It was a matter of time before I reverted back to my lazy entries.
But I guess that's worth feeling gratitude for, because it means I'm busy/productive, right?

Anyway, after the previous Saturday's epicness, I had to chill for a bit.
Sunday was spent with my mum and her bff. We headed to our good ol' haunt in Cabramatta and ordered some comfort food for the belly. Pho Tau Bay's raw beef pho, pork mince wrapped in rice noodle sheets, and the shenfa pork hock noodle soup topped with vietnamese ice coffee. AHMAZING!

Then it was a week of hectic productivity as I scrambled to get my first experimental chapter written up. But lucky I had a few chill catch ups with my faves to look forward to.
First up, Saturday morning I got to have a nice chat with my littlebro as I gave him a lift to work.
Of course, we ended up running a bit late due to Mardi Gras traffic, but I ended up heading straight to the brunch place instead of meeting Cherry at her abode first.
As fate would have it, I ended up our chosen brunch spot first.

Nan's Place in Waterloo.
What can I say? We somehow ended up there from like 11am to almost 3pm.
They sat us in the secret garden, where we had a nice umbrella covering our heads and pots of herbs for company. The food was great - I got the mushroom, avocado and black rice. It was really yummy, if a bit on the saucy side.
I indulged myself with a soy latte as well!
We talked about so much random stuff.
And the waiters/wairtresses - so cute and personable. One of them was seriously like a hobbit with rainbow suspenders.

Then after our epic long lunch we separated ways and I went to pick up adam so we could go grocery shopping before visiting wange
Somehow we ended up in charge of dinner and made japchae (using this recipe) - like most things in life, it was a little bit of a struggle but we got there in the end. Still impressed we fed 9.5 people with a little over $30?
Lexi and Asher were both adorable. I think they would be capable of giving maternal feels to just about anybody. No, thank you. 
Lol of the day would have to be when Lexi took my hand and lead my upstairs to find her rubber duck. She finds her baby one and looks around for the mother one.
Nekminnit, sees Adam holding the mother duck and she just full on starts bawling~~
I wonder when Lexi will stop being scared of the white one :P
She's the cutest, because she recognises the both of us now.

The Hos (including ChoKaHo) crack me up so much. They're seriously like crack.
Also, have to include this amazing exchange with my mum this morning. I'd told her that aunty had given adam $20 red pocket money (which is the same as what she'd given him). And she replies with, oh that makes sense, she treats you like a daughter so adam is like her future son-in-law. Just like I treat you like my daughter. 
What a troll.

Today, I had brunch with belinda bubbles at Three Williams in Redfern.
I NEEEEEEED to go back. The food was so delish. And the coffee was yummy. The wait wasn't too long and the atmosphere was just really nice. Also, cool to be able to catch up with Bel one-on-one for the first time in awhile.
Unfortunately no photos of the super scrummy french toast (brioche, yogurt, berries and nuts) or the cooked to perfection hot chips because it was dark, but argh, so good.

Then after brunch (which again ended at like...2pm) I went over to visit le boo for a little while before heading home to vacuum, do the laundry and OH CRAP I HAVEN'T HUNG THE SECOND BATCH YET NOOOOOOOOO

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I had a bad bout of the cramps last Tuesday, so I decided to avoid throwing up by skipping out on running.
Instead, I decided to go for a brisk walk through the middle of Centennial Park while mentally supporting my running group - you go guys!
The park was really beautiful! Who knew?

Then afterwards (without running), we finally went to Naruone after weeks and months of anticipation at their reopening. Of course we had to order the original chicken, and it was was sooooo good.

I miss running though :(

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Got to hang up with my cutie boyfriend yesterday.
Funniest thing happened: he was due to arrive around lunch time and my little brother coincidentally called me around half past to go pick him up from a friend's place after a big night out.
Thinking that I'd have enough time, I went to go pick up my brother and when we returned home, we found adam's car in the driveway but no adam.

I opened up my garage door, and littlebro went inside first to come face to face with the boyfriend.
Turns out I forgot to lock the front door (because it's usually never unlocked).
Apparently, adam had thought I was hiding in the backyard and so hadn't heard the doorbell ring. Lol.
Living dangerously :P

Adam made me swim again, even though the skies were overcast (again) and the water was cold (again). But at least now he knows I'm not kidding when I say that 15 minutes in the pool feels like half an hour.
We also watched episode two of fresh of the boat which has been consistently hilarious so far, before heading into Jan's neighbourhood for some shanghainese food. We went to our favourite Taste of Shanghai and ordered xiao long bao, pork and vege wonton, vege noodles, fried man tou with sweetened condensed milk and of course, watermelon frappe. So scrummy.

His hair was also epic.

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We ended the previous night around 2am after an in depth what would you rather: 75% chance of an intruder versus 25% chance of a ghost.
Needless to say, I did not sleep alone in Jenny's room last night.
Instead I shared the couch with Dom who had to bear with my teeth grinding. Sorry Dom!

The next day we woke up to an overcast sky, with plans to snorkel. hmph.
As it started to rain, we decided to drag out our saturday brunch for as long as we could
The service and food at Globe in coogee were okay, it took awhile to get our orders right and it was pretty busy. I had the guacamole special with poached eggs and...you know, same old same old.
The company made it worthwhile though :)






By the time we finished brunch, the light drizzle had stopped so we thought we might as well brave Clovelly.
Jade and I were super super super reluctant to get into the water, which was really cold. The type of cold your body never fully warms up to. Also, the waters were choppy as anything, which was in direct contrast to what I had been told about Clovelly.
Anyway, Pickelle volunteered herself to go first while Jade and I watched from the sidelines. At one point, she started laughing and we thought maybe Jan and Dom had broken her. But apparently she was just having heaps of fun?
Jade was kind enough to hold my hand and slowly brave the cold waters (before quickly diving back out again haha)
Thus, my first adult snorkelling experience happened. And you know what? I didn't hate it.

There was heaps of seaweed and algae as a result of the waves and currents, but it was actually really exciting see the schools of fish. My favourite of the day was probably mr. stripey.
Towards the end, I had a little bit of a scary moment when the water went down my breathing pipe and I couldn't get it all back out. So I stood up (thankful for the shallow waters), but the waves were so relentless I kept getting pushed back into the rocks.
But phew, we all made it out of there in one piece!

Thanks to Dom and Jan, our experienced and knowledgable instructors of the day for making me feel safe at all (most) times!

Then after surviving the Australian coast, we went back to Coogee for a feed at Moo Burgers

I had to make a mad dash because a miscommunication meant adam had left his house to come pick me up before our meal had even arrived. 

So I went over to adam's for some herby chicken and chocolate fountain fondue, before heading back to Pickelle's to find the kids playing Pandemic and then it was out to Dove and Olive to catch up with a friend heading to Brown University for a postdoc position. There were spiders and pear ciders. 

Got home around 12, completely and utterly knackered. 

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I had an epic weekend, so taking monday off to recover and recharge

 Friday night, we had an nice little chinese new year gathering at pickelle's
 We gave ourselvs a little early mark after throwing berry bliss lollies at each other, and scraping knees
First, we headed off to coles and the asian store to pick up groceries before going over to pickelle's apartment for cooking
She pulled off a yummy meal for the eight of us (the spare ribs were ultra yumyum in my tumtum) and we even made tong yuan
Tab's were the most consistent and rounded, followed by mine, and then pickelle went for a "marbled" effect, if you get what i'm saying

I think we must have downed 3 bottles of moscarto
And we caught glimpses of a game of Cards Against Humanity as we rolled the glutinous flour 

Highlight of the night goes to Jan's fingering card in response to women's best friend, which opened up a whole new level of intimacy
Love these crazies.

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I took this little cutie for a trip to cabramatta the other weekend, because he's never been
I must confess that I didn't expect that I would ever be able to convince him to eat vietnamese food, but I think I've got a convert
(Praise the power of pho!) 

First stop was PhoTauBay where we got the standard raw beef pho, and some pork mince wrapped in rice noodles (so yummy!). I also ordered an vietnamese ice coffee even though I'm really not supposed to :P

After that, we headed towards the main street to check out the shops.
I was a bit sad that we went on a bit of a cooler day, because I didn't feel like having my normal sugar cane drink. I did get my normal sweet potato and banana chips to go though.
I couldn't stop munching on them, and they eventually got taken away because I had no self control.

Then, finally, we went on the hunt for some good ol' nam neoung.
Had to call up dom at this point to ask, and he was amazing and even highlighted which shop it was for us, from the photo I sent him of where we were standing! How cool is that!
(Still think Bankstown nam neoung is better though :P)

Before I forget, it was also the most hilarious drive ever because we wanted to avoid the traffic on John street so we kept going around it but having to take the biggest loops ever because you could only turn left.
I think we must have gone around and around for 20 minutes or more.
Good thing I was the one driving :P

Also, penis!

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Had a little random catch up with my westies/lab201/masters faves last weekend

It was just so lovely to get to see the two of them, since I don't get to see them that often 

Had the sweet corn fritters, though my heart was after the pancakes

I don't usually feel regret but...I wish I had ordered the pancakes 

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Weekend brunch - oh, how I wish I could quit you!
Miss wynwyn flew off for some hawaiian fun today, so the group of us high school friends made a last minute decision/choice/judgment to have brunch
Cherry decided to bring Johnson along, and it was probably the most inappropriate brunch to take him along to, I mean, what didn't we discuss?
It was like an agenda taken straight out of sex and the city - laser hair removal, menstruation, protection, with a standard bitch session to top it all off. Felt like I learnt a lot haha.

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one of many things to go into my recent gratitude diary is rekindling old loves. and that includes my love for these three, right here. i'm just so grateful that, though my love has waxed and waned over the years, we're in love in this moment :)
you guys are awesome.
you make me laugh and you make me fat and you make me addicted to caffeine in the best possible ways. can't wait to share more of these moments, whether it be impromptu bra shopping, befriending or befriending the staff, pretentious coffee orders, not talking about people or, hahaha, drooling together...i miss you already <3

donna.

april always calls for a few more blogposts :p
we celebrated hui's bday a few days early because girl has commitments for days
pretty much lied to her from the moment we saw her face hahah
gotta love her gift-receiving skills <3

then we kidnapped her to Seven Lanterns to try out their degustation menu
for $70, they sure did have some tasty things. I tried the lanterns menu, but because of my recent shellfish allergy scare, I had to be one of those picky people of swapped their courses :(
they really loved their sweet meat sauces, but other than that one little downside, the meal was pretty awesome. I also figured that I love sticky date pudding :)

donna.

gotta love a good baking session.
lovely wynnie volunteered to make all the baked goods for cherry's wedding - i.e. wedding cake and cookies. in the end, not sure making the wedding cake was the brightest idea the three of us have ever had, since wynnie had to leave a week before the wedding for US of A.
lots of trauma and cake farting ensued, and i'm fairly sure i'll never recover from the cake-sitting incident of 2013.

disregarding that, i had a fantastic time playing apprentice for the cookie decorating session.
lots of fun :)

cake was heavily inspired by this pin and the cookies by this pin

 

for more hoho wedding baking goodness: part 1 | part 2a | part 2b

donna.