productive day = happy monkey

I feel quite proud today. I have two work projects which have been niggling at me to complete.  They're not hard, I just couldn't start them.  Today, I committed and got one finished.  I was really pleased as I did it in such a way as to make it a template for future use, and also designed a system so that I could keep on top of the ongoing monthly maintenance required for the project.

I might start the other one tomorrow, depending on whether the plumber turns up and / or the weather is good.  I figure that doing one "backburner" project a week is fair enough.

To celebrate I made my favourite dinner - cheese toasted sandwiches with hot tabasco sauce! Nom.  I am a simple monkey.  Sadly, I'd spent the day glued to the laptop so hadn't made any bread... so I wandered down to the dairy and spent the grand total of $2.50 on a loaf!  Treat.

But... the most exciting news is that my home made ginger beer is ready!  However, I have had a learning experience about making ginger beer.  When the recipe says yeast, you need to use yeast, not bread improver.  Yes, it seems obvious now.  Anyway, I strained it through muslin, it'll do, it's drinkable, but it's not great.  Note to self - get yeast.  Yeah.

My herbs are coming along nicely - I planted some italian parsley seeds today, hopefully they'll come in.
The coriander seeds Mum gave me from one of her plants germinated like a charm:

They're even starting to get little coriander shaped leaves!  I'm so happy.  Mum gives me seeds when I go to visit her, for years I've just been using them as they are, ground up in curries etc.  All this time I've had coriander plants just raring to go.

The sage has also started to sprout:

This is especially exciting as they came from a free packet, an were supposed to be best before 2006!  Of the 8 seeds I planted, 7 have germinated.  Even with fresh seeds that's a good hit rate.

And the marjoram is looking good:

11 have come through out of the 20 I planted.  These are also from the free 2006 packets, so bonus! 

I've created a space for them all on the ugliest pot stand in the world that lives outside my front door and has all my herbs in it.

Also got some more potting mix, so tomorrow I'm hoping to plant a whole lot of basil - many many basil plants so I can have it year round.  Basil's my favourite.  I have my eye on a pinenut bush - imagine if I could have COMPLETELY homemade pesto whenever I wanted!  Frugal nirvana.

Happy Monkey.