1. Make a coffee date dress

2. Loose 12kg (total, since start of WW- am currently at 6KG lost)

3. Go to Europe!

4. Taken out a huge bank loan for our investments.

5. Read through 3 more books of the bible

6. Drink at lest 1L of water every day.

7. Keep Shabbat better

8. Start an online shop of my bags/crafts

9. Fit into my skinny jeans again

10. Hold an art exhibition

11. Continue with my Creative 365 and post every day

12. Cook at least one new meal each week

13. Create more screencasts and tutorials for this blog

14. Scrapbook our Europe holiday

15. Play at least 2 songs (well) on the saxaphone

16. Develop a (free) creative thinking online PD for teachers

17. Expand my fabric stash

18. FINALLY buy Nigella seeds- I have to be able to get them from somewhere!!

19. Make an etsy shop

20. Sell something in my etsy shop

21. Publish and distribute a ‘zine

22. Support Luke in his creative endeavours

23. Become an ‘expert’ bread maker (read: not have to buy any bread from the shops again, just live off bread I make)

24. ‘Finish’ my photo/”C” wall

I was the first of four children. The only girl.

My mum was 29. My dad was 33.

We’re a family. And we are awesome at it.

Presents and Cards from Sunday’s party…

So, I’m 23. How did I go with my 23 by 23?

1. Finish my scrapbook from our Jan/Feb travels. DONE

2. Secure the Hutchinson job at work. DONE

3. Be a good blog commentor and comment on at least every 3 or so blog posts I read. DONE

4. Buy Powderfinger’s new album DONE

5. Persue graphic design and photography lessons/online courses DONE, Only one more week and my Graduate Certificate is finished!

6. Take an enormously large bank loan for our investment FAIL

7. Find the perfect cupcake recipe DONE

8. Have a handmade christmas DONE, though family members were the only ones who appreciated this. Gifts I gave my friends are unused.

9. Start saving my $$ again (in the piggy bank- loose coins) DONE, though not that well…

10. Loose 5+ kg DONE! I’ve lost 6.6KG!

11. Make a header for this blog!! (have been meaning to do this ever since I put this theme on!!) DONE

12. Read through 2 more books of the bible FAIL

13. Get my reader to 0 DONE, though this is defintely not CURRENTLY the case!!

14. Drink 2 bottles of water a day HALF

15. Start Luke’s scrapbook DONE, it’s STARTED, which is all I required this year.

16. Make plans for another holiday DONE, Booked, and paid for!

17. Track my Weight Watchers points every day! DONE almost completely. I think I’ve only had a few days when I haven’t.

18.  Finish editing Pete’s mime photos! FAIL

19. Make some pants for summer FAIL. They are cut out, but not sewed together.

20. Finish my christmas wall hanging DONE!

21. Finish my paining I started the other week, and paint another DONE! I’ve done several since then! (here) and (here)

22. Scotch Gard the car seats! DONE!

23. Keep Shabbat better. FAIL

Keep an eye out in the next month of so for my 24 by 24!!

My party was yesterday (Sunday) and I had the most marvelous time! It was tea party in the park at Cotton Tree, and I felt so blessed to have so many beautiful friends there to share the fun with! My only regret- not many photos. It is hard to take photo when you’re talking to lots of people. Even harder to get photos of yourself! Thankfully I have scavenged a few picture from people who have uploaded them to facebook!

Does anyone else have this problem?!

Happy Birthday Luke, I hope you enjoyed your day. xox

Saturday 6/3/10. We went and saw Alice in wonderland in the morning, after opening some presents. We had a coffee and wandered around the shops, and then went up to Montville to Poet’s cafe for lunch. Can you guess what we had from the pictures?!

Dinner was with friends at a Korean resturaunt in the Valley in Brisbane. So good. Pool afterwards.

The Tuesday before we’d gone out to dinner with Luke’s family, and on the Sunday night we went to Lefty’s at Maroochydore with my family to have a joint celebration for my mum and Luke (mum’s b’day is Tuesday). Sunday after church we also popped ’round to his mum’s for some cake- the only cake we had with all those celebrations!! He didn’t want a big deal of it, and I can’t really eat cake, so I just didn’t make any this year!

I’ll take you on a little photo journey…



Do you like my headband?!

Hope you enjoyed your long weekend if you were in Australia, and if you’re part of the Commonwealth, then I hope you have a great Queen’s Birthday holiday when it comes around!

His whole philosphy is about passing on recipies from the book so that we’re learning to all cook and eat healthier. The recipe for Chicken Korma on page 74 made me hungry, and on page 99 he includes the recipe on how to make the korma curry paste from SCRATCH! Of course, I’m automatically going to make the paste myself, and you know what? It turned out to be SO yummy! I can’t wait for you to try it and then let me know in the comments.

Korma Paste

2 cloves garlic

thumb sized piece of fresh ginger (I used a teaspoon of minced ginger from the jar)

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (I used regular pepper)

1 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 tbs groundnut oil (I used olive oil)

1 tbs tomato puree (Only a tbs?! I just used tomato paste instead)

2 fresh chillies (I used about a tsp of chilli flakes)

3 tbs desiccated coconut

2 tbs ground almonds (I just skipped this cause I didn’t have it)

1 small bunch of fresh corriander

For Toasting:

2 tsp cumin seeds (I just used ground cumin)

1 tsp corriander seeds (I just used extra fresh corriander, even though I know they have really distinctive tastes)

How To Do It (what you’re SUPPOSED to do):

Add spices for toasting (cumin and corriander seeds) to a really hot, dry pan. Lightinly toast for a few minutes until golden brown. Add them to a pestle and mortar and grind till fine. Add the rest of the ingredients. Wolah!

What I really did:

Mixed them all together. Wolah!

Also, once this is made, I just got some stir fry lamb strips (SO much easier then cutting the meat up myself), put them in the wok, and tossed them round. I didn’t cook them too much, cause I didn’t want them to go dry or anything… then I just added the curry paste and stired it round to get it all hot and the flavours going, and then added really small squares of potato, sweet potato and onion. Mixed all those round, added 1 tin of evaporated milk, and 1/2 tin of water (read: filled the tin half way with water and poured it in, I do NOT BUY water in a can, or at all….), and forgot to put in the cocounut essence (AGAIN), and then let it simmer for a while! Just add more water if it’s getting dry. Serve with rice. Yumm-o!

Would love to hear from people who actually use the CORRECT recipe, as well as those who wing it like me!!

Remember when Luke made me my super pot? Well, since then I’ve planted up all my other herbs into tyres (as well as some in the pot Luke made), and straberries and what not in the back garden bed. Nanna gave me a stack of beautiful cane mulch for Christmas (I know, SHAME it has taken my nearly 6 months to do something with it!!), and while Luke is out shopping for my birthday presents (!!!) with Hay & Mon, I decided to invest the time is getting rid of weeds, and using up the much!

Also, it is my birthday on Wednesday, and Luke organised for my family and a few of our friends (unfortunately not all- it was pretty booked out) to go down to the Jazz club in Brisbane on Friday night. If you have not been (and live in QLD) then you MUST go, it is absolutely the best place ever!

And I love my Mum & Dad. They are so cute and in love, and it makes me happy to go out with them. I could seriously just chat with them for ages and not get bored.

Here’s one I whiped up the other night about Aaron’s suprise 21st.

Dad’s birthday today so it’s a family dinner. Roast. My favourite.

Aaron’s birthday today. Am hoping that we might be able to pop around and give him his present-o. Will have to see though, what time Luke finishes music practice.

Will post photos of the family affair.

Thank you to everyone who came! It was made very special by the variety, and loyalty of the friends who shared it with me.

It was held in our newly (almost) finsihed place. Picture of the main room, with floor down and everything, here:

There is nothing quite like having friends to share your love and your time with. I would like to give a special things to Rachel, who gave quite a touching speach. Also a big thanks to Dad- who is always one of my biggest fans, and always manages to gush over me at exactly the right times (i.e: during speaches dedicated to me).

LUKE’s speach was very well thought out, and I am thinking that I will write it out (he gave me a copy of his notes- yes, he wrote notes!!), in a new post. I LOVE him SOOOO much.