Back to Work. The Bubby Flu.

I returned to work full time starting Monday and it has been pretty full on. First day back was full of presentations and a bit of meetings, all in all a pretty easy and boring day. Tuesday was my real first day back, unfortunately, Monday night was the night Bubby chose to wake up Every. Bloody. Hour. I felt like a zombie the following day. I can't really blame him as he's been sick with the flu which he picked up from the nasty, germy kids from day care. I feel really awful because I felt like it was my fault as I deliberately left him to spend the day with sick kids. I guess I can't bubble wrap him forever and he will get sick sooner or later. He was still quite the bubbly, happy and active baby that is until he developed an ear infection. Thee poor thing must have been in a bit of pain on top of not being able to breathe from the nasal congestion and the nasty bronchial cough. Thankfully, he's on the mend now that he's on antibiotics. He might be getting better but everyone else in the house has been stricken with the Bubby Flu. You see, he hates it when you try to wipe his nose but he's quite happy to wipe his snot all over your face. There was no escaping the slime attacks. Needless to say, I am now sick on top of being tired from work and sleep deprived. I can't wait for the weekend so I can just collapse, if Bubby will allow me. On a positive note, work is still enjoyable even if it is stressful. I count myself very lucky that I love my profession and love coming to work (most days). I also have the best colleagues and friends at work. This is what I found on my desk at morning tea.

It's good to be back.

Goodbye 137.

Five years and lots of happy memories. The last time we walked out was quite emotional. I've already mentioned that we moved in on our wedding night. When most newlyweds spend their wedding night in a five star hotel we traded in a free night's stay at the Park Hyatt to sleep on our mattress on the floor as our bed frame hasn't been delivered yet in fact we had no furniture for some weeks. I didn't want to be cliched and spend our first night as husband and wife on a bed that hundreds of people have slept on. It was quite special spending our first night as Mr and Mrs in our first home.

Mattress on the floor with bonus glimpse of my wedding dress.

 I also got ready for our wedding there instead of staying in a hotel (too expensive) or getting ready at home (too far away). So I stayed with my family at home on the eve of my wedding and we all left the house at 5 AM to get ready. Eight people getting ready in a two bedroom flat with no furniture wasn't all that clever. We didn't even take advantage of the city skyline views from the rooftop terrace for pictorials.

I celebrated many 26th birthdays and of course it was Bubby's first home too, now he won't even remember it. It's okay we have around 2000 photos of his 10 and 1/2 months there. So long 137, you've been a good apartment.

I Survived Packing and Moving. Or So I Thought.

It's all over. At least for the next five to six weeks before we have to pack again and move out of the in-laws' place into our new house. At least then we only have our clothes and Bubby's toys and cot to pack.

It's all over but not without some disasters, naturally. Most of our possessions had to be placed in storage for the time being and unfortunately some things that we were meant to take ended up in storage. Everything is in boxes which were mostly labelled except a couple of last minute boxes. Now, I can access my storage space but there are about 50 boxes all up. Not only that but the removalists were so good at packing everything in that they managed to fit 100sq m of stuff into 9 sq m. They managed to do this by putting all the boxes right at the back and the heavy, bulky, there's-no-way-I-can-budge-them-an-inch stuff at the front. So, what's in there that was so important? The heater for Bubby's room but that's ok as my in-laws had a spare one and we might not need it while we're here. There's also the box that contained my favourite (and most expensive) bag. I am also missing some Resumption of Duties paperwork that I need in a week's time which might have ended up in some random box amidst the mad rush of those last few moments before the removalists arrived. Worst of all and this was the one thing that caused me to go into major panic mode, a disaster of epic proportion, this made me HYPERVENTILATE. The box containing ALL my SHOES ended up in storage. This just dawned on me now as I'm unpacking and organizing. I had several boxes containing shoes but one was to come with me. It was labeled and highlighted so and somehow it got mixed with the storage boxes. The only pairs I have are my old black patent flats that are not in the best shape and are a little loose as they were the shoes I wore throughout my pregnancy so they have stretched and a pair of joggers that I just neglected to pack because they didn't fit nicely and somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that maybe, just maybe, I may want to exercise. I'm trying to think of what worse could have happened and can't think of any. My Box of work stuff could have ended up in storage but I'm sure I could live without them for seven weeks if I had to. My beautiful shoes! I've been so incredibly looking forward to wearing decent shoes again. It took me a long time to work out which shoes I should take and made sure there was a pair that could go with every work outfit combination. There's only one way to rectify this situation and it has to be done fast! I'm not quite sure how to break the news to hubby that I have to buy new shoes. I suppose I can lay the blame on him since he was the one who sorted the boxes. I will have to work on my arguments.

The Mayhem That is Packing

Boxes make good makeshift playpen

I have been packing for almost a week now and I think I've pretty much packed our kitchen (we are currently eating off plastic plates). It has taken me all this time just to pack the kitchen. See, I tend to pack things carefully and methodically. First I crumple several pages of yellow pages to cushion the bottom of the boxes, then I wrap everything in butchers paper carefully (they look like presents!) then I pack more crumpled yellow pages to fill the gaps. I then write down on a piece of paper all the items in the box, tape that on the lid and number the box (e.g. 1 of 10, 2 of 10, etc) that way I know exactly how many boxes there should be and what's in each box. Then I enter the box number, box type and contents into a spreadsheet. While you might think that's all a bit OCD, all of those boxes are going to be in storage until we move in to our new house in late May/early June so there's no way I'll remember what's in each box. I remember the stress of having to open up several boxes to find the tongs while in the middle of cooking when we first moved in to our apartment. I thought I was going pretty well and definitely progressing but apparently not fast enough. Hubby decided to 'help'. He wrapped the dinner plates so willy nilly that the wrap unravelled as soon as he was done and then he just dumped them in the box without cushioning. I couldn't watch it. He says it doesn't have to be done perfectly but the way he's doing it I don't know why he bothered at all. His box was getting too heavy with the plates so he asks me for something light to add but I've pretty much packed away all our light kitchen stuff so he grabs random cords from the speakers and other non kitchen appliances and bits and bobs that don't belong in the kitchen. At this point I was really starting to mini hyperventilate. I looked at the mess that he has made and I know that I will have to rewrap and repack them as soon as he's out of the house. Yes, my name is -- and I have a problem.

Edited to add: Hubby says I'm not repacking those boxes. So he reads my blog after all.

I hope everyone is having a good Easter. I've had my lamb and my Easter egg but I haven't had any hot cross bun! Hopefully they're on sale by tomorrow so I can get my hot cross bun fix on the cheap.

Source

Bill Cunningham New York.

Earlier this year I found this documentary on street fashion photographer Bill Cunningham on Netflix. I added it to my Instant Queue (along with several exercise videos I added months ago that I haven't looked at). I finally watched it yesterday while I was ironing my work clothes. By the way, I really like ironing. It's the one chore that you can spend ages on without getting wet, dirty or sweaty and you can watch TV at the same time. It's practically my down time/me time. It took me four hours to watch the whole thing because someone kept interrupting me and babbled constantly so I had to keep rewinding. Anyway, back to Bill Cunningham. It's a really good documentary even if you're not interested in fashion. It's an award winning documentary but even if it wasn't Bill Cunningham is a beautiful man with a beautiful soul and it's easy to make anything about him worth watching. It's energising and inspiring to watch someone who loves what he does and takes so much enjoyment out of it and life in general. He has his finger on the pulse of high fashion yet he leads such a humble existence. He is so cute and charming that you can't help but smile. He defines and encapsulates the term joie de vivre.

My favourite bits:

• when he's talking about photographing people in the rain and snow
• when he's fixing his poncho with electrical tape
• when Anna Wintour stops for him but not the other photographers
• when a woman said to him "Don't take a photo of us or I'll break your f*ing camera" (when hundreds of people would just die to be photographed by him) and he just cycles away with a smile on his face.
• when he takes photos of street style during Paris fashion week wearing a black plastic bag poncho
• When a PR girl/usher was asking for his ID and trying to look for his name on the guest list for a fashion show and a man whisked him away and said:

• when he wore his blue street sweeper jacket to his own award presentation in Paris. Granted it looked like he bought a brand new one for the occasion

Ok, I can go on and on and ruin the whole thing for you so I'll stop now.

My favourite quotes:

• "Fashion is the armour to survive the reality of everyday life"
• "Money is the cheapest thing."
• "Who the hell wants a kitchen and a bathroom? They're just more rooms to clean."
• "I don't work. I only know how to have fun every day."
• "He who seeks beauty will find it."
• "You kids!"

Go ahead, watch the trailer. You know you want to.

Kitchen (Mis)Adventure - Chicken and Mushroom Risotto

On the spectrum of kitchen misadventures this falls pretty much towards the kitchen disaster end of the scale. Where do I begin? Firstly, I couldn't find any dried porcini in my crappy local shopping centre. I thought I could substitute with dried shitake instead but the local Woolies didn't have those either. I knew I should have just driven the extra 15 minutes to the big shopping centre. Come to think of it my corner convenience store probably has them. Anyway, I found some fresh shitake so I figured I could try it. It doesn't work. I wasted so much time looking for the mushrooms that I had to rush dinner prep. Instead of finely chopping the onion I decided to cut corners and use the box cheese grater instead. I was going so well until I grated a small chunk of my finger. I felt the pain first and when I looked at it there was a small chunk of flesh missing, it was just white then it stated bleeding.

Sorry for the blurry photo I had to use my left hand to take the shot.

In the end the risotto was overcooked and bland. I also didn't have enough parmesan so it had even less flavour. Worst risotto ever.

Packing and Paris

I wish I was packing for a trip to Paris but I'm not. I'm just dreaming. This time 5 years ago I was on my honeymoon and waking up to a crisp Spring day in Paris. I was about to have breakfast at a quaint little cafe/patisserie, about to people watch as I drink my hot chocolat, watch the cafe owner's little fluffy white dog (Parisians love their pet dogs, they are everywhere!), about to see the sights for the first time and have my breath taken away (literally) by La Tour Eiffel for the first time.

Right now I am packing for our move. So far I have taped a box completely but have forgotten to pack anything in it. *Sigh* Not a great start. I better get Paris out of my mind and get on with packing.

A Happy Ending to House Hunting and a Happy Anniversary.

We bought a house!!!! 

Hubby played hard ball and we got everything we wanted, you really don't want to be on the opposing side when it comes to 'negotiations' (inverted commas because negotiations imply some give and take, well there was none of that.)  We managed to get the whole thing finalised within 5 days. Now we need to shop for furniture! That won't be happening for a little while yet not until our savings have recovered a little from the shock but furniture shopping should be a lot more fun than house hunting. 

The house purchase being a done deal by Friday night, we had a very chilled out anniversary eve. We woke up to a glorious Saturday morning with bright blue skies and a slight chill in the air very much like our wedding day five years ago but without the nerves.

I happily made French toast which was the only time I touched the stove that day. We headed for the Sydney Fish Market for a seafood platter (Yum!). In the afternoon we went to watch the auction of house 8. It had already started by the time we got there and it was already above the maximum we would have paid. I missed the opening bid but if we had registered for the auction I probably would have thrown that auction paddle on the ground and stomped my feet on it several times.The bidding war continued until it has reached a ridiculous price. The poor buyers looked so happy. They look like a retired couple looking for a project. Good luck to them. I wonder if they have done their research because when we got a building inspection done we also got a quote done for the renovations and it would have been a 6-figure sum x 3 just to get the basic work done. That amount on top of what they paid for the house is really more than what the property is worth. Not to mention the time and hassle of getting council approval and however long it takes to get the place done up. When it was all done I was so happy I jumped up to give hubby a kiss. We definitely made the right choice. I feel like I won that auction. Still on a bit of a high from our good luck we went for a drive to see our new house. All in all it was a great day. We might have had fish and chips for dinner instead of a 5 star fine dining but we're pretty happy. We had such a great day that I really should check to see if I won the lottery that night.