The book that has ruined all books for me...

I would consider myself a voracious reader. It is September, and so far this year I have already read over 20 books. Not short books either. I enjoy novels: great, meaty chunks or plot and character that I can get lost in.

Quite some time ago Boyface introduced me to the vlogbrothers. If you are unaware, the vlogbrothers are two brothers, John and Hank Green, who send each other a video blog once a week via YouTube that has gone ridiculously viral. Both men are highly intelligent and accomplished in their fields in their own rights. John is an author, Hank, an entrepreneur and musician. And they are funny to boot.

So, as I mentioned, Boyface showed me some of their YouTube clips and I started to follow them, and then like all things that I do, I stopped. It's not that they weren't interesting anymore, I just found other things to occupy me. Like trying to set up a business...
Anyway, because I was following them on YouTube, I was also following them on Twitter, and there was much mention of #TFIOS and I had no idea what that was so I kind of ignored it for a while. Then I found out that John Green had written a book called The Fault In Our Stars and then it all clicked that the hashtag was an acronym of the title, blah blah.
So one day in July this year I was at Dymocks I saw the book. I had some gift vouchers from my birthday so I thought, 'what the hell, I'll buy it. At the very least Boyface could read it because he like loves both brothers.' And then it sat on my bookcase until this morning.
This morning was fairly uneventful. I went down the street, bought a coffee and some breakfast. Bought Boyface an MtG booster pack and myself some Disney Infinity power discs. I came home and sat on the balcony to enjoy some sunshine. Then I thought, 'hey, what a beautiful day! Maybe I'll go find a book and come back outside to enjoy it some more.'

Nine hours (and five loads of washing) later I finished The Fault In Our Stars.
It is the most profound, moving, poetic, inspiring, unashamedly amazing book I have ever read. And that is not even doing it justice.This book has quite probably ruined every other book in the world for me. It is JUST THAT GOOD.
So good in fact, I don't even have anything else to say about it, except that if every person in the world were only to read one book, please let it be that one.
So, go buy, borrow, beg or steal this book (probably don't steal it, that's a bit mean to whomever it is being stolen from), but however you get a hold of it, read it.
Go do it, like, now.
Meegsie xxx

Bribing myself...

Hey!
So, I'm currently in the drafting phase of a report for work and it's the same thing every time. I have all these things that I want to write, but I'm not quite sure how to write them, so I sit and frown very hard at the computer for a few hours and write about 3 paragraphs, then I nuance them, and then I reward myself with a mars bar... Even though I promised myself I wouldn't eat it until I finished the chapter, because bribing myself is how I used to get things done.
Unfortunately, I feel a little bit like I've learned how to trick myself and this isn't really working anymore. It's the same with uni assignments and housework. There's always something better to do, some form of procrastination to be had, something bright and shiny to distract myself with!
Other successful online forms of distraction are (in no particular order):

• Pinterest
• Facebook
• Online surveys
• Realestate.com.au (and dreaming of where I will live in Melbourne)
• YouTube
• IGN
• Zynga (I am AWESOME at Chefville)
• Comparing prices at discount websites
• Trying to find party supply websites I can order things from in case I end up starting an events business (like www.lark.com.au and www.minqnadmode.com.au)
• Various news sites
• I google authors and celebrities and tv shows I like
• Sometimes I write blog posts (exhibit A)...

Anyway, I've just bribed myself with the thought of "if I go home now, then I will work doubly hard tomorrow". Let's just see how well that pans out tomorrow...
Ciao!

Ah-mazing Rocky Road

Hey!

So another quick recipe is my "famous" rocky road. I make this every time there's a fundraiser at work and there's never any left (which is a little bit sad).



Rocky road deliciousness!

Ingredients:

3 x 200g Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate

1 x bag of lolly raspberries

1 x large bag of maltesers

1 x bag of marshmallows

Method:

Chop marshmallows and raspberries into smaller chunks.

Break up all the chocolate and add to either a non-stick saucepan or, if you prefer, a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water and stir until all melted.

Add raspberries and maltesers and stir through. You will notice that the maltesers will lose most of their chocolate, that's ok. Remove chocolate from heat.

Add marshmallows and stir quickly, otherwise they will melt.

Pour into a large slice tray, silicon works best as its easier to remove, and place in fridge overnight (minimum 5 hours).

Before chopping into pieces, it's best to remove from the fridge 30-60 minutes beforehand to slightly soften the chocolate.

Baking or cooking chocolate is not recommended for this. Cadbury chocolate is easy to melt and won't separate, so you won't need butter or vegetable shortening.

Also, feel free to get creative as all the ingredients are interchangeable. Because this recipe is quite sweet, I probably wouldn't recommend anything syrupy, but apart from that, go forth and conquer!

Enjoy!

Easy Mars Bar Slice

Hey!

So this week at work we're doing a fundraiser for my boss who is doing the Vinnie's CEO Sleepout to raise money for homeless Australians (www.ceosleepout.org.au). It's a great cause and as such I baked a whole heap of stuff last night for today's morning tea trolley. One thing I made was Mars Bar slice. Super easy!

Ingredients:

150g Mars Bar

80g butter

3 cups Rice Bubbles

300g chocolate (I use Cadbury because its easy to melt and you don't need additional butter)

Method:

Melt Mars Bars and butter in saucepan. Don't worry if the nougat doesn't completely melt, it's not supposed to. You can do this in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water too if you want.

Pour over the rice bubbles and stir through. Smush into a well greased tray and pat down well.

Break chocolate up and put in saucepan (or glass bowl over boiling water) and stir until melted.

Pour over rice bubbles and put into fridge overnight (four hours minimum).

Yum!

Catch up

So, I know it's been a while. There were a few things that kicked me off my A-game, but I feel like I'm ready to go again, so here I am! Rather than bore you with all the mundane details, the highlights were:
* Had streptococcal
* Got a new job
* I got given an iPad mini for Christmas (thanks Boyface!)
* Made lots of New Year's resolutions
* Moved house (no more share-house!)
* Won Big Day Out tickets
* Had a family wedding
* Went to Soundwave
* Got bronchitis
Not that the illnesses were highlights, more just the start and end of this whole "break". So now you know the goss, let's move on!

So, while I haven't been blogging as such, I did join Pinterest last year, and am pretty much addicted. If you want to examine my New Year's resolutions and track my progress, find out what bands I have seen live (a lot apparently) or picture my dream house, just click here: Meegsie's Pinterest boards. Or alternatively if you want to follow me, just look me up, my username is @meeghanw.

In other news, Boyface and I had Catface neutered. She was kind of sooky for about a week, but is since back to her old tricks, like jumping on me at 4:00 am to play fetch, attacking our ankles as we walk past, waking me up at 2:30 am by tapping me on the face... you know, cat stuff. Anyway, just before we moved house, ninja kitty decided to chase a moth or something around the house, and ended up perched on an open cupboard door in the gap between it and the ceiling. I have no idea how she got up there, but here she is... crazy cat!

I guess that will teach us not to leave cupboard doors open...

One other awesome thing which happened was that I won this awesome Christmas gift basket from a website which I am totally addicted to. The website is called Minq + Mode and it's run by a lady named Monique. The website is currently under renovation, but you can buy all her eco-friendly stationery from the Etsy shop, and she has a blog as well, both of which you can access from her website, even while under construction. Anyway, her goods are amazing AND environmentally friendly. Plus she does custom order stuff, like bunting, if you contact her by email.

Anyway, before I start ranting too much about other blogs I can't stop reading, I'm going to go. Hopefully nothing else will happen and I'll be back within the week! Maybe even with a new recipe!

Ciao! Meegsie x

Glitter nail polish - as an adult

So, I have this crazy obsession with nail polish. I must admit, my favourite brand is OPI and I currently have over 30 colours (which trust me, is very few).
Because the bottles are over $20 each here in Australia I try not to buy too many as I know what I can be like.
My friends and I have discovered this amazing website in the US where the bottles are about $7.00 each, so we order crazy amounts (my first order was 16 bottles) and then we pay split the postage per bottle. Unfortunately we end up waiting 2-3 months for the order to arrive, and inevitably there are some missing and then it's the annoying flurry of emails back and forth trying to figure out where the bottles are, or who is lying bout either sending or receiving.
Anyway, I fell in LOVE with the Muppets range, which pretty much consist or ridiculously bright colours and lots of glitter, so I ordered five bottles from the range.
One colour in particular was so amazing, it's called Gone Gonzo. I didn't take a photo of it on, but you can see it here. The colour is amazing, it's this really fine blue glitter with little silver glitter hexagons in it. Super bright and fun, just my cup of tea.
So I wore this colour for a little over a week. That's pretty much the life-span of all my nail polishes, even with the two layers of base coat, 3 layers of colour and two layers of top coat. However instead of chipping like the majority of my manicures would do by this stage, it hadn't done anything. AWESOME! I thought.
So tonight I decided it was time for a change, so I got out my nail polish remover and the cotton wool pads and off I went, however as much as I love the nail polish colour and concept, I was not very impressed with the removal of it.
Glitter nail polish as an adult is not fun to remove. Every single piece of glitter was glued to my nail and it took me 20 minutes just to do one hand. At which point I gave up and started peeling it off the other hand.
So from now on, I think I will be sticking to block colours, maybe with some sparkle and teeny bits of glitter. Which is such a shame as I really loved the glitter polish on...
Or, I could just forget the whole awful removal side of it, and wear it again in 6 months time :)
Have a good night, I'm off to paint my nails!

Chicken Macaroni Cheese

Ingredients:
2 cups dried macaroni
50g butter
1/4 cup plain flour
2 cups chicken stock
3/4 cup pure cream (thickened cream will do)
2 1/2 cups shredded BBQ chicken
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup grated cheese
1/3 cup breadcrumbs


Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Cook pasta.
Melt butter in a medium to large saucepan. Add butter and stir.
Gradually add combined sock and cream, bring to boil then reduce heat 
to medium.
Add chicken, peas, half the cheese.
Cook for 10 minutes. Season, add pasta and stir through.
Transfer to baking dish. Top with breadcrumbs and cheese.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.


Enjoy!