Sleep deprivation, I haz it

I procrastinated a little too long last night and ended up still working on P&C stuff after 2am which left me with less than 4 hours of sleeping time. I had to get to the shops before school started to get extra supplies for the Kindy Orientation morning tea this morning then go to work and come home to a full afternoon of kid-wrangling - homework, drama class, singing lesson and preparation for the school talent quest tomorrow. Mum helped again, she is totally my hero. Then there was the conjuring of dinner and having Adam's mum join us for the meal. Sadly, after quite a few weeks of her being sober, tonight she'd been drinking again. After dinner was more homework helping and I'm now sitting here writing a terribly uninspired blog post while David plays Guitar Hero.

Did you know it's incredibly frustrating trying to take photos of fish? The rotten things just won't stay still and they keep hiding behind rocks and plants. Adam was totally laughing at me the whole time I was taking the dozens of photos needed to get just a handful that were even vaguely in focus.

Clown Loach



Dwarf Gourami

It's so far so good on the fish-tank front, all the fish we've brought home are still alive, the plants are growing like crazy and the male platy in our small tank is showing lots of interest in his 3 female companions, with any luck we'll have baby fish before too long.

Pretty rocks and NaBloPoMo prize

On Saturday I promised there'd be pretty rocks pictures the next day, but stuff happened and I got a bit distracted. Anyway, here's my latest batch of shiny things.

Whatever I have left-over after the school Christmas markets in a couple of weeks (Sunday Nov 22nd, come along if you're in the area!) I will be putting up for sale, either through Esty or just on my blog and I'll also be offering a few pieces for one of the NaBloPoMo winners to pick a prize from. I promised a necklace and earring set so I suppose I'd better start making matching earrings for some of these! I'll update this post with my prize offerings after the markets.

Swarovski crystal and sterling silver Christmas tree earrings.
(Design from the Fire Mountain website)


Botswana agate and sterling silver necklace.
Length 45cm


Rhodonite, snowflake obsidian and sterling silver necklace.
Length 45cm with 7cm extension chain and 4cm pendant


Indian bloodstone necklace with gold plated beads and clasp.
Length 49cm


Indian bloodstone, Swarovski crystal and sterling silver necklace.
Length 49cm


Sodalite and riverstone necklace with silver plated bead caps and clasp.
Length 45cm


Aventurine and tiger jasper bracelet with pewter beads and clasp.
Length 20cm

18th Down Under Feminists Carnival

The 18th Down Under Feminists Carnival this month is hosted by Jo Tamar at Wallaby. Lots of great posts to read so get clicking!

In my not-posting funk last month I failed to link to the 17th DUFC, so I'll stick it in here too, it was hosted by Queen of Thorns at Ideologically Impure.

Chorizo and smoked chicken risotto

I've been meaning to make a risotto that involved chorizo for quite some time so when Adam announced this morning that he'd really like risotto for dinner I decided tonight would be the night. Not having a recipe that quite hit the mark I decided to experiment and wandered about Woolworths popping anything that seemed like a good idea into my trolley.

As I began cooking tonight, Tom asked my Mum if she was staying for dinner - she'd been helping out with the kids' homework as she often does on a Monday afternoon, because she is made of all kinds of awesome. I warned her that I was inventing and said that of course she was welcome to stay and yes, I was sure there'd be plenty of food (mostly because I was pretty sure the kids wouldn't eat much). I was right about Caitlin not eating and Dave wasn't overly thrilled, but Mum had seconds and Tom asked for thirds!

1/4 cup dry white wine
1.5L chicken stock
2 chorizo sausages sliced
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon olive oil
25g butter
1 leek, white part only, finely sliced
2 heaped teaspoons minced garlic
2 cups arborio rice
1 smoked chicken breast, skinned and sliced
1/4 cup marinated roasted red capsicum, rinsed and diced
a few handfuls of baby spinach

1. Heat the stock and wine in a saucepan and keep it at a low simmer.


2. In a large non-stick pan cook the chorizo until it begins to brown, drain the fat then add the mushrooms, once the mushrooms are cooked remove both from pan and set aside.


3. Add oil, butter, leek and garlic to pan and cook until transparent. Stir in the rice until well coated.


4. Add the stock 1/2 cup at a time stirring constantly over a medium heat, each time waiting until all the liquid is absorbed before adding the next 1/2 cup. About half-way through drain and reserve any juices from the mushrooms and add the juices to the pan. Once all the stock has been added taste test the rice, if it's still a little on the firm side add hot water in small amounts and continue stirring until the rice is cooked through.


5. Add the mushroom and chorizo mix, the diced capsicum, sliced smoked chicken breast and spinach. Stir gently until the spinach has wilted. Serves 6 people as long as 2 of them think you are poisoning them.
   

Oh bugger!

Last night, when I was sitting with my laptop perched on the arm of the lounge beside me, Adam asked me where the iPod sync cable was. Without thinking I twisted round to rummage amongst the detritus on the coffee table beside the lounge. Adam yelped and reached for my plummeting laptop, he made contact and slowed the descent, but it was no good. It must have hit at just the wrong angle, I picked it up and this is what I saw:

Luckily we have Adam's defunct MacBook, that is the same model and has a perfectly good screen, to raid for spare parts. We might even be able to swap out the airports in the hope of fixing my flakey wireless problems as well. Assuming we don't stuff up the whole process entirely.

Today I am grateful for a techy hubby, a house full of half-dead computers and more functioning computers than we really need and, above all, complete and recent back-ups which mean I'm not even slightly concerned about the possibility of everything going horribly wrong when we attempt MacBook surgery.

Step one: Obtain weird-arse screwdriver for undoing funky screws, what's the bet Bunnings won't have it?

Wish us luck!

Update: It turns out we didn't have quite the same model laptops and a couple of cables had different connectors. One was the wireless card - easy fixed by swapping his old one into my machine. The other was the inverter. Adam tried doing a bit of re-wiring to attach the old connector to the new cable but when he plugged it all in and hit the power button there was an ominous ffttzz sound and no illumination for the screen. The screen is working - you can see the display if you shine a bright light on it, it's just not backlit. So I'm using one of the big desktop screens for the moment and Adam's going to have another go at the wiring tonight.

Caturday

Featuring Jack in all his glorious fuzziness.

I was photographing jewellery in the last of the afternoon sun when along came a great big ball of fuzz in search of a sunny spot.

He plonked himself down right on top of my necklace

and stretched out to snooze.



"Excuse me!" said I, but he would not deign to acknowledge me.



Except to deliver a withering glare and show off his whiskers.



A rustle in the garden - what was that?!



Nothing there - flop!

See what I mean about the whiskers?

You'll have to wait till tomorrow for the pictures of pretty rocks - gotta pace myself with the posting you know!

One Lovely Blog award

Way back in August Trish was kind enough to give me the "One Lovely Blog Award." Thank you so much Trish, it's always wonderful to hear people enjoy visiting my little corner of the net!

Apparently I get to share this one with 15 of my favourite blogs, so here goes:

Liz
Alix
Emma
Ariane
Chally

Louise

MPJ
Megan
Penthe
Penny
Cathy
Deborah
Heather
Marjorie
Sophie