For the past year or so, I have wanted a sewing machine so badly but it was overwhelming to think about. Cost, space, learning the basics… ugh. Then I did a whole lot of research and just wanted to pounce. Over Thanksgiving I started looking at prices and on Cyber Monday I saw a blog about a Brother machine that was on sale (it ends up it is always that price) but I put my Amazon Prime to work and ordered this Brother one.

Bill was just as excited – he is super patient and got perfect grades in sewing at school. I on the other hand, lack the patience, so we’d be a good team and he can keep me on track when I lose it.

Then, around the time that we bought the machine, there was a LivingSocial deal for a sewing class in Brooklyn. I bought the class straight away because I thought it would be the perfect way to learn the basic skills and get used to a machine. We booked for a January class so in the meantime, I ordered a set of Moda Squares and real deal French Lavender. We were then able to get started on our first project – lavender pillows as family gifts for Christmas. This was a great starter project and we got our routine pretty much set with it. Here is one of them -

I will be making stacks more of these – I LOVE them!

Then, it was time for our sewing class. We went to Esaie Couture down near Prospect Park. Our project would be a tote bag.

Earlier in the week I picked up fabric for us at the City Quilter on 25th Street – if you are ever need good quality fabric, I wholeheartedly recommend them!

The first part of our 4 hour class was spent on sewing basics and methods for steering clear of mishaps on the machine. We did practice drills and learnt how to work through the machine. What was great is that I found that the way I was pushing the fabric through was why I was having so much trouble staying straight when we were doing the lavender bags.

Our machines -

Not quite ready to make clothes for these yet –

Then, it was time to get busy with our totes. What made this hard was I was already so tired when we got there – the usual Monday night feeling of needing to be in bed at 7.30!

But we soldiered through and this was the end result -

My bag was made for random sewing supplies, Bill is giving his to our crossword loving sister.

After a big haul at Jo-ann’s Fabrics and Crafts, Bill’s next project is a shirt and I am going to try a VERY basic quilt. We have also got a multitude of PBS sewing shows recording on our TiVo.. we can do this!

By the way a word on our machine… after using the very old ones at the sewing school, ours is awesome. We fully recommend it and the price on Amazon cannot be beat. It wasn’t a Cyber Monday deal after all!

I know you are probably very much over Christmas but I have to do a wrap up! Advent and Christmas for 2012 was a mix of super busy and then in the end, very relaxing! Here is our Christmas photo -

Bill was so busy at work for the end of year rush. He was working long hours and normally that would be stressful enough. Throw in Christmas and all the usual ‘busy stuff’ that goes along with that and December really did fly by.

During December for different nights during each week, I was with others at Queen of All Saints packing my friend Michele’s amazing gingerbread and other delicious cookies. Then Bill and I were selling these after each Mass on Saturday and Sunday. This meant our spare time was drastically cut to fit in everything else that you need to do in December. BUT somehow, this almost made things easier to deal with. We had to be organized from get go and it worked out well. Here we are selling the cookies -

My to-do list was ongoing and constantly growing but we got everything done and more. The only problem is, it felt like Advent didn’t even exist it went by so quickly and that is something I really have to work on for 2013.

We did our usual decorations… no changes there!

Our tree –

Mistletoe –

Advent Wreath –

Nativity –

We had our Stir-up Sunday the week before Thanksgiving. This was the first time I had ever attempted to make a Christmas Pudding and I worked off Delia Smith’s recipe with tips and hints from this page. A note about this page – I have to admit that the first time I landed on the page I thought it was some kind of joke that there was a site made by Paul Denyer from Melbourne (people from Australia would know who I am talking about) or I was thinking that there was a website made by him that was produced in prison, but it is the real deal and it is just a mere coincidence by name.

In the end our recipe was this -

4 oz (110 g) shredded suet
2 oz (50 g) self-raising flour, sifted
8 oz (225 g) soft dark brown sugar
1¼ teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
1¼ teaspoons of freshly ground cinnamon
1/3 of a teaspoon ground ginger
¼ of a teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt
4 oz (110 g) white breadcrumbs
4 oz (110 g) sultanas
4 oz (110 g) raisins
10 oz (275 g) currants
4 oz (110 g) dried dates – cut into pieces, stones removed
2 large eggs
1 large lemon, zested
1 small apple, cored, peeled and grated
1 oz (25 g) almonds, skinned and chopped
1 oz (25 g) mixed candied peel, finely chopped
5 fl oz (150 ml) stout
2 tablespoons rum

If you compare the two you will see there were only small differences.

We used our own home baked bread for the breadcrumbs and making our own ground cinnamon really made a HUGE difference. The fragrance was amazing.

I did a big stock up from Nuts.com so we had all fresh ingredients -

The mix –

We made it on a Saturday, then steamed it for 8 hours on Sunday.

This was Bill’s coathanger invention to lift it in and out of the steamer -

Steaming away -

We let it cool overnight on our bench (with the kitchen window open) and then re-did the covering and string and let it sit in the fridge for six weeks. It then took a journey to Albany where he kept it in the mini-bar fridge of our hotel room until it was ready for the 2.5 hours of steaming before our Christmas Eve dinner.

I made a batch of custard in the afternoon and reheated that when the pudding was ready. Here it is –

Of course, I had to get some holly to go on the top and we picked up some from Jo-ann’s arts and crafts. When it came time to present it to the table, we warmed some brandy and had to ladle it over the pudding and light it. Um… I somehow thought the PLASTIC holly would be fine… I blame a total Christmas brain. There we were getting “Ohhhhs” and “Ahhhhs” throughout the room and then… bang… the holly caught on fire (Der Jenelle.. I was pouring flames right over it… and yet I was still surprised) and the holly startsed melting over the pudding. ARGH! The ohhhhs and ahhhhs turned into screams and yelling. I was holding a ladle with a flame burning, Bill was trying to get the holly and we were all in a panic. It was a scene from a movie.. seriously!

Thankfully, we managed to throw the melted mess off the pudding and into a glass without anything else catching on fire (or burning down Emily and Brian’s newlywed nest!) and there was also no residue on the pudding. WIN!

You can see the flaming holly in the glass in this photo –

So, regardless of the flammable incident the result was… PERFECT. I was SO happy with it!

Note – I also purchased some genuine 1911 silver threepence from England on eBay and unfortunately they didn’t arrive in time. They’ll be going into the mix next year!

What made this all even more special was when I told mum that we planned to make a pudding she told me how it was something her mum would do every year and send them to people as gifts. So because of that, I am going to keep this tradition going!

The rest of Christmas was beautiful. Our time Upstate was so relaxing. Went got up to Albany on Saturday morning, had lots of R & R and did lots of cooking. I took Bill on a surprise date – ten pin bowling!

Christmas Eve was lovely (even with flaming holly) and newlyweds Emily and Brian hosted it. Here we are –

Here is everyone else -

The desserts oh my gosh -

We also went to Mass at Holy Spirit -

Then on Christmas Day, we woke up to a white Christmas! Here is the view from our room at the Fairfield Inn -

We all got together for brunch. This is seriously SO MUCH fun. French toast, bagels, eggs, quiches… all sitting around and chatting and it was so easy!

Unfortunately, with no Boxing Day on the calendar we had to get back in the car and head back home as we had work the next day! If Bill ever becomes President, it will be the one thing he has to introduce to the USA! I need Boxing Day for my own sanity!

Also, for a look at some other trees.

Here is mum and dad’s –

The Johnson Family tree –

Emily and Brian’s -

(Can you see the little bit of Australia they put on their tree?)

I love Christmas… now to countdown until 2013!

Back in November we were able to check out the new Barclays Center – which is only a few blocks from our place! The event was ‘Brooklyn Hoops’ – this is where local and other college teams get the chance to play in this great stadium.

Back in 2008, I attended the University of Maryland for two weeks on a study tour during my Masters. It was such an amazing experience. Back then, we saw them play Holy Cross and Maryland has been my college team ever since! Here I am with some of my RMIT pals back at the amazing College Park stadium –

We got the train to Barclays after work and saw immediate changes as the subway doors opened. A train nerd, I was excited by the new signs at Atlantic Avenue station. It used to be called Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street… but no longer!

Everything was so NEW!

As soon as you exit the station you are at the doors of the stadium. Everything looks so new and bright and the place really stands out!

Inside, we did a whole lap of the bottom level and then a whole lap of the top level and then got some dinner. This is where it became disappointing – the prices. Oh my gosh. It was expensive! We didn’t mind because it was a night out for us but if we were going to Nets games every week, there is no way I’d be eating there.

We got our food from Fatty ‘Cue and it was good but was not worth the price. My advice? If you are going to Barclay’s check out one of the many awesome restaurants our area has to offer and give the stadium food a miss. The only other downer was the way the seats are you feel like you may tumble over the edge while you are getting to and from your seat.

My mac cheese with some brisket from Fatty ‘Cue -

We were there very early -

The first game was the local Long Island University vs Morehead State. It ended up being a close game with LIU just losing. A great thing about Barclays is they have AWESOME wifi – so I was able to FaceTime mum and dad from our seats and share the new stadium with them! Crazy!

The best thing? We ended up being in the Maryland ‘area’ for supporters.

This game bought back so many memories. The crowd did the same thing back in 2008 as they were doing here when Kentucky were being introduced –

To make it even cooler? Jay-Z was there watching too! Huzzah!

We enjoyed seeing the game there and we loved being able to take a a quick walk home, down our leafy street after having a fun night out! We left early as we were tired and Maryland were down by a lot. By the time we walked in the front door, they had come back but not enough to beat Kentucky. Sigh!

Our end thoughts? So while we would definitely go to events there (it really is a great stadium) we would patronize some of our local eateries before we went rather than purchase the stadium food.

Another awesome night out that we had last year was when we visited Eataly and then went up to PaintAlong NYC for a painting class.

Owned by Lidia Bastianich and Mario Batali, Eataly has been open for a while and we still had not got the chance to visit. It is basically a huge Italian specialty food store with multiple restaurants right across from the Flatiron building.

It was almost like being back in Rome! We were able to stock up on some beautiful specialties as they had a sale on when we were there.

Here is a little tour -

We got some pizza at the restaurant La Pizza & La Pasta – it was REALLY good. Simple and delicious food. It was a little pricey but it was fine for a special night out. I couldn’t see it as our local Italian place if we still lived in Chelsea.

After dinner we wandered outside and sat on the border of Madison Square Park just passing the time until our painting class.

We don’t do this often enough. It was so relaxing… could you ever get sick of this view?

We wandered up Lexington and picked up some Tasti D-Lite. It was so perfect as it really was an ice cream kind of night! I wish we had one near us… but then again maybe that it is a good idea that we don’t.

PaintAlong was one of the most enjoyable activities I’ve done in a a long time. I have never painted before but walking into the studio, everything was set up for us. You basically walk in, paint with an instructor and go home. No setting up, no cleaning up – you are just there to focus on your painting.

One thing that surprised me, even though I was concentrating on trying to do it right, it was really relaxing. There were about 15 people in our class and we all just did our thing. It was very interesting to see how they broke up the painting into parts so we could get the final result. I didn’t do very well on the sun part of my painting, but I did better with the reflection in the water and silhouette of the trees.

If you are in New York and looking to do something a little different, PaintAlong is really good fun. I didn’t think I did too bad considering I’ve never picked up a brush and it was done in two hours!

The only problem was when we jumped into the cab on the way home, I was already trying to work out what to do with two of the same painting. As a result, one is now hanging near my desk in the library and Bill has his on display in his cubicle. It doesn’t really match our ‘look’ at home!

Back in September, Bill and I headed into Little Italy for the San Gennaro Festival. It was so much fun!

We started the night with Mass at the Most Precious Blood Church. It was a great Mass as it was San Gennaro’s Feast Day and it was a packed church. When Mass finished, there was a procession of the Statue of San Gennaro that was slowly walked around the block and up Mott St. Those that carry the statue have to kind of ‘sway’ the balance as they walk. It is amazing to see!

View from the church steps as the procession started -

Seeing these photos may look familiar if you have have seen the Godfather…!

While walking up Mott street, following the statue we ate… and ate… and ate. The food was fantastic.

Here is some video to try and capture it all -

Yes, it is insanely crowded and you don’t want to be carrying a lot of things but wow – it was a great night out. The walk was slow, there was so much people watching and everyone was just having a great time. We cannot wait until the 2013 Festival now – it really really was SO much fun. I hope these photos gave you an idea of just how good it was… MOLTO BENE!

A couple of months ago, it was the 30th Anniversary of ET. The first movie I ever saw. Mum’s cousin took me to see it at the Forum in Melbourne when it was still a movie theater. I was so young but have never forgotten it. I had an ET doll that it seems we donated to charity that is now worth a lot more money than we ever paid for it and I had the “Read along with me in your book” version of ET that was read by Drew Barrymore.

For Christmas last year, Bill got me the gorgeous ET box set with a book, dvd and other goodies. Then when I saw there was going to be a special 30th anniversary screening at Union Square, I HAD to go. It was so amazing to walk into the cinema and see this at the box office –

I nearly fainted when the lights dimmed and I saw this on the screen.

By the way, these weren’t taken when the movie was on. We had a special segment that screened before the movie that had quiz questions and interviews with the cast and crew.

It was as magical as I remembered. The movie just has to be screened on a big screen. The music is so full of emotion… it was just perfect.

Elllliiiioooottttt.

If you haven’t seen ET recently, you really should watch it again.

Listening to theme… awwww. Goosebumps! My favorite scene…

I can’t watch this and NOT cry. “I’ll be right here…”

So, it seems life got busy and my blog got quiet.

I am back for 2013. I have posts ready to go – finishing up our European vacation posts, telling you about some of the fun things we have been doing and some photo posts. Funnily enough, in this downtime, I have still been blogging but just not publishing. So content is ready to roll. Let’s see how this goes!

We can start off with today though.. we were asleep by 11.30 last night.

Our neighbors were having their usual insane NYE party. This is not just a few friends… it sounded like hundreds of people thumping around and seriously, the setup they have for music sounds like it is directly from a Vegas nightclub. We awoke to the front door of our building being smashed, cigarette ash in our hallway and lots of talk about just how late the party went and how loud the music was. I was wide awake from the yelling/screaming and craziness outside from about 2am – 3.30am. Bill slept without any disturbance. Considering we live in Brooklyn, we are lucky. They have their massive party every year and that is it, so we all just put up with it for the one night.

We couldn’t sleep in either as we had to get up early and go to Mass. Being a Tuesday, it was a real Holy Day of Obligation and it was great to see so many people there and share lots of New Year cheer. Here we are all ready to head out into the cold –

One of our fellow neighbors and Queen of All Saints parishioners also invited us to brunch. For those from Haiti, New Years Day is a BIG deal because it is their Independence Day, so there is double the cause for celebration. She made the traditional soup that everyone makes on New Years Day. It is called Joumou and it is absolutely delicious! Basically it was loads of squash and other chunky vegetables. She also baked a lovely ham and we sat around her dining table with some other guests all afternoon – it was so relaxing and a lovely way to experience customs from another country and just have some downtime for the craziness of the past few weeks.

So that was today. Let’s hope the blog stays alive a little longer this year. I’ve been doing this non-stop pretty much since 1996… so a little break wasn’t a bad thing I guess!

Happy New Year to you! Let’s make 2013 the year of excess love and hugs for others.

I am walking down the street on my way to work and no parking starts at 7am to allow traffic to have a clear run.

At this time in the morning, there is always a tow truck waiting to pounce. The NYPD waste no time whatsoever and I always try and pick the cars that will be towed first.

I even saw them tow one a few weeks ago that had ‘FUNERAL’ on it. Obviously someone left their car there after a funeral at the nearby funeral parlor. I noticed the guy calling a few times to see if belonged to the funeral parlor and after that, a supervisor arrived and made the decision to tow.

In a nutshell, don’t mess with New York when it comes to parking. Traffic flow is serious business!

A month late but let’s go!

This year, our 4th of July started early. On the Saturday before the 4th, we headed to 13th Avenue in Dyker Heights in Brooklyn for the 107th 4th of July parade that is organized by the Knights of Columbus. Because of MTA trackwork this involved 3 trains and two buses to get to the area where the parade was being held. It was also oppressively hot. The kind of heat where you cannot bear to be in direct sunlight and you cross the street to walk in the shade. Because of the detours, we got there right on time and we were near the start of the parade. There was NO-ONE watching from our area. We got a spot under what I think was the only tree on the street and waved our little flags. Before long we met our State Senator, Marty Golden and a few other politicians and those running in local elections. What was hilarious was because we were the only ones standing on this block, they were all running up to us like we were guests of honor because there was no-one else to shake hands with!

The main street was cleared and ready for the parade. It was blazing hot and uncomfortable –

Some of the businesses decorated where they could –

The roar of these bikes got things going -

At every local parade you can count on police on horses being there -

Here are some of the representatives of the Knights of Columbus. I don’t know how could handle the heat in their uniform.

Old NYPD police car –

A local politician in a vintage firetruck –

Another parade certainty – bagpipers!

… and marching bands!

It was great seeing a vintage NYC cab!

The Girl Guides were so cute -

Then, a corvette club made their presence known!

Then, for some reason, the SIKK (Staten Island Kar Club – yes really!) made an appearance. Even though we were in Brooklyn?!

That was basically it..! If I was voting on parades, the Castleton Memorial Day Parade wins hands down. It would be good to see this 4th of July parade in cooler weather though and to also attend the ceremony in the park afterwards and see what that is like. Maybe next year!

When the parade was over we decided to see what the food was like in Dyker Heights. Right near where we were standing AND our bus stop, there was a pizza place called Frank’s Pizza. Their pizza was AWESOME for grandma slices. I can thoroughly recommend them!

We split an arancini and got a slice each. Both were spectacular!

Photo from Flickr –

So it was hot, uncomfortable and we had a hard time getting there but, we discovered a neighborhood that we had not previously visited and found a great slice at the same time!

I should note, the actual 4th of July day was spent in front of the AC and having a lovely lobster and salad lunch as an ‘indoor picnic’. We did our usual routine of watching the 4th of July concert from Washington DC and Boston while flicking back to the New York ones. Nothing beats DC in my opinion and I hope that one day we can go there and see it live.

So that was the 4th of July… a month late. Next up, back to Venice!

Looking back –

4th of July 2011
4th of July 2010
4th July 2009