fuchsia fragments

I'm either blogging every second day, or not blogging at all...

In my defence i got sick (refer to previous post thinking it was hayfever: guess not huh?), and sicker before getting slightly better. went to the doctor to be told that it was allergies causing all these symptoms and there was actually nothing wrong with me. even though had a cough, blocked nose and body aches. wasn't prescribed with any medication and was told to continue taking over-the-counter (non-working) drugs! and he gave me a sample of this hayfever nasal spray... when i am pretty sure it wasn't hayfever. hahaha what a funny doctor...

in between or just before, i hosted my 3rd annual high tea (by hosted i mean lay on the couch for half the afternoon whilst every one else enjoyed themselves), had lots of baking to do and life in general.

was feeling slightly better by tuesday and was planning to work from home in the afternoon only to get onto a role in the office and stayed the whole day. which paved the road for full days of work for the rest of the week. guess i survived.

CFO gave me a overly-ripe banana on friday afternoon, said to me 'don't say i'm not good to you!' and then massively hinted that i needed to bake banana bread for monday. HA HA funny.

spent a good portion of my weekend in the kitchen making sugar flowers and cakes and burning my hands whilst trying to do some fancy pansy stuff with toffee (like build a croquembouche, read about it on my other blog). and silly me being silly like to pop the blisters that protect the burn so it hurts even more. have three so far and they're pretty painful!

went for a drive to donnas and beyond last night. thought castle hill was far. beaumont hills is another 10 kms from her place. that makes it very very very far from my place. huge ass houses out there but not about to make that trek any time soon... at all!!! but nice to just sit and donnas and drink tea and eat her eucalyptus drops, thanks dude!

went to chris' (work colleague) place for dinner last night with other work people. had hot pot and then played a bit of mahjong whilst watching mr and mrs smith on tv. left just after midnight and no joke, it was 1:15 by the time i was home. even in no traffic, it's a long drive!

think i'm ready to let this weekend go, feels like i've achieved a fair bit so rather content!

slept in till 8-ish.

did a 15 minute coles run. made waffle and scones for breakfast. and used my new english tea set. fabulous.

washed the cars. took my dogs out for a run. picked up sticks. made a fire. had a bbq. let my chickens out. spent some glorious time in the sun. somehow got a rash on the back of my hands.

bbq-ed food for my dogs. =D

cut my caramel slice. perfecto.
made my mini cheesecakes. so petit four-ish.

played mahjong. won some money. enough for my transport this week. =D

had some congee and turnip cake.

head-to-toe shower.

tired as.

5 am. let's do it again.

i guess i finally get to know how january in sydney feels like since i seem to have missed the previous heat waves of the past couple of years. but i have to say, it is still bearable because i'm not using the air conditioning.

last night, the girls came over for dinner. we mario-ed some only to discover that we all pretty much failed last night. it was just suicide one after the other. i don't even want to mention the number of continues used. we didn't even get that far either but that didn't stop the screaming.

i think we - no, not we - the other guy present kinda scarred and scared (what difference does it make?) little matt though. is that was he was nicknamed?

so we played some mj. taiwanese style. uhmhmm. its weird. like.. i sort of get it but i think i still prefer hk style. and i think its got to do with the fact that i like to build build build up my tiles (jow pai). like in taiwanese, chicken isn't chicken. O.o and there are faans for almost everything that looks big. lol

then we had some cake. it wasn't soooooooooo bad. obviously, it was a big trial cake that sort of didn't go so well according to plan. next time i won't put kiwi in the filling since it was a bit bitter. stick to the melons and strawberries (but alas, they are so expensive and sour when not in season). need to figure out the cake part. and try to undense it. but it still looked sort of like an asian cake-shop wannabe.. at least when u cut it and see the layers. haha who am i kidding.

since the immature but employed had work, they called it a night. and we planned the next cheese and wine fine dining for val's next monday.

and i drove val home. and the freakiest thing happened. there was like a bird in the middle of the road. and you would think that it would move when you see a car with lights approaching. but it didn't and i really did SLOW DOWN to try to avoid it. but like it was just sitting there and when i turned onto vals street we were like

did i kill it? i didn't right right?

anyhow, dropped her off. got to see her brothers shiny new gulf. (spoilt brat =P) and i had to drive back on to the road we came from by myself. and i THINK i saw a dead bird but it was still pretty plump but i think there was blood. but i'm not sure if i was imagining cause it couldve been like.. normal garbage. since there was barely any street lighting. like.. it didn't look like it had been squished under a wheel? and oh man, that was really freaky. =X =X

but i am SO proud of val for taking the initiative and roughly drafting and planning a cairns trip! i will endeavor to CUT CUT CUT costs (haha i sound like a ruthless company who doesn't care about its workers when its actually completely the opposite). have to plan other major events this year before august! i now also want to go to alice springs and uluru for no reason other than the fact that i can. haha.

...betting.

mahjong one table.
dices and cards on the other.

and a family gathering. of the hk branch. with lunch at my 2nd uncles who is the oldest of the family in hk.

and i made money. lol.

and the betting included my lil 3 and 5 yr old nephews. HAHAHAHA that was so fun. when they ran out of money, we just gave them more. what a thing to teach ur kids. but dad was playing mahjong and mum was playing with us all. so its ok.

and the little one doesnt stop eating. and he was finishing off a bag of shrimp crackers when he pulls up his jumper and goes

"i have stomach ache"

and his gorgor screams really loudly

"of course you do. you eat too muchhhh!!!"

everyone cracked up.

quote from janny

"Your New Manager quit on the first day that she worked. So now you dont have a manager at all!!!!!! it was such a big thing U wanna knoe y she quit.? this is wat she said "hurstville is a shit hole i quit!!!!!!" that is wat she literally said to JOe when she quit!!"

so we were very neatly not on time, but not exactly late either. like, the timing was just all right. even though i left a little bit late and getting petrol took half an hour. and the drive to dfo was a little bit slow. we got there about 5-10 minutes after donna and met her at the entrance just as she'd walked once around the outlet already.

the strangest things happened today:

1. valerie (who said that she was there to "carry the bags") went on a spending spree. puma, jag, esprit. I ended up carrying the bags because i didnt buy anything. well donna too. actually, donna more cause she was hogging them eventhough she had a couple of bags of her own. hahaha.

2. we went downstairs to the basement level to check out (really randomly) the books.

Valerie, after talking about how her brother (who is shit at everything except english) will probably get a higher mark than her for english and how he wants to do aviation and that requires an interview:

"what are metallic pencils?"
"uh, pencils that are metallic - you know, shiny?"
"oh."
"... no wonder ur brother is gonna beat u at english. LOL"

3. perfect timing getting to our cars. i let donna get out first. =D

and so im following her through the car park. and its multi levelled. and LOL. me and val are obviously watching her and she goes right over the kerb on a turn. and we're just cracking up. it was so funny. i know why she says she feels pressure. im not even in HER car. hahaha

i needed to follow donna to get to burwood. big mistake.
she cut all the way right... and then really quickly cut back all the way left. i saw her coming. but the car behind me almost didnt. and i got beeped. that was the first thing. and the second thing was shes a shit leader!! she went "ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOmmmmm" and disappeared on me zigzaggin through all these trucks! luckily i know my direction from there onwards. -_-

4. grocery shopping. val and i went to woolies to buy lunch and dinner. on a whim, valerie decides to walk into adjacent liquorland and buy a AVL wine. tempus two. 2006 cabernet merlot. it was very smooth. very good. if you dont do accounting, you wont understand. lol. we had salad for lunch and pasta bake for dinner. yummy. obviously, i cooked. the wine was superduper complementary with my brownies.

5. we watched pride and prejudice the new version. and laughed through most of it. and we played mahjong. talked about a lot of things. varying topics. watched minority report. if mark wahlberg replaced tom cruise, it wouldve made a very very good movie.

6. i had to pick up my sister sometime between dinner and minority report at stratty. that wasnt very hard. lol.

7. my sister fits in with us quite well. cause valerie is able to learn so much about her brother from her. and lol, valerie tells my sister all this stuff that she doesnt want her students to know. HAHAHA.

morning shift. yum cha with justin paying and mahjong with the girls. =D
had lots of fun today. makes me happy. we ended up talking until, well, now. haha lost track of time.
and i had the hiccups for a lot of the day too =(
anyhow, off to sleep cause i have an all day sunday. yay
LOLOLOL and valerie was so sleepy that she wore my slippers home and left her shoes here. HAHAHAHA that totally makes my day.
chocolate cheesecake with toblerone was a success imo altho some certain OLD ppl thought the peanut butter choc base was too hard. but still good =)

and what's boxing day all about??
GAMBLING!!!!
and i am literally shaking and the adrenaline is about to kill me.
this arvo, was playing mahjong with the aunts and omg.. i lost big time and then i won it all back and then some.. all the spectators were like. omg.. yeah, shes gonna jii-mor and i kept doing it. HAHAHAHAHA YEAH!! =D won $42 there.
then dinner as usual
and after dinner was poker. haha $2 buy in and we were all joking that facebook "prepared" us for this. lol lol.
stakes got pretty high. half bluffed my way through.. played for like 5 hours.. and had to strike a deal with justin (we were the only two left) to split the jackpot cause its getting late and i need to work tomorrow at 8 and they had to go home.
and amy and andrew traded the monaro for a gti gulf. now tat is style. =)

apparently they didn't get holiday rates yesterday which really really sucks for them. and they were absolutely, totally freakin smashed. the place today was still on the ground. me however, well i had a bomb =) played mahjong with da girls.
im so lazy i can't even b bothered to do my tutorial homework at the moment. i actually want to play computer games. hahaha

this morning i washed the mahjong and we played another 8 round of mahjong. and hAHAHAHA i swear da mahjong listened to me cause i was so nice and gave them a bath cause i managed to win back all that i lost and them some. and dad had to "wrap" (bao) a self pick 8 fan. ahh me so good =P uncle won heaps too. he kept winning like 5 in a row and they were all medium to large wins.
we were gonna have a bbq today but it was raining pretty heavily so we turned it into a shove everything in the oven and play mahjong while u wait for the food.
apart from that stayed home while they did their last minute shopping.

yesterday i got to be da driver =D we went to the blue mountains which was actually a pretty easy drive. not that far although there were quite a few cars considering. and the weather was really good. like there was a bit of sun and the mountain was actually blue and it was clear and you could see the three sisters pretty clearly. but like any other tourist destination in sydney, its a bloody rip off.. from parking to the skyway and scenic railway rides. and cause my aunt and uncle are so chicken and afraid of heights, we went for a little bit of a track walk instead. didn't stay too long since there wasn't much to see.
we went to canley vale for lunch. and of course, you'd have to have viet food there. and we went to buy fishies!!!
- 5 rosy barb tetras
- 6 black neons
- 2 yoyo loaches
and i got 2 clown loaches the other day here in hurstville. and i have been convinced that i should not be buying discus cause they dont do too well in community tanks not to mention theyre shit expensive.
we took the scenic drive on henry lawson drive home. and you must be pretty stupid to be speeding there cause the cameras were in the jin-est positions but there were about a million speed camera warnings before you get to it. but doing anything over 60 there wouldve been so easy. (valval i feel for u) anyway it started to rain so it got slippery.
came home for a bit and went with mum and aunty to buy groceries and souveniers. and i walked past valerie. hahaha she was carrying this giant green stuff toy that she won from capital (after spendding $20... $40 for two since she was with rach who also allegedly has one) and shaking her head cause i didnt see her. -_- sorry my bad.
and i convinced them all to play 8 rounds of mahjong with me so we didnt go to sleep until 4 am!!! but it took me forever to 'open/eat' my first game. and we bet with real money. so im really really really poor now. but hey, its worth it =D

i finally bothered to list some stuff on ebay. it took ages but well, at least theres some sort of sense of satisfaction. and hopefully i can make or at least not lost any money in the process.
and we try and try to organise a day to play mahjong but its so hard =( kind of sad. one day it will happen.
but its a thursday night and i was one of the shoppers instead of the workers! i dont understand how people have so much stuff to shop for.. like mum and i were like.. theres literally nothing to buy, why do ppl have bags and bags of stuff?
maybe its just us.. like some shops just give you zero motivation to be there and browse.