Sunday snippets

Yesterday Trudie came to visit! She moved back to Perth last year and I have missed her. We did lots of fun things including shopping (seeing some interesting mannequins), a movie (Kath and Kimderella (um - don't bother), and lots of eating (Brunetti's, Victoria Market and Grill'd)! I had a haircut too. And I bought two pairs of bathers for the surfing lesson on Thursday. I made pizzas for dinner - roast chicken, tomato, basil, spinach, brie and pear.

 

 

 

 

 

For more Sunday Snippets visit Tinniegirl

Canned soup, Sydney shopping and other stuff

The trouble with being quite a good an expert home cook is that I don't know how to cook canned chicken soup. Off work, unwell with a cold, I thought chicken soup and orange juice was a good remedy. This orange juice is the best. Chicken soup not so good.  

The soup came out of the can like custardy Pal. I didn't know if I needed to add water to it. I didn't add water to it on the first 'cooking' serve. Heated, it looked like pure custard. On the second serve, I added water, and it looked like watered down custard. Errr yum. I should have made my soup from scratch. Major food regret.

I did eat other cold-combating foods. A slice of garlic chilli pizza. And Panadol. Is it a food? It is effervescent.

I figured that seeing I had artificial chicken, and was too unwell to eat dinner last night, the next best chickeny thing for me (aside from real chicken soup) is deep fried chicken. And salty chips.

The girl at KFC refreshingly told me she had a shitty day too. She said it with a smile. And gave me some coupons for next time I visit. My thighs dictate that I won't be visiting soon.

My day was spent sleeping, watching The Circle and the Nanny, and flicking through magazines. I am still not sure of whether I like Peppermint. The Melbourne Magazine has undergone a makeover. It features comedian and TV host Charlie Pickering who I once met in a lift and rabbited on to him as though I knew him. He did recognise me from the audience of the 7PM Project.

I want to make a speedy recovery, because a bad cold can end up in sore skin. So I am getting all the rest I can. Including sadly missing out on one of my best friend's birthday parties tonight. Happy birthday Scott. I will see you soon.

Today I also reminisced about my Sydney trip a week ago. I will write about the Aussie Bloggers Conference soon, I promise. I need to rest my body and mind for now, though. Reminiscing also included thinking about the shopping I did in Sydney.

I bought these at Simon Johnson when I was with Lanelle. I love elderflower.

I bought this from a boutique in Newtown on Friday afternoon with my friend K from school (and her cute babies).

The print is great. Flowers and deer.

I also bought these two cards from Monster Threads. So many cute things in store, and all I bought were these cards.

On Sunday I bussed it to Bondi Westfield. I had a rainbow cake. For breakfast. I was a bit hungover, and hangovers and holidays allow cake for breakfast.

I also spent my vouchers from my birthday and Christmas. First stop was JB Hi Fi - thanks LJ! I bought a Sia DVD.

 (source)

This was near the changerooms at Myer. I loved the series of pictures, most were from the Melbourne store.

 

At Myer, I fell in love with this dress after seeing it three times in Cue Sydney, and with 30% off plus two Myer vouchers, I had to have it!

 Here is the dress from the Cue catalogue. I am in love!

(source)

I can't wait to wear it with my merino jumper underneath, and boots.

Two more things. 

This Social Network review I wrote was published on DiVine today. I revised it from this blog entry.

And a big congrats to Faux Fuchsia on the birth of your gorgeous son! You're going to be a great Mum!

Being treated like a princess at St Frock

 

On Perfect Day 1 in Sydney, I went shopping. One of my lovely blog readers/Facebook friends, Sandradee, owns a shop in Pyrmont called St Frock. She invited me to St Frock, and so Lanelle and I went on the bus to see her. We winged it on our travels, not sure where we were going, until we saw this, nestled in a cute terrace shopping strip!

I shrieked and asked the bus driver to stop! We jumped off and headed inside.

St Frock is a beautiful store. It's luxurious and girly and magical.

It stocks funky and affordable labels such as Love & Lies, Kylie Hawkes, Gingham & Heels, Mok Theorem, White Euphoria, Maria de Guzman, Erin Louise, Sage, By Cherry, Mink Pink, Staple The Label and JUNK.

This amazing blossom tree lit up the window and featured delicate necklaces hanging from its branches.

 

Lanelle loved the tree. How beautiful is this picture?!

 There were butterflies and autumn leaves on the walls. So pretty.

 

And post-it hearts as a wall decoration.

The puppy was wearing an aviation jacket because Friday was photoshoot day, and a model was wearing an aviation jacket too.

Sandradee is so so so wonderful. She made us feel welcome, and was such a good hostess in the store. She has an inspirational story - following her dream to open a store after a life changing moment. She has a hard work ethic - her Pyrmont store opens seven days a week, she also sells online, and does markets on weekends.

And she is so very generous.

Sandradee treated me to some gifts in the store. She said she is inspired by me. I was honoured.
She gave me these beautiful clothes, and a unicorn necklace.

I felt like a princess. I was helped into the clothes by Sandradee, and was photographed by Lanelle. So very special.

I wore the clothes both nights I was in Sydney - pictures to come.

Thank you so much for the generosity and great service, Sandradee and the St Frock girls. I loved the experience ♥ I am honoured and still smiling.

You should all visit St Frock at 190 Harris Street, Pyrmont, NSW, Australia, or online.

Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute: Sydney Shop Girl

Welcome to the Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute series on my blog. It's to celebrate my birthday and blogiversary week. Each day until and including 15 December I will feature a guest blogger who I admire. I hope you enjoy the series as much as I did collating it.


It is the final day of my Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute guest blogging series. It has been fun. I hope you found some great new blogs to read if you weren't reading them already. 

Sydney Shop Girl is a blogger I knew I'd click with. She's smart, funny, stylish and a great writer.


We both love shopping. We both love food. We both like to take photos. She also uses Hipstamatic. And we both blog. So when we met, it went just like our virtual worlds went: we shopped, we ate, we took photos and we blogged about it! But unlike our virtual worlds, this time we did these things together! She is as nice in person as she is on her blog. And she can shop. We should form a duo in the shopping Olympics. 

I have been reading her blog since she started it. It's a regular stop for me. And I love how she writes almost every day about the things I enjoy. 

She influenced my fashion purchases. After I saw the wonder of her Fauxpard Jacklet from Target, I bought one myself. And I also bought the Cotton On grey heart knit top after she did. I would say Sydney Shop Girl has influenced my fashion purchases just as much as my favourite magalogues InStyle and Shop Til You Drop have this year (and they are her two fave magalogues too). I invented the phrase 'fauxpard jacklet' and it is now in her blogcabulary. We influence each other. 


I love our friendship.

Guest blog by Sydney Shop Girl:

I’d like to thank Carly for the privilege of being a guest on her blog. Tune Into Radio Carly turns one this month and I hope it buys itself something special and has chocolate cake for breakfast all December. Actually, that sounds like great advice for all of us, birthday or not. December is such a frantic month but its also full of joy, love and families. Just remember to take some ‘me time’ and to breathe somewhere in its 31 days.

Sydney Shop Girl is the first blog I’ve ever had. I was never a diary or journal keeper so I’ve been pleasantly surprised that I’ve been able to keep going for as long as I have. 

 

I started blogging basically because I was on facebook an awful lot writing status updates that ran into paragraphs. Friends ‘liked’ and ‘commented’ and this made me feel ‘connected’ and ‘related to’. However, it got to the point when I thought that perhaps there are things that I update about that don’t really belong on facebook. I think the hourly status updates were starting to wear my friends down too….

Why not take it to blogger instead?

That way any interested parties could just find my blog and read whichever parts of it took their fancy at a time convenient to them. 

 

It was time to for my life to set forth for the blogosphere.

So, in January 2010, Sydney Shop Girl was born. Sydney because this is my adopted city. Shop because I do. Girl as reference to the childhood that started my love of reading, writing, imagining and laughter.

There were a few teething problems.

It took me a few weeks to find my writing style. At first I tried the tumblr format but I just couldn’t take to the short and sharp style of using different media. I got obsessed with trying to find a ‘focus’ for my blog, resolute that it had to ‘be about …. something’.

I would sit and think for hours about what I should write about, whether anyone would read it, whether I should write about my feelings, whether to ‘leave faces in photos’. The usual novice blogger issues.

Then it just happened. 

An OMG moment. I would keep it simple. Write, take pictures, write about pictures I’d taken and take an active interest in the world around me.

For me, writing Sydney Shop Girl has been an amazingly rewarding experience.

There were the obvious (to me) benefits:

1. my blog is a pretty permanent record of my thoughts and photographs
2. it has helped improve my general knowledge (and spelling), the number of times I have had to google and wiki things….
3. it has been a wonderful creative outlet – I had forgotten how much I enjoy writing and also how interesting it is to learn how to use a DSLR camera
4. ‘For the blog’ has been the reason for many an interesting adventure this past year
5. I like reading me live feed, how things I write about end up in other people’s google searches on the opposite side of the world
6. most importantly, the friends I have made.

What lies ahead?

 I hope to keep writing as Sydney Shop Girl for as long as I can.

It is a great gift to be able to freely publish ones photos and words in a medium that is immediate and allows potentially any other individual to wonder over and have a gander.

Thank you for the opportunity, Carly and everyone else who kindly reads this.

(All photos from Sculpture by the Sea, 2010 at Bondi Beach.)

http://sydneyshopgirl.blogspot.com 

Hello my name is Carly and I'm a shopaholic.

I was reading a post on Mamamia that I completely identified with. It was about shopping hangovers. Lana, Mia Freedman's assistant, wrote:

The shops like individual gambling tables or slot machines, each one offering the promise of a big win, something new and exciting. Something that will improve my life and make me look and feel better.

I walk into the shops and I just know that I am going to win….

I replied to the post:

Agreed! I often shop to a) reward myself after an achievement and b) to make myself feel better.

Sometimes I dream over the clothes I see in shops, and need to go back to buy them, thinking they’ll complete me somehow. They don’t. The jeans don’t enhance that great piece of writing I am rewarding myself for. And that pretty dress does not compensate for the boy that I long for.

Recently I have shopped because I’ve been sad, and bought SO many things. When I bring the haul home, I realise, I have heaps of clothes, on my spare bed, my floordrobe, on the clothes horse and in my two wardrobes. And I consider whether I even needed the clothes I just bought.

There is a sense of security in a shopping mall and also a sense of guilt like with gambling or drinking. It feels good at the time, but when you realise you should have saved that money for something more important then the regret sets in.

To clarify: I am no longer a shopper where my spending compromised payment of more important things. I've learnt that lesson. I have had a good savings plan for a couple of years now, and I can (sometimes) see progress. I only use my credit card to pay for concert tickets and occasional travel (and pay it back by the next pay day). I have Visa/Mastercard debit cards for online shopping.

Shopping makes me feel good. I list it as a hobby, along with writing, cooking, seeing live bands and eating cheese. I love shopping centres. I love a suburban shopping strip. I love a cute boutique store. I love a (tasteful) craft market. I love browsing online stores. I love reading magazines. I love fashion blogs. And the Vogue Forum. Hell, I even love doing groceries. The only thing I really resent with shopping is when I have to spend around $100 on a chemist visit. Oh, and I don't really like buying shoes.

Considering my sprawling love for all things retail, I manage to control myself quite well. I don't buy everything I see (and I see A LOT in my retail browsing!). I am not influenced by friends' shopping habits. I buy many sale items. I am not a designer label lover. I use layby. But still, I find myself shopping. And buying more stuff. If there was a shopping Olympics, I'd win Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Shopping makes me happy. I don't know how long the post shopping happiness continues. There is probably a mathematical equation to measure this. The clothes I buy make me happy.

I don't drown my sorrows with booze. Actually, when this happens, it's generally booze under $10 (I had $6 wine the other week - UNDRINKABLE!) because I've already spent my pennies drowning my sorrows shopping.

The giant pile of clothes on my spare room bed because they won't fit in my wardrobe, and my floordrobe just looks messy, does not make me happy. (I was going to take a photo and post it here, but I feared Faux Fuschia with her impeccable wardrobe organisation skills may disown me as a friend!)

I need to stop shopping.

I don't need more stuff.

Except for a new bra and possibly new shoes for the ball next week.

I have bought more things in addition to the beautiful things I bought on the beautiful day with Sydney Shop Girl last week, and lots more in the weeks before our morning out.

These are some of the things I've bought recently (in the last six weeks). Pay attention to my justifications for purchase:

♥ Cupcakes for colleagues and I. (I did receive payment for two cupcakes, though). They were delicious. I had the croquembouche one - on the right. I accidentally left one in the fridge at work. Colleagues reading this, please don't eat my cupcake!

♥ Magazines. Did I really need four of them? I only bought Grazia because it had a Mimco voucher. I bought Instyle to read on the plane almost two weeks ago, but only got around to reading half of it in the hospital waiting room last Wednesday. The other two haven't yet been read.

Kings of Leon Come Around Sundown CD. It's growing on me.

♥ Mimco hair accessories. A clip and a headband. I've worn the clip and the headband is for the ball next week. That Mimco voucher made me spend a lot more than the voucher was worth. Clever marketing.

♥ Floral dress. From Harris Scarfe. A very unexpected place for me to buy clothes from. The dress had me at hello.

♥ Hot pink dress from Sportsgirl. Because I have a skirt in the same material and I love it and have worn it about four times in the six weeks I've had it. And the dress was $23.95 from $129. Practically free. And I plan to wear it under the cropped silver and white tee shirt that I have had, unworn, for six months.

♥ Pyjamas from Sussan. Because I love their pyjamas and I have a weakness for them. And they were on sale. And I needed them for my trip away.

♥ Pyjama shorts from Sussan. Because they were hanging near to the pyjamas above. And they were also on sale.

♥ Pyjamas from Temt. Who knew Temt sold pyjamas? These were pretty. And a bit sexy. I rarely wear pyjamas at home, and (without being the bearer of too much information) found I didn't need pyjamas for my trip away.

♥ My giant bag. I loved the colour. I loved the style. I had to have it.

Unfortunately I did not check its size to my height ratio before I bought it. My bag means I get an influx of boys offering to carry it. (There's been two boys offer, and I've taken two offers for carrying my bag.) And I can never find anything in it. So it's beautiful but a little annoying.

Phew!

I have also bought two presents - three Sia CDs and a Ben Cousins DVD.

Ok, so I feel a little sick, and guilty for showcasing my recent purchases. My justifications for purchase seem so silly. Just like Lana in the Mamamia blog post, it's a shopping hangover.

There always seems to be an excuse for shopping:
'Retail therapy.'
'An event to attend.'
'A reward.'
Rewarding myself for NOT shopping!'
'Sadness.'
'Happiness.'
'I just might need that item one day.'
'It was cheap.'
'It was onsale, 75% off.'
'It looked great in the magazine/in store.'
'If I don't like it, you can give it away as a present.'
'It IS a present.'
And the old 'there's always someone I know who shops more than me, so my shopping is just a blip on the retail radar.'

It's time I stopped these excuses. I don't need more stuff. I should be content with the stuff I have. I have great clothes. It'll be fun to mix and match my existing wardrobe/floordrobe/bedrobe. I should save for a rainy day. Because hell, my hot pink silk Sportsgirl dress isn't going to keep me dry.

Hello, my name is Carly and I'm a shopaholic. And it's time I reduce my intake. Not cold turkey, just buy less stuff.

Tell me your shopping confessions. So I don't feel so bad about mine.

(PS: this is my 300th blog entry! This blog has come a long way, baby.)