Working with colour

In my job at the House of Bun, I tinted paint and gave assvice to people about what colours to paint their walls. I love doing this and trying to get people to paint something other than Antique White U.S.A. or Hogsbristle 1/4 strength (which are 2 of the thousand or so shades of white that are available).

When it comes to colour, I'm not actually gifted with something special but as a woman, I am better equipped to discern colours and care about them (there is research on this that I can't find right this second though!) and I like playing with them. I'm also S-M-R-T when it comes to talking people into what they want to hear.

I also love Behr.com's Color Smart (their spelling not mine!) where you can go and find a colour or two or three that you have, and then play around with what proportions to work with, or else to look at what other colour(s) you should/could put together with them.

This works for:

• outfits
• painting rooms
• designing knitwear
• painting canvases
• putting yarn together
• using up craft supplies that are coloured but you need one more colour
• cake decorating

It shouldn't be used for:

• eyeshadow choice
• cake decorating if you haven't looked at Cake Wrecks recently
• painting someone else's house
• overcoming colourblindness, as my dad tells me, as it just tells you if you can put colours together - not so much if you should do it!

So next time you have 3 balls or yarn, or some canvases to paint, or some time on your hands to "paint" the bathroom of your dreams, then try that website! You have to register but not pay for it and it's a lot of fun.

A day of Cream...?

I need a day at the Cream Day Spa. I'd love to be scrubbed from head to toe. In Sydney there is the Ginseng Bath House and it is amazing. Well, it was amazing. It was closed for refurbishment last time I was in Sydney, and has only just reopened, but there is nothing equivalent to it in Adelaide. I am unsure of how it is now as I've not been back since it was reopened, and who knows how things could change, but the idea of going naked, of being soaked and pampered, of being scrubbed to within an inch of my inner organs, and enjoying it - and then having cheese and tomato sandwiches and tea in the waiting area before going back for more soaking - just sounds like heaven at the moment.

And/or a massage. I could deal with an aromatherapy massage as well. I am in need of pampering and stress relief. I have a lot on my mind and it's distressing of my psyche, which is not healthy. I have school (exams soon, and having to withdraw from a course because of my surgery on 10/12), births that I'm missing, women who I'm having to let down, bills that are due, no income, and lots of angst about my injuries.

So Christmas fairy - that's what I feel like. If any gifts are in the offering at the moment, which I'm not sure that they are (due to family angst as well *sigh*) then can it be something that I want? kthnxby

What to do with 2 skeins of sock yarn...

when you don't knit socks? You have a look at Simple Knits: 653 patterns to knit with 1-285 yards of yarn!

I have 384y of Knit Picks Memories (no longer made but linked to Ravelry) to use so will have to find something to do with it. Or trade it. For crafty favours.

Apricot chicken recipe, and thoughts on my childhood

My favourite comfort dishes as a child were sweet and sour sausages, fish pie, and apricot chicken. A few months ago, ManFriend had an unfortunate experience of reverse sweetandsoursausuages and has sworn me to never ever make it again for him ever. So I will at some point archive it here for posterity, and will also post fish pie, and apricot chicken.

It's funny - no specific sweets really stand out as "foods that highlighted my childhood". I've never had a sweet tooth. I was the kid who wanted water instead of cordial, and vegemite on Vitaweet instead of sweet biscuits; who wanted Saos instead of cream biscuits, and hated fruit but wanted carrot in her lunch box; and for whom dessert wasn't a great motivator. Desserts that I do remember loving:

• self-saucing pudding (butterscotch, blackberry, lemon - but not chocolate)
• apple turnovers
• stewed apple and cream
  
• sponge cake with strawberry jam and strawberries and cream
• trifle
• royal icing off christmas cake as I don't like cake
• pikelets (very occassionally)
  

Other savoury things that my family made and I "grew up on" would be:

• mashed potato wrapped in slices of fritz
• really awful bland chicken soup with equally bland scones (wow that's SO not a favourite but is something I definitely remember!)
• baked soy and honey chicken legs
• bolognese
• lasagne
• sausages sliced up the middle and stuffed with cheese, with mashed potato and gravy, and veges on the side
• chicken satay on rice
  

Awww now I'm all wistful. And I should go fold some clothes, and study. So - a simple recipe for apricot chicken.

Apricot Chicken (serves 5-6 times which for us was two for dinner, two for the freezer, and two for leftovers)

4 carrots, chunkily sliced
1.5 chicken breasts, chunkily sliced
4 garlic cloves, chunkily sliced
1L boiling chicken stock
1 410g ish tin of apricots
1 shake of spices (as you like - I used a dash of cayene and some nutmeg, with pepper as well as the stock was quite salty)

Arrange in a deep baking dish in that order. Bake loosely covered with foil, at 200C for about an hour. Stir and add some frozen veges. Bake for a further 15 minutes. Add a dash of cream and stir. Make some rice. Serve up.

Yum. I need seconds.

(Manfriend just leant over and asked me if I had a tape measure. And if not, would it be in my apron. 0_O. We both work at the House of Bun and this is funny in the context of, at work, we do indeed both have tape measures on us. At home, I don't usually have it *on* me but I do own a few... it was just a tad random. And amusing.)

Welcome to NaBloPoMo

Last year I wrote a novel in a month (NaNoWriMo). It's a piece of fluff and not really "finished" but it's done. I achieved something in that month that is slightly lacking in me. At some point in my life I lost the daring that I should have to try new things. I am wary of trying anything that I might fail at, because perhaps I can't deal with failure at the moment.

*Anyway*, I'm writing a blog post a day this month. It's part of the NaBloPoMo program and you can find me on there as HouseofVanilla.