Why don't you just wrap it up?

Sunday is here, or at least in Australia. For me that means a day of work at the local fertility centre. A bit of a downer cutting my weekend short, but alas, this is the life of a uni student I suppose! Anyway, here's what has been tickling my fancy this week.

The very talented Rebekka Seale from dear friend has a lovely etsy shop where she sells awesome watercolour pictures of your very own house among other pretty things - definitely on my wish list for christmas.

25 pictures taken at exactly the right moment here

And some very peculiar vintage snapshots here. Makes you realise the awesomeness of film cameras and reminds me to whip my film cameras out and make use of them!

I must try this world's best mac and cheese from Martha Stewart. I love mac and cheese and my mum makes an awesome batch but I'm always keen to try new recipes every once and a while.

And the much blogged about free crappy portraits. I've sent off for mine and hopefully it will be a short-ish wait! I'm still trying to figure out how you can be a guest artist. Alana from Mrs. Alana's Miscellany did it here and I'm a little jealous to be honest!

Enjoy the new week everyone! Oh but don't forget to enjoy the last of this week..Over and out.

Ode to ye Converse

Firstly, I am full away that this post might make you see me as a person with an unusual foot fetish but please know that this is definitely not the case. I do not like to touch feet nor think about them too much, I will certainly not touch your feet, even if they are really cool or something. That said, it appears that I do seem to have an obsession with taking pictures of my green converse lo-top all stars. And here is an unwanted and unrequested album of me and my connies over the years.

They wait at airports with me in 2007

And in 2011

The mull over whether to skydive or not (for about 2.1 seconds) before deciding that they definitely should.

They wait patiently to get up in the plane.

They leapt through the sky and the guy taking the photos pointed at them (or possibly just us in general..). Lucky I tied them on tight because apparently people have lost shoes several times before which makes me think that next time I see a lone shoe in the street, it might just be from a poor shoeless skydiver.

They checked out the awesome mountainous surroundings.

The sister wears them too.

The skydived with me again this year. Happy to be back again!

They go canyon swinging. Even if you can't see them well..

They go hang-gliding.

And soar through the sky. This beautiful photo is taken by my sister.

They fly on helicopters onto the tops of glaciers.

They pose pretty well on the pebbly beaches.

Even when my foot got mangled from white-water rafting, the connies still fit on. Ouch!

They rode out long journeys on tour buses throughout Topdeck.

They balanced on rocks nicely.

They relaxed by the lakes of New Zealand.

They held up surprisingly well in the snow and managed to keep my tootsies warm and dry.

Yep. They are good for dancing in too.

And did I mention they are freaking great for doing awkward poses in?

Sorry for the length of this post. Thanks if you stuck it out! And this is the abridged version that had to be cut down seriously. Oh lord.

Travelling Fridays

This year has been a busy busy travelling year. I've been 'down south' which is what us Perthian's call our favourite local holiday destinations of Dunsborough, Busselton, Margaret River and Albany to name a few. Please don't think that I am being crass as I continue mentioning trips down south because that is not what I mean! Then I went on a spontaneous trip to Bali with my friend and her family. In July I went to New Zealand and the islands of Fiji with another friend, and as I mentioned, I'm off to Vietnam in November. Phew! It makes me a little giddy thinking about it all. I'm making the most of all this travel because I won't be able to do it again for a while due to my lack of pretty pennies in the bank. Anyway, I've decided that Fridays are now the days to be showing pretty travelling pictures.

First off is Bali because I feel like it.

This rooster is one of the lucky ones that survived it's cock fighting - A tradition that lingers in Balinese villages. He was so awfully beautiful though.

A few days before my birthday, my best friend for a long long time called me up and invited me to Bali with her family in January. Bali had never been really high up on my list of places to go because all you hear are stories of bogan Aussies in Bintang singlets and Southern Cross tattoos roaming the streets. But because I know my friend and her family, I knew that we definitely wouldn't be in Bintang singlets.

This is my friend and I getting our legs exfoliated/cleaned by those little nibbly fish that have a fetish for dead skin. It was a very different experience to say the least.

Me with a local who really wanted a photo taken. He got so excited when he saw the little screen with his face on it. But then he started mentioning massage places and wanting email addresses so we slyly scuttled off.

The temple door in the Monkey Forest. Those monkeys were so so cute, except for the whole disease-carrying thing..

Our gorgeous deck chairs by the infinite pool, one of three different pools available to us. Oh except for my friend's families private pool of course.. My friend and I were staying on a hotel room at the resort but her parents and brother stayed in a private villa complete with their own sizeable infinity pool. Bliss! It was especially awesome when we went swimming in the pouring monsoonal rain.

The wall of the private villa and the pool. To the left was about a 20 metre drop to the forest floor.

The view from our balcony. The rice paddies were owned by a family and all the rice served to us in the hotel cafe was from those fields which is pretty-damn awesome. It was a little uncomfortable at time seeing this family living in a small hut while we were surrounded by pure and utter luxury. I didn't really know how to feel but you do have to remember that a huge majority of the Indonesian economy is from tourism. While the inequalities in this planet are appalling and intolerable, we have to remember that these people need to make a living and this can only be achieved through filling up the hotel rooms of this amazingly diverse country.

We also went for an elephant ride and our elephant had total attitude. Like honestly! Our elephant 'driver' and him had all these little tricks like casually pretending to flick us off his back and spraying water on us. Yeah cool Mr. Elephant.

He did have awfully pretty eyes.

This elephant looked like it had been to the salon with his gorgeous ombre hair. Stupidly, I didn't quite capture the mouth organ he was playing in his trunk. He was very musically gifted.

And this poor little sun bear in his enclosure. He sat on peoples laps and enjoyed lollies but I felt very sorry for him. At least he had company!

Bali was an awesome place that surprised me with it's diversity and incredible scenes. It was heartbreaking at times seeing such extreme poverty but so totally enlightening when you see the positivity that just beams from the faces of these people. Never have I ever seen such a cheerful country despite the conditions that they deal with. Inspiring to say the least! By next week I will pop up some more pictures from Bali that I took with my Diana F+ Lomography camera!

Hurrah chickens!