Category: Life

I just shouted at my daughter for chopping a lemon into pieces with a filleting knife. While I’m proud that she didn’t chop her fingers off, I’m rather unimpressed that she destroyed my next-to-last lemon.

At the same time, Isaac ran away outside, holding a bowl of water and pretending he didn’t hear me asking him to lay down and get changed. Again.

I’ve got no idea what he is doing with the bowl.

For that matter, I’ve got no idea why Amy wanted a lemon.

Considering they’ve decided to converse solely in puppy whines (making me tell Amy more than once “If you continue to sound like a puppy, I’ll put you outside like one”) and squeaks, I’ve probably got no chance of finding out.

This has been my Sunday.

How was your weekend?

Last night, I was lucky enough to watch a once in a lifetime gig – The Dresden Dolls (Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione), Brian Ritchie, Mick Harvey and John Parish performing The Violent Femmes first album.

It was, amazing.

Things like this make me happy.

And if you’re interested, here are the photos I took of The Dresden Dolls performance.

Sometimes, I forget how beautiful it is where I live.

I’ve had a serious bout of insomnia lately and it’s left me feeling vaguely zombie like. Yes, there are things I want to talk about, but who has the energy?

Instead, I took photos.

You’re welcome.

Sometimes, the light hits the surrounding hills just right, and I manage to catch how it looks in the 45 seconds before it disappears.

These are the moments that I take to breathe, and to remind myself that everything will be okay.

The day after my wedding, as we cleaned up the house and yard, we discovered a few things.

Firstly, half a bottle of pink champagne left in the alcohol fridge and secondly, a sheet pavlova, cream and strawberries that my gorgeous aunt had baked and brought up, that hadn’t been put together or served.

Not wanting to waste the champagne, or the pavlova and not being a big drinker (or a drinker at all, really) I wondered what a strawberry champagne sauce would taste like.

Google was next to useless and instead, I made it up as I went along and ended up with the gorgeous looking thing pictured above. Kudos to the other gorgeous aunt on Nathan’s side who gave us the dessert glasses.

It was divine and really easy to make. Easy is something I very definitely needed!

Ingredients:

You need one small sheet pavlova,
some whipped cream,
a punnet of strawberries,
a cup (thereabouts) of sweet champagne
and one large pear, peeled, cored and diced.

Method:

Cut the strawberries up into quarters and dump into a saucepan, along with the diced peeled pear and champagne.

Simmer until the alcohol has cooked off and the fruit is mushy. Using a stick blender, blend it up to a smooth thick liquid.

Using a dessert glass, layer whipped cream, pavlova and the fruit sauce, until it all looks pretty.

You could top this off with fans of strawberries, or mint sprigs. I was going to, but I turned around to check the sauce and my children had eaten them on me.

Such is my life.