Yummy Things In Life: Recipe no. 1

Had a very beautiful lamb roast today with lots and lots of orange vegetables followed by great muffin experiment! Easy and lazy dinner - Horay! Preparation time, lamb 2 minutes, vegetable cutting 10 minutes, muffins 10 minutes. Total 22 minutes. Total cooking, around 1.5 hours
How to make a beautiful lamb roast.
1. Need a leg of fresh NZ lamb
2. Put on roasting rack+tray with water on bottom
3. Oven with fan 180 degrees for 1 or more hours
4. Lots of patience!!! In the meantime, cut up roasting vegetables like pum[kin (the sweet kind), sweet potato (kumara in Maori), carrots and 2 potatoes, toss in some oil and roast!

Recipe for Banana and Cream cheese muffin/ muffin s banánem a pomazankovy sýra / muffin z banana i śmietany ser (like Lucina or Philidelphia). It might work with tvaroh but since I don't have any here, I can't experiment. Let me know if it works or not :-)

1. 1.5 cup high-grade or normal wheat flour
2. 1/3 sugar
3. 2 teaspoons baking powder
4. 1 or 2 ripe banana(s)
5. 2 big spoons of cream cheese
6. 2/3 cup milk or more
7. 1/3 oil
8. 1 egg

• Mix dry ingredients (1,2,3) together
• Mix 4 & 5 well in separate bowl
• Mix 6,7,8 into dry ingredients slowly
• Add 4 & 5 and mix well. Result should be a mix that is "soft" but thick, that you can spoon into 12 muffin trays. If using metal trays, put some paper cups or use lots of butter to grease them first.
  
• Bake (with fan on, if you have) at 180 degrees celscius for 15 minutes until golden.

Enjoy!

Life's lesson No.1

Don't be a greedy-gut!
No thanks to my good unruly-haired friend, I discovered extremely tasty organic dried fruit, which on first appearance is good for one's health. Well let me tell you once and for all that this isn't the case.
Like all things in life, things should be enjoyed in moderation, moderation, moderation.
I am today resting in bed nursing my ill stomach. Serves me right. I have learnt my lesson!

There goes my dreams of endless wealth and eternal youth.... *sigh*

Appropriate or Not?

This will be an interactive blog because I'd like you to vote on the following issue by leaving your comments.

When at job interview/first days at work, is it good to point out obvious grammar mistake on uniform? You will wear it whilst operating in a posh/exclusive area.

I had this dilema and chose to ask for clarification. So, it didn't work out. I am actually quite thankful as amongst other reasons, the interview never once smiled at anyone, including existing staff, during both interview and training session.

Anyway, your thoughts on the above dilema? Comments please.

And if you're wondering about the obvious grammo, it is similar to below

Today s special. Buy 1 get 1 free. *

*words have been changed to protect the company.

In praise of being good

I got praised the other day. For a job well done. Doesn't that feel great when someone takes the time to tell you when you've done something well? We, or maybe just I, often forget to show appreciation for all that's good around me, a form of thanksgiving maybe, or positivism, whatever the name may be, I'm determined to do it more often - everyday, in fact.

Starting now. Thank you dear friends and readers for taking the time to read this blog, for thinking generous thoughts, doing kind deeds, for not yelling at the screaming child in the seat behind you, for recycling, for working hard, caring for others, speaking softly on the phone, having the right change for the bus driver, saying thank you and please and for being understanding.

Most of all i just want to say that you do a great job of being YOU, it's a job noone else can do! YAY for ourselves! *imagines a warm and fuzzy group hug*

Happy St Patrick's

Well Happy Birthday Pat! Usually I think of you around this time of year as I see the greenery going up. This time, thoughts of you have certainly brought me a lot of luck as there seems to be dozens of jobs out there for me. I went out to several interviews today and I know right away that when I meet them, they usually like me. The trick of course, is to get to the interviews. I have rewritten my CV but I don't know if that did it, or maybe it's just that there are suddenly more jobs materialising.

Strange isn't it? How it's bad one week but the next it's much better...

There's hope for us all!

xxx Cheers to you, my friends around the world (in all languages)

Volunteer

The other day, thinking I'll go do something for the community, I went down to the CAB (Citizen's Advice Bureau) and tried to volunteer my time. The lady there turned around and said "Why don't you go get a job?" (as in, you lazy good for nuthin' attitude). She didn't bother asking me what I could do, or when... Well, there's nothing more hopeless than having people misunderstand your good intentions. *sigh* what's the world coming to?

Joke of the day

Why are vampires and job hunting the same??

- Because they both suck the life out of you.

Advance Australia

Ahh Australia! Not to be confused with New Zealand. All the bad and dangerous stuff's in Australia like world's poisonous snakes (yes plural snakes), poisonous spiders, crocodiles, dingos, tasmanian devils, stinging jelly fish, sharks, stonefish, even the humble kangaroo. What? Kangaroos? Cute Skippy bouncing around? Dangerous...? NO way! YES way. Make no mistake, they can get very aggressive and they are BIGGER than you. One kick (or be in an automobile accident with one) and you're likely to soon meet your maker. I kid you not. Go to New Zealand. It's better there. The only things likely to kill you are stupidity, the weather and car accidents. On a similar note, here's a great promo advert which some of you have already seen but sure makes you laugh. Enjoy!

Mottos for everyday life...

This made me smile on a recent trip to the Auckland Museum. Whilst enjoying the austerity of the Veterans' Memorial on the 2nd floor, amongst the Latin inscriptions of honour and king and country was this little gem of a motto... Always Attack
Not sure if this is good advice though.

Small works of art

I just love the new New Zealand passport! The latest version (and every year they seem to have a new one) is so pretty, which 4 different colour pages and each page its own design. Best is the beautiful giant silverfern that runs all the way down the front and back covers - sure to stand out from the crowd.

Just feel sorry for all those customs officers who must be wondering if there's a fraud epidemic since everyone coming off the plane would have a different version....which reminds me of a certain car ride where there were 1 Pole, 1 US-Jamaican, 3 Kiwis, each with dissimilar passports and of a different Asian origin...I feel for you Mr Polish Customs Officer...

Hope you all like the fish that is swimming round your mouse on my page :-) thought they looked quite cute! They'll also follow your pointer around hoping to be fed. A few flakes will appear upon clicking.

Friend-face

Has anyone seen the IT Crowd, season 3, episode 5 's introduction? It's called Friendface - a hilarious take on the internet social networking phenonmenon that seems to be enveloping us all currently.

This post is for the anti-facebooker in me. I've received yet another invitation to be so and so's friend on facebook, bebo, hi-5, friendster... you name it, and even a dutch one whose name I can't remember. No matter how many times you click on the "do not send me invitations from xyzwebsite again"

What's with the focus on the quantity of friends rather than the quality of friends? Everything's becoming easier and faster today to prioritize the convenience of keeping in touch. Isn't that just a euphemism for lazier and more shallow relationships? More facts photos and tweets about the minute details of every day life does NOT equal deeper relationship or knowing someone better.

Don't get me wrong, online networking sites are a great tool as they do help people keep in touch and I salute those who use it wisely with the best of intentions. Though somehow for me, when I don't make the effort, it doesn't feel as hard-won or as precious. The value of something is defined by how much effort (not necessarily money) was spent.

Studies have been done (somewhere sometime I'm sure) that home cooking is enjoyed more than takeaways (generally), growing things in your garden makes you appreciate the good old vege and fruit, physical training, despite the sweat and grunt and pain, is more pleasurable (and effective) than taking a diet pill. Hence the following equation for my technically minded friends.

[if IE^=V^, then P>IE] where V is Value, IE is Input Effort, P is Pleasure

For those of you who are disappointed that I haven't decided to put my life on the web, just think of all the things we could talk about the next time we meet!

In the meanwhilst, of course there's still email, MSN, Gtalk, ICQ, Yahoo!, Adium (for the Mac users) Skype, the telephone, mobile (SMS, MMS), and the humble pen and paper.

xx Sandy