I may have bought this shirt for Craig. I may be making him wear it today.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh!
(La ale-lah pwad-rig son-ah jeev)

Hiatus Update 2: Zoë by Sam Edelman Edition

Hi there oh amorphous internet,
I’m so pleased that this second hiatus update is lacking in the confession stakes. Well (of course) almost …

I ended up purchasing a leather pencil skirt (yes, I am doing nothing to dispel rumours) from trademe (New Zealand’s version of eBay except you CANNOT snipe the auctions. HATE.) and admittedly, I bid $2 while drunk and did not expect to win it …. Ha. More fool me. I won. But my darling husband gave me a pass on that one. So it doesn’t really count:



I have been approaching this hiatus as less of a challenge and more of a lifestyle change. I haven’t found it torturous because I haven’t been black and white with myself, shades of grey all the way,
I have modulated my lunchtime walks around the city, I tend to go to the waterfront (or just see how far I can walk) instead of to the main shopping street(s), but I haven’t banned myself from going into clothes shops or avoided reading fashion blogs. I think, I think, I hope, that this change will last longer than the three months I initially set out. I have a feeling that it will. I do like it more than I was expecting.
Of course I was expecting it to be horrid and hard and frustrating as all get out but you know, I always prepare for the worst case scenario because then I’m usually pleasantly surprised!



Additionally, in the not-exactly-a-confession category, my darling dear approved the purchase of a pair of shoes I have lusted after for years but which have been sold out every damn time I managed to scrape the requisite cents together. He’s lovely. I had previously decided, and mused out loud to Sir C, that I would purchase a pair of vertiginous heels as a celebration of the end of the hiatus. When these shoes (Sam Edelman Zoë boots aka faux-biagas) became available for purchase again my puppy-dog eyes took over my face and he rolled his eyes and said he liked them. Hurrah!
And so I ordered, I received, I tried them on, I took photographs and now I will pack them away again until April 14.



Only 30 days to go!


(yes they are kind of high. But the platform? the platform helps)

I am the queen of delayed gratification.

Week Eleven

Sunday
Over at Trinity for dinner, my darling mother SCREAMED in the kitchen. Turns out it was because THIS (a Weta) was in the lettuce she had picked (from the garden, not the supermarket). There followed a lot of general screeching while Craig collected it, held it while I took photos, then set it free in the garden.
Creepy primordial insect.


Monday
Sometimes, upon arriving home to Park Place, Craig and I hang out on the bed for a bit and chat before continuing on with dinner & the like. This happens less often since we started driving to and from Wellington. We do the chatting in the car.


Tuesday
The day I discovered I was in Post-Modern Ink. So exciting.


Wednesday
Two chairs and a lectern awaiting Richard Dawkins. His talk was interesting and lovely and oh, I just adore pop science.


Thursday
A cupcake success!
Mini red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing. They were delicious. Seriously. And they looked so cute.
I have a strong feeling this will be my go-to baked good for quite some time.


Friday
A very climatically strange afternoon.
While at the pub a mini tornado tore through Wellington. We walked over in grey sunlight and emerged to rain and trees and minor chaos. Driving home in the rain we arrived to a Pear Massacre in our backyard (approximately 200 pears on the ground) and within a further hour the rain was gone, the sun was setting & lighting up the sky, and there was an impressive rainbow.


Saturday
A busy day - there was the talk by Neil Gaiman, a family barbecue, then celebrating Petra's birthday with a chili chocolate cake (seriously), and a lot of tequila. And vodka. And more tequila.


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Self Portrait wearing Girl About Town by MAC.


Pictured, Right.

People have asked how I can wear such a bright bright fuchsia lipstick and all I do? seriously, is apply it with my finger and use it more like a stain. I mean, unless I'm really committing to being the girl with the hard out lipstick. Which I very rarely am.
But it meant I could wear the same outfit (Jeffrey Campbell wedge ankle boots, jeans, floaty black zip top) to all three events and not be over or under dressed for any. Success!

Through-the-viewfinder

Now I know that a good mother doesn't really pick favourites but ... I really really love my Kodak Duaflex Camera.

(Hi Mum! I just referred to my vintage cameras as children. Looks like grandkids are a few years off at least)

But! it's only because I can use it with my DSLR and produce faux-vintage photos.
Like the hipstamatic app on my iPhone only old school.


(he's not dead or stoned. He just zones out completely when watching TV.)


Doily Banner, Trixie Delicious Bitch plate, a framed print, and a LOT of dirt on the lens.



All you do (thanks, photojojo) is frame your shot using the older camera (call it Camera B), then aim your digital camera (Camera A) at the viewfinder and take the picture. Afterwards, crop the photo to take out everything but the viewfinder image. Ta da!

I'm in Post Modern Ink

Post Modern Ink Issue 5.
Reader Submission ...



Seriously! That's my shoulder!
And it's a full Page!

I was so excited & caught off guard (they don't even confirm they receive your submission let alone telling you it's been chosen) that I may have jumped up and down a little bit, definitely showed the people at the registers, and then shown everyone at my office. But who cares? that's me!



(I was even wearing that striped shirt today)



My name.
Teeny tiny & tonally similar but still there.


(to enlarge click here)

To be honest I'm just really glad they didn't include my shot on the YRT (You'll regret that) page.

Week Ten

Sunday
Craig took me to the Hutt Rail Open Day because he likes to look at big machines. I wore short-shorts and bejewelled flats and wandered around taking photos.


Monday
My youngest baby sister started university on Monday, the other baby sister started a new job, living in a new flat. I felt old.


Tuesday
I have been meeting Craig at the train station before we drive home. On Tuesday I felt bad for the crowds delayed by broken down trains but so so glad that we drive in to Wellington now.


Wednesday
And on Wednesday Craig got caught in bombscare traffic and he was late. Thankfully it was sunny.


Thursday
Filling out a form for a NON SPECIFIC work thing, I have to list all the countries I've visited in the last five years.
The easiest way to do it was to work out where I was chronologically, hence all the UK entries.


Friday
Lingerie from the DimitySO team. I feel quite bad that I was so disappointed.


Saturday
Craig and I drove up to Martinborough to attend their annual fair. He had to practically me away from the bones and fossils stand.


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Crazy hair.
2 days without washing, with a lot of hairspray and dry shampoo, manic and curly from up-dos.

Oh no, DimitySo!

It was a revelation the first time I wore a bra that fit properly.
Trinny & Susannah and their ilk blag on and on about how most women wear the wrong size bra and up until that moment (at home in our London flat, after a trip to, of all things, Primark) I'd thought they were exaggerating.
It was so surprising that I walked from our bedroom to the lounge, in my bra & jeans (the lovely flatmate S was not home) and told Craig. He was underwhelmed. But to me, everything I'd read about how bras are supposed to fit suddenly made sense.
I was a 12F/14E.
And life got a whole bunch more difficult.

Regular bras, the ones that cost under $50 and come in a range of colours, sizes, and materials only range from A-D. For years manufacturers have regarded cleavage above a D cup as something to be restrained, hidden away, regarded as suspicious, and swathed in acres of fabric.

UNTIL! Bendon brought out select few of their Elle Macpherson range in cup sizes above D. And I rejoiced. Then quickly wept because lord but fancy bras are expensive. Also, the cup still they crept up the bust centimetre by centimetre compared to their A-D doppelgängers. As if anything over a D cup is liable to jump out of the cup if anything akin to cleavage is shown. Heaven forbid you want to wear anything with a plunging neckline - they just don't make the bra for you.

I find it so ... infuriating. How dare these lingerie manufacturers dictate how low cut I wear my tops. How DARE they. If all of a sudden all tee-shirts were only cut to show the collar bone people would be incensed. And yet those of larger busts have allowed lingerie manufacturers to DICTATE our modesty. Just thinking about this makes me so angry I'm typing with tense claw hands. Our breasts are not all that hard to manage. They do not need to be completely covered by an undergarment - as long as the bottom half-plus-an-inch is well supported then they are not going to LEAP from the bra.
Do the manufacturers assume that I dislike my breasts? that I am ashamed of them & hide them away? Because I'm not and I do not. They're just breasts. They will not destroy the world*. Heaven forefend I should ever wish to wear a push up bra.

I was hunting for a low-cut E or F cut bra in any shop I could find. No luck. I even talked to the saleslady in Bendon who told me about this mythical new range of lingerie that they were releasing - DimitySO (hate the name) - which ONLY came in cup sizes D-J! I was so excited. A range of lingerie made specifically for my cup range (and then some), surely THEY would make the kind of bras I want to wear. Imagine my excitement when a couple of months later I noticed on my twitter feed the hashtag #DimitySO appended to what appeared to be a competition entry tweet.
I clicked frantically to their twitter page and sure enough they were giving away 3 sets of lingerie each day - all you had to do was send a message saying why you deserved free lingerie. The first day? I didn't win anything. The second day I quoted an oscar winning rap song and won!:



So, just under a month later, a package arrived at my office, it was the DimitySO lingerie! I was so so excited. But not so excited as to run to the office bathroom and try it on. I waited until this morning.





The lingerie is admittedly beautiful. In a strange grey shade which, according to their website, is actually "Brown / Aqua Gray" and seems very well made. The first thing I found amiss was that the back strap was very thick, the three hooks very widely spaced. This is a hallmark of the grandma-esque bras I and a similarly endowed friend abhor. Seriously, ABHOR. And I know that it's not a necessity as the Elle MacPherson bras I have purchased in an E or F cup do not suffer this surfeit of strap, some of them even only have two hooks. Less like an orthopaedic brace and more like a, oh I don't know, a BRA.

Then I put it on. Immediately I knew it would not be worn often, despite the quality. See, I have this mole on my left breast:



I love it. Along with the beauty mark just under my right nostril (Oo! This photo shows both of them! Convenient), and I wear the majority of my tops so that it is visible. Not BECAUSE I want to show it off, it just so happens that this mole marks the point just above where I find the neckline of a top to be most flattering for my figure - too far above OR below it and I appear even more top heavy (yes, covering them up does make them look bigger. I don't know why but I'm not going to fight it) which is frankly, annoying.
So, given the placement of neckline, the probability of material on material slippage, and because people peer, I prefer my bra cups to finish at the most about 5cm or so below the mole. Believe me when I say that my breasts are still ... very well contained at this point. Anyway, I have elaborated enough.

My point with this ENTIRE screed of writing about breasts (hi there, men in my family who read this, sorry!) is that the DimitySO Bra?
IT COVERED THE MOLE.
Seriously. Not by a lot, but still, it was covered. I realised I would have to change out of it if I wanted to wear the tee-shirt I was planning to wear (this one) to the Martinborough fair. After I had put it the bra on and picked my jaw back up off the floor, I turned to Craig and said it has huge grandma cups! and he, the sweetest man in the world, who avoids saying anything bad about anything I'm wearing or considering wearing (this is sometimes the most annoying thing in the world) just said yea, yea they are.

Agony.
It is the "Diamond Affair" bra and, having a look through their collection, it does seem to be one of the higher cut cups. But I am just so so disappointed. I expected so much more. But I will be checking out the range instore at some point - when I can face the disappointment.
A grandma-esque bra made in fancy colours and fabrics is still a grandma-esque bra, DimitySO, remember that.

Also? would it KILL you to make a bra for plunging necklines? Cheers.

EDITED: Just to clarify - my vitriol of paragraph 4 is not directed at DimitySO, rather at the current general large-cup-bra maelstrom.


* In addition? I will not implode with shame and self loathing, or cower in fear, if someone dares to look at them. So what? they're there, and they are simply secondary sex characteristics. Big fucking whoop. GAH.

So many unguents, so little time.

I used to wash my face with plain soap, smear on some plain moisturiser & bing bang boom (well just bing bang really)* I was done. It was so simple, so easy.

Now I use two different face washes, I use jojoba oil & moisturiser on my face, I apply lucas' pawpaw ointment to scars, lip balm to lips, and a different moisturiser each for my legs & hands.

In the mornings ... oh don't even get me started. More moisturiser, sunscreen, face primer, and then makeup.
It's not really all that much. I wear surprisingly little makeup compared to, well, other people and yet, the sheer volume compared to say 2006 (when I could barely even apply foundation - now I'm a have favourite brands and products (MAC for most things, diorshow mascara, YSL touche eclat) is astounding.

So many unguents, so little time. I find it exhausting sometimes.

But I am 26 & a third and yet I'm still regularly id-ed as being under 18 so it can't be all bad, right?


* I still miss Gilmore Girls.

Park Place Vignettes: Nightmare Edition

This spider was in our house. IN OUR HOUSE.
It made me stop short & say in a VERY SERIOUS VOICE Jesus H. Christ which of course panicked Craig just a little.



It is officially the biggest spider I have ever seen in New Zealand & in our house.
(I have seen bigger spiders - in Tahiti, Thailand, & Australia)
Also? that's a large pen. Not, say, a biro..



I took the photos then allowed Craig to kill it. When I vacuumed it up later, it was large enough to clatter up the hose.

p.s. apologies to arachnophobes!
p.p.s. I hate them too. I promise. The photos are something like ... watching a horror movie for me. Brrr.

Week Nine

Sunday
A relaxing Sunday afternoon - with Cider and the Tudors.


Monday
We came home from work to find a pool on our kitchen floor and a slightly defrosted freezer. Craig took the opportunity to ... spatula out the excess frost.
It's all we can expect from a $50 fridge/freezer.


Tuesday
After another day of wearing my pyramid stud earrings, zelda fitzgerald ring, diamond horseshoe necklace, and chunky chain bracelet I decided that I needed to get out of my jewellery rut. So I put the aforementioned in a special box and challenged myself to wear completely different jewellery on Wednesday,


Wednesday
My darling husband had to work late. So I caught the train and then walked up the hill. It was really quite lovely, golden hour with the sun at my back.


Thursday
Strange strange weather. Pouring with rain when we left home in the morning but by midday it was blazing sun.


Friday
I donated to cancer research and received this lollipop in return. I find his little printed face and overalls inestimably creepy.


Saturday
Craig and I went to an exhibition (or 3) at Te Papa then went for a walk along the waterfront.
I loved that someone had corrected this sign!


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