Kat's Easter Egg Hunt

On Easter Friday my friend Kat had a pot luck lunch and easter egg hunt at her place. As a lot of you know I've put on a bit of weight recently with my health problems rearing their ugly head again so I've been back on Weight Watchers.

I was wondering what sweet and easter-like thing I could take to the party without it making me put on a whole bunch of weight in one sitting!

I have recently started buying this magazine called the "Healthy Food Guide" and in one of the issues they had a recipe for mini cupcakes called "Big Fat Zero Cupcakes" - as long as you make these babies as mini's they work out to only 1 point each with worked out well for me:)

Here's the recipe if you'd like to try them out:

BIG FAT ZERO CUPCAKES
Makes 36 Mini Cupcakes

You will need:

Small Paper Patty Cases
3 Eggs
1/2 Cup Castor Sugar
3/4 Cup Plain Flour
1 Tablespoon Boiling Water
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Preheat the Oven to 180C

Use mixer to beat the sugar and eggs together until pale and thick. The mixture should leave a trail when you lift the beater out and will nearly treble in size. Allow 5-8 Minutes depending on how powerful your beater is. Using a metal spoon, fold in half the flowe. When that is incorporated, fold in the remaining flour. Lastly add the hot water and vanilla.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared patty cases and bake 10-15 minutes or until golden and springy when gently pressed.

Allow to cool before icing.

By the way - I decided not to take part in the Easter Egg hunt (if I hunted them - I'd only eat them) but Rich managed to hunt down a few.

I actually asked for no eggs at easter which worked well - as Rich bought me Flight of the Concords on DVD instead as I asked for something which would make me laugh. So I am enjoying my Easter present still where as if I'd had been given eggs they would have long been eaten by now!

Smashing Pumpkins

My "Rock n' Roll" Easter started on Thursday night - I was very excited about seeing the Smashing Pumpkins and Queens of the Stone Age. I was more excited about the Pumpkins though - I hardly ever listen to them now but when I was a teenager I absolutely LOVED them - they were one of my favourite bands ever (My other two were Blur and Oasis - how times have changed! Although I still like Blur).

We arrived a little late - but I've been going to gigs for years and bands never start on time right? WRONG! We basically missed QOTSA and only saw two songs in their set which was a major bummer. I really wanted to see them.

But what can you do? Perhaps they will come back to Wellington one day?

After our two songs we went at waited to get some water from the bar which seemed to take an infinatly LONG time - it has to be one of the worst managed bars I have ever been too.

When the Pumpkins finally started I was very exicited!! They gig has in general got a bit of a bad wrap about town in the papers from people in general and I have to admit I didn't LOVE it and I have seen better gigs but it was fun rocking out to old songs from my youth like "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and "1979". But I think a lot of people got a little over it at the end when Billy Corgan decided to show us just how flash he was with his guitar by mucking about with it and making lots of noise and making the crowd sing him Happy Birthday twice!!

So it wasn't the best gig I've been to - but it wasn't the worse either - I had fun:)

Mountain Goats Gig Cancelled!

As many people know my Easter weekend was a rock n' roll o' rama (I will put the photos up in good time!) although all that rock n' roll is fun I had really been looking forward to seeing "The Mountain Goats" for some good old fashioned folk style music in April.

But Kat e-mailed me today to let me know that their gig had been cancelled **sigh**

I am SO bummed out:(

An afternoon at the Botanical Gardens

Last weekend it was a lovely afternoon on Sunday and I'd not been feeling too great for much of that day (story of my life at the moment) anyways, Ross wanted to catch up with Rich and I so we decided to meet at the (rather pricey) cafe at the Botanical Gardens.

After a catch up with Ross over the news of the week we decided that we should perhaps have a bit of a look around because for people who love to walk who live close to the gardens we really don't spend much time there.

So here's some sites around Wellington's beautiful botanical gardens....

These photos are from the herb gardens, I love herb gardens, the signs always tell you that you're not allowed to pick the herbs but I always do! They just smell so good.

This is such a crazy scupture - I'm not huge on scupture but I like this! You can even stand inside it!

A Day at the Races

Last week Jess, Ange and I headed out to the "Ladies Day" at Trentham to enjoy yet more horse races. Unlike last time at the races for Celia's birthday when I mostly concentrated on drinking and not the horses, this time I actually put some bets on, which was possibly not the best idea as non of my horses came anywhere near being in the top three. Unlike Ange's horses - that seemed to win every time (ok maybe not every time but she did do exceptionally well).

But despite my lack of luck (I could never be addicted to gambling, I'm sure an addiction required you actually winning at some point in time!) I did have a fantastic time in the sunshine with my friends with my heart shaped sunnies.

You know that you're too busy in life....

When the only time you seem to be able to meet your friend is for breakfast! My friend Nankz and I have been trying to meet up for brunch for what seems like weeks...but either I am out of of town or he's out of town or I'm only free Sunday and he's only free Saturday...so in a final effort to actually see each other before the year is out we decided to meet for breakfast at Felix on Friday morning and I have to say it was a really nice way to start the last day of the week;)

I would in fact recommend it to everyone - it's like starting the weekend early:)

A girls dinner whilst Ange is visiting.....

Last Tuesday my friend Ange was visiting from Australia - so a whole bunch of us girls - Kat, Fiona, Gina, Ange and I got together to catch up with Ange whilst she was here and hear about how her wedding plans are going (although there wasn't so much talk about the wedding plans as there was general girly gossip). It was good to catch up - as I don't know when I'll see Ange again - maybe not until she is here again for her wedding in Decemeber which is a long way away (unless I decide to take a random trip to Brisbane to visit her - although it's not on the cards at the moment!).

After dinner Fiona and I went and saw the most amazing (and free...YAH!) show in Civic Square called "Gravity and Other Myths" which was an amazing arobatic type show - it's amazing how strong these people were - both men and women - they seemed to be able to climb up anything and never ever get dizzy (there was a lot of spinning) and they finished off the performance with lots of spinning and lots of fire. It's one of the most amazing shows I've ever seen (especially considering the price).

Jacqui's Baby Shower

Last weekend it was my friend Jacqui's baby shower out at Soi - here's some of the photos.

Firstly, the restaurant gave us a whole room to ourselves (ok - I think Ange requested it - but if was prolly best to keep us away from other people anyways).

Firstly a photo of the table and room Jess and I decorated - and yes - they are baby dolls in the middle of the table!

Just some photo's of some of us girls hanging out at the baby shower.

Jacqui opening some of the presents she recieved for her baby - unfortunatly the light behind was super bright so you can't actually see too much!

My friend Celia organised the games for the day - mostly because she is slightly evil;) This game involved eating baby food out of babies nappies. Some of them did not look so flash - or in fact smell so good - as you can see from Mel's expression! Other games including matching the famous person to the famous baby and my least favourite was a game that involved safety pins - each of us started out with two safety pins and every time we said baby we'd lose a pin to the person who noticed we said baby. I always suck at these games and talk to much and I don't really pay too much attention to the key word and usually end up losing within the first half an hour - which is what happened in this case!

Just a photo of the whole posse after the rather long brunch....

Finally - some of the Charms I made for the gift bags on the day!

Dunedin

Exciting news - I am going to Dunedin for work training! I have never been to Dunedin before and I've always wanted to go but because of the cost of flights I've never really made it down there.

But I felt like I couldn't go to Dunedin without doing some exploring of my own - so I will be training Wednesday and Thursday and taking Friday off to explore and flying home Friday night.

So any ideas of what to do in Dunedin (and I already have quite a few from Kat) let me know.

Yah!

No Country for Old Men

On Friday night Rich and I had our first movie night for a while, there seem to be SO many excellent films out at the moment (why are there so many good films out when the sun is shining? I love films but I just want to be outside!). We decided on seeing "No Country for Old Men" which is the new Cohen Brothers film which has won a ridiculous amount of awards.

Damn that's a good film - not one for the squemish though - there is a whole lot of blood and one scene I just couldn't watch.

But you should go and see it - I think we will need to see "There will be blood" next - and perhaps after than a comedy to lighten the mood.

On Saturday night we watched a DVD movie - a really good little NZ made horror called "The Ferryman" which due to money and the politics of releasing films was never released in a cinema which is a damn shame because it really should have been. I have seen much much worse films in the cinema than this little ditty. If you like horrors (the fun kind not the awful "Saw" and "Hostel" kind) you should watch it - much better than the rubbish america horrors which usually get released in the cinema.

I just bought what may possibly be my last ever Misery T-shirt

So you may have read my earlier post at my dispair at my most favourite label in the world shutting down **sigh** it just isn't fair!! There are of course other labels I like...but I can only think of one other Kiwi label that makes stuff as cool as Misery (and that's Kitty Bridges but I can't afford her stuff too often...).

So anyways, on the way home from work I went to drown my sorrow by seeing if the illicit shop had an cool Misery Tee's or Hoodies left. It looks like Hoodies were off the agenda - but I was able to pick up a tee. It's a cute wee red one with a little sailor girl on the front...so cute! so Misery!

Maybe there will be some designs I like by the time next pay day comes around and it won't have to be my last Misery tee ever.

Fish is back on the menu

So I tried - I really did try to be one of those "nothing with a face" vegetarians but as it turns out I just can't do it...I just can't seem to go without fish, when I don't eat it, I seem to get super forgetful and super tired and with everything else that's going on at the moment I can't afford to be super tired and forgetful.

So I'm back on the fish.

My main problem with eating fish was not that "fish have feelings" (although fish could quite possibly have feelings - I'm not entirely sure) but that the fishing industry is so exploitative.

So I've decided that if I must eat fish (and it seems I must because my body can't seem to function very well without a decent sort of protein and all those good oils that fish have) then I am going to try and stick to fish that is farmed (like salmon) and also fish that is caught by friends and family.

Hopefully that way I'll be able to keep my body working ok and also keep my conscience in check as well...

Jo and Chris' Wedding

Last weekend was another weekend away for Rich and I - we spent pretty much 24 hours in New Plymouth for Jo and Chris' wedding.

Unfortunatly the weather didn't put on much of a show - the ceremony was originally meant to outsider, but it rained and rained and rained so the ceremony was moved inside.

We still had a great time though - and met a lot of Jo's lovely nanny friends (including one that lived on the same road as Rich and I and she said she could have easily given us a lift to New Plymouth **sigh** how come you only find these things out later on!).

Anyways - Jo looked really beautiful - but unfortunatly the venue was a wee bit dark due to the bad weather and my wee camera really couldn't handle (I seriously need to update my camera this year!) But I did manage to get a handful of good pictures....

Luckily whilst in New Plymouth we were able to stay with my friend Carolyn, which was good as it cut down the costs of going to the wedding a bit - was also good to stay in a bed you knew was comfy and catch up with Carolyn as well whilst we were up in New Plymouth.

We also got to catch up with my little bro Jake and my mum for brunch but unfortuanatly not my dad - due to some farm drama's which was a bit of a bummer.

Then we headed home to Wellington about lunch time - as much fun as it is to head away for the weekend - I'm hoping that I can stay at home for the next few weeks, as I am a bit "over" travelling. But I think I may have another work trip coming up shortly....

Some Recent Cross-Stitch

Here's a couple of Cross-stitches I've finnished recently that I haven't yet included in my blog.

Firstly is a wee cross-stitch I made for my friend Ally for her birthday, last time she was at our place (many moons ago before she moved to Melbourne) she checked out my Subversive Cross-Stitch book and said she loved this design - so I made it for her:)

The second one I made a while ago for my Dad for Christmas - he's not too fond of visitors - so I thought it was perfect for him:)

Misery is shutting down:(

If you don't know what Misery is then you really don't know me that well....Misery is my favourite clothing label ever! The designs are alway uber cute (I'm all about the cute) with a lot of 1950's style dresses and tops which I love!

But alas the label is shutting down so Misery can pursue a more high art career **sigh**

I went into the Illicit shop on Cuba Street on Friday (seen as Misery is part of the Illicit label) to ask what was happening with the Misery stock.....It may possibly go on sale in Wellington - however it may all get shipped up to the Auckland Misery Boutique store and go on sale there meaning us Wellington types miss out...grrr...

The woman at the Illicit store did assure me that they are going to introduce another cutesy girly label with lots of pretty dresses and the like to fill the gap left by Misery....

But it just won't be the same! :(