The Magic of Christmas Gingerbread

This was the state of my kitchen for much of the weekend and it was all Tara's fault. 

All the cool people congregated at Tara's on Saturday for our Not The Farmer's Wife Sewing Group. There was lots of yummy food , laughter, story telling and show and tell. Among the things being showcased was this magnificent gingerbread house that Tara made. This is a prize winning gingerbread house (for real). Tara wins prizes for her creative genius all the time.  I've come to accept that I'm mediocre at absolutely everything, except swearing. If there was an Olympic Gold for having a vocabulary like a sailor, I'd take that out for sure. 

I have a piss poor track record with making gingerbread houses. I completely lack the manual dexterity, patience and imagination required to make something fiddly that turns out to be pretty. Plus I'm a Virgo and we like things to turn out exactly like the visions in our head and when it isn't we call it a complete failure and avoid it ever after. 

Case in point- in 2006 I decided I was going to make a gingerbread house. This was the vision in my head. 

image credit 

And instead , somehow I ended up with this. 

It took me 5 years to recover enough from the experience to want to do it again as if somehow in the intervening 5 years my skills would have magically honed themselves into making me a master gingerbread house maker with absolutely no practice.

This was the result 

Im going to confess this effort got pitched out the back door with this parting shot except I did it with an Aussie accent.

I also wrote a blog post vowing never to make another gingerbread house again as long as I lived. 

But when I saw Tara's gorgeous house, I just knew I could make one almost as good. And I verbally lamented the fact that I hadn't gone to Ikea to buy a gingerbread kit and that I didn't have time to do it before Christmas.

And Tara, that little sweetheart, presented me with this, there and then, straight out of her own cupboard. Oh Happy Day ! 

On the way home I stopped in at the shops and bought a few lollies for the decorating process.

When I walked in carrying the gingerbread house kit Mr. P muttered "oh shit" and put his head in his hands. But I smiled and reassured him that I had it under control and this gingerbread house was going to be fabulous. On Saturday night I made a shitload (thats Aussie for a lot) of royal icing and set to work decorating my little heart out. And I left it all overnight to set nice and hard, planning to put it together on Sunday.

When I woke up Sunday morning my gingerbread was soft and pliable and one of the house bits had cracked right across the centre. Then the bottom fell off my chimney. And when I picked up my sides some of the balls fell off. Mr. P helpfully suggested that perhaps the cat had spent half the night licking the gingerbread thereby rendering it soft.

Undeterred I fixed the cracks and stuck the balls back on with more icing and started making a sugar glue to put my gorgeous house together. It takes along time to make sugar glue. Mine burned the bottom of my best saucepan and formed little clumps which looked a lot like crystal meth. On to the back up plan. I tried to stick that thing together with icing. That didn't work either....

But I had a secret weapon to get that house to stick together because by this time I was bloody well determined to have a gingerbread house.  I sent Mr. P out to the store on a mission and he came back with this. 

Stop laughing. I didn't care by that point that we wouldn't be able to eat it. I just wanted a gingerbread house to show off. 

So I started gluing and putting bits together , and gluing more bits and holding them until they bonded , all the while congratulating myself on my brilliance and debating internally about whether I was going to confess it was in fact held together with a toxic substance. 

What they don't tell you on the superglue tube is that while you can use it on porous items- that doesn't include gingerbread. And in fact, superglue is evil shit and while it will stick your gingerbread house together  - after about 5 minutes it starts to eat your gingerbread away.

So I was sticking the roof on when my lovely gingerbread house did this. 

Yep- my gingerbread house imploded. And at that point - so did I. 

Lessons Learned :

Gingerbread Houses are evil

I found something Superglue cant stick

I really mean it when I say I am never making another gingerbread house ever again  

Now if you'll excuse me, some of those bits of gingerbread are superglued to my cake plate and I have to go and chisel them off....

Cocktail Wednesday (on Friday)

Mother Nature has been having a hard time deciding whether she was going to actually let us have Summer this year. This week she finally came through after I wished really hard and gave us just a little bit too much sun all at once. 44 C is ridiculous.  I really need to learn to modulate this wishing business...I did the same thing with boobs when I was 15. I wished for them and ended up with mine and someone elses. Sorry to whoever is running round with 12 AA boobs, but I assure you it isn't any fun running round with DD's either. In point of fact I rarely run, because you cant do that when you have huge hooters without a world of pain.

Thank Goodness the delectable Rachael from Blue Mountain Daisy had picked a lovely summery cocktail this week. I was craving something to cool me down (it seems the air conditioner is slowly working it's way into Summer too ) and this cocktail was perfect.

So let me introduce you to the Cucumber Collins  (click the link for the original recipe) 

You're going to need a bunch of stuff that looks like this stuff . You should probably go buy a lemon since the recipe calls for one. I thought I had one and didn't and it was too hot to leave the house so I just substituted lime instead. 

This recipe calls for simple syrup which is really simple to make. Just equal quantities of sugar and water. I chucked in a 1/4 cup of each and brought it to the boil, then let it cool right down . 

The recipe calls for you to "muddle" your simple syrup, cucumber and lemon /lime juice. Muddle is just a polite way of saying smash the crap out everything you just put in your cocktail shaker so it releases all the cucumber juice. I used a wooden spoon. It was at this point that I was thinking "this cocktail is actually healthy - it has salad and fruit in it. I'm so good to my body"

I crushed my ice (which means I whacked the crap out of it when it was encased in a tea towel. This cocktail is great for releasing tension) and chucked that into the cocktail shaker, along with the rest of the ingredients aside from the soda. Then I merrily shook away. Violently. 

Strain it into a glass and top with soda water. I had tonic water so that's what I used. And top with a mint leaf or two. Or coriander if that's what floats your boat. I have it on good authority that you can drop strawberries into your glass and that'll taste fab too. 

Rachael put a cucumber finger in hers but I didn't want to shock my system with too much salady goodness .Pop over to see her post because honestly she went all out making this cocktail. Her pictures are gorgeous. 

I really liked this and think it would be the perfect cocktail for a summer picnic. Mainly because you could chuck a cucumber stick in there and nobody would think you were drinking booze. It looks more like a health drink from Boost Juice. 

Definite 4 out of 5 for me.  Thanks for the cocktail for this week Rach! 

Cocktail Wednesday

Yep- I've been absent for a week. I came down with super evil gastro on Saturday and and crawled off to bed to die. I pretty much remained there with intermittent gallops to the bathroom until Monday lunchtime. Further intimate details are probably unnecessary but I just want to put it out there that there's nothing classy about pooping in your own pants or throwing up on yourself. 

There's nothing better to kill off the last vestiges of any germs that may be lurking than a cocktail though right? Alcohol is a natural internal antiseptic. And this week I decided to go with a cranberry raspberry concoction as a homage to the  rapidly approaching Christmas season. 

The original inspiration for this cocktail can be found here . While faffing round in my booze cabinet I found some raspberry vodka and thought that would be a perfect substitute for regular vodka. I'm sometimes quite amazed by what I find in my cupboards when I go looking...I cant even recall buying raspberry vodka. 

Grab yourself some crushed ice, ginger beer, vodka, cranberry juice and  lime. Add 30 mls of vodka to a glass full of crushed ice , fill the glass to 3/4 full with cranberry juice and add a generous splash of ginger beer and squeeze of fresh lime juice and there you have it. Easy , simple and no bacon or maple syrup in sight. Im calling this a Raspberry Crantini. 

My cocktail was kind of anemic looking so I added a splash of raspberry cordial to the mix to give it this lovely deep red colour. Plus who doesn't need a bit more sugar in their diet?

I would like to point out I didn't drink all four of these myself. Mother and Father of Pyjamas are visiting at the moment and so we all sat down last night like civilised grown ups for cocktail hour. MOP liked this so much she asked for a refill, and who am I to let her drink alone? 

Comments: A raging success in my book. I giving this a 4/5 and a big thumbs up! Too bad you cant get real cranberries here because they would have looked pretty in the glass. 

Cocktail Wednesday -It's a Doozy

What do all these ingredients plus bacon have in common?

I bet your first thought is Alcoholic Breakfast. 

This week it was Thea's turn to choose the cocktail of the week and on Tuesday morning she surprised us with an email containing this cocktail gem. My immediate thought was that perhaps she'd been giving the crack pipe a little toke.

"The Bacon Maple Syrup by Tyler Voelker, Urban Farmer

If you took a pancake breakfast, removed the pancakes, and then added 1.5oz of rum and 1oz of Calisaya liqueur, you'd have this drink, which combines that boozy pair with .75oz of maple syrup (sticky!), tops with coffee, floats with frothed milk, and garnished with a cured bacon skewer. Naturally." 

There was quite a bit of furious emailing back and forth between Little Miss Sunshine and myself. Who the F*** has ever heard of Calisaya? While I went to work to save the world , LMS googled furiously for a while longer to find out what it was (turns out it's unheard of Down Under) and whether we could find a proper substitute (there isn't one) so we had to improvise with Angostura. 

I did wonder at one point whether Thea was having a bit of a lend of us ...that this was a sucker cocktail where we'd make it and drink and she'd email and say "Bazinga- got you-I'm not drinking that, you cray cray biatches" But I'm game for anything really so it was duly made.  I had also warned my boss that there was every possibility I could die overnight from cocktail poisoning and in preparation for that eventuality I left her a list of things that had to be followed up if I didn't turn up to work Thursday. 

I've put a lot of weird things in my gob over the years (lets not get into details) but this was one of the most unusual. Let's just say I was not a fan ....cold booze, hot coffee, frothy milk, maple syrup with a bacon chaser... It's like someone put a ton of leftover bits and pieces into a glass and called it a cocktail....

Im going to confess I took one swig....that was enough. The best part ? The bacon chaser. That was good. Because it got the taste of the rest of it out of my mouth. (The Midori Cosmopolitan I made immediately after also helped) 

I think the challenge has now been set for Little Miss Sunshine and I to find a cocktail that equals this for payback!

Blerk. Try this at your own risk. And don't blame me. 




P.S. Despite it all I still love Thea. We all make mistakes...

P.P.S. Have just decided my payback cocktail may include vegemite and frothed kangaroo milk...

Out With The Old & In With The New

The last week has been all about changes at Maison Pyjamas. Improvements have been needed for some time and it appears I've decided to tackle them all at once. I started with myself. 

This was me at our Not The Farmer's Wife Get Together last week at Lozs' place. (pic stolen from Loz's blog!) 

I've been thinking about a drastic hair change for a few months. A mohawk seemed too extreme. I've done purple and pink hair before, and its sooooo 2009. The only thing that was left was to go longer. So all of you who go to the bother of growing your hair for months or even years are doing it wrong cos it only took me two hours to "grow" mine.    

This was my sewing machine last week 

In with the new- I've had this home since Saturday and so far it's beeped angrily and told me off about 587 times. 

I really have to work out what all those buttons do. I'm currently shit scared to touch them because I don't know which one works the ejector seat. 

More renovations are in process at Maison Pyjamas. This was our linen cupboard last week.

And while technically its not in with the new yet because we have a gaping hole there - the new built ins are being custom made ready to be installed in a couple of weeks. And the hole is new... 

The great sewing room clean out continues and I'm being ruthless.....For the first time ever I binned a WIP . The recycled shirt blocks have gone to the great quilt graveyard in the sky. And I'm not sure what I was thinking when I bought this fabric - because it really isn't me. It's time to own that this one isn't getting finished either.

My last foray into pastels ended in disaster too.  If you think you'd like to finish it (or pull it apart and make something new from those huge pinwheels) let me know and I'll send it to you. The fabric range is Paris Flea Market and there's a layer cake worth of pinwheels waiting for someone to love them. 

Cocktail Wednesday

I had a hard day at the office yesterday so I was really looking forward to the cocktail du jour picked by the delightful Little Miss Sunshine. Alcohol always helps you let go of the last vestiges of work day blerk. I'm dishing that little nugget of advice out for free.

After less than lovely cocktails for the last two weeks I was really hoping for something that I didn't want to spit out the second it hit my taste buds this week. Miss Sunshine did good. This one was deliciously refreshing and very more-ish. A perfect Summer cocktail well suited to 100 degree F day ( I think Spring has come all at once)  Disclaimer: It would be fairly easy to get shit faced on a bunch of these because they pretty much taste like cordial. Dont blame me if your day after starts with a headache.

I've seen this referred to as a Tiffany's Blue Cocktail and a Low Country Lemonade. Pick your favourite name- no matter what it's called it's worth making. 

Collect your supplies:

30mls (1 oz) Peach Schnapps

Bubbly lemonade (you can use the fresh stuff if you must but aside from making it yourself you can't buy that Down Under so I just went with good old Sprite because I'd run out of Woodies )

A dash of Blue Curacao

Crushed ice

Add the schnapps and ice to a cocktail shaker and splash in just a drop or two or three of the blue curacao. Shake it up and get it nice and cold. Pour it into your glass and top with lemonade. You can fancy it up with a sugar rim if you want to make it look classy.

I made it twice because the first time I slipped over with the blue curacao and I'm all about getting it exactly right no matter how many times it takes where cocktails are concerned.  I thought the  hundreds and thousands added a nice burst of color around the rim. 

My second attempt had much less Curacao and looked much more like the original picture. That's one big mo-fo sugar rim. Mr. P is much better at doing those than I am but he wasn't home to be wheedled into doing this for me. 

Success! This one was a big 4/5 for me. Definitely on the "make it again" list!

Talking Turkey

Last week I started thinking about how ripped off Australia is because we don't have a Thanksgiving Day. Given we are a country built on enforced labour (thank you England for using us as the world's biggest prison)perhaps people had no reason to feel thankful in the fledgling years of our great nation. I imagine that the heat, the flies, the idea of being sentenced to 7 years servitude for flogging a loaf of bread, the 5 month boat ride and deadly snakes and spiders made people quite pissy to be here. 

The Northern Hemisphere can keep Halloween, and Groundhog Day and Darwin Day (Who even knew there was a day for Charles Darwin? If you did- you're a total geek) but I think Thanksgiving is a very cool idea.

The more I thought about it - the more it seemed to me that I was just going to have to create Aussie Thanksgiving Day. My email in box hasn't exactly been flooded with invitations to anyone else's Thanksgiving shindigs (hint hint for subsequent years people) so it was obvious if I wanted turkey I was just going to have to pony up and cook one myself.  

Decision made, I went forth to find one of a suitable size. I think my US friends are pulling my leg when they talk about cooking 20 pound turkeys because I certainly couldn't find one. This leads me to believe:

a) That 20 pound turkeys are an urban myth

b) The US send all their anorexic turkeys Down Under because what the hell would we know - we don't celebrate Thanksgiving 

c) That Australia is the world capital of midget turkeys. 

The biggest turkey I could find was 11 pounds which is basically a chicken on illegal steroids. But I had to work with what I had, because Thea wouldn't fed ex me one of the 20 pounders. Just a tip- when you guys are bragging about your 20 pound turkeys don't mention the price you paid. You risk bodily injury. I can buy beluga caviar cheaper here than a turkey. 

But find a turkey I did, and then began the slow laborious process of watching it defrost for three days in my fridge, taking up the entire bottom shelf, which is normally where I chill my wine. Talk about a sacrifice.  I mean really, who takes meat out of the freezer on Tuesday night when they're going to eat it Friday? I was all for taking it out of the freezer Thursday night and letting it defrost on the sink until I was going to cook it but internet opinion repeatedly told me that was the fastest way to cooking up a dose of food poisoning.

So I spent the next three days researching how to cook bloody turkey (ironically the object of which is not to have any blood coming out of your turkey at all) The internet wasn't at all helpful because apparently some people out there cook their turkeys for 13 minutes a pound and some cook it for 40 minutes per pound. I guess some people like their turkey rare? 

Eventually (just after I started to weep uncontrollably and consider whether the local chicken shop would cook my turkey for me if I begged and cried loud enough) I found instructions on the actual turkey wrapping.....who would have thought to look there?

This Thanksgiving business is hard work. In between popping off to the hairdresser, I spent pretty much all day in the kitchen, peeling spuds, trimming the ends off beans and cutting carrots, wrapping corn in foil, and stuffing a cob loaf with cheese and butter. We wont talk about how much butter I actually used during the course of the day but I will say cows all over Australia were working overtime. Naturally I only used calorie free butter so it's all good.

My intention was to show you my entire Thanksgiving meal but somewhere along the way I forgot to take photos of everything (I'm blaming turkey stress). I did manage to take a picture of my dwarf turkey and it doesn't look all that appetising. If looking up a turkey's butt will stress you, look away now.

It looked far prettier all plated up and nobody died of whatever malady you contract from badly cooked turkey. My vegetables were also sublime. I served up mashed potatoes instead of roasted ones. And green , orange and yellow ones too. I now know why you all serve mashed spuds with Thanksgiving dinner- its because you don't have room in your oven for anything besides turkey. 

Gratuitous tablescape shot to divert your attention from the fact I didn't get pictures of anything else. 

And finally the piece de resistance. My triple layer chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream, cherry ripes, wafers, ganache and chocolate honeycomb.  Yes- I put all of that on one cake. 

This cake came together far too easily. I should have known something was going to give. When I poured the layer of ganache over the top before I put the honeycomb on top, it all pissed out the sides of the cake and my cake ended up floating in rather large puddle of chocolate that came an inch up the sides.  I did contemplate leaving it there and pretending an intentional moat was part of the plan but ended up sopping up all that chocolate with 327 paper towels instead. Do you know how hard it is to lift a 5 pound cake with an egg flip so you can wipe underneath?

I vote Thanksgiving should be a bi annual event. Who's with me?

Cocktail Wednesday

Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching for our US friends and I spent the better part of last week surfing the internet trying to find an appropriate way to help them celebrate the occasion. I couldn't find any cocktails that contained turkey or mashed potatoes so I went with the next best thing. 

I'm going to confess that until this morning I actually thought Thanksgiving was tomorrow. My blissful ignorance of important holiday dates gives you plenty of time to run out and get the ingredients you'll need to serve this up at your own Thanksgiving dinner next week. There is a bit of alchemy involved with this cocktail so I've left you plenty of time for the infusing process as well.  You're welcome. No need to thank me. 

I was pretty taken with this idea when I saw it because it just screams Halloween/Thanksgiving to me but the trouble is candy corn is a bit thin on the ground Down Under. I've never seen it for sale here. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across an international lolly shop last Friday completely by accident, and lo and behold it had candy corn for sale. I happened to be with a family I work for at the time and that mother now thinks I'm completely crazy because my discovery was accompanied by much excitement and possibly a few squeals of delight. Nothing like losing that thin veneer of professionalism when your work life and home life suddenly collide. 

This is officially the most expensive candy corn in existence. Given the price of the bag ($10.00) I think it must have been flown here on a magic carpet, accompanied by baby unicorns and a bag of hens teeth. 

OK- now on to the fun part. You're going to need:

4 oz.  Vodka 
1/2 cup of candy corn 
2 oz. Cointreau 
Juice of a 1/2 lemon 
Crushed ice 
No trips to Dan Murphy this week..I had everything I needed at home...like the good little alcoholic that I am.

Take your vodka and put it in a jar with a lid. Or if you're classy like me you'll use a beer glass and plastic wrap. Then chuck in your candy corn and give it a shake. Slowly back away from the Vodka and go and do something else for a minimum of 12 hours. Go to work , dance a jig, knit a blanket. Sneak back occasionally and shake the jar to get all that candy corn goodness happening.  

Once most or all of your candy corn has disappeared and you've tired of knitting or dancing it's time to strain your vodka mix into a cocktail shaker. Dump in all the other ingredients and give it a shake ala Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail. Pour it into a glass and take an arty photo like this one to celebrate making a Candy Corn Martini.

The first mouthful tastes like paint stripper but it gets much more palatable with each passing sip. I couldn't really taste the sweetness of the candy corn in amongst all the booze but maybe that's just me.

I reckon by the second one you'd be drunk enough to contemplate making a third.  If you could see straight.

Rating 2.5/5. I wouldn't turn one down if it was free but I wouldn't go out of my way to make it again. 

Salut!

Did You Hear The One About How I Was Going To Finish Something?

I keep telling myself I'm going to make a run at finishing the 827465 WIP's I have laying round.  In September I decided I could finish 5 more quilts before December 31st. I didn't publicly proclaim it because I didn't want to be responsible for people dying of hysterical laughter.  Given I've finished one quilt since then, it looks like I'm starting 2014 with a s*** load of WIP's. I've made peace with that.

This weekend I meant to sew until something emanated from the pile of fabric that resembled actual progress. Naturally,  I was only interested in working on the quilt that is currently the least finished. So I dragged out all the 2.5 inch strips I'd previously cut for the postage stamp quilt and mindlessly sat at the sewing machine chain piecing fabric , and stood at the ironing board pressing, pressing, pressing, and then moved to my cutting table to cut cut cut ....

I did get distracted once. OK - twice. The first time I popped out to engage in a spot of retail therapy. 

Yes I'm aware I bought a new handbag last week - but I really did need this one because I had to chuck my big black all purpose handbag out because the cat took a leak in it. She has done that to the last three black handbags I've bought. You cannot get the cat piss smell out of a handbag no matter how hard you try. I know through bitter experience. 

The second time I digressed, I sacked out for a nanna nap. Sometimes I really do wonder how I manage to get through a full day at work without crashing out on my desk. (No pictures of that because you cant take photos of yourself when you're sleeping) 

By Sunday morning I was reasonably pleased with the results of my labour. I had visions of having half a finished quilt to share. But by that stage I was running out of strips to piece, press and cut so I dragged out my fabric boxes and started to pull fabrics out to cut some more. Then I thought "well since I'm here - I may as well tidy the sewing room/fabric boxes as I go" which led to "I may as well cut more fabrics for my orange peel quilt while I'm at it". 

We all know where that leads right? 

So, I'd love to show you pictures of all the fabric I sewed together this weekend for the postage stamp quilt because it was tons, but unfortunately it's hidden under the remains of my sewing room. Creativity is a messy business. 

This weeks goal? Tidy the sewing room.....and keep the cat away from my handbag.

Cocktail Wednesday

Welcome to Wednesday and another attempt to make hump day bearable. 

As I was pouring my cocktail this week the thought occurred to me that I need to get myself some more snazzy cocktail glasses. I have my martini glasses and some coloured glasses (that are so big they almost resemble bowls-perfect if you're actually having frozen daiquiris or margaritas) but not much else. Im going to have to remedy that- I see a trip to do some op/thrift shopping in my fairly immediate future.  

I learned my lesson last week with using a 1/4 cup measure. I worked out (later when I was capable of doing maths) that by the time I'd finished my cocktails I'd managed to swill down about 7 standard drinks.  I was pretty darn proud I could still function once I'd worked that out. It's easy to forget when you're drinking something that basically tastes like cordial. I held it together in a much more ladylike fashion this week. 

Little Miss Sunshine picked this weeks cocktail.  She was keen to do something with Limoncello so I wandered out to buy some (I'm pretty sure she deliberately picked something I didn't have) Then I realised I didn't have any white creme de cacao -only dark - so I wandered out again to get some without the benefit of writing it down. I came back with white curacao by mistake and had to go back to Dan Murphy's to get the right stuff by which time the staff were probably thinking I was either casing the joint or had a real issue with alcohol that I was trying to hide with multiple trips to augment my stash. 

Some proper measuring this week with an actual jigger...a quick shake in the cocktail maker (or just stir it with a stick if you don't have a jigger -dont use a quarter cup measure because that way lies drunkenness) and voila you have a Lemon Meringue Cocktail. 

Cocktail recipes from other parts of the world often put the measurements in fluid ounces while we use millilitres to measure liquids. Im sure at some point there is going to be a major disaster with conversion...

You will need :

1.5 oz of lemon vodka ( I just used regular because I was too afraid to go back to Dan Murphy's a fourth time for the week ) 

3/4 oz limoncello liqueur 

1/2 oz white creme de cacao

Like my embellishments? Kind of makes my cocktail look like a freaky Mickey Mouse.  I have a ton of really cool cocktail stuff hidden somewhere in the shed in my "party" box that I think Mr. P is going to have to find this weekend so I can make my cocktails look all purty...

Gotta say this one isn't going to make it into my "must make again soon" file. The first glug almost blew my head off - and I think after that my taste buds were drunk. It tasted better the more I drank though. 

A La Votre!

Redeemed by Rolls

I started my weekend with the best of intentions. Tidying of the sewing room and finishing the quilting on Mr. P's T-Shirt quilt were both on the agenda. Once those things were done I planned to move on to dragging out the triangle quilt and seeing if I could make some progress on that. With the whole weekend stretching ahead of me I felt confident, motivated and determined. 

Friday morning I had an appointment and then met up for morning tea with the lovely Sue who blogs over at Mother Patchwork. It was our first meeting so I was on my best behaviour and didn't do anything to disgrace myself. I ate my cheesecake with a fork not my fingers , and managed not to swear (much). The best thing about meeting up with blog people is when they don't turn out to be axe murderers and Sue was just lovely.  I also managed to finally find the perfect handbag to match all my aqua /blue clothes and 3 new books at the bookshop. I think that was fate at work because I've been looking for a handbag in this colour for about a year. Isn't the bottom cute? 

Later, I knocked it out of the park for dinner with my take on an open faced BLT with hash browns and avocado and tomato salsa.  I went to bed feeling all was right with the world and that my life totally rocked. 

It all went a bit pear shaped on Saturday when the mood took me to go back to bed at 8.30 am after a mere 30 minutes of sewing(and not on the T-shirt quilt) Ostensibly I went back to chat with Mr. P who likes to lay in on weekends. The next thing I knew it was 11am, and I decided I was going to stay in bed all day, reading, playing on my Ipad, and chatting to Indy and Lola who decided to join me. So Saturday was a bust unless your definition of achievement  includes playing Hay Day and spending hours on Pinterest. 

Sunday, I was distracted by shiny things. After a promising hour of Facetime sewing with Little Miss Sunshine (again on the postage stamp quilt- not the T-shirt quilt - that thing is destined to be a WIP forever ) I wandered off to do some really exciting things like washing, and a spot of grocery shopping.Then, completely out of the blue I decided to make cinnamon rolls. Kirsten posted a recipe she uses for these last year and I decided I'd procrastinated enough.   

All was going swimmingly until the second rise when Lola decided to limp in holding one of her front paws up and crying. I'm sure Lola could have been more accommodating with the timing of her injury since we were just at the vet on Friday with three animals having annual checkups and vaccinations...plus I had rolls rising. It took about three minutes for me to decide we had to get her to the emergency vet. I figured the worst that could happen was that my rolls would rise to be the size of boulders and who doesn't love a massive bun?

An hour later Lola was dosed up to the eye balls with anti histamines and anti inflammatories having been bitten by "something" (probably something lethal like a bull ant for crying out loud) and my rolls went into the oven. And came out looking pretty darn fabulous. Voila!

After all that excitement I went and had a nanna nap for 4 hours on the couch. And the only thing I achieved for the weekend was to eat cinnamon rolls to excess. But they were bloody good !