Mel in a Nutshell

Drum roll please -

2008-05-05T21:43:00.002+10:00

The winner of my cash give away:

is...

Pinay Jade from Life and Me - Congrats!!!!!

Its a Womans World Contest

2008-04-26T21:59:00.002+10:00

Petula from Its a Woman's World is running a great contest where 10 lucky people will win a ScanDisk Cruzer Gator Flash Drive!!! Unfortunately i cant enter because its only open to people with a US postal address - but i wanted let all of you know about it :D

Click on Petula's beautiful little button for more info:

Come Visit Australia:

2008-04-23T21:16:00.005+10:00

I found this over at My Little Drummer Boys Blog - very funny!

If your up for any more laughs check out my blogging buddy Canucklehead's blog, he has stacks of recorded jokes in his Laugh section that are hilarious!!!

I knew it wouldn't last

2008-04-21T21:07:00.003+10:00

My google page rank has dropped back to 0 again! It was at 3 for about a month & a half, i have no idea how it got to a page rank of 3, i kept seeing other blogs with much more traffic than mine with a lower rank & wondering why mine was higher, well, whatever it was its all over now :(

Just for Laughs

2008-04-19T21:23:00.003+10:00

My auntie sent me an email yesterday with this joke on it & i thought it was funny so i wanted to share it with you:

The boss wondered why one of his most valued employees had not phoned in sick one day. Having an urgent problem with one of the main computers, he dialled the employee's home phone number and was greeted with a child's whisper. ' Hello ? '

'Is your daddy home?' he asked.

' Yes ,' whispered the small voice.

May I talk with him?'

The child whispered, ' No .'

Surprised and wanting to talk with an adult, the boss asked, 'Is your Mommy there?'

' Yes .'

'May I talk with her?'

Again the small voice whispered, ' No .'

Hoping there was somebody with whom he could leave a message, the boss asked, 'Is anybody else there?'

' Yes ,' whispered the child, ' a policeman '.

Wondering what a cop would be doing at his employee's home, the boss asked, 'May I speak with the policeman?'

' No, he's busy ', whispered the child.

'Busy doing what?'

' Talking to Daddy and Mommy and the Fireman ,' came the whispered answer.

Growing more worried as he heard a loud noise in the background through the earpiece on the phone, the boss asked, 'What is that noise?'

' A helicopter ' answered the whispering voice.

'What is going on there?' demanded the boss, now truly apprehensive.

Again, whispering, the child answered, ' The search team just landed a helicopter .'

Alarmed, concerned and a little frustrated the boss asked, 'What are they searching for?'

Still whispering, the young voice replied with a muffled giggle...

' ME .'

NetSimplicity

2008-04-19T21:11:00.002+10:00

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Back to Suburbia!

2008-04-18T21:28:00.004+10:00

Well, were back from the farm. We've actually been back for a week...Ive just been really lazy :D

Thought id stick in a couple of pics. First of all i should say its Rocky's parents farm - here it is, 160 acres of undulating hills:

They are very excited because they got some cows a while ago & lots of them have had calves recently. We happened to be there on the day where they were giving all the carves some kind of vaccination, a tag thingy in their ear & um....turning all the bulls into steers :( poor little things!!! not sure I'm cut out for farm life!!! Anyway, here's some cows...you know...in case you don't know what they look like ;)

Jet had lots of fun playing with Sam, he's much more responsive than our dog. We have a little Maltese cross called Oscar who doesn't play fetch & turns his nose up at any food offered to him so hes not much fun for Jet, Sam on the other hand can play catch for HOURS & HOURS!!! So they both entertained each other for quite a while:

Rocky's dad has a motorbike up there to help round up the cows (or something) which Jet was absolutely fascinated with, even before he got to ride it. His grandpa took him on a little ride around & be loved it! he does this thing where he goes "owwwwwwwwww" when he sees or does something exciting & his mouth makes an O shape, well, after the bike ride he kept that face for about 20 mins!!!

& of course Rocky had to have a go as well:

& just for fun here's a pic of me & Jet:

Jet wasn't happy when we had to leave:

Luckily we didn't see any snakes or spiders or anything else scary on this trip - few!

American Home Craft Inc

2008-04-18T21:05:00.003+10:00

American Home Craft Inc offer high quality products like cabinets, counter tops, windows & entry doors that are designed & engineered with high quality materials & boast excellent workmanship.

One service they offer caught my eye, its called Texture Coating & personally id never heard of it before! Apparently instead of painting, staining or fiber-cement siding your house you can use a product called Tex-Cote which is not only designed protect your house but it will also help to reduce your energy bills by reflecting the sun's heat. Amazingly it can even reduce the temperature of your external walls by up to 40º! Now that's impressive!!! If you want more information please check out the American Home Craft website.

See ya soon!

2008-04-07T22:24:00.002+10:00

Were off to Rocky's parents farm for the week so ill be away for a couple of days, so don't get up to mischief while I'm gone ok!

Ice Cream Cone Muffins!!!

2008-04-05T21:13:00.004+11:00

Recently after a local ABA meeting i was chatting with a couple of mums & we were discussing the bad food grandparents had fed our kids. I told them that my mum bought a bunch of ice cream cones for jet, which i wasn't to happy about because i don't really want him eating ice cream unless its a special occasion.

Anyway, one of the mums gave me a fantastic idea about what to do with the ice cream cones! She said you can bake muffin mixture in them, they turn out looking like little ice creams, they are fun & best of all Jet doesn't leave crumbs all over the house when he is eating them - plus he absolutely loves them! the only problem is he gets all worked up & keeps doing his little "ehh ehh ehh" sound when he sees them come out of the oven & wants to eat them straight away before they cool!

Here's a pic of Jet thoroughly enjoying his ice cream muffin:

& here's a pic of my ice cream cone muffin, i haven't quite figured out the right amount of muffin mix to make it rise into a proper ice cream shape, but hey! oh, & i added a little raspberry on top just for looks :D

While we are talking muffins i thought id share with you my favorite recipe, its healthy & very very yummy!!! This is another recipe i got from the regular emails i receive from Brindabella Baby.

Muffin Recipe

Ingredients:
* 2 cups wholemeal self raising flour
* 1/2 cup honey
* 2 apples diced (or 2 bananas
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon (or nutmeg if using bananas)
* 1/4 cup olive oil (i use coconut oil instead sometimes)
* 1/2 cup apple juice (freshly squeezed works really well if your keen)
* 2 eggs

Method:
* Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius
* Line muffin tray with paper cases (or grease tray)
* Sift flour into a large bowl, stir in the honey, fruit & spice. Mix well
* In a separate container mix together oil, juice & eggs
* Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients & mix well
* Spoon into muffin tray
* Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until they start to brown on top

Makes approx 12 yummy muffins

Almost finished the renovations!

2008-04-04T16:29:00.002+11:00

We have been renovating our house for the past 2 years & its been going very very slowly (you know what they say about builders & their own houses!) but its finally almost finished. There is just one room to gyprock & paint & one bathroom to do & that's it!

There are lots of fantastic sites on home improvement & while browsing through some of them I stumbled across one site called Luxury Housing Trends & discovered a Periodic Table Shower Curtain - lol, how funny, you should have a squiz at it!!!

Can you spare a click for a good cause?

2008-04-04T15:43:00.005+11:00

The Breast Cancer Site needs your help! They are trying to donate at least one free mammogram a day to underprivileged women. All you have to do to help them meet their quota is click on a pink button that says "Click Here to Give - it's FREE" on their site - it wont cost you anything except a few seconds of your time & it will help fund free mammograms for women in need — low-income, inner-city and minority women whose awareness of breast cancer and opportunity for help is often limited. Your click is paid for by site sponsors, and mammogram funding is provided to clinics throughout the U.S. through the efforts of the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

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Air Ambulance Service

2008-04-04T14:14:00.003+11:00

AeroCare offer 24 hour emergency and non-emergency ambulance services throughout the world for people who need to be transported over 200miles needing medical attention and/or people who are unable to tolerate sitting upright up in an airliner. Their services are covered by many insurance companies (check with your individual fund) and they use direct billing to insurance companies with pre-approval.

AeroCare boasts a high quality service with professionally trained medical flight crews, high safety & service standards as well as a well maintained fleet of aircraft.

For more information on AeroCare's reliable air ambulance service or to obtain a quote check out their website today.

WANT TO WIN $20?

2008-04-03T11:10:00.007+11:00

Would you like to win $20? Yep, you read right! I am giving away $20 (USD). Why you ask? Well, partly because I'm a little nutty & partly because this money is money Ive purely earned doing paid posts & id like to give some of that back to the people that visit my blog (& in turn generate more visitors - no its not all purely innocent).

First off let me say that you absolutely have to have a pay pal account to enter this comp, payment will ONLY be made via pay pal. You also need to have a blog - but that's it.

Some of you might remember my previous comp to win $50, the reason I'm not doing a $50 cash giveaway this time is because I'd like to run these competitions more often so i thought id do a lesser cash prize so i can afford it & $20 is still something right? The lucky winner of my previous comp was Carrie.

So what do you have to do to enter? Two things - First write a short post linking to my main page http://www.melinanutshell.com/ including info on this competition. Then stick my cute little badge somewhere on your site, the code is in the box below:

After you've done that leave a comment here so i know you've entered, please leave a link to the blog you are using in the comment too. This comp will run for one month, finishing on the 3rd of May 2008. On the 4th of May ill allocate everyone numbers that's entered & use an online random number picking thingy to find the winner then notify ill notify them. ill also make a note below when the competition has closed.

For anyone that's interested in paid posts it really does work. You can click the button on my nav bar that's called 'Paid Posts' to see all the ones Ive done - Ive earned a couple of hundred bucks from it so far which isn't bad for a couple of minutes here & there to right some short posts. If your interested in giving it a go click the button below, there's nothing to loose & just for signing up you get to do a $20 post, so even if you never do any more paid posts you will earn $20 just for joining & simply writing a short post on your blog!

***THIS COMP IS NOW CLOSED***

The winner is: Pinay Jade from Life & Me - Congrats!!! :D

Bad Credit Loans

2008-04-03T10:52:00.004+11:00

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I didnt get shafted!!!

2008-04-02T21:06:00.002+11:00

I just went over to All for Women & discovered that i didn't get shafted off their top 100 Aussie Women's Blogs! YAY!!!! Not only that but I'm no longer #100 Ive moved up the list & I'm now #82 :D

Questions & Pictures Meme

2008-04-01T21:28:00.003+11:00

I saw this meme at Carrie & Petula's Blogs & im pretty bored tonight, not much on tv plus i loved reading (well...looking at) their answers so i decided to give it a go myself. Here are the rules:

1. Go to http://www.photobucket.com/
2. Type in your answer to the question in the “search” box.
3. Use only the first page.
4. Insert the picture as your answer.

Sounds like fun so here i go!

What is your relationship status?

What is your current mood?

Who is your favorite band/artist?

What is your favorite movie?

What kind of pet/s do you have?

lucky mine aren't made of chocolate otherwise there wouldn't be any of them left! oh & it was this or a pic of two bunnies doing the dirty.

Where do you live?

Where do you work?

What do you look like?

What do you drive?

What did you do last night?

What is your favorite TV show?

Describe yourself?

lol, loved this pic, very clever!

What are you doing today?

What is your name?

What is your favorite candy?

lol, that was great fun, some interesting picture answers there! Does anyone else want to give it a go? Let me know if you do because id love to see your answers!

Auto Loan

2008-04-01T19:54:00.003+11:00

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My Fave Quick, Easy, Complete Vegitarian Meal

2008-03-31T21:41:00.005+11:00

I'm not a vegetarian, but i don't like eating meat every single day. So I'm on the hunt for some good vegetarian recipes. The thing i don't like about a lot of them is that they just look like glorified side dishes or they don't contain very little protein.

I'm not sure where i found this recipe but i love it, ok, so the picture doesn't look fantastic but it is yummmmmy! Its also great because it doesn't have many fresh ingredients so i can keep everything i need for it in the pantry & have it as a back up meal. The only fresh ingredients are basil, which we have an abundance of in the garden & tomatoes & there are always some of them in our fridge. Best of all it only takes about 30 mins to make! So here it is:

Chick Pea Curry

Ingredients:
* 1 1/2 teaspoons Massaman Curry Paste (or red curry paste)
* 2 Onions, chopped finely
* 5 cloves of Garlic, crushed
400g Coconut milk
3 tablespoons Soy Sauce
1 can Chickpeas (approx 400g)
2 Tomatoes, cut into 1cm cubes
1 1/2 cups fresh Basil
3 tablespoons Sugar

Instructions:
* Heat oil in a large saute pan, Add the curry, onion & garlic & briefly saute.
* Add the coconut milk & soy sauce then bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 mins stirring occasionally.
* Add the chickpeas, tomato, basil & sugar then bring back to the simmer for a few minutes
Serve with Jasmine Rice

If anyone has any other recipes to share id love to hear them & if you have a go at this one id be interested to hear how you liked it.

Phone Cards, Buy them Cheap!

2008-03-31T21:24:00.001+11:00

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Home Made Playdough

2008-03-26T21:52:00.003+11:00

Today i made some playdough for Jet. I used a recipe that i received by email from Emma at Brindabella Baby - i love receiving emails from her because she always puts something fun or interesting on them. She stuck a fabulous muffin recipe at the end of one of her previous emails & now its one of my faves! ill have to take a pic of the muffins next time i make them & post the recipe for you all - they are sooooo yummy!!!

Anyway, today i thought id give playdough a go, ive never made it before but it worked out really well. Jet's probably a bit to young for it, but he had fun mushing it with this rubber hammer thingy he nicked from granddad's tools & one of my kitchen utensils (actually, its one of his, since that's really all he likes playing with i bought a set for him!)

Here's the recipe for anyone that's interested:

Ingredients
1/2 cup salt
1 cup flour
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp cream of tartar
1 cup cold water
Food colouring

Method
1.Mix everything together in a non-stick saucepan, adding the water a little at a time.
2.Cook over low heat while stirring. When the mixture starts to congeal and leave the sides of the saucepan, turn out onto a floured board.
3.Knead until smooth.

It will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for a very long time.

Just a tip, don't do what i did & make it then separate it into batches to colour, cause you end up with....well...this:

& food colouring takes quite a while to wash off, my hands were that colour most of the day :D

Domain Registration

2008-03-26T21:27:00.000+11:00

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Dont you just love a bargain!

2008-03-25T21:57:00.004+11:00

I love perusing the baskets of stuff outside my local lincraft store, they often have some form of yarn out there that they are trying to get rid of. Recently while delving into one such basket i made a rather pleasant discovery! They were getting rid of some stuff called 'big wool', its just lincraft brand 100% wool & it varies in thickness if that makes any sense, ie it has about an inch of really thick stuff then gradually over 2 inches or something goes to about an inch of thin stuff.

Initially i bought 6 balls, they were only $1.50 each. Then a week later i went back & in the bottom of the basket i discovered they still had some so i bought another 6!!! Its great for making scarves & beanies out of so I'm going to make a couple for friends & me ofcourse :D

The first set I've made took 2 balls for a scarf & 1 ball for the beanie. Here's some pics:

Think I'm going to pass this one onto a friend who's having a birthday soon.

The scarf pattern i just made up, its basically just CO 14, knit in stockinette stitch until you've gone through 2 balls, on the last row k2, drop 1, k2, drop 1, k2 drop 1, k2, drop 1, k2. Cast off very very very very loosely. Unravel the dropped stitches. Put tassels on the ends in the dropped stitches bits. I really like the look of it, its not all neat & pretty, its all a bit uneven & it curls in on itself but i think its really nice!

The beanie pattern went something like this: CO 48 stitches. Do 1 inch k1 p1 ribbing. 5.5 more inches in stockinette stitch. then start to decrease:
1. k6, k2tog - repeat for entire row
2. knit all
3. k5, k2tog - repeat for entire row
4. knit all
5. k4, k2tog - repeat for entire row
6. knit all
7. k3, k2tog - repeat for entire row
8. k2, k2tog - repeat for entire row
9. k1, k2tog - repeat for entire row
10. k2tog - repeat for entire row
break yarn with a 6 inch tail & thread through remaining stitches. that's it! :D

The yarn is really really chunky, 50g ball approx 50m, tension is about 10st x 15 lines per 10cm x 10cm. I used 8mm double pointed needles for the beanie & same size straights for the scarf.

Simple Reviews

2008-03-25T16:21:00.004+11:00

Simple has two fantastic competitions running at the moment. The first is for a cloth diaper pail liner from Kidalog & the second one is for a Me4Kidz meddibuddy ...i just couldn't help entering them both :D

- how true is their slogan!!!!!

Guide to Web Hosting

2008-03-25T14:52:00.003+11:00

Are you confused about all the different web hosts that there are out there? Sick of researching lots of different companies wondering which one is best? Or perhaps you are new to all this & you just want to know whats avalible or what others reccomendations are!

Well Kaushal Sheth has gone on a hunt for the perfect hosting sites around & has come up with a couple of great suggestions. Want to know what they are & why they made the short list? well then, just click here :D

When your starting out it can be really difficult to figure out which web hosting companies offer the best all round package. There are quite a few things to consider to make sure that the hosting package y ou choose will suit your needs. It really helps to use others experiences to help you make the right choice. So check out what Kaushal has to say today!