Rats!

A student brought in his pet rats today.

Aussie Curves - Time Saver

I'm so lazy in the morning 

• My alarm is set to 6:25 just so that I can press snooze twice.
• Then I get up and poke around,
• I often go over my planning for the day while I eat breakfast
• then I catch up on the news
• then I look at the clock and realise I should have already had a shower (I don't feel like a person if I don't shower in the morning.
• So I quickly grab my clothes and jump in the shower.
• Dress, get teeth done, pick up bags and lunch and go!!!

The one thing that saves me from not arriving late for work is that I try to plan my clothes the day before. I don't wear makeup only a tinted sunscreen - except on special days, and some days I can't even be bothered to brush my hair, like yesterday. It also helps that I live two blocks from my school.

I used to try and get up early to exercise - but now I do that after I go to the post office in the afternoon - at about 4:50pm - yep about ten minutes before they close - except today that is - I'm posting this :)

This was yesterday's outfit:

Leggings - Crossroads (not to sure about that)
Tunic - Ezibuy
Cardigan - Autograph
Shoes - Rubi
Necklace - Diva

 

The leggings look black in the other photos:

 Kick off the shoes and dance

 

I can do that - black, white and red

I saw this outfit the other day on Pinterest - and went - OMG! I can dooooo that! 

So it went straight to my board.  

Unfortunately for me to actually do that, I would have to take in my jeggings and redo the hem of one of my printed animal shirts.

I finished off everything early yesterday and had a few hours to spare before going to bed, so I did it.

Top - Asos

Jeans - Crossroads

Shoes - Rubi

Pin - I can't remember, maybe Lovisa

Necklace - Ebay

 

Not many of my students realised today that I was wearing a top hat with the rabbits.

 

 

 

Bonus:

Here is me at school - photo taken courtesy of a student. In Hospitality today, we enjoyed an afternoon of tea tasting, next week we are making iced chocolates.

 

I wish this one wasn't blurry.

Aussie Curves - heels

You won't know this from my everyday wardrobe but I am a shoe fiend. My shoe collection isn't in a photographable state though since my shoe rack broke.

I don't wear heels to work. This is because you never know when you have to chase a kid down, and because I'm high school I'm usually racing between classrooms - plus a heap of stairs. The other thing is that they are so noisy on the verandahs!

I wore my boots on Friday - the closest thing to a high heel I'll wear at work.

Top - Ezibuy
Leggings - made be me
Scarf - Asos
Boots - I Love Billy

Meat and Potatoes May - 1 down 7 to go

• Black t-shirts - my other black t-shirts are becoming mis-shapened
• White t-shirts - because I don't have them - except for the spotted one
• Take in all my jeggings - yes working out does make it hard to keep your jeggings from falling down. Even my new ones.
• Make a proper black skirt
• Make a polka dotted black skirt
• Make a gallaxy t-shirt and leggings
• Make a few kimono sleeved tops

Yep made some t-shirts today.   I had a hell of a job getting the neck binding on nicely - after I tried a third time I just went 'that'll do'.

But I did come up with a 'new to me' way of putting in the neck band.  I'll do a tutorial later for all my millions of readers - jokes.

I also did a heap of crochet today.

No craft for me tomorrow - I have marking and planning to do.

Made by me?

Tomorrow most of the sewing blogs that I follow will be posting their Me Made May clothes - basically for the whole month of May they will wear something they have made, every day.

I'm not doing the challenge - although I own a lot of altered clothes and I could use my jewellry to pad it out - I really don't have enough clothes that I made from scratch.

If I counted my bike shorts that I wear under skirts and dresses and my workout leggings then yes I would - but I don't really think they count.

This realization makes me sad. And then I remember that two years ago the only thing that I still had that I made myself was my wedding dress and a jacket that hasn't fit me for years. There once was I time that every skirt I owned I had made.

I realised recently that I am such a meat and potatoes sewer.  I need leggings - I make them. I need bike pants - I make them.  I need a black skirt - I make it.

Last weekend I did actually make an elasticated black skirt - nothing much to it - but it does have Spiderman pockets on the inside.

So I've decided my May is going to be Meat and Potatoes May.  I'm going to make stuff that I need to wear and finish altering stuff that I need to change.

• Black t-shirts - my other black t-shirts are becoming mis-shapened
• White t-shirts - because I don't have them - except for the spotted one
• Take in all my jeggings - yes working out does make it hard to keep your jeggings from falling down. Even my new ones.
• Make a proper black skirt
• Make a polka dotted black skirt
• Make a gallaxy t-shirt and leggings
• Make a few kimono sleeved tops

Do I think I will make all of this in one month? I doubt it - but I'm going to have a crack at it.

This is the inspiration for my need for white shirts:

New best friend

She arrived today. She's my new cutting board and I shall call her Maddy. She is a whopper of a thing too.

The cats weren't too sure of her at first, although it seems like she's now just like the rest of the furniture.

Cats and rabbits

You are not allowed to own rabbits in Queensland. I once owned a pair of long eared guinea pigs that look just like them - they were lovely pets.

One of my current pets likes to 'help' out when I craft. Yesterday I was threading beads to make a black and white polka dotted necklace when Chihiro wanted some of the action.

Today I wore my new Asos top - the one with bunnies on it!

I like the shirt but it has two issues.

The fabric pulls at the buttons and that's not because it's too tight. I hand sewed the gap that showed my bra but think I will need to sew it all up just to strengthen the fabric.

The other issue is the hem. The hem is so small that it doesn't prevent the overlooked edge from flipping outward and being seen - let alone the loose threads. So I will be reseeding the hem as well.

So glad I didn't pay full price.

Pants - Autograph - they need taking in
Top - Asos
Necklace - I made it

Sorry it all looks so wrinkled - I've been wearing it for almost 12 hours now.

Aussie Curves - Pajamas

 

Snuggling with my cat, Chihiro, in my pjs.

Not much to see here.

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Do you hula?

I had a great mail day today. Among other things, my hula hoop.

I have never been able to hula.

I bought an exercise one - I have been umming and ahhing over them for a year or so, and this hoop come on sale - so I bought it.

It's so heavy.  I think I did 10 minutes of it and I am stuffed.

I did get it to stay for a little while.

This week's exercise plan is to try a hoop every day.

Workout wear

Last weekend, I had a bit of what Carolyn from Diary of a Sewing Fanatic calls a "sewcation". I cut out and sewed myself 5 new pairs of 3/4 leggings.

Well, I did need new pairs.

I also just wanted to 'jump' out of bed in the morning and change into workout gear or come home from work and throw myself into some exercise action without having to scrounge for clothe.

I had also bought myself a heap of new tops from Lane Bryant. Most of them where on sale.

So I now have over a week's work of workout gear. Yay for me!

New Dress Day!

I bought a heap of stuff from all over the place on the holidays, I'll share some very sloppy mirror shots once all my purchases arrive.

I did wear one of the new dresses today. This also meant that I needed to shave my legs for the first time in two weeks, mahaha. Got to love the holidays.

I realized in my first lot of photos that the belt wasn't sitting right and fixed it up in the next lot, but I didn't have many good photos today so you will see in the first photo my belt issue.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this dress. It doesn't have a lot of stretch but it was comfortable.  I also bought it in beet red. I usually buy a size 22 in Asos, but for the black one I thought I would buy a size down to see if it worked.  It did.

My fashion conscious senior English class made note of my dress, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

Dress: Asos Curve Midi Dress with Pleat Skirt. 

I swapped out the brown belt it came with for one of their green ones.

Shoes: Rubi

Necklace: My own

Watch: Target

Yarn sorting

Between last minute preparation for school tomorrow, I got to play with my yarn.

I try not to buy yarn that I don't kind of have a plan for. It's safe to say that most of my yarn is for blankets, but what I love is picking out colours.

Here are my current projects sorted into their colour combos. In one of the photos you can see how they are stored - in ziplock bags in a plastic basket. One project per basket. Remaining yarn is stuffed into a big plastic tub.

I buy acrylic as a rule - cotton would be nice but it's pretty expensive and wool doesn't stand a chance. My white cat, Chihiro, LOVES wool. It's safer not having any in the house.

What do you think of my colour choices? I can't pick a favorite.

Feedly and French Food

I'm pretty old school about some stuff because I'm on the cusp of being Generation X and Generation Y.  

Our family got our first computer in 1987, I think - I was pretty young. I've been using the internet since I was in year 8 - when the only thing you could do was MOO! I've had a webpage of some sort since my second year of uni.

I've also started collecting bookmarks or favourites since then too.  I used to keep URLs in an actual address book, until I discovered bookmarking - I think in Netscape Navigator!  So for the last 15 years or so, I have kept adding onto that same list.  It's now a monstrosity.

At one stage I wanted to go to Google Reader for the huge lists of Blogs that I try to read - so I started to do it - then stopped. So I thought that while I was on holiday I would try again - ba baaa! (think game show noise). Apparently Google Reader is closing down. 

I'm now using Feedly. So far I like it, but I've only just started adding my sewing Blogs. Then I'll tackle fashion, and croche,t and lifestyle, and teaching, and,,, oh my god I'm going to doing this for the whole year.

Meanwhile, look at the sweety that I bought from the bakery this morning. Mmm, lemon curd tard.

  

 

I've really been into French cooking lately, I want to buy a French dessert book and hone me some skills. I think it's because I've been reading this book:

10 Things About Me - Rain

I live in one of the hottest places in Queensland.  It's also pretty dry. Yesterday was the first bit of rain we have all year - and possibly the first in over 6 months.

But I was born and grew up in one of the wettest parts of Queensland.  The sight of drizzle over the hills was something that I was used to. Rainy days are my favourite. I still love the smell of rain.

The lack of rain is one of the few things that I dislike about the place I live.   

Every night, I listen to rain sounds to help me fall to sleep.  I've also been wanting to try some rain scented essential oil - but I don't think they will really smell like rain.

I can do that! Black maxi skirt

So I decided that I would try something totally unoriginal and copy an outfit from a fashion photo. So between trying to finish off my Horrorific English unit, I started pinning outfits that I liked.

I thought I would start out easy though, so today I went with this outfit from  from www.curvesandconfidence.com.

How could I not say 'I can do that!'

Maxi skirt - Millers

 In my photos the skirt looks blue - it's not - it's black.

White t-shirt - Virtue

Mine has little polka dots on it but I'm not happy with the fit. 

As soon as I make my own this one's going to visit the island of Saint Vincent.  

 Denim - Dream Diva

I went with a vest because even though today was cooler, it was still too hot to wear a denim jacket. 

It's so old and used, it's missing a button.

Bonus cat (in)action: