bento boxes!!

First of all; a picture of the Green Elephant Cake we made for Angela:

It didn't turn out the best - but we are learning all the time! We had a great day at D's folk's house. As usual, we played lots of games and ate far to much food! Today the card game of choice was memory, which is good game when Abby (D's niece) is there too.

I haven't done any of the tidying/cleaning I promised myself I would do this weekend so its going to be busy busy in the days leading up to our BIG DAY... (God, I am so excited and so NERVOUS!). Mum + G are coming to stay for a few nights so we need to make room to fit them in. Only 12 days til D and I are married! I booked the hotel today using my new last name - god it felt weird - but very exciting. I noticed D had a huge grin on his face when he heard me using it. How cute is that?

Today, while doing my usual blog reading procrastination I found/remembered BENTO BOXES! Bento boxes are basically a Japanese concept of lunchboxes. Mums in Japan go hard out to make flash bento boxes for their kids/husbands to take. Anyway there is quite an online culture of bento - lots of tutorials/advice and tips for new bento-ers. I also found several cool bento flickr groups. Best of all, a bento blog! Lunch in a box has heaps of cool ideas/recipes and funky bento ideas. I wish we could get all that cool stuff in NZ!

I think lunch would be far more exciting if we had an amazing bento to open each day. I think I'll keep an eye out for any containers I could use for bento. It would be much cheaper than buying lunch and would hopefully motivate us to spend the time making lunch. And of course - bento is so visually attractive so that makes for great photos for you dear blog!

Here is a beautiful bento made by lilergy (a flickr bento member)

I've looked at ALOT of bento pics today and I consistently love Lilergy's styles.

I've been neglecting my 101 list lately, with all the getting married plans :P You'll be pleased to know that "get married" is one of the private items on my list, so I will be able to cross that off soon... :D

M *bounce*

sooo busy

Wagh. Where has this week/month/year gone?? We have quite a lot on at the moment and it doesn't feel like I am accomplishing much. I need to get the rattie/craft/spare room sorted so we have room when my Mum comes to stay. I can't believe that we are getting married in less than two weeks?!~! I am not stressed at all (in fact I LOVE how not-stressed things are) but I am quite nervous and of course excited!

Today I helped out at a Community Market Day where some of the Guides had some stalls:

It was good fun - sold some Girl Guide Biscuits (and took a box to sell at work) and there was a hangi. We sold some of the crafty stuff the Guides have made over the last few weeks.

D's brother Graeme and his partner Rochelle are currently pregnant - and are around 32 weeks. R went into premature labour today which is a bit scary. Apparently they managed to stop the labour, but the baby (they think its a girl!) will definitely be premature. Its quite exciting having a new baby in the family - but also quite emotional for D and I as we lost a baby a couple of years ago. I hope all goes well for G + R - we'll be thinking of them lots over the next few weeks.

In other family news... its D's sister Angela's birthday today!!

Happy Birthday Angela !!!

We are baking her a cake - will take photos and post tomorrow.. Anyways I have to go to bed, its been a loong week.

M

rat cake

Today I made a rat cake! I spent a while trying to draw a rat shape and eventually gave up and decided on this design. It was reaaally easy to make - I just cut the face and body shape out of cake and iced accordingly.

We were going to give it to vetman as a thankyou for being such an amazing vet, but the icing didn't turn out as well as I'd liked. I'll give it another try sometime soon.

Today I am TRYING to clean up the crafting/rattie room today but I keep getting distracted by the internet...

M

freeezing

We woke up freeezing this morning and when we got out to the car it was obvious why! Today we had our worst frost this winter! (It took a wee while to get the car warmed up).

I've crossed a couple more things off my 101 list!

62 - Improve the design of the furkids blog
95 - Learn heaps more about html and blogging and use skills to make my blogs pretty

Both involve a bit of html fiddling. You can check out the furkids new page here. The background image is a banksy rat stencil. I LOVE Banksy rats. I wish I could make amazing stencils and street art like Banksy. The furkids blog is a simple layout/design and a separate blog to avoid millymiss becoming overrun with stories about the rats! :P So for those of you that care, you can always access the furkids blog by clicking on the pic of Aiko in the sidebar. And for those of you that don't, you can happily ignore that blog :D

As for the html and design of millymiss, I've made quite a few changes and finally feel like i'm at the point where I don't need to play with the layout every weekend!

Things I've completed:

• Added a second sidebar


• Adjusted the width of the middle and sidebar columns to the perfect width


• Added a funky wee pink "M" icon to my url address


• Added a Tag cloud (see right sidebar)


• Put my 101 list in the sidebar in html, including pop out lists for my 101 books and movies


• Made a funky progress bar for my 101 list


• Played around with the colour scheme and background a million times


• Removed the header (and then added it back again)


• Learnt how to make a picture lead to another page (clicking the Aiko pic loads the Furkids blog)

I'm sure I've done/learnt more, this blog has been in construction for quite some time. Anyway, I feel I've done enough to cross this off the list.!! So that brings the total completed to 5!!

And.... in more exciting news, D and I set a "getting married" date. 7 September 2007. That is right - in 3 weeks!! I love how low maintenance and stress free we are doing this. Its fantastic!! Its going to be a quiet ceremony at the Registry office with minimum witnesses and then we are going to go out for dinner with close friends and family that evening.

Its been a busy week again, I can't believe its already Thursday!! Guides was fun this week - we made maracas by paper mache - ing bottles. Then we had an induction ceremony for three new girls that have joined our unit. I hoped to take some pics but forgot!!!

It feels like we spend soo much time on the bus these days. I miss being able to jump in the car and park close to work. However I do feel happy that we are being greener and doing our bit to reduce carbon emissions. We also often walk home which is very good for us!!

Anyway, this has been a longish post and I'm very tired..

M

fantastic service

I just had to take another pic of the gorgeous flowers given to me by my dear friends Kate & Sconey. The lilies in the bunch have now opened up and they look beautiful! I love the bright colours.

Today I received the most fantastic service EVER! After feeling quite annoyed at my recent attempt to get my service machine serviced (see yesterdays post) I took it to Wellington Sewing Services who have a fancy new store in the Kilbirnie Plaza.

The very helpful team tested my machine and told me there was nothing wrong with it and even took the time to show me how to clean it properly. The BEST news is that they are planning to run 'learn to sew' evenings! I told them that Sconey and I would be VERY keen. So if you are in the Wellington area I HIGHLY recommend Wellington Sewing Services for all your sewing/repair needs. They've definitely got my business!! (One day when I can justify buying a new machine.....)

This means I can finally cross Item 53 off my 101 list. Sewing machine has been serviced! Yay!

AND.. you'll also notice by looking at my header that I have also completed Item 88 - make cupcakes and decorate them. D and I had great fun decorating these today today to make my new header:

They didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped - we had to rush a bit to make sure we still had sunlight hours to photograph them. :) But I'm sure we'll give them another go. Sconey gave us a fantastic cupcake recipe that D has pronounced delicious.


M

birthday cake bonanza

I've been flicking through the "Australian Women's Weekly: Children's Birthday Cake Book" and found sooo many cakes I want to decorate! D's mum has nominated me the birthday cake maker for the family now so I'm sure we'll get LOTS of opportunity to make some.

In fact, I was so taken with the old book - I purchased the new version:

Its not quite as good as the old school one, but its pretty good and has some new designs that are cool. I'd still be very keen to pick up a copy of the old one if I find one!

D's sister Angela has her birthday next weekend so we're planning a cake for her. I'm also going to make and decorate some cupcakes this weekend so we went on a mission to find the necessary lollies to decorate. We cannot find Liquorice Straps! We've been EVERYWHERE! I hope they still make them! Cupcakes is on my list - so hopefully I can cross another thing of my list.

Speaking of crossing another thing off my list - GRRRRRRRR
I dropped my sewing machine in to be serviced a couple of weeks ago and finally made it in to pick it up today, only to find that NOTHING had been done. The repair/service guy had apparently ignored the instructions to give it a service and had instead "assessed" the machine and noted that the "hook" was broken and needed replacing. I had left it with instructions to fix anything that was wrong, but to call me if it exceeded a certain amount. Well I got no call an no fix!~! Boy was I grumpy. Especially as I'd already paid the $27 deposit! The lady in the shop said they'd had a lot of problems with the repair man lately and perhaps I should take it to someone else?!!

The other repair guy in Welly is open tomorrow I think so I'll take it down and see what he thinks. A new sewing machine is NOT in the budget right now!

In much happier news - eeep I'm engaged! Its so exciting. I didn't think that much would change but it kinda has and I get really excited looking at my ring! I love D so much and can't wait to marry him. We are going to find out about dates for the registry office on Monday!

M

officially engaged ! !

Fantastical exciting news! D proposed last night! And of course I said yes! I really wasn't expecting him to propose! We decided to get married a lil while back and had originally planned to get hitched last month. Regrettably, D had a few work "issues" so we put it off and its kinda been on the back burner ever since.

D was very sweet and tied the ring (yes, I got a ring!!) round Geisha's neck! So our sweet Geisha brought me my ring. Even though we've talked about it often, it was still quite a nerve-racking moment!!! I've tried to take a pic of my ring - but it ain't working!! So instead you can have a pic of the BEAUTIFUL flowers my special girls Sconey and Kate sent. :) Thanks my girls, I love them.

In other news... I crossed the first item off my list!

Item #2 - Get my hair cut and coloured by a hairdresser! - Completed 8 August 07!
That's right, I FINALLY got my hair cut & coloured! I've had HEAPS cut off - its quite shortish now (above the shoulders). I've had loads of compliments so it can't look too bad!

Its been a really busy week and I haven't had much time to blog, but soo much to write about! Tuesday night I had Guides (we did aerobics!), Wednesday I had my hair done, Thursday we went for a drive out to Lower Hutt + Porirua to go mall-shopping, and today is Friday.

Wednesday lunchtime D and I went for a mission down the waterfront to go to the "Amazing Rug Sale" that is often on at the Overseas Terminal. They always advertise on TV with like beautiful $50 rugs and I've ALWAYS wanted to go.

It was actually a bit of a let down. I think we arrived too late and I saw a lot of $5000 rugs but didn't see any "cheap" rugs! We did have a nice walk along the waterfront though. I wish it was closer to work so we could go walking down there every lunch time.

M

crochet, crochet, crochet

I took these photos of a few of the amazing crochet patterns in the crochet pattern set that Sconey and I managed to score at a Garage Sale in the weekend. I just love the little hooded jacket - I wish I could make myself one! The 'father and son matching hat & scarf set' is absolutely adorable. And what can I say about 'tommy the turtle'!! The little fruit appliqués are quite cool too. There are also quite a few hideous patterns that belong in the 70s and should NEVER be made again.

Hopefully I'll find some inspiration to crochet something and FINALLY learn to crochet!

I read 'Lullaby' by Chuck Palahniuk last night. It was really good. Disturbing but good. Chuck was the guy who wrote 'Fight Club' (you've probably seen the movie). So thanks Sconey for recommending it. I think I'll read a few more of his books! And - its another book crossed off my 101 books to read.

D started Indoor Football tonight - hopefully their team will have more luck indoors than they have had outdoors!!

visit to the library

D and I hit the library today to pick up a few more books on my 101 list. I've realised that a lot of the books on my list are going to be hard to get and some are just not at all books I want to read. (Obviously I didn't do my research very well). I am going to go through and replace a few on the list with some I'll actually be able to read.

It was a beautiful sunny (but windy) day today so we went for a wee walk along Oriental Parade. It was too cold to stay long but we had fun running along the beach.

Well I'm off to start on my pile of books..

M

i love sushi train

I love Sushi Train. D & I go to this Japanese sushi bar quite often and its the first Japanese Restuarant off my 101 list. Its so fun sitting at the bar, deciding which plates to get. (You pay by the plate) Sashimi is my usual favourite, but this week I discovered a new favourite in the deep fried tofu. Its extremely yummy and melts in your mouth. To finish off, we shared a plate of Green Tea Ice-Cream. ~Yum!

It was a early start to the weekend today as Sconey, D, and I got up to do the garage sales! We did have one amazing find in the form of a crochet pattern set! Talk about fantastic motivation for me to learn to crochet! As it was a joint find - we are going to 'share' it. There are hundreds of funky old-school patterns for us to try.

I'm progressing through my list of books & movies, but haven't actually crossed anything off my 101 list! Hopefully on Tuesday my sewing machine will be ready to be picked up and I can cross that off!

And as usual, my blog is a construction zone while I play with the html....

M