We won! We won!

Our Flipside alliance of maramas (kittykat & Voodoo) and wahines (Red Ginger and Me) won the women's category of Sydney Urban Max adventure race! We weren't sprinting like the crazy running men in their short shorts, and we weren't the fittest looking bunch of girls there - so we were absolutely surprised when we found out that we came first in the womens division! It was SO MUCH FUN, we were laughing the whole way - even in the downpour! (every piece of clothing was wet even though I was wearing a fisherman yellow raincoat!) It just like being in the Real Amazing race, with people running to catch trains and get off trains and constantly looking over my back to see who is behind us. We even had a camera crew follow us around for a while! Here are the final results (which really should show us both teams as 'equal first' (except that poor Mel was hopping to the finish line with bung knee) but I don't care so much as we got cool prizes - kodak digital cameras and printers!

....and den

Last night we went to Meat and Wine Co with the basketball team. Mars used her charms to book the 'private' room , which was a fully furnished dining room with a tv and our own wait staff. (we managed to watch the finale of 'Australian Princess'!) It was pretty special. And so were the ribs. Which i had a FULL RACK again. I'm a sucker for punishment, because I wasn't really hungry and I didn't need to prove the point because everyone knew I could finish a full rack...aghhhh anyhow they were delish, except that my stomach decided to punish me about 20 minutes later....*sigh* Never the full rack again!! Jen had the creme brulee for dessert that had churros (spanish long stick like fried donuts) on the side. Except when the dessert arrived I couldn't see the churros - they were MINI churros that were hidden under a strawberry! I was hoping to scab a piece...but they were smaller than my pinkie. I wish I had taken a photo it really was small...and for a girl who is used to eating BIG things....it was very unsatisfying ;)

My first soft toy

This is the first (and probably last) soft toy i have ever made. It's just a few bits of felt sewn together. I started this about 6 months ago and spent a few hours designing (ha) and sewing and then gave up halfway in disgust at my appalling sewing skills. It became the reject half toy that sat on my table.

Last night I was inspired by Miss Cazz's efforts to go into 'the third dimension' (she is making a 3-D hippo/rhino!) and so I dared to finish the 'rejected toy'. Originally she was going to have a scowling spoilt brat kind of face. But I was so happy to be motiviated to finish her that somehow she ended up with a smiling face and a pink loveheart on her stomach.

Top 5 moments this weekend

1. Paddling through beautiful Sydney Harbour to Balmoral Beach early Saturday Morning - you can never take the scenery for granted especially the awesome standstone cliffs and seeing the rocks below through the clear water!
2. Baking banana bread that 'forgot' to rise. (It's more a banana brick really...)
3. Eating until I was exhausted on Saturday night with a homemade Japanese feast and playing bad beginners mahjong with the girls.
4. Walking through the Glebe Street Fair and feeling the good vibes. (and feeling like i have a life outside of paddling even though it was only for half an hour to kill time from finishing racing and then having to lift a canoe out at Glebe)
5. Coming 2nd place in our Long Course (10km) race at Balmoral! The Cronulla girls still beat us, but 2nd out of 15 is awesome for our first race of the season!

detox contract

The past few weeks at work have been like a continuous picnic. Muffins here, cakes there, biscuits for afternoon tea...it was an eating fest that i think started from the 'pink breakfast' buffet, and culminated in a post work party hangover chips and potato scallops breakfast last friday.

The three of us in our little cubicle - AliG, Ben and I - really enjoy our food, especially baking. Today, AliG decided enough was enough (today after relatively healthy lunches the three of us we walked to woolies and bought a 4 pack of cornetto mint slice! so yummy and as advertised 'no boring bits!') and during the afternoon 'coma-period' she somehow convinced us all that we needed to make a pact to stop eating crap. And we agreed. foolishly.

The detox contract is to last for all of next week and will only apply during 'work hours' so really if you wanted to cheat outside of work you could, but i find that it's during work where i'm really tempted to eat.

The contract includes "thou shall not eat: chocolate, deep fried foods, cakes, baked goods in general, coffee (unless it is black), soft drinks, lollies, ice cream. Instead we must drink at least two bottles of water (1.2L), 2 pieces of fruit a day and 5 hours of exercise a week (which we all already do anyhow). And if we break the contract then the fine is $25.00 (which devilishly goes towards BAKED GOODS once the detox period is over HAHAHA) and 50 pushups in the office. Yeah we'll see how it goes.

surfing and truffles

On Sunday Jpeg, Red Ginger and I embarked on our goal for summer - learning to surf. We took a two hour lesson at Maroubra and tried to stand. The 'bra is notorious for waves that break and dump. I was hoping to get some pointers from our instructor on how to read and predict waves, unfortunately he was very "bodhi" like and could only put it down to 'you just know'. Clearly his knowledge of reading surf was accumulated from many years and he just couldn't articulate the information...'it's hard ya' know, it's like you're reacting to the waves, whereas i can predict them'. Oh wise Bodhi tell me MORE. So anyhow we all managed to stand for a second or two. I am always rushing and thinking i need to jump and snap on the board like a pro surfer. which i am not. After swallowing large amounts of sea water and freezing in teh chilly water for over 1.5 hours, I called it a day and sat on the beach to try and read the waves. No idea. Might have to get some physics books to read about waves again.

Oh yeah, bought some italian black truffles for Mum's birthday today. calculated it to be $1750 AUD per kilo for whole black truffles. I bought 3 SMALL truffles! Will report on the taste and texture when we crack the bottle open!

Hawaii Cruise

collage, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

Aloha! Last night a few of us crazy wahines went on a Hawaiian Cruise that Red Ginger's friend helped to organise.

The cruise boat was BIG and cruised about Sydney Harbour - along our standard training routes for OC. i guess we are spoilt with views when we go training.

Anyhow the cruise was some a strange mix of people - European students who were interested in practising English, some who were practising grinding, and then a whole Fijian contingent -many who happened to be Jpeg's cousins (spies everywhere! haha)

amazing race

Oh yes.
We are in.
Following the lead from Madamoiselle Cherie and Homeboy Cheech, a bunch of us girlies have put in our teams for the Sydney adventure race which is touted to be run in a similar style to The Amazing Race. Of course it won't be the same without a camera crew to follow us around, or the $1million prize money, but I plan to run around and talk in an obnoxious american accent and throw hissy fits at every opportunity. We have a two team alliance known as 'Flipside Wahines' and 'Flipside Maramas' (maramas is fijian for hot chick haha). Can't wait!

just before i sleep...

Blogs are full of weird and wonderful stuff! Two things I stumbled upon...

The quest for a 30,000 calorie sandwich . This has nothing to do with 1000 calorie lash mascara. It's about a dude and his quest to make a mega high calorie sandwich. HT and Joe, take note. Gregan - i think you should steer clear of this website...i feel my arteries clogging just looking at it. The original sandwich looked more appealing, whereas that deep fried version is just overkill! I actually did make an italian sandwich of a similar size for our summer picnic earlier this year - but hell, that sandwich fed 12 people.

For the crafters, You knit what? is HELLA funny. Pictures of CRAP and bizarre things that people knit like furry knitted beer stubbie holders and ugly manchos (man ponchos). They lose points for being anti-Hello Kitty though. ha ha


PS. Pom Pom update. Have made 3 successful red pompoms! Yay! The 4th one was an overly ambitious over-stuffed pink one...more like conjoined pom pom twins... haha.

pompoms

pompom, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

You all thought i was joking about the pompoms. HA! I've bought my pompom maker and I'm going to make some pompoms. See this here scarf. I didn't make it, but I plan too do something similar...You know that scarf is retailing for $273USD! Of course it is a one off designer thing made out of some expensive yarn yadda yadda. My pompom maker cost $2.70AUD. Can't wait to try it out!

close to home

Good old Wiley Park! My parents were thinking of building a duplex and moving us into Wiley Park for a while...I feel pretty safe living next to potential terrorists - it's not like they're going to bomb their own backyard, right? right.

crafty projects

Today I just finished Miss Caroline's moss green scarf. I didn't ask if she meant dark green moss or light yellow green moss...haha so i chose a universal moss green yarn. It has about 4 different greens to cover all bases. I'm calling it the 'everykindofmossgreen' scarf. Only 99 scarves to go til xmas...haha

I'm a bad yarn hoarder. It's differs from being a yarn hoarder, in that I dont hoard yarn for future projects. I *somehow* buy yarn which i think will be good then realise it's crap to knit with and has poor texture qualities (like chalky acrylic or itchy wool) and by then it's too late to exchange or return, so it just sits in my little pile of wool over there in the corner of my room. So i've decided to make good use of bad yarn pile and maybe make some pompoms. I did abit of online searching and found some nice cheap plastic pompom makers (yes they make them, and yes they are better than cutting cardboard circles like in primary school). What I also found was a job description for pompom maker. http://www.careerplanner.com/DOT-Job-Descriptions/POMPOM-MAKER.cfm

Fabricates pompoms for knitted headwear: Gathers spools of yarn according to type and color specified on work order. Positions and secures winding wheel on workbench. Threads yarn through tension devices and guides of winding wheel. Manually rotates wheel to form skein of yarn. Ties string around yarn, pulls yarn from wheel, and cuts yarn between strings to form pompom, using handsaw or scissors. Fluffs yarn by hand into shape of pompom.

Who knew that pompom making was a career choice? I guessed that machines would have replaced the entire process..but I never knew that pompom fluffer was a human skill. (no, HT. not _that_ kind of fluffer)

So I went away for the weekend with Jpeg to a nice little beach house on the central coast in a little suburb called Killcare just before Gosford. It was relaxing, no mobile reception, no clocks, no schedules and...no camera. Oops. i packed my camera charger, but left the camera in the other bag. *sigh* It wasn't so great for pics anyhow - abit overcast with grey skies, but the house was decorated in a real seaside beach shack/ nautical theme, which I would have liked to have a few pictures of...abit tacky but thoroughly enjoyable.
Now I feel obligated to join the work syndicates for 19 million lotto so i can afford my own holiday house - I would definately decorate it in a hawaiian beach shack theme...

how to make a party look 'happening'

Friday night's opening season party was a fizzer. There's no VIBE! Jpeg has vowed to never go to anymore PD parties. Not enough bourbons. Not enough music in his case.

We persisted with the party for a few hours and then it really died in the arse. But before we left we decided to take some pictures to make it look more 'happening!'

Step 1. find nearest group of people and say "we are going to take a picture and I want everyone to look like they are having a good time!"
Step 2. throw your arms up in the air and yell out during the picture and look like you're having a good time
Result. A photo that captures people looking like they are having a good time. even if they didn't. And people who weren't there think "gee that party looks kind of happening". or not.

...and here's what an OC12 looks like

Check out the album...I'm doing a little bit of a 'million dollar' baby pose with my taped up hands ha ha.