27.02.06

i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment - so much going on in the next three months, well really, the rest of the year but i'm sure there will be small pockets of calm in between. traveling, buying a house, trying to design products i'm happy to make and sell, it's all fun stuff but i sometimes feel like my plate is just a bit crowded. one day at a time, i guess!

shane's brother, pete, and his wife, erin, arrive from canada today (yes, shane's brother also married a canadian, that's actually how i met him, on his way to pete's wedding in winnipeg) and staying in bendigo for the next couple of weeks so we'll be spending this upcoming weekend there, with a wedding to go to on saturday. there will be some classic stories to tell by monday, i'm sure. aside from the thrift shopping opportunities, i'm pretty over bendigo at the moment. i feel like there is so much to explore in melbourne and we haven't even remotely scratched the surface. so many markets and little shopping laneways that i feel like i'm never going to have time to fit them all in, especially when we spend so much time in the country.

ANYWAY, on a lighter note, i made one hell of a loaf of banana bread on sunday night and wanted to share the recipe (i'd like to share a picture too but it was devoured at work too quickly). i haven't experimented too much with baking so when i pull something off i'm always pretty happy with myself especially in this case when i basically made it up as i went along. i'd love to hear from anyone who tries this out! (oh, by the way, i have a pretty large loaf pan, i think it's for actual bread so if using a more traditionally sized loaf pan, you may have extra batter for a few muffins or even two loaves!)

lester's super moist & yummy banana bread

2/3 cup butter or margarine
1 cup golden syrup (could use molasses, treacle, or honey instead)
2 eggs
6 - 7 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups plain flour
2 cups wholewheat flour

1. Preheat oven to 175ºC (350ºF) and lightly grease loaf pan (i used olive oil spray)
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and syrup. Beat in the eggs and mashed bananas, add vanilla bean paste.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and cocoa.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until just combined, pout into loaf pan.
5. Bake in preheated over for 1.25 hours. (if using a smaller loaf pan, bake for 1 hour)

23.02.06

okay folks, my life is just a bizarre place to be right now, there has been so much crazy stuff going on. tuesday night in Auckland, on y very last minute business trip, my lovely workmate and i were joined for a few (well, actually quite a few) beverages by four members of the US Secret Service.

seriously.

we saw diplomatic passports and crazy cool secret service badges to prove it. i just kept sitting there, behind my increasingly large number of empty pint glasses, laughing my ass off that i was actually at a bar, in new zealand, discussing life and travel with four members of the US SECRET SERVICE. it was very, very surreal. and they were such great guys, hilarious and very complimentary but not sleazy at all. they were in auckland setting up for bill clinton's arrival this upcoming weekend and told us that if we stayed until saturday we could get a photo with bill. um, no thanks but lovely offer. SO CRAZY!

anyway, i put away six pints which has to be close to some kind of record for me. but thinking back to it, i don't think they were true canadian sized pints, they sure didn't seem that big.

and one more subject jump to say that auckland is a lovely, lovely city. really reminds me of a combination of vancouver and victoria, bc. lots of cute looking shops and cool old houses, too bad we didn't have any time to shop.

20.02.06

yes folks, thanks to my crazy great workplace, i suddenly find myself in new zealand! our sales team usually travel in pairs but someone was sick today so my creative director thought it might be a good experience to view how the other side of the business works and VIOLA! here i am for the next few days! how weird is that? and how fabulous is my job?

i'm staying at the Skycity Grand Hotel and hot damn, you should see my room. absolutely the nicest hotel i've ever stayed at or probably ever will again, barring future work travel or possibly winning the lottery (which i don't play so you see, the odds are REALLY against it). huge king bed, lovely modern furnishings, spotless white gleaming bathroom with complimentary toiletries in lovely packaging, little vanilla shortbread cookies on my pillow! it was actually the director of the company that was supposed to be the accompanier today so i was left a little surprise tray of brownies, pecans, grapes and chocolates. mwaa haa haa, little does the hotel management know that a lowly designer is snarfling down their offering to the marketing gods.

alright, time for bed as it's 1:45 am here in NZ and i have to get up at 8 am!

17.02.06

i've been emailing back and forth with a travel agent in Edmonton all day, trying to sort out my flight back to melbourne in may (i'm travelling to Canada on the return leg of the flight that brought me out here in august). i think i've decided to go one-way this time, even though it is ridiculously expensive when compared to a return flight. it's just so much cheaper to book flights from australia (www.airfares.com.au, always good deals) and eventually i really am going to have to get out of the return flight to canada cycle.

the flight i'm booking has me travelling for 53 hours in total. seriously. i'm not even joking. FIFTY THREE HOURS.

the very bright side to this is that i have a full day to spend in SAN FRANCISCO which makes me so excited i can barely stand it. i've already been online searching for thrift shops and fabric stores i can visit while there, not to mention Kinokuniya!! i think an empty carry on bag will be leaving edmonton with me. i also have 9 daylight hours to kill in singapore which is also pretty exciting. i've flown through singapore three times now but i'm always there at night (my work mates say this doesn't matter, that all the shopping is 24 hours and i've been wasting perfectly good shopping hours snoozing in the airport). this time i'm hitting the town!