:: Stationary Stationery ::

I love stationery. My love for stationery started when I was in primary school. Whenever our book work was particularly neat or we answered all our questions correctly we were sent up to the principal's office to show him our good work. My first primary school principal gave shiny stickers as rewards. And, being the hoarder I am, I still have all of those stickers. I can thank him for the extensive (or is that 'expensive'?) sticker collection I now have.

I moved schools in grade four and my new principal gave out pencils. I quickly became obsessed with collecting different types of pencils. The very first pencil I was given - it was holographic silver - has survived a move across the country and now sits amongst a few hundred other pencils. I have pencils from around the world, and I hope to have a touristy pencil from every country (and state, if possible) one day.

By the time I was 10 we had moved across the country and I started my love for snail mail. This was in 1993 and was well before the days of email. I wrote to all my friends and even to my grade six teacher (I'm a little bit of a nerd, hush). It was so exciting to come home and find an envelope, usually covered front-to-back with stickers and drawings, with your name on it. I would sit for hours at the kitchen table writing rough drafts of my return letters to make sure my reply was perfect (I am sounding nerdier by the second, oh dear!).

By the time I reached high school I only had one penpal left (my best friend, so loyal!), so I packed up all the letters my friends had written me and put them away (a sad moment, let me tell you). I still have all of their letters in a box in or storage room. My interest turned to journals around grade 10, thanks once again to school. We had to keep a 'diary' of sorts for English and we had to write a minimum of 400 words a week on whatever took our fancy. By the end of grade 12 I was the only student in my grade who continued writing in my journal!

In grade 11 and 12 my friend and I each bought a journal and did our own version of a journal swap. We would write in our journals for a month and then swap. We would then write in the other person's journal and swap again at the end of the month until we filled up the books. I still have those journals - full of Hanson, Backstreet Boys and our school crushes. Hilarious!

By the time I hit Uni I had less time for snail mail and journalling, so I used my stationery love to organise my Uni notes. Every subject had a specific colour - each colour had a book and folder to store all my information. For every assignment I wrote I made sure I had co-ordinating post-it notes and highlighters to make the final draft easier to collate. I turned to LiveJournal for all my journalling needs and met some awesome people from around the world.

Now I have entered the concrete jungle and my work desk is covered in pretty post-it notes and fancy pens. Everyone at works knows where to come if they need a higlighter or a fun piece of stationery-related goodness. It's a source of much amusement for the 'boring' types who use pale yellow office-issued post-its! All my work colleagues laughed when we received new work-issued stationery, because they knew I would love it.

But really, what's not to love about it? If you're going to have work stationery, it might as well be a little bit fun. I love the cliched slogans and asked if we would be getting an eraser with 'Erasing our past' written on it, ha. Apparently not :( Sad.

For the past few years my stationery collection has been sitting in my drawers, gathering dust. I have written to interstate friends before, only to receive an email response. But then I found you lovely people! I now have a reason to write again and I can't wait!

Gracie and I will be doing a journal swap which I am so excited about.
Also, over at Gracie's blog is a 'Just Because You're Lovely' swap. Check it out!
I am eagerly anticipating my first letter from Jess.
And, I have also signed up to be a part of the Dear Darlings penpal group over at O, My Darling.

And so, my stationery will no longer be stationary! It sounds so nerdy (but I think we're slowly establishing that I am a nerd, so that's okay), but this makes me so happy! I'm glad I'm not the only snail mail fan left in the world. I can't wait to look in my letter box and see envelopes addressed to me that don't contain bills or statements telling me how poor I am.

Do you have a love for something like this? Does gardening make you happy? Are you excited by the prospect of trying out new recipes? Do you obsess over jewellery? I'd be interested to hear about it!

I hope you all have a magnificent weekend. I am off to the Ekka (our Royal Show) on Sunday, and I can't wait to tell you all about it next week!

Much love.

:: Backyard Demolition - Part Two ::

At the end of last year Mr LG and I bought the cutest little house. It was propped up on stilts and made entirely out of wood. The polished floorboards gleamed with possibilities and everywhere we looked we saw endless potential. After a few weeks the rose-tinted glasses came off and as we looked around we still saw the potential, but also the work we needed to put into the house so we could turn it into our home. We have made some minor changes here and there, but so far the biggest change has been our backyard.

About a month ago I told you all about our jungle. I'm so excited so show you what it looks like now!

Step One:

Step Two:

Step Three:

Step Four:

We finally have a blank canvas to work with! We can't get over how big our backyard actually is. The amount of sun that filters into the house now is incredible. Once again our rose coloured glasses are back on as we stand on our back deck and stare at the potential in front of us.

Obviously the first step is to fill in the holes left by the trees, and to attempt to flatten the yard a little (it slopes up on the sides), and then a fence on the right-hand side to even up the yard. We'd also like to cover the fence at the back because it's a little mismatched (some wood, some corrugated plastic, some big rocks to plug up holes). We also have plans for grass, and lots of it. I'd like a few raised planter boxes so I can start a vegie and herb garden, and we can now put up a clothesline and have the clothes dry without being covered by leaves!

What would your dream backyard have in it? We'd like an old pizza oven one day so we can have friends and family over to eat home-made wood-fired pizza on the back deck.

:: Talent ::

I'm so glad you all agree that I look absolutely fabulous as Princess Jasmine! That picture was drawn for me by my youngest sister. She loves to draw and create - we have two huge scrapbook's full of her creations already (she's six).

Yesterday afternoon I was on the train with my sister-in-law and we were discussing the different types of talent people have. Some people are crafty, some people can draw, some people can bake, some people can create, and so on and so forth. One talent I'd love to have is the gift of song. I can carry a tune, but I'll be honest - no one wants to hear me sing! The singing gene in my family was given to my younger sister.

What talent do you wish you had? Apart from singing, I also wish I had the talent of fast metabolism! Ha!

I hope you're all having a fantastic Wednesday.

:: Princess Jasmine ::

I just wanted to share with you all how amazing I look as a Disney Princess - Princess Jasmine, naturally! :)

Have a great weekend!

:: Gym vs Biscuits ::

About three weeks ago I joined a gym. It was probably the most spontaneous decision I have ever made. I was having a discussion about weight with a girl I work with, and she mentioned we get a discount to a gym in the city because of where we work. Within about 10 minutes I had emailed the gym and had a consultation booked for the next day!

I am not a big fan of exercise and every afternoon I have to practically drag myself to the gym, but I am slowly finding that once I am there I quite enjoy myself. I like the fact that for an hour each afternoon I can switch off and simply concentrate on the sound of my own breathing. I am terrible at cardio, so while I am on the rower/bike/cross-trainer my breathing sounds a bit like this: "*Supressed groan*, *puff puff*, *long exhaled breath with big puffy cheeks*, *wheeze* [insert the sonds of taking my asthma puffer here]" and well, you get the point! I love doing weights though, so I change up my sessions a little to add in some things I don't like with some things that I do. If only my gym had a pool!

The snap decision to join a gym was partly because of my wedding and partly because of how I have been feeling lately. In the past few weeks I have had a lot more energy and I feel a lot better about myself. I have decided not to stare at the number on the scales and instead focus on how I feel and also how my clothes feel. And let me tell you, already my clothes and I are starting to feel great!

Now I need to focus on what I put in my mouth. I have been teaching myself new recipes so I am not so repetitive in the kitchen when I move in with Mr LG. The problem is, the biscuits taste so good! The more I learn to cook/bake, the more I want to eat them!

What's your favourite form of exercise? Mine is swimming, but it's still a little too chilly here to brave the water! What's your food weakness? Mine is potato. I could eat it all day, every day!

:: Flower Inspiration ::

Last Friday marked six months 'til Mr LG and I get married! In my free time this week I have been scouring my wedding magazine collection for checklists to make sure we are on-track and that there is nothing we are missing. From what I can see, we are up-to-date. Phew!

I took a day off work today (yay!) and went to visit a florist. Now, I do not pretend to know a lot about flowers. In fact, I know very little. That's not because I don't like flowers - I do! Flowers just aren't my forte. When I emailed this particular florist last week I asked for some basic quotes. She replied asking what kinds of flowers I was after. I sent her some pictures in response, because I didn't know the names of them!  Anyway, daftness aside, she is wonderful and I have booked her in for the big day. Hooray!

I would like to source these pictures, but I can't remember where I found them! If any of you know, please let me know so I can properly credit them.

I think the softness of these flowers will work well with the hairstyles and dress inspiration I have for my beautiful bridesmaids (no hints as to what I will be wearing or how my hair will sit, as Mr LG reads this blog). My next venture is to figure out how to decorate the reception tables. We will be having rectangular tables with 8-10 people per table. We do not want the centrepieces to block people's view, so our choices are very low or very high.

To all you married ladies out there, what did you have for table centrepieces? And to all you non-married ladies, do you have any suggestions for me? Any help is greatly appreciated, I can assure you!

Much love.

:: Memories ::

I'm back from my unplanned hiatus. I'm not quite sure where the time went, and I can't quite tell you what I did - it seems that making a living got in the way of having a life!

My family has been away all week. Mr LG finishes work later than I do (he stayed over to keep me company), and it was quite unusual to come home to an empty house. I come from a large family (6 kids), so I'm used to some sort of noise at all times. I'm not saying I don't like the quiet or time to myself - I do! It's just funny how you can get used to something that someone else might find irritating.

One of the biggest noise makers in my house is my 6 (and a half) year old sister. I'm always amazed at how much energy she has and I love seeing the world through her eyes. She is quite creative and spends a lot of time at her little table creating some sort of masterpiece. My favourite creation of hers was her name, cut out of paper and glued together. That may not sound like anything too special, but I was sitting next to her while she was making it and I watched as she used sticky tape to stick random shapes together in, what looked to me, a haphazard way. I asked her what it was (because honestly, it looked like a mess!) and she told me it was her name and proceeded to flip the creation over to reveal she'd spelt her name out. She created her name, back-to-front and spelt backwards, so that when she flipped it over it spelt her name correctly. It was pretty cool to watch.

Having a sister so much younger than me has allowed me to revisit memories of my childhood. Things we used to do all the time, but now we're 'too busy' or 'too tired' ... always 'too [something]' to stop and enjoy. I think that's what happened to me these past few weeks, I was 'too busy' doing nothing of great importance that I forgot to stop and do the things I actually enjoy. I've found a few pictures of things I used to love doing as a child, but don't do nearly enough of anymore.

:: Feed the ducks at the park ::

:: Play Totem Tennis ::

:: Fly a kite ::

:: Ride a bike with no hands ::

(Gotta love my Dad's bright pink boardies!)

:: Bake cupcakes ::

:: Go to the park with friends ::

:: Sing and dance while you're walking ::

And on that note, I'm going to go make myself an 'irresponsible' dinner of hot chips (with lots of chicken salt and tomato sauce, naturally), and then spend the rest of my night doing things I want to do rather than doing the things I 'need' to do.

I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend filled with things you love.