I'm not entirely sure I have anything in particular to write about at the moment. Marcus is out of town at the moment visiting a friend who lives in rural NSW so I'm holding the fort down at home.
Last night we held a donor thank you event, and invited our 280 highest donors to a special dress rehearsal of our production opening at the opera house next week. Other than the director being unhappy that a few people left during the play (rude, certainly, but theater is meant to be divisive and to challenge), it was smooth sailing. It's funny, most people here would go out for a night on the town after a Friday night play (especially one that gets out at 9:00 pm), but I was really happy to go home afterward. I really enjoy being at home...
Then today I went and picked up the lovely Maria from the ferry wharf (that's right, another stint at driving on the left side of the road) and went outlet shopping. A sweater, a hat and a scarf for $30. That's cheap even for US standards, I'm ecstatic! After that we came back home to delve into some gluten-free goody making. I find gluten-free baking to be a great challenge and today we conquered with flying colors! Maria, originally a skeptic of sweet pumpkin goods (being used to pumpkin as a savory flavor), has since converted to a pumpkin dessert fan and requested pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. This isn't much of a feat back home where you can buy pumpkin pie in a can. But we did it from scratch with a fresh pumpkin, de-seeding, cutting, peeling, roasting, then puree-ing it. Fresh, roasted pumpkin full of spice and chocolate chips...well, Maria and I have tried GF baking on several occasions with differing levels of success--we've had excellent soft gingerbread cookies and brownies, but we've also had chocolate chip cookies that melted into some kind of crispy toffee-like substance in the pan. So today we brought in the big guns. Now, for anyone that doesn't know, GF baking requires complete absence of wheat, and apparently wheat is where the elasticity in the vast majority of our baked goods comes from. Rice flour, corn flour and potato flour (the three main wheat flour substitutes) are all fairly fine and result in a brittle and/or crumbly baked good that just does not hold together. The trick to GF baking lies in the multiple, multiple flours. So. We used pre-made GF flour mix (which in and of itself contains at least four different flours), brown rice flour (which is grainier than white rice flour), almond meal and xantham gum. And people, we had success!! Excellent cookies. We also made some cream cheese/peppermint/chocolatey goodness from the Philadelphia cream cheese website. Also, very tasty.
Let's see, other than that...work has a fairly busy night time schedule. This last week we had two play openings and the donor dress rehearsal. Next week we have a climate change lecture, photograph exhibition opening and an opening night at the opera house. It all sounds very glamorous and exciting, but I'm still getting over my own social awkwardness. :) I didn't feel very socially awkward before I got here, but I feel it a lot now. Like I'm too uptight and don't know how to shoot the breeze in quite the same way. More time...I'll give myself more time. That seems to be what's needed. Though time keeps flying by quicker and quicker every day. It's already half way through April. Of 2010. I've lived outside of Seattle for almost three years. That feels crazy.
Since I'm not terribly exciting at the moment, I'll post some pictures from Easter. We went up to Nelson Bay and beached, snorkeled, rode down a toboggan and played miniature golf, took a ferry and went koala searching (which failed, though we did see sting rays and black swans), and ate copious amounts of chocolate. We had a lovely weekend (four day weekend here--I love their holidays!).
The failed koala search, though we did find koala poo which is supposed to be a good indicator that they're close by. :)
You can't see it terribly well (they have great camoflauge) but it's a sting ray
Big ol' pelican sitting on a light pole
My first chocolate bilby! (Still not sure what a bilby is and I definitely haven't seen one, but it's a unique alternative to the chocolate bunny
We may have gone a bit overboard...our cupboards are still bursting with all of this chocolate (not to mention a few additions that have been made since then)
Last night we held a donor thank you event, and invited our 280 highest donors to a special dress rehearsal of our production opening at the opera house next week. Other than the director being unhappy that a few people left during the play (rude, certainly, but theater is meant to be divisive and to challenge), it was smooth sailing. It's funny, most people here would go out for a night on the town after a Friday night play (especially one that gets out at 9:00 pm), but I was really happy to go home afterward. I really enjoy being at home...
Then today I went and picked up the lovely Maria from the ferry wharf (that's right, another stint at driving on the left side of the road) and went outlet shopping. A sweater, a hat and a scarf for $30. That's cheap even for US standards, I'm ecstatic! After that we came back home to delve into some gluten-free goody making. I find gluten-free baking to be a great challenge and today we conquered with flying colors! Maria, originally a skeptic of sweet pumpkin goods (being used to pumpkin as a savory flavor), has since converted to a pumpkin dessert fan and requested pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. This isn't much of a feat back home where you can buy pumpkin pie in a can. But we did it from scratch with a fresh pumpkin, de-seeding, cutting, peeling, roasting, then puree-ing it. Fresh, roasted pumpkin full of spice and chocolate chips...well, Maria and I have tried GF baking on several occasions with differing levels of success--we've had excellent soft gingerbread cookies and brownies, but we've also had chocolate chip cookies that melted into some kind of crispy toffee-like substance in the pan. So today we brought in the big guns. Now, for anyone that doesn't know, GF baking requires complete absence of wheat, and apparently wheat is where the elasticity in the vast majority of our baked goods comes from. Rice flour, corn flour and potato flour (the three main wheat flour substitutes) are all fairly fine and result in a brittle and/or crumbly baked good that just does not hold together. The trick to GF baking lies in the multiple, multiple flours. So. We used pre-made GF flour mix (which in and of itself contains at least four different flours), brown rice flour (which is grainier than white rice flour), almond meal and xantham gum. And people, we had success!! Excellent cookies. We also made some cream cheese/peppermint/chocolatey goodness from the Philadelphia cream cheese website. Also, very tasty.
Let's see, other than that...work has a fairly busy night time schedule. This last week we had two play openings and the donor dress rehearsal. Next week we have a climate change lecture, photograph exhibition opening and an opening night at the opera house. It all sounds very glamorous and exciting, but I'm still getting over my own social awkwardness. :) I didn't feel very socially awkward before I got here, but I feel it a lot now. Like I'm too uptight and don't know how to shoot the breeze in quite the same way. More time...I'll give myself more time. That seems to be what's needed. Though time keeps flying by quicker and quicker every day. It's already half way through April. Of 2010. I've lived outside of Seattle for almost three years. That feels crazy.
Since I'm not terribly exciting at the moment, I'll post some pictures from Easter. We went up to Nelson Bay and beached, snorkeled, rode down a toboggan and played miniature golf, took a ferry and went koala searching (which failed, though we did see sting rays and black swans), and ate copious amounts of chocolate. We had a lovely weekend (four day weekend here--I love their holidays!).
The failed koala search, though we did find koala poo which is supposed to be a good indicator that they're close by. :)
You can't see it terribly well (they have great camoflauge) but it's a sting ray
Big ol' pelican sitting on a light pole
My first chocolate bilby! (Still not sure what a bilby is and I definitely haven't seen one, but it's a unique alternative to the chocolate bunny
We may have gone a bit overboard...our cupboards are still bursting with all of this chocolate (not to mention a few additions that have been made since then)
The snorkeling was really fun. We swam in a school of little fish, saw some sea urchins and lots of fish. Not tropical Fiji fish, but semi-tropical Aussie fish. I'm turning into a fan of this snorkeling business.
The pictures are all in reverse order. I put so many up that I can't be bothered arranging them back into chronological order. :)
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