Pip-Life

Life lately … Goodbye Summer

March 3, 2024
Megan Follows in Anne of Green Gables

Hello! Hi! How are you? I’m okay! I hope you’re okay! So, this week I had my first online meeting with a small group of other Honours students (I told you about Honours here) just to get acquainted and talk about our various projects. There were 3 writers and one visual artist and everyone’s ideas seemed pretty brilliant and very interesting. We all had to talk a little bit about what we were working on and why our research was…

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Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

Life lately … Seeking comfort

February 18, 2024
Tabletop with five platters of buffet-style food

It’s high summer in Melbourne and the city is absolutely effervescing with the excitement of Taylor Swift being in town. Her final of three local concerts is tonight and I wish I could say I am going but like so many others we missed out on tickets after hours and hours and hours of trying to secure them. We’ve partly made up for it by watching patchy-screamy live streams on social media (uploaded by kind fans) and watching the Eras…

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Good Stuff Nice stuff Pip-Life

Some Good Things …

January 21, 2024
A back fence covered in lush green leaves and purple flowers + a tabletop cluttered with stickers, craft supplies, illustrations and card-making items.

Maybe some good things are a good idea? For no particular reason other than that I have been collecting them in my Notes app on my phone … (life lately) 1/ A new podcast – Small Ways to Live Well – from my favourite magazine The Simple Things. It’s all about … the good small things and might be an excellent way to make your life cosier and nicer. 2/ A cute perfect-for-the-weekend playlist I found during a Pinterest deep…

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Eat Pip-Life

Recipe: Everything Barbecued Veggie & Couscous Salad

December 6, 2023
Everything BBQ'd Veggie Couscous Salad

Most people are a bit broke at the moment, so it’s good to have a salad like this in your back pocket. It uses half a box of couscous (a box costs around $2) and whatever you have in your fridge. For this salad, I barbecue the veggies to get that smokey flavour, and to enjoy the meditation of grilling sizzling and colourful vegetables. You can just use an oven or frypan if you don’t have a barbecue. (Mine is this…

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Eat Pip-Life

How I Make Chicken & Potato Puttanesca

December 4, 2023
Chicken and Potato Puttanesca

This is a favourite dinner for Max and I. If we’re particularly worn out or feeling particularly anxious, I make this and everything is magically okay again, at least for a little while. This recipe makes a big batch – enough to feed 6 or so with bread or pasta on the side. I always make that big batch – even though it’s a household of two here – because you can bung the leftovers in the fridge and everyone’s…

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Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

Happy Birthday to … my blog! Seventeen years old today

December 3, 2023
pompom pip

Hello! Hi! Hey! Today it’s my blog’s Sweet Seventeen. It’s quite hard to fathom that I’ve been blogging for 17 years, but I have and you best believe it! Because I can’t. So much has happened over all these years, I am not even sure where I’d begin summing it up … but I’ll try. Over the 17 years of this blog’s life … My kids grew up, our shop opened and closed, I wrote 8 books, I won some…

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Eat Pip-Life

How to make Blue Heaven’s Raspberry Muffins

November 24, 2023

Did you know that I used to co-own a cafe, for a short while? I did! It was called Blue Heaven and it was on Bridge Road in Richmond back when Bridge Road in Richmond was a thriving strip. I left a job at a catering company to start this milk-bar-turned-cafe with a friend-of-a-friend. Readers, I’m here to tell you that I loved it! Rin and I lived upstairs where we’d lie in bed in the dark early morning, listening to the…

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Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life Taking Stock

Taking Stock in November

November 22, 2023

How is it mid-November already? How? HOW?! I hope you are doing okay, dear friend. It’s a bit of tough swirly world out there and I know many of us are counting our blessings. Blessings aside I have a sore eye and the rest of me is feeling pretty wonky this week, so I’m trying to take it as easy as I can amidst study and planning for Honours next year. (I’m going to do Honours in Creative Writing! My…

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