favourite things: #001

01. Snow days! I absolutely love anything that gets me out of work, especially if it involves frolicking in the snow and drinking copious amounts of hot chocolate. Unfortunately my job is from hell and I was actually picked up by my manager on Tuesday because J and I were "needed." Ended up being one of ten people that actually showed up. Was not pleased.

02. Listening to Mona on repeat. I am so in love with their music, like crazy in love. There are similar to Kings of Leon, but I find them to be much better.

03. Getting back into web design. I have had a personal website for years now and haven't done much with it over the last 3 years. But after seeing this image by Patrick Beser and having a troll around misprintedtype.com I came away with some inspiration and knocked up a new layout for my personal site. Also inspired by the lyrics from Shooting the Moon by Mona.

04. Spending hours upon hours looking through every post on my favourite fashion blogs. I have a whole list of sites in Google Reader that I look at, but there are a select few that I frequent over and over. They are: gh0stparties, moreemilk, beinglittle, daintydresses, and llymlrs. If you don't already follow them then you should.

week in photos #006

001. I should seriously invest in some sort of notepad for work. Almost everyday I come out of there with my hand and sometimes my arm covered in notes. People at work seem to find it amusing, I find it normal as I always jotted things down on my hand in school.

002. J and I have a habit of stopping by the video store on Friday afternoons, usually for him, but lately I have gotten more into watching movies. I always grab three even though I know I will not watch all of them. I've surprised myself this week by watching 2 of them so far. 10 Things I Hate About You is one of my all time favourite movies. J had never seen it, which is crazy, so we curled up in bed on Saturday and watched it together. Always get a little sad when I watch a Heath Ledger film now. Confessions of a Shopaholic was shit. I read the book ages ago and liked it, but this film was dire. And who doesn't love Romeo and Juliet? Probs one of my favourite films ever made.

003. After missing 3 or more weeks of our traditional Saturday breakfast dates we finally made it out again. We went back to Trevino's as it's my favourite, but sadly this time wasn't as good as the first. Still want to go back for the pancakes with caramelised bananas and bacon. I had initially decided to take myself to Edward Hopper Cafe for a cup of tea and some french macarons before shopping as I couldn't convince the boy to get up and ready, but after I mentioned it he wanted to go for brekkie. Typical boy.

004. Saturdays are our lazy days, which usually means we don't use the kitchen for anything apart from getting drinks. I was craving pizza like no one's business, a big New York style slice with tonnes of pepperoni...ended up getting two vegetarian pizzas instead. And squid rings! Hell pizza has the best squid rings ever. I know they have a couple in London and Dublin, so anyone in the UK should pop in there and try it. I recommend the Cursed and Sloth, so so yum!

005. I've posted about Theobroma Chocolate Lounge at least once before and honestly it deserves it's own post. I'm not a huge coffee shop person because I hate coffee, but this place was like it was designed especially for me. They have the best hot chocolates in ChCh, and I have tried a lot. I had the hazelnut while J had the mint...one taste of his and I have been dreaming about it since. Also had my first whoopie pie after reading about them on countless blogs. Gotta say I loved it. Would like to try my hand at making some, but I'm rather lazy about baking lately.

006. Not only does Theobroma serves drinks but they have a vast selection of chocolates. I could buy one of each and be a very happy girl. I just love looking at the displays and all the different chocolates, love eating them more.

007. I was almost drooling over this window display from WildPair. Wedges are my favourite shoes for spring and summer, and autumn if it's warm enough. I'm in love with every single pair in this photo and if I had unlimited funds I would have them all.

008. I love the taste of bubble tea, but I cannot stand the tapioca pearls. I have a serious issue with slimy jelly feeling things in my mouth, and those are horrible. Luckily for me Jels has ice slushys that are amazing. I always stop there in summer for one, usually peach as it's the best flavour. On Sunday, before the cold and snow moved in, we stopped there so J could get an icy tower. I opted for a pineapple slushy. It was good but didn't compare to the peach.

009. I went shopping on Saturday for the first time in what feels like years. I had set a limit of $100, which I managed to stay under whilst at Dress Smart, then I stopped at The Warehouse for hair colour....2 pairs of shoes and a Harry Potter DVD later I left, only realising I forgot to by the hair colour. I'd been eyeing up these floral brogues for ages but always talked myself out of them. They were marked down to $6 and the last ones in my size so I snatched them up. So glad I did.

010. This is the only chocolate I bought from Theobroma. It was called marshmallow delight and I imagined it would taste like marshmallow creme. It did not. Tasted like white chocolate and nothing else. Disappointed, but at least it was cute.

monday monday: ice queen

In the 3 years and 4 months that I've lived in ChCh it snowed approximately two times and was gone by the next day. This month we have had two Antarctic blasts of cold resulting in two snowstorms. This is the most snow I've seen for ages. I come from Alabama, a semi-tropical state with 100% humidity almost year round...it rarely snows. And just the whole snowing/winter in August is hard to get your head around.

So when I woke up a couple of weeks ago and saw a good covering of snow my inner child was all, "hell yeah no work!" Which was short lived as my bitch manager was able to make it from her house to work so we were expected to show up. Knowing her and her crazy obsession for working she probably set off at 3am just to make it there. This morning I woke up, saw the snow and was all, "NOOOOOOO!!!!! I HAVE A JOB INTERVIEW TODAY THAT I DO NOT WANT TO MISS!!!!!" I did miss it, well it was rescheduled for tomorrow depending on the weather. Turned out to be quite a nice day as work was closed for the day, which meant I had the whole day to enjoy the snow.

What I didn't realise was that J is a sadistic son of a bitch. He turns into a 5 year old on acid when there is snow on the ground, and in his excited state suggested we go for a walk. That was fine, we could go to the pocket park around the block, have a snow ball fight, build a snow man. No. We ended up trudging through snow and slush for what seemed like days to go to Hagley Park, the big park in the middle of the city. Kinda like ChCh's version of Central Park, except shittier and lacking in the cool NYC vibe.

It was fun, and I'm glad we went, but the pulled muscle in my right leg and the sore feet from my horrible wellies are a reminder that I should have said no to the snow trek and just threw a snow ball at his face. I did get some good pics, not as many as I would have liked, but a touchscreen phone in a snowstorm is not the greatest thing ever. Not only did it get covered in snow every time I took it out, I had to take off my gloves every time I wanted to use it.

You can't tell from the picture of me but I am wearing layers upon layers. Two sweaters, two pairs of gloves, two pairs of socks, a pair of leggings, skinny jeans, winter coat, scarf, baggy beanie, and really cute yet very uncomfortable croc embossed wellies. Despite the layers I was still freezing.

We're expected to get another 5cm in the next 24 hours, and the boys is hoping beyond hope for another snow day. It's quite adorable.

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend and those in the Northern Hemisphere enjoy summer!

phoneography: july

theobroma chocolate lounge, dunkin donuts from akl, the boy driving a forklift;
USA vs Canada hockey game, finally got my resident's visa, snow and palm trees;
first snow of winter, dodgy toilet @ spencer park, caramel crunch cheesecake;
hot chocolate supreme, tableware @ running bull, finger bowl @ running bull;
glassons shoes, carousel, chch airport;
tuna sushi, pistachio macaron, french macarons

what i wore: lumberjack

THE WAREHOUSE dress (kid's section), cardigan, and boot; DOTTI belt

This has been the longest, most stressful, jam packed week in history. Last Saturday I received an email from my landlord telling us they were selling the flat...that would have been fine if it wasn't 24 days before our current lease expires. I spent all week driving all over ChCh looking at flats, and my manager from hell wouldn't give me annual leave for the time off, so I would have to go back to work and makeup my time. That makes flat hunting VERY hard.

On top of that I had a job interview on Tuesday and have been freaking out about the possible outcomes all week. The Dr. told me he would try and let me know either way by Friday, but I haven't heard anything yet. I don't think I got it and am pretty gutted about that. Then J had a last minute work trip to Auckland. He literally was told Wednesday morning that he was going, on a plane on Thursday morning, and back on Friday night. Wish I could have gone, but work isn't that nice.

This outfit is from a couple of weekends ago and one of the worst things to photograph ever, hence why it is done like this and not like my normal photos. Cannot remember where I wore, but I wanted a thicker dress as it was freezing out. Paired with my beloved cardigan (I wear this ALL THE TIME and usually in place of a jacket) and well worn motorcycle boots. I am a walking advertisement for The Warehouse in that. I don't normally wear one store from head to toe.

I'm hoping I can get a cheeky shopping trip in next week. I feel like I haven't been in ages, and I popped into Glassons yesterday to have a look and wanted almost everything in the store! I could easily spend a month's wages in there no problem. And it seemed every store in Westfields was have a massive sale...always happens when I'm on a shopping ban.