We heart the Blue Mountains

Noo and I have been back from our 12 day holiday at my parent's house in Sydney's Blue Mountains for a couple of days now. We had a lovely time up there in the bush and because of that the time went by very quickly.

Living in the city has definitely got its perks: Sydney Harbour, easy access to our favourite playgrounds, museums, libraries, cafes, shops and friends to name a few. I love that I'm able to raise my son right here at the historical heart of Sydney. Right where our ancestors came ashore off a tall ship in the First Fleet and walked around this land over 220 years ago.

But I am also grateful that we get to 'go bush' and hang out with my parents in a setting that is completely different from our urban home. Where we get to see stars at night, watch lizards play under our feet on the deck, breathe clean Mountain air. I love it when we go to the Mountains we don't have to leave the house every single day. We stay in our jammies until lunchtime, go to bed when we want to and wake up when we feel like it.

From top left: Noo and me in the back seat driving to Lithgow, Santa left pressies for Noo in the Mountains, fun in the sun, the view over Katoomba from the new Arts Centre, some bush of some kind (I'm not into gardening!), Noo tearing at presents, Noo Cat and his cat family, Noo's new haircut, Christmas pudding on the deck, tree change

If you hadn't noticed, I spent a lot of time writing while we were away. I wrote my retrospective of the year that was 2012 in two posts you can find here and here. And I almost completed the story of how I came to meet Noo's father and why he isn't in our life now. All five parts can now be found on this page here.

Noo painted and played and scooted and had a lovely time with his family. He is so amazing at entertaining himself. He never complains that he is bored and when he is doing something he loves he can focus for hours without being distracted.

From top left to right: Me waking up with very bouffy hair, first skim pic of the year, New Year's pavlova, Buddha and the snake scarer, Noo with his Nanna painting, a Blue Mountains sunset, my massive lasagne, another tree photo, Spider-Man at work, me on the deck

We had a couple of trips into Lithgow and a couple to Katoomba to pick up supplies and get out of the house. Other than that we were home actually relaxing. You know, like you should on a holiday.

In the past I didn't really look forward to the two week summer break from daycare because it meant I didn't get time off to do anything for myself. But this year was so different. As Noo gets older and his independence and his personality grow he becomes even more of a pleasure to be around. And we don't have to be around each other all the time. He is happy playing in his own world with his superheroes, or out in the garden with his Nanna digging out weeds, or following his Grandpa around with his wheelbarrow.

From top left: Asian style BBQ prawn salad, me, Lizzy the lizard, Batman, Noo, Noo and me, Noo, me and my new hat, some lovely yellow Marigolds and my foot

From top left: Noo playing ball, Nanna and her BBQ pizza, Noo splashing in his Aussie pool, superhero games, Batman pushes the wheelbarrow around, Noo the scooter champion

Tomorrow Noo goes back to preschool while I have time to myself to prepare for the year ahead. Twenty thirteen is going to be a big one. I have some resolutions I will share later in the week. Noo and I are both really excited.

As Noo says:

"Let's do this thing!"

Have you got 2013 started yet? Or are you still in holiday mode?


V.

A very BB Christmas

I am so full.

End of story.

No, really. Tis the season to eat and eat and eat. And I've done just that.

Check this out. The evidence.

Click on me for a better look

My sister and I pre-ordered our meat back in mid November from the Urban Food Market online store which took the pressure out of food shopping on Christmas Eve. Neither of us has a large fridge so stockpiling is not possible. Considering we are all cooks in our family it defies belief that we have shit fridges, but there you go.

Delivered around midday on Christmas Eve, a 4.5kg leg ham, 4 day cured 2.2kg duck and a 2kg beef tenderloin were then prepared to feed seven of us. A quick trip to the local shopping centre to top up on fresh fruit and veggies and we were set.

On Christmas morning, after Noo discovered Santa had been, leaving presents under the tree and a piece of white fur trim from his coat in the balcony door, the wrapping came off each gift in record time. Not a single toy was of the superhero kind but if Noo was disappointed he didn't show it. That is the trouble with the mid year toy sale layby and store option: the kid can grow out of what mummy chose over the six months to Christmas.

While Pa was setting the table in his usual OCD style of perfection, Nanna and I set to getting lunch ready. First in the oven was the duck. Cooked for 50 minutes in the almost brand new oven it looked perfectly done until we chopped it up and found the meat around the thigh joints a little too pink. I can't blame the duck, or should I say the cooking instructions that came with it, because our new ovens have been a bit unreliable with their temps lately, despite the fact that they are top of the range and should be working perfectly.

Once rested, quartered, deboned and sliced the duck was tossed through an Asian style noodle salad. I pinched the salad recipe from here. It's a Jamie Oliver number that I had to heavily modify the dressing because it was just too oily. I added more lime juice, mirin and rice wine vinegar to give it some zest. Unfortunately I had to leave out the sesame oil because Mala is very allergic and we can't even risk the slightest contact with her. I love sesame oil but I love my niece more. Obviously.

Second animal part to be baked was the delicious tenderloin of grassfed beef. My mum can trim and tie a tenderloin as quick as you can say 'Jack Robinson who the hell is Jack Robinson' after a career in corporate catering where she would do dozens in a week. Once roasted and rested the beef was laid on a bed of watercress and topped with a herb and caper dressing, minus the capers (we ran out).

Last, and maybe least, was the leg of ham. Mum (or Nanna to Noo) carefully removed the skin off the ham only to find it didn't have a scrap of fat under it. A liposuctioned pig leg! Or maybe one that had been on a rigorous exercise regime running around that organic pasture it came from. We couldn't even score the leg because there was nothing to score. It was glazed and wrapped in foil and then baked in the oven and as suspected came out a little dry thanks to the lack of any lovely white fat to keep it moist.

Luckily Mum had made a delicious fresh plum sauce and with it that leg tasted a fine piece of bovine. It was also lovely today cold.

The trio of organic free range meats were accompanied by a potato and hazelnut salad and roast kumara and some weird little cranberry puffs that Mum made but I didn't try.

For dessert the Christmas classics were covered: Christmas cake, mince tarts and pudding served with ice cream, custard and brandy butter. Once again mum outdid herself, if the dried fruit farts we all are producing are anything to go by!

Just typing the details of this meal is making me feel full all over again.

Yolanda, Cal and Mala joined us, along with another couple who have been friends of my parents for decades. It was a great mix. Everyone ate, wore silly hats, played with toys and generally had a great time.

We also got a new addition to Noo's cat family thanks to our friends that joined us. Lulu. The perfect cat for Noo to practice his 'Ls' on. She walks, she purrs, she meows. Noo loves her.

I think The Cats are now complete.

Noo and I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas. And that you don't feel as full as I do. Blurgh.

Day 1 of the BB sugar detox starts again on 1 January.


Here's to 2013!

V.


PS. This is not a sponsored post. I just like Urban Food Market. Service is awesome, produce fantastic (they just need fatter pigs).

All I want for Christmas is...

I've been writing some serious shit lately, like Friday's reflection on my experience as Noo's mum over these last four years, and then I confessed that Santa's Sugar Sleigh has been too hard for me to resist. I was so glad to find myself tagged by the ever-awesome Kylie from A Study In Contradictions in a Santa Wish List meme currently making the rounds on the interwebz. Now I can have a little fun!

Before I get stuck into this list I just wanted to do a little blog loving arse kissing, cos I think Kylez is a legend. Her blog is always such a lovely and positive place to visit. Her Instagram feed is full of joyous pictures of her family, and she leaves the loveliest comments, not just on this blog but all over the Aussie blogging community. And how gorgeous is her daughter, Mia! The photos Kylez takes of her are outstanding. My favourites are the numbered singlets Kylie has dressed Mia in once a month and taken pictures of her to track her physical changes. I am defo copying that if I ever have another bub.

So basically I have a massive girl/blogger crush! Check out her blog if you haven't already: www.kyliepurtell.com

Back to my Christmas wishlist. Here it is:

Santa, this is for you mate. Read it and make it happen. Thank you. 

1. Money, Money, Money

Kylie asked for "a billion dollars" (cue that guy with the pinky finger in the corner of his mouth) but I just want an unlimited supply of cash. I don't want to have to think about how much I need now, next week, month, next year or for my retirement. I am absolutely shit with money. I'm 38 and still I cannot manage my income. I get paid monthly and I live like a king for a week a pauper for the next three.

Shopping is another addiction of mine. I love looking through Pinterest for inspiration for new clothes purchases. I have so many clothes for a chick that doesn't get out much, and sometimes I go through phases where I just want to wear leggings and a t-shirt and gym shoes day after day, but I love my clothes collection. There's even a lot of stuff in my wardrobe that has either only been worn once or twice or still have the labels attached! Eeek.

I also love technology and gadgets which can get pretty expensive, so Santa, I need more cash to indulge in these kind of purchases. I can browse the Apple shop or JB Hi-Fi for hours looking at new headphones or stereos, etc. Wasting hours Googling reviews of gadgets like computer mouses, keyboards, styli, speakers, external hard drives is also a favourite past time. Geek I know!

Santa, I also need all this cash so I can buy more toys for Noo (and me) to play with. We love toys! We love collecting whatever is the latest thing. It started with Thomas trains and tracks, now superhero action figures and their respective vehicles and corresponding dress ups for Noo to wear. There will defo be more crazes we have to get into so I'll need unlimited funds to feed that habit as well.

2. A boyfriend and sex on tap

When I was a teenager (actually still to this day) we always had a notepad next to the phone where the shopping list is written up. Each member of the family could write what they needed on there. You know like tampons or milk, canned tomatoes, shampoo, whatever we'd run out of... I always wrote on mum's shopping list "a boyfriend". It was done in humour with a tinge of honesty. Not that I wanted my mum to choose my boyfriend, I just wanted one. Still do. I'm just so crap at finding the right one.

When I get that boyfriend, I want sex. Lots of it. (Are you listening Santa? It isn't too much to ask to find a man that wants lots of sex, surely? And I don't mean with you Santa, you dirty old man! Yuck, I can't do it with anyone over about five years older than me. That is just gross.)

I love sex. There I've said it. I want it regularly. With someone I trust and love. Someone I can give myself over to. Not one night stands with random strangers. I've had plenty of that type of sex and it sucks (no pun intended because I never went there on a drunken one-nighter).

When I hear of my married friends who "can't be bothered any more" or are "too tired" or "don't have the time" or are "happy just snuggling on the couch after the kids have gone to bed" it astounds me. Maybe that is because I've wasted a huge amount of my 30s celibate but sex with the right person, hopefully the person you're committed too, is awesome! Or at least it should be! And if it is not, get help. See a professional.

3. A successful blog that entertains as well as educates

I want my blog to be funny, touching, entertaining and a place where I can tell my stories and my posts be the kind of blog posts that people want to read (therefore converting into page hits) and come back to read the next one. A blog so good that everyone wants to subscribe to it (hint, hint reader - sign up now!) And Santa, I'm pretty sure you can deliver this to me, you are magic, right?

I hope that people who have experienced anything similar to what I write about might find my blog as a place to come to help them feel like they are not alone. Or that it could help someone, even just one person, realise that no matter what shitty dirty hole their Rock Bottom looks like there's always a way out, somehow. I also want what I write about to help remove some of the stigma against mental health and addiction.

Santa, I also want to get invited to heaps of cool blogger events and meet more cool people and get free stuff. Is that bad? Oh, actually, Santa if you come through with item number one the free stuff doesn't matter, but I still really want to keep meeting new people through blogging events.

4. The ability to not crave for anything

Santa, listen carefully to this one: I want to not feel the need for anything. I don't want to crave lollies, chocolate, cake, ice cream, cocaine, wine, beer, Valium, cigarettes, weed, new clothes, shoes, sex... I want that hole inside me that sometimes feels so empty and hollow that I stuff it with anything just to feel complete to disappear. Sometimes the wanting is so intense and I don't know what will make it go away. And anyway, anything I do stuff in there is only a temporary fix.

I would like a permanent solution please Santa. Please fill the hole.

A little healthy yearning or ambition is fine, but that dark emptiness I so often feel within me can go to be replaced with a constant sense of satisfaction.

Santa, I'd like inner peace. Please.

5. Good health and happiness for all

Santa, please, the other stuff really doesn't matter, what I'd really like is good health and happiness for me and all my family - fuck it - make it for all the good people I know and the ones who read my blog. I'd like no harm to ever come to anyone of us. I'd like Noo to go through school without ever being bullied. I'd please like my parents to live forever without aging. Fuck, now I am getting a bit fantastical here. I don't want anyone of my family to ever die.


Ok, so I've managed to get deep again! I really shouldn't write late at night.

Now to tag some bloggers to get the list moving on:

Mummy Ate Me

Bachelormum Style

Project Kathryn

The Camera Chronicles

Mum of Adult Kids

Get cracking chicks! There's only 15 sleeps to go!

Thanks to Jess from Essentially Jess for starting this year's wishlist meme.


V.

Still kicking...

Hi all

Sorry I haven't posted. I've been flatout with Christmas and uni. I'm now blogging over at WordPress for my uni work. The new blog is called An education... and if any of you are interested you can follow me there, although I can only guarantee you yawns if you're not interested in the history of the Web!

Life with the band is still cruising along. Since I had my unfill and was sick I haven't been back for an adjustment. I was due next Wednesday but decided to cancel as I didn't want to risk being uncomfortable while we were on our 10 day trip down the coast. I've been really naughty with chocolates over the last week too but I promise once this silly season is over I'm back on the straight an narrow.

That is all I can manage for now. Time to brush the pearly whites and hit the hay.

Hope all is going well out in bandit blogland.

V.