I HATE RATS!

I hate rats! Can I tell you! They are so disgusting and I have never had to deal with rats before CA and now here! They are agressive and disgusting. You would not believe the trouble they have caused here. Ok, for starters, I would see bags of pasta in the basement that had rips in them but didn't look like they had been chewed at all so I thought the kids must've been sneaking in and eating raw pasta!? Not so. Once I found the disgusting turds I knew I had a bigger problem on my hands than a few curious children. So I moved everything and cleaned up and then they started getting more aggressive. Would you ever have thought that a rat would chew into a bottle of canola oil? Well, think again my friends. Don't underestimate the power of a rats seemingly little teeth. Yah, so that canola oil bottle gets discovered none too soon and 2/3 of it had dribbled out onto the floor soaking boxes with all kinds of stuff in them. Aaaargh! Now if that wasn't enough, at the same time they have been getting into our vehicles! Shockin' I know. How do they get in in the first place? Well, whenever I've left any type of food in there, the rat has been there to gobble it up. Including my precious Spitz all the way from Canada. Well, then one morning I got in the car to go to work and woke up to this...

A perfectly good purse RUINED! All for the sake of a little half a protein bar and he didn't even eat the whole thing! Just picked the yogurt coating off the outside and left the rest. That really t'd me off and so Rick went and got a rat trap as well as some poison and then we waited and it took 3 days to catch one of the buggers! I don't know about you but I'd way rather wake up to this...


than this...
yup, going so far as to chew our CAR! Retarded. I wish that Rick was telling me the truth when he said there were no rats in Australia.

Care package...any volunteers?

I was just wondering if anyone would be able to send me something? I am really in need of some Hidden Valley Ranch Dip and Dressing mixes. Someone from here just went to Canada on a train trip and was supposed to pick up a couple things for me but was unable to because of the way his trip was arranged and he had no car. What I wanted was some Eatmore bars as well but I could for sure do without those. If anyone is interested in doing this for me, please send me an email and I will get in touch with you! Cool...

My lunch with the Octagenarians

I had a great day the other day. I wanted to write this then but got caught up in everyday life and now its a week late. But oh well, better late than never I always say. And Rick says, "I'm never late, I arrive precisely when I want to!" so I think that is actually a good motto to go with when you actually are late! Well, my lunch was so wonderful last Wednesday. I got to play hostess to three octagenarians. They are so cute. Ok, who doesn't know what an octagenarian is? Well, I will explain. It is someone who is 80 plus! They are sooooo cute! I visit teach 2 of them and the other one is a neighbor of mine. Her name is Irene Joan Miller. I just love her! She goes by Joan but she told me that her first name was Irene a long time ago and that she loves to be called Irene and so I've been calling her that ever since! She just gets tickled when I call her that. The two ladies I visit teach are named Vi and Betty. They are cute as and can I tell you I've never enjoyed visiting teaching two ladies more than these two? They are both a cut up and they have their cute Aussie accents and I just love em to bits! I've even been so lucky as to take them both grocery shopping a couple of times and they think I'm lovely for doing that but I'm really the one who's benefiting and actually being quite selfish not insisting on my partner taking them as well. hee hee hee I'll take some pics of them for the next post. Well, for lunch I made a couple of gourmet pizza's and my companion brought a gorgeous salad and some fizzy drinks. I have to share the pizza recipes with you because they really were so lovely! The first one is from a Masterfood's cookbook that I got for free a few weeks ago and the second pizza is actually a Chely Creation. Please make them and tell me what you think!

Chicken Satay Pizza

Chicken Satay Pizza

1 large chicken breast thinly sliced
3/4 cup Masterfoods Satay Marinade
1 Tbsp peanut oil (I actually used sesame oil)
4 green onions sliced (I didn't use these as I hate onions)
1 carrot, grated
1 handful of snow peas, trimmed and sliced
1 large pizza base
2 tsp sesame seeds
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Combine the chicken with 1/2 cup marinade in a bowl. Heat oil. Cook chicken for 5 min and then stir in onions, carrot and snow peas and cook for a couple min more max. Spread remaining marinade over the pizza base and spoon the chicken mixture over. Sprinkle with the sasame sees and bake for 12-15 min in 400 oven. Top with the cilantro and serve! I just noticed a chef's tip in the book and it says if you want to make your own satay marinade, follow these instructions... heat all of the following igredients in a pan...1/2 c. peanut butter, 1/2 tsp chilli powder, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1/2 tsp ginger and 1/2 cup coconut milk.

Chely's Gourmet pizza

Chely's Gourmet Pizza

1 large thin crust pizza base (I make my own)
1/3 c. tomatoe sauce
3 Tbsp miracle whip
sun dried tomatoes
feta cheese
mozzarella cheese (not too much)
black olives
cilantro
fried sweet potatoe slices

Mix the tomatoe sauce and miracle whip together. This is your sauce. Then the mozza cheese goes next and then all the other ingred. However much you want of each. I didn't measure the two ingred for the sauce so hopefully its a proper guess. I know it sounds weird but it was truly an AWESOME pizza.

These ladies said when they got here "I don't know who's going to eat all this food!!" Well, there was only 2 slices of each kind of pizza left when they left! Too funny.

Working Girl

It's been a while since my last post. I think it's just plain old non-iinterest in the blogging world at the moment. Last week I decided to go job hunting and went up a couple streets and handed out 30 resumes at everyplace I felt I could see myself working at. I came across a few possibilities and actually landed myself a job! It was so cool and a total boost! It is only 1 day a week for 4 hours but it is a receptionist position at a real estate office - ReMax to be exact, and it could open up so many doors for me. I think with the kids getting older I am getting a bit bored and need something to do. So I worked my saturday last week and they gave me keys to the office and everything! The girl that hired me said I walked it at the perfect time as she had just advertised in last weekends paper for the position. Also, she wanted someone who was looking to probably get back into the work place(which I am) and she asked me to come have a chat with her for a few minutes. Rick and I had acutally used Peter Hill who is more or less the owner of the company to buy our house and so I told her I knew him and all and unbeknownced to me, she went and asked him while I was sitting in the room and he said "yah, I know her" and she told him I was looking for a job with them and he says "Hire her!" So I feel very blessed to have had that experience.

Lets see, what else has been happening?? I of course have been baking yummy stuff. Bacon Cheese Muffins. So delish. Fish curry. Yum. And Chicken Satay Pizza. So nice! Today is the first sunny day we've had in almost a week here! Rain rain and more rain is what it's been for 6 days straight so it's nice to see the sun again. I'm feeling more motivated and think I will go out job hunting again today. Ok, I'll let you know how it goes. Rick has been busy drilling pearls and we have taken several pics of pearls lately as we are working on getting a website up and running because it seems as though the jewellers around here aren't too interested and if they are, they already have a supplier for their tahitians. Here are a few of the pics we've taken.

This is one of my favorite pearls

A beautiful colorful semi-baroque

Rick made these. A beautiful set.