The Weekend of Much Spending

Shoo, what a weekend. It had it's ups and downs and round abouts like usual ... it was oddly busy but equally quiet. Hmmm. Let me cast my mind back ...

Friday night, damn, I can't remember what we did on Friday night. Oh yes ... we went for dinner at Cranks, it's been absolutely ages since we last ate there (eep, the last mention I can find on my blog is from December 2007 ... it surely can not have been that long ago ?!) and after a week of no cooking, we certainly didn't feel like starting on a Friday night :) Plus we have no series to watch and there's nothing showing on big-screen and we'd already experienced the futile-ness of trying to pick a dvd together ... so out we had to go :)

On Saturday we were up early-ish because Varen had made plans to go climbing with Koet ... and I decided it was as good an opportunity as any to head to the gym myself :) Impressive, no? (But wait ... there's more coming!). After that we went on a bit of a shopping binge, Varen was in dire need of some new work pants & shirts and me, well I also need some new clothes (which girl doesn't?). And boy did we buy! I went a little over board on the spending this weekend, but we got paid early on Friday and to be honest, I got my payout from the transfer last week.

That's right folks, the big exciting news of last week is that Bean & I no longer own a house together. But, I hadn't yet mentioned it because well, as always, there are still niggly issues. There was a leak that had to be fixed (condition of sale) ... which was fixed. But they're now complaining that the roof was not painted as well. So we're waiting to hear if we can get away with it (honestly, if I'd thought it wasa big deal I would've gone in with a paint brush myself in the last 5 months ... I certainly wouldn't be paying to have the entire ceiling painted, that's for sure!) ... finger's crossed.

Anyhoo, I got two fab new tops, a gorgeous dress and a new handbag - sorry Wren, as much as I love my Wren bag, I have just had to face up to the fact that I am a compartment-bag sorta girl. I was dying having everything I cart around daily with me just getting lost in one big giant open space. My new bag has oodles of zips and separaters (and it is red!) :) I love it! Hmm, what did we do after that? Oh yes ... we headed home and decided to make ourselves a real home-cooked dinner :) So we went out shopping for supplies ... and stopped off at Sportsman's Warehouse on the way. And in a completely surprise buy (yes, I was not going there to buy, Varen was the one requesting the visit), I bought swimming gear for the gym. A Full-piece costumn (can't remember the last time I wore one of those!), goggles, a cap (eep!) and even a nose plug. I warned you it was an expensive weekend ... and it's not done yet!

After that we went home and prepared the Beef with Port Casserole I'd chosen for Varen from cookbook.co.za. He loves meat ... but I'm not a huge fan so usually the most meaty thing we eat at home is Chicken or Ostrich. Not very manly :) So I decided that we'd give this Beef Casserole a try. But it needs to cook for 2 hours (see why we waited till a Saturday to make this!). In the meantime we headed to the gym to break in the new swim gear. Yes, I know, I went to gym twice in one day ... I'm surprised it didn't break out into thunder and lightning right then! Swimming was pretty cool, but hugely exhausting. I'm not a swim-type person ... I like being in the water, I just don't understand why you'd wanna go anywhere once in? I like to swan about when in the water :) But he had me doing laps ... 12 can you believe, I was impressed because I was pretty sure I wouldn't manage more than four! Okay, the last 2 were backstroke but hey, I still did them! Oh, and another huge plus ... I can stand in the gym pool. I hate being in water I can't stand in (unless I'm snorkelling or scuba diving) ... but in a pool (or sea or lake), with no floating mechanism, that freaks me out! I do however think I'd be much beter at this if he let me use a snorkel. It's the gasping for air while trying to do freestyle that exhausts me ... I hardly get any airfor an entire lap.

And then we went home with enough time for me to make Mom & Dad's Cauliflower Mash (yum!) to compliment the casserole. It turned out to be a very yummy dinner ... although truly lengthy. But if you have those 2 hours to spare, it's otherwise quite simple! And we settled in to watch No Country For Old Men.

After stumbling across a case of money among dead bodies, Llewelyn Moss thinks he can keep it quiet, but when silent killer Anton Chigurh locates Moss and his money, Vietnam veteran Moss makes a run for it. With bodies falling everywhere Anton goes, it's only a matter of time before he catches up with Llewelyn. Whilst all this is going on, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is overseeing the investigation and begins to see the country in a different light than it once was.

Sho, now that was brilliantly filmed and I was really enjoying it. And then it ended and I realised I didn't know what the hell it was about at all. I had no idea who the story was supposed to be about. It was one of those "This happened, then this happened and then this happened after that" movies. You know, the ones that don't come together at the end and explain themselves. The ones that just exist as a course of events. Either way, Javier Bardem was brilliantly cast and played the role of the villian to perfection! He was scary. But he also sorta has a look of Jeffrey Dean Morgan (patient Denny Duquette on Grey's Anatomy, patriarch John Winchester on Supernatural, and Judah Botwin, the deceased husband of show protagonist Nancy Botwin on the Showtime series Weeds) about his eyes. we spent a long time wondering if it was actually him with some serious prosthetic work done!

On Sunday we went to meet our new Domestic Worker. She seems lovely and will be thankfully starting on Friday :) Yay. And then headed all the way to Menlyn to watch The Dark Knight, on IMAX. It was quite amazing and although I didn't enjoy it as much the second time around (knowing the twists and turns), I still thoroughly enjoyed it :) If you haven't watched it yet ... skip Ster Kinekor or Nu Metro and go straight to IMAX! Oh, and I bought a fab new green jersey too :) See, the shopping simply never stops.

Oh, and we stopped by Sakura for some sushi (haven't had that in ages either) and it was ghastly! They have not only increased the price of their "eat all you can" special to R130 (as I mentioned last time) but they now seem to be padding their sushi with extra rice! I could hardly taste anything but rice ... there was so much it actually became hardto swallow. I am so not going back there in a hurry!

And then we came home and spent a lazy sunny afternoon in the garden reading with the bunnies. Seems Henna's now in the lead of the bunny-humping competition. Is all very peculiar! And that was the entire weekend ... in a nutshell :)