Can always count on my Dad for good advice

Daiso goodies

I periodically drop into Daiso to see what new goodies they have. Today was a good day.

Stackable shelves to get more usable space in your kitchen

Apparently can withstand from -40 degrees celcius to 230 degrees.  Much better than my other pot holders that melted

Laundry bags with a fine weave so bras don't get caught

House socks to keep my toes warm in winter

Always have to grab a packet of dried mango when I'm there!

Honeymoon Planning

Yes I'm planning the honeymoon before I plan the wedding.  The thought of planning a wedding still absolutely terrifies me.  I'm hoping someone will come to me one day and say "your wedding has been organised" and I won't have to deal with it.  I think the reason why I'm so scared is because I know I could easily become bridezilla and go crazy and I really don't want to piss people off or stress myself out.  For the time being the only thing I can do to prevent Kayzilla is not to think about it.  Let's see how long it lasts.

Anyway we were talking about our honeymoon.  Originally I suggested Europe as Tom's never been and I have but not for long.  Tom didn't want a long/stressful/rushing around honeymoon and just wanted to relax somewhere.  So we were tossing up between Bora Bora and the Maldives (which, in itself, was doing my head in) as we wanted to stay in those over-water bungalow things.  Honestly after a bit of research I still couldn't split the 2.  Then my mind started wandering back to Europe and I just need to convince Tom that it's a good idea.

My rough idea:

• London
• Paris
• Nice?
• Venice
• Cinque Terre
• Florence or Rome - any opinions?
• Santorini - or another Greek island?
• Barcelona? to visit and stay with my cousin who lives there
• Dubai/Abu Dhabi to visit and stay with my other cousin who lives there
• Maybe also Kuala Lumpur on the way from Sydney to London to stay in the over-water bungalows they have?

Any thoughts anyone??

Perfect white tee - FOUND

I have spent many years/dollars trying to find the perfect white tee.

I wanted a fitted (not tight) v-neck.  The Saba tee didn't work out too well for me despite many recs from Voguettes.  Neither did Asos or any of the 5 random tees I bought in desperation.

Then I found Everlane.  Their tees are 100% cotton and only USD$15!!!!

So I bought the white v-neck and a black one.  Then I bought grey.  Then I got a navy v-neck and a black u-neck.  I'm now converted.

And this is the u-neck:

The u-neck is cut slightly larger so size down if you want a similar fit to the v-neck.  I'm a 6 and I take XS in both v-neck and u-neck although I just noticed XXS in some tees so might try those out.

I've introduced the fiance to Everlane and he now owns more Everlane gear than I do.  He's got v-neck tees, pocket tees and oxford shirts and loves them all.

The only catch is Everlane don't ship to Australia so you have to use a parcel forwarder which adds a fair bit to the cost of a tee ($24 shipping + $15 tee).  Maybe grab a few tees and grab your other half some items to make it more worthwhile?  I heard rumours they were working on shipping globally but not sure where that's at.

Everlane if you are reading this, are you going to start cutting the silk shirts in a XXS?  The XS was too big for me but the silk shirt was gorgeous otherwise <3

Kx.

Keeping sane during unemployment

I have been unemployed more than once in my life (how awful, what does that say about me? eeek let's not go there!).  I can tell you it is really easy to fall into a vicious cycle of sleeping in, eating lunch late, eating dinner late, sleeping late, not leaving the house for days on end, questioning who you are and what you are achieving by being on this planet, etc etc.

I was actually talking to my GP about it (who is amazing btw, if anyone needs a GP on the lower north shore in Sydney email me and I'll give you her deets) and told her I was still looking for work.  She remarked that I was surprisingly upbeat for someone who hadn't found a job in 3 weeks and I explained the things I had been doing to keep sane.

1. To me the most important thing is routine and structure.  When you're working, you have structure to your day.  When you're not working, this is the first thing that falls away.  I get up at 9am every day, go grab a takeaway coffee and have a chat to the barista, come home and check emails and have a look at seek.  I'll make lunch, do some internet searching, then maybe watch tv for a few hours.  Grocery shopping, make dinner, eat dinner, some more tv watching with Tom, then bed.
2. Leave the house!  I went stir crazy last time I was unemployed.  There were literally days on end where I just didn't leave the house.  I didn't change out of my pyjamas in the morning, lounged around all day in them and then went to sleep in them that night.  Disgusting.  Go for a walk, go check the mail, go get a coffee/lunch/groceries.
3. Meet friends/family/ex-colleagues for lunch.  Yes this might mean going into the city but just being able to talk to another human being feels amazing after you've been talking to yourself/the computer for 2 days.
4. Try not to emotionally rely on your other half 100%.  I was guilty of doing this last time and it not only pissed Tom off but it made our relationship one-sided and unhealthy.  Yes they should be emotionally supportive but don't abuse this support.  

"My life is so perfect" blogs

I've recently come across a few new blogs which have intimidated me.

No I don't have the always perfect manicure with perfect makeup and perfect clothes.  I don't have a house which looks like it's come from a magazine shoot, nor a model husband, nor ridiculously cute kids.  No not everything I cook looks and tastes amazing.

It got me thinking about the projection of perfectionism in a public platform and I wanted to use this post to demonstrate HOW, in fact, imperfect I am.  And no this isn't a 'woe is me please give me positive reinforcement' post either (you can never win, right?)

• I am really lazy when it comes to housework.  I pretty much don't do any housework (luckily I've found a guy who loves it)
• I don't remove nail polish even when it's been chipped for a week (refer to previous lazy comment)
• I'm really short and used to have huuuuuuuuuuuge hang ups about it (not so much as I get older but not being able to reach things in the kitchen still annoy me greatly)
• I don't read anywhere near as much as I want to
• My relationship isn't perfect (I've had a few people mention to me they thought it was).  We do argue, mostly about aforementioned laziness hahaha
• I shop because I'm materialistic
• I have a lovely assortment of physical ailments which you will know about if you read this blog
• I don't do any exercise.  Any.  Refer to aforementioned laziness.
• Sometimes I find my taste in clothes are a bit pedestrian but I'm not brave enough to step outside my shell
• I watch far too long mind-numbingly dumb reality tv

Do you read "my life is so perfect" blogs?  Why/why not?

Outfits of the days

Been wearing a lot of dresses of late, purely because it's easy to chuck on a dress and not have to worry about matching top and bottom.

Camilla and Marc The Rosary dress with  CL Jenny

Asos skater dress with CL Bianca 120

Asos cowl neck dress with CL Flo

Rainy day calligraphy

What else does one do on a wet miserable day in Sydney?

Calligraphy, duh!

The below is not modeled off any calligraphy font, it's "Kay's handwriting" haha.

What do you do when you're stuck indoors on rainy days?

Valentines/Singles Awareness Day

So it seems the act of proposing has propelled Tom into a phase of romanticism never experienced before.

For the first time in four years, Tom declared he would make Valentines Day dinner for me.  This coming from a man who can barely cook himself 2-minute noodles when I'm not home.  Terrified doesn't even begin to describe my feelings towards this.

But I thought, I would let him do his thing and promised not to intervene/tell him what to do/how to cook.

While he spent a few days preparing for this dinner, I decided I would buy him some presents.  We don't usually buy each other Valentines Day presents or if we do we cap it at $10 but he bought me a pretty nice ring so the least I can do is buy him some nice things right?  11 nice things to be exact.

He slowly unwrapped his 11 presents and fell in love with his Brooks runners, Calvin Klein undies and 95% cotton socks (btw can anyone recommend a sock brand that has a high percentage of cotton and lasts a while?).  In return, he went to his soccer bag and fetched out an old USB charger and handed that to me.  If that's not love I don't know what is.

I watched tv while he prepared dinner.  He took inspiration from the 2 SA Mums on My Kitchen Rules and decided to make the scallops with panchetta and bitter greens (minus the blue cheese dressing).  I was waiting for my kitchen to burn down but it didn't happen.  Instead, this happened:

And then this happened:

His first time ever cooking steak and he cooked it better than I've ever cooked it.  He seemed upbeat until I suggested we implement a periodic 'Tom cooks' night at which point he claimed I was a better cook than him haha.

What did you do for Valentines/Singles Awareness Day?

ENGAGED!!

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I got engaged a few days ago.  I know it's exciting but I don't really feel that different, apart from needing to throw a huge party sometime soon..... ish.

On Friday, Tom got up and got dressed for work, and woke me up to say goodbye as usual.  And as usual I was barely awake for the goodbye and fell back asleep immediately.  Next thing I know there is a knock on my door.  YES the delivery man is here with my dress!  Yes yes yes!!!  Throw some clothes on, run to the front door and..... no delivery man.

Where is the delivery man?  Why is Tom kneeling?  Why is Tom wearing bummy clothes and not his work outfit?  What time is it?  What day is it?  Seriously, where is my delivery man??!?!?  What is Tom saying?  OMG that's a ring... he's proposing...  So there is no delivery man?

Confused.  Very confused.  It was 7am which is wayyyyy too early for me and I was completely disoriented.  It took me a good minute to realise Tom was proposing and all I could say was "You're crazy" and hug him.  This is the stunning ring he presented me with:

I think it looks big on me because I'm so tiny (the ring is a size F) and it wouldn't look so big on a normal person haha.  I love it so much though, it's perfect.

Yesterday we went to a friend's wedding (which is why I was stalking my delivery man.... he had my dress which I had to wear the next day!) and I kept referring to Tom as my boyfriend.  I think it will take me a while to get used to calling him my fiance!

Everyone's been asking me about my wedding plans and to be honest, I have none.  Weird for the over-planner that I am.  I think it actually terrifies me, the thought of planning a wedding.  I've heard so many horror stories about how stressful weddings are and I think I want to enjoy engaged life for a bit longer!

Thankyou for all the lovely wishes on Twitter and Instagram, sorry I can't thank you all personally!

Summer in Sydney

How beautiful has the weather been in Sydney of late?  It makes me excited to get out of the house and do things, even if it's just a walk to Aldi for groceries!

I've been to the beach twice in the past 3 days, including a breakfast at Bathers Pavilion followed by a lie-down at Balmoral Beach including a mandatory hotdogs or legs photo.

I also spent a morning walking around Sydney Harbour, discovering secret gardens and amazing hideaway spots.

Kx.

Working from Home routine

I've developed a nice working from home routine of 9am wakeup (just not a morning person ok), walk to a local cafe for a takeaway coffee and maybe down to the water, then back at my computer for the rest of the morning.  During my lunch break I'll walk 3km roundtrip to run errands and to get my exercise quota up.  Work the rest of the arvo before making dinner which has been super healthy of late (quinoa, kale, almonds, small portion of protein).

Seeing rainbows on my bathroom floor - thanks Sass and Spice