Packing up and moving house

After five and a bit years here on blogspot I'm finally packing my bags and moving to my very own domain.

Allow me to present the new home of Mim's Muddle:

Go on, click on through and have a look around.

All the posts and comments have been hauled over to the new place so I'll be closing comments here and I'm hoping you'll all follow me on over and continue the conversations at my new place :-)

Sundays in My City

My blog has moved! You can find this post and all its comments at my new place.

Today was a beautiful crisp cool day with brilliant blue skies, perfect for going along to a rally in support of placing a price on carbon pollution. Apparently quite a few other people thought the same, which makes me feel a little better about not being able to go.

We'd have been there in a heart-beat if we could but it was not to be. Tom's school had their band camp this weekend and we therefore had a concert to attend at 1pm and a child to collect and bring home afterwards, so no climate change action rally for us.

Adam and I left the two older kids at home and had a nice quiet drive out to the camp site. The 3 bands all played very well and Tom seems to have had a good time so that was nice.

None of which do I have any photos of to share.

However, when we arrived home and I got out of the car I found myself nose to nose with one of my most favourite things in the world. A praying mantis.

Wanting to see if I could get a better angle and background, I picked her (I think) up, whereupon she immediately walked up my forearm.

In this shot she's looking at the dog, who was bouncing around wanting to know what on earth I was doing standing in the garden taking photos of my own arm and hand.

Back up to my elbow.

On my hand, lunging for the camera.

Time to say goodbye.

And here she is back in the tree.

Don't forget to pop over to Unknown Mami's place to check out all the other Sundays in My City posts!

37th Down Under Feminist Carnival at Boganette

The 37th Down Under Feminists Carnival is up at Boganette. I'm going to have to save this for the weekend, if I start clicking I'm going to get lost in discover-new-blogs land for days and there's stuff what needs to be done around here!

The next edition of DUFC will be hosted by Rebecca at bluebec.com, the one after that will be right here at my little blog, I'm both looking forward to it and slightly mind-boggled by the prospect.

New tablet weaving!

These ones are all for sale in my shop:


"Kivrim" 1.5m long 17mm wide


"Ramshorn" 3.6m long, 31mm wide


"S&Z" 1.5m long 20mm wide

And here's a few more samples of other patterns I've done:


"Eternity" 20mm wide


"Zigzags" 20mm wide


"Checks" 12mm wide

Chicken udon soup

Another in my "write it down so you don't forget what you did" series of impromptu recipe creations. This is the sort of thing that happens when I haven't even begun to think about dinner till after 7pm and the thought of pizza delivery makes me feel slightly ill.

3 serves of udon noodles (I used Hakubaku Organic Udon which come dried in a 270g/3 serve pack)
1 tblspn olive oil
2 heaped teaspoons of diced garlic from a jar
4 shallots sliced
1/4 red capsicum diced
2L of water and 3 Massel chicken style veggie stock cubes
420g can of corn kernels drained
190g tin of whole champignons drained (or fresh mushrooms if you have them)
1 cup of diced BBQ chicken leftovers
a few shakes of dried chili flakes
a slosh of soy sauce
a drizzle of sesame oil

Cook udon until just short of done, drain and set aside
In a large pot cook garlic, shallots and capsicum in the olive oil for a few minutes
Add water, stock cubes, corn, mushrooms and chicken and bring to a simmer
Add udon, chili, soy sauce and sesame oil, simmer till the udon is cooked.

The kids all had seconds.

He's a hobbit

I slept in a bit this morning, as one does on a Sunday, especially in school holidays. Eventually I got out of bed, showered and dressed and began yelling at the kids to do the same. I then cooked egg and bacon rolls for the hordes, poured myself a glass of orange juice and set the kettle on to boil.

I finished my food and suggested to Adam that he might like to make the tea saying "I've boiled the kettle..." Only I hadn't. Because someone had unplugged it in order to plug in the sandwich press. And the only person who uses the sandwich press of a morning is Tom when he makes himself the egg version of toad in a hole. Tom, who with every sign of ravenous hunger had just eaten his egg and bacon roll.

"Tom," I called down the hall, "did I just feed you second breakfast?"

"Well," he replied, "I did have first breakfast earlier."

Ironfest goes Steampunk

I've just received an email asking if I'd be willing to let all my lovely readers know about what's happening with the Lithgow Ironfest this year (though I suspect that those it's relevant for may well already know). We've had some fun times at Ironfest but, sadly, this year Adam, the kids and I won't be able to get there as Adam will be off being a crew member aboard The Endeavour replica the weekend that Ironfest is being held.

For those of you who will be on solid ground and who might happen to find yourself in the vicinity of Lithgow in mid-May here's all the info:

The 12th annual Lithgow District Ironfest 2011,

will be held at the Lithgow Showground

over the weekend of May 14 and 15,

Sat. 10.00am – 6.00pm
Sun. 10.00am – 4.00pm.

Please note that this is a significant change of date for us – because Easter and Anzac day will occur at the same time this year, we have decided to move back into the dark cold winter period of “Steampunk!”

Bring your coats!

For those people new to Ironfest, it is a cool arts festival with a metal edge, featuring art exhibitions, stalls, live music, street performance, historical re-enactments, (including St George’s Day Jousting and a Napoleonic battle re-enactment entitled ‘The Battle of Lithgow’ featuring infantry, cannons and cavalry!), blacksmithing demonstrations, workshops, busking competitions, automotive displays, educational, historical and technological displays and lots more of a particularly ‘steamy’ nature this Ironfest!

Keep tuned to our program page which will start to announce events as they evolve.
Program Information: www.ironfest.com.au/PROGRAM (At time of posting this page is still "coming soon")

Ticket pricing and purchases: www.ironfest.com.au/TICKETS


Participant information:
Contact 02 63 531 638 or Email (preferred): ironfest@lisp.com.au or visit: www.ironfest.com.au/PARTICIPANTS for online applications (again, page is "coming soon").

There's an Ironfest group on Facebook and this year's festival has its own Facebook event listing so if you're planning on going head on over there sign up for updates and let them know you'll be there!