fuchsia fragments

Catching up with friends and family is always fun, lighthearted and is likely to involve good food.

I felt quite special this week turning another year older - I'd still like to argue that I'm in my mid-20s. Thank you to every single one of the lovely souls who made it happen.

From the coffee guy shouting me a free coffee to the colleagues who offered to buy me one, my boss telling me to leave as early as I can, to those who came to the short lunch despite the rain and cold and my favourite lawyer baking me an incredible Guinness Dark Chocolate cake at 4 AM... thank you so much. It really made my busy day less stressful and more enjoyable. Thank you for the messages an the smiles.

I've been lucky enough this year to catch up with so many people in July.

From PR who I had sushi with on Thursday evening (and we exchanged birthday gifts), to my two favourite blondes and party ladies and an amazing night at The Butler to my nearest and dearest cousin, sister and Albert at Apollo tonight, thank you for the laughs. And the epic Catan game (my sister cheated to win...). And the 3/3 star spotting in Potts Points. Yes... 3 celebrities! Matt Moran was at our restaurant with an actor (but did not know name... so it's really a half point there) and SBS veteran Lee Lin Chin. *starstruck... not!

Walked by a block of toilets with thick black smoke coming out of it and the brigade there and as we drove into the Cross, there was a truck decorated as a fire truck with teenage girls bopping up and down. It was hilarious... definitely a lot of funnies tonight!

Got a week of cakes, bakes, work and events coming up... super excited and what a way to start another year!

Our boss is away this week. So his boss flew all the way from Singapore to babysit us! Jokes... I think it was just timing. No Krug this time although I do like Mark's honesty when he's around. Much respect for the man. Doesn't play the hardcore political game (at least not to your face).

It's been a busy 4 day week with Thursday and Friday being unusually busy! But I did manage to squeeze in a boozy lunch with our illustrious new CFO and my fav legal person at the Greens (owned by the same people who did the Grounds). And then the afternoon was shoe shopping! A bit of a team building / downtime for the ladies in the team.

I think we embarrassed ourselves in Christian Louboutin. Ha ha ha with one colleague saying 'We need to find the UGLIEST shoes in the store!' *cringe* But it was for a competition at work. And good fun.

Cocktails at Zeta Bar was awesome too.. just sitting there for a few hours and sipping cocktails. I'm there! The Singapore Mule was delicious and spicy and the same time. We had enough time to discuss non-work and work related topics. And how important development is. I totally agree... the aim is UP!

It wasn't so hard to settle back into the routine of work more so, it was hard when there's little to do except the crappy stuff. But that's another story.

It's pretty cool that outside of work, there have been numerous events to keep one busy. We did a huge chinese seafood dinner in Bevo with Jan and friends. 3 whopping crabs and 2 massive plates of pipis and a giant fish plus the usual non-seafood dishes. Between 14 of us... and guess what? We demolished it. Hands down, this crowd can eat. And eat lots. Something I will always admire about this bunch because it does not matter how much food it on the table.

I also signed up to city2surf. Here we go!

And dog date, pizza, buffalo wings, pimms, rush hour 2 and dixit as an impromptu and very informal dinner thing at my place. Again... 4 pizzas, salad and 2 whole kgs of chicken wings... demolished between 5!!! We were going to go to another person's place but a few unfortunate events occurred. Mac and Maxxie got into a fight. Mac also ran into the glass door (LOL moment of the night). There was blood but no one was seriously injured. Oscar and Nessie soo chill. And man... North Turramurra is a long drive to my place. So I'm so glad they came.

Finally got around to restocking the baking fridge. Was out of all dairy and I've got orders coming up... gotta turn that oven back on.

Had to go home and try and sober up to bake my cake. I wanted to ice it too but I was just way too tired. Legs felt like lead and I was seriously lucky that I didn’t forget any ingredients or use salt instead of sugar… now will have to be super duper efficient tonight to make up for it.

where'd the weekend go?!

Lovely lovely saturday.

a mini stgghs reunion at bicentennial park for mandy's birthday. lots of sun and not too much wind although it did get fresh as the afternoon went by.

highlights:
- taking 2 hours to get the hot coals going to cook the food
- donna and i hiking around the grass and finding no waterhole
- not being allowed to go to the bathroom because cake time was in 5 minutes... turned out to be in 20
- wanting to roll down the grassy hill
- parking mine and cherry's car in one and a half spaces. completely boxed myself in!
- really bad coffee from the cafe
- seeing green and not recognising nature...
- being epicly asian and squatting, washing our hands with spring water, scrubbing the bbq with leaves ?!

after we said goodbye, donna and i had planned to go out for dinner. cherry and vivian decided to join so it became a 3-car tag into the city. i am an awesome anchor driver (not my usual place and i'm usually the one in front!)

apparently had my bitchface on. so donna said as she looked at me in the rear view mirror.

anyway, did the two a massive favour since traffic was pretty heavy and me having the balls to cut lanes and let them through and stop all the cars behind us. hahahahaha female asian drivers FTW! (although i still stand by the fact that i am not that much of an asian driver)

we ended up at surry hills:
- cocktails and pork belly meat balls at Mr. Fox. yummmmmmmy and they gave us free popcorn so we stayed a little longer (ok, i lie, we just stayed).
- took some fail instax [cherry]
- and then cherry left
- visited the new kurtosh which is famous for a hungarian style chimney cake. really really good coffee. and they sell their slabs of cakes by weight. interesting concept and i loved the ambience. i even took photos because i want my cafe to one day be similar to this!!!
- stayed there until donna had to go pick up her dad
- came home, was pretty tired...

we decided to plan more events as some will see from fb! good times coming up. <3 p="p">
i made choc chip cookies today. zero effort.

and then procrastinated the rest of my afternoon away thinking about business cards and website designs. wish it was just all done for me...

and then sister got me addicted to the show Cake Boss.

where/when am i supposed to find the time to study?!

started out as a pretty well planned day which turned random but epicly awesome.

mandy's little get together for her birthday at bicentennial park today followed by randon 3 car tag along to surry hills for cocktails, meatballs and kurtosh.

will post details after i get some shut eye.

so much to plan for the upcoming months!