Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Edited to add: Screw YouTube. If you go to the official site, you can get to the Quicktime version which allows you to go through slowly.
 New appliances!If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw me geeking out over our new cooktop and oven all weekend. It was very momentous! We like to cook, and our old setup was just painful to use. (Here's a picture of the old electric hob and crappy Blanco oven from when we moved in.) Two of the hotplates didn't work anymore, and then oven never got to the right temperature. You'll recall that we ordered the new stuff about two weeks ago, and on Friday the warehouse called to arrange delivery. Saturday morning we started by turning off the power and disconnecting the old cooktop and oven. The Snook and I were able to remove them ourselves and take them outside. (City of Sydney will pick them up for free tomorrow morning.) Needless to say, the cabinet opening was pretty damn icky. We gave that a good washing while waiting for the delivery. And then they finally arrived! It was very exciting. Jonathan (aka dancingman) came over to help with the installation. (He's an electrician.) Luckily we only had to make one sidetrip to the hardware store to pick up extra bits. Jonathan put in a circuit breaker for us, added a plug to the oven, and wired up the cooktop. Then it was just up to the Snook to enlarge the benchtop opening a bit so the cooker would fit in. After a very long day, we finally had it all in place! So far we're loving it. The oven reaches temperature in less than 10 minutes and it's got loads more space than our old one. We've also played around with the dividing shelf (which allows you to set two separate temperatures). We also have a rotisserie thingo which will apparently rotate and cook a joint of meat in there?! Pretty amazing. The cooktop has also lived up to expectations. It boils a pot of water in about 3 minutes! The only problem was that we discovered that our cheapo saucepans that we'd hoped would work on the induction actually don't. So that left us with only two pans - a big stainless steel frying pan and our Le Creuset cast iron dutch oven - that would actually work on it. We ended up going to Victoria's Basement on Sunday to buy a set of Scanpan Fusion 5 stainless steel pots which work great. So far we've made a steak dinner, banana bread, roast veggies, toad-in-the-hole, and apple-berry crumble with our new setup. It was well worth the wait!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
 Miller's Hat for SnookIt's been pretty chilly around here lately, so I finally convinced the Snook to let me knit him a hat. This is tricky business. He doesn't like things that make his head itchy. He's hated every woollen beanie I ever put on him. I'd have to get creative. While surfing Ravelry one day, I came across this photo of a guy wearing the unusual Miller's Hat. Hey, I thought. That looks neat! So I bought the pattern. I decided to go with Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (80% cotton, 20% wool) for the project, despite all the drawbacks. (Cotton isn't as warm; knitting cables in cotton kills your hands; cotton tends to be a stiffer fabric than wool.) The main selling point was that I knew it definitely wouldn't make his head "itch." I ended up having to restart the hat a couple times because I kept stuffing up the herringbone stitch around the band. It's not hard once you get the hang of it (i.e. read the chart symbols properly), and it looks really cool. I ended up adding quite a few stitches - a whole extra cable repeat's worth - to make it looser and to compensate for my famously tight tension. I did the whole thing on a 5mm needle, not bothering to change for the cabled bit. I also skipped a couple of the plain rows towards the end, not wanting it to be too slouchy at the top. As for the edging, I just picked up a zillion stitches around the edge, not really caring about the number. (Basically, I winged the whole thing.) It looks... interesting, huh? He likes it. I think he looks like a damn hipster, but it's unusual and slouchy and keeps his ears warm. That makes us both happy. More details and photos over on Ravelry... Friday, June 25, 2010
This is it. This is the low point of the year, I swear it. I only ran once this past week. I didn't go to Spudds. I feel listless and flabby. I could make excuses - I think I've been fighting off a virus for the past week; Rodd didn't want to run on the weekend; I've been busy at work; I haven't been sleeping well - but really, I could've done more if I really wanted to. I haven't had a weekday morning run in ages. Winter, you know? It's tough. My half-marathon training starts next week though, so I'm hoping a plan will get me back on course. And it did feel good to go for a longer distance on that single run... June 20: 10.96km run Total this week: 10.96km (6.85mi) Total in 2010: 472.41km (295mi) Next week will be the halfway point in my goal to run 1000km in 2010, and as you can see I'm a bit behind on making the 500km mark. It'll all get better from here, right?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
While I'm sure it's barely registered as a blip in the North American news, something monumental happened in Australia this morning: we now have a female Prime Minister for the first time ever. The whole process has been rather dramatic and bewildering for this Yank, even though I'm happy with the outcome. (I'm just not used to changing leaders outside of an election. But hey, that's how the Westminster system works, right?) I remember blogging in December 2007 about the "little seismic shift" that happened when she became Acting PM while Kevin Rudd was overseas. And now she's got the job. It's pretty amazing. That said, I didn't really have any big problems with Kevin Rudd. I still prefer him over Tony Abbott by a country mile. I don't actually think having Gillard in place over him will mean any radical changes before the next election. It's just nice to see the smile on other women's faces, to know that we finally cracked it. (Similarly, some of the comments I've seen from men on Twitter and Skype have been predictably depressing. But we knew that would happen.)
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
 LOVE. IT.
Social and Environmental Impact so Far!We've just renewed for a second subscription, this time getting a Medium box every fortnight. (We're having trouble getting through a Small box in a week. Things are fresher though, so they also last a while.) Last night I used our cavolo nero to make a big batch of white bean soup, which was especially good on a cold and nasty day like today!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
I had to see my GP on Friday for an allergy shot, and while I was there I told him that my right foot has still been bothering me. I told him that the sports doctor had advocated calling a podiatrist. After poking my foot for a bit, Dr. Chin told me to hold off on the podiatrist in favour of an ultrasound. He suspects that I might have a case of Morton's Neuroma. Basically, I might have a thickened and inflamed nerve in the ball of my foot. It's an interesting possibility; it would explain why I didn't see any improvement from drastically reducing my mileage (or stopping altogether). Women who wear high-heeled shoes seem particular at risk. I don't wear high-heels, but I did spend three months trying to land on my forefoot. (I've since changed to more of a midfoot strike.) Interesting, huh? If that is the case, I might be able to get by with some sort of orthotic or padding. I'm hoping to get the ultrasound tomorrow morning, so I'll keep you posted...
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Apologies for missing last week's update. It's just kinda depressing, you know? My distance is only half what it should be, and my foot is still bothering me. That said, I am loving my weekly run with the Snook. It makes me happy that he's getting some exercise, and I like that we get to spend that time together outdoors. June 12: 5.31km June 14: 6.79km Total this week: 12.1km (7.5mi) Total in 2010: 461.45km (288.4mi) To meet my goal of running 1000km in 2010, I should be at 461.5km. Folks, that's pretty much exactly where I am. My entire cushion is gone. Unless I can pick up my mileage, I'm going to start falling behind. *sigh* It may be time to start putting in some long walks if that's the best I can do...
Here it is! My long-awaited EPIC next episode. Hey, only 2.5 weeks between shows! I think that's some sort of record. This is also probably the longest show I've done so far. This episode features: what's been keeping me busy lately (both running and otherwise); a training update; emails, comments, and shout-outs; and a weighty (HAR HAR) discussion on the topic of sports bras. Thank you especially to all of the women who gave me interviews at WWKIP Day and to those who contributed to the online discussion. I hope you like the episode! Show links: World Wide Knit in Public Day Elkhart County Fair 5K Road Run You Don't Have to Run Alone - blog and podcast of Ted Blackmore's Half-Marathon - part of Sydney Running Festival Kelly in Motion - blog of Kelly Marathon Woman Returns! - blog of Elma Wikipedia entry on Sports Bras 7 Rules of Sports Bras Sports bras: the lowdown Australian Institute of Sport: Berlei sports bra testing results Biomechanics of Breast Health Thanks as usual to Nick Arthur for the use of his song "Little Donut Party"! Wednesday, June 16, 2010
[A bit premature since we don't actually have them yet, but Emily wants to know what we got. So here's the story...] We've been planning to get a new cooktop and oven for a while not, but we didn't actually mean to buy them last weekend. We went to a birthday lunch in Chatswood on Sunday and thought we'd do some window shopping while we were there. We went into the Harvey Norman in Chatswood Chase and ended up spending a while talking to the guy about cooktops and ovens. We walked out of there pretty convinced that the Blanco 3-zone induction cooktop was our favorite and the Ariston OpenSpace 99 was our Dream Oven. (You can divide it and cook two things at separate temperatures! The top bit can hit 200C in, like, four minutes! It's the biggest volume inside you can get without going wider/taller!) We did some googling and Internet research Sunday night. The prices at HN were pretty high, so we weren't really thinking of buying from them. (They quoted us $1999 RRP for the Blanco, but Appliances Online had it for $1699, for example.) [more...]
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
I understand that you're in a bit of financial strife. Really, I do. You guys have been partying like it's 1999 for years now. You've got to make cuts, and I get that. But would it KILL YOU to tell your employees BEFORE a 3-day weekend that you're shutting their whole company down? Because otherwise they might go off and do silly things like buy several thousand dollars' worth of kitchen appliances. And then they come to work on a Tuesday and you tell everybody that they're fired and that really, really sucks. No, the Snook isn't actually fired. He's one of the lucky few who gets to hang around for a few weeks and turn off the lights. They've said they're going to try to find him another position in another Photon company. We'll see. We're not worried, but yeah, I might have hesitated on the goddamn oven if I'd known. Edited to add: A little bit of further clarification. I've since been told that there were extenuating circumstances that prevented the news from happening last week, not the least of which was an attempt at a last-minute bail-out. I can appreciate that. Regardless of how Mumbrella have spun my post, I didn't really mean to complain about FH management who were doing their best. I was (and am) just worried for my partner and dismayed at the timing of the announcement.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
The topic of the next GGR episode (to be recorded today or tomorrow) is sports bras. I managed to get several interviews yesterday at WWKIP Day with women who participate in a range of sporting activities. If you'd like to contribute, just drop me an email or leave a comment on this post. I'm interested in hearing which type of sports bras you prefer, problems you've had with them in the past, features you particularly like; etc. If anyone has ever undergone a breast reduction, I'd love to hear about that too. Friday, June 11, 2010
Last weekend the Snook made up a batch of "Christmas Jam" using some frozen Davidson's plums his Mom brought us from their tree. He likes jam making, and so far everything he's made has been delicious. However - I just found out you can make jam in a crock pot! (Crock pots. Is there anything they can't do?) A couple recipes: Crock Pot Strawberry Jam; Crock Pot Apricot Jam; Crock Pot Apple Butter.
Oh. My. God. I'd heard of Spoonflower before but, as I wasn't really a sewer, I hadn't had much cause to visit. I just checked it out again. You guys, it's basically Threadless for fabric! You can upload your own design and get it printed, and you can also buy designs that other people have uploaded to sell. They're having a contest at the moment to pick a favorite robot fabric. ROBOT FABRIC. Excuse me while I just go "Squeeee!" in the corner. (I could have a robot skirt. ROBOT SKIRT! ROBOT SKIRT!) Edited to add: Seamstresses! Which fabric do I need for a skirt? Will the quilting cotton work? Will it be too thin?
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
 Pasta with Sausage and KaleWe picked up our second Food Connect box last night, and it was a doozy! We got two big heads of broccoli, two cucumbers, kale, mushrooms, mesclun salad mix, potatoes, apples, bananas, lemons, and oranges. The kale caught my attention immediately, as I can't remember ever cooking or eating it before. To the Internets! I found this yummy-looking recipe for fettucine with kale and sausage. (I didn't have fettucine so I subbed in some curly pasta from the pantry.) It was quick and tasty! Highly recommended. The next challenge will be those mushrooms. I am not historically a big fan of the mushies, but I'm willing to try. What should I do with them? I think my biggest problem with them is slimy texture, so recipes that avoid that would be preferred. Any tried-and-true suggestions?
Just a reminder for those who haven't heard that World Wide Knitting in Public Day is this Saturday, June 12th. The main Sydney event will be taking place in the Rocks. Sally has done a fantastic job organising and has lined up some sweet prizes. I'll be there after the Inner City Guild meeting that morning! Edited to add: I've also created a Facebook event for it. Edited again to add: Whoops! That's the 12th. Looked at the wrong date on the calendar!
Monday, June 7, 2010
The moral of my ode is this:Isn't that lovely? There's a bit more to it; have a read at the link.
In honour of The Goonies turning 25 tomorrow (yes, really!), you should go watch the infamous deleted octopus scene. Yeah, we're all agreed that was a good choice to cut, right?
A totally unsolicited commercial endorsement: My coworker got a kitten on the weekend, which reminded me that I need to officially proclaim that Catlux Softwood Clumping Litter is the best cat litter in Australia. I'm serious. We've tried a lot of litters over the years, and we'd basically settled on the generic Coles clumping litter for cost-effectiveness. Then a few weeks ago, the store was sold out and in desperation I grabbed a bag of Catlux. IT'S FANTASTIC. Not only does it mask any stinky smells, it actually smells GOOD! It smells like fresh lumber. I ENJOY scooping the litter box! It's also physically much lighter than the clay stuff, so it's easier to get home. It doesn't seem to track as much as other brands, and what little there is doesn't hurt your feet if you step on it. It's more expensive than what we were using, but each bag seems to last longer than the previous so it works out. Catlux = A+++ WOULD BUY AGAIN. Sunday, June 6, 2010
 Keep Calm and Carry OnI've been looking for a metal water bottle for a while now, mostly because I'm tired of throwing out plastic bottles at work. (I prefer to drink from a bottle rather than a glass at my desk since bottles hold more.) Last weekend I found this awesome Keep Calm and Carry On aluminum bottle at Octopus Design in Newtown. I instantly fell in love with it. It's red! It made me happy. I took it to work on Monday and promptly managed to spill it all over my desk. Whoops. Still, that's why I bought a metal bottle, right? Because I'm clumsy. Later that night, I took it to the gym with me. I quickly found that the cap is easy to misthread though, and while moving from one station to the next I picked it up and the cap popped off, sending the bottle flying. I hastily picked it up and mopped up the water. Again, I told myself, this is why I got a metal bottle! The next morning I pulled it out at work and noticed that I'd put a smell dent in the shoulder. I wasn't too surprised. What did surprise me though was the puddle of water that appeared on my desk after filling it. Puzzled, I wiped it up. It reappeared. There was a crack in my bottle! THAT SUCKED. I put sticky tape over it which seemed to staunch the flow. Later that week, I spoke on the phone to a nice guy at Opus who agreed that a metal bottle shouldn't have broken so quickly! He arranged to have a replacement waiting for me at the Paddington store this weekend. So today, the Snook and I went over to claim it. I'm happy again! Thank you Opus/Octopus Design. :)
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Another light week of running, mostly because the weather has been so completely miserable. It's rainy and horrible and I just haven't been able to drag myself out of bed in the morning. I did manage two workouts at Spudds though, where I am still kicking some major ass. (I've had double 100's on the rower at my last four sessions now.) I also went for two easy runs around the neighbourhood on the weekend. The really amazing part is that the Snook came with me for Sunday's run! He's agreed to run the Elkhart 5K Race with me and Mom in July, so he needs to train a bit. It was so fun being out there with him. May 29: 5.36km May 30: 5.36km Total this week: 10.72km (6.7mi) Total in 2010: 437.84km (273.65mi) To meet my goal of running 1000km in 2010, I should be at 423km. So I'm still ahead. I'll ramp it back up slowly. The other amazing news of the week is that Ted (of You Don't Have to Run Alone) and Dan are both going to be running the Elkhart 5K too! It'll be an International Running Buddy Meet-up of Epic Proportions. :)
 Zipper BagTonight was my second sewing class over at The Sewing Room. It was great! Zippers are kind of my nemesis, so it was good to get to focus on them. We started by doing a sample piece on calico showing how to place a trouser zipper (like for jeans). Then we started in on our project for the night: this handy bag/pencil case. It's got a front zipper with a pouch inside, and a size zipper for the main pouch. Once again I was the Hermione of the bunch, zooming ahead and finishing early. It turned out pretty well! My sewing is a little wobbling around the zips, but good for a first attempt. And hey, I only managed to shatter one sewing needle! (I ran over the metal stop at the top of the zipper.) Good times.   Thursday, June 3, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
 Vegetarian PastitsioWe got a lovely big bunch of silverbeet in this week's Food Connect box that I wanted to use up while it was still fresh. I also had a couple zucchini in the fridge from last week. A quick Google search on the bus home from work (thank you iPhone!) led me to this: Vegetarian Pastitsio. It's a baked pasta dish with sauteed silverbeet, zucchini, and garlic topped with a nummy bechamel sauce. We had nearly all the ingredients already. "This dish is perfect comfort food during the colder months," Peter blogged. Done and done! The recipe isn't terribly exact, but it was easy enough to follow. I separated the silverbeet stalks from the leaves and cooked the stalks first, reckoning they'd take a little longer. Then I threw in the zucchini, and then the chopped up leaves. I used two gloves of garlic, a pinch of dried chilli flakes, and salt and pepper to taste. (If you like a lot of garlic, maybe go an extra clove. I wish I did.) I used penne for the pasta, and I just eyeballed how much to cook. (It was probably about 400g or so.) The pasta and greens went into my baking dish along with a couple scoops of Greek yoghurt (I didn't bother draining it), a beaten egg, some freshly ground nutmeg, and a scattering of cheese. While that was cooling, I made the bechamel and loaded that up with more nutmeg and cheese. The bechamel went on in a thick layer over the top. I baked it in a hot oven (probably about 190C) for about 30 minutes til the top went lovely brown and crusty. It made eight generous portions! Very tasty and warming on a cold wintry night...
Congratulations to my brother Anthony and his wife Kara, who are expecting their third child. (Good grief! Between the Howards and the Carbos, we've now achieved an actual basketball team. Tall, hearty Midwestern stock, every single one of 'em!) And additional congratulations to a knitter friend of mine in Sydney, who is expecting her second. (She hasn't blogged it yet, so it's still on the down-low.) Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Last night when I got home I headed over to Michael's house to pick up our first box from Food Connect Sydney. We had previously gotten veggie boxes from the Chippendale Fresh Food Co-Op, but the Snook hasn't been thrilled with the quality recently. It's also more of a hike to pick them up at Central. When Michael blogged about Food Connect recently, we decided to give them a try. It's a little more expensive, but they've got some nice perks (like managing your account online). Just about everything is certified organic too, which is nice. I also like their blog and the notes about where the food comes from. The quality looks good and it's definitely convenient. So far so good!
Tourism Australia have premiered their new ad... and not everybody likes it. Count me in with Nick Bryant though: I think it's pretty brilliant. As he puts it, "the rest of the world loves the very clichés which make many Australians cringe." Yes, there's more than a whiff of bogan about it. But there are a lot of tourists in the U.S. who don't care about our sophisticated coffee culture or wineries or modern architecture. They want the postcard, and that's what the ad is. When my family came to visit, they wanted to see kangaroos, dammit! There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying we have to perform some Epcot-version of Australianness for the tourists, but we do have to acknowledge that this stuff is a draw for them. |
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archives
You can search through the archives by post keyword using the form on the left, or you can browse by month using the links at the bottom.
"Moblog" refers to posts and images posted directly from my mobile phone.
"PW Blog" refers to posts recovered from my very first weblog, which dealt with news related to my college dorm. |
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