Self-Conscious Posturing

The Great Knicker-Making Mission - Part the Third (French knickers, twice)

2012-01-26T22:16:00.001+13:00

The last time I blogged about knicker-making was in September of 2010! Last year, studying etc rather ate into my knicker-making time. This year, with my beautiful new sewing machine and much more time on my hands, I have re-discovered my knicker-making passion. Have I mentioned in the last five minutes how much nicer it is to sew with this beautiful machine? So very much nicer, an absolute pleasure.

This weekend I made two pairs of gorgeous French knickers from a very fine cotton & silk fabric. The fabric was possibly the most expensive fabric I've ever bought, but it's worth every cent - incredibly soft and absolutely gorgeous. I'm finally getting to a point in my life where I feel I can trust myself to sew well with expensive fabrics! There is nothing like a wisp of silk around your nether regions to make you feel freaking gorgeous and super extra fabulously sexy, and the cost of buying something in a similar fabric in a shop would be beyond ridiculous.

The first pattern I used was from the web. I'd completely forgotten that I'd seen it until Craft started publishing their best-ofs at the end of last year. You need to measure yourself in order to make your own pattern, but the instructions are very simple to follow and the knickers themselves are very easy to make.

I trimmed mine using some elasticated lace that I had lying around, but unfortunately when I went to elasticate the top of the knickers I didn't have enough of the fold-over elastic that is specified in the Craft directions. I just pulled the elastic through a casing which is not the most elegant of solutions but is totally fiiiiine.

The biggest issue that I found with this pattern is that I ended up making the knickers far too big. The elastic will be fine in terms of keeping them up, but they aren't very sexxxxy looking, really. I wonder if this is because I overlocked all the seams instead of sewing them regularly - there is a very generous seam allowance in the pattern and I used a fraction of it. Next time I attempt this pattern I'll shave an inch or so of the edges in order to get a better fit.

The finished product: not too shabby, I think. It's a shame that you can't see how amazing the fabric is from this photo.

For the second pair I used an 80s Kwik Sew pattern that I picked up via Trade Me. Strangely Shannon thinks his mum had this exact pattern which could mean that I'm wearing the same underwear as his mum - a little Freudian spookiness there.This was my second attempt at the pattern, the first being in a fine cotton which is shear enough to sit under slim-fitting skirts but tends to ride up rather.

This French knicker pattern has a number of major differences to the one above. Firstly, the fabric is cut on the bias which gives more drape to the fabric in the legs, and gives the knickers a bit of stretch as well. The second difference is that the knickers are made in only two pieces compared to the four above. The lack of the side seam does help to make the French knickers sit nice and flat under your clothes, as well as removing a step from the process and I'm all for making things much easier in my life.

Again, I overlocked all the seams on these knickers. I had a quick try on, and I think the added seam allowance makes them more comfortable than the last pair I made on which I allowed a 1cm seam allowance. This quickly ate into the knicker fabric, which, in turn, tends to eat into my butt.

After a weekend of beavering away in my den, I'm feeling that I've maybe finally cracked the French-knicker making. I'm going to have a go with the tweaks on the Craft pattern, and see if I can lower the waist on the Kwik Sew pattern as it's a bit higher than I really like.

ALSO: a valuable tip regarding the width of your elastic: you want a good centimetre wide elastic at least. Any thinner and you end up in a seriously dire situation, with your knicker elastic all twisting around and folding in on itself and digging itself into your tender tummy. There is nothing sexy about twisted knicker elastic whatsoever.

365DOP: Mint & chilli chicken on lime & coconut rice

2012-01-16T09:10:00.000+13:00

This week has been characterised by the acquisition of more Peta books. I bought both A Cook's Tour of New Zealand (2005) and Insatiable(2000) from Trade Me, and read Insatiable over my coffee on Saturday morning.

Insatiable came out at a special time for New Zealand cooking - I think it was only about then that people became more interested in cooking with the kind of Mediterranean flavours that Peta writes about, and which now form a fair part of my cooking repertoire. She also seems to be quite obsessed with extra virgin olive oil and verjuice in the book, both of which had recently emerged as THE thing to obsess about, in a culinary sense.

A Cook's Tour attempts to be an encyclopedia of New Zealand food and cooking, but it's a rather slim and completely subjective encyclopedia. I've flicked through it. The entry on roses includes a story about why rose gardeners are obsessed with roses: because the flower reminds them of women and female sexuality. Hokay.

Shannon and I were invited to a barbeque on Saturday night and I decided to take a Peta recipe from A Cook's Tour as our offering. The recipe that I chose was mint & chilli chicken on lime & coconut rice (p. 57). The chicken is marinaded in fresh mint, chilli, garlic and soy sauces for a couple of hours before being skewered and grilled. Peta recommends char grilling and serving the skewers with snake beans and rice cooked with coconut, ginger and kefir lime leaves.

I followed the recipe religiously - or at least, almost religiously. I dorked out on the lime required for the marinade and replaced it with lemon, I didn't have jasmine rice so I used basmati, I used chilli powder instead of chilli flakes because that's what I had on hand, and Moore Wilsons weren't carrying any snake beans when I went down for the ingredients - so I served green beans instead.

My skewers on the barbeque next to some freaky orange New World marinated skewers

The recipe was super easy to follow, and the meal was delicious! The skewers were easy enough to transport to the barbeque. For the rice: I prepared it at home as I thought I could just heat it up in the microwave. That worked fine in terms of quality etc, although nobody seemed too too keen on eating rice at a barbeque (quelle surprise?). I took about half the amount of rice home and my flatmate Fran made a lovely fried rice with it on Sunday night.

This meal then is quite different to anything I've done before ala Peta. Lots of Asian style flavours, and not terribly complicated in terms of technique. I usually avoid making rice using the absorption method but I was really happy with how the rice turned out - so ten points for excellent instructions Peta!

I'm super keen to make this again - partially because we have a glut of mint (for serious, so much) and partially because it's always nice to take something with interesting flavours to a barbeque. Don't get me wrong, I love sausages as much as the next person (Peta notes in A Cook's Tourthat New Zealand is a nation of sausage lovers with just under a third of people indulging once a week*) but it's always nice to mix things up on ye olde grill.

Dave has the skills, I am excited for dinner

*Peta also notes that one of her favourite kinds of sausage is Italian Pork and Fennel - FYI that's the sausage offering that we took with us. Peta much? Yes I am.

SCP Sunday Film Fest - Latcho Drom

2012-01-15T20:56:00.001+13:00

So, this Sunday's video is not a Kiwi one at all, but rather a clip from Latcho Drom (1993). I've been sewing all day and listening to Tony Gatlif gypsy movie soundtracks. In my opinion, Latcho Drom is THE BEST hands down. I laugh in the face of Swing!

Watch this clip, and then go out and get the movie and watch the rest because it's fascinating and sad, and has beautiful music. And it's far more effective than Gypsy Weddings at romanticising a gypsy lifestyle. Really so much romanticisation.

365DOP: Mayonnaise

2012-01-14T13:32:00.001+13:00

Cross-posted from 365 Days of Peta

There was a definite shortage of ingredients in the house on Sunday, which is not very Peta-like at all I feel. However, the lack of exciting fresh ingredients did give me the opportunity to whip together my very first mayonnaise.

In my limited experience as spectator, I have always considered mayonnaise-making to be tricky, time-consuming, and liable to kill one's arm from endless whisking. HOWEVER. Peta has given me the Power of Mayonnaise!

My first attempt was a dismal failure. Instead of finding the mayonnaise recipe in the book (not hard to find FYI), I tried to use the aïoli recipe on page 145.

I discovered that It is not possible to make mayonnaise from this recipe. After a good fifteen minutes of desperate beating, I had nothing but a sad thin oily-eggy soup and a realisation that the two methods are QUITE different and that I had wasted a whole lot of perfectly good oil.

On the other hand, using this recipe introduced me to the idea of using an electric eggbeater to make the sauce.* When I successfully executed my wobbly eggy deliciousness (using the recipe from Haddock Fumé au Pain Perdu, p.29 - which doesn't mention the eggbeater FYI) the electric beater had saved my arm from falling off. Also, a moment please to thank the Boy for executing one of the most perfect "thin streams" of olive oil ever witnessed by Culinary Man.

There was a bit of mucking around to get some more flavour in the mayo - extra mustard, salt, lemon juice and lots and lots of herbs. I'm not sure what this says: was the recipe not that good? Was it my ingredients or the quantities in which I used them? Has my mayo-palate been ruined over the years by Best Foods? Is it a matter of the recipe dating - that is, the ingredient balance staying on the mild side while palates get more adventurous?

Since I now have the Power of Mayonnaise, I feel confident that mayonnaise flavour is something I will be able to perfect in future. In the meantime, I will buy some Dijon mustard. Peta likes Dijon mustard, and I suspect it's my Dijon-less-state that may have caused my flavourless mayo.

*Peta lists the mayo and the aïoli under "sauces" in the index, but doesn't if feel strange to call mayonnaise a sauce?

Thoughts and links and thoughts

2012-01-12T19:04:00.001+13:00

from La compagnie des dessins

An 84-Year-Old Sends Her First Text Message | The Hairpin

I read this today and I just LOVED it; an elderly woman making contact with her children and grandchildren on their own grounds, but most importantly, how much she enjoys learning how to use a new thing.

My Granddad is really into Skyping my brother Josh in Edinburgh. One time, Josh and his girlfriend Emma showed Granddad and Granddad's wife Dorothy all around their flat using Skype and my Granddad still talks about it.

I'm doing a free coaching online workshop type thing: The Reinvention Project. I don't know how much I'm likely to actively reinvent my life, but I'm hoping that it will steel me to be a bit more active, and a bit more proactive in paying back that credit card (also known as, the bane of my existence). I am SO stuck on those two things. With the financial thing especially, I feel as though I've been kidding myself: thinking that I am actively making progress while I take a lot of steps backwards by digging into the credit card constantly.

This started at the end of my school year. I've started talking about my finances a lot less, and I think it's because I know that I've been handling them kind of badly and don't really want to admit it to myself or other people. I've literally just realised that I've been avoiding talking about my financial situation because I'm feeling ashamed that I've been dealing with it so badly - and realising this makes me realise in turn that I have slipped off the bandwagon big time.

The Reinvention is working? Now all I need to do is to get enthused about exercise. Bicycle riding today was good.

I bought this weird cheese

2012-01-09T08:55:00.000+13:00

The other day I was at Moore Wilsons, near the goats cheese in the Fresh section, and my eye was drawn to the shiny red packet of Ski Queen Gjetost Cheese. Such a great packet! Sort of modernist/Scandinavian packaging design:

This photo is from a blog called Eating the World. From Eating the World I also discovered that

I should eat it the cheese with fruit or on soft white bread with strawberry jam and butter
The cheese is made by reducing and caramelising goats and cows milk together
It is considered somewhat of an acquired taste

When I opened the (beautiful) packet, I found that the cheese itself was a very strange brown colour and a rather peculiar texture. Initially I thought that there was a wax coating on the cheese, because it was so perfect, shiny, smooth and brown. Behold the brown cheese:

Actually, I think the apple is a good suggestion. Will eat with apple next time.

I found Ski Queen Gjestot very processed-tasting. It reminded me of those little triangles of cheese that Mum sometimes put in our lunch boxes when I was a kid, in particular, the pineapple and cheese flavoured one (ugh, those things were so GROSS). Which brings me to my conclusion: I don't like this cheese very much, a revelation for me as I don't think I've found a cheese I don't like since the processed cheese triangle days of yore. On the plus side, the little bit of research that I did for this post has given me some different ways of trying it so I will reserve judgement on the Cheese for the time being. Opinions will be more definite when I get to the bottom of the glorious packet.

Have you ever had this cheese? Suggestions as to how I should be approaching its weirdness?

SCP Sunday Film Festival - Rain

2012-01-08T16:07:00.001+13:00

It's raining! And it's summer, which makes me think about Rain, a Christine Jeffs film from 2001 about coming of age and not-always-being-what-they-seem.

I watched this film for the first time in Melbourne, and it made me feel homesick. The kiwi bach scenes are too perfect, and the film effortlessly evokes the feeling of the endlessness of the summer holidays that I remember feeling as a child. When Shannon and I visited Kawhia Harbour this summer, the village there seemed to be stuck in the same kind of kiwi summer idyll. So, in conclusion, I like the atmosphere!

And also, hello! Rain.

365DOP: Poisson Fumé au Lentilles

2012-01-07T18:08:00.001+13:00

Cross-posted from 365 Days of Peta

On Monday, le Boy went diving and came back with the most beautiful butterfish, which he brandished at me in all its Fishy Glory.

"What are you going to do with it?!" he demanded.

Five years ago, someone waving a fish at me and demanding that I cook it would have made me boil with rage. These days, I am a fishier woman, and have more desire to cook, especially with an ingredient as awesome as a whole fresh butterfish. In addition, I'd spent all morning reading of Fête Accomplie and had the answer to this age-old question. I was going to cook Poisson Fumé aux Lentilles (smoked fish with lentils - p. 78), a recipe from Peta's Rose Blues days (Rose Blues is the restaurant that she ran while in Paris during the 80s). It seemed very simple, and I had all the ingredients to hand either in the garden or the pantry.

The first thing to do was to smoke the butterfish. The Boy filleted the fish, sprinkled it with salt and brown sugar, and left it overnight. The next day, he hot smoked it with manuka. Beautiful.

The recipe calls for you to cook puy lentils (the little green ones) with All the Ingredients in the World - and then throw the ingredients out. In future, I would maybe just cook them in a pre-existing vegetable stock instead of having to turf so many vegetables at the end of the cooking process - or very simply cook them with garlic cloves, cloves, half an onion, parsley stalks and a bayleaf. The carrot, celery and two(!) onions seemed WASTEFUL BEYOND BELIEF.

The finished product:

The fish is sliced thinly, warmed through in a pan of milk and then placed upon a bed of salad leaves, warm cooked lentils and diced tomato. The whole thing is then drizzled with a vinaigrette made with lots of herbs and a bit of onion (or I guess, shallot if you have such a thing just lying about). The recipe recommended wine vinegar, but I only had rice wine vinegar which probably is a bit mild. In future I'd even go so far as to use lemon juice as the acid in the vinegar because fish + lemon = heaven.

CONCLUSION: Yes, I shall be doing it again, with the changes suggested. Also, people liked it - nay, they loooooved it. We ate it outside and drank glasses of viognier and beer.

Furthermore, I'm feeling smug in that I applied some Peta philosophy to the preparation in terms of the seasonality and locality of the food. The cos and all the herbs came from our garden, the fish was prepared and caught locally. The only ingredient that travelled any distance were the lentils. Which came from France. Quelle horreur!

The people enjoying the food in the sunshine.

GO Month

2012-01-04T23:16:00.001+13:00

via We Heart It and FFFFOUND, Owen Gatley

I can be a little fetishistic about decluttering and organisation, a fetish that is not infrequently spurred by a quick dip into my reader. New Years is prime decluttering/reorganisation/manifesto time on the blogosphere, so imagine my JOY (pure joy) when I opened Feedly and found not one BUT FIVE appropriate posts?

Vis:

So, see me jump up! See me rip things out of my wardrobe that I have been considering remaking or binning for yonks! See me purge books and begin to write a 2012 manifesto to stick on my wall! See me go through my email and viciously unsubscribe from various coupon sites!

Back to work today. On the way home I dropped into the library and bought six books for $2 in the book sale. Very excited to have a go at them, hope they're not dreadful.

Also I watched Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday tonight, while folding my washing and tidying around about. I thought about: Audrey's tiny waist, the men's high waisted trousers, Gregory being a black-and-white smokin' babe, and whether my hair would look as good as Audrey's in that cute little crop she gets.

365DOP: Espresso-Spiked Lamb Loins and Tarte au Citron

2012-01-03T11:46:00.001+13:00

Cross-posted from 365 Days of Peta.

On Monday morning I woke around eightish and read Fête Accomplie (1990), Peta's first book. This is probably my favourite book thus far - it mostly covers Peta's apprenticeships and experiences in various restaurants in Paris, and her life during a year spent working on a luxury barge in Burgundy. There are also lots of recipes that made me feel all EXCITED and INSPIRED, including one for Tarte au Citron (p. 117) which spurred me to leap out of bed and elevenish and ride my bicycle down to Moore Wilsons and pick up ingredients.

I had heaps of pictures, but my camera is terrible and has corrupted all the images. Out of the entire meal, I have only managed to get a photo of half of the tart. Everything else was eaten before I realised that the photos were ruined, which bodes well for the meal but not for any kind of future I might have planned as a food blogger. The only upside is that they were pretty crappy photographs to begin with and will give me yet another impetus to improve the photograph situation this end, and to flex my food-descriptive muscles.

THUS: My main course was Espresso-Spiked Lamb Loins from Don't Get Saucy with me Béarnaise (1996), p. 72-73. The recipe owes a lot to the dark period of New Zealand cooking that was dominated by fusion cuisine. Call me a traditionalist, but I strongly believe that most fusion cuisine just isn't as good as food that is consistent and that matches properly.*

In saying that, I have always been a huge fan of cooking lamb with coffee (we have an old family recipe for lamb roasted in coffee), and the lamb itself, the cut and the way that it was cooked, was quite delish. I'm not at all sure about the two side dishes that were suggested: cucumber marinated in ginger, sugar and rice vinegar; and a tomato sauce. In hindsight, I think I should have just read the recipe and made my own decisions about the what best to serve the lamb with - probably some kind of reduced sauce using the marinade, and maybe some spinach or green beans? I replaced the foccacia suggested in the recipe with boiled and buttered Jersey Bennes (new season potatoes) and they were lovely and covered my aim of eating seasonally. People of New Zealand, eat your Jersey Bennes while you still can!

The tart recipe was fairly straightforward and the result super delicious. I am so stoked with how well it turned out and I will certainly be making it again. Approval from Flatmate, little Brother and Boy. The tart crust was lovely and crisp and the filling nicely set without being too-too firm. In future I might cook it ever so slightly less so that the filling is a little softer.

IN CONCLUSION: The lamb recipe was great, and I'll repeat but with different sides (the cucumber thing was a little too odd for my tastes). Tarte au Citron is now added to my arsenal of impressing-seeming desserts, but I think that dusting it with icing sugar looks a little tacky so will be laying off that in future. Second day living a la Peta is a success!

ALSO: this is what Peta has been eating, according to Facebook. I am inspired and I also happen to have a butterfish that the Boy speared today that is just begging to be smoked. Pity the strawberry patch is deeply affected by the freezing weather and that we have no homegrown potatoes since we gorged ourselves on the ones from the Boy's grandad's garden.

*Coconut pannacotta is the exception that proves the rule here.

Another New Year and 365 Days of Peta

2012-01-02T14:16:00.001+13:00

Happy belated New Years to All the People! Yesterday I spent most of the morning recovering from New Years dinner and drinks with Bea at Chap's parents' house, and the afternoon putting together 365 Days of Peta, the Julie/Julia style-project that I mentioned in my last post. I'm pretty happy with how the site looks at the moment, although I have no doubt that I will spend much time tweaking it in the future.

At the moment I am baking a Tarte au Citron as part of my first 365DOP cooking experiment, I have some gorgeous little lamb loins marinating in espresso coffee, sugar and various spices, and a box of Jersey Bennes waiting to be lovingly boiled and coated in butter and fresh mint from the giant bush in the back garden. I'm considering cooking the lamb loins on the barbeque, if the weather stays nice (PLEASE STAY NICE). I am using my brother Tom coming around as the perfect excuse for cooking this mountainously decadent meal, but really in the actual fact, it's ALL FOR ME.

Mostly, I've spent the last week of my holiday sewing and adjusting various op-shop pick ups. I made another full gathered skirt similar to previous ones that I've shown off, this one out of some vintage fabric that I picked up via the ubiquitous Trade Me. Quelle fab, non? Blue roses are the perfect flower.

Also, I finally made adjustments to this dress that I picked up in July when we went up north. It's red and has a jaunty white with red polka-dot Peter Pan collar. Delish, and I think probably appropriate work wear.

Finally, I am excited because lovely Bex has had her adorable son! Congrats to you and to Sebastien and to bubs. I am gagging for pictures lady.

Christmas Holiday and plans for next year

2011-12-28T14:47:00.000+13:00

I'm writing this from Shannon's grandparents' house in beautiful, sunny Tauranga - where I have just spent the last three or so hours sitting out in the sun, drinking very large gins and reading a narrative biography of the Curzon sisters (who were all, frankly, appalling). The summer up here is about twenty times better than what Wellington was offering, and while smothered in sunscreen and permanently topped with a large sunhat and sunglasses, I am not trying to keep out of the sun at all *sips gin*.

S and I came to Tauranga via Kawhia Harbour, which is a somewhat circuitous route. We spent two nights in Kawhia and went to Ocean Beach where we dug our own hot pools (a la the Coromandel's Hot Water Beach), boiled ourselves and then ran into the sea. The site we were given at the campground was right on the edge of the harbour - which is really more of a large tidal estuary. Shannon walked from our tent to the other side of the harbour while the tide was out.

Other things That Are Good include my new job, in which I am learning and being challenged and have lots to do, and finishing school. My final assignment is online and operational: you can see it at Lake's web site (urbantramper.com). The thing that I'm most proud of on the site is not visible to the casual user for it is my content management system - I crafted it from scratch and I think I did a fabulous job. Still ironing out some quirks, but a fabulous job nonetheless.

In the New Year I'm undertaking a new blog project - Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days of Peta. The easiest way to describe it is that it will be a Julie and Julia style experiment, where I will be the Julie and the ever-fabulous Peta Mathias will be the Julia. However, there's a little bit more to it as Peta writes about all sorts of things in addition to Food - relationships with mothers and men, travel, France, and What You Should be Wearing. I'll be doing my best to make a bunch of her recipes, but I'll also be taking cues about, amongst other things: eating in general, drinking, dressing, interior decorating, music, ageing, and hopefully travel. I think that it will be a very fun experiment. At the least it should satiate my Peta love while keeping me out of mischief over the course of the year. I'll probably be a big-lameo and cross-post most of my posts.

So, tell me: did you have good holidays?

SCP Sunday Film Fest – Holiday for Susan

2011-11-27T14:40:00.001+13:00

Today, allow me to again show you one of my all time favourite NFU (National Film Unit) promotional films – Holiday For Susan. My main reason for loving this so much is the high kitsch values and retro sexism of the film and script, but also the way that the film encapsulates the high levels of optimism in and around New Zealand during the 1960s. Watch Susan as she discovers the delights of New Zealand with her bestie – and also finds love after some creepy random guy takes photos of her unasked on the plane.
Also: some of the best animated title sequences ever. I love the hearts that appear around Susan. OMG! Love!

SCP Sunday Film Fest - tiny dolls in tiny hatboxes

2011-11-20T12:26:00.000+13:00

Today we're watching Hanlon: In Defence of Minnie Dean (which I can't embed, unfortunately). Hanlon was pretty huge in the early 1980s, a homegrown drama based on the legal cases of one Alf Hanlon (played by That Guy from Farmer Ted) who worked in Dunedin and around Otago. However, the reason that I mostly love this is because I am fascinated by baby farming. There is bound to be one written already, but I think a Masters or PhD thesis on the topic of baby farming and women and attitudes and portrayals of women and (deep breath) narratives around baby farming would be fascinating to research, write and read. Tell me about one if you know of it.

Another reason to love this is the fact that they went to the trouble of including in the episode the little baby dolls in hatboxes that were sold as souvenir's at Minnie Dean's execution. Awesomely macabre.

You can read some newspaper articles on Minnie Dean and the Winton murders here, at the Nat Lib's Papers Past, here at NZHistory.net, and about Minnie Dean and the media here at Te Ara.

Shamelessly Trawling for a Flatmate

2011-11-17T15:07:00.001+13:00

Are you looking for a fabulous flat in fabulous Mt Victoria with three other people? Drop me a line and I can let you know the deets. James is moving out, and Hayley and Shan-diggity-dawg and I are looking for someone equally fabulous to take his place in the flat (they couldn't take his place in our HEARTS).

Edited to add: the Trade Me advertisement is up, finally.

Investigative Blogging: Finishing school, starting a new job

2011-11-17T14:17:00.000+13:00

Next week, on Monday I start my new job. I am VERY excited about it for a number of reasons, ranging from: 'I love learning new stuff' to 'Fuck Yeah, a stepping stone to my Ideal Future'. However, one of the biggest reasons that I'm uber, sickeningly excited, is that I will have money for the first time in months and months and months.

What I want to do is have the world's largest splurge: throw my money around and buy all the shoes and electronics in the world. Summer shoes! Ebook readers! iPhones! Leather jandals! Possibly also I would buy some books and some audio books and some ebooks. Books books books.

However, what I will actually be doing is riding the Debt Unicorn again. Confession time: I have truly fallen off the Unicorn, and have had to increase my debt, telling myself all the time that as soon as I'm working again I'll be able to make some more serious payments. And I know that it's bad because I have tried not to tell anyone (read: the Boy, the SCP lovelies) about my debtiness.

So, what I'd like to do is try and get the credit card paid of in it's entirety by this time next year. In fact, I estimate that I should have it done within six months - but I need to be practical as well, especially as I am planning to make some changes to my living situation. So this is my declaration: that I will have paid of my credit card debt in it's entirety by the 16th of November 2012. I shall update the Unicorn regularly. I shall be honest with myself and others about my monetary situation.

Over my period of getting on top of my debt (and then backsliding) I've discovered how much I prefer to have a budget and know exactly how much I'm spending on a day to day basis. Whenever I backslide I get caught up in a sort of roller coaster ride of budgetary "not knowing" - that is, I kind of enjoy spending without any controls, but then I am struck with horrible fears and random money guilts. Yes, it can be a pain in the arse living within my means, but at least it's not freaking scary.

Currently playing in iTunes: City Girl by CSS

Wednesday List: favourite historical periods

2011-11-16T14:42:00.001+13:00

Did you know that I have a BA in History and Art History? The best thing about leaving university is that I can indulge my history geekness, and worry less about analysing any historiographical preconceptions in the stuff that I'm reading. It can be as Lite as Lite can be and I can enjoy it and not think! Huzzah for a lack of thought about history, romanticising it dreadfully and shamelessly reducing it to it's most basic elements.

Thus: behold my favourite historical periods in (roughly) chronological order, with three-ish words shamelessly reducing them to what I perceive to be their most basic elements

Iron Age Britain - wode, torcs, mystery
Early Imperial Rome - sluttiness, poisoning, politics
Tudor England - dresses, Elizabeth I, six wives
Restoration Britain - sluttiness, dresses, politics
France from just before the Revolution to just after Napoleon - Directoire fashions (swoon), Josephine
Paris from the Belle Epoque to the Interwar Period - courtesans, literary lesbians, Anais Nin
Edwardian Britain to the Interwar Period - Bright Young Things

Have you noticed there is a definite European bias here? Conceptually odd given my geographical area, and academically odd given that I tried to specialise in post-Colonial art and the Colonial period in the Pacific while I was doing my undergraduate degree. In saying that - not studying a period endlessly does make it more interesting.

Darlings: your favourite historical periods? You know I want to know.

The best time a bird flew into my house and pooed all over a curtain

2011-11-10T14:15:00.001+13:00

I was working in my bedroom when I heard super loud bird-shriek. This was so much louder than the bird-shriek that one would hears inside the house and my first assumption was that we finally had a kaka in our back garden. Imagine me! rushing excitedly through the house and towards the backdoor into the courtyard only to discover that the noise was emanating NOT from a large native parrot outside the house, but from a blackbird that was unremarkable except for the fact that it was in our lounge. The moment I saw it, it pooed decisively on the hardwood floor. It then flew straight into the corner window in a desperate and pathetic effort to leave the room and flapped against the closed sash window.

I wanted to close the door into the rest of the house, open a window in the lounge and hope like hell that the blackbird would find it's own way out while I studiously ignored it, but instead I used my recently-found powers of responsibility and non-procrastination to remove the bird myself. Using a tea towel, I tried to firmly grasp the bird while it flapped about and pooed copiously all over the corner window and the curtain. I've never seen such a bad case of the anxiety shits from a bird - possibly something that it had eaten in the kitchen on it's way into the lounge had upset its stomach. If the bird had been outside I would have said that it serves the greedy fucker right but, as it was, the only creature getting any kind of comeuppance was me.

Eventually, I managed to gently grasp the blackbird, and as I walked it back towards the front door it saw the opening and flew outside where it proceeded to heave and shudder on a nearby ngaio branch. I washed the curtain and wiped the floors down with some hard out chemicals. How many times did I wash my hands afterwards? I estimate somewhere around the millions mark.

THE END.

Hand bag organiser v hand bag organiser

2011-11-04T14:04:00.001+13:00

This week I've bought both a handbag organiser

and a handbag organiser - this is an IQ Bags one, as recommended by lovely Jo.

I love the feeling of organisation: twinges of joy along my spine. Spasms of self-satisfaction.

And … reappearing again

2011-11-03T19:02:00.001+13:00

This morning I am struggling with the World (it’s so bright!) and for the first time for months I actually feel like writing something. So, school be damned! I’m going to write a wee blog post and try and wake up a bit more by drinking this enormous travel mug of coffee and examining my navel.

The last month or so I’ve been quite insanely busy with:

beginning my final assignment and finishing off two others
job applications - I’m totally sorted with a job which I begin in a few weeks time, FYI. So excited! New things to learn and do and also: having money
helping my Dad clear out his house, which is long winded and tiring and emotionally draining
the Rugby World Cup (New Zealand won!)
getting a bread maker and making loaves of sour dough with my pet bug
getting a slow cooker and slow cooking everything I can lay my hands on (YUM STEW)
sewing a bunch of dresses for summer because apparently I am an optimist
knitting knitting knitting
clearing out my stuff and selling it on Trade Me/ giving it away on Freecycle/ taking it to the op shop or the second hand book-store. Stuff has included my roller skates, and my old dressing table set which are two things I have loved and been important and formative in my life. A formative dressing table! It happens.

As a result of my busy-ness, I’ve developed a perpetual To Do list that lives in my diary. While I’m not letting it overwhelm me and am actually crossing stuff off it, it also doesn’t appear to be getting any shorter. In fact, it has incredible growth powers, as though someone is sneaking in the night and feeding it growth hormones. Bizarre.

I have also been reading:

A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Any Human Heart, William Boyd
Intimacy and Solitude, Stephanie Dowrick
Can We Help It If We’re Fabulous?, Peta Mathias
French Toast, Peta Mathias

Reader, have you yourself ever read A Suitable Boy? Yes, it is huge. Yes, it does not fit easily into one’s handbag and weighs a fair amount. BUT: I am freaking LOVING IT. I love how epic it is, how delicious it is to sink down with it at the end of a long day and read a bit and love the characters, and then luxuriate in the knowledge of how much longer it’s going to be with me. J’adore, I cannot recommend it highly enough, and also I think it is one of my new favourite books. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to read it! I’ve had it sitting on my bookshelf forever, but I've always been a little afraid of it's tome-like-ness.

Finally: I've been thrashing this song lately. Dude, I love Architecture in Helsinki so hard.

So happy I get to make another mixtape

2011-10-01T08:00:00.000+13:00

By the way, this is my 801st post. I am a blogging fiend, non?

Pretty fab so far

2011-09-29T14:23:00.000+13:00

I'm such a creature of the weather. As soon as there is multiple good-weather days, my mood increases astronomically! This week has been amazing, so nice and warm in the sun and I've been buying spring flowers and filling my bedroom/workspace with them. I can't wait for the peonies to start.

My bedroom in the sunshine: observe irises, and the suitcase that plays music. And my teddy.

We've been working on a group project at school, making a website about kefir (which is a fermented milk drink FYI). I was horrified at the concept of working with fellow students, but it's been kind of fun - and I was so pleased to see how much more straightforward coding has become for me. I don't know if I'll ever get over the fact that I can code as it seems so much like some kind of occult wrangling. Demonic.

Last night I had two of the menfolk over (Dad and Tom). I felt like eating a super simple salad-style meal, and I was stoked with what I made: I cooked the most beautiful piece of free-range pork on a big bed of thyme, roasted a big bulb of fennel in butter and olive oil so that it was a bit caramelised, and made a big green salad with goats cheese and cucumber and sprouts and a lemony vinaigrette. And then we had affogatto and coconut macaroons for dessert which was pretty much heaven.

This summer is going to be characterised by an overconsumption of salad I feel. Drinks of the summer will be characterised by, but not be limited to, rosé and homemade lemon iced tea with gin. Oh summer, how I have craved thee.

Arohanui: another lovely week

2011-09-25T21:54:00.001+13:00

The end of another week! As I write this I'm watching the RWC Scotland v Argentina game. The Argentinian players wear stripey shirts and socks and the effect is very strange; they kind of look like blue Tiggers.

Anyways, I had a very nice week, and here are some things that happened:

I've spent all this weekend at a wedding up on the Kapiti coast. The wedding itself was lovely; the bride played murder ballads on the banjo; I saw killer whales breaching off Peka Peka Beach; and Jess Chambers and Rosy Tin Teacaddy played during the wedding and reception respectively. Shannon and I camped on the lawn which was not as cold as I thought it would be - but it did ignite a desire to spend all summer camping at the edge of the bush in DoC campsites.
On the way back from the wedding we dropped into my Grandad's house in Waikanae and were fed by my lovely step-Nana Dorothy. My Grandad is always happy to discuss history indefinitely with me which I'm sure must be tedious beyond belief for Dorothy and Shannon. I was crazy tired from the wedding the night before, but it was very awesome to see them.
This evening I made some baked oatmeal from the Budget Bytes recipe: part of my plan to be better organised in the morning and eat breakfast every day. My decision to make it was inspired by the Pumpkin Pie Baked Oatmeal that Beth posted about earlier this week, but as we're heading out of pumpkin season at the moment, I thought I'd better use her earlier seasonal fruit recipe. S and I had some for dinner and it was delicious.
It was my lovely Nat's 30th birthday yesterday. I had a drink with her at Little Beer Quarter on Friday night - the first time that I'd been there. Good beer selection, lovely atmosphere (much less crowded than the Malthouse), and the nuts were good too. I'm just nuts about nuts (lol, obv). The best thing though was Nat. She's such a legend - starting university after working and travelling and living in the UK for ten years, studying incredibly hard, and absolutely blitzing with her marks. Happy Birthday darling - super proud of you, Ms. Fabulosity.
My flatmate Hayley arrived back from her trip to Burning Man and around the States - it's great to have a gender balance in the house again, and to have someone to cackle with.
My other James bought a pig's head for his birthday on Friday. Did you know pigs have very human looking eyes? I discovered this as a pair of them peered out the the head on the counter top. However the food made with the pig head has been good so far (some kind of Brazilian bean thing with the cheeks). There is something that looks suspiciously like brawn in the fridge at the moment that's freaking me out a bit but I'm sure it will be fine - nay, delicious!
I dropped in yet more books to the second hand book store and I think I've finally reached an equilibrium with my book shelves, and THAT knocks another of my resolutions from my list.
My new raincoat from Wet and Wendy arrived and I love it. It's raining rather heavily at the moment, and I'm hoping that it will be again tomorrow - can you believe that? I figure, if I can't have beautiful sunshiney weather then I want a lot of rain to splash about in.

And now I figure that it must be my bed time. Goodnight, lovelies!

The image above is from Simply Breakfast. The recipe the Simply Breakfast lady used is a different to Beth's, but Amazon has hosted a little preview that includes the recipe. Keen to try it out!

Spring Resolution: getting ready in the morning

2011-09-23T11:39:00.000+12:00

One of my resolutions from last week was to work out exactly how much time I needed to get ready in the morning. Lately I’ve been getting later, and later, and later. It’s no good! I hate being rushed in the morning and I think that starting the working day with a feeling of preparation and the deep inner calm that comes from not-rushing is really valuable.

To achieve the resolution I’ve decided to re-assess each part of the the process of getting ready and getting out of the house, which I roughly divided into a three - getting dressed and showering et al, having coffee and breakfast, and completing any waking up rituals. The plan is that when I know how much time each part takes me I can work out a better routine and get up at a more realistic time.

The re-assessment of the amount of time I was taking was in part inspired by this article I read on Already Pretty. The woman who blogs there estimated that she could complete her dressing process in 40 minutes minimum (that is - no fussing about). As I read this I thought:

a. 40 minutes! Without make up! What the hell does she do in the morning?

and

b. It's not a race, but if it was I’d win hands down because I’m pretty sure I can get dressed in a fraction of that time. Hahahahaha.

Once my smugness about my dressing-briskness-and-potential-race-winning had subsided, I realisedhow misplaced it was. Because I have no idea how much time it would take me to get myself dressed and made up and showered if I had as much time as I needed. In the weekdays I’ve always arbitrarily given myself about half an hour to have a shower and get dressed and have made that work - which means that most mornings I jump in and out of the shower, don’t wear make up, don’t dry my hair and don’t rub any unguents on any part of my body except my face.

My questions then were: if I did my ideal number of girly things in the morning, how long would it take me to get dressed - should I try and allow for an extra fifteen or so minutes? Am I cutting myself short and rushing around when I could be taking my time? Do I really give a crap about wearing make up and having dry hair etc etc anyways?

Over the last week I’ve made some kind of attempt to answer them, and have come to the following conclusions

To do maximum girly things, I need to allow a minimum of 45 minutes. This assumes a day where I’m not easily distracted and where getting dressed isn’t difficult
This more generous amount of time probably goes some way towards explaining why I’m usually late.
To avoid the aforementioned difficulty I should probably lay out my clothes the night before
Wearing a smear of make up does make me feel slightly perkier about the day, as does having dry hair. This is something I should try to do.
Even the thought of being late doesn’t make a large impact on how fast I move - as in, I’ll cut things out but I rarely move any faster. More time is vital.

So, part one of the three part re-assessment is completed and I now know that I was cutting out fifteen minutes of potential lady-time. I shall now allow myself 45 minutes to primp each morning which I'm sure will make the whole kit and caboodle that much more fun!

Next, I’ll give the breakfasting process a re-assess. I’ve fallen off the breakfast bandwagon again, and I LIKE breakfast, so how that happened I'll never know.

So, about that tournament thing that's happening...

2011-09-21T11:22:00.000+12:00

Possible subtitles include:

a Rugby Widow’s guide to surviving the World Cup
how I watched more BBC classic novel dramatisations than can possibly be healthy
OR: eating cupcakes in bed - yes or no?

Oh HAI Sonny Bill! You can leave your shoes under my bed any day.
Mark Taylor, Waikato Times. Via Stuff.

Hey, so, did you know that there is a big tournament thingy happening in New Zealand? It’s true! Every week you can watch a lot of television with lots of men with really large thighs tackling each other to the ground and fighting over an egg-shaped ball. Also, there is a great deal of hype about! As I have no TV I’ve managed to avoid most of the hideousness and miscellaneous player scandal, which is something that I’m terribly smug about (I am sooo Smuggy McSmugness over here).

On the other hand, my boyfriend is crazy about rugby. He loves it to an infectious extent. My attitude towards rugby changed completely after watching games with Shannon because he loves the game so - there is much ecstatic yelling, and exclaiming over the abilities of the various players... I’m afraid that I’m not really doing a very good job of explaining, but suffice to say, for Shannon rugby-watching is not a passive thing - it’s very much a full-on interactive experience, for him and everyone around him.

Obviously, a lot of his time is taken up with ruggers at present and as I am an impoverished social-sad-sack, this means that I have a great deal more time alone. However! I haven’t been wasting my time! No, I’ve been researching some ways to enjoy the World Cup period for non-rabid rugby fans. Some suggestions:

Be nice to tourists. It’ll make you feel good about yourself and hopefully be a deposit in your karma bank for when you’re travelling. Also: how would I know about the Skittles bomb* if I hadn’t talked to a drunken laddish South African dude at the Malthouse?
Watch one or two games. Try going to a bar that has a world demographic (by which I mean - a Wales game at the Welsh bar, the Brave Blossoms at a Japanese bar). Failing that - try watching the game in a bar with decent beer/cider/wine and food. Don’t try to have a conversation.
Arbitrarily choose a team to support and make yourself a really awesomely naff costume. I saw a Wales fan dressed as a dragon and it made me so happy. Also: costumes are fun.
Enjoy your widow/widower-hood by watching programmes that would otherwise be relentlessly mocked by your S.O. Watch until your eyes drop out. Watch some more. Curse the new laws that will reveal the extent of your illegal downloading habit to the flat bill-payer if you get caught. Curse the people who scratch library DVDs.
Respect other people’s fandom - because it totally sucks when people are down on your fandom. (Chances are your fandom will never be respected, but think of it as another karmic deposit.)
Look at a lot of images of really large man thighs. Think about how those dudes could snap you in half, and how tiny your wrist would look in their fist. *giggle*
Go and see or take part in some of the REAL NZ Festival that’s running alongside the Cup. The Wellingtonista made quite a good list of Things That Are Happening in Wellington, and I know that The Body Festival is running in Christchurch.

Truth be told, I’ve mostly been eating in bed, knitting cardigans for summer and watching BBC classic novel dramatisations - but I’m thinking this would be a good chance to sew two more dresses and work on my op-shopping website. Perhaps we should add “generally catch up on your life” to the list.

Lovely reader, do you have anything to add -- ways of enjoying the RWC period? We’re all people with fantastic imaginations and we have another month or so to use them! Woo!

*A shot of Cointreau in Red Bull. Sounds vile.