got to be good right? At that time, I was still expecting the drill of “well you’re basically doing the right thing but I’d like to see you eat more vegetables” or something like that. But then, I hadn’t met Hitler at that stage.

After meeting with Hitler, I know why he gets good results. Even though he’s perfectly nice, he comes across as being a little bit intimidating. Almost like he’ll just instantly know if you’ve put something that’s not on the list into your mouth. So consequently, despite some strong feelings of resentment about having to get rid of cheese, honey and my beloved nightly Milo – I have kept to “the plan” so far. Well except for the lasagna I had for tea tonight….I’m pretty sure that bechamel sauce would be one of the naughty foods to be avoided but I reconciled that with having the smallest possible portion and having more vegies with it instead. Even so, I’m beginning to sweat a little….what if Hitler finds out? EEEEK!

January 8th, 2009 | Category: Health and Fitness |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (5)

Well I’ve finished my 52 Blessings challenge from last year but I’ve kind of gotten used to blogging on a Sunday, or at least having a regular weekly reason to blog. I was thinking of continuing on with the 52 Blessings thing but the well was running pretty dry by Week 52. Against my better judgement, I decided to join a Phoney 365 challenge that Leigh is doing – if for no other reason than to prove that it can be done.  I’m not entirely sure how confident I am of that statement….the last 365 photo challenge I did, I lasted around a month and a half at the most.

So in case I pike on the Phoney 365, I decided to set myself another weekly challenge for the year. I touched on my concept of fail cooking last year when I had a go at making some double chocolate chip cookies. I was so inspired by such comments as “kangaroo poop” and being able “to see ugly faces in them”, I’ve decided to make fail cooking a regular feature.

Here’s my latest effort – Anzac fail cookies! At first you might be thinking, well they don’t look anywhere near as horrid as the last lot but I have gotten a little deceptive in my photography. The aerial shot exists purely to make them look like flat, tiny cookies. The actual fact is that they are more like little balls of cookie with a flat base on them. How they managed to be crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside while retaining the shape of a macaroon is completely beyond me.

But if you want to know what makes these cookies extra fail worthy, I’ll share a few trade secrets:

1. Use the oldest coconut you have, it’s even better if you can’t recall ever buying any. Mystery coconut adds something special.
2. Don’t bother measuring the golden syrup, just have a rough guess. If it makes the mixture a little gooey, just add more mystery coconut.
3. Again with the bi-carb of soda, have a guess. It’s extra entertaining when you add too much to the hot melted butter and syrup and it foams up like something from chemistry class. Of course that means you have to get more syrup and butter but hey, what’s the point of cooking if you can’t have a little fun doing it?
4. A lot of people will tell you that you have to make sure your flour is “fresh” or that you should at least have a rough idea what decade you bought it in. The best part about fail cooking is that details like that really don’t matter. You’re still going for the right flavour but if the texture and appearance goes to putty, then so much the better.
5. If you’ve run out of rolled oats in the pantry, don’t despair. You know those little sachets of flavoured minute oats you can get to make porridge at work during your tea break? Those are fantastic backups. Although I would try to stick to flavours that complement each other – like honey buzz and vanilla. Strawberry and apple flavoured probably aren’t that good a mix to use in an Anzac cookie recipe.

Anzac fail cookies, just as yummy as the real thing but twice as borked!

January 4th, 2009 | Category: Fail Cooking, Home and Lifestyle |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (7)

At work, we often talk about getting our “miracle a week”, or at least that’s our aim. Being the last week of the year, I was dubious that I would be able to take a photo of this particular miracle in time for it to be one of my 52 Blessings. At the end of last year, we said that we would definitely get it in the ground this year. With 2008 drawing rapidly to a close with only one day to spare, it seemed quite unlikely.

I can scarcely believe it! It is now IN the ground as opposed to sitting on top of it. It’s not yet plumbed in or fenced but those are minor details to me. The biggest hurdle with the spa apart from digging the hole for it was getting it in the ground being that it was too heavy for the both of us to handle without severely injuring our backs. I’m not what he bribed his mate and step-dad with but I came home from work today and hey presto! It’s in the ground.

What a fantastic way to end the year! Now there’s just the plumbing, fencing, retaining wall and more garden beds to do. But hey, we have to have some DIY left to do in 2009.

My miracle a week.....the spa is IN the ground!

December 30th, 2008 | Category: Home and Lifestyle, Photography |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (4)

There’s something about Christmas lunches and dinners that inspires everyone to over cater for whatever group of people they have coming around. Personally, I tend to cater for a full serve of everything for half the people that are coming. For the most part, this works well because everyone tends to have just a little bit of everything and in my family, there is always the one or two people who are allergic or intolerant to at least something we commonly eat at Christmas. The trouble with being the host is that you are the one who ends up with all the leftovers stuck in your fridge. We have a bad track record of using leftovers in our house. Generally, they sit there happily festering away until such times as they are capable of growing legs and walking out to the bin.

No one seemed to agree with my method of catering this year because I ended up with surprise leg of ham, trifle and nibblies because nobody thought they were bringing enough with just what I had asked for. Consequently, I’ve got enough unopened dip and crackers to feed around 30 people, along with the lollies, savoury biscuits, nuts, rum balls and chocolates that appeared out of nowhere. Not to mention at least half of the six different desserts that made an appearance as well as the potato bake, beef, turkey, ham, prawns and salad. Aside from letting it fester in the fridge, the only choice we had was to palm off a lot of it to unsuspecting friends and family.

So I have come up with a new Christmas carol, which a lot of people will identify with in the aftermath of Christmas. Think of it as the 12 Days of Christmas, in reverse.

On the first day after Christmas, I had leftover in my fridge:
Two kilograms of prawns,
Heaps of roast beef,
A fair chunk of turkey,
Tonnes of different salads,
A partly eaten trifle,
Half of a plum pudding,
Three quarters of a cheesecake,
A bourbon slow-cooked ham!
Multitudes of dips,
A little potato bake,
Half a Christmas cake,
And the remnants of a large fruit platter!

Repeat ad nauseum with changing amounts until it’s all gone one way or another!

December 27th, 2008 | Category: Special occasions |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (3)

And what have you done?

Well personally I’ve managed to:

• Wrap the few presents I’m getting people that require wrapping (thank Yoda for gift cards and third party gift services);
• Achieve my “miracle a week” at work in a record 3 day working week;
• Not gone completely mental at the supermarket while doing my grocery shopping, despite the pushing and shoving over the last 10 punnets of strawberries (all of which I decided were too inferior for a $6.95 per punnet price tag);
• Done a mad dash to the supermarket after work today to get enough meat for the cats over Christmas (they threatened to kill me in my sleep if they had to subsist on dry food alone);
• Vowed to never again agree to host Christmas at my house;
• Decided that it really does not matter if you don’t have matching table cloths, napkins and plastic plates and cutlery, only to find that virtually everyone else I know disagrees with this;
• Resolved that it’s my house and my rules so other people’s opinions on whether blue, purple and red plates are appropriately Christmassy really do not matter;
• Counselled my bestie who was having a pre-Christmas crisis of whether or not people should be allowed to socialise around her brand new lounge suite when food and beverages are close at hand;
• Prepared the fruit platter, peeled, chopped and washed vegies in preparation for burning murdering roasting tomorrow;
• Decided that 2kg of roast beef, a whole leg of ham, a stuffed turkey breast roll and several kilos of prawns is probably enough meat for 8 people and I do not need to cook a corned beef “just in case”.

Cats....they hate karaoke too!

Honestly, it’s a wonder anyone gets out of the Christmas season with their sanity still intact. The big day is tomorrow and no doubt you will be surrounded by family and/or friends (whether you like it or not) to mark its passing. No doubt you will get at least one gift that makes you scratch your head and wonder what on earth you’re going to do with it. And I strongly suspect, you’ll feel like going into the toilet or some other room where you pray no one can find you and quietly scream to yourself and wonder whether anyone will notice if you stay in there for the next 8hrs or however long it is until they all go home (or you can go home to yours).

Whatever Christmas holds for you tomorrow, have a fantastic day, enjoy it and be thankful that it comes but once a year. Merry Christmas folks!

December 24th, 2008 | Category: Special occasions |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (4)

One of the best things I love about my DSLR is the ability to take shots in JPEG and RAW to edit them once I’ve downloaded them. Because I’m still coming to grips with the higher functions of the 40D, the post production editing software has proved very useful. I love how with the software just by fiddling with different white balance and exposure values, I can make the photo seem more alive by enhancing the red earthy tones in the soil. Much better result don’t you think?

December 21st, 2008 | Category: Photography, Travel |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (2)

Some of you might have read about Leigh’s stance against the promotion of snow related Christmas products in Australia a few weeks ago. Personally, I’m all for getting rid of the notion of a white Christmas in Australia. With the exception of hail storms and freak summer snow falls in the mountain ranges of Victoria and New South Wales, Australia does not have a white Christmas. Do we feel bereft for this? No, we don’t because we don’t know any different.

We don’t dream of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, we dream about prawns sizzling away on the BBQ. We don’t hear silver bells on every street corner, instead we hear neighbours shouting “Merry Christmas mate!” (if they’re on good terms, let’s just forget those on bad terms). Good King Wenceslas wouldn’t have looked out on a white snowy ground, he would have looked out through the hazy heat rising from the bitumen or concrete driveway. Our Santa doesn’t wear a big furry suit, he wears a pair of bathers and snorkelling gear….well that’s when he’s taking time off from taking the Six White Boomers all across Australia.

There are a few Aussie Christmas carols out there and I play them loud and proud on Christmas Day, simply because they mean something to me as an Australian. But the Christmas card selection has always been shamefully northern orientated towards the white snowy Christmas. So I’d like to say a big huge tah and good on ya mate to John Sands who have kindly put out an Australian range of Christmas cards….for those of us who would tell the white Christmas fanatics where they can kindly put it.

This Christmas, say no to snow!

December 14th, 2008 | Category: Photography, Special occasions |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (1)