Day 152

It's a hard life sometimes, basking in the five minutes of sun between fast moving cloud takes it out of a girl.....

Day 151

We woke up to what felt like cyclonic conditions in Jindabyne this morning, horizontal rain, white caps on the lake, just horrendous!  Off to meet with the celebrant we went to an outside, but under cover, cafe haha :)

Day 150

Big day today, we travelled to Canberra last night and stayed with friends so we could catch up with them and also meet with a potential wedding photographer.   Then we headed off to Jindabyne to meet up with a celebrant tomorrow.

Dinner at our friend sally's place was sensational!  Okonomiyaki which is a Japanese "pancake" style food, basically it's bucket loads of cabbage and if desired a meat of some sort, Sally chose prawns, and a very small amount of a special batter mixed in then cooked on a flat grill, we used sandwich presses.  Once cooked you top it with japanese BQ sauce and japanese mayonaise, which is unlike any other mayo on the planet!  Usually bonito flakes and shredded nori is placed on top.

Dessert was kashmiri spiced green tea Creme Brulee.  WOW is all i can say, it was utterly delicious!

Day 149

I'm maintaining my quest not to take photos of Nutmeg, though she is possibly feeling neglected as I found this found this in my hand bag when I got to work this morning

Day 148

rain rain rain press repeat....  Nice for the garden though, I haven't had to remember to water the herbs at all! :D

Woke up this morning to find a puddle of water under the kettle, seems the base was leaking though hadn't cracked.  Off I trotted to get a new one from Big W.  I thought I'd bought a normal kettle, one to boil water, it seems not as it lights up blue when the water is not boiling and red as the water boils haha  Pretty weird!

Day 147

A colleague gave this to me after her recent trip to New Zealand.  It's wooden bookmark with a Maori mythology traditional design signifying new beginnings and growth.  She thought it was perfect given the wedding and some changes happening at work, a really lovely gift :)

Day 146

MMMMMmmmmmm one of my closest friends has taken a "ski change" opportunity and has been in Jindabyne for a couple of weeks in her new job. She missed Sydney so came back for a Sushi and foxtel fix (haha) :p

I love the contrast between the orange of the salmon roe and  lime green plate.

Day 145

*big deep breathes* this photo is one of the reasons i went to the Mac side of computing. this is my humble work laptop that was a rebuilt machine, pre owned by someone else in the company etc.  It's new to me, only a few weeks or couple of months, I've lost track. main thing is it looks like the hard drive is going, this is the 2nd event like this as well as 6 events where I press power and it just won't turn on.

I feel for our IT guys, they must wish they could be instantly invisible the moment they see me coming lol

Day 144

overcast and cool weekend with some rain every now and then.  We got some plants into the ground, the start of my Rosemary hedge and the herb garden out the front and we discovered the ground was like concrete, typical clay soil for this part of the world, that lovely hardsetting clay that you need a pick axe to break up while you break your back at the same time. more on this later.


While we were busily doing the above we'd put together some sausage rolls for lunch and Lamb shanks slowly cooking for dinner.


the meat fell off the bone after 3-4 hours of moderately slow cooking :)  YUM!

delay

Hello everyone,

Posting will begin thursday/Friday this week, so much happening this week with wedding and work and Tupperware so will take a rain check until then.

Day 143

Dinner tonight for Brendan's parents birthdays was at his brothers place.  They live close to the bush and this little critter, a bandicoot, usually very shy, made an appearance and was not in the least bit shy!


Apparently they are fairly 'tame' or at least not scared by humans walking around while they forage according to Brendan's brother and SIL.  Pretty amazing!

Day 142

What a day.........  Spent it at a medical expo helping a colleague out as someone had called in sick and he was left by himself on our stand all day.


The most interesting thing was seeing how many pens I could collect, the inside of the roof of the dome (at the showgrounds for sydney-ites), the free lunch (cause Dr's don't earn enough to pay for it!) and the clouds outside as I was leaving.


You'll have to imagine the pen collection, it was pretty awesome!

 

 

Day 141

Nutmeg has a new play toy, it's a fridge magnet, not sure if it's supposed to be a greater glider or a sugar glider, either way every time we put it back on the fridge door she jumps up from the floor or off the kitchen bench and knocks/drags it to the floor to play with.

Day 140

Tupperware Unit meeting tonight and our manager let us know she was stepping aside as a manager as her personal life has changed and she couldn't commit the time to being a manager for now. We were all saddened, but also pleased that she's remaining as a demonstrator :)


I took along some popcorn, a lighter alternative than the mars bar slice, caramel slice or lemon and passionfruit slice others brought along!

Day 139

absolutely flat out day today, the amount of work on my plate right now is a bit insane!

Day 138

Waiting at the Gold Coast airport for our flight, we spent quite a bit of unscheduled time here as our 6.10am flight was delayed a couple of times due to staff being sick and needing to fly them up from Sydney *sigh* so we got off the ground at 8.30.

I had plenty of time to wander around and play with the canon G10 I'm borrowing from dad, and I have to say I love it, love the flexibility of it almost being a DSLR (feature wise) yet is compact enough to carry around n my handbag.

  

Day 137

Playing tourists at the Currumbin lookout.  Photo mania......

Day 136

Brendan's niece, Josie, is such a lovely, fun and in her words "hi-larious" little girl, such a treat to spend extended time with her.

She's playing in the hallway with her new toy here, a Polly Pocket speed boat which she bought, after careful consideration about the best value (!!) with her pocket money.

Day 135

Leaving on a jet plane..... Sydney domestic airport

Heading to the Gold Coast today to visit Brendan's family (brother/sister kids)

Poor nutty, alone for 2 1/2 days with just visits from my folks and friends to feed her (and play!).  She's such a sociable cat we're wondering how she'll go

Day 134

Close ups and playing with depth of field on the G10, lots of fun!

Brownie points for any of you who knows the name of this kids toy (in keyring format)?

I couldn't resist putting this photo in..... It's such a funny shot especially catching her tongue out hehe

Day 133

Autumn leaves near work shining in the gorgeous sunshine.

Day 132

I forgot to mention , since Saturday all pics have been taken on a Canon G10 which Dad has kindly lent to me to play around with.  So far I'm liking it, I have to think more about the settings the camera might be on as it quite a sophisticated P+S and has manual mode as well as typical settings you'd find on a dslr (a much bigger camera).

I haven't read the manual, though have put it into widescreen mode somehow, I'll figure it out.

Just a couple of shots from today that I couldn't decide between.  

Snowflake christmas decoration and the gorgeous autumn sky indicating a cold front is on the way.

Day 131

Shadows are fascinating at times, especially silhouettes.

Day 130

Wow, 130 days into the project, it's hard to believe.  Taking a photo a day seemed like a huge deal back on Jan 1st, now it's habit and I miss it if i get busy with work and don't get to take pics until later in the day, hence why a lot are of Nutty, she's my default subject.


Mother's Day lunch with mum, dad, Brendan and my 2 sisters.


Gorgeous roast lamb potato etc, Lisa also made a dessert using a friends plums in port.  delicious!

Day 129

Saturday night and my oldest sister Lisa is out to stay for the night and to cook mum lunch for Mother's day tomorrow. Her first visit to our house and first time meeting Nutmeg.  Was really nice to have her here and I made a Tupperware recipe - Parmesan wafers which are to serve before lunch tomorrow.

 

Day 128

Yet another Friday means it's the weekend woohooo!


I know I was trying to not take pics of nutty this week, or at least use them for my project photo, but this was too cute to pass up.  It's the position she assumes if Brendan or I have tried to tickle or pat her while she sleeps, definitely saying "not now I'm sleeping" :)

Day 127

It's that time of year, we forge through it every year.  It's not quite Aussie ski season but the Northern Hemi season or if we're fortunate enough our trip north, is well and truly passed (for us).

We usually start going a little stir crazy and one day during lunch I found myself wandering around an Asian grocery store in the local shopping centre reminiscing over all the random stuff I love about Japan.  the crazy foods and drinks.

Here are a couple of them

Calpis and Pocari Sweat

Day 126

It was a gorgeous Autumn day all day until early afternoon, then the clouds came over and the rain came down for about 20 minutes, really heavy rain too.  I managed to capture a rain drop plopping onto the back table, you can see it if you make the picture larger

Day 125

The life of a pussy cat left to roam the house all day.  I went outside to check the mail box before leaving for work and she was desperately trying to get through the blinds to get a better view of what I was doing hehe

Day 124

So it hasn't moved at all!

Day 123

Not a birthday but a farewell, for another very good friend.  This one is leaving Sydney to head to the mountains for a new job.  I'll miss her presence in sydney but we'll see her as much if not more over winter.  The irony is she'll be working at the place we've chosen for our wedding.

Driving home across the harbour bridge I decided to see what effects I could get with my camera.  Interesting!

and JD eating snails at the restaurant, we were all hoping for a Pretty woman moment , would have been hilarious! 

Day 122

One of my good friends birthday's today and a combined birthday with her son (he was naughty and missed out on his own party).

cutting the transformers cake, note the finger marks in the icing from the kids leaning forward to taste it hahaha