Possum problems...again!

I have to say, as much as Aussies complain about possums, I've always thought they were quite cute and not that bad. Even back in Brisbane when one acrobatic possum left our house in darkness, I still held a soft spot for them in my heart. Then, I continued to show loyalty to the little guys, even when they practically fell on my head and scared the living crap out of me. I had a total fear of opening our garage door for months after. But, sadly, I'm starting to lose patience with the little critters. More specifically, their poo. Seriously, the possum poop in our yard is out of control! I clean up more possum poo than dog poo! It's everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I'm thinking the entire neighborhood possum posse have decided that our yard will be used as their public restroom. This could perhaps be easier to deal with if it weren't for the fact that a certain 4 legged creature who resides with us didn't think of the possum poo as a morning breakfast buffet. Yuck. Seriously, possums are really testing my patience these days! Hope you weren't eating your brekky when you opened my blog today;)

Missing Steve...

I recently went into Steve's work and he made me a latte. Isn't it the cutest latte ever? The heart he put on it made my day! I miss you Babe! Hope you're having a great time in San Fran! xo

Gingersnaps

I think gingersnaps are by far one of the prettiest cookies ever. I love the way they naturally crack and glisten with sugar. Don't ya think?
Our lovely neighbors have invited me over for dinner tonight and I baked these gems to take over for them. I have recently decided to try following the Paleo diet, a way of eating similar to how our ancestors ate back when food was hunted and gathered. That means lots of fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, poultry and such. Sadly, I don't think they feasted on gingersnaps, but I'm currently allowing myself the odd indulgence. For once in my life, I've decided not to approach this goal in my usual perfectionist, anal retentive way. I'm more likely to stick to it if I ease into it and the last thing I need right now is stressing myself out. My brother has been living a Paleo lifestyle for awhile now and has had amazing results, both with weight loss and overall health. He writes about his journey here and shares a lot of great information. At this stage, I'm willing to try anything that allows me to feel human again and while there is no scientific proof that the Paleo diet helps with chronic fatigue symptoms, I figure it's worth a go. Seeing as I have always been sensitive to wheat and dairy, I have a feeling I will definitely feel better overall. Plus, it's been a lot of fun to hunt for new recipes, read new blogs and cook up new Paleo meals. It's helping to keep my creative energy feeling alive, even when I'm exhausted. I'll keep you posted on my progress...

Let me just tell you...

...we have one very hairy dog! Seriously, if ever you come to visit us, don't wear black. In fact, I'm tempted to give every piece of black clothing I own to charity. Wearing it is just way too much work. Luckily for him, this very hairy puppy is also quite cute. I think we'll keep him.

Winter.

Blogger has been a bit cranky the last few days and wasn't allowing me to post pictures. It's finally working and so I thought I'd share with you a few photos I snapped at the beach, when Jesse and I went for a little outing last week. It was a beautiful winter day, sunny with just a slight chill in the air.

The water was amazingly calm, perfect for searching for shells and rocks but chilly on the feet! Check out that fog bank in the distance. It was amazing!

Jesse barked at me the whole time to throw rocks for him to chase, not exactly the most blissful hour of my life but relaxing all the same.

Gee, I really do love winter in Melbourne.

In other news, Steve left this morning for San Francisco and Vancouver. He's gone for work and will be away for 1 week. I'm trying to plan a little something for each coming day, to keep myself busy, otherwise I think I might lose my mind. I really need to be off work right now, my body desperately needs the rest but my mind goes a little crazy when I spend too much time resting and alone. The problem is that I can only do things for a short amount of time before I get completely pooped and need to rest again. That doesn't make keeping busy easy, but I'm trying to learn to pace myself and live my life in a balance that suits where I'm at on each new day. I think this will definitely be a good week to start crafting again!

FYI

I had a few pictures that I wanted to post but we went over on our internet this month (downloading too many movies because our TV still doesn't connect to the cable) and now our internet is moving at dial up speed. Actually, slower. It slows down when you go over and it won't be fast again until our next bill starts, which is in a few days. Until then, uploading pictures is pretty much impossible. It takes a good 30 minutes to get one picture up, and even then it sometimes doesn't even work! Frustrating. So, I'll be a little out of touch until the internet picks up again. Even reading other people's blogs is impossible because they take such a looooong time to load. Major pain in the butt!

Crazy Dog Lady!

I have a new appreciation for how lonely little old ladies become those crazy cat people. I'm verging on that with Jesse these days, now that it's just me and him all day everyday. I'm so thankful to have him for company during the day and let me just say, he makes a great napping buddy! I'm feeling a bit guilty because I don't get him out as much as I would like. Some days, like today, I just feel too crappy, so I've taken to bribing him new toys to ease my guilt! I wish I was kidding. He doesn't seem to mind though and gets great pleasure out of a new stuffy. Plus, for the hour that he happily chews and wrestles the thing, I am virtually bad dog owner guilt free.

HELP! I need some decorating advice!

Okay, so you see that very big white wall? That lives in our kitchen and back in March when we had that crazy storm and flooding, it got covered in water stain marks. Which, now has kind of worked in our favor because the landlord says we can paint it, any color we want! The problem is, we can't decide on a color. I'd like to make it a fun accent wall and eventually hang some prints on it. Any suggestions on color?

Here's the rest of the kitchen. Brown cupboards and an orange/gold/yellow-ish 70s floor. Never mind that broken drawer that Steve has to fix!

Looking into the kitchen from the dining/living room. It's not a very bright kitchen, even on a pretty sunny day. I would like to add some cheer in there but not have it be too over the top.

Looking out from the kitchen. More brown, this time bricks. We really need some color in this place! We've just signed on for another year here and I would really like to spruce the place up a bit, especially now that I'm home all day! I can't help but want it be a cozy, happy place!

Here it is, one last time, the wall. So, let me know what you think! I'm counting on all my lovely and talented blog readers!:)

Happy Birthday to Steve!

It's Steve's birthday today! He doesn't really care much about birthdays, but since he's married to me, he has no choice but to celebrate and celebrate BIG! I cooked him a special dinner, decorated the house with balloons, and sang him Happy Birthday with cupcakes. Doesn't he look like he's having a fabulous time? I know he loves it, he's just too cranky to admit it!

Kurth Kiln Regional Park

On our drive into the park we saw this little wombat by the side of the road. We were pretty excited and stopped to take his picture, but he was more interested in scratching his bum and eating grass than getting his picture taken. He refused to look at us. Snobby wombat!

We went for a lovely walk in the woods. We only did about an hour walk, but it was really peaceful and good for the soul!

Jesse loved it!

It was very green and smelled like fresh rain. Bliss.

Wombat homes.

Jesse has a few very strange obsessions. One is that he likes to hump blankets, especially when he's hyper. The other is that whenever he goes in a steam, he wants you to toss stones in the water. He stares you down intensely until you throw rocks up and down the stream. He never catches any, although he has chipped 2 teeth playing this game. Luckily for him, I've learned to throw the rocks with better aim in the last 8 years!

It took Jesse a long time to decide if bumming orange from me was worth leaving the water. Water is the only thing that trumps food in Jesse's world.

The autumn colors are really bright and colorful now and everywhere around Melbourne. I feel like I should be starting my Christmas shopping, not heading into July and August! I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the backward seasons here!

This past weekend was a real eye opener for me as far as leaving work. Even the smallest amount of exercise or outing leaves me feeling completely wiped out. I recuperate with lots of naps and down time and am feeling better with each day. I see now that taking the time off work was the best thing I could do. Working everyday, and trying to live my life left no time for proper resting, which is clearly what I do need right now. I'm thankful that we are able for me to take some time off and feel good again. There really is nothing better than lying down when you need to, having lots of time and energy to cook healthy meals and go for walks without feeling like it's taking what little energy I have left. My spirits are definitely picking up!:)

Jesse

It was a long weekend here this weekend, and so Steve had today off. He found a park online that had hiking trails and allowed dogs, only about a 45 minute drive outside the city. Camping and hiking parks never, ever allow dogs here, so we were very excited! This was the first time since we came to Australia that we walked Jesse off lease in a forest. I was nervous at first that he'd find a wombat hole (we saw a wombat!) and stick his head in but he was a perfect puppy and stuck pretty close to us. I think he was just so thrilled to be walking in the woods with us again that he didn't want to do anything to screw it up! We only did a short hike but took lots of pictures which I'll post tomorrow. It was really nice to get out of the city, breath the fresh air and relax. I think I really needed it!

Hubby cooks...

Steve's a pretty good cook. He likes making more unique dishes, unlike me who generally sticks to pasta, stews, soups, etc...it's a good balance! He's been wanting to make THIS pork dish forever (well since our pal, Jeff told him about it) but finding the annatto seeds that it calls for was pretty much impossible. Steve googled it and found that a little family run Mexican shop in Fitzroy might have them, so off we went on a wee seed finding adventure.

It was the cutest, littlest, busiest shop ever, with everything imported from Mexico or California. It made me think of and miss my beautiful Mexican friend, Mariana.

Thank goodness for iPhones. I snapped these shop pics with mine. Much more subtle than a big ole camera in a small, busy shop.

Also, quite possibly the friendliest service ever at this little shop! We'll definitely be going back for all our Mexican cooking needs!:)

Once back home, Steve set to work. Grinding the seeds was a bit of an ordeal. You're meant to use a coffee grinder, but we don't have one, so it was and hour and a half of Steve grinding seeds, me taking pictures and one very sore shoulder at the end of it all! What? The camera gets heavy! Just kidding.

Steve assessing the damage halfway through the grinding! The beer helped to numb the pain! I enjoyed the view;) There's something sexy about a man grinding seeds, I just can't put my finger on exactly what it is...the bulging arm muscles, the arm muscles that bulge...something.

Annatto seeds, before and after grinding. They weren't easy to grind but they had nothing on the cloves! Wow, they're like little rock hard sticks!

Have I ever talked to you about my "Happy Chopper"? Oh.My.Goodness. I bought this through Tupperware and it is quite possibly one of the best things I've ever purchased! All you need to do is throw your peeled garlic cloves or quartered onion pieces in, put the top on, twist and...

...Voila! Three seconds later, perfectly chopped garlic or onion! Brilliant! This is especially great if chopping onion makes you cry, which isn't the case with me, it's my superpower. That and the fact that I can feel rain fall before most people. Steve never gets ice cream headaches. That's a cool superpower!

Steve's dish was delicious, both for dinner last night and leftovers tonight. Sadly, no final photo because our neighbor joined us for dinner and we were too excited eating and chatting to take pictures. You'll just have to trust us that it was a not only a tasty dish, but a pretty yummy looking one too!

I love it when Stevie cooks!

PS. It's Steve's birthday tomorrow! :)

Melbourne at night...

Melbourne really is a fabulous city, especially at night. Steve and I went downtown for dinner on Friday night, the first time we've been out of the house together in 2 weeks! Steve took these great photos and I just had to share!