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Pool Confessions

I went swimming this morning. Big deal, right?

Up until year 7, I went to 2 or 3 times a week in swimming season as well as school PE classes and then club on Friday nights. Once I hit year 8, the training went and I went to club every two weeks or so. Then that stopped in year 9 and all I had left was school carnivals and PE Class. I was not the best swimmer but I still could hold a reasonable pace.

Then I finished school and in all honesty, I don’t think I have done actual lap swimming since the carnival in year 12 that was 2002, it is almost 2006.

Since the summer of 2001/02, I think I have swum at the beach three times? In a pool maybe five times? If I said I lived in Ukhta, Russia, that answer may be quite reasonable but I don’t I live in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, we are on the coast line with glorious beaches up and down the coast line and a public pool 3 mins away, yet I can count on my hands the amount of times I have gone in the water.

Since I have the summer off, I decided it was a great time to stop talking about exercising and actually do something. Since it is too hot to ride a bike and if I go out walking I will just take a camera and not get any exercise, swimming reasoned to be the best idea, so I picked up a pair of speedos on Saturday, all ready to go on Tuesday morning, well I didn’t have a cap and you can’t swim without a cap, so I bought one on Tuesday night before work. Couldn’t go on Wednesday morning as I finished at midnight the night before which meant by the time I got up it would be too hot to go training. Then Matthew said he was to start work at 6am on Thursday, I thought great! That gives me a reason to be up early, I can drop you at work then go the pool!

So I did, I got there, paid my admission, put on my cap and got into the pool along with all the others there already.

I started off with freestyle, trying to go at a reasonable pace, yet I got to the other end of the 25m pool and had to have a breather, I eventually got up to doing 75m sets between breaks. After 15mins of freestyle I switched to breaststroke for another 20mins and then finished off with another 15mins of freestyle.

Back in the day at club, I used to dive in and do freestyle for 18m before I needed a breath and was pretty good at doing 5 strokes between breaths. Yeah well that was a while ago. Today for the most part it was stroke, breath, stroke, breath, however I did after a while get back into doing stroke, stroke, breath, stroke, stroke, breath 🙂 This is going to be a long process but worth it.

Observations on my swimming today.
Increase the kicking power; don’t let the arms do all the work.
Improve breathing.
Your technique is lazy, concentrate on stroke movement.
Get some goggles; chlorine eyes aren’t fun.

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the sweetest day

The 6 5 things that make this day stellar.

1 – My new lens arrived – Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM

2 – a sweet little care package from my second mother, Tracy.

3 – Bought U2 tickets 🙂 Andrea, Matthew and I are going to U2 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

4 – Ben Lee is on Live at the Chapel tonight!

5 – Veronica Mars is on TV tonight, it premiered last week, sure it is slightly pointless but fun.

6 – Now that I have typed this out, I can’t recall the sixth thing 🙁

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Beef Mince Pasotto

That is what I call it if you take a Chicken Risotto recipe and replace the chicken with mince and the rice with pasta, etc etc. One thing that is important in my cooking is that I like to use what is already in the house, so if I cooked this next week it may have totally different vegetables in but still the same idea: To create great tasting meals with what is already in the kitchen.

I borrowed Campion & Curtis in the Kitchen (Essential Recipes for the Modern Australian Home) from the library the other day, I came across a basic chicken risotto recipe and thought mmm I like the sound of that, so that is what I planned to cook for dinner tonight but we had no chicken or risotto rice so I improvised … a lot.

Beef Mince Pasotto
1 carrot
1 onion
1/2 capsicum
600gish mince
1/2 pack pasta
1L beef stock
Tin of tomatoes
Mushrooms
Butter
Mixed herbs
Garlic

Bread to serve

Dice the carrot, onion and capsicum. Melt the butter in a large pot and add vegetables, cook for a couple of minutes, add the mince, taking time to break it up into nice small bits. Add the pasta and gradually add the beef stock. Bring to a gentle boil, leave covered for a while till pasta is partially cooked, remove lid, add tin of tomatoes and herbs, and bring to a full boil to reduce the liquid a bit. Add the mushrooms and leave to boil moderately till the pasta is cooked.

Serve with freshly made bread 🙂

It is sort of a cross between savoury mince and spaghetti bolognese. Doesn’t look like anything special but it tastes quite nice.

pasotto

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Blossoms and movies

Blossoms As some of you may know I have recently had no real interest in scrapbooking but yesterday I printed off some photos and then this evening I sat down to have a little play and popped out this one. As long as I don’t spend too much time chatting to people on Messenger I am a relatively quick scrapper, as an image will pop into my head fairly quickly after selecting photos and cardstock and finish most pages in about 30 minutes.

AS part of my anti-boredness campaign, I rented a few DVD’s out the other day, I picked up Kinsey(which was so not what I expected), Crazy/Beautiful (oh the Romeo and Juliet story line set in teen angst, really liked this movie, seemed so real, the turmoil that Carlos had between his family and Nicole, etc etc good stuff and well Jay Hernandez the actor playing Carlos is pretty nice looking), Beyond Borders (really liked how this movie spanned the three events over the period of ten years and well the scene in the beginning where Clive Owens comes barging in just sets the whole scene) and finally Napoleon Dynamite(I got this out after hearing so many people rave on about it but I have to say I didn’t really think it was much of a decent thing, sure it was different to most films but still so not what I felt it was cracked up to be).

The Patchwork Tree had a sale today so I popped on down to add to my stash, I picked up some Amy Butler Charm fabrics as well as some more Japanese imports, oh I wish I could find that company’s website as I would be in heaven.

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my friends are very fruity indeed

Yes, they are such fun to have around 🙂 A quick catch up of the last couple of days. Last Thursday night, Ali (and Liam) and I went to see The Whitlams at The Zoo, Ali has a very good write up of the concert – go here.Helen and The Whitlams, they roll off the tongue like yogo and bread, cherries and milk, Summer and Seth, etc all such perfect matches. I was first introduced to The Whitlams in late 1998 and well since then, they have always been there for me and I am proud to say they are the only band for which I actually own each CD (Timmie, I could never steal your music!). However I have only seen them as a band twice, Tim and Jack as a duo once and an amazing concert with Tim and The Australian Chamber Orchestra at the Concert Hall. This concert is going to always stand out in my Whitlam memory as one of the greatest, just such pure energy all round, from the band, from the crowd, from Tim saying thank you after each song (at least 23 times, since that is how many songs they played :))Happy Times, nothing beats the Whitlams, they are one of those bands where every single song just rocks 🙂
two red lightscrazyall very strangechunkyfreegoughworld safe
Friday evening was Rachel’s 21st so Andrea and I hammed it up at the Toowong Bowl’s Club for a sausage sizzle, rounds of barefoot bowls, lots of talk and enjoying Rach’s day. Laughs all round as we tried our dandiest to get the bowl near the jack. Rachel scored a bunch of totally awesome presents as well 🙂 From me, she received 18×12 print of Fern Awakening, which is the very first time I have given someone a print of my work 🙂
bowls2bowls1
Saturday – Exam = > Boring!
Then on Sunday night, Mum, Granddad, Sam and I joined NPAQ for a Batty Bat Cruise, lots of fun, enjoying a cruise up the river to Indro Island, checking out all the water front houses, chilling, talking and enjoying a sausage sizzle.
story bridgeSamGrandadthe river

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new focuses

so many things have happened recently but I have been so *focused* on my uni work that I haven’t had a chance to share much.

Try this Technique – A while back I was asked along with some other girls to create some challeneges for Scrapbook Creations and my first one appeared in the mag this month 🙂 So any Aussie or NZ girls, you know you want to enter! There is $200 worth of Xyron to the winner! mmmm if only I could enter 🙂

No more essays …. till next year, handed in my last one this morning, now I just have four exams to ahhh breeze over.

Last Thursday, I had the oppurtunity to meet Ms Ali, and gorgeous Jack and her mum 🙂 I first made contact with Ali, many, many moons ago when I was needing people for an article I did for Scrapbook Creations and then somewhere along the way we started commenting in each other’s blogs etc and then last week we hooked up 🙂 Such a crazy girl, she very much brought out the dork in me 😀 and well Jack is just a monkey.

And the wonderful Tracy is back scrapbooking and utterly ripping up the gallery with her new creations.

And perhaps the biggest news, is that I am now almost grown up, only one more step on the path 🙂 I graduated to a real fake tooth last friday. I’ve gone from having a tooth on a retainer to a real fake tooth plate, complete with a little bit of fake gum above the tooth 🙂 The new plate is so much easier to speak with as well as been smaller and lighter in my mouth 🙂 and well not having a metal band always looks nicer 🙂 Now I just have to wait a couple of years till I can get an implant 🙂

new teeth

Yeah for dental technology!