Tuesday, October 30, 2012

alone time. in the eighteen plus months since we've lived in wagga, I've never spent a night here on my own. tony's spent many, less than a month after we moved here I was sent to canberra for a week for work and then lismore for another. there have been emergency trips back home that I've made on my own and a handful of overnight stays in little towns.

tomorrow tony leaves for a week in sydney to do some interesting research for his phd. it's a portrait based exercise where he'll be drawing the same person from life for a few weeks in a row. he's been reading a lot and drawing a lot lately and I think his latest drawings are looking pretty amazing.

so this week I'll probably wrap my christmas presents (best activity ever), exercise a lot, read plenty, set up my sewing machine in the dining room, sleep diagonally and watch a few movies during the week!

I am a little bit scared that I'll get lonely, get freaked out by all of the little noises around my house and cook too much food. I've never mastered how to cook for two, let alone one.

tony's promised to come home with a box of rainbow macaroons - yipee!

I'm also planning a bit of salad experimentation. I spent the day in albury yesterday and had lunch at this super cute cafe where they had a plate of three very delicious and different salads and a slice of bread. so yummy. my oven's also broken (!) hence the switch to cold food.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

a super nice weekend. I made a last minute decision not to work this weekend and it was amazing to have two days off in a row. I spent a good chunk of my weekend making short trips to my friend janine's house. I've wanted one of her dresses for a long time and she ended up custom making one for me over the course of the weekend in a beautiful cotton.



on sunday we picnicked in my favourite park with horseradish potato salad and super cute poppers I found at the supermarket. and then there was pizza.

Saturday, October 27, 2012



shopping for boys. my brothers have their birthdays a month apart and dangerously close to christmas which makes shopping for presents hard.  I have to come up with two ideas instead of one and I definitely have to make sure I don't skimp on their christmas presents. I'm heading home for a quick trip next month and am really excited about seeing my family and celebrating a few birthdays with them. I love living in wagga and missing my family is one of the few things that's hard about being here.

I love these photos from my brother's wedding earlier this year. I have the same ones pinned up in my office and on my fridge at home. they were taken by anna zhu, who went to uni with my brother and his now wife.

my brother derrick was married in march and I never did get around to blogging about it because when we arrived home from the trip, our town was flooding.

the wedding was an incredible day for our family, to have seen my two little brothers standing at the end of an aisle, both trying to hold back tears broke my heart. my sister and I sat side by side and cried watching them, not at all daintily either. we were so proud of them both. it was hard to believe that derrick was getting married and that zac, who was his best man was only 15.


here's zac in his room before the wedding, which used to be my old bedroom.

maybe I like this last photo best. since most of us have left home and I've moved out of sydney, my family really cherishes anytime we get the chance to have dinner together at home. tony snapped this the night before my brother got married.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012


things didn’t feel so joyful this morning but by mid afternoon they seemed to have turned around. a mint hot chocolate and a free packet of hot pink star stickers definitely helped. and kitchen cabinet is on tonight!

tony’s traveling a lot next month and in preparation, I’ve ordered beci orpin’s new craft book. I can’t wait for it to arrive. I’m feeling the slightest bit anxious about his travels, it sounds silly but we’re hardly ever apart.

here are some more photos from our trip to the heide museum last month. next time I visit I hope to picnic there.

Monday, October 22, 2012

it’s monday, we have cake waiting for us (banana with caramel icing!) and are listening to a new mum cd that our friends brought back for us from iceland. I have cute new containers for my pantry and half a day off tomorrow. november seems so close and I’m contemplating buying some fruit mince pies this week, maybe this year I’ll try making them from scratch.


Friday, October 19, 2012






this afternoon after work, I wrapped up some small things to send to my friend in bega. we frequently swap favourite things on and offline. sometimes they’re stories, funny websites or inspiring podcasts. most recently she sent me a copy of the red balloon, which I’d never seen before. it was lovely, I was struck by the french streets, the little boy’s grey outfit and the stark distinction between the children and adults.


this week I’ve been trying to consume good things only. I was really disappointed by a few articles I saw in the newspaper over the weekend and am trying to spend my reading time on nourishing things. since then I’ve read an inspiring post about how to keep a happy wardrobe, read about the making of mitt romney, and a very amazing blog post about a japanese cookie decorator.

thankfully I’ve recovered from my cold, which makes me feel like everyday is a holiday! this weekend I’m planning to make homemade pizza and a banana cake with caramel icing for a dinner party. I’ve been aging some bananas for over a week just for the occasion, which tony has been very respectful of.

have a happy weekend!

Monday, October 15, 2012



sneezy times. so as it turns out, tony didn’t have hayfever the other night, he was actually coming down with a cold. and because I thought he had hayfever I gladly shared my lovely apple, cinnamon and sultana muffin with him and caught his cold.
 
it’s kind of funny actually, we’re both at home on the couch today with a tissue box between us. we’re taking turns making the tea and hope to be better soon!

thankfully we have some of sophie’s super delicious fruit cake to keep us going (it’s nearly all gone), lots of chicken soup in the fridge and plenty of reading material from our recent trips to cities.

Sunday, October 14, 2012


last stop leeton. we’ve spent the last four consecutive weekends away from home, on little trips that were a combination of work and fun. last night, we headed to leeton in the afternoon to support our new friends the ronalds who had an exhibition opening at the roxy theatre.



I loved the show, I’d read bits about it and had had parts of it explained to me but it wasn’t until I was in the space that I understood it and could play with it. the ronalds are photographers and the show was partly filled with photo sculptures, incredibly life-like looking objects that were in fact made entirely from photos. the buttered toast was my favourite and best of all, I could make it glow by using an app they’d made specially for the exhibition. so cool! the show’s open for another few weeks and you can make objects in the exhibition glow remotely, by joining in online.
and now we’re home. poor tony had a severe bout of hayfever during the night, which meant neither of us slept very well. I felt really sorry for him, he woke me up in the early hours of the morning in a very sniffley state and asked whether we could play a game so he could pass the time. unsurprisingly I said no.
tonight I’m making carmelised chicken with green tea soba noodles for tea and am hoping to fit in another woody allen movie. we watched shadows and fog the other night and will probably watch sleeper tonight! I’m excited to see his new flick, though it doesn’t screen in wagga for another month.
p.s - here’s a nerdy article about woody allen’s choice in typography.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012



holiday food. we ate so well in melbourne but were sure not to overdo it like last year! we fit in all of our favourites, tony ate duck for breakfast at the hardware societe and I bought the best box of chocolate dipped french butter cookies to take away and on our last day we made it over to galleon in st kilda. I had the most delicious stack of pancakes with vanilla ricotta and pistachio praline - yum yum yum, toffee for breakfast.

and then it was time to go home.  we found an awesome new hidden bookshop this time round and a delicious super cheap ramen place.
this week I’ve been trying to adjust to daylight savings and found a new blog to read.

Monday, October 8, 2012


happy home. we finally got around to hanging something in our house, after 18 plus months of living here and asking our property manager endlessly if we could hang just one thing. I’ve been slowly taking over a corner of our dining room. tony bought this bookshelf for his phd books at the start of the year, it currently houses all of my cookbooks and gift wrapping supplies :)

Sunday, October 7, 2012


 heide. a few little pics from our trip to melbourne. the main reason we went was so that tony could see a particular show at the heide museum of modern art. we’d never been there before and didn’t really know what to expect. it was so beautiful, set across 3 buildings on 16 acres of super green grass with plenty of flowers. there was even a heart shaped flower bed filled with forget-me-nots.

heide ii was my most favourite building, the design and architecture was amazing, this room in particular.

my favourite show was the albert tucker exhibition, especially the photographs of the tiny caravan he built in his hotel room in paris for him and his girlfriend. unbelievable!

we hope to go back and picnic next time. you can order hampers and lunch boxes complete with chocolate crackles from the cafe!


international cakes. on saturday night we walked for an hour and a half, for some of the time in the rain, in search of dinner. we were hungry for pasta and instead of staying at the warm little cafe where we’d stopped off for hot chocolate and beer, we thought we could find somewhere better. it was a slight disaster, first we walked in the wrong direction of an italian place we were looking for and when we finally got there, it was very shut. but before this, we walked by a street side diner with an enticing blue sign that read international cakes. we came back later that night after we’d dried off and found ourselves some pasta. the cakes were more appealing from further away. up close they were strangely oversized (they sold chocolate rum balls that were the size of tennis balls!) and the cream was the bright white fake kind. still we stopped and had tea and two little chocolate dipped shortbreads. at least the photos look nice!

Thursday, October 4, 2012


lovely little things. on wednesday I met some ladies from the narrandera writers’ group at the sweetest cafe with an enviable diner style fit out. it was run by two mums, who initially thought the shop would be a cake and cookie store. cute! we had three tall glasses of homemade lemon cordial and a lovely little slice to share.

a very australian love story kept me entertained on the drive home.

this week I’m on the hunt for a jaffle maker, I’ve been looking for a little while but probably not hard enough. the search continues, partly motivated by memories of the gooey banana jaffles my mum would make for us during school holidays and partly motivated by this jaffle post!
it has been a mini work week for me and it’s already the weekend for me. yay! I’ll hopefully savour it as weekend work starts again next week.

Monday, October 1, 2012


october. today was the first sunday in a very long time that I was home for the whole day.  so I baked. first a batch of very rich brownies packed with choc chips and walnuts and then some cupcakes with lemon icing. yum.

it’s a super short work week for me, we’re heading to melbourne soon for a little trip. tony wants to go to the heide museum for his research. I’m hoping to visit the ngv, little cupcakes and come home with a pretty new skirt for summer.

here’s something crazy - I’ve already bought three christmas presents!