fuchsia fragments

my toughest quarter-end yet. Staying back till 9 p.m. on a Monday night completely and utterly kills you for the rest of the week. So tired, so wired and sleep deprived for the rest of the week... work lunches and wine wasn't quite enough to make us feel better.

Makes it that much harder to bake but that much more satisfying. Midnight baking and 5 a.m. decorating!

Need to perfect my latest gluten-free cake. Coincidentally dairy-free as well so finally something that I can share with Vivian :) And it actually tastes delicious.

Extra hour of sleep tonight... exciting!

And finally finally a day at home. Feels SO good. And accomplished. Even if it was just sleeping in, taking Nessie to the vet, cleaning the fish tank, bathing the dogs and picking up Ari from tutoring!

Made myself brunch today complete with poached eggs and homemade hollandaise. I think I added a touch too much lemon juice. But it was still really really good. Didn't have traditional smoked salmon but found a fillet of terriyaki smoked salmon in the fridge which I flaked and reheated. A little salty but worked. The sauce thickened pretty quickly so had to reheat for Wendie when she finally got up.

I love spending time with my family and this weekend was one of them!

Even if it means having to play wii all afternoon with my godbrother and play mario kart and mario brothers over and over again!

Tonight, had dinner with grandma and family. Turned it to like dinner for 11 which is awesome. Meant grandma had no excuse not to eat as there was plenty of food. She is so cute... she tried to help us set the table. ngaw.

Justin and Carmen came over too. Asked who the tray of cookies on the bench were for. I said he could take some home. He said, don't worry i will. Then asked (jokingly of course) if he could have the whole tray. HAHA... good one.

And Joyce and Donna stopped by late afternoon on their way back from road trip. Looking a little worse for wear. So we fed them coconuts. And chocolate chip cookies. And take home brownie cupcakes. Oh, the service you get at my place. :)

Also had a bittermelon, capsicum, cucumber, celery and green apple juice today. it's like a detox thing. drinking that in the afternoon in hot hot weather made me want to gag. i think i went overboard with the capsicum? That and the smell of rich buttery baked goods did not go well together. Drank a litre of sparkling water with fresh lemon to compensate. Didn't really work..

Taking advantage of my pro-activeness, I also (finally) cleaned the fish tank. The pump's broken but did what i could. Water's still cloudy as there is a lot of particles to settle but its looking a lot better. I think i'm going to leave the UV light on 24/7 for a few weeks to allow the plants to regrow.

Went with mum to Costco this morning. Not my kind of shop. So many people (and it was early so it wasn't even that busy) and to many XL trolleys. Then went to Alexandria and Victoria's Basement. That shop is like my kind of shop. Got two massive awesome drink dispensers for wendie's birthday.

Can't wait to mix some cocktails up!!!

And...

STAY TUNED FOR AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NEWEST MEMBER OF OUR FAMILY.

luvluvluvluvluvluv

who knew packaging would be worth so much.

i had a nice little dinner with joyce last night @ wild fig. randomly, her psych friends were there too... tapas were good :-)

first weekend free and the saturday's gone already.

changed the filter on our fish tank and fark.. it was bad. got water everywhere as you do... lol. 3 hours later, it was finally fixed. new filter's pretty smashing... who knew filters could evolve technologically too...

went to costco today too. wasn't so busy. not that we bought that much stuff... its just way too bulky most of the stuff...

hmm.. think im baking tomorrow!!!

so i spent a lot of money on my very neglected aquarium.

its looking at lot better now... at least it actually has more than 2 fish in it!! and lots of shnazzy looking plants too.

YAY!

i need a new filter soon. this ones way old and getting kinda noisy. the new FLUVAL is tremendously expensive but looks really cool.

also . . i think i am after years and years away from the game, addicted to netball again. all because of my new work ppl!!! its like... my ops manager especially. . . lives and breathes netball every spare second she - we - get.

watched the game today. play during lunches . . . whats next?

need to start studying soon. so not ready.

i spent like 6 hours cleaning the fish tank today.
it was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo gross.
and im not saying that its not my fault or completely my fault
but a few fishies were missing.
some pretty notable ones too =(
and i will admit that 3 fish died today because of me.. well the temperature. but me.
and another 3 are missing. =( =(
i feel like replacing them.

it looks all prim and proper now. i even changed the cannister filter. as usual, that task was a bitch. at least this time i didnt get water all over the floor.. only parts of it. gave the plants a trim and some of them a replant. the water was pretty cloudy for a while but it all turns out good in the end. added a bit of flourish and purifier. i had been getting lazy and all this crap was building up on the tank. so i scrubbed the glass too.
then i went to the aquarium and bought 4 lovely platys. two sunsets and two reds. theyre so pretty. need the colour too.
oh and did i mention i found two tetras in the filter. i was like.. u dumbos.. now if i decided not to clean the tank, u would be dead. oh and i was very very surprised to see a baby guppy in the community tank. it probably wont live very long (it will either be eaten by the bigger fish or be sucked into the filter) but i only have like 2 females in there and i did not expect them to have babies in this tank. at all.. so yeaaaaaaaaah. a wee bit stunned.