'What If You Knew' - XickFilms

About three months ago my friend Emily approached me and asked me to help her put together a short video to help encourage people to register on the bone marrow registry so that she would have a better chance at finding a match for a stem cell transplant. I don't have any experience with filming and putting together a video but I knew of a group of guys who did. Their production name is XickFilms and they've been making short videos for about a year and abit. They were so kind and agreed to help me out with this project for Emily. They came up with a script called 'What if You Knew' and we got together today to do the filming. 

The last time I was in a short film was back in year 11 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO7VJ7RLISo). That was six years ago and it was a video my friend put together about leavers jackets. This is my first time in a XickFilm production and I had a great time acting and watching the guys in their element. 

I hope that with this short film, we'll get more people wanting to donate blood and register their name on the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry. Not only is Emily in need but there is also a 23 year-old woman named Lauren from Perth who has a rare type of Leukemia and is in need of a bone marrow transplant (more info here).

If you haven't donated blood, then please do it. And if you're interested in registering to be a donor then you can do that when you donate blood! Just contact the Australian Red Cross Blood Service on 13 14 95. Please. 

May I introduce the wonderful guys from XickFilms! Check out more of their work at https://www.youtube.com/user/XickFilms

A new look for the blog

I just wanted to also say thank you to my friend who put together the image that I've used for my blog title. He's very artistic and so I asked him to surprise me and whip up a picture that I could use. It's very original and reflects some of the things about me.

Silent auction

As my regular blog followers may know, my very good friend Emily is battling Non-Hodgkin's Leukemia and she needs stem cells for a stem cell transplant in order to suvive long enough to see her son grow up to be a man. A friend of Emilys hosted a silent auction which I attended tonight. I've never been to a proper auction of any kind, let alone a silent one, and so I didn't really know what to expect; but my post today will shed some light about what they are and why we should ALL GO if there is a fundraiser silent auction being held. 

So basically, items up for auction were displayed around the house. The host was very good to categorise all of the items on separate tables. There were tables for women's jewelery, kids toys, books, DVDs, various gift vouchers, PC games, children's clothes, ceramic and glassware and just about anything else you can think of. Each item was placed on a piece of paper on which we wrote our name and our bidding price. There were no starting prices, so that was left up to the person placing the bid. By the end of the night, if you had the highest bid on the piece of paper, then you walked home with the item. 

But wait there was more. There were raffles for bottles of champagne (Moet, guys. The good stuff) and other gift prizes. There were also items for sale that you didn't have to bid for. There was great food, drinks and music and it was so great mingling with everyone there. 

It was such a fun night! and best of all, we raised $1644.88 for Emily to help cover some of the costs of treatment and to go towards their 5 year-old son's schooling.

I wish more people had been there tonight. I think that perhaps the numbers of people weren't so high because they didn't know how great silent auctions can be; I for one am so glad that I went. Next time, I'm going to spread the word to everyone I know; even those who don't know Emily because it's something that everyone can enjoy. 

What really warmed my heart tonight were that some people came who didn't even know Emily but they brought items to auction off and helped with running the night so that it all went smoothly (which it did!). Their hearts are gold. In fact, everyone who was there had hearts of gold. And when you're in a room full of people like this, you can't help but feel like the whole world is good.

 

This is a haul that I walked away with :) I won that fancy Margaret River wine with a bid price of only $10!!

Day Zero Project goal #26 - 100 sit ups

So if you haven't of it, there's a website called Day Zero where you make a list of 101 things to achieve in 1001 days. My list has only 34 things on it at the moment, but as time goes one I'm sure that list will grow.

Item number 26 is "Do 100 sit ups in a row". If you've been keeping up with my blog, you'll know that I get together regularly with my two good friends to do Blogilates videos. I was so busy today that by 6pm, I still hadn't had anything planned for my 'something new' for today. My friend saw my Day Zero list and said that she'd also like to try 100 sit ups in a row, so we made tonight our first attempt. 

Ermergherd! 

I found it so hard! By 50, i struggled to keep my arms in position and I ended up just failing them around and using them to give me momentum on the way up. The great thing about doing this with the girls was that we all supported each other through it. My friend Ruth smashed out 100 sit ups and made it look easy and my camera girl Nhi went above and beyond her goal of 50 sit ups. 

This was just attempt number one, and I'm hoping that we'll all be able to do 100 hard core sit ups with our arms crossed on our chests. If you've never done 100 sit ups and you'd like to try it, just do it! Do it and do it better than I did it in my video below :)

Seitan cutlets and sweet onion sauce

While I was on holiday in Los Angeles at the end of last year, my wonderful cousin took my mum and I out to a vegan restaurant called Native Foods Cafe. It was my first time dining at a vegan restaurant and so I struggled big time trying to decide on what to order. After much umming and ahhing, I decided on a dish called the Soul Bowl (named so because it was hearty Southern style food). It was with this meal that I discovered a vegan meat substitute called seitan (say-tan), as well as the deliciousness of cornbread. 

On the counter were Native Foods cookbooks for sale, and like any newbie vegan willing to explore, I bought the book so that I could have more of this seitan which I had never heard of before that night. It turns out that seitan has been around for a while and there are many recipes using it in all the cookbooks I now own. 

Seitan is made from gluten flour. It has a similar texture to chicken and is more chewy than tofu and tempeh. I've only attempted to cook seitan tonight because I've been on a search of gluten flour since returning home from America at the beginning of January. In all of my recipe books, gluten flour is called gluten vital wheat flour and so I spent most of the time walking past the 'gluten flour' not knowing that it was what I needed.

I pulled out my trustworthy Veganomicon cookbook and used their simple seitan recipe. It was super quick and easy to make and I paired the 'meat' with a sweet onion sauce, also from the same cookbook. Since going vegan, I haven't missed eating meat, so I don't think I'll feel the need to cook this up all the time, but I have missed using a steak knife. 

The Veganomicon book also has a recipe for chickpea seitan cutlets which they say will "take over food blogs worldwide". Challenge accepted. We'll see just how good this recipe is, so watch this space. 

Bishop Road Reserve

I was out around the Nedlands area today and so I decided to check out another park which I had read some nice reviews about. It's called Bishop Road Reserve and it over looks the Swan River. It was such a perfect day to go explore this reserve because the sky was clear blue which reflected onto the water making it just as clear and beautiful. The breeze was lovely and the sun was out and shining it's yellow beams over the earth.

Bishop Road Reserve is a park which ends at a cliff's edge and down below is a beautiful white sandy beach. There are shells along the shore and the air smells of lovely fresh salt water. My description can only do so much, please go have a look for yourselves :)

This reserve is a popular wedding spot, for all you bride-to-bes out there. So if you're thinking of a spring/summer wedding, check this place out!

 

UWA Claremont Campus

As I was driving back from Bishop Road Reserve along Princess Rd, my attention was drawn to a stunning building that looked like castle. I was so surprised when I saw a sign that read The University of Western Australia Claremont Campus. If only all universities looked like this one. 

The uni grounds was so empty. My car was the only one in the student car park and the only other people I saw were the two ground keepers who were busy at work maintaining the well trimmed hedges and perfectly cut lawn. It was so quite and so peaceful...nothing like actual uni life.

This is my fifth year at UWA and I have never once heard of the Claremont campus, let alone seen anything as stunning. I honestly just wanted to go in and explore the 'castle', but I'm sure there would be nothing but offices and lecture rooms. Besides, I think I'll let my imagination run wild and just believe that inside were stone walls, chandeliers, suit of armour statues, and probably a prince or two ;)