Little Cozy Corner

Despite the rain this afternoon, the lunch was great! Venue : The Stamford, North Ryde, not in Epping as I mentioned earlier. They had a rather wide variety of seafood and I must say that my favorite was the squid salad. Out of the 3 crustaceans that I was looking forward to trying, I hit one - the Balmain Bug. I was rather disappointed with it as there was so little flesh in there and people pay a lot to eat it. The texture is somewhat prawn-like, unlike crabs meat which kinds of crumble. This was slightly tough, maybe more like lobster? I’m not sure coz I’ve not had lobster before but I think it’s almost alike. The other thing that I’m glad I tried or finally had the chance to try is fresh oyster. I’ve heard so much about it that I just had to try it.

The first one was nice coz I only took one seeing that I was afraid I might not like it and didn’t want to waste the lot. And I enjoyed it. It was something like kerang/cockels. Then I was a bit brave and took another 3, which was a mistake. The second one was ok, the third I couldn’t swallow - it began to make me feel sick coz Ted was looking at me funny and he kept asking me if I liked it coz it was slimy. Although I don’t blame my sickness on him, I think I may have had a not-so-fresh oyster when I took the 3rd shell so I dumped the 4th. Wasn’t going to take the risk and puke all that wonderful seafood out. After this, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really like it and I’m glad that I tried it coz now I know where I stand. For dessert, I didn’t what to choose coz there was just so many things to choose from so I settled for the chocolate mud cake and the passion fruit sponge cake. The passion fruit cake was a-ok but the chocolate mud cake, AIYOR!!!! So sinfully delish……*still drooling from just now*

Anyway, all in all, we had a good time out and I’m sure that the in-laws had fun too coz they are all seafood lovers! Now, on with the pix….

Because it was raining, couldn’t take pix of the ‘resort’

The birthday boy with his pressies from big bro, Bill.

Yummy seafood for all! [L-R] Prawns, crabs, mussels, Balmain Bugs and oysters.

The sinful platter you couldn’t resist even if you tried!

The birthday boy with his birthday cake at MIL’s place.

The fountain outside the restaurant

The Balmain bug and the Oyster. ANd the squid salad too - YUMMY!

Now, one more thing before I close this post. With Lent happening now, I normally sacrifice something I enjoy. This happens every Lent. Last Lent, I cut down on my sugar intake. This Lent, it’s going to be blogging. From now until Easter, I’ll only be blogging once a week, that is every Sunday. I’ll be honest, although I don’t blog that often now, when I go back to Malaysia, I know I’ll be itching to blog and if I could [that is if it weren't Lent season], I would be blogging daily. Now only that, my friend is getting married so you can image how much I will long to blog but I would have to wait till Sunday till I can spill the stories.

It’s going to be very tough but that is what a sacrifice is. However, since I won’t be blogging, it will also give me a chance to drop by your blog instead. At least I won’t lose out that much I guess. :wink:  So till next Sunday…..have a good week and when I do get back, I’ll have pictures of Batemans Bay coz that’s where Ted and I will be going for a short holiday. We leave on Wednesday [28th Feb] and will be back in Parramatta on Saturday - a 4D/3N long awaited and well deserved holiday. We are both very excited about it and are counting the days till we head off.

So be good while I’m away and see you next Sunday!

Finally, I’m up to getting this done. First thing though - a piece of good news. I got that temp job for 3 weeks!!! YAYNESS!!!! I’m so happy and today was the official first day for the next 3 weeks and things were nice and smooth. Seems rather stress free too which is pretty darn good. Anyways, thank you for your support and prayers. It certainly worked! Now, on to more of the pictures I promised you.

A 2-men tiny tanker called a ferret. I think it’s very cute!

Eerrmm…I personally am no fan of gun what more kids AND guns but let’s hope this encourages them to JOIN the army and not otherwise. Then there are also the food packs that each soldier has to carry and at least 5 packets each. We were told that they are to carry this, 8 water canteens, their rifle, ammunition and if they carry the M-16 which has like a HUGE load of rounds - that’s at least 200kgs on each man. And there I used to wonder how come these men are fit to just about kill anyone. Scary!

The Flyball Dog race that took place - I thought this was so cute!! Hehehe…..

Pictures of how people lived then. Some of the old stuff, kids carving = play time, women dressed up to the ‘90-s’ and a blacksmith hard at work.

Gawd, when I saw this I went all quesy each time a kid ‘lifts off’ and does a spin in mid-air. Aiyo!! Ngeri lar….

The fun slide - no, you don’t slide down with what you have on, you slide down on a gunny sack! :tongue: I tried one of these water slides and I bumped my head real bad. Since then, I’ve kept my distance be it on land or water.

The videos I promised you :

1. Flyball Dog Race

2. A Polynesian Dance

Ted and I had great fun on Friday, 26th Jan 2006. It was my first time celebrating this special day and like I mentioned earlier, thank goodness for good weather. But I still got burnt, slightly. No harm done though.

Anyways, enjoy….this will be in a 2 part thingy. Too many pictures to stuff into one post. Plus I want to keep u in suspenders. Hehehe….and there will be 2 videos for u too!!

The huge banner by the main street.

 The Zoomobile from Taronga Zoo.

The echidna which I managed to stroke before the kiddies pushed me out of the way. Brats! [See, this was why I was SO unimpressed, no proper animal petting allowed - I couldnt hold the huge python!!! NOT HAPPY!!!]

The weird looking stick like insect which I know not the name, but I think it’s fugly.

What is an Aussie event without a BBQ!! Here the men are hard at work. Woohooo!!

These sheep I believe have already been sheared and I missed it! Cis….

At first I thought that this was a band playing right through the park but then I realised that is it actually the ‘town sheriff’ who has stopped to arrest the ‘village drunkard’, who sadly is not yet in the pic when I snapped this.

The artistic me trying to get all artsy-fartsy. It’s the opened rooftop of a gazebo in the Rose Garden. I’m pretty sure it would look excellent during spring time.

Hopefully the rest will be up tomorrow. O by the way, I managed to get a 2 day temp job as a cashier at some college due to new enrollments. Pathetic I know, but such is the fate of a temp worker AND beggars can’t be chosers so catch you guys later tomorrow!!!

Aiyo, my poor SS! :crying: It’s near non-existent and my only excuse is that I’ve been a toadstool - marinating and vegetating at home. There’s just so many pictures of birds I can show you guys, plus I’ve reached the pinnacle of my efforts. I’ve got them eating out of my hand and landing on my head. What more could I do? Also, I’ve personally stopped hand feeding them since one of them has this nasty habit of biting my fingers to the extend of drawing blood! No, it’s not funny so stop laughing. There is this one psycho bird who always lands on Ted and bites his ears but somehow that has not yet deterred him from hand feeding them. Me, I’ve given up…twice bitten, I’d be a fool to try again.

So, instead Ted and I have been spending time in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Nothing beats home cooked food tailored to suit your taste. And so far, I’ve not been disappointed and neither has Ted. He does the ang moh stuff and me the Asian. Perfect.

Chef Ted’s Beef Mince and super cheesy nachos :drool:

Chef Ted’s Beef with Veggie Lasagna [Modified version of the pure beef mince one] :drool: :drool:

My pumpkin soup [First attempt, not bad!]

The pumpkin soup recipe was from a Hari Krishna recipe book which was given to us when Ted donated some money to this kid on the street. I was surprised he gave us the book but it has come in very handy when we feel like a vegetarian meal every Wednesdays and Fridays. Many more to try out!!! :dancing:

Ps. I know there’s nothing Asian about my pumpkin soup but for me to stick up pictures of Asian food wouldn’t be dramatic now, would it? :thinking: Or maybe I should just do that…hehehe, love making people hungry since I’m now obssessed with food!!! :devil:

I promised Ash that I would try and get some pictures up regarding the types of decorating that some people here do to make it all the more festive. Ted, being the sweetheart that he is, took me all around a couple of nearby neighbourhood on 24/12/2006, hunting for houses whose homeowners took the effort to decorate their homes. There were so few that these were pretty much all that we managed to get! Even so, Ted’s efforts in showing me and taking the time to drive me around in search for these decorations are very much appreaciated. :love:

Without further ado, I give to you……Christmas in my new hood.

Note : The explainations are in my flickr account - sorry I didnt add any in here. Forgot. :whistling:

Decorated Townhall - the Mayor of Parramatta’s office.

I couldn’t find a waving Santa for Ash but I found one which was large enough, on the balcony.

And the winner is………..

This takes the cake and my personal favourite!! A standing ovation to the owners of this home. A job well done!! :applause:

O this is just an addition, a somewhat bored looking Santa waiting for kids to come sit pn his lap. :hehe:

Here’s wishing you all a very blessed and merry Christmas! May you spend it amongst loved ones and that the good Lord bless you in everyway possible and keep you in His love always. :love:

If two SS ago I was ecstatic, this week…I’m way over the moon!!! I think my birds love me - as long as I got food in my hands.

See, my Ted’s birds love me!!! :dancing:

And they obviously love Ted too coz he’s got food in his hands too!!! :tongue:

This is one of my favourite shots - it’s a ‘Hey ,watcha looking at?’ pix. :LOL: So cute lar!

We had a quiet weekend this time around. We had actually plan to take a trip into the city and check out that craz-cheap DVD/CD sale down at Darling Harbour on Sunday but I decided to exercise some major restraint and decided not to go all together coz I know that if I did, a pack of wilderbeast couldn’t keep me in line!! I’d definitely go bonkers so instead we stayed home and sorted out millions of pictures which needed to go into their albums.

On Saturday night, we attended our first Christmas party at church. It was an international Christmas party where everyone was asked to bring a dish that was served during Christmas back in our home country. Normally, Mummy would cook mutton curry coz it’s such a killer with the family but since I couldn’t find any mutton, I made do with beef instead. If it was up to me, I would think that I sucked at my very first attempt of cooking up a curry coz it looked nothing like the one back home. To me, it looked so dull and lifeless, that’s why I dumped in a load of yellow and red capsicum just to give it some color. But Ted thinks otherwise. Although it was spicy, he said that it was good and I’m happy as long as my husband’s happy. And I guess it must have been good to a certain extend because I didn’t have a chance to taste it at the party at all!! It was wiped out clean….:cool: *Masuk bakul, angkat sendiri!*

So, whaddaya think?

This is just a random shot of the pipe organ in church. As much as I love having it during mass, sometimes I feel like I’m on the set of Adam’s Family or The Munsters. *sigh*