019: Fat Pants

Today, I have been pondering the importance of Fat Pants.

I believe that every person - or at the very least every woman, should own a two pairs of fat pants.
Fat pants are quite possibly the greatest invention ever, although no-one actually invented them, we as a society decided that they were necessary. And I therefore love society.

I know, I at least, have two pairs of fat pants. firstly came the comfy pants - the tracksuit or pyjama bottoms. Pants that have perfectly adjusted to your body, fluffy in all the right places, completely unflattering and may have an inappropriate hole or two. These are the pants that only your closest friends are allowed to see, because when you wear your fat pants, your in a special place that can only be witnessed by a few. These are the pants that endure three seasons of Supernatural in one day and help you devour an entire frozen cheesecake. These are the pants that love you no matter what.

And then there are the other fat pants, your baggy pyjamas cousin who lingers in the back of your underwear drawer. Pushed away behind the lace and the cute pattens, are the granny panties, the body shapers and the curve enhancers. These are a special kind of Fat Pants and only to be brought out in special occasion when you are wearing a dress that may decide to reveal your true figure. And only for occasions when you are absolutely certain you not going to pull. We'v,e all seen Bridget Jones Diary - its always awkward. But boy do they make your arse look good.

These are my two favourite items in my wardrobe, but two that should never see the light of day.

  Kathleen x

018: My Last Kiss When a Little Like This....

Well, first off, I was drinking, so we can just pretend that I had perfect judgment on what was happening around me. It was midweek and we were bored, so we stocked up on cheap wine and decided to see where the night would take us. It wasn’t much of a surprise as to where we ended – the bar known for its cheap drinks that lures students from the three surrounding universities. As the evening progressed, and the wine was washed down with shots, we ended up dancing.

The discounted alcohol had pulled a crowd and before long, my friends and I had separated. One girl had recognised a flame from a previous time and had been pulled in by his charm. Another had been snatched by a tartan clad builder who had pulled her to the quiet of the beer garden to chat. When it was just one friend and I left standing, we staggered to the bar ordered a drink and toasted to our ability to avoid hooking up with any of the short and sniffling men that we too often find.

I however, didn’t get to my drink.

As we waited in line for the bar, a man with a boy’s face started up a conversation. And be it the alcohol talking, or the to the flash of future where I see myself a crazy cat lady, I got my flirt on. Before long we were in a tangle of limbs on the dance floor (my friend had to have the victory drink all on her own) and it wasn’t long before her lent down to my ear and whispered the ever alluring line of “so, my place or your?”

This is the thing I too easily forget about people – is that people kinda want sex and don't share my romantic notion about sharing that with a select few.  I don’t believe in no sex before marriage, I takes all the fun out of begin young – but I’m not really one to fling myself around whenever I feel like it. I need passion and attraction and some sort of connection for me to go to bed with someone and meeting someone by a beer soaked bar is very far from my idea of romantic. It’s a shame really that I am in such a minority because there are good guys out there who would be ready to wait if not for the queue of women who would just rather cut to the chase.

We as a society seem to have regressed back to thinking with our downstairs rather than our up, going back to primitive desires for sex, now and not really thinking about anything else. Have we really lost all ideas about what a relationship is supposed to be about? I mean, penguins have it pretty down pat, why is it taking humans so long to get around to it?

Unfortunately, the part of my brain that decides what is appropriate to say had stopped working several hours ago, and all my ideas about the value of sex in today’s society came tumbling out in response to his rather simple question. The look on his face was priceless and he began systematically searching the club for the friend he had seen me with earlier. And then dissolved back into the crowd.

Maybe I can see why I am single now.  

  Kathleen x 

017: What is Love?

My parents have been married for 24 years, twenty four years! - that's a long time. That's longer than I have been alive, but that was half expected, wasn't it, and today we were able to celebrate the two dozen years that they have been married, and as always, out comes the story of how my parents got together.
He was twenty one, she was nineteen, they were at the beach and he stole her shoes. That, in my opinion, is love.

Their love is the kind of love that doesn't need words; that knows when the other needs  a cup of tea and know without discussion when they are trying to cut back on sugar or when they need a heaped teaspoon.  Love is building a surprise patio for her 40th birthday and still not complaining when the capping was not attached ten years later. Their love endures the cheese making and the cleaning flashcards.Their love is a love that never makes Shepard's Pie and will always go halves in a beer.

I count their love to be up there with the great loves in the world - of Lizzy and Darcy, Anne and Gilbert, Ron and Hermione. But unlike all my other role models for the perfect relationship, I have had these two wonderful people sitting with me at the dinner table all my life, showing that true love can be enduring and beautiful and, what the world needs to remember most - possible.

And maybe this is the reason that I am rather content with my current single status, because I know that there could be no one night stand in the world that will live up to the love that I witness everyday and that if it is out there, something will happen to make sure he steals my shoe.

  Kathleen x

016: A Grand Final Find

Yesterday was Grand Final Day - and for everyone in Melbourne, that means getting your crazy on and watch the footy. I however, are one of those rare individuals who are unable to sit through an entire match on television (I can watch if I'm in the stands, but at home, eh) So my memories of Grand Final Day are always a little different to others - one involved my dad hooking up a projection screen so we the game full screen off the living room wall, I sat behind the couch with a copy of Harry Potter and stayed there long after the final song was sung.

This year, we went to my grandparents - and fifteen minutes in was frustrated at myself for not thinking to bring a book and using up all my lives in Candy Crush too quickly. My sister was getting twitchy as well, and we decided to sneak off for a walk.

My grandparents live in the same house my father was born in - a little farm land once in the middle of nowhere but slowly consumed by the suburbs.A lot of the land was sold off, but there is still plenty for a good explore, including several run-down sheds.

Sister and I potted through the first few, where bits of old cars were still kept and the old machinery. We had to clamber over several spare tractors and broken pipes. There was a window sill of dusty mason jars, filled with old screws and receipt books from when the farm was still running.

When we were almost ready to make it back to the house, we took the long way back - a found another way into the sheering shed. It involved crawling in through a wonky hole in the wall. Through all the dust and cobwebs - it was absolutely worth it.

Inside was a treasure trove. Old, beautiful and wondrous. It was like stepping into someone else's memories. Bits of furniture from every decade, spare parts for cars that were no longer being made and old toys that had been put away and forgotten.

I love these beautiful discoveries - to think that I have been coming to this house for over two decades, walking past this shed for my entire life, and hidden behind the walls peeling with paint were all these treasures just waiting for someone to love them again.

  Kathleen x

015: Where the Wild Things Are

There is a nature reserve behind my house, which previously been only know due to the stream that my housemates have named body drop creek. I'm sure I don't need to explain how that name came about, but safe to say that we had always given the reserve a wide berth. But recently my very brave housemate decided to go for a run in the sunshine.

And actually went in.

I waited by the door expecting to have the police drag her body back out for me, but they didn't and she came back in one piece. And from her life threatening expedition, she bought back tales of this wondrous place. 

Long stretches of elegant silver gums, a wild life reserve and although I think she was pulling my leg, a fully stocked farm. There was only one way to make sure she wasn't lying. And that was to check it out for myself. 

Braced with a rape whistle and a small illegal can of pepper spray, I made my way out.

And lo and behold, my housemate was not lying.  

In the midst of our outer city suburb, we have over an hundred and fifty hectare park on our door step. And we had never been there before. I walked for over an hour and didn’t see a single of the sighs my housemate had flagged – but I did find a glum looking pair of sheep chilling between the gum trees.

I love finding places like this. I didn’t grow up in the city, but I too quickly adjusted to the noise of streaming traffic, tram rattling past and the constant reminder that you are never alone. But today, just by getting out there in the trees, I was able to forget about the rest of the world for just a second and have some time to myself. Prue, undisrupted bliss.  

  Kathleen x

014: Poor Man's Gourmet

As I am a uni student, it is quite regular in my household for us to run out of food and there is at least one night a week when we are scrounging together the scraps in the back of the cupboard to make an excuse for a meal. (One memorable night I had peas and tomato sauce for dinner – yes, that was a low point in my life) and last night threatened to follow along the same course. All I had was a bag of dried lentils and half a pumpkin, but inspired by the recipe on the back of the lentil packet, this creation was born.

Pumpkin and Lentil Burger in a pancake bun (that idea was acquired from an amazing vegan restaurant near my house) with roast pumpkin chips and yoghurt sauce. Here's how I got there.

11/2 cups of cooked lentil (green, red, brown or a combination of all three) 

1/2 a medium butter-nut pumpkin 

1 cup of chickpeas, slightly crushed

Clove of Garlic 

1/2 an onion, chopped finely

1. Brown onion and garlic in a little splash of olive oil 

2. Mix lentils, pumpkin and chickpeas together with onion garlic mix. 

You are going for a nice thick consistency that holds together on its own. If necessary, add some flour (or chickpea flour for a vegan alternative) 

3. Cook. I shallow fried mine, but I find shallow frying difficult to manage, so I guess a deep fryer would work better (although not better for you) They can also be baked. 

The pancake mix I used was a very simple savoury pancake mix, but for a vegan/ gluten free alternative, I've found this recipe to work wonderfully;

1 cup of rice flour (or gluten free flour)

pinch of salt

1 1/2 soy milk 

1/8 vegetable oil 

And make like any other pancake. 

For finishing touches, I mixed a little diced cucumber and Greek yoghurt, and roasted the rest of the pumpkin with paprika and sea salt and enjoyed a feast fit for a king.   

  Kathleen x

013: Things I don't Know

I recently turned 21. Woo! So midst the celebration, I, being the awfully pensive individual that I am, got to thinking. Supposably, I am an adult now, fully fledged in every sense of the term, but it still scares me when people, often younger kids, classify me as ‘a grown up’. Banished from the kids table and forced into small talk and appetizers, I don’t think I’m ready for all this scary shit yet.

In my mind, grown ups were the ones who knew everything and were capable of great things. But I still call my mum if the washing machine is making strange noises. And as much as I would like to think that I am a not dumb person, there are something’s that no matter how many times I try, I have just not learnt them yet.

10 Things I Know But Have Not Learnt

1.       The cheapest wine on the shelf is never good wine

2.       $8 shoes are never going to last

3.       It’s never just ‘one more episode’

4.       Mixing wine and vodka is not a good idea

5.       The bins go out on Thursdays

6. If he's not calling, he's no interested.

7. Your hair is never going to look like it did at the hairdressers

8.       Coffee is no substitute for breakfast

9.       No-one looks good while running

10.    Life will not begin until you are not waiting for it.

  Kathleen x