Vietnam Fundraiser - The Deen

(To catch you up: In November myself and nine other nursing students from my uni, along with two of our teachers, are off to Rural Northern Vietnam in November to perform health assessments, observe at local hospitals, educate school children on good hygiene and donate supplies to orphanages. We've been busy as busy sea monkeys trying to raise money to buy medication like antibiotics for the villages over there.)

Last night was our fundraiser at the (in)famous nightclub, The Deen. My Deenginity was thus broken as of last night. I had made a conscientious effort not to go before because I don't really fancy clubs that have policemen standing outside them already at 7pm - It's a little dodgy.

Anyway, the people of The Deen kindly gave us the upstairs room for free and gave all of our guests a free 'gift' (read drink) on arrival so we were lucky to be able to have it. We ordered those super professional wristbands and went about selling tickets which is where we made our profit.

All week I've been doing a lot of this:

But being that it was a charity event that was being held partly for me, I slapped a hefty dose of foundation and blush to hide my sickly skin, and dressed up with winter boots, tights and a jacket because I am in the midst of sweating out a fever, and made it out the door.

It ended up being a really good night, and it was nice having nursing peeps around as well as friends from school - I super appreciated my friends for making there way out to The Deen because I know it takes a lot!

A teeny tiny picture of our invite because that is all I could get off of Facebook.

I didn't take many pictures because one of the guys coming on the trip had his fancy pants camera there so I let that do that photos. I do have a feeling that I had my drunk face on all night so the photos could be questionable to say the least. A lot like the below I'm guessing.

Sorry about the lack of decent pictures in this post but ah well - It's the weekend and I can do what I want.

Enjoy your weekend!

The great hailstorm

I was going to write this post yesterday but it would have been a bit of a Debbie Downer post but today it's a positive post. Whoa! I know. Oh and plus I've been flailing around bed pretty sick which makes my effort levels minimal. But with out further ado, I bring you the following blog post. Hurrah!

In March of 2010, which was about 18 months ago (I think) Perth was hit my a huge hailstorm. Now you should know that Perth has a very mellow climate, apart from our regular 40 degree Celsius (104F) and over days. We just don't get very many wild storms, The last cyclone we had in the area was way before my time and so was the last earthquake. The cities and towns south of us get wilder weather and the way northern cities get crazy cyclone weather, but Perth just doesn't. I think I've made that mildly clear?

Anyhoo along comes this normal day. I head off to uni, catching the train as per usual. As I get off the train to walk to my car so I can get home, I do notice that the sky looks a touch ominous and I secretly hope for a storm because I do love a good storm. As soon as I get in my car, it starts trickling a little and I get pretty excited. About four blocks away from home, these cute little bits of hail start hitting my car and I am stoked - I do love a good bit of hail. I rush (at the speed limit, of course) home and make a dash for it inside because our tin roof makes the rain and hail sounds lush. Mum and my cat are inside just going about their daily business, Mum sitting in her work room beading and Tiki chilling out on the couch in the back room.

Literally as soon as I walk in the front door, the hail turns evil. I kid you not. The pleasant tap tap of that little pea sized hail is turning into freaking hammers. Mum and I head outside on the verandah where we are still protected to watch while I of course bring my camera. It's pretty exciting and I'm keen to stay out.

The hail pouring down.

Mum starts getting a little worried so I head inside with her and we go into Mum and Dad's bedroom which is at the front of the house with the window about a metre behind where the above photo was taken. And then Mum gets a bit freaked out about the cat who gets scared at the best of times. I head off to get the cat which is when I walk past windows like that below.

It's a bit hard to see but if you look closely you can see all the glass over our dishes and in the sink from the windows above.

More broken windows.

I find the freaked out cat in my bedroom which is luckily on the other side of the house from all the broken windows. I shut my door and notice that there is hail in my bedroom. For it to have gotten in there it would have had to travel about 10 metres through the broken window on the other side of the house - this hail was nuts!

By this stage I yell out to mum and tell her what has happened but there's not really much we can do so we stay in the bedroom until the hail is over. We try calling Dad and Sal to see if they're okay but the phone lines were a touch disconnected.

 These to shots above are of our back garden which has never been so covered in green. And we had a temporary pool installed where the sunken part of a garden filled with hail stones and rain.

Our lovely temporary pool.

Once the hail stopped we managed to get in contact with the family. Dad was in his office in the city and all he'd seen out his window was a pretty big thunderstorm. Once he found out what happened to our house he came straight home which took a long time because of all the flooded roads to cover our windows. My sister sal was at the pub by the beach and again had only watched a pretty big thunderstorm. She headed on home and again took along time.

Once the hail stopped we came outside which is when we noticed the damage to our poor cars. We had no idea that they had been so badly pummelled. You can't see in the above picture but the windscreen was actually shattered.

Oop there's the shattered windscreen.

That was my car and mum's car parked right next to mine was equally wrecked. Luckily we both had insurance. I'd only had my poor car for two and a half months.

 The storm bought with it many exciting new things. Take for example the new tree installation in our back yard. Pity it crushed our fence on its arrival.

Dad surveying the damage.

And about an hour or two after the storm hit, the sun began to set and there was this eery glow on the aftermath. It was a weird time because everyone was just outside looking around at the craziness.

Anyway what entailed was many long conversations with insurance companies as we tried to get the repairs we needed. We are so thankful that we had both house and contents insurance as well as car insurance, because we most certainly needed it then. Our house windows were repaired within a week, the tree was removed within the week, our cars were replaced within about two months, the pummelled tin roof was replaced within about six months and the last details such as the destroyed cushions and curtains were finally delivered today!! HURRAH! We have finally gotten everything back eighteen months later. 

Now I know that compared to the crazy weather events and natural disasters that occur worldwide, we were very very fortunate and nobody was injured or anything, but it has still been a long process for all of us. We were in one of the worse hit areas, if not the worse. The hospitals around the corner from us suffered extensive damage and flooding and nearly everyone there also got there cars written off.

It feels good to be able to tick this event off as done.

Free Crappy Portraits

Howdy y'all! (I'm attempting new catch phrases, but this one is not working.)

Today is the day that we find out if we failed our exams from last week so understandably I am a lot little bit nervous that I'll get a call from an unknown number today. I mean I know rationally that I'll be fine, but i can't help but be a little nervous. So, understandably, I woke up feeling a little sombre. But then, when perusing my emails over my ritual bowl of weetbix in the morning, I discovered a very exciting email.

My free crappy portrait has arrived! I've heard about these portraits for a while but I finally emailed in a picture of me 5 days ago and it was here waiting for me in my inbox this morning. Hurrah! I couldn't be more happy. Haha it's freaking awesome!

So that is my amazing and fairly accurate portrait of me.

And this is the picture and info I sent in.

'This is me diving through the sky. Don't let this daredevil exterior fool you though! My heart is a gooey mess with love for my tabby cat Tiki and it's a friday night and I am sitting at home on my grandma's old chair eating chocolate with a glass of red. I am however the person who dresses up in a taco suit that I made to a friends Mexican Fiesta party. I have a whole room filled with best dress trophies (that might be a bit of an exaggeration..). 

Thank you in advance for what I hope is a mildly crappy portrait.

Love Jill! 

ps - my name is Jill and I do not have a boyfriend called Jack. Just in case you felt you needed to ask.

pps - my teeth look like stumps in this picture but it's just braces. I now have a row of pearly whites.'

My day has become infinitely better. Let's just hope I don't get a phone call from an unknown number today! And thank you to Cheryl and the team at Free Crappy Portraits.

Music Monday - Cat Stevens

I have decided that this blog needs a little more structure. I am an organisational freak and it's starting to irk me a little that my posts are willy nilly (nope? You don't use that saying?) so I hereby present Music Mondays, the super original concept of posting something music related on Mondays. Whoa! 

Do you remember/know Cat Stevens? In my family, he has been with us (or at least his music has) for so many family memories.

My first memory of him is his album, Remember Cat Stevens: The Ultimate Collection. It seemed to play and play in our blue Toyota Landcruiser as we travelled across the extent of Australia. This is a 4000km (2485 mile) journey so having some music is a pretty good idea. Our family did this trip several times and this song is one of my strongest memories. By the end of the trip I'm fairly sure we all knew every single word to every single song.

My mum also has a terrible condition whereby she is incapable of remembering which band/singer is responsible for singing a song. One of her better moments is when she was convinced that 'I am a rock' by  Simon and Garfunkel was by Cat Stevens. It took a lot of convincing aided by youtube videos to convince her otherwise.

I still have some of Dad's original records of Cat Stevens that we all enjoy listening to on my recently purchased record player from time to time.

Finally, there used to be this little greek cafe down the road from us called kafeneon. Mum, Dad and I would often go down there for a coffee, or babycino, before or after work and school. One day when we were down there, a musician wielding a guitar was singing in the corner. He started playing 'Father and Son' by Cat Stevens and I went up to him and said I loved Cat Stevens. He nearly fell off his chair when he saw that I was a six year old who knew Cat Stevens.

I love Cat Stevens and that beautiful, unique voice of his. And to end this post, I shall leave you with 'Father & Son'. Bliss.

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.

New Zealand - part one

Alright, it's time for New Zealand pictures to arise! It has been a few months since the trip after all and it's at about this time that I am so totally missing it. The weather is warming up and all I can think of is that icy cold weather that makes your nose turn red and lets you get away with wearing big jackets, dorky gloves and beanies. I am definitely more of a winter person, although the Fijian weather was pretty sweet too! Ah what am I saying, I don't mind the hot weather - as long as all I have to do is lie in a hammock all day.

Anyway, with out further ado, I bring you part one of the trip!

As per usual, when flying to an overseas destination, we boarded a plane (or two) and landed in Christchurch after a quick stop off in Sydney. Christchurch was devastated by several earthquakes in the last year. The September 4th 2010 quake was bad enough, but in February of this year, on the 22nd, the Canterbury region faced it's most catastrophic quake. The death toll was unimaginable and the physical destruction of Christchurch was hard to fathom. Like every natural disaster, it made news headlines world wide for several days, or even weeks in Australia. But soon, another tragedy takes the limelight and the world seems to move on.

Landing in Christchurch, I had no idea of the true extent. No news report can really prepare you. Gorgeous weatherboard houses like to above were all destroyed and 14 days after this photo was taken, Christie and I were back in the same place watching this place getting demolished. One of the locals said that houses and buildings that needed to be demolished were running in the thousands.

This apartment building was getting demolished as we watched. Standing next to us was one of the apartments owners. Though most of the city centre was still blocked off, looking inside buildings was astounding - it was like life was just put on pause. Cutlery and crockery lay shattered on restaurant floors and tables remained on there sides.

Amazingly, Christchurch remains so absolutely positive and hopeful for the future. No doubt Christchurch will grow as a community following this disaster. There is hope that most of the older, historic buildings will be able to be restored including the gorgeous city cathedral.

Christchurch remains a beautiful place, especially along the Avon River. Gorgeous willow trees like the above dot the landscape along the rivers, and beneath them are little duck families. My heart was literally melting!

This is the window into a gorgeous cheese shop and bakery where we bought an absolutely picnic-y lunch. Yum!

Christie enjoyed some delicious pork ribs! Interesting...

And we both enjoyed the 'World famous in New Zealand' L&P which is surprisingly delicious. Also, even though we were travelling the world (or New Zealand at least), we still made time to watch the last Harry Potter movie on its opening day. Yes, I am a nerd at heart.

Next up is the beginning of our topdeck tour which I promise is a good story! Much more so then the Debbie Downer post on Christchurch. Hurrah! Catch you on the flip side peeps (got to love having my own blog where I can say exactly what I want).

What I'm Listening to Now.

Lana Del Rey. Seems to have cropped out of nowhere with this amazing tune, Video Games. Seen on people's face books, blogs and twitters - it's time it made it here.

The Wine Song by The Cat Empire will forever remain one of my favourite songs. I recently went to one of their performances for the fourth time, but more on that later! Anyway this song was on the first album I bought, was at the first concert I went to and reminds me of holidays down south with friends. Lush!

And this song from the freaking awesome new movie, Crazy Stupid Love has got me falling in love. Here is Oh oh oh oh oh oh etc by Say Hi. 

And finally some new-ish Feist. How Come You Never Go There?

Enjoy your weekend peeps! And enjoy the reemergence of my regular posting because exams finished today! Hurrah!