7 weeks til Christmas people!!

Where has the time FLOWN??

This year has just zipped past for me.  If I think back to this time last year....

• I was in a different job at a different company in a different industry, dealing with a grossly incompetent and sexist Manager.  Thank god I got out of that one quick stat
• I've changed jobs twice since then and today I absolutely love my job and my team and my current contract will take me through to my wedding next year
• I had just returned from South America where I saw my cousin marry her Argentinian fiance, and going to house inspections trying to find a new place to live after our landlord gave us notice that they were trying to sell the apartment
• I obtained my Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance and declared I would never participate in any further post-grad study.  This still stands.
• I wasn't yet engaged and was not organising a wedding + honeymoon and had a LOT more free time
• I was lamenting about the fact that I don't exercise (actually that's not specific to this time last year but more a general statement) and I am actually proud to say that in addition to walking to work a few times a week (3.5km) I have joined a gym and doing Pilates/Pump/Boxing regularly.  I explored bikram yoga a few times but stopped that due to hypermobility.

What were you doing 12 months ago?

Oh I forgot to mention Christmas.  I feel like Christmas this year will be dealt with the week before.  I really don't have as much free time as I would have liked as I usually like to be organised for Christmas.  Luckily I am off work from 22nd Dec so there will be a lot of last-minute planning/shopping in the few days before Christmas.

Also, I am leaving for Bali on 2nd Jan so I really need to get my butt into gear and organise myself for that.  I don't even want to talk about the fact that I paid $900 for flights to Bali which were on sale for $120 a few days ago for the same flight dates.  

What are your Christmas plans?

Glasses vs contacts vs Lasik

I'm short-sighted and have been wearing glasses since highschool.  In preparation for the wedding I decided I would try contacts (who wants to wear glasses, walking down the aisle in a beautiful wedding gown?).  I had attempted to wear contacts many many years ago when my sisters started wearing them but I just could not stick my finger in my eye - can't do it.

This time I thought I'd be a bit more mature about it, watched some youtube videos and had my Mum on hand to give me advice.  10 minutes later I was just able to touch my eyeball with my finger but the damn contact wouldn't leave the finger and attach itself to my eye.  Every time I attempted to place the contact in and upon pulling my finger away discovered the contact was still on my finger.

I tried again a few weeks later.  It wasn't any better, still couldn't get it on.  Then I spoke to my Uncle who suggested I go to the Optometrist and get him to put it in so I can feel what it feels like on the eyeball.  He said it feels like sand initially (?!) but you get used to it.  I can barely handle when I feel like I have an eyelash on my eyeball, I really don't think I can handle contacts.

So I started considering laser eye surgery.  It's a quick surgery and hopefully little to no ongoing maintenance, however there is a risk.

Has anyone had laser eye surgery and what was your experience?

Wedding colour scheme inspiration board

I created an inspiration board for my wedding using our chosen wedding colours - mainly navy and silver with a splash of fuchsia.

Another day, another (few) parcels.....

Honestly I need to cut back on the excessive shopping.  I go through peaks and troughs (peaks more than troughs, let's be honest) and right now I'm peaking.  It's terrible.  I have no self-control.  But at least I'm picking up bargains.... right?  Right??

Ozsale had One Teaspoon and Cheap Monday sales recently so I grabbed a few things:

One Teaspoon silk shirt (in black, not mink) - $30
One Teaspoon tux shirt (with a black bib, not grey) - $30
Cheap Monday Second Skin jeans - $35
Cheap Monday jeans in Dark Clean wash - $10

Then I found the outnet sale - extra 30% off!

Ash suede wedge sneakers - I'm going to attempt a DIY black dye job - USD$103

Image via theoutnet.com

Bloch two-tone ballet flats - USD$63

Image via theoutnet.com

Walter Baker silk shirt - USD$70

Image via theoutnet.com

Elle MacPherson red lace bra - USD22

Image via theoutnet.com

There's plenty more where that came from - I just can't recall all my shopping expeditions right now!

Parking signs

A few years ago I instagrammed this photo of a parking sign in North Sydney.

Ridiculous.  

I'm glad to read about the proposal to make parking signs graphic to make it easier to read:

Image via smh.com.au

What do you think about this?  Would you prefer the graphical signs or do our existing signs not bother you?

PS - does it annoy anyone else that the graphic computer-generated sign doesn't match the parking restrictions in the photo??  No?  Just me?.....

Tuna nicoise salad with oozy egg

I make this salad at least once a fortnight.  Tom is sick of it but I still love it so I keep making it.

I can't remember which recipe I started off using but I've modified it along the way to the point where I've perfected it now.

Ingredients:

• 2 baby cos lettuce
• 1 punnet (250g) grape or cherry tomatoes
• handful green beans
• 700g potatoes, quartered or smaller (I just use whatever potatoes I have in the pantry or whatever I buy from the supermarket.  I have no idea if they are the right ones to use or not but I've never had it taste bad based on potato choice)
• 425g can of tuna in olive oil
• 4 fresh* eggs
• about... 10 olives flattened and finely diced
  
  * use fresh eggs because old eggs take about 10 times longer to de-shell and will frustrate the crap out of you

Dressing:

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Red wine vinegar/white wine vinegar/apple cider vinegar/balsamic vinegar
• Wholegrain/sweet wholegrain/dijon mustard
• Salt and sugar

Ok I got yelled at by my sister for putting whole eggs in the same pot as potatoes and beans, but I've never gotten sick from it so is it really that bad (if it is, please let me know!)

So I'm super lazy and will streamline dinner making wherever possible.  So I: 

1. chuck potatoes into boiling water for 6 mins
2. then I add the beans and eggs to the pot for 4 mins
3. then strain potatoes and beans, adding them to the salad bowl.  Run eggs under cold water and then de-shell

You can, more sensibly, put potatoes and beans in one pot and eggs in another pot but if you do this reduce the egg cooking time to 3 mins.

While the pot is boiling away, prepare the ingredients highlighted in italic above.  When everything is in the salad bowl (excluding eggs), dress the salad.  The last thing I do is add the egg to the centre of each plate (1 egg per plate) and pierce it so the egg runs.  Then I add a tiny pinch of salt to the egg itself (OCD but makes it taste SO much better).

This recipe makes enough for Tom and I for dinner plus a lunch for me but Tom eats HEAPS so it would probably be enough for 4 people for dinner.  If it's not quite enough just add more potatoes/beans.

Oh one last thing - the cooking times noted will need to be adjusted based on how large the pieces of potato are and the volume of potatoes.  And with the dressing - I change up the vinegar/mustard combination depending on what I feel like so just do whatever.  One of my faves is mixing red wine vinegar with balsamic.

OH sorry another thing - I did also try this recipe with tuna steaks but it didn't taste anywhere near as good so stick to the canned stuff!

Enjoy!

Becoming a bag lady

I don't know what's happened lately but I've found myself buying bags recently.

I used to be content with the one everyday bag and one or two clutches but suddenly I have I think 10 bags?  What's going on?

I've added another Longchamp to my collection and purchased my first Michael Kors.

Longchamp Planetes medium in black:

Image sourced from Nordstrom

Michael Kors Sutton medium in Dark Khaki (so weird that Americans consider this to be khaki when us Aussies think of the light forest green as khaki):

Image sourced from Avenue K

Have you purchased any bags lately?  What did you get?

Missoni for Target

The Target website was down for the greater part of the release day last week and after refreshing my browser a few times, I forgot about it.  Then I was at Westfield Chatswood on the weekend and popped into Target to peruse the goods.  I don't think the products are as nice in person as photos online show them to be.

Unfortunately the womens clothes in-store had nothing smaller than a size 12 or girls clothes had nothing larger than a 9 (for reference I am a womens 4-6 and a girls 10-12) so I decided to order online.

Girls Harem pants

Photo courtesy of Target.com.au

Womens silk maxi dress

Photo courtesy of Target.com.au

Tea towels

Photo courtesy of Target.com.au

And I wanted to grab this baby blanket as well but.. well..... I have no baby.... kinda difficult to justifty...

Photo courtesy of Target.com.au

Accidental hiatus

It seems I took an accidental hiatus from blogging while my life has been a continuous cycle of work > sleep > work > sleep > see friends/family > sleep.

Each work day consists of back-to-back meetings unless I can duck out to see the chiro/physio/odd gym class.  Some work days don't end til 11pm :S

I'm also organising wedding stuff in any down time I have as well as planning a last-minute trip to Bali with my sister.

Just want to pop in and say Hello I'm still alive.  I will hopefully be back to tell you more about the things that have been keeping me busy!