A bit of laughter for your day

Hope you're all rugged up and staying warm today! I saw this on Sarah Wilson's blog and it made me laugh.

Simplicity

After my horrendously decadent birthday list, I thought I would make another, better list! My list obsession is coming back out :D So, here is my list of simple, happy things that I have enjoyed lately. Some might even say, things that I love on this fine Thursday! :o

- Skyping my lovely cousin who I don't speak to nearly enough

- Finally "getting" these songs I'm learning on piano

- Tennessee Williams. Always.

- Starting my day with a pot of tea and two slices of bread (untoasted!) with Nutella

- Impromptu How I Met Your Mother, talking over 3 cups of tea, staying up until 1am catchups

- Sleeping in! (sadly, this did not follow the aforementioned 1am catchup...)

- Job interviews! Even if I don't get the jobs, its nice to know things must be picking up

- thxthxthx and the gorgeous thankyou notes

one of my favourite thxthxthx posts

Wishlist!

I'll admit, this post has been slowly simmering on the backburner for a while. I'll start it, get distracted, save it, go shopping, come home, read some more blogs, find more stuff I want, and the list is getting slowly longer. Therefore, it's no longer a birthday list per se, but a wishlist of things I hope to one day own. Let us proceed.

1. Books!

How many times can I say this - POPULAR PENGUINS. Seriously, guys. Get into that. I only have five and that is a very minute percentage of the series.

Speaking of series, (what a smooth segue!) the INTRODUCING... series are fantastic. I have Philosophy and Psychology, and I think it would be splendid to have more.

And this book, I really want to learn to make a coathanger wine rack or whatever business they're recycling:



The Book of Awesome sounds amazing. I've read a bit of the site, and as much as Jimmy Macbook has a special place in my heart, its much more fantastical to curl up in bed with a pot of tea and a book. Rather than, you know, a macbook.

2. A(n?) MOR teapot candle

Mum and I saw these while we were shopping for a present for her nurse last month and it pains me that I didn't buy it right then and there.

3. T2 Teas

Unless you want to venture down to Tealicious House in Dunsborough, T2 teas are the next best thing. Especially in their limited-edition canisters. I only have Gorgeous Geisha in that canister, and I adore the Turkish Apple tea, and... oh, why do I even bother to elaborate? Any tea is glorious. As long as it has a canister for me to store it in :D

4. Tea accessories

I now have three teapots! But I would still like more. What is even more pressing than a new teapot, however, is a milk jug. I long for a darling little milk jug to put out with my teas so its not a dainty teapot and teacup and big plastic 2L milk bottle.

5. Anything from Modcloth. Seriously.

But these are some of the things I love:

Eight A Day water bottle

Storytime Clock



All the Better to Brew You With cup

6. The Gala Darling podcasts

I love Gala Darling. She is fantastic, and humorous, and I think her podcasts would be an excellent addition to my life. However, I don

Let's be honest, I'm going a little overboard on my list. So I'll cease it here, although remind you about these aprons that I love, and hopefully you've had a splendid time looking :D

Practical theories: The Law of Attraction

I've been busying my time on my study break not studying, but reading blogs. It started with food blogs, then I got onto Gala Darling's brilliant site again, and a link from that onto Sarah Wilson's blog... its all happening, and I'm enjoying it.

I'm going to admit, I'm pretty skeptical about all those new-agey, The Secret-toting ideologies. I read about three pages of The Secret and thought, this is just what everyone's parents have been telling them for years about the power of positive thinking. Unless someone I know can vouch for something like that, I'm not going to believe it. So, in order to get rid of my inner skeptic, I'm going to try to work out if these theories can actually be applied to my life. Let us proceed with

The "law of attraction" hoopla

The theory: Thoughts attract like thoughts. If you think happy thoughts, happy things will happen. If you're negative, negative things happen. You get the idea.

Practicalities: We actually developed this theory when I was fifteen about one of the girls in my group, who was just really depressing and whingey and horrible. We called it a "vortex of doom", that when she was upset everyone else got sucked in to feeling upset as well. Which maybe is a different theory about associating yourself with people. I digress. Generally, I haven't had this apply to actual events, but I think tangible things.

First example: Capers. I used to work at a splendid little Italian cafe, and the exported Italian staff would cook for us. One of the baristas made risotto with capers one night, and I had no idea what they were. Then I saw them in the supermaket. Then they were in another dish I had when I went out. It was like, as soon as I had capers, they were EVERYWHERE.

The same thing happened with Vampire Weekend, although over a longer period of time. The first time I went out on the town, in May last year, one of the "eight great songs they played at Amps" (more on this later) was A-Punk by Vampire Weekend. Of course, after half a bottle of wine with dinner, I couldn't remember the song the next day. Although I did remember the other seven.

ANYWAY - I got to Reading Festival in August, and Alice dragged us to Vampire Weekend amidst protests that we didn't even know who they were. Of course, they played A-Punk, and I realised - THIS WAS THE EIGHTH GREAT SONG! Then, recovering at the house two days later with a cold, it was on the advertisment for 500 Days of Summer. And The Inbetweeners, I believe. Once I knew what the song was, it was everywhere.

I was there! I saw him in that shirt!

Verdict: The jury's still out. I'm not sure if its just that when you're positive, you see the positives in everything whereas when you're negative, you ignore other possibilities. And my Vampire Weekend capers (See what I did there?!) could just be coincidence.

What do you think, fellas? Exponents of the theory? Or think its a load of hogwash?

Tiger Food: Three cheese risotto

I was all prepared to post my birthday list (what's more fun than listing things you want? NOT A LOT), then I had another lazy day and had a nap and made an insanely good (and so simple!) risotto last night that I feel everyone needs the recipe for.

I've been going through food blogs bookmarking recipes I like, and I've been craving risotto for about two weeks since I found some arborio rice in the cupboard. I am also very lazy, as I've outlined in the past two posts having done nothing with my weekend! So this recipe from Not Quite Nigella was very excellent to cure my risotto need. I used a 4L box of stock, but it seemed a bit too runny. This is probably because I didn't read the recipe properly. However, it was still delicious last night for dinner and today for lunch!

*******EDIT******** I made this again last night, and I was right! It was a 1L box of stock that said 4 Cups on the front, so I got confused and assumed thats why I got it wrong. The first time I added 0.5 cups of hot water to make up the 4.5 cups, so I omitted that this time, but it was still a bit runny. I'm not going to do it with less stock, though, because its so convenient using a whole box of stock at once.

Not Quite Nigella's Three Cheese Risotto

1.5 cups Arborio rice
4.5 cups stock
1.5 cups grated cheese (we used cheddar, marinated feta and parmesan)

Put the oven to 180 degrees. Heat the stock on the stovetop.

Meanwhile, rinse the rise and put in an oven dish. Add the cheese and any seasonings (normally I'd use herbs, but there was a lot of garlic at the bottom of the feta dish so that went right in there). Pour the stock over the rice.

Cover with foil and put in the oven for 20 minutes.

Serve! (I added extra grated parmesan and pepper, but that is because I'll add them to any dish I can.)

Lazy Saturday

Considering I haven't blogged for almost a month (almost certainly a procrastination win, although I have been busy dominating uni assignments - hello, 72%, 80% and 85% for the three I've been given back already), I thought I'd add that to my list of things to do today.

I am currently simultaneously putting off doing two more essays, reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (which was a Christmas present... goodness me, I need to catch up on my books), listening to the new Vampire Weekend album, reading food blogs and garnering the energy to get up and make a cup of tea. Or a pot of tea, thats always fancier and I am not wanting for teapots at the moment! In the sense that I have enough, not the sense that I don't want more. In fact, I ordered this bad boy from Modcloth only two days ago.


Isn't he adorable?!


I've also had a fairly productive cooking weekend, considering I'm now learning to get into the swing of 'broke uni student food' since my savings started dwindling quite a bit. We made a version of this on Thursday night:


Mushroom Bouyiourdi from Closet Cooking

It ended up being more like a hot cheese, onion and mushroom dip, but it was still pretty splendid. Somehow we've eaten half a kilo block of cheese since Thursday night, I think that was a major component of that. And possibly things like the following conversation:

Me: I'm hungry. Do you want anything?
Levi: Um, maybe, what are you having?
Me: Hmmm. I think a block of cheese. Want some?
Levi: I'll just have some chocolate, thanks.

I also discovered these on Not Quite Nigella, and now it is on my birthday list. Oh yes, three weeks on Monday, list coming soon! Not that I expect anyone will actually buy me anything, but I like pretty things and I like lists and that works out quite well.


'Josephine' apron kit by Jessie Steele