Blog Anniversary - 1 Year!

I haven't blogged since August. I have continued to read all the blogs I have bookmarked, but for some reason I just haven't done any blogging. I happened to log on today and it is my first year anniversary TODAY! How uncanny. I have been busy these past six months with getting my house organised, working full-time and doing the day-to-day stuff of looking after the Termites. I have also kept up with my quilting. I'm working on my niece and nephew's quilts for Christmas and some other projects. I've included one of my projects just so there's a picture.

My Loungeroom

This is my loungeroom. I didn't think to turn the lights on for the carpeted photo. Don't mind the neighbour's mess!

My Office

These are the before and after photos for the flooring.

The Carpet & Wooden Flooring

This photo shows off the carpet really well and also the flooring. This is the entrance to my room.

The Kitchen

Moving in took just over a week and we had to wait for the appliances to go in. The kitchen looks great. Love my 900mm oven. So worth it.

And Then This Happened...

So things were going OK with having to deal with looking after (entertaining) three Termites, moving in whilst the rain pounded down, and then just trying to organise things when this happened:Yep, it happened just before lunch on the Saturday. So guess who spent 3 hours up at the hospital? Yep, yours truly. And then I was told that Termite 1 would have to have SURGERY the next day at Wollongong. Oh please be there at 7am OK?(that meant a 5am start). A temporary cast was put on and we went back home.

So Sunday was spent away from the moving in. It was nearly a 12 hour day. Termite 1 loved having his own bed in the children's ward whilst we waited. He was very brave. He got to wear a special gown and cap.

Termite 1 gets the cast off on the 23rd August. It's been a long six weeks.

So how did it happen?
Well on the Saturday Termite 1 and Termite 2 thought it would be fun to run around my loungeroom cause it's so big compared to the other house. Of course I did the mum thing of saying "Stop running around the room", "Someone's going to get hurt" etc etc.

Well, before too long, Termite 1 came up to me and said that his arm hurt cause Termite 2 made him fall over. I did the caring mum thing by saying "Don't care, I told you to stop running around", "Well now sit down and watch a movie.."

After a few hours Termite 1 was still complaining that his arm was still hurting and he had gotten very quiet (no more running around... go figure!). So to the hospital we went.

Termite 2 had stuck his leg out and Termite 1 ran into it causing him to fall down and land on his arm. The triage nurse at the local hospital asked me if he had always had a bow in his arm... um NO! And that's why he needed surgery.

The joys of it all!

Moving In Day - 9th July

The school holidays were here and it was perfect timing cause we started moving in. We took over the beds, boys' lounge and TV + the DVD player. The boys spent their first night watching Bolt in their brand new home; never to return to the 'little house' ever again!The next day (Saturday) I snuck into each of the Termites' rooms and got a picture of them in their brand new rooms whilst they were still sleeping...On Saturday we continued on moving things in and I managed to get the Termites' rooms nicely organised:

I'm Still Here!

Just a quick word to say that I am still around. Yes, I have moved into the house and I've been very, very busy with trying to organise this place, sort out the ex-rental, working full-time (no more Wednesdays off for a while) and then playing mum to the three termites. Although I have LOTS of programming to do for school I will endeavour to download all the pictures over the weekend and get my blog updated. Chat again soon.

Oh, and guess what?? I paid my first mortgage payments tonight!! How exciting is that? Bye bye renting...

I Should Be Packing....

We have one more week of school before the holidays (yeh!!) and I should be packing, but how could I possibly pack away all of my baking stuff? This week is Naidoc Week at school and we have all been asked to cook some things for our big afternoon tea tomorrow. An excuse to bake? Bring it on...

First I made Red Velvet Cupcakes with a Whipped Cream Frosting
And then I made a Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
And after that I made the ultimate Mosaic Cheesecake

Oh waistline where are you???

One More Sleep!

So tomorrow I get the keys providing the final payment has been sent by the bank to Allworth Homes, but it still is inspection day anyway. I went by today and guess what I have??
A blue door!!

And guess what's missing?The fence!

5 Sleeps To Go!!

Just counting down until Monday. I'm still not ready. There's still so much packing to do! I'm hoping to have the bank cheque by Monday so I can get the keys. The inspection is at 8am Monday 28th June 2010. If I don't have the final payment (bank cheque) then I can't get the keys until later. Let's hope that all goes well.

Handover...

No pictures to go with this, but according to my dates I get the house in 2 weeks!! Yes, two weeks! How quickly has THAT gone? Can I actually say that I'm not ready for the handover? I have started to pack but I've got so much stuff to sort out that I do not wish to take with me. 14 days.... so much to do (and I still have to turn up for work!).

Outside Painting (nearly) Finished

I say the outside painting is nearly finished cause the front door isn't painted yet and neither is the door leading into the garage. Anyway, here's a picture of the roof. The sun was directly over the house so I couldn't get too many pictures without glare.

Kitchen Handles

I went into the house today and got to see the kitchen handles on. They look OK, but it's a bit hard to tell when everything is covered up because of the painting. The overhead cupboards were in plain view so I snapped a shot:
I then took another shot of the fridge/freezer space and pantries. See where the right pantry is? Well it opens up to the right. Makes sense doesn't it? Then the left side pantry should open up to the left - but it doesn't. It opens also to the right. Which I've decided I don't like.
When I took a closer look at the left pantry I noticed a mistake. Obviously the carpenter who installed the handles was thinking like I was, and thought the handle should go on the right so the cupboard opens to the left, but... cause the pantry opens to the right the handle had to be on the left... anyway, now I have a hole in the cupboard!I guess there's something else to get fixed... now I'm wondering whether I can now get the pantry redone so it does open to the left?

Homemade Pizza

I'm a teacher. A special education teacher. We eat lunch in the classroom and I must say the kids in my class have some nice (and not so nice) lunches. Well this one particular day I was sitting down at the students' desks when I looked over at what JC was eating (I actually have two students with the initials JC and they are both in Year 5 - so I better refer to him as JJC) and saw the most delicious pizza. It was oozing with cheese and the crust looked so BIG. When I asked JJC where his mum got it from he said it was homemade! HOMEMADE!!! I was in awe.

So he went home and told his mum how much I loved the look of the pizza so I'm invited for dinner one night. I'm really, really tempted to take his mum up on the offer.

Anyway, I couldn't wait until for the invitation to be realised so I thought it would be a perfect Saturday night dinner.

First I made the pizza dough. The recipe for this was on the back of the label for the pizza trays I bought today.
Then I made pizza sauce from scratch. The recipe for this can be found on Recipe Girl. Although I didn't use Lori's pizza dough her recipe can be found here: pizza dough.
And after about 40min I got this:

Caesar Stone

The kitchen is nearly complete. I checked out the caesar stone bench tops. It was all covered up so I had to remove some of the coverings to get a photo or two.

Tiling

Last Wednesday I went by the house to see that most of the tiling was done. The tiler was just finishing off the floor in my ensuite, but the rest of the house was done. Neat!

GUEST BEDROOM


TERMITES' BATHROOM


MY ENSUITE

LAUNDRY

Eddie Bells - A Nice Story

I search a lot of baking blogs looking for baking inspiration. A came about the blog of The Repressed Pastry Chef and she posted a nice looking cake called Eddie Bells. It looked very lemony. I like baking with lemons, but as I read on, I discovered that that particular post wasn't about the cake but rather the story behind the cake.

Here's her story:

Many years ago, when I was still interested in climbing the corporate ladder I worked for a very dynamic woman “L”. She was a great boss and I learned a lot from her. Not just career-stuff, but life-stuff too like “quite often you’ll find it’s your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude“. L was a single mother and used to talk about her son J quite a bit. At the time, J was in his late teens or early twenties and an extremely talented artist on his way to a fabulous career. One of those stories has stuck with me all these years.

When J was small, I think about 3-4, he would talk about his friend Eddie Bells all the time. Everytime J wanted to be like all the other kids and ask his mother if he could do it to, if L said no little J would pout and say “but why not mom, Eddie Bells is”. This happened on quite a regular basis where J would come back with “Eddie Bells can” or “Eddie Bells did” or whatever. Eddie Bells was a part of all sorts of things that went on with J but his mother L had never met him.

One night when J was told no to something he got very upset and in tears said “it’s not fair! it’s not fair! Eddie Bells gets to do EVERYTHING and I never get to do ANYTHING”. Pretty upset herself L responded “well, I don’t know who this Eddie Bells is and I’ve never met his mother but I’m sure she doesn’t let him do ‘EVERYTHING’”. Turns out “Eddie Bells” was little J’s way of saying “everybody else” :) So when he wanted to do something and his mother would say no, J was trying to explain that “everybody else is”… and it was coming out as “Eddie Bells is” :)

About a year or two after I stopped working for L, her son J tragically passed away very unexpectedly following a very brief illness. At his funeral I remembered many things that L had told me but what I kept thinking about was the Eddie Bells story. It’s been about 15 years ago now and I still think about “Eddie Bells”. Last Friday night I had my very own “Eddie Bells Moment”. You see, I was making the rounds of my favorite food blogs and checking out what had been posted on both Tastespotting and Food Gawker and was feeling kinda blue. It seemed like everybody else was baking something fantastic! Everybody else… but me :(

Well… that’s the story of my Eddie Bells cake… a cake I made just cuz everybody else was making something. I simply didn’t want to be left out and since Eddie Bells had baked something I wanted to bake something too. Sure it’s a little bit “competitive” and a little bit like “peer-pressure” but isn’t it funny what Eddie Bells can make you do :)

A Very Late Birthday Cake!

It was Termite 3's birthday 18 days ago and I just didn't get around to making him a cake. Well, today I did! I kept it simple. I made a fudge cake that has no butter, milk or eggs, but it is rather delicious. The cook at his preschool used to make it all the time to cater for his allergy needs. I found out that I actually have the book the recipe came out of (I've started to pack to get ready for my move!).

I enjoy baking. I have rediscovered this 'hobby' of mine. But what I have also discovered is that I like recipes that do not require beating the butter until it's light and fluffy. Why? Cause I don't have to wait until the butter has softened that little bit first. Recipes that don't require any butter are quicker to bake.
I found an idea for a simple cake using jelly beans. The Termites quite like the jelly beans we buy from the chemist so I thought I'd go and get those to decorate the cake. Of course they had a sampling of them before I could get any onto the cake, but would you believe it, they wouldn't eat the jelly beans off the cake. Unbelievable!

Kitchen Is In! (now caught up with updates)

So I went by the house this morning on my day off (being Wednesday) and just walked into my house to see the kitchen has been installed. It is basic but I have chosen black and white for it. I will be getting ceasar stone for the benchtops.

Here's some more snaps: