Monthly Archives: October 2016

function rooms

Unique birthday celebrations

I hate anything too boring, which is usually a trait I keep to myself. If a friend says we should meet up, I keep my suggestions of doing so at an ice skating rink while wearing matching onesies to myself, sitting in an ordinary café sipping my ordinary cappuccino in compliant silence. It’s fine, really.

And then my birthday rolls around, and boy, EVERYONE knows that it’ll be a crazy time. Maybe that’s why nobody ever misses my birthday celebrations. For one glorious night a year, people actually realise that my way of doing things is the best way, and they’re allowed to cut loose for a change. See? Amity knows best, and she also knows all the hottest function rooms in Melbourne and hereabouts that tolerate a bit of wackiness. Don’t worry, I’m not going to wreck the place! Just…make some interesting decisions regarding the decorations.

I just found my dream catering company as well: Mad Science Catering. Science in name, science in game, because they serve all their drinks in beakers and their finger food in petri dishes, with microscopes that actually just display the ingredients of what you’re eating. That’s useful, because their dishes are just plain nuts. Orange and green tea-flavoured dumplings filled with seaweed-infused eel. Or this mysterious brew that turned out to be apple juice mixed with melted choc liqueurs and a dash of vanilla extract. It was like drinking an apple pie, with delicious extras. You never know what you’re getting, there are new flavours every time and I just wish I could make them my personal chefs because wow, what a way to live! If nothing else (and there’s so much else anyway) they’re a conversation piece.

Next time I’m planning to have all my friends take ice skating classes, except there’s gonna be a special requirement to stand on one leg the whole time. They also have to wear animal-themed onesies, because no one has yet taken me up on that offer…and then, of course, culinary loveliness afterwards.

function room hire

Unique dining experiences

function rooms MelbourneBacon and chestnuts isn’t such a bad idea, especially if you fried the chestnuts in maple syrup, forming a cement of sorts. Then you could wrap a bundle of chestnuts in bacon, creating an attractive package sure to satisfy at parties. Speaking of parties, I really feel like the catering company is taking off! Wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, going with the name Mad Science Catering, but it seems to be paying off since I’ve been dashing around Melbourne’s birthday party venues like I’m trying to cook Christmas dinner for a Mongolian horde! I did wonder if people would be up for the idea of trying out new flavour sensations , rather than the old canapes. Additionally, all my staff wear lab coats, goggles and serve my creations in a variety of science-themed containers.

I think people are just loving the novelty, which is truly what I’ve hoped for. I’m not saying my company is great for a funeral or anything…though maybe we could just tone down the uniforms…but when people pick up their bite-size scallops wrapped in smoked cheese and pickled eggplant, I want them to have a real experience right there in their taste buds. It’s all about the adventure! People spend as much time talking about the food creations as they do about the party venue, or the latest gossip. It almost becomes a game, with people daring each other to try something with which they’re not familiar.

Of course, everything is tested before it’s mass produced. They’re odd flavours, but if it doesn’t work I don’t serve them. It’s Mad Science with a bit of sensibility to back it up! In any case, it’s alright if people don’t like everything, because it’s all about the experience. Good thing I have a very wide palette. Well, back to dashing across Melbourne. Function rooms await that haven’t experienced my coffee-flavoured choco-steak salad nibbles!

bulbs for sale

Family garden party

Summer bulbs for sale onlineI have decided to delegate tasks to each family member this weekend so that we actually get stuff done. Every weekend we go through the same routine, everyone argues over not wanting to do chores and then no one ends up doing anything. I have created a schedule this week, Ryan and I will clear the leaves and do all the gardening tasks and the kids have to do the laundry and clean their dishes. We are going to the gardening centre on Friday evening to choose some new sonatini hippeastrums. Last time I put the kids on gardening duty they absolutely annihilated the yard. There was soil everywhere, no plants had been planted and they had taken pruning to a real extreme.

So this time I am assigning them indoor tasks only and I will be closely supervising. I do not want to have to redo the garden after they have had their fun messing it up for four hours. We just ordered some beautiful scarlet runners online and I do not want them chopping it all up as a practical joke. I hope the scarlet runner will spread all over the ground surrounding the patio covering up what is currently a brown mush. This garden has a lot of potential if it’s shown a bit of love and care.  I figure by the time I get the gardening done the kids should have really done all our laundry to the point that I expect it to be folded up on the appropriate beds. I am going to ban them from the garden if they even attempt any of their old tricks, they have ruined too many of my new flowers in the past to be trusted. I love them dearly but they are little terrors. I’m confident that the gladioli will thrive, even if I have to water them everyday to keep them alive in the yard.

speaking

Last-minute speaker

keynote speakerOh my gosh what have I done? I mean, I really shouldn’t be sitting here right now, blogging about all this. I need to be out there in the world, trying to desperately fix this, but I don’t seem to be able to help myself. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m in so deep there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do at this point except make the situation worse.

For the last, I don’t know, maybe month, I’ve been lucky enough to be the personal assistant to a vice principal at a private school. To try and preserve a little dignity, I won’t mention the name of the school here, but it is quite prestigious and I was very fortunate to get this position there. As one of the first major tasks I’ve been entrusted with, I was asked to find the keynote speaker for the year twelves farewell speech at the end of the week. But with so much else going on and with me being so new to the whole thing, I completely forgot to book somebody.

I know! How could I have been so stupid? This is the last time those year twelves are going to be here before they get launched into their exams, and now their final assembly is going to be a wreck. And it’s all my fault.

Currently, as I write this, I’m trying to muster up the courage to tell my boss that I’ve completely failed in the first major project that he’s given me while frantically scanning the internet to find some kind of solution here. The only problem is, every event speaker I’ve find so far requires at least a week’s notice to come in and I have far less than that. I just can’t believe I’ve managed to fail this spectacularly.

summer bulbs

I Have Garden Envy

hippeastrum bulbsI certainly don’t believe everything I read online. There’s an old saying, ‘believe half of what you see and none of what you hear’. Well, on the internet it’s practically ALL what you hear. I see my friends sharing all these images about fruits that burn fat and 70-year-olds who’ve discovered anti aging treatments that make doctors hate them, and they’re all talking like they’ve uncovered the medical find of the century! Grains of salt, really. With age comes wisdom, or so you’d think.

The internet is good for some things, though, Lacey just got her summer flowering bulbs, Melbourne is too far away for me to pop around for tea and see what the garden landscapers have done to the place.

Fortunately, she put the pictures straight online, so I didn’t even have to get up from my comfy chair to take a look! I’ll be honest, with all my gardening ambition, Lacey is someone I’ll always admire for having the yard that I secretly desire. Though to be fair, she gets garden landscapers in to do all the work. Ah, that’s the real rub, isn’t it…once you have enough money, you can go ahead and do what you like!

Not that Lacey rubs it in all that much; just enough so that we can take a look at some pictures and admire her rows of hippeastrums. I do see red sometimes thinking about what she’s ordered that handsome gardener to do for her. Oh, he looks like a nice boy, but she really needs to mention her husband a bit more around him. People will start to talk! In any case, I might have to save my money for tulips bulbs and spring flowers. I am getting some wonderful ideas! I just hope Lacey never drops around and takes a good look at the garden, or she’ll realise that it’s a budget version of hers. I might not have the finest garden around Melbourne, but think I make do!