BUNDT CAKES

Today was a struggle waking up, and I ended up being late to the doctor's oops (well, late to meeting Rodney there). I did make it though, to get my b12 injection. When I got home, I didn't have much to do so I decided to make a cake! I ended up making a few little bundt cakes, and I'm going to try to decorate them as pumpkins, although I'll have to leave that for tomorrow because I didn't have enough time before dinner, and it's a bit late now.
I just used a normal vanilla cake recipe for the cakes (vegan, of course), and for the icing I was just going to mix icing sugar, water and food colouring.

(Incase you're wondering what those weird blobs are on the left, they're the cake bits I sliced off the top to make the bottoms flat!)

FYI, I'm still SO obsessed with Salem, but I think I'll survive if I don't go... Maybe. I messaged Rachel and she hasn't 'seen' it yet so who knows what will happen. I don't know if I'm up to travelling so far by myself just yet - maybe if it were much more planned and organised, or if I knew someone there.
But anyway, whatever happens, it will be okay. I can still have a super awesome Halloween here, just like I've been planning all year. Which reminds me, I need a dress!

Speaking of dresses, I've been Insta-stalking this amazing photographer Linda Blacker. The costumes and makeup she uses in her photos are so amazing, they're all very artistic and fairy-tale-esque. I just wanted to write it down, so if I'm ever reading through these again, I'll be reminded of her cool work and I can go see what she's done since I last looked.

And with that, I declare the end of day 5 xx

FRENCH & BOWLING

I love being able to run. Every time I run that little bit further or faster or longer, I just get so proud of myself, because running is hard! Well, for me at least. At the moment, though, I can't do it. I got sore knees after jumping back into it too hard after not running for months. So while I wait for my knees to repair themselves - I'm sure they will soon, right? - I'm back to biking. Which I also love.
This morning I rode along the Capital City Trail which goes past my old high school, and I'm 90% certain I rode past two of my old teachers - awkward. They were both teachers I really liked (Rainer and Jamie) but I didn't particularly feel the need to bump into them with greasy hair and a red face.

I came home, jumped in the shower, did some french, took Kelly for a walk, did some more french, DIED at how beautiful Salem, MA is - particularly in Autumn (or 'fall'). I want to go there soo much, and essentially I could just book a flight and GO. But can I really? Part of me wants to be spontaneous and crazy and just do it, for real, but the other part of me is too concerned about judgemental people, and about how I wouldn't know anyone. But it's kind of my last chance to go during halloween, which is legit my DREAM. Plus, I won't be able to do it for another four years because of uni and exams...

After French class, I was walking to Melbourne Central when a boy, probably about my age, came up to me and asked if I was German. It wasn't really in a creepy or annoying way, it was just kind of funny. He said I looked German because of my blonde hair and blue eyes, although my eyes are really more grey/green. He tried to introduce himself but I was kind of in a hurry to meet Beth and I didn't want to give him the wrong idea or anything, so I just said I had to meet my friend, and he was totally cool about it. Ten or so minutes later, when I had made it to Melbourne Central and was on an escalator right near our meeting spot, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time and another guy started talking to me. He asked if my lock screen was a picture of a cat, to which I said no, and showed him the picture of Kelly. He then proceeded to show me a picture of his kitten, ask me about uni, tell me about how he wanted to change courses because there wasn't much of a job market in the field he was currently studying, ask me to play touch football, ask me for my Facebook and ask my for my phone number until I said 'umm maybe not...' and managed to get away! He seemed nice but he wouldn't let me leave! I then greeted Beth, we got burgers at Grill'd (the vegan burger there was surprisingly nice! It had pineapple which I wasn't expecting, but it totally made it) and then played three games of bowling before getting really tired and going home.

I originally intended to take at least one photo of Beth at the bowling place, I even brought my DSLR, but I felt so awkward pulling it out. I definitely need to work on being more carefree with stuff like that - who cares if I'm taking a photo of my friend anyway?

That concludes day... 4? xx

CAMBERWELL MARKET

So today I woke up at 8:30am and my eyes were DYING. I definitely didn't go to sleep as early as I intended but hey, at least I had fun reading. I ended up getting to the city at about 10:40am but Frankie couldn't meet me until quarter past eleven, I don't know what she was doing hahaha. We got to Camberwell market about half an hour before it closed, but we still managed to find some GEMS. I found a $3 Princess Highway shirt, and an adorable matching set (a t-shirt and shorts) with a really cute bee print on. The things I got were actually a tiny bit too small for me, but I'll make it work. I really want to go back to Camberwell Market and have a proper look around, so I might be doing that next weekend with Emma.

When I returned home I wasn't feeling that great - probably undercarbed - so I just chilled in my room for a while before Rodney and I went on a drive! I have close to four hours now, and I'm so excited about driving. It's getting more fun the more I do it - I guess because I'm more comfortable and less on edge. I got up to 40kmph today, which is pretty crazy for me!

I didn't take any photos today aside from this one photo of a sock in a tree.

I took this when Rodney and Kelly walked me to work (which was very nice, by the way) and then it started raining. I wonder how the sock fared. Anyway, I'm sitting at my desk freezing, so I'd better get in bed. The only reason I haven't done that already is because I was too cold to stand up... Eeep, here I go.

End of day 3! :)

WATER PHOTOGRAPHY

Today I got out of bed soo late - past 12! The weather was pretty nice though, so I made my breakfast and started eating it out in the sun (until the sun went away and I got cold). Recently I've been eating muesli with dried berries, and adding banana, peanut butter and unsweetened almond milk. It is seriously so good.
Rodney then came home from the supermarket and we went for a drive around our streets so I can get the hang of driving. I definitely need improvement, it's a little embarrassing, but I'll get there.

When we got home I discovered how to use shutter speed on my camera and I was super excited about being able to take photos of water! I tried a few today but what I really want to do is fill up some water balloons and try to get photos of them bursting. I've always loved the idea of doing that, and now I think I can do it! I also want to try throwing water from a bucket, and trying to get a cool snap of it. Images of water, especially ones like that, are just so awesome.

I took a few photos while Rodney was outside gardening, primarily because I wanted to capture him using the hose, but the one photo I took that I didn't mind, I accidentally deleted. Oops. To compensate, I'm including this photo of the tap running in our manky bathtub. There will be more to show in the future, I'm sure.

After I took this, I went to work and made a list of things I want to get done this week. They were fun things like make a really cool cake and go to Camberwell Sunday Market (which I'm now doing tomorrow) because I need some more excitement in my life at the moment. Hopefully that'll help.

On my way back from work, the moon was shining so bright. I just think it's so cool that we can even see the moon from Earth, and to us it just looks like this weird white globe, shining somewhere in the sky. It doesn't even look real. I took this photo of it, which I wouldn't have even thought about putting up here but I showed it to Rodney and he loved it so much.

I guess that's the end of day 2! I'm going to get to sleep early tonight, so I won't be too dead when I have to meet Frankie at 10am tomorrow.

Goodnight xx

DAY 1 - MOONEE PONDS BIKE RIDE

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to take a photo every day for the next year. I'm sure it would have made more sense to begin this project on January 1st but at the same time, I don't really know why. Something I do a lot is put things off until a time that 'makes more sense'. Like writing down a weekly goals list, but waiting until Monday to start it, even though I want to start it now. I need to remember to live more in the moment. Why do in the future what you can do now?
I'm doing this project as a way to improve my photography skills for one thing, improve my writing, and see what happens in a year. So here it goes:

Today I went for a bike ride with Rachael along the Moonee Ponds creek trail, only we rode along the other side, which I didn't even know was possible. It was a really cute dirt trail and along the way we found some chickens! We ended up stopping to take photos of the chickens for way too long, but it was just so cute and worth it.



We kept going along the trail, over a bridge onto the other side of the path, we passed Anastasia's house and ended up in the prettiest spot. There were wild flowers growing everywhere, and a huge weeping willow tree made the whole scene look like we were in a fairy tale or a children's book. I didn't take any photos of this, but I should have. Although I don't suppose it's going anywhere and I think if I had stopped it might have ruined the magic.



One of the reasons I'm doing this project, as I've already said, is because I want to figure out how to better use my DSLR, which is also partly why Rachael and I went on this ride. (She's also into photography at the moment and I love that that's something we can do together. I'm not saying I'm super serious about it or that I couldn't do it with anyone else, but while we were riding today I just felt so happy that we could just go for a ride and take photos and hang out. We've been friends since we met, like 13 years ago now, and I can't imagine ever not being her friend, it's so weird and nice because it's not something I have to worry about either. Well at least I don't think! haha) Anyway, one thing I need to understand is why my photos go black when I use the Manual setting. It's both confusing and kind of cool because I actually kind of liked how this turned out.



After the bike ride, I essentially just went home, went to work and came home again - with various foods and Grey's Anatomy episodes in between. After work, the chef at my restaurant specially made me some vegan garlic naan which I was so pleased by. It probably wasn't hard to do but I really appreciated it.

It's now 1:38am because I forgot I had to write this until I was ready to go to sleep - what a good start! So forgive my potentially lacky writing (is lacky even a word? It is now), it'll be better tomorrow.

Goodnight xx                  

FEBRUARY & MARCH WRAP-UP

Hi! I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately, and haven't been reading very often. I find that when I read before I go to bed each night, I zip through books but recently... um... Netflix. Anyway, so I didn't feel like I read enough to bother making a wrap-up for February alone - I think it was something like just one book, yikes - so I'm combining the past two months.

• The first book I have is The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey.
   I read this book after I saw the movie, and I really enjoyed both. I think, despite negative reviews, they actually did quite a good job of adapting this to the big screen. My opinions will probably be different to someone who read this before watching the movie, but overall I think the adaption was really good. However, this isn't a movie review, oops haha. The book was enjoyable, the characters were likeable and there's romance, if you're into that.

• The next book is Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare.
  While some parts of this book struck me as similar to The Mortal Instruments series (such as the emotionally stunted blondes and the Malcom Fade/Magnus Bane characters) it was a quick, easy and exciting read. There was one scene on the beach with Emma and Julian - you'll know the one - where I was a little bit lost afterwards and didn't quite understand what happened until Julian brought it up. I don't know if that was because I was being a bit slow or if it was unclear to others as well. (by the way, if you want an uncut version of that scene, Cassandra posted it on her tumblr which you can find at: http://cassandraclare.tumblr.com/post/141990964319/as-promised-cassandra-jeans-emma-and-jules-from, which is much more obvious.)
  In the beginning I found it difficult to keep up with who was which character, there being so many siblings, but I quickly got over that. I loved the moments in this book where characters from previous series' made appearances - I think that will be a big attention grabber for other fans of her work, there was even a short story about the characters from The Mortal Instruments in the back of this book. I also really enjoyed the dark side of Julian that we caught a glimpse of and I am looking forward to seeing what Cassandra Clare does with that. Now the only problem is having to wait a year for the next book! I'll definitely need to refresh my mind on what happened haha.

• Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick was the third and final book I read during these two months.
  The reason I chose to read this book was because I desperately needed to get over my book hangover from reading Lady Midnight and one of my friends has been telling me to read it for years. This was an incredibly quick read, I read it in about a day or two, and it kind of reminded me of a slightly higher quality fan-fiction, but I can't say it wasn't fun to read.

Let me know what you've been reading! x

BRIGHT 2016

Over the weekend, myself and some family took a little trip to Bright. I had heard from a friend that in Autumn, the trees all turned a wonderful orange, which is something you don't come across much in Australia. Or, at least, in Melbourne you don't. And given that I'm more than slightly obsessed with American Autumns - which include many an orange leaf - I absolutely wanted to check out this Autumn-Wonderland-Town.
Upon arrival, I was only a tiny bit disappointed to find that it wasn't quite the orange wonderland I had expected, we had come too early. Nevertheless, the trees were beginning to turn, some had already turned completely, and the town was still very picturesque.
Once we had checked out the cottage we were staying in, which had a very aesthetically pleasing bathroom mind you, we went for a drive through the streets and up to Huggin's Lookout.






This was easily among some of the best views I've seen, in my 18 short years, and I can't say that the camera shots do it justice.

After Huggins Lookout, we drove down to the Arboretum (a memorial park, I think) and while this was not exactly filled with colour, as we had been told, it certainly contained some beautiful views and I managed to get some good shots of Rodney.

On our way back to the cottage, we detoured down a long road scouting for some Autumnal magic, and though we didn't find quite what we were looking for, it was a nice drive anyway.

Later that afternoon, we went for a stroll around the park near our accommodation and then retired for the day.

One thing I do wish I had brought with me, was some DVD's or my laptop. I found that I didn't have much to do when we weren't out exploring and I read nearly an entire book in the two days that we were there. (City of Ashes, if you were wondering).


The next day wasn't as eventful, but I managed to get some photos in the morning when we went down 'Cherry Walk'.



 The rest of the day was spent driving around the mountains, through most of which I managed to sleep. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but it made Rodney happy which was good.

Let me know where your last holiday was!