A life update

As most of you know, my contract finished last Friday.  I haven't got anything lined up at the moment which I'm surprisingly calm about; it comes with the territory of contract work.  I'm also really enjoying this downtime I've had.  I wrote a FAT list of things to do during my downtime and have accomplished a lot since Monday.

1. (Here I go with my list-making again) I enrolled in my final semester of my Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance.  I started this goddamn thing when I worked for a bank 3 years ago and haven't yet finished it.  I have to complete my last subject by September this year, otherwise my credit points elapse and I'm left with a big fat nothing for all my previous work.  Might as well get stuck into it now. So a few dollars poorer, and a few coloured highlighters/pens later I'm sorta ready to get stuck in:

2. It was my sister's birthday last Saturday so we went to Sushi Tei for dinner.  Food was great as usual, but the service was the worst I've ever experienced there in the last 5 times I've visited.  Shame.  It was also surprisingly cold in Sydney on Saturday and I pulled out my boots, Missoni scarf and was still freezing my balls off.  PS - my dog's wondering what on earth I'm doing - I don't think he understands the concept of selfies.

 (Always have to get this red bean drink when I'm at Sushi Tei)

 3. I stole my parents' Dymo machine and labelled my Louboutin boxes (ohh cee dee)

4. I've adapted Frugal Feb slightly to apply to food.  All my dinners this week have revolved around using up some food already in the house (one of my pet peeves is food wastage).  We had about 6 bottle of pasta sauce so we've eaten a LOT of pasta this week :S  I had a sweet potato so I decided to make sweet potato chips (yum).

Also had a chunk of Christmas ham still in my freezer so made a pumpkin and pine nut pasta with ham (with basil and black cracked pepper).

5. Went into the city today to have lunch with some friends/ex-work colleagues.  It was kinda nice to get dressed up and leave the house actually.  I wore a Review shirt, Pilgrim lace skirt and Marc Jacobs heels.

I love Angel Place with the birdcages - reminds me of Melbourne actually.  Wish we had more fun/creative stuff like this in Sydney.

I swung by detoured to Chanel to try on some ballet flats after my online purchase fail.  I had success!  These babies will be unveiled later :)  Yay for returning 3 pairs of shoes yesterday

We had lunch at the Ivy Pool Bar.  I'm not a huge fan of the Ivy Nightclub but I don't mind the Pool Bar at all, especially for a casual (albeit slow) lunch.

Then I came home and made some chai flavoured meringues to use up more fridge/pantry contents.  Can't believe this was my first time ever making meringue.  Redonkulously easy!

6. Got my car pink slip, CTP and rego papers.  When I drove to the mechanic I saw this sign but parked anyway hoping he really was joking....

7. I FINALLY unloaded all the cardboard boxes from my car...  Yes I have been using my car as storage for my shoes because I have no more room in my apartment.  And yes this was when I realised I had bought too much and decided to do Frugal Feb.

8. Last but not least, I've started my South America research.  It's really hard to accommodate for a 23-year-old, a 26-year-old, a 27-year-old, and a couple in their 50s.....