We’re out of here

Amelia and I are going to my parent’s house in the country for a week. We have no plans but Amelia is intrigued by the idea of catching a yabby in the back dam. I have warned her that in my 33 years on this planet, I have never managed to see a yabby in the back dam let alone get one to hang on to my sophisticated lump-of-meat-on-a-long-bit-of-string apparatus. She doesn’t seem to care but tells me that Pappous might cook it on the barbeque. I looked up Yabby in Stephanie Alexander’s tome of wisdom and yabby cooking seems to be possibly as traumatic (for chef and animal) as lobster cooking with the added factor that yabbies will taste like mud if not prepared properly. And really… (did you click on the link back there?)… as if Amelia is going to respond favourably if we do manage to haul something like this out of the dam. My girl freaks out when she sees a fly buzzing against the front door.

Photo courtesy of my brother – thanks Andrew!

The fast and the furious

Lately Amelia and I don’t take a lot of walks. I am either working or cooking or driving us to and from shops, play dates, my mum’s house, etc. Yesterday it was the most spectacular spring day and after lunch I decided we should hit the pavement and enjoy some of the springy (but unfortunately smoggy) air. Amelia climbed into her stroller and away we went. I can’t remember the last time I took any exercise at all so it was a good day to start afresh.

After a good twenty minutes or so I was feeling completely exhausted and we ended up at our local playground. It’s a run-down little place hidden away in a back street which we have nicknamed the ‘secret park’. That makes it seem much more exciting and enticing than it really is, for in truth I find it kind of bleak and sad but it’s the closest to home and Amelia enjoys it enough to visit it from time to time. I also end up feeling quite uncomfortable spending huge amounts of time there because it’s quite isolated and I am a paranoid “they’re gonna get us” kind of person. These days I recognise that this is kind of silly so I do my very best to ignore my gut and rationalise with myself; “they’re not going to get us, they are busy doing other things” and so on.

I was doing a good job of it today, until a shambly kind of guy came striding through the playground. “Hello!” he called to us cheerfully. I said hello cheerfully back. I don’t think I sounded terribly forced – brave face and all that. Amelia immediately loudly said “who’s that?” and I had to say “I don’t know – I guess someone who lives around here.” and the shambly guy, who was still striding by was kind enough to say “A stranger!” and give a kind of chortle. Not exactly a wicked cackle but most definitely a chortle. So I was feeling a little less brave as he disappeared around the corner. We moved on to the swings and as Amelia stuck her feet up high in the air in front of her, I noticed another man striding down the path looking intensely at us as he strode. I can tell you now that my heart rate quickly jumped higher than it had been after the Lost finale and all those jelly snakes on Thursday night.

Here were the things about him that made me feel uneasy.

a) He had a bald head

b) which is obviously not bad in itself but he also had a large bull neck

c) and he had a huge bushy moustache

d) He had little round sun-glasses on

e) He was wearing a woolen button-down black shirt covered in sewn on badges and black track pants and big boots

f) and finally -(and I kid you not) – he had a pick-axe swinging at his side!

He kept staring at us all the time he walked through the playground, and his jaw was jutting out in a most aggressive manner. All the while I kept pushing Amelia on the swing making small talk (in a thin, high, terrified voice) with her about Buzz and Woody, trying not to make eye-contact with this creature from my worst, most paranoid daydream. I know, I know. I am prone to exaggeration for the sake of a good story but he really was there, really and truly - with a pick-axe.

After I was sure that sudden movements would not incite him to come charging towards us, I whisked Amelia (loudly protesting) off the swing and bundled her into the stroller and seriously gunned it home. I didn’t know my legs were still capable of moving so fast. I had to lie on the sitting room floor for a good fifteen minutes afterwards while my body recovered. Wow! Now that was a good workout.

So I have successfully started my new exercise regime and confirmed all my worst fears about being out of the house all in one afternoon!

Good food part one – Avocados

Last night, while watching the season finale of Lost, Big-P and I shared a bag of Natural Confectionery Company jelly snakes. Absolutely delicious and how bad can they be? They are all natural! Later – much later – that night, I lay in bed with my mind racing and my heart beating at a bazillion miles a minute. The sugar high took me into the wee hours, and as a result, today I am feeling slug like and overly emotional. There’s a hole in the sleeve of my favourite tshirt and it’s making me very, very sad.

Anyway, on the topic of food. I once heard that Loobylu is far too concerned with the ‘right things’ to eat. Yes, I am concerned but it doesn’t stop me from discovering my shopping basket is full of delicious, nasty morsels when I go shopping on an empty stomach. But I do try. Mostly.

A couple of weeks ago, the Sunday Life magazine ran a two page article titled “The 20 Healthiest Foods you can Eat” by health-food guru Rosemary Stanton. I tore it out and have it hanging on my fridge door. It’s a list that reassures me that most days we are doing pretty well. Some things rarely, if ever, get a look in, like oysters (wouldn’t know where to begin) and oranges (just, for some reason, not on my radar), but as a special “back to life-blogging” feature, I thought I might occasionally take an item from the list and write something about it. If you feel so inclined, leave your relevant recipes or links to your blog and recipes in the comments and we should get a really got collection of ways to eat the 20 Healthiest Foods.

Number 1 on the list is Avocado.

“This is one of the few fruits that contain fat but it’s the good unsaturated kind that helps us absorb the vitamin E in avocados. Half an avocado gives you almost 50 per cent of the recommended dietary intake (RDI) of vitamin E. As a bonus, you also get a good source of vitamin B6 and pantothenic acid (another B vitamin). Tip: Use avocado as a spread; it has a quarter of the fat of butter and margarine.” – R Stanton, Sunday Life

While throwing my fruit and veg into a trolley each Saturday, I mostly avoid the avocados due to the high prices, but when they are in season, I love making this guacamole which has its origins in a Moosewood Cookbook recipe.

Guacamole

juice of half lemon or whole lime
flesh of 1 large avocado
1 small clove of garlic minced
1/2 teaspoon of cumin
small piece of Lebanese cucumber finely sliced
small piece of red capsicum (pepper) finely sliced
2 big spoonfuls of mayonnaise (or to taste).

Squish the avocado flesh into a lumpy mush to your liking along with the lemon/lime juice. Add the minced garlic and cumin and mix well. Stir in mayonnaise thoroughly and gently stir through cucumber and capsicum. Serve with raw vegetables or corn chips for dipping. Also good in sandwiches and on toast.

So while the mayonnaise probably takes this into the realm of unhealthy this is pretty delicious. I have found that the more commercial the mayonnaise, the better it is. If you really want to keep it healthy, leave out the mayonnaise all together and it’s still yummy.

Ps. the illustration is a lie. Amelia actually won’t go near dip of any kind let alone green lumpy stuff.

In a minute

Oi ! It’s time to take the plunge and get something up on this blog! I can’t tell you how many times I have sat here and looked at this blank entry box and gone “ughh. I have nothing to say!”. So here is an entry about having nothing to say.

This blog started out a long time ago when what I concentrated on was the daily droplets; the tick of the clock, the squeak of the mouse, etc. I am reading a book at the moment called Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield which is all about this kind of thing. The author is a British woman running a country house between the two World Wars. While this kind of life has probably mostly disappeared (she spends a huge amount of time worrying about how to get good servants and then how to keep them) it’s the tiny daily happenings – the coughs and colds, confrontations with neighbours, discussions about growing bulbs and strange meals that appear on their dinner table – that has me wrapped.

Lately my blog has become primarily a craft blog. When I haven’t done any crafting I feel I have nothing to say. When I don’t have time to craft, my blog – always an important part of my personal creative expression – lies dormant. I love, love love the craft blogs I visit. Most blogs I frequent these days are the ones that show amazing projects which inspire me on so many levels. But at the moment my craft work is just a small part of where I am at. There is all this other stuff that mills around in my head and fills my days and while it all may not be as pretty or as cute or as potentially inspiring as a new project, it’s part of all of this and I had forgotten that it’s what I wanted to record when I began Loobylu almost six years ago (yeegads!). There are new haircuts that have not been blogged! Places I have driven to without having a nervous breakdown to report! Amelia still isn’t potty trained! So that’s where I am. I promise not to write too much about Australian Idol. But um… Laura????

Cold and cute

I haven’t done anything crafty for the longest time. It’s so cold in my studio that my finger tips turn blue and my feet feel like big lumps of solid wood in my sneakers.

I am also suffering from a slight case of blog fatigue which I am sure hits all of us from time to time. It’s just too cold in here and of course Australian Idol has started so the couch is so much more inviting. Luckily I’ve been through this enough times now to know that these feelings of “oh, I wish I could just chuck it all in” will pass in a week or two.

Plush You! opened in Seattle a few days ago, and it’s great to see some photos up around the place of the show (not martha and mia’s). Here’s the list of artists whose work is included. If you happen to be in Seattle you can catch the show (and my cat and pear) at Schmancy.

On an exciting crafty-purchase note; I just bought one of Melissa’s tiny little cuties over at Etsy — (a fabulously dangerous place to visit if you have any money in your paypal account).

Isn’t she cute? And only 5cm high.