Quote to Inspire #10

Photo by me, quote by Will Rogers.

Outdoor wonderland

Unfortunately I don't remember where I found this, but isn't it so lovely?

It looks so wonderful and magical! Could totally be a Christmas down-under plan! One year...one year I shall organise it...you know like in 5 or so years. :P

It makes me so happy looking at it. :)

My favourite time of the year

I think it may be time to start listening to Christmas music again. I absolutely love the Christmas season. I love the dark evenings all lit up by Christmas lights. I love the smell of roasted chestnuts in town. I love the warmth and happiness Christmas decorations give off. I love the golden glow of the Christmas tree in the evening. Gosh I love Christmas time. I do hope it's just as magical in the summer time.

Like Crazy

I can't quite explain how this trailer makes me feel, but I could watch it for days. It's so emotional, both lovely and sad...it's really rather beautiful. :)

Memories...Dracula

I am Count Dracula. Cross will burn you. Garlic will kill.

Occasionally I do enjoy tidying, especially when I find things that bring back memories, such as my lovely little drawings above. In 11th grade we had to read Bram Stoker's Dracula. I was not very pleased with the choice of book as Dracula scared me quite a bit as a child (I used to sleep with the duvet around my neck so he couldn't bite me). So I didn't really read then book, and whilst we watched the movie I drew little pictures. :P

Needless to say, I didn't do very well in English that year. (It was also the year of reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles...snooze fest...)

Back to tidying now!

I gots me a new hat!

My new hat arrived today, I was super excited!!! So as soon as I had time took it outside for some photos. I love it! :D

Quote to Inspire #9

Photo by me, quote a Jewish Proverb.

101 Dreams - Dream 15

Found at weheartit.com

Dream 15 - Like Myself.
This isn't to say that I don't like myself, but rather that I'd like to always like who I am...I don't want to become a person I don't like, I want to always love and embrace myself. It may be a bit of an odd dream, as it's kind of an ongoing, never-ending dream but I like it. I like my little dreams that keep me focussed on the more important things in life, like being happy and being happy with who you are. :)

Rapunzel

From Disney's Tangled.

The two girls I do conversational English with LOVE hair and playing with it and styling it, like seriously LOVE.When I started working with them I still had my long hair, to my mind it wasn't very long, but it was long. I met them with my hair tied back, but when I took it down to re-tie it the girls faces were so very similar to those of the girls above. They then continued to tell me how long my hair was, asked if I had seen Tangled and begged to be able to style my hair. Hehe.So when I saw the image above, and remembered the scene in the movie it made me think of that moment. :)

Quote to Inspire #8

Photo by me, quote unknown.

Laduree Macarons 4

Final macaron tasting went better than the others :)

Our last three flavours were Coconut, Blackcurrent and Caramel. I found them edible! :O Massive shock! My mum did not take part in this tasting due to her being on a plane to England, so it was just the three of us: my dad, me and my sis.

Coconut

Dad - thought it tasted more like Coconut milk than coconut, and decided that it's OK for people like him who don't like Bounty. (but he probably wouldn't eat a whole one)

Me - nice with a Coconut aftertaste.To keep with the Bounty theme, it's more like a Bounty ice-cream than a Bounty bar.

Sis - Loved it. (She's liked all the nuts)

Verdict: As long as you don't absolutely hate Coconut I think you could eat at least half of this, if you love Cocnut you'll love it.

Blackcurrent

Dad - "It's like walking down a country lane", it made him think of brambling. He enacting picking and eating blackcurrents/blackberries to demonstrate his point. :P

Me - It's definitely blackcurrent, and strong, and I'm not so great on strong fruit, but in tiny bits it was OK.

Sis - She did a whole  list of things she could eat blackcurrent with, in a tart and some other things which escape me, but on it's own it's too strong.

Verdict: Eating a third is like eating a blackcurrent, so you've got to really love blackcurrents to eat a whole one.

Caramel

Dad - Mmmm, could eat a whole box, mmmm.

Me - It's yum, it's definitely caramel, but it's a bit much. I couldn't eat my third (note: third here means a third of 1, not that I had eaten 2 already...) it was that much for me, but I liked it.

Sis - too rich, doesn't work, but nice. She makes a lot of sense :P She said in banofee pie she can eat the caramel, but like this on it's own, no. I thought she was going to say it's as strong as the caramel in banoffee pie, to which I would have agreed...but she didn't.

Verdict: So if you LOVE caramel, especially the caramel in banoffee pie (like you scrape of the top and bottom and eat just the caramel from the pie) then you are sure to like the caramel. It's definitely a much nicer one to give a try.

So that is the end of our macaron tasting. I would like to point out that some members of the tasting had not been considering if they could eat a whole macaron of a certain flavour, but rather just judging the small piece they had AND these are just our opinions, you may easily disagree with the verdicts. I would recommend a tasting though, because although I disliked most of them it was fun. :)

101 Dreams - Dream 14

All found on weheartit.com

Dream 14 - Visit Niagara Falls. They look awesome, and I think the sound and everything of seeing them in person would be spectacular! Definitely something I would love to do. :)

Laduree Macarons 3

I am slowly discovering there are quite a few foods I don't like...

Last night we tried another 3 macarons (only 3 more to go!), they were Raspberry, Red Fruits and Praline. Oh was so excited about trying the praline, what with my love of them in chocolates and how I can detect the tiniest amount and that ruins the chocolate for me, oh yeah, super excited!

Raspberry
Mum - said it was fruity. Fair enough.
Dad - Didn't like the pips, they got stuck in your teeth. My mum did agree with this, it was actually quite amusing watching them trying to get pips out of their teeth, people pull funny faces when trying to do that.
Me - yeah...I wouldn't say I hated it, it was just like having a huge dollop of jam, and we only had a quarter of the macaron each. I can't imagine how jammy a whole one would have been...maybe eat it on toast?
Sis - yummy! (she's enjoying this process)
Verdict: If you love raspberry jam and eat it out of the jar, and don't mind pips between your teeth then you'll enjoy a raspberry macaron!

Red Fruits
Mum - her face said it all. I looked over and she was pulling a definite "no" face, and her answer to this macaron was "No".
Dad - not really liking it.
Me - decided it tasted Christmasy, but bad Christmasy, like Christmas cake (which I don't like :P)...and then my mum suggested marzipan, YES! It tastes of marzipan. YUCK! I really don't like marzipan.
Sis - "No, weird, too strong."
Verdict: If you, unlike my family, like/love marzipan and happily eat it on it's own you will like this one. If you are not that kind of person, no.

Praline
Mum - toooo nutty. She looked at me and said "don't eat it", she knows how much I hate praline.
Dad - toooo nutty. It's nuts! (hahaha!)
Me - didn't eat it, but the smell gave me shivers, not one for me.
Sis - yummy, yummy. She's loving the nuts!
Verdict: If like my sis you like nutty things a lot, then give it a go. If you've had the pistachio macaron and liked it, then I think you'll like praline. If you didn't like the pistachio, you probably won't like the praline.

I think we have Coconut, Blackcurrent and Caramel (yays!) left to taste. I'm thinking I should like at least one of them, fingers crossed! :)

Moustache awesomeness

Image found at weheartit.com

I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of moustaches, as I don't think I own anything moustache related, but I do think what the creative world is doing with them at the moment is pretty fabulous. I love how a lot of the time they are playing on a childhood love to dress up and look silly. I think these fab little things would make drinking from a bottle extra fun!

(Yesterday was a busy day so we had no time to try any macaroons, hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to give you an update on another 3 flavours.) :)

Edited: Since my mother so loved these I did some extreme searching and have found where you can buy them. Check out perpetualkid.com :)

Laduree Macarons 2

I'm not sure this tasting was a good idea...

We tasted three more flavours of macaron last night...I think I may slowly be regretting this idea! Last night we tasted Rose Petal, Granny Smith Apple and Cinnamon-Raisin.

Rose Petal
Mum - "does what it says on the label", she thought it tasted exactly like a rose petal would. I'm glad she said like it would and not like it does, I would be worried about her opinion if she went round eating rose petals...but she liked it, would eat a whole one, but maybe no more.
Dad - "tastes like potpourri" Need I say any more?
Me - No. I don't know how many of you may be familiar with the shop Shilligers, but their bathroom section smells just like this tastes. Think overpowering flowers. It did not go down well with me.
Sis - Agreed with me, she couldn't quite decide what it tasted like until I said Shilligers bathroom section. She was also not a fan.
Verdict: Try it, see what you think. But if you're not a fan of flowers in your mouth I'd maybe recommend sparing yourself. As a gift I think it would be ideal for anyone you know with a foul mouth, it would definitely give their mouth a good clean!

Granny Smith Apple
Mum - Again, what it says on the tin. It tastes like apple pie.
Dad - Thought it tasted exactly like you would expect, but didn't think it worked as a macaron.
Me - Have you ever had an apple flavour hard sweet? You know the ones that taste of manufactured apple taste, sickly sweet, nothing like a real apple tastes? That is what this tasted like to me, it was sickly. *Shudder*
Sis - too sweet.
Verdict: If you really like apples, apple flavoured hard sweets, and have a big sweet tooth, give it a go!

Cinnamon-Raisin
All - We all agreed it tasted like a strong gingerbread man with sultanas. I, however, am not a huge fan of gingerbread so I really did not like it. But thats a taste thing.
Verdict: If you love gingerbread then I am sure you will love this one.

My mum and dad also thought the Cinnamon-Raisin (which from my research is supposed to be exclusive to NY...I don't know either!) and the Granny Smith Apple (one of the seasonal flavours) would go wonderfully together as a Christmas dessert.

From my reviews you may have noticed I haven't liked a single one of our tastings yet. I do hope some of the next six are yummy!

Laduree Macarons

Our taster macarons.

After discovering that macarons were not like meringues, I have fallen in love with them. So every now and then I go get some as a treat, I get Madagascar chocolate for myself, Lemon for my mum, Vanilla for my brother and sister, and Coffee for my dad. Buying these flavours when there is a whole variety sitting behind the counter seems a little...un-adventuous, so we got all the flavours to try! This way we can open up our spectrum, or know that we don't need to because the others are horrible.

So last night we tried Pistachio, Orange Blossom and Black Forest, in that order (turned out to be a reasonably good idea!).

Pistachio
Mum - didn't even try it, she wasn't up for macarons, and was happy we were trying the pistachio one because she did not want to...so that most probably a thumbs down.
Dad - didn't think it worked, pistachio flavour with sweet shell, no.
Me - agreed with my dad, I like the saltiness of pistachios, so if you take that away and replace it with sugar...yuck!
Sis - LOVED it, she finished our pieces off.
Verdict: All down to your personal taste.

Orange Blossom
Mum - after we all tried it she was intrigued, she decided it tasted like Savlon.
Dad - he tried his piece first, made an intrigued noise, and let us try it before telling us his thoughts. He then shared that it tasted like washing up liquid.
Me - "It tastes like bathroom", YUCK!
Sis - yuck.
Verdict: One for people you don't like. DO NOT BUY OTHERWISE!

Edit: I have discovered something similar tasting here in Australia that people seem to really enjoy eating: Musk sticks. So basically, if you like Musk flavoured things, you will probably like Orange Blossom too.

Black Forest
Mum - "Not one I'd buy."
Dad - thinks there was too much cherry, but otherwise it was yum. He decided with us that there was too much alcohol in the cherry.
Me - OMG, it smelt good! But yuck the cherry. I don't like Black Forest cakes anyway, so I knew I'd probably not like it, but man those cherries were strong.
Sis - Also not a fan of Black Forest cakes, thus also did not like it.
Verdict: If you like chocolate macarons, Black Forest cake and cherries soaked in alcohol then buy this, you'll love it, otherwise maybe not.

More to try tonight! :) But so far, I think we are all happy with not being adventurous at the moment.

Quote to Inspire #7

Photo by me, quote unknown.

Bo Concept - small is big

Bo Concept is a store my mum introduced me to because 1) I love all things decoration and furniture related, 2) it very much fits the style of things I love (and James quite liked the store too!). Their stuff is quite simple, but elegant, and like many of my favourite furniture stores their stuff is functional and practical. AND just like my other favourites they have a section about living in small spaces. They may not have as many suggestions as Ikea, but they do give two beautiful layout suggestions. I would recommend you check them out here, and then browse the rest of the store (especially the inspiration sections!).

101 Dreams - Dream 51

Mmm, macaroons. (All images found at weheartit.com)

Dream 51 - Be totally awesome at making macaroons.
Macaroons are so yummy, and from what I gather not the easiest of things to make, SO I would love to be able to make them awesomely, maybe even without a recipe in front of me! That would be very awesome. And then I can gift them to friends, and sell them in my little cafe (remember Dream 8?). Oh I do love my dream world, it's all filled with wonderful colours, creativity and yummy things! :)

Macaroons I will master you!

From someone who cares

Christmas 2005 message.

I'm doing an uber tidy of my room today...or starting it, I keep ALL sorts of things. One of which was my agenda from 11th grade (2005-06) in which I found the little note above. I'm not sure many people knew/know but for Christmas 2005 I decided everyone needed to be wished a Merry Christmas, so I printed out loads of the little messages above and on one of the evenings during the last week of school in December my mum and I posted these in all the High School lockers. People assumed it was the StuCo, and I think they took credit for it, but I didn't mind, they made people happy and thats why I did it.

It nice keeping odd whatnots from the past to be reminded of these little things. :)