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Aug 16
Shopping
7

Welcome to Costco, I Love You

I’ve been hanging out for Costco to open in Sydney..well…forever it seems!

When it finally did open a few weeks ago, I lived vicariously through tweets, twitter pics and a workmate who has teasingly visited a few times, waiting for the crazy to die down a little do I could make my first visit.

Finally decided Saturday was the day, I was braving the crazy on probably the busiest day.

So we got there before it opened, found a park easily enough. Made our way to the door, only to find a 1km queue of people with trolleys snaking its way through the car park. For a spilt second I was ready to admit defeat and go home, thinking we were going to be waiting hours.

But surprisingly the line moved pretty quickly, once the doors opened at 9:30am. We would have been in and out by 10:30 I’d say, if I didn’t have to stuff arse around with their membership people for over an hour. Long story short, membership I signed up for at home online, they couldn’t find it. So either I was going home with no Costco to sort it out when headoffice opened on Monday :( OR sign up again. So $120 later just to get in the door…we were in!

It was packed, but not too bad to move around (says me who just wandered around leaving the boy child to try to manoeuvre the huge, doesn’t steer too well trolley through the masses)

I am going back for this Cupcake cookie jar, I don’t know why I didn’t buy it on the spot. I guess I was a bit flustered having to spend $120 to get in the door, I was being choosy with what I bought.

They have an awesome bakery section there. We bought a 12 pack of muffins for $12, they were a mix of chocolate, banana walnut and blueberry. They were huge muffins, and really nice! They also have a big range of bread and rolls, danish and cakes.  They even had cupcakes and birthday cakes (shame they are a bit far away ;) ) The cupcakes were the same size as the muffins and piled high with frosting

Post it note pic for Rah, 24 post its for $18.89!

They had HUGE 16in pizzas. They look really good, and you could even watch them being freshly made. But I’m not sure it would fit in my oven? Or anyones oven for that matter..how the hell would you cook that?

After you had you ginormous pizza, you could top it off with 2kg of Apple pie. The boy begged me to buy it, what the hell am I going to do with 2kg of Apple Pie?? Or maybe a $90 Toblerone.

I didn’t think I’d bought that much, but somehow managed to spend $180. Definitely some great bargains to be had, especially if you have the room and money to buy in bulk.

Looking forward to my next visit, I am sure there is some stuff I missed and I need some more muffins, paper towel and that cookie jar!

Have you visited Costco yet?

Welcome to Costco, I Love you ref, thnx to Ryan ;)
Filed Under: Shopping
Aug 13
General, Shopping
14

Dear City Chic, Why So Blue?

I have loved City Chic for many years. Before there were so many great plus sized shopping options online, it was pretty much your only choice.  I can’t say I am overly keen on their prices, though their sales are always awesome. But they do often have some good stuff.

Jeans are basically the only kind of pants I wear. To work, after work, weekends…always jeans. I do like the fit of the City Chic jeans, despite the price, compared to my other jeans.

I have these 3 jeans pictured below (well the one of the right is very similar to the ones that I have that are now no longer for sale) but you get the idea.

But I have a small gripe, my City Chic jeans are trying to turn me into a smurf.

Plus sized jeans

So, I’m not sure if I am alone in this? Bored, nervous and especially when I am cold. I rub my hands on my legs. It’s not a lot, but obviously enough. Sometimes I might just rest one hand in between my knees or under a leg. This is something I have to try very hard to avoid when wearing my City Chic jeans.

This is what happens to my hands!

Excuse the terrible pic (ever tried taking a phone pic with no hands!) The one on the left is colour my hands go when wearing the darker pairs. The right is the regular pink colour, to prove I am not in fact an actual smurf. It happens with every pair to some extent.

I’ve had issues with denim that has that terrible chemical smell. I will smell every pair of jeans before I buy them, yes..I am fun to shop with. Deciding on purchases by smell. But I thought these would be OK, as they don’t have any smell.

They have been washed many many times, and still they do it. What am I doing wrong? My cheapy ones from Target never do this.

Has anyone else had this issue with City Chic Denim?

Filed Under: General, Shopping
Aug 08
Family
6

The Internet is Forever

Crappy weekend was crappy :( Have been stuck in bed sick for the last 3 days. And to top it off, had a second tyre blow out, so was left with no choice but to get new tyres…$700 later.

Such a stark contrast on last weekend.

Along with half of the internet it seemed, I traveled to Melbourne last Friday for the inaugural Nuffnang Blogopolis.

After a super early 7am flight. I arrived in Melbourne with plans of a few hours shopping waiting for my roomies Rah and Liz to arrive.

Of course one of the first things I did when I booked to go was search for the nearest cupcake shops. One that was just 5mins from our hotel was The Cupcake Family. We tried some macaroons  Friday with plans to come back to try more..but unfortunately we didn’t get there. The macaroons where pretty damn good!

Macarons

Friday night saw the HelloEvents pre drinks. I never do Outfit of the day pics, but was playing my flash..and this is the only picture we have of our wonderful hotel room, what slack bloggers are we! I had planned on tacking a pic of the room Liz and I were sharing. Liz with her stuff all neatly in her bag, me with shiz strewn all over the place..bed all messy..just use your imagination.

This is the second time I have stayed in a Mantra and both times the service has rooms have been great. We were super close to everything and the room was awesome, and super cheap.

Weekends away are not complete without lots of noms. Foodies we are not. Simple girls, easily please. Firstly, we all sampled Grill’d for the first time. A little on the $$ but hands down, best burgers I’ve had. So much so we actually had it twice. We also came across this fab little dumpling take away, never seen coloured dumplings before.

Then, I think there was some kind of conference in between the festivities, on Saturday. You can read a better wrap of that here. I will admit to coming into it with low expectation, and I was pleasantly surprised. Certainly took a lot more away from this one, than the mummy bloggers conference that wasn’t but was in March.

The highlight for me was seeing Problogger in the flesh. Someone I have been following for many years. I’ve seen many pictures and videos of him but to see him in 3D and to hear him talk was very surreal. I would love to make it to his workshop in Melb in October, but not liking my chances on that ;)

This is my shirt that I had made to wear for the day. Just to push my WordPress cult a little more. Little did I know the speakers on the day would do a pretty good job pushing the mighty WordPress and then some, so I got a few interesting comments.

After the conference we made our way to the venue for the after party. It was a bit of an effort to find it. Despite all the directions on Twitter, we all go lost. Wandering the Docklands of Melbourne, coming across other lost bloggers in dark alley ways till we’d amassed a crowd of lost bloggers. No amount of GPS devices or actual Melbourne residents could help us, and we were close to giving up, when we FINALLY found the venue.

Was totes worth the effort, this place was absolutely beautiful, and the party that followed..wow. Here is a selection of pics that were safe for internet viewing ;) (There should be a slide show viewer, or you can view them on Flickr)

My fav tho I think would have to be Suger Coat It planking. And we weren’t even drunk yet! It just got crazier and messier after that!

Blogopolis After Party

It was a shame there was not more time to mingle and network during the day. I seemed to luck out with table selection, as no one at my table was really interested in networking, which was one of my main reasons for attending. So the after party was perfect to chat with old and new bloggy friends.

Sunday saw some much needed hangover food. We visited the Pancake Parlour, home of my favourite pancake packet mix. And guess what, they taste exactly the same! For $7 you can get a bag of Pancake Parlour mix at Woolies, a little expensive but they taste just as good as from scratch and so much easier!

The rest of the day was spent visiting some Melbourne craft markets, and more shopping before a super late flight home. Thankfully I asked for the Monday off as well, as I needed it to recover.

So guys, when and where are we doing this again?!?! And remember, the internet is for ever, so don’t do crazy shit around bloggers with cameras!

Filed Under: Family