See you in 2014!

I've been slack again with my blogging, and I will continue be until early 2014 because today I head off to the US for a few weeks! A bit of a whirlwind trip really but I'm looking forward to catching up with some important people in my life and old friends who I unfortunately see rarely.

I will be back to proper blogging hopefully in early 2014, but for now Merry Christmas and have a safe and fun festive season :)

Amazing house + Amazing Woman!

I stumbled across this article about this architect in the US who was sick of not being able to afford a mortgage on a full blown house, so came up with this amazingly beautiful alternative.

She built the whole 'mini' house herself, from wiring, construction and design and she is able to move the place around whereever she needs. Yes, it's small, but it really goes to show how little space we need in our lives.

Isn't it gorgeous, both inside and out? If you want to read more about it see the full article I read here. It has a pretty amusing article title too!

Office Secret Santa

Does anyone else hate workplace Secret Santa/Kris Kingle/Gift exchange things? I specifically mean the type where you pick a name at random and have to anonymously buy them a gift. It is so difficult and when you involve the workplace dynamics and price limits it gets so difficult trying to find something that is fun and novel, or useful and practical, or all of the above if you're just that awesome!

My group of friends used to do Christmas lunch/dinner where we would do Secret Santa where everyone would bring a random gift but then you got to choose from the pile at random and then 'steal' from each other. That is so much easier (and arguably more fun!) because there's no pressure as to who you're specifically buying for.

Anyway my workplace has decided to have quite a high budget of $30 per person which on one hand is great because there's scope to actually buy something useful, but on the other hand I'm at last minute having to find something practical and not too ridiculous! We only found out on Friday who we were buying for and we have 2 weeks eek.

Anyone have clever ideas for a male?

These are currently in my catchoftheday basket as potentials....

ASOS order!

It is somewhat hard for most people to believe, but I popped my ASOS cherry the other day, making use of the 30% off click frenzy discount code to purchase some snow bunny gear for my upcoming Christmas trip in the Northern Hemisphere.

Truthfully, I do have a lot of warm weather clothing and didn't really need to buy more but I have nothing that is lightweight, fashionable, windproof and also not too precious. I'm funny when I travel, I don't like to take anything too precious and delicate for fear of it getting damaged or lost. Any excuse, right? With the ASOS deal the puffy winter jackets I was looking started at well under the $100 mark which I think is great value for something that will keep you toasty warm in sub zero temps!

I figured if I was going to potentially have to return stuff anyway and pay for that, I might as well order more so I came out with three jackets that I loved the look of.

I'm being a bit lazy and not bothering to take more photos. I ended up loving two so much I kept them both because I'm torn!

This red one below was the one I returned purely because its too casual looking for my trip, but I actually love love love it! If I lived in a colder climate city I'd totally have kept it. It reminds me a bit of a snowfield jacket - like what ski instructors might wear?

And I mean who doesn't love a fur trimmed coat? LOVE the black one because of that factor. And this red one actually had a soft wooly hood too! <3

Anyway, at A$290 for all 3 I figured I had nothing to lose!