The problem I was having with my iPhone was that it wouldn’t connect to any wifi networks. I’d tried everything I could think of, and also tried all the suggestions from a friend, who is one of the people you might speak to when you call for help on your iPhone! None of his suggestions worked either, but the apple genius was very impressed that I’d tried them all.

Anyway, he said it was a firmware issue, and so I would get a new phone. I knew my phone was out of warranty- but hadn’t mentioned it to the guy, so when he looked up my account he told me I couldn’t actually get it for free ’cause I had no warranty left. I had tried to extend my warranty even though it was over back when the problem first happened, but the lady said it was a no go. This guy, actually being from apple, and not from the helpdesk etc. could work around it and instead of paying $250 for my problem to be fixed, I only paid $99 and now have warranty until the next iPhone comes out (totally can’t wait for this btw!).

So that was a pretty awesome thing to have happen. The staff there were so friendly and helpful. One girl was a little bit bitchy- but she was probably just tired…

The whole store is FULL of people though- everyone just playing on the computers and iPhones and iPods around… while we were in there a guy walked out with his new purchase- a macbook and all the staff stopped what they were doing, looked at him, cheered and clapped! Lots of the customers did too! I was a bit too shocked to clap as well, but it was an awesome thing to see.

So hello new little iPhone- you’re my third one in 13 months, so hopefully you last the distance. I don’t know what it is with my, iPhones and firmware issues, but they seem to go together.

Anyway, back to this last Tuesday and how it was good. I shared something I’d read in Numbers, and people actually DISCUSSED it! I don’t think this has ever happened to me at home group! My conversation starters are usually dead ends!!

We also went round in a circle and shared things that we admired/liked/generally positive things about each other. I was surprised at how awkward this made me feel. Luke suggested it, and I was poking him in the side saying, “No, no, lets not do that”. I’m not sure if it was the saying nice things about people, or the having people say nice things about me bit that was the worst.

Anyway, it was really, really interesting to see how people saw me. I’m not going to share what people said here- I’m not conceited, but I will share with you that some were a surprise, and others were things that I really value. It’s interesting that Pete mentioned a characteristic about me which I didn’t particularly consider myself having, but REALLY strongly value in other people. As in, it is one of my pet hates when people don’t have this, and I really admire people who do have this. I assume now that that’s one of the reasons that I value it so highly.

It’s just funny how things go together… lots of healing on the inside (of the heart kind), and new understanding of myself, which is always good.

Dasies in the garden...

1. What is something your wife always says to you?

“No”

2. What makes your wife happy?

Unexpected suprises as opposed to expected suprises, which she probably gets a lot of.

3. What makes your wife sad?

Sad movies.

4. How does your wife make you laugh?

By being really mean to me.

5. What was your wife like as a child?

Messy.

6. What is her favourite thing to do?

Scrapbook.

7. What does your wife do when you’re not around?

House work.

8. If your wife becomes famous, what will it be for?

Art or blogging.

9. What is your wife really good at?

Painting, scrapbooking and analogies.

10. What is your wife not very good at?

The morning.

11. What does your wife do for her job?

Read blogs/Twitter. <- This is not true!

12. What is your wife’s favourite food?

Garlic.

13. What makes you proud of your wife?

Her relationship with God.

14. If your wife were a cartoon character, who would she be?

Wonder Woman.

15. What do you and your wife do together?

Watch TV shows on our Media PC.

16. How are you and your wife the same?

…

17. How are you and your wife different?

How are we not different?

18. How do you know your wife loves you?

She cooks for me.

19. Where is your wife’s favourite place to go?

Home. <- or anwhere Luke and Pepper are together.

Love...

So here’s a bit of tour of some of the new things in our garden!

Two types of lavender...

Lavender… one of my favourite smells…

Cute baby capsicum!

Capsicum… aren’t the cute?!

An itty, bitty watermellon!

Watermellon… Oh so tiny!

Cherry, Gormet, Yellow and Black Russian!

Many varieties of Tomato… These flowers will become little cherry tomatos!

The lemon (lemondae variety) is nearly ready to flower!

Lemon Tree… can’t wait to see what these flowers are like!

Zucchini flower... yum!

Zucchini… perfect for making lots of zucchini soup!

Parmasen on top is yummy- but not necessary!

Filling:

Cut up 1 cup of sweet potato (reasonable size potato) into chunks and steam (I just use the microwave- but you can do it however you want!).

Once it’s all nice and soft, add to the mix a few cloves of mashed up garlic, some cardamon, cumin, pepper, salt.

Dice up an onion really fine, and cook it off in the frying pan (just use spray oil) and when it’s cooked, add it to the sweet potato mix, stiring it all together.

Ravioli:

Take some pasta dough, and roll out your first strip. It’s easiest to work with just one, and then roll out another, because as soon as it gets hard it’s difficult to put together.

Lay rolled out pasta dough onto a floured bench top (it’s important that it’s either on a floured bench top or that it’s on glad wrap). Mark half way on your dough.

Put blobs of the sweet potato mix onto the pasta, evenly spaced, and only up the half way mark.

Fold other half of pasta on top of blobs of potato. Squish the sides down, and seal them- make sure there’s no air in the ravioli or it will float.

Place ravioli into a pot of rapidly boiling water (salted). A general rule with cooking ravioli is that when it floats, it’s ready. I usually like to leave it cook for a little bit after it cooks- but it depends how you like your pasta cooked!

Sauce (from My Madison Bistro):

3 teaspoon unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
pinch of salt

Steps:

Cook the butter in a frying pan until it’s starting to go brown. Quickly put the spices and sugar and salt in and mix it around. Turn off heat.

Putting it all together:

As the ravioli cooks, spoon it into the frying pan (it’s okay if some water gets in too- you don’t want much, but a little is okay). Once it’s all there you can heat it up again in the frying pan and add some roasted pine nuts.

Serve it with some yummy Parmesan cheese!

Weight Watchers:

Assuming this amount serves 2, with no Parmesan cheese, you’re looking at 6 points per serve. If you don’t care about Wight Watchers, then user 3 tablespoons of butter for the sauce instead of teaspoons- it’s MUCH yummier!

Kevin & Amanda:- Get your handwriting turned into a font! Download hundreds of mega cute fonts PERFECT for scrapbooking (and anything really!).

Kitschy Digitals Blog:- Not free here, but still VERY cute! There’s frames, and other cute bits to use either on your computer, or print out!

Shabby Princes:- HEAPS of free scrap packs to download and print out! Perfect for journalling too- resize the tag in pages/word to whatever size you want it to print as, and then type up your journalling so that it’s neat, and fits to the exact right size!

Photo via weightwatchers.com.au

Ingredients

I’m going to pass on the award to a few WORTHY bloggers. And while I think of it, I shall update my blogroll to include them as well!

The idea of the “One Lovely Blog Award” is: Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link. Pass the award to up to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I’d like to award this to:

Carmy

Bonnie

Welcome To The Rock Garden

My Kid Is Funny

You should check them out and let them know how awesome they are!

So when I went to WW (weight watchers) I did the maths and I have like 25KG to loose! Yikes! How did all the weight get on?! Keep in mind though that if I loose all of that I will probably be the skinniest I’ve ever been in my entire life… :-O

Any-who, I’m well on my way, having lost 1.2 KG the first week, and 1.3KG this week! The biggest thing I’m having to change is how MUCH I eat. I am a little piglet, and eat when I’m bored… but now that I’m writing it all down and what not I realise how much I eat out of habit with no understanding of how hungry I am etc…

Sometimes I get a bit stressed at work! So I make myself notes out of post-it notes...

So the menu plan this week is all weight watchers foods. People think that these foods much be bland or yucky, but they’re not! It’s basically just regular food but minimal oil/butter etc. Seeing as we’re not big meat eaters, we don’t have to worry about all the points that meat is worth! and lots of vegies you can eat as much as you want of. Nice. I will endeavour to post the recipes for these meals if they’re any good. Times like this I wish I had a food blog again- but then I never post in it!

Wed (tonight): Fish and Chips (200g potato, 150g pumpkin, onion, garlic- all roasted. fillet of fish. onions cooked in balsamic vinegar) 6 points.

Thurs: Stir Fry

Fri: Suncoast Festival- Curry or Pizza…

Sat: Kim & Morgan’s Engagment Party

Sun: Chicken Marsala

Mon: Chicken with tomato and onion sauce

Tues: Curried lentil and pumpkin soup

Pizza Dough

Put 1 sachet of yeart (approx 2-3 tsp) of dried yeast into a mixing bowl with 1 tsp sugar and enough luke warm water (really, really important that it’s not too hot!! Better to be too cool, then too hot- you’ll kill the yeast!) to cover the bottom of the bowl.

Let it sit until the yeast is all frothy.

Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and 3/4 cup of luke warm water. Mix in your mixer using dough hooks.

Let this mix sit until it’s doubled in size. It’ll probably be pretty wet.

Add 1/2  cup of flour and mix again until flour is mixed. Let it sit again until it’s doubled again.

(I find that this mix, when risen properly can make about 4 pizzas, or 2 of these scroll logs)

Scrolls

Put 1 grated zuchini, 2-3 diced shallots (depending on their size), handful of fresh basil- finely chopped, and 4-5 cloves of garlic- diced or pressed, into a bowl and mix around.

Grate 3/4 cup of cheese (cheddar).

Roll all of the dough out onto a bench. Spread with some tomato paste. Add the zuchini mix, and the cheese.

Roll into a log, and cut into 12 pieces. Put each piece into the hole of a muffin tin. Cook for 20-30 mins in a moderate oven.

Weight Watchers:

Each scroll is about 2 points each, and you could cut down of the points by using cottage cheese instead of cheddar (1 1/2 points each), or using less dough. We find that four scrolls is plenty for lunch!