Monday, November 28, 2011

1st December

Unlike all the stores around who believe that Christmas begins immediately after the tax-time sales (which occur directly after Easter, which occurs directly after New Year's, apparently) I believe it begins on the 1st of December. Obviously we all freak out about the money pit that it creates, the family induced stress etc but mainly it's a whole lot of fun and the one time of year that you get to throw party after party and eat delicious food without considering the consequences.

So without further ado I present our 2011 Christmas Tree!

.........but wait there is no tree....because we are moving
but we did put a tree up it just isn't very pretty at the moment so maybe this afternoon I will take a pic. The tree is apart of our Christmas 25.

You see while I was over on Design Sponge a few weeks back I noticed a link to the Anthology Magazine 2011 Winter Gift Guide, if you turn to page 22 you will find a lovely little article from Jordan Ferney of Oh Happy Day who if you read my blog regularly you might notice I LOVE! well she has a nice little idea to replace traditional chocolates/gifts found in an Advent calender with activities.

One which I intend to steal. So 25 days of Christmas activities in no particular order.

1. Make eggnog
2. Make a gingerbread house
3. Make and send Christmas cards
4. Make Christmas presents
5. Decorate Tree
6. Sew a tree ruffle
7. Joel make Emma amazing creative dinner on BBQ (his idea)
8. Spend a day in Sydney
9. Watch a Christmas movie
10. Brew amazing coffee
11. Brew/make amazing hot chocolate
12. Go to the farmer's markets
13. Go to the beach (this should be easy once we move YAY)
14. Do the Bather's Walk
15. Visit the Hunter Valley region
16. Eat seafood
17. Have a Christmas party
18. Have a waterfight
19. Play a sport in the park
20. Fly kites
21. Watch the carols
22. Be selfless!!
23. Play a board game
24. Make stockings
25. Slow dance to 'Dreaming of a White Christmas' on Christmas Eve














Sunday, November 27, 2011

colour palette of my dreams

To some my tastes are pedestrian, boring etc etc and there are those who will not appreciate this colour palette for that reason. But I LOVE neutrals. That is not to say that I don't like a bright colour every now and then but I think colours become easily dated. Neutrals will always look finished, clean and classy.

And so here it is the colour palette of my dreams.

image from Trine Thorson via The Style Files

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Mexican Fiesta

Along with the epic-ness that is going to be Christmas it is also going to be Joel's brother's 21st birthday. Now I would imagine it would suck to be a young bloke and to have your birthday fall every year on THE biggest holiday of the year. You might want to hang out with friends have a beer etc but you just can't.... so we will be throwing him a 'Mexican Fiesta' style birthday bash. Where did this idea come from? Well we had originally planned just having a dinner in his honor on Christmas Day and I remembered how he always went on about burritos so a fiesta seemed perfect. Now the dinner has escalated to a party and will be held on Christmas Eve

We intend on setting up the tents for Christmas Day early so they will be up and ready to go, we just need a few decorations....

source: Marianne Wilson Photography via Green Wedding Shoes
source: Oh Happy Day
source: Martha Stewart and Aaron Delesie via Style Me Pretty via Always Andri Wedding Design
Source: Joielala Photography by Couture Events on Green Wedding Shoes
Source: Victor C Sizemore Photography by Details, Details via Style Me Pretty
Source: Sutherland Kovach Studio via Style Me Pretty
I think a Mexican theme is great fun, basically just throw in as much colour as you can! and even better you can easily get away with colourful paper plates and cutlery etc. We know someone who runs a Mexican takeaway shop so might look into getting that yummy Mexican food from him or otherwise find as many pre-prepared things as possible to heat etc before serving. Yum, hope he enjoys it!

Christmas Table

Yesterday I wrote a post about our Christmas menu today I will take it one step further and let you in on what my inspiration is for our table setting...

Now given my current financial state of not being employed and all it will of course be cheap and rely on things we already have. Luckily I got married in September so there is a huge amount of 'stuff' available (benefits of buy over hire kick in).

I wouldn't say I am a lover of traditional Christmas, use see it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me living in Australia where a white Christmas only occurs if you happen to live in far north Queensland or coastal Western Australia and the white you are seeing is not snow but sand. So as always with my 'boring' taste our Christmas will be simple and have a base colour scheme of white. Because others will surely disagree I have decided to add to that wonderful colour of white the following; gold, cream and green. I think it's a wonderfully fresh palette.

source: created by Stuart of What Wilson Wants

source: DIY Oversized Fabric Chandelier by Elsie on A Beautiful Mess and the Martha Stewart Christmas Workshop
source: Kate Harrison via Green Wedding Shoes

source: Scott Andrew Studio via Enjoy Events Co.


Source: Cakes by My Sweet and Saucy, Braedon Flynn via Grey Likes Weddings

source: Jennifer Eileen Photography via Forget Me Knot Weddings and Enjoy Events Co.

Yep so that's pretty much it... we plan on setting up two of our 3x3m tents in the backyard, using some of the Ikea Lill Curtains we purchased for the wedding, with two of the folding trestle tables purchased from Bunnings and the dining chairs that Joel and I recovered. From the top of each of the tents I will string the DIY Fabric Chandeliers (above) but instead of using an old baking tray and twinkle lights i might simplify it, using the lights we created for the wedding. I wish with all my heart I could have the dinner set I have been searching for but both money and local availability are working against me. I plan on using the gold crowns (with name inscribed in bottom corner) as place names and though i haven't got either pictured was thinking about painting a gold edge on some glasses we have and if i can find it 'gold-glittering' some deer (got to have something Christmasey).

Hopefully I can pull it together how I envisage it....

BBQ Christmas Menu

So it's less than a month till Christmas. Wow this year has certainly flown by super fast. We have moved 3 times, we got married, I learnt French, I lost weight, I put weight back on. Intense.

But back to the good stuff, Christmas Lunch, Joel and I were supposed to be hosting Christmas at our place this year but well I have to tell you now we got a new place. You like my choice of words there right? 'place' note not a house we are moving into 'town' into an apartment/flat/unit (apparently they are all the same thing) which is really like a studio apartment but anyway pictures later. The point is it's incredibly small and we can barely fit our lounge in there let alone dining table and 20 people so we will be hosting it but not at our house. This means that we are forced to use the unsanitary kitchen belonging to Joel's Grandfather. Unspeakable things have gone on in that kitchen so a simple clean would not satisfy even the grubbiest person thus we tried to come up with a menu that uses the kitchen as little as possible.




 
So we have all courtesy of the Taste website (I downloaded their Taste Summer App and that's how I found these goodies) Barbecued Butterflied Lamb, Honey Parsnips and Carrots and Barbequed Mushrooms and Asparagus. For good measure I will also add the Warm Potato and Chive Salad which we had at our wedding and I had also contemplated making this amazing Caprese Salad from What Katie Ate but decided that it wouldn't go too well with my no-fuss Christmas Lunch.

We will drink these Christmas Caipirinhas and for dessert we will have a simple fruit salad because I am sure there will be plenty of naughty stuff around to snack on.


The best thing about it all is it's also relatively non-fuss, especially if you get someone else to butterfly the lamb for you, the trickiest part will be peeling and chopping carrots and by using the BBQ you tend to get the males more involved in the process, leaving me more time to do things like laying the table. :)

Thursday, November 24, 2011

The Best Things in Life....

....contain sugar

as in dessert isn't it the best thing in the world? my ultimate personal favourite thing is a big warm croissant with melted chocolate jammed in the middle.

However at the wedding I don't know I guess this wasn't appropriate.... so instead we had icecream :)

That was the one big fun splurge we made at the wedding, hiring an ice-cream truck it was Joel's idea and we decided it would be the one thing we wouldn't tell everyone (i am horrible at keeping secrets). It was pretty awesome and a lot cheaper than you might think so I would highly recommend it. However they were pretty hard to find, after a lot of googling I emailed one guy who was booked out but gave me the contact details for other vans in the area, strangely enough though it was on this business for sale listing which I found our van.

Isabella from the Treats Kiosk was so very lovely and helpful and I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a van on the mid-north coast, when we had less people than anticipated they even contacted me after the wedding to give us a refund!

  All they needed was a power outlet and they were ready to go, though the kids enjoyed it, I think it was the oldies who really loved it. Joel's Uncle in particular saying how great it was reminding him of his childhood.

Of course we did have a few other things for dessert namely our wonderful wedding cake made by Joel's Aunt with a recipe given to me by my friend Jayde. It was a three tier cake of dark-choc mud, white-choc mud and caramel mud cake with Italian meringue buttercream icing, decorated with fresh flowers and perched on a tree round we found left over from the forestry. We had planned to have ganache between all the layers but instead arranged to have bowls of ganache ready to pour on for those who wanted an extra kick of chocolate. OMG it was amazing so rich, so much chocolate and of course it looked so pretty and simple.


The birds that we used as a cake topper Joel and I purchased from Bed, Bath and Table (pretty much our favourite homewares store) it was one of those cute relaxed shopping times before the wedding and they now sit on our dressing table in the bedroom (well not at the moment as we are still homeless). We also had a trifle of sorts made from profiteroles that had been originally intended for a tower but unfortunately didn't quite work out as planned.... though with a ton of cream and ganache they tasted pretty darn amazing. I must say a giant thank-you to Joel's Aunt who put in a mammoth effort for the wedding making my bouquet, the wedding cake, and also numerous other things. She was just one of the many people who helped out immensely in order to make our day what it was :)

source: Moikka Paper via Oh So Beautiful Paper


Tuesday, November 22, 2011

social media

Stepford is getting up with the times!

this is just a short post to say I have created a small Facebook page in the name of Stepford you can find it here

in the meantime enjoy this lovely little gem from the mouth of Betty Draper (now Francis) of Mad Men and I will get back to studying for my tax final (which is tomorrow eek!!) and then I will be able to finish my post from the other day about wait for it.... dessert YUM

source: i am not morrissey on tumblr

Friday, November 18, 2011

procrastination 101 - Wedding Catering

my last exam for the year 'Issues in Taxation' is on Wednesday, we handed the keys on Friday we are moved out! no excuses MUST study... but no instead I think I will write about the catering we did at the wedding....


I remember when we first decided (quite early on in the piece) that we would self-cater I trawled the internet (as you do) for all different types of recipes etc we could use, tips on catering, quantities, waitstaff etc etc. We went from finger food, to brunch, to afternoon tea (my ultimate fave but my mother insisted no more sweet stuff!) and then we thought well maybe a ploughman's lunch would be ideal.

According to the ever 'dependable' Wikipedia a Ploughman's Lunch is described as "a cold snack or meal originating in the United Kingdom...sometimes served in sandwich form, composed of cheese, cooked ham slices, pickle/relish, apples, pickled onion, salad leaves, bread and butter." which was essentially what we served at our garden wedding as afternoon tea.

If you came across this Polka Dot Bride post I apologise I am going to repeat the images which are courtesy of Mike and Amy Photographers because unfortunately I was a little busy smooching my new husband and missed out on seeing all the lovely food properly dished up.


We originally considered having the food bought out in two stages so we would not miss out on seeing it all laid out while we were having our bridal shots done. I am not quite sure how it ended up happening on the day but Joel's mother made sure we had a special basket to nibble from while our photos were being taken and then also when we reached the reception we had our own special tray of goodies. The original plan however was to begin with an assortment of fresh fruits - I can't tell you the exact quantity we bought because we were so worried about not having enough that whenever someone went into town we asked them to grab some more.

I can tell you we had at least two big boxes left over after the wedding (no strawberries left of course) so we must have started with quite a bit.

Also you might have noticed in the above picture the blueberries are in a Christmas cup we still have no idea how this came about. The remainder of the fruit was displayed in the lovely wicker baskets procured by my sister from various op-shops.


We purchased all the bread from an organic sourdough bakery in Bellingen called 'Hearthfire Bakery', we got about 20 baguettes, 10 ciabatta and 10 rustic white loaves (maybe more I lost my spreadsheet) but all for about $150. It was delicious and again we had too much left over.

The cheeses came from the Hunter Valley Growers Market in Charlestown, they were by far the most expensive aspect of the food and therefore probably warranted a bit more investigation in retrospect. Here is a breakdown of what we got:

- 2.4kg Jarlsberg
- 3.4kg Wyke Farms Village Oak
- 2kg King Island Seal Bay Triple Cream Brie
- 2kg Blumello 60%
- 2kg South Cape Camembert

We had some shenanigans with our order and the 'piece de resistance' black beer and goat's milk cheese did not make it to the store in time so we had to substitute what little they had with the ordinary goat's milk (Manchago). I was also worried that we wouldn't have enough and sent a wonderful helper to get some more Camembert and Brie from a local deli (meaning we had a total of 4kg each). Again not really needed many of our guests were sent home with a little cheese package and we only just finished off the Wyke Farms block of Vintage Cheddar (it was SO good)

 
My lovely mother ensured we had the yummiest butter to spread on our bread and lashed out buying a couple of blocks of Harmonie Organic Butter and in the months leading up to the wedding collected various chutney and relishes (both homemade and shop bought), Caramelised Onion Relish being our favourite I still have a few stray jars left to eat now.

For cold meat we had a selection of roast beef, roast turkey and ham (about 3kgs of each.... until I sent someone out for just a little bit more). The beef came from a cow raised on the property and roasted by Joel's Aunt the week before the wedding, while the turkey and ham came from both Woolworths and a local butcher. Joel and I took a whole lot of this left over meat on our honeymoon making for a pretty yummy table picnic.


Of course we did also have a selection of salads I estimated about 3-4 times for each recipe and had three in total. There were no pictures taken of these but these were the recipes I found - I believe they may have taken liberties with all three for simplicity 

Surburban Tomato - Garden Salad

Jo Cooks - Mediterranean Cous Cous Salad
Tastefood - Warm Potato and Chive Salad
From what I gather the Warm Potato and Chive Salad was a crowd pleaser and when I made it at home a couple of weeks later it was pretty tasty and by using small potatoes cooked in their skin it looks lovely too. The Cous Cous Salad however we had mountains left of so probably didn't need to make so much because it was a) filling and b) not the normal fare for the crowd 

Ultimately we had pretty good reports off everyone and though it could have been better in terms of organisation (i.e. we had planned to have all bowls etc labelled so our helpers would know what was intended for what but time was pretty tight towards the end) I think we did pretty well for amateur caterers.

I should also mention that we hired an additional two fridges making four in total and also hired 3 waiters from the local TAFE along with 2 friends of Joel's mother to handle things during the reception.

This post is super long and I have Joel in my ear telling me I should be studying so dessert will have to wait :)


Thursday, November 17, 2011

DIY Christmas Gifts

we hand the keys in to our old house tomorrow. thank god.

however fitting the contents of a large house into a single garage is quite challenging and we literally have no room to move. it will be great once we find another house we can make into a home but I am pretty disheartened at the moment about the odds of finding something pretty, in a good location and within our price range.

but enough of that I have finally figured what I will make for my nephews for my DIY Christmas this year (yep everything must be DIY). I cannot take credit for this idea yet again but it is pretty cool and if I was a 10 or 6 year old boy (particularly brothers) I think I would love these....

source: Bryan Ku via Handmade Charlotte
yep pillow fight weapons - super cool, Joel and I both decided that the light saber though awesome would be useless in a pillow fight so I might give either the sword or the axe a go. I had plans to use some old pillows as filler but Joel thinks its gross (they go on our spare bed so I don't know why) the best thing is we have a plethora of fabric out there to use all for $0 ..... now just have to figure out where we put my sewing machine amongst all the cr*p


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

the words escape me..

I had a job interview yesterday at Wittner. It did not go well. You know those ones were they say 'I'll call you' but you both know that the chances of you working there are as good as a cat becoming an opera singer. Well that was it.

I had come from an exam, moving house and a badly timed argument with the hubby so I guess my frame of mind would have contributed to my less than stellar performance. I wore my white Wittner tack peep toe shoes (the ones I wore on my wedding day) and a grey Sportscraft shift dress my hair was 'perfectly coiffed' and I had just the right amount of make-up and perfume on. Yet I failed to impress.

Why is it that the words that would be perfect only come to you in the moments after they are needed. She asked 'why shoes not apparel' I made up some bogus long-winded blah before I said 'I always plan my outfit around my shoes' I probably should have lead with that adding 'I am an excellent sewer, I can make my own clothes but shoes are beyond my capability'.

After looking at my previous work experience she asked why I would like retail over hospitality.... wow this one should have been easy - you don't have to deal with chefs, late nights, sore, aching legs, not so good wages, stability etc etc I said because I thought the people were nicer.... which somehow managed to get us on the tangent that  no in fact retail people were horrible, I don't know whether she was baiting me to start some kind of bitching session or not but either way it was to neither of our benefits.

I guess at least it prepared me a little for any future shoe store interviews I might attend and also I guess if there is someone out there Googling 'Wittner Job Interview' as I was doing yesterday it might be helpful

source

Garden Wedding

Our wedding was finally posted on the Polka Dot Bride website!! you can find a link here...

in the meantime here is a little pic of my nieces and I


again photos courtesy of Amy from Mike and Amy Photographers

we are still moving house at the moment so I will get back to regular posting soon enough. :)

Sunday, November 13, 2011

feeling wrecked

I'm finding it difficult to even string a few words together this evening but I will give it a go. Yesterday I had my first exam, it was French I managed to do a bit of study but as always it is never enough, I am hoping rather than believing I will pass. On Tuesday I will have an exam for Corporate Finance, I am currently listening to the lectures and trying not to fall asleep. Market efficiency, mergers and acquisitions and all that other 'interesting' stuff, Joel is currently in the removal truck delivering a load to the other house. We have been working our butts off all day and we are all beyond exhausted but unfortunately there is still just one more load to go, I was given a break to 'study' but to be honest I think my brain is fried and nothing meaningful will sink in at all. 

this is a little how i feel....

source: a well traveled woman via Lindsey Burleson on Pinterest

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Remembrance Day

The 11th of the 11th, today in Australia we observe Remembrance Day, a day to remember fallen soldiers. So in commemoration I decided to bake a batch of ANZAC biscuits.

An ANZAC was a member of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the ANZAC biscuit is a crunchy delicious morsel of food made by Australian women during the war to send to overseas troops.

As my brother-in-law pointed out it is not actually ANZAC Day but none the less I think the ANZAC biscuit is appropriate.

So presenting the humble ANZAC Biscuit....



I used my trusty Donna Hay Classics 2 cook book for the recipe though they are pretty much the same everywhere you go. You will see that they flatten quite a bit and according to the boys are best if only cooked for a short time and eaten straight away - I like them both ways. When I first started using this recipe I read the ingredients but then just threw them all into a bowl disregarding the melting butter and golden syrup part... they were still good and I found that margarine not butter helped them hold their shape.

But.... these ones are the bomb and if flat biscuits are not something you are into you could try refrigerating the mixture for 5 mins or so before putting them in the oven
But you should definitely make 2 batches



Wednesday, November 9, 2011

cleaning

yesterday we spent the entire day from sun up to sun down cloistered in the Grandfather's garage cleaning. It was quite horrific, he is one of those older gentlemen who for lack of a better more socially appropriate word 'hoards'. He also has a chicken coop in the back garden, so I bet you can guess what that means.... or if you can't yep one huge disgusting pest problem.

You see when you live on the coast in Australia you have to kind of expect cockroaches, you use all manner of pest control to get rid of them, fumigate the house etc etc but they will never be completely gone, but at his house it's a whole new ballgame. The combination of birds, hoarding and two men who have no real concept of picking up after themselves makes for one massive orgy of pests, they have cockroaches galore, mice/rats, possums and yep we found termites in the garage.... big problem

As Joel and I kinda respect our stuff... alot you can imagine we are a little wary of moving it in there, so before we do we gotta get on top of that pest problem. Luckily we convinced the Grandfather to let us get a skip... a long overdue plan and we are tossing a whole lot of stuff out - he might even let us in the house who knows we have it for 7 days. And then we can tackle that horrendous pest problem.

So when we got home all tired, smelly and feeling like a wash down with a high pressure cleaner was in order it filled me with hope and excitement to see the following Ikea Family catalog in the mail.
Oh how lovely and clean all the interiors look!

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

christmas hearts


... they're not finished but today I sewed 10 hearts for our Christmas tree. I used some of the leftover taffeta from my wedding dress (we have SO much left) and some thin white ribbon I found laying around, they still need to be ironed and stuffed and the little hole hand stitched along with attaching the ribbon... but it shouldn't take too long and I still need to buy some hobby fill


I also decided to do a cull of our cheap decorations... this is what I ended up with... i tried to keep it a small pile but it wasn't too hard... not sure what I might do with them yet... I think I might spray all the baubles one colour and then use them all as decorations on gifts... who knows

and finally this is my reasoning behind the scatter brain... yep moving, back into Joel's Grandads house because we are having a lot of trouble finding a new place. it sucks.

and to add crushing rejection to crushing rejection i am looking for a job.

yep really not loving life today

Sunday, November 6, 2011

what to do...

... with my life... I have no idea.... no really I do not.... so today I will do something completely different and random.

talk about music.

not really suprising I guess as I am planning a music-inspired birthday for my father but definitely something that I have not discussed on this blog before.

to begin i have widely varying tastes in music but mainly am into indie rock / alternative. I do not like R & B. Joel does, he also really likes Basshunter (yep so our tastes are not always the same)

at our wedding I walked down the aisle to Red Jumpsuit Apparatus 'Your Guardian Angel', while we were signing the register Arctic Monkeys 'Mardy Bum' played and as we were announced 'Home' by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. We had intended on having 'Unforgettable' by Nat King Cole for our first dance but later had an informal dance to Greenday's 'Good Riddance'

so yep pretty diverse tastes - i also like Bob Dylan, Example, The Rapture, The XX, Angus and Julia Stone, Blondie, My Chemical Romance, Bloc Party, The Presets, Sneaky Sound System, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Billie Holiday, Art vs Science.... just to name a few

now i am not really up on the whole technical stuff of embedding a video but I watched the video for the Black Keys 'Tighten Up' and I would have to say it almost competes with Art Vs Science's 'Parlez Vous Francais?' in terms of awesomeness so I think you should definitely click the link and take a look.... now

Friday, November 4, 2011

because i'm not perfect

so I don't know about you but I am one of those people who looks at all these creative things on blogs thinking 'wow, such and such is so amazing and talented, I bet they never screw up, they come up with all these great ideas and the construction of their projects always looks so perfect etc etc' well today I will show you that I am definitely NOT one of those people.

If any of my sisters happen to read this please turn away now (especially if your name starts with K)

We are doing homemade Christmas this year and I have already shown you the beautiful little capelets I made for my adorable nieces well this next one is a present for my lovely sister. Apparently she will not be around during the Christmas period and so I needed to come up with a great idea that could be posted easily enter this great deer head....

 
this image is the successful outcome of the instructions I followed on the Chronicle Books Blog, the book it comes from is Dorm Decor  and yes it is super cool, probably very simple but I am terrible at cutting things... we also bought much thicker foam core.

this is my attempt....be kind now


oh thats not so bad... ohh wait what are those giant chunks out of it's nose? and what? isn't there a piece missing?? why yes yes there is a piece missing. You see I do this thing sometimes where I just jump right in and forget to read the instructions. So by the time I realised what an epic failure it was there was no point cutting out that missing piece.... but I will persist next time with the help of my trusty husband who yes can wield a bigger penknife than me and yes with more accuracy. He would have been a good surgeon but he is a huge wimp when it comes to blood and gore (unlike me).

we also think we might enlarge it a tad - and make ourselves one at the same time, luckily I thought it was going to be much bigger and as such have heaps of foam core left :) btw in case you were wondering foam core is super cheap I got a huge piece 10mm thick from Riot for $16 but the thinner pieces were only like $5. After successfully cutting it out I also have plans to cover it will wood veneer contact paper I got from K-Mart fingers crossed 'deer mark II' will be perfect 

Thursday, November 3, 2011

test oral aujourd'hui!!

You might have guessed by the title that I have a French oral test today, to be precise in about two hours. I have made notes, read and re-read them - typed them into google translator to try and get the pronunciation correct now it is just up to my memory to recall the words!!!

but just for fun -

Bonjour! Je m'appelle Emma!
J'ai vingt-trois ans
J'ai un demi-frere et trois soeurs
J'ai les cheveux blonds et yeux verts
Je suis etudiante, je ne pas un travail mais je suis cherche un travail

Je me suis mariee le 24 septembre de cette annee
mon mari, il s'appelle Joel, il est etudiante aussi, il a vingt-trois ans
il a cheveux bruns et les yeux bruns
nous n'avons pas d'enfants

nous habitons a Newcastle mais bientot demenager, nous ne savons pas encore ou
nous habitons dans une maison qui n'est pas un appartement 
j'aime Newcastle mais prefere la campagne il y a trop de voitures 
dans ma vie, j'ai demenage onze fois.
je n'aime pas demenager

je vais a l'universite trois fois par semaine, je marche, il me faut une demi-heure
c'est une belle promenade

je passe beaucoup de temps l'ordinateur, j'ecris un blog tous les jour et j'aime aussi a coudre
je mange beaucoup de legumes, je mange rarement de la viande mais risotto est mon plat prefere

notre dernier vacances nous sommes alles a Dreamworld, notre prochaines vacances nous allons visiter mon famille a la campagne
je n'ai jamais dans un autre pays, je voudrais pour voyager en Europe

il fait beau aujourd'hui!


source: We Heart It via French By Design

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

wedding update

you may wonder why it has been all quiet on the wedding front, well I did submit the wedding to a few different places and we are expecting it to feature on Polka Dot Bride soon enough so I will link you when it pops up but in the mean time i will share with you one of my favourites


of course taken by the wonderful Amy of Mike and Amy Photographers 

oh and by the way we did not get the house. i am feeling pretty blue about it today :( i really hate renting

nothing to show

Today was not a day entirely wasted. It was wasted somewhat but not totally. I emailed my grandparents, I did several loads of washing, I made some soap. We had my favourite icecream with peanut butter and ice magic (don't knock it till you try it, it's AMAZING!) But I do not have anything really noteworthy to show.

I did not take any pictures of my soap making endeavours. They do not look very pretty and I think the quality of the soap is not great making overall for something lack lustre but I am on a mission to minimize 'stuff' before we move and that included the soap making kit we bought two years ago to make Christmas presents. These two points deserve updates; we have inspected and applied for a great place just down the road from our old house, I am due to ring the real estate about it tomorrow. I really hope we get it. According to my projected timeline we are due to sign the lease on Monday :) Number 2 update Joel's brother celebrates his 21st birthday on Christmas day as the family will be down here we will celebrate it on Christmas Eve, I am trying to convince all parties to throw a Mexican fiesta style shindig. Wouldn't it be fun?

So obviously I had to think of the possibilities of what I might wear....

source: Walking Around Where the Sidewalk Begins via Crush Cul de Sac and H & M dress on Vanessa Jackman
source: Dolce and Gabbana Summer 2012 and This Modern Lifestyle
source: Dresses both by Aida Coronado found here and here
source: Love Love Love 

    aren't they sweet especially with crazy blonde hair and maybe even a floral headband