First day of being a year older

I had a pretty happy birthday this year.


Most importantly, I'd like to thank my friends for all their birthday wishes - those who called, sms'ed, left facebook messages and the special ones who called from overseas.

The Saturday leading up to my birthday, RL came over and made me a very yummy lentil & vegetable soup for dinner & an almond & mascapone dessert. =)


Sunday, had a very nice Peking dinner with my family at Mr Chows Peking Restaurant in Kent St. They are famous for their siw long bau's and their salted egg yolk kind prawns. We also tried their salted egg yolk soft shell crab. That was scrumptious tooo =)


I felt really really happy today because this year is the first year my brother has "officially" bought me a birthday present with his own hard earnt money. My super sweet brother bought me a 60 second fix hand treatment from Crabtree & Evelyn. It's not the receiving the present that makes my heart smile. It's the thought of my baby brother, going into Crabtree & Evelyn, wanting to buy handcream for his sister, only to realise their was sooo many to choose from when the sales assistant showed him his choices. When he said "man.. I didn't realise there was so many types of handcreams to choose from.. it was quite embaressing because I didn't really know much about them".. just made me giggle. How cutee!!


Monday* went to work and RL took me to my favourite Italian Restaurant. Criniti's. =)
This time, instead of having the apple crumble pizza for dessert, we had the banana pizza. It was yumm... pictures to follow because it was taken on RL's camera.

Today, Andrew and I had dinner at Maitre Karl. A french restaurant that I really like as well in Willoughby. Their food is divine. We had a pinenut & pumpkin salad, Tartee Flambee with swiss mushrooms, parmesan & truffle oil and Nurnberg pork sausages with mash potato, sauerkraut, flamed grapes in red wine. To top it off, I had my favourite Espresso Creme Brulee and Andrew had a baked poached pear with ice cream for dessert. soooo satisfied!!!



ooh... and I also splurged on 3 pairs of new shoes today!!! hehehe

"Take 2" ??

Have you ever done something that you've regretted? Something that you wished that you have never done? Or wished you found out abit more before you've done something?
Well, I have. And now I really really regret it.
I feel ultra crap... and now I feel like i'm going to lose a friend too.

A relaxing Sunday at Manly

RL and I had a very spoilt Sunday!! It was well deserved for both of us. A very very busy week for me at work, and RL studying very hard for his exam, which he did very well in and passed yesterday.

We had a nice, relaxing and yummy brunch on the beach at Narabeen, looking out into the water, watching kids run and play. The quality time that we spent together was the best. Then for afternoon tea, we went to Max Brenner at Manly. RL had a hot chocolate with waffle balls and I had the hot chocolate with marshmellows - plus a waffle with strawberries, banana and vanilla ice cream to share. yummmmmm =)

Bec and Kev back in town

Kev's birthday drinks at Crystal Bar and Belgian Beer Cafe mussels with Becs & K.

Yummmmm =)

Friends

Great friends are hard to find and hard to keep.
I'm thankful for the efforts we make to keep our friendship close and deep.
The long emails that we write to keep each other up to date, even though we're ultra busy at work and there's probably 10 other emails that need to be replied.
The support that we get even though we're in different countries and the special bonding we have even though we haven't seen each other in months - doesn't seem like much filling in needs to be done because we're pretty much up to date with each others latest goss =)

People who don't listen

I absolutely find it extrememly annoying working with people who don't listen. How many times do I need to tell the BDM of Asteron that a ppxt file won't work on my computer. I told him 4 times, in which he did reply my email - which means, he did read & recieve it.. but he comes to our office, puts in his usb drive and the presentation file is still a ppxt file.

I can't stand people who are unorganised, who don't read properly and don't register what other people are saying. Being in a management role, listening is such a crucial task - some people obviously simply can't master it.

What was even more annoying was that he didn't even bother to make some hard copies. Never again would I ask him to do a presentation for us. Nor would I put any of my clients through Asteron. My first impression of them wasn't great. Now it's at zero.

Detoxing

I have finally and have promised myself that the 10th of July is the date I will start my detox program for 15 days. I will not procrastinate any longer. I really will not.

Happy as I have been, I've finally joined the gym. It's been something i've been meaning to do since I laid my foot in HK, but no, it didn't happen. Now back in Sydney, I've finally motivated myself to join. T challenged me and don't believe that I will go. Now i've got his voice ringing in my head saying "yeh right, as if you'd go".... I've promised T, that I will be going 4 times a week for the next 4 weeks. Let's see how I go. The first week starts next week =)
He's placed a bet on me. I better not lose!!

I've already printed class timetables, highlighted them and have them stuck on my wall !! I can't wait to start!!

Criniti's

Thinking of dinner at Criniti's make me smile. One of my favourite restuarants - famous to me for their yummy pizza desserts. Ones that I loved is the nutella pizza (nutella melted on pizza with vanilla sugar icing) and the banana pizza (topped with fresh banana's, 3 big scoops of vanilla gelato and snothered with hot caramel syrup).

On Tuesday night, RL and I were "supposed" to go climbing, but we didn't end up going so he came over to Parra to have dinner with me. Where did we go? RL wanted soup & pie - we pretty much walked the whole heart of Parramatta and the only restaurant/cafe that served soup & pie was City Extra. I remember it was years and years ago, uni days, when City Extra used to be our hang out place because it was open 24 hours. I was never keen with their dinners, drinks were ok, desserts were average.

Hence, we ended up going to Criniti's!! We ordered a arena woodfired calzone which had prosciutto, ricotta, sun dried tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and eggplant. We then ordered a apple crumble delight pizza for dessert. It was soooo yummy. now.. read this.. freshly sliced apples, smothered with vanilla syrup and biscuit crumble, oven baked, served with 3 big scoops of vanilla gelato... is it making you drool ??
This is what our apple crumble pizza looked like - half eaten!! hehe =)

We had a really great night and left Criniti's holding our stomachs with plans to go again for afternoon tea just for pizza desserts!! (no dinner plus a walk after to burn off the dessert hehe)