I keep notes of gratitude from people, family, friends or coworkers. Sometimes they’re little post-it notes, postcards, emails or whatever. Do you keep yours?
I like them. They’re a show of kindness and appreciation and I’m thankful for the gesture and time taken out of the day.
They’re inspiration, motivation and fuel to keep going and do more. So I keep them and sometimes put them up on the wall at home for a bit.
If someone uses a post-it note, I stick them into a book that I know I’ll be reading / rereading later. And at some point in that book, I’ll open up to a forgotten surprise message from someone. It’s fun!
I’ll be turning pages, lost in the book and suddenly get a nice reminder of that person and their appreciation towards the work we did together.
It’s a new calendar year – 2026. And I’m reminded as I sort through my book collection of the great people I’ve worked with and how we’ve given the world a small shove and made it a slightly better place to live.
Gratitude builds strength, resilience, trust and a strong team and relationship. If you have 5 minutes in your next work day or home life, take the time to write someone a quick message of appreciation. I bet you’ll make their day.
Recycle your Christmas ham and easily turn it into bacon by giving it a quick fry in the frypan. It’s some of the best bacon you’ll ever have 🧡 🥰
Once your ham is opened, xmas is over and we’ve divided up the left overs amongst everyone – we got ham for dayssss. What do we do with it all? Well, luckily it makes some of the best bacon, trust me!
Every year I swear to myself, this is how I’m gonna have my bacon from now on, all year. And then I forget and end up returning to the strip or streaky bacon in the packet. Okay this is the year, ima get ham legs for bacon.
If you’ve ever been in a restaurant or someone’s house and ever had that most amazing bacon moment (if you eat it that is 😬), you might’ve experienced that turning point where you swore to yourself to cook it like that / buy that brand etc. Just coz it was sooo gud.
If you’re a Perth, Western Australia local, Mason & Bird in Kalamunda make some amazing bacon. It’s thick, textured and FLAME GRILLED 😋 I can hear the sizzle now .. and they put it on some solid sourdough. 10/10.
The strip bacon in the plastic packets in your local supermarket are vacuum packed, generally thin and pretty tasteless tbh. You might find an ok brand, or try some ham steaks or whatever. But trust me, they won’t win out on the leg ham -> bacon combo.
Your supermarket leg ham may have been brined, or salt cured where moisture is removed. (Head to your local deli or specialist supplier for higher quality.) It may have been smoked too which doesn’t help preservation, but adds depth of flavour. Lastly it is simmered and cooked, ready for serving hot or cold.
Let’s go HOT 🔥
Slice your ham off the leg or whatever left overs you have. I like mine around 4mm or 1/8 inch or so.
Throw a tablespoon of butter into the frypan and melt it. Then add your ham slices, soon to be bacon!
Fry it up the way you like it. You’ll find that even though it’s thicker, it’ll cook quickly because essentially, it’s already cooked. I like mine slightly crisped, and crisp the fatty portions a little more.
Prep your toast, your home-made sourdough is great but anything will do. I half-butter before toasting and then finish with the remaining butter afterwards.
Throw on your HOT bacon. I add some kewpie mayonnaise, a little salt, lots of pepper and sometimes some citrus – lemon or yuzu zest to offset the oil. And surprisingly, fresh basil goes well with it too.
That’s it, so simple. You could make a full brekky out of it by adding cooked eggs, mushies and a small salad. Any extra baeconn or ham can go in the freezer.
TRY this bacon method. It’s yum, you’ll ditch the supermarket packets for good!
Drop a comment if you tried this or you’ve recycled your xmas ham in other ways, thanks.
I love education and the process of teaching. It’s the foundation of knowledge sharing and such an evolving industry. I’ve been a teacher myself and sharing knowledge, stories and lessons learnt with students and watching them have those ahah moments and seeing their growth, is an honour and a privilege.
Online services like udemy are so good because they’re global, multilingual and allow creators to build the courses. It’s a win-win for students and teachers across the world.
And so it’s really disheartening when one of these services taint the experience with a sneaky revenue raising model with no possibility of refund. It’s just not fair play, and goes against our foundations of encouraging creativity, exploration and the furthering of knowledge.
To get to the point, if you sign up with https://www.domestika.org for their Domestika Plus service, they offer no refund. There will be no communication with you for 6 months prior to renewal. And no warning of any upcoming charges.
Be warned or you’ll be caught as I have.
Domestika offer free trials and a discounted entry into the subscription, for me it was a $159 AUD entry for one year. I got busy in life and didn’t use the service at all during that period. When the renewal date came around, I was hit with a $559 AUD charge for the year. So essentially, I handed Domestika $718 AUD for no return and no possibility of a refund.
Customer service 101 and the use of AI, would easily enable Domestika to identify those users who have not used the service and a refund could be offered as an automated process. As a user, I likely cost Domestika a few cents or less during that one year to host my account with no service consumption.
Unbelievable business model and ethics.
Surely there would have been reminders, communications warning me like other services do, that an upcoming charge ($559 is a significant amount of money) is nearing. But no, after checking the last communication from them was 6 months ago.
I contacted support multiple times, and there was only an automated response saying it was in the terms, with no option to speak with a human.
They even have a prepared option in their AI assistant linking to the help article explaining why they don’t refund. Clearly many have been caught out.
In my time using Domestika, I completed a total of one course prior to signing up to plus. And at the time had thoughts of becoming a course creator.
Not now, never. The people who make your business profitable are awesome, as a business you suck big time, Domestika.
This is how I make hot chocolate at home and with a few simple changes, it makes your hot choco creamy with that campfire flavour.
Preparation
For two people, (perfect or your cutie bf, gf or whoever you share those special cuppas with) prep these:
4 marshmallows
2 mugs of milk
1 tin of hot chocolate powder or flakes
1 kitchen burner
1 coffee machine (milk steamer)
Froth your milk
The trick is to steam it using your coffee machine 🙂 Add in most of your chocolate powder into the milk and steam it like you would a coffee. You may need to do it twice for two mugs.
Toast your mallows
Grab your kitchen burner and burn the marshmallows. Buuuurrrrn them 🔥🔥 I usually do this on aluminium foil so they’re easy to pick up once they’re toasted and soft.
Combine your drink
Pour out your steamed milk into the mugs.
Chop up some chocolate bits or just use choco flakes and add them into your steamed milk.
Then just add the remaining choco powder, your marshmallows and whatever else you want into your mugs – yiiii ~~
Try it, it’s the fireee yummo campfire hot chocolate you’ve been craving! 🔥
