On turning 40

My first milestone birthday was 13. I'd truly be a teen then. For my birthday, I got a facial and a makeup lesson. My mom had a rule, I couldn't wear makeup until I'd been shown how to wear it properly. I'm not sure how many years I continued to make myself up every morning, might not have even lasted 1, but I learned that less is more and I didn't look like a whore when I wore it.

And then there was my sweet 16. I had friends over and watched movies IIRC.

Next came 19, when I could legally drink. My mom, 2 aunties and my friend Melissa, who had turned 19 in August, took me to a bar when midnight rolled over so they could buy me my first legal drink. The teacher from my former high school that I had a huge crush on was playing there with his band. They played happy birthday and Michelle by the Beatles. I had a rye and ginger I think (cc dry for my kiwi readers).

When I turned 20, I broke up with my negligent not-really-boyfriend and had the best birthday with by BFF Anthony who invited another university friend Dan out to join us for drinks. We went to the Jolly Friar where a group of old high school mates, including my ex-bf (but still friend), turned up. The evening ended with shots and cake at Casey's on Great Northern Road. Was my favourite birthday so far (and was half a life time ago).

After that, I met a guy, who soon became my husband. We spent 17 years together in total, and none of the birthdays really stand out. As you can guess, that ended in separation (shortly after anniversary 15).

The first birthday post separation - this was an interesting one. My social circle was really small. That birthday, I treated myself to a movie and dinner consisting of popcorn. Went to see 500 days of Summer which I hadn't really researched in advance and thought was a light RomCom. Turned out it wasn't, but I still enjoyed it, while wondering if it would be the first of many lonely birthday parties.

The second one was better. I had friends of the single and married and loved up varieties. I had recently come home from my sister's wedding and gathered some friends to celebrate another year passing and the beginning of my final 30-something year.

Now I'm sitting here on the sofa curled up with the worlds best dog on my birthday eve. I've been reflecting on my existence the last few days and have to admit that I'm actually quite happy with the life that I have. I have some amazing friends and family, I live in an awesome city, and I make money doing something that really interests me. My life may not be perfect, but it is perfect for me.

And so, as my 40th birthday approaches, I just want to say thank you to those who have become such integral parts of my life. I love you and I feel blessed. xx

Ranting about shopping

On more than one occasion, I have hit up against the hard rock of my parents wanting to buy me a present from a multinational company, and being unable to.

Lush Cosmetics is one of the places who have products that I adore. (I see that their site has been hacked. Oops). My mom tried to order me a gift basket from them a couple of years ago. When she got to the checkout, she went to put in her billing details, but it wouldn't let her use a non-NZ address. Their answer: You just can't.

Apple is the other one. My dad wanted to buy me an iPad last year for my birthday*. No amount of permutations or combinations would allo him to actually purchase me one on his credit card. I called customer service, and the guy I spoke to didn't think it would be a problem, until he actually tried it. Total fail. In the end, my dad transferred the money to me and I ordered it. Pain in the ass, and ruins any surprise there might have been.

I was browsing the easter sale on the Kathmandu web site, and looked to see if they have the same problem. They do. Why? I'd love to be able to say to my parents that Kathmandu gift certificates would be an awesome present (they would). But they can't order them.

I'm limited to Amazon to be able to provide them with an easy place to get me a gift cert. Curiously, I have ordered gift certificates from a Canadian book retailer for my sisters using my NZ credit card without any trouble. On my first order on the card, they contacted me for further verification details and then, no problems.

Maybe I'm missing something. Is there a reason why retailers in NZ don't / won't allow out of country people to order from their site? I've got to think that there would be a good market for such a thing given the number of migrants in this country? If you know of a company that does allow out of country buyers to ship internally, please let me know! I'm happy to reward them with purchases. :)

* Yes, I am spoiled. I'm comfortable with that.

Broccoli salad (for Cipri)

2 heads of broccoli, cut into small pieces (I just use the flowers, but feel free to throw a little stem in there)
2-3 spring onions chopped
1/4 cup (give or take) of sharp cheese (I used a 6 yo cheddar last time and it was delish)
4-6 slices of bacon fried crispy and broken into pieces

Dressing:
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp sugar (to taste really)
1 tbsp vinegar

mix in a large bowl and toss with dressing.

Just when I thought bacon couldn't be any tastier ...

Maple Pecan Sundae with Candied Bacon

4 slices of bacon
2tbsp brown sugar

Preheat oven to 200 C. Line a baking sheet with foil and place a rack in the middle. Place the bacon on the rack and sprinkle evenly with 1 tbps of the sugar. Bake until the sugar is melted (about 8 minutes). Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the bacon on the same side. Return to the oven and bake until the bacon is deep brown and glazed (10-12 minutes). Remove from the oven.

Preheat the broiler. Place the bacon under the broiler until the sugar bubbles, watching to prevent burning (about 1 minute). Remove and let cool on the rack. When cool, cut into 1 cm pieces.

3/4 cup Maple Syrup
2 cinnamon sticks (broken in half)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup pecan pieces

Put the maple syrup and cinnamon in a medium pot and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce to medium heat and simmer until sauce is thickened and reduced to 1/2 to 2/3 cup (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat and remove cinnamon. Mix lemon juice in sauce. This can be made up to 2 hours before serving. Keep at room temperature.

To serve: mix pecans, candied bacon with the sauce and serve over vanilla ice cream. Delicious!

Funny story

A little something for the non technical people who would have had glazed eyes over the last post.

Saturday night I was out for my friend's hens night. I had consumed a few cocktails, as you do.

Got home and got ready for bed. Nudged wee Milly (my 35kg bullmastiff) off the sofa and she and I headed off to bed. She curled up on her half of the bed while I settled in with my iPad to catch up on twitter before drifting off to sleep. Suddenly, I was rudely awakened. Milly stood up, shook, huffed at me, stomped across me, jumped off the bed, and went to sleep on the sofa. I guess falling asleep on my back made my snoring a little loud and was keeping the poor princess up. :)

I think she might be a little spoiled. At least she didn't try to kick me off the bed.

Notes to self on XML PATH and String concatenation in t-sql for SQL2005, 2008 and beyond

Here's the query to be able to select the table name and get a concatenated list of the fields back. Very useful for generating queries on the fly.

SELECT
 t.table_name,
 STUFF((SELECT
             ', ' + column_name
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS c where c.table_name = t.table_name
FOR XML PATH('')
), 1, 1, ''
) As concatenated_string
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES t
WHERE table_name ='name_of_table'

I know it's not my usual type of post, but I keep forgetting the syntax and looking it up, so I put it where I 'll find it. :)

February

Good bye. Can't say I'll miss you. I'm planning to spend next Feb in a hole somewhere blind drunk.