Sunday, February 26, 2012

Day 57 - 26 February 2012 - Sweetness

Hello!

It's Day 57! I can't believe I'm managing to keep up with this daily photo business! Today's post is also my entry into this week's Photo Friday Challenge, where the theme is sweetness.

Today was the day of our morning tea for my mother-in-law's birthday. I made quiche, chocolate slice, macarons and cupcakes. The cupcake recipe you can find on yesterday's post.  I should give you the macaron recipe too, because they were DELICIOUS. It was my first time making them, and I'll be making them again. Looking at this photo, I wish I'd chosen my white tablecloth instead of my Italian lemon one, LOL!

I actually used a couple of different recipes to make the macarons. The first one I looked at didn't tell me how or when to mix the egg white mixture with the almond mixture! Following here is my adaptation of the recipes I looked at:

Macarons
Ingredients
150g icing sugar
75g ground almonds (almond meal)
2 large egg whites (room temperature)
35g caster sugar
food colouring

Method
Preheat oven to 170c/325F and line two baking sheets with non-stick baking paper.
Sift the icing sugar and almond meal together.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Then add caster sugar 1 tablespoon at a time and continue beating until the eggwhite mixture is stiff and glossy.
Mix colouring and almond meal and icing sugar into the egg mixture. Mix it in well (you aren't gently folding here, you are making sure it is all mixed together). The mixture should be thick but still wet.
Place the mixture into a piping bag with a plain nozzle and pipe circles onto the baking paper.
Set aside for at least 30 minutes to allow the mixture to settle and for a "skin" to form on top of the macarons. (One recipe I read recommended setting them aside for 5 hours! Which I didn't do.)
Place in oven for 9 - 10 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool on the tray.

You can join these with jam, cream, buttercream, or ganache. This time I used the buttercream from my cupcakes (see my cupcake recipe), but next time I think I might make a ganache, the buttercream was a bit sweet for me. The macarons by themselves were divine!

Here's another photo:
Have I made you hungry for sweets?

:-)
Michelle

Day 56 - 25 February 2012

Hello!

A day of housework. We are having morning tea for the hubby's Mum tomorrow, so the house is cleaned and I've been baking.
I made Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Cupcake. I Googled the recipe, and the one I used is this one:


Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcakes:
·         1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
·         1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
·         1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
·         2 cups sugar
·         4 large eggs, at room temperature
·         1 cup milk
·         1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Icing:
·         Vanilla Buttercream, recipe follows

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Line 2 (1/2 cup-12 capacity) muffin tins with cupcake papers.
In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.
In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean.
Cool the cupcakes in tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Vanilla Buttercream:
The vanilla buttercream we use at the bakery is technically not a buttercream but actually an old-fashioned confectioners' sugar and butter frosting. Be sure to beat the icing for the amount of time called for in the recipe to achieve the desired creamy texture.
·         1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
·         6 to 8 cups confectioners' sugar
·         1/2 cup milk
·         2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla. On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring and mix thoroughly. (Use and store the icing at room temperature because icing will set if chilled.) Icing can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Yield: enough for 2 dozen cupcakes or 1 (9-inch) layer cake

This is a massive batch of cupcakes. I only used a half quantity of the buttercream recipe. The full quantity would cover more than four dozen cupcakes, I'd say. The batter made 24 cupcakes (big ones in muffin cases). The cupcakes were light and fluffy and delicious.
:-)
Michelle

Day 55 - 24 February 2012

Hello!

More rain today. So much rain that the ground is saturated. If you step on the grass, you sink into the water. The worms have deserted the lawn in favour of the driveway. I hope they can go home soon.
Our driveway had about twenty worms on it, not sure that is the safest place to choose to be!

:-)
Michelle

Friday, February 24, 2012

Day 54 - 23 February 2012

Hello!

Today's photo is one of our many magpies that live in our front yard.
He's all puffed up, he must have been feeling slightly chilly. :-)  I just noticed he only had one leg down, too. Maybe he only has one leg?

One day, in the far away future, we will renovate our roof. I'll have to remember to send people back to look at this photo to remember how bad is really was, LOL! Our roof is actually "white", but the white has worn off most of it over the past 37 years of its existence. Just one of the many renovation projects we have on our list...

Two other photos, because I can't resist sharing our amazing clouds and sunsets lately. First the sunset photo. I got lots of these. Spectacular colours and clouds. No editing again on the sunset, I can't improve them.
 Doesn't this cloudy sky look fake? If you painted it, people would tell you it didn't look real.
I did edit the clouds - just changed the levels a bit, if I remember correctly.

:-)
Michelle


Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Day 53 - 22 February 2012

Hello!

I reached the end of the day, and I hadn't taken my photo. I HAD found my long-lost tripod, flash, and remote trigger, yay! So I tested them all and took a couple of bad self-portraits. Bad because they capture me all sweaty with no make-up and decidedly daggy at the very end of the day. It's definitely me, just not terribly glamourous, LOL!
 After I took the first one, I thought I ought to at least take my hair out of its falling-out pony tail. :-)
My plan WAS to take my "night" theme photo for the week, but the night sky (which was to be my subject) was full of cloud with not a star in sight. Murphy's Law - I find my tripod, and I can't see the stars. Maybe tomorrow...

:-)
Michelle

Day 52 - 21 February 2012

Hello,

Still on the theme of the weather and the sky. Day 52 brought us the most spectacular sunset. I watched it for ages, and took quite a few photographs. The colours were more vivid than I've captured. Again, I can't work out how to edit to make them look more like they were. Totally beautiful.





After this sunset, there was a massive storm on the horizon, lightning flashing across the night sky, fantastic to watch. We couldn't hear any of the thunder from here, but we could see it was a doozy!

:-)
Michelle

Day 51 - 20 February 2012

Hello!

On Day 51 we had some amazing cloud formations. I had to take a photo to show you all. I haven't edited these ones, as I can't work out how to edit them and make them look better (admitting what I've still yet to learn).

This top one is more what they actually looked like.
 This next one shows what they looked like in comparison to everything around them.

I wish I had known how to photograph this better. I stood out there looking at these clouds for ages, they were so interesting.

:-)
Michelle

Day 50 - 19 February 2012

Hello!

Day 50 had me chasing my puppy dog again. She cracked me up. We had such a HOT, HOT day and she was acting as though it was cold. She alternated between being rolled up in a ball on her mattress and lying on the hot front deck in the sun. I suspect she was feeling the effects of the clip she'd had - so much less fur meant she wasn't overheating as usual.
This is her long-suffering look that she gives me when she finally lets me take a photo.

:-)
Michelle

Day 49 - 18 February 2012

Hello!

Day 49 I caught my hubby hard at work whipper-snipping the edges just before he mowed the yard. This job takes him several hours from start to finish, but our lawn looked fabulous at the end of all that hard work.

:-)
Michelle

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Day 48 - 17 February 2012

Hello!

Day 48 found me at the end of another day where I had not taken a photo yet. So it is another photo of my bedtime reading.
Have you read this book? My brother left it behind when he visited at Christmas, and I am cursing him! From very early on in this book I started dreaming of moving to Tuscany. Now instead of my original retirement dream of caravanning around Australia, I am thinking we might like to move to Italy for a little while, LOL!

I have family in Italy. My aunty married an Italian about 50 years ago and moved to Tuscany. She's still there, as are my cousins and their families. My Dad married an Italian, so I have an Italian step-mother and step-sisters. My Dad and step-mother run a Bed and Breakfast in Tuscany. Dad lives there 6 - 8 months each year. We stayed with them for a month several years ago when they were renovating. I loved it. I really could immerse myself into Tuscan life. I really don't think I should be reading this book, it's encouraging me too much!

:-)
Michelle

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Day 47 - 16 February 2012 - Love

Hello!

Day 47 I looked for my "love" photo for Carly's Photo Friday Challenge. I've been looking for this photo all week. I had all sorts of ideas of catching my girls being nice to each other, or something similar, LOL! Ah, it is so rare for me to capture my girls being loving in a photograph, I was truly suffering from delusions when I first thought of the idea. It didn't help that I spent three days in Canberra, or that my big girl headed off to camp today.

I got home last night from my travel and read my big girl a story before lights out. This morning I helped get her organised and gave her big cuddles to fortify her for her very first ever school camp. As I was choofing her out the front door to grab a lift to school with Daddy, I thought about the "love" theme and ran back inside the house for my camera.
I see one of my jobs as a parent is to help my girls grow up confident and able to go away from the home knowing that they are safe to take these little risks and that they are loved completely, either for little trips like this, or for the big one when they eventually leave home. I could see my girl had butterflies in her tummy, but she went out to the car, got in, and waved me good-bye with a giant smile on her face.  I'm totally proud of her. And I will be giving her giant hugs when I pick her up from school tomorrow afternoon.

:-)
Michelle

Day 44 to 46 - 13 to 15 February - Canberra

Hello!

I had to travel for work this week. I went to Canberra. I didn't take my camera, so I was reduced to using my iPhone as my photographic tool.  I'll put it all into the one post so that you don't have to suffer my terrible photography for too long, LOL!

Day 44 - 13 February
I arrived in Canberra (Australia's capital) in the afternoon, in the middle of "peak hour" traffic... well the Canberra version of it. Canberra is a reasonably small city with clever roads that don't seem to clog. :-) Driving into Canberra from the airport you see the Black Mountain Communications Tower (I think that's what it's called) sitting on top of a hill. This is a well-known landmark, and something you see on Canberra postcards.
And here is a bit of a shot of the traffic.
We drove by the Australian War Memorial and Parliament House so fast that I didn't get to click a photo before we'd passed them. I must go back some day and do a proper photographic tour of the city.

Day 45 - 14 February
Yes, that's right folks, I was away from my love on Valentines Day. I was treated to a lovely gentle sunrise, though.
I stayed at the Aria Hotel. It's quite nice. Very new, very clean, comfy bed, but no restaurant and extremely limited room service for dinner. It is walking distance to the office (about 1.5km away), so convenient.

I found a fantastic cafe for breakfast. If you are ever in Canberra and looking for great coffee and delicious food, go to Cream in Civic. I wish Cream was in Brisbane, because I would go there all the time. I took some photos there, but they don't do the venue justice. It is architecturally beautiful to look at.

Day 46 - 15 February
Flying home day. After working all day, I caught a flight home in the evening. The clouds were amazing. My phone didn't do them justice.
We flew directly over Surfers Paradise, but by then we'd been asked to turn off our phones again. I WISH I'd been able to take a picture, it was pretty spectacular to be so close overhead.

Back in Brisbane. The sun was setting as we landed. The colours over the city were wonderful.
So happy to be home with my family.

:-)
Michelle

Day 43 - 12 February 2012

Hello!

It was raining again on Day 43. After many attempts at capturing raindrops, I settled for a pretty palm leaf.
Our yard does not have a single palm, and yet we are surrounded on all three sides by palm trees. We have tons of palm fronds dropping in our yard. They look pretty, and I appreciate them, until those fronds fall...

:-)
Michelle

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Day 42 - 11 February 2012

Hello!

I skipped Day 41. I had a computer meltdown. My hard drive failed and I spent the day sorting that out. I didn't take one photo. I should have taken a photo of the day's hero - my external hard drive which acts as my backup, it worked and I still have all my data! Yay!

So let's fast forward to today, Day 42.
This is a weed. It is a Singapore Daisy and it thoroughly covers the retaining walls in our back yard, and it fills the drains. We have to go out periodically to cut it right back, pull it out of the drains, and try to control it.  It does make a pretty picture, though.

:-)
Michelle

Day 40 - 9 February 2012

Hello!

Day 40 was one of those days where the weather did not know what it wanted to do. At one stage I was standing in sunshine and watching the storm clouds gather. The light was amazing, so I snapped a couple of shots while I stood there.

It never ceases to amaze me how fast the storm clouds can appear out of a pure blue sky on a Summer afternoon.

:-)
Michelle

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Day 38 - 7 February 2012

Hello!

Today on my way home from work, there was a storm brewing. It was about 5.15pm. I didn't even think I'd make it to my car before it burst. When I did get in my car, I left the window down to be able to catch any photo that might appear on my drive home (if I was stopped at the lights, not driving along). There I was sitting at the lights, the first drops were just starting, and I hung the camera out the window and caught this.
Then I had to wind the window up to avoid the downpour.

:-)
Michelle

Day 37 - 6 February 2012

Hello!

On Day 37 my girls and I stood out on the front balcony and enjoyed the sunset.
It was so pretty. Really subtle colours, not the usual bright orange sunsets I usually capture.

While I was out there, I took a few photos of the moon. They turned out okay. :-)
I need a bigger ZOOM.

:-)
Michelle

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Day 36 - 5 February 2012 - Animals

Hello!

Day 36 is also my entry into Photo Friday Challenge for this week. The theme this week is animals. Today I had photographic frenzy trying to capture an animal. First I'll start with my actual final photo... then I'll show you the runners-up, LOL!

Here is my dog, Coco, my gorgeous spoodle (aka a cockapoo).
I'll show you a quick selection of the photos I took to try to capture her. This is only a few of the many:
Can you tell she doesn't sit still?

Here are my other animal subjects of today.
My daughter's fish, Bubbles:
Our budgie, Sunny:
And my friend's guinea pigs, and I forget their names for the moment, Sunshine and Princess?
The guinea pigs were funny. They were outside their cage and chewing the bars to try to get back inside.

It was a fun day, thanks for the theme this week, Carly, I really enjoyed it.

:-)
Michelle

Day 35 - 4 February 2012

Hello!

I arrived home after a night out with my stamping friends, making cards, and realised I still didn't have my daily photo. So this is the night sky at home when I got out of my car.  I'm not sure you can see much in this photo. The moon is peeking through our leopard tree.
I think that is Orion in there. I tried to get the Southern Cross for you, but it ended up fuzzy. I'll try that another night.

:-)
Michelle

Day 34 - 3 February 2012

Hello!

Day 34 was another day where I raced around all day, and didn't get a photo taken until right at bedtime. This photo is my bedtime reading for that day.
I like Tara Moss' novels. Easy, light, and fun, just what I want at the end of a busy day.

:-)
Michelle

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Day 33 - 2 February 2012 - swim meet

Hello!

I am the proudest Mummy on Earth, perhaps across the entire universe, tonight. :-)  My eldest daughter competed in the age championships for swimming at school today.

Last week they asked for nominations, and she didn't bring the form home. She told me she wasn't entering. We had a chat, which I won't go into here in public, but it was all about me encouraging my girl to give things a go and do her best, for her own satisfaction, not as competition against others. No matter what place you come, if you give your very best effort, you are a winner.

Why am I proud today? My big girl thought about it, and decided that she would enter and give it a go, and boy was I proud right then. She didn't just give it a go. She did herself proud.  She entered freestyle and butterfly (50m races).  I'm pretty sure she raced her personal best in both. I think next year she might even consider entering breaststroke and backstroke as well.

Here she is, yellow cap, leading the pack at this stage (and was pipped at the post by the girl coming second in this photo).
The second freestyle race for her age group was a bit faster, and I don't know all the times, so I don't know the result for freestyle yet. We find out the results later. I don't know if she's on the school team, but I'm super proud now anyway. She did an awesome job in her butterfly race. I almost jumped up and yelled in excitement... actually, perhaps I really did.

:-)
Michelle

Day 32 - 1 February 2012

Hello!

Day 32 was one of those days. Up at 6am. We left home at 7.15am on the school run. I went to work and had a challenging day. I ran late to collect my eldest daughter from swim squad, but found that she was having some extra training, which went to 5.30pm. I then whizzed her home, dropped her to the hubby at 6pm, and turned around to return to school for the parent information evening. I got home around 9pm. I was totally exhausted and I still had to finish off a card that was due for my DT duties at For Your Inspiration (which I have no idea why I hadn't finished already, I started it over a week ago!).  So the ONE photo I took on this day was of my card, at night. I'll share it here anyway, LOL!
I'm getting better at editing my photos, you can barely tell this was taken with no natural light.

:-)
Michelle

Day 31 - 31 January 2012

Hello!

Someone needs to mow their lawn...
It has been raining quite a bit lately. Every time the hubby has thought of mowing, it has rained again. I took this photo of our grass, which was totally out of control.  The very next day, it was mown. Apparently every trip across the yard required an empty of the catcher. It will need mowing again within the week. So much rain...

:-)
Michelle

Day 30 - 30 January 2012

Hello!

Day 30 I forgot to take a photo during the day, again, so I wandered out of the bedroom and took a photo of the first thing I came to. It is a painting created by my brother-in-law (an artist - I shall have to share some of his art work one day) and my daughter. It is quite large and sits at the top of our stairs.
It is very quirky, and it brings me a smile every time I walk upstairs.

:-)
Michelle

Day 29 - 29 January 2012

Hello!

Day 29 was Sunday and I took a photo of our Sunday dinner. :-)
The family hot dogs. Extra hot chili sauce for the hubby, sweet chili sauce for me, and no chili for the girls.

:-)
Michelle