Marshmallow Dreams~

I just baked half a dozen Mile High Marshmallow Cupcakes from the 200 Cupcakes book that BF got me for Christmas. This is the... third recipe, but second successful recipe... I think. They were nice. A little sweet but very cute and nice to look at! ^.^

I was also going to post up another pic of 'guess how much I spent' but... well forgot... =\ oops.

I also have a new favourite song, a NZ band nonetheless. It was very weird kinda how I discovered it, I was walking to uni on Monday and was at Upper Queen Street and heard that song playing from some speakers outside a barber place. Odd? A little. A Asian girl just randomly standing there....

Anyways, should be sleeping now. Lots to do tomorrow and hopefully will also have time to at the end of the day to post up my finances... I already know it's not good. Time to reassess and add new goals, tomorrow.

Karen Walker Love

I visited my friend, T today and omg I loved the Karen Walker heart ring that she got for her birthday from another friend... I actually loved it before I seen it, courtesy of this post on nzgirl.

So, in commemoration of that, some of my favourite things from the Karen Walker range I like and want...

Photo Credit: Walker and Hall

And, also I feel that these weekly updates aren't enough.... hmmm. But I just don't have anything to update with >_< Maybe the beginning of the Project365 will bring a weekly feature... hope you're all having a wonderful beginning to the week. I'm also tired of job searching! Getting a little  beaten down with the rejections... =\ any advice?

More

Tonight, I made dinner cos my mum wasn't home and decided to make instead of buying something premade. Decided on Tuna and Pasta bake but then because I didn't really like some of ingredients (one, the corn), I looked for more. My one turned out really nice. I actually just found one recipe, decided that I didn't really like it and just took a look at all of the recipes I found and just improvised and cooked how I wanted to cook everything and it turned out quite incredible, I think. Photo evidence below.







I also baked red velvet cupcakes and those turned out REEEALLY well as well! This could kind of count as having baked another recipe from my 200 Cupcakes recipe book that my BF got me for Christmas but... I didn't use that recipe because I didn't really want beetroot in it... I guess could have omitted it.. oh well. The ingredients for this recipe is a combination of a few different ones I found and then I used this recipe's method cos it was simpliest and used buttercream for the icing.  They were soft, moist and. Just. So. Incredible as well! Particularly with the chocolate buttercream icing I made with it... although the first try, I added too much water [first attempt was just icing + hot water + a little butter) and... then decided to try the buttercream one. =\ So, overall I think I did quite well in the baking and cooking department today :) AND the icing actually stays in tact/shape! I'm quite happy about that! ^.^





  This weekend was two of my friend's birthdays, Bryce and Daniel. The night started off at Mexicali in which most of the girls had a frozen margarita with dinner and I surprisingly managed to finish most of my dinner! (That really amazed me, btw lol, probably because that was my first meal of the day....) After dinner, we went next door to the Mac Brew Bar and continued drinking, the cocktails were $9 instead of around $14.50! :D I had two, a apple mojitio and min chi. I really liked the latter, couldn't even taste the alcohol! Amazing! <3 Then later on around 2 or 3, went back to Peter's house and played cards, hung around his place. Good night catcing and seeing friends. Oooh also got asked on behalf of my friend if this bartender was single, heh. Think I might have been a little tipsy.....

Anywho, Friday night saw me taking forever deciding what to do, was already out in the city but then it started POURING! So, that ruined my plans for the night, ended up hanging at Velvet's place and had a really yummy dinner there! It was delicious~ heh XD then decided would go see a movie with Pamela. We ended up seeing Never Let Me Go. Such a nice movie! It was the second time I had watched it so I knew exactly what was going to happen when... still so, so sad when I watched it a second time... wouldn't mind watching it, again!  Then went to play pool with Peter and Bella and Peter's friend and it was quite good. I enjoyed it a lot. After about 4 games with them, went to see some other friends whose plans were ruined by the rain but I saw that it wasn't really raining that much so decided to venture out.... but I was so wrong! It started up again.. ;__; but went out clubbing with friends from high school and another friend, Chloe and her friend Tash. Didn't really dance much which I was disappointed at and, also I am never going back to Globe! I liked the music before but.... after that night, NEVER! I got hit on by this awful guy and my friend didn't quite get the hint that I didn't want to be there anymore and yeah.... not a particularly fun night... got home around 3am. Only two redeeming part of the night was spending time with high school friends and the meal at Wendy's... the chicken bites are quite nice! ^^  That's my weekend. Sunday, I mystery shopped and watched Pretty Little Liars. I love that show! <3 I wish on blogger, that you could cut/hide some parts and not just from a certain point onwards.... =/

And on a random note, anybody want to take a guess at how much the below cost?

What I bought under the cut.

Forever With You

Crrent favourite song atm. Spent forever last night trying to find it! I'd only caught and remember this one line "I can see forever with you" and could not find it! Probably because there were no 'can' in the lyric... oops. But ended up finding it on Youtube when I typed it in! :)

Also watched a few trailers on Youtube as well today.. there are quite a few good movies coming out like Just Go With It, Friends With Benefits (yes, not out in NZ yet ;__; and I think Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake is better somehow than Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher...), The Roommate (not sure if I really want to see it... very intriguing) and Last Night. Ooh yes and Meskada!  A little thriller-y but intersting nonetheless. And also the NZ movies My Wedding and Other Secrets (in which I'm in as an extra) and Love Birds.

I baked twice last night, baked some Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes from the book that my BF gave me for Christmas (200 Cupcakes from hamlyn) and they turned out... not as I expected. I halved the recipe and it was... not like other cupcake/muffin textures I experienced before.... next time I will be trying out the recipe in full and seeing if I get the same result. Also, on a side and related note, I need to get new piping gear. The (cheap) ones I got from $3 Japan are not cutting it... I tried to ice these cupcakes with an icing that I made (and also subsituted the 50g of milk chocolate for what I guesstimated to about the equivalent of melted chocolate buttons) didn't turn out good either. Similar to the first time I used the piping gear, the icing didn't stay in shape/outline... it just melted... :\ but it is nice, the icing and yeah.... Also, since the recipe/baking of the cupcakes took shorter than I expected (and also because they didn't turn out cute and cupcake-y), I decided to bake some cookies too and again altered the recipe, thinking that I could save on bowls and just mix the flour, sugar, butter and pretty much everything together (cos the prevous cupcake recipe pretty much told you to do that and thought would test it out)... didn't quite work.. looks okay and like my other cookies but the mixture didn't taste as divine and oh-so-amazing as last time... :( still alright though but yeah, won't be doing shortcuts next time!

I also remembered that I wanted to get some free business cards printed.... which one do you like best?

And, finally I was meant to post the previous post last week or on the 13th but wanted this one photo that was on my camera's memory card that I couldn't access without my camera USB which I had misplaced... it's been found now but, now I've forgotten the photo and posted it without.

Cuteness and Dog Rules

I got directed to watch this video and that prompted to find out why you can't own a slow loris (because they're a threatened species(... in Canada?) which led me to another video and that made me curious about the website in which the video was hosted on and found this!

The opening paragraph says that we can learn a lot from dogs because they only go after/fight for two things: love/a mate and food. I really agreed with it. I even do some of them already! Also, particularly agree with the first philosophy! I love joy rides... or rides/random drives in general~ ;]

Nothing much has been happening these past few days besides work, worked Thur - Sun, not as bad as a full-time worker, actually worked half of one of my FT friends after I complained that I worked too much this week! >_< but yeah, my hours are part-time hours. But, still feeling tired regardless.. Besides work, hung out with friends Friday night, just had a little cocktail night but not really and went to a friend's flat which was a brothel previously and tbh, I think I am quite innocent in that I didn't really comprehend much how the layout and style of the house were made with a brothel in mind.... which is good thing. That I'm innocent. I think. I guess good and bad, in a way. Also maybe should have taken photos.... Oh, yeah and went out Friday too and that was nice, hadn't been out in a while and think might have found a new favourite club!

Yeah, this is all. Hopefully, sometime next week I will have organised and taken pictures of all of my 30 for 30 outfits so far and have it posted up.... wondering if I should have a separate website for all this, in particular the 30 for 30 outfits... cos I do want to continue taking pictures of my outfits after the challenge has finished...

And, lastly I have a lot of tabs open on one Chrome window that I need to get through, it's all twitter accounts/websites I'm interested in following and such. Really interesting. It's all from Tee Twyford's twitter. She follows really interesting people.

Dog Rules/Philosophy below the cut...

Officially Finishing....

And other stuff like having a really bad memory and forgetting what I wore on Saturday (just 3 days ago)! ;___;

Remembering what I wore is for the 30 for 30 Challenge.... sigh! So disappointed at myself... kind of feel like starting over again next month.. I could just begin again next or this week but... it's just the fact I started and remember all my other outfits but this one. Yeah, also that I didn't take any pics cos I'm waiting on my new tripod which is hopefully better than the last one (its not a 'real' gorillapod, I don't think, I got it from Trademe) I got... I just couldn't get it sitting right, when I changed it so that the camera would be vertical, it was kind of hard and finally the little balls kept coming off if I moved it too much to the left or right! >_< So, yes hopefully I remembered right.

But anyways, onto the 'officially finishing' thing! Today, I completed the last thing I needed to do to finish my degree! I did my presentation and it went so much better than I imagined! It just kind of came naturally and my lecturer was really amazing in her feedback! Can pretty much say I rocked it and am now entering the temporary world of "looking for a job" then "the real working world"! Oh, I also figured out a way I can gain more events experience and also leadership experience, possibly! Going to look into it and hopefully it'll be good!

Yeah, other than those two things, nothing else has been happening much other than lunching with friends that I don't seem to see for ages on end! It was really nice catching up and all~ really wanted to see another friend while I was in Greenlane yesterday for my job interview - which went well, but was already a done deal in that I was just filling out paperwork and doing tests to determine my ability level, which btw, I also did really well, will post that up another time - but was really busy and needed to be in town for other things. My life.... but now that my degree is finished, just need to find a job and continuing my regular job from the previous year... is it just me or does other people dread going to work but then it turns out to be fine? I'm starting to think I'm allergic to work... I mean, just thinking about working 9-5 is making me feel funny... but I know that that is the world and my next step in life after uni.

Lost and Lessons Learned

One of the few pictures that was salvaged... an ornament that I'm not sure where I got/acquired that has been fixed after taking a big fall...

Somehow I lost all my files on my camera's memory card... :( I had taken lots of photos for 30 for 30 of the items of my clothes.... =\ don't even know how it happened nor can I get it back through Recuva... well some of them. Sigh.

Anyways. Watched two movies tonight to add to my list of movies so that makes it about 19 movies... still need another 32! Eeep...! Not sure if its possible to watch 211 movies in one year! (2011) But nothing is impossible, so I will try my best to! Tonight, I watched An Education and The Tooth Fairy. I already started watching the latter movie a few months back but got bored of it for some reason and for An Education, decided to start watching from the top, in alphabetical order but then skipped... a lot and decided to watch The Tooth Fairy after, lol.

I really enjoyed An Education. I had some idea of what it was about but was really surprised at how it turned out. Really liked it :) and The Tooth Fairy, not so much, it was nice and had its funny bits, but don't think will want to watch it again.

Oooh, and have a job interview tomorrow for a recruitment company! Wish me luck! Also have a busy day tomorrow. Tomorrow will see me do that one (or so) last thing for to complete my degree! I probably should have spent time on that instead of watching a movie... will do some work on it before bed and also make sure I have everything I need in order and organised/ready for tomorrow!

February Spending Summary

Before going into the monthly spending round up, just wanted to mention a few things like won a ticket to a free movie screening put on by AUSM - AUT's student movement and it was great. Really enjoyed the movie. The movie was The Adjustment Bureau and it has the perfect mix of romance and action. Or more, action than romance so the boys will probably enjoy it... not that I've seen The Bourne Identity, I kinda sense that its somewhat similar, but then they just add in the bureau and the girl.... I dunno, will let you know when I've watched the latter. 

Also, the other night, I baked the perfect 2 batches of chocolate chip cookies! This time, I used a teaspoon to scoop them and they are just SO crunchy! I love them and given a few away to friends and my mum. I want to make more! XD

And, since I did this on my LJ, thought would add it here too, in case you missed something or something catches your eye. February Summary:

• baked and spent about $100 more than I earnt
• made goals for March... more like a "monthly to-do" list.
• got into Pretty Little Liars.... still need to watch the pilot! I started watching/realized it was on one episode too late! (and also mused about the meaning of new months for me...)
• finished a book, Sloppy Firsts and watched four movies to add to my watched movies list.
• ate out at La Bruschetteria with a Spreets voucher. It was really nice! Def recommend it :)
• made my first dinner, enchiladas and hot chocolate submarino!

Then below under the cut is February's Spending Summary... I think after this month's tracking, I will set goals... after seeing if there are any themes.

More

More goals, but they're actually just structured around my main ones. They're more maybe a monthly 'to-do' list... cos who doesn't like ticking stuff off when complete? :]

If you can't see the picture, refer below the cut for the list.

March Goal

• Working 15 -25 hours a week
• $10 left in account
• Read 2 - 4 books
• 30 for 30 Challenge
• no spending on clothes
• Routine
• Moisturizing
• Cleaning
• Watch 8 - 10 movies
• One craft!
• 3 lessons of photography completed
• At least $400 altogether saved across both savings accounts.