Where’s My Muffin Man?????

I’ve been off the radar for a few days; what  with a  900 kilometres round trip to spend Easter with family, returning home with one boy suffering a cold which became (as it does) all 3 boys and a husband suffering with it, I have been somewhat busy.

With Man-flu.

I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate too much on what life is like with a house full of man-flu sufferers.  It has been an interesting study. I have found that the youngest,therefore least vocal, of the tribe was the easiest to deal with. As they get older and the ability to whine and behave badly develops they are harder to look after. The 3 Year Old is trying but the hands down winner, and I’m sure this will come as no surprise, is my darling husband.

There is nothing at the chemists for the main symptom of man-flu. Unless you count ear plugs. But I do have a heavy frying pan in the kitchen.

My prescription?
 One clang to the head, with a hearty dose of
“If you’re going to die, die quietly!”
and everything will be fine.

 

Things Are Looking Up

This is for Sally who sent me a wonderful warm fuzzy this morning and made me feel fabulous.

I must warn you Sally. I tried again at baking yesterday. I figured my downfall with the mutant pecan clusters was NO CHOCOLATE.

So I found a chocolate cookie recipe and 3 Year Old and I made them together and I NEARLY forgot the cocoa ( I Know!) but they turned out splendiferously.

So Sally, this recipe is foolproof, I am going to share it with you. Hope you and your daughter enjoy them!….

Chocolate Earthquake Biscuits

(so called because I think if you eat enough of them you will make the Earth move!)

Makes 24

1/3 cup choc hazelnut spread
100g butter, chopped (I didn’t chop it)
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted (I put in 4 – what can I say, I love chocolate)
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 cup icing sugar (optional)

1 Place spread and butter in a saucepan over a low heat. Cook, stirring, for 2 – 3 minutes or until smooth. Transfer to a bowl.
2 Stir caster sugar, egg, flour, cocoa powder and bicaronate of soda into chocolate mixture.( you’ve got to love a recipe where you just throw it all in!) Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
3 Preheat oven to 180c/160c fanforced. Grease two baking trays. Line with baking paper.
4 Roll level teaspoons of mixtureinto 24 balls. ( I didn’t bother measuring – I just picked walnut sizerd chunkes and rolled then and ended up with about 28). Sift icing sugar onto plate. Roll each ball in icing sugar. Place balls, 6cm apart, on prepared trays. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, swapping trays halfway. Cool on trays. Serve. (I wont bother with icing sugar next time – it makes for an interesting contrast on the cookie but it is messy and too much sugar for my taste)

Step 5 is eat them all and then make some more.

Enjoy!

Oh and for those of you who want a little more: I did a search dor our Doctor and chocolate but all I found was this…

Contemplating a chip. Not chocolate but it starts with ch (All my favourite foods do!)

 

Even better is this site

stardoll

Where you can play with a semi-nude David Tennant doll and dress him up (or down) as you wish!

Hurrah!

Recipe from: Super Food Ideas April 2009 Issue 102

I’m Gonna Go All New-Age On Your Ass!

A while back , over a year I think, there were alot of posts about animal totems or guides. It was something I found interesting but I had never really given any thought as to which animal was mine. To tell you the truth I didn’t really understand it . If you had asked me back then what my animal totem was I probably would have just said  a cat because I like them and I have had alot of  pet cats. I think they are cool and I love the Rudyard Kipling story The Cat That Walked By Himself.  Those Just So stories are my favourites.

That would have been my answer.

Then I delivered my third child and my animal guide found me.

My past two deliveries have been very quick and intense. The final phase of my second delivery was only about 5 minutes but the pain was so intense I couldn’t breathe or relax. I thrashed around trying to escape the pain and vowed for the next pregnancy to have a plan for the last few moments as I delivered my baby.

So almost 2 years later I get to  the hospital in labor with my 3rd child, contractions every 3 minutes . I have the good fortune of having a wonderful midwife on roster who is very excited about my plans for a natural birth with a bit of gas at the end. An hour and a half later I’m at the intense stage. Baby’s head is crowning and I’m sucking on that gas like crazy.

The pain is unbelievable. The gas doesn’t stop the pain but it allows my mind to detach from it . I find myself thinking what sort of animal could contain pain this intense and encompassing? Then she comes to me, or I become her.

 I am an elephant, I am on my knees in a jungle clearing, and I am bellowing and trumpeting the pain away. I can envision my trunk high in the air and the noise I make is deafening but it blocks the pain, or distracts me from it. I come back to the room momentarily between contractions to gasp at the gas. This goes on for a few minutes then with the last push I am back in the jungle trumpeting and bellowing like crazy. It seems the more intense the pain the louder and stronger my elephant becomes. Until I hear the midwife’s voice ,

“Cle, stop pushing. Stop pushing now or you’ll tear.”

Then I’m back in the room, quiet as can be, trying to pant and a few seconds later my 3rd boy arrives, sac intact just  like his brothers before him.

I told my husband about my elephant moment just after the birth. He found it highly amusing. I kept quiet about it after that  but recently I have been thinking about her.

About a month ago, for no particular reason, a new freind bought me a rose quartz elephant.  When I asked her ‘How did you know?’  She said “I just saw it and thought of you.”

It makes sense. Almost 16 years ago, in India I bought a pink marble elephant in Jaipur. In the same country I fell in love with Ganesh.  Over the years I have collected a small collection of elephants . I never knew until the past few weeks why.

 

The really weird thing is way back when in high school the boys thought it funny to call me Elephant Woman.

Ha!

Just When You Thought It Was Safe.

 

He’s back.

I need a name for this snipy character. Can you help? A signed photo of David Tennant for the most imaginitive moniker. Or the one I like the most.

Also for your amusement;  a certain 3 Year Old thinks sharks make the noise ” Derden,derden, derden….”

One Man’s Meat….

 

Okay. With a header like that you need a picture like  this…..

 

 

Now, where was I ? Oh yes.

Yesterday I entered the Forbidden Zone. I had a sudden, overwhelming urge to bake. I should have ignored it but I had a packet of pecan nuts in my hand, flour, butter, sugar, eggs in the pantry and my brain went to Woman’s Day Land. I was going to bake something tasty and delicious.
I used to bake a lot. I made a mean mocha cookie. These days the urge hits me less, not just because of the mess and time with two toddlers aboard, but when I try something new it tends to turn out completely different (read nasty) to the glossy picture in the cook book.
But today I felt confident, I had my brown stuff together. I knew I could make a beautiful delicious batch of crunchy cookies for my family.

1Year Old sat in the high chair banging stuff, eating stuff and throwing stuff on the floor (in no particular order).
3 Year Old helped me make him some play dough then played with it while I made The World’s Most Delicious Cookies.
I felt like a CWA lady. Nothing could stop me.

 

 

Golden Pecan Honey Cookies. Easy.
I followed all the steps.
 Oven on. Trays greased and lined.
Creamed butter and sugar. Added egg. Sifted in flour. Oops. Should have put the honey in with the butter and sugar. Bugger. No problem. I mixed it in with the flour. Straight out of the fridge honey doesn’t mix too well. Very lumpy. I mixed it some more then added crushed pecans. Not holding together too well. So I kneaded it together with my hands. Then I reread the recipe. Do not over mix. Damn. Never mind.
Put tablespoons of the mixture on trays allowing room for spreading. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Mmmm. I was imagining beautiful golden, crunchy, nutty cookies. Yum.

I played with 3 Year Old who was baking playdough cookies.  I picked stuff up off the floor for 1 Year Old to keep banging, eating and throwing. I checked my cookies.

 They hadn’t spread. They looked decidedly uncookie-like. I returned them to the oven for a bit longer.  Maybe they’d miraculously reform into delicious treats. Not too long or they’d burn.

Golden Pecan Honey Cookies resembled small animal droppings. They were not crunchy or golden.
 3 Year Old ate one unenthusiastically. I had one. They tasted okay but they were  doughy in the middle. My husband returned home, looked at the shriveled lumps on the baking trays.
“What are those meant to be?”
“Cookies”
He laughed and wouldn’t try one. 3 Year Old wouldn’t eat any more of them either.

I no longer felt like a card carrying member of the CWA.

Later in the afternoon my 10 Year Old returned home from school. Hungry, ravenous willing to eat anything regardless of shape, smell or texture.
“What are those?”
“Pecan Clusters”
He ate five.
“Mmmm. Delicious. Thanks Mum!”
He took a large handful to school with him today. Bless him.

My 3 Year Old crumbled his up and hid it on the couch at morning tea today.

It’s all in the name.

I Can Feel It In My Waters

Two days ago I had an official looking note from our local water corporation asking me to turn off the water between 9am and 4pm today while they performed maintenance on pipelines in our area.
This isn’t a problem. I have two big buckets of water in the bath, a pail to ‘flush’ the toilet, the kettle is full, we have plenty of drinking water and, oh drat, I can’t use the washing machine or do the dishes. Hehehehe.

It occurred to me; it was only two weeks ago they asked us to turn the water off for half a day. Were things broken already?
Then I realized today’s date. April 1st.

I chatted to my son about it on the way to school. Being ten he loves April Fools Day (I found out this afternoon he convinced his best friend he was adopted).
“What will happen if you don’t turn the water off?”
Probably nothing dramatic I thought,
“The roof will blow off the house.”
“Cool. How high will it go?”  I love my boy. He shares my appreciation of the ridiculous.
“Right up to the moon. Probably hit it and put it off course. ”
“Excellent. I’ll be able to see it from school. Can you leave the water on?”
“No. I don’t want to cause a tsunami.”

So on the way home from the school run I wondered about calling the Water Corp to check if this was a legitimate maintenance day. I didn’t. I don’t need any help looking foolish.
I’m going to look like a real goose if tonight’s local 5o’clock news reports our suburb was the victim of an April Fools joke.
But the jokes on you suckers! I had a day off from dishes and laundry!

 

Basin image: FreeDigitalPhotos

The Wild Things Tamed?

Spike Jonze is releasing an adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are later this year.

This trailer has been very cleverly edited to push emotional buttons. I’m not sure how I feel about this movie. It is one of my favourite books. One of my friends named her son Max after….Max.

On the plus side this is a CGI free movie. It may be worth watching just for that.

 

And if it is a truly terrible movie we can roar our terrible roars and gnash our terrible teeth and roll our terrible eyes and show our terrible claws.

 

Get Into A Book

I watched an excellent show on TV a couple of weeks ago about a girl who finds her way into her favourite novel, Pride and Prejudice, via a door in her bathroom. Lots of fun and a gratuitous wet-shirted Darcy scene. Very nice.
This idea of entering a book and mixing with the characters is not unusual to me as I have enjoyed reading Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series. Thursday is a literary detective and flits in and out of books (under the guidance of Miss Haversham) tracking down all sorts of trouble.

Anyhoo. While I was washing the dishes this evening  (a past-time I find lends itself to daydreaming), I was thinking about what it would really be like to find one’s self in a book.

Pride and Prejudice is not really a favourite of mine. No hot water, no flushing toilets. Corsets. Lump that with Wuthering Heights, which I do love but Heathcliff is even more beastly than Darcy and again you have sanitation issues. Plus all the crazy Earnshaw hangers on.
No thanks – I’d like somewhere I can plug a kettle in and use a teabag. Preferably without some crazy ghost lady scrabbling at the bedroom window.

Heathcliff it's meeeee!

 

I’ve been reading a lot of Joanne Harris recently and aside from the joy of being stuck in a chocolate shop I would be worried about the malicious witchcraft and horrific acts of revenge that tend to occur in her novels.
Then there’s Annie Proulx. Harsh, unforgiving cattle country or harsh, unforgiving fishing towns. Got enough of both of those on my back doorstep thanks.

Dracula, Frankenstein. Yeah, but no, but yeah, but no.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Infinite possibilities for fun far outweighed (in my opinion) by the inherent risks of being read poetry by a Vogon, getting horrifically drunk on a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster or having to spend the whole time with Marvin the Paranoid Android and drink incredibly bad tea.

 

Brain the size of a planet and they get me doing this...

 

Maybe I could hang out with Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. That would be cool. I’ve always had a soft spot for Atticus and I’d love to be mothered by Calpurnia. Tree climbing, bike riding, holidays, comfort food and a sensible Dad. Call me boring but this really appeals to me.
So if I go missing for a while you know where to look. But don’t be surprised if you find a dripping-wet-shirt-clad Darcy in there too. And a packet of Tim Tams.

 

 

Book image: FreeDigitalPhotos

The Truth About Eggs

Today I made curried egg sandwiches for lunch. This might not seem like much but my close family will know this is a huge step for me. Up until I was 35 and expecting my second child I would rather stick needles in my eye than eat hard boiled egg-white or anything remotely egg-like. I am not allergic to egg white. I just had a bad eggsperience. I’m sorry. If I hadn’t done that someone else would have.

 

 

I spent the first few years of my school life at an English government school. I learnt to tie a tie at six and wore a snazzy maroon blazer with gold and black trim. We had assemblies every morning and said the Lord’s Prayer every day.

Oh yes. We also had government funded school dinners. I could paint you a picture of our mealtime treats; Brussels sprouts, gristle pie, blancmange with skin on top, prunes and custard, liver, deep fried spam, but I think this little ditty we used to sing in the playground sums it up perfectly. You all know Frere Jaques….

 School dinners, school dinners

Mushy peas, mushy peas

Soggy semolina, soggy semolina

I feel sick

Doctor quick!

It’s too late

Done it on the plate.

To make sure our lunch was eaten up the school employed Dinner Ladies. Not only would these women cook and serve up our daily lunch but they would also patrol the dining room ensuring every last crumb was devoured.

Once every few meals we would have a salad with half a cold boiled egg nestled amidst the lettuce leaves. At this tender age I love soft boiled eggs with toast soldiers. I would gobble up all the delicious runny egg yolk and palm off the egg white to my baby brother or turn the egg upside down in the egg cup and give it to my Dad who would feign deep dismay at having a pre-loved egg for breakfast.

I didn’t like the texture of boiled egg whites. They made me gag. I didn’t eat them.

 I’m not sure how I got through the first few years of school without eating egg whites. Maybe I hid them under the plate or passed them to my neighbour at the dining table. I have forgotten. Maybe the dinner ladies were not as thorough in their duties as the One Who Will Not Be Named.

But in the summer of 1981, which was my last year in England I was forced to face my nemesis.

Salad again. Possibly with deep fried battered spam (mmmm so healthy) and there, on the side of the plate, hiding innocuously under a slice of tomato was The Egg.

I was a good girl. I ate all my fried spam, all the lettuce and salad. All my friends were running out to play and I was about to follow when The Meanest Dinner Lady Of Them All ordered me to sit and eat my egg.

I sat. But I would not eat my egg.

Other dinner ladies began cleaning up the tables for the big kids to come in and start lunch.

 I would not eat my egg.

The Meanest Dinner Lady Of Them All stood above me and demanded that I eat my egg.

 I would not.

She walked me to the school building with my plate and stood me in the corridor against the wall and roared at me to eat my egg.

I cried but I would not eat my egg.

Time being what it is I have forgotten what transpired after that. More than likely lunch finished and I went back to class.

It’s funny what stays with you though.

 

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos

And So To Write

 

I have friends who write every day.
Quirky, interesting and fun stories.
I admire my friends.
Everyday they write and I think to myself

How can I write every day?
How can I write quirky, fun and interesting stories every day?
I don’t get out a lot. I don’t meet a lot of people or see a lot of things to inspire me.
Mostly I stay home and grow my family and do everyday growing family things.
How can I write anything quirky, interesting and fun about that?

Then I realised I was thinking about it the wrong way. If I can’t see quirky, fun and inteesting in my own life how am I going to see it anywhere else?

My life is exactly the spot to find quirky, fun and interesting writing inspiration every day.

Now I am inspired.