The Forgotten Weeks

I've been slacking when it comes to blog posts lately. Here's a run-down of the past weeks' adventures:

1. Attended BarCamp Auckland 2 on Saturday, July 12. It's a mini, one-day web conference for web geeks. No, it's not a LAN party, like some of my friends thought. That's just WAY too geeky.


2. Went to 2 films at the Auckland Film Festival - Be Kind Rewind with Jack Black and Mos Def, and Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Be Kind Rewind was awesome, Gonzo wasn't as good as we had hoped.


3. We started playing netball - we're called The Nomads. We play on Thursday evenings. We're crap, but it's fun. Lost both games so far. Oh well.


4. I started my Cast Glass Class on Tuesday. It's really fun. When I get my first casting out of the kiln, I'll definitely post pictures.


5. I've lost a total of 2kg since the end of May. Not fast enough of my liking since I have another 10kg to go. REALLY looking forward to summer. I've been doing Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred workout video. I'm FINALLY on level 3, but it's kicked my ass pretty good. It's a 25 minute work out, but holy crap it's a good one. (3 workouts, one video)


6. Bought a white 1992 Honda Civic last Sunday. It's cute. It smells inside, but I'm trying to solve that problem with baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, and anything else I can get my hands on. Anyone have solutions to a smelly car problem?


7. Went for a hike at Muriwai Beach one Sunday afternoon. That was GORGEOUS even though we were only there an hour.


8. Today is supposed to be the storm of the century.... but Travis thinks they're crying wolf. It's rained for about 5 hours straight so far, but there aren't 100km winds like they were predicting. However, in the 10 minutes since I wrote that last sentence, the wind has picked up SIGNIFICANTLY, and there have been gusts up to, I'd say, about 50-60km/hr. Just gusts, though... I guess one gust is all you need to uproot a tree and knock out a power line.


9. Travis attended a Pohiri at the Marae on Wednesday. He would have to explain what that is because I wasn't there and don't know what was involved.


10. Travis started his own blog for his research projects.


11. Both of us got new, spiffy business cards


12. I tried a herbal detox cleanse... you know, kidney, liver, bowel cleanse with pills and powders and crap. Well, I detoxed myself right into a nasty cold, and I'm still getting over the cold. I did 5 days of the cleanse.... then I stopped. I'll do the other 2 days some other time, when I've recovered from my icky cold.

Things to look forward to in the next few weeks:

• More cast glass class


• More netball games


• More jogging/working out for Amy to lose another 10kg


• Travis going back to Canada for a month :(


• Watching The Dark Knight at the IMAX

SO COLD

Right now it's 8 degrees and raining outside, and it's about 13 degrees inside. BOO. Travis has the space heater at his office, still. A lot of good it does there when I'm freezing my ass off in here. I'm wearing a toque, wool socks, BIG wool sock/slippers, tank top, wool sweater with hood, scarf and jeans. And two blankets (I'm working on the couch). Brrrrrrrrrr.



I'm working in town today - at the "Upper Queen Residence", and I've attempted to block out the draft with our draft-blocker thingy.... long plush lion. Anywhoo, I just received my merino wool hand/arm warmers in the mail today - I ordered them online - and it's so much more comfortable to work. I've gotta break them in, yet. I don't quite have the keyboard span I used to without them on. Oh well. My hands are warmer.

The Christmas party was a success, in my opinion. Lots of food, lots of drink, lots of laughs, and lots of really disgusting conversation. We kept coming back to really hideous topics... but we played games and opened gifts and a good time was had by all... at least that's what they told the hostess. ;)

Travis is busy working today after some busy days last week and a fairly relaxing weekend. I'm also busy working, but taking a break to write this post to describe how stupidly freezing I am.

Weekend full of Baking and Stuff

I made food for our upcoming Christmas in July party. Saturday was the shopping day, and Sunday was the "prepare the food" day.

I made the following:
Perogies (potato, cheese and onion, of course)
Inhaler Buns (grandma's recipe)
Cinnamon Buns
Nanaimo Bars

Just call me Baba Amy

Perogies. The first batch I made on Saturday weren't very good - I didn't add enough salt to the potato mix... tasted really blah. The batch I made on Sunday were excellent - I added more salt and grated "tasty" (aged cheddar) cheese rather than mostly cream cheese. Hopefully they cook up well.

Inhaler Buns. The outcome was WAY better than I had anticipated. I thought that I had ruined the buns due to an issue with the yeast - I used "Surebake Yeast", and I had to double the quantity as called for in the recipe due to it's unique makeup. I thought I had killed it, but no. It worked out just great! The buns were really damn close to the way grandma's taste, so I guess I did good! YAY! My cinnamon buns didn't work as well, only because I stuffed too many of them in the pan. Oops. Travis calls them cinnamon bun roll-ups - they furiously unravel themselves. I'll have to make another small batch of those.

Nanaimo bars. The ones I made on Sunday were pretty close to the ones that Sarah and I made on Wednesday night. I was a bit too impatient and put the chocolate on top while it was still too warm, so it's quite thin. Oh well. I'm sure they'll taste just fine, even when I had to use crushed Arrowroot cookies instead of graham cracker crumbs. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, graham crackers don't exist outside of North America, so I had to do some research to find a suitable substitute.

THIS JUST IN!
I just put some brownies in the oven. Hopefully they're good.

And a thank you to Sarah for giving me my first apron. Awwww...