snugger

It’s not so much to ask is it?

Inspired by Stephanie of little birds, and remembering that yes, I love a good granola, I informed Gary of my intention of making some. I’ve used the granola recipe from Feast, and it was, you know, nice. But as much as I like granola, it doesn’t compare to how much I love granola clusters. I’m talking about the biscuit-y things that you can eat a whole bowlful of with milk, unlike some granola which is more of a sprinkling accompaniment to yoghurt (kind of like toasted muesli really).

Yes, you can actually buy such delicosities (thanks for the new word baby!), but usually there’s something not quite right. This can be one of three things:

1. A too-much-money-for-a-box-that-small price
2. Waaaaaaaay too sweet a taste
3. Coconut. Can anyone tell me what is with Australians and coconut? Coconut in every thing? I’m surprised you don’t get coconut flavoured Rice Krispies.

So anyway, the thing to do really, is to make it yourself. When I told Gary of the new recipe I’d found, he asked me if it was for clusters. It wasn’t. So I went on a little surf and found this “Master Recipe”. Dunh dunh dunh. It has tips for getting that clustery goodness. It was promising. I picked out my extras and my flavouring, and I made it.

Mmm. Check out that clustery goodness.

Sigh.

I will not give up. I must have clusters. I will have clusters. This recipe wasn’t too bad. It almost clustered. I could tell it wanted to. There was obviously something small and fixable wrong. I took notes. I will systematically work through the possible corrections til I have the Supreme Granola Clusters Of My Dreams*. Stay tuned. The next great home-made cereal innovation is going to happen right here people.

For those of you who really aren’t fussy, you might like to know that even though it is sadly lacking in clusters, it is seriously tasty stuff. I added a cup of flaked almonds as my extras, a scant teaspoon of vanilla bean paste as my flavouring and I used rice bran oil. I’m a minimalist when it comes to bits in my cereal.

* I took a small nap before I attempted this, and I believe I may have dreamt of granola.

January is such a difficult month. So many things vying for your attention, so many different people trying to influence you to make promises about what you are and aren’t going to do this year. Unless you’ve had a good think about it beforehand (like november), resolutions are made impulsively, and then not kept as you realise how difficult they really are. I didn’t make any resolutions this year. With moving house, being exhausted from pregnancy, and facing a year with more uncertainty than ever about how my life is going to change, it seemed ridiculous to suddenly announce upon waking up on the 1st that I was going to become a completely different person, right here, right now.

However, I am not against becoming a different person, in certain respects. My eating habits for example. But I have failure issues (which I’m not sure I want to get into in this post), which prevent me from making sweeping statements like “from now on I will no longer eat cakes” (as if I’m ever likely to say such a stupid thing). Far better to trial run such life-changing initiatives.

Hence the month of eating what the government says we should. At least as far as fruits and vegetables are concerned. For the month of February we are going to try and eat the recommended 2 fruit and 5 veggie servings every day. Fruit is not likely to be an issue, but veggies could prove trickier. I’m planning a chart which I’ll stick on the fridge so that we can tick off our progress. The bonus of this is that hopefully by the end of the month we’ll be used to such eating, and we won’t say “that was fun, now let’s go back to the old way of doing it”.

If you want to read some more about trial-running potential life-changing decisions, you can go to Steve Pavlina’s blog, and more specifically, this post. I’m not in total agreement with everything else he has to say, but the 30-day trial seems sound to me.

And yes, I realise that February has but 28 days. We’re hardcore enough to tackle it in less than 30. We like a challenge.

Now here’s something that caught me as I was trying to get to sleep. Why don’t you get black baby clothes? When I asked a few people what their thoughts were, their thoughts were mostly something like this:

“You want a ninja baby?” - very popular that one

“A goth baby?” “An emo baby?”

Come to think of it, what do goths and emos who have babies do? Dress them in mint and lemon?

I’m not even going to think about ninja babies.

Anyway, why does it follow that black is only worn by those sectors of society? I wear a lot of black and I certainly don’t fit into those categories. And what about the ubiquitous little black number? Shouldn’t every fashion-conscious baby have a little chic & sophisticated something they can whip out for society soirees? I mean, if it’s become acceptable to wear black to a wedding, I don’t see why you can’t put your baby in black every now and again.

When I suggested buying some plain white baby-grows (jumpsuits/onesies/creepers/whatever they might be called down your way) and dyeing them….

“Well, I guess there’s always that approach. If you’re desperate.”

Thanks.

It’s obviously a thing, and perhaps once I’m a mother I will understand, that women with children do. When they know that you’re pregnant, the first question is usually “how far along are you?” or something like that. Then there’s usually a question regarding what would averagely be happening to you at that point. I say averagely (which I’m sure isn’t a real word, but anyway) because every single woman, and every pregnancy I might add, is different. For example: I have yet to need the toilet more often, even though I’m nearing the halfway mark. So at first it was all “did I have morning sickness”, “was I feeling the heat”, “did I need the toilet more often?” Yes, no, no.

Now that I’m almost halfway, the questions are usually “have you had a scan?” and “can you feel it yet?”

Next Thursday. No.

The fact that everyone asks you makes you feel like you really should have felt something by now. But to be honest, a few weeks ago, when the questions started, I didn’t want to feel anything. The very idea freaked me out. Perhaps it was a concern that it was going to be like that scene in Alien when that dude (was it Bishop? I forget) starts writhing around and then has this thing come out of his stomach? Hmm.

Ok, ok. So I know that it’s not going to happen like that. In fact everything I’ve read leads me to believe that you’ll probably ‘feel’ it for some time before you actually cotton on to what that feeling is. But still. It was nerve-wracking. I’m actually going to become aware of a very small person that is actually inside of my body. I’m sorry, I want to have a baby, but is that not quite freaky?

Marvellous thing time.

Last night I caught myself sitting very still because I was almost sure that I could feel something. Something different. Something, perhaps, like a baby moving? I tried not to get my hopes up in case it wasn’t. But the point is, I was waiting for it. I wanted it.

Is this what happens to everyone?

Since the move, and the importing issues, there also seem to be some issues with the feed. If you were subscribing to this blog, you’ll have to resubscribe. (If you’re waiting for bloglines to tell you I’ve posted again I guess you’ll miss this, sorry).

The good news is that it is rather easy to do. Just click on the logo-y thing of your feeder of choice down the side there and hey presto. New feeds comin’ your way.

I have to leave you with these 2 jokes because they are so very funny. I also realise that they are, for want of a better way of describing them, nerd jokes. So depending on your grasp of chemistry and physics, you may not laugh. I’ve decided that I’m ok with that, because at least I won’t be there to see your blank face if you happen to not get it. And of course if you do get it, you will laugh heartily. Win-win.

2 Hydrogen atoms walk into a bar.
The first one says to the second “Oh no! I’ve lost an electron!”
Second one says “Are you sure?”
First one “Yes, I’m positive!”

Heisenberg was on holiday in the US, and he hired a BMW to drive. Being used to driving on the autobahn, he headed out one day on the highway doing rather more than he should have been. Eventually of course some police came up behind him and flagged him over. The officer came up to his window and said “Excuse me sir, but do you know how fast you were going?”
Heisenberg replied “I’m afraid not officer, but I know exactly where I was”

With so much talk of goals, resolutions and such going on, I thought that today I would talk about…

Christmas.

Namely, the things we did this year that may or may not become household traditions. I know that if I don’t have some way of remembering the things that stressed me out, I’ll probably do them again next oops, I mean this year. All I’ll remember is that it sounded like a good idea last time, and we did it, so it must have been ok right?

Let’s see…

1. Gingerbread cookie advent calendar. I’ve already done this 2 years in a row which does make it dangerously close to a tradition already. However, I rushed to get the cookies done on time, and actually ended up with only enough for a few days and had to make more. And then to compound the “why did I bother” kind of feeling, we forgot about eating them everyday and as a result have several little packets left. As much as I love the thought of this, I’m not sure I want to commit to the baking stress. Perhaps it would be better to think of something else to put in the pockets. And I can still make the cookies if I want to, just whenever I feel like it.

2. Getting out the Santa Afghan. This was the first time since receiving the afghan that I’ve put it out. My mother cross-stitched about 20 Santas onto a beautiful cream afghan and to be honest, I’ve been afraid of anything happening to it. This year I decided to just get it out anyway. I used it as a tablecloth over a small side table which had a poinsettia and 4 pillar candles on candle saucers. No harm there. Oh, wait, what does that candle think it’s doing! You saw that one coming didn’t you? One of the candles overflowed its saucer and made a lovely waxy puddle on my afghan. I’m still at a loss to know quite how to get it out. With a small child in the house, I think it’s safe to say that this will be taking a sabbatical.

3. Roast turkey with all the trimmings. Ok. There is nothing - no temperature, no humidity level, no worry about how much the organic free range turkey cost - that will prevent me demanding roast turkey. Just so we’re all on the same page here.

4. Boxing Day turkey risotto. Please refer to item 3, replacing ‘roast turkey’ with ‘risotto’.

5. Making chocolate truffles as gifts. To be honest I’m not sure we thought of making this some new tradition. We were just at a loss as to what we could buy Gary’s mum. It was actually kind of fun, but time consuming (especially in a warm kitchen, which required them to go back in the fridge before coating). And since they don’t keep very long you need to make them the day before you give them, i.e.: Christmas Eve. I’d be happy to do it again, but wouldn’t want to commit unless I knew I had the time, energy, and enough people to help me eat the leftovers. For some reason there just seemed to be so much other food lurking about…

6. Plant a tree on Christmas Eve. This was another thing that wasn’t meant as a tradition, but I’d been wanting to plant a lemon tree for some time and we got one at quite a reasonable price while we were looking for something else. And then just happened to plant it on Christmas Eve. Why not I say. Planting more trees is a good thing to do. Think of it as giving your garden, or the earth if you’re that way inclined, a present. Lime this year baby?

7. Move house 2 weeks before Christmas, while you’re pregnant and tired too. That’s not funny. Don’t even joke about it. If I ever say it’s ok, smack me.

I’m back, and I’m wordpressing.

I’m also having issues importing stuff from blogger, but it’s probably my fault. I may just start from fresh here and add the old archives as and when I can.

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas!