a 'decadent' day...

yay – i’ve got absolutely nothing planned today!!!

the weekend’s been quite busy… had to do some shopping for me mother on saturday morning 'cause she didn’t feel up to getting down the street – she’s having bad effects from one of the medications she’s been on - spiriva for her copd - chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – knocks her about for most of the day, and on reading the information that came with it apparently people with kidney disease and glaucoma maybe shouldn’t take it – she has both of those 'conditions' as well – way to go alfred hospital renal department – now that sounds competent!!! i spoke to her this morning though and she's rejigged when she takes this one until she goes for a check up next week and was feeling much better...

here's a photo of me mum with me brother at 5 months (big fucker wasn't he!! - i need to record my mother telling her story about his birth - it's priceless!!!) - that would make it june 1952... and i thought i'd 'throw in' one of her mum with their beautiful spaniel honey - that would have been in the very late 50s or early 60s because i remember honey and recognise the house in highett where they were living at the time - although it looks like there's another dog (that looks very much like my allie) on the verandah - but i don't remember them having 2 dogs at the one time...

talking of allie, my beautiful old incontinent girl keeps me busy – I’m forever mopping up piss and washing towels!!! a small ‘price’ really for her years of companionship, love and loyalty – but it can get you down sometimes – but there is only limited time for depression and self-pity – coming from a working-class background of battlers and survivors I learnt early that you just have to ‘pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get on with life' – until the next crisis anyway... and of course there's shadow too - he has needs and demands on my time as well!!!

the malmsbury mob came down saturday evening and stayed the night - it’s always pleasurable to have irene and the gang visit – i get to see my louie boy… we laughed, smoked and enjoyed the poodles antics…i made us a yummy pasta that we had with some beautiful sourdough bread...

the contract for the land is being signed this week so we’ll know when settlement will be at that point – either 30 or 60 days - and then we’ll be able to move ahead with the ‘retreat’ design and plans… we’re still ‘umm-ing and ahh-ing’ about which design and company to go with but i’m really excited about it - it’ll be new, and it’ll be my home!!!!

sunday morning meant a run over at the leash free park for the poodles – where we met montgomery the beautiful cinnamon coloured standard poodle – and did he love meeting up with the poodle pack – poodles just love other poodles no matter their size!!!! then we met and cried with another womon who had recently lost her old dog, her companion of 15 years, to cancer – but she had just rescued a wee little terrier cross so we shed a few tears of happiness for the lucky little girl!!! a weepy start to the day - you just never know what a walk to the park will unveil!!!

time for the gang to go home then and me to psyche myself up and get ready for work – at least I only had to go to AP so the shift was only 3 ¾ hours – and it turned out to be a nice cruisy shift this weekend (unlike last Sunday!!!) so we got pretty much all of the shelving done – now that doesn’t happen very often these days!!!

so here it is monday morning - i’m blogging, having a smoke and thinking about making some decadent chocolate truffles or rum balls (recipes below) before i relax with either a movie or a book – haven’t decided yet… but that’s not until after I do some ‘domestic shit’ - after that sheer decadence is the order of the day!!!

Decadent chocolate truffles

• 1 x 8 ounce container nondairy cream cheese
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3 cups nondairy semisweet or dark chocolate chips (or any high-quality chocolate), melted
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Ingredients for coating truffles (see below)

In the large bowl of a food processor, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add confectioners' sugar, 1 cup at a time, until well blended. Add melted chocolate and vanilla and stir until thoroughly combined.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or as long as overnight. The longer you refrigerate the batter, the easier it will be to roll into perfect balls. However, it will definitely require elbow grease to scoop them out.

Shape into 1-inch balls. Refrigerate again if the batter is too soft, especially if your kitchen is warm. Use a strong spoon or melon baller to create uniform sizes.

Once rolled, either send balls back to fridge or coat in any of the following:

• Finely ground nuts (pecans, hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds)
• Sifted cocoa powder
• Toasted or raw coconut
• Sifted confectioners' sugar

• To create a hard chocolate shell, refrigerate rolled truffle balls for at least 30 minutes (longer is fine, too). Melt some nondairy chocolate, either a good quality chocolate bar or chocolate chips, and dip each ball into the chocolate. Return to the refrigerator and let set for at least 1 hour.

Rum Balls

60g dairy-free margarine

2 tbsp treacle (i might use agave syrup)
60g brown sugar
1 tbsp cocoa
1 tbsp rum (or other liqueur)
2 tbsp almond meal
1 cup mixed chopped dates or fruits of choice
1 cup chopped mixed nuts


place margarine, treacle (or alternative) and sugar in saucepan and slowly bring to boil. Remove from heat and stir in remaining incredients. mix well, cool and roll into balls. roll in favourite coating.

nothing left to do but eat and enjoy!!!!

and here's an evening update...

it's 6.15 and this is a picture of the decadent chocolate truffles i made earlier this afternoon!!!

i halved the truffle recipe above, added chopped nuts to the mixture, rolled some in cocoa and some in crushed nuts - i got 14 truffles - they're decadent and oh so yummy - allie gives them the seal of approval too!!!!!

my space...

no, not MySpace, but my space - but alas no, darrell still doesn't have the key to his place - hopefully he'll get that today (i'm waiting in anticipation for his text message now!!!!) he has been staying elsewhere the last few nights though and only has a few things left here to collect once he can get into his space - can't wait for the last of his stuff to go because then i'll be able to feel totally relaxed in my own space - but to totally reclaim my sanctuary i'm feeling the need to rearrange the furniture again as soon as every single thing of his is gone!!!! that might be one of next weekends activities!!!!

i had a full house on saturday night though... irene and the gang came down from malmsbury and stayed the night - that meant all 4 of the poodle clan, along with allie and shadow - yep, 5 dogs, 1 cat and 2 humans in the flat - and believe me that was much easier to deal with than having just darrell here!!!! guess i'm just more of an 'animal person' than a 'brother person'!!!!

we had a nice relaxing evening just eating, smoking, and watching a grouse 'cutesy' family movie - beverly hills chihuahua - now, i don't know about you but i luv a well-done disney animal movie - and we both got a lot of laughs out of this film - one of the major 'characters' - papi - reminded us both of a tough wee chihuahua that once shared irene's life and that i had the pleasure of knowing - cheech (see right) aka cheechie-boy, cheechie-wowa, cheech-mcfeech among others - and he was sure he was the size of a german shepherd - so much bravado - he was a grouse little fella...

of course the evening was interspersed with long walks because the flat and courtyard just aren't like their country space - definitely not big enough for 'rough-house playin' so we had to wear'em'out with walkin' and off-lead runnin' - they loved it!!!!

unfortunately i had to interrupt my weekend with another sunday shift yesterday - that's four weekend shifts in the last five weeks - oh no, and another one next sunday - we don't seem to have enough staff these days because we all seem to be working more weekends - it's harder to swap shifts let alone give them away - you just end up working way too many in a row - everyone's just too exhausted...

we have lost some staff out of the 'weekend roster mix' due to higher banding - that stretches the existing staff even thinner - not good for the already overworked, over stressed team!!!!!!

if you take something away without replacing it, eventually 'something's gotta give' - usually sanity first, followed rapidly by physical deterioration!!!!

luckily i enjoyed catching up with my co-worker yesterday - someone i don't get a chance to work with often - and i'm working with another 'goodie' next weekend - and believe me the team you're on with can make all the difference to it being either a good or bad day!!!

short and sweet....

finally some relaxing, quiet, alone time to blog...

my new year’s eve was very pleasant indeed - irene picked me up after work and we had a leisurely drive up to kyneton for a visit to my niece Rebbecca’s place – she’s got a new companion so i got to meet him – it was good to catch up with her (and Matthew and her cute wee ‘fur-kids’) - she had a few people around to celebrate the new year but once the partner started cookin’ animal flesh on the barbie and the stench became overpowering (made worse by the barbecue being under the verandah to avoid being rained on) it was time for us to say goodbye and continue on to Malmsbury before a really major storm hit... we just made it – thunder, lightning, gi-normous hail – it was quite spectacular...

and here we are once we got there and settled into 'comfy mode' - the gang are just waitin’ for me to share some more munchies with them (although my boy thinks a pat is just as good sometimes)... and it never seems to matter how many humans are around because of course all 4 gather around the one person to get something – that’s eight eyes just staring at you – and 4 poodles drooling!!!

we did see the new year in - us oldies have still got the stamina!!!!... but we had a really slack one the following day - spent part of the day watching 'east of eden' - well, 5 hours of it off and on anyway - ya just get drawn in - and anyway  it was raining most of the day - but the sun finally appeared in the late afternoon so we did at least get some photos of the land for sale before it was time to come back to melbourne - you can see them in the sidebar - know anyone who's looking for a tree-change or quiet weekends away from the hustle and bustle of city life???

well, we’re into the 2nd week of the new year now and 2010 seems to be shaping up alright... although i did work last saturday, and today, and next sunday i’m doin’ an all-dayer - far out, 3 weekends in a row - yuck - hope it's not a 'stinker'  next weekend, that would be okay for me because i'll be in air-conditioning, but i'd rather be home with me old girl so i can have the fan on for her!!!... i’m having a week off at the end of January though - i'm hangin' out for that...

and talking about work - what is it with all the returns at the moment??? it was like the bottomless bin today - and that was at albert park!!!! definitely is ‘that time of year’ hey...

alas my alone time has just come to an abrupt end, but hopefully i'll get to blog in-depth over the next couple of days...

it's been a hard journey....

it's hard to believe the changes that have happened in my life in such a short time... was it just a few weeks ago that shit happened and I ended up with black eyes??? that was definitely the catalyst to my understanding that I could no longer live with that volatility in our relationship any longer...

and fuck it's been hard... so much shit - loss - depression - stress - heartache - anger - expense (I'm in so much debt!!!!)... I've cried a lot - I've been blamed for everything - I've wallowed in self-pity - I've ached for what once was - I've missed Brann desperately - I've also hated him with a passion, especially his constant blaming of me and his refusal to accept any share of responsibility for the 'end' of 'us' (foolish me, of course - alcoholism has never affected a relationship has it!!!??)... I asked once if friendship could survive when love had gone - sadly, it doesn't look like it...

but luckily I've had incredibly caring people around me - the support, love and encouragement I've gotten has been overwhelming and I'm starting to get out of the 'mire' and get things together finally... things are settling down, the flat is starting to feel a semblance of comfortable - don't know if it'll ever feel like 'home' after the crap that went on with the neighbours from hell so early into tenancy... will finally get rid of depressing, horrid orange holland blinds this week when maroon venetians arrive - yay, that'll make sitting inside a little bit nicer - and did some work in the courtyard at the weekend, 'with a little help from my friends' - it's starting to take shape...

don't know how I would have survived without Irene, and then there's been me mum and even me brother, and of course Alistair and Katherine - such generosity, caring and warmth...

I miss my Lou-dude heaps, but saw him yesterday - he's lovin' the country, loves his country-cousins and Irene - but he loves coming to visit for the extra cuddles I give him (after all, he's got 3 other poodles to compete with in the country!!!!) - but he's only boarding - one day he'll be back with me...





Allie and Shadow are settling into their new surroundings... the old girl is coping okay - and the boy finally got outside so he's not so agitated.





There's no photos yet - I'll take some when the place is 'mine' - blinds in, courtyard looking cosy... but that won't take too long now... it's getting there...



ooooh, and before I call it quits here... Irene and I needed some comfort food so we went to Chocolateria San Churro in St Kilda at the weekend... they do the best Churros I've tasted... delicious - I highly recommend it... looks like it'll become a favourite 'haunt' when she brings the gang to visit - that'll have to be often for us to get through their menu!!!! ahhh, a little bit of chocolate decadence is so very therapeutic!!!!!



can't wait to try the tapas!!!!! and the fondue... and if you feel like being decadent at home in comfort, check out some of their recipes here!!!!!





and on that note, i'll say ciao for now... and maybe shed a few more tears ...