You'd probably have to be in the industry...

The people at work were admiring this photo I took on the weekend. Manju said it was beautiful. Jeff (not my Jeff, a different one) said he takes photos like it all the time. In fact their response was so positive, I thought I'd share it with the world.

Obviously, it's only funny with the funny quip I made when I sent it around, but you'd have to understand our whole product range to really get it. So I'll just let you enjoy the photo.

Ho ho ho, still makes me chuckle.

Girls lunch - we have sushi!

Lunch with the girls - what a nice tradition! Veronica was able to come for the first time (as the one and only receptionist, she has to ensure the phones are womanned at all times). We went to Pabu in Smith St for sushi (Veronica's first sushi too, I believe!)

Yum!

I grow mustard and cress

Jonathan surprised me with a request for carrot seeds the other day. His science class were doing a project, and that was what he had to bring. We zoomed to Bunnings and picked some nice ones. I bought a packet of cress seeds too, because I decided to be like Milly Molly Mandy and grow mustard and cress!

Here's the cress growing prettily in old teacups and a bonsai pot.

Where am I going to get mustard seeds from? Oh, wait, the spice rack. These ones grew nicely in a small pot.

And here's my harvested mustard-and-cress, served on a slice of fresh bread with goats cheese.


And just when I was enjoying this nostalgic, they-don't-do-quaint-things-like-that-any-more treat, I realised I was eating .... MICROHERBS!

Kitchenaid Birthday card for Elaine

Jeff decided his Mum needed a new mixer - a good one. She is a terrific cook, so it's quite justified. We arranged for her to get a beautiful Kitchenaid mixer (we have one, so we know it's a lovely thing). She was able to collect, and choose the colour of it, at Kitchen Warehouse, a terrific big kitchen shop that happens to be her local.

The folks at Kitchen Warehouse were all over the plan, and happily issued a voucher for the exact amount, to be kept at the counter. All we had to do was tell her to wander by.

Jeff asked me to make a card (that IS my department, after all), and this is what I made. Go have a squiz at this to see how super-accurate my card was!

With lots of colours to choose from, she picked the brand new silver model. Turned out the one she was looking at was the only one in the shop. They offered her the "display" model - it had been on display for about a day, and never plugged in - and threw in a cookbook too.

So Happy Birthday Elaine, and we look forward to good things to eat this Christmas as always!

Look, the family, doing something together!!

Jeff, Thomas and Catriona enjoy a bit of family time. And all it took was an iPad to bring them all together!

I think Catriona was playing Fruit Ninja or something...

Lunch at Agent 284

All the women at work have banded together to form a lunch club - we eat out every two weeks, and take advantage of the fabulous Collingwood restaurants. Also a great way to actually get to know each other, and talk about something other than manholes (yes, really). Did you know, in Russia, Medicine is the most highly prized university degree, while in India, the prestige course is Maths! So Larisa, who has a Maths degree from Russia, never got to be one of the cool kids.

This week it was Agent 284. We had a gorgeous time - nice things to eat, and super cute decor. They had a brilliant cocktail menu, and if I'm ever tempted to buy a $16 drink I'll let you know how they are.

Dish of the day was Goat Cheese Fritters with pear poached in red wine, with a balsamic reduction. Kim (from the US, and on the way home already) and Kirsty ordered this.

You know what a fan of fancy salads I am - roast baby beetroot and goat cheese was rather good.













Salt, pepper and sugar - loving those little bottles!

Check out all those books! Wait a minute, that's wallpaper!

And here's the gang - Ayendri, Pauline, Manju, Kim, Kirsty, Anmol and Larisa. Yes, we got the waiter to take our photo!

Collingwood restauranteurs can expect us some time soon.

How to read your Smart Meter - a tutorial

If you live in Victoria, and have an electricity smart meter, you will be able to look at the data they produce. It's a fantastic way of working out how to manage your electricity use.

Now, when they installed my smart meter, I noticed that they DIDN'T tell me about how to get information from it. I worked it out, though, so I'm doing that for you now.

Here's the steps:

• make sure you actually have a smart meter. You'll know, some dudes will have come and installed it, and probably turned the power off briefly in the process. Plus, there will be a shiny new box in your meter box, with a sinister blinking red light.

• find out who your energy supplier is (it's not necessarily the people who send you a bill). Go to this web site to enter your address and get a clear answer. That's the Department of Primary Industries. I know, we deal with them, like, all the time.

• go to the web site of that company. For me, it's United Energy. Look for a nice bit on their web site that says something about smart meters - they might mention the word "Portal" too. This is the United Energy lady. She looks so friendly.

Here's some of the energy company web sites I know about:
United Energy (I use this one, it works fine)
SP AusNet (web site wouldn't load in Chrome, had to try Firefox)
Jemena (They have United Energy lady too, so you know that will work)
Origin Energy (they say they are "closed" at the time of writing)

• sign up with an email address and a password. There will be terms and conditions.  Now they know you are a user of the web site
• now the tricky bit, and since I've done it already, I can't really do it again to show you. They will ask you for your exact address (of course) and also an "NMI" - that's "National Metering Identifier", a unique number for your smart meter. You'll find that on your electricity bill. And forgive me for being vague, but I think there was another number too, which came from the bill as well.

That should be it. Now you can log on any time and see how much power you are chomping through. I found the presentation of the data to be really accessible. 

And I made discoveries too. 

Here's the United Energy portal running on my iPad (incidentally, works great on iPads!). That dark orange bar chart is the day of interest - it's comparing it to the previous day. The day we are  looking at is Thursday last week - Valentine's Day. The bars are hourly usage.

So, we see really low use in the early hours of the morning. A little bump when we get up and turn lights on. A big sustained bump in the middle of the day when the pool filter is on. A spike at dinner time when the oven is on. But wait, what's that OTHER spike in the middle of the day! It was a school/work day, nobody should be home!

Detective mum went to work to see WHO had sneaked home and used extra electricity. I checked the school's portal to see the attendance records of each child. I quickly found out, that was the day the teachers were on strike. So now I know the kids had pies for lunch! I also discover that the oven is the hungriest device in the house, so now were are very conscious of oven-sharing.

As well as hourly data, you should be able to see weekly, monthly and seasonal summaries. You will be sure to discover something you can change to get that bill down a bit.

I hope this has helped. Thankyou, United Energy lady.