i got chills...

Phew, it's frosty. And we're off for a weekend in the Southern Highlands where the temperature will drop even further. But this lovely Chanel coat straight from the runway would warm the cockles of any heart would it not?

Le love.

dioriffic

I can work no more, slumber's calling me. But, before bed, and because I probably won't have a chance to post at a more sensible hour tomorrow - eek - today... Here's a wee spot of floral fabulousness from Dior. John Galliano - I heart you.

just chill

As a freelancer you can work the strangest of hours. I started at 9am this morning and I'm still kicking on at 10.51pm. I did take a break and had a lovely walk down to the beach at sunset. The crazy 'non-storm' we had {weird, ferocious thunder for 20 minutes, then a few spits of rain followed by sunshine} seemed to have created a sunset that turned out quite the show over the ocean - yes, on the East Coast!

Lovely husband's watching le tour de France, picturing himself there next year in the crowds. He's also cleaned the kitchen to perfection and is making me a hot chocolate to sustain my final burst of work. I think I'll keep him...

Gal's at a sleepover so I'm free to burn the midnight oil - something I don't think I've really done since uni days. But I'm keen to knock over as much of this job as possible so at the end of the week we can toddle off to the Southern Highlands feeling I've earned a holiday.

Now, this cake - the cutest thing you've ever seen? That's a pudding - not some strange olive macaron fiasco {oh yes, I'm still going on about it. It's also on the cover of MasterChef magazine - with an added mustard coloured macaron. If that little bugger's actually mustard flavoured I think I'll move beyond feeling nauseous to the actuality...}. If we're going to have food that looks like another food at least let's have both of them looking delicious non?

perchance to dream

If you really managed to follow your bliss I'm pretty sure you'd end up here. Oh my, talk about 70 shades of lovely...

knuckling down

There's nothing that I like more than being busy - so today, I'm positively blissful. Lots on, plenty to keep my mind occupied and a few challenges thrown in there as well.

Oh, we won our semi final at netball last night. I sat there with my injury cheering my team on. We had a close game with the final, but ended up losing by a respectable 5 goals. It's a novel concept just watching from the sidelines - one that I'd prefer to just do the once. Hopefully this crazy knee injury of mine will heal soon and I'll be back on the court next week {yep, straight into the new competition - indoor netball allows no rest}.

Finally, three words I never want to hear in the same sentence again: macaron, olive and beetroot. Zumbo might be considered a genius, but I swear I felt a little sick every single time olive macarons were mentioned {and boy, were they mentioned a lot last night on MasterChef}.

raining, pouring...

So, the first official day of school holidays and it's raining. Pouring actually. Luckily my gal and I had plans to stay indoors and bake. Once again I'll be relying on a Frills In The Hills recipe. Liss posted a baguette recipe a few weeks ago that I'm keen to get my dough hook into.

But first, a few things I learned from my meal last night. If you slice a chunk of Coles unsalted butter, put it in a pretty dish and sprinkle it with Maldon Smoked Salt Flakes it will taste utterly divine spread on a crusty baguette - as yummy as $8 French butter! Spring Hill Black Angus is the nicest beef you'll ever taste. I went to the markets yesterday hoping to find some of the Angus Osso Bucco I'd bought the week before, without luck. Then, around the corner I stumbled upon the Spring Hill Beef stand. Now, all around me must have thought I was a lunatic {as did the blokes behind the stall} as I was so excited. See, Spring Hill is the beautiful farmhouse we stayed at with our friends last year, and we're all going again this September - and our friends were coming to dinner last night. Perfect. So I bought a kilo and a half of gravy beef, diced it into huge chunks and cooked it for four hours in a rich sauce of red wine, beef stock, thyme, garlic and bay. It was the most delicious stew ever.

Finally, one of our friends is lactose intolerant so I always offer up a meal as low or free from lactose as possible - with a lactose-free version for him if necessary. Last night I decided to experiment and make a potato dauphinoise - without the cream or cheese. Really. Firstly I caramelised finely diced shallots and garlic with brown sugar, thyme leaves and olive oil. Then I poured over some chicken stock and reduced the sauce by half. I played a layer of thinly sliced, overlapping potatoes in the dish, poured over enough chicken stock to barely cover, then sprinkled with the shallot mix. Another layer was repeated before I topped it off with a sprinkling of panko breadcrumbs. I baked it covered with foil for 30 mins then removed the foil to brown the top.

Oh my. It was delish. We all loved it and agreed it offered all the yumminess of a regular dauphinoise, without the rich creaminess that can be too heavy. Bliss.

This was all followed by Liss's lemon delicious, served with vanilla icecream, and lactose-free french vanilla for T. Washed down with champagne, white wine and a smidge of water.

PS: When we were at Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday I gazed awestruck at the Chanel store. I saw these rainboots in red and oh-my-word, how I wished I could justify them. Although, with a cost-per-wear considering how much it rains in this neck of the woods, they'd be down to $1 per wear in a few short years...

PPS: I swear that I'm not doing all these thousands of links to Frills in the Hills in a blatant attempt to win Rachel Allen's bake. It's entirely coincidental. However, if Liss would like to reward my fawning in such a matter...

to market, to market

After a very successful shopping day yesterday {nothing bought really, just lots noted for future reference - and one store that looked amazing on-line crossed off the list after being viewed IRL} we had a lazy night. Leftover shepherds pie {changed my menu plan after Liss wrote about golden syrup dumplings and I had to cook them Friday night} was consumed and then we all watched Relocation Relocation before the girls headed off to bed and the boy stayed up to watch World Cup and Tour de France.

This morning while my husband sleeps, the gal and I are headed off to the Farmers Markets. They've been tweeting up a storm about new foods on offer, so I can't wait to check it out. We've got friends coming to dinner tonight so it'll be lovely to cook yummy market-fresh food for them. Gotta love the school holidays when you can have friends to dinner on a Sunday night.

have a super saturday

Whatever you're doing today, hope you smile every hour!

far out folks it's friday

Hands up if your week absolutely sped by? Yep, mine too. Today's the last day of school so we're about to have two weeks of holidays to contend with. Wish me luck...

Tomorrow we're headed down to Sydney to check out furniture for my study. Now we've finalised our choice of the charcoal carpet for the study, we just need to choose a desk, chair, light-fitting and bookshelves. We think we've found most of them in our home-town, but we'd just like to confirm that there's nothing else out there that'd suit the purpose more.

Sunday night we have friends coming to dinner, we had to swap from the Saturday because we'd forgotten about the shopping trip {I swear, the things I've forgotten lately because they haven't been written down...}. I'm still undecided on the menu - best get in and look at some cookbooks for inspiration.

Finally, what's with the MasterChef contestants being unable to identify Coq au Vin? What on earth do these people eat normally? Seriously, the limited food knowledge of these contestants is starting to drive me batty. My 10-year-old has a broader food knowledge, and probably has a better palate, than some of these amateur cooks. "I've never cooked or eaten risotto/mashed potato/veal..." the list goes on. Regardless of your speciality a good cook needs an understanding of a wide range of foods - not just their chosen area. The right pastry can make a savoury dish sing and understanding how certain ingredients react to cooking is one of the basics in being able to experiment and create an amazing meal.

I'm pretty sure the contestants on MasterChef Jr will have a broader food knowledge than some of these people. Honestly, dumbing a show down to meet the lowest common denominator is tragic - but I guess the ratings keep climbing, and presumably sales of Handee Wipes and Campbells real stock will increase thanks to the increasingly prominent positioning. Sheesh.

What's on your weekend agenda?

it's only words

Now, as LifeInAPinkFibro has rightly pointed out, the words panties is considered irksome by some. Personally I think it's cute-as-a-box-of-buttons but only when uttered without a hint of sleeze. My alternate word of choice would be knickers - as evidenced by these Stella McCartney Day of the Week Knickers. Cuteness incorporated? I think so.

perfectly pretty

I cannot possibly have my only post for the day be a rant about my injury. So instead, allow me to present a bunch of fleurs that really need to be residing in my home, preferably in every single room. Also, the cutest panties I've ever seen in my life. That is all.

eggs-cellent

I'm limping around the house today with one of those annoying, straight-leg limps. It's all because I didn't act my age. Yesterday at netball training we had odd numbers, so I paired up with the smallest 10-year-old player for a bit of attack and defence. All went well until she decided to go straight under me. I had one of those slow motion falls where you have plenty of time to think. You know you're going down, and first you try to stop it, but then you just try to fall in whatever way can minimise the damage. I did a bit of a commando roll on falling, but only after I landed hard on my left knee, taking off a lot of skin, drawing a lot of blood and causing loads of swelling.

By the time I came home I had a big egg on my kneecap. Ouch. It wasn't as pretty as the eggs in this picture, and I'm pretty sure it's a lot more painful. Hopefully it'll recover before my semi-final on monday night.

Next time when any of my players hit the concrete court I'll be rushing over to ensure they're okay rather than doing the "oh, you'll be fine. Just run around a bit and you'll feel better..."

lovin' this look

J'adore the paler, auburn-hued locks Kristen's rockin. See, I might not be inspired by our new PM to shack up rather than marry {whoops, too late for that. Although we did bear our child out of wedlock - does that help? And ps and by the way, she's not actually even in a defacto relationship...} but my urge to see red on my head gets stronger and stronger with every passing day...

be kind, to yourself

There is no harsher critic than ourself. Mistakes are never more magnified than when viewed through our own eyes. If ever we look bad, lazy, incompetent or crappy, it's through our own irises. Why are we so hard on ourselves?

I think one of the most difficult things is to accept that deeply entrenched habits will not be easy to change. We want to change, therefore we expect that we will. But it's a tougher call than that. So often we easily lapse back into old habits of stressing, procrastination or perfectionism and then we catch ourselves out and feel like a failure. Instead, we should catch ourselves and talk ourselves back on track. If you're starting to feel like a perfectionist, stop, reset yourself and aim for excellence. Nobody does anything perfectly - look at the iPhone - it's on to yet another new and improved version! We can't be perfect, but excellent, that's a mighty fine place to be.

Procrastination your poison? Set a timer and get in and do the hardest task for 30 to 45 minutes. Now. Go on. Stressed? What's the worst that can happen? At Christmas when I was overloaded with work, my daughter's birthday, her ballet concert, end of year, usual Christmas stuff etc I actually had to prioritise tasks in the most basic way. I asked myself "If I don't do this will anyone die or cry?" If the answer was no, it was left till later.

I've always had a bad habit of leaving tasks unfinished. I'll start weeding one garden bed, go to empty the weeds in the bin, and see another garden needs weeding and will start on that - leaving the other 3/4 finished. I'm trying to stop that by giving myself a firm talking to. Yep, in my head I actually tell myself to stop, go back and finish what I started. One year later I'm not talking to myself quite as much, but I still need reminding.

When you expect great things from yourself it's easy to expect it immediately. But often these habits have been created and formed over years - can you seriously expect them to stop overnight? So talk kindly to yourself. If you want to make the change you can - but don't expect overnight miracles. And celebrate the small successes along the way. It's like positive parenting - focus on the success, not the problem.

How are you going to be kind to yourself today?

i got chills...

I've just seen the preview for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows and think you need to go here and see it too.

Oh.

My.

Freakin'.

Gawd.

I had simultaneous goosebumps, hairs standing on end, chills running through my body and tears and sobs rising and falling.

November 2010 you can't come around too quickly. And July 2011 - I both wait with baited breath and more than a touch of sadness that this brilliance will come to an end.

I am, seriously, wild about Harry.

sweetly scented

Because it was so frosty this morning I decided to be uber-productive. So after I completed a phone interview I dashed out and vacuumed and mopped the kitchen floor and the bathroom floor. So now I can smell the deliciously lavender-scented cleanliness wafting through the house and feel twice as motivated to get this story written up and sent off.

New plan: do one decent piece of housework per day after doing a solid hour's work in the morning. This way I don't have to use special blinkers to walk through the house and ignore the mess and I'll feel more inspired to actually get work done.

I'm steeling myself for the school holidays. We've only got one weekend trip planned so I'll be doing a few half-day playdates and hoping that my gal gets asked for a few herself. I'm also aiming to get myself ahead in my work so my deadlines aren't quite as pressing during the break. At least our play options are more wide-open this holiday with no broken arm to contend with!

so danged cold

Wow, it was so freezing last night that I slept with my arms under the covers - would have put my head under there too if it were possible. Hello Winter.

I need warming up - does this image here help?

I spent the day yesterday doing all those niggly tasks that offer little reward while you're doing them, but make life a lot simpler in the long-run. My email in-box is down from 475 emails to 152, my sent articles are all filed in the correct part of the Filed folder {under the chocolate cherry cupcake icon on my desktop - sweet}.

We had a great game of netball last night, soured only by the opposing Goal Attack. Seriously, if you're going to get cranky and whingy about the opposition actually playing the game and intercepting your passes and stopping your goals just go home and play on a Wii fit. I don't do whinginess and really wish I didn't have to put up with it in others. Excitingly, we made the semis next week - so we should as I discovered last night we're actually on top of the ladder - yay us. So next week we'll play the semi-final at 6.40 then if we win, the final at 8pm. Woo hoo.

Even though it's frosty cold, I'm hoping it's still a good drying day. My sheets are in the machine almost ready to go on the line. Ahhhh, a good night's sleep in clean flannelette sheets. Is there anything that says cozy winter better?

meal planning monday

Okay, back on track. I'm starting my meal planning on a Monday again. Makes the week work a little better I think. Last night we had the most magnificent pork loin from the Farmer's Markets. The crackling was the best-ever and the meat was succulent and delish. I served it with some cavalo nero - black tuscan cabbage cooked with some garlic sauteed in butter and olive oil and just enough chicken stock to steam it. My green-veg averse husband actually liked it, and child didn't mind it. So I'll make it again {maybe adding some pancetta to make it even more appealing...}

Tonight: Netball. Chicken curry with cashews, rice and garlic naan.

Tuesday: Osso Bucco {I bought Angus Osso Bucco at the markets - it's so deep red it's almost purple - so must cook it to do it justice. I reckon a couple of hours in a tomato and garlic-rich sauce} served with mash and baby asparagus {also from markets}

Wednesday: We're doing Duck Confit night at III Bean with our duck-loving friends again. Hopefully Alice from Baked Uprising will have a sweet treat to tickle my tastebuds at the end of the meal.

Thursday: French study: no class but my friend and I are headed off to a quiet cafe somewhere to study together. I need all the help I can get with revising! For husband and child, bolognaise pasta bake.

Friday: Baked, glazed salmon, rice and asian greens.

Saturday: Friends for dinner so shall be perusing the French cookbooks for a suitable feast.

Sunday: Roast chicken dinner with veg.

statement in my study

See this fabulous carpet with peonies swirled all over it? Well that's what's going underfoot in my study. Tres fabulous non? However, we're going for an even greater statement with the carpet in charcoal. Dark, yet divine. The walls will be white, the desk a pale french grey, chair white, bookshelves white. We've been tossing up whether to go with the safer mid-grey option, but after a weekend's deliberation we've both decided that we can cope with the statement the bolder shade offers.

I'm beside myself with excitement as I've never chosen a carpet before. I adore floorboards and had hoped to paint the boards in my study white - but after pulling up the carpet in the corner we discovered we only had boards in half the room, and masonite in the extended section.

We ducked into a carpet showroom the other day and as I was moping around the selections, I stumbled across this Signature beauty named Rosa. That's it, t'was smitten. So fingers crossed we'll be doing a spot of redecoration in the near future. Shall I be sad to say goodbye to my boring beige berber and pale veneer desk? I think not. Considering the amount of time I spend in my study, working from home, it should be our most fabulous room. Can't wait to glam it up.

yes please mr manolo

Oh, come on, how ridiculously pretty are these Manolos? I found them over at Nordstom, and if I had a lazy $850-odd dollars lying around the house cluttering it up, I think I'd buy them. But I don't, so I shan't. Oh well, a gal should dream. It's also inspired me to jazz up a pair of my strappy sandals with fabric flowers - not my Manolos - they're staying intact. But I do have a few pairs of shoes that could do with a make-over...

Yesterday my husband spent the entire day putting my tax together - bless his socks. With me dashing in and out to help find receipts and info. Luckily, this next tax year I've been more organised and have all my info collated in the one place. We'll be starting on that soon enough.

My gal and I did a spot of planting on the weekend. Some sweet peas along a bare patch of fence {late, but hopefully they'll take off}, primulas around the base of the dovecote and violas in the window boxes off the living room. I went with the cheap option of seedlings this time, rather than potted colour the time before. Hopefully they'll take off and give us a burst of colour for 1/4 the price.

Enjoy your week - hope it's productive and fun x