Self-Conscious Posturing

What's making me happy this week: the only way is cosiness

2013-06-07T13:13:00.000+12:00

Honestly, this week - despite being a short week - has been pretty bleak. It is totally, officially winter, and I am totally officially experiencing the dull glumness that comes with going to and leaving work in the dark, and being freezing cold at home because of our ridiculous lack of insulation and the southerly blowing through the cracks in the windows and floor.* Cold! In my house! All the time! So, given the constant fight to get and keep warm, the thing that is making me MOST happy this week is cosiness, which I imagine looking a little like this:

Stella Nicolaisen

I am writing this while sitting as close to the fire** as I can without my clothes melting, dressed in full tracksuit. I am wearing slippers with fur liners and stockings under my yoga pants, and a polyprop that smells a little strange, in the way that only old polyprops can.

The creme de la creme of cosy, is of course, Bed, and the last few days I have been going to bed as early as seems reasonable for a 31 year old woman. While in bed, I like to curl up with two delicious hot water bottles, in full pyjamas, under a feather duvet and two crochet woollen blankets, and with another person. In a nest of pillows. There can never be too much cosiness!

Other things:

READING: Yep, still working my way through The Confusion. Can't help thinking I'd be making better headway if I was reading just the one book? But why not wade rather than rush... it's not a competition after all.

I've also begun my anticipatory holiday reading. Fran leant me a copy of Paris: The Secret History by Andrew Hussey. Parisian "outsider" history, allegedly. TBH, I've perceived it as only vaguely outsider thus far - but I'm only up to the Renaissance so there is defo room for further developments. I hear the nineteenth century was good for such things, and I hold high hopes for an excess of twentieth century material.

WATCHING: After a discussion during a drunken Friday catch-up, Katherine sent me a link to food history series Supersizers on YouTube. Basically, the premise of this show is that Giles, a restaurant critic, and Sue, a comedian (allegedly), investigate the food and costumes of a particular historical period and are completely gluttonous in the process.

Shannon has described the show as 'nihilistic' and there is something deliberately bleak about the way that they throw food around. I keep thinking 'ARGH! WASTE!'. And how they complain - about what is essentially my dream job.

There are umpteen complete episodes on YouTube, and you should definitely check it out, if only for the cockatrice and the cock riding a piglet in the Medieval episode.

helmeted cock

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: Wireless Nights with Jarvis Cocker - Nights of Passage, mostly because of the story about a woman falling off the Newcastle-Amsterdam Ferry and into the waters of the English Channel.

I usually find Wireless Nights self-conscious and a bit annoying - it takes the "radio-ness" of Radiolab to the Nth degree and it feels rather laboured. I think that the more recent episodes are a bit more settled into the format.

Maybe I'm just not enough of a Pulp fangirl to be listening to this podcast.

KNITTING: Cast on a new pair of socks! And after completion I will have a break from socks for a bit I think.

Do you have a good solution for dealing with all this COLD?

*This sounds only a little more Dickensian than it actually feels.
**heater that likes to pretend it's a fire.\

Spend less, save more: making a spending plan.

2013-06-06T08:30:00.000+12:00

Back in 2010, I started paying back my debt with a vengeance and it became a pretty substantial blog project for me. I wrote up a bunch of interviews with people who I thought dealt with money well (Nat, Lizzie, Lake) and a series of posts about how I was dealing creatively with not spending so much. I think 'money' is probably one of the most used tags on this blog.

While I'm not blogging about it as much, spending less money and being out of debt/saving myself some dollars is still very much part of what I do on a day to day basis (witness: savings tower). I am nauseatingly proud of this and should not be engaged in conversation on this topic. Just ask anyone.

Having refined my savingsy/frugally ways over the years, and boring the pants off of everyone I know, I thought it was timely to revisit some of the most helpful things I've found to do to spend less and save more. I hope that someone else finds this useful - I know that in the beginning stages, reading blog posts about people in the same situation as myself was incredibly helpful and kept me on the straight and narrow.

I'd initially planned this as a single blog post, but realised that I had so much that I'd learnt and wanted to share into the ether that it made more sense to make it a series.

Thus, the first logical step:

Get your foundations sorted: work out a budget.

The concept of budgeting has such a stink of deprivation around it that most people are disinclined to look into their budget until they're absolutely at the end of their financial tether. I know I was.

Because I'm now saving, rather than paying off debt, it's something I rather enjoy these days (how horribly smug of me). I like to think about it as my spending plan, rather than my budget.

The questions you're trying to answer with your budget are: Where is my money going? How much do I owe? How much do I want to save?

1. Where is it going?

It's super hard to work out a budget without knowing how you're spending your money already.

There are a couple of ways that you can collect data about what you're spending your money on. The most straightforward way is to collect receipts and enter your daily spend into a notebook or spreadsheet, categorising each transaction as you go. Alternatively, you can use some kind of software or app that will pull information from your bank account and put it into categories based on your definitions (you can use something like Kiwibank's Heaps or, if you have access to it, Mint). I've used both the receipt and electronic methods - and sometimes a combination of the two.

Even once your budget is sorted it's good to keep an eye on your spending, as it helps to see how you're tracking against your budget and if you need to work more on the plan that you've nominated. It's not always easy to keep up, but it is worthwhile.

At this point, you can also rationalise your spending. Work out what outgoings are fixed: bills, rent, food, transport costs. I don't do this now, but I used to include my ration for coffee in my weekly fixed costs (they now sit under 'fun'). It's up to you whether you want to do this, but be aware that it will affect any capacity for saving or paying back debt and sometimes considerably. For example, I drink soy flatwhites which cost $4.50 each a day. If I budget for my daily coffee, then I am budgeting for $31.50 each week or $63 a fortnight. Or $126 a month. (Eep). I'd rather spend that on my trip to Europe, thanks awfully!

2. How much do I owe?

Since you're looking carefully at your bank account and spending, you should also work out how much you owe - add together ALL your debts, even the little amounts.

Calculating your debt seems crazy scary, but finding out the worst is better than being hazy on your debts. I've found the reality is rarely a friendly number, but it's a matter of 'better the devil you know' when it comes to debt.

When I first worked out how much I owed, it was truly the first step in having a sense of ownership of my finances. It was also a rather large number.

3. How much do you want to save/at what rate do you want to pay off your debts?

You can work out the rest of your budget - what you'll save, how you'll pay off your debt, and what you can spend for fun - from this point.

I've been trying to save or pay back my debt at around $400-500 pw, so I'll nominate that amount to go into my savings and look at whatever is left over for fun money. If I didn't have an aim in mind, I don't think I would be saving at such a steep rate.

I believe you should be paying off your debt before you begin to save, as saving money at the same time as paying off debt is self-defeating. Interest rates on credit cards and overdrafts are really high and unless your savings are in something like a term deposit, the interest you're earning on your savings won't make up for the interest you're paying on your debts. I know that there are arguments to the contrary, but I'm yet to see a convincing one!

Lately I've been keeping aside around $200 for fun money - 'fun' includes things like haircuts, coffees, social evenings, clothing and knitting/sewing stuff. I also try to make it cover medical expenses, although it's nice to know the savings are there to cover in a pinch. If I know I have a big expense coming up, I'll adjust my other expenditure accordingly. For example, I'm planning to get my haircut this week and pick up a pair of boots from the repairer - so eating lunch and dinner out is off the agenda.

I know from past experience that I can have a totally acceptable social life on around $100 a week - and I'm planning to scale back to something closer to this for the next few weeks of saving before my trip. It's nice to know what my absolute minimum limit for fun spending is (while having a not-hermit existence), and that I can scale back to this at any time.

I was reading the comments on a Stuff article about budgeting a few weeks ago, and the general tenor seemed to be: "that advice is all very well, but not buying coffee doesn't save me much money or fix my immediate debt problem". The point is, you can't fix your debt immediately, it must be done incrementally. And the true cost of debt is time.

Finally, it's important to remember that budgets aren't static! Some weeks are simply more expensive than others, while others allow for more money to be put aside (I saved heaps when I was glangey). Be honest about what you're spending and re-examine your budget on a regular basis. It's basically a hobby of mine.

I will never get bored with talking about money, and how to save it. Do you have anything super helpful about budgets that I haven't covered here?

Next time: Cheers for all that. So, how the hell do I stick to this budget?

Cooking from blogs: pulled pork, Hungry and Frozen-style

2013-06-04T18:33:00.000+12:00

Confession: this is not the first time that I've made Laura's pulled pork recipe. At some point during the three weeks I was riddled with glandular fever I decided that all this lying around wouldn't do at all, and pulled my disease-ridden body out of bed to make pulled pork, a fact that in itself vouches for my deliriousness.

Predictably, I was unable to eat it; in fact, the smell made my stomach turn. As I was vomming frequently at the time, this stomach turning had predictable results. This was, indeed, an ill-fated pulled pork-making venture.

Shannon, who ended up being the sole eater of the pulled pork, vouched for it's deliciousness*, which encouraged me to have another go - and YES, it was totally worth it. Please don't let the discussion of my illness put you off making delicious pork.

Second confession: I made a LOT of changes, but I don't think quite the extent that I didn't make this recipe at all (willing to hear arguments to the contrary). Here are the changes, listed in suggested order that they might affect the success of this recipe:

I had no fennel seeds for the mop, so I used whole star anise instead (it made sense when I did it but seems kind of whimsical now).
I had no ground ginger for the rub, so I had to leave it out.
I couldn't find pork shoulder or belly at the supermarket, so I bought a leg instead.
I made the pulled pork in the slow cooker, using guidance from Beth at Budget Bytes.

Annnnnd despite my thorough bastardisation of what was undoubtedly a well thought-out and tested recipe, everything turned out well! Slow cooking the pork left me with no bark (the crispy bits on the outside of the joint), but the meat itself was delicious and not horribly dry. The bits on the bottom of the joint that were sitting in the mop during the entire cooking time - these certainly had more flavoursome deliciousness. But, I think because I marinated the pork overnight, the rest of the meat had plenty of flavour too.

In conclusion: DO IT. Make some pulled pork! We ate ours with flour tortillas, and coleslaw with smoked paprika and almonds, but it was also good two days later in a market baguette with melted cheese.

Would you believe this is the best photo I could get? Pulled pork is difficult to photograph. Probably a topic about this at a food bloggers' forum somewhere.

*Writing that sentence gave me the opportunity to reflect on how amazed I am that he ate the pork when I made it while I was SO ill. He basically ate my disease. Ew.

Have you ever made pulled pork before; and what's your favourite way to cook it and eat it? I want to eat all the pork.

The week in Self-Conscious Posturing History (May 28 - June 2)

2013-06-03T20:35:00.000+12:00

pedrofins.net

Last week I announced that I was surprised with how little embarrassment I felt with that week's archival selection.

Lest you think that I'm some kind of paragon of self-acceptance, allow me to assure you that I managed to make up for last weeks sangfroid with the selection below. 2006 is particularly embarrassing: I am so angry and pretentious. Ugh, so pretentious.

But, in the spirit of self-acceptance and without any further ado, I present this week in SCP history:

2010 (could be also called: the Tumblr years)

Sunday Awesome - (that's a great picture btw).
Wednesday List of Ten Things in 2010 updated - I was making a list of ten things I wanted to do in 2010 and crossing them off! I am notoriously bad at this kind of thing, but it's interesting to note that I did in fact manage to achieve most of these.
Gratuitous Picture of Yourself Wednesday - this was such a thing at the time.

2009

A list of things that are possibly quite awful but that I have really enjoyed doing lately - four years later, I still enjoy doing most of these things, but have run out of unread/listened to Hercule Poirot mysteries.
Crochet bicycle seat cover - OR Further Adventures of a Crafty-Beserker - still think this is pretty cool too.

2008

Tasks overdue: everything, all of it - I have no idea what was happening here.
Mmm tastes like achievement
North island road trip - Tokomaru Bay - that was a great trip, and Tokomaru Bay still rocks my socks.
What I have eaten - the week in review - includes a recipe for a delicious cheesy garlicky polenta, that I haven't made forevs and wish to make. Like, now.

2006

This enigmatic comment: Nothing is more dangerous than an evil freak.
A Polish engraving of a tui that I rather liked.
Last night - I am embarrassed about some imagined faux pas (I'm sure it was my insecurity that was the most socially awkward aspect of that evening).
New Zealand Content Review Part 1: Dostoevsky's The Idiot - I decided that I was going to review a series of 'classic novels' from their NZ content, or lack their of. This is a dreadful exercise in pretentiousness, but, as I've said before: WHOOP there it is.
Reading my flatmate's books part 1: Singer's The Slave - not quite as bad as the other one.
Help me help my stalker - behold, the awfulness of my 24 year old self. The only post that I've seriously considering just deleting. Please don't judge me, I am not such an awful person now.
20 hits form a site I've never heard of - leaving aside the fact that I used the term 'hits', why the hell am I so angry?

2005

Not enough hours in the day - moving to Australia in six days and I was freaking out.

Any idea where this "Nothing more dangerous than an evil freak" quote comes from? Did you ever GPOYW? How do you feel about leading questions?

Oh and: happy birthday Queenie.

In which I admit to making a pretty pathetic effort of participating in Me Made May

2013-06-02T18:17:00.000+12:00

Me Made May finished on last Friday. I mentioned that I'd signed up to this sewing-blogger celebration of craftiness earlier in the month - and that I'd chosen the fairly modest aim of wearing two item of handmade or refashioned clothing per week, and making two items of clothing during the month.

Wearing the handmade bits was rather a doddle. I usually wear skirts to work, and of those I think that just one is non-handmade. Besides which most of my outerwear is hand knit or refashioned - scarves and hats and gloves, and I began the month obsessed with the trench coat that I altered. And it's definitely cold enough to pull out all of my deliciously warm hand knit socks.

I had less success with the making handmade bits to wear. I made myself a nifty fruit jumper, drafting up a larger size of Dixie DIY's Hot Cocoa sweater with some success, giving up on the neck-band part because my fabric was not stretchy enough and I just wanted to wear it, damn it. I like the idea of colouring in or outlining a few of the bits of fruit with embroidery thread, but I haven't put aside the time to do it yet.

I haven't completed anything else for myself, only making a teeny-tiny baby dress for Shannon's step-brother's new little girl, and two solitary socks - as in, two individual socks from different patterns, not a pair. This isn't my best effort, but in my defense I have been trying to spend a little less, and nice fabric is expensive, as is nice yarn. Once you've sewn or knitted with nice materials, it's really difficult to convince yourself to go back to using rubbish. It feels nasty on my hands, darling.

Lastly,I have been pretty dreadful at getting photographs of my outfits. For a while I had no memory card for my shitty camera, and as my computer faces a window it's difficult to use the camera on that without terrible glare behind me. I convinced someone at work to take a photograph of my outfit one day - and, with the exception of the one above, that's the only photo I have.

So, Me Made May hasn't been a great success, but nor has it been a complete failure. If I do it again, I'm going to work on making a concerted effort to get some photos taken, even if it is kind of awkward and I seem incapable of posing non-hammily.

What is making me happy: buying Euro-trip tickets and rubbing cucumber on my face

2013-05-28T20:54:00.001+12:00

The main thing making me happy this week is euro-trip planning. I bought my 'plane tickets last Friday so I am well and truly committed, which is scary and exhilarating and terrifying and the most exciting thing.

Now I spend around 75% of my time dreaming about my trip, researching my trip, making lists in preparation for my trip, thinking about buying decent shoes for my trip and bookmarking accomodation options in Montmartre.

Trip planning is so much fun. So far, my favourite plans or potential plans are:

Cosi Fan Tutte in Berlin
Pompeii exhibition in London
Bullying a friend (or friends) into travelling to Edinburgh, or to a quaint Olde Englishe village somewhere in the West Country (cider)
Eating in Paris
Drinking coffee in Paris
Going to this crazy-sounding dinner in Paris (Jim looks as though he's optimum nutty)

I really want to hear all and any suggestions though, especially if anyone knows of a particularly fabulous and bizarre museum or vintage shop anywhere? Talk to me baby.
The second thing making me happy is the discovery that wiping my face with a slice of cucumber after washing is incredibly soothing for my inflammed skin (oh I am such a delicate petal). I encourage you to wipe your face with a cucumber tonight!

Some other bits that are happening:

READING: The Confusion, Neal Stephenson and have recently picked up Stella Rimmington's Present Danger. The Confusion will be with me a wee while yet; I still have plenty of opportunity to live in the universe that he's so intricately created. Present Danger is an MI5 spy novel set in Belfast after the Troubles, and it is more than adquately readable, despite my usual lack of interest in such things.

WATCHING: This cover of Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights' by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. It could only be improved by a little interpretive dance.

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: I was pretty happy to listen to the episode of NPR's All Songs Considered where they talked about the new Polyphonic Spree album... I enjoyed all the music on that episode which is a pretty unusual experience for me.

KNITTING: Close to finishing a pair of socks for my Grandad in a possum and merino blend.

SEWING: A sweater and a tiny dress - which I will discuss at a later date.

LISTENING: Rediscovering Polyphonic Spree albums past. I especially love this song, the name of which I'm a teensy bit hazy about.

Cooking from blogs: Smitten Kitchen's Coconut Bread

2013-05-28T20:00:00.000+12:00

... which is also a Bill Granger bread via the Wednesday Chef via the New York Times, evidentally. Here it is on the Smitten Kitchen site.

I've wanted to make this bread since I read the recipe back in March. But then things kept coming up - things like, but not limited to, lemon sour cream cake, maple syrup tart*, and this bee sting cake. Besides, I was given a food processor for my birthday and tried an an all-food processor baking lifestyle for a while, a lifestyle in which this loaf just wouldn't fit, darling.

Luckily, I have an extremely tech-savvy filing system for future recipes which involves me: favouriting a recipe post, waiting a fortnight, printing out every recipe that I've favourited over that fortnight, and then filing the printed recipe in either my green "cooking" clear file, or my black "baking" clear file. Or indeed, my white "soups" clearfile. Cooking blogs are the way of the future, dudes. My nana wouldn't have recognised my system at all.

At any rate, I made this delicous sweet bread on Sunday. I had to use regular dessicated coconut because I have no idea where I would even find sweetened coconut (can I get such a thing in NZ)?

In saying that, for my palate it's just sweet enough...

... TO HAVE FOR BREAKFAST! Yay for cake for breakfast!

I'd make it again, but not in a fan-forced oven as the crust was too crusty for my liking. Deb's loaf clearly has a golden brown soft crust and here I have a dark brown hard crust which is less than ideal. The inner bread bit tastes pretty awesome though. I have discovered that it is best eaten when spread it thickly with butter.

*I WILL post this recipe, because you all need it *nods sagely*

The week in Self-Conscious Posturing History (May 20-27)

2013-05-27T19:24:00.001+12:00

Another one of these! I am trying to get to bed early at the moment to prevent any glandular fever relapses, and between early nights and having to work (ugh) I have basically no blogging time. In the weekends, I'm sleeping in to prevent glandula fever relapses, FYI.

I actually feel a little less self-conscious about this lot. Either my exercise in acceptance of proto-Sarah has worked, or these are generally less embarrassing. The Sarah the Muffin Thief entry I remembered as being an early (2005) triumph, and it is actually a lot better edited than - ahem - most of my blog posts

Also, I keep thinking it will take less time than writing something from scratch but I spend forever fixing the formatting on posts past - a bunch of them seem to have had their formatting screwed by Blogger at some point or other.

Is it for this that I cowdled thee as a mommet?

It was in May 2009 that I discovered how much I loved Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm. A truly great moment.

2010

In which I bemoan my knee. And then suck up the moan and get on with it y'all - actually, I think the injured knee was the final straw when it came to my derby injuries.

2009

I have been doing things - an early post about craftiness.
Blah and urgh - read about me having a shitty day

2008

Things I would do if I was in Europe - shamelessly promoting Urbantramper.
What I have eaten - the week in review - includes my scone-dough pizza base recipe, never boring.

2006

All of these posts were written while I was living in Melbourne and struggling with my (very formative) depression.

My desire for tofu knows no bounds and Oprah get your hands off my spirit - mm tofu.
Today is Wenerei
Dance magic dance - features too much info about someone else's medical condition.

2005

Tumeke!
Sarah the Muffin Thief - AN EARLY TRIUMPH?!
Flooding in Whakatane - an account of a pretty great interview I heard on Radio New Zealand.
Green Peanut and You - this post is partially about my love of wasabi peas, and partially about swimming with jellyfish.
Whoop! There it is - I was thinking about this the other day, and if the doctor told me I had the Hundred Days cough, I just had regular whooping cough, right? That's what the Lower Hutt community paper told me.

The week in Self-Conscious Posturing history (May 13-19)

2013-05-19T22:13:00.000+12:00

Filing cabinets, taken for Kenyon Brand and Riggs in 1978 by K E Niven and Co commercial photographers of Wellington. Image held at Tapuhi, accessed via Digital NZ.

I started this blog in 2005, when I was 23 years old, before I even had a MySpace page. I followed the trend of writing a blog that was simply an online journal, but I'd read enough about the dangers of writing material that could be discovered by friends, family or colleagues to be careful to not reveal everything. This means that most of the drama that I wrote about was more ancillary drama than the actual drama itself. I wrote around my own drama, if you like - and in the process frequently wrote some pretty bizarre and nonsensical things.

For some time, I've toyed with deleting basically everything from 2010 backwards. However, that would be ultimately futile (we all know the internets are forever) and a little like trying to delete bits of my own past. Despite my decluttering ways, I don't through out my hand-written diaries - I might have been a dramatic little bitch during my teenage years, but that dramatic little bitch was still me, albeit a proto-me.

And in the spirit of Being Ok with the proto-me, I present: spit-polished and with some additional commentary, a weekly retrospective look at Self-Conscious Posturing, from 2005 to the present day. I've fixed or removed broken images and tidied up some of the worst of the mistakes, otherwise it's pretty much as it was before, mouldering away in my archives.

In 2005, I wrote a fair amount on this week - basically because I'd just started blogging and it was still quite a novelty. I was also into writing about nothing and staring at my navel *teary eye at habits of blogging past*.

Why I love the bird calls on National Radio
Why I have a love/hate relationship with the Bucket Fountain
I just saw Peta Mathias
A moment at work - includes poem in rhyming couplets about punters at the City Gallery's Rosalie Gascoigne exhibition. I'm sorry.

In 2007 at this time I was mostly concerned with procrastinating and finding a flatmate (if I remember rightly, the flatmate I actually ended up with was kind of a dick).

In 2008 I was really insecure and self-hating, so sorry if these posts make your skin crawl. Since that time I've made a VERY large effort to be more positive on Self-Conscious Posturing - and if not positive, then at the least, constructive.

Au revoir fave boots
Wednesday List - evidently did not engage much brain while writing this.
Faux pas - so insecure
Taking care of your blisters is very important
Tres emotional

And there is nothing for 2006 or 2009-2012. I was writing these years, and often in May, but not in this exact week.

If you had diaries for the last eight years of your life, would you share them online? Is this an exercise in ridiculousness? Should I give more of a fuck than I do?

What is making me happy this week: family lunches

2013-05-16T20:46:00.000+12:00

Miners and Their Families Gather to Talk and Enjoy the Outing at the Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company First Annual Picnic at a Tennessee Valley Authority Lake near Jasper and Chattanooga, Tennessee. They Ate a Barbecue Lunch, Participated in Sports, Watched a Greased Pig Contest and Heard the Company Officials Explain Health and Retirement Benefits 08/1974 via Flickr Commons

I like to listen to an NBC podcast called Pop Culture Happy Hour, and my favourite bit is at the end of each podcast when the presenters talk about what has made them happy that week. It's like, Things I Love Thursday without an entire list of twee or including compulsory pictures of beautifully iced cupcakes.

This week, what is making me happy is: family lunches.

I had my mum and my three brothers around for lunch on Mother's Day, which involved me cleaning my butt off on Saturday and then cooking what remained of the aforementioned butt on Sunday.

I made a huge pot of French Onion soup with requisite gruyere croutons, and then a lemon and sour cream cake for dessert - I imagined that it would be the sort of lunch that a character in a PD James novel might serve. (I cannot tell a lie: I went to the trouble of actually imagining a PD James type menu and then carrying it out. Could become a hobby (proposed next lunch: a Harry Potter menu of treacle tart and steak and kidney pudding)).

At any rate: my family is loud and talkative and loud and somewhat exhausting. They are also MINE, and funny. I struggle sometimes with getting family balance right (which I can't explain without saying - too much) but when it works, it works so well. I want more fabulous family lunches in my future.

And quickly, my pop-culture consumption for the week:

READING: The Confusion, Neal Stephenson and Liar's Lullaby, Meg Gardiner. The first: epic, fabulous, funny. The second appears to be basically quite trashy and I'm looking forward to rotting my brain cells with it (I have only read about ten pages so far).

RECENTLY WATCHED: I'm working my way through the 2003 series of Time Team, after watching the 2012 series in one sitting.

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: The Radio 4 Nature doco series on the poetry of Edward Thomas, The Pursuit of Spring. Much inspiration for my proposed toddle in the UK.

LISTENING: I've been scrounging singles from the new Vampire Weekend album on Grooveshark - planning to listen to the whole thing next pay day.

Cooking from blogs: Smitten Kitchen's lentil soup with sausage, chard and garlic

2013-05-10T15:03:00.001+12:00

During our summer months, I like to read all about the heavy soups, casseroles and puddings that people in the northern hemisphere are eating. While existing mostly on barbeque food and salad and summer fruit, I have no issue with reading about rib-sticking, heart-warming meals. I like to print them off or book mark them, save them up for a colder time where I will have the need of such dishes.*

Smitten Kitchen's lentil soup with sausage, chard and garlic has been on my mind since Deb Perelman posted the recipe back in January this year. While I've made lentil and sausage soup before (I mean, really, haven't we all) I'm always game to ruin a good thing, change things up and try something different. A change is as good as a rest and all that.

The recipe was, as they always are, easy to follow. The dish itself had many parts but was simple to put together. I thought the finishing furbelow of olive oil and sizzled garlic probably wasn't entirely necessary despite reassurances to the contrary, but perhaps I have a totally pleb palate.

I kept any changes, additions or substitutions to what I thought was a fair minimum. I never know what "Italian sausage" is when I read it in an American recipe - I did use an Italian sausage but it was a pork and fennel one (from the Park Ave butcher in Lower Hutt which is well worth the trip). I have a heap of great home made chicken stock that I used instead of plain water because why wouldn't you if you had it?, and I had some tomato paste so I added a little of that. Sadly, I didn't have any chard or silverbeet (is chard not just a fancy way of saying silverbeet?) but I did have a bag of baby spinach that needed using up and I thought that given they were green and leafy it was all much of a muchness.

After simmering, tasting and then scoffing in record time, I concluded that:

The dish makes a good hearty weeknight meal if you can wait about an hour (I had a cracker-snack before I began cooking to keep the worms at bay).
I think the soup will transfer well to smug lunches and I fully intend on wafting the smell around in the kitchen at work.
The ingredients are easy to find in NZ if you aren't precious about the exact kind of sausage you're using - although of course a good quality one is a must (and why would you eat a crappy sausage anyway I don't know).

And finally:

It would be very worthwhile using silverbeet (or chard tra la la)** rather than baby spinach because the poor bubbas just didn't stand up well flavour-wise. They were like sad wilted wisps of green in a sea of delicious and hearty. Even regular spinach would have been better because the soup does just needs the final leaf to have some kind of body, y'know?

The eaters appreciated it. I will probably make it again. You can make it too! And it's easy enough to be vegged or veganed - there are a couple of options in the recipe.

And now, a photo of my food:

*The reverse, however, makes me so sad - when people start writing about asparagus season and cherries I am sad and in the midst of cold-stored apples and the fourth month of pumpkin.

**I mean, but - they are the same thing, right?

What I have learnt from Sookie Stackhouse

2013-05-08T10:30:00.000+12:00

Hey so, while I was sick with glandular fever and I wasn't sleeping or staring slack-jawed at the TV, I did a fair amount of reading.

I absolutely could not concentrate on any kind of substantial book. Instead, I ready the entire series to date of Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire mysteries, aka those Sookie Stackhouse books, aka the books that True Blood is based on.

I can't tell you what happened in which book because I basically inhaled them all one after the other like some kind of omnibus of ridiculousness. Now, I am shamefully excited because the final book in the series has been released on 7 May and I can finally find out whether Sookie ends up with Bill the Vampire Sap, Eric the Sexy Vampire, the dude that turns into a tiger, or her boss who is also sometimes a dog. I am totally rooting (lulz) for Eric the Sexy Vampire because he's all sexy and dangerous and not sometimes an animal. Just the kind of vampire a girl likes to fantasize about while running a 39C degree temperature.

If I have learnt anything from Sookie Stackhouse, (and it is certainly less than anything I learnt from Anne of Green Gables), it's is:

✚ Stuff that makes me (even more) fascinated by Southern American culture. Like Southern hospitality: whenever someone comes into Sookie's house, she offers them a drink - but not like "would you like some tea, I've just put the kettle on". She gives a list of four possible beverage options to each visitor. Not one of them was tap water! And it made me think is my hospitality really terrible? Should I be more insecure about this? I am determined to make more of an effort to have beverages to offer to my planned visitors.

The beverage thing fascinated me, and stirred so many questions, like: how does Sookie always have four options? Is that expensive? Would she keep beverages in her house that she didn't even like that much just in case a visitor would like them (that is - more than just a synthetic blood substitute for the occasional vampire visitor)? Did she keep MORE than the four beverage options, and then cap the amount that she offered so as to not overwhelm her guest? It's possible that I could write an entire fanfic story about Sookie shopping for beverages if I didn't find the idea of fanfic completely tragic.

✚ When you get the opportunity to spend the day or the night at home (instead of, say, solving mysteries by reading minds, involving oneself in fairy, vampire or shifter wars, or working), you should probably - wash your hair, wear an oversized sleep-tee (of which I have none), shave your legs thoroughly and tan for a few hours. (TANNING. Charlaine Harris you should be ashamed).

✚ Nothing says "thanks for clearing my grandson from accusations of murder" than a well-made chocolate cake.

Silliest series of books ever, but they soothed my feverish brow. And I just counted that there's twelve of them already released so that's twelve ridiculous books read. Good lord.

Going to read something edifying and canon-tastic now. (Right after I finish this chapter.)

In which I begin to fill in another novelty-shaped money-thermometer

2013-05-06T10:30:00.000+12:00

Hey so, I think I mentioned that I'd written a bunch of draft stuff that I hadn't got around to publishing.
On my 31st birthday I began writing a totes navel-gazing post:
Today is my 31st birthday (I wrote)

A year ago I decided that 30 was going to be the most amazing year ever - which hasn't necessarily been true. It's been deeply challenging and difficult, and I've had to make some decisions that were very hard for me. On the other hand, it's also been a year where I've paid off my debts, set up a gorgeous house with my partner, participated in kapa haka for the first time, and improved my sewing markedly.
This year I have a couple of goals:
✚ Travel to Paris, Berlin, London

... and then I stopped writing. Possibly my train arrived.
But it gives me the opportunity to introduce the Savings Tower! Now that I have paid of my debt, I am indeed most excited that I am saving money for myself instead of paying off debts.
The first thing I am saving for is a trip to Europe. Finally, after spending forever reading about Paris and Berlin and the UK and vaguely planning to *one day* (wistful dreaming face) travel there - I am DOING it. I am, of course, disappointed that hanging out at Shakespeare & Co won't be as exciting as it would have been, say, seventy years ago, or that I won't have the opportunity to run into Anais Nin and Henry Miller.* Or indeed visit a Weimar-era cabaret darlink.
In celebration of my new-found saving abilities I have created another novelty-shaped thermometer. Let us watch it grow together! As you can see I'm already trucking along quite nicely towards the cost of my airfare.

It's super nice to be saving for something lovely instead of throwing money at debt. Nobody ever told me how nice it would be to have assets... sometimes I just login to my bank account to look at my positive balance. Does that make me sound like Scrooge McDuck in his money pit?

*That would, of course, be truly ghastly and dreadful. That was 21 year old Sarah speaking, apols.
Currently playing: Howard by Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele

In which my blog post is in a room

2013-05-05T11:22:00.001+12:00

I've signed up to the 2013 leg of Me Made May - I think one of my first forays into the projecty world of sewing bloggers.

The idea of Me Made May in it's most basic form is that I make a pledge to wear a certain amount of hand-made or refashioned clothing over the month and make an attempt to record it. My personal pledge is pretty basic really, and I've already managed to wear something that fits the above description every day if we count outer-wear like coats and hats. My pledge:

I will endeavour to wear a self-made or refashioned garment at least twice a week, as well as to sew two new garments for the during May 2013.

I can't help thinking that this project would be even easier for me if the weather was heating up like it is in the Northern Hemisphere - most of my handmade clothes are sleeveless summer frocks, it seems. At any rate, at least I can make notes of the holes in my handmade wardrobe (as it were). I can't help feeling that my refashions are a bit of a cop-out... despite being very proud of some of my refashioning projects (like the lined 70s trench coat that I just shortened and replaced the buttons on. I think it looks great!).

I am also notoriously bad at taking photographs of my outfits (witness, my month of dressing like Peta Mathias in another of my ill-fated projects). I have one photograph from last week but its of a pretty basic refashion - this is a 70s polyester number on which I shortened the sleeves and skirt, as well as doing some remedial pilling work. Ugh, and the photo is terrible. And you can see my leopard-print snuggie thrown on the floor behind me *shakes head in shame*. And I totes need a haircut.

The elephant-in-the-room of this blog post (the blog post is in a room!) is my recent unexplained absence. Basically - the first two weeks I was just lazy and uninspired whenever I was at home (I have list of possible posts that I made on the train and during a particularly dull presentation - they're still good though so am fully intending to use those).

Then, the week and a half around my birthday in mid-March I felt terrible about myself and it took most of my energy to be a fairly normal functioning person in the day to day, and then I had glandular fever and was bed-bound and energy-less for about three weeks.

I've been back at work the last two weeks but when I get home I am tending towards more bed-reading-watching-Downton-Abbey-repeats-and-knitting-socks than blogging. I'm still unsure how I'm going to blog in the evenings given that I tend to be quite tired, but at present I'll just set myself the task of posting once a week and consider anything else as awesome extra. I'm just pleased that I feel like posting, so I'm just going to roll with that.

If you are a sewing person - are you taking part in Me Made May? Why/why not? If you aren't a sewing person - I am sorry for this blog post was probably mostly dull for you :(.

This February, I...

2013-03-03T19:07:00.001+13:00

✙ Took two weeks off work - and spent a week of that lazing about at home and enjoying myself with no pressure to go anywhere or do anything.

✙ Ate a crapload of summer fruit especially peaches, plums, apricots. Golden Queen peaches look terrible but taste amazing.

✙ Spent ten days in Golden Bay, my spiritual home, and became almost obscenely relaxed. I swam in the sea everyday and mostly stopped washing otherwise: it was heavenly.

✙ While in Golden Bay I went on an overnight kayaking trip and had a near death experience. On the afternoon of the first day, the wind and the swell picked up and the waves became so much bigger than I am confident with - the waves were breaking over the front of the kayak and I FREAKED OUT. When we arrived at our destination I recovered with half a bottle of wine while shaking from shock; but now I can't remember the fear and only how amazing the trip back was on the second day. I Overcame my Fear? Or at least Killed it with Wine?

✙ Drank a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin.

✙ Took my measurements properly, re-sized a couple of patterns and sewed two skirts - one a-line and one pencil - and another Scout Tee. The a-line skirt is not that great, but the pencil one was a spectacular success I feel.

✙ Read a heap of books: Caesar's Women (Colleen McCullouch), The Snowman (Jo Nesbø), The Paris Wife (Paula McLain), Going Out (Scarlett Thomas), The Dante Club (Matthew Pearl), The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho), The Subtle Knite (Philip Pullman), and the truly ghastly and stupid A Discovery of Witches (Deborah Harkness).

✙ Went to my first knit-night at Holland Road Yarn, where I was given permission by a fellow knitter to frog my thrice-cast on sweater and to admit defeat. "The yarn doesn't want to be that top." THE RELIEF IS SO GREAT.

✙ Washed my face with honey in the morning, cleansed using the oil cleansing method at night, and moisturised with a hand blended oil that included the epically stinky neem oil. Pretty happy with the results - have no immediate plans to turn back.

✙ Cast on a pair of merino-possum socks that I am enjoying knitting very much. Not a fancy pattern, but I'm not feeling too fancy at the moment so it's suiting me well.

✙ Had a spectacular meal with a group of friends that I regularly dinner-party with, and brought devils on horseback as my offering.

✙ Was fitted for contact lenses for the first time in the twenty-three years that I've worn glasses. Turns out I can't see that well with the particular contact lens prescription that I have which is disappointing. I'm hoping that we can sort that out at the next appointment I have BUT: it's fun to be able to see so much when applying my make up.

✙ PAID OFF ALL MY DEBTS AND FILLED IN THE DEBT UNICORN ONCE AND FOREVER.

It's timely! Let's reiterate it!

2013-02-01T20:07:00.000+13:00

Previous posts on this topic include Investigative Blogging: The Cup and an earlier "expose"

My best things for looking after my rosacea (or: all the food I put on my face)

2013-01-31T12:48:00.001+13:00

Having some success with getting my skin sorted at the moment, which is grand. I've been dosing up on a bunch of supplements and oils that were recommended to me years ago in my brief and abortive naturopath experience in Melbourne, and I've found that they've genuinely made a difference to the frequency of flair-ups and how quickly my face heals. Recently, Nat asked me about this, and given that I've done some experimenting (and continue to) I will Share. So generous.

So, my routine for my face is as at present:

Wash my face with Agg Tval Swedish Egg White soap, and periodically (i.e. when everything is hunky dory) a quick exfoliate with a diddy bit of baking soda
Tone with apple cider vinegar (1 part ACV to 3 parts water)
Moisturise with Weleda Almond Oil for sensitve skin
And then put on some decidedly non-natural sunscreen, because I need sunscreen and I haven't found a good 'natural' one yet

In terms of supplements:

Tbsp of ACV in water morning and night
3000mg fish oil
Single capsule EPO
And something called a "Hair and Nail" supplement, which contains magnesium and zinc - the zinc should help with healing
DRINKING ALL THE WATER

image from Daily Muse who was my first ACV as toner reference. *thanks profusely*

But the main thing is to AVOID - I had a flair-up this weekend because of drinking too much, not drinking enough water and getting sunburnt. Sunburnt is the worst thing ever. The thing to note though is that I've managed to get things under control in a matter of days because of the supplements et al above.

If I could boil it all down I would say: take lots of fish oil and drink more water. You need to drink more water. Oh and also: think sensitive skin if you're buying or making ANYTHING to put on your face, not oily skin kill it with salicylic acid and lots and lots of astringency and exfoliation die die die. *ahem*

At the moment I am also thinking of trying some new stuff out. Specifically, I'm interested to see if the Oil Cleansing Method and neem oil will make a difference to my skin. I've ordered a bunch of stuff from Go Native who are based in Auckland and were very understanding about combining my postage when I made two separate orders on the same day. I've also been obsessively reading Crunchy Betty, and am now basking in my skin after washing with manuka honey. Yes this is ridiculously expensive, HOWEVER we're periodically given honey by Shannon's cousin who is a beekeeper (apiarist) so there is that. Although he's now working in bars in Singapore so perhaps I should mediate my smugness somewhat.

So I have questions, if you have answers: have you tried/love/hate either the OCM or the washing-your-face-with-honey business? Do you have any tried and true tips for the legions of silent rosacea sufferers in the world, but especially me?

Can you even believe how much I have been sewing

2013-01-23T20:00:00.000+13:00

So, did you notice that I have been One Track Mind woman the last few weeks? I am, what I like to call "very all or nothing", and other people might like to call "freakishly obsessive". Apols if you came here for something non-sewing related.

So, Wellington Anniversary weekend this weekend past, and I made two tops, both of which rated as milestones in terms of my sewing development.

The first top is this camisole from the book One Piece of Fabric. I've had this book for a very long time but have re-discovered it (see also: Cowboy Print Culottes). It could be called the "all French seams all the time" book because of it's emphasis on those most delicious of seam finishes. My later attempts have been much better than my earlier ones because I have learnt the value of a. cutting out correctly and b. of ironing the fabric before I cut. I am not even joking.

I don't know if the camisole is particularly flattering on me, but i am awfully fond of the polka dot print, and it is also my first (and a not unsuccessful) attempt at shirring. I am extra proud of myself because I had to adjust the tension on my bobbin case, and not only did I do this effectively, but I also successfully changed the tension back. I had the worst bobbin tension fears the entire time I was shirring - as in, worrying that I would never be able to return the bobbin tension to its earlier, perfect state.

Thoughts about shirring:

Hey, so, it's a good idea if your shirring elastic matches the colour of your fabric. I used some shirring elastic that I'd been gifted, and it's pink. I thought this wouldn't be an issue and from a distance it's not really that noticeable - however, it's a little too obvious for my liking.
I've never really liked the look of shirring, but now that I can do it I think I want to shirr BASICALLY EVERYTHING.
Marking out your fabric before you start is totes key.

Top numero duo is my first attempt at the Scout Woven Tee.

I was very conscientious when it came to cutting out this pattern, but I still don't think I measured my bust correctly because the top is a bit too big. In future I will make it a size down, or resize in the shoulders at the very least. In saying that, the tee is completely wearable.

Thoughts about this pattern/make:

Could you be easier to sew, Scout Woven Tee? No you could not.
My first attempt at setting sleeves! Room for improvement (the sleeves are slightly gathered for insertion, and I over-gathered, very slightly on one side), but I really like the way the sleeve caps sit up a tiny bit, and I am very proud of myself for the insertion full stop.
I think I stretched out the neck a little while I was sewing on the bias binding, because it doesn't sit quite flat. Next time, I will not pull quite as much.
Finally, either the fabric is hideous or the top very well made, because nobody commented on it when I wore it out for lunch. And in my experience, people will comment on obvious makes.
A++ Would Make Again.

Incidentally, this brings my yearly clothing tally up to

Made: five (I've also made over two unwearable skirts into culottes since the beginning of the year)
Bought new: three
Op-shopped: zilch

Frock from a bed sheet

2013-01-22T18:30:00.001+13:00

I made this summer frock during the in-betweenie time, and completely forgot about it - because it was in the wash due to my inordinate love for the dress.

It's made of an old bed sheet that I picked up while op-shopping last year - a delightful brown gingham print bed sheet. The sheet had a white trim which I re-purposed as the band at the bottom of the dress. I think the band breaks up the relentless brown check of the dress quite nicely, and it also saved me having to hem! Luckily I had already shortened the skirt on the pattern, as this made working out the skirt length a helluva lot easier.

The pattern is this terribly 80s - Style 4353. I was not put off by the terrible poutiness of main model or the freaky length of the dress, however. In fact, this was my second attempt at this dress: my earlier version was in a knit rather than the woven that is SPECIFIED by the pattern. Apparently I must learn by my mistakes.

The pattern:

And the finished product.

Can we just agree, infinitely better than super pouty 80s lady above.

Thoughts on this pattern/make:

In future I would hem the sleeves very simply - on this version I used very narrow hems, and this, along with the heaviness of the fabric, means that the sleeve hem cuts into my arm a bit: less than Ideal.
I could defo get away with making this a tiny bit bigger if I'm making it in heavy fabrics.
I could probably re-shape the sleeves, although I quite like how low they're cut under the arm (Crystal-wearing lady over here - less opportunities for sweating onto the dress the better).
I'm stoked with my darts and with my zip insertion, and on how well I did the gathers and attached the dress to the bodice. So, you know, most things. Also, my facing is deliciously great, and overlocking the facing edges gave a much neater finish.
In conclusion: A++ Would Make Again. Albeit perhaps in a softer drape fabric.

Have you ever remade an 80s pattern, or made over a super 80s dress so that its more *ahem* contemporarily styled? I have some other 80s patterns of which I think I might do a remake, and I love me some inspo.

Visitors and a Martinborough mini-break

2013-01-13T18:07:00.001+13:00

January is a sad-glad month for me. Usually, over the Christmas and New Years period, a bunch of friends come home to visit home (their parents and families) and I get in on the action. It's great to see them again but enjoying them so much makes me realise how dreadfully I miss them for the rest of the year!

This summer brought a bumper crop of visitors - including the family I mentioned in the last post - Bex, her partner Sebastien and their son Julian. It was super great having them stay with us, and it's really nice to be able to play host to people without having to worry about flatmate etiquette. Julian is a year old and he was a star, definitely the kind of baby that makes you think "oh... it wouldn't be so bad...", even though he was a bit crotchetty from all the travel.

The family left on Thursday, and Shannon and I went across to Martinborough with a group of friends for the weekend, getting back at about midday today (Sunday). We stayed in a super lovely house in the middle of a vineyard, ate a great deal, and spent the evenings drinking and staring at the stars. Everyone else saw approximately one billion million shooting stars and I saw none, and I took no photographs whatsoever of the entire weekend which I'm sure makes me the world's worst blogger.

On Saturday day the associated menfolk took themselves to a golf course and spent the entire day ruining a good walk; we the ladyfolk drank coffee, lunched at a vineyard, went to a PRETTY FREAKING AWESOME VINTAGE STORE, swam in the river and came home via the ice-cream shop. While in Martinborough we looked at all the giftish shops which were full of things that were very nice, but not quite nice enough to buy (sometimes I am scared at the quantities of (designer) dross in the world).The sun was lovely and the wind infinitely ignorable so I feel that we definitely won on the weather front.

I went totes nuts in the vintage shop which had a veritable plethora of knitting and sewing supplies, including quite a lot of vintage trim, buttons and the like. There was no fabric or patterns about which made me feel simultaneously full of sadness and deeply, deeply relieved. My stash also thanks me - while it's nowhere near as extensive as it could be, I am hoping to be increasingly stash-less and try and buy for patterns as I go. I am so frustrated with having not quite enough fabric to make any one thing at any time.*

My haul!: I bought a bunch of transfers and trims from the vintage shop:

I'm planning to use the bigger transfers (they're a bit smaller than A4 sized) on baby blankets etc. The transfers in the book are intended for embroidery and are 1940s/50s I think - I LOVE them. I think it would be awesome to embroider them on a super simple t-shirt - something like the Sewaholic Renfrew or the Grainline Scout Woven Tee (which I've actually just ordered). The trim is quite hard to see in this picture - I bought about a metre of navy/white/red rick-rack, and some kind of bizarro Oroton-mesh style metallic ribbon which is edged in white crochet. I think this would look great inserted into the shoulder seams of a simple raglan sleeved top.

With all these plans, I am rather itching to get started - I am sitting in my sewing room right now, but it's still missing most of my crafty bits as I'm expecting my favourite family to come through again on their way back up the country. Having emptied the room, I've had a chance to think about how I'd like to set it out.... I know that things aren't ideal right now, but I think for optimum awesome room-ness I will have to buy some additional furniture. I like the idea of having cubby holes for my fabric and yarn stashes, and perhaps i would be able to store my sewing machines on my desk if I gave up my second computer screen which I'm not really using at all. I'll have to have a think and maybe a perve at some other people's sewing rooms for inspiration.

I'm trying to soothe my sewing desires by knitting myself a top: this one, from Purl Soho. I tell you though, when you're on a sewing kick, knitting just isn't the same. Going to stop drooling at patterns and dreaming about what to sew next, and sit myself down to some knitting for half an hour or so.

*Vintage fabrics are, of course, totally exempt from this rule, due to my lack of self-control in this department.**

**the moment I wrote this I found fabric to buy on Trade Me [help me I have a problem].

Two successful re-fashioning projects

2013-01-06T18:23:00.001+13:00

I've withdrawn from my sewing room for the time being as it doubles as the spare room and I'm expecting Bex and family to stay vairy soooon. While I'm super looking forward to the Family staying, I am saaaaaaddddd to vacate my awesome room. I have plans to swap things up a bit - on the cheap, of course - once I've banished the Debt Unicorn. I especially like the idea of cubby holes with all my fabric and potential re-fashioning bits and pieces neatly rolled up and stacked so that I can have all the potential at my fingertips. Also: huge jars of buttons and thread (I inherited a huge bag of thread in assorted colours and it's too pretty to hide away, I think).

The point being - last night was my last chance to get on the sewing machine before I packed everything up, and I didn't want to get myself embroiled in a big sewing project (like the epic pencil skirt that I'm intending to make). So, inspired by two recent-find blogs (Refashionista and Cotton & Curls) I did some re-fashioning instead - cut up some old clothes and made them exponentially more fabulous.

The first is a sleeveless sort of peplum-shirt-top that I've refashioned out of a man's shirt. Mostly I followed the tutorial given by Liz on Cotton & Curls to the letter, but I was a bit confused about the sleeves. In the end I cut them a bit bigger that I'd intended, so had to insert darts under the arms to prevent gaping and then just finished the sleeves with a simple narrow hem. Easy!

The second top was a re-refashion of one of two shirts that Shannon had made in India (thus: years ago). The fabric is AWESOME, but because he didn't specify the kind of collar he wanted, both shirts were made with collars that were too Seventies for his needs. I did a pretty shonky remake of this shirt a year or so back but I was never happy with how it worked out - mostly because I cut the neck too wide and the straps never stayed on my shoulders. Last night, though, I was inspired! I took the top in through the back on an angle - narrower across the shoulders and then wider through the rest of the back to make it sort of triangular in shape. I added in a few pleats across the neckline to stop any gaping, and then recut the hemline of the shirt. I stuffed this up - it was supposed to be longer in the front and shorter on the sides (like a man's shirt) but I had the sewing fever at this point and had also drunk a couple of gins. No matter - I'm much happier with the way that it looks now.

Finally - not a re-fashioning project but - I'm super into the way my hair looks after I swum in the sea yesterday evening, so I've made myself some salt spray for my hair. All the recipes I looked at had things like conditioner in them, but given that I use apple cider vinegar for conditioner, I didn't think that'd be much good (also I would smell even more like vinegar all the time?). So, I've fudged it a bit - used water, sea salt, extra-virgin olive oil and some 'organic setting lotion' that I used to do wet sets with when my hair was longer. Feeling pretty good about it at the moment, but I just added it to my already-salty hair, so that's somewhat misleading. I think salt spray is the answer to my current hair woes so I'm feeling pretty hopeful.

in-betweenie

2013-01-04T14:09:00.001+13:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (belatedly). I started back at work on the third day of the year, and the office was like a ghost town: behold the tumble weeds.

Achievements on the first week of work include: creating inbox zero in both my personal and work accounts; emptying out my downloads folder; and creating a "welcome back to work" poster in which I hand crafted decorative pennant flags in PhotoShop. Achievement ++!

Given that I've definitely already started my year, it may seem a bit strange that I'm still mulling over the beginning of the year Feelings of Potential and Enthusiasm for What Is To Come. But I do! It's from catching up on all those other blogs.

Firstly, I am making lists of things I want to do or do more regularly. My resolutions for this year have their own star chart: I'm working month by month which means I can add, subtract and edit my goals as I go along. This is totally cadged from CrazyAuntPurl. January looks like:

Yoga twice a week
Floss every night
Sixty minute declutter weekly
Blog once a week

As well as listing decluttering as a weekly goal, I'm also undertaking a nice New Year's purge. So far I've had a go at my books and underwear drawer, but I still have plenty of other cluttered spaces to keep me interested - my wardrobe and dresser, and also I need to do something about all the crap on my shelf in the bathroom, the majority of which I haven't used in forevs and that probably break all rules pertaining to the shelf life of cosmetics.

One of my plans this year is to keep a tally of the clothes that I've made, any clothes I've bought new, and any clothes I've bought second hand. This will be my dressing-ratio, and I'm hoping that it will trend towards more sewing. Thus far, if we keep the tally strict from 1 January onwards I am 1:3:0, which breaks down to:

Made: cowboy-print culottes
Bought new: three cotton singlets
Op-shopped: nada

(If we start the tally from after Christmas and thus, including the in-betweenie time, I can also add that I've made a skirt and a fabulous vintagey portrait top from Gertie's new book (as in Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing). This changes my ration to a more respectable 3:3:0. But behold my honesty).

Mostly, this year, I'd just like nothing spectacularly awful to happen. 2012 had a big dollop of crap right in the middle of it that adversely impacted my plans to make my thirtieth year the Best Year Ever (although I still have a few months to improve that).

However, I know this year is going to be better. I'm totally going to colour in that pesky Debt Unicorn in it's entirety. And then I'm going to start a Holiday Savings Unicorn and finally get to all the awesome places that I've idealised, romanticised and fantasised about. I have an awesome partner who I'm lucky enough to be blissed out with everyday. I have bookshelves and an e-reader full of books, maintain a fairly good balance between having too many and not enough Things, and eat stupidly well. As always, there are things I can change and tweak and move towards improving.

But you know, baby steps.

This weekend

2012-12-16T17:03:00.001+13:00

Sewing

I read a blog post on Tilly and the Buttons, reporting back on some kind of online sewing-geek discussion where someone had introduced the concept of setting aside (or finding) just fifteen minutes each day for sewing. Finding time to sew is defo proving to be a problem, so this idea was exceptionally timely and appealing. This weekend I finally FOUND that fifteen minutes, and made myself one of my tunic tops out of some remnant fabric that I picked up at Arthur Toye's for $5.

Bit difficult to tell here but the stripe is navy blue and white. I ran out of fabric for the back, which necessitated as substitution and meant I did something even better - making the back panel from a leftover piece of fine white silk/cotton. The top took longer than fifteen minutes to make but because I'd let myself have that little amount of time, I actually managed to sew, for the first time in weeks! I also have plans for some new skirts. I'll make fifteen minutes to start those some time this week.

Baking

Christmas mince pies! The mincemeat is leftover from last year (!) but given that it is entirely preserved in oodles of booze and has been living in various fridges throughout its lifetime, I'm taking the risk and rolling with it. I had Ange and her daughter Bluebell over for afternoon tea and plied them with the pies; I think that Bluebell maybe ate three altogether? Which isn't bad for someone with a single tooth. Every mince pie convert is a-ok as far as I'm concerned.

I also made some chocolate butter cookies from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. Great book incidentally - and extra good because I actually tend to have most of the ingredients. Not in love with the cookies themselves so much, but Shannon was a fan - I figure probably because they're simple and straightforward. Like him.

Looking at the pics on the blog, I think half the issue is that I didn't roll out my dough thick enough. Will try again next time.

My sewing room/office/library

This didn't happen this weekend but I'm still kind of settling in the new space- which makes it new and exciting ALL THE TIME. Gloriously, I have a room that's completely set aside for MEEEEE and my projects, and (because we have no cupboards of any kind) all the linen. I'm going to make it amazing before I share pictures though (I tried to take a photo before but OMG embarrassment, that will not pass any Pintrest tests).

What I've learnt from Anne of Green Gables

2012-11-26T20:51:00.000+13:00

This winter I've read an awful lot of Anne books (as in Anne of Green Gables). I've sadly almost re-read the whole lot despite trying to string them out between other books - I wish that I could string them out forever and ever.

I remember being completely obsessed with Anne at primary school - for a few months I would had a couple of the books going at the same time, one by my bed at home and one in my school desk. I have a distinct memory of not noticing when my teacher (Mr Alder?) called the end of SSR* until a good half hour afterwards, because I was so engrossed in Anne's adventures. Anne was the epitome of 'heroine' for me at the time: I read Little Women at around the same age but the Marchbanks girls were never any kind of match for the glory that was Anne. As for the Sweet Valley High and Babysitters' Club series - bitch please.

So no doubt at all that I thought she was fabulous, idolised Anne, loved the books and the character - but I had no idea that so much of my life has been informed by a "wanting to be Anne".

Some of these wantings have no secret in their origins and are of the nature of family jokes: an obsession with red-hair and freckles and puffed sleeves for example. And some things I always recognised as Anne-originating, like the constant seeking of "kindred spirits" when I was a wee girl and also a vague recollection of trying to name various sites in Whitby with appropriately romantic names (I never remember any of those sticking in that most un-romantic of places). The boy I had a crush on in primary school was in my imagination very much a Gilbert Blythe (was it the relentless teasing??).

However, I am shocked and horrified that my long-term obsession with attic or garret bedrooms was an Anne thing, because I was sure that was All Me. I'd forgotten how betrayed and confused Anne felt when Diana started her relationship with Fred, and in that I recognised my own reactions to my friend's relationships with boys when I was a similar age (losing the kindred spirit etc). It's almost as though this memory of the books and the character of Anne are no longer conscious but rather something molecular. There's almost too much in which I recognise myself - and sometimes it's more evocative than something I can itemise.

I'm a bit freaked out how much LM Montgomery has constructed my character.

Oh but SO many good quotes. If I was designy I could make them pretty and pin them on Pintrest.

It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy thing sif you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of course, you must make it up FIRMLY. - Chapter V, Anne of Green Gables.

"Oh Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them", exclamed Anne. "You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them." Chapter XIII, Anne of Green Gables.

"... When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought i could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does." Chapter XXXVIII, Anne of Green Gables.

"... Don't you know it's only very foolish folk who talk sense all the time?" Chapter XVIII, Anne of Avonlea.

"A flattering looking glass is a promoter of amiability" Chapter XIX, Anne of the Island.

"... I really have learned to look upon each little hindrance as a jest and each great one as the foreshadowing of victory." Chapter XXXVII, Anne of the Island.

Also: I've noticed that the Gilmore Girls and the island/Avonlea of Anne seem to have very similar communities, and both texts have the same sort of tone despite being set roughly 100 years apart. Does anybody else have any thoughts about this? Is it the molecular memory of Anne (!) that lead me to my love of GG?

Also: you have noted no discussion of the TV series? That's because I never liked the girl who played Anne, she didn't seem right at all. Something about her nose.

*Sustained Silent Ready, which is you know, sitting around reading, but with a fancy acronym.

Staycation week

2012-09-22T16:08:00.001+12:00

Today is Saturday; I've been on Staycation since Monday (or indeed, Saturday last week, if weekends are counted when considering annual leave). I took a weeks' annual leave in an effort to get some sleep, some rest, and to re-route my sanity which was somewhere quite far west of where I am currently residing.

The hands down best thing about the Staycation is that I didn't have anything planned at all, although I organised my annual leave so that it coincided with Shannon's. We could say, in terms of my plans, that I'd intended to be Chilling with my Dawg. Yep, indeed, we be chillin' (and watching a million* episodes of the Wire**).

TV series consumed in mass quantities:

The Wire Series 4

True Blood Series 1 and 2 (a solo pleasure; also hands down some of the silliest television I have ever watched)

The Sopranos Series 6

I love reading about characters/actors/series on Wikipedia but I have the worst habit of reading in advance of the episode that I am currently watching; read - spoiling it for myself. (Warning! This episode synopsis contains spoilers!)

I was the worst at this when I decided I wanted to 'check up on something' in True Blood and then found out about the shape-shifting guy waaaaay too early on in the piece. No more Wikipedia checking on True Blood for me. Wikipedia is the reason I never finished watching the second series of Twin Peaks.

Let's over-analyse this impulse: is it because I hate surprises? Can this spoilering-impulse be twinned to my reasons for favouring TV dramatisations of classic novels over watching 'real' movies? And why I re-read/re-watch? Is it the fear of the unknown...? Do I constantly crave safety in my entertainment life in order to make up for the uncertainty in my life-life? Thoughts?

Staycation Cooking

Staycation cooking has involved filling the freezer (in the days when we lived with flatmates it would have involved more baking; as it is, Shannon tends to eat what ever is in the tins so slowly that it goes stale before it's all been eaten , and I have the inverse problem: namely, EAT ALL THE CAKE).

I made Budget Bytes' black bean quesadillas and roasted vege burritos and the shelves in my freezer look exceptionally happy. (Related: I cannot roll burritos.) I am SO excited to go back to work and eat delicious black bean tortilla things for lunch.

Lots of free time has also mean reading a heap of blogs. Hence Smitten Kitchen's (/Ottolenghi's) baked orzo with eggplant and mozzarella, and blackberry and apple loaf as posted by Bex. I made this into a cake because I have no loaf tin, and with blueberries and lemons because that's what I had lying around. And in an effort to avoid the stale/eat all the cake issues: lots of this cake has been moved around Petone, to Nat and Mark, and to a fabrication workshop that let Shannon use their big presses. Giving baking to other people is pretty great.

Final food efforts: chicken stock, slow-cooking dried pulses and then freezing them, brioche in the bread maker (the hugest loaf ever) and baked oatmeal - the Super Natural Every Day recipe. Incidentally, the baked oatmeal is also killer for dessert.

It was my turn to cook yesterday evening and - you might be surprised to discover - I had cooking fatigue. Something simple with tofu for dinner tonight.

Wellington is getting that "good-looking spring"-thing

Wednesday Shannon and I went to Eastbourne and walked around in the sunshine and wind, and ate weird-but-good sandwiches. I threw pebbles at large logs (and repeatedly missed). Shannon picked up dead botanical things and what he thought was an abandoned sea-animal skin. The beach we were on (on the way to Pencarrow Lighthouse) is gloriously barren and windswept and there was no-one around.

Eastbourne bus terminal is pretty cute. Art deco?

I have only three more days before I go back to work. Yesterday I watched a crazy huge amount of television (in an effort not to deal with something annoying) so I suspect that if I've got to that point it's probably time to go back to work and do something insanely productive. Like update web pages.

*hyperbole

**Also, I've recently read (and re-read) this article about the top 25 outdated rap slang words. I still have no idea what 'chickenhead' means.