Kiss Me Under the Light of a Thousand Stars

Ugh, as if I wasn't already in love with Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' he goes and does this:

Is it sad that I want to get married just to do this at the wedding?
<3

Meet Arthur

If you don't follow me on instagram, you've probably missed my adorable Christmas present from my boyfriend... this guy!:

I initially had serious trouble thinking of a name for him and after almost a week considered naming him Lord Voldemort for fun. My bestie was not cool with that (and only one of my friends got the reference). I thought he would suit a 'Grandpa' name like Charlie, Harold or George, but they didn't quite have the right ring to them. Then I moved on to grey things. Pepper? No. Earl (like the tea)? No. Babar (the elephant - I loved that show as a kid)? Maybe. But Babar was too recognisable as being an elephant so I looked up other characters from the show and stumbled across this gem: 

"Arthur: Babar's mischief-making brother-in-law."

Perfect. And he's certainly lived up to it. The little scamp loves to chew and today hopped out of his play pen (makeshift from wire garden edging) and explored/raced around the back garden for an hour while I fretted that he could possibly get loose. After I managed to wrangle him and get him back inside, he happily rested on my bed and allowed me to take some glamour shots.

2k plus the approximate atomic weight of Nitrogen..

Aka 2014, aka goodbye 2013, aka Happy New Year, aka how did my last year go?

This year has changed my opinion on 13 being an unlucky number.

2013 has been pretty amazing - of course there are minor moments you would probably rather forget, but these are far outweighed by those that I would gladly keep on a constant loop.

2013: 'The Year That Was' can pretty much be summed up by the following (with 1 and 2 switched around):

1 - Buy a Ticket
After being left broken hearted last year I decided to do something I'd always wanted -but couldn't/didn't want to do with a 'significant other': go on a Contiki tour. I spent little time deciding on where to go and when (Europe in the summer, duh) and booked myself tickets accordingly and organising leave from work. Following this was an agonising -which morphed into exciting- wait over 5 months before I could actually take off.

2 - Quit Your Job
I was always planning on doing this, although not in the way I did. I had always been advised not to leave a job without something concrete to go into and by all means that was what I had planned to do. Then it got to the point where I was a week out from my holiday and I made the decision that that job was not something I wanted to go back to and was giving me anxiety about returning before I had even left. I resigned on Monday morning and thanks to my pre-booked leave I was able to walk out with lighter shoulders on Thursday afternoon.

3 - Get a Tan
This is where I pick back up on my Contiki tale. Although the overall weather on holiday was a little cooler than I was expecting we still caught some rays along the Côte d'Azur in Nice, poolside in Corfu and finally sipping Estrella on the beach in Barcelona. In addition to a tan, I also got drunk, lost, high and more drunk. I made a bunch of awesome new friends and memories I'll cherish forever (and others I'll probably never live down- cheers Facebook).

4 - Fall in Love <3
A boy unexpectedly stole my heart and makes me extremely happy. He lives on the other side of the country and that makes me sad. We'll fix this soon enough.

5 - Never Return
Home is where the heart is and figuratively I'm leaving behind the person I was and looking forward with a new attitude. It's simple really.

Other events of note:

I had a wisdom tooth removed. I've never needed surgery (touch wood!) so this is as big as it gets. Surgery itself wasn't bad- I literally couldn't feel a thing (even the needle) and would highly recommend my dentist. But it was a decent enough excuse to get time off work and use up accumulated sick days.

I landed an amazing job. After about two and a half months post-holiday of watching my spending and receiving numerous 'thanks for your application, however...' rejection emails I was finally graced with a chance which has turned out to be really awesome. In my old job I could never understand how some people could enjoy what they did and not mind going into work, but now I do.

I finished my Chartered Accounting qualification (Graduate Diploma of Chartered Accounting to be precise) well, educational aspect of it anyway- I still need to log a few more months of 'practical experience' aka:work before I can register for membership but yay to putting study/tutorials/assignments/exams behind me (for now).

This year I'm not making any resolutions (my 'Chocolate Free 2013' lasted 4 months), I just want to continue to be happy and healthy and to surround myself with awesome people who do the same.

Happy '14 <3

This Is Halloween

Boo!

Happy Halloween! Party face inspired by Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' film clip using YouTube tutorials here and here. Pretty chuffed with how it turned out and it's quite the attention grabber (especially when walking through Leederville at 8pm to get dinner because we were unfashionably on time for the party…)

Enjoy taking candy from strangers!

DIY: Candy Strands

I know that hair chalking isn't anything new, but given I don't have a corporate (or any) job to go to right now I thought I'd finally test it out.

Using this tutorial (I nixed the gloves and used heat protectant spray instead of water) and my hoarded high school art supplies I got to work making on myself look like I was joining Charlie and his unicorn friends on an adventure to Candy Mountain.

The colours turned out great on my lighter ombre ends, although the crusty-ness of the dried pastels took me back to Greece and having 3 days of salt water build up in my hair. Given I'm trying to get my hair back to a healthy state, this probably isn't something I'd do all too often, but probably good for a night out/costume party.

Rollercoasters.

[img credit]

I used to be scared of them. Them I went to Disneyland. Now we're on speaking terms.

Like rollercoasters, life is a little scary sometimes.

Tomorrow morning I leave for a 6 week holiday (ridin' solo!). After this holiday I would have had to return to a job that I have been trying to get out of for months. So on Monday I quit. This decision was probably the biggest I've ever made and probably the first I've made by myself without inputs from a boyfriend, my mother or my friends tipping me one way or the other. Because then it's never fully your fault if something goes awry.

I'm generally indecisive. I let other people make the final call. If someone said "What do you want to do?", "I dunno, what 'chu wanna do?" (thank you, Jungle Book vultures) would frequently be my response.

I missed the chance to speak to my aunt before she passed away because I couldn't decide what I would say when I picked up that phone and kept putting it off until it was too late. And I regret that deeply. I don't want to regret missing out on other opportunities because I've put something off or not been willing to take a risk.

Back to the metaphorical rollercoaster and the fact that I'm about to leave for a 6 week holiday without a source of income to come back to. Right now I feel like I'm at the point just before the car reaches the peak of the track. A mixture of anxiety and excitement. What goes up must come down, but you don't really know what's on the other side. You could coast. You could come plummeting back down at warp speed. You could shit your pants.

Or you could have the time of your life.

Southward Bound

This weekend we made the most of the Anzac day public holiday, took Friday off work and set off on a four day long weekend road trip to explore parts of the south-west.

Stops and attractions included:

Fergus the cow - Gnomesville, Ferguson Valley - The Diamond Tree, Manjimup and Gloucester Tree, Pemberton (including bird feeding) - Pemberton Pool and Big Brook Dam, Pemberton - Karri Valley Resort (kayaking, kangaroo petting, night walking) - Callcup Hill, Meerup Beach and Summertime Track (4WDs are a must) - Rest Point Holiday Park, Walpole (camping, kookaburras, pelicans, stingrays!) - Purchasing gumboots to splosh around in the puddles after all the rain we got! - Valley of the Giants (treetop walk), Denmark - Giant Tingle Tree and Circular Pool, Walpole - Home 

Aside from getting up close and personal with stingrays and being happy as Larry in a brand new pair of gumboots, the most memorable event of the weekend would have to be setting out for a 3.5km bush walk at night and joking about the torch going out... Then having the torch go out at almost exactly the half way point! Thanks goodness for the full moon!

Getting Lucky

So this is wayyyy overdue. I'm a procrastinator by nature.

Over the Easter weekend we packed our bags and swags, said goodbye to the big smoke and road tripped to Lucky Bay (about an hour north of Geraldton, Western Australia).

You can explore the world, but sometimes, all you need is to be exposed to your own backyard.

She's got a ticket to ride

My Contiki documents came!

If you're following me on twitter or instagram, you'll know how excited I'm getting for my upcoming trip and this little package that arrived yesterday sealed the deal!

I'm heading to Europe for about 5 and a half weeks (29 days on Contiki, the rest a free-for-all). The countdown is currently at 37 days and of course when I head off I'll be blogging here, so stay tuned for all my updates.

Now I just need to buy a new sleeping bag :)

Eeep!

Forest Friends

This morning I tagged along with Brad and the Legitimate Perth City crew to shoot some behind the scenes footage of their Autumn '13 Lookbook shoot. Coffees and Tigers and Teepees, oh my!

Grab yourself some LPC swag here and/or show their Facebook page some love here.