Category: Life as a Wife

Let there be cake!!

/ Renae / 4 Comments

A friend of ours, Sophie G-C, celebrated her birthday yesterday, and Hubs and I hosted a little par-tay at our place. I wanted to make a cake instead of buying one, so I was going to do something similar to the one I made for Hubs for his “21st” last year, ie, a big chocolate cake with lots of sprinkles in the shape of an “S”. But NOOOOO (said in a whiny voice) Hubs had to come up with something even BETTER. He said I should make a Superman cake instead! That way the “S” could stand for Sophie!

I looked up some pictures (thanks Google!) and found a couple of REALLY impressive ones, as well as a few amateur ones and had a feeling mine was going to look a little dodgy, but, I wanted to give it a go. I made my square cake, rotated it 45 degrees, chopped the top off, printed out a template, dyed some icing some Super great colours and iced to my heart’s content. And I gotta say, I was SUPER chuffed with the end product:

Not bad hey? Maybe I take after Mum even more than I thought! Here is the work in progress: (I started with a template, cut the yellow bits out and put the template on the cake. I filled in the yellow bits, took the paper off and was left with the red bits to fill in. I used red writing icing to trace around the yellow bits before adding the red icing):
And then it was just a matter of whipping the blue icing around it. Piece of cake! ha ha ha ha ha ha. Punny!
And here it is, fully ablaze! (you can see my signature choc-dipped strawberries in the background!)
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Sophieeeeeeeeeeeeee
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
Hope you had a great time Sophie!!!

Vacuuming sucks

/ Renae / 3 Comments

I don’t vacuum. There aren’t many household jobs that I won’t do, but not long after we moved in to College, I told Hubs that his job was to vacuum. Oh, and clean the toilet. I don’t actually mind clearing the floor so the vacuming can be done, I just don’t like actually DOING it. But when it’s finished, and we have nice, clean, dust-free, feather-free carpets, it’s just the nicest thing in the world. (Well, in the top 20 at LEAST!)

It’s funny how, for a week or so after you do a massive vacuum and clean of your abode, any little piece of visual rubbish (bit of paper, feather from the cushion, crumbies from your toasted cheese and tomato sandwich) is immediately picked up off the floor and thrown into the bin, so as to preserve that “just cleaned” look. But then after a month, you’ll drop half a cheeseburger on the floor and not worry about picking it up.

Mmmmm… cheeseburgers….

A weekend walk

/ Renae / 1 Comment

Hubs and I have decided to do some long walks over the weekends (by long I mean anything between 5 and 10km BTW) and last Saturday we had a great day exploring the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. The weather was sensational, and after walking into town from home, we wandered around for a few hours, enjoying the sunshine (we both got sun burnt) and each other’s company.

Matching Crumplers! (I’ve been wanting this photo taken for AGES!)

Turkish Delight! Yum!

We checked out the local flora and fauna…
And played around a bit too!
We also checked out the Shrine of Remembrance.
 

We then headed to our favourite place in Chinatown, Shanghai Dumplings, and stuffed ourselves silly for $20!

Mmmmm… dumplingicious! 
(I know I look a bit spaced out, but I was sunburnt and tired from all our walking!)
And washed them down with a couple of Tsingtaos!
We then headed off to Pellegrini’s (a “Melbourne Institution”) for a coffee
And we finished off a big day out by seeing Sherlock Holmes at the movies, which, by the way was a great movie! It’s lots of fun with a bit of mystery and mayhem. Really really enjoyed it.
All in all and amazing day with Hubs, exploring this great city we live in, and enjoying it while we can!

My Mary Janes

/ Renae / 1 Comment

No, I’m not talking about this type of Mary Jane. I’m talking about THESE.

Oh, and these:

I have bought all 3 pairs since we’ve been in Melbourne, for a grand total of…. hang on, how about I play another game!? How much you think I pay for each pair? They are all leather (wouldn’t buy anything else when it comes to Mary Janes!), super comfy, and totally sexy! Again, I’ll put the price down the bottom, but I can assure you, you WON’T BELIEVE ME!!!

Another angle? Sure thing!

I love them all, and I promised Hubs I wouldn’t need to buy any more Mary Jane shoes for a long time… Maybe…

Blue pair: were $90, I bought them for $35
Black pair: $50
Pink pair: were $70, marked down to $40, scanned at the checkout at $20!!!
Grand total: $105!!!!! BARGAIN!!!!

Day Trippers

/ Renae / 2 Comments

We have been fortunate enough to have access to a car the last few weeks (thanks to Lsl buying herself a Ute from down here, so we have to road trip it back to Brisbane starting this Friday!) so we decided to take it for a spin down to Torquay a few Saturdays ago. The weather was so lovely in the morning, that I insisted we get out of Newman for the day. The thing about Melbourne weather though, is that it seems to incorporate the surrounds as well. On our way down the sun vanished, but we were determined! (Well, I was determined. Hubs was in a making-Wifey-happy mood which suited me just fine!)

We arrived and went for a walk down the beach. It wasn’t actually as cold as I expected, and the bay water was pretty nice too.

And now for a game of “how much you think I pay?”

(Back story: My Grandpa is a bargain shopper and becomes very pleased with himself when he saves lots of money, and he likes to pose the question “how much you think I pay?” and is chuffed when we name a price WAY higher than what he paid! It’s good fun!)

So I bought this purpley-pink top from a Kathmandu sale

and I pose the question: How much you think I pay? Now, I SHOULD leave it at that and tell you the price after you guess, but I’m not that patient, so I’ll put the price right at the end of my post and you can tell me how WRONG you were in your guesses 🙂

After our walk on the beach we went and checked out the Rivers clothing store and got a few bargains there as well! (A post for another day.) While we were inside it started pouring down so we shopped until it eased off. We left and dropped our stuff off into the car and as we were doing so it started to pour down again so we ran to the cafe we had decided to eat at, but not before we got quite soaked 🙁

 
It was pretty funny! But it still wasn’t too cold which was lucky!
It was a lovely little hippie cafe with a great view!

We ordered a lamb shank pie, some avo, cheese and tomato toasties and a couple glasses of red wine.
Absolutely delish! It was then time to go home, so we decided to take the “scenic” route. In these here parts of town, this must include some evidence of hooliganism!

(That wasn’t us BTW. Hubs wanted to be a bogan but I’m such a party-pooper!)
We made it home by 5:30pm, ready for some home-made Wifey roo burgers. A delicacy in these here parts of town!



Full price $74.95 (who would PAY that???)
What Wifey paid: $6.95 (yes, I’m a bargain shopper too!!)

Showtime!

/ Renae / 2 Comments

When choosing a movie, to watch, one question always has to be asked:

“Is this a Wifey movie?”

A lot of the time, Hubs has to think about it. Most of the time he gets it right, but sometimes not. Here’s an example of Wifey movies:

Cool Runnings (I can’t believe that’s the first one that popped into my head)
Moulin Rouge
Lethal Weapon1-4
Chocolat (I think I had a bigger crush on Juliette Binoche than I did on Johnny Depp!)
Die Hard 1-4
You’ve Got Mail
Love Actually
Robin Hood, Men in Tights
Shrek
to sum up: rom-coms, comedies, kids movies, action with a medium level of violence

An example of non-Wifey movies:
A Nightmare on Elm St (thanks for letting me watch that when I was 9 years old, big bro)
Twilight movies
The Exorcist
The Ring
Hostage (learnt that the hard way too)
Anything scary
to sum up: horror, creepy, extreme violence

This rule also applies to TV shows. Some shows that Hubs and I have enjoyed together are Scrubs, Battlestar Gallactica, and more recently, Boston Legal.

And then there’s Dexter.

Dexter is not, never has been, and may never be, Wifey-safe. Hubs started watching a few episodes last year when we first moved down here, and he said it was really awesome, and that I should give it a go, and that he would tell me when to close my eyes (or at least put my hands over my face and peep through my fingers.) So I gave it a go. I think the first episode we watched together was on the weekend I was sick with rubella and it was daytime, which reduces the scary-factor somewhat. It was like a train wreck. I couldn’t look away! I loved it but hated it all at the same time. But not wanting to be narrow minded, I stuck at it, but we were only allowed to watch it in daylight.

So we made our way through season one with a few bad dreams, but I did really enjoy it. So then we moved on to season two, with the same daytime rule. We took a bit of a break from it after that (season two was emotionally exhausting!) but then Hubs acquired season three, so we started watching that a few weeks ago. And we punched it! We were watching an episode most evenings (it’s still light until 9pm!) followed by an ep of Boston Legal. But the other night we watched Dexter, BL, and then ANOTHER Dexter cos it was so good.

Bad idea.

I had the most horrible dreams. There was stabbing and shooting and strangulation, dumping of bodies in the lounge room (“we” killed Dexter then tried to hide his body under the couch) and police cars and stake-outs. It was all there! And I had one of the worst night’s sleep I’ve had for a LONG time. We MUST comply with the daylight rule. It’s not a rule to be broken.

So we are watching the last episode of the season after work today, and the suspense is KILLING ME! I trust it will be as good as they’ve built it up to be. No spoilers thanks!

This time last year…

/ Renae / Leave a comment

… I was blogging about how lovely and quiet the college is without all those pesky students around
… I was amazed that we had been in Melbourne for 6 months already
… I was struggling to find an identity for myself down here
… We had just celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary
… I was annoyed that I was sick AGAIN!!
… I was looking forward to going to Brisbane for Christmas

And now I’m
… blogging about what I was doing a year ago
… blown away we’ve been in Melbourne for 18 months
… finding my groove down here as a wife, a Marriage Celebrant, a friend and someone who has had a job for over a year and is happy in it
… excited to have just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary
… excited that I haven’t been sick for months and months (touch wood)
… looking forward to going to Brisbane for Christmas, and all the adventures to follow

The countdown is on! 2 weeks and 1.5 days of work left and we’re hitting the road! YEAH!!!

Wazzzzzzzzzzup…..

/ Renae / Leave a comment

What we’ve been up to lately:

I’ve been sewing, making Christmas cards, baking, socialising, trying to find motivation to exercise, working, being a wonderful Wifey (in my opinion!)

Hubs has been studying, putting together a rockin’ media pc (guest blog post to come, right Hubs?), tinkering with various projects, being a wonderful Hubsband.

We attended my cousin’s wedding a couple weekends ago and had an absolute ball! I’m planning on a separate post about that soon. Life is just kind of cruising along at the moment, but this could be the calm before the storm as Hubs starts exams in 11 days and has a LOT of them. Plus, I have committed myself to a few projects and bits and pieces that aren’t pressing yet, but I know how time has a tendency to fly so I need to keep an eye on the calendar. (What do you MEAN Monday is the first day of November???)

We are looking forward to coming up to Brisbane over Christmas, as well as travelling to South Africa early January, celebrating my 20tenth birthday mid-January and attending Hubs’ brother’s wedding at the end of Jan. Then it’s back to business in Melbourne on the 1st of Feb 2010. 2010???? Wha????

So this is just a heads-up to let you know we’ll be up in sunny Queensland soon and would love to see as many people as possible. Well, I would love to see as many people as possible – Hubs would be happy with a few small gatherings over a few beers, in between working on his boats (a couple of Hobie cats he’s been fibreglassing for a little while.) We’ll see how it all pans out.

The weather down here has been just beautiful since Saturday. It’s currently 28 degrees and I can’t WAIT to finish work and get out amongst it. The weekend is looking gorgeous too, and I’m really hoping this is going to continue, seeing as how it IS currently Spring time. Chances are though, (and I don’t mean to tempt fate) it will plummet back down to 10 degrees some time next week. WHAT? It’s TRUE!

Watch this space for posts about a duplo “pyramid”, a giant cookie, a fairytale wedding, a game of “how much you think I pay?” and, as promised, a guest post from Hubs. It’s going to be WILD!