The internet has been keeping this secret too long! It is my great delight to begin sharing lovely and interesting things via Posterous. I am going to see how I travel in terms of if I decide to see if I can get it to auto post to the blog – that might be a bit much. I churn through rather a lot online. So much it’s quite depressing. Oh golly this is exciting. It’s like a whole new way to display a collection!

Find me here: http://becmatheson.posterous.com/

or use the Collections & Curiousities link at the top

General

Broccoli & Bacon Soup

  1. Cut up a pack of bacon (however much you like) into small squares
  2. Cut up an onion
  3. Put the onion and bacon in a big pot with a teaspoon of minced garlic and brown
  4. Peel and cube one potato
  5. Cut up two (or more) big heads of broccoli
  6. Add 1L of Vege stock to the pot
  7. Add the potato and broccoli
  8. Cook until the potato and broccoli are soft
  9. Stick mix and blend the lot together
  10. Eat!

and this recipe (for once) is entirely my own – and if I might say so, tastes extremely good.

image source

Cooking

I am a little tired of not blogging properly. I have come to the conclusion that I let my sound bytes and threads escape onto Twitter and Facebook and although both delightful mediums in their own way – they are severely lacking – although the parameters of twitter length messages can be poetically and positively restrictive.

I was thinking about today and how I could talk about it in all it’s artsy wonderfulness.

See this.

This morning consisted of a photoshoot in a boutique store, followed by a stroll up to a gallery to look at the works of Michael Peck and then on to trendy Brunswick street – the highlight of which was The Brunswick Bookstore where I bought a most excellent magazine: Uppercase. Then at home I made myself a latte and sat down with the last choc-chip cookie and read said magazine from cover to cover and thought a bit about design and career and life.

Filling in the blanks.

I stayed at my parents last night and although I remembered my camera I forgot to bring anything remotely classy to wear (not that it mattered much in the end) so I borrowed a top off my sister to make my existing top look vaguely presentable and re-wore my work pants -grey and then the only shoes I had with me – brown. I drove an hour on the freeway to get to the boutique clothing store – I don’t mind that kind of driving, the car needs the change from the stop-start havoc I wreak on it ever work day and you can blast lovely music like Frou Frou, still, it’s a long way. I failed to eat breakfast and I didn’t go to the loo before I left.

I met Rachael – who is two weeks off having a baby and feeling it, we did battle with the store to get suitable backgrounds for our ‘giant vase and branches’ and climbed on boxes and moved coat-hangers around, took 200 odd photos – hopefully some of which are okay.

After the photo visit, I walked up to Metro Gallery and look a quick look at Michael Peck’s work (he used to teach my sister art) . Onwards to Brunswick St in shocking traffic – hoping I could spot a bathroom in some shape or form (public/McDonalds/etc.) – no such luck. Fed the parking meter with the last skerick of change in my wallet and then the dregs from my bag, Walked from Nicholson St to Brunswick St (not really that far – but my shoes are new and so extra distance is painful). I wandered through some clothes stores looking both for a cardy/jacket for myself for my sister’s wedding and doing some scouting for her bridesmaids for the same. No luck. I power-strolled up and down quite purposefully as the meter didn’t have a huge amount on it – and hungrily – no desire to spend $10 on lunch. Mid-afternoon I found Brunswick St Bookstore (win!) where I was sucked into buying Uppercase magazine; because there was Matte Stephens art on the cover and the inside looked so splendid, shortly thereafter I also found some sushi (lunch win! and finally!). Back to the car. Vague blisters. And home. Nasty traffic. Or not home – on to Geoff’s school to pick him up after Biology camp. Still busting to go to the loo. Home. Hung out with Geoff for a measely half an hour before he had to go off to a Teach for Australia thing, and then here I am, sitting on the couch.

It was a lovely day afterall. Not dream like. But realistically quite excellent.

(And our central heating might be working now??! Which I find very strange because the fan started blowing when the outside fan was physically off. Although can’t quite work out if it’s actually heating or just blowing out air… strange thing.)

But truly. Get your paws on Uppercase (for the creative and curious). It’s glory! It makes me feel less weird for the things I collect and do and hopeful for the directions my interests might take me.

This post is about feeling normal and extraordinary. It is to remind me that all these charming things I read on blogs and magazines involve real people doing real things – where the romantic casing of actions is drowned beautifully in normality where sometimes your feet hurt and you need the loo. We are absolutely coddled: we have the luxury of buying magazines and sushi.

I complain too much.

Life Work

In The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe C.S Lewis presents a place where it is always winter but never Christmas. The Narnia books are full of metaphor and analogy and I think of this as some kind of parallel to the Kingdom of God. Simplistic perhaps but it does sidle on up to your imagination. Relient K (the band)- whom I was quite into back when I was about 16, wrote a song on the same concept.

It’d be so nice to look out the window
And see the leaves on the trees begin to show
The birds would congregate and sing
A song of birth a song of newer things

The wind would calm and the sun would shine
I’d go outside and I’d squint my eyes
But for now I will simply just withdraw
Sit here and wish for this world to thaw

And everything it changed overnight
This dying world you brought it back to life
And deep inside I felt things shifting
Everything was melting
Away
And you gave us the most beautiful of days

Cause when it’s always winter but never Christmas
Sometimes it feels like you’re not with us
But deep inside our hearts we know
That you are here and we will not lose hope

Christianity Life