Day 244

Today's photo is brought to you by the photo challenge  at Becky Higgins'  blog.  She is the creator of Project Life, the inspiration for my photo a day as well as the album I'm using for my photo's.

So this is our bathroom counter as of today......

Day 243

Back to work after such a great weekend.

Spring has sprung in Sydney and the blossoms (Ornamental Pear in this case)  are out in force

Day 242

Lemons everywhere!  I was given more lemons to make lemon curd and they are alllll huge again!

Day 241

WOW, what a day I had.  I would go as far as saying it's the best day skiing I have had in Oz for years and years.  it was so good to ski runs like Olympic that are usually closed and 2 runs I've always been a bit too chicken to ski - Chance and Rock Gardens

Dinner and drinks with the crew at the Brumby bar.....

Day 240

We're off to the snow this weekend for our 2nd and last ski weekend, this week has seen over 1m of snow, which is just insane for Oz. The quality is reported to be the best most of our friends who are down there have seen in Australia for over a decade.  Cannot wait for tomorrow!

meanwhile, Nutmeg is helping with some washing......

Day 239

Yet another Nutmeg photo......

Playing with her green bag, it's hers now and we find it around the house in various places.  She loves it when we drag her around on it, or she jumps in and we pick her up and walk around with her in it.  nice to be home :)

Day 238

More training sessions today, locked in a windowless room except to walk outside to McDonalds (only option) for lunch.  next to the training location is the XXXX factory (a really horrible QLD beer) and it smelled just awful, kind of like animal urine to be honest, yuck!

Home again home again as fast as I can....

Day 237

Off to brisbane for work today, flying QANTAS for a change, was quite strange to get free food and drinks, though it's only an hour flight and turbulence meant service was limited.  Free TV was nice to stare at for a while.

Very busy day, but a lovely dinner with a colleague and her husband at a Turkish place close to my hotel, so full but it was just gorgeous food

Day 236

Back to  work and it was a slow slow day after such a great weekend.

My desk was the most exciting thing to happen today....

Day 235

So recovery day after the best Hen's night ever!

We headed to yum cha and got there too early for the trolleys meaning we had to order from a paper menu which dumplings we wanted and how many trays.... after the piece of paper went around the table once we put our order in (no one double checked what or how much we were ordering) and we ended up with this......

NB: all the plates under the steamer baskets had held various other dishes and some plates had already been cleared.  Then 2 more waiters arrived with more, the same amount again, in between fits of laughter we had to say we couldn't eat it, could they take it away.  I haven't laughed so much for a very long time, just the best night and morning for ages.

Day 234

I've reverted to my TZ1 for today's photo in case I lose the camera while out!

I managed to vote and leave enough time to do a few things and get into the city by 1pm, phew!  We're in a new electorate so I wasn't sure where to vote ie which place would be the quickest, turned out there were 30-45min lines everywhere, yuck, first lines I've ever encountered in order to vote.

Today is a good friends Hen's party and we're all meeting in the city and staying over night at some serviced apartments.

and some very late night hand held shots of the famous coke sign at Kings Cross which we could see from our 55th floor room.

Day 233

Our mint took a savage hit over winter with the frosts so it was really great to see it come back with some heavy rains and warmer weather.

Day 232

noticed this as I was leaving my car spot

Day 231

Shower shot - seeing what auto mode and blurring can achieve, this is just standard auto setting.

Day 230

Another glorious sunset after a warm day, nearly 20 degrees, unseasonably warm :(

Day 229

mmm Orange muffins, and the recipe is actually quite a healthy one.

Golden Orange Muffins recipe here

Day 228

A big sleep in was the call of the day and some relaxation doing almost nothing.  the middle of the day brought a totally out of the blue hail storm which had nutmeg very curious, then within an hour back to blue skies and sunshine.

Day 227

What a big day.

Firstly off to my hairdresser with mum and Jussie for a trial of our hair for the wedding, then off to try on my dress and her dress then back to mum and dad's for jussie's birthday dinner.

Happy birthday to one of my sisters, 21 again today ;)

We celebrated at the Winston, a local pub and I couldn't believe how much it had changed since I was at high school.  The renovations are really well done, it's owned by the same group that own the Oaks, so the menu is good too.

Day 226

Friday the 13th

we received this from an advertising agency obviously seeking our business.  Clever idea

Day 225

sunset near home.  gorgeous colours

Day 224

oh what a life this little cat of ours has, tickles and belly rubs galore!

Day 223

I arrived back to my desk today to find a big fat lemon sitting there, I had no idea who had left it until a colleague, kevin rang to say he'd found it and thought I'd like it.

haha  it's HUGE! Yes, that's me holding it, and while I don't have big hands the lemon is huge!

biggest one I've ever seen, so I'll be making some lemon curd for him and his wife.

Day 222

Is it Richie Benaud day... 222.... (hopefully someone gets the joke, youtube him if you don't)


So it's monday again all to quickly.  some sunshine today was nice after such a great weekend and I spotted these gum tree blossoms not far from the office, after a little walk to a nearby plant nursery which backs onto national park.

Day 221

No skiing today, we veged out, had lunch in Jindy then headed off home sometime around 3-4pm.

Yuki chilling out in the sun

Brendan trying on a "special Blend" branded balaclava......... 

Day 220

Off to the Dark side today aka Thredbo.  The snow divide is akin to the Ford v Holden, or Melbourne v Sydney, though we all know who wins the latter ;)

So brendan is a thredbo skier and I'm a Perisher girl, as are the majority of my friends. Despite that I was looking forward to skiing Thredbo as I needed a new challenge, even if that was just new terrain.

Some sights from around the mountain today....

Merrits lunch spot (though we only had morning tea here)

Guys on a bucks day

L to R

Leader of the opposition and Prime Minister (ok, so their faces have been used, it's not really them, very funny though!)

Day 219

First day on snow for this year, we drove down last night.  AWESOME day at Perisher.

The crew :)

Have to post some of the food we consumed at the new Japanese place in Jindabyne, Eboshi.

Ikayaki - Japanese pancake (like a crepe but a little bit chewy) filled with squid and covered in kewpie mayo and Tonkatsu sauce (kind of like BBQ sauce)

Steamed Gyoza

grilled rice balls - YUM!  the outer bits of rice get really crunchy and a charred flavour, really nice

Karage Chicken - closest equivalent is KFC, but the marinade for the chicken is ginger, sesame oil and soy based and the 'batter' is a light tempura style.

Day 218

Potatoes everywhere.  Well, that'll be the scene in our front yard in about 18 weeks time once I've managed to 'plant' them.....

Day 217

Nothing more exciting happening today and the pile is not shrinking!

10 huge jars of curd, 6 jars or marmalade down and I still have this much to get through, then there's the rest of the trees this was only 1/3 - 1/2

Day 216

Making more orange curd, still no dent made in the pile!

Day 215

Our rug is copping a beating from Nutty's random clawing attempts.  She only does it on the very edge of the rug on one side and we're not too worried as it was a pretty cheap rug in the scheme of things.   It is frustrating to come home and find bits of orange and white wool everywhere around the house though, and I mean everywhere!