Stalk my Weekend: Brunch, Soup, Shopping

Oh yeah..... this weekend had been a goodie. I actually did stuffs. People who follow me on Twitter would know that I sometimes tweet that I am incredibly lucky in life. Yeap.. but can you believe this? I sure as heck did not when I received the email. I thought it was spam. I had an email saying that I won the Uni Hill Factory outlet facebook competition. It went to my spam folder - so please check your spam folders in future. I thought yeah right.. the email is probably from Nigeria and wants me to log in with my bank details. I examined the domain name of the email address. I typed it into a new Web Browser... it was right. So what did I win? I won $500 shopping vouchers at a list of stores at Uni Hill. I selected what stores I wanted and how many from each store in terms of $50 vouchers. Nike, Laura Ashley, Cotton On! Then I also won the Kabuki brush from Master Makeup in TheMadeUpMaiden's giveaway. While we are on this subject, more importantly I am also very very fortunate that I have never had to go to a supermarket and thought to myself I cannot buy what I need because I do not have enough money. That's another one of those what I am grateful for this week thoughts.

Cosmetics Fragrance Direct: Ulta goodies

On Sunday we trooped off to Uni Hill as it is pretty much the closest discount store to us. On a WTF note, I actually drove to Southwharf DFO and paid for parking as well to go to Cosmetics and Fragrance outlet. What was wrong with me? There was one with free parking around the corner from me. Check out their store and Ulta goodies. They now have a wall mounted with clear containers filled with Essie nail polishes that are $6 each. I told myself no and walked away!

Pickles wanted to carry the shopping

So with my Cotton On Kids vouchers, I bought 6 long sleeve Tshirts for the boys for childcare. In summer, they wear Threadless short sleeve for daycare but in winter we found that they had nothing suitable! They were on offer for 2 for $20 so I paid $10 for them using my voucher. Also bought some cotton PJ pants with cassette tapes on them for Mick. 30% off storewide that day at Brands United and that included CK bras and underwear that they had. They say that every week they have different offers but I am happy with 30% off. We looked at Nike as I asked for $100 there and Laura Ashley. $60 quilt covers at Laura Ashley AND 25% off storewide too. Hells yeah I love bargains!

Corn Fritters with Avo and Fried Egg

Eggs Benedict on potato rosti

I bring you back to the start of the weekend when we took a train part of the way to go into the city! You cannot imagine the joy the boys had on the train. They felt so special and important going into Melbourne Central. Unfortunately Pickles refused to walk after half a block and had to be carried up the rest of the 1.5 blocks ... uphill. Met up with BFF from work to have a chowdown at this new urban looking Operator 25.
Talk about attention to detail... look at those plates. That one at the top is from Made in Japan! The poached eggs were amazing and having eggs benedict on potato rosti instead of just plain old muffins were brilliant. Corn fritters were yummy and the avo mousse just pretty and so elegant. How good does it look?

D said he wanted chocolate croissant

Boys had their chocolate croissant and Pickles decided he would eat all of his and whatever D left as well. I think he has a chocolate addiction. What a great place this was and would come back. At the same time I am shocked at brunch prices due to eating at cheap Chinese places all the time on the weekend. LOL less than $30 feeds all 4 of us at those places!

After spending all that on just brunch. Frugal Sunday night kicked in and I made Chicken & Corn soup from scratch... read I made the actual stock too. I think my stock needed brushing up but it was ok. I also made Cauliflower & Cheese soup. After all that soup making, Pickles tells me I don't like soup. Fine.. he had leftover pasta. D had several bowls of soup then told me, let's eat the soup together as he starts digging into mine too. There's no pictures of the soup so you'll just have to believe that it happened! LOL