List Update: July poem, Dish 1, gardens...

How-dee-do folks! Well it is now August, so let me just say.. WHAT THE FUCK OMG! How time flies hey? We all know it. I don't know why i bothered to say it really, it just took me by surprise...again! So in my list of wonder I challenged myself to write 1 poem per month and cook 1 new dish every week for the next year, well until my 24th Birthday on June 30. So I was out on Saturday night (July 31st) and it was about 10pm when I realised that I only had 2 hours to write my poem for July! ~*pAnIc MoDe*~ I certainly didn't want to start screwing up the list and letting myself down within the first week, so I was that idiot yelling "Does anyone have a PEN?!?!!" at a nice bar where surely nobody is carrying their usual bag of tricks. Much to my embarassment nobody had a pen....but everybody had an iPhone. It was like being interviewed on my way out of a court hearing, there were iPhones aimed at me everywhere. Being the noob that I am, it took me a good...i dont know... 3 hours to write this lame haiku:

Apples and friendship

Can be crushed into cider

Bulmers in my hand

It's a haiku so it's not meant to make sense. I was drinking a pint of cider though, that part is true! Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions that were actually a lot better than my ideas, it was a shame that I have to write the monthly poems (monthlies lol) on my own... a culmination would have been better by far haha. Seriously i'm so slow with iPhones.. and technology in general. Don't ask me how i'm able to maintain a blog, i just drool on the keyboard hoping that it short circuits and magic does the rest of the work for me. It's worked so far! Seona took a picture of me looking thoughtful writing the poem...and Ruari in the background crunching some big numbers...

Yeah I promise the August poem will be a long awesome one! YAY! Ok, now to the topic of food! What a great topic! I cooked my dish for Week 1 on Friday night. I have decided that I will cook a total of 52 dishes, but there are now only like 48 weeks until my bday so some weeks i will have to double up. Also, if I hit 52 new dishes before my Birthday i might think of some more! I made a list which is quite long :P Last week's dish was Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto Pasta:

I kiiinda winged it. I had a recipe for the pesto but it got soaked in sundried tomato oil leakage and got ruined! ROONT! Basically i made the pesto, cooked some onion, bacon and chicken, then added some white wine and pesto, then the cream. I thickened it with flour and a bit more cheese. It was yummo!

Ok now onto ANOTHER list item!! My aunty said i could have lots of her plants from her courtyard. There are so many!! I took quite a few but left some for another person who wanted some ferns etc. I might get more down the track cos she wants absolutely ZERO greenery. So here is the outside of my house before en-ay-thang has been done.

Yeah nice huh? *screws up face* I was in the gardens for 3 hours a few weeks ago mowing and toiling the soil cos it is like clay with some rocks in it for good measure. Pretty dissapointing. At the moment I am trying to get the grass to grow over those faded patches. It's hard work, I need to go out there and massage the soil in the moonlight, sing the grass and weeds sweet lullabyes. Once it looks a little thicker I'll give it a mow. It's weird having to think about this stuff- I never noticed it when i lived at home. So yes that's the before. Don't ask what's with the 2 random little plants near the front window - i moved them to the backyard. To the left of where i am standing there is a massive lavender bush and behind me the council just planted some frangipani trees :) After I picked up the plants from my aunty, we headed back home with a trailer full of: 1 lemon tree, 1 port wine magnolia tree, 1 big leafy tree, 1 tropical looking plant, 2 yuccas, 5 camelia bushes, and a bunch of mondo grass. Like i said there is probably more if i want it. which i do. Here is my dad helping to dig holes - much quicker and less painful than shoveling...

Here is the front of the house after the plants went in. Don't know what's going on with that curved and messed up Yucca. I'll stake it up straight soon.

I think it's looking a little better! The majority went in the backyard just because i want the front to look tidy for when i have to find new tenants down the track. I will probably separate the mondos a bit as they grow more, but i just needed to get them in the ground so they can enjoy all the rain that's coming! I couldn't take any pics of the back-yard as the sun had set and we were working in darkness haha. And that was Saturday arvo, and i havent been back there in daylight hours since. Maybe tomorrow arvo...or Wed morning...? Anway ~*^*~Funniest Home Video Moment~*^*~ ...when one of my helpers was filling up the water bucket, he turned the tap so much that the handle came unscrewed and the water pressure shot it up and hit him square in the forehead!! haha so bad, then the water was shooting into the sky higher than the roof - hilarious! If it wasnt so cold i would have stripped off and done my nude-in-public list item. Actually that would have been wierd - you know... family around etc... Yeah so that's how i'm going with my list after 1 week or so! I am excited! Who knows what i'll cook this week! Not even I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!