birthdays, weddings, old friends!

Yesterday we celebrated Zara's second birthday. In case you're not familiar with Zara, she is the most wonderful, intelligent, capable child and my only niece (and the only grandchild on both sides). As you can imagine, she is very, very loved. I spoke to her on the phone this week and she has now mastered the "K thx byeee" in a very adorable way.

Happy Birthday to Zara!

The sun showed up in a big way for her party, held at Sir Joseph Banks park, Botany. This is a great spot for little ones with heaps of play equipment. There was even an interestingly-designed see-saw which Dane enjoyed rocketing me skywards on. We wanted to go on the donut swing set too but had to give way to the younger folks :)

We had to dash from the party to be in time for the wedding of the lovely Mr & Mrs Collins, who tied the knot at All Saints North Parramatta. She wore the most sparkly dress I've ever seen on a real bride and he got hitched in a very fetching white suit. Here's a picture of the happy couple:

Mr and Mrs Collins!

I met Mrs Collins at my old church, and there were a few old church friends at the ceremony I got to catch up with. It reminded my how much I enjoyed their company, and I've made a mental note to have a meal together soon. Is there anything better than catching up with old friends?

Speaking of old friends, dinner last Saturday went really well. As I mentioned last week, we dined at Diethnes on Pitt St (close to World Square). The entrance to the restaurant is a door and stairs on street level, and the restaurant is actually in a basement. It's got a bit of a cheesy Greek decor and as the night went on the service got slower, but the food was excellent. We opted for the set banquet which included dolmades, salt + pepper squid, roast lamb, fried eggplant, moussaka, salad and bread and dips. I had never tried moussaka before and I am totally converted! It was delicious - better than lasagna! Will definitely order it again.

I attended a conference for work this week, called Disrupt Sydney - all about how technology is changing big business. The keynote was the founder of Yammer, a social network service for enterprises. He had a beard but shaved his head - he even had reverse sideburns. He spoke about how the distinction between 'knowledge workers' (people who make decisions) and 'non-knowledge workers' (plebs) needs to disappear. He said it's obvious that front-line staff often have the most practical knowledge about their customers, all while management spend their time commissioning longitudinal market research on questions their staff could answer for them in five minutes. He mentioned how management often tell workers to do things the workers themselves know will fail, but they shrug their shoulders and do it anyway because "that's what the boss says". Or they nod and smile but turn around and do what they know will work.

It made me feel grateful that I work for a small company without many layers of management, where I am encouraged to think for myself. I don't feel like I am doing futile things simply because my boss tells me to. I can imagine how frustrated and rage-y I would get in an environment like that, and am now aware of what a great blessing I have in my workplace.

After such a mammoth Saturday, I only made it partway through Kevin Rudd's concession speech and still have not heard Abbott's acceptance. We took it pretty easy today but I've got a big week ahead, including a day trip to Melbourne! Hopefully my phone will be fixed soon!