25.

I celebrated my 25th birthday a couple of weeks ago. It was an afternoon of sun, fun, food, and rude conversation. I had so much fun, actually, that I only took one picture the whole afternoon!



Here's Toby in my backyard. Please excuse my underwear on the line.

Toby, Kristy, Bron and Liz are vegan, and Preethi is vegetarian, so I wanted to cater for them - after all, the rest of us could still eat the vegan food, and I wanted everyone to be able to eat everything! With that in mind, I whipped up a bunch of tasty treats - green pea puffs, baked artichoke dip and quinoa salad, all borrowed from Cindy and Michael).

My housemate made a killer guacamole, and I also made a chocolate-almond torte and an orange polenta cake. With a heap of gorgeous summer fruit and Kristy's cute cupcakes, we ate and ate and ate until we were stuffed full, and then kept eating!

And two weeks later I'm STILL working my way through the 650g of Belgian chocolate from Bronwyn and Simon....

Happy happy birthday!

I realised today that I'd missed my blog's first birthday!

What a year it's been.

I've travelled to Europe for the first (but not the last!) time.

I've discovered a love and talent for photography and participated in my first exhibition.

I've adopted a cat.

I've seen some awesome bands.

I've met some lovely new friends.

I've cooked and eaten some yummy food!

Though not 100 percent yet, I've come out the other side from an incredibly intense, debilitating period of depression and grieving that's consumed me for most of the past twelve months. I'm now medication-free and starting to look forward and enjoy living again. It's pretty exciting!

The next year is going to bring some interesting things too, I think. Hopefully this time next year I'll have finally finished my degree. I want to keep developing my photography, and participate in a few more shows, and start getting my name out there. I want to take a holiday to somewhere tropical and warm where I can lie on the beach and drink cocktails from coconuts! I want to keep meeting new people, and listening to new music, and discovering new places to eat.

I want to find that special someone, too, but one of the things that this past year has taught me is that I have to be happy with myself before I can even begin to think about being happy with someone else. I've still got some work to do yet!

Thanks for reading this past year.. here's to the next one!

Liz xoxo

What am I, five?

Today's afternoon tea:



Mexican hot chocolate snickerdoodles from the forthcoming Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, and homemade rosewater lemonade.

Inspired by the lemonade at Mezza, my rosewater lemonade is so easy to make. I don't have an exact recipe, but I dissolve about a third of a cup of sugar in some boiling water in a two-litre jug, then add the juice of three lemons and a decent slosh of rosewater, then fill the rest of the jug up with cold water. I like my lemonade to be nice and tangy and not too sweet, so this recipe works well for me.. it can obviously be adapted to suit your tastes.

Yum!

(PS.. do you like my special favourite HSM glass?)

I'm staying up late for a secret mission at approximately 0305 hours, so I'm cleaning my house and wasting time on the internet. Here's a cute thing I stole from Pip of Meet Me At Mike's.

This past week, here's what I've been...

Making: owl mittens.
Cooking: chocolate and almond torte for my mother's 50th birthday celebrations on Sunday.
Drinking: rotgut red wine with a new friend, and Cascade Green with an old friend.
Reading: Cafe Europa by Slavenka Drakulić - a series of essays on life in post-Communist Eastern Europe.
Wanting: a holiday.
Looking: at the pretty night sky in the street behind my house.
Playing: McDonald's Monopoly with my housemate.
Wasting: time sweating the small stuff.
Sewing: a missing button onto my work shirt.
Wishing: and hopin', Dusty Springfield style.
Waiting: to buy my own copy of Love Of Diagrams' new album Nowhere Forever.
Wondering: where the twists and turns of the past week's romantickal events are going to lead.
Loving: the photos of my friend Tim with a huge snake draped around his neck.
Hoping: I get into art school next year.
Marvelling: at the little things that tell me spring's JUST around the corner.
Needing: a small practise design in preparation for my big project that I'll be beginning soon.
Smelling: my cocoa-butter moisturiser. Yum!
Wearing: clothes from Australia, Brazil, Korea and Italy.
Following: Mamma Spaghetti on Twitter. She's hilarious!
Noticing: the snuffles that my cat is making right now in her sleep.
Knowing: that everything will be okay.
Thinking: about what I can say on the radio at 3 in the morning that will make any kind of sense.
Bookmarking: this recipe for dill pickles. About the only thing cucumbers are good for, in my opinion!
Giggling: with my BFF this afternoon.
Feeling: a bit ordinary, but enjoying the small details.

Mighty Ducks 8.

1. $60/kg cheese.
I couldn't help myself! I dropped into Maria's Coffee House & Deli in Nicholson St on my way home from uni to stock up on capers (an essential in my larder) and this little wedge of cheese caught my eye.



It's parmigiano di bufala, or buffalo parmesan. I tasted it in the shop, and it's much sharper and zingier than cow's milk parmesan. The woman in the shop told me firmly to hide it! For the price it was, I'm going to use it for something special. I'm Googling recipes as I type so hopefully I'll find a dish that complements the cheese perfectly. I shall report back!

Side note: OH MY GOD. As I was hunting up recipes just now, I found this on a menu - "Spaghetti alla castagne: Spaghetti sautéed in a chestnut cream sauce topped with cocoa powder. Like Pip says, that sounds like it should be illegal.

2. People on public transport.
It was a bit scary on the bus home from uni tonight - a young man got on and sat up the back of the bus near me who was very agitated. He was muscled, and dressed in trackies and a tank top - not someone you'd want to mess with ordinarily. He was talking to himself quite loudly, and bouncing up and down in his seat, occasionally coming out with bursts of manic chuckling. I don't want to say "crazy," or that he was dangerous but he definitely made me and some of the other passengers that I spoke to later feel very uncomfortable. What do you do in those types of situations? I just kept my head down and my sunnies on and read my book. The whole bus breathed a sigh of relief when he disembarked.

3. Cute thing cute thing!!.
Everyone! One.. two... three.....

...AWWWWWWWW!






I spied these cuties at uni, enjoying a walk in the sunshine around the campus with their mum. Awwww!

These are a few of my favourite things...

In the absence of a REAL blog post, here are some of the things I've been enjoying lately.

Favourite thing #1: Melbourne bands.
In particular, Spider Vomit, Zond, and, as always, Love Of Diagrams. You've unfortunately missed out on seeing Love Of Diagrams for the forseeable future, as they're heading off to the US to record their new album (!!!!!1!!111!!!) and won't be back until November. I have to say, I'm not sure how I feel about the wah in their new songs, but I'm sure I'll get used to it - after all, a couple of years ago I was talking about how I wasn't sure about the vocals in their (then) new songs, and now I love it!

Fact: Spider Vomit are infinitely cooler than you or me. Here is some photographic evidence.


(Photo by Adalita)


(Photo by Ali McCann)


(Photo by Ben Butcher - all photos from Spider Vomit's Myspace)

Zond are playing at Pony on the 3rd of October - make sure you get along! I've been assured that Sober Marney will be in attendance this time (she was woefully absent last time I saw Zond play..)!

Favourite thing #2: Aldi's Oat Temptations.
These are fantastic. Little single-serve sachets of flavoured porridge. Sure, they're probably bad for me and they're definitely full of loads of artificial colours and flavours, but they're the best thing to chuck in my bag and take to work with me for my second breakfast!

Favourite thing #3: Rubi flats from Cotton On.
Thank you, Robyn! I'd been searching for a replacement pair of red flats for almost a year now, and these were the exact shade of red I was looking for. Plus.. you can get two pairs for $20 (baaaaaargain!), and they come in all colours of the rainbow.

Favourite thing #4: my friends.
They know why. Thanks to Tom, Ben, Lisa, Simone, Roxanne, Martin, Kate, Henry, Rach, Dean, Pip, Lisa, and countless others for loving me, making me laugh, mopping up my tears, buying me beers and hot chocolates, showing me shiny things on the internet, keeping me occupied and distracted, writing me songs, having me over for dinner (even though I had to cook AND wash up..), holding my hand while crossing the road, and generally being awesome. Much luff to you all.

(all together now.. awwwwww!)