Tomorrow – I have work (of course), I get my tooth implant, I’ve got postgrad orientation stuff to do at uni and then I have The Whitlams with the QSO tomorrow night.
Friday – Work and then straight to the airport to catch a flight to Hobart.
Saturday – Wedding of my cousin on the beach at Coles Bay/Freycinet
Sunday – Post wedding activities and flying home Sunday night.
Monday – Work and first uni lecture
Tuesday – Fly to Japan for 2 weeks. (Yeah, I’ll be missing four classes – two for each subject, whilst I’m away)
I’m so crazy looking forward to going to Japan. G (one of my best girl friends) and I are going to have a blast (literally as they having a bit of a cold snap at the moment and it is forecast to snow for the days we are up in the alps!!!).
It’s going to be crazy. I bought a new lens the other week, the 28mm 1.8 which will be one of the two lenses I’m taking to Japan, the other will be the 50mm 1.4. I was thinking of taking my 16-35mm 2.8 but it is a heavy piece of glass. I took a few photos with the 28mm the other day and I’m impressed
I’ve thought about staying up till TC Yasi crosses the coast watching the twitter feeds but at the end of the day there is nothing I can do down here yet and I do have work tomorrow and the braces come off tomorrow as well. The people I know up north are all prepared as they can be so all we can do is sit and wait for the train wreck to happen.
I made the Iced VoVo cake from Raspberri Cupcake last night/this morning for an afternoon tea at work today and it went down quite well. I used the strawberry jam I made before Christmas on the cake as well 🙂
I think this could have been the theme song for the eastern seaboard states this summer. It’s something everyone is talking and asking about. Just how is the water?
I’m now mostly settled back in the family home. I did however receive an upgrade from the West Room (my former residence as young adult) to the Balcony Suite (which my two brothers lived in at various times). Apart from obviously having a balcony (it’s 2.5m x 0.9m as in big enough to have perhaps a table and chair but no more than that) it has windows on two sides facing south and east over the garden. I’m not just talking about a window on each side. I’m talking about windows that run the entire length of two sides of the room from thigh height to the ceiling.
Believe me I’m in light heaven. There is light and I love the light.
Went to lunch today at Gusto da Gianni at Portside with the ladies from work as one of the nurses turn 60 on Wednesday. The decor was interesting, cohesion was lacking in some areas, not just with the decor but also with the serving ware. Every single dessert dish came on different serving ware. The gelato was served in a what is best described as a Tuscan pasta bowl and the tiramisu was in a gorgeous conical frustum glass bowl. It was different. That aside the food was generally pretty ok.
These photos are the end of the flood for me. I’ve spent time with SES cleaning up streets, I’ve spent time in my own clothes cleaning up streets, I’ve spent time sorting through my belongings and the water logged belongings of total strangers.
The house on Saturday 15 Jan
The house on Thursday 13 Jan in the early morning.
and that folks is how the water rose and fell on the house that I used to live in.
Well, I’m sitting at my Mum’s house as I type this as in a few hours we’ll be heading to the airport to go to NZ for 10 days to hang out with my Aunt and her family. It’s funny, at work people have been asking why I’m going to NZ for Christmas to which I reply I have family there and the response is always the same or similar “Helen, you have family everywhere” (in matter of fact not really, just Iceland, London, NZ and Tassie but it does seem like everywhere).
All my baking and creating has now come to an end for a year as I handed out presents and parcels to friends and co-workers over the last few days.
All the staff in my section received a little goodie bag, which consisted of 2 Christmas Tree sugar cookies, 1 Lebkuchen Man and 2 little chocolates.
The front.
The back.
My girls all received a double stack of decadent goodies. Which was filled with a jar of my Strawberry Jam (which reminds me I must take a photo of one of my jars – they looked so pretty), sugar cookies, vanilla rings, rum balls, sunshine/apricot balls, 3 types of nut brittle (hazelnut, peanut and almond), loftkökur and lebkuchen. That also reminds me, I’ll have to take a picture of of what the little bags inside the boxes look like -that will have to happen next year.
Tomorrow is a lovely day. December 1, the countdown more officially begins for Christmas. On Sunday, I lit the first candle in my Advent wreath. Tonight, I’ve spent the evening making a big paper chain garland, not exactly sure where I will hang it but probably crisscrossing the ceiling of my room. The most important decision that I need to make between now and tomorrow is where I’m going to put my little tree this year. The first thing I did when I came home from work this afternoon was to polish the silver tray I put it on.
ahhh exciting times. This weekend I’ll be doing my first “official” batch of baking and making.
I’m a bit disappointed that I won’t get to put up my vintage tinsel tree this year but there’s not much point since I’ll be in NZ for Christmas.
Saturday night was the Christmas Party and oh it was a great night. Check out my hair!
I got my hair done on Saturday morning and that really made me decide what I was wearing – I had about 3 options lined up and in the end settled on the frock in the above photo (obviously), it’s from Veronika Maine and I love it. It was my birthday frock this year. I found the glasses on ebay – got 3 pair of empty frames for about $15 (score). If I ever need glasses, I hope I can get lenses put in those frames … I wore a netted petticoat to pouf the dress out, pearls (of course) and on my lips was MAC Ruby Woo (that classic matte red lipstick). I’ll have to wait till I get some photos off the others to show you the shirt I got for N. It’s a classic.
We had everything from 20’s flappers to us Mid Century Girls to 80’s glam rock. Just about everyone put a lot of effort into their outfits which made judging for the various prizes very hard!
and before you say it is 38 days, I count down till the 24th, it’s the day we do Christmas.
I love Christmas. Without a doubt it is my favourite time of year. The last few days I’ve been working on some of my Christmas crafting and I’m doing my first batch of Christmas baking tomorrow. In saying all that though, this Christmas is going to be oh so very different to any Christmas past. There’s no Pabbi to dish out the rice pudding or to hand out presents from the tree. When we were in London on the way home from Iceland, we came up with the idea to go to New Zealand for Christmas to hang out with Mum’s sister and her family. Mum, Grandad and I are going (Matthew was not interested in the idea and is staying home) on the night of the 23rd and return on the night of the 31st. Will be great to catch up with my cousins and get to see the first great-grandchild.
I’m so tempted to start putting up decorations in my room but I’ll wait till Dec 1… though I’m going to hang a few porcelain snow flakes in the next few hours. They are white, you’ll hardly be able to see them hanging from the white shelf against the white wall …
This Saturday is the Christmas BBQ for the Icelandic Club -> hence the Christmas baking tomorrow. Really looking forward to the BBQ especially to catch up with one of my good friends who I’ve not seen in an obscene amount of time. I’m going to take along a big container of Loftkökur … mmmm. A funny note to mention, google Loftkökur and my recipe is normally the first or the second result to appear :). When I was in Iceland a few months ago, one of my sister’s told me that someone she knew had been raving about this Loftkökur recipe that she had found on the net and how great it was. She sent the link to my sister and my sister replied – that recipe is from my sister 🙂 so funny.
In order to make Loftkökur, though I need the secret ingredient so I made a trip over to Mum’s today to pick up the Hartshorn salt, I also “borrowed” two of her biscuit trays … and I brought home some of my Christmas decorations.
mmm Hartshorn salt, there’s nothing quite like a sniff of Ammonium bicarbonate.
In other news, I go back to work tomorrow! yikes. I’ve got some crutches which make getting around easier. The first thing on the agenda for me to do tomorrow at work will be finish organising the Christmas Party – it’s next Saturday night. It’s themed, the 20th Century. There was too much debate amongst my two other planners between doing a 20’s theme or a Mad Men theme. I ended up suggesting let’s do the 20th Century instead. People can come dressed from whichever era they wish and if they don’t want to put much effort in they can just come as the 90’s.
I’m doing an early 60’s/late 50’s theme. I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of a few essential packages to arrive early next week for my outfit. All I have left to do is figure out my jewellery (will probably try to find some “pearls” at diva or the like) and practice my hair. I’m going to have to do some op-shopping before then though to find a shirt for N to wear. I’m so excited, can’t wait to see what outfits people put together.
