Yesterday, Josh finally finished moving all his stuff into my our unit. Sadly, I was in a terrible mood all day, so there was very little savouring of the shift to living in sin my well and truly becoming ineligible for Centrelink if I ever was significant changes in life. I was moping because I am mopey; my self-esteem is always on a knife’s edge these days so it doesn’t take very much. While ferreting around in my parents’ shed yesterday (which produced a free rusty bike and a free giant aquarium!) I noticed my dad’s old filing cabinet had a few quotes about work stuck on it, including: “A man’s work is his dilemma: his job is his bondage, but it also gives him a fair share of his identity and keeps him from being a bystander in somebody else’s world.” – Melvin Maddock. I am feeling less and less like a real person and getting to feel quite lonely in my unemployed, purposeless little world. It’s not at all about the money (it’s sad seeing my savings going down, but I won’t starve anytime soon), it’s about achieving something day-to-day and being worth something.

Anyway. In honour of the completed move, here is a photo of me and Josh’s fridge.

Josh always has Chairman Kaga (scanned from a newspaper) on his fridge, but the printout was all old and ugly, so we got the original scan from his sister, and I photoshopped his face to make it not have newsprint on it, and then I printed it out and contacted it onto a magnet backing. It is now PREMIUM Chairman Kaga!

While bored, I also made magnetic poetry with some printable magnetic paper.

This is Josh’s favourite:

My exercise planner! TBH, I am getting a bit fed up with exercise, because I’ve been doing it daily, in fact religiously, and have eaten reasonably, yet have only gained weight :( But the planner helps get me moving despite this.

I have got 7 free 2010 calendars so far and I am keeping them all. The over-representation of the Liberal party by no means implies a political leaning in that direction, I just didn’t get any from any other parties :( The house a few numbers down from me sold for $3 million last month; I don’t think Labor actually bothers advertising in this suburb.

Finally, the anti-depression pony. It came in a water-colours set that Lisa gave me for my birthday, so I duly painted it one day after school last year. Quoth Josh, “This is going straight on the fridge!”. It’s held on by the “Depression: You’re not Alone” magnet because you read the magnet, then you look down and see the rainbow pony, and you know that this is true. There’s a pony.

I called DECS today to check why I haven’t got my authority to teach letter yet. During our phone call was the first time anyone had looked at my 2010 application, which was submitted in November. And no, they say it can’t be processed yet. There are… 6 days until the start of term? So I guess there goes any contract I might have actually got.

It might be time to just stop saying I’m a teacher when I’m asked “What do you do?” and start admitting “I’m unemployed, I don’t do anything”.

What Should I Eat? Cereal Edition.

My wardrobe before:

My wardrobe after:

It is colour coded and labelled, and separated into jumpers, tops, skirts, and dresses! I need school to go back.

My first home-grown strawberry! It was SWEET.

Today, I made lasagna! It is a recipe that I amalgamated from various websites and cookbooks and added more tasty goodness to. It is not exactly a “low fat” meal, but it is chock full of good stuff so it’s okay! Let me show you it!

Ingredients
Lasagna pasta sheets
500g Italian turkey sausages
3 cloves garlic
1 carrot (large)
1 eggplant (small)
1 zucchini
1/2 pumpkin
1/2 broccoli
180g (one tin) of champignons
1.5 cups of red wine
800g (two tins) of finely chopped or diced tomatoes
400g (one tin) of tomato puree
Salt, pepper and parsley to taste
500g ricotta
100g fetta
1 cup grated parmesan

Feeds Claire for a week.

1. Use scissors to remove the casings from the turkey sausages. You can use turkey mince instead, but the sausages have some interesting herbs/spices added. Break up the sausage innards with a spoon, and fry them in a pan until they are cooked.

2. Chop up the carrot and pumpkin into small pieces. Add the garlic and some olive oil to a saucepan, then add the carrot and pumpkin and cook them until they are no longer crunchy.

3. While the carrot and pumpkin are cooking, chop up the eggplant, broccoli and zucchini into small pieces. Add them to the saucepan.

Realise that your small saucepan can no longer contain the fury of your vegetables.

Switch to a stockpot.

4. Add the finely chopped tomatoes and the tomato puree to the stockpot. Do not do to your puree tin what I did to my puree tin.

5. Add the red wine.

6. Add the champignons (if you are me, you will add them later than this because you forgot whoops).

7. Add the salt, pepper and parsley.

8. Add the turkey and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until your lasagna sauce looks like a happy lasagna sauce.

9. While your sauce is simmering, combine your ricotta and parmesan in a bowl. Crumble the fetta over them.

10. Mix your cheeses until they look like ICECREAM.

11. When your sauce has finished simmering, you are ready to assemble your lasagna! From the bottom up, your layers should go: sauce, cheese mixture, pasta, sauce, cheese mixture, pasta, sauce, cheese mixture. I haven’t figured out a way to spread the cheese well, so I kind of do it in clumps like this. It turns out fine.

12. On top of your last layer, sprinkle some more grated parmesan.

13. Bake it in the oven until the pasta sheets are soft and the top looks gold and yum (photo pending, I have to go to the gym first!)

14. Enjoy your delicious turkey lasagna!

15. Clean up the bomb site that was once your kitchen.

I found this while clearing out my random bookmarks :D

“The finish line is closer than you think!”.