101 Things Update: April 2012

Well, I just realised that it's been a couple of months since I wrote an update on my 101 Things, and with my clicker --> getting quite close to 700 I'm beginning to get a bit nervous that I won't get the list done.

That's right, you heard me - I'm nervous that I won't finish the list when I have in excess of 700 days to complete it. Is that a problem??

Yyyyyyyyyyyeaaahhhhhhhhhhh... anyway!

It's been a pretty slow couple of months. I've dabbled here and there with the list but not made any special efforts. Some of these were completed in previous months but I've been too lazy to post about it!

So without further ado, here is the update:

1. Year of the Cupcake - I just counted and realised that I've actually made eleven batches of cupcakes in a period of time in which I should have made only ten. Twelve if you count the ones I made for a baby shower and never posted the photos for. Thirteen if you count the ones I made at Easter out of packet mix and also never posted the photos for. My brain is starting to assume that all food should be baked in cupcake tins, and that's scaring me a little... Anyway, I made these Apricot Upside-Down (cup)Cakes, and they're supposed to be good-ish for you. At least, they're still, like, 140 calories per serve but at least you get some sort of nutrition in that and not just a mouthful of butter and sugar *goes to happy butter-sugar place* The ones I have planned for next month are from Sprinkle Bakes and they're going to be, as they say, amazeballs. Might as well finish the challenge with a bang. And don't ask me what's so amazing about balls, because... okay, totally not going there. Moving on!

2, 3 and 4 all centre around tasting wine in South Australia. I'm toying with the idea of heading over to SA on the next long weekend (June) and knocking out two of the three wine regions and catching up with some friends from SA while I'm at it. I should probably get off my bottom and organise that, shouldn't I...

8. To make a fancy-schmancy cake. Well, I have (perhaps foolishly) agreed to bake my new-found friend Amber's wedding cake. Foolish on several levels - one, I'm terrified that I'll balls it up completely. Two, I'll be baking it in her kitchen, only a day or two before the wedding. I guess if it turns out to be an horrific mess that makes Miss A cry, I'll just scrape back the buttercream, pour chocolate ganache over it and adorn it with strawberries. Always good to have a backup plan ;) Anyway, I'm brainstorming ideas on Pintrest at present. The original brief was black cornelli lace with accents of red and purple, but it seems to be evoloving. And, to assauge Amber's fears, I am attending 12 hours of cake decorating course in the month of May. I don't know whether it will teach me all the wikkiz skillz I need, but at least it will give me a foundation of the basics (YouTube only takes you so far) and will enable me to attend more advanced courses should the need arise. In the meantime, my own 30th birthday *shudders* is coming up and I could probably make myself a schmancy cake as a practice one for Amber's.

*draws breath*

I'm actually really disappointed that #15 - the dinner party one - hasn't even gotten started. It means that I've gone nearly 300 days without having anyone over for dinner. Shame on me! (might have something to do with how awful the kitchen table has been, but mum cleaned her crap off it so we could have lunch yesterday... best I capitalise on that!)

22. To learn to make cheese - May is the month! Getting excited...

30. Do a jigsaw puzzle - in the end I went with a Ken Duncan one, which is a big panorama of a mill with autumn trees all around and a mill-pond in the foreground. It's a very tranquil piece, and I'm finding doing the puzzle very absorbing and - you guessed it - tranquilizing. Hours pass by very easily, and I must say I'm really enjoying it.

31. Build a Lego model. Done it. Smashed it. (figuratively - as in, blitzed the challenge... and also literally, as in, smashed the models to pieces and put them away once a sufficient amount of dust had gathered on them!)

43. Go horse riding. I'm booked in for May the 13th, with my BFF Ness' twin brother Dean. The same twin whose birthday I keep forgetting, even though, being Ness' twin, he has the exact same birthday as her. Yep, I'm a moron.

54. & 55. Visit Mexico and Africa. I'm at the plotting stage. As in, the serious plotting stage. As in, have narrowed down what tours I want to do (because yes, I will be doing it in a tour, because no, I don't feel comfortable travelling alone in those places, especially now with my tendency to try and drop dead in less-than-convenient locations... Mt Hotham, anyone? Peru? How about on an operating table?). As in, have even looked at the dates those tours leave and have roughed out a schedule. As in, have done a pre-assessment for travel insurance, and it looks like they'll cover me - huzzah! As in, have told my boss of my intention to take two months off, and he sounded surprised and a little bewildered but didn't say nooooooooooo... so now all I have to do is get him to sign my leave form. So it's looking good. It's looking really good.

I haven't holidayed overseas since 2009 when Kirsti, Kat and I headed to Thailand. Unless you count the cruise at Christmas 2010, which I kind of don't, because it was during my enforced Christmas break and, great fun though it was, it wasn't really going and seeking adventure. That said, I'd love to do another cruise, it's just a different style of holiday and not what I'm after for this one. So. Who wants to come to Mexico or Africa? And that's a serious question. I'm looking for travel buddies...

61. Read a Long Walk to Freedom. I'm about half way through and yep, it's a long walk, but not painfully so! By which I mean, it's actually quite an interesting read.

97. Write to my Aunt Judy once ever six months. Well, I finally put pen to paper and have written the first letter. I haven't posted it yet, mind you, because I'm waiting on dad to call me back with her address. But, partial credit!

Soooooooo I guess the last couple of months weren't as slow as I had thought. That's good! I like crossing things off :)

Lego: I haz it. Lotz of it.

If you've been keeping half an eye on my 101 Things list, you'll know that one of my challenges was to build a Lego model. Well! Did I ever! And I don't think that I'm quite done, yet, because I had so much fun doing it. My dad even came over and helped me find pieces like he used to when I was a kid! You can probably tell exactly how much fun I had by the number of unnecessary exclamation marks in this post!

Legolegolegolegolegolegolegolegolegolegolegolegolegolegolego!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, if you love Lego and are sick of your own parents and would very much like to be adopted, I recommend Kelley over at magnetoboldtoo.com as your new mother. She recently threw an epic Lego-themed birthday party for her boy. A birthday party that included a food fight, chocolate lego bricks and Lego jellies and Lego decorations. Man, that's dedication!

So anyway, this is how much Lego we have collected over the years. Also, hot tip - keep your kids' Lego on an old sheet inside an old suitcase. So much easier to pack up!

Most of it is my brother's, but a substantial amount is the medieval stuff, most of which is mine. MINE, I TELLS YA!!! I'm not sure what I like more - the little horsies... Or the wizards... Or the ghosties... Or the teensy, tiny little weapons (by the way, the large axes kind of hurt to step on. In case you were wondering...)

And this, my dears, is the massive pile of instructions to go with it all.

(Except that after I took this photo, I realised that a lot of it is actually Lego advertising material from the early Eighties that came with the Lego. I wonder if it's worth anything as a collector's thingie, cos most people throw this shit out (welcome to my house!), and surely something so dog-eared and chewed rare should be worth something...?)

In the end I made a few things. Most of them were missing pieces when I finished (the house is still missing quite a few but I managed to make it stay up anyhow) but I found most of the missing bits as I did more models.

(that looks structurally sound, right??)

So far, I have made a police car, a fire engine, a house, a medieval house, a space ship, and what I think is supposed to be Merlin in a tree (don't ask me why he's in a tree).

Not exactly a top news story, but I guess I can cross it off my list!

Book Review: A Short History of the World, by H.G. Wells

This one took me a flippin' long time to read, partly because I was reading three other books at the same time (this was my aeroplane book which I, predictably, picked up at the airport one day in my travels) and partly because it is interesting enough but heavy on the detail. Suffice it to say that I am glad that the chapters are short. Paradoxically, however, that might be why it took me so long to read - because I rarely read more than one chapter at a time, and the chapters are so short.

I have nothing particularly noteworthy to say about the book. It steps through people and places in history that I have never heard of. I do wonder whether that is related to the fact that it was written in 1922 in England, and one presumes the History syllabus back then was somewhat different to mid-nineties Australia.

I feel that in many instances it skipped over things too much and gave too much apparently inane detail, which overwhelmed me.  I was hoping that by reading it I would become absorbed enough to permanently learn something; to become an ancient history trivia champion, if you will; but nothing lodged in my brain. I learnt more from Rings of Saturn than from this book, and that surprised me because Rings of Saturn was more of a memoir than a history book.

I am sure that if you are a history buff and already have a degree of familiarity with some of the events depicted within the book, that it will flow well and simply be like putting a puzzle together.  It wasn't that the narrative tone was too old-fashioned either, because I am well acquainted with Victorian fiction. No, I'm just no history buff, and this book simply wasn't my style. The saving grace for me was that the author did a good job of commenting on various events as though he was literally having a conversation with the reader.

If you want to get a taste of it you can click on various sections here.