Merry Christmas 2014

It is an understatement to say I have neglected this blog greatly this year.

It has been a crazy year, that's for sure. If I had to describe it I would use the words - amazing, unexpected, fulfilling and eventful. As a result, I really haven't had the time to devote to this blog and while I can't say I'll be back to blogging regularly anytime soon, I still like reading everyone's blogs and catching up on the world of the internet.

People really have given me a lot to think about in recent weeks especially, and so as we round out the year (how fast has 2014 flown by?) and 2015 is fast approaching on the horizon, I thought I'd hop online to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and leave you with one of my favourite not-so-Christmasy tunes.

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

- John Lennon

Fashion Reality

Over the past year or so I've been standing on the constant blogging crutch of "life has been taking some crazy turns" to excuse my tardiness in posting. Unfortunately I'm returning to that, but I'm hoping to improve that situation before the end of the year. 

In the meantime, quotes such as these are awesome. This week has been a bit of a retail therapy week so hopefully I'll share some haul photos soon. But I'm holding onto fashion to get me through this week! :) 

Homewares Hauls!

I've been winter hibernating lately, but that hasn't stopped me from shopping up some homewares. You know you're getting old when you've stopped attending fashion sales but instead get excited about buying homewares.

I hit up the Le Creuset sale and bought a whole heap of cute cast iron stoneware which I've always wanted to buy. Clearly, it was all about picking the right colours so these are just some of the items I hauled.

I'm loving the mini cocottes in the background - the set of 3 is in french red-white-blue colours. They're quite small, but perfect for individual entree sized portions. Or baked eggs for breakfast. The red pot looks small but is reasonably sized at 14cm so I'm loving it sick. And though I have a tonne of teapots, I couldn't help but buy the turquoise-y one to leave at my desk at work as the mug-pot combo.

Seeing the words 'Special Edition' was enough to convince me, but then I opened the box to find these pearlescent finish mini cocottes and I was sold.

The same day I was naughty and decided to hit up Peters of Kensington, one of my all time favourite places. I had a voucher leftover from Christmas so I finally bit the bullet and bought me the Limoges I've been dying for. If I could pick any colour, I probably would have picked the pastel purple or pink but this was too much of a bargain to pass up - the larger breakfast cup and saucer set for just $85 with a further 15% off. Incredible!

A few weeks earlier I hit up a special staff sale on Dyson vacuum cleaners. So we went from having 1 Dyson to 3. Overnight. Ridiculous, but amazing!

And threw this picture in for good measure - the usual Catch Of the Day trap hit me when I only wanted the Logitech ipad mini cover keyboard, but to make shipping more worthwhile I chucked in some hosiery. I need new sheer black hosiery anyway so it was still worth it. If anyone is looking for a good iPad case, I cannot recommend this one enough!

And that my friends, is just some of the shopping that has been keeping me busy lately. I've actually been pretty good only spending small amounts here and there, but clearly I can't resist me a good sale!

Jimmy Liks, Potts Point

After having heard people talk about Jimmy Liks in Potts Point, I recently dined there with a 50% off internet deal. Asian shared style eating is always great for group dining so I went with a table of 4 so we could try a lot of dishes.

My first impressions were that I really liked the decor - with its long tables and mood lighting I could see it being an awesome group event place, especially because set menus always work well with asian food. I'm sad to say the positive comments mostly stop there. I certainly didn't hate it, but I didn't think it was great and if it weren't for the 50% off I would probably have felt more negatively towards it.

The cuisine isn't strictly from any particular region, instead the menu reads like a 'Best of' South East Asia and Chinese influenced dishes.

Son-in-law free range duck egg $8.50

I love soft shell crab ($23) so we had to order this - it was crispy and tasty, though every asian restaurant nowadays does a decent rendition so it wasn't ground breaking.

This was my favourite dish of the day - crispy skin salmon with watermelon salad ($28). It was fresh, the salmon perfectly cooked just a bit under, with a nice mix of zesty dressing and watermelon. 

Twice cooked sticky pork hock (large size for $29) - this dish was so rich and hard to eat by the end, and it wasn't because it was bad necessarily, it just felt like every other dish in terms of flavour but with a heavy fatty pork hock. 

The duck was meh. And I love duck! But this was just average. Mainly because the flavour base was a sticky sweet sauce which you can see at the base of the dish. Just not how we expected crispy skin duck to be served!

Crispy skin half duck ($35)

Char grilled roti bread ($5 a piece)

So overall the problem really lies with the fact Jimmy Liks isn't the cheapest, and then everything kind of tasted the same. Every dish seemed to have the same flavour base and while at least everything wasn't overpoweringly spicy (which I hate, because it just kills any sense of taste you might have), all the sauces lacked punch. So then you just added more sauce and got overdosed on sweet MSG. When you can get such amazingly authentic, cheap asian food in Sydney, it's a pity that Jimmy Liks didn't live up to the hype for me. That said, we didn't drink cocktails with our meal but we saw others drinking what looked to be amazing concoctions, so maybe that's the trick, to get happy on alcohol?

Are you at a hipster wedding?

You know I love my infographics, and with weddings being all anyone is talking about recently amongst my friends, this was to cute not to share.

Post Holiday Blues

I've been neglecting this blog which is 1 part I-have-been-on-holidays and 2 parts life-has-changed-faster-than-I-have-been-able-to-keep-up. So now I'm using this winter hiberanation period to really focus on me and for once being in some semblance of stable life.

Anyway. That is all not very exciting. What is exciting is that I recently returned from holiday! My second trip to the US this year, my 4th in 4 years, but sadly likely to be my last for some time now. I think I need to give the North American continent a break from me for a while!

I'll try and post about my holiday highlights if I get around to it, but for now, here are some of my photo faves :)

 Perfect white sand and pristine blue seas in Barbados. I probably should have noted above that I actually spent half my time in the Caribbean, not just the US. And it was, like my last Caribbean trip, breathtaking. And blissful. And just what I needed!

Trunk Bay in St Johns, USVI. Consistently rated amongst the top 25 beaches in the world, and I wouldn't disagree!

A rare shot you'll see with me in it. I don't generally like posting photos of myself on this blog, but this is me hanging on a boat in St Lucia.

 The famous Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas. American History worthy.

Texas State Capital in Austin, Texas. I loved the architecture. I loved the patriotic scattering of the state Star on everything and anything. And I love this shot.

Laguna Beach, Orange County, CA. Teenage dream come true. I used to be obsessed with MTV's Laguna Beach, and am still a huge fan of LC. Long live MTV.

I realise all my photos look like postcard pictures I've stolen from the internet. I can assure you, everywhere was just that photographically amazing that it didn't take much to snap a postcard worthy shot, though I do like to claim some photographic skill ;) These were all shot on my beloved travel camera the NEX6 with kit zoom lens (I didn't even touch the second Sigma lens I took with me!).

And before you ask, I bought one item of clothing my whole trip! Yes, one! After enough visits to the US in as many years, I can definitely say I am probably one of the rare visitors who can abstain from shopping :)  

Ebay Find - Ring Snuggies

Has it really been a month since I last posted? Apparently, it has! And I'm about to head overseas for a short break so more radio silence from me unfortunately.

Anyway, onto something random I stumbled across recently which I thought I'd post about: ring snuggies. Yes, you read right, snuggies.

So I'm sure most of you would know about ring re-sizers in the form of metal bars inserted into rings to allow you to make the ring fit more snugly. The other option is petite rubber tubing that can be attached to the ring that also helps.

Well, here is the improved version of the snuggie which is actually spiral in nature so it won't fall off the ring and fits much better.

I bought these on ebay and the seller had a myriad of options from different thicknesses of the tubing (to resize by 1, 2 or more sizes) as well as different tubing widths to cater for ring bands of different thicknesses. Complicated at first, but I bought a package deal of multiple thicknesses and widths to try out and it set me back a grand total of $10 including shipping from the UK!

I'm pretty happy with it, but I've only tried it on my Georg Jensen daisy ring. I was going to try it on my newest purchase, a much more decadent diamond purchase but I thought that probably deserved a proper resize!

What random useful ebay items have you stumbled across?