I ♥ U at midnight.

I thought it time for a little weekend recap again...It started nicely enough with an invitation for my company to stay at a swanky 5 star hotel. Lovely Thekla was my plus one and the hotel took it serious by putting up this lovely card on our room table:

Please note the honeymoon comment!

We had a good giggle with this photo op and used Thekla’s engagement ring to improve it even further. Mind you, the champagne was not provided by the hotel for the happy couple, but snuck in by ourselves.

The pictures are a bit random and I guess just prove what can happen when you give people free drinks all night. Though the latter I had to do sober or not, as I had promised Genie, my boss’ daughter to paint a moustache on ‘sleeping’ Mark. Luckily he is a real good sport and held very still while my shaky hand attempted an ‘I ♥ U’ without poking his eye out.

Saturday dawned gloomy, but was immediately smoothed over by a huge room service breakfast and Vampire Diaries, followed by the lunch of the century at Casparus. We had travelled to Stellenbosch to attend something which turned later out not to be a party, but a sit down birthday dinner at a student pizza parlour. Thank god for this lunch, making the carbon footprint worth it. There is a certain special delight of having a fancy lunch instead of a fancy dinner and now I actually wish I would have gotten my camera out. I, for once, actually chose to eat pasta, something I never do when eating out as I always feel I can do better at home. In this case though, we are talking linguini with salmon, prawns, crayfish sauce, and basil oil – no chance for the little pastaholic here. No chance for the linguini to be photographed either as I inhaled them...and the salmon mousse...and the bread roll...and the wine...and the tasting bites from my fellow diners. But since they call Etienne Bonthuys the wizard of sauces (or something to this regard, I just like the word wizard) I will definitely take my Dad there when he comes as he is a freak for sauces and will see if the food can stay on the plates for long enough to take a picture.

Sunday was as usual a bit blue, but all better after a yoga class and splurging on a bunch of tulips who I carried through Woolies for half an hour like a new born baby. I just thought they would make me very happy, which they did (imagine a smiley face here).

Naked trees and dinners and tartes - oh my.

After an eventful week I had a less than eventful weekend, which made me feel a bit sad. There few fun bits and pieces and being the overly chirpy person that I am (irony I hear you knocking), I shall share those now...

The highlight Saturday was me being in a Woolies queue sans make up and a really cute guy still kept on looking over. He had a little boy with him and I will just keep on telling myself that he is in fact a single dad (the amount of Danishes in his basket could mean either) and not a married guy, checking out girls at the groceries while he is just supposed to fetch breakfast and take the little one so mummy can sleep in for a change. That would just add a load to my general disillusionment about men.

In an attempt to modernize the ‘missed connection’ from Craigslist or Gumtree:

Dear cute guy from the line at Woolies,

I saw you there on Saturday morning at around 10am and you saw me too. In fact you - scruffy dark hair, khaki (as in army green, just so you know) shirt, cool boating shoes with a little blond kid who looked like trouble – looked at me – plaid shirt, skinny jeans, no make-up, but cool sunglasses – a few times and even smiled at me with the left corner of your mouth.

If you are in fact single as in above mentioned described scenario, then you know where to find me.

Sincerely,

Any

P.S. I won’t mind your kid, even though I said he looked like trouble. I tend to like trouble.

If you may know the guy in question, please send him along.

The other highlight of my day already started on Friday over dinner at La Mouette/
I ♥ CHEESEBALLS. Thekla had organized a big table to indulge in their 6 course fall menu. As usual in situations like this I feel very grown-up. Even though I know I have technically been grown-up for a while already, there is just something quite adult about sitting at a round table at a fancy restaurant, ordering bottles of champagne and “Yes, sparkling water for the table, please.” It makes me feel grown-up in a very good way (probably always the case when there is alcohol involved).

So at some point over desert this friend was telling me that there is such a thing as naked yoga and it’s not sex in awkward positions. Don’t ask how we got there, I’m not sure I want to remember. As the funny coincidence wanted it another friend then send me a picture on Saturday evening of a guy doing naked Tree Pose. Wow. It left me so speechless that even the teacher in me was quiet, didn’t correct the posture in her mind, but just starred and drooled a little. What a treat.

Treats continued on Sunday with pretty pre-yoga breakfast. I realized then and there while taking this picture I do have a slight obsession with glasses. I mean the breakfast wasn’t have as exciting as the glasses I served it in. Why would I want to eat a single fig if it wasn’t for the fact that it fitted perfectly in this little retro shot glass?

I love buying glasses. I even drove to Bredasdorp to buy my Champagne glasses. After reading this story about fighting behavior from Paige,  I now got the perfect excuse. Ever been in a fight and you wanted to throw something? Well, if you ever dated an Into-Stone-Turner like me, you probably wanted and may even have done it. Nothing drives a hot blooded person crazier than someone who just turns around and literally shows you the cold shoulder mid-argument. I think there were few instances when I was about to grab the nearest object and hurl it at him. Each time I stopped for the simple reason that it was one of my Champagne glasses I grabbed and realized he wasn’t worth trashing it and having to drive 2 hours to replace it. Therefore I declare glasses the official peacemaker in my household and they need to have a budget accordingly. Another perfect excuse for spending money right here.

After yoga I wanted to be true to my word and make the weekend SmittenKitchen weekend as promised, because I love her and I could not resist the idea of my very own berry macaroon tarte amongst other delights. In my very own fashion I never have trouble to play around with a recipe and in this case using slightly salted butter by mistake worked to my advantage as I think the base would have been way too sweet otherwise. I also hate blackberries with a passion so I was quite happy that I couldn’t find any and substituted with my favourite: raspberries.

So no, I am definitely no food photographer as you can tell and the picture doesn’t do it justice – my little tarte was/is absolutely delicious. (So delicious I wasn’t even sad that I left my white KitKat weekend treat at the store). I do think I overate by a slice though, so now I need volunteers to finish it. My very own version of a blog competition therefore: Write to me why you would deserve a slice of my tarte and I shall deliver in person!

So, I guess putting it in a written nutshell my weekend wasn’t too bad: feeling grown-up in the best bubbly way possible, successful baking, a naked man doing yoga, and a long Skype conversation with Rapunzel. I shall only count the cute guy from Woolies once I have confirmed that he is single.

P.S. I admit the title of this post makes no sense whatsoever and is in fact quite lame. Sorry, promise to be better next time.

The moon is half full.

Tuesday after a long weekend, realizing it is almost still dark when I have to get up and it is raining...nice one! Therefore a quick and happy recap on my pre-weekend to do list and what I can now proudly cross of. I did re-do my nails. No picture. The nail polish decided to start chipping immediately again. Does it therefore count as one point on the list mission accomplished? You decide...

I shamelessly admit that I didn’t do anything else from my to-do list neither did I attempt to do anything else from my to-do list. That somehow feels less better attempting, but not managing. Like painting my nails unsuccessfully; it’s just sad.

I did however manage a lot of other things, therefore happy recap...

I managed to forget the contents of my fridge and enjoyed the most divine sea urchin spaghetti and company at Mezzaluna. Also learnt new words in Italian and Swedish in the process so the whole evening had an educational value to it.

I re-arranged my vanity/electricity shelf and spend a good five minutes of visualization of what my closet will look like once I am done with that one. I also spend an hour and half a fortune at Country Road, which results of will look nicely in that soon to be organized closet of mine.

I had lots of fun with a naked Mexican and am now proud owner of two (!) We ♥ Real Beer glasses.

I also had the somewhat profound realization, non drinking related, that the only thing I love more than teaching a yoga class is teaching a yoga class where I can make someone laugh. Laughing and yoga is the perfect combination, I think, but like laughter and sex highly underrated. I vow to do more.

In addition I played with the cutest kittens ever, attended my first stork tea and drank bubbly on the deck in the sun. All in all not bad for a little three day weekend.

For everyone who was as disappointed as me by the moon equinox I will just say - the moon is still half full for the rest of the week and it looked pretty in pink last night- enjoy!

I ♥ Hearts

At least from today onwards.

I have never been a girl who has spent time on planning her own wedding. Never. Any time. Barbie and Ken never celebrated their special day under my watch nor would I make scrap books with pictures of cream puff dresses, princess carriages and chocolate fountains as a teenager. Quite the opposite – I made scrap books of my friend and me kissing as many boys as we possibly could over carnival weekend.

I will one day want a wedding and I will want it to be beautiful and special. I realize though that my taste in food, clothes, decor and men (that’s why there is no wedding yet) has constantly changed over the years. So how could I have known what kind of wedding I will one day want? How could my 16 year old me have known that one day Jil Sander would make the perfect wedding dress? Or my neo-romantic 21 year old version that crème colored roses are not necessarily a bad thing? And why should any of them understand that maybe even the future groom has an opinion on things and quite the right to voice it too?

Today things changed. Browsing this morning I came across the blog of Callie, a friend of mine, who owns the company Cakebread with his sister. We first met on a job where they were doing the food styling, but my favourite part about their job is the cakes they make. Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, pretty cakes, yummy cakes, mind-blowing cakes. I’m no particular cake craver, but I have tried my way through quite a few cheesecakes over the years in New York. After all they don’t call it New York Cheesecake for nothing.  The best one however I found at Cakebread when I first visited their little shop in town in search for a Saturday afternoon delight. I was contemplating the pros and cons of cheesecake versus lemon meringue when Callie helped me out by telling me to take a slice of both (he is a good sales person that one). It turned out to be a wise decision though. I loved them both with all my heart.

This brings me to the hearts. Oh, the hearts! On his blog he shows pictures of previous events, one being a wedding where they made heart cookies and see-through heart lollies. After seeing them, the first detail of my future wedding is now set. I still don’t care about dress, flowers or the band, but the hearts, the heart lollies I MUST have. I have fallen in love. Head over hearts.

Ha ♥ ha ♥