Looking Back - QLD holiday

I kind of lost momentum blogging about my trip to QLD during the last uni break. Unfortunately it meant that I didnt get to share a huge amount of really quite awesome photos (IMO).

We stayed at this super super dodgy motel one night (mum didnt realise its dodgyness until it was too late). EVERYTHING in the chalet (except the light bulbs i suspect) was at the latest probably mid 70s. It was pure gold photography wise, but it smelt bad, you sank in the bed (thankfully i made my own bed so i at least know the sheets were clean), and you could hear EVERYTHING through the paper thin walls. My mum is like THE champion snorer :P

But here a few of the interior shots done up in poladroid... enjoy!

Happy Birthday Mum

(for last Thursday). Love you!!

I went through her old albums and borrowed some photos to scan (but then i forgot to scan them so had to photograph them on my bed, hence the weird texture-y background. I didnt find the favourite picture of her, so I'll have to show you that some other time.

no date - i played with that doll when i was little too! (except bald, lol)

no date - i assume first day high school? awesome satchel, brougues and boater.

no date - SUCH an awesome photo

1980 - on the right, 9 years before i was around. love those shorts!

.....

This will be my last blog post for a while. I've closed most of my shops, and wont be doing any markets except MOTL and Perth Upmarket. Masters is JUST TOO TIME CONSUMING AND HARD, and I'm really struggling to do much other than do all the shit I have to do now I'm out of home, and all the uni work I have to do, plus sleep. So blogging and OSIER are taking a break, because instead of being a wonderful relaxing fun thing to do, its become an unwonderful stressfull unfun thing to do.

So I'll see you all on June 6th, first Monday of the between semesters uni break.

xxL

Day 6 : Mountains of Glass Houses & Berries of Straw

The day's events consisted of driving, driving, and going on a wild sign chase that lead us down about 20 differnt roads, tracks and such to a strawberry farm where we picked a whole box (like the one I'm holding) FULL of berries for just $15! More than 3/4 of them went yuk in the days afterwards, but i think its just becuase we didnt put them in the fridge so they all got cooped up and ripened together too quick. I ate them for about 4 days afterwards as my breakfast with greek yoghurt... yummmm.

Earlier in the day we'd stopped by the Glasshouse Mountains, the place where my grandfathers family ran a pinapple farm after moving here as Irish potato famine immigrants, from what I can gather. I took so photos from the lookout of course...




And of the house my grandfather was brought up in. Please be noted my Mums parents and grandparents (both maternal and paternal) have MAJOR ISSUES. Well, only two do technically as they're the only ones alive. Makes me so grateful that I'm in Perth away from all the drama that has gone down and continiues to constantly. If I know you, get me to tell you what happened on this holiday a few days later...


The old house is of course "nothing like it used to be", and is now surrounded by macadamia trees instead of pinapples. Oh, you must look up pictures of pinapple plants that have pinapples on them. Freakiest. Shit. Ever.

Day 5 : Slip Sliding Away

Really not much to say except

"You must go to White Water World and go on every single ride, especially the hydrocoaster... it works cause of magnets! Its like a rollercoaster made love to a slippery dip in a pool!"

And that my handmade bikini bottoms went swell. Thanks Frankie issue from way back in 2005.

Day 4 : Roadtrips and Rollercoasters

I did intend to do just a picture post today, but my little brother has deleted all my photos. I hope he saved them on his computer, otherwise I'm gonna be angry. I had tigers and "my head on a wanted poster" fun-park kind of stuff, so nothing hugely exciting. But my baby tiger photos are SO CUTE.

But I did enjoy my favourite rides - the rollercoasters. They're so hugely awesome. The combination of speed, g-force and being able to scream at the top of your lungs without people glaring at you (my brothers actually punch me in the arm at home when I scream :) ) really does it for me.

Currently in a beautiful white house (my mum's old uni friend) that looks onto the east ocean. If I was brave I'd get up early and watch the sun rise over the sea while i drink coffee and huddle in my grey cardigan on the deck. We'll see if that happens though.

UPDATE: didnt happen :)

photos;

Day 3 : Shopping and Inebriated Wanderings

Inebriated wanderings in gumboots, no less.

SO.

Today I went shopping for my cousins dress and rest-of-outfit (she is the sister of the groom, who's wedding is the actul cause of us being in Q. She looks very nice in it :)

Being the first time in a long time that I've shopped in a real store, not just a dollar shop or an op shop or groceries, I went a little crazy and bought; owl gumboots, a flip clock - you know, the ones with the numbers that flip over - and several Chrissie presents that are awesome but I cant tell you cause I know they read my blog (hey Ali, hey Niina). But rest assured they are very cute/awesome/appropriate.

They are also unavailable in WA, cause the shop that all this awesome stuff was in is actually in every single state and territory EXCEPT MINE. Its a REALLY COOL STORE AND I CANT HAVE IT SO I'M ANGRY. Its even in FREAKING NEW ZEALAND!!! So yes, exclusive gifts.

And I also bought this ring. It is two tiny deer on a log bridge. It is hugely cute. It would be cuter if they were kissing though. :)



And then tonight I got taken to a gamer-bar. Manabar? I think? Anyway I got my photo taken by the staff and apparently its going on facebook so my geekness can be shown to all of mankind. But I have to say I cheated a bit cause I just played mario-cart and arcade style games, as well as had a "Princess Peaches" cocktail, plus a mint one and a chocolate/cream shot that were also named with assorted gamer references, of which I got none (I am not a gamer, but my two little brothers are so I "get" stuff more frequently than the regular poulation, but not enough to not be completly inadequate at Halo... But it was a cute tiny place, and the toilet graffiti and stickers were excellent. Which is really all you need from a small bar.

Once we were suitably bored of playing games, we went on a wander around what is sort of a better version of Northbridge - less scary, more bars, more people, less dickheads.

Anywhoo I just got told by bigger-little-brother that it's actually "Mana Bar" - which references a thing in a game thats like a "Health" bar, but a little different. So thar yee goo.

Ok, at this point I need to tell you that my cousin and I had worn our gumboots out to the bar for kicks-and-giggles. We both wore short black dresses and tights too. We were matching.

On our walk around, we went down a Chinatown mall, which had awesome fountains, which in our lightly tipsy mood automatically became a stomping ground for our awesome gumboots - weird how something which was just initially for random fun turned into totally appropriate footwear. Plus we also raced boats made from asian-community newspapers and put paper hats on rainbow carp statues.

I'll spare you all but two of the many grainy/blurry videos and photos. If you're a facebook friend you can have a look at the whole hilarious mess. Well, it was hilarious at the time, now I'm just full of McYuk fries and really tired.

This is my cheesy i'm-actually-five-years-old grin.
Oh, and my (WINNING) boat. Hoorah.

my heart hands around my owl wellies.
cousin's peace hand and heart wellies.

Off to themepark #1 tomorrow. Get to test out my handmade bikini bottoms. You could be so lucky to get a photo of them... not on me though, I wouldnt do that to you. Or me (I don't think my bottom is ready for international stardom just yet...).

xx Lauren

Day 2 : Relatives and Food

So today we went on a mini-road trip to see some of my many many many relatives that live in QLD (my Mum comes from QLD so half my rellies are here, and half are home in Perf (there is a sweet romantic story involving playing entire Crowded House songs over the phone behind the cross-state thing but seeing as my parents are now divorced it's a tad moot) - plus one family in London - HAVE to go and stay with them sometime.

So I slept on the way to my great aunt and uncles in our HUGE MASSIVE BIG LARGE rental people mover and then ate lots of handmade tea-cake and bakery bought slice and store bought biscuits. Guess what tasted best.

And then took about 100 photos on the way back. I picked the ones of cool signs. I cant beleive there is actually a sign for dugongs.

Plus this house looks like its supposed to be in UP.
It would be even better if the fence was pickett.

xx Lauren

You Think You Know Me

My MP3 player stopped working last year and ever since I've kind of been on a CD/Record kick. In car = my CDs or triple j, and Home = latest downloads on the laptop, or records on my parents' turntables, or my respectable sized CD collection. Its kind of great to listen to music with other sounds around as well, sometimes I think that earbuds are way too insular - the only time I remember bonding with someone over music in highschool was on the bus when we'd stick one in the person who was sitting next to you's ear - you'd share a little bit of your world, or they'd share a bit of theirs. Sometimes we'd put one of each in our ear and listen to the weird song combinations the two songs would make - usually it wasn't that great but every so often the tempos and beats would match up and we'd look at each other in excitement and surprise.

But otherwise it was "oh, they've got their music on, just leave them alone".

So in preparation of two weeks in close quarters with the fam, I've dusted off my discman and gotten all my cds into one zip case... I know, amasing right, things that were basically attached to every teens body as of 6 years ago (wow I'm getting old) are now replaced by tiny things that can store more songs than most of us could listen to in ten years.

I should probably get another MP3 player. But for now my trusty discman gets to live another day...

...even if it does skip annoyingly when I dance around like a maniac.

He's a bit strange

But has a velvet voice so he can get away with it I suppose. The "I'm off my tits" head bobbing weids me out something chronic though. Kind of like David Grey (Mr Bobblehead - go look up a video of him and you'll see what I mean), but much much much much cooler.

I would like to let you all know that the reason I have seen this is because my Dad is a fan. No other embarrasing stories behind that knowledge. Unlike a friend of mine who confessed his first concert ever was Savage Garden because he was obsessed with them. And he hadnt been to any live music since then (this was four years ago, and we are 21. You do the math).

But onto strange lead-singer antics with awesome music...

I always feel idiotic once I find out what the lyrics to a song actually are. This is one of them - I've just been kind of mindlessly humming along whenever this comes on the radio, and then I find that he's singing about "blood-buzz" - hipster vampire reference? Maybe?

I really have no idea. It's 12.24 and usually that isnt late but I have an infected sinus and throat from severe hayfever (the devil isnt a red dude with horns, its heavily brut-ed teenage boys - one of which lives in my house. that and flowers.) which means that I need much more sleep than normal but I cant cause I have a 2500 word assignment due at 4pm tomorrow and I've only written... *goes and does wordcount tool* ... 251 of them. So the knowledge that I probably will be getting very little sleep, in addition to knowing I have a vintage market I'm supposed to be ready for by now that on on Sunday and my little brother (the one that doesnt smother himself in hayfever inducing "deoderant") wont give me the commodore to lug my vintage things down to Freo makes me want to go to bed extra bad.

Gosh I wish I had written this many words in my essay instead of procrastinating here. It's now 12.39.

Sorry to have freaked you all out with my mind-spew, I seem to have a habit of doing that (my facebook friends know what I'm talking about). But I think this is the most pretentious blog post I have ever written - so feel free to deride me in the comments if you wish - or ignore this post entirely perhaps. I won't get mad.

I'm a bit strange. Perhaps Mr The National and I can have a late night chat. Once I finish this essay...

Aperture

My Father's House can be quite photogenic at times.

I Love Old & New

Old: My latest bunch of finds from op-shopping, destined for my vintage etsy store.


New: My spiffy business cards that my Mum got printed for me in Bali, 1000 for 35 bucks. Gold. Thanks Mum!



Old & New: My new blog banner, made from old items! I'd love your opinions on it.


xo Lauren