B-B-B-B-Bali.......!!!!

Ok so I haven't posted in forever, I've been a busy little bee with lots of things happening and all good things! And to set the ball rolling I jet off to Bali tomorrow. More than the destination at this point, I am far more excited about just going because this is my first holiday in 3 long years! And my God do I need it. Holiday.... Yay!!!! And next month... Singapore!!! I cannot wait, ok so Singapore is for work purposes, but don't care! The next few days will be all about relaxing by the pool, eating and lots of bumming around. Hope everyone stays safe and enjoys the cooler days and I shall see all my lovley Perthians in a couple of days.

Buh-bye!!!!

CAMERAS AND PASTAS AND BROWNIES, OH MY!

In the last few days I have been trying to improve in my photgraphic creativity, or at least looking for inspiration, but no such luck yet. I did, however, amazingly remember that my Dad owns one very nice camera. The Minolta 7000. She's a beauty. I remember my Dad last using it when I was 14. I think I've always seen Minoltas as incredible cameras as I had once read many eons ago that the great Mario Testino used one. Looking at it I can't help but marvel at how we used to take pictures without the image there for us to instantly see. Downside, I have no idea how to use her, but I have downloaded the manual and have Googled how to use the 7000. So I guess it's a matter of trial and error now. But Teresa is keen to try her film Ricoh, so we will organise a play date for our camera's I guess! =)

Friday night was spent with a favourite person of mine, my beautiful friend Mandy. We went out for dinner and took a strool down our "hood" aka Beaufort St. We contemplated trying the new restaurant Raah, but decided we were after something a bit more heartier. Walked past Must Winebar and thought we would try our luck there and low and behold we got a table!!! Haven't been to Must in a while and as always the food is consistently mind blowing. I always have the same dish unfortunately, even when everything else sounds so great. We both ended up with the blue manna crab pasta with basil and tomoato. I just adore that dish. I did manage to replicate it very closely whilst living in Kalgoorlie, but learned that nothing but fresh crab meat will do it justice. But that's a given, tinned anything is never good, bar beetroot and lychees. So just a simple dinner consisting of the pasta, some beautiful broccolini as a side and an amazing chocolate brownie with salted caramel ice cream, popping rocks and roasted macadamias for dessert.

I heart Must Winebar!

NEW YEAR, NEW JOURNEY

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had a really wonderful night to bring 2012 in. I certainly did. It was everything a good new years should be, good food, total drunkeness and the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Add a few drunken and emotional tears in there. Yup, by the end of the night there was three drunk girls on a couch, hugging and crying about how lucky they are to have each other. I was one of those girls on the couch... :)

Y

Natalies very potent kiwi cocktail

So the big thing happening this year for me is I'm having double jaw surgery. Yay! I'm very excited about it, despite my parents utter fear and complete disapprovement of it. The surgery is to correct both upper and lower jaws which are quite underdeveloped and have hence prevented my upper teeth from being seen when I speak or smile. It is something that has bugged for a very long time. It is also to help relieve my jaw muscles from being so tired all the time as they are not in a natural and relaxed position for the most part. There are other issues, but these are the more pressing issues. Both my jaws will be cut, the upper jaw brought down and forward and at a slight angle down, the lower jaw will be brought forward and my chin will be cut and brought down too. The process starts with having some lower teeth extracted (which happened today), then having braces for 6-9 months which will essentially make my bite worse to therefore enable the jaws and teeth to meet properly. After the braces then the surgery! It's not going to be pretty, pleasant or nice, I'm well aware of that but I'm well and truly prepared for all the swelling, the numbness, the pure discomfort and not being able to eat proper food for a good 6-8 weeks really.

As I said, my parents are absolutely distraught and nearly disowned me, but I've done my research and have been considering this surgery for the last 5 years and I am 150% ready now. My dad came along with me to see the oral surgeon and was very disappointed when the surgeon said that my concerns were warranted and tried his darnedest to sway the surgeons opinion. Epic fail. As my surgeon said, he would not even say yes to doing the surgery if I didn't need it. So teeth are out now, and they were done my my previous boss, friend and mentor earlier today. I felt absolutely nothing, I knew previously  that this man was an absolute genius and the most competent and gentle dentist I have ever known. I swear it felt like he was brushing my teeth, not extracting them! It's something I am going to have to master when I do extractions. I think I'm pretty good at them anyway and most of the time I give needles, kids don't cry, but on the odd occasion they do. I suppose that's a given seeing as they are little. But that's my goal to get even better at my extractions and injection technique. Hey my first goal for the year!

I know ultimately I don't absolutely need the surgery, but in general I'm not a very vain person, I've grown up with a lot of abnormalities and I've accommodated to them very well. This however, is something I have to do. I'd love to have a normal smile like everyone else, which everyone else takes for granted because they are just born lucky. Thanks Mom and Dad for your great genes. Plus it'll make my teeny tiny face a bit bigger. Braces go on at the end of the month, so I'll be gappy for a little while, but no one can see my teeth anyway! Haha. I dont have any pictures yet but will take some as soon as possible so you can follow my journey and progress with this.

I'm off to watch my favourite new TV show "2 Broke Girls" now. Have a lovely evening everyone!

NYE

It's new years eve!! I will be celebrating and bringing in the new year with all my closest friends at The Brown Fox in Moulin Rouge style!

I am soooo glad 2011 is over, 2012 is going to be an amazing year for me, I can feel it in my bones. Call me superstitious but 2011 added up to 4, never been a very good number ( I think this has to do with growing up in Hong Kong and my building never having a 4th floor). 2012 adds up to 5, my favourite and lucky number, so nothing can go wrong. In fact the year is going to start off with something very exciting which I will do another post about... I guess tomorrow! I'm off to get my Moulin Rouge on, hope everyone has a fabulous night.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

THE YEAR THAT WAS 2011

I did something yesterday that I've been wanting to do for ages and kept whinging about, but never got around to it because I was too lazy or when I did attempt to do it, the timing was wrong eg. Christmas and public holidays. Nothing special but I got my hair cut :) I felt my really long hair was dragging me down. And given the way this year, or rather the last 3 years have been for me, I decided it was time for a chop and let go of all that weight. Here's my before and after.

So I'm feeling much better now! Also along with a haircut I've been rearranging my room, which gives me great joy. I find that it is something I do everytime I want to make a real change in my life and stick to it. It always provides a new perspective and clean, fresh feeling. By rearranging, I have turned my mini bookcase into a shoe rack. Yay more shoe space!

 I can't say that 2011 has been a great year for me, nor were the 2 previous years, but there has been plenty of lessons and discoveries about other people in my life and myself. 2011 wasn't all that bad though, there were some highlights and joyous times and things to celebrate. Two of my best friends got married this year. First was Jeff and Teresa in October, then Dan and Olivia in November. We were very luck to have been bridesmaids for Teresa and shared in her beautiful day that was completely unique and oh so Teresa. :) We (the bridesmaids) dressed in shades of yellow and enjoyed a relaxing and intimate day. The bride needless to say looked absolutely beautiful and I think she was the first bride I have ever seen so relaxed and actually enjoyed her day. Here's a few pics

Then came Dan and Olivias big day. What an extravanganza that was! Her wedding was traditional and beautiful filled with all of Olivias little quirks and humour. Don't think us girls ever cried and laughed so much at a wedding. Every aspect of the day was perfect just like the stunning bride wanted it to be.

Doing this post only reminded me that no matter how horrible things can get or how down you can get sometimes, having amazing friends makes life so much more beautiful. To all my friends especially my girls, I love you all so dearly and am incredibly grateful to have you all in my life. Hope everyone else has incredible friends like I do and that I am so lucky to have. Here's to a wonderful, happy and adventure filled 2012 for all!!

MELLOW HAPPINESS

Here's a few pics from tonight. Went out to dinner and now relaxing (due to a food coma) with my favourite Diptyque candle. Might turn off all the lights and burn a few tealights too, just to match my mood.

CARITA STARTS TO BLOG

Hello blogging world!
I have finally plucked up the courage to foray into the wonderful world of blogging. I've been considering doing this for a while but failed to do so for numerous reasons:


One. I'm not very good at anything technology related.


Two. There are some incredible blogs with fascinating stories and incredible photography.


Three. I would love to produce some of this photographic inspiration, however, photography is another area I am yet to become adept at.


Four. I have always questioned whether my posts would be interesting and worthy enough.


Those were my main concerns, but I have pushed them aside and am going to set myself some new goals starting with this and hopefully learning some photography. The reason for me wanting to start a blog is to share the little things in life that I love with the world. I want to share my daily adventures, and beautiful people that surround me as well as share some of my photographs. I hope whoever reads this enjoys it and reads it like a little piece of writing they can look forward to.