Wontons

As I type on this slightly chilly but otherwise perfect spring evening, there is a cauliflower/broccoli/cheese getting to the right stage of goldeny goodness and slow-cooked lamb shanks in their parchment parcels awaiting my dinner table. MacBoyfriend is at the neighbours playing Mario Kart (yup, you read that right. They even have the blow-up carts and all), so will retrieve him momentarily. Until them, the complex can enjoy their laughter and that music that plays every time someone gets a coin/star/whatever.

We have returned from the Hunter Valley today, and that in itself will make for some excellent blogging. It's a wonderful place, and if you have the chance, GO! DRINK! EAT! BE MERRY! And look for kangaroos.

But first, my long-overdue post on wontons  Yes, wontons. Homemade-filling-wrapped-in-a-tasty-wrapper wontons. Hong Kong neighbour was making them last weekend and I joined for a 'break' (read: procrastinating) from filling out a job application. Here are a few pictures of the treats that are now cozied away in the freezer just waiting for that weeknight no one wants to cook. They are pretty self-explanatory, but I will lay claim that Hong Kong neighbour is responsible for the very attractively constructed final photo of the wontons in all their glory. For this (and other delicious morsels), I am thankful.

 

Holiday....not the Madonna version...

As I piddle around catching up on fellow blogs, I remember the best news all week....FOUR DAYS of 'recognition leave.' With bank holidays, that's a whopping total of 11 days off from 22nd December to 2nd January. Hello 2013, and thank you Australian Red Cross. Don't mind if I do. 

Now what to do...what to do. It's gonna be a scorcher this summer, so hanging around Sydney doesn't sound terribly appealing. We'll leg it up to the Gold Coast to spend Christmas with some family for a few days, but world's the oyster after that. Well, maybe not the world, but at least most of Australasia. 

Suggestions? Thoughts? Complaints? 

It's cliche, but home is where the heart is...

I love where I live. Like really, really, REALLY love it. Our Sydney suburb is like a mini Chinatown and incredibly diverse. There's a great park we can stroll around in the evenings and we're only a train ride to the city and a short car ride to the beach. I love the signs on Liverpool Road for souvenir shops, all written in Chinese.

And I really, really like that every evening at dusk about a thousand rainbow lorikeets will  occupy the tree outside the Civic Centre. I tried to take a video, but it just doesn't do it justice. It's an incredible sound when they sing. 

I also really like our garden. It started off being quite the jungle. Saying it needed a bit of TLC was an understatement. Don't be fooled by the pebbles. They are a ruse to trick you into thinking the garden is a very zen place. After lots of  manual labour and some Googling on how to get rid of aphids, it's  perking up quite nicely. We've got a lemon, lime and mandarin tree in there now, along with some lavender and rosemary bushes. My favourite though is the bay tree. Fresh bay leaves in cooking are totally different than dried and really smell deliciously out-of-this-world.  

 To the left is the before, and below is the after. 






It's a place I can call home. When living in London, I used to say that I have a home there, but that Chicago would always be home. Sydney is different. It's definetly (sorry Mom) more permanent than London ever was. Perhaps it's because MacBoyfriend's family is here and he has 'roots' here, but it fits that little bit better than the dark, dank days in London. 

Do I miss the culture of London and free trips to the Tate Modern on Saturdays after a stroll through Bourough Market? You betcha I do. Do I miss £50 return tickets and the ability to go pretty much anywhere in Europe for a long weekend. More than ever.

I miss all the people and places left behind in both the UK and USA, and have been thinking about this more than usual. Perhaps it's all the Christmas gear coming out in full force, which is not supposed to happen until after Thanksgiving. And it doesn't acutally register that it's mid-October as we're in full spring swing here in Sydney, complete with random rain showers one minute and clear blue skies the next. The seasons remain confusing, but I think it's in my emoti-memory that Thanksgiving is just around the corner. 

So, for all this and more, I remain ever thankful I have lovely people across the globe, a truly amazeballs place to live, and the love of my life to share it all with. 

Can't catch me...

Again, appalling that it's been since May!!! I am not honouring my desire to keep up with the blog, so no excuses. Just more blogging.

In an effort to pay tribute to my original idea of 'thanks-giving'....today I went running. That's right. Running. A few people will appreciate this, namely my poor cousins who had to wait for me to take painfully slow steps on the walk to primary school. I even got out of gym (read: phys ed) class because I told the teacher I 'forgot my running shoes.' It worked a few times...

I ran around our local park that is, unfortunately for me, a little hilly.

This doesn't do it justice, but trust me, I'll be trying to find somewhere that's flat for all future running endeavours.

This was prompted by myself and MacBoyfriend agreeing to do a 100 kilometer (62.14 miles for you Americans) walk for the Fred Hollows Foundation.








So, to wrap it up. Today I am thankful that I can run. Given that I looked like this for three weeks...








I am happy I can use these...not that mine are as awesomely as colourful, but a girl can dream...