Musk Bits!

The musk stick - a staple item in a lolly bag and a favourite at the milk bar, and really easy to home make! 

I found the musk essence in a cake making supply store and the rest is available in the supermarket. No baking required.

Ingredients:

1tsp gelatine

80ml water

1tsp glucose syrup

500g icing sugar

1.5tsp musk essence

Pink dye

Method:
1. Heat gelatine, water and glucose in a pot on low until gelatine dissolves.

2. In a bowl (I use electric mixer) put the liquid and add 1/3 of the icing sugar - mix until smooth, add another 1/3 and mix, add final 1/3 and mix.

3. Add the musk and the dye and knead until colour is even.

4. Shape into trays lined with baking paper and leave to air dry for 12 hours.

Pole Fitness

After 2 and a half years of working out on my own, at home or the park or wherever and doing nought but walking in the way of cardio I finally have the free time (and freedom) to join a weekly fitness class! Pole fitness! The first class was this week and all I can say is my everything is hurting at the moment. It was a struggle just to roll over in bed this morning.

I've joined up with a friend and it is so invigorating to get out of the house (and diner) and be active again without babies tied to me. I feel good!

Escaping The Heat

If you are looking for a place to escape the heat in Melbourne for a day: look no further than the museum. We stayed for hours. There is so much to do for the kidlets - even the 1 year olds. Unfortunately their attention span meant us missing the more grown up exhibits... but who doesn't love a room full of taxidermy?

Anika did my makeup and I received more compliments on it than I've ever received before. MEOW.

The sky has just exploded in Melbourne and the rains are torrential. Hopefully South Australia gets some relief soon too!

Meal Prep

Kris is in training for his first body building comp and I'm using it as motivation to clean up what has been a very burger-filled diet over the last few months! My veggie intake has been amped up and sodium and refined carbs all but cancelled out. Only a week in and my waist looks tighter... bye-bye bloat!

Meal prep seems to be the only way forward to prevent Kris from going stir crazy with hangriness so I made a big batch of muesli this week using:

oats
chopped almonds
pepitas
sunflower seeds
sultanas

It's easily toasted in a pan for 10 minutes (or oven) and that does us for 2 weeks in a sealed container. 

Lunches are tuna, salad, and a quinoa/brown rice mix and cherries. I'll try to do more regular updates as this process unfolds over the next few months.

Happy new year!

Mini Christmas

Merry Christmas, love Mini

How To Pay Below Minimum Wage

We have a new employee at the Diner. He came to us from McDonald's. Cheltenham McDonald's in Melbourne's Bayside. Good joint that.

Today he told me the story of why he was looking for another job.

McDonald's had him working out the back in the kitchen on what they call a RETAIL TRAINEESHIP. Yes retail, not hospitality. 

They paid him $12 an hour and he's 18. These "traineeships" aren't for a certain period at the end of which you get a certificate. They're just indefinite things with a name that doesn't even correlate to the job these people do or benefit them in any way. 

To top it off: when he would work the overnight shifts they gave him of 10pm-6am he would get his payslip back and it would say 10am-6pm. His boss would tell him it was a glitch in the computer system (which was never fixed). 

Who needs penalty rates and minimum wages?!?! Not McDonalds. 

B-Day

In the time I've been away from this blog, I've had a birthday! The last year of my 20s. I feel like I've ticked enough boxes for this decade which is nice. Life is good. 

I started the week off with a spray tan. I hardly recognised myself! It was done by a friend of mine who has a home-salon: if you are on the Mornington Peninsula and looking for a hairdresser/eyelash and spray tan queen look for @burnishedbykhia on instagram. 

Kris took me to Fleur in Armadale to pick some flowers. I chose hydrangeas. Her shop is so beautiful. On the $$ side but worth it when you are visiting one of Melbourne/Australia's top florists. She had just come back from doing the flowers for CJ Hendry's exhibition in Sydney.

We had breakfast at The Dihnersaw and his Fionsay cafe. Crazy name, cute sort of place. My breakfast was delicious minus the bread that had been dry toasted to within an inch of it's life. 

I bought this dress from The Iconic earlier in the week and was pleased it was delivered at 8.30am on the day. Talk about timing! It's Dorothy Perkins. 

One of the girls at the Diner doubles as a nanny so we booked her in and saw the Hunger Games. The books are so much better, but they always are. We also visited The Flamingo behind Chapel Street. They have gone all out on the Miami feel and I absolutely love it... great place to go for drinks with the guuurls.