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Sunday 4 November 2012

Huh. Wow.

I'm totally mentioning The Raumati Social Club in every post I do from now on.  There are hundreds of hits on pages where they're mentioned.  I wonder why?  (I totally don't wonder why)  Could be the coffee, could be the food, could be the vibe...  I must research this at the next available opportunity, because I definitely don't spend enough time there.  And by definitely don't spend enough, I may possibly mean definitely spend way too much ... but I went there for brunch a couple of weeks ago and there was a Ukelele group doing Abba in the corner for heavensake.  How do you not go back somewhere where a Ukelele group does Abba?  You can't.  It's not possible.

And if you landed up here because you were searching RSC, just read the next post down before you toddle off would you?  Awesome.

Tick tock

The last couple of months have been busy.  So busy.  I can't believe it's been a couple of months, but just like that, it is.

My Global Baker project ground to a halt pretty quickly (although I did achieve a couple more recipes - I just never got as far as posting pictures!  I should at least do that until I get back to it) which was really frustrating, but it'll get done.  I picked my timing really badly on that one and I'm shelving it for now, quite literally as I have kept the book sitting next to me on my wee desk for months now, encouraging me on and off each day.  I haven't even been cheating on it with other books!  I've barely been baking in general.  It's been such a shock to the husband, he's been breaking out the baking books himself!  A good thing and a bad thing since he's not too bad at it as it turns out.  There was a prune and chocolate brownie that was quite something to behold. And consume.  And try to exercise off.

I'm pretty sure though, that the Global Baker wouldn't hold the temporary shelving of my project against me, because the project I'm now focussing on is one which was unexpected and shocking and is completely surreal to me, but so very very important.

I'd ask that you take the time to pop over and read this blog which has been created as I join with so many other people to do all that I can to help fundraise for and support my friends Justin and Jane and their two boys, as Justin fights an agressive brain tumor.  And seriously, check out the auction links too - the first of the auctions comes up this week and there is some real amazingness being sold (and there are still items to be listed! WOOP!).  The donations that have rolled in and the generosity and support that is being shown is something really special.

I'm working on a couple of other things, but I'd much rather you jumped across to Justin's story and I'll fill you in on those later.  Not too much later though.  I hope.  And I should find those baking pics because they were yuuum!

Sunday 2 September 2012

Stages of walking the dog at the beach

1.    Should probably just wear jandals. Sun's shining. Hate sand in my shoes.
2.    Might just roll the bottom of my jeans up. Just in case.
3.    Plan - wait for the water to go out, run in, throw stick for dog, run out before water comes back.
4.    Need to learn to run faster. Wet feet. Bugger.
5.    Erp!  Tis cold!!
6.    Try that again.
7.    Fail. 
8.    Might take my jandals off. Wet jandals and sandy feet is not ideal.
9.    Crap.  Bottom of my jeans is wet.  Will roll them up a bit further.
10.   Probably should've rolled them up to my knees.
11.   OK.  Well, just so long as my arse doesn't get wet.
12.   Bollocks.
13.   Ah, well.  In for a penny.
14.   There are three people standing there with cameras pointed at the girl walking her dog arse-deep in the sea.
15.   Possibly because I'm still wearing my winter coat.
16.   Oops.
17.   Shite!  Cellphone!!
18.   I love living at the beach.
19.   Although not entirely sure how I'm going to get these jeans off when I get home.

Monday 20 August 2012

Back to baking

I knew it probably wouldn't be a quick process making my way through Global Baker, but it wasn't supposed to be quite this slow.  There were the sick little people to start (a particularly vile Winter lurg that also cost us a WEIT session which was a sacrifice. Thankfully it's our Wednesday again this week), and then of course there's been the stalking of The Raumati Social Club, eating all the white chocolate I bought for the macaroons so I couldn't make macaroons, and being obsessed with beating the husband's (Puss in Boots) Fruit Ninja high score (did it finally last night - took about 4 days of dedicated ninja-ing.  I nearly busted a knee doing a victory lap though, to teach me a lesson in humility in winning).  And trying to organise swimming lessons for the little ginger.  He loves the water and is in the sea every chance he gets (and most chances he doesn't - being allowed at the beach, but not in the water commonly results in a 'woops. I fell in') so it would be foolish not to have him learning to swim, as well as it being really good for his physical therapy (which is part of the over-all therapies group that we're doing with WEIT).

I have been working on it though, at a plodderly pace and I managed three  recipes before the little ginger and the not ginger went down like proverbial stones with their respective diseases, I just didn't get around to writing about them.  Then for a while there was nothing much doing at all because they've been a bit fragile (ergo, generally painful) so it's been a case of throwing together old faithfuls that take little time or thought (but still taste good.  Ish.  I still can't get the hang of the oven.  I'm developing a serious hate for it) for a couple of weeks.  Lazy-pants r us.

But, it's time to get my groove back, so ...

Blueberry cream scones. 

These absolutely made my day when I made them.  They were amazing.  Overcooked, but amazing.  You can see from the edges that I overdid it (they're too golden), which was really annoying, but I'm quite certain I'll nail them on a do-over. They were so unbelievably soft (and I mean unbelievable - they were like a pillow full of feathers. Almost a bit weird.  Definitely disconcerting to a seasoned scone-ruiner) that it felt like they had ages to go, but what I should have done was sacrificed one for the cause when the stipulated baking time was up (especially since I ended up sacrificing one anyway because I still couldn't work out if they were done - I really hate my oven) because I think they probably were done at that point.  Still, they were awesome, and the best scones I think I've ever tasted. Ever. Definitely the best I've made. I made a batch of 8 by the way (the recipe said 8 to10) - next time I'll try the 10.



Madeleines (lemon).

I didn't take a Dean-comparison photo with these.  No idea why.  I'll just have to make them again.  How sad.  Actually, I did make them again, I just didn't take photos the second time, so it'll be third time lucky.  The first time - you can see how it looks a bit furry?  I think I need to work on my pan-flouring skills.  That furry is flour.  I tried them again without flour, but they browned too much.  Or I just overcooked them (that's becoming a bit of a theme here) which is highly possible.  They seemed quite heavy both times and I'm pretty sure they shouldn't be so dense (I've never had a properly made one, so I don't have a point of comparison - they just seem like something that should be lighter), so next time I'm going to make sure I beat the life out of the pan once I've floured it so there's no extra residue, watch the cooking time like a hawk, and make them when the little people are otherwise engaged (or possibly just tied up somewhere. And gagged) and I can take some extra time to do the initial part of the recipe (whisking egg and sugar in a bowl over simmering water) - probably until around the point where my arm is in danger of falling off.


Plain sponge

This was hilarious.  That's not entirely the sponge just there in the picture.  That's the sponge still in the tin.  Woops. 

This could mean one of two things. One, that I'm completely awesome and whipped my eggs so well I got an amazing amount of air into them and this happened (and by 'I', I mean the Kitchenaid). I prefer this option over option two which is that I suspect that what I think is a 20cm cake tin, is not. I shall try again with my next size up tin.

I was both surprised and impressed that the top was actually relatively level post-eruption - I broke two major baking rules (especially for a sponge) during the baking process too - firstly, I opened the oven door not that far into baking time (when it became apparent there was going to be a spongy eruption, so I could stick it on a tray. A cold tray. Bad, bad, bad) and then a few minutes later when it looked like the height of it was going to make it catch on top, I actually took it out of the oven entirely and shifted the thingy-wotsits that the tin sits on, and dropped it down in the oven.  Then I moved it back again towards the end of baking.  By rights, I'm pretty sure it should've been flat as a pancake, or else looked like it'd been made in one of those tins with the holes in the middle.

It was a bit lop-sided, but not too bad.  It tasted good, though I iced it, which was dumb.  I actually think a dusting of icing sugar or something like it would've done the business perfectly.  I'll have to look into what you do with sponges (that isn't jam and cream - so I don't have to eat it all at once.  I can totally handle that, but a wee bit of extra padding in the arse direction suggests that it's possibly not a bad thing that this is turning into a slow process).





This?  This is happiness from Milly's.  It speaks for itself.  I don't have a lot of the bakeware I'll need for all this, so my plan is to stagger the recipes where I don't have equipment with the recipes where I do.  That gives people time to clean out their baking cupboards onto Trademe, or else for me to save up to visit Milly's online. 

My next plan is pinwheel scones (feta, tomato and caramelised garlic I think they are) and almond croissants.  Yuuuum.  The croissants I'll pick up at the market on Saturday (my bit is post-buying croissants) so that'll be my weekend project.  And coffee noms.



Wednesday 15 August 2012

Brunch fail

But not in the way you may think.  You'd probably prefer to think that when I tell you a little story about the husband and his being a complete noddy and your imagination kicks in though.

But first - check these out!  Axi panels suspended from the ceiling at The Raumati Social Club!  That's a lot of cool.  The walls are painted in a gorgeous antique green which also makes me happy (and I'm not just gushing - my bedspread is that colour and has been for six or seven years.  I'd take photos for proof, but all my washing is currently turfed all over it, so maybe later).  I took other photos, trying not to look obvious while hanging backwards through a window, waving my camera in what turned out to be a few really stupid directions but I think I'll wait till it's done.  The panels were too brilliant not to celebrate though.

 

And happy locals!  It's a place of awesome vibe.



But, I'll have to fill you in on brunch next week.  Today, they were still a construction site (just, I think) and working their asses off.  It was almost a gift really, turning up with hopes of brunch, to find they were still going and I could just have a great coffee and an extended nosey from outside (and with about a third of me hanging in through the big window) because that meant I could be sure that I'd just have to go back again next week.  Sweet.  Happiness is.

That's  not the fail though.  Oh, no.  The fail was entirely the husband's doing.  You see, had the cafe been open and serving brunch or whatever, we would've been just having coffee anyway, despite all my plans and egg-related dreams of wonder and happiness, and making a literal dash for it because the husband is a dopey bugger.  You see, he loves his cooked breakfasts - usually eggs, toast, baked beans and bacon on weekends.  At least I think that's when the bacon comes out.  It's not really relevant, but it feels like something I should know the pattern of ... huh.  Never mind.  Anyway, a tin of beans does two breakfasts.  But, at some point, he ran out of beans and opened a tin of spaghetti instead, putting the remaining half tin in the fridge for later.  How much later, we have no idea.  Significantly though, I'd say.  This morning, he located said spaghetti in the fridge, and even though he had no recollection of when he last had spaghetti for breakfast he ate it anyway.  Because what could go wrong with spaghetti?

Loon.

So, you see, in a lot of ways, the cafe not being ready today actually saved the husband's life, because it wasn't until we were sitting at our table on the pavement outside that I realised he'd taken on a rather disturbing resemblance in colour to the walls behind us and if I'd gotten that far and had to forfeit my brunch, it is very likely I would've killed him.  (he's protesting loudly at this point that I could've still had my eggs and there was no imminent danger.  Hmm)

We won't go into why on earth he had a cooked breakfast when he thought we were going out for brunch (although, in his defence, the not-ginger kept us up till 3.30am, so perhaps he just needed the fuel).  (now he's muttering something about pancakes.  I wish he'd stop muttering and make me a hot chocolate)

So, my green other half has been spending a quiet day, and has learned a rather valuable lesson in not eating shiz that he finds in the fridge if he has no memory of when it landed there in the first place.  And tonight, he concedes that probably, one should be a bit guided by one's nose also.  (oh. woops.  Didn't turn the coffee machine on.  Hence the no hot chocolate.  Bollocks)

So, just to recap, the husband is an idiot.

As you were.

Tuesday 14 August 2012

The Raumati Social Club opens its doors tomorrow. This makes me very happy.

I have brunch plans. I'll take photos.  I'm going to miss the coffee cart, but the local paper informs me that they've installed a roll up window so they'll be able to serve coffee straight out onto the street.  I can cope with that in lieu of the cart.  And I have photos to remind me of it, so I'll be ok (sniff).  (and I think the window is the old front door which is very cool ... I'm sure I read that.)

I picked up coffee on Saturday (and the best lemon tart I think I've ever had in my life by the way - it was so awesome my mouth actually hurt for a while afterward.  What a cafe does with a lemon anything is important to me.  It's really is, because bad lemon anything is very bad indeed in my opinion.  A bad lemon something can write off coffee awesomeness.  That's how much I value my lemon whatevers. I don't even care if the lemon things are made on site - they just have to be good. I rate the ability to choose and provide excellent lemon things just as highly as making them. It's a thing.  A weird thing, sure, but still a thing) and was amazed to see a delivery of a couple of crates of milk arrive.  Actually, to be honest, I started laughing after a moment of stunned silence and gawping ... which possibly made me look a bit unhinged, but that's neither here nor there (maybe it just looked like I really needed my coffee, because when I got it, it was exceptional).  I'm sure it was a couple of crates (we're back to the milk - sorry.  Me and my brackets will, I fear, always get out of hand. Maybe it's the coffee - this post reads a bit like I 've just been crunching beans straight out of the bag). It may have only been one, I've been trying to recall the memory accurately the last couple of days and just can't be certain, but even if it was only one that still seems impressive in my humble coffee-loving opinion. Here's a place that hasn't even opened yet, up to their eyeballs in construction, in a wee community, running a coffee cart that they banged up out of recycled materials and they're selling enough coffee for milk to be coming in by the crate. That's awesome right there, that is.  Hats off.

Part of the fun has definitely been the mystery. I saw legs (of the table variety. I saw people ones too, but that's hardly a coup) on Saturday, and part of some form of seating ... I think ... but otherwise I've been faithfully driving past on my way to whereever, whenever I can (and when I say 'on my way' I must admit that that could potentially mean on my way to driving the car back up the drive after driving it out and over to Raumati South. Heh.) and I've seen zip which, it's fair to say, has driven me a bit nutty, but I think I'll miss it a little anyway.  They did leave me with one little gift today though. Post kindy-run I went in search of coffee happiness (and a lemon tart) only to find the cart absent (sob!) and a sign instead saying something along the lines of the coffee cart being closed because they had too much work to do getting ready for opening. Fair enough. It's the day before opening. I can most certainly cope. The thing is though, on that sign, which appeared to have been painted up by one hand, the word 'work' was stuck on, painted or written on another material, possibly by another hand. What I want to know is, did it originally say 'shit' under that 'work'?  (and now I'm having a milk-crate moment, wondering if it was 'work' - you get the idea though) Because if it did, I love that cafe just that little bit more, and it seemed like the kind of sign that someone would've made, and someone else would've come along and told them that they couldn't put up like that. Even if it didn't say that, maybe I'll just pretend it did because that would've been an awesome sign.

See you tomorrow guys.  Sleep well.  And I'm going to make you hard-poach my eggs if there are eggs on the menu.  Sorry about that.

Friday 10 August 2012

Sick kids

Horribly, horribly sick kids.  Two of them.  It is not awesome.  I'll be back asap.  I've done baking!  I have photos!  Asap.  Promise!

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Self-helping dog

One awesome thing about living where we do is if the little ginger, or the dog, or both (usually both) are driving us bananas, it takes less than 10 monites to throw one on a lead and the other in the buggy (lets assume it's the dog on the lead and the kid in the buggy) and get to the beach for them to burn of as much energy as possible so peace can reign once again.

On Saturday that plan went slightly pear shaped when I took them down but within minutes the dog had done something to himself which left him lame.  Thankfully I'd driven down so I could take them further up the beach than I would've gotten by walking, because it would've been an interesting thing trying to get him home.  There are people who actually recognise Al around town because one day the dog went lame, and he got him home by balancing him on top of the kid's buggy.  Heh.

Months ago (it was when we were first putting our Taita house on the market, so maybe 5 months ago? He's just coming up 10 months old), while Kep was still growing pretty fast and therefore pretty fragile with it, someone stood on his paw (admittedly while he was bouncing around them like a maniac desperate for a pat and to be allowed to lick them to death).  He reacted by wrenching his paw out from underfoot, as you would, but in teh process it wrenched him through leg and shoulder and seems to have left him with a permanent weakness.  We keep him exercised which seems to keep it strong adn the beach is great because the sand is softer for running/jumping/falling on his head, but every now and again he must get his footing wrong and it flares up.  Usually he's back to hobbling within a few hours to a day.

Sunday though, he still wasn't/couldn't put any weight on it and that continued through to yesterday morning.  So I caved and rang the vets.  We had had it all checked out really thoroughly previously - firstly by an orthopaedic vet and secondly with extensive xrays, but there was no damage evident at all.  But of course if you want drugs (anti-inflammatories) to get him over the hump, you need to see the vet.  Curses.  So I made an appointment for this afternoon (Tuesday arvo). 

Then yesterday afternoon, he suddenly got a bee up his butt.  No idea how to describe what dogs do, but you have a dog, you'll likely know what I mean.  If I can ever get a video of it, I'll post it.  Out of nowhere they suddenly tuck their back end right in and run around and around like they're possessed.  It's incredibly funny to watch.  Unless of course said dog has barely been able to move prior to that, and then it's concerning as to how expensive he's going to make the vet bill.

Weirdest thing though - after 10 minutes or so of bahaving like a demented fool, he did a couple of circuits of the house, then on the last one leapt up on the deck on one side of the house (it'd been raining so it was pretty slippery), lost his feet as soon as he hit it, slid up the deck, off the step onto the next level of the deck and then slid the rest of the way until he smacked into the (sold wood) fence, landing on his bad side.  It was one of those moments you wach through spread fingers.  Ug.  But then, he got up, shook himself off, and walked inside perfectly fine. 

I told him I could afford to buy hom more dog bickies now that I don't have to fork out for a whopping vet bill.  He wagged his tail.  Good dog.  He doesn't realise that this means he won't be getting drugs rolled up in luncheon sausage though.  Blissfully ignorant.

(I do feel slightly guilty though that this tends to indicate that it wasn't his usual injury playing up, but possibly something out of joint. Woops. A+ for animal parenting)




Monday 30 July 2012

Word at the coffee cart

There's about a week and a half to go.  Happiness is knowing where I'm going for brunch weekend after next.  What I wish I'd gotten a picture of, which I only spotted as we were driving away (incidentally, with coffee that was even better than last time - I am a ginger filled with much hope and happiness I can tell you) is that to the right there was another set of tables, and behind those were two labs, crashed out fast asleep, very happy in the sunniest spot in Raumati I'd hazard, and even better, their parents had even bought their blankets down to sleep on.  Heh.  Dog bowls at cafes make me happy - blankets is joy beyond words.

Short blog on the basis that the not-ginger kept me awake until the wee small hours, and the ginger was awake before 6am.  I can tell it's going to be one of those days where I'll only make sense in short bursts so I'm quitting while I'm ahead.  I need coffee. 



Thursday 26 July 2012

pistachio & white chocolate chunk cookies

I, the Ginger, am going to have to take up running. 

These cookies are amazing, but I earned a big ol' F on product for this one.  Really disappointed.  I'm not sure what went wrong, or even if only one thing went wrong - I actually suspect there are multiple fails going on.  Damn, damn, damn.

There was a delay between preparing the ... is it dough or batter? ... and it going in the oven.  The not-ginger gets the blame for it sitting aside for about 15 minutes.  I did them in 3 batches too because I really wanted to honor the 10cm gap between cookie-balls so I played it really safe with just 6 to a tray for the first lot until I could see what they did.  The result was uniform though over all batches.

The recipe stipulated a small egg - I used the smallest egg I had, but I think it was too big.  I have a memory pinging in the dark depths of my brain memory that egg acts as a raising agent too, which brings me to my next problem - I think they rose too fast, and possibly too much.  See how they're wrinkly out to the edges?  I'm pretty sure that was caused by the sinking. They came up, and then sunk, and I swear that the middle is actually uncooked.  Whether they're supposed to come up, I don't know, but looking at me vs Dean in pic 3, his cookies have cooked perfectly evenly, so I'd hazard to say not. 

And my pistachios all rolled off when I scattered them over the top of the dough balls, so I tried to really lightly press them in.  I shouldn't have done that.  It said not to flatten them, and I expect that that means not even a little bit. 

So, product fail, but I did learn and as much as I want to nail awesomeness out of the starting gate, I'm doing this because I want to learn.  And today's lesson is .... and I'd just like my honesty to be noted for the record here because I really don't actually want to say this ... I can't believe it never occurred to me before ... if you weigh your spoonsful (spoonfuls? spoonsful?) of dough, you get a uniform sized cookie (head......desk).  And I think paying more attention to ingredients (the not-small egg) will serve me well.

Onwards and upwards?  Absolutely.  Awesomeness awaits.  Over the weekend I'm going to break out the mortar and pestle again and make up some chinese five spice for macaroons next week, hunt down a mini madeleine tin and find some jars for bread starter.



Intervention therapies

Fair warning - this could be disjointed and sketchy (and long, and make little sense, so I promise the next post will be a picture of cookies).  Yesterday was a huge day.  I think it's going to take me days to process it.

I think I said at some point that the other reason I'm doing this baking project is that baking is my therapy.  I love baking, and I love writing, but I'd gotten lazy and rushed with one and abandoned the other completely, and embraced stress a little too much.  I'm trying to slow down and make time and these are two of my ways.  I need to do this as much as I want to - I think and move too fast, and the little ginger gets lost in that.  He thinks differently and I need to slow down so there's time to think about what is going on with him at any particular moment.  If I move too fast and don't think enough then that in turn causes stress - for him, for us, for the not-ginger, and the end result is no good for anyone.  This is my battle because usually our crappest days happen when I'm moving too fast - I'm unpredicatable (to the little ginger) because I'm trying to do too much and I don't listen as well as I need to.  So, slowing it down.  Stopping to smell the flowers.

Which bring me to the other thing that it's all about - Wellington Early Intervention Trust (WEIT).  I need therapy because the little ginger is having therapy.  Heh.  (Well, you do have to see the funny side)  Yesterday was our first session day with WEIT.  For now we have a fortnightly place which may increase to weekly in term four if we need more intervention.  I'm not sure whether that depends on progress, or whether he'll need attendance to be regular to keep him focussed. 

I was exhausted by the end of yesterday's session and I expect the little ginger felt the same because he fell asleep just a few minutes after we left.  It was more stressful than I thought watching the sessions (he starts and ends with a group therapy session, then moves on to speech language, music and physical therapies and another therapy that I'm not sure about - how awesome am I? A+ for attention) and seeing him being placed in situations where he would be out of control and stressed.  He hated physical therapy and came closest to panic and meltdown during that session.  The first group session he was all over the place, and by the last he'd pretty well shut down.  I think the drives to and from the Centre (around an hour from the Coast to the Hutt) are going to be really good - it's time to think what we need moving forward before we get there (in theory - the little ginger managed to talk the entire way yesterday), and then to reflect on what happened in session when we're heading home and for the little ginger to recover.  It's a beautiful drive too.

Yesterday was a lot about the therapists talking to me, starting to learn where our particular challenges are, and pushing Cuinn out of a position of control to see how he would react.  I guess also they were looking for confirmation of some of the things I had advised them in our paperwork and interviews, and also taking things in that I hadn't told them.  It's the tricky thing with him being our first child - he's our scope of reference for normality.  We don't know if something is significant or not.  That's been a hard thing to process for us, because we don't know whether it's the ASD or normal psychotic 3 year old behaviour sometimes, and you have to make a call which is sometimes wrong.  We started questioning absolutely everything.  Also, there was a fair amount of control taken away from him yesterday in session, and of course that meant trying to regain it when he got home which was hard work.  Probably made harder because it took me a while to realise that's likely where it was coming from, but I'm wise for next time and it's a good thing to talk to the therapists about (dealing with it the best way) because I want to ensure I'm carrying on what they're working towards with him. 

Probably the biggest thing I got out of yesterday was that both the husband and I worry about how much TV he watches, or how much time he spends on the ipad.  He doesn't sit there for hours, not in that way, but he is brought back to base fairly often when he starts to lose it and starts to overload for whatever reason.  It re-settles him.  We restrict his watching/game playing hugely to gentle cartoons (like Franklin or Wild Animal Baby Explorers (whatever it's called), Dora ... Peppa Pig is his absolute favourite) or things like Monkey Lunch Box or Lego on the ipad.  But he ends up having quiet time with them a lot and that concerns me.  Actually, I'm more concerned about whether I should be concerned. 

Our Speech language Therapist said not to even worry about it.  We're right at the beginning.  See?  Moving too fast.  She explained to me how tiring it is to be him.  I knew that, but she really brought it home to me with an example showing where meltdowns can come from.  She told me how when we walk into a room and see four chairs and a table, we know them to be and log them as a table and chairs without even thinking about them.  For him, he walks into the room and thinks - that has four legs, a seat, a back.  That's a chair.  That has four legs, a seat, a back. That's a chair.  Times four.  Then that has four legs and a top.  That's a table.  And he's doing that, cataloguing everything, all the time.  Then if something changes, a chair moves or disappears, it's not only that that impacts on his catalogue, but he questions what else may have changed - if that has changed, the whole world could have, and the catalogue has to be done again.  You can see where meltdowns and freak outs come from.  I would.  Yeesh.

It's good for us to understand the why.  I knew that it was important to him that things have their place and I know he can clock that something on his radar (that something I'm curious about - why one thing would be important, but not another - I'll find out, I'm sure) has moved even when you'd think he couldn't possibly, and an example of how control was taken away from him yesterday in relation to that was the music therapist took gym ribbons (no idea what they're called - ribbons on a stick?  Whatever.  You know what I mean ... the Olympic sport that doesn't make any sense) out of a cupboard to work with.  Afterwards, she asked him to put them back in a bucket.  It's nothing to us, but massive to him.  They go in the cupboard, not a bucket.

One thing that happened that was really significant, although I don't know how or why, is that the little ginger has been speaking about the other boy who was at his WEIT session (there are two boys including the little ginger and two girls - two autistic spectrum (ASD) boys and two Downs Syndrome girls), and this morning has been using his name.  It seems a nothing thing, but actually it isn't.  It's a connection he's made that's strong enough for him to remember the boy's name. Usually he'd have referred to the boy or that boy or that other kid.  There's only really one other kid on his radar at the moment and that's the wee girl that the not-ginger goes to play with on Wednesdays while we go to therapy - he's clocked her because she's important to the not-ginger who is important to him.

So, lots of learning.  I'm a bit relieved it's only fortnightly for the moment though - I think I need to build myself up to it as well.  Amazing team of people - we're really, really fortunate to be working with them.

Now I need a coffee.  I've probably forgotten a whle bunch of interesting and important things, but this big ginger is in overload herself just now.

Wednesday 25 July 2012

fig & aniseed scone twist

I've started!  Heaven knows how long it's going to take me from here, but I have started! Yay!

This scone twist was pretty confidence-building.  It doesn't look as beautiful as it should (see me vs Dean in pic 2) which is annoying (very annoying, but I have to remember that the purpose of this is to learn, and learn I have), because it tastes amazing.  The scone was perfect.  Seriously!  Perfect (at least, it seemed perfect ... if it wasn't perfect, then that means a scone can be even better and the only thing I can say to that is - who knew a scone could be that good.  Not I, for sure).  I didn't half follow it to the letter after reading the recipe about 6 times though. 

What I should have done is paid more attention to the dough once I'd twisted it (and I think maybe my idea of finely chopped and Dean's are a bit different after comparing filling distribution - lesson learned) - knowing how it would develop in baking - and I should have made sure my swirls were more uniform.  You can see where a couple have stuck together in baking and left a gap on the other side.  Grumble.  But, hindsight.  I uploaded pic 3 to show how it looked inside, and I was a bit disappointed with that too (mind you, I also cut it about 10 seconds after the glaze went on.  That was bad, and I know it, but I swear that no mere mortal (and certainly not this mere mortal, who is weaker than most when facing down a baked good) who could smell that thing baking, or was in the immediate area when it came out of the oven would have been able to resist), but a couple more slices in and you could actually see the swirls, so I was pleased with that.  I just can't show you because between me taking a couple of slices and un-covering the swirls, and me getting back to it with a camera, the husband had at it and there are no swirls to be seen. 

The thing I'm most proud of about this is weird - it was my first step in my project and it tasted awesome, but I realised two handicaps too late.  Firstly, we didn't have any cinnamon (oops!  the box in the pantry was empty. There was some swearing) so I had to pound the hell out of a cinnamon stick in the mortar and pestle.  Yay me!  (ok, and yay the husband too because as I was staring glumly into an empty box of ground cinnamon, he was waving a cinnamon stick at me with raised eyebrows and inclining his head towards said mortar and pestle)  Secondly ... it came to the egg wash part of the process and I realised that the little ginger had at some point relocated the pastry brush out of the utensil drawer to an unknown destination.  So, there was improvising.  Maybe you can tell, maybe you can't.  Maybe I shouldn't have admitted to that.

And on that note, I think I need to go and find out what it tastes like lightly toasted and buttered.






Tuesday 24 July 2012

A few of my favourite things

It's so tempting when you move into a new house, to collect lots of cool stuff to fill it up with.  Well, for me with no self-control.  Although, sadly online window shopping doesn't go wrong (depending on which end of the Visa bill you're standing) as often as it used to.  I blame the beach house mortgage which is almost half as big again as it used to be, and the addition of the not-ginger.  I had to put my sensible pants on (well, maybe just one leg of them).  Plus, we don't have a fire here and I really don't want to have to resort to eating the Visa bill.  Nothing looks as awesome as it did when you're standing in front of it eating 10 pages of transactions.  I swear the husband is getting smarter too - he seems to be able to look at something and work out how much I spent on it.  Useless. 

The other thing is that this really does feel like our forever home, so there just doesn't seem to be any rush at all (except temptation) to quickly load it to the gunnels.  It feels like we have all the time in the world to get it right.  This home has a much more colourful vibe than our previous homes though - maybe it's the beach thing - so we have caved and splashed a few bits of awesome colour around, just to get us started.

Here are a few of my favourite things.

Cushions by Little Fine Day - I bought the one on the right when we were selling the Taita house, but with this house in mind.  The flags cushion on the left was all this house.  I love them.


Tea towel by Tom Polo for Third Drawer Down.  I saw this and loved it.  It made me laugh and for that, it needed to be on the wall.  We're tempted to get it stretched onto a canvas in due course, but for now, it's fine and happy where it is.  It was perfectly starched for presentation when it arrived, but unfortunatley the little ginger got to it before I managed to get to drawing pins ... and blew his nose on it.  Ergo, I had to wash it.  I'll have to confess to weighing it up though ... it was perfectly starched.  Perfectly.  If he hadn't just had a cold ... No, no.  I wouldn't've ... maybe. 


Happy, bright mugs.  We've been using a selection of Crown Lynn circa 70s mugs for the last couple of years, and we love them, but the handles have started falling off.  Fine if they're in a drawer or in the sink being washed, not so fine if they're full of a hot cuppa.  I've had a thing for these since I first saw them in Askew years ago, but we've always had a reasonably neutral colours around us and although you can get them in neutral colours, they just really did seem the sort of thing that needed to be bright.  So, we splurged!  Well, I splurged, but since they went on the husband's tab, I'll call it a joint effort.  Ahem.


And my plate wall.  I love my plate wall, which is done by my friend Niki at Odd One Out.  I'm just sorry I couldn't take a decent photo.  If I stood dead on, the light seemed to bounce off my Super Fly plate.  Grumbles.  Still, you get the idea and these have their own lounge wall.  I love them - I've been collecting them since she started.  She's a genius.


These are figs.  They are awesome because they are in a paper bag, and I love stuff in paper bags.  That one's been with me (the thing, not that particular bag) since I was a kid.  I can't wait till I can start getting the little ginger into decorating them and making puppets, like they used to on Play School.  We'll use the old cellulose tape too.  That always made an awesome noise on TV.

Also with the figs - today or tomorrow I'll do my first baking item out of Global Baker, so the next time you see these, they should look exceptionally yum, encased in a scone twist.  

Very Good Charlotte indeed

There's a dreadful case of both-lateral-incisors-cutting-at-once related miseries going on in this house today.  The not-ginger is not happy, and she's sharing the joy.  Loudly.

So ... what do we do?

Not bonjela.  Oh, no.  Certainly not.  We laugh at bonjela.

Pamol?  Pah.

No, we rock it out to Good Charlotte baby!  And that, apparently, makes everything all better. 

Monday 23 July 2012

Raumati Social Club

I'm quite excited about this.  Maybe a little too excited, but we're talking coffee and food which are two of my favourite things.  And I love this place too, so anything breathing new, very cool (I hope), life into it is on my radar.

One of our favourite coffee/brunch/lunch spots on the Kapiti Coast was Lembas.  It holds a special place in our hearts because we've been going there since we first started looking for a home on the Coast - we went there on one of our flying house-hunting visits down from Auckland, we went there after moving to the Hutt just because, we went there when we came searching for the beach house, and then we just went there once we moved here because it was 5 minutes down the road (sweet!).  It was one of the first places that really got us thinking about the culture in the area, and how we might fit into that lifestyle.

Change though, is going around, and we saw in one of the locals a while back that Lembas was to change hands at the end of last month (so then we had to go for goodbye brunch.  Twice).  It's a bit poetic and awesome that our spot (because it really does feel like our spot and always will I think, as long as there's coffee there.  No coffee = no spot though.  Unless I end up taking my own and sitting on the roadside. That's do-able, and then it would still be a spot of sorts. Just possibly a bit of a weird spot.  We won't think like that though - definitely not. Not about the weird, about there being no coffee. I'll do weird till the day I die) is starting a new life at the beach as well.

So, it's become a bit of a thing to sneak past and check in - see how it's all going, if we're out that way.  Although you can't see a damn thing because they've done a really good job of covering the doors and windows.  Very unsporting.  Not even a crack to peer through if no one's looking (although how you'd know that no one was looking before you peered through said not-there crack, I'm not sure).  It's reassuring though, to know they're in there, busy, giving our spot a new beginning.  And we're counting down too because the indicative time frame for renovations was 4-6 weks from memory, and that means end of the month or so, the clock will be ticking.

Just to keep us on our toes though, on Saturday we drove past and there was - GASP! - a coffee cart outside!  Woop!  It would've been woop-woop if anyone in law enforcement had been in the immediate area - the husband hit the brakes and did a 180 on the spot so we could get coffee.  Bless him, he didn't even see it I don't think, I just started banging on the window yelling coffe cart! coffee cart! and his caffeine-seeking reflex kicked in.  So, we got cofee, and damn them if they didn't have a heavy blanket over the door, so that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't see a thing except dark and feet.  I think we're going to be great mates though, us and Raumati Social Club - I like their style.  Their new coffee machine arrived, so they banged up a cart out of recycled timber and did what they appear to do very well - coffee. 

There was food too, so obviously I had to try that as well.  The husband and I went halvsies in a berry friand (beautiful) and, taking a stab, a chocolate/coffee fudge cupcake.  Awesome.  You see, the tricky thing for us is that the husband makes a pretty good coffee (and he's doing it on a baby class Gaggia too - me?  my coffees taste like crap) and I make pretty good treats (I think - definitely as good as some of the cafes I've been trying (and good enough that I can see when a cafe has not done well, so I just leave - snobbish much?), although I'd much prefer they were awesome, so I'm working on that too) so we kind of require not to be disappointed. 

So far so good - on a cart in front of a construction site, with reggae cranking and the sun shining, I had good coffee and I can't wait for them to be done.  And then, I'll have an eggs benne I think.  And another one of those cupcakes ... holy moly.

(I really wish I'd gotten a shot of the cart - it annoys me that I dropped the ball like that)

Sunday 22 July 2012

Market Day

Yesterday, but I was so excited about my engine shed pic, I forgot to post these up as well.  Yum.  I have to find a recipe for the sesame seed thing - it was beautiful. So good, I even had to make it last 2 days.  The croissant was also amazing but that didn't even last as long as my coffee.  I had a sample of the Baklava at the market, but the husband wasn't letting me near the one he bought home.  Funnily enough.





Kids on the train.  Cuinn seems to be getting to the stage where he doesn't want his picture taken - he yells and carries on and hides.  So I pretended he was being a complete menace getting in front of the camera while I was trying to take a picture of the seat, and that, apparently, is a different ball game entirely.  No doubt he'll catch on eventually, but no need to rush it, hmm?


Saturday 21 July 2012

Sweet

There are moments in life, if you're paying attention, that strike through you for any number of reasons.  Sometimes you catch those moments on camera, if you're really lucky, to keep forever.  This is one of those moments for me.  I love this picture, and I seriously high-fived thin air that I captured it, exactly as I wanted to capture it (at Steam Inc. engine sheds, Paekakariki).

Friday 20 July 2012

Go to YouTube. Search The Duck Song.

My mission to making sure everyone in the world can't get that song out of their head is running parallel to my project just now.  And, you're welcome.

I found my start point yesterday, while sitting at the hairdresser with possibly an entire roll of tin foil in my hair. 

Fig and aniseed scone twist. 

I don't like figs, but I'm on a journey here and I'm trying to be open minded.  There's actually only one thing in this book that I'm going to have to make the husband eat and that's the watermelon, citrus and vodka granita.  I couldn't care less for watermelon, and I have a Pavlovian response to vodka.  Evil stuff.  Actually, I've just noticed while scowling at the page that it actually says that if you don't like alcohol you can use extra fruit, and you can change your fruit.  Probably should've read that a bit better, and avoided anyone wondering how I came to develop such an objection to vodka.  As you were then.  Fig and aniseed.

After that it's five spice, chocolate and almond macaroons and then pistachio and white chocolate chunk cookies.  With a bit of luck I'll nail those to the wall (or pictures at least. Heh (I know - it doesn't really take that much to amuse me). Actually .... that's an idea - a picture board as I go in the kitchen would look really funky. I think. Could give it a whirl anyway. No harm done if it doesn't) and then I'll probably have hopefully tracked down moulds for a fondant (and mini madeleines too - that's proving tricky. As is hunting down a copy of The New Zealand Baker: Breads, Cakes and Pastries, which is out of print).  I'm a bit nervous about fondant - the road to Masterchef is littered with the corpses of a thousand fondants and all that.  Then I think at that stage possibly curiosity will have gotten the best of me and I'll have to know what a sweet potato and blueberry creme brulee tastes like).

But for now, I'm missing important ingredients for everything, so I'm going to go and hang the washing out.  Glamorous.  And think about the market tomorrow where there'd better be more rocky road.  I think.  The husband and I nearly divorced over the last piece of the last rocky road during the week - he really is very weird about rocky road.  I'm also going to hope that the coffee beans I ordered this morning turn up while I'm faffing outside.  I'd be interested to know what the good folks at Havana Coffee Works thought this morning when two separate orders pinged up on their screens from two separate locations, beore 7 am - one from the husband at work, and one from me at home.  Heh.

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Speedy post

It's been a full couple of days so ... bullet points.

- I just ate half a tub of The Collective's rhubarb and strawberry yoghurt.  Yum.  Seriously, seriously, yum.

- Last night, the husband cooked a roast dinner, took it out of the oven and then announced we were going to the beach to have fish and chips in the dark.  So we did.  And it was awesome. And the kids conked out good and proper once we got them home. And that was really awesome.  I love living by the beach.

- I really want a bike.

- I have not worked on my project much at all this week.  Useless.

- Tomorrow, I'm going to a new hairdresser.  A multi-award winning salon that takes months to get into, postitioned in the middle of nowhere, taking whatever appointment I could get, to fix a major hair fail.  I'm really looking forward to the drive to get there because I have to take the Coast road, and it's always beautiful.  Since there will be colour involved, I'm taking Global Baker.  No Vogue for me tomorrow.

- Cuinn was visited at kindy on Tuesday by a WEIT assessor.  From here, they and the kindy will come together to work on and develop a plan for him so that everyone is united in what they are working towards.  It's an excellent system.  I have no idea how the visit went though - the husband did the kindy run and didn't twig to who/what until he was leaving.  Oops.  They're back next week though, so we'll be more onto it.  Hopefully.

- I tried on some new jeans today.  I didn't buy them because I didn't really want jeans.  Some would question why I tried them on in the first place.  Because.  OK, fine, the brand is one of the biggest selling brands in the world - Not Your Daughter's Jeans.  I've been curious about them for ages - they have the most horrendous name, and yet sell well.  Why is this?  Are they awesome?  They must be awesome.  So I had to try them on and see (and I didn't have kids with me - the novelty of the situation made me lose my head).  They're not awesome.  I don't get it.  Although, to be fair, the pair I tried on were a size 8 which is a bit hilarious.  I don't think my arms are size 8.  Maybe that's it.

- I'm going to make a cuppa.

-   :-)

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Shhh, I'm reading

This morning while I was reading Global Baker over breakfast (because the reading is the start of the doing, although it's going at a bit of a slower pace than I anticipated - it's providing a little difficult concentrating on yeast, enzymes and bacteria while the little ginger say, transfers a cup full of juice into an egg cup, overlooking the volume of the former vs the capacity of the latter. On the couch. In the lounge. All over the carpet. When I'm hardly awake. And still warming up so as to be able to move anywhere, nevermind in a hurry. Little treasure), I found a recipe for les caneles de bordeaux.  I, the ginger, may possibly in short order make something that has also been referred to as "portable cremes brulees".  Portable, people.  Cremes brulees.  Hello.  (This is where I lost my high ground with the little ginger too - I spilled my honey puffs all over the floor while I was drooling. Hate that)

I am enjoying this very, very much indeed.

I just need to finish reading, and then I'm into it.  Is it still illegal to tie kids up?

Sunday 15 July 2012

The things you learn

I have a fan-assisted oven.  How embarrassing.  Not embarrassing that I have a fan-assisted oven - I don't think - but that's exactly why I've had a major crash and burn rate with my baking (Literally, although in the reverse - the burning tends to lead to the crashing into the rubbish bin).

I've spent a month with either burnt or undercooked baking (or, on the odd horrifying occasion, both at once), all but standing on my head trying to get a bead on it, and it turns out I have a fan-assisted oven.  It'd explain the fan-like noise it makes when it's on bake, to be fair, but seriously, who knew such a creature existed?

I am such a muppet.

Saturday 14 July 2012

Happiness is a Farmers' Market

I love farmers' markets.  Love, love them.  When we lived in Auckland we used to go out to the one at Clevedon as often as possible (not often enough, for sure) - there is (was? it's been a couple of years) a stall there that did the best lemon sugar crepes ........ (Homer Simpson drool).  Breads and cheeses are my thing though - I swear I could live happily for the rest of my life on nothing but awesome bread and cheese (perhaps with a bit of vege soup to fight off scurvy).  I almost feel inspired to cook when I've been to a market (not really.  I do feel inspired to make the husband cook though - does that count?).

You have no idea how exited I was to find an amazing market just down the road from the beach house.  There are so many things I love about living here, but being able to pack up the kids and walk to the market on a Saturday morning?  Happiness is. 

I guess it's more of a community market than a farmers' market - although I'm not entirely sure what defines a market as a farmers' market - but there are all the essentials ... breads, olive oils, fruit and veges, meats, the fish truck (I'm pretty sure we're paying that guy's mortgage, not so quietly), sweets (you should have seen the rocky road we picked up today - it was a beautiful thing to behold.  I can't show you because we ate it (sorry about that), but it really was something.  I'll get another one next week, just for you guys.  A funny thing too - I've been married to the husband for nearly 11 years and I had no idea that he was completely incapable of not eating rocky road.  I found this out to my great shock this evening, because when I say 'we' ate the rocky road, I was largely not accountable for its demise.  True story.) .... actually, I don't remember seeing cheese.  There must've been cheese.  Surely.  It's Kapiti.  You can't have a Kapiti market without cheese.  That's just ridiculous.  I'll pay more attention next time.  And maybe take photos.  We were a little unprepared on our first visit so I didn't take as good a note as I could have - we stumbled across it, almost literally, leaving a cafe post-brunch and I went into a joyous overload about 10 seconds in.  And we got there late today, so missed pretty much everything (except the rocky road, obviously - sweet!).

The husband found me, quite literally, hopping around the room one Saturday morning maybe a week or two after we moved in because I'd spotted people - people, multiple - walking up the street, with bags of veges.  It screamed market, but better yet meant that it had to be close because they were all walking.  And it is - it's literally 3 turns from the beach house.  I was of course praying that it wasn't just veges because ... well ... veges ... and yay that it's the full she-bang!

It's just ... good.  Life's good.  It's hard from day to day and I find myself challenged on so many levels, but there's something about things like a morning at a good ol' kiwi market that just brings you back to base, and helps you take a breath.

Friday 13 July 2012

The shelf that made itself

A recent issue of Your Home and Garden (I've been reading back issues over breakfast, unfortunately in order of whichever I grab first while balancing a cuppa and cereal and dodging the little ginger, so I can't be more specific than to tell you it's one out of the stack) suggested taking the doors off cupboard fronts in the kitchen and displaying the contents as a kitchen feature. 

I liked the idea a lot - particularly the thought of hunting down a whole cupboard full of cool stuff to display (a colourful stack of Pantone mugs ...) - but I wasn't convinced it'd work in our kitchen and we don't really have that many cupboard-contents-on-display options with the little ginger and the not-ginger being ... a little ginger and a not-ginger.  Plus, on a practical level, there's a certain risk in taking a screwdriver to cabinetry.  You can never be entirely sure how it's going to work out.  My luck, the whole damn everything would fall down because it was somehow all held up by the one screw just removed.

Then a few days ago, rather in the spirit of things I thought, one of our cupboard doors fell off.  It'd been hanging, threateningly, by one hinge since shortly after we moved in, but it seemed like it'd balance there long enough for the husband to get around to fixing it. I have a feeling it must have been a cupboard never used by the previous owners, because it seems that when we moved in, we shocked it into life, and that shocked the life right out of it.  Anyway, it turns out that it looks cool as shelving - YAY!  Except that it was a cupboard full of absolute crap that will need to be jammed into another cupboard somewhere else (one that has a door), pronto.  And it's white, in a grey on grey kitchen, so it looks a little like the distant cousin who got the dress code horribly wrong at a family wedding.  But we have paint from when the previous owner redecorated and if I'm lucky the (charcoal) base colour for the kitchen will be out there.  Problem solved.

And FYI - I was right (that's really the important bit to note) to hedge on taking it down too it turns out, because once the cupboard door was on the floor we could see that the hinges had been screwed into and through a patch which had been glued on to the internal sides of the cupboard.  Joy.  One patch fell off, the other patch stayed on and will have to be chiselled off or something, and there's the matter of the other cupboard door to detach as well which could go any number of ways.  It's attached to a wall too actually, now that I look at it.  Dear universe, please, please don't let the wall fall down if we take the cupboard door off.

But anyway, that aside, tonight's project, as soon as I'm done here and I've suck a hot chocolate, is to transfer my baking equipment out of a low cupboard and up onto the newly-revealed shelves.  And that'll get me into the groove of thinking about this, which has made it to my doorstep.



Thursday 12 July 2012

Dean and me

I have negative time available for any kind of project just now, and probably forever, which really makes this the perfect time to take one on, don't you think?

A while ago, and well after the rest of the world, I watched Julie & Julia on TV.  It's the sort of movie that makes you think that buying the book might, just this once, be a good idea. It wasn't, just like it never, ever is, but I enjoyed it that much.  The idea, if you discount the cooking, which I hate, and the eating of horrifying things, which I also hate, has appeal. From a never-doing-that-myself-but-yay-for-you-high-five perspective.  That's about the sum total of my dwelling on the idea at the time though.

Then a few days ago, while I was looking for a particular chocolate cake recipe online (I have the book, I was just being lazy about copy-typing it out), I came across a blog that was doing a similar thing with a Natalie Oldfield book.  I think.  I didn't actually read the blog, but what I saw gave me the impression that's what the blogger was doing.  Interestingly, her cake looked nothing like mine do when I make it, which means one of us is probably doing something weird.

Anyway, whatever - that re-surfaced idea stayed with me, kicking around in the back of my mind on and off all day for a few days, giving me a poke every now and again, because the blog was about baking.  I love baking.  You know this. Everybody knows this.  But I'm not that good at it.  Not really.  I realised this while watching the last season of Hottest Home Baker, and it hurt a bit. OK, fine, a lot. I was wounded.  But, I have to be honest - I don't do bread.  I've never done a cheesecake.  I have no idea about pastry, or jam, and I only made sugar cookies for the first time the  other day, and if you put me on that set I'd be fried faster than something that fries really fast. Like fries, even. Heh.

And, everything I turn out of the oven at the beach house turns to crap.  That oven has something against me.  Sometimes, I swear it's deliberately screwing with me.  I burned the ass of a gingerbread loaf a couple of weeks ago.  No one burns the ass of a gingerbread loaf.  You burn the TOP of gingerbread.  Honestly.  And now post-Hottest Home Baker I find myself looking at texture and how close something is to what it should be and whether my muffins are awesome, which they most certainly are not, and all manner of other things technical and damn if I don't want to be able to turn a raspberry bun out of the oven because I want one.

What's more (is that better than 'furthermore'? because I had a furthermore there, but I felt like I should be drafting a document on the back of it - not good ... especially when I'm blogging while I *should* to be drafting a document), I found myself watching Hottest Home Baker to watch Dean Brettschneider, and I was watching him because I wanted to see how he reacted to what the contestants were doing, what they were turning out, what he thought about what they turned out.  His face says a lot, and you can see that it's because he loves his craft - he wants them to do it well. My interest in the competition was secondary. 

So, I thought about the programme, and I thought about the blog, and I thought about having a project, and about not having the time and being too stressed and stretched and unable to have a project, and I went for a walk on the beach and I came home and I ordered Global Baker by Dean Brettschneider, and I'm going to bake my way through it.  From start to finish.  Probably not in that order.  And heaven knows how long it'll take me, but I'm going to learn, and I'm going to love it.  I could've done another book, sure, especially one that I've done more (anything) from, but you know what? I wanted to work hard to show someone that they inspired me, even if they never know and I wanted to feel like I didn't want to let them down, all the while learning and doing and enjoying. It'll keep me going when I want to hang myself by my own pinny.

And you know why else?  Because life got too serious there for a while.  This is going to be AWESOME!

(And I missed writing.  You have no idea how much I missed writing.  I need to write, and I needed something to write about.  Plus, baking has always been my de-stress thing, but it's been getting less and less and less of my time and love.  Ergo, you can listen to all my swearing about burnt asses on baking. Thanks for that in advance, by the way)

(Also, if someone, or multiple someones could please list on Trademe all the baking equipment I'm going to need that I don't have so I don't go bankrupt, that'd be much appreciated)

v2.0

I did wonder if I was done here.  The not-ginger turns one in a few weeks, and I've had nothing to say for nearly a year.  It's been so long in fact, that I'm not entirely sure how to work blogger any more.  They've changed stuff, and I could barely use the last set-up. Anything could happen. Anything at all. I'm flying by the seat of my pants.

I started this blog as I journeyed through infertility, and it was awesome.  The blogging, not the infertility so much.  It did have it's moments, but generally ... you know?  Then, when Antonia was born, I realised that infertility was over for us.  It was done.  We'd done it.  We had two crazy little munchkins, and we were sorted.  The fight to have them was over, and the fight for them was underway.  The next bit was to get them through life (and survive sleep deprivation a second time).  It did seem so ... annoying ... to pull the plug, and that's because I knew what it was like to follow a journey and to want to know what's happening forever (I'm looking at you getupgrrl - I think of you often), but I had nothing to say.

And a few really crap, really sad, really crazy other things happened along the way.

Just as I was due to have Antonia, we discovered a lump on our beautiful Jack-dog's shoulder.  It was a tumour.  We fought hard and spent a fortune, and enlisted the best team this side of the world to try and save him, but we lost him fast when Antonia was about 3 weeks old.  That was crap beyond belief.

Just two months later, our Jess-girl, who'd only known life with Jack, died suddenly.  Also crap beyond belief. 

I miss them every day, and I still haven't stopped looking out for them.  Ridiculous, noisy animals.

I didn't do well without a dog.  I said I'd never have another one after my heart broke twice in such quick succession, but Kep the Blue Merle Border Collie is 9 months old and just farted under my desk.  It's the companionship, as well as the stupidity. Kep is supposed to have a white tip on his tail, except he keeps chewing it off.  He sees it out of the corner of his eye, chases his tail till he catches it and falls over, then eats it.  It never grows back. First glint of white and the whole thing starts over.  He has a permanently stubby tail-end.  But he's there, all the time, adding his own something special to life.

We moved.  Again.  I know!

We decided we weren't happy.  It wasn't right.  For a lot of very uninteresting reasons, and one which turned out to be very interesting, but which we will get to later.  That one is our new journey, and the one that really leaves IVF behind.

Anyway.  We tried to convince ourselves that it was good, we were happy, we were making the most of it, this was good, that was good, but sometimes you just have to step back and say, crap. We made a mistake. We made a mistake, and if we kept going with the mistake because we were trying to do the right thing (ergo, we'd sunk a lot of money into the house and we knew we wouldn't recover it at this point) when actually we just need to throw our hands in the air and do-over.  So we did. Over.  The Taita house was a whole lot of do-up still to be done, so we gave ourselves a year to do it. In the meantime we did some market research.  What was out there? What did we want and need? How much would it cost us to get it? And I think it was our second lot of open homes we found the home we'd been wanting for the last year and a half, and within 2 weeks we'd tendered for it and bought it. Quite the heart-attack inducing situation really on the stress-front. 

But, we made it.  We did the do-up, put it on the market, sold it, lost somewhere in the region of a hundred thousand dollars, and now we're living on a Kapiti Beach, happy, settled, in our forever-home and thinking that life is pretty bloody good all things considered.  It's where we first wanted to be, but couldn't find a house (seriously - the first house we looked at when we first started our move down the Island was number 50, just up the road. No kidding).  I'd like to think that the inbetween served a purpose, whatever that was - I have some ideas, but it doesn't really matter.  It got us to here, and here is awesome, so here we'll stay.  Plus, the buy/sell/do-up with two little kids was horrendous and I'd rather shoot myself in the head than even think of ever doing that again. 

And almost looping back to the beginining, in that it's a little ginger journey again, we start a new chapter. When Cuinn started kindy, it was picked up by the incredible team there that he displays a wide range of markers for the autistic spectrum.  We took him to his Dr, and he confirmed that for us, though we're dealing with the very high functioning/mild end of the spectrum if that's in fact where we are at when a full assessment is completed. We took him to Wellington Early Intervention, an amazing team of therapists that we will start working with in a couple of weeks, and they feel confident that they can help us and help him navigate his way of viewing the world, and we're on the waiting list for full assessment by the Child Development team of our DHB.  It makes sense, even though it took us by surprise - he's our first child and we had no comparitive scale ... who knew? We started employing a few basic strategies for our own understanding, and it made a difference.  I think they're right and we're onto something. I think we'll find he has Asperger's, but we'll just wait for that.  I'm focussing on learning and understanding - about him, and about myself because there's a big personal journey here too that's just starting and which will run beside his journey.  Crazy little ginger - he's an awesome kid.

So, I found myself looking at Needle Mountain the other day, thinking that it felt like time to say goodbye (incidentally, how does one dispose of a large number of hypodermic needles?).  There's a new journey starting here, a new life underway, and it's time to do more too.  Part of that is trying to make more time, more peace in the day, and I miss writing so much, so I really, really hope there's more of that too.  I'll see you soon.  I hope.