Half-woman, half-muppet is seduced by pudding

I took screenshots of the above pictures on my phone this afternoon and posted them to Instagram with the caption, "Stay tuned for my story 'George Brandis' uncanny resemblance to Dr Bunsen Honeydew'."  

I went back in the photo gallery on my phone later and was greeted with this: 

I'M HALF WOMAN, HALF MUPPET!!!!

That top photo is me admiring the majesty of my high quiff (although I don't think the true majesty is captured in this photo). 

I went out this morning for a muffin, but I got sidetracked by a small gourmet market that had set up near the ATM I'd visited for muffin funds. I was seduced by pudding at the Pud stall and spent $18 on a selection of chocolate coated pudding balls. 

Cranberry and white chocolate pudding ball 

Bloody expensive muffin substitute! Not that I ate the whole packet of six pudding balls in one go - they were far too rich for that - but I did eat five of the tiny puddings over the course of morning and afternoon tea and I actually saved one pudding for Luke (please admire my restraint).

I'm not a massive fan of Christmas pudding or fruit cake generally, but once I tasted a couple of the samples at the stall, I had to have me some pudding. They're made in Castlemaine in central Victoria from a secret family recipe. 

I love the word pudding. And pud. Luke thinks it's funnier if you pronounce it to rhyme with mud, but I disagree. Pud is good. Gotta love a good pud. Or you should. 

I'll go now.  

Happy Monday

Today's pretty good for a Monday. There was delicious flourless orange cake for morning tea for my birthday. I felt spoiled getting a cake from Le Petit Gateau, the fancy French bakery.  

The white blobs are whipped cream with 

flecks of vanilla bean

And then my lovely friend Lauren sent me some gorgeous flowers. They smelt good too - not overly perfumed, but a nice fresh small. They are brightening up my desk at work. 

I particularly like these purple  chyrsanthemums

And Luke is cooking roast chicken for dinner!. Yum.

Holidaying at work, marshmallows, cereal love

My boss is away this week. He's in Fiji, and we're having a little holiday as well. He's a good boss and a nice guy so it's not as if we can't stand having him around, it's just more relaxed when he's away. 

My other boss brought in a cake for the team today and some homemade marshmallows for the few of us who can't eat the cake. How thoughtful. 

I sneezed in the lift as I left work tonight and the other woman in there said "Bless you". 

I am loving the gluten-free Weetbix. I thought about them as I neared home tonight and it put a spring in my step.  I had a bowl for a snack when I got home. Yum. 

NaBloPoMo day 1: The return of glee

Hello, world. It's been a while. Glee has been a little thin on the ground for the last few months and I've been too glum/tired/lazy to force myself to keep blogging through it like I've done in previous gloomy periods.

But I've been feeling more myself the last few weeks (yay for medication) and the urge to blog has slowly returned. Since it's NaBloPoMo time again (already) I thought I'd use it to get back myself back in blogging habit. Yes, I'll be back tomorrow. And the day after. Etc.

Finding things to write about isn't likely to be a challenge because I intend write about stuff that happened while I wasn't blogging - including my trip to England and Paris in August. But I'll start with more mundane stuff. 

I had my performance review at work today and it went well - the partners are happy with my efforts. Not that I expected it to go badly, but for most of the past six months I have felt unmotivated, unenthusiastic and - for a few weeks after my holiday - almost inert. I was sure my funk must have been obvious, but either it wasn't or I met expectations regardless. Whichever. Thankfully, since I've been chirpier, I've been much less inert at work. 

Today is Friday and it was sunny after a yet another week of chilly, grey days. Melbourne is having an unusually chilly, grey spring so today's sunshine was very welcome. Tomorrow is going to be warm too. 

I gave blood today. They had gluten-free mud cake in the cafe. 

Busy, dry, baking

It's day three of my between-jobs break (not counting the weekend) and I've crossed quite a few things off my to-do list already. It's mostly stuff that falls into the 'boring-but-useful' category, like defrosting the freezer and cleaning the fridge, cleaning out and re-organising the pantry and decluttering my wardrobe. Nothing exciting, but it feels good to have it done. I have a little moment of glee every time I open the fridge or pantry door. I'll enjoy it while it lasts! 

I bought new walking shoes on the weekend. Sadly, I have reached an age where my body won't let me get away with walking for hours in any old shoes without foot, ankle, hip and lower back pain and stiffness. Dagnammit. You know you're not a young 'un any more when you've googled 'comfort shoes'.  Anyway, I bought a pair of proper walking/hiking shoes and wore them for the first time today. Not only are they comfy, they're waterproof. Today was very wet, but my feet remained dry.

I have a cake in the oven. Just a plain butter cake (allergy-diet friendly - yes, I'm still doing that confounded thing). I don't bake often...maybe the cake-baking urge has something to do with the dream I had last night about eating delicious cake. It's just out of the oven now. Must resist hacking off a piece. 

Birthday eve

It's my birthday tomorrow and I've taken the day off work.  It means I miss out on a fancy cake from David Jones (which they'd probably begrudge buying since I'm leaving in a week), but I'm having a cake made for me with love by my friend D instead, and it will be accompanied by cuddles from my gorgeous quasi-nephews. Yay.

YouTubing

I'm probably very behind the times with this, but I only discovered the playlist function on YouTube the other day while attempting to stave off boredom at work by watching White Stripes' videos. If you haven't checked it out, it puts together a playlist of music videos in a similar vein to the music you've searched for.

Thanks to YouTube, I've now discovered - speaking of behind the times - The Blasters, Mr Airplane Man and the Gun Club, and have now got them on my iPod.  I've also added The Black Keys, who I'd heard of, but whose awesomeness was not fully apparent to me until now. Yay for new music!

Here's a Gun Club video for you: