Happy Birthday Ah Ma!

Dear Ah Ma,

Millie wants to wish you “Happy Birthday” too!  It’s not midnight here yet so it’s still 22nd September and she’s still in time.  She’s just a little bit late because she’s a nocturnal creature and only just got up!

So once again GM and I, and now Millie too wish you a very happy, healthy, prosperous, lucky and smooth sailing year ahead! ♥

Millie X LX3

GM surprised me again today!

He’d told me in an email that a dress I’d ordered had arrived (I got it sent to his work address) so I didn’t think anything of it when he was digging around in his bag tonight and took out a parcel.  I soon noticed though that instead of just the one parcel there were two so I asked him what it was and he said, “A present for you”!  How exciting!

And it was…………………

The Panasonic Lumix LX3!

Wow I was so surprised!  I’ve wanted this camera for ages, MONTHS.  I contemplated buying it when I was in HK in early May but because I’d already spent lots of money in Perth and just bought a new bag in HK I was feeling guilty so I didn’t.  And regretted it after I came home.

Here’s what it looks like.  I borrowed this pic off google images.  GM has even ordered me the leather case from Japan!  It’s on its way.

I tested it on our Millie.  She’s grown a bit, can you tell?

GM and I have made real progress this last week in terms of bonding with her.  Tonight I lured her to my cupped hands with a bit of broccoli and instead of snatching it and running off to eat it somewhere else, she stayed in my hands.  But the most amazing thing is, she not only stayed in my hands, she actually sat down!  Isn’t she cute?

The pic is a bit blur because she moves a lot, very quickly.

After eating she did her normal grooming.  Soooooooooooooooooo cute!

And finally, a good shot of her looking straight at me.   Hehe.

Today has been a lovely day because it was really quiet in the office so I had a good time slacking off haha.  I met GM for lunch and we tried out a little Thai restaurant in the area which was actually pretty good.  Work gave me a mobile, a Nokia 3109, not great but at least now I will be able to call and text my friends free of charge haha.   My application for funding to study a Japanese language course was approved over the stipulated maximum amount (£200, I got £255) and I was informed that I have been accepted into the course to start on 29 September.  I came home and got the dress that I’ve been wanting for a long time which I thought might have gotten lost in the post since the Royal Mail are going through a series of strikes at the moment and apparently have a backlog of millions of letters and parcels undelivered.  And then I got a surprise gift that I have been coveting for ages!  And Millie sat in my hands and ate broccoli!

What a wonderful day!

But I feel a bit bad because GM keeps buying me all these surprise gifts and I never buy him any.

Nice to Meet You Everyone!

We’re really excited.  I don’t think I can sleep tonight.  Because we bought a hamster!!

We got her tonight at around 8pm and we’ve been watching her all night.  And we want to keep watching her.  It’s a girl hamster and she’s really sweet.  GM is besotted because it’s his first ever pet!  In fact, it was his idea to get a hamster, I think he has been hankering after a pet ever since we went to my mate’s and played with her cat who is really affectionate and lovely.  Even I love that cat, I even miss it sometimes!

We’ve bought her a cool country-style home complete with rustic cottage.  Isn’t it cute?  Her bedding is lavender scented!

This is her first step into her new home.  Aww.

Syrian hamsters are nocturnal creatures so she’s been really active the last hour or so, exploring her new house and all its nooks and crannies.  At the moment she’s doing some running in her wheel!

Halloooo!

We still don’t know what to name her.  I’ve been looking at baby names on the internet the whole night.  We’ve kind of narrowed the choices down to Millie or Daisy.  What do you all think?

Best Friday

Happy Friday everybody! ♪  \(^o\) (/o^)/ ♫ ♬

Although it’s late on Friday night and will be Saturday soon, but still, it’s the weekend!!!  Yayness!  *(^O^)*

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the best Friday of this year for me so far.  Why?  Because:-

1.  Firstly, this is the weekend of relief, relaxation and calm after last weekend’s nerves and panic;

2.  I have a day off on Monday!  Yay! =) ;

3.  This is the first Friday this year when I don’t have to dread going back to work with the Rottweiler the next week.

If that’s not cause enough for celebration what is??

AND to top it off, according to weather forecasts our wash-out of a summer will temporarily be suspended this weekend and next week for some proper summer weather.  Yayness again!!

I love Fridays but this Friday I love Friday even more than usual =)

Have a lovely weekend!!! ♥

A Week In My Life 09 : Day 7 – Work It Off, Then Put It Back On

This morning we decided to go swimming.  My swimming bag is different from my gyming bag and those are amongst some of the things I packed.  Actually I hadn’t been swimming for so long that I’d forgotten what I needed and missed a couple of things out.  That poor swimsuit of mine hasn’t seen any water since we were at Rottnest Island in Perth!  In fact, when I took it out this morning for the photoshoot it gave my rug a little sprinkling of leftover sand from Perth.  So well travelled my swimsuit haha.

These next two photos are going to be grainy and weird.  This is because when we got to our health club I found out that the lights weren’t working in the ladies’ changing room.  This is the first time it’s happened and it would have to be on a day when I needed to use the lockers and changing facilities.  Normally when I go to the gym I don’t use the changing room at all since I go in my gym clothes and shower at home.

The lockers.  The changing room is fairly big – there are three changing sections, loos and shower facilities.

I sneaked this pic of the pool once it was quiet.  I had to stop in the middle of my swimming to run to the lockers, grab my camera, snap pics then run back.  All very stealthy.  Although I left a great big trail of water behind me.  But it was a good job I did it when I did because shortly after I got back in the water someone came along and I wouldn’t have been able to take any photos.

Where the window is in the middle of the photo (where the glare is) is the jacuzzi.  On its left is the shower and on the shower’s left there is a doorway and that is the sauna.  On the jacuzzi’s right (after the deck chairs) there is an orangey door and that is the steam room.  I never use the sauna nor the steam room because being too hot makes me feel faint.  Sometimes I use the jacuzzi but very seldom because there’s always someone in there.

This is the other end of the pool.  You can make out the gym through those big windows – the gym overlooks the pool.

This is their cafe area.  I sit here and wait for GM to get his stuff from the locker sometimes.

After our swimming session we went to Valley Park which is this big retail park with shops, restaurants and a cinema.  I wanted to do some quick shopping at Outfit which houses a few of the high street brands so it’s easy shopping under one roof.  Also it’s near where we live and it’s not a hassle going there because parking is abundant and free.

There’s a big Ikea as part of the retail park.

In case you were wondering if I bought anything and what I bought, here is my shopping.  I bought three tops in three different sizes!  The blue top is a size 10, the striped shirt is a size 8 and the black tee is a size 12.  It all came up to £45 which is good for three tops.  I didn’t get any bottoms because no work suitable bottoms seemed to be on sale!

After shopping we went to Burger King in the same retail park.  That was actually the reason why I even went shopping in the first place, because we were there for Burger King.  We wanted to use the vouchers we got from the paper on Day 4, remember?

We used two vouchers.  One was “buy one 6 pack get one free” and the other was “buy a 6 pack and get a drink and fries free”.  So we ended up with three 6 packs of the mini burgers and a drink and fries.

This is what the mini burgers look like.  They came in two styles – jalapeno pepper and onion ring and bbq sauce.  Both styles were good; the jalapeno peppers had a sharp pickled tang and were very spicy and the onion rings were very fragrant.  I personally liked the onion ring burgers better but GM preferred the jalapeno pepper burgers.

This is how small the burgers were on a normal sized plate.  They were really filling though, I was full by the fourth burger but crammed down the last two and by that time my belly was breaking.

So after stuffing my face I did very relaxing stuff like chat on msn with Jo and then had a nap hehe.

At around 5.30pm we received a call from GM’s mum telling us that the barbecue had started and we should go over.

GM barbecuing the Korean meat we bought yesterday.  This one was spicy pork, very yummy.  There was lots to eat.  We had chicken wings, bulgogi, spicy pork, lamb chops, beef chops, sausages, corn and sweet potatoes and even lobsters.

GM’s father bought himself a cake for father’s day!  Haha.  No I think he bought a cake because he knew we were all going over.  This is the usual strawberry shortcake that we always get.  I didn’t have any.

I wanted to have my own cake!  This is my cake out of the tin.

It set!  I am so glad that it wasn’t runny.

Here it is in slice form.  Everyone liked the cake!  Or they pretended to anyway haha.   It was quite good, not too sweet and a bit tangy (because of the mascarpone and greek yoghurt) but it was very very filling.

When we got home I unwrapped the parcel I’d picked up from GM’s parents’ place.  We sometimes get big items we buy sent there because we know there is always someone at home to receive the parcels.  Here is my new slow cooker!  I am very excited!  I must make something very soon.

GM’s aunt gave us a gift of two tea towels from her kids’ school.  Their school had the brilliant idea of getting all students to draw self-portraits and printing this on tea towels.  Aren’t the drawings cute?  I love them!

And so ends this year’s “A Week In My Life” for me.  I had so much more fun this time because Jo, Di and Heri did it with me, thanks girls!  ＼（＾∀＾）メ（＾∀＾）ノ  I loved reading about everyone’s days; it made me feel closer to you all learning about your everyday activities, seeing them through pictures and sharing mine with you.  And I have to say, even though it felt a bit troublesome sometimes it gave my days a sense of purpose that I know I will miss now that the meme has ended.  You all have to keep on blogging!  Otherwise I will be lonely! (T_T)