Happy Things

From here, unfortunately sold out.

Today, one of my good friends, and old housemates, sent me a link to this picture saying that it was "So Katie". It makes me really happy that this is how I am remembered. It is such a lovely way to be remembered. :)

Also, the picture linked to two awesome things. Firstly, the link my friend sent me took me to a pinterest page all about tea. Ah tea! It's lots of pretty things related to cups of tea and coffee, it makes me happy browsing through it, if you'd like to have a look, you can here. Secondly, the print was originally from a cute little corner of etsy, Amanda Catherine Designs. I haven't even had a proper look at all her stuff and I'm already loving what she does. :)

Hope you're all having a lovely day!

Dreaming up an outfit

Every now and then I see something online, or in a shop, that sparks all sorts of outfit planning in my head. Generally these outfit plans revolve around the piece I've seen and usually only one item I have in my wardrobe...it's not the best plan for money saving, but then I rarely end up buying all the components for my make believe outfits, so it doesn't hurt me to dream! :) Todays outfit day dream revolves around TOMS new Zebra shoes and some green trousers I already have (which in my head can also be replaced with my red, maroon and blue trousers for different effects). Here's my daydreaming:

Gold Worlds Links Necklace from uncommongoods. I fell in love with this necklace the moment I saw it. It's gorgeous, I love the world, and this just makes me want to travel! 

Lace Back T-shirt from Kookai EU. I tried this on in the shop whilst shopping with my Mum and sister, we weren't convinced it was worth 80CHF, but it sure is pretty and fit ever so comfortably, and this outfit is all about comfort. 

Green trousers, these are from River Island, but mine are from Emerson in Big W.  I think neutrals look nicer near my face, so I love coloured trousers for adding colour to my wardrobe. :) 

Finally, the Zebra shoes from TOMS. Aren't they cool? I think so. :)

So there you go, the little outfit occupying my mind at the moment. I can totally see myself wearing this in South Africa, or Australia. :)

Little Mix - Wings

I discovered this song a couple of days ago, and since then it's been keeping me happy and stopping me going crazy with all this Visa nonsense I've been dealing with. It's a really catchy, upbeat song. I love it. :)

Ow!

James and I have started exercising. We want to be fit, plus we'd like to look good for the summer, but mainly we want to be fit. So we've started to do a 2.6ish km walk/run in the evenings, two nights of that, and then a day of abs work. We only really started last week, so we've only done one abs session and well...it hurts! I found an abs workout on pinterest (apparently originally from this blog), and most of the comments on the site seemed to be about how good it was, so we thought "Let's give it a go!" Oh my! Ow! We are in pain. I mean, our legs hurt a bit from running, but now, any kind of moving hurts. We both think we need to add some extra stuff to it to work our backs as well, because we're walking around hunched over, standing up straight just hurts too much! So, we're adding some stretches and back exercises next. And maybe some arm and chest stuff. I'm thinking we may also need to add quite a few 'break' days and reduce them as we start aching less, but we'll see!

So, if you want to seriously hurt your abs, I have the perfect workout for you!

Sunshine, tea and chirping birds

Yesterday I got myself quite bummed. The whole Visa application process is very draining, and plain annoying. I had felt quite on track, and like I would be ready to send it off in a week or two...but now, it feels like it may take longer, AND it's going to cost more. I had assumed the Police and Medical checks could be done between being granted the Temporary Visa and the Permanent Visa, but apparently not...and the medical costs a nice $332. Yikes! So yeah, yesterday I was bummed out about all that. So I thought, maybe it would be good for me to start listing things worth being happy about. There are so many little things in life that are worth being happy about that I, and possibly others, forget about. So, I want to take some time every now and then to think of them. :)

Here are a few for today.

source

Birds chirping. I love spring and summer time, the sound of birds chirping is one of my favourite sounds. It's oddly relaxing and happy, I love waking up to the sound of birds. :)

source, source, source 

Sunshine. Ah, sunshine. Doesn't sunshine just make you feel instantly better. I find the weather can really have an affect on my mood, and the sun makes me so much happier and productive. I also love the feeling of sunshine on my skin, mmm. Sunshine AND birds chirping are the best combination for a summer nap.

source

Ah, tea. I wouldn't be British if tea didn't make me happy. I love tea. Yum, yum, yum. Who doesn't feel better after a nice cup of tea?

My Life in Song - Walking on Sunshine

There are no particular memories that come to mind when I hear this song, I just LOVE it, and have since I was about 15. I think this was definitely one of the songs I overplayed a little during my high school years, and it is still one of the few songs that can cheer me up. :) It's so uplifting and happy.

I did a theme song quiz, back in the day when doing quizzes like that was a craze, and I got 'Walking on Sunshine', needless to say I thought it was a pretty good result since it pretty much was my theme song.

What was your teenage theme song?

Quote to Inspire #37

Done by me, quote found here.

Making Friends

Bondi (there was an ice skating rink, on the beach!)

One of my old colleagues, from my job before my holiday, gave me her number to get in touch when I got back from Europe. I'm not very good at getting in touch with people. I'm not very good at making friends...I'm friendly, and get on well with people, but like making that step from being friendly with someone and making a friend, I'm not so good at that. So, it took a lot for me to text, but I'm glad I did. We get on well and had a lovely time. We chose to meet at Bondi, since I had never been and I knew she knew it well. We walked along the coast, and then eventually found somewhere for coffee. A cute little place that also sold books. It was really quirky, and felt very welcoming and homely. :)

I think I may be making friends in Oz. Yays!

My Life in Song - Stand by Me

This is another song that has been redone and brings to mind a certain redone version. For the longest time I have been unable to hear this song without thinking of Timon and Pumba (and some awesome frogs). For some reason I thought this was a perfectly normal connection to make, but apparently not.
So for all of you who have missed out on this 'wonderful' redoing, I give you Timon and Pumba singing 'Stand by me' - originally sung by Ben E. King (the version above).

My Wonderful James

Yummy treat James whipped up for me!

I got back to Australia last Saturday evening, and struggled to get back into a proper sleeping pattern before today, which is why I told my employers I wouldn't be available for work until today. Since my job is casual, it means that I could be called the morning of a day I've said I'm available to do a shift. So, this morning I got up at 6:45 so that I could get myself all woken up and ready incase I got a phone call about work today. I never got a call. It bummed me out a bit. We're getting pretty low on money, and I stress about things like that, so I kind of wanted to get back to work so I could make money. A short shift would have been fine, just something to get me started again with this new agency. So, yeah, I was bummed. I had bummed myself out pretty bad and was just lying on the bed (I know...I could have done something...). Anyhoo, this is where my wonderful James get's his 'wonderful' title, he's super sweet! He saw that I was upset, so ran me a bath (tidied the bathroom up a lot too so there wasn't as much stuff lying about) and went to the shops to get a few things to make something whilst I was having my bath. The picture above is what he made, pastry with chocolate ganache and strawberries. It was yum! We then watched 'The Usual Suspects', a good movie, I didn't predict the outcome, I like it when that happens! Needless to say, I felt a whole lot better afterwards. AND I then got a call about work tomorrow, YAY! 

So, my James is wonderful and awesome. I am very lucky to have him. :)

My life in Song - Quote

Found on pinterest.

This is totally what "My life in song" is all about. Well, it's not what it's all about, but it's what made me start it. I believe songs definitely have emotional connections for people, it's so easy to link a song to a memory. :)

Reading in the Park

Today, James and I went for a nice little walk to the park nearby and read our books. It's nice to get out of the house and do some reading. :)

In very related news, I just finished the book I was reading, does anyone have any suggestions?

Vono2Go - The Product Farm

Just a little awesome something from The Product Farm. Wine to go. What an awesome idea! I have no idea when I would use it, but I still think it's an excellent idea!

PS: Back in Australia, with my James. Very happy. :)

Ecole Maternelle Pajol

 I'm feeling a bit Paris homesick. I may be experiencing some post-Paris depression...I have been feeling low since we got back (I think the fact that I have to sort things out and pack by Friday may also be a factor), so I have decided to day dream about living in Paris. Ah, Paris!

In my daydream I have studied to be a teacher and am working in this awesome school: Ecole Maternelle Pajol. I already know I love working with children, and I know I love Paris, and seriously who wouldn't want to work in an environment as fun as this?

It's wonderfully designed by Palatre et Leclere Architectes, who I think you'll agree have done an amazing job making the building a super fun place for children to learn! Gah! I'm in love with it!

All I need to do is scrub up on my French and we could work on getting me working there! :P 

Paris - Day 2

Day 2 was LOTS of walking...like seriously, a lot of walking, about 4 hours non-stop. Our legs were dead! (plus mine are pretty pale, I wore shorts both days in hope of getting some sort of tan)

We started the day with a later coffee and croissant. This time we got our Cafe au Lait! Yays! And yum! We didn't have much of a plan for our day. We had a kind of plan of maybe walking along the Champs Elysees, which we did, eventually. First, we wanted to see if the Laduree near the Louvre was a cafe, because then we could have a sophisticated coffee and macaroons. We found the Laduree, but it was just a pop up store in the 'Carousel' shopping centre under the Louvre (which also has an alternative entry to the Louvre...possible way around the long queues?).

The centre has some lovely shops, including Swatch, Fossil, Pylons, Laduree. Lots of lovely places to separate with my money, I think I did well not to! After doing well to resist the temptations coming from the shops we embarked on our unknowingly long walk to Champs Elysees.

We could have been there pretty easily, but we sort of didn't walk far enough around Place de la Concorde to get to the road that led to Champs Elysees, instead we walked along the river. The view was nice though. :) As we looked for toilets, and thus looked at maps, we realised we had totally missed the Champs Elysees, so chose to head to the Arc de Triumph and then walk back along the Champs Elysees.

On the way to the Arc de Triumph we saw this pretty amazing church. It didn't quite fit in it's surroundings, but made quite an impression.

We finally got to the Arc de Triumph, and decided to take a bit of a break and sit under the Arc. I also took the opportunity to find my Godfathers name in the Arc, although it is his surname it's not 'his' name in the Arc but a relatives of his' name. Delort. It's pretty cool to know someone who is related to someone whose name is on the Arc de Triumph. Well, I think so anyway. :)

 The Arc de Triumph is seriously gorgeous from inside, all the curves and details and sky...so pretty from every angle. :)

We then walked back to the Louvre along the Champs Elysees. We were expecting the Champs Elysees to be filled with lots of lovely high end stores...not anymore. It was a long walk back...our feet really started to hurt.

Getting to the Jardin des Tuileries was a huge: "We're almost there!" It's also a gorgeous garden to walk through. Every city should have a garden like the Tuileries, seriously, I think it would make everyone so much happier. It's beautiful. We finally got back to the place we had planned to have lunch at, at 4. It was ok though, we weren't hungry until then, so we kind of made it our lunch/dinner. The view was pretty spectacular. We were surrounded by the Louvre, with a view of the Eiffel Tower.

The food was expensive though, and although the desserts looked good, they weren't as good as their equivalents at our favourite place by the Pompidou.

After our lunch/dinner, we went back to our hotel and went to bed around 7. We planned to wake up from our 'nap' and see if we felt like a small dinner and drinks, but we were too exhausted from our day to go out...so we slept from 7 to about 9 the next day. :P :)

I love Paris.

Paris - Day 1

The building opposite where we stayed that my mum totally didn't notice...

We're in Paris!!! Yay! It took me a while to actually get into the city. My flight over from the UK was great, on time, no problems, awesome. I then tried to remember how I got into Paris 2 years ago, found the name of a stop I remembered, saw it was near where we were staying, got my ticket and onto a train. I so wish I had had some more trouble sorting that stuff out, because if I'd been delayed by a minute I would have missed the train I was then sitting on...and that could have saved me about 2 hours. The trip from Charles de Gaulles airport to the city takes about 40 minutes, my trip took 2 hours and 40 minutes. I know, right? It had all sorts of electrical problems, we were sat between two stops for about an hour, and then just kept pausing between stops...but I got there in the end, and we had a lovely meal at our usual little place by the Pompidou. :)

Today was super lovely! Paris was finally NOT 30 odd degrees, we did not feel like we would burn alive, we were not leaving a trail of sweat. It was awesome! We did our usual coffee and croissant in the morning, around 9:30...so early! :P

We forgot that in France if you order a coffee, you get a small black coffee. It sure did wake us up! We then headed off to walk around Paris. We didn't have much of a game plan for the day, just thought we'd have a wander. We went past the Louvre (it's pretty hard not to from where we are) and oh my! This is the queue we saw...and that's not even the end of it! (I have a photo of the map of Louvre later...I shall try and put into perspective how long this is then)

So, after being totally baffled by peoples willingness to queue for the Louvre (which is over rated in my opinion, much like the Mona Lisa. It's not that it isn't full of lots of art, or that you couldn't spend all day in there...it's just I didn't feel it was any different to any other art museum. I guess it's worth it to form your own opinion though) we decided to find the Notre Dame.

We have stayed in the same area(ish) for our three visits to Paris, and on our last visit (2 years ago) we discovered that we were ridiculously close to Notre Dame. How did we miss it? We have no idea! But we did, so we made a point to visit it this time! It is an amazing piece of architecture, truly amazing. I am so fascinated by it. Loved it.

After quite some time sitting and admiring the Notre Dame we found our favourite little Boat bus, the Batobus (we highly recommend it for anyone travelling to Paris). Getting around Paris on a boat is so very relaxing. We thought we would have a look around the Musee D'Orsay, but unfortunately, there was a queue, and we're not too interested in queuing. So I took a photo of the Rhino outside and off we went.

We knew that Rodin's Museum was nearby, so we went for a walk to try and find that. On the way we saw this. It made me smile. :) (turns out this was all over Paris)

Today the museum had free entry! Go Musee D'Orsay being busy! :D So we happily went in. My mum rested whist I had a little walk around the garden with my camera.

Me and my painted friend, he's not the smiling type.

Another painting friend, he seemed pretty shocked by the trees.

He didn't seem to like the sun too much.

Ah, the three guys doing...something. Everyone was taking photos from the front, but the view from behind wasn't too bad either. :P

We had some ice cream whilst there and sat in the sun by the pond. It was really nice. It was then time to head back to our hotel for a nap. We went past the Hotel des Invalides. It's a pretty awesome building. I seriously love all the older buildings in Paris (in most countries actually, I think we definitely have been lacking in creating awesome architecture recently).

We got the boat from Musee D'Orsay to the Louvre, it's a good 40minute boat ride, but so nice in the weather we had. We then had a walk through the Louvre...at 4, and there was still a queue to get in!

This is a picture of the Louvre and the gardens and whatnot. See that white square? Thats the pyramid thing with the entrance. See the picture below?

The queue, at 4 o'clock, has only just gone past the edge of the pyramid thing (along the bottom edge of the white square in the map picture). That's an hour long wait to get in, see:

The photo I showed you from the morning, was out and along the far edge of the black lines showing the building. Through two archy doorways. It's a long way! It's a bit excessive. Seriously, what are you so keen to see inside the Louvre? The posters of Mona Lisa do do it justice. Anyhoo, let people do what they want. Here a pretty picture of whats outside the Louvre. :)

We then had some beer before our nap. We napped well. Then out for dinner at our favourite place again to watch the football (and enjoy yummy food, AND Chimay Blue!!! :O Seriously awesome restaurant!). :) A pretty awesome day. Bring on tomorrow! :D