Brownies

 I do love a good brownie. Preferably chewy in the middle and a bit crunchy around the edges. However, we are trying to cut down on sugar (it’s been 29 days since my last chocolate – although there have been a couple of chocolate biscuits), so when I spotted these “noshu” 99% Sugar Free brownies, I thought I’d give them a go.

So last night, I decided I’d whip them up (just call me Sara Lee).  Alarm bells rang when I did the spatula batter taste test and was left with that artificial sweetener taste in my mouth. Panic not I thought, smells OK, chocolatey, the things just need to cook.

30 minutes later, out they came.  I impatiently waited for them to cool a bit and then cut off my fave bit – the corner.  Still warm. Mmmmm, get in my belly – guilt free chocolate goodness.

I managed to swallow the mouthful and was left with this awful taste in my mouth.  The box lied. These are not delicious. These are not fudgy. These are not brownies.  I should have mentioned that they are also gluten and grain free.  And as for the suggestion on the box to add “Noshu sugar free choc chips,” I don’t think it would have been any sort of improvement.  

Never been a fan of artificial sweetener.  Luckily, I rarely drink soft drink, so I’ve never needed to grow to like Coke Zero.

As for these “not-brownies” well you’d need to be either very, very desperate for a chocolate hit or stranded on a deserted island.  And that’s why I ended up having to eat 4 chocolate biscuits to get over the disappointment and get rid of the yuck taste in my mouth.

I’m not much of a baker (let’s face it, I’m not much of a cook), but I used to make brownies from scratch until I discovered that not all packet brownie mixes are bad.  In fact, the Green’s Triple Choc Fudge Brownies are delicious and a bargain when half price at Woolies!

Verdict? Stick to the real thing or skip them all together.  Oh and if you want to make your own from scratch, this is my favourite recipe:

125g butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 1/2 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts

1.    Preheat oven to 160 degrees and line a medium square baking dish with baking paper.

2.    Melt the butter. Add cocoa and beat until smooth.

3.    Beat the eggs and vanilla essence and add to the cocoa mixture.

4.    Add the sugar and walnuts and fold in the flour until just combined.

5.  Bake for 25-30 minutes. Depending on how gooey you like them

You'll Never Walk Alone

 

My current work set-up (dining table in the lounge) is right next to a large window giving me a good surveillance point for all the comings and goings of neighbours and their dogs. I feel like like a Spanish Abuela peering over a geranium covered balcony.  I recognise the regulars by their dogs rather than their mask covered faces and occasionally wave when they happen to glance in.  We’re all nosey like that – looking in at windows.

Read the above quote today and it got me thinking about all this walking. Maybe not today because the weather was crap, but on most days, there is more foot traffic than ever before.  Of course, with our limited freedom, it seems a shame to waste it and it’s a small attempt at reducing the extra chocolate calories going straight to my arse.  Sounds right in theory, not sure my input is being offset by my output.

All this additional walking around our 5km must be a good thing right?  We’re meeting neighbours with a wave and a muffled hello. Emilio has spent so much time out in the garden/garage that he’s picked up several new clients and had a lovely lady drop off a bottle of Spanish wine – she has a collie.

So if Nietzsche got it right, there should be a lot of great thoughts and ideas out there right? Could it be that over the next few years we’ll see a huge surge in - well everything really.  Or are people just walking about thinking what’s for dinner, dreaming of their next holiday and wondering how the hell they’re going to survive any more home schooling before turning into complete alcoholics.

Some people make phone calls (pays listening in, never know what juicy titbits you might discover about Ms Jones on the corner), some listen to podcasts and some to music. I now have a fancy new pair of wireless, noise cancelling ear buds thanks to Emi, but I only ever wear one ‘cos I worry about being reversed into and missing out on those juicy conversations.  I’ve been trying to get better at keeping in touch and making a phone call whilst on my walks, but sometimes the lure of late 70’s/80’s music is too strong and I have to play it – loud as possible.  I like to sing- a-long and maybe break out a dance move.  Do people look and think, that’s the crazy lady from number 5? Probably not. People are caught up in their own lives to really give a second glance at anyone else. Unless you’re not wearing a mask – then you get the “death stare.”  I religiously wear my mask.

Crikey, side tracked. Crikey? I don’t think I’ve ever used that word before. Where did that come from? Maybe because Bindi Irwin was in the news this week with a gender reveal.  Bit strange describing the size of her unborn daughter as a hatchling Aldabra tortoise.  How big is that? Are we talking baby mice size or new born pug puppies?  Anyway, all the best to them.

Back to walking. Sometime during my year of unemployment/freedom, I came across the wonderful Women on Walks group run by the inspiring Annie.  I wrote a story about the group a while ago.  With group walks currently off the table, Annie came up with a plan to keep us walking and connected by setting little challenges and counting virtual kilometres. 

The first lot of challenges were taking photos of “things.” Gates, door, paths that sort of thing.  All of a sudden I started noticing things I’d walked past countless times before and paying attention. We weren’t just walking around, we were on a super important mission.  We moved onto numbered letterboxes. Low numbers are easier than the high ones. The disappointment was real when after walking 15 minutes along a street, the number was missing.  I found myself walking down streets I never knew existed. I even got a little bit lost one day and admit to having to look at google maps. And now we are just finishing off letters.  So much creativity and virtually we’ve been around Australia, New Zealand, over to China and ended up in Portugal.  All our stops have been documented with awesome info and pics of all the places we visited along the way.   

Looking forward to meeting up with all the WOW’s on a real walk soon. In the meantime, I’ll keep walking and waiting for all those great thoughts to just come flooding in. 

MOJO Month

Extra time, check. Motivation, MIA. 

These last four months have just flown by and I can't say I've completed my best-seller, written a ton of articles, become an expert baker, learnt any fabulous new skills, read a heap of books, got crafty, got fit (fat maybe) or done anything that feels particularly productive.

Whilst Lockdown 1.0 had some novelty about it, this time around, well the novelty has definitely worn off and like most people, I'm over it.  However, unlike the covidiots (WTF are some people thinking) out there, I'm more than happy to wash my hands, wear my mask, stay close to home, socially distance and do whatever we need to do to stay safe and get "over this" - whatever that means.

Lockdown 2.0 is definitely leading me down a path of laziness and procrastination, so time to kick my own butt into gear and at least try and get my writing MOJO back. So I've signed up for MOJO month with the Australian Writers Centre. Here we are Day 1, the main theme being stepping beyond your comfort zone.  "The comfort zone is a beautiful place - but nothing grows there"

Under Operation, our mission for today, should we choose to accept it, was to create an Acrostic using our names to introduce ourselves. Geez, I gave myself 15 minutes and it was harder than it should have been:

Joyfully Usurping Laziness Impatiently Awaiting

Adventure New Travel Inspiration Growth Ushering Exciting Days And Dreams

You can teach an old dog new tricks

Sometime BC, I was working on my abandoned list and trying to revive it for 2020.  Well that hasn’t worked out too well thanks to current circumstances, but one of the things I did add, was to learn to play a musical instrument.  I suppose I could count the beautiful melodies played out on the old brown school recorder. After all, everyone should be proficient in playing Three Blind Mice on one of those.  It’s a life skill that I’ve turned to time and time again throughout difficult times.  I was pretty good on the old triangle and tamborine too.  

What to learn?  I had previously toyed with the idea of leaning to play the sax, but that idea had waned.  Piano would be good, but no room for a piano. Drums would be fun and excellent for stress relief, but the neighbours might not be too happy.  So I settled on guitar.  Relatively inexpensive (for a beginner one), doesn’t take up too much room and easy to transport.

A quick search led me to Ron Leigh’s Music Factory which is just around the corner.  Handy.  Decided it was meant to be when someone mentioned that they’ve been around for ages and are very well regarded.  Right then, it was time to pick a guitar and book in for some lessons.  And then along came Covid-19 and that plan was temporarily shelved.

But just last week on a walk around the neighbourhood, I walked past Ron Leigh’s and spotted this groovy purple guitar in the window (brand name was Valencia – I took it as a sign) and the cutest collection of ukulele.  Being a Sunday, the shop was closed, but I did notice they were still open during the week.

On Thursday, Emi surprised me and came home with a ukulele.  I think it’s more of a “display” piece, but it is very cute and lets face it, I have no idea what I'm doing anyway.  Today, I lovingly took it out of its bag and turned to that great teacher, YouTube, and found a few free lessons.  Lesson 1, “You are my Sunshine” and learning a few Chords.  Obstacle 1, I have to cut my nails.  And practice.  A lot.  I have no idea on tuning (gotta get me one of those little tuner thingies) or if the notes are even close to what they are supposed to sound like.  But that’s OK, minor details.  

I do still want to buy the purple guitar and get some lessons, but I’ll wait until they are back doing them in person.  In the meantime, well I’ll practice on my new little ukulele.

Cactus Country

After 5 days of very hot weather up in Kyabram or Ky as the locals call it, which raises an interesting question of the pronunciation of Kyabram and Kyneton – but that’s a whole other story, 31 December 2019 had cooler weather forecasted so we made the most of it.  We finished the year/decade with a long overdue visit to Cactus Country in Strathmerton (approximately 3 hours north of Melbourne, near Cobram).

What an awesome place!  If you love cactus and succulents, then this is the place for you.  They have over 4,000 species from around the globe spread over 12 acres.  Easy to follow coloured trails (borrow a folder containing maps and descriptions of the different varieties and where they are from) allow you to wander around marvelling at the range and size of their collection – with plans to continue expanding!

Many of the cactus were still in flower, although if you want to see them in full bloom, October/November is probably the best time of the year.  They are open 7 days a week from 9am to 5pm.

Owner Jim Hall has done a brilliant job of bringing a little bit of Mexico to Victoria and he was more than happy to chat and share his passion for all things prickly.  As well as the gorgeous gardens, they have a café, bar and restaurant on site and lots of cute little nooks and crannies that make for some fabulous Instagram moments (if you’re into that sort of thing).  Not surprising that they hold weddings and functions here, it makes for a great back drop. We tried the Cactus Cake and that was delish – super moist, but a bit early for Margaritas (never too early?).

Many know my love of skulls, so I loved the Mexican graveyard with its Day of the Dead theme – wore a skull t-shirt for the occasion.  They host a Day of the Dead fiesta which looks like lots of fun, must return for that!  Sunset and night-time tours are also available – check the website for details.

They also have an area for plant sales on site where you can add to your own collection. Some of the unusual Elephant’s foot, (Dioscorea elephantipes), available.  Resembling an elephant’s foot or a tortoise shell they belong to the yam family and are native to semi-arid areas in southern Africa. They are not cheap, but they do make an interesting talking point.

All in all, well worth the visit.  Oh and dogs are welcome, so even Lola got to enjoy being part of the day and meeting Oreo the local doggy on-site.  Just watch where they walk and pee – cactus spikes can hurt!

Gorgeous Colour

Love the graveyard for a bit of fun!

Lola enjoying her day out exploring

The unusual Elephant's Foot - at $450 for this one, not cheap!

Happy 14th Birthday Lola!

On this day back in 2006, our beloved fur-baby Lola was born.  14 years old today.  She might not be as active and arthritis, Cushings, near deafness and her itches might have slowed her down, but she brings joy every day and we love her dearly.

Lola came into our lives in April 2006 weighing in at a mighty 900g.  A tiny little ball of fluff, we had to put a bell on her to stop us stepping on her.  Sad to say that she was a pet-shop puppy – bought before we knew better, on the spur of the moment.  We’d gone to Kmart to buy welly boots and there she was.  Well not in Kmart, but next door. We had been looking for a new Cocker Spaniel to join our family and had just missed out on a nine-month-old.  Emi saw her, picked her up and that was it – all over red rover. Love at first sight. 

Our dearly missed bubba Lucas (just re-read this, so now have tears streaming down my face) wasn’t overly impressed at his new baby sis (maybe because she wasn’t a Cocker), but they eventually became friends and shared many happy adventures together.  Since losing Lucas, Lola has become the queen of her domain, defender of the home and remains the happy little (OK maybe not so little – she’s now a porky 10kg) fur-baby she has always been.

So on this day of her 14^th Birthday, we celebrate and hope that she is with us for many more to come. A few of Lola's adventures (like me, even she has slacked off on the writing):

Lola the Explorer goes to Lake Eildon
Left behind
Christmas in Ballarat - Part Two
Back to Baconsville
Lola and the mystery of the black truffle
It's all about me - a special guest post
Lola goes to the beauty parlour
Tail on the Road

Lola and Lucas

Always had my dad wrapped around my paw

A bit of yoga

Today is also “Reyes” or the Three Kings Day (something to do with Epiphany). Celebrated in Spain (and elsewhere) it’s the day the 3 wise men arrived bearing gifts.  Gold as a symbol of kingship on earth, frankincense as a symbol of deity, and myrrh (an embalming oil) as a symbol of death. Weird gifts for a bub, but I guess they were different times.  In Spain today it’s celebrated with a parade, sweets, presents and Rosca de Reyes (Ring of the Kings) a sweet bread.  Nothing like extending Christmas holidays and more eating.

New Year, New Decade, New Word

It’s that time of the year when thoughts turn to New Year’s Resolutions, goals, plans for the year and lists (lots of people are addicted to lists - and notebooks). Sadly, my 2019 list of things to do was severely neglected in 2019 – even though I had more time than ever to get things done.  So neglected, that when I upgraded my computer, it seems to have dropped off and I've only just noticed. Technology fail.

I don’t really go for New Year’s Resolutions – in one year and out the other (I did read this week that they are basically just to-do-lists for the first week of the year) – but I do like a good list and I choose a ‘word.’ 

My word for 2019 was FREEDOM.  That was an easy one, after all I was happily unemployed and had a whole year ahead of me to do as I pleased.  But what did that actually mean?  Time to write more, read more, get fit, learn new things and do all those things I’ve always wanted to do but never had enough time.

Full steam ahead.  Until, I stalled.  Life got slower, I don’t mean I slept in or spent all day doing nothing, I walked more, got out and met new people for coffee, chatted to neighbours, went overseas, helped Emi, ironed (livin' the dream) and cooked more than ever!  Was I bored? Never. Did I miss work? Fuck no.  But I didn’t do all the things that I thought were important. I didn’t write more, I wrote less, I read less, I ticked less things off my list and I still don’t have a Will.

For me, FREEDOM meant PROCRASTINATION.

I would have quiet happily remained 'retired', but financially not a realistic option and FREEDOM obviously wasn’t working out as expected.  Get a job I love was top of the list, working out what that was – hard!  Finding a job outside of “what you do” not so easy.  

But exactly one year after FREEDOM, I started working again.  My new job came out of the blue in that I didn’t apply for it.  Do I love it? Does it pay well? No, not really but guess what, I’m starting to get more of the things I love to do done!  The saying “if you want something done give it to a busy person” now makes perfect sense. 

I start 2020 employed.  I’ve given some thought to goals and have started working on my list of things to do for the year.  And now I need a word.  In a recent post, I asked for a positive word that began with the first letter of your name to get some ideas. 

  I received lots of great words and added a few more and came up with a long list:

BEAUTIFUL	MARVELLOUS	AMAZING	TRANQUIL
KINDNESS	RESPECT	DETERMINATION	BOLDNESS
CALM	CARE	JOY	DO
CHALLENGE	ENJOY	LISTEN	LAUGH
AMAZING	FUN	RELEASE	HAPPY
BEGIN	DREAM	ALIGNMENT	BALANCED
HOPE	COMPASSION	GRATITUDE	GROW
FORGIVE	WONDER	AWESOME	PRESENCE
INSPIRATION	ADVENTURE	POSITIVITY	IMAGINE
ACTION	CONFIDENCE	JOURNEY	SATISFACTION
COMMITTED	ENOUGH	DIRECTION	BRAVE
TRUST	SPARKLE	STRENGTH	TODAY
LOVE	FOCUS	POSSIBILITIES	RECLAIM

 I narrowed it down to five and then chose one without overthinking it. And the word is…………..

BEGIN

Not sure why that word stood out for me. Maybe because I’d read a recent quote by Zig Ziglar:

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great”   Be like Zig.

All of a sudden, I came across other quotes that resonated: 

“Start before you're ready. Don't prepare, begin.” - Mel Robbins

“Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.” - Horace

“There are so many doors to open. I am impatient to begin." - Charlie Gordan

“Beginning is difficult, but unavoidable” - Israelmore Ayivor

“Don't try to figure out the whole race. Just figure out where to put your foot for the starting line. Just start.” - Jeff Olson

Footnote:  Thanks Lesley for writing down "Lazy".  Because it's an important reminder that we should all have a lazy day once in a while!  Siesta Sunday's should be a thing.