What I've been doing.

Mulberry stains on fingers after I've walked home from work.

My chocolate intake was making me guilty, so I am now going monday to friday without chocolate. Not as strictly no-chocolate as my former "chocolate free days" challenge, where I banned everything that had anything to do with chocolate, but I mean no proper chocolate, the sort that you bite into and it melts in your mouth. Chocolate flavoured things don't count. It's a reasonably easy challenge. On the weekend I only had some fun sized cherry rips which I quite enjoyed and a few squares of fudge leftover from Maitland. So I shall do it again this week.

I've been compensating for my chocolate lack with my olive oil intake. It's my new love. And also, the avocados are cheap, creamy and abundant. MUFA's are good for you, so hoe in!

These are the old windows, recorded for posterity.

New windows didn't turn out quite as expected. I was hoping for clean windows, but instead the amount of deconstruction required meant that there was brick dust all over the new glass, and more unfortunately ALL OVER EVERYTHING. I am gradually spring cleaning everything: washing curtains, wiping furniture, etc. Things have been getting dirty for a while so it is time to spring clean anyway. It's good to sort through things as well, and make them fit back into my limited space.

My 80s dress is almost finished, sans waist elastic and skirt hem, except that the neckline is awful.  It is small and overwhelmed by frilly stuff. Partly I don't like the froofyness, and partly I didn't sew it very well so it isn't sitting properly. I shall put all WIP photos in one post when it's finished.

A and myself have been plugging away consistently with the Jillian DVD. We always do 7 circuits, unless we are short on time. I do it either 3 or 4 times a week. It's still hard, because we still have form to improve. I've upped my hand weights to 1kg each. We neither of us feel as tired afterwards, which I kind of miss. I liked that endorphin exhaustion combination.

And finally, my fingernails are in a terrible state. I should have removed the polish from last time, instead of letting it fall of in pieces and take chunks of nail with it. Currently I have 8 medium nails and 2 short jagged nails. Disappointing. Not going to look good no matter what I get put on them for the wedding on Saturday.

Review: Grand Designs

I wrote this ages ago and found it again, it's a good time to post it anyway because Kevin is in Sydney! He's nice.

This show is both appalling and compelling. Appalling, because the couples who do these renovations are so sadly obsessed with A HOUSE. It is everything they live for. Usually they don't have kids, so it's just two yuppies trying to make something meaningful for themselves with architecture. And yet, if I watch it for five minutes, it's so fascinating I get totally glued to it. Will the stone barn fall down the subsiding hill? Can you build with straw bales? Will the ancient monument approval come through for the ruined castle reno—oh no! A 600 year old wall collapsed! It's not full of silly fake tension like Masterchef. It's just transformation of something yucky to something amazing with so much imagination and a great deal of money. Although, the money isn't so great. A castle renovation cost around 3/4 of a million pounds, which even when you convert it to AU$ and the fact that it was 4 years ago works out around maybe 1.2 million, which gets you a reasonable house in Sydney, but not, you know, a CASTLE. But anyway, I'm impressed at how creative people are, it's exciting stuff.

Review: Spanish Fly.

I am so into reviewing things right now.

Spanish Fly is a cool tapas restaurant at The Spot, Randwick. Of course, I have never been there. Not just because it's cool, but also because I have my own default places and always order the same thing.

5.30 is when we decided to eat, and we were gone by 7 so well before the cool crowd get there. In fact there was a family with little kids eating at the same time as us. The service was very good, very very good. I must be used to the service in Kingsford, where speed is the main criteria. Slow friendly service made a very nice change! The food was nice but not strong tasting. I really liked the zucchini flowers. They were half flower half tiny zucchini and the flower was stuffed with ricotta and maybe pumpkin and the whole thing was in that tempura batter and sitting in some tasty sauce. It was a meal that would go better with wine, I think. They do dessert, and FYI you can probably share them, they are large… but tasty. Citrus tart and chocolate pudding are both worth a go.

That was my second tapas experience, the first was in Newtown with one of those online deals, I enjoyed that food more because it was tastier, and it came with wine as part of the deal, and I got almost a little bit drunkish in the name of value and not wasting any of the wine.

Random Review: Little Dorrit.

I don't know why I didn't get into this when it was on TV a couple of years ago. But Dickens is worth watching properly and not missing an episode. So I've got it from the library. It is very good, typical Dickens: a complex intertwined story with dozens of characters all somehow connected to each other and all fabulous and quirky. I haven't finished watching it yet, I'm halfway through the 18 episodes so the backstories are yet to be fully revealed. There are a couple of characters I don't get, but maybe they will do something useful later. All the families are basically disfunctional, all the social interactions corrupted, and there are few good people with a great variety of bad people.

Highlights are Andy Serkis' evil frenchman, invading everyone's personal space and touching their face and sometimes stabbing them. John the young gatekeeper proposes tragically and beautifully to Amy Dorrit who doesn't love him back, and cries because "he set his heart on her".  The BBC has such a wonderful bunch of actors, all those people who pop up all over the place and are always good. Not all handsome, but always well-cast and convincing.

It looks amazing, too. I especially love the inventor's workshop, with the steampunk sort of random spinning engines and parchment blueprints strung across the walls and windows.

I may go on and read the book, now that I'm hooked.

Random Review: Dream 13/10/11

Last night I had an exciting sort of dream where there were murderers, and people from my dad's side of the family but much younger. The only part I clearly remember is that my braces were falling off my teeth and my teeth were spreading out crazy. That was quite worrying. I've had dreams about my braces going wrong before. Nothing subconscious about that!

Review: The Opera. Don Giovanni.

I was very generously given a free ticket to the opera on Friday afternoon, to go with a friend instead of her other friend. Although it was a very last minute rushed thing and I didn't feel properly dressed for it it was still a lovely evening. We ate dinner in the Opera House bistro! It's weird, like fancy Macdonalds. I had an amazing buttery mustard on my salmon.

The thing about opera, though, is that it's an endurance. It's great, it's fancy and beautiful and a wonder of human creative achievement, but it's also 3 hours of singing in another language. Without much leg room. Half way through act 2, I'm struggling to keep my eyes open because it's 10pm and I've had a hard week, and the surtitles were malfunctioning.

Don Giovanni is the sort of opera Terry Pratchett was thinking about when he wrote Maskerade. It has masks, deceptions, seductions and stupid obsessions, and a high level of implausibility. The Sydney Opera House production looked great, with a very deep set built with a sort of slopey forced perspective effect and nice lighting. One of the lead women was a little off, in my opinion: she sang with lots of passion and wobbly effects, but she wasn't very accurate on the high notes. She did have an amazingly thin waist, though. 

If you ever go to the opera and have time, you can hear a pre-opera talk, sitting informally on the steps at the top harbour foyer area thing, which from what we caught was quite informative.

Random Review: Crazy Stupid Love

Love Steve Carell in everything. He won my heart in The Office. On Sunday I watched Crazy Stupid Love and it was interesting. Quite surprising at times. Ryan Gosling leaves me cold but he's tall and is good at leaning nonchalantly on things in a very sharp suit. Steve Carell was lovely and really sympathisable. Kevin Bacon played a nice accountant. The women got to wear lovely clothes. The little girl had particularly nice dresses. It was really more about the men though, and their different ideas about love and finding a soul mate. The music was well done, really effective.

You never see a bad child actor any more. Every American TV show and move has really well cast kids. Kids aren't cast just for cuteness any more, there is a really high standard of acting ability and  especially having an interesting look and real personality. The variety of representations of teenage boys is particularly good, I think. The 13 yr old in CSL was a unique and complex character you could relate to, with a chubby face and bad hair. Also thinking of the boy in Little Miss Sunshine, the boys in The Middle, Modern Family, etc etc.

Random Review: Dinner for Schmucks.

Anna and I have been wanting to see this for ages because we both love Steve Carell. We knew it could be bad, seeing as how our favourite line from the trailer was "He's eating PAPER!!!" The first half was boring, other than the fight scene between Darla and Barry (Steve Carell) where Darla is insane with rage and Barry is happily pretending to be a penguin. See below.

The boring stuff was the love triangle with Jemaine from the Conchords, Paul Rudd and his girlfriend. The second half was funnier with the dinner, it had Chris O'Dowd with an Irish/Spanish accent, a vulture, and mind control vs brain control wars.

Anna and Elsie didn't enjoy it much at all. So good thing it was a free rental! I didn't like it quite as much as House Bunny, it's not as funny (or as rude) as The Hangover or Bridesmaids, so it's really a mediocre example within a genre I don't admire, but Steve Carell is worth it. I liked the story arc around Barry, and his sad life but optimistic delusion, pouring all his dreams and disappointments into his taxidermy mouseterpieces (which were astounding). He was just adorable and brilliantly naive.

Some photos from bridesmaidery.

Jake Thomas Photography, if you are interested. The ones I took are on facebook, if you're my friend. These are on facebook too, and I thought I'd share them cos they are cool and will raise the tone of this blog.

First, the groom and his best man and best woman.

Team bride, "laughing and having fun".

This one was a genuine spontaneous moment. It was cold...

This one obviously isn't, but I'm pleased cos that is my actual suitcase, the only one I currently have, which used to be my Grandma's and did her honeymoon.

Bridesmaid #1.

Highlights:

• Signing the certificates and books for my oldest friend's wedding. That felt significant.
• Being reminded of heaven. This time, in the light of Piper's Joy Theory, how much everyone enjoys making a fuss of the B&G. It's not as fun without the fuss. That's why you organise weddings.
• I had a big bedroom all to myself.
• My shiny fingernails.
• Watching the photographers work. We were all relaxed and normal till they came, and then it was a bit "come over here and play with Cara's dress—laugh like it's fun". Weird, but interesting. Wonder how the photos turn out.
• The food at the reception was AMAZING. Gourmet spit roast with veggies, 5 stars. Delicious.
• The cafe I had breakfast in on Sunday morning with the other bridesmaid and the bride's brother was great. Outside the Square on Market Street. Had a quiet but trendy crowd, the sort of people who wear hats as accessories not necessities. Bacon and eggs on toast were $12 plus $2 per extra thing which I thought was a good way of charging. The bathroom had a basket of clean facewashers to dry your hands on, and you drop your damp one in a hamper to be washed and reused. So I'd go there again.

Lowlights.

• A couple of nights of bad sleep. I was a bit stressed and hyped, going straight from work deadlines to the wedding. Friday night, I fell asleep quickly and then woke up at 2am and buzzed for 2 hours. Saturday night I finally slept like a log.
• The weather on Saturday. It was cold. And wet. And muddy. And some of us were not dressed for that. I looked exactly like those dopey women at Randwick Races, goosebumps on my bare arms and heels sinking into the mud. All emergency supplies and flat footwear for the afternoon were locked in the wrong car. But we survived, had fun and brushed the mud off.

Final impressions:

• Weddings are important, not just marriage. When I rang my mum to vent to her, she shared the news that one of my cousins just got married and told his parents afterwards. That kind of robs people of something. But it's a funny story.
• Want to go back to Mudgee, it looked nice through the rain. Haven't had a holiday in a long time.