Flustered. Exhausted.

That's how I feel, completely and utterly flustered and exhausted.  Last week was SO busy and I didn't get enough sleep during the week or over the weekend so I lay in bed til 8.10am this morning as I physically could not get myself up (even the gloriously sunny 22 degree weather couldn't entice me!).

This post is about to be very picture heavy so I apologise in advance (or is that a good thing?  It means less rambling by me).

Bardot top, Asos faux leather leggings, CL Greissimo, YSL Arty and Amrita Singh earrings

It was Tom's birthday last Monday and we had dinner at Mumu Grill (highly recommend this place, the service is better than every single 5 star restaurant we've been to).  I had steak last time we were here so I opted for the duck this time.  AMAZING.  So so so good.

This is what my desk looked like on Friday.  Was asked to drop everything to complete this task which ended up taking me all day and I still had to finish it this morning.  Maybe not a biggie for the average person but I'm not great with numbers/spreadsheets so it's more painful than you would think.

Went to the shops to get Peppa another jacket.  He hates it.  Check out his "why are you doing this to me?" look.  Poor thing.  He's so old and sleeps outside so even though he hates it, I'm making him wear one.  I've heard about old dogs/humans just dying in their sleep because of the cold.  Am I overreacting?  Also picked up another Glasshouse candle - Oahu.  Mmmm my apartment smelled so good yesterday.

We had breakfast at the Hilton yesterday because we had a BOGOF voucher.  I wasn't overly impressed with the quality of the food I must admit.

Yup, THIS is how short I am compared to him (and I'm wearing 7cm heels)

 He's trying to be fancy by eating a donut with a knife and fork....  Really???

And then last night I made homemade ravioli.  Never again.  I broke my pasta machine and the ravioli tasted like cardboard (literally - I am not exaggerating).  Looks a million times better than it tasted.

Never looked forward to a holiday as much as South America

....because there's just so much going on here at the moment that I'm welcoming a month long break.  I had a really busy week at work last week.  You know those weeks where you eat lunch at your desk every day and you're mentally drained when you leave the office?   Then this week I've got something on every night apart from Friday night and this weekend is going to be full-on (story of my life).

Anyway as promised, I'm sharing with you my South America itinerary.  I like to call myself well-prepared, others call it mild OCD.  Whatever you want to call it, here is my itinerary spreadsheet.  I do one of these for every overseas trip I take.  It actually de-stresses me to have all this planned and locked in before I leave the country (I am not one for "lets just work out where we are going to sleep once we arrive in the country".  No sirree.  I would rather NOT leave the country).

In the first column I have weeks, second column I have dates, third column I've got average min and max temperatures which helps me when I'm packing.  The rest of it should be self-explanatory.  I've also got a spreadsheet for financials to keep a tally of how much everything is costing and also a checklist to make sure I've got all bases covered (visas, cash and vaccinations).

Things I am most looking forward to:

• Lake Titicaca - last minute inclusion on the advice of a friend who has been.  We're catching an overnight luxury bus (for a whole $29) which has wide leather seats that recline to almost horizontal, a free meal, and an air (land?) hostess on board
• Machu Picchu - thankfully catching a train up there but will hike a little bit when we get up there
• Iguazu Falls - from both the Brazilian and Argentinian sides are apparently much more amazing than Niagara Falls which I thought was a huuuuge let-down
• Ipanema and Copacabana beaches - nuff said

Only 51 days left people!!

Oh and Happy Birthday to my amazing boyfriend!!!!  Can't wait for dinner tonight.  Love you loads xx

Weekend? What weekend?

I do like to keep myself busy on weekends, but not to the point where I get to Monday and feel like it's my 8th consecutive day of work.

My "weekend" started on Friday.  I enjoyed a nice catchup lunch with some ex-work colleagues at Chinta Ria in Darling Harbour.  It ended up being a beautifully sunny day.

Saturday was my errand day, I went to the RTA (or RMS??) to have them check my e-tag.  It didn't been beeping when I went over the Harbour Bridge, but it was deducting the toll from my account.  The rude man at the RTA claimed they had emailed me saying from 1st July some older e-tags would no longer work and that because my e-tag hadn't been beeping, they had deducted an extra 55c every time I crossed the bridge (every day btw).  Couldn't even be bothered arguing with him even though I did NOT receive such an email.

Wouldn't mind that pink number plate second from bottom

Since I was in the area, I popped into Vinnies and raided their book section.  The Kite Runner is one of my fave books of all time and Jodi Picoult is one of my fave authors so I grabbed a few of her classics.  Don't know why I chucked the something shades of grey book in there - I feel like it's one of those "gotta check out what this is all about" reads.  We'll see....

I also wandered up to David Jones and took advantage of their 'extra 25% off' sale with 2 Minkpink skirts.  Got both of these for $33 - I call that cray.

I'd invited my friend and her new fiance over for dinner on Saturday so spent a few hours (yes hours I'm ashamed to say) making pasta from scratch.  Since I'd never attempted pasta before, I decided to make a small batch first to 'test' the process out.  I'm SO glad I did.  I knew the dough was too dry but I persisted with it and tried to roll it in the machine.  Because the machine was brand new, the sides of the dough came out black.  I just kept passing the dough through until the sides stopped coming out black and that's when I started on my real batch.

and with a quick 10-minute vodka sauce....

GAH so yummy!!

My friends brought over an assortment of delicious desserts - jealous??

On Sunday I attended a Sydney Louboutin Lovers meet.  We had a lovely High Tea and then a wander of the shops (Louboutin boutique of course).  I wore an Asos dress, my CL multi rasta Greissimos, Diva necklace, eQuip bracelet and YSL Arty.

Hi A, C and E!!

Aaaand now it's another week at work.  I can't believe it's only Tuesday night, I've had a realllly hectic couple of days already.

Happenings in Kay-land

To say that my life has been interesting would be, frankly, lying.  Apart from the onesie lawn bowls party last weekend of course.

Work is chugging along.  I didn't get to go on that New Zealand work trip after all - my boss and another guy are currently there.  Completely my fault but I'm still bummed about it.  I'm really enjoying driving to work though.  Actually, I love the 8.30 sleep-in more than the drive to work.  I also love getting home while it's still light.  I also love driving over the Harbour Bridge twice a day.

I mentioned last week that we had been pre-approved for a home loan.  Well the house hunt lasted 3 weeks and we are now officially putting it on the backburner.  People are going absolutely cray cray in the area of Sydney we are looking.  The house we fell in love with sold for way more than it's worth, with the owners making 50% after owning the house for just 6 years.  We're not in any hurry so we'll just wait for people to stop being crazy slash RBA to stop lowering the cash rate.

On Monday I had dinner with some friends in Mosman at the Buena Vista hotel.  They have $7 cook your own steaks with 4 different types of gravy, unlimited sides and veggies.  I think one would struggle to find a cheaper substantial meal in Sydney.  They also have chicken for the non-steak lovers.

In 62 days I will be boarding a plane to Buenos Aires.  Excitement is an understatement.  I'm now starting to work out the finer details of our trip which is when it starts becoming real.  Can't wait to share my plans with you guys.

No eBay for about a fortnight.  I don't miss it.  I have bought a few things (all very cheap though) from Asos and a blouse from Forever New but nothing more than $30.

I've gotten my cooking mojo back and trying out different recipes and everything's been tasting amazing recently (knock on wood).  I made an amazingly delicious banana bread with cream cheese (nothing wrong with being a bit naughty once in a while!).  Have also made a conscious effort to incorporate more fish into our diet.  The only fish Tom will eat is salmon so salmon it is.  Aldi have these great frozen salmon fillets which are already marinated.  All you need to do is pop in the oven/frypan for 5-10 mins and voila.  Super easy.  Also trying out chia seeds at the moment.  I like the crunch they add to my otherwise mushy yoghurt + strawberry mixture.

I saw purple carrots at Coles so thought I would try them out.  The texture is exactly the same as orange carrots but it does have a slightly different flavour.  A little sweeter I'd say.  Cooking method is the same as the orange ones.  PS - you will normally never see frozen wedges on my dinner plate, except for below.

Oh I was super excited to see a revamped baking section at my local Coles.  Yay for coloured cupcake pans and new sprinkles.  I think it's time to make a batch of cupcakes.....

Lawn bowls in a onesie.

Playing barefoot bowls in a onesie whilst drinking cider is one of the more fun things I've done in a while.

I borrowed this Pikachu onesie from my sister.  One size does not fit all, trust me.

Not a single green ball anywhere near the white ball.  Girls (pink) are winners!

My friend lives in an amazing apartment with views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House and city skyline.  Amazing.

The sunset was pretty spectacular -

Here is the gang.  Apologies for the lack of faces but you know about privacy blah blah.

Happy Birthday KG!

More things I'm grateful for...

As the new financial year kicks in I've been reflecting upon FY13 and the last few months specifically.  I've also been meaning to do another "Things I'm grateful for" post since my last one was back in early April.

• I've started driving to work so I'm grateful for my new commute time of 15-20 mins vs 1.5 hours walking/on the train (however I am NOT grateful for the parking ticket I received yesterday but that is entirely my fault)
• Shorter commute time = more sleep in time which is a massive PLUS
• I've booked everything for my South America trip.... only things left to do are apply for Brazilian visas and get vaccinated
• I've started to get the hang of things at work and am feeling much more confident in my ability - also really enjoying the projects I'm working on and the people I'm working with (for the most part!)
• My Louboutin collection is finally in a state I am happy with.  And by that I mean I own the shoes I want to own and I feel like it is a complete collection.  No this doesn't mean I will stop buying shoes but it does mean I won't stalk eBay as intensely as I have been
• While we're still on eBay, I've deleted the eBay app on my phone as part of my "attempt to shop less" movement of FY14
• Got a letter yesterday saying Congrats on finishing your Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance, your graduation will be later this year - hooray!
• We've been pre-approved for a home loan and have started the dreaded house hunt in the Sydney property market.  This relates directly to my point about shopping less; Sydney houses are bloody expensive

...and here is my random pic of the day.  The coffee cup reminds me of a barber shop.

A good day for parcels

There's nothing I love more than receiving parcels.  I'm like a little kid in a candy store.  Today I got not one but TWO parcels I've been DYING to receive (dying is an exaggeration, but that's how I roll).

The first parcel was from VirginMobile - my brand spankin new HTC One.  I am an HTC convert and can say that with full confidence as I have used iPhone and Samsung in the past with great dissatisfaction.  I've used HTC phones for the greater part of 7 years and was so excited when the HTC One came out.  I also switched over to VirginMobile so I could use 4G capability.  Take that 3G!

Obviously I've been a little distracted today by the shiny new phone on my desk.  Can't wait to get home and set it all up properly.

The second parcel I got was from a US store and contained my Louboutin black peeptoes ('Flo' for those in the know ;).  I was eyeing this off at the Sydney boutique when they first came out 6 months ago but flat out refused to pay Australian retail for them.  Ended up getting them at sale time from the US at 50% Aus RRP!  Can you believe that in my sizeable shoe collection, I do not have a single pair of black peeptoes??

I had 2 male colleagues comment on my nails by 11am this morning.  I didn't realise they were so controversial!  The glitter top coat is from Australis which I bought ages ago during their 40% off all cosmetics sale.  Got it home and realised I could only apply it on top of white nail polish.  Of course, I didn't have any white nail polish.  I call them ny confetti nails :)