Winter in Sydneyland

8 degrees in Sydney at the moment and a forecast of 2 degrees for tonight. This morning was the coldest in Sydney for 27 years! What happened to global warming? And those beautiful warm Sydney winter days? I'm snuggled up in front of the fireplace with sleep boots, the fur ball, two blankets, tea and candles and I'm still freezing cold. Could have something to do with that broken window in our lounge room...

I've started my renovation project and so far it's looking pretty good. Will keep you posted.

I've also been doing wedding cake researching tonight. That's pretty much the last thing we've got to plan. And I still need to buy wedding shoes. And there's probably a bunch of other little things I haven't thought of yet but there's still three months to go so I've got plenty of time.

I think I'm going to turn on the TV now. It's been a few months since I watched TV at home so I'm a little scared of what might happen... I wish Brett was home so we could start watching season 2 of 24!

This week's project

Make the guest bathroom usable. I can't wait until we can rip it all out and put in a new beautiful bathroom. We will hopefully start the renos within the next 6 months. Until then a new floor, mirror, toilet seat, textiles, candles and paint will have to do...

Our mid-week ski trip

It's Sunday night and I finally have some time at home to do nothing and everything I haven't had time to do in the last couple of weeks. Like update my blog. I always find it difficult to get back into blogging after a couple of days away. But I will try my best and start by telling you about last week's skiing trip.

We woke up really early Wednesday morning to drop of the fur ball at auntie Lemona's. She was pissed off and cried all the way there so it was a pretty intense start to the trip. The rest of the drive was quite pleasant and we arrived in Jindabyne just after lunch time. As I hadn't told Brett exactly where we were staying he was going crazy and used every method he could think of the get the information out of me. Once he even stopped the car and told me he couldn't drive any further as he didn't know where to go. Very immature. But he was only 28 back then so what can you expect. I also tricked him once and told him to take the next exit to Jindabyne Equestrian Resort since that's where we were going to stay. He looked extremely disappointed. Very funny.

 This is where we actually stayed. Lake Crackenback resort. In an absolutely gorgeous studio apartment. I'll definately go back there sometime.

Wednesday night we had a couple of drinks at the bar in front of the fireplace and a lovely dinner in the resort restaurant.

Thursday morning we woke up early and went for a ski in perisher. I got to try my brand new tele setup, which I was absolutely thrilled with. The only thing that could have been better was the snow - only a couple of lifts were open and there was mainly (if not only) man made snow. But we still had a great day.

Thursday night I cooked a birthday dinner for Brett, while he was enjoying his one hour birthday present massage at the Crackenback spa. He came back looking drugged, so I guess it must have been pretty relaxing.

We started off dinner with a glass of Champagne.

Followed by a soup made of Jerusalem artichoke, mushroom and shallots.

For main we had Spatchcock with Hasselback potato, parsnip puree, asparagus and a yummy dark chocolate sauce.

Of course the white chocolate pannacotta had to collapse just before I took the photo. But it still tasted divine!

On Friday we were supposed to go skiing in Thredbo, but as we arrived at the resort it was raining, so we decided it wasn't worth spending $200 on lift passes. Instead we went home a bit earlier and took a detour to a tiny town outside of Canberra, where we had lunch an amazing restaurant - Grazings. A lovely little restaurant with organic and locally produced food.

Since this is turning into an epic saga and I'm really tired I will go through the rest of the weekend very briefly. So, after we finished lunch we drove back to Sydney, picked up the cat, went home, cooked dinner, picked up Brett's parents from the airport, baked a birthday cake for Brett, had cake, had some wine, went to bed, went to uni, came home, had dinner at Manly grill, had some wine, went to bed, went to uni, came home, had dinner, organised a few things, updated my blog. And that's where we are now. Phew.

Skiing!

We're skiing in Perisher! 4 lifts are open and there's almost no real snow. But the sun is shining and I'm on teles and loving it!

12.20 am

In 5h 40 I'm taking Brett away for a secret birthday trip. Brett thinks he's got it all worked out. But nooooo...

Will be back in Sydney on midsummer's eve. Time to get some rest now.

Waiting for dinner and 24

I'm waiting for Brett to finish cooking my dinner and for our internet to pull itself together so we can finish watching the last two episodes of the first season of 24. Please Internet, don't fail me now!! And I know I'm 10 years behind. No need to comment. The only good thing about it is that we have 7 more seasons to watch! So if I don't pick up the phone in the next month or so you'll know what I'm doing.

Shopping in paddo

First day of my week off and I'm shopping with LMC in paddington. So far I've bought these cute gloves from Alannah Hill.

Pizza, party and soccer

This isn't the best photo but we had a really lovely dinner at sven's tonight with the gang. Jompa has started taking Arabic lessons and told us that his name translates to Hannah (with an accent on the H) in Arabic. So from now on he will be referred to as Hannah in the blog. He's seriously the funniest storyteller.

This was the last dinner with the gang for a while as Lmc, svg, pure blond and miss lemona will go to Sweden to enjoy summer for a couple of weeks. Guess who's jealous...

After dinner we went to a party at Lady Di's, which was crazy and fun just like her. Now we're back at home watching the socceroos. I feel Aussie enough now to support them, as opposed to the last world cup when I just found them really annoying. Maybe next world cup I'll wear a green and gold beanie. Go JC!!

One step closer..

...to victory.

My älskling is back!

I made him pannbiff for dinner.

And he brought me back this gorgeous handbag.







And champagne!






And he also fixed the fireplace! Apparently it wasn't that difficult.






So in short - it's good to have him back!

DISASTER

Our fireplace has stopped working! It worked perfectly fine this morning. What I am going to do now? Freeze to death?

darling

My attempt to study in bed was interrupted by a cuteness attack

Fitness?

Just got back from long run. I feel like I'm getting fitter than I've been in years. My goal is to be extremely fit for the ski season and to lose 3 -4 kilos before the wedding in September. So I'm going to keep jogging for 30-45 minutes every day. I've realised that I love food too much to change my diet dramatically so I'm hoping that jogging will be enough to achieve my goals.

Now I'm going to have a shower and spend the rest of the day studying and wedding planning. And listen to all the drunk people walking home from the pub later on tonight. Can't believe I have to study on a public holiday...

My lunch

Roasted sweet potato,leek and garlic soup.

I just got back from my usual jogging round and I'm not even tired. I'm usually dripping with sweat. That could only mean that I'm getting fit(er)!

I've also organised a surprise for Brett's birthday. I think he will really like it! Hehehehe..

Technology fail

I'm in bed just about to go to sleep. I've been spending the last hour trying to pay some bills but I'm not having much luck. Apparently my credit card has expired - and I haven't got a replacement card. Vodafone's bill paying service is down at the moment and I can't log into my online bank for some reason. I'm giving up. Shirin just arrived at the bed and wants to snuggle in under my armpit (yes we have a strange cat) so I guess I should just go to bed. Goodnight!

Climbing adventures

Brett, D and I went climbing today in the Blueys. It's always an adventure to go climbing with Brett. He has no fear and has 100% confidence in everything he does. Which I admire him for. But I'm not as confident as Brett when it comes to doing long, exposed lead climbs, so the climb we did today, Baby Carrots, (although not being very difficult) made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. Not unsafe. Just uncomfortable.

The climb started halfway down the wall, so we had to abseil down and belay from a tine, tiny ledge. Brett really enjoyed the climb, but neither D nor I were that impressed by the total exposure of a hanging belay climb 30 meters above the ground, so I don't think I'll be back anytime soon. I prefer to belay with both legs safely on the ground. But it was still an awesome day in the mountains and it was so nice to get out of the city and away from my desk for a while. Check out Brett's blog for some more pics from today.

My alskling is off on a work trip tomorrow so I'll be relying on Shirin for keeping the bed warm for the next week. Our apartment is freezing cold! 15 degrees. Maybe less. And we still haven't come to a conclusion about the car. I've been doing a lot of car research tonight. I must have looked at every Forester and X-trail in Sydney (on the web) and emailed Brett the ones I think we should look at. Brett claims he would like to get a Forester but he still seems negative about the ones that I suggest we get. And very positive about the X-trails. It makes me suspicious.  

Forester or Xtrail

The search for the perfect car has begun! It's between an X-trail or a Forester. My vote is for the Forester and Brett thinks he wants an X-trail. He doesn't like the non colour-coded bumper of the Foresters. I don't particularly like Nissans. We'll have to wait and see who wins...

Tired

I haven't blogged for 4 days. This week has been soo hectic. I'm too tired to come up with anything to write about right now. Just thought I'd let you know that I'm still alive. Going to snuggle up in front of the fireplace with a glass of red now. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to write about tomorrow. Just wish it would stop raining...