And following on from Bessie’s birthday, we have the lovely Don’s quite close behind!

We ducked out for a quick lunch of a very, very good bowl of pho at Quyen – the brisket, so tender! First visit, definitely will return.

cute squealer from the bottleshop a couple of doors up from the restaurant

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Don’s chosen birthday dinner was comfort food – Italian traybake from Nigellissima.

This is incredibly simple to make and spectacularly good. I chucked a few unpeeled cloves of garlic in which made it even better.

Un-pictured because, well it doesn’t photograph particularly well and we had cooking issues which distracted me from capturing it by the time it came to eat.

About 3/4 of the way through cooking the oven decided that it found cooking really rather tiresome and died completely. It had only ever done this for bread before, so this was a little unexpected. I calmly covered the tray and cooked it for a bit on the stovetop. After 15 minutes the oven was cooled and good to go again. Must get this attended to (or get another oven – but that is a vicious circle of should we redo the kitchen so we can get a bigger oven &etc).

Fortunately we did manage to eat before midnight and fortunately I’d already made the dessert!

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For dessert Don chose Italian Apple Pie (Cake) also from Nigellissima.

This is the first time I’ve used the food processor to make cake batter (per instructions). It was amazingly quick, but a little more challenging to scrape into the cake tin than from a bowl.

pretty!

slightly less pretty, but still a bit pretty

From a cursory glance at the recipe, we assumed this would be much like our beloved kerry apple cake – how wrong we were! This was very different – light and fluffy with just the right amount of sweetness.

Will definitely cook again (despite ExtremeFrugality, need to obtain apple corer – I’m not dexterous enough to use a knife at all well)

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Now we have a small respite until Joe/Frank’s birthday in late February. Time to ponder the epic tablescape!

My babiest baby turned 21 at the end of December.

I can’t quite believe it either! Such an old lady!

tiny baby bessie

Despite my attempts to provide non-gendered childhood environment, she was having none of it:

focussed fairy princess bessie

more fairy princess bessie

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As has been our practice this year, rather than going out to hideously expensive restaurants we’re celebrating birthdays at home with dinner of the birthday-ee choice. For her meal Bessie chose Duck breast with celery, apples and pecans from Marie Claire: Fresh and Fast.

On the day of the dinner I decided that the table-scape was not very festive or celebratory, so in the spirit of using what I had to hand, I dragged out what I could to represent Bessie’s favourite things – bugs fabric (from the stash) to use as a table-cloth and Sydney swans napkins. Completely hideously mismatched – but we embraced it.

Two photos of food because I couldn’t decide which was better.

Don outdid himself – this was spectacularly good!

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Bessie requested cheesecake for dessert – which is not something I’m terribly well versed at. Clarissifer often brings an utterly genius cheesecake to work, so I hit her up for her recipe (and was surprised at the source).

In keeping with the theme I thought I’d decorate the cake per my memory of her 4th birthday cake (loves those ladybugs).

yeah, that black and white film wasn’t quite the thing for capturing the cake

Memory sort of got it right, I’d forgotten about those flowers – oh well, updated for the modern age.

Cooking notes: chocolate ladybugs absolutely should not be eaten with the cake; the recipe calls for way too much cinnamon for the base; served raspberries on the side rather than stirring through. It was incredibly rich and amazingly good. A+++ would cook again.

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I’m planning to kick the whole decorating the table for birthdays thing to the next level in 2017.

Next up, favourite son:

2016 review
1. Start actually learning to drive. Get on the track towards my P’s (provisional licence for the foreigners)
Nope. I think this is on the backburner for now, unless personal circumstances change.
2. Learn one new recipe a month
No. Am still interested in expanding my food repertoire though.
3. Improve personal fitness. Lose ~10cm of belly fat
I don’t think so. I’m not sure if I’ve lost weight or gained weight, which is concerning.
4. Aim for two social activities/etc per month.
No not really. Work got in the way a bit, but not enough to really hamper progress here.
5. Pass all my UPP subjects and get into a full university course (UPP = University Prep course).
Yes for Part 1. Hopefully/probably for Part 2, though maybe not at the same university.

2017
1. Lose ~10cm of belly/body fat.
2. Aim for a “C” (credit) average at uni, with at least one “D” (distinction). (might differ depending on the uni I attend)
3. Try to do at least one ‘social’ activity outside of the house per month
4. Waste less of my free time just flipping through internet websites. (kinda goes hand in hand with #3, tbf)
5. Improve sleep patterns. Stop going to bed so late, wake up earlier.

xxx

Previous years:
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011

For the 7th year in a row (!!!) it’s time for the New Year not-resolutions from the carolbaby family!

As a reminder, each year I force everyone to provide me with a list of 5 things they think they’d like to accomplish in the coming year. No pressure to achieve, but serves as an interesting record of what we consider important at a point in time.

First up, Bessie …

2016 review
– travel to 3 new places
Not achieved – went to Canberra in April, going to New Caledonia in Feb
– save money
Achieved – reached my savings goal
– keep social
Achieved
– stay involved in CPAC YOUTH
Very much achieved
– Maintain a 60+ WAM (weighted average mark at Uni)
Achieved – 67.5

2017
– Reach next savings goal
– Finish my uni degree
– Plan a big holiday
– Have another successful year with CPAC Youth
– Complete a rubiks cube

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Bessie’s previous not-resolutions:
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011

Woke up this morning with a mildly sore throat and a bit of a fuzzy head. This was definitely not the result of any New Year’s Eve shenanigans, alcohol-free for me and we were tucked up in bed by 10pm.

I wasn’t going to let anything like ill health hold me back, so we set out for a New Year’s ride to get that last bit of exercise before we return to work. We’ve agreed really need to make regular weekend activities like this a priority in 2017 – this will require quite a bit of shuffling of housework and such to weekdays after work.

Anyway, ride – 43km! This was much more hilly than previous routes (good practice), terribly signposted in the unfamiliar bits, so we ended up riding on some pretty major roads – this was quite cool as there was not a lot of traffic about.

Awesome ex-railway, now cycle bridge at Meadowbank. This was not the direction we wanted to go, but we crossed (and crossed back) just because we could. We’ll definitely be checking this out on a future ride.

We rode around Rhodes (oh! bike pun!) – tons of new apartment complexes, really great paths and green space.

Mangroves at Bicentennial Park

Rather less pleasant and calming – crossing the M4 motorway, controversial westconnex widening is progress.

Second dreadful cycling pun:

We (especially me) were pretty knackered afterward. We’re still pretty terrible about taking enough fuel with us – a protein ball halfway just doesn’t cut it. After a coffee, shower and lunch, I lay down on the bed to read for a bit and promptly fell asleep for 3 hours.

Throat still feeling disgusting – I’m confident I can will it away.

Two days until my return to SML. Hopefully I can get in run tomorrow, then shopping with Bessie for her Xmas present and lunch on Wednesday with Heather and Vincenzo – because seeing them 200+ days a year at SML is clearly not enough.

Because last year’s Xmas jigsaw puzzle was such a wild success, we made a very last minute decision to do another this year. We were keen to do another map puzzle, because we’re all about the maps. These are not the easiest things to find in stores, so I was pretty pleased to find the vintage world puzzle at Dynamocks the day before the holiday started.

We (okay, I) had the genius idea of using Bessie’s craft table as our puzzle table. It’s on wheels and so could be shifted about depending on what we were doing – so much better than using the dining table. She wanted it out of her room, so a win for everyone!

Progress shots:

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The finished product! 

Yes, we had to get a magnifying glass because it was so insanely detailed and we have old eyes.

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Well, finished except for that one piece of Antarctica – which we fear one of the kitties has made off with:

Challenging and lots of fun (and very easy to just lose all sense of time). This is definitely entering the realms of a Xmas holiday tradition – next year, perhaps really step it up to a 3000 piece pirate world or amazing world.

I’m not quite ready to abandon the daily posting so, as promised, this is where the wee fig seedlings are at.

Repotted since the last update – which I thought was a lot longer ago than it was. So this doesn’t necessarily warrant an update, but oh well, I’ve started writing now.

The figgies are still living indoors, but now receive a fair bit of morning sun – they’re currently positioned on the floor against the window to the lower balcony. 

They each have quite a few leaves now, but I’m surprised at how delicate and fragile the stems / trunks (whatever they’re called – my horticultural vocabulary being abysmal) are. I’m also surprised that the appear to be growing almost sideways. I’m curious to see if / how they manage to stand up.

Amazing to think they could eventually grow into something bigger than ThePalce(OfLove).

Early(ish) this morning Don and I got out the bikes again and cycled 34.85km to Dolls Point and back.

We rode mostly on the road, rather than the shared cycle / pedestrian path, and I managed to ride up all the hills (there’s one dreadful hill toward the end where I usually have to get off half-way and walk), so I was pretty delighted.

Slowly, slowly getting back to cycling fitness and becoming less terrified riding in traffic. I’m really hoping to get back to 80km and doing it regularly by say, mid-2017.

It was quite warm, even at 9am, so we stopped for a short rest and water at the turn-around point.

The corpse of a tiny car was scattered across the field next to the path, so of course there was nothing for it but to grab some photos.

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The parent of these wee seedlings. Seedlings still going strong, I should add that to the blog updates list.

I hadn’t quite realised how enormous this tree was until I was away from it, walking back after taking photos of the wee broken car. Don at bottom left for scale.

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Field of flowers, okay field of weeds, but they do look pretty!

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Stuff on the ground. No idea what this is, but totally looks like a bat, or a moth.

Film #7 was Die Hard – appropriately watched on Xmas Eve.

In 10 words or less: Meh. All The Action Tropes! Not even kitschy-fun.

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Film #8 was The Royal Tenenbaums – watched Xmas Night.

In 10 words or less: Adored! Quirky. Delightful. Amusing. Pretty. Must watch more Wes Andersen.

babykitty enjoyed it too

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And woo hoo – half way!

As threatened – pretty flora from yesterday’s hike! I was really surprised at how many flowers there were about – especially in the middle of summer. This must be a spectacular walk in spring! I will preface this by stating that I have no idea what any of these flowers actually are – though I am certain they’re natives, it’s within the national park and introduced plants aren’t really tolerated.

In order of spotting:

okay, this is not a flower, but definitely native

difficult to spot, but there’s a wee green spider in here

wee green spider

i’m quite ignorant about plants, but fairly confident this is not a flower

nor is this – and not native

oh wait, we’ve already had one of these

I’m really not a flower person – not at all enthusiastic about receiving bunches of flowers – but I do love spotting lovely things in their natural environment.