fun in the sun.
May 4th, 2012 § 2 Comments
Ahoy there!
Tomorrow is my birthday, so I am heading to the Sunshine Coast for a couple of days with my sister and three friendly friends.
I am super excited — I have been looking forward to it all week — and am determined to actually go to the beach, despite the chilly autumnal weather. (The temperatures at the coast are pitched to be several degrees higher than up here in “alpine” Toowoomba, though.)
I am also determined not to get sunburnt or scare other beach-goers.
I accidentally got burnt late last year (on the BUTTOCKS — who thinks to slather sunscreen there?) and promised myself that it wouldn’t happen again.
Here’s what’s in my arsenal:
1.// I’d never found a fake tan I liked until I tried this Garnier Ambre Solaire natural gel (why are the names of cosmetics always so ridiculously long?), which has a good, not-too-orange whack of colour, an inoffensive smell, and pigments derived from vegetables. This is to downgrade the pearly white sheen of my limbs to vaguely less pearly white.
2.// Another product whose primary purpose is for the public good, this Nair sensitive hot wax in orchid is my favourite wax for… never mind. Anyway, I hate waxing strips. Hot wax (when heated correctly — not to skin-scorching temperatures) is the best way to get into nooks and crannies, and it doesn’t hurt too much.
3.// I have had some laser treatments on my face to treat post-medication pigmentation flare-ups, and I have to be very, very careful about sun exposure. I’m not a fan of traditional chemical sunscreens, so I have bought this Natural Instinct micro-mineral formula, which sinks into the skin really well and doesn’t feel greasy. I love it.
4.// I have a bottle of this Neutrogena Daily Defence knocking about in my makeup bag, and while I won’t repurchase it (because of its primary ingredients), I hope to use it up on my body this weekend and then toss it out.
5.// A trusty tube of Lanolips (in Sunshine, of course) will be perfect for walking on the beach and swimming. It’s SPF15+ and so nourishing. The only thing I don’t like is the waxy smell.
I have also chucked a floppy hat, a disposable razor, and a tube of herbal recovery gel into my bag — just in case anybody gets a bit red. I absolutely cannot be bothered waxing my legs. Can you?
We are so lucky in Australia with our gorgeous beaches and coastal towns, but our sunshine is mighty aggressive. This all probably seems like organisation nerd overkill for two days away, but I’m not keen for neon pink buttocks again, you know?
Have a great weekend!
the sweetest things.
May 3rd, 2012 § 1 Comment
Because I tend to lie awake for many hours at a time, my mind wanders and searches and remembers and contemplates.
Lately I have been thinking about the sweetest things that people have said or done to me — or for me — in my little lifetime so far.
When I was 16, I went on a brief exchange to Germany over the six-week summer holiday between grades 11 and 12. I stayed with a family in Essen and my host brother Jan and I became very close. On the day that all of the students left to fly back to Australia, and the charter bus’s engine was just rumbling to life and wheezing into gear, Jan clambered up the steps and barged onto the bus to give me one last cuddle. Onlookers’ eyes just about bugged out of their heads. It was very dramatic and romantic. Like a movie. It was a moment that should have had a backing track. More than a decade onwards, we’re still crazy about each other even if we don’t keep in contact very often.
We used to have a big gum tree next to our house in Australia when I was growing up, and a lovely great cassia in our backyard in Papua New Guinea. My father rigged up a wooden swing to a strong branch in each of these trees. And even though he has never been the sort of dad to toss around a football or play Lego, he used to push us on those swings. Sometimes I would imagine being pushed so high that the swing would make a complete circle around the branch. I was a wimpy kid. And prone to motion sickness. But those were sweet moments.
I met a short little guy from somewhere in South America when I was studying Linguistics back in the day. He had a shock of wildly curly hair and was at least half a foot shorter than I was. His background was in film and drama, and I confessed to him once that I had wanted, fleetingly, to pursue acting when I finished high school but didn’t have either the passion or the thick skin. “But you would have had the looks,” he replied. And I was flabbergasted. But still, to this day, heart-warmed and flattered that this funny little man thought that I had a face for films.
When I first started seeing my ex-boyfriend several years ago, we wandered down to the bank of the Brisbane River to walk along the paths there on Coronation Drive. It was getting cold, and I sat down on a bench to get out of the wind. He sat down next to me and asked very shyly if he could kiss me. I often wish I could return to that very moment in time. It was perfect.
I got sick in my first year of university and was feeling very ill and lonely one evening when one of my best friends dropped around unexpectedly with a grocery bag full of instant noodles and cloudy apple juice. This is still the grand measurement of kindness in my mind: noodles and juice. And possibly a large supply of tissues.
My brother took me to hospital years and years ago, too, when I had a migraine so vicious I thought I might be dying. I vomited in the multi-storey hospital car park and he looked absolutely disgusted but didn’t say anything. That was sweet of him.
And when I broke up with a boyfriend in my first few years in Brisbane and went to the German doctor at Moorooka because I couldn’t keep anything down and he told me I was just “getting a nasty guy out of my system”… That was sweet too.
You have to hold onto the sweet things in life, because there are plenty more bitter things that can stain the waters.
A job description for me: collector of beautiful moments.
city vs country: rooftops
May 2nd, 2012 § Leave a Comment
One of the most beautiful sights that I have ever seen — since or ever — is the city of Prague sprawled out before me, a patchwork of orange rooftops, from the vantage point of Prague Castle (Pražský hrad). It wasn’t just the walk up the winding path that took my breath away: the city is colossal, and when spread out beneath you, every shade of autumn: terracotta, peach, burnt umber, ash, butter yellow, mandarin peel, charcoal, and faded coral.
City skylines can be magical.
As a Queenslander, I am overcome with nostalgic beauty when I drive across the Story Bridge in Brisbane at night. Especially after a flight home from elsewhere. Brisbane is not a city that hums all day and all night, too. Late into the evening, things are awake but at home. The traffic ebbs, the lights glitter. The buildings clustered in the CBD light up like towers of electric honeycomb, and the shades of neon, red, and fluorescent yellow-green dance sexily on the river’s rippling surface.
But the rooftops of the country are another thing.
I know that corrugated iron exists elsewhere in the world, but there is something so quintessentially Australian about the warped, rusted sheets that adorn many a rooftop in country and urban places. The deep ferrous red, the regular lines, the corners lifting, the shimmer of heat from the midday sun even in the midst of winter…
Oh, and raindrops falling.
Little is more divine or comforting than the patter of rain on an iron rooftop while you settle into sleep in pitch-black darkness. I can’t help but think that when God created rain, He had the acoustic blessings of corrugated roofing in mind.
City versus country…? Still, I can’t quite decide.
blog tour tuesday: greedy girl.
May 1st, 2012 § Leave a Comment
This blog, greedy girl, was one of the first blogs that inspired me to create my own through its classy, minimalistic design and spot-on curation of pretty finds. Several years later, it’s still a firm favourite.
Curated by Caroline Duke — a newspaper designer and self-confessed “greedy girl” — this space is full of wonderful things from all around the place, particularly shoes and frocks and lovely homewares. Le sigh.
Personally, I can’t resist a good colour-themed roundup collage.
That’s a thing, right?
For more taste-making fabulousness, follow Caroline’s pinterest boards or hop on the twitter train.
best of the blogs: april.
April 30th, 2012 § 5 Comments
Every time I arrive at the end of another month, I wonder how it could possibly have come around again so quickly.
I’m feeling quite angsty this month, too aware of how little I’ve got done compared to how much I wanted to get done at the outset. But you can’t reclaim lost time, can you?
Maybe if I share a couple of my goals here, I’ll be able to stick to them more successfully.
1. I’m hoping to get my head around WordPress.org and put my HTML & CSS know-how into practice. There are some website- and blog-related things that I’ve been planning for a number of months, but progress has been slow.
2. Although I feel as though I’m getting better at messing around in Adobe programs little by little, I’d love to master some new techniques and skills by the end of May. I get very frustrated when I can’t translate what’s going on in my head onto the screen in the way that I can onto paper.
3. And on a less tangible and more personal note, I want to feel more confident — in general, and in regards to my work. When I receive contact from a prospective client, my first response is always panic. I feel the blood drain out of my face, and the words “I can’t do it,” form in my mind. This freelance gig is enormously overwhelming and frightening sometimes. I wonder at what point I’ll cease feeling like a novice and start feeling like an experienced, capable professional. I want my first response to a query to be curiosity and enthusiasm rather than self doubt. Any tips?
Meanwhile, I’m glad that I am surrounded by so much inspiration every day. I have made it a rule now that I only follow sites and blogs that consistently excite and encourage me. I have felt guilty slashing a couple of feeds out of my reader. But when you spend as much time as I do on the computer and in and out of the folds of the Internet, it’s easy to become avalanched beneath a mountain of content and begin to lose your way. Being loyal to quality content streamlines the time I spend reading and browsing, and also motivates me to lift my game.
So. It’s the last day of April; here are my picks for the month just past:
FASHION
// Oooh, this is my favourite colour.
// Jackie O’s wedding to JFK as captured by a LIFE photographer. Jackie’s dress was perfection.
// Does anybody in my realm of actual real person reality know how to do fishtail braids? They’re so pretty, but I cannot for the life of me work them out.
DESIGN
//I found the process behind jane reaction’s identity design for the farmers shop fascinating and inspiring.
//Breanna Rose (formerly of Moxie) has a a new identity and website, and I like it a lot.
// If I’m courageous enough, I might try Ez’s seamless pattern tutorial. I definitely know I’ll be using these free photoshop arrow brushes.
// Check out this gorgeous stop motion ad that Bri and co made for blogshop.
FOOD
// This fluffy raspberry mousse is pink and amazing. I wonder if I could make a version without packet jelly mix.
// Sprouted grains have so many health benefits. I like the look of this sprouted granola recipe. (I really struggle with breakfast. Do you?)
// There’s rather a lot of sugar in these peanut butter banana choc-chip cookies, but I bet they are incredible. They look incredible.
// These are an elegant take on the coconut macaroon — yum.
// No-knead focaccia. I’m always excited by bread recipes with “no-knead” in the title.
// Handmade vanilla slice is one of the best things ever. With passionfruit — maybe even a tiny bit better.
TECHNOLOGY
// This iPad app looks quite amazing.
FUN
// Nat the Fat Rat is a swell singer, not to mention her mad ukelele skills!
// For list-making and organisational nerds like me, this free weekly planner looks like fun.
// How to travel with children and make yourself popular at the same time. It might even be possible!
crazy stupid cookies.
April 29th, 2012 § 2 Comments
I watched Crazy Stupid Love last night.
I wanted to like it, because I had heard good things about it, but I just couldn’t.
I almost didn’t watch it until the end.
Here’s the thing: without giving away the entire plot, I can tell you that one of the main characters in this “comedy-romance-drama” is Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) — a chronic womaniser. He has honed his picking-up skills to perfection, lassoing a different woman every night of the week, it seems. Until he meets Hannah, a be-freckled law graduate who has just passed the bar and may or may not snort occasionally when she laughs. Although she resists his initial attempts at seduction, she later comes running to him in a fit of hurt and fury when her then boyfriend fails to propose to her, instead inviting her to join his firm. Overnight — yes, overnight — they develop a “connection”. The bad-boy having thus revealed his true inner self (a sensitive, broken soul — awwww), is now reformed, and pledges to maintain a lasting, meaningful relationship with “Hannah Banana”, the miraculous game-changer.
You know why I hate this plot?
Because it is such utter bullshit. But it’s this sort of utter bullshit that girls absorb en masse from pop culture and which leaves them disappointed in encounter after encounter after relationship after relationship both in their adolescence and through to adulthood.
Because the truth is that most jerks are and remain complete jerks.
But ladies always wonder if they might be that special person who finally “gets through”, whose mysterious transformative powers somehow unlock the wounded little boy within and finally release the proverbial butterfly that has just been waiting — you know, deep inside that chrysalis of jerk-dom — for the Right Girl to come along.
We’re led to believe that by simply being our freckled, bespectacled, goofy, adorable selves, that guy who doesn’t call us back, who breaks up with us on Facebook, who unravels our self esteem thread by thread and then criticises us for being “insecure”, and who fobs us off with lame excuses such as, “Maybe I just wasn’t who you thought I was,” or “I can’t give you what you need,” can and will be transmogrified if we love them enough. If we’re the right girl.
And then we hate ourselves when, inevitably, we are not the right girl. When we have the wrong haircut or figure, the wrong job, the wrong sense of humour, the wrong expectations, the wrong feelings.
What do women want and need? To be treated with respect. That pretty much sums it up. Films like this one perpetuate damaging myths, like that when you meet the right person, everything just works out easily.
I hate Hollywood. For once I’m not embarrassed that I have no ida what is currently playing at cinemas.
I thought that Crazy Stupid Love was a crazily stupid movie, which means that, at the very least, its title sort of worked.
And so I’ve made some cookies. Crazy stupid cookies. I was inspired by the Monster Cookies of my youth, but decided to go without all that butter and sugar.
I started with a banana and peanut-butter base, adding in an egg for extra protein and sticky-togetherness. Then I added a dash of flour, a lovely big cup of oats, and some coconut chips and chocolate bits.
They are crazily delicious and stupidly easy. Tender, toothsome, satisying, and not overly sweet.
Sort of the opposite of a Hollywood film. And an excellent antidote for outrage.
amber’s crazy stupid cookies
You could easily try other nut butters — almond, cashew — and whatever add-ins you like. The chocolate I used was 85% cocoa Lindt, because it is has the lowest sugar content of any chocolate I can find at my local supermarket.
1 large banana, mashed
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 large egg
1 cup whole rolled oats
2 T plain flour (wheat, spelt, brown rice, whatever)
60 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
1/4 C flaked coconut, chopped nuts, or dried fruitPreheat the oven to 180° Celsius. Line a baking tray with grease-proof paper.
In a large bowl, stir together the mashed banana, peanut butter, and egg until thoroughly incorporated. Add the rolled oats, flour, chocolate, and other add-ins. Mix until well combined.
Using a teaspoon and your hands, scoop heaped spoonfuls of mixture and roll into a lazy mound/ball. Place the balls onto the prepared tray, spacing evenly, and bake for fifteen minutes. The outsides should feel firm and dry to the touch.
Makes approximately 16 cookies.
.
one day at a time.
April 28th, 2012 § 1 Comment
I have basically done nothing today.
I had a somewhat disappointing shower (hooray for cleanliness). Four hours onwards and my hair is still damp.
The weather is like this:
So, I have been bundled up in bed with Oliver and a couple of hot drinks, catching up on reading.
I have so much good stuff to read: the latest issue of frankie, all the hundreds of posts in my RSS feed’s backlog, and Portia de Rossi’s Unbearable Lightness, which arrived in the post yesterday. I’m only up to page 40. It is fascinating, horrible, and affecting.
I’m not going to beat myself up for not having done much today. I can feel my mother’s frown radiating from kilometres away. I hide from life by staying in bed. Oh, but sometimes I just need to do that. I don’t want to get up and be reminded that my right arm isn’t working very well because it’s too sore to lift anything. Or that, if I even wanted to do something, I’d have to pull on some boots and drive for half an hour in the fog because I always have to travel the distance; nobody comes to me.
I don’t feel like wearing a bra. I don’t feel like chatting.
But I’m OK. I ordered a mulberry-coloured lipgloss online. My cat bites me if I stop patting him. My credit card is paid off for the first time in months and months.
And I have so much good stuff to read.
fringe festival.
April 26th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
What is it with girls and their hair?
Two years ago, I opted for a pixie crop once again after years of cutting and growing, cutting and growing. I was going through some stuff.
Like the time I had it streaked blonde (in reality — orange) when I broke up with my boyfriend of three years.
Oh, that was bad.
I dyed it back to black several weeks later.
Haircuts are significant to women. Is there a little bit of Sampson in us all?
Having a proper haircut a fortnight ago marked the end of another era of letting my hair grow out and not really having any style whatsoever. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in bed with Oliver on top of me: he thinks that it’s a game whenever I move my feet, and I’m getting cranky because he is big and his claws are pointy. I have also spilt pasta sauce on my shirt. My pyjama shirt. So to write about style right at the minute seems halfway ridiculous.
But I am loving my new ‘do. It means I have to actually comb my hair. Once I spend 30 seconds straightening the fringe, I’m suddenly transformed into somebody who made an effort, somebody who looks a little refined instead of someone who works in her pyjamas and is just trying to avoid the lure of the hairdresser’s shears for another week.
Fringes are everywhere.
We’re onto a good thing, ladies. I was worried that a fringe (can somebody please explain to me why people call them “bangs”?) would be super high maintenance. But it’s much, much easier than the non-haircut I had before. My hair is naturally very thick and wavy with a stubborn cowlick at the front. I always, always looked messy and haggard, and my dark brows were a bit… you know… WHOA. The fringe seems to balance out my features a little more nicely.
Fringed fillies above: Rooney Mara, Zooey Deschanel, Lily Collins, Rose Byrne, and Florence Welch (sizzling, right?).
