so sorry i've been gone,

but here's some stuff I've done during my absence. Really don't have an excuse, it's not like I did much of anything exciting, or worthy of missing, what has it been? weeks? And everything that I did seems to result in lots of this:

That's right, the unglamourous reality of so much baking is dishes. Loads and loads of dishes piled up all sorts of places. Our dish-drainer is unable to contain them on many occasions.

Other than that there's just the stuff in between dishes, like quiche,

and an experimental blondie/brownie hybrid,

which I have taken to referring to as 'mad cows'

and some leftover fridge pizza, with all sorts of strange toppings, like broccoli.

There were of course lots of other things which came out of my kitchen in the last few weeks, like a new recipe for an oat cookie dipped in chocolate which are so tasty that I am having difficulty not consuming them all this afternoon.

They were originally created to go with the sorbet that I made (watermelon and leftover lemon from the monumental batch I made with the tons and tons of lemons we've had hanging around our house) but I really wanted to make some chocolate that I could dip them in and I just didn't think that went well with the fruit flavors. Perhaps I will make some sort of summer fruit drink with layered sorbet? And an umbrella I think. However it is difficult to motivate myself to do summery things, as it is more like February here, I am wearing socks and sweaters and have the oven on and seem to be craving soups and baked casseroles and warm and comforting foods, not fresh fruit and BBQ and sitting on the porch like I should be, considering what time of year it is. Oh deceptive weather how you mess with my summer plans, I want to wear shorts and lounge in the sun and go to the beach and no, plans foiled, I must wear a hat. So tragic.
Here also is a sneak peek of another project I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on, it takes copious hours to sew so many sequins, and now my floor is littered with them. Looks sort of festive really but I suppose I ought to clean it up.

And lastly, another random travel picture, look at that sunshine, that water, how I wish I could be there right now. Of course, in August it is actually snowing and bitter cold in the Southern Hemisphere, but this is imaginary travel, so in my daydream, the location of this photo would be drenched in sunshine right now OK. Don't rain on my parade. Though really it's chilly enough it may as well rain, while it's at it. And this concludes another episode of max-catches-up with some random pictures of whats come out of the oven recently, and vague allusions to what may be being created at my desk (or rather at the coffee table as I really need to clean my desk something fierce, it's quite the disarray, I just have too many piles shoved off to corners and it's time to thoroughly clean, and get some stuff done so that I don't feel like such a schmuck just lounging around all the time but I digress) and hopefully I will be able to maintain a more regular posting schedule, even once a week would be acceptable in comparison to the atrocity that is a multi-week hiatus, shame on me that, fingers crossed, I do not sink to that again.