How I Changed This Week

Every school day this week I did something new.

Tuesday: A few weeks ago, I was wearing a pair of bling-y love-heart earrings.  One of my most entertaining girls at school - I've taught her for nearly 6 years - thought they were gorgeous, and said I should take a photo of them (which I did for this blog anyway) and then use it as the wallpaper on my phone.  Somehow we got onto that topic on Tuesday, and I went to show her the picture - suddenly she had my phone (!) and was telling me I had too many photos and ooh Instagram and then she set the earring photo as the unlock screen -

and picked another -

for the wallpaper.  It took me about a day to stop doing a double take every time I checked my phone for the time.

Wednesday: On Tuesday I had coughing fits to and from work.  I hate these, and they stopped me feeling like I was getting over this cold.  On the way home I realised it was most likely due to the air on the train, and all I was wanting was a cup of hot tea.  So for Wednesday and Thursday, I took a travel mug with tea in it for all trips.  It worked.  The lid of this mug is really well-sealed so I wasn't worried about any spills.

Thursday: If you follow my other blog you'll know about this.  My grade 6 quartet had their first performance last week, and I would normally give the Freddo Frogs as a reward.  But I always do that.  I recently got into cupcakes (baking them, not really eating them), so I made them some mini cupcakes, and decorated them with appropriate musical things.

They were a big hit.  (I do apologise for the not-straight lines in this photo.  Taken in a hurry before leaving for school on Thursday morning.  Meanwhile, how cool is the board underneath?!  It reads: George Frideric Handel - Too Hot to Handel)

Kitchen Art

This week has been rather domestic.  I've been trying to make my surroundings more Me and less It'll Do.  Monday morning, I started printing out lots of photos of my nieces and nephews, and finally finished that process Thursday morning.  I found a few more arty shots I wanted printed as well.  Two of these were 'kitchen-appropriate' - one, a pear just catching the afternoon light; the other, the remnants of a beetroot salad.  I also bought, several years ago now, a print from Ruby Victoria (find her blog here) at the Salamanca Markets.  It's been propped up against a wall ever since.  I took it along with me yesterday to find a frame.  And, yippee! - Myer is having a sale on frames.  Score.

Without taking massive shots of the whole kitchen, here are the basics:
The hand-cut teapot (Salamanca) is next to the main bench.

The pear is above the fruit bowl (couldn't resist a Hipstamatic photo of this!).

The remains of a salad are still homeless, but right now propped up next to the coffee machine area.

The dozens of nephew and niece photos are now strung up in the living area, and about to be stuck on a wall by the upper stairs.  They make me smile so much!

Photo Trip #1

Well, I hope this is photo trip #1 of many.  This sort of thing is something I've been wanting to do for a long time, it just doesn't usually work out.  Normally for weather reasons.  On Wednesday evening, I did my first decent run in a while, and enjoyed seeing the green and red lights on various city icons - the Kurilpa bridge, the wheel, QPAC.  I thought, I'd love to get some photos...  I was going to do this on Thursday but I realised my timing with dinner was all out (not a huge deal, but enough for my brain to short out - dinner won).  So Friday it was.  In the afternoon we had super clouds but not much storm, just a heap of rain all of a sudden.  I anticipated the clouds still hanging around would make the photos more atmospheric.  I was right.  I left home just after 6, which was pretty perfect timing I think.

There was something I wanted to check out (sales!) in the city, and I went from there up the Queen St Mall.  The lights were just beginning to come on, turning the Treasury Casino red.

Waiting for the lights to change at William St, the gloominess plus the streetlights plus the red lights all added up to a pretty cool photo.  I put it on Instagram with the Xpro-II filter and so far it's my most popular image :)

Crossing the Victoria Bridge, I felt like a total tourist.  But I do like a silvery river.  I contemplated coming across again straight away on the other side, as the clouds to the west were pretty spectacular.  But my main goal was a photo from the west of the Kurilpa bridge with the city in the background.  Below is another I put on Instagram, also with the Xpro-II filter - second-most popular image so far.

I even checked my map (no apple maps jokes, thanks...) and thought I had to go to the Go Between  Bridge... Silly me.  Not only did I have to walk through a fairly dodgy part of town, but I ended up coming back to the William Jolly Bridge.  Face palm. 

And, when I got to the Kurilpa, with the city in the background, I saw the colour filters were not working.  One of them was flickering (spooky much?!) but the others just weren't on. 

Still took a couple more photos of course.  Bit of zoom for this one so it's not quite so clear.  The whole trip (including shopping) took just under 1 hour 45 minutes. 

Banana Custard Slice

The things I do for this blog.  This is such a busy week that I won't have time to cook, so my non-outfit posts should really be quick and easy things to change.  I can't let bananas go to waste, though.  Last week, I had 3 rather ripe bananas, and a friend posted a link to a healthy banana slice which required 3 bananas.  Before getting a couple of ingredients in order to make that though, I kinda ate one of the bananas...  I found another recipe (not at all healthy) and was checking the sugar supplies when I discovered (yes - I had totally forgotten this fact) that instead of normal sugar, I have Natvia.  So I went to the Natvia site in search of recipes.  I found a whole heap of drool-worthy dessert-like recipes, most of which needed 3 bananas (why??? why did I have to eat that banana???).  Finally, I found this recipe for a banana custard slice which requires only 1/3 cup mashed banana.  Phew.

Ingredients:

1 cup self raising flour
pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon bicarb soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup Natvia
1/4 milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
60 g butter
1/3 cup mashed banana



Method:

Grease a lamington tin (or line it with baking paper).  Preheat oven to 180C (160C fanforced).
Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl.
Melt the butter.  Mix together the butter, egg, milk and mashed banana.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stir well.
Spread mixture in prepared tin.  Bake in oven for 25 minutes.

Makes 30

When cutting, I didn't really believe I was going to get 30 pieces... But, with 3/4 cup Natvia, it is rather sweet, so when I continue cutting I will make them smaller.

Bonus - the Natvia site uses photos from users, and this recipe doesn't have a photo - yet.  So I'll be sending through one of these... You never know!

The Pictures by the Stairs (2)

Yesterday I added some pictures to the collection on the wall by the stairs.  The four frames already there had only bits of wrapping paper in them, which is nice for pattern and colour, but I thought it was time to put some of my own photos in there.  After visiting the doctor today I restocked my ink.  After my 3rd nap of the day and a computer tantrum, I printed out some photos then added a hook. 

Now, of course, the frames don't look as good as I think they could...

But I am definitely liking having more personal things at which to look!

Having just gone through extensive quantities of photos - and I've been rather slack with organising them this year - I can see some photo organising and cd burning happening tomorrow.

The Timetable Layout

Today was really, really boring.  Well, not really - there were lots of things happening.  But in terms of New Things...not so much.  Partly, I admit, because my brain is a little frozen due to things happening.  On Saturday, I rearranged my kitchen appliances.  This has had interesting consequences.  On waking up Sunday morning, I reminded myself as I got out of bed that the coffee machine was in a different place.  Yet, coming down the stairs, I had a moment of "agh!  it's gone!" before remembering (again) it had moved.  Its spot next to the stove is not ideal as I need to reach over to grind beans and to froth milk.  So this morning, I moved the coffee things to the left of the stove, and the kettle and toaster to the right.  Now it's really hard to insert the group handle, and I like having all the teas on that side.  So there will be another rearrangement in the near future.  The trouble is, I really like having clear bench space where the coffee machine was.  Hmm.

Anyway, today I only needed to do a timetable for one day this week at school.  My change?  I used Pages instead of Numbers.  Ooohh.  I knew it was unnecessary to do 3 days with 2 of them blank, and the day I'm at school only requires a few names.  I did feel very organised in sending this through to my boss!

Today's photo:

A trio of pears, a trio of limes.  All these different greens, late morning light.  Besides, yesterday was Trinity Sunday so I thought it fitting.  The pears are just ripe, and the fact that my fruit comes with the occasional leaf attached makes me feel more connected to their source.

The Daily Photo

I like taking photos.  I really am a visual person.  At the start of the year, I was thinking of doing a daily photo - but the first one wasn't great, and the second day I didn't even think about it so that idea fizzled.  Last year was a big photography year (at least, at the start), but this year my camera has been a bit quiet.  That might be partly because the iPhone camera is decent enough that I don't take my normal camera with me everywhere.  Or it might be that my brain has been occupied with other things. 

A few of my friends have done, or are doing, a photo a day.  Some for a month here and there, one for a year.  I saw one friend's photo today and noticed it was part of a group thing.  I thought, what a wonderful concept (if it really is what I think - I haven't investigated this further).  If you have dozens, or even hundreds, of people, all submitting a photo a day, and you then get a snapshot of that day, across Australia (or the world, of course).  As I was walking through Red Hill, looking out towards the city on one side and Mt Coot-tha on the other side, I thought of all the different photos I could take of today, and of all the possibilities of other photos from other people.  Amazing.  And so, I thought I would start the photo a day thing.  I'd decided on my subject matter, but when I got home I saw the rain had strewn more flowers on the driveway, so here we are for today: