Home Owner At Last!!

At last, I am a home owner!

I really did think that we would be in our apartment for ever, and have 3 kids in bunk beds in the one room, ha.

So, last week I inspected a property in Bayside, then The Husband went to have a look during the week.  He gave me the A-OK, which is rare as we have very different tastes in dwellings.

The auction was on Saturday and being Super Saturday there was a large number of people there which scared me a little.  We had decided on our cut off line (well, The Husband had told me our cut off line as I am not to be trusted with such decisions) and as the bidding got under way in $20,000 increments our limit was hit very quickly and we hadn't even got a bid in.

Of course, I thought that it was all over red rover for us.  The Husband was on the road and I was safely on the footpath out of potential harms way so I couldn't even nudge him with disappointment, and nearly fell over in shock when he put a bid in at the final call of the sale for someone else.  

A few bids went back and forth and then I heard the tell tale Blackberry email ping, and looked over to see The Husband checking his emails during the bidding, come on – attention please.

After the auctioneer  had a quick meeting with the vendor, he called his ‘first call.....second call’ and I swear I have never felt time move slower. At the SOLD call, they let of this massive thing full of confetti – scaring everyone half to death with the bang.  I couldn't believe it – we just bought a house!!

We went in to sign the contracts and The Husbands hands were still shaking from the mixture of his triple shot coffee and adrenalin so I took the pen and was filling out the contracts, and had a moment of “Do I put my name down? Do I own it too?” haha, so silly.

This photo was taken before the auction, a bubble blower was a good talking point – very cute.

Our settlement takes place January 25, which is also the day I start maternity leave so I will be 33 weeks pregnant and nesting will well and truly have taken over.

We need to paint, rip up the carpets for the floorboards etc before moving in but nothing major or that will take too long. 

I've been googling laundry and general storage ideas like a mad woman. 

We will definitely need to have a washer and dryer stacked on top of  each other for maximum space saving.

I love the presentation of these Murchison Hume products. I have been told that Method is better, I may get both to compare and review for you. 

A front door mat. It’s the small things in life that make this lass happy! 

I got these yoyos from David Jones food court and the shortbread bit tasted like cardboard. 

Sunday morning I went to pick up my lovely friend Laura from the airport and drove her to the Peninsula where we had this amazing breakfast.

When it arrived, an old man stopped at the table and said “You cant finish that!!”. Well, I showed you.

This isn't a normal dinner plate either, this is on a serving plate and it was just for little ol’ me. 

I woke up to a message from Cottonsocks this morning informing me of super duper cheap Missoni baby wear on Ozsale.

I had already banned myself from buying more baby clothes but who can resist a mega bargain, not me anyway.

I picked up these 4 items, I could have found a lot more but self restraint kicked in eventually. 

They are still for sale as you read this. 

If you are not already a member, sign up using my link HERE .

I am obsessed with baby cardigans I tell you. 

Look at this cute Pure Baby one! I have so many Pure Baby clothes already as when they are on sale they are dirt cheap.  I got them all in neutral colours like white and grey though so that they can do double duty when No.2 comes along, or if No.1 pops out a boy haha. 

I received an email asking me to do a YouTube Baby Clothes Haul video - is there much interest in something like that though?

Soup Winner & Nail-Teeth

Drum-roll please.

I have sorted through the 220 odd entrants for the Tefal Soup & Co and the winner by random number generator is...

Grace!

Grace's favorite soups were Creamy Pumpkin and Minestrone so I took it upon my self to make minestrone, and it was fantastic!! Grace, I will contact you via email.

Thank you to everyone who entered, I wish I could have given everyone a prize and your soup suggestions left me salivating. 

In other news, my toe nails looks like teeth when painted white with OPI Alpine Snow.

I took this shot on the plane to Newcastle whilst watching the sunset. 

I feel that if I jumped out of a plane, I would land on a pillow like cloud. This is not the case though, so do not try this at home. 

Happy Monday folks! Short post, sorry! 

The Rainbow Cake

It all started with this little bad boy that Leah from The Secret Life of a Chef’sWife made back in May 2010. You have no idea how impressed I was (and still am) with it. Amazed.

Go through her blog to her most recent post and see the Toblerone cake her dad made, that is the shit right there.

Anyway, then I mentioned on Twitter my intentions of making one and was sent the link to Whisk Kid, which I had read before but forgotten about.

I just knew I had to make it and I had the perfect celebration in mind.

Wednesday celebrated Kitty’s birthday and the fact that she had to sit her CPA exam on her birthday made it suck.  Kitty always goes to lots of effort to bake for her friends in the office on her birthday, and I wanted to make sure that she felt the same love that she allows everyone else to feel!!

I haven’t baked for a long time and was not sure I had it in me.

I went to Safeway armed with my ingredient list, including 10 sticks of butter. Yes, 10.

Then I hit the cake mix aisle and thought to myself, why make this any harder than it needs to be? I’m baking on a Wednesday night after work, not a Saturday. If I can be a bit of a slacker and fake it til I make it, why not?!

Why do all this shit and use 1000000 mixing bowls if I can buy a packet mix? Yes sir. 

So I threw away the recipe from Whisk Kid (you can find it here) and decided to wing it. 

I picked up two of these. Don't ask me their measurements as I have no idea. 

And then my eyes settled upon the feast which is Betty Crock Ready Made Frosting. Oh yes.

I had to buy 3 of these. Just enough to clog your arteries and give you a tooth ache just from breathing it in whilst baking with it. 

3 Greens Vanilla Moist Cake Mixes (all the time whilst laughing about it having no artificial colors or flavors. Like that would make a difference once I put the food dye and frosting in the mix).

Obviously just follow the directions. You will need eggs, milk and butter. 

These four food colorings, plus a blue.

Once I used the pink and the red I realized they were very similar in color and will not use the two of them next time I make it.

I also mixed red and blue to create purple, but it was a bit of a grey purple.

I could only bake 2 cakes at a time, so I halved each batter mix and colored it as I went along.

Once all six were done I left them to cool for about an hour and then set upon slicing off the top of the cakes so that they would be flat.

I could have done a better job of this, but had an irrational fear that my cake would be too small if I did this.

Once you slice the tops off the cakes, it’s time to layer them upon each other with a layer of frosting in between each layer.

It was here that I slightly freaked out thinking how am I going to fill the sides in?! I turned to Andrea on twitter from tell her she’s dreaming and she sorted me out.

I continued to soldier on. Layer, slap some frosting, layer. Rinse and repeat. (No, don’t really rinse – that was a joke.)

During the baking process, The Husband messaged me to let me know he was on his way home and what was for dinner. I had to tell him that I was baking, there would be no dinner.

He wasn’t happy, and picked up some Subway on the way home. He did get to sample to cut off bits of cake and that made him a little bit happier, but I have been told to brush up my skills on cooking dinner.

Okay. All my layers are on. Some of them appear to be wider than others, creating a slight lean, but nothing that frosting cannot fix.

I did a crumb icing layer thing first, slapped it in the fridge, washed my hair, used my new Parlux (excellent. More on that later) and then used up the other 1.5 tubs of frosting for the outer coat.

Everything really can be solved with frosting.

You need to use a lot so that the outside is completely white, and the recipient has no idea what they are about to discover when cutting!!

After frosting it completely I pressed my spatula all over it and quickly removed it to give it Meringue-esque peaks and then used a little bit of frosting around the bottom of the cake in a cute little pattern.

Then I tried to get it into my cake carrier.

Do you think it fit? Of course not. It was too tall.

I had to put it in and glad wrap the top and hope for the best but when I left the house this morning it was raining, I had this damn cake which weighed a tonne, I couldn’t hold my umbrella and my handbag in one hand so decided to catch a cab rather than hope for the best on the tram. Who knows how that would have ended up. I can predict that it would not have ended well though.

I let Kitty cut it and when I wanted to film her doing so she got scared that there was going to be something scary on the inside.

I wont lie, I was holding my breath and hoping for the best that it would turn out as hoped for as I had hyped it up so much around the office!!

 Victory is mine. 

Happy Birthday Kitty. 

It turned out perfectly!! So much better than I thought it would thankfully.

Not to mention the fact that it was still moist, even though I expected it to be dry.  

So that is my way of doing the rainbow cake.

When I have more time, and more room in the kitchen, I will make it from scratch and report back.

Maybe one day I will move on from my ‘Aspiring Domestic Goddess’ status but I don’t see that being any time soon, despite the ridiculous name of this blog.

Glasses. Capes. Nails. Tributes

Looky, looky. I have glasses.

 It has been about 9 years since I last wore my glasses and my eyesight has deteriorated to a noticeable degree in the last 6 months. I drive past streets because I can't read the sign until it is about to smack me in the face, I have to walk up and down each shopping aisle as I cannot read the signs telling me what is where etc. 

Decided it was finally time to go and have my eyes checked. Discovered that yes, my eyes are on the decline and it was time to order some specs. 

Enter my new glasses.

Chanel 3131 Black on Beige glasses. 

The arms and inner are beige which makes them look a bit softer on my face. Win. 

I've already been told that I look like a sexy secretary. Well, don't mind if I do. 

I didn't want anything that screamed a brand name, so these and their subtle Chanel flower are perfection. 

Gross, I seem to have lost my eyebrow in this photo. 

I have my next threading appointment with Miss Fox this week. Thank goodness! 4 weeks between eyebrow maintenance has me looking like Oscar the Grouch. It's not pretty. At all. 

Here is Tuesdays outfit. I still love this vintage dress, even if I did pair it with hair greasy enough to fry an egg on. Mmmm speaking of eggs, I would love a googy egg and soldiers right now. 

My Essie order from OzSale arrived! Hurrah!! At $5 a bottle I really wish that I had of ordered more., dammit!!  

Left to right:

Fiji, Van d'Go, Knock Out Pout, Funny Face, Escapades & Luxedo. 

You know how it is, must swatch first thing!!!

I have Luxedo on at the moment and I love it. I don't normally go for dark colours but am really glad I got this. It is almost black, but more of a licorice or deep plum. 

I had OPI Meep Meep Meep on last weekend but it looks like crap in these photos. You will just have to take my word on it that it is nice. Not amazing, not terrible, just nice. 

St Patricks Day. Lots of drunken fools running around dressed as leprechauns and a good excuse to wear an otherwise questionable mint green polish!

China Glaze - Re Fresh Mint. 

In other news, I have a new cape!! I picked up this Seduce Cape at Myer today after seeing it yesterday and falling in love with it. I could only try on the black one yesterday and was running around scaring Kitty, who said I looked like a Vampire.

Not even a sexy Edward Cullen vampire,but more of a Dracula style vampire.

The white cape is a winner though. I tried it on quickly with some Kate Sylvester pants which were awesome but not awesome enough for $295!! Sheesh. 

I'm really looking forward to putting this cape with a better outfit. I'm thinking jeans and tan boots. 

Maybe a garlic garland too. Undecided. 

I tried on these Fuschia YSL Tributes and love them. If anyone feels the desire to buy them for me, I will not deny you this privilege.  I wear a 36. Thanks. 

Crap it is 10:23PM. I need to go to bed. I have a bed time of 10:30 and I am pushing it!! Goodnight. 

Banana Bread and Nutella

I know that I have posted this recipe for Banana Bread on here before but I need a more recent version to look back on as the other one takes too long when searching for it. 

 Plus, I’ve altered my recipe a smidge.

265g self raising flour

40g plain flour

140g brown sugar

125ml skim milk

2 eggs, lightly whisked

50g butter, melted & cooled

4+ overripe medium bananas, mashed – the more used, the better.

*

Preheat oven to 180c. Brush loaf pan with dairy spread to lightly grease. Line the base and 2 opposite sides with non stick baking paper.

Sift the combined flours into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and make a well in the centre.

Place the milk, eggs, melted butter and bananas in a medium bowl and stir until well combined. Spoor the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the surface.

Bake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean

*Sometimes I add Oats which give it a chewy consistency, but last time I did this they did not cook and it was gross and dry. A total disaster.

This is basically what I lived on over the weekend. Banana bread with nutella on top. Amazing.

As you can see, my banana bread was burnt on top because of our tiny oven. It has to burn on top to cook the inside. Very annoying.