After over a month of having a boring “Closed down” message on the index page, I finally fancied prettybloomers.com up as a “proper” collective.

I also gave Mer de Noms a new design, featuring a great photograph of Saint Petersburg by Leo Pan. I spent some time looking at stock images of Russia this afternoon and have decided it’s now one of my favourite countries.

Yes, I fully admit that Paullina Simons’ The Bronze Horseman trilogy has had a major influence in my new found love for Russia. I am completely obsessed with those books and don’t mind who knows or how nuts people may think I am.

1. Choose a writer you like.
2. Using resources such as Wikipedia, the author’s website, whatever you can find, make a list of interesting facts about the author.
3. Post your fun facts list in your blog, maybe with a photo of the writer, a collage of his or her books, whatever you want.
4. Come sign the Mr Linky here with the url to your fun facts post.
5. As you run into (or deliberately seek out) other Weekly Geeks’ lists, add links to your post for authors you like or authors you think your readers are interested in.

I’m gonna do this on Paullina Simons, since I’ve talked about her books a fair bit here, so now you can learn about her.

• Born in 1963 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia. She moved with her family to America at the age of 10.
• She has a degree in political science and worked as a financial journalist and translator before writing and releasing her first novel, Tully.
• She’s married with four children.
• Paullina is best known for her book The Bronze Horseman, but many of her other novels have have reached international best-seller lists, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.

Oh, well, lemme see, what have I been up to? On Monday I handed in my last assignment so I’m done with my course now. There are no exams or anything, so it really is done. Next year in the first semester I need to take another course in order to achieve the certificate I want, so I am planning on doing that.

I have a couple of important things I need to do today, one being to finish my CV and the other is enrolling at Auckland University (fingers crossed I get in). I should also start sewing a Christmas gift as I would like to get most of it done before the move, and it will give me something to do.

Aside from all that, I have had really bad neck pain the last few days. I often get extremely bad headaches along with neck pain and yesterday was the worst I’ve had in a long time, and I actually went and had a sleep because of it. Today the pain is not as bad but I’ll make a chiropractor appointment and get it sorted.

On top of that I am having a lovely dose of PMS, which started with food cravings and is now making me feel somewhat homicidal (ok, not really, but if you’re a woman you probably know what I mean). So, that’s just great. All I want to do is curl up on the couch, eat salt and vinegar chips while watching movies and sleeping. And I will do that, providing I at least get the CV done.

Last night I made a chocolate and banana cake, made with The PPK’s Chocolate Banana Cupcake recipe. I’ve used the recipe for cupcakes before and thought I’d use it for a cake because it’s moist and, well, yum!

I ended up making two cakes (baking for about 35 minutes each) because the tin I used was too large for the mix and the first cake came out more like a flat-ish disk. I sandwiched the two cakes together, using vegan butter icing as a filler and on top.

Vegan Butter Icing

I don’t tend to use measurements for this and add a little at a time to get whatever consistency and taste I desire.

Ingredients

• Vegan margarine
• Icing (powdered) sugar
• Vanilla extract (use the real stuff, if you have it!)

Directions
In a medium sized bowl start off with about 3 decent tablespoons on margerine. Add in about 1/2 cup of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Slowly mix all together using a fork until smooth, ensuring to get all the margarine and sugar from around the sides and on the bottom. Try the mix. Need some more sugar? Add it. Need some more vailla? Add it. Too butter? Add more sugar. Too crumbly? Add more margarine. Keep trying until it’s to your taste.

Use however you wish.

Today my parents I went to the Gypsy Fair, which is a fair put on by a much of “gypsies”, as they travel the country is gypsy-styles motor homes. They all sell things, from clothing to soaps to wood products to fortune telling. I’ve always enjoyed going and, as I missed it last year, was thrilled to know it was back this weekend.

Unfortunately it was much smaller this time around and there definitely was not as many travelling, and thus less to see. It didn’t have the same sort of atmosphere as it has had in the past, so that was a bit of a shame. Still great people, lovely to chat to and great to see people using their talents to make beautiful things.

I bought a large framed print of Marilyn Monroe. It’s one of my favourite photos of her.

After we left the fair we went into town and had a drink at Verve cafe. I also got a really nice falafel salad with tabouli, which was very, very yummy. And they didn’t give me moo-cow juice in my chai latte this time, so yay.

I am super tired today so I am going to be lazy and watch TV for most of it!