Rabbiting on!

Growing up, my sisters and I had a pet rabbit.

Though it was really cute and captured all our attention (for the first couple of weeks), basically the main things I remember about our rabbit, was a huge wooden "cage" that my dad had built, and these really loud banging noises every now and then, which turned out to be the rabbit thumping it's feet on the cage floor (an afternoon of my sisters and I spying through the curtains led to this discovery).

As I've mentioned before, I'm not much of an NRL fan/follower. I do feel that this puts me into the minority living in Australia.

But, today marks the second NRL cake I've made so far in my baking career. Only 14 to go! I believe that this now nudges me closer to the majority of people, who have some sort of knowledge about NRL teams, colours, and rules, etc.

I often wonder where team mascots come from. If I was to be completely honest, an angry looking rabbit (quite likely on the juice), is one of the most unlikely, and random of animals to name a sports team after.

Next would be the budgie*.

* I've heard that budgies are good at smuggling things...

Sharks, tigers, broncos, bulldogs, dragons, and warriors, for example: They all sound like they can do some serious damage on a person's body! (and self-esteem)...

But bunnies???

All I think about is Easter!

Which is probably why this cake is chocolate ;)

Speaking of the cake. I based the design from the previous NRL one, because it's simple and effective:

Seeing that I'd made a shark to go with the Sharks cake, I figured that I better also make a rabbit to go with the Rabbitohs cake! So with a glad bake outline, and edible paint, this was what I'd made:

A little while later, with the rabbit, logo, and the team colours, I had this!

Sadly, the rabbit turned out to be far too heavy (even with two extra wires to "hold it in place"), and did not last the trip into the city to deliver the cake... Many tears were experienced. All mine. :'(

On the way back, I wondered if instead of M 'n' Ms around the base, I should have used jelly beans - purely because of this rabbit:

Buuuuut, perhaps that's enough Easter jokes.

Happy birthday, Tariq! :)

Mum's the word!

If there's anyone who has an eye for detail, it would be my mother.

For example, I once asked her about the stories of the births of myself and my two older sisters. She told me that we were all "about 6 pounds", born "about lunch time", and labour was "about 8 hours."

On the other extreme, one of the last things that Husband's mother told me before she passed away was that in the breastfeeding stage, your breasts will squirt milk out of them when you have an orgasm.

I do enjoy that God didn't make any two mothers alike.

In other news, I've wanted to attempt an ombre style cake for a while, but hadn't yet had the chance. I figured that my mother and family would accept being the candidates <cough-guineapigs-cough> for this 'experiment', on the occasion of my mother's birthday.

I can't remember why I didn't take any progress photos of the cake. I assume it was due to the fact that I am a third child, and am secretly suppressing resentment about having little to no photographs of me growing up.

Since everything must have a meaning when I design a cake, there are 9 silver hearts on top, because there are 9 people in my mother's family*. I also chose pink because I thought it would look pretty, and represent warmth, beauty, and femininity.

It had nothing to do with running out of time, and only having a bottle of pink colouring within reach on the bench next to me at the time.

* It would totally have been a great way to announce a pregnancy if I'd put 10 hearts on top, but that would mean that we'd actually need to be pregnant - which we are most definitely not.

Happy birthday Mum! x

If my calculations are correct...

NOTICE:

Due to recent budget cuts,

the light at the end of the tunnel

has been turned off.

I've recently suffered from another one of my far too regular meltdowns, due to not quite making it to the end of the fortnight with money still in my bank account.

It may have been caused by some spontaneous expenses coming up recently - a present for a new baby, a meal for a family in need, chocolates for the kindness of a neighbour, a new designer handbag I couldn't resist, etc, but I think it's actually due to my horrible and unstoppable addiction to Cadbury's Marvellous Creations new ice cream range:

It's meant that we've had to revisit our 'budget' again, and face the confrontation of my spending habits, because in less than two years, our eldest will be going to high school. Whenever I have these moments of dread and anxiety about the future, I always tend to go back to the basics of needs vs wants.

I'm realising more and more lately, that everything (even those tiny things on the shopping list that aren't given much thought, and probably aren't that expensive) adds up. I wanted to work out how much I would save if I stopped indulging in unnecessary, but oh so delicious, items.

Like Cadbury's Marvellous Creations ice creams.

The cheapest I've seen them is $6 for a 4 pack. But they're usually closer to $8 a pack.

Basically, if I eat just one of these a day (which is HARD! I can never stop at just one!), and that's without the kids spying them in the freezer and helping themselves to one also, then at an average of $2 each ice cream, at the end of one year, I'm spending a minimum of:

$730

Holy moly! Is this what my addiction is costing me??

Over $700 a year on ICE CREAM!?

No wonder I am broke before the end of the fortnight!!

As it usually does, doing the yearly maths forces me to think about a lot of "stuff" I spend money on, that I don't actually need. I don't need ice cream. I want ice cream. And at the moment, I only want that ice cream!! (previous ice cream addictions have included Bounty ice creams, Connoisseur Cookies 'n' Cream, and anything from Ben & Jerry's).

So if my calculations are correct, I need to either stop buying and eating so much ice cream...

Or get a job.

<gasp> At Cadbury's!

Mmmmmm, chocolaaate.

On a semi-related note, here's some entertaining budgeting and money saving idea websites I've found in my journey to better budgeting:

Top 10 <I Wish I had Thought of These Myself> Money Saving Tips

Adding to #7 - Hotel shampoo and conditioners!

100 Easy Ways to Get Started in Saving Money

#6 is great when you suffer from a poor, um, brain-worky thingy.

Even More Ways to Save Money

... Pretty much, live like a Jew.