New Years 2014/2015

I’ve never really been a huge New Year’s fan and have always preferred to stay close to home so I can walk there at the end of the night. This year was an easy one with a party out on the footpath in our street. We’re very lucky to have some great neighbours and we’re good friends with a few of the houses that live in the street, so about 5 houses in a row set up outside for the party.

 

One of the neighbours likes to DJ so he set up with his DJ tables (whatever they’re called) and got the night pumping. DJ Scotch finger as we called him, did a great job and really made the night fun.

I thought lighting a bunch on fire would look cool, but it just creates a fireball. Oops.

It’s really convenient having a party outside the house, because when I wanted to go and sit down for a bit, I just went in and sat on the couch with Ted. I didn’t want to wake up hung over so I only had a few drinks and enjoyed the night so much more!

 

What did you do for New Years?

Why I don't care what's in your travel bag

I find it interesting when people write posts about what’s in their travel/hand bags. While I do enjoy reading them, I never go away and think ‘wow, I am going out today to buy those things’ and within ten minutes, I’ve forgotten what they even wrote.

 

The reason for this post was that I was going to write a ‘what’s in my travel bag’ ahead of my trip to Bali this week. I sat there, thinking of how to structure the post and then thought to myself, ‘no-one gives a shit what you’re taking to Bali’. The thought process went on to conclude that 1. No-one gives a shit and 2. Writing about it just makes me someone that’s rubbing in the fact that I am going away and they are probably not. Which is a bit sad really, isn’t it?

 

People don’t come here to read what’s in my bag, although I don’t really know what people do come here to read. It’s never been a very ‘informative’ blog, but rather a blog about day to day happenings.

So instead of telling you what’s in my bag because let’s be honest here, I haven’t even packed it, I’ll tell you about my new blog, The Riz.

I started The Riz recently as a way for me to enhance my writing skills because I love writing. I felt with Ebb and Flow that I had carved out a community that wanted to know about me and what I am up to etc. and changing that to the new path I wanted to take didn’t feel like the right thing to do. The Riz will take a more informative approach, with less personal stuff about me and more about places, cafes, restaurants, travel, fashion etc. I haven’t thought of the exact path yet because I am of the belief that you carve that out as you build your blog and so I can’t tell you what exactly to expect. I haven’t decided how personal I will make it, if at all. It may or may not feature ‘what I packed’ for holidays, because I feel that sort of post is better suited to that blog.

 

I’m not sure if any of that makes sense, and maybe it doesn’t need to just yet. I am just trying to find my feet in writing and in my writing style and this way; I can approach it from two angles. I will still write here, at Ebb and Flow because I do enjoy documenting my life and interacting with those that come back to read the blog. I don’t know how often I will write here because life is busy and I now have two blogs to update. Although, when I say busy I don’t mean busy full of exciting things because if that was the case, I’d blog about it. It’s just busy in general full of stuff people don’t particularly want to read about and so my presence here has dwindled of late.

 

I know when I read blogs in the past; I loved the personal aspect and what people were doing in their day to day lives. What I like to read has shifted slightly and while I’ll keep going back to read my favourite blogs, I have also added others to the list that take a different approach. I enjoy reading about fashion, how to do things, tips on restaurants, travel tips etc. Since I enjoy reading about it, I felt like it was something I could contribute to, as well.

 

Anyway, I have rambled on long enough here. Please do pop by The Riz and have a look if you get time. I welcome any (constructive!) feedback, too. There isn’t much there just yet, but stay tuned and there will more posts up shortly.

Eating out | Baroque, Sydney

 

S and I went to the Rocks recently for the sole reason of tracking down Baroque and ordering Truffle Cheeseburgers. We've both got a new-found love for truffle everything since our friend T made us truffle risotto, so it's only natural that as soon as I saw this on a menu, we were there the next day.

 

Baroque is a beautiful restaurant and seemed to be quite busy for Saturday lunch. I'm sure most people aren't going for the burger, but that did not deter us. For $20 for a burger and fries, I thought it was well priced and I certainly did not leave hungry. In fact, I was a bit annoyed I was so full because the desserts on display were nothing short of amazing and if you know me, you know I love a good dessert. Not to worry, we'll save that for another day.

 

On to the burger. I love burgers, especially ones on brioche buns. The meat patty was moist with plenty of truffle distributed around the patty. The gherkins and tomato chutney were a welcome addition and gave that extra little bit of flavour to the burger.

 

Of course, any burger is made complete with the addition of chips or fries and these fries also didn't disappoint. Salty and crunchy and delicious.

 

The best part was, we had a whole meal including coffee for $50. Um, that doesn't happen at The Rocks so we were pretty happy with that.

  

Have you been to Baroque?
Do you love a bit of truffle?

What have I been up to?

We went on a bit of a date night on Friday night to an old favourite - Glebe Point Diner. I was hoping they had chilli, lemon and garlic crab linguini and my wish was granted. I am new to the world of crab and I must say, I quite love it. Glebe Point Diner gets pretty busy and we usually prefer to go on a weeknight but the service is perfect no matter what night you go. The wine list is extensive and for a hatted restaurant, the prices are reasonable.

Burnt alaska was the dessert of choice. I have a new found love for bombe/burnt alaska and can't go past it if it's on the menu. This one had salted caramel inside which was a nice component of an already delicious dessert. 

Saturday morning my Sister in law and I were up bright and early to take a trip to the flower markets. I took only $50 knowing this would be enough for flowers and breakfast and came away with 4 bunches of flowers, breakfast and change. Honestly, it's such a great place to visit. A lot to look at and if you don't know what you're looking for, like me, then you spend a lot of time wandering and umping and ahhing. That isn't too bad though.

I got two bunches of these stunning tulips and they're just starting to open now. Such beautiful and vibrant colours!

What has everyone else been up to?

Happy Tuesday!

It’s never fun when your Husband has to work all weekend so the best way around it is to make your own fun! I started to cut out a pattern on Saturday with plans to make a sun dress by the end of the weekend, but plans changed when I ended up spending Sunday brunching and working on a website for S. We drove over to Alexandria to meet someone for coffee, only to get there and be told they were about to leave (people these days), so we headed to a little café on Mitchell road called La Cachette. It’s French inspired and while I was only going to get coffee, as soon as I saw all the pastries in the window I knew I wasn’t just having coffee.

I ended up going for the blueberry, ricotta pancakes with maple syrup and coulis and they did not disappoint. I’d been on the search for some good pancakes for a while and finally the craving was satisfied. The coffee was also good and we left full and satisfied.

Sunday night we met up with S’s sis and her boyfriend for dinner which turned in to dinner, drinks and cocktails. I generally don’t drink on school (work!) nights, but we had so much fun and really..why not! Kuletos in Newtown honestly never disappoints and the bartender was more than happy to concoct a little creation so I could have my favourite cocktail on fire.

I can’t believe the rain we had yesterday! Sheets and sheets of pouring rain all day long. I don’t know about you, but my hair is naturally curly so I can straighten it but it’s only going to curl and go boofy as soon as I step out the door. You’d think by this age I’d have a few up-do’s tucked up my sleeve, but I am the most unco-ordinated person when it comes to hair, so it’s either out and straight or well, out and straight. I can never get my curls right (they look great while they’re drying and then turn in to a big frizzy, boofy mess – even with product), buns always look terrible, ponytails look worse. Is it just me or is my hair impossible? I guess we’ll never know. All I know is that I’ll never have nice hair!

Anyway, happy Tuesday. Today is my hump day as I am off to New Zealand on Thursday! 

The truth: 2 questions, 3 statements and a clanger to define my week!

Our friend, Twiz found my blog not long ago and has been asking ever since to do a guest post. The time came, he wrote up a post and here it is.
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I have been stalking Rhi's blog for a over 2 months now and when the opportunity arose to collaborate on a guest Blog - I took the pants off, cleared the mind and nestled myself into her couch to hit the keys.

Whilst I haven't had too much exposure to the blog world, I assumed it would be fairly easy to relay an exciting story which would appeal to the blogging punter, how I was wrong.

So in the interest of keeping things simple, here is The Truth: 2 questions, 3 statements and a clanger to define my week:

* Imitate, then re-create

* Drink Beer, quit drinking, drink quicker, beer drinker.

* Old fashion is out of date. Think new, or die dated. Respect your younger's?

* Is success, purposely not answering the phone and feeling good about it?

* Stop trying to be you, be George Clooney or Lara Bingle for a while.

Clanger: Which end do you peel the Banana from? Don't lie to yourself!

Please tell me, what is your truth?

;)

Twiz

What makes you read a blog?

I often sit here and write a blog post based on what I would like to read if it were on anyone else's blog. That's probably not the best way to go about it if I want to increase readership and while that's always on my radar, so too is blogging for myself as a journal to look back on in the future. Blogs are strange things that not everyone understands. I wrote a post not long ago about who reads my blog in real life and truth be told, I don't tell a lot of people about it because I don't think they'd understand. I mean, blog people get blog people but do other people get blog people? 

Blogs that make me click on them every day to see if there are new post, blogs that make me want to trawl through the archives and blogs that really capture me in every single post are hard to come by. The first blog I started to read that was from Australia was Domestic Divinity whom I am sure you are all aware of. Mez's blog gave me the above and every day I'd click over to her blog to see what else she had posted. 

Since then, there have been a handful of blogs both in Australia and Internationally that I've held on to, though there aren't many that keep me coming back day after day (or when I have spare time to read!). Sometimes, blog direction changes, sometimes people blog less or sometimes they become too commercial. These are all reasons why I have stopped reading some blogs I read every day previously. This is in no way an indication of the quality of their blog, it's just that my interests no longer aligned with their interests and that is ok in blog world. 

I read blogs that show a reader that is down to earth, someone I can somewhat relate to, someone who has a good writing style and can keep readers engaged, someone with a personality who isn't just drivelling on about something. If I find two blog posts written about the same topic with one boring blogger and one blogger daring to show their personality, I'll always choose the one with personality. I read blogs that write about controversial things (not that I do myself!), blog posts that make me think and blog posts that tell a story. 

They don't have to be interesting every day. I know that, because I know my own blog is not interesting every day. 

Why do you read your favourite blogs?