Fatoush and Sumac and Fukushima.
A few months ago I tasted what is possibly the most delicious salad around. It's called Fatoush & it's lebanese. Now unfortunately, when I Googled "lebanese restaurants" in our little burg all that came up was Ali Baba. I can not believe we don't have any lebanese restaurants here, I thought we had just about every cuisine possible! So while I was sick & away from work last week I had the brilliant idea to look up a recipe on the net and make it myself. One of the essential ingredients for Fatoush is the spice Sumac (which are those pretty little purple flakes they sprinkle on everything lebanese). The web said I could get it at my local grocer. Well, Coles didn't have it. So I drove out to the Indian Spice Centre only to find that it has shut down! Can't believe it - it's been there for years and the one time I need it they've closed :(
So I went home and ordered it on the internet. With any luck, I'll be making Fatoush on the weekend.
Yum! Otherwise I'm going to have a lot of radish, parsley, mint, spring onions and cucumber that I'll have to find some other recipe for,.
Also, we're getting a lot of news reports that "safe" levels of radiation from Fukushima are being measured in the US and lots of other places. I didn't know there was any such thing as a "safe" level. They're saying there isn't any immediate health danger, but I understand the half-life of this stuff is like, 500 years. So If it's anything like interest at the bank, say 7% per year times 500 years is like 350%. So I'm guessing in a few generations it may not be so safe any more? I'd be interested to know a little more about it. I mean I'm probably totally way off & have no idea what I'm talking about because I'm not a scientist but ignorance is Not bliss. Use this opportunity to educate the people, governments!

Clunker.
Our possum is getting used to having us around, we sometimes put fruit scraps (apple cores etc) up in front of her box and she sticks a little paw out to grab them & pull them in. Very cute. I'll have to get a pic of her. She seems to love grapes & plums best. My only concern is that she might get a bit excited when we put fruit up there & accidentally scratch us while she's grabbing the fruit. So I might have to make Moda do it from now on. It's also getting tricky for me to get up and balance on the rickety plastic chair to reach her veranda.
I'm really looking forward to finishing up at work in May. 7 weeks to go! It's weird but I just can't focus on work right now. I'm also very very tired, 6 to 8 loo breaks a night will do that to you. Apparently it's my body's way of getting me used to interrupted sleep. Fantastic.

School, school, school.
I have one presentation to give in about a week, then I'll have one short essay (1000 words), one long essay (3000 words) and one creative project (4500 words) and I'll be done for the semester!! Yay! Then Rex will be here and I don't know where I'll get time to finish my degree..... but after these two units I'll only have another two to go. I can totally see the light at the end of the tunnel. How awesome. Monday is a public holiday which is lovely. Moda will be doing rennos so I think I'll need to go to Mum's to study. Otherwise it'll be noisy & even though I can't help much, I'll still have to go and get light tools or hold measuring tapes or help with figuring out angles and all those kinds of things that I get into trouble for (because I do them wrong, I'll be the first to admit it).
We'll have an overnight trip to SYD this weekend too, to catch up with family which I'm looking forward to. I made a home-made insect repellent for the garden - some recipe off the internet:
3 large onions, a whole bunch of garlic and two hot chillies all sliced up. Then you soak it in a bucket of water over night & the next day you strain it & spray the juice on the garden. My house reeks. Don't know if it will work on the mozzies but it'll keep people away for sure!! The poor princess was getting eaten alive so I had to do something & didn't really want to use poisons at the moment. We'll see if she's less itchy over the next few days...

20 week scan.
OK I now have a pregnancy blog, but since I put my 12 week pic of Rex up here, I couldn't resist putting the 20 week one up here too. So cute! Will it be a karate expert like Dad or a dancer like Mum? Maybe a little of both :)
So everything went well, little heartbeat is strong, seems to have the usual number of legs and arms, and poor little blighter appears to have my profile too.

Band Camp
Moda & I & some good friends of ours spent the last week in Bellingen at Camp Creative. It was great! Apparently about 1200 people in 60 classes this year. We both did singing lessons - my lessons were for "gypsy rom a capella". I learned that the term gypsy is actually derogatory and they prefer to be called "Romany" people. We were very lucky in the recent floods that caned QLD & much of northern NSW. The Bellingen river flooded on Tuesday and we couldn't get across the bridge into town so we spent that day at the cottage & missed out on our lesson. But it was only one day and it was such a lovely place so we really didn't mind at all.
I can't believe I'm back at work tomorrow. It's great to be home, but it was a fantastic holiday. If we can afford it, I'd like to go again next year.
We saw so much wildlife - there was even a big diamond python basking in the sun just outside the cottage door on one of the days. Tree frogs and a giant grasshopper jammed with us on the porch at night. Moda picked up two leeches (on his clothes) in a rainforest and got absolutely eaten alive by mozzies. They love him!! If you're ever in the area I'd highly recommend the Maddesford cottages.
There were several concerts held during the week and David Helfgott (a patron of the camp) played for us on the Wednesday night. Ever seen the movie "Shine"? He is a very, very unique man. Very distracted & touchy-feely. But a wonderful musician. Moda & I, & our songwriting friend also performed. If the footage is any good I might even post it on here.
Was also a perfect chance to catch up with family that we don't often get to see. We had a beautiful salad with them on the way up (that I must learn to make) and then a week later had morning tea on the way home. Shame we couldn't take a bit longer & drive up to Brissie to see the rest of them!

D'oh!
I'm blaming pregnancy brain; I've lost my pregnancy diary. So I haven't made an entry in weeks.. darnit. I guess all the best intentions don't mean much if you can't see them through. I'll find it eventually, but I'll have to write them up somewhere else in the meantime. Oh well.
New Year's Eve was lovely, even though we didn't (I didn't) quite last until midnight. Our friends had a Barbie with a little blow-up swimming pool and we just sat around for ages and talked. I think Moda & I went home at about 10pm.
Can't believe we're back at work already; the week went so quickly. Next week will be Band Camp and I can't wait! I'm taking gypsy a capella singing lessons.
Have also started buying baby things :) we've ordered a pram & car capsule, and people have already started giving us pressies for the baby!
OK back to it. More later.

Another Year Over.
It's been a quiet but good year overall and 2011 promises to be even better. I've gotten a great new job, fallen preggers, got some awesome new curtains in the front room (which are keeping the house nice and cool in this summer heat BTW), got a pet possum in the backyard, and been shown how lucky I am to have so many amazing and beautiful people in my life. Next year I'll have a little son or daughter, get to catch up with some special friends in Tassie and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to fit in enough school to finish my degree. We'll have to see.
So it's about 32 degrees outside & they've forecast 34 for tomorrow. We've gone through a lot of ice blocks over the last couple of days!
Our dishwasher packed it in this week so we bought a cool new Bosch one & it got delivered yesterday. It has a cutlery tray in the top. I love it!
I think my morning sickness is over too, I get twinges of nausea from time to time but as long as I eat regularly I'm fine. I'm starting to get a little bit of energy back too yay! Just hanging out for a big belly.. I know I might take that back in a few months but at the moment I can't wait to show a bit more.
Moda got eaten alive by mozzies the night before last poor thing, they've come up into massive hives; I've never seen anything like it. I think he must be allergic - it looks like an allergic reaction to me. We went to a little asian grocer yesterday & got a tiny pot of dragon & tiger balm which seems to be helping a bit. He's struggling to get any sleep though.
We'll dose up on the "Rid" tonight before we head out to the music factory's BBQ. Can't wait!

Happy New Year all!

PS don't forget to slip slop slap!

Midwife
We had our 1st midwife appointment yesterday - she came to the house & gave me a showbag full of nappies and rash creams and fun things like that. She was lovely :) and she brought a little machine that allowed Moda & I to listen to the baby's heartbeat for the first time! Cool. It was like a little helicopter blade. We haven't yet done the test drive to the hospital to find out how long it takes to get there. Depending of the time of day, I think it's usually about 15 mins so that's not too bad.

I think my morning sickness is officially over at week 14! YAY! I haven't been sick in over a week, so hopefully that's it. Now I need to start exercising again so I'm not a fat lump of playdough for the labour. I think I'll need to be fairly fit to make it as smooth as possible. And apparently you have a much quicker recovery afterwards.

Moda just finished building his beautiful letterbox and is now going to start work on a possum box. We have one living in our garage roller door and I think we give the poor little thing concussion every time we open the door! He took a photo of it on his phone. Very cute, poor little guy.

All day sickness..
Have had morning sickness a lot this week. In fact, I was pretty unwell until about 5:00 this afternoon. But I've since had a lovely dinner of steak with mustard & a roast potato & am now feeling much, much better. I honestly thought I'd finish my first trimester & the nausea would be over but no such luck. Hopefully it won't last too much longer.
The little girl has a vet's appointment tomorrow. I can't believe she's 7 and a 1/2 (see pic). After that I'll be going to see the new Harry Potter movie with my sisters & my mum. I'm really looking forward to it! Moda will be doing a beer tour with some friends so I'll bet he's looking forward to that too!

Hormonal..?
Feeling a bit sorry for myself lately - still tired a lot of the time, was so sick on the weekend (I'm starting to think maybe it's stress that makes me sick because I was sick after karate, sick after the exam and really sick after the scan). It's not too bad the next day if I can get my bum out of bed at 2am and eat something, but who wants to leave a warm comfy bed in the middle of the night & fool around in the kitchen in the dark? It's Moda's birthday. I bought him a cool internet toy after a friend at work got one & raved about it. Ever heard of a Chumby? I think he's having fun setting it up. We'll head to dinner tonight for a nice quiet one with a few friends. I want to spend as much quality time with him as I can before our new little person comes, because as wonderful as that's going to be, it's never really going to be just "us two" again.

Hooked on a feeling.

Had the 12 week scan today & our little baby is lovely. It sucked its thumb a few times and jiggled around in there like the Ally McBeal baby. At one point it looked like it had the hiccups.

I must say I am relieved. Until today I wasn't really sure that there'd actually be a little person in there. For all I knew, I've just had gastro for the last 2 months.

So it all seems a bit more real now. I did notice that when they prodded it, the baby moved around much more so I hope they didn't make it too uncomfortable. Poor little blighter! It did look pretty squashed in there. What a spin out.

Amazing News.

Here we go.. I was going to wait a few more days to announce this, but we've been so excited we've kind of already told most people anyway. We're having a 12 week scan of our baby this Friday. It's due next June. I've been lucky enough to get into the only birthing clinic in town; only 20 women a month can get in so we are very lucky indeed. I haven't been too sick - only a few days where I was actually sick & mostly it's just been waves of nausea & fatigue. I did have to postpone my karate grading & I've decided against going to the Neil Diamond concert next Feb. John Farnham really took it out of me a few weeks ago & I don't want to put that much pressure on little "Rex" again. We're already going to Tasmania in Feb so that'll probably be enough of an adventure for me.

So Moda & I will be parents. I'm still a little blown away. Very exciting also; my brother & sister in law are also expecting their 1st next year. So the new little cousins will only be a couple of months apart. Awesome.

Do I miss being able to eat anything? Not really - I haven't felt like alcohol at all & I'm still enjoying lovely hard cheeses. I think the only thing I've really missed is mayonnaise which is weird because I don't often have it anyway. I've been eating a lot of fruit juice iceblocks. I'm looking forward to actually looking pregnant, because even though I have a tiny potbelly it's not very noticeable yet. I also had a girlfriend drop off a heap of maternity clothes including corporate wear so I don't think I'll have to spend a penny on that either :)

I shall keep you posted on Rex's progress.

History repeating itself
The last few weeks have been a blur. A quick work trip to Perth was awesome, but mostly because I got to see my Nana. She seems very happy and timid and a bit clingy. It could be because she's losing her sight I suppose. It's a pretty cool story: we suspect her mother may not have been her biological mother. She seems to be older than she claims and her official records don't appear to add up. This "step" mother was really horrible to her actually and her little brother often stepped between them during fights. This mean lady who raised her was also unfaithful to her husband (my great-grandfather I suppose) with a farmhand and one day the husband came home to find his wife and the farmhand in a compromising position.. There was understandably a huge fight and my great-grandfather smashed a hurricane lamp over his employee's head, resulting in the whole farm house being burned to the ground. He went to court and was sentenced to some years in prison, but he asked the judge for a stay of two weeks so he could get his two children organised as he couldn't leave them with his wife. The judge agreed and my grandmother and great uncle were placed into a catholic orphanage near subiaco. My grandmother was a teenager, but she was put into the same class as the kindergartners because she couldn't yet read or write. After a few years she wrote to her father in prison, thanking him for sending her there and advising that she was so well looked after and loved that she decided she wanted to become a nun. He received her letter and packed her straight up to basically be a mail-order bride for a mining community (think "paint your wagon" at 16 years old! Poor little girl. She married my grandfather and had 6 boys and a masectomy by about 25 years of age. Apparently they just used to lop them off in those days if there were any lumps or difficulties with them. Now as a 90 year old, she's living in a retirement home and guess what - it's the SAME old orphanage that she grew up in and loved!! I'll stick a pic of it up here. Pretty amazing story. I'll get it all down more accurately from my father one of these days.

Also have one more essay and one exam and then the school year is over. Come on 3rd of December - can't wait for it to come around! How exciting!

Forget You





I hope this clip works. Just the best song - I heard it on Video Hits (or whatever they call it these days) over the weekend. Loved it so much I took the details down so I could youtube it for Moda. Well! Turns out there's a "sanitised" version, which is the one I saw first. There's also a rude version but I think I like the G-rated one best.
Love it. I'm so going to get this as a ringtone : D

Food Matters - The Raw Food Diet
Moda & I watched an awesome doco on the weekend called Food Matters. I've already started eating vego (only for about 4 days tho) and after seeing that, I think I want to start a raw food diet now too. Even if it's only for a couple of weeks to "de-tox". Totally made sense. They said there's a myth that you should be careful about taking too many vitamins but most people don't hesitate to take drugs (contraceptives, pain meds etc). Many many people die all the time from drug overdoses or adverse reactions to drugs, but the number of deaths from too many vitamins is something like 10 in 20 years. Seriously - it's hard to overdose on vitamins. Makes sense, doesn't it?? They also said many people are cynical about taking vitamins because of the wild claims that they fix so many things. They only fix lots of health problems because a vitamin deficiency will cause lots of health problems. Also - they said that our daily intake of food should be at least 51% raw food. 51%!! I can't believe how little raw food I actually eat. So here's to good heath, here's to sustainable living and here's to raw food. I'll let you know how I go. Totally recommend the doco.

Had an awesome time in Brissie; we went to Australia Zoo with my Dad, stepmum & two of my sisters. I couldn't recommend it highly enough. The animals are in great condition, all look very healthy and happy. There are gorgeous little water dragons all over the place, it's almost as if they want to be involved in your holiday!



We saw all the Irwins, the kids are very cute but it's almost scary how talented & successful Bindi is. Moda made lots of friends, as per the pics :)
My favourite part of the day was the otters I think - they put on a show just for us. Beautiful.

FAR OUT! Sooo lucky I have a great study partner for this sucky Media Research unit. I'm probably 70% of the way through an assignment due this week, and 40% of the way through an assignment due next week. Then there's just the regular weekly exercises, one more essay and an exam and I'm done for the year. Thursday morning Moda & I are flying to sunny Brissie for a few days YAY where I can hopefully shake off this cold that's been hanging around for a week and a half. My lovely niece will be watching the house & the princess; once again I've been visited by the lucky fairy. Work is good, but I haven't been this busy for months. It will be fantastic when they actually appoint someone in my old role since I'm still helping out with that.
What else? I have a good idea for a new song too - it's been so long since I've written one. I think I need to spend some creative energy along with all this other "busy" energy.

Trying to get my head down for some study.
It's hard to get motivated, there are so many other things to think about, analyse and obsess over. But this has always been a favourite for me at the end of an era, when I really need to move on.

After a while you learn
The subtle difference
Between holding a hand
And chaining a soul
And you learn that love
Doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't
Always mean security.
And you begin to learn
That kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up
And your eyes ahead
With the grace of a woman
Not the grief of a child
And you learn to build
All your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is
Too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of
Falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns
If you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting for someone
To bring you flowers
And you learn that
You really can endure
That you really are strong
That you really do have worth.
And you learn and you learn.
With every goodbye you learn.
- Veronica A Shoffstall.

Good Times!

Whew! What a crazy few weeks - I've landed a fantastic new job, been skiing in the snowy mountains, had a lovely dinner with mates at Ellacure (currently vying with Rubicon for fave restaurant here), started my 7th & 6th last units of my program at UC, got a quote for solar panels, met my friend's lovely new bloke, had a near miss when a crazy 4WD lady tried to drive through my driver's side window (..while I was driving!) and also found out I'm going to be an auntie! No wonder I haven't found time to write! 1st anniversary is coming up this weekend too; I cannot believe how quickly this year has flown by. At least this next month should be fairly quiet (except for the engagement party in Sydney and the quick trip to Brissie). Will need to study tonight, get some of that pesky school work out of the way.

Hope all is going as well for you!

Finished.
I've read all 4 Twilight books now and seen the first two movies. I'm a bit sad that it's all over, to be honest. The first two movies haven't been great, but they do appear to be getting better as they go so maybe Breaking Dawn (my fav of the quadrilogy) will actually be good :)
Thank goodness the obsession happened right at the end of the trimester - I almost didn't get that last assessment piece handed in! My next two units are about to start, then next year will be my last one. Can't Wait 'till uni is over!
I'm getting my passport renewed tomorrow, with my new name and then that's it; everything will be done.