wardrobe malfunction

Posted by trish on Jan 29, 2012 in Blog | 3 comments

All this First Crappy Draft editing has got me looking at other areas of my life that could do with a bit of a going-over.  The most obvious place to start is my wardrobe.  You can blame Pinterest, in particular those Pins from people who use POLYVORE to create outfits.

(I’ve had a quick look at Polyvore but I can’t quite get my head around it… basically you find online images of clothes you like and group them together to create an outfit or a mock-up of a page out of a fashion magazine.  I got a bit overwhelmed by it all, because I’m not 21 years old anymore, but I’m happy to rePin other people’s creations if they fit with my personal preferences…)

I keep rePinning similar things, which may or may not suggest that I am starting to develop a Signature Style.

Oh yes, I just wrote that.

Navy and grey?

More navy…

Grey, this time with green accessories…

Grey and a splash of hot pink…

I like grey.  I like grey clothes, and I like grey furnishings.  Our sofa is grey.  My hair is grey.  Wait, no it isn’t.  But it will be, one day, and I want to be ready for it with a coordinating wardrobe.

I also like navy blue.  And I love red.  And I love green.  And plum.

I might need some help.

I’m going to ask for a Wardrobe Audit + Shopping Date for my next birthday.

Though to be honest, I could do the audit bit myself, if I was really brutal about it.  Get rid of everything I don’t wear. Even the green trench coat that I bought a couple of winters ago that I absolutely love love loved in the shop… I barely ever wear it.

I think I need to pick a few colours and stick to those.  Maybe I need to stick to a couple of basic colours (grey, navy and white) and then use red and green to brighten things up.

Yes, that seems sensible.

Maybe I’ll chuck out everything in my wardrobe that isn’t grey, navy or white and start over?  Except I’ll keep my red winter coat.  And a couple of Marimekko Stripey Tshirts.  And the dress I bought for my 40th.

Hmm… this could be interesting.  Maybe not interesting enough to blog about or even talk out loud about but it is certainly something I can work on when I’m procrastinating on my novel.

*I was going to call this post “completely vacuous nonsense about clothes”.

layers

Posted by trish on Jan 29, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments

(via The Sartorialist)

I love the navy coat over the denim jacket over the cream woollen jumper over the check shirt…  And the red lipstick and nails and purse.  Very chic.  Very Parisienne.

You’d have to be pretty slim to get away with wearing that much fabric and still look so svelte.  Demin in particular is really bulky.  I think I would actually find it uncomfortable, in a restricted-movement kind of way.

On the other hand, if it’s a fine merino wool, and a well-worn denim jacket, and a nice roomy coat, and a thin cotton shirt…  that might not be so bad.

These are the thoughts that occupy my brain in the dying days of the eight week long summer holidays.

Your YouTube Moment of Zen for Friday

Posted by trish on Jan 27, 2012 in Blog | 1 comment

Never laughed so hard in my life. This is… perfect.

Stuff to make you smile

Posted by trish on Jan 27, 2012 in Blog | 1 comment

Sometimes you come across an hilarious or clever comment on someone’s blog or YouTube video and you think “damn, I wish I’d written that!”  Here are a whole bunch of them for your enjoyment: HERE.

That Star Wars Improv on the Subway thing… watch it and be the 7,081,736th viewer.  HERE.

Watch ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ and be the 413,123,729th viewer.  HERE.

oh crap

Posted by trish on Jan 25, 2012 in Blog | 7 comments

A new book has just come out.

So I guess I’m really going to have to think of a new title for my book, huh?

Meanwhile, if you want to read someone else’s Plan C here’s the link.

Good luck to her.  And – awesome cover design.  I love the red wine stain.

cruel but hilarious

Posted by trish on Jan 24, 2012 in Blog | 1 comment

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use a changeroom again after watching this. What a horrible and cruel thing to do. And yet… I snorted my mineral water out of my nose.

Your YouTube Moment of Zen

Posted by trish on Jan 24, 2012 in Blog | 2 comments

tear jerker

Posted by trish on Jan 23, 2012 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Don’t read this if you are sitting at your desk at work and you’re not wearing waterproof mascara.

The Purpose of a Dog

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog’s owners, Ron, his wife Lisa, and their little boy Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle.

I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family we couldn’t do anything for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.

As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for six-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience.

The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker ‘s family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away.

The little boy seemed to accept Belker’s transition without any difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker’s Death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives.  Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, ”I know why.”

Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I’d never heard a more comforting explanation. It has changed the way I try and live.

He said, ‘People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life — like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?”

The Six-year-old continued,  ”Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay as long.”

Live simply.

Love generously.

Care deeply.

Speak kindly.

Remember, if a dog was the teacher you would learn things like:

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure Ecstasy.

Take naps.

Stretch before rising.

Run, romp, and play daily.

Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.

On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

Be loyal.

Never pretend to be something you’re not.

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY!

* My Dad sent me this via email today Thanks Dad.

stuck in traffic

Posted by trish on Jan 23, 2012 in Blog | 4 comments

Someone I know is stuck in traffic, so to speak, for the next few weeks and so in order to help the time pass and save her from certain Death By Boredom I am going to try a bit harder to blog daily, and make it interesting.  Let’s start with this.

Are you on Pinterest?

It took me a little while to get the hang of it but I can finally say with absolute certainty that I’m completely addicted.  It’s a way of sharing images (of ANYTHING) that you see on the Internet and want to show other people.  You see something, then you ‘pin it’ to your ‘board’.  Other people can see your board, and you can see other people’s boards.  Your board can be divided up into several different boards according to themes or subjects.  You can make it private or public.  And you can use the search feature to find things that have been pinned to other people’s boards.  For example, my friend Clare is searching for a pendant light for her new house, so I searched Pinterest for that:

When you pin something onto your board, the source of the item is automatically recorded, so if Clare likes the look of any of those pendants, she can click on the link and see where to buy it from.

This website is quite brilliant, if you happen to have hours and hours to while away.

To join, you need to be invited by a current member.  I was invited by a friend, and now I can invite you!  If you want to sign up, say so in the Comments and I’ll email you an invite.

Curried couscous

Posted by trish on Jan 15, 2012 in Eat | 1 comment

I’ve blogged this recipe before but it’s in the archives so I thought I’d put it up again, given the time of year.  This is a great salad to serve with bbq’d chicken or lamb.  My kids can make it, and they love to eat it.  And whenever I serve it up to guests, they ask for the recipe.

It comes from this book, which I first saw on the kitchen shelf of my American by-marriage-aunt, Susie.  When I went to New York in 2004 I bought myself a copy of it, and it falls open to this recipe.

Ina Garten (aka The Barefoot Contessa) – she has a website with more recipes!

Curried Couscous

1 1/2 cups couscous

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1/4 cup plain yoghurt

1/4 cup good olive oil

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/4 teaspoon ground tumeric

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

half cut grated carrot

half cup minced fresh flat leaf parsley (Continental or Italian)

half a cup dried currants

1/4 cup blanched, sliced almonds (pine nuts are also good)

2 spring onions (scallions) thinly sliced, white and green parts

1/4 finely diced red onion

Place the couscous in a medium bowl.  Melt the butter in the boiling water and pour over the couscous.  Cover tightly and allow the couscous to soak for five minutes.  Fluff with a fork.

Whisk together the yoghurt, olive oil, vinegar, curry, tumeric, salt and pepper.  Pour over the fluffed couscous and mix well with a fork.  Add the carrots, parsley, currants, almonds, spring onions and red onions, mix well and taste for seasoning.  Serve at room temperature.

good champagne

Posted by trish on Jan 13, 2012 in Blog | 1 comment

This afternoon my dear friend Vanessa came over for a cup of coffee and a catch-up, and somewhere in there we talked about my book and how I’ve been telling the story and ohmygoodness I think I’ve decided to do a substantial re-write.  She has inspired me to take a slightly different approach, one that I had considered earlier but dismissed as a bit too superfluous-sub-plot-ish but she reckons (and I agree) that it would actually add a lot to the story.

I was just telling PJ about it, over a glass of champagne, and I suddenly made one of those connections, those little discoveries or realisations or breakthroughs where you figure out the answer.  I’ve got it!  Now I know how I’m going to structure it in this new and improved way.  Yay!  Pour me another glass!

It’s going to require some serious re-doing.  I won’t need to delete very much, but there’s an awful lot to be added.  But I’m very excited to embark on the make-over.

Meanwhile, I’m adding my mother in law and my BFF Mel to my list of people who have read the manuscript as-is and think it’s terrific.  I can’t tell you, internet, how wonderful it is to be getting all this great feedback.  Because even if I eventually give it to someone in the publishing industry and they tell me it’s actually crap, I won’t care so much because the people who matter to me think it’s alright.

And what do publishers know, anyway?  How many of them rejected the Harry Potter books?  I rest my case.

Saffy.

Posted by trish on Jan 13, 2012 in Blog | 1 comment

The pups were desexed yesterday, and last night we brought them home, doped-up on anaesthesia and feeling a bit sore and confused.  This morning they woke at about 4am to go outside for a pee, then slept a bit restlessly until 6am.  Between 6am and 8am poor little Saffy threw up the very tiny contents of her stomach about half a dozen times, which was enough to warrant a phone call to the Vet.  They suggested we bring her in, so the poor little bun has spent the day in Puppy Hospital, hooked up to an IV for fluids.  I’ve just spoken to the Vet and she’s looking much better, she has stopped throwing up and started whimpering for attention which, apparently, is a universal sign of improvement.  They want to keep her overnight but if she manages to keep the fluids and her evening meal down they’ll let us bring her home in the morning.  (Darcy is fine).

No, I haven’t been crying, I just got something caught in my eye.

back in the saddle

Posted by trish on Jan 13, 2012 in Blog | 2 comments

Over the last few weeks I’ve been considering my career options.  I need some cash, is what it boils down to.  I need a thousand bucks to pay a Manuscript Assessor to tell me how to turn my First Crappy Draft into a Best Seller so that I can be a Writer. I need another thousand bucks to fund the Product Development Phase of my Top Secret Project so I can be an Entrepreneur.  And I need another few hundred bucks to buy myself that KitchenAid Mixer I keep talking about, so that I can be a Serious Food Blogger.  Oh, and I’d quite like to upgrade my Espresso Machine, please, so I can also continue as a Barista.

And whilst I love my job at the Cafe/Cooking School, the cold hard truth of the matter is that I can make significantly more money if I return to my former line of work, which is Scribing.  So, I have resigned from the Cafe and I have emailed my resume to a former colleague who still works in the Recruitment industry and who has already offered me some work.

So… let’s see how that works out, shall we?  Because if you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll know that I never thought I’d ever go back to a job that required me to wear a suit and carry a briefcase.

Oh.

I also need a few hundred bucks for a new suit.

Ugly Renaissance Babies

Posted by trish on Jan 13, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments

A blog about ugly babies in Renaissance paintings.

Who thinks of these things?

Brilliant.

Simple Salmon

Posted by trish on Jan 12, 2012 in Eat | 3 comments

I’m pretty fussy when it comes to where I buy fruit & veg, fish, meat and chicken from. At some time or another I have bought some of all these things and they have been such poor quality or so far beyond their use-by/best-before date that I’ve had to throw them away, and that bothers me more than just about anything (yes, I try to get refunds/exchanges whenever possible). So most of the time I stick to a couple of trusted suppliers and tend to shy away from the big supermarkets and bulk-buying butchers.

I’m particularly fussy when it comes to fish, but when I was at Costco the other day they had some salmon that was labelled as packed on that day. And it looked pretty good. I took a chance and bought a whole side of salmon, skinned and pin-boned. I think I paid about $30/kg for it, which is good.

Well, it was delicious. Definitely fresh, and the flavour was superb. I cut it up into 180g pieces, wrapped each one in a couple of slices of prosciutto, pan-seared them for two minutes on each side then finished off in the oven for about 7 minutes to cook them right through.  Since the oven was on, we had them with roasted kipfler potatoes and a quick green salad.

New music.

Posted by trish on Jan 7, 2012 in Blog | 7 comments

I have a bad habit of listening to the same playlists on my iPod, over and over and over. This year, I’m going to create a new playlist every month, with new music. As in, released within the past twelve months, no more. I need to stop listening to Crowded House.

Have you heard of Gotye?  He’s an Australian-Belgian musician who has found phenomenal success with his song ‘Somebody That I Used To Know”. By the looks of his website, he’s selling out concerts across Europe this year, so he’s certainly not a one-hit wonder. 

I love this song.  LOVE IT. And the video is awesome.

Here’s a really interesting cover version of it.  Some people are so talented it makes me sick.

Miss Harriet

Posted by trish on Jan 6, 2012 in Shoot | 2 comments

She didn’t much want her picture taken, so I just sat and waited for her to decide she was ready and when she looked over at me I clicked.  A moment later she decided she would like to have her picture taken, but none of the shots I got after this one were as lovely.

Harriet is my friend Sophie’s daughter, and recently became a Big Sister.  I think that extra maturity is reflected in her eyes.

When Darcy met Walter

Posted by trish on Jan 6, 2012 in Blog | 2 comments

This morning we took the puppies to Deb’s house.  Deb is their Stylist.  She’s a dog groomer, but to the puppies she is That Woman With The Scary Buzzy-thing That Makes Us Look So Different That We Spend Five Minutes Barking Insults At Each Other.  As in “Dude, Where Are Your Eyebrows?”

When we arrived there was another family dropping off their cavoodle.  His name was Walter, and he was an only child.  He was being dropped off by the mother and three daughters, all of whom looked completely unsure about what they were doing which, to be fair, is exactly how we felt the first time we dropped the puppies off.

Walter is a shade lighter than our puppies, and quite a bit fluffier on account of not ever having been groomed before but also significantly smaller than our two pups.   The kids hovered around, not sure whether to hand over the bag of treats they’d brought along or if they ought to have brought Walter’s favourite blankie.  When Deb told them that they could come and pick him up seven hours later they all looked completely shocked.  As in, “Dude, He Doesn’t Have That Much Hair.”

Deb bundled him inside and left us all standing around outside, with Walter’s owners looking quite concerned and a little bit bereft.  I gave them the benefit of my vast experience.

“Don’t worry, Deb is wonderful, he’ll be fine, we’ve done this before, he’ll have a lovely time with the other dogs, don’t worry, he’ll be fine…” and so on.  Deb came back out for our puppies and gave the mother and the three girls a reassuring look.

And then I turned to Deb and warned her that the puppies were getting desexed next week, but in the meantime Darcy’s hormones had kicked in and she had developed a tendency to greet other dogs with more than her usual friendliness.  Deb laughed out loud and said something about keeping an eye on her for us.

I’m pretty sure Walter’s owners are going to spend their entire day worrying not about the grooming, but about how mentally scarred poor Walter will be from spending his entire day refusing the most ardent affections of our horny little fluffball.

Update on the puppehs

Posted by trish on Jan 5, 2012 in Blog | 1 comment

Yeah, I just called them “puppehs”.  That’s what you do when you’ve been on the internet too long.

They are so big, but still little and fluffy and capable of illiciting cries of “ooooh looook!” from the patrons outside the pub down at the shops.  The girls take the puppies for a walk most afternoons, and Ella’s favoured route takes her past the pub where she can show her baby off to the adoring boozers.

(iPhone photo – the camera wasn’t shaking, the dog was)

This is Saffy, aka Saffy Monster.  She started off as the smaller, calmer of the two dogs.  Now, she’s the Complete Nutter.  She runs, jumps, barks, rolls around, tackles your feet and sprints up and down the corridor.  She’s very fast, and not to be trusted.

Darcy is much calmer, and a bit chubbier than Saffy.  Having said that, though, she wouldn’t sit still for a photograph.  I’ll try again later, when she’s asleep.

They’re getting desexed next week, which apparently is a fairly simple operation these days but nevertheless it’s got us feeling all nervous and over-protective.  Poor little puppehs.  Poor little pup-a-luppies.

Who knew we would become so crazy in love so quickly?  It’s a little bit ridiculous.

foodie mosaic

Posted by trish on Jan 3, 2012 in Eat | 0 comments

My twitter/blogging friend Helen inspired me to make a mosaic out of all the recipes I made and blogged about last year.  I got to 20 and fell asleep at the keyboard.  Also, as I was going back through all of these I was fixing up the formatting that had been mucked about by that script virus attack my blog suffered last year.

Now I need to post the links to each of these recipes… someday…

Helen not only did the mosaic properly, but her mosaic is of 30 things she KNITTED and CROCHETED which makes her the winner of the Who Has More Creative Energy contest.  She’s actually quite awesome, in fact.

Sixty Years

Posted by trish on Jan 2, 2012 in Shoot | 1 comment

Just before Christmas I was asked, at the very last minute, to go along to a 60th Wedding Anniversary celebration, to take some photos of the family who were all gathered together for the first time in a long while.

They were having dinner at a restaurant in a beautiful garden setting, so I suggested we take some photographs outside before they all disappeared inside before dinner.  So at about 6.30pm, just as the light was getting good, I took group shots of everyone and recorded the event for family albums.

When they were done, the bride and groom set a blistering pace across the lawn towards the restaurant and I managed to fire off a couple of shots as they scurried away.

This is my favourite.  PJ made it a black and white image, which I think is perfect.

I love that they’re still holding hands, after all these years.

2012

Posted by trish on Jan 1, 2012 in Blog | 4 comments

There are only a couple of hours remaining on this first day of the new year and I am going to spend them watching the last few episodes of the first season of Nurse Jackie.  And if I make good on one of my unpublished new years resolutions, I’ll be watching it from my yoga mat.

So, the new year has begun!  I am feeling really, really optimistic about this year.  I know it’s a bit un-Aus-tray-an to get excited about one’s prospects – and tragically uncool if you’re over 40 – so let’s pretend for a moment that I’m an American teenager who just found out she got into the cheerleading squad.  As in… yay me!

This year I am going to finish my novel and get it published.  I don’t know if “published” means that Random House is going to pick it up or that I’m going to self-publish it online as an e-book for my friends to download or if I’m just going to upload it to lulu.com and print one copy for my bookshelf so I can put it up there next to all the Maggie Aldersons and say “I did that”, but I’m going to do it.  I know that the First Rule of Writing A Novel is not to get too caught up in the unaminously positive reviews from all your friends but I’m going to take the confidence they’ve given me out for a spin and see where it takes me.  For those of you who are interested, I’m going to get the first few chapters assessed by a Manuscript Assessor and if he/she thinks my little manuscript is up to scratch, I’ll invest in a full Manuscript Assessment (several hundred dollars).  This will be useful feedback for this book, and will also serve as a personal, private tutorial for me in how to write a better novel.  You know, just in case I decide to do another one…

I am also going to get my Top Secret Project off the ground.  I have made some interesting connections over the past couple of months and the TSP is definitely progressing.  Watch this space.

Trish Smith Photography will continue to bubble along in the background.  I’m not doing any marketing other than having a website up and relying on word-of-mouth, and so far that’s brought me enough work to inspire me to keep going with it.

As for this blog, well, I am going to try to regain my enthusiasm for it this month, by blogging every day.  It went off the boil a bit at the end of last year – that virus, the one that reformatted all my old posts and mucked up the photos?  That virus really, really annoyed me and the thought of having to go back through every post and fix it up was, frankly, completely overwhelming.  I still haven’t tackled that job, and maybe I’ll never get to it.  I toyed with the idea of hitting the ‘delete all’ button again and starting from scratch with a new look but last time I did that I regretted it soon afterwards (and at least one reader got cranky about the loss of all those recipes) so I’ll keep it as-is, and just keep going.

**Update** I have fixed up all the formatting problems, though I haven’t got the thumbnail pictures back in place.  That’s never going to happen.  Sorry.

So, that’s what I’ve got planned for this year.  I am so grateful to those of you who keep coming back to see if there is anything new to read each day.  I will be thinking of you as I log on every morning after my hour of yoga.

Happy New Year, everyone!