Life Recently

This month has been eventful, but also excellent! The two big things dominating my November was my thyroid operation (more on that later) and the big move into my very first home. Both fairly epic events for your average 28 year old, but they certainly made for an interesting month. After TWO YEARS of waiting and slowly getting more and more excited and then more and more impatient Luke and I finally got our mitts on the keys to our brand new home. Everything is still in disarray and I can’t find half my shoes and we still have no internet, but it truly is awesome. I can’t actually believe it all belongs to me. Every time I bang a nail into the wall to hang another piece of art I feel a bit rebellious, then I remember that I OWN THAT WALL! It’s pretty great.

Here’s what else has been going on…

Eating the Natural Confectionary Company’s strawberry and cream lollies… my friend Caity passed her addiction on to me

Drinking Water! It's gettin' hot in hurrrr!

Cooking anything easy! I miss my mum’s home cooking so much, being an adult again is HARD!

Watching Orange is the New Black, my friend lent me her netflix account while I was bed bound and boy did I get addicted!
Buying myself a few sneaky get-well-soon presents in the form of shoes and sunnies (of course!)

Wearing many scarves! I actually had a lot of fun covering up my operation wound with a variety of vintage silk lovelies!

Reading the Royal We, written by my fav celebrity gossip bloggers from Go Fug Yourself

Avoiding the scales. I got into the bad habit of weighing myself daily while my thyroid was misbehaving and now I’m trying to stop because it’s totally pointless and does nothing for my self esteem

Needing some money please… having a mortgage is quite the ball buster!

Ok so on to my operation… for those interested please read on (for those not, please enjoy my insta snaps!), my thyroid operation went really well. I was absolutely terrified on the day of the op and the last thing I remember thinking before the general anaesthetic hit was ‘OMG he’s going to slice my throat open’ but a second later (or so it seemed) I was being wheeled into the ICU for recovery. My surgeon said everything went perfectly and then showed me a rather revolting picture of a 6cm scoop of flesh, which was apparently the tumour they removed from me. I had a bad reaction to the pain killers they gave me, so spent a rather uncomfortable night in the ICU, but once I was back home I started to feel much better.

My scar sits right on my collar bone and is about 8cm long, it’s surprisingly neat and apparently it should fade to nothing within about 18 months, so I’m really pleased. It took me about 10 days to fully recover from the general anaesthetic, I was seriously dazed for a while there! I saw my surgeon a few weeks ago who confirmed the tumour was benign (HOORAY!) and gave me the go-ahead to start playing volleyball again (HOORAY again!). I’m just so relieved it’s all over and I don’t have to worry about it anymore. In a years’ time I’ll have a few tests to make sure what remains of my thyroid is functioning properly, but other than that I’m basically cured! Thanks again for all the love and thoughts I’ve been getting over the past few weeks and months. I’ve been shocked but delighted to hear from so many others who have gone through similar procedures, apparently thyroid issues aren’t as uncommon as I thought!

Christmas with Salvos Stores

Hi there! Long time no see! In between my operation, moving house and the general mayhem that is the lead up to Christmas I've been a particularly slack blogger. Luckily for me the lovely people from Salvos Stores contacted me a few weeks ago and challenged me to put together a head to toe Christmas party outfit from their op shops. Easy peasy I said and I was super thrilled with the look I thrifted. 

Pop over to the Salvos Store Blog to see the full outfit and read my guest post.

Four Simple Goals

For the past few years I’ve been setting myself four goals every November to achieve by the end of the year. They are kind of like New Year’s resolutions, but with a definite deadline (which I need if I’m going to achieve anything!). You can read about my goals from 2014 and 2013, I was fairly successful with all of them so I’m excited to set myself some small challenges for this year as well. So here we go…

 

Work my way up to running 10km

Branch out and try to use different outfit photo locations

Complete a gallery wall in my new home

Sort, cull and sell my wardrobe

 

 

I think these are all pretty manageable. I’ve already started a running regime to build my way up to being able to run 10km again, although in light of my recent operation I might not reach my goal by January 1. I seriously need to push myself to use different photo-shoot locations, as much as I love those colourful walls I think people might be getting a bit bored of them! I’ve been slowly collecting art for our new home and seeing as we are moving in imminently (eek!!) I think a décor-related challenge is very appropriate. That last goal speaks for itself and is well over due!

 

 

You should set some easy goals too! If you do, make sure you share them in the comments or put a link to your blog post. Nothing makes you feel as productive as ticking off items on a list!

 

P.S Although I didn't officially set it as a goal last year, mastering the art of flat laying has definitely been something I've been pouring a lot of effort in to this year and I think it's starting to pay off! I'm no where near as good as flatlay genius Claire Mueller (find her on insta @capnmueller) but I'm pretty pleased with my attempts... what do you think?

 

Bloomin' Bloggers

Why hello there! Long time no see! I’m on the road to recovery after my thyroid op a few weeks ago and finally ventured outside long enough to snap some outfit pics and chat to my fellow Perth bloggers (hooray for blog content am-I-right?!).

The lovely Demelza from DemelzaBuckley.com organised for a group of Perth based bloggers to get together and sample a few local treats. We learnt about the intricate art of coffee roasting from the guys at Black Matter coffee, munched on the most AMAZING vegan treats from Crunch Box (seriously so good, I could feed them to my meat loving boyfriend and I doubt he’d ever guess they were completely devoid of animal products). We also had a good giggle messing around with the silent disco gear from Audio Vault. Nothing like a coffee-fuelled dancing frenzy on a Sunday morning to get you feeling like a real person again!

I wore this super comfy, easy breezy outfit, consisting on my newly altered crop top. I bought this Cue top a few weeks ago, I really loved the high neck and trapeze shape of it, but every time I tried to style it I found myself wishing it was a crop instead of a long top (it used to come down to my hips). I finally convinced myself it would be a good idea to turn it into a crop and VOILA it’s now the best! I think it will be a perfect little top that I can wear with all my summer skirts. I didn’t crop it too short so I should still be able to wear it for work as well. Success!

The rest of my outfit is a no-brainer. Hat, sunnies and comfy shoes… all the Sunday morning essentials! 

Top : Claremont Vinnies $7

Skirt: Vintage from Amsterdam

Shoes: Birkenstock, eBay

Hat: Op shop

Sunglasses: Karen Walker, eBay

Jewellery: Op shop

Pics by Em from TheIllusiveFemme.com (thanks lovely!)

Frocktober Wrap

I know I say this every month but… I can’t believe it’s November! This year is going stupidly fast! I wanted to do a little wrap up of my Frocktober. You might remember that I pledged to wear a different dress to work every day for the whole month of October (or Frocktober). And I succeeded! Huzzah! I wasn’t organised enough to take photos of every dress, but I promise you I didn’t cheat! Here’s a quick wrap up of my outfits from the past month…

I think my favourite looks were the first day and the very last day! I’ve had that green and pink vintage dress for years and I still love it so much. The tropical print Zara frock is one of my absolute favourites, so much so I'm getting it re-made in another fabric. Which was your favourite look of the month?

Did you follow along with Frocktober? Some of my favourite bloggers did, including the Illusive Femme and Willow Curves, make sure you check out their blogs and don’t forget to donate donate donate! This month was more than just pretty frocks, it’s about raising awareness and funds for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation. They do such important work which has an immense impact on the lives of all women (and the people who love women, so everyone!). Thanks for following along!

Click on each photo and you’ll go to the corresponding blog post.