Tiger and Costco

My credit card got another workout today.

The most expensive (and annoying) purchase was flight tickets to Melbourne for Melbourne cup weekend. I booked ages ago with Tiger airways and got a really cheap deal, but Tiger decided to cancel the flight. Of course now the flights left on Virgin and Qantas are very dear, so I had no choice but to pay $350 for a return flight at less than ideal times. Had I wanted to book convenient times, it would have cost $550 return which is just ridiculous. I feel stupid for booking with Tiger in the first place, as Virgin weren’t that much more expensive when I originally booked.

Now that Tiger have dumped all Canberra flights and routes (I’m assuming they have, as they have cut their most popular Canberra-Melb flight), Canberrans will be even more likely than before to be forced to buy non-competitive, expensive fares.

I suppose I needed to have to have an annoying and expensive experience with a budget airline to prompt me to avoid them in the future. No more Tiger!

I also caved and bought 2 pairs of flats on Ebay, one loafer style and the other cute blue with frills. I will post photos of them when they arrive, I just hope they fit.

For lunch we went to Costco (one of my colleagues has a membership). I probably wouldn’t eat there again. Sure it was cheap ($3 for my giant slice of pizza, $2.50 for a giant frozen yoghurt) but I now feel sick from it. So unhealthy and such large servings (and no, I didn’t feel compelled to finish them). I refrained from buying the 2kg of Jelly Belly jellybeans that they sell for $20, which is a great bargain.

I want Forever 21 to come to Australia!

A colleague got me all excited yesterday when she told me that Forever 21 was coming to Australia. As far as I can tell, this is a (probably untrue) unconfirmed rumour. My frantic googling revealed that some random news source published an article in April stating that ‘Topshop, Abercrombie & Fitch, Uniqlo, Banana Republic and Forever 21 are all said to be looking to bring their wares down under’ and ‘Forever 21 may be taking over places from the now defunct Borders.’ This unreferenced, unsubstantiated claim is not enough to get me excited. It would be fantastic if Forever 21 came here, but even if they did, I doubt they’d have the prices and range that they have in the US. We just don’t have a big enough market. The USA has a population of approx 307 million, while Australia has a piddly 22 million.

But anyway, dreams and yearning aside, I was inspired to go onto the Forever 21 website and choose some items I’d like to try on. I made it through the tops, sweaters and cardigans, dresses and hair accessories before running out of steam. Here is the outcome:

The prices are mega cheap... I went crazy in Forever 21 when I was in Los Angeles about 6 years ago. Tempt and Valleygirl have some improving to do before they will ever match up to Forever 21's greatness, but they are probably the most similar stores here.

Ginger Pudding with Caramelized Pumpkin & Macadamia Gelato...

Tom the cat returned... we let Bub play with him some more, then took him to the vet to be microchip scanned. The vet recognised the cat as one of his patients. Apparently the family who own him are away on holiday, and have already been away for 2 months... Poor kitty is staying with a family just down the road from us, and despite being an indoor cat, those people hadn't even noticed that he had been missing for two days. Poor Tom (who is actually named Trevor) probably wasn't lost at all, but was so bored that he wanted to come and be with us. He loved playing with Bub, and Bub was not happy about saying goodbye. I'm sort of hoping he will escape again and return (of course we'd return him again after a play), and we're even contemplating getting a cat now.

Work has been extra hectic, I didn't even have time to go and get my daily coffee today. Probably a good thing because I have been making a habit of buying giant muffins with my coffee, which is not helping the waistline. I have definitely put on weight since I started my office job. In my defence, having broken my ankle (and still being in pain with it) means I can't do sport. If I could go jogging I probably would (I know about a week ago I said I doubted I'd have time, but these last few days I've realised how much weight I have put on and I would make time).

Anyway, I just got home from dinner at Choices Vietnamese in Manuka. It was tasty, not spectacular. We went to Griffith Vietnamese first but they were booked out. Dessert was however a highlight. First we went to an Indian restaurant and asked if we could just get dessert, the waiter said NO as there is a minimum charge. Their loss - the restaurant was practically empty so I don't understand that sort of business. Instead we went to Le Rendezvous and had this very creative and tasty combination:

It was supposed to be ginger pudding with caramelized pumpkin and macadamia gelato. It was very very good, but it could have been spectacular if it was what was on the menu. It was actually just normal pumpkin (albeit sweet, it would have been better if caramelized) with vanilla bean ice cream (macadamia would have been tastier). So while it could have been taste bud popping, Masterchef standard delicious, it was still pretty damn good. It's a great combination and would be so easy to make, I might do this as a dinner party dessert (sure to impress!).

In other news, I think Bub is a budding artiste. Don't you think this is good for a 3 year old? It's all her work, a painting of outer space:

She has such fabulous concentration and can work at a painting for an hour!

Do you ever buy just because it's cheap?

I did that yesterday; I bought 3 books from Basement Books only because they were $1.20 each. Afterwards I was like, why did I do that!? More unecessary clutter. I suppose I can try to read them and donate them to charity afterwards. The books are:

And the total cost? A whole $3.60 for all three including shipping. I just had to do it.... 
I've been feeling cold lately, only because we had such warm weather last week. Now it's back to winter (as it should be) and I need to re-acclimatise!


Last night was eventful at our place, as we discovered a beautiful Bengal kitten on the patio. It sat there meowing to be let inside for hours and hours. Eventually at 10pm we let it inside and made a bed for it in the laundry- the poor thing was cold and scared. It's obviously someone's indoor pet and it escaped and got lost. Such a cute breed, I really want a Bengal kitty now! Bubnamed him 'Tom' (an ugly name, but for some reason she calls every cat Tom and sometimes pretends to be a cat called Tom... not sure where she gets it from).

This morning M let Bengal kitty outside and took Bub to her gymnastics lesson, upon their return he had dissapeared :-( I think we should have kept him and taken him to the vet for microchip scanning, I'm sure such an expensive breed would have a microchip. Oh well, maybe Tom will return tonight if he's still lost in the area. He looks a lot like this:

Photo credit: Bali Hai Bengals

Only 3 and a half weeks until I'm back in Perth for a visit, and performance appraisals at work this week... a few things to look forward to!

Op Shop Saturday

This morning I woke up bright and early to go to the YMCA garage sale in Yarralumla. Unfortunately, apart from lots of squishing past people, my morning was uneventful. Last time I went to this sale I found some lovely retro wares, but this time nothing took my fancy. I did find a clay bangle which only cost 50c.

I then had a physiotherapy appointment and afterwards I decided to pop into the YMCA shop in Kingston. This place is hit and miss- it can be overpriced and often I find nothing. Today however I had great success!!!

This photo shows the clay bracelet I bought, and also:

• Sportsgirl hat with shell and button cord, $2
• Cosy warm double lined scarf, $2
• Floral scarf, $1

My favourite purchase is this lovely coat, a bargain for only $5. I have too many black coats but I just couldn't resist, I love this one!

I have no idea why the picture is showing up as sideways- it is the right way up on my computer!!! Technology is trying to mess with my head (as usual), so I'll have to leave it sideways (in order to remain sane!).

This is probably my most successful op shopping day in Canberra so far, I am usually so unimpressed with the op shops here. Whoever priced the above items has made me very happy :-)

The weather is horrible today - grey and rainy... it had to happen as we just had the most lovely sunny week. At least I made the most of the good weather by going for a walk every lunchtime.  I am looking forward to staying in tonight and watching TV in my warm cabin, with my warm fluffy throw and dressing gown, whilst sipping a mug of hot milo!

I listed a few items on ebay - I figure I might as well sell my heels from this season (since I haven't really worn them, and won't be able to thanks to breaking my ankle) and while I was at it I decided on a few more items I can bare to part with. You can have a look at my listings here if you'd like.

Loafer love

Heels are out for the foreseeable future (thank you broken ankle which is taking ages to regain strength) - so I have been wearing flats to work every day. I have decided that I wear too many black flats. I probably have 8 pairs of flats, all of which are black. I'd love some loafers but black and navy blue are out (I'm broadening my horizons!).

These are my ultimate flats:

 Todd's 'Dee' patent leather loafers.

They don't look like typical loafers, but that's what they're called apparently.

Then I did an Ebay search, and I like all of these (all from the same seller, who is located in Taiwan):

What do you think? If I was to limit myself to two pairs, which ones should I get?

Canberra sunsets

The sunset was so gorgeous last night that I pulled over on the way home from work not once, but twice to park my car by the road and enjoy it. Others obviously felt the same way because there were cars pulled up everywhere- I've never seen that before!