Thursday, December 22, 2011

YesStyle order

I made a YesStyle order last week but I wasn't expecting it to arrive until next year, so imagine my surprise when Santa arrived today driving a Toll Express truck! (For serious, the dude was dressed as Santa. Awesome.) Here's my loot:



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A desk calendar, passport cover, cash flow book and iPhone cover from iswas, and a Majolica Majorca Puff de Cheek blush. And a freebie luggage tag to boot!



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The desk calendar is pictures of everyday objects on Paris. It is super zakka-y cute and will replace my beloved Totoro who has kept me company all year.



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The passport cover replaces my old (also pink) one that is really starting to look its age and reflect how many trips it has been on! Also it has great Konglish: "Be Eco-traveler for earth" indeed. And the cute little plane! It's totally sweet and I can't wait to take it with me to Japan.



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I'm quite excited about the cash flow book, which is pretty dorky of me. Anthony and I both definitely need to be more mindful of how we spend our money :( especially with our Japan trip on the horizon. I plan to use this book very diligently to help me keep track of where our money goes.



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The phone cover is super cute. It's Shinzi Katoh, which is a brand I have long admired but had not yet bought anything from. It's nice and slimline, and replaces my melting Disney chocolate case that was starting to become a bit stretched.



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Finally the Puff de Cheek. I hit pan on my Shu Uemura x Aya Takano palette blush last month, so I decided to try one of these. The colour is a lot like NARS Orgasm but without the sparkles. It's nice! I like a peachy blush in summer.

Everything is just perfect, I couldn't be more pleased. Also my boss bought me a scarf for Christmas! It was really unexpected and sweet of her. I am feeling quite loved this festive season. And just in case I don't get to post again before the day, I hope anyone reading this also feels loved this Christmas and has a wonderful day. Xoxo

Christmas present

I'm pretty sure my brother knows nothing of this blog, but just in case - Josh! Look away!

Ok, now that's out of the way I want to show you what I made Josh for Christmas this year. We have a long-standing tradition of getting each other weirdly specific in-joke presents that nobody else would want. Having said that though, I still think this year's offering is pretty awesome.



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It's a cat. I bought this part. I may be good but I'm not THAT good.

But what's this?



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Why yes, that cat has a frickin' laser beam in its mouth. I am giving Josh a LASER CAT and damned if I'm not more proud of it than I should be. Teehee. I hope he likes it as much as I do or else I shall keep it.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

11 things meme

I joked today that I would do this meme to up my post count. So yeah looks like things are desperate here! Anyways. I thought that it's probably a good opportunity to do one of these early on and introduce myself a bit. The questions were asked with other people in mind, so I hope it's OK that I'm hijacking it *^^*

11 things about me:

  • I grew up in the Western Australian countryside, where my parents were teaching at the local school. I've been in Perth since I was 12.

  • I play piano! I used to be quite good but now I just play hymns at church. Every so often I think I should play some Liszt again but I never do. I was best at contemporary (20th century) music but it's probably the genre I like least.  I also used to play French horn but they are prohibitively expensive, so when I graduated high school I returned my loaner and never played again.  Sigh.

  • I take the bus home from work every day. One of my pet peeves is how rude people are on public transport!

  • I speak passable Japanese, and a bit of Italian. I understand more Italian than I speak though.

  • My husband is Italian. I'm trying to get dual citizenship but Italian red tape seems thicker than Australian.

  • I did exchange in Japan for a month when I was 16. I stayed in Akashi, near Kobe.

  • This year I dropped something like 20% of my body weight (intentionally). I still have a couple kilos to go but I am pretty damn proud of myself.

  • I loathe the boganization of Australian culture.  My life goal is to never be a bogan.

  • I love food so much it hurts.  I'm willing to try almost anything once.

  • I love animals, but right now I live in an apartment so I don't have any. Both my dogs and one of my cats died of old age in the last 18 months :( I miss them every day. The other cat is still going strong at my in-laws' house, though, which is great.

  • I am an ardent Francophile, but I've never been to France!  Lame.  I keep going to Japan instead, which is a pretty awesome compromise.  Living in the Asian sphere of influence is pretty great :D


Onto the questions!

1. Do you love blogging ? Why ?
I love other people blogging!  Seriously, I do enjoy it when I'm in the swing of it, so I'm going to try really hard to make a proper go of it this time.  I also like staying connected to my friends by blogs, be they real-life or internet friends.  (By the way, internet friends are just as good as real-life, if not sometimes better.)

2. What is one thing you want the most in your life ?
To remain content, with strong faith.  My life is pretty blessed and great right now, but I'd like to be able to be happy with what I have regardless of what comes at me.

3. Tell me your favorite food
I can't choose!  Savory I love char kway teow, oyakodon, okonomiyaki, good cheese and a proper Napolitan margherita.  Sweet things, I love gelato, creme brulee, and chocolate.  Oh, how I love chocolate.  And rocky road icecream.

4. Are you addicted to social media (twitter , facebook , etc) ?
I tweet like a mad thing but I can't stand Facebook.  Tumblr is my poison, though.

5. Are you a K-poper ? If yes , who is your favorite singer/girlband/boyband ?
Sort of.  I love SNSD but I don't really even know any other bands.  And I still can't tell Yuri and Yoona apart.

6. Things that you can’t leave home without.
iPhone!  Total addict.  I think I love my iPhone like normal people love their children.
Wallet, obviously.
Lip balm. I try other things but I always come back to Carmex and Lucas' Pawpaw.
Headphones
Nurofen

7. Your 5 favorite blogs .
This Is Glamorous
Jenny's Blog
8tokyo
The Royal Order Of Sartorial Splendor (I'm a royal watcher)
Apartment Therapy

Oh, there are too, too many. I have hundreds of blogs in my RSS reader. And I just discovered Matsu-you, which I am loving right now.

8. Describe your personal style
I tend to gravitate towards classic styles that are a bit preppy, and a bit French-y. BUT, I also love Japanese fashion. I guess I am always trying to reconcile the two, so often that means retro-girly influence. It's hard to make a lot of gyaru clothes work in a western context, I think. I often wear jeans to work (I work in a lab, which is the most casual workplace in the world), but I'm trying to break out of that habit a bit.

9. What will you do to face some annoying people/things ?
I'm so bad at confrontation. I just remove myself from the situation wherever I can.

10. Your favorite quotes.
I don't know who said it and I'm probably misquoting it, but recently I'm fond of "Don't be afraid of dying. Be afraid of not living the life that you want to."

11. Have you visited Indonesia ?
No, and I really should because it's such a close neighbour (well, relatively speaking. Everything is a 5 hour flight from Perth.)

That's it! Hope that wasn't too boring to sit through. I shall post pictures of things tomorrow!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Happy mail day

Super pleased with the postman today as my Shopbop order arrived! I fell in love with Jenny's Madewell sweater, so I put it on my watch list. They emailed me last week to say there were only a few left, so I snapped it up!

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It's in heather grey, which I'm really pleased with as it's almost a bit greige, which is something I don't have in my wardrobe otherwise. I ummed and ahhed over whether to get it in small or extra small, but in the end I was like "don't flatter yourself Hayley" and got the small. BUT... I think x-small would have been better after all as it's a bit blousy in the body. Oh well loose fit ftw!

Love it so much~~ Can't wait to take it down to Albany with me! Oh yeah it sheds like crazy at the moment but I'm sure it's nothing a wash won't fix.

I also picked up these guys as I have been wanting some owl earrings for a while.



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They're really cute and they were on sale, so I threw them into my basket. Sadly they are a bit bigger than I had hoped, so I am still on the hunt. These guys will definitely still get a lot of wear though!

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Christmas tree

I trimmed my tree last week and it is magical! So I wanted to share a photo. It's my first time with a white tree and I'm so pleased with how it turned out. It's just so... enchanting. Mad love it.

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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Minty nails

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I'm going to skip the traditional "wooo new blog!" thing and forge ahead with some content. I KNOW.

I wanted to try mint green nails after seeing Eki's post the other day. This is Revlon Top Speed in Jaded. I really like the colour! The formula is fairly easy to work with, though I'm not great with quick-dry polishes so you can definitely see some goofs here. The gold on my ring finger (I think I saw it done like this on tumblr once?) is also Revlon, a new shade called Gold Coin. I really love it! It's a very fine glitter that goes on smoothly. One coat is enough. I recommend both of these polishes for a cheap fix.

And now the "wooo new blog" spiel. I'm a serial blog abandoner! But the Wordpress iPhone app seems pretty good so maybe this one is in with a chance - update apathy is my #1 blog killer. Anyway, thanks for stopping by! Hopefully the next time you are here there will be more to see.