If you're interested...

There's going to be an art/craft market happening at my church in Annandale on the 19th December.

I'm thinking of maybe whipping up some sock monsters. Also a bunch of us will probably make some prints of our photos to sell as well.

The whole thing is a fundraiser for a couple from church who are moving to the UK.

What is a blog for if not to share the minutiae of life?

Today at the dentist, they took an X-ray of my teeth. The dentist kindly took the time to show me my sinuses - grey shadows hanging low and quite full above my teeth. How lovely.

Thanks virus!

Something a little mushy

So the complete romantic in me couldn't help but share this with the world...

Sydney food blogger (and white Tim Tam inventor) Jules (whose blog I stumbled upon after reading about her pistachio rosewater cake on another blog) recently broke up with her Irish boyfriend. No biggie, except they had planned to go to the world's number one restaurant, El Bulli in Spain at the end of this year. And it's pretty much like winning the lottery to get a seat there. Some of you may have, like me, recently read about the culinary craziness in Matt Preston's Good Weekend article on the world's best restaurants.

Anyway, I digress. Jules decided she wasn't going to give up the ticket, and ran a competition to determine who would go with her on a blind date of sorts to Spain, to El Bulli. So she advertised, and found her man, Jason Friedman, from New York. Here is his winning email. What a great entry!

Anyway, it seems as though they're in Spain this week, and there are a few posts on her tumblr documenting their trip so far.

It's kind of gross how much I'm cheering them on in my head right now. I hope it works out, beyond eating at a fancy restaurant together. How sweet would that be.

photo by jules

52 Suburbs does it again...

This week it's Marrickville. I was there just today..

Stuff's falling into place

I've had a week of good news. Both good and newsy, literally.

It looks like I'll be doing some casual shifts in the Sydney newsroom over Summer (and hopefully beyond), which is a great relief. It's nice to have some prospect of employment when MTS finishes at the end of Dec. Over the next month I'll have to juggle news shifts at all hours of the day and night with my current commitments.

I had a kind of induction/training day this week, where I had to switch my news-brain back on. It was quite fun, if not slightly stressful and reminded me that I enjoy the challenge of writing things in a succinct way.

Also, yesterday I received a formal offer to undertake the Master of Creative Writing at Sydney Uni. So hoorah!

I'm grateful everything's falling into place, and next year is starting to take shape. I bought a 2010 diary this week too -  a red hardcover pocket-sized Moleskine notebook/diary - which I know totally makes me a pretentious "white person", but why pretend about these things! I did get sorely tempted by the cute but impractical diaries at Pentimento in Newtown, but resisted. Next year maybe...

And Dad's birthday dinner was fun, and delicious (particularly the raspberry souffle with vanilla bean icecream - YUM). And I have to make a formal correction - he's not 67, but 68! Hah. Older than I thought.

Speaking of fathers...

from just me & my dad

Two special things I like:

Phillip Toledano's beautiful Days With My Father, a  photographic essay about his 98-year-old film star father's struggle with dementia.

Just me & my dad - a blog where each week Claire and her dad take a photo on a theme and post them. This week's theme was skyline.

A birthday

Wednesday is my Dad's birthday. He'll be 67. I'm so thankful he's still around, after all he's been through the last 10 years.

He's very hard to buy presents for, as he always goes to the library for fiction, has every CD under the sun, and isn't an "experience" kind of guy. He's also very particular about what he likes. It doesn't help that his birthday is the month before Christmas, either (two lots of grief!!).

So we (the family) have been bugging him for a list of possible presents. And I love that my Mum, instead of typing up the list and emailing it, actually scanned it and sent it to us.

I loved seeing see dad's distinctive caps handwriting. He always writes in caps. I thought I'd share it, because I think it's cute - especially where Mum's written what she's getting him.

The Graduate

Last night I graduated from MTS(ministry training strategy -  in other words, what I've been doing the last two years). It was nice to have a formal ending, and to have my parents and my trainer come along for support.

It feels to me that these last two years have gone quite quickly, and the things I thought would be hard (low income, working intensely with people etc) have not been the massive challenge I expected, but other things that go more to the heart of my character have been the greatest struggle. God is really quite good at teaching me the things I don't realise I need to learn.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to take two years out of work to spend time doing something completely centred on God and loving people, something I would never have seen myself doing five years ago.

Some recent photos

We used my aunt and uncle's beach house for our staff planning days away, which was a nice place from which to plot.

However, the weather was pretty woeful until day 3. Unfortunately day 3 was the day of the avocado attack (see below).

The bad weather did, however, make for some nice sunsets. I really wanted to capture the lightning striking on the horizon, but kept missing it. The clouds above were swirling quite aggressively. It was a sight to behold.

No use crying over spilt milk (but maybe a stabbed avocado)

It's been an exciting week, punctated by.. well, just punctured, really.

Yesterday I stabbed myself in the hand with a kitchen knife while trying to de-seed an avocado. It was quite dramatic.

It was the last day of our church staff planning time, and we were just setting up the lunch food. I decided it'd make sense to hold the avocado in my hand while stabbing the seed, and happened to miss the seed and instead go through the avodado and into my hand. Fun times!

Thankfully, it was just a small puncture, and really didn't bleed much. But I started feeling quite faint and nauseous, and was told to lie on the kitchen floor by my trusty colleagues, before being taken to a local medical centre.

The Dr decided no tendons had been touched (phew!!), and that i'd need one stitch. I didn't realise that one stitch required 3 injections of anaesthetic into the wound. Oh yes. I just turned and looked at the wall, wincing.

Then, if three needles weren't enough, I was given a tetanus injection just incase.

My finger's now bandaged up and I can't get it wet for a little while. So this morning I had a shower with a zip lock bag over my hand. That made washing my hair a little bit of a challenge. But it's been kind of amusing noticing how useful a functional hand is.

PS. Incase you were wondering, the avocado was eaten by Matt W during my absence. Also, in case you were wondering, I did manage to text my mum from the drs operating table, while the anaesthetic was left to work.

So yeah, that's the end of my exciting story.

Bright Star

Is anyone else dying to see Bright Star, the movie about John Keats and Fanny Brown, when it's released in December?

One of the love letters from Keats to Fanny Brown, modelled on 17th century form

The Bright Star website is just beautiful, with a "virtual scrapbook" of director Jane Campion's production. On the site are hand-written notes from Jane and her creative team, explaining their processes.

A bit of a spoiler - notes from the art department for the last scene

I particularly love the photography of Greig Frazer.

the weak and the strong

I'm having to make decisions about my future at the moment, and so I've been thinking about the privilege of choice.

Someone much wiser than me, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said something very true on the subject. Something that's currently latched onto my thinking:

It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own. - bonhoeffer

Apparently Macarons are pretty much the thing

I'll tell you, here's a funny trend: Macarons. You know, almondy-meringuey biscuits with a sugary creamy layer in between?

They've become ubiquitous among foodies, and were last months' Daring Baker's Challenge. Locally, patissier Adriano Zumbo's really made them take off. On Friday, he held Macaron Day, to celebrate his birthday, offering something like 60 flavours (of which Steph tried 48!), including black truffle, vegemite sourdough and maple syrup bacon and pancake.

I was pondering their popularity while washing up yesterday. I think it comes down to the extraordinary variety of flavours, the illusion of being not too bad for you (they're small and light), and their Frenchness.

Anyway, they look delicious and I doubt I could ever make one... but I think I might over Christmas.

PS. The top photo is of raspberry and pink peppercorn macarons, from one of my favourite food blogs, Cannelle et Vanille.

Ranunculus again

More beautiful photos of my (current) favourite flower, this time from Once Wed (who I discovered when they were guests on Design Sponge not long ago). They have such character, do these flowers.

Procrastinating

This post is really just an avoidance tool. See, I should be doing the washing up, or cleaning the bathroom, or preparing for my scripture class tomorrow morning.

But I'm not.

Instead, let's look at some fun things here. Like Ben's weekly quiz, which has taken the blog world by storm.

The new Frankie Photo Album.

A sale/giveaway going down at Harrysdesk (I recently adopted two owls: Johannes and Kiira. They have become good friends).

And why not a photo, taken nearly exactly a year ago at the night noodle markets in Hyde park.