Presents from Mister Mailman :-)

Hello everyone. I hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas! I had a wonderful (yet very stressful) time hosting Christmas this year. (But more on that in my up-coming Christmas post)

Little did I know that at the time all the stress was making me sick. Now that the Christmas rush is over I am taking time to have a breather & focus on recovering from illness. I won't be able to post clothing posts for the next few weeks as it's painful to try clothes on right now (terrible for a dress lover like myself).

But here's one I prepared earlier. A few things that Mr. Postman delivered before Christmas from my favourite online store, Modcloth:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Tee

The Very Hungry Caterpillar was a cherished childhood story for me, as I'm sure it was for many of you :-) So you can imagine how excited I was when I discovered it in a t-shirt! If this tee could talk it would tell you the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (obviously :P) This tee is made by a company called Out of Print. Not only is it cute, but the purchase of this tee shirt sends one book to a community in need! :D

 I also got this gorgeous cherry print dress that I had in my wishlist for over a year. Sometimes it feels good to finally splurge on the things you have been longing for for so long :-)

'Pull Up a Cherry Dress'

Here I am, caught on camera playing around with tinsel & laughing:

If this dress could talk it would tell tales of the last day at work before Christmas vacation, sneaking sips of champagne, twirling in the courtyard & tales of many more adventures to come :-)

 I will do a Christmas post in the next few days once I trawl through the 100s of photos :P

Until then enjoy the summer days,
miss_tash x

On the Road-adventures in attempting to be removalists :P

On the first weekend of summer Mr. B, his sister & I hired a truck and drove down south to help Mr. B's parents move house.

Mr. B & I have moved 3 times in the past few years, so we considered ourselves to be seasoned moving specialists....oh how we underestimated the size of this job! Hehe

We started out on the Gold Coast then drove to Toowoomba, which is west of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. We then traveled 381 km (236 miles) south interstate to Armidale, New South Wales.

Leaving Toowoomba:

At this point I was way too enthusiastic & excited as I had never been in a truck this big before!

We managed to gather quite an impressive bug collection on the windscreen through the 5 & a half hour drive. Sadly, I saw a lot of road kill on the road :-(

We stopped about half way in Stanthorpe (famous for it's apples):

This pic was taken in front of The Big Apple (please excuse Mr. B & I as we are in our 'moving clothes')

We had something sweet to eat at a lovely little cafe/supermarket/restaurant called Vincenzo's. They had an amazing menu, with quite a few yummy gluten free options. We tried the gluten free orange cake and a gluten free salted caramel macaron:

They also had this cute pasta shaped like kangaroos! I would have bought some but unfortunately it was not gluten free :-(

Next we stopped in Glen Innes, a cute little town in 'Celtic Country' NSW. There was even a mini Stonehenge-style sign that says "Welcome to Celtic Country":

We stopped at The Super Strawberry (a cute little strawberry farm/shop)  & these scotty dogs greeted us out the front:

(Just between you & me I think the dogs on the right are going through an identity crisis: "Am I a dog or reindeer?" hehe)

The shop was loaded with lots of other cute home wares & nick nacks. I found this gorgeous porcellen dish with 3 birds perched on it. It was a bargain at $9.95:

They also had homemade avocado & mango butters, chutneys, pavlova, strawberry drinks, choc dipped strawberries, strawberries & cream and loads more. We didn't have time to eat or buy anything more so we hit the road...

It was 37 degrees celsius in Armidale when we were moving & packing! We stayed over night & on the drive back to Toowoomba we passed through a crazy storm in Allora (just out of Warwick). The lighting cracking across the fields was actually really pretty, but I was too scared to take photos of the storm itself.

Sunshine coming out after the storm 

Then it was full sun half a km down the road

It took 6 hours to drive back to Toowoomba with a heavily loaded truck. Then we drove home to the Gold Coast, by the time we got home it was past midnight & we hit the pillows for work the next morning. Zzzzz

I do appologise that all of the pictures are bad quality-they were taken with my phone from a moving vehicle. I saw so many beautiful things out the truck window, but wasn't quick enough to take a photo. Australia really is a beautiful country!

We did a great job moving all the stuff in the heat within the time frame, but I don't think we will be doing too many more jobs as 'Mr. B & Tash's Removalists' :P

'Trucker Tash' lol, I won't quit my day job :P

miss_tash x

Trying my hand at rice paper rolls

I decided to get a little bit creative in the kitchen tonight (don't laugh, this is about as creative as I get when it's cooking & not baking!) & try my hand at making rice paper rolls.

These make a really tasty (& healthy) gluten free meal and can fill them with anything you wish :-)

'Unsoaked' Rice Paper

Mr. B & I chose the following ingredients:

-Roast chicken
-Baby Cos Lettuce
-Cucumber (cut into sticks)
-Grated carrots
-Sun dried tomatoes
-Red onion (Mr. B had on his)

For Dipping Sauces:
-Sweet Chilli Sauce
-Gluten free Soy & Garlic Sauce
-Teriyaki Sauce
& my favourite Kewpie Mayonnaise!

Method:

1. Prepare meat (if you are having any) as required (we used left over roast chicken, lol)
2. Cut all vegetables/salad & set aside
3. Fill a bowl with warm water & take 1 sheet of rice paper roll & wet sheet all over
4. Set sheet aside on a damp tea towel & wait 1 min until sheet is soft & pliable
5. Spread some filling ingredients on one end of rice paper. Fold the bottom edge over the fillings, fold in both sides & roll away
6. Repeat until all ingredients are used
7. Serve with dipping sauces

Volia! You have created a master piece. Well, yours are bound to look prettier than my 1st attempt :P

These were so delicious that I made two extra for my work lunch :-)

I will be putting up a post this week about Mr. B & my lil adventure trucking it down south to help move, so keep tuned for that!

miss_tash x

90s Polly Pockets

As mentioned earlier I recently found a suitcase of my old toys from the 80s & 90s! I dusted off my Polly Pockets & I'll admit I did have a little bit of a play while taking the pics :-) I'm pretty sure I have accidently vacuumed up some of the little 'Polly's over the years...

My Collection:

Polly Pocket 'Pollyville'

This is the Ice Cream Parlor & it is strawberry scented! (still smells like strawberries)

There is even a toilet with a lid that opens, a fridge that opens, a chair that spins & lots more!

This is an amazing expandable house:

The Polly Pockets have clothes that you can dress them in & can balance on the beam!

These Polly Pockets have legs that can split

The ballerina Polly can even do the splits! 

The expandable house collapses as shown:

This set was my favourite! It's the Fairy Light Wonderland play set.
Unfortunately the batteries haven't lasted since 1993, but back in it's' hey day' it lit up & looked so pretty!

The lil ferris wheel can spin & the hot air balloon goes up & down:

Did you have any Polly Pockets as a kid? What toys were your favourites? It was really fun rediscovering old toys-I'm such a kid at heart :-)

miss_tash x

Cute Kitten Tee

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I had a car accident this week and (as you can imagine) my life has been very busy & sore :-(

I haven't been feeling like myself lately & I think that reflected in what I wore to work for 'casual Friday' today:

This is only the 2nd time I've worn jeans to work ever & I felt very 'un-me'. However, I thought the t-shirt was cute because it has a boy & girl kittens on it & says 'Love is in the air'
Nawwww! :-)

I am looking forward to moving on from the events of this week & I am looking for the positives in each day :-)

In other news: I recently found a suitcase full of my old Polly Pocket toys from the 90's! I will be dusting them off & doing a blog post about them this weekend, so stay tuned.

Have a great weekend! 
miss_tash x

Presents from Mister Mailman :-)

Look what the postie delivered to me this week. After much anticipation I finally received my new dress from the U.S.A. I love a good 50s style floral dress for spring. I can see this dress & I having many picnics, days at the park & sunny adventures together :-)

Hell Bunny Carly Dress

Pink sewing basket $10 from Sam's Warehouse
Old cream heels with Vintage pearl clip on earings as shoe clips

I really love the mix of floral & stripes and the fact that this dress has pockets! Perfect for stashing lollies :-)

Sorry about the lack of posts this week, it's been a hectic week, fueled by chocolate, gluten free cake & these delicious New Zealand favourites-Cookie Time gluten free chocolate chunk cookies:

Of course nothing will beat the original Cookie Time choc chunk cookie, but for those who can't have gluten they are a almost-as-good alternative. (You can get your mitts on one at Woolworths for about $1.99, Yummo!)

miss_tash x

Gluten Free Caramel Cookies :D

Hi everyone, I got up to a little baking this week :-)

As a lover of all things sweet you can imagine my delight when I recently discovered the new Nestle Caramel Bits in the supermarket! :D

I love cookies, but I have to eat gluten free for health reasons. As many of you may know it's a struggle to find yummy gluten free cookies in the supermarket (although it is getting better here in Australia), so I make my own from time to time :-)

I wanted to test out the new Caramel Bits so I made gluten free caramel chip cookies and also some gluten free white choc & caramel chip cookies (as my 'other half', Mr. B looooves white chocolate):

If only we had 'Smell-O-Vision' because these cookies smelt divine straight from the oven.

Personally, I found the Caramel Bits a bit too sweet for my liking. They aren't like chips of caramel, more like caramel flavoured compound chocolate. Having said that, Mr. B happily gobbled them up. Friends & family didn't complain about them being too sweet, so perhaps I'm just fussy!

You can see in this pic that I also made a couple of my favourite gluten free dark choc chip cookies (just couldn't help myself :P)

Does anyone have any ideas for what I can bake with the remaining Caramel Bits? I was thinking perhaps caramel chip muffins or adding caramel chips to gluten free choc brownies?

Feel free to comment, I would love to hear from you!

miss_tash x