re-entering the atmosphere

I've spent the evening with this blog, trying to reconnect. I'm like a person in a long-term relationship, trying to rediscover what it feels like to be, once again, in the first pulses of love. A journalist once asked me to describe my blog and I called it "a love letter". Sadly, one day, the letters just stopped. Not because I didn't have anything to say. More like, I didn't really know who to send them to and I wasn't even sure there was anyone reading anymore. 

In September 2008, I started this blog during a rising crest of outfit-of-the-day blogging. We started off taking self-timered photos in thrift shop dresses, against rickety wooden fences, brightly-coloured murals, or wandering idly in fields of flowers. Back then, Rumi posed in Forever 21 mini dresses in front of her garage door. The years ticked by and the wave started crashing towards the shore. One by one, my favourite peers stopped blogging and I felt their absence like friends who one day, just stop talking to you.

There are some of you though who have remained faithful, still posting, still typing, still beaming out into the world. Now, you have pets, children, sometimes both. You're posting about home interiors and travel, not just those cute flats you bought yesterday or how to pack for a summer vacation. Each post I catch up with is a tinder and I am working for a spark.

Today, I realise that I cannot let go of my tiny corner of internet. It's a chronicle of a life - my life. And in a virtual world of unimaginable breadth and depth and size and volume, a tiny little life is nothing but also everything. Though no one might be listening, I can still keep talking and writing and communicating. Then maybe one day, my blog and I will fall in love again.

♥ Location: Lake Rotoiti, Rotorua ♥

a long weekend in the sounds

Four days at this bach brought us close. We laughed until we cried over ridiculous salon games. Our dog went feral, wandering in and out of the house, chasing sticks and piling them up in heaps on the beach. Every night, there was a fire inside and a bonfire outside. Breakfasts were noisy affairs, lunches served out on the beach, and dinners scarfed down at a huge round wooden table.

shades of blue

If my dog could talk, he'd tell you that his favourite place is the beach at Lyall Bay.

If you're ever feeling blue, you can pick him up from my house and take him there.

Smiles guaranteed! BYO gumboots, coat. Sticks naturally provided.

waterfall bay

In 55 days I'm turning 30. I'm choosing to celebrate it somewhere in the Sounds with eight of my family and friends and my dog. 

I've got big ol' plans to take big ol' naps, pad around in a range of Kimberley River merino socks, play fetch with my dog, shout at everyone during games of Monopoly and mahjong, drink wine leftover from our wedding, mull some cheap red, attempt a clam bake, and cajole someone to make me the Lonely Garden cake.

In my search for the perfect house to rent, I came across this one. Which isn't for rent. So I'm dreadfully off task. But let's just take a minute to perve at this lucky person's house.

The Waterfall Bay House, Marlborough Sounds, Bossley Architects

crab fighting

When I'm rich and retired and have a room filled with so many gold coins that I can dive into it like in Duck Tales, I'm going to live in Karaka Bay.

It's a gorgeous beachside stretch of road that makes you feel like you're on holiday when in reality, you're only twenty minutes away from the city. The houses range from stylish modernist cubes to twee villas with climbing roses rambling up the sidings to shabby chic ramshackle pretend-sheds. There's even one house that has a spire, widow's walk, and a tower. Real estate fairytale stuff, people.

On this walk with the dog and my husband, we peered in rock pools, poked anemones with sticks, collected paua, and annoyed crabs hanging out underneath rocks. I also took creepshots of various residents doing various house stuff outside with their three-car garages wide open. None of which made it to this post. Because, as it turns out, middle-aged rich people doing chores in their fancy houses aren't really that interesting. Can you hear the jealousy, people? Can you hear it?!

where everyone knows your name

A couple of years ago, this restaurant opened up in the city and I took my family there for my brother's birthday. Now, my mother's there almost every week and when she walks in, the manager gives her vouchers and free plates of chorizo. Imagine that! Imagine spending so much money at a place that when you walk in, they give you money! Crazy times.

I recommend Ombra deeply and sincerely. I used to think tapas was a joke 'cause I thought it was a secret society intent on forcing me to eat small portions infrequently. I take it all back. Go for dinner. Go for lunch. Order the polenta chips and the serving of meatballs and leave room for the chocolate salame.

But don't go for breakfast because Wellington is one of the brunch capitals of the world (fact) and if you wanted to eat a continental breakfast, you'd stay at home or GO TO EUROPE where no one knows how to do brunch. Okay?

Campari. Glorious campari. And Edison bulbs everywhere.

My mother asked the manager for ten of these empty bottles for her flowers. They got it for her. 'Cause they're great.

This hot chocolate was more bitter and rich than sweet and rich. I know which one I'd prefer. In a hot chocolate and in a person!

My brother just had this chocolate croissant 'cause an hour later he was having all-you-can-eat firecracker chicken

Full disclosure - I live a blink away from two NZ designer stores. One of them is literally my downstairs neighbour. Also, I have a classic champagne-taste-on-a-Spumante-budget. Sound familiar?

So sometimes, I find myself in these stores, on the way home from work or from walking the dog, and suddenly, I'm in the changing room on my banking app transferring money from my runaway fund into my checking and thinking This is an illness. It's really not. Unless poor self-discipline and money management are illnesses.

A bracelet that tells you to run when you know you can't. Depressing much?

I like to wear the bracelet to remind myself that I'm about to turn thirty and therefore RUN is exactly what I want to do but also the very thing I can't do. Physically due to fitness but also metaphorically as in I want to RUN from work and responsibilities and paying a mortgage and walking my dog every day and unloading the dishes BUT guys, I can't. 'Cause I'm allegedly an adult. So the bracelet helps with this quandary. You can get one too from Karen Walker.

The dress? I just like the dress 'cause I like Zoey Deschanel and I like Orla Kiely and it reminds me of both and it's pretty. Damn you, Kate Sylvester!

My dog has no idea what's coming to get him.

hashtag talk in a lurid pink jersey

Got told off for running in an art gallery today. Nearly thirty. Still being an idiot in public. I feel like talking in hashtags so here it is: #poorimpulsecontrol.

That's the long weekend done and over with, people. Hope you're having a lovely start to the week wherever you are.

And for pete's sakes - don't run in the art gallery. Walk. Slowly. Like a lady.

Thanks City Gallery!

The most colourful person in the room. As per usual.

This was a dark room with this CRT tv playing a black and white subtitled documentary about African tribal masks.

Hey, can we talk about fash-yon for a sec? I bought this Mean-Girls pink waffly jersey from Asos on Soph's lukewarm recommendation ("okay quality, a bit scratchy. Mainly bought it for the colour"). I gotta say, it fits my winter jumper requirements perfectly. Roomy, slouchy, suitably 90s. 

However, it's so sneakily normcore that I had to dial it back up a notch and pair it with this bewildering piece of hardware from Glassons around my neck. My husband laughed when he saw me wearing it. But that's okay 'cause that sometimes happens. I was really attracted to it because it felt like a necklace that couldn't make up it's mind about what it was (am I Aztec? Or punk? Or sort of teen witchy Pagan?) so it decided to be everything all at once! I like that approach to life. 

Most of all, I felt like this was what my Vault Dweller character would wear after she'd spent some time in the Wasteland running with the raiders in Fallout 3. I know that game was, like, six years ago, but I still love it. Right? Right? Right.          

Looking sheepishly into the distance.

first day of winter

I started this blog six years ago, riding the crest of the fashion blogger wave. I lived for your comments, dropping into my inbox like a never-ending lolly scramble. But like with anything online, real life interrupts and the gap between posts go from a day to months. The silence bugged me. Perhaps I'd outgrown it all? Some days, getting dressed and smiling pretty felt silly and vapid, instead of an empowering, fresh, exciting, and egalitarian approach to fashion which was what fashion blogging was all about in 2008!

Back then, I lived in a rickety old villa with my boyfriend who is now my husband, complained about mice in my flat, and dressed like Claudia Kishi from the Babysitter's Club. My husband took very many pictures of me in impractical outfits cavorting in flower fields, slouching around inner city carparks, and executing the classic fashion-blogger oh-what's-down-at-my-feet pose. I also took you guys with me on very many vacations. 

Through this blog, I've met inspiring, amazing, candid women who I still slavishly follow and talk to on instagram (Emily, Diana, Aline, Melly, Christina, Anna, Adeline, Laura). I even met up with this beautiful weirdo in Paris and we caused a whole lot of trouble. Some of you have been here from the start. We've emailed, sent packages, and commented on each other's breakups, makeups, tragedies, triumphs, and small joys. I've watched you get married, get published, score ads on TV and front row seats at New York Fashion Week. You've opened businesses, worked hard for promotions, switched careers, and just generally been amazing ladybosses and badasses. I've also observed you grieve, get knocked about, felt devastated at your tragedies, and read the posts where you've doubted yourself the most.

All that and imagine this - we've never. ever. met. Not once. Not at all.

This year I've flim-flammed between deleting this blog or letting it limp along. But today, I decided I can't let it go. Because, here's the thing, guys, it's you. I can't let you go. So let's try this again. You with me? 

Taken at Te Ahumairangi walkway and lookout

other people's dogs

I always thought I'd end up with a cat (independent, suitably snarky, loves dairy). Yet, here I am with a black and white ball of fluff named Chester (or depending on mood - Chesty, Fluffball, the Molester, or Fatso). 

The first three months was TERRIBLE. The poor kid was barely 4 months, he didn't trust us, we didn't trust him, he didn't know what to expect, and neither did we. 

There was poo and piss everywhere except where it was supposed to be, the barking was so loud when you left him in a room by himself that your ears were ringing and you understood why, in comics, dads threw slippers at dogs. The classic activity of "walking the dog" wasn't the peaceful, happy idyll I'd imagined, but a battle of wills between me, the dog, the leash, and terror whenever realised I was outside without a plastic bag.

So every single day, he came close to being dropped off at the SPCA or being foisted onto a friend. Only our pride kept him with us. Raising a puppy would not break us. We were two intelligent people. This dog would not beat us. We would raise him and raise him well, or else...

My friend with a thirteen year old dog she'd raised from when she was barely out of university was reassuring. "Once they're trained, a dog is easy," she said. 

And I'm happy to confirm, she's right. Just like with anything worth having in your life, hard work resulted in a totally awesome seven-month old puppy who can high-five, sit, settle, come, shake, beg, up, down and everything in between. 

You know, falling in love is like owning a dog.... 

{Photos by Rob and yours truly} {Jersey from S'wonderful, Jacket from Kate Sylvester, Scarf is secondhand from Recycle Boutique} {Acacia branches & blooms, early cheers, and wild onion pilfered from the banks of the Upper Hutt river}