Modcloth Outfits Are In!!

Yay! I have been not so patiently waiting for my Modcloth buys to travel through snail mail from the other side of the world. Today they arrived and I am overjoyed. I love all three items and they fit like a glove. I can't even choose a favourite because they would all be worn for different things. When I get pics of me wearing I will post but for now images from the website.

The first item I fell in love with was the 'Fur sighted top.' The little fur baby on here looks the same as my not so little D'Argo. I love the bold red glasses against the yellow. I am not normally a yellow girl but this was my go to buy.

The dress I originally fell in love with was out of stock so I was brave and took a risk on this 'Ignite the Night Dress.' I will actually wear a black belt with this outfit. I was unsure of the capped sleeves and the unusual neckline but I had nothing to fear. It is such a light weight fabric and is perfect for the tropics.

Finally last, but in no way least, is my new hitting the town dress. It may be covered in cherries but I haven't had a dress fit my body shape this well in years! I love the retro feel of it and cannot wait to rock the look with a small black cardi, black stockings and heels. Might add some bright red lippie and nails to.

Roasts, Blankets, Cuddles Oh My!

Well, winter is here. The chilly nights with fluffy socks, fluffy bath robes and fluffy beasts curling up for cuddles has arrived. Scott thinks I am wimp. I may be in QLD and it may only hit 10 degrees but I'm a FNQ Girl and its cold! This is a post of some of the wintry things I enjoy.

Blankets, blankets, blankets. I love snuggling into a blanket with a nice cup of tea and a book. So many blankets to choose from, so little time. I have discovered that the little beasts like my tiger blanket the best. Though I love snuggling into my pink and purple afghan made for me by Scott's mum, Ellen. She even made a matching blanket for my beautiful Delenn. Which of course all the kitties fight over. Kitty blanket wars are cute.

Fluffy pink bath robe! Although, I do have a small problem when wearing it. This problem sometimes knocks over my work or wakes me up or makes me miss a stitch or makes me loose my place in a book or loose the entire book. Lucky he is fluffy too.

Soup, pasta, slow cooked anything and roasted meat. If you need a quick pick me up for soup and you don't have time yourself I would recommend the Woolworths brand. I love their Asian Style Sweet Corn and Chicken Soup. Mmmmm...

Here is my favourite quick tasty roast dinner. I do roast differently each time, it depends on how over the day I am, if I want to make everything from scratch, how many cats am I fending off and really how coordinated I am that day. It is a mixture of random recipes and whatever worked for me. I hope you enjoy as much as I do because this is what I did tonight and it was yummy.

Lisa's Random Roast Beef with Mash Potato, Peas Roast Sweet Potato and Corn

Rubbing Oil (I do this the night before)
1 cup of olive oil
2 tblsp of crushed garlic
Pepper to taste.

Place all ingredients in  bowl and leave to infuse over night.

Ingredients
1kg of Blade Roast
Rubbing Oil
Olive oil spray
5 large potatoes (Peeled and cut into eighths)
2 large cobs of corn
1 sweet potato cubed into 2cm pieces
1 cup of peas (I only eat them in this house)
1/2 cup Milk (to taste for mash potatoes)
2 tbsp Butter (to taste for mash potatoes)
Gravy

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 Degrees Celsius
2. Rub over oil, garlic and pepper mixture. Place in oven for 65 mins (I like mine medium so for every 450g I cook for 25 mins)
4. With 25 mins left boil large pot of water and add potatoes for mash potatoes.
3. With 20 mins to go place sweet potato on a tray and spray with oil, play in oven to roast.
4. 15 mins left boil water in a medium sauce pan, add corn and peas and cook for 8 mins.
5. Take out meat leave to sit for 10 mins.
7. Take off potatoes add milk and butter, mash.
 8. Place vegetables out onto plate and slice beef thinly.
9. Serve with gravy, I usually make it from what is left over in the pan (or if not enough time use a packet mix).

Happy winter all!!!

On the other side

Hello blogging world,

I have taken a little hiatus because life has gone crazy. I am coming home exhausted with all these things happening. But I feel it is a time to do a check list of all the things I have achieved since my last post. Plus, I would like to share a recipe I found yesterday while in the hospital waiting room, but I will put that in a separate post. Will be making them ASAP and tell you how they went. 

I have achieved the following for my wedding (I want to share photos but you will have to wait for the day, see sneak peek here):

• Organised Limo's
• Finalised catering
• Picked up my dress and had it altered
• Found out all 3 bridesmaids have theirs
• Organised my bomboniere for my guest
• Organised my bridesmaids gift
• Confirmed wedding cake
• Confirmed flowers
• Organised hair and make up for the day
• Filled out final forms for the DJ with wedding songs etc
• Have gone over and approved the final script for the big day
• Finalised photographer 
• In the process of the final steps with my reception site
• Started to make my first of 2 decorations for the bridal table.
• Started organising seating position
• Started the scrapbook my sister gave me to put in photos of the process.

And thats just the wedding! So life is insane. I am also babysitting a friends beautiful cat. His name is Lucifer, he is gorgous. D'Argo adores him, Delenn is stand offish and complains alot. Nothing new there. But the 3 have been delightful to come home to. EVEN though they steal each others food like children! 

Finally, the biggest reason I have been so stressed is a health scare. I had surgery yesterday and am feeling wooooooo. But, the best outcome has been reached. It went from a high chance of melanoma (Yay 7 weeks out from the wedding) to being nothing life threatening but needing to be dealt with immediately. I would like to thank the following people who have helped me through all of this. 

Firstly to Scott for being my rock, caring for me and making sure I was okay.

To my family for being their to listen to me freak out and celebrate the good news.

To my work collages who have been supportive and understanding.

To Dr Sally Meade my surgen, thank you for your suggestions, wonderful intellect and hands. 

To Dr Chris Jelliffe for making sure I felt nothing and appreciating my humour. 

To the amazing administration nurse at the Mater Hospital who had a wicked sense of humour and gave the most awesome numbing cream in existence, I feel awful that I cannot remember your name. When I find it I shall add it to this post. 

Also, to ALL of the hospital staff who work so hard to ensure the health, well being and hapiness of their patients. You are ALL AMAZING!  

So me in a nut shell this past month. It has been a roller coaster ride and I am sure it will continue to be. 

:( to a :)

Had a not so fun day today....grumble grumble day sucked...why did that...oooooooooooooo

Little man was waiting for me being all cute and fluffy.

Plus, Scott is cooking dinner. Keen for garlic bread.

Wedding Sewing...the beginning

Well it is time to begin. I have my pattern and now I need to make the matching pair of plushies for our wedding. Thank you again Funky Friends Factory (love the patterns). Here is a sneak peek of what I am doing, I am linking these into where we are having the wedding reception. Each of us selected our own fabric and now I need to start the hand sewing. With the 'help' of my buddies who lay on or steal everything I touch. Lock down in the office :)

Hello World

I have a new fur baby :) He is so cute. Although my other fur baby Delenn is not so happy to see the new addition to our family. I introduce you to D'Argo. He is a sneaky ninja full of energy who attacks anything that moves or anything that doesn't. Fav hobbies include running in circles, climbing everything, watching the fish tanks, attack toys and people. Here is a quick video of him dragging his mouse toy up high.

Delenn's Afgan

For Christmas I received a beautiful handmade Afgan from Ellen, she had some left over yarn and decided to make Delenn one to match me. Here she is with it for the first time. We have up in her cat tower to sleep on.

Go for Gold Delenn

Delenn moment...going for gold. She may have got into the Christmas Decoration box. Just saying.

Kitty Christmas

Have a wonderful holiday season. Heading North to be with the family.

Crafting Update

Had three crafting projects I was throughly enjoying...until my cute little kitten Delenn got into my bag. Can't salvage any of them for swapping. Will try to save later for my own home. Not a happy camper :(

Busy Dust bunny Filled Weekend

Congrats to Manly Sea Eagles for taking out the NRL 2011 Grand Finals. I felt bad for the Warriors because they had so much more flair. But, Sea Eagles stayed constant and had some brilliant ball handling skills and bone crunching tackles.

On to my weekend here at home, it has been random. I have been working hard on a new softie for a friend and am almost done. It has been fiddly for me and because I am working with new materials challenging. I am proud of the work so far and hopefully can post completed pics tomorrow or the next day. I have also managed to get hold of some small Christmas Cross Stitch kits (on sale) to make up for my Grandma and my own Christmas Tree decorations. In terms of cooking I have been lazy just my stock standard food and even a few sandwich nights this week. Weather has also turned to the soul destroying heat so motivation to stand near an oven or stove has evaporated. Break out the salads :)

My biggest accomplishment was starting to re order and sort through ALL my stuff in my home office. School stuff, fabric stuff, notecards, paper work EVERYTHING is in the process of being categorised and organised. I had to battle many dust bunnies and had my side kick bravely standing beside me. Sadly though Delenn decided dust bunnies were to be played with and ended up becoming a very grey kitty. So she needed a bath...here are the hilarious pics. I give you RAT CAT! She was soooooooo not happy with me.

DELENN IN A BOX! extended version

Delenn is so cute and just knows how to make me crack up laughing. She is still playing with the shredded paper from previous post. She just loves boxes though.

Kitty Escapades

This is one of the reasons I wanted a kitten so badly. The cuteness factor of her discovery today almost made my head explode. This is the first time Delenn has seen shredded paper AND it came in a box. You can hear here purring through the whole house. It's been hours and she is still going. I do have a cute video and may try to upload it. Here is the cuteness that is Delenn exploring.

Work Trials

The kids get to use the excuse "The dog ate my homework." I'm going to use the excuse "my poor kitty needed attention" for why I didn't do my marking. You can understand why...right?



Her shaved belly feels weird.

Lazy Saturday, cupcakes and a curious kitty

I can has cupcake?

Today has been a slack one, but I was in a baking mood. So I decided to make up some simple yummy vanilla cupcakes with chocolate butter cream icing. Yum! I am being so naughty with my cooking lately. I of course also had my little side kick being super cute and annoying the whole time. Here are the recipes I used to make these.

Vanilla Cupcakes
Recipe taken from: Mum (she probably got it from a recipe book like 200 cupcakes or a Women's Weekly Cookbook)
Serves: 12 larger cupcakes or 15 smaller
Prep Time:10 mins
Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients:
150g butter, softened
150g caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:
1. Line a 12 section muffin tray/cupcake tray with papers or foils.
2. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F), Gas Mark 4.
3. Put all cake ingredients in a large bowl and beat with electric beater 1-2 mins until smooth and creamy.
4. Divide cupcake mixture into papers/foil holders
5. Cook for 20 mins, transfer to wire racks to cool.

Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting
Recipe Taken from: Combined 2 different to find middle ground
Makes enough to cover 12 muffins (yes leftovers!)
Prep time: 2 mins
Cooking time: Nil

Ingredients:
150g softened butter
250g icing sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp hot water
2 drops vanilla essence

Method:
1. Use an electric mixture to combine butter and icing sugar.
2. Dissolve cocoa into hot water, add to icing mix. Use beater until combined and smooth.
3. Spread over cupcake in preferred manner. (My piping bag broke so I just used a knife)

Back on Bed Rest :(

Yes it is annoying, but I am back to bedrest. Grrrr, thankful crafting and my kitty are keeping me sane. For those who have not already been pounced on, sniffed, meowed at or batted at...this is Delenn when she was itty bitty kitty. Yes she is using my to rest on.

And now, she is getting so big.