Reedip
Friday, 3 September 2010
 I've been doing some 'development' stuff for the next cakewoman course - Kids Cakes. I'm liking the frog idea but I really should go to bed.
In other news, Jon is a big TV star now and he's gone to Sydney to seek his fortune. - I've just checked it out and it's about a second long in the 21st minute of the Collectors on ABC. Don't blink.
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Amplified
Friday, 3 September 2010
 This week has been very musically themed. Firstly there was a Hannah Montana birthday cake and then as part of my WideAngle job, I had to host a music video making seminar with Aria winner Josh Logue and Darren Cordeaux from Kisschasy. It was very cool but a lot of work and it wasn't over until late. That was followed the next night by a Tasmanian music video competition that I had to assist with (the winner was this very cool entry). I also had to squeeze in 3 days of actual office work and lots of other stuff. I'm exhausted.
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Snow day
Friday, 3 September 2010
 Last weekend we also went up to the snow - there hasn't been much this winter but we got a good fall recently so we took advantage of it. Unfortunately my camera battery went flat so I couldn't take a picture of the awesome snowman we built.
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Cake Basics
Friday, 3 September 2010
 It's been a busy busy fortnight but the end is almost in sight. Last Saturday I ran the first CakeWoman Cake Basics course - (as opposed to cupcakes) and it went really really well. Could have done with a few more students in order to actually make a profit, but I enjoyed it and I'm pretty sure the students did too. The next course up is Children's Cakes which will be similar but with more a a kiddie theme (brightly coloured icing etc etc).
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Dexter goes to the circus
Friday, 27 August 2010
 By the end of yesterday's baking fest (I also made a lot of cakes for the Cake Basics course running on Saturday) - My formerly white apron made it look like I had spent the day butchering clowns.
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Cooking Adventures
Thursday, 26 August 2010
 Jett loves to bake on his days off school. And someone was asking me about a cake for a rainbow themed party the other day - so I'd been checking out rainbow cakes on the web. Which led to our latest cooking adventure...
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Winter Challenge
Sunday, 22 August 2010
 Jon competed as a solo competitor in the Winter Challenge today, and these were the best photos I got - hopeless huh! I guess when you are busy keeping kids entertained (and out of the river), either the flash-past of the person we are supposed to be supporting happens a bit to fast, or the excitement of actually seeing him is so great, that I fail to remove the camera from my pocket - either way it was a bit lame and I am disappointed in my performance. Conversely, Jon performed well, and his recent binge of training saw him strongly through the first 3 legs (run, mtn cycle, road cycle), then he was hampered by the fact that he only started (and finished) his kayak training on Thursday, and, he was to be captaining a bathtub. Despite this he did well overall and finished in around 5 hours.
In other news, I've been sick since Tuesday and so has Zali. After a few days of mooching around the house she discovered the joys of being able reading in various places (like watching Jett do a swimming lesson, or as pictured here, waiting for daddy to return on the kayak leg) and has subsequently and somewhat obsessively devoured 5 'chapter' books in a couple of days (of course I'm the one sitting here with eye strain from watching an entire season of Dexter in less than 24 hours). heh.
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Bad Fairy.
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
This morning Zali was devastated to discover that the tooth fairy hadn't been last night. This wasn't good. I tried to tell her that the tooth fairy probably had Mondays off (when in actual fact I think it's more likely that the tooth fairy stayed up too late last night watching disc 3 of Dexter (the lovable serial killer). This isn't the first time the tooth fairy has been inconsistant. In fact once the tooth fairy managed to drop the gold coin practically on Zali's sleeping head and then was unable to locate it again in the dark. This forced a replacement coin to be positioned and of course Zali woke up in the morning and found both coins - and rejoiced at the unexpected doubling in the value of teeth. Sadly for Zali, the market value had sunk to its usual level by the time the next tooth dropped out.
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Party On.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
 We've got quite a few party invitations stuck on our fridge at the moment - even a few grown-ups ones which is very exciting (ok so one is our own which has already happened but still).
One is Jett's - see right.. I'm glad I'm not hosting that one.
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A rambly story with no real point told in 3 parts.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
I used to walk to primary school. The journey was about 1.4kms and went past three corner shops, all of which sold mixed lollies. Occasionally, I had 20c or so with me, so I would stop at one of these shops. I remember one time I bought a chocolate santa and when I bit into it, it was filled with maggots. Because I didn't know any better, I didn't contact my lawyer and demand a huge compensation payout, instead I resolved to never again buy a chocolate santa in March, regardless of the price. You'd think I would have at least demanded a refund but it really just didn't occur to me. So. Roll forward about 10 years years to when your shoes were a crucially important factor in your social scene (well they were in mine anyway - but I also waited for the school bus in 2 degrees without a school jumper on because I was too cool to wear the royal blue dorky version and my cool navy blue one had fallen apart). Anyway, I had an after school job at one of the corner shops which I really didn't like but I got paid $4 an hour - so with my hard earned money I bought a pair of Adidas Tennis shoes which I loved. Unfortunately after about 4 weeks they started to fall apart. I was devastated, but luckily mum suggested I take them back to the shop (Myers) and ask for a refund - she even wrote me a letter confirming the purchase and how dissappointed I was. To my surprise Myers were completely happy to refund my shoes and I don't think they even asked to see mum's letter so the shoe story ended happily. But I think that marked the beginning of my resolve to return things which I don't think I've had a fair deal on. We live close to a Big W department store, but a long long way away from a K-mart (25 minutes). I almost never buy anything from K-Mart because it's too much of a pain to take it back and that is an important part of any purchase. Today for example, I took a pair of Jett's shoes back to Big W. He's been wearing them for 8 weeks but they were beginning to fall apart - the soles were starting to crack on the inside, there was a tear in the outside of the shoe, and the velcro was no longer sticking. They also looked pretty grotty but to be fair, that wasn't Big W's fault. As I paid $30 bucks for these Dunlop shoes, I believed that they should at least last one school term, and th ey have fallen about 3 weeks short. If I'd only bought the crappy looking $15 pair I would have accepted that 8 weeks was a pretty good deal, but I paid $30 and that is not a good deal in my view. Of course I didn't have a receipt - all I had was a grotty pair of old shoes which the staff behind the customer service desk were reluctant to touch. Did I get a refund? Yep. Well sort of, they let me swap them for a brand new pair of the same shoes. They will certainly fall apart in the same way but as they will have lasted a term all up, I won't take them back again, as a fair deal is a fair deal and I will have got my $30 worth by then. And that is the end of my story.
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T-Rex overload
Monday, 9 August 2010
 With his school and childcare classes, Jett gets to visit two different libraries a week. He is allowed to borrow two books on each trip. Since about the third week of term, he has brought home a different pair of dinosaur books every single time. I didn't realise that so many even existed! Of course Jett can't read yet so it's me, Jon or Zali who end up reading the books to Jett - and we have certainly learnt a lot! Only you know, you CAN learn too much about dinosaurs. And I'm tired. I've been thinking about distributing this 'do not lend' card to each of the library check out desks...
What is interesting is that the kids have a bit of trouble understanding the difference between dragons (which don't exist) and dinosaurs (which did exist, but don't now). Jett is convinced that dragons DO exist in China - but he agrees that there aren't any dinosaurs so I guess his extensive dinosaur research is paying off!
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Morning Views
Monday, 9 August 2010
 The other day I had a rare day of actual work in at Salamanca so I walked in from mum and dads after dropping the kids off at school. It took around 45 minutes and wasn't entirely ideal for my dodgy ankle, but the views were fantastic. This photo is of one of my favourite vistas in all of Hobart.
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Some things never change..
Monday, 9 August 2010
 Friday night is still Pizza Night in our family. We all look forward to it although Jett has decided he no longer likes pizza. Luckily he still enjoys making one of ours.
Zali still loves her feta and garlic pizza. My favourite is still spinach and fetta and Jon loves to have some sort of pan-fried spicey chicken on his. The whole house smells of pizza well into the weekend.
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Distractions
Monday, 9 August 2010
 I've got tonnes of administration stuff to do including invoices to create, advertising to source, income tax to submit, blah blah blah...
Sooo.. clearly there's no better time to sit down and do the invitations for Jett's pirate party - it was always going to be way more fun!
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..
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Dear Cathy, I would like to get a 2 tier cake to serve dessert to 150 people. Also, I would like to keep the top tier. Regards, Cake Person Sigh..Luckily I'm 'teaching' not 'making' at the moment cos I'd need a pretty big cake tin to make enough for 150 people.
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