I’m gonna meet you on the astral plane, The astral plane or I’ll go insane

I’ve never been huge on dogs, mostly because I was bitten by a huge one (unprovoked!) as a kid, and I still have the scar to show for it. But lately, I keep finding dogs really cute, and even entertain the idea of having one in the far off future. Maybe. I’m not a leopard, so I can change my spots.

Yesterday we went over to an old family friends’ place for a barbecue, where Liv and I visited our old pal, a cute dog called Penny. He’s only a couple of years younger than Liv, which makes him ancient in dog years, and it was very visible from the way he had difficulty walking, as well as his overall laziness. It just made me so, so sad, and dread the day where our cat gets that old too… I remember when he used to be such an energetic little dog that we couldn’t calm down and he would run and yap and yelp all the time – where as now we had trouble attracting his attention, even with food! Anyway, here’s Penny in all his cute glory, my oldest friend in New Zealand.

Of course, I couldn’t do a dog post without posting our cute cat as well. A couple of hours ago, we found him curled up in Liv’s suitcase and we immediately gushed over his cuteness and whipped our cameras out. However, by the time my sister’s rear end got our of my way for me to snap a few of him, she had already pissed him off thoroughly – with constant flashing in his eyes and calling his name – that he simply wasn’t in a cutesy sleepy mood anymore, and was just purely unimpressed. Luckily for him, I don’t use flash. We’re going on a little trip up north for a couple of nights, so this affectionate chappy will hopefully not miss us tooo much!

On late nights like these where I sit here or in bed and write and write, I wonder if I should be doing something more productive such as sleeping. I love sleeping, but evidently never in the “correct” hours of the day. I glance at the time and tell myself “you’ll regret this tomorrow”, and I mostly do, but there is something just so satisfying with having this time to myself. As if not only the whole house (yes, cat included), but the whole world was asleep, and this time was just between me and my mind. Asides from feeling the most creative or mentally productive at these hours, I’m also often the most upset and depressed. It’s when my problems I can distract myself from all day can no longer escape my consciousness. So I transcribe such things into words. And wonder to myself – is this stuff ever worth reading?

I finally grew a little bit of courage and started the momentous task of writing a novella/novel-type thing. The main problem I have is, I’m not sure how to set the timeline and in which order to do it, because it’s like a back and forth flashback/present-day thing. Why couldn’t I have made this easier for myself?! Hopefully spending the next couple of days away in the countryside relaxing on the beach will suss my mind out. I take and handle things too personally.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” e. e. cummings

Does the body rule the mind, Or does the mind rule the body? But we cannot cling to the old dreams anymore, For there are brighter sides to life

HAPPY 2011 EVERYONE!!!

I can’t even begin to describe how refreshing it is to feel like I have a really nice and refreshing new start. I’m happily crossing things off to-do lists and today I gave my room a thorough tidy-up, as well as slept in new sheets last night on the first night of 2011. This is going to be a much better year than last. I know every other person is probably saying that, but considering the amount of crap I went through last year, I’m determined and excited for this to be true.

The highlight of my day today was remembering that I had bought a lotto ticket from my friend Sinead at the supermarket yesterday, and deciding to check the numbers online… and it turns out that I had a Division 4 Bonus Ball win, which equals $60 for me! Yusssss. See – looking like a fantastic start to the year already. My sister and I had slightly misread the results online and almost thought I might have won a bit more, but sixty bucks redeemed at Charlotte’s workplace suits me just fine. Isn’t it just handy to have two best friends work at Lotto outlets? I rarely buy lotto tickets and like to save them for special occasions, so I thought, heck, it’s 1.1.11, it can’t hurt!

My quote of the moment: “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.” – Emily Dickinson

Here are some photos from my New Year’s Eve Yard Party – only a handful of them were taken by me, before inebriation, haha. The rest were taken by my sister and apparently my friend Veronique was the one who took gazillions of photos of the red cups and beer pong in progress:

The conception of the brilliant beer pong table came about when I agreed to let Ethan bring his friend Curtis along to my party. I also asked him in the same txt whether he had a long enough table suitable for beer pong or not, and he said he didn’t – but that they would build one! A bit skeptical, I asked how serious they were – to which Ethan replied “His dad’s a builder, he’s an architect [student] and I’m an engineer[ing student], between us, we’ve definitely got it down” – and that they did! Apparently they modeled the colours and “BMS” off “Blue Mountain State”, but it just so happens to also be Liv’s school colours at Pepperdine, haha.

That rude person’s photo-bombing hand is mine, I’m a bit embarrassed to say. And I really don’t look too great a few seconds later in that photo to the right. Also, I believe that magenta sheer blouse which I was wearing is the only pink item of clothing that I own! Bought it on new year’s eve for $20 on sale. It matched my lipstick, you see…

Here are some shots from a bit earlier on… when we looked fresher. The one on the left below is of Cara, Charlotte and Veronique, on my bed.

In the second photo down from this, we are doing tequila shots. I got told that my mum took this photo, but I’m not sure how true this is… I want my hair a bit longer!

The morning after and pancakes my sister made. Unfortunately, I turned it down for bacon and eggs that I whipped up instead.

Also, I’ve got a bunch of directions I’d like to head in, and things I’d like to accomplish this year, but I still think that new year’s resolutions are just not for me. I often read other people’s ones, and it just seems like such an overhead, umbrella sort of thing to do – not to mention the fact that I hate making goals. I know that goal-setting is a healthy thing to do, blah blah (enough teachers and parents have told me that), but I like things to be vague. In a way, because it feels like such a disappointment if I can’t meet them, but also as if I’m setting a limit as to what I’m going to do.

So, no new year’s resolutions for me, just badass, kickass time.

Oh, one last thing – I finally put up photos from the Viper Room last month. Click here and here!

She has black hair and small hands, And I have a red kite; I’ll put you right in it, I’ll show you the sky

Mmm, what better blog post to end the year with than one filled with scrumptious food that makes you go for seconds, thirds, and then confess of the agony of over-indulgence? Although, for some reason I am writing this blog post at 6am (very reflective of how I’ve been living December…) so I’ll just keep this short and sweet.

Last night something came over me and I announced – much to my family’s delight – that I was going to whip up dinner for the evening. I know that sounds like nothing at all, and a lot of families take turns with cooking, but in our household, it’s a big deal when Amanda cooks. Especially voluntarily. I rarely cook, and I avoid the kitchen as much as possible, preferring instead to enjoy the fruits of my mother or sister’s kitchenly labour (yes, I made that word up – I could have said “culinary labour” but I didn’t want to!) because they both cook amazingly. The only times I will usually cook is when I have to, such as when I’m home alone or when my mum is too tired to cook.

Anyway, being the ambitious, thrill-seeking person that I am, I decided to aim high and announced that I was going to cook up a risotto.  Now, everyone knows how much hard work risotto is, but how worthwhile the outcome is, so that’s why I picked it. Also, mum and Liv have been talking about wanting risotto for quite some time, and I thought, hell, this Jamie Oliver recipe book is going to teach me how to cook! In reality though, I didn’t really follow the recipe (I never do), and kind of made stuff up as I went. Apart from staples like steak and lasagne, I’ve never cooked the same thing twice, because I literally throw together what is available at the time, and make up weird combinations of things. Luckily for the family, this time I avoided lemon (which I usually use a lot of) and mint, and threw together something more normal-sounding. I decided to whip up three dishes, as I needed some more kitchen drama to keep me busy whilst stirring risotto; and I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with my miraculous ability to finish cooking them all at the same time:

There was a tray of meatballs with basil, black pepper and parmesan, baked in tomato-y sauce which I didn’t get a decent photo of, but that was dish #1.

Dish #2 was chicken with spinach and capsicum, which I cooked in hot, delicious butter.

And #3, the most important thing being the risotto (spinach and onion). To be honest, about ten minutes into cooking this, I started freaking out that it wasn’t going to work out, and that I would let everyone down. But I’m glad I didn’t! The only let down was that I forgot to put mushrooms in the risotto, but we ate so much of it so fast that we hardly had time to notice.

I think that’s my cooking quota for the next 3-6 months fulfilled, thanks, haha.

I hope everyone has a good and safe New Years and I will see you next year! What are your exciting celebratory plans for New Years Eve?

Oh what are the chances – you think you wont sink, oh what are the chances – I think what you think?

Who would ever notice how much they used their right thumb? I never did – until earlier to night when I gave myself a burn blister from the misuse of a lighter. At the time, I said that the pain it caused me was more than that of when I got my industrial piercing last month (and trust me, that hurt like a bitch); but in hindsight, I think the only reason it felt like it hurt more was the fact that it was such prolonged pain, emitting from such a small area. Why was I playing with a lighter indoors to begin with? Well, I had received a wax seal stamp for Christmas and was just dying to try it out. It might sound like a completely random present to a lot of people, but I actually write a number of handwritten letters and have been wanting one for ages so despite the fact that my sister had rather ruined the surprise for me last week, I was still delighted today.

I had to resort to using a candle to help melt the wax in the end, but I also left a bit of a mess on the envelope from where the candle’s wax wanted to interfere. Here is the final product, sealing a letter to a very good friend who is now living/studying overseas:

For some reason here, you can’t see the line of the flap of the envelope, but I swear this wax seal isn’t just sitting on a blank piece of paper!

Pavlova and strawberries for dessert was scrumptious. I really ought to stop pigging out, but Christmas makes for such an easy excuse.

How bad do I sound, admitting that I am over the moon about how overcast and almost (if not? I don’t remember) rainy the weather was today, on Christmas Day. It just gave me a really guilt-free excuse to snooze on and off all day, lounge around with my favourite people and unfortunately also over-eat. I’m just proud I haven’t been doing any drinking, haha.

I’m not sure why, when nor how the tradition began, but for some reason, at our household we have our “Christmas feast” on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. Whenever friends enquire and comment about the absurdity of it, I just say that it means the kitchen is calmer on Christmas Day and we just spend the day indulging in the plentiful leftovers from the previous night. My mum is an excellent cook and Christmas is no exception. We had turkey that was covered in bacon strips, which came out superbly crispy – my favourite texture for bacon. Being so good at roasting things, mum made sure that the turkey was perfectly well done, but retained all of its juiciness. She even made me take pictures as I was cutting it up for proof of its moisture! The vegetables were roasted along with the turkey, giving everything that delicious taste and smell. I’m not a fan of oysters but I did try one, thinking that perhaps I’d prefer them cooked rather than the raw ones I’ve tried, although it didn’t change my mind about them at all. However, what I did thoroughly enjoy was the melted cheese and sauce that mum had topped it with – there was even some leftover sauce in the pan that I ended up using as a sort of gravy on the turkey.

Snowflake had been well fed with Whiskas tin food, which mum especially picked out a turkey flavoured tin of, so for once he was looking rather dozy and disinterested rather than attempting to hijack our dinner table. There have been a couple of incidents in the past where he has actually caught us off guard, with our backs turned, and stolen meat off the table!

Being such a night owl, a personal downside of mine towards having Christmas during summer time is how late the sun sets – tonight it set well past nine o’clock, and we have to wait until it’s well late to turn the Christmas lights on. I know it’s energy conserving and all, but I just love fairy lights so much that they’re a permanent fixture in my bedroom, even. Maybe I’ll take pictures of this at some point.

Dinner was then followed by a dessert of blueberry cheesecake. My hasty photos don’t really do the cake much justice because I was more preoccupied with the notion of getting to eat it, but Lottie can attest to how amazing it was. I told her today when she had a slice that she never should have turned it down last time, and I don’t think she ever will again!

Anyway, I’m just rambling and rambling about food in an uncohesive manner, I’ll just let your visual imaginations take over and get into bed to do some more reading.

Hope everyone had a lovely and safe Christmas.

Now i’ve got you in the undertow, nobody ever has to find out what’s in my mind tonight

The last time I had my hands on a waterproof camera was on a school snorkeling trip about 7 years ago, so needless to say, when I discovered that my friend Jason’s digital camera was waterproof, I was beyond ecstatic. Today we had our hockey team swim/barbecue night at Jase and Sam’s house, but most people had work during the day and didn’t make it until dinner time. The weather’s been overcast and raining for most of the week now, but just as it didn’t deter us from playing hockey (and winning the huge meat pack that we ate tonight!), it didn’t deter us from leaping into their pool. I discovered today that I look really retarded underwater, and as usual, I’m the one with the red nails pulling faces, haha:

It was a shame that a few people on our team couldn’t make it, because we ended up having difficulty finishing the food. The end of the recession must have dawned upon us – or at least the hockey department of things – because our meat pack prize was at least twice as big as last year’s!

Salad we whipped up. You can’t see from this angle, but it was a bloody huge salad.

The winners’ meal. Grins. A lot of them.

We ended up playing an intense of Monopoly after dinner – the first time I’ve touched it in years! – which resulted in a lot of haggling and yelling and just utter chaos, really. Good fun.

Strawberries mum bought from the strawberry farm out in Clevedon – best in town. Seriously.

There’s a lot of stuff on my mind right now but I’m simply too tired to formulate them into words right now. Also, I “finished” my painting from the other day. And by that I mean I’ve run out of ideas of what else to add on top of it – photos soon. Another thing that’s possibly coming soon is a “jewelry I wear” post, because someone requested it on formspring. I don’t know if/when I’ll get around to this though, because it kind of seems a little narcissistic and showy?

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