Late, and unofficial, Fun Monday

While you all wait on tenterhooks to find out where I've been for the past week, I thought I'd show you some photos my darling mother recently sent me.

Also, I have a twinge of Fun Monday envy. If I took a photo out my front door, you'd just see another boring, steel-reinforced door in a dreary foyer. So, I'm stealing my mother's glory.

As Willowtree mentioned in his photographic odyssey, parts of Australia are in the grip of drought. This is nothing new, as it seems for the past ten years or so, one state or another has been dry as a bone.

Growing up in lush, sub-tropical Queensland (and it's more tropical than sub, I'll tell ya), I remember the time about five years ago when the Premier ordered the drinking water dams be opened and water be released, as the dams had reached their capacity.

Criticised at the time for letting water go when parts of Australia were really darn thirsty, I remember him saying, "We have enough water here to last us another five years."

Five years down the track, and Brisbane hasn't seen a significant rainfall since... well, since then. Water is now the Premier's number one priority.

So without any further ago, here are photos of my parents lush, sub-tropical front yard...




When people say Australia is running out of water... they're really not joking.

(And as I write this, my cleaner is cleaning the kitchen with the water constantly running. At least it's not drinking water.)

Fun Monday 13: 10 Questions

This week's Fun Monday is being hosted by Bethany at Ice Cream Mama. Click on over to see who the participants are this week.

Bethany's challenge was to answer the following ten questions, which she got from her favourite TV show, The Actor's Studio.

I'm in a bit of a bleh di blah mood today, so please excuse me, and I'll excuse your yawning as you read!

What is your favorite word?
Favourite words, for me, are chosen entirely because of their sounds. In fact, I said a favourite word on Saturday night (I actually admitted to the person I was talking to that I only said the word because I like the way it sounds), and now I can't remember it. Too much Pinot Grigio, I guess.

Anyhoo, at the moment I'm admiring the phrase: Respublikansky Stadion, which is up there with Maidan Nezalezhnosti. I can't think of any of my favourite words in English at the moment (sod's law strikes again) but you can be sure I've probably used them a million times in my blog.

What is your least favorite word?
I like to think of least favourite uses of words. For example, in high school, my peers started to use the word docile to indicate that someone was stupid. In my mind, docile means gentle and timid - like Bambi. It really ruined the word for me.

In Australia, it's also common to refer to people who are hippies or live in the country and are a bit rough as ferals. To me, feral is a plant or animal that grows out of control. I don't really like it used in reference to human beings. But, it actually does work well, and I do use the word - and hate myself every time I do.

I also don't like people who are too lazy to use decent adjectives, and just describe everything as 'f***ing'. This is common amongst some Australian males... I went to the f***ing beach yesterday and the waves were f***ing huge so I got my surfboard and caught the sweetest f***ing waves.... etc. Grow a brain and expand your adjectival vocab, for goodness sake.

What turns you on (creatively, spiritually or emotionally)?
I love cooking. I love reading about food. I love thinking of meals to create and picking out new recipes to try. And I love to gobble it all up. Enough said, really.

I also love listening to music. As I've grown up, I've tended to retreat into my old favourites rather than find new bands - just a bit lazy I guess. We all know how I feel about Simon & Garfunkel (and if you don't, click on the link).

I also love writing. When I was working for big corporates, I loved the challenge of creating news for the company, and editing and proof reading documents. It's hard to be creative about the same company for years on end, but when you conquer the challenge, it feels good!

What turns you off?
Public drunkeness (unless it's me, ho ho ho), hoiking and spitting on the ground, aggressive people, public conflict (e.g. couples fighting in public).

I also get turned off by people who REALLY force their opinions on others. I can be a bit bossy, so this could well be me, but I'm constantly keeping myself in check. I try hard to keep my trap shut, so I don't appreciate it when others don't (that being said, I know hardly anyone who's so opinionated I'm turned off).

What is your favorite curse word?
Fricken, bollix (yes, I know that's not the spelling, but that's how I say it), shizen, f***, pr*ck...

What sound or noise do you love?
Rain on the tin roofs in Queensland houses (listening from the inside), wind outside (but I hate being IN the wind), Mr Moi's voice, birds, the sound of Skype starting up (as it always precedes a phone call home).

What sound or noise do you hate?
The sound of toilets flushing on planes. Always makes me think I'm going to get sucked down too. People talking over the top of one another. Car horns beeping for no reason.

What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
- Opening and running a shop, perhaps a cafe
- Novelist
- Chef.

What profession would you not like to attempt?
- Anything with numbers
- Teacher (I don't disrespect the profession. I just seriously don't have the patience)
- Anything that involves too much networking or selling.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Good on ya for being a good person.

Fun Monday for a fish out of water

This will be a quick Fun Monday, as I'm not on my own computer, not sitting in my own house, or not in either of the two countries that I currently call 'home'.

So, here's my take on Fun Monday. For all the participants, visit Beccy at Peppermint Tea.

This week Beccy challenged us to post a recipe that would inspire her to cook it, so here goes mine.


Warm duck salad

Get a bowl. Throw in two handfuls of rucola and mixed salad leaves. Blanch some green beans, then add them. Crumble a handful of fetta cheese in too. Boil up a few beets until cooked, quarter them, and chuck them in too. Toast some walnuts in a frying pan, then chop them and add them to the mix.

In a seperate bowl, spoon in two tablespoons of warmed cranberry sauce, the juice and seeds of one pommegranate, one heaped teaspoon of dijon mustard, a good splosh of red wine vinegar, and a couple of glugs of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and whisk to mix.

Heat a frying pan and cook two duck breats (skin on). On medium heat, cook skin side down for about eight minutes, then turn onto flesh side and cook for about one minute. Then pop the breasts into a pre-heated oven on 180 degrees celcius for about 5 minutes. The duck breasts will be medium rare.

Slice the breasts, chuck them into the salad bowl. Toss the salad to mix, and pour dressing over.

Serves four as an extree. Accompany with a carb - e.g. polenta, risotto or potatoes to make into a main.

Enjoy, and sorry about being uninspring.

Fun Monday # 7: The world's shortest novel.

EYE EYE EYE

As she emerged from the lift and sat down, a bright spark from the welding in the ground floor apartment renovations ruptured her retina and she was forced to stumble out of the room and across the road in search of an opthamologist; but, as she made her way blindly across the street, she was hit by a car and whisked away to hospital - so it didn't matter that she didn't find an opthamologist that day, as they fixed her eye anyway, but she never played the violin again.

THE END


It's fun Monday! Today's fun Monday is hosted by Min at MamaDrama. Visit Min's blog to see the full list of participants this week.

The challenge, should we have chosen to accept it, was to...

Write the worst opening sentence that you can come up with and accompany this atrocity with a photo of your setting, a character or a bit of action that relates to the opening line or (for those who do not have a camera) a written description of same.

Seeing as I ruptured my retina, I couldn't see well enough to post an appropriate pic - sorry!

Next week's Fun Monday is hosted by beccy.

** Update
Okay okay. Here's a photo to go with the story, for all those critics out there, and story has been amended slightly to fit.

Fun Monday # 2 (well, it is for me)

** Fun Monday update: For those of you still doing the rounds, my friend carpetblogger was an unofficial Fun Monday entrant. Check out her Instanbul blogging environment (she has the best looking support staff in town).




Welcome to my second ever Fun Monday!

Today's Fun Monday is brought to you by my compatriot, Willowtree, and for the full list of participants this week, you can visit him at A Dingo's got my Barbie. I encourage you to visit, there's free vegemite sandwiches at the door. (Not really, but there should be).

The theme for this week's fun Monday is 'blogging environment'. This is fairly easy for me, seeing as I have an apartment the size of a shoe box. I have a living room, bedroom, teeny tiny kitchen and a bathroom. Not much choice really.

But I also have a laptop computer and wireless internet (not exactly reliable), so my blogging environment could really by anywhere within my 50 squares.

Mostly, though, my 'computer room' is the one that is also the telly room, the reading room, and, if we had a piano, it would be the piano room too.

Here's a picture of my blogging environment:

Jaw-dropping, isn't it? To afford you a closer look at my 'desk', I took another picture from a slightly different angle:

Notice the crochet nana-rug on my knees? Not only did I make it myself, but I hoiked it all the way to Ukraine to keep me warm. And they still haven't really fixed up the heating so I'm using it this morning.

Now, let's examine my desk in greater detail. Firstly, my mouse-pad. It's a small coffee-table book about Australia. "What's it doing on your desk?" you ask. Ay, there's the rub. My desk isn't a desk per se, rather, and this will shock you, it's a coffee table.

See the two glasses next to the computer? That's the remnants of last nights coupla glasses of Georgian red wine.

Underneath the desk there are a number of magazines, and a couple of hard drives to play music from. My speakers? They're built into the computer of course. And all the computer cords, when not in use, conveniently tuck away into the footstool you see in the backgrounds of the pics.

The true beauty of this position is that I can type at the computer, and without moving my head, I can also watch telly.

Talk about an assault of the senses.

So, that was a rather mediocre post, was it not?

Here's something to get you excited. Sunrise in Kyiv from the living room window you see shining in the photos above.

First, the sun just peeking over the buildings across the road...

Then a little more...

Then a little more than the one before....

Then even more than the one before and the one before that....

And finally way more than the one before x(times) four...
(Well, how the heck else can you commentate a sunrise?)

Have a great fun Monday. Love Little Miss Moi xx

PS Can you see the reflection of my in my pink pyjamas in the door?

Fun monday part II: my precious things

This week's fun monday is hosted by karmyn and the topic is precious possessions. And so to start...

In August, Mr Moi and I made some very hard decisions. Examining our measly possessions, we had to decide what to bring to Ukraine (the bare minimum), what to store in Oz (anything worth anything), and what to chuck in the bin/give away (pretty much everything).

During this time, I learned how easy it was to chuck stuff out. So easy - just put it in the bin or give it to charity. We threw out so much stuff... and unfortunately, I was bitten by the chuck-out bug, and threw out two-thirds of my beloved knee sock collection.

I had about 30 pair of knee socks. I've whittled this down to a collection of about 10. I've collected these over a period of time, mostly from Australia, Japan and some recent additions from France. They are precious to me.

Yes, they are very beautiful. I especially love the ones at the far left, aqua with white polka dots. These were brought back to me from Japan. And I found the pink socks with the stars at the trader's markets in Sydney. They had a sister pair - black socks with white stars, which looked great with my black one-star converse sneakers. But Mr Moi forced me to dispose of both after a week of camping in the rain with no other shoes or socks.

The stripey socks were purchased for me by a former colleague. They are my 'corporate' knee socks, as they were deemed acceptable to wear to work. My other socks weren't acceptable, but I wore them anyway.

My other prized possessions are my accessories. I don't wear makeup, but I love earrings and all that flippy girlie stuff. Much to my mother's dismay however, not one piece is made from a precious metal, except maybe a bit of silver. And none contain precious stones. And my average accessory usually retails around the $5-mark.

Here's a picture of my accessories.

Oh, I don't wear the pink padlock at the front. But you have to admit that a pink padlock is rather special, so it's kept with my special accessories.

Here's a picture of my socks and accessories together.

If you notice, nothing matches. That's because I never match. It's just too hard to co-ordinate clothes with socks and shoes and accessories.

Last but not least. Drum-roll please...

My final prized possession has travelled with me everywhere. Mr Moi wants to throw it out. I have to hide it from him. It's covered my head in south east asian temples, been a frenchie-style neck tie in cool clubs in Montreal, and now it's acting as an ear-warmer in Kyiv.

It's my red bandanna.

Purchased for 50 cents at Vinnies at Nundah in 1997, it's our ten year anniversary this year. I love you red bandanna.

And so ends my first fun monday. I hope you enjoyed it.

Fun monday part I

Dear all. I am new to fun Monday. I am feeling the pressure. If I didn't have a Russian lesson to cram for today, I would post before midnight my time.

Being from Australia, however, I should be genetically conditioned to cater to my readers there. I should be thinking forward. However, I'm not good at that at the best of times.

Fun monday is coming. The day is 24 hours long...