Master chef Kelly? And my easter update

Easter means 4 days off, with both Good Friday and Easter Monday being stats in NZ. Friday and Sunday are those "special" stats where most stores are forbidden from being open and the radio and tvs don't play commercials. Monday is a normal stat with the shops being open. I really needed easter. The 12 hour work days from last week were getting to me.

Having the whole weekend in town and to myself means that I got time to sleep, but in addition to that:
1) go on a fly killing mission. I think I've managed to kill all the flies in my apartment- save one lucky one that keeps eluding me. His days ARE numbered, however.

2) Clean up fly poo. Yuck... I've made a good dent in the stuff on the windows and the like- IHaven't made any effort on the ceiling at this point. I can't wait for fly season to be over. (Does it end? It seems to be going, and going, and going.)

3) Complete other misc house cleaning tasks that had fallen off the board when working long days

4) laundry, laundry, and more laundry! I'm all caught up once I pull in the sheets later today. Yay.

5) Get back in the running mode. Tomorrow I need to do a longer one than I've been doing - wish me luck.

6) Listen to the radio. I love music. Ah. :)

7) Get some reading time in. I just finished the Great Gasby- I've been meaning to read this for a while. My review: I loved his finishing few pages- that was some good writing. Not really a happy ending story though so don't hold out for that.

8) Watch chick flicks!! Last night I watched Made of Honour with Patrick Dempsey. I have to say- watching him in Greys has made me a fan. I've still got another few in the cue for tonight/tomorrow including An Officer and a Gentleman and Mama Mia. Now- I must admit I was almost in the mood to get Braveheart (Which is definitely on my favourite movies list- even though I've only seen it once), but it is a bit more involved than movies I normally watch, so I thought I'd keep on the chick flick theme this weekend and we'll keep that for another time

9) Me time- time to chat with the family back in Canada, and hang out, and just be. Ooh, and catch up on my bookkeeping. For the tax year ending March 31, would it would excite you to know that I spent almost as much servicing my car as I did on petrol. Crazy! (Given that I drive a 3L car.) Ooh the servicing prices... That included getting a couple of new tires, and I can't remember what else. I dropped my spending at Akbabas Turkish Kebabs dramatically from the prior year spending only $315.90 there. When I lived in Blenheim I had a kebab every Friday- and sometimes mid week at well. I'm not as impressed with the kebab shop here, although in Blenheim it also depended on who was making the kebab. She made a much better kebab than he did, in my opinion.

10) I made perogies!! Thanks to mom for sending via email a recipe that didn't take hours and hours to complete. It was a simple recipe with only mashed potato, oil, flour, eggs and salt for the dough. I had to scour town to buy a rolling pin. I found a $50 one at Briscoes but that was out of my price range with the minimal amount of baking I do- although it was red and would have looked great in my kitchen... but not enough to justify the price. I had no luck at the Warehouse and thought I'd have to shell out the $50, but luckily I found one at Spotlight for $9.99 (it was the last one, and its spot was super high but luckily someone had taken it down and placed it within my reach). So that was that. I boiled up my potatoes, mixed all the ingredients, rolled out the dough (initially not putting enough flour and making it far too sticky to roll effectively. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way. ) After re-rolling and cutting "circles", I stuffed them with potatoes mixed with cheez whiz and fried onion. And then I cooked up a few for a reward. They looked surprisingly like "real perogies". Except they were totally not uniform in size or shape, and I didn't do a great job keeping them together so some of them lost bits as they cooked, but all and all I was quite impressed with my first effort. I have a few more in the freezer ready for a convenience meal in the future. Kiwis really don't know what they are missing, not being able to buy them in the frozen section... But boy did I make a giant mess of my kitchen. Anyone have tips on easier ways to clean a yucky, sticky flour covered counter (err, bench?)