Monday Yummies

So tonight was yum!

Yesterday the Boy made a great sausage stroganoff (I really had to bite my tongue when he kept disappearing off in the middle of it all though!).

I made Creamy Caper Chicken a la Jess:

Ingredients

• Chicken thighs (about 5 small ones)
• Lemon, herb & garlic seasoning - used to season the chicken
• Cayenne Pepper - used to season the chicken
• 1 tsp minced garlic (naughty me I didn't use real garlic)
• 1.5tbsp seeded mustard
• 1 cup cream
• 1/2 cup white wine
• chicken stock cube
• 1/4 cup boiling water
• Butter (your choice) 
• 2 tbsp well drained capers
• Cherry tomatoes (optional - I probably wouldn't add these last time & would go for sundried tomato)

Method

1. Cut chicken thighs into pieces and cover a plate with the seasoning + cayenne pepper. Mix the seasoning and chicken together (at this point I added more seasoning + CP, you could probably just mix in a freezer bag!).
2. Melt butter in a large pan on high heat. When all melted add the chicken, brown it and turn down to mid-heat then cook until pretty much cooked through.
3. Remove chicken to a plate and cover.
4. Add wine to pan along with the minced garlic and mustard. Bring to boil and cover leave on mid-heat for about 5 minutes then add stock cube and boiling water.
5. Add cream, bring to boil and then turn down to low (cover) and let simmer.
6. Add chicken to sauce and heat chicken
7. Voila ready to serve!

We ate this with rice but you could easily eat it with pasta - rice was just good for soaking up the yummy yummy sauce! Also to get some veggies I probably would have added green beans.

Sundays are Awesome

So I should really be tidying up the house! I've said for the past 3 days that I'll sort out all my clothes and still haven't. Yesterday I had a pass due to a headache but now I'm just being lazy and enjoying listening to Anna Pihl (SBS Danish show) whilst Hubby watches it. I figure maybe I'll learn some danish through osmosis haha.

Today was another visit to the Freo markets (holy crazy amount of tourists Batman!) we took one of my closest girlfriends to My Yummy Vice the awesome cupcake place there. Then had crepes (from a French couple opposite timezone) and then went back to the markets for lots of veggies. 

The perfect morning and then later this afternoon I'm catching up with the friend again to go for a big walk around the river with our little Monster. She's house sitting/ puppy sitting for us over the long weekend so I want him to be used to walking with her. 

I always enjoy going on long walks with the girls. I just wish I did it more often instead of once in a blue moon. I always feel so much healthier afterwards. If I could find the cord for my cross trainer then I'd be aiming to get in shape on that thing but Mum has no idea where it is. I feel like she has half of my stuff at her place and just can't 'find' it.

Because the plan is to try and get pregnant in March I really want to start my health kick end of Jan (due to all the festivities and birthdays in December/January). But I figure getting started now is a good idea! I just can't wait to get off the damn pill and see if that does anything re: my crazy headaches!

In other news we scored a dog friendly place down south for Easter! Even though it's so far away (and I'll hopefully be pregnant which will kinda suck re: not drinking) I'm really looking forward to it. It'll be great to have a mini holiday without having to take annual leave. I'm trying to save up as much leave and money as possible and this place was cheap so YAY!

On the Side

I would love to dedicate part of this blog to tattoos...I guess if I ever get a big enough following I could do just that but for now I want to show off my Ganesh:

I got this tattoo done at Cyclops Tattoo studio in San Francisco by the amazing Sweet Cicely Daniher.

It was based off this image I found along with some specific changes I wanted.

The changes I made included:

• Getting rid of the body (ha-ha that sounds so mobster) - I didn't want something overtly religious especially because I'm agnostic
• Changing the symbol on the forehead to a heart - what can I say I'm a girly girl!
• Inserting star signs down his trunk to symbolise my family - I also like this because then I can add to it when I have children, the annoying thing is my dad was born on the Pisces Aquarius cusp so he scored 2 signs! The bonus both Hubby and Mum are Aries'.
• The colours I pretty much left up to SCD to decide on because I knew she'd know what looked best on my skin tone etc...

It was a funny experience especially after my first tattoo which without my knowledge was done by a complete newbie (will never go back there for a tattoo, done by a reputable shop in Perth as well!). So when my back started spasming I completely freaked out that I was going to have a 4 year old's scribbles on my back. Credit to SCD though she just breezed through it and it was done in a little over half an hour (my tiny A - first tattoo took that long!). From then on I've been sold and I crave lots more much to Mum's despair. Hubby loves them though and seeing as he's always the one having to look at them that's all that matters :)

Munday

Today was a good day. I had an early start at work which always inspires me to wake up early on the other days and do something with my mornings! But then when I'm curled up with my doona, the Hubby and our puppy it's hard to keep that inspiration.

If he was still this cute it would be doubly hard!

Unfortunately there weren't LOTS of applications on my phone or email, not that I've had enough time to really go through them all. 4 interviews (with one running 30mins late!) and lots of requests does not help. I always used to leave on time at work but now I'm doing lots of overtime. I guess it's good though in that I can take time off and leave work early for long weekends and or appointments.

We're both looking forward to going to Albany and visiting my Dad on the upcoming long weekend. We just need someone to house/dog sit because he can't be an inside puppy down there :( Plus the two golden retrievers are down there and our dog has small puppy syndrome and would most likely get himself bitten (which personally I think he deserves!). I miss going down there, not that I've ever been a daddy's girl (they got divorced when I was quite young), it's just so nice to get away. It's also helpful that lots of my family is down there so there are always people to visit when we go. 

I don't know what we'll do down there, I was hoping to leave early because of the long drive to get there but the Hubby doesn't finish uni until mid afternoon so it won't be too quick. We'll be in a hurry to get down there because the kangaroos cause havoc on the roads after the sun has set :( But we'll no doubt meander back on Monday and maybe stop in a few places just to relax!

PS: I can finally tie my hair up WOO HOO.

Another Sunday Post

I always find myself posting on a Sunday. I guess as the day winds down I feel like putting fingers to keys and purging my soul.

Not a lot happened this sunny Father's Day. We had a breakfast with my father-in-law which was great because the SiL (wife of Hubby's brother) wasn't there and I felt like I could just relax. Next weekend will be full on dealing with them because it's our nephew's second birthday but that'll be fine. I'll just drink coffee and take lots of photos and enjoy the day! We got him 2 books and a plastic golf set so hopefully he enjoys all of that. It's hard buying for little kids, especially when they're no longer babies but they're not really 'kids' yet either.

We've been having lots more baby talks because we decided that we'd aim for a November/December 2011 baby. But knowing what babies are like re: arrivals that could be thrown way out of kilter. It's still nice to realise just how close my life-long dream is though. We're not sharing this with anyone though. We went out to a fantastic dinner last night (any Perth people check out Hippo Creek in Subi!) and one of my best uni friends asked if our baby plans had changed. I hope I kept a good poker face when I said 'No!'. I realise everyone is going to think it was an accident and some people will be openly upset about it but I also know that will change when they've had time for it all to sink in. The Hubby and I just really want him to have some time with our first born and figure that the break between finishing uni and starting a new job would be perfect.

I'd be less inclined to do it then if I knew he was the kind of guy who would want to go out and do all the partying the new graduates want to do. But we're both old fuddy-duddies and I know he would hate doing that. Plus he's sort of a mature age student (even if he's under 30) and those graduates would just be too young for him. Although in saying all of that I would still be fine if he went out a couple of nights for after work drinks. After all it's best to get the baby sitting started early especially while the grandparents still view it as a novelty ha-ha.

On a completely non-related baby note I've finally organised time with my little sister to go and get her tattoo. I'm going to get another one on my right foot with a phrase out of one of our wedding readings. It should be fun to share that with her although my Mum got a bit angry when I told her. At least her tattoo won't be visible except when she's wearing a bikini so Mum won't have it in her face constantly.

I'm also considering getting a rib piece with a line of script from our wedding and then things around it that were significant to that day: buttons, owl and pussy-cat, orchids, roses, danish and australian flags etc... But that tattoo will definitely have to wait until I have enough cash. Because we want to have a baby end of next year that's what the savings are going towards. It's funny how easy it is to talk myself out of a pair of shoes now when I think about what I'm saving towards...although not as easy to talk myself out of buying awesome mobiles off etsy! I love that website but it will be the death of my bank account.

Hope everyone has a fantastic week ahead, I'm not looking forward to the mass amounts of job applications I will have on my phone and email tomorrow but them's the breaks :)

Things I Love Thursday (even though it's Friday)

Once again inspired by the incredibly awesome Gala Darling.

The Big Things:

• Living in my own home with my husband - we really appreciate this after having spent time between family homes when we didn't live together and then living first with my Mum and then with his parents before we could finally afford to rent our own humble little abode
• That it's the day in between our 2 anniversary days (we became a couple November 1st and married July 3rd)
• Our fluffy little white pooch
• Enjoying going to work and having a fantastic boss
• My new caramel hair

The Little Things:

• My tattoos (I really want another one on the other foot to compliment my 'jeg elsker dig' on my left foot)
• Pad Thai from the Thai Restaurant just down the road
• Watching Keeping up with the Kardashians - crap tv is AWESOME ha-ha
• Curling up on the couch and watching Mad Men with the hubby
• Brown sugar and yoghurt
• Oranges - especially while I have a cold
• Making my wedding photobook (except a stupid virus has ruined my computer at the moment grrr)
• Playing with my wedding and engagement rings
• Receiving letters address to Mrs X

Girl Love

I read this wonderful post by Gala Darling and couldn't not share the link: http://galadarling.com/article/do-you-want-to-be-a-mermaid-or-a-whale

I'm so happy that I love my body and being a whale ROCKS! Not that there is anything wrong with being skinny, if we weren't all different shapes and sizes how ugly the world would be!