Everything is Breaking!

Three things are refusing to act as they should, at the moment. All of them make me sad. And all of them will cost / are costing me money.

Broken Thing #1: Smashwords 

Carrie the Limping Lion was meant to be released on Monday, and while you can now buy the ebook directly from Smashwords, Kobo has cancelled all of the pre-orders (NOOO!), and neither Kobo nor Barnes and Noble are selling it. Kobo still lists it as a pre-order; and I've just checked on B&N, and they've completely removed the listing, now. Aaaaaah! Time to look at a different distributor, methinks. (UPDATE: You can now buy 'Carrie the Limping Lion' through my blog, thanks to Payhip!) 

Broken Thing #2: My Piano :(

When I started playing a little while ago, Francois pointed out that the sound was wavering. It improved when we plugged an external amp in (or used headphones), so we assumed it was a finicky connection to the built-in speakers, and we set it up permanently with Francois' small amp.

But yesterday, while practising, it started wavering BADLY. And I could hear it through the headphones, too. And it isn't a gentle waver. It's very, very distracting. Which means getting somebody to try to fix it for me. Which costs money.

So much of sad and tears and NOOOOOOO! :(

I'd MUCH rather buy a new keyboard, with USB out, and new speakers that sound lovely on their own, and optional portability... Like this Yamaha (so pretty!!), or this one. But as you can see if you follow those links, they come with a bit of a price tag. Just thinking about it makes my chest hurt.

Broken Thing #3: The Blender 

I've been seeing this one coming. It's very, very hot today. Again. Candle-melting hot. So I decided to make ice-cold smoothies for breakfast. Now, as you might be able to imagine, the frozen bananas that I use to make the smoothies so cold are kind of hard... And today, my little hand-held blender just couldn't take it any more, and promptly melted.

Insert optional profanities here.

It's so disgustingly warm today, that I was more disappointed about the smoothies not being made properly, than I was about the broken blender! This is something that needs urgent replacement, because I won't be able to survive summer without those smoothies. I'll invest in a tougher machine this time.

Well, many visits to our cool shower are in order until we go shopping. At least that isn't broken! (I hope I didn't just jinx it.)

Banana Smoothie Milkshakes and MUSIC!

Yesterday was hot. And I mean HOT. It was at least 32°c and I was suffering to the point of intense grumpiness. Before I thought of taking a cool shower outside (which fixed my mood problem), I decided to make frozen smoothies.

It was quick and easy to put them together, because clever girl that I am, I had already frozen a bunch of bananas a few days before.

Before I get to the recipe, here's some back-story about the 'nanas:

Francois and I have REALLY been enjoying banana smoothies for the last little while. So much so, that we keep running out of bananas. I remembered reading about how well bananas freeze, so when we went to the shop on Monday, I bought eleven kilograms of almost-ripe narnars. Yes. Eleven.

This is what I haven't dealt with yet.

When we got home, I chopped up all of the mostly ripe ones and popped them in the freezer. I've been chopping some every day, as they ripen. All of this chopping resulted in a very full container of banana bits.

I've used a lot already, this was full to the brim!

Today, I realised that there's no way that all of the banana will fit in the containers that I have, so I also froze a few whole bananas on a tray.

I'll probably dip those in chocolate and freeze them for lollipop-like treats.

Anyway, the chopped, frozen banana slices were used to make scrummy-liscious fruitshake smoothies!

Ingredients:

• 3 Chopped frozen bananas 
• 4 tablespoons rolled oats 
• 1 heaped tablespoon honey 
• 3 big tablespoons plain yoghurt 
• ½ cup milk 
• 2 shakes of cinnamon 

Method:

1. Put oats, cinnamon, milk and yoghurt into a blender. 
2. Blend until the oats become fairly fine. This shouldn't take more than a few seconds. 
3. Add the honey and blend again. 
4. Add the banana bits, half a banana at a time, blending before adding more. If you have a powerful blender, you can just chuck it all in at once. 
5. Blend until smooth. Add more milk if it's too thick for your taste. (I like it thick, I eat it with a spoon!) 
6. Pour into glasses. This recipe is for two big smoothies, but you can adjust it quite easily to stretch it, if you like. 

I don't have a picture of them, but I'll try to remember to take one tomorrow when I make more. :P


In other news: I've started playing piano again!

I used to play when I was in primary school. That's a while ago, as I'm sure you can imagine, so my skills are rather lacking at the moment.

Francois brought my keyboard downstairs a few days ago after our landlord came to fetch his piano. Then Francois had a song stuck in his head from The Legend of Zelda (Saria's Song, to be specific) and he tried to work it out on the keyboard...

Monkey see, monkey do, and now I'm playing every day, working out tunes that play in my head, practicing scales and reminding myself of how to read sheet music.

It's bloody fun!

We've reorganized the furniture a bit so that I feel comfortable at my keyboard, and Francois has a better layout for playing games at his PC as a pleasant extra result.

This is my spot!

Now I don't play piano RIGHT next to the toilet! Yay!

And for any of you who may be interested to know, this is my keyboard:

It's a Technics KN 1200, just in case you can't read what's in the photo.

Anyway, that's it from me, for today.

Oh! I want to try to make banana ice-cream. But I need a stronger blender to do that. I think it'd be cool to make and sell dairy-free ice-cream to the locals.

Oh oh! And Carrie the Limping Lion gets released on Monday! How exciting! :D

Oh and one more thing. I've turned over a new leaf. My house is neat and tidy almost all the time, and I do dishes just about every day. It's pleasant to be home! Well. Downstairs, anyway. I still need to tackle upstairs...

Okay. Bye now!