Engagement Session Wears

Wade and I have an engagement session booked in September with our very talented photographer, Scott. We had a little mini session right after we got engaged with Vivid Photography that was incredibly fun, but unfortunately because of the package we didn't get a disc of the images - only prints of our favorites. I'm happy we did it, though because it's really nice to have some pictures from when we first got engaged, whereas the shoot with Scott will be only a couple of months before the wedding.

The mini session was great, too, because I learned what I liked and didn't like about what I wore. I wore a really cute vintage-inspired tea dress that I bought from Dotti for only $10! Here's me wearing it at Elora's high tea. Super cute, right?

Unfortunately the lining of the underskirt showed in a couple of the really gorgeous photos, plus I think it was a little bit shorter than I thought it was. Not as timelessly classy as I wanted!

My hairdresser Kylie - who, by the way I would highly recommend! - styled my hair right before the shoot, and I, for some reason, requested it to be styled down. Even though my hair was / is at that awkward "growing-out" length where it's too long to be a cute bob, and too short to look like an elegant long bob. Plus, I almost always wear my hair up, because I hate using straighters and curling irons on my hair in the morning. So it wasn't very me.

Anyway, I was browsing Pinterest looking for engagement session inspiration when I found this image from the most gorgeous engagement session I've ever seen:

So now I'm on the lookout for a cream dress! Let me know if you see any.

- H

Getting Psyched for the Twelve Week Challenge

Over a month ago, I bought a gorgeous yellow bikini. It was not eenie meenie (nor polkadot - hehe...) so I thought it would be fine to buy it without trying it on. Well, it fit. But my reflection in the mirror after trying it on was discouraging to say the least. After months of regular and tough workouts at the gym, and sessions with the amazing Trevor, I was not seeing the fruits of my labor... in my case, that meant looking good in a bikini for my honeymoon in the Carribean!

I took a picture of myself in the bikini to look at every time I went to reach for a piece of cake from the fridge, or go on a midnight McDonalds run. This was actually working quite well until I went to my hairdressers, and tried showing her some styles I had saved to my camera roll. Of course, while flicking through my photos, I accidentally showed her that glorious piece of art, hereafter named Heather in Yellow Bikini which prompted no end of shame on my part - even though she pretended to have missed it.

What to do now? I knew that the one thing that motivated me to hit the gym in the first place was accountability. Group sessions, eating plans and having people check up on you every week - that was exactly the kind of motivation I needed to lose the love handles and the tuckshopesque arms. I'm definitely not brave enough to post a "before" picture here on the blog, but be warned, there will most likely be an "after" picture of me looking like an Amazon warrior in a sports bra.

Just kidding.

Anyway, this is just a shout-out to my fellow Brisbane-based readers out there in the blogosphere to join me in kicking the last few kilos into the ground. You can sign up for the challenge here - it's not too late! Here's to a bikini-ready Summer!

- H

Just a quick post to say...

I'm an aunt! Welcome baby Hunter James to the world!

- H

PS. Isn't he perfect??

Courting the Muse

One of my favourite quotes when it comes to writing rituals is by German author Peter Prange. Translated it reads,

"Instead of discussing with myself every morning whether I feel inspired or not, I step into my office every day at nine sharp, open the window and politely ask the muse to enter and kiss me. Sometimes she comes in, more often she does not. But she can never claim that she hasn’t found me waiting in the right place.”

I think what Prange was trying to articulate was that, as a writer who needs to practice their craft regularly, he needed to manufacture inspiration rather than wait for the mood to fall upon him. This completely resonated with me. As you might be able to tell from this blog, I will often wait until I am in the right mood before I will sit down and put pen to paper... er, fingers to keys. And that mood doesn't come upon me nearly as often as I need it to if I ever want to get published. So I decided to try my hand at manufacturing inspiration.

I started thinking about the times when I have been able to churn out awesome pieces of writing while not in an inspired mindset. Two instances came to mind. The first is pressure. Whenever I have a deadline, I am somehow able to pull a solid piece of writing out of nowhere by working up to the minute before it's due. I have never turned in a piece late. But somehow, creating a stressful, pressured situation in order to invite inspiration was not the most appealing. So I went with my other idea: having a nice, clean, fresh workspace (my desk is almost always cluttered with paperwork and textbooks), a fresh page in a notebook that is devoted completely to writing, and a freshly sharpened pencil (I never write in pencil outside of writing creative pieces). I tried this every day for the past week, even waking up earlier than I normally would in order to write. And guess what? Inspiration began to flow - very slowly, but it was definitely there. I was creating! And not just To Do lists and doodles. This is very exciting for me, and hopefully I will be getting a lot more muse kisses in the near future.

- H

Things that will get me up in the morning to gym it in Winter

1. New Lululemon tanks (they had a sale recently and I bought three - yay!). I'm planning on going back and getting this one for my "I want to be active, but still look cute at the same time" days... like when I play tennis.

2. Sleeping in a sports bra. While not the most comfortable thing ever, there is nothing else that will make me get out of my nice, cozy bed and go to the gym when it's freezing outside. Other than waking up and rationalizing with myself that I'm already dressed, so technically all I need to do is put on some shoes.

3. Rewarding myself. About five minutes up the road from Goodlife Holland Park there is a Zarraffa's Coffee. Nothing makes me feel better (and more smug, I will admit) than sauntering into work after a morning of exercise and holding a steaming cappuccino.

- H

Last First Day

On Monday, I had my last first day of school - ever! While I was daydreaming paying very close attention in one of my lectures, I was thinking about my very first day of university. Obviously I can't remember my first day ever of school - according to my dad, there were lots of tears. But I can remember driving my very unreliable little white car to the bus station, then catching the bus with an armload of textbooks to my very first day of uni. Wade snapped this picture on one of my first days of uni to remember it - I can't remember if it was my very first day, but it was definitely in that first week. Gotta love his artistic angles!

When I got to uni, my first ever class was a web design lecture. Not even kidding when I say that I felt like this, when I pulled out a notebook amongst the rows and rows of shiny, white Macbooks.

I remember the lecturer telling the class that just because we were adept at coding (uh, WHAT?), or had our own web design business (uh, NOT) that this class would still be a challenge. He then told everyone to open up Notepad++, or whatever source code editor we used, as a reference. I felt so incredibly out of my depth, and just wanted to go home. Unfortunately I still had the rest of the day ahead of me.

Now, I look back to four years ago and think of myself trying to scribble down code in a notebook and trying not to hyperventilate and I'm laughing. You know the old saying, This too shall pass? I passed that course. Actually I got a distinction for it. So now, four years later and trying not to hyperventilate about everything I have ahead of me, I can keep thinking This too shall pass. Life goes on. One more Semester to go.

- H

Maslow's Hammer

Today I was reading an article by Tim Challies about the concept of Maslow's Hammer - when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail - and how that compared to what we share on social media. I think about social media a lot - mainly because it's a large component of what I'm studying, but also because my partner has different views to me about restraint when sharing online. I, however, share a lot on social media - not as much as I could, but certainly enough that you could say I have a presence. Because I'm applying for communications graduate jobs right now - and a lot of them in my field require you to have some sort of presence - I've upped my social media sharing over the past few months.

Since getting Instagram a little over a year ago, my thoughts have slowly drifted from "Wow, I'm having a great experience with this person/food/setting/holiday. I'm going to soak it in and enjoy it... maybe take a couple of pictures to remember it." to, "I need to Instagram this." For a while that thought has been nagging me. Part of that is what I Instagram. I post pictures of Wade and I looking happy at weddings, a delicious cake, my new red hair. I don't Instagram pictures of Wade bickering, or of my face after it has broken out, or the big stack of bills I have on my desk that I've been avoiding. Probably because I know you don't want to see it. Mostly because I don't want you to see it.

But there was something else. And I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I read this tonight:

Some experiences are too full to distill to 140 characters and too rich to capture in a photo. Sharing such experiences through social media serves only to cheapen them. Do not allow yourself to ruin a beautiful moment by seeing it primarily as an opportunity to share it with strangers.

 It took me back to two days ago when Wade and I were having a beautiful, lazy day together down at Victoria Point at this gorgeous new bakery. I took a couple of pictures of Wade stuffing his face with this ginormous apple cobbler and some pictures of me with a sour cherry pie - I haven't had a sour cherry pie since America! Right after I took a picture, Wade said to me, "Please don't put that on Instagram" - and I didn't. Nobody but us (now everybody who reads my blog - haha!) would know about that beautiful day, and how delicious the pie was and how happy we were. And that made the moment much more special somehow.

So, for now I think I'm going to cool it with the Insta-spam - Wade will be delighted I'm sure! - and start taking pictures for myself and my own enjoyment, rather than to share with the world.

We'll see how we go...

- H

Time Out

After finishing last semester, I found myself completely burnt out. Then, right after finishing I started taking overtime at work which added a lot of pressure. So this is the first week I've found myself with some time to breathe - time to relax and sleep in and get things done. Last week I wrote myself an enormous To Do list and I've been slowly working my way through - interspersed with fun mornings spent with Wade before he heads off to work nights. We also celebrated the beginning of our fifth year as a couple with brunch at one my favorite bistros, Egg. I still feel exhausted even though I know I've got to pick myself up again and get back into studying and working in five days. Right now I can't even face it.

- H

Searching for our Photographer

When Wade and I sat down to work out our wedding budget, we decided that more than anything, we wanted to have an amazing photographer shoot our wedding. We also wanted to have our reception in a gorgeous location with amazing food. Those were our top three priorities: photographer, location, food. I don't claim to be much of an expert at all when it comes to photography, but after being surrounded by photographers since I started working at Photo Continental I knew a little bit about what I wanted in our wedding photography. 

And so we started our quest. Verbalizing what I wanted was by far the trickiest part of the search. Basically what it came down to was that I wanted the photos to look like a perfect, real moment. That's a very vague concept I know. I figured out that I wanted pictures that looked like the photographer had snapped them and not edited them at all - but were still breathtaking. Therefore, I ruled out any photography that looked like the photographer went to town on Photoshop. Wade simply wanted a photographer that made him feel comfortable in front of the camera - if that was possible.

We started trawling blogs and asking for recommendations from friends and other photographers. And that's when we stumbled across Scott from Dawes Photography. Browsing through his images, I felt like I was looking at a series of captured moments - every one of them perfect and breathtaking. And after an initial Skype chat (until recently he was based in California) we were sold. For a while there I wasn't sure if we would find the perfect photographer who made us feel completely comfortable and took amazing pictures. But we did! Check him out if you're getting married soon. You won't be disappointed, I promise!

- H

One Year

On major holidays I always find myself looking back and thinking about where I was one whole year ago. One whole year ago, I was holidaying with one of my sweetest friends, Jess in Canada. We celebrated Canada Day together, and then on the Fourth of July I had my own little celebration - an American visiting Canada from Australia celebrating being independent.

A whole year ago, I remember thinking about marrying Wade seriously for the very first time. Before I left for my first big solo trip Wade had - cautiously - brought up the subject with me. At the time I had kind of shrugged it off, maybe when we're older... I want to travel first... we don't have any money. So we didn't really talk about it again before I left. I was so excited to go on the trip, never anticipating what a mess I would be from missing Wade. When I was about two-thirds of the way through the flight to L.A., I opened my carry-on to grab a book and I found a letter stuck between its pages from Wade. I started bawling my eyes out, because as soon as I finished the letter I realized that I wasn't going to be able to see him for months and, suddenly, that was a very big deal.

I look back at all the photos from the trip and I can remember that every time I found myself having a ball, I would think I wish Wade was here! Crazy how things can change in only twelve short months.

- H

Happenings

Reading: Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris. I love Sedaris, and this is one of my favorites. Since all my books are in storage until Wade and I move, I've been re-reading my favorite eBooks on my Kindle. The chapter about a subway ride he took while living in Paris is possibly my favorite thing ever written.

“People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American.” 

I'm exceptionally excited about An Evening With David Sedaris at the Powerhouse next year!

Watching: Packed to the Rafters. As soon as I heard this show was finishing, I started watching it, and made my sisters and my mom watch it too. We're totally hooked. It's so different to my family life, because it's incredibly Aussie but that's why we love it.

Listening: I found an old mix CD that I made for Wade in '08. It rocks. I'm serious, I love every single song on the CD. It's very Blink and A New Found Glory-heavy which is weird, until I remembered that that was all Wade listened to for a while there and I obviously got into it too.

Loving: This awesome little desktop calendar by Rebecca Seale. I always set her calendars as my wallpaper, and when Wade and I buy an actual house, I would love to buy one of her personalized house portraits.

- H