I Confess Again

Once I started writing this one, I realised there were a few bonus mini-confessions in there so I hope it's not too shocking for anyone.

The first time I went to Uni, back in the early nineties, I had no choice but to do a Creative Arts degree. This was because I didn't get high enough marks to get into anything else (mini-confession number one). If we're being completely honest, I actually only got in on the second round of offers because enough people graciously declined their spot (mini-confession number two). So Mum decided she'd ignore the finer details and pretend I'd actually qualified to start a degree. She was elated and I enrolled.

Because I can't draw, paint, sculpt or anything else remotely creative (is that a mini-confession?), my major was creative writing. It was so incredibly painful. I'm not a great writer and really lack inspiration at the best of times. Also, the class was filled with mature age students who were doing it as a hobby and the classroom was miles off campus. So yeah, it wasn't really the exciting experience I had expected Uni life to be.

One morning as I got to the train station, I looked at the $10 I had for train fare and lunch and made a life-altering decision. I left the station, went to the pub, ordered a schooner of cider and watched Young and the Restless on the pub tv. This unfortunately became a bit of a habit (mini-confessions three and four - one for using Mum's money to sit in the pub when she thought I was at Uni and one for admitting I watched Young and the Restless).

I did go to classes occasionally, and eventually we got a poetry assignment. Ugh. Inevitable, but none the less, disgusting. Poetry. Don't read it, can't write it, don't get it. I was in a bit of a state. Anyway, as luck would have it, one of the barmaids at the pub was a budding poet and kindly offered to write me some poems to submit. She even typed them up for me. Given my aversion for all things poetic, I neglected to read them, turned them in and forgot all about them (mini-confession five - cheating!).

The next week, our tutor called a few people up to read their poems and I didn't expect any of mine (allegedly) to make the cut. After half a dozen poems, the tutor asked everyone what they thought and said he felt they were all shallow and dull. Great poetry, he explained, was born of great emotion. To my horror, he called me up to read one of mine. I don't remember the poem word for word but it was about a motorbike, a tree, a blood-soaked helmet, a broken heart and an unborn child. I think there were a few suicidal thoughts in there as well. Unbeknownst to me, my barmaid friend had lost her one true love in a bike accident while heavily pregnant. Maybe. I never did ask her about it.

Anyway, while this was certainly not the reason for the end of my first foray into teriary education, it was definitely the catalyst. And here comes the big confession. My mum wanted me to go to Uni sooo much. I knew she would be heartbroken if I left and I was even a little nervous that she would force me to stay even if it meant chaining me to a desk and standing guard outside the classroom. So I dropped out but I didn't tell her. For a few weeks, I left home with my backpack, went straight to the pub, drank cider and watched Young and the Restless. Then I got a job, fessed up to Mum, she yelled at me and cried. For days. Then we made up. Then I eventually went back to Uni to get a real degree (kind of - possible confession fodder right there) and we all lived happily ever after.

What's On The Menu Tonight?

I really enjoy cooking, but to be honest, I don't have to cook often and I really only have to cook things I feel like making or eating. The boys and husband eat before I get home from work on weekdays. I'm not much of a dinner eater so I generally make a salad or heat up soup or something.

But on the weekends, I cook a lot. Breakfast, lunch and dinner if the boys want it. And I usually make meals for the week. And I bake. And I bake. And I bake.

So anyway, I am lucky enough to avoid the grind of cooking that many other women (people?) have to endure. Which is just as well. In our house, we have a lot of tastes going on. I don't think I could handle doing this every day :

Nachos 'Fletcher Style' - grilled corn chips, melted cheese, pasta sauce - never salsa! - and sour cream.

Nachos 'a la Jarvy' - corn chips and cheese. Not heated, not melted, no sauce, no cream.

That kids eating habits deserve a blog post of their own. A very short one!

My Favourite - lebanese bread, hommus, warm bulghur pilaf, tabbouli. I try to have these these things on hand at all times. I could eat this every day.

Shane's dinner. BBQ Wings, bacon ranch dip (buttermilk and sour cream), coleslaw - never store bought, always with lemon.

And that is a typical night in our house. Four meals. Painful but luckily not too difficult. I only have to do it twice a week.

Please note - my children do not often eat corn chips and cheese. We understand nachos is a 'sometimes' food. Thank you. Yes, these are iPhone photos. Thank you.

As If ...

Did anyone think this was what motherhood would be like?

I did. And now I know. It's not.

Cherry Walnut Chew Chews

I have recently had an unhealthy craving for glace cherries. The red ones. Maybe I'm feeling guilty about all the American recipes I've been making so I looked on the google machine and found this recipe. It seemed like exactly what I wanted (and the name is too cute). I swapped the dates in the recipe for glace cherries (but I reckon dates would be pretty good too) and it was awesome! Chewy (the edges are amazing) and buttery with little bursts of sweet from the cherries. Just so good.

Chew Chews
1 cup SR flour
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg
110 g butter, melted
1 cup glace cherries, chopped in halves
1 cup walnuts, roughly crushed

Preheat oven to 180. Grease a shallow 30 x 20cm pan and line bottom with foil. Mix flour, sugar, egg and butter until combined. Stir in cherries and nuts. Press ino pan - make sure you go right up to the edges. Bake until well-browned, about 20 mins. Cool in pan - it will crumble if you take it out before it's cold. Cut into squares. Sit down. Eat.

Mella's Caramel Apple Dumplings

I first ate these years ago and it's one of those desserts you think about from time to time for no reason. I actually think about desserts a lot. Anyway, I'd kind of forgotten about it but I was looking through Mum's recipe binder the other day, found the recipe and came straight home and made it. Three weekends in a row.

Dough
2 cups self raising flour
2 tbsp sugar
120g butter, cubed
4 tbs water

3 apples

Sauce
60g butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 1/4 cups water

Preaheat oven to 180C. Lightly butter a pie dish or baking dish.
Mix flour and sugar. Rub butter in (I use my fingers) until mix resembles breadcrumbs. Add water and knead to a smooth dough.
Peel, core and quarter apples.
Divide the dough into 12 small balls. Flatten each one as much as you can and wrap each piece of apple in a piece of dough. I guess a rolling pin would work but I find it easy to do it in my palm and then you can work the dough around the apple. This sounds like a lot more work than it really is. It doesn't really matter if there are little bits of apple peaking out.
Fit the apples snugly into your buttered dish.
Meanwhile, put all sauce ingredients into a saucepan, stir over medium heat to dissolve sugar, then bring to the boil.
Pour the sauce over the apples. It will seem like there's going to be too much sauce, but trust me and use it all. Unless you don't like sweet deliciousness. Bake about 30 mins until the tops are golden and the sauce is bubbling.
I really think this is best served straight out of the oven with whipped cream or ice cream but my family will eat it cold from the fridge.

Jackhammer Day

My husband sometimes works with a jackhammer. Then he has a headache when he gets home and says I couldn't imagine what it's like to have a jackhammer slamming in your ears all day. I say it must be terrible but I don't think too much about it. I never work with jackhammers.

At 6am today Jarvis wouldn't let Fletch borrow his Ninja Turtle undies so Fletch screamed. Then Jarvis screamed. Then I screamed. Then we all screamed. Then I went to work.
At 7.30am one of the girls at work sat in my office and told me the longest story about something I didn't care about. In my head I was still screaming. And I wanted coffee.
At 8am two of my staff wanted me to referee an argument they were having. I imagined they were cockatoos screeching at each other. We didn't work it out.
At 9am my phone started ringing. And ringing. And ringing. It didn't stop.
At 10am kindy rang and said my husband couldn't make it to 'Making Things with Daddy' and maybe I could come so my baby didn't feel abandoned. The activity was pieces of wood and hammers. And 30 toddlers. And their dads. And it didn't stop until midday. I had to go back to work. I wanted to go shopping.
At 1pm I had a meeting. Everyone talked a lot. About nothing. For 2 hours. I talked a lot about nothing too.
At 3pm I did a farewell speech for someone I don't like. Everyone laughed too loud. I smiled so much my face hurt.
At 4.30pm I got in the car and sat in it for a really long time. I was moving. It just didn't feel like it.
At 6pm I served dinner. My husband wasn't hungry. The boys said they didn't like it. Jarvis remembered he wanted bikkies. I ate a sausage on a roll with onions, jalapenos and ranch dressing and wished I was American. Or at least, in America.
At 7pm I had a shower with the boys. They like the echoes in the shower when you yell.
Today was a jackhammer day.

Diet

Monday 3rd October 9am - I started a diet today. I have started a diet almost every Monday for the last 20 years, but I have a really good feeling about this one. I’m even thinking of calling it a lifestyle change instead of a diet because it’s really about being healthy, isn’t it? And weight loss would be an added bonus? (I’m struggling a little bit with that but it’s early days yet). So my mindset today is that I’ll change the way I eat to be healthy, not because I really want to wear skinny jeans. But I really, really, really want to wear skinny jeans.
What’s my plan? It’s simple and obvious. Eat less, move more. No more Celebrity Slim (but how yummy is the cookies and cream shake?), cabbage soup, Atkins, South Beach, food combining, fasting, Zone, cookie diet, Dr Hay, grapefruit, Israeli Army, colonic irrigation (sorry, but I’m just keeping it real), fat free, Medifast, Pritikin, Scarsdale, VLC or Weight Watchers. Actually, to be fair to Weight Watchers I have lost about a hundred kilos with them. That’s right. 100kg. How did I do that? I joined up and lost about 10kg every year for 10 years.
So I’m going to eat more fruit, pack my lunch, use the stairs at work and stop eating cake. I am positive this is going to change my life.

Monday 3rd October 5pm … Oops.

Moving On

When we first moved into this house, I had very mixed feelings. We moved in a rush and really only took it because there was nothing else in the area. We also knew it would probably only be available for a year and that wasn't ideal. I eventually decided to take it on the proviso that we could move again to somewhere I liked after six months.

But day by day, it started growing on me. Six months came and went and I said it was because I couldn't be bothered packing and moving again. Then spring came and we knew if we had to move again in the new year as expected, we really needed to find something soon as houses in our area are in huge demand in the summer. I looked at a few places and passed up a gorgeous house a stone's throw from the beach. Because of the expense of moving. Allegedly.

Then, a fortnight ago, the agent called and asked if we wanted to sign a lease for another six months and I said absolutely. I wanted to spend the summer here and that would take us through to March or so then I could find my dream house. And I was secretly happy. I asked him to let me know when we could sign the papers.

Yesterday, I had some friends over and as I showed them around, it hit me. I was in absolute love with this house. While I was putting the kids shoes on so we could take our guests down to the creek in our yard (we have a slight snake issue ... nothing major but we have a 'shoe rule' for the backyard) I got an email from the agent. Yay! The lease is ready. Except not. We got our notice. The owner is moving back sooner than expected. We've got til January but with the summer rush here, we can't afford to wait. I was supposed to host Christmas here. I planted veggies last week.

While I sat in shock pondering 'house karma', our four year old visitor ran up and said he and Jarvis had found a snake. I thought it was probably wishful thinking on his part becuase despite our recent episode, it's not really snake season yet. Nevertheless, I went down into the yard, shoeless, and there was indeed a snake. Jarvis told me not to worry, it was just a python, he'd patted it and it hadn't bitten him. "See Mum, no bites". I had a small heart attack. Our reptile loving pre-teen neighbour came over to scare it away and found two more. He asked me for a bag and a rope because one was something he hadn't really seen before and he wanted to catch it. It was a brown snake, not unheard of around here but not at all welcome in my yard, especially with Jarvy's snake-patting habit.

It was like the snake came to tell me the house wasn't the right one for us so I felt better about having to move. We haven't had a full summer here yet and I'm not sure I can survive the reptile invasion. I looked at two houses today. We're going to be okay.

Update on Last Week's Confession

So, I found Justine on Facebook. Should I friend request her? She might say 'Jodi who?' Or she might still hate me for being so shallow all those years ago. Or she might tell me her parents own Krispy Kreme and invite me around for a visit. I'd definitely go.

I Heart ALDI - Please Don't Judge Me

I decided before I had Fletch that I would definitely be a disposable nappy user. But it was going to be Huggies. And only Huggies. Every week when I was pregnant, I would add a packet to my groceries in preparation for his birth. The cashiers at Coles would whisper to me 'you should buy the ALDI nappies'. As if! I would never, ever, ever put anything from ALDI on my precious newborn's bottom and besides, I had never set foot in an ALDI store anyway.

At our first (and only as it turns out, but maybe a story for another time) prenatal class, the nurse recommended ALDI nappies. Um, no.

The sister at the baby clinic recommended ALDI nappies. Um, no again.
The girls at Mothers Group recommended ALDI nappies. What is wrong with everyone?
My girlfriends recommended ALDI nappies. (Blocking ears) la la la
I learnt to drown everyone out when the talk turned to ALDI nappies, and I spent most of my husband's pay that first year on Huggies. And I was happy. And Fletch's bottom was happy.
Shortly after Fletch's first birthday, with Jarvy's birth mere months away, I was faced with the financial implications of buying two boxes of Huggies every week and it made me very nervous. I decided to give ALDI one chance. I was sure they'd fail me but that would give Husband time to look for a second job.
I'll never pretend the ALDI nappies are as quilted and soft as Huggies but they are very, very, very good. And we have never looked back. Jarvy even wore them as a newborn - hopefully he never finds out that I favoured Fletch's bottom. Given that they are half the price, I would venture to say they are better than Huggies. And the ALDI wipes? Heaven.

Anyway, to get to the point, for the longest time I only ever bought nappies and wipes there and didn't even glance at anything else. Then one day I really needed peanut butter and didn't really want to go to Coles when I was already in ALDI so I tried the ALDI brand, and it changed my life. Gradually, I added little bits and pieces and I can honestly say, every single ALDI product we have tried has become my family's favourite. I now do almost half my weekly shop there. I must admit I don't often buy their meat or fresh produce, but I am more of a butcher/greengrocer shopper. They look okay though, and cheap, cheap, cheap.

Here's the list of ALDI items we can't live without :

Mamia wipes - we might be out of nappies, but I still use a ton of wipes for some reason?
peanut butter
raspberry Jam
Scotch Finger biscuits (my boys won't eat the Arnott's ones)
Cavallo biscuits (trust me, eat them)
chocolate (European chocolate for $3 a block!)
chicken crackers (waaaay less salty than others)
pasta sauce
brekky juice
paper towels (the best ever)
yoghurt
cheese slices
frozen strudel
pizza bases (in the bread aisle, you may never order pizza again)
baking staples (sugar, flour etc)
school snacks - tiny teddies, muesli bars etc
juice poppers

I do pick up other things from time to time but these are the things I can't live without. And neither can you. It's not about money, it's about filling your cupboards with great stuff. Did I mention Cavallo biscuits?