Poofy skirt makes climbing out of cars hard!

I have been digging around my wardrobe for things to sell on eBay. But really, I am not sure why I bother! I hate waiting and listing and writing descriptions for not much payback.

Anyway, as I was rummaging I found things that I have not touched or worn in like mmmm 5 years!!! What a disgrace! And I had one of those lightbulb moments where I go. Oh wait yeah right, I do have one of those skirts. Where did that skirt go to? Rummage some more ….

So this golden beigey skirt was one of them. I bought this in G2000 Singapore Raffles City. Just swanning downstairs from our Singapore office … as you do when in Singapore. Eat and shop at our lunch times! The thing about Singapore shops and restaurants is totally awesome is affiliation with credit card companies. G2000 (well back then!) had a promotion with American Express cards. You get a certain discount when you purchase with a AMEX card. Bear in mind I cannot even use this card in Australia without having to pay a surcharge! I was keen to get a shopping with this!

It was a random purchase where I thought I would get something that I do not normally get. So poofy golden skirt it was! Poofy with no split and the hem slightly narrow .. oh great.

I put it on this morning and was running late to drop the boys off at daycare (story of my life). I had my handbag (Miu Miu today by the way) and my laptop bag (story of my life again). Door wide open, threw my bag in and then tried to climb in. Bam… got stuck! :P I could not climb into the car the usual way – unladylike one leg into the car first.

Got to daycare, car door wide open trying to get out. Bam legs are stuck together. Damn… it!

The CLAW unleashed again OPI Strawberry Margarita

I have to admit that I am having fun and laughing at the CLAW pictures. I had removed Pink Friday last week and been waiting for a night when I can paint my nails in peace. That is my youngest son who wanted to sit outside and dig in dirt as they do! And he was very annoyed I was doing the CLAW on him. Managed to snap it just in time.

I have wanted this colour FOREVER. It is OPI Strawberry Margarita - a really gorgeous pink.

Have been meaning to show you guys around the progress in the front yard. This was all dirt and weeds before. I cannot tell you how embarrassing it is to be the shocker of the street and one time I overheard a passerby say out loud, this is a weed garden. You would not think that a gardener by trade lived here!

So here are some of our very clawable plants.

Weeping Cherry Tree right out the front of the house ... isn't it looking so claw-worthy? I think the green sets off the pink beautifully.

Blooming yellow roses that came back to life after the belting from the Christmas hail.

Something which I believe are daisies but knowing my awesome knowledge in gardening. I am wrong!

Oh look, I am patting the grass again ... in the shade! Notice that I am wearing the Love ring from Issa Homewares in Ivanhoe? I managed to swap it over for one that would fit.

Until next time when the CLAW comes out again!

Weekends are cooking groundhog days to me

Weekends are so deja vu, it's like groundhog weekends.

This is what I normally do with some deviations to the schedule. This is what I usually cook on the weekends. Soup or spag bol. I need meals for the kids during the week for days they go to the Nun's and when you need go to meals in the freezer/fridge after work.

I normally cook this soup as there is a lot of chopping and it is the only way that they will eat vegetables. It is a chicken and vegetable soup ... mmmm nommy.

What you need for this soup is 2 carrots, a large or 2 small zucchinis, 2/3 stalks of celery, 1 leek, garlic minced.

Brown your leek and garlic, dice carrots, zucchini and celery and chuck that in too. Add in your dry soup mix (washed and drained) ... Don't ask me how much! I use chicken drumsticks for this and would need about 3 or 4. Add in 7 cups of chicken stock and 1 cup of water. Simmer for a few hours.

Take chicken drumsticks out and pull off the meat. Discard any skin or "funny" bits. And add the meat back to the soup.

Australia Day Breakfast

A "we will have an early night" turned into laughing at YouTube videos and reliving my youth through 90s rock videos until midnight! Remember this song?

Damn they had good hair in the 90s. This is pre-GHD y'all. So Australia Day morning we were like this - sad face cat.

We had no eggs in the house so decided to go out for breakfast. The plan was Miss Marie cafe in Rosanna and then Doncaster Westfield. Yayyyy.. Since we bought the Nespresso, we have not gone out for breakfast or had take away coffees on the weekends.

So this is what I had. Corn fritters and smoked salmon. Mick had the big breakfast and the boys shared butter and vegemite sourdough toast.

Lucky we got there before the pram brigade. This place is always busy and everyone seems to know each other.

Another plus, we managed to hit Doncaster Westfield before the parking went nutty. We went into Daiso. Aka land of little cute things and before you know it you have spent $20-something dollars! The funny thing is I saw another family who was at Miss Marie earlier at Doncaster. This must be the ritual for families!

Happy Australia Day aka a great excuse to have a public holiday. :)

Stop.. just stop with the Fathers are stupid stereotypes

I did not notice this before. But Mick pointed out ages ago before we had children that ads are always portraying the Father as the 'stupid' one. The one that forgets what to buy in the supermarket. The one that cannot clean up the house and the Mother walks in and starts shaking her head. The one that cannot even work out how to use a air freshener. After he told me that, I started noticing that it was true. Have you ever noticed this?

There was a day that Mick took the two boys into the city to see my GP. We just cannot find a decent on near us and was willing to take both of them into the city during business hours. So they parked at my office building in the morning and we saw the folks in my team. I love having the boys visit and looking around all cute in the office. D will look out the window and stare at the cars and people walking downstairs from the 18th floor. My colleague, a mother herself asked if Mick could handle both children. He looked upset for a second and said of course I can. I said yeah erm... You should ask me that question as I know that I cannot.

A few of us in my old team had children around the same time. One was saying how she is working part time and could not take additional time off during the week as it was already hard to catch up on work. So her husband took the day off this time and stayed home. Mind you the child is now about 11months. She said out loud, I wonder if he is able to cope without me. Why? There is one child and he is the Father? I am pretty much vocal about this as I do not think that it is healthy to be a martyr about childcare duties. She said it is because she has always been with the daughter and he had never been alone with her. The other lady started about her situation that at almost 2 years old or probably more than 2 years old she is just starting to leave the house without her child and leaving him with his Father. I also said out loud, just leave the house! He is 2 years old! You are not leaving him with a teenage stranger!

What is going on? Martyrdom? I also cannot stand this next phrase and I keep reading it on FB. Thanks to her/his Dad for BABYSITTING. Dad is not babysitting, Dad is taking care of his child. Annoyed.

Ok get off soap box and waits for others to abuse me.

Costco 2012 - Again I am ripped off

This happened to me last time as well and I am starting to feel like i'm a bit of a hawk at the cashier. I watch them scan my items like a crazy woman. Last time I was there, they overcharged me by scanning something twice. I picked it up immediately as I looked at the receipt not believing that I had spent $300 with half a trolley.

Yesterday I had sour face Russell who was my cashier. He scanned that I bought 3 of an item but it was only 2 that I took. I know it is $4.30 but still... I rang them and they said the next time I am there to tell them what happened and I will get a refund. Took me a little while whether I should call them or not as I thought they would not believe me. The reason I did not check the receipt before I left was because I had a trolley load of items and it was not the $400 that I expected to pay. Oh well, that will teach me.

So after whinging about Costco about $4.30, what do I do? Jump on NAP and start browsing of course. Look at that clutch!! Do not buy it people, I want it!

Mandatory CLAW!

Because you asked for it and I am laughing my head off at CLAW comments. All these pictures were taken in the sunlight except for the clawing of the lime tree and with my lousy iPhone 3GS.


This is probably not good for my hand modeling career launch. Check me out clawing at my lime tree! It is claw-able.


And do not judge me for my toes and feet. I have used Guy meets Gal-veston on my paws.

Plus some more non-clawing of mah hand. Oh look I am patting the grass!

Nails!

I have not done a nail post ever! Like ever! I think that Instagram and Twitter has made me jump back into the nail polish wearing cool crowd. That and ermmm discovering cheap OPI is also a plus!

When I was in high school, I used to paint my nails on the Friday and have coloured nails on the weekend. I had Hard Candy nail polishes and I also wore the plastic matching rings that the bottles came with. Hard Candy back in my day was not a Walmart cheapie that it is now. It was about USD$10-ish but bear in mind the USD was strong in those days. It would retail for about $27 or the like. For a teenager, this was a lot of money! But I went to the Hard Candy nail polish stand to get my eyebrows done and I would sometimes get a new colour. I would have the most outrageous nail colours. Blue glitter, dark green like a Christmas tree colour, bright shimmer reds. My mum did not mind this and I think that was my way of being unusual. She would often bring fashion magazines that were from the US home for me. And they were spectacular. Through those magazines, I discovered Urban Decay! Yes kids, I was COOL! I had midnight cowboy eyeshadow before many of you even knew what eyeshadow was. It was packed full of glitter in those days and I have to say that today's version is not the same.

Anyway, so this is my OPI haul from the first order.

Pink Friday - Nicky whatshername collection
Guy meets Gal-veston - Texas collection
Suzi sells sushi by the seashore - can someone tell me who is this Suzi?
Strawberry margarita

Oh I am wearing Pink Friday and you will just have to take my word for it. Because I will not take a CLAW picture of myself. LOL

Shoe Hall of Shame

After outfits, comes the shoes. Again if you do not agree with me, just close the window and walk away. Do not hurt a woman for having an opinion.

I am sorry Pleaser, yes I know that you manufacture stripper shoes. And you are currently branching out and trying to get into the glamour, burlesque and pinup market. But there is no excuse for creating a shoe called Swan. This shoe should be called Duck, it rhymes with Fug.

Yes Jimmy Choo, we all choos you but no I do not want to look like an Amazonian woman that pulled on some heels and stomped through a chicken coop. It is no coincidence that this was on sale for ages in NAP and there was ample stock in every size available.

Many years ago, when I started pole dancing. THE look was leg warmers over your high heeled sneaker runners. Yes, runners with high heels. Thank gawd this look has died. I am a hard core stripper style pole dancer. I favour 6inch heels over barefoot. There you can shoot me now. Thankfully this has died out ... for another 5 years maybe!

Casual Friday Outfit Post

Bear in mind that I spent a good 2.5 years wearing maternity wear. So I do not care if you think I'm vain or whatever. This post is about me and me.. Oh wait that's what my entire blog is about.

Officially casual Friday is once a month. And the sadness if you ever forgot it was casual Friday. There used to be lots of chatter about the office on the Thursday before casual Friday. OMG it's casual day tomorrow, don't forget! Unofficially, it started to become every other Thursday, the 2nd and last Friday of the month. When there's a 5 Friday month, you get a bonus thrown in for good measure. Then a certain department that is suppose to adhere to policies decided it was EVERY Friday. We had stuck to every other as every Friday can sometimes degenerate to clubbing outfit Friday.

Jeans was always an issue for me when I was pregnant. The bloody things did not stay up and I would be constantly pulling them up every other step. I cannot tell you how much I love my old jeans. Yeap I am still wearing my old jeans, actually everything that I am wearing is pre-babies. Armani Exchange jacket, Diesel jeans and good old cheapie Valleygirl hot pink top. Love rummaging through Valleygirl.

I love outsourcing and divorce is more expensive!

Many many months ago, I chugged down the road to a mother's group meet. I believe that little D would have been about 5months old. And I was about to go back to work. Or actually, maybe he was younger. Anyway I have waffled again.
I was sitting around the circle and I said oh I finally found a cleaner. And I have finally convinced my husband that we should have a cleaner. I basically told him that divorce was more expensive. They was someone else who said, "Mine would divorce me if I had a cleaner." Another said, "I would love one, but he is right I don't do anything at home anyway."

Replicate this conversation a few times over and at different settings. I have had the SAME conversation at work with working married women who do not have children. It is usually the male partner that gets all protective and territorial about allowing a cleaner.

There was someone in my Facebook group of mothers who were asking for tips for a new bride and she wanted to collect it all into a box for her to read as a gift. I said GET A CLEANER! OUTSOURCE! Sick of yelling at your husband to mow the lawn? Outsource!

For Mick, it was not the cost of having a cleaner that was prohibitive. He felt strange sitting around doing nothing while the cleaner came in and cleaned. Anyway the good news is, he got used to it. And he did see the benefits in having someone come in to help. And every so often I ask was I right? Yes, I was. Smug look. I can honestly say that we did stop arguing once we had a cleaner. It stemmed from different ways of doing things, different standards etc. But seriously, we both just did not want to spend time on the weekend doing a mundane thing like cleaning. We wanted to go out and do things together. So he did not like having the cleaner come in while he sat in the house. We always had the cleaner coming when the kids and him were not home. I on the other hand is not ashamed to say that I can sit down while she was cleaning.

There you go, you can thank me later for my marriage tips.

ChaTime!

Everyday should be ChaTime in my books. There is a new ChaTime open in a mall that I usually go to.
Stalkers of mine should know where. LOL!

But seriously I have been waiting for this place to open for ages! Also dangerously close to my office, there is a new outlet that shares the Academic General book store. I have heard of people in Sydney raving about this bubble tea place. So I spoke to the manager who was serving me that day. She said you can customise the sweetness as they do not use powder for bubble tea. They use fruit juices and add the sugar syrup at the end. Ok I have to say I cannot go back to Bubble Cup now, that stuff is just no no. And I pretty much almost cried when MoMo Bubble tea closed down in Box HIll as it was SO GOOD! I ordered the Matcha Green tea with red beans. Even Mick that does not like red beans loved it!

Unfortunately D hated it and said it was yucky. Stuck his tongue out and said no Mummy. I think the matcha was a little strong for him! I love this stuff.. Dangerous! I think I might be addicted.

Spaghetti Bolognese random style

I have lusted for a Le Creuset for years. It is very sad to confess this. 1) I confessed that I am lusting for COOKWARE. 2) It is about I don't know $200-300 and I still have not bought one. Of course you cannot go past Aldi without going through the middle section. What I call the Aldi aisle of junk that you cannot resist buying. There was a lovely Aldi copy version for less than $30. Holler - I am in. Thank goodness we have a trolley this time.

The first thing I cooked was bolognese sauce as I thought it was perfect for it. It browned the onions very well and created a fantastic caramelised base for the sauce. Simmered really nicely and it looked fantastic.

My problem with bolognese is I do it in random fashion. A bit of this and that and sometimes I forget what I had put in the last and the yummiest version as I splashed the wine in randomly and chucked celery salt in it for whatever reason. Oh that looked quite right .. I think... or I think I will use up the rest of this milk! Now I am not able to recreate that fantastic version that I had the other day.

Things that I randomly chuck in - if I have it on hand.

Onion
Garlic
1/2 kg of mince beef
1/2 kg of veal
Red Wine
Beef stock cubes
3 tins of diced tomatoes
Milk
Bay Leaves
Carrots - sometimes I grate it at the end
Celery
Celery salt

At this point in time that's all that I can remember! I am going to have to edit this later when I remember something else!

Summer Foods Dilemma

Every year at this time of the year I am stumped for dinner ideas. It is too hot, I cannot be bothered and no I do not like salads - I must be doing my salads wrong. Or maybe it's the cafes that keep trying to pass off undressed rocket as salad has killed my enthusiasm for it.

The boys do not eat salad and I do not blame them, Mama Ling doesn't like it herself. This is why I can never be on a diet... but anyway I digress yet again.

Today I went to the supermarket and got soup ingredients for Chicken and Vegetable soup. This is hardly summer foods! HELPPPP..... This is one of the reasons I miss Foxtel. But it was definitely not paying so much for the reruns of OLD crappy TV. I used to watch Lifestyle Food religiously and would be inspired somewhat by the cooking shows. This hot weather reminds me of a Nigella Lawson episode where she was cutting up watermelon. I cannot say that I am her fan, in fact I watch her and make fun of the double entenders and innuendos. Honestly this woman is the queen of it. If she claimed to be in 2nd place for it, nobody else will be able to claim the 1st prize!

Check out this video .. it had me in stitches. Skip to 5:40 where she is chopping up the watermelon. ... of course her mouth can accommodate!