2010, The Year That Was.

Well the year is almost over ...

2010. Gone! Already? Sheesh that was fast. Then again have you ever heard anyone moan about how slow a year was?

All in all I'm pretty happy with how the past year has unfolded. I'm please to share with you that I achieved some pretty important milestones.

• In April I got my driver's licence and I could finally drive my little broom broom as much as I wanted, whenever I pleased. Having a licence to wheel has changed my life dramatically, for the better of course!



• I completed my Certificate IV of Fashion Design ... almost. In three weeks time I will complete the last 3 assessments I missed due to my surgery.




I appeared on my first magazine cover! Issue 123 of Cruzin Magazine. I'm the first girl to be featured on the cover in 10 years. And with a sexy model A Ford. Now that's pretty special!

This issue is still out now and is nationally distributed in all good newsagents & online. So go buy a copy and support Australian hot rod, custom and classic car culture.




• In a matter of weeks I completed a huge painting. Not only that but it was my first full blown attempt at painting both a car and the likeness of a real person (the beautiful India Rose).
  
  This painting was a huge deal as it was my greatest and most ambitious work yet. I was extremely proud of the outcome and the whole experience finally gave me the confidence in my own work that I have been lacking all these years. I sold the original and broke even (another first) and I'm looking forward to making some prints.





• My sister give birth! In mid September little Chloe arrived into the world. Ok so her milestone not mine, but none the less it was a new and exciting thing to become an aunt.




• Ambassador for DimitySO. Getting to be a part of the DimitySo campaign was an amazing experience. From popping up in huge mainstream magazines to gracing billboards in the streets of Sydney and Auckland!
  
  The best part of the entire experience was the wonderful bra and brief sets I recieved. For the first time in my life I had bras in my correct size. It is also the first time I've ever had good quality lingerie. My old cheapo bras would have stretch out long ago but one year on these babies are still going strong. Counting Petals and Pepper Dream were the styles I wore the most.
  
  
  
  
  Also:
  
  • I got my hair bleached blonde for the first time
  
  
  • 5 new tattoos were inked into my arm
  .
  
  • I was in attendance at 2 weddings

Best wishes to all my friends, family and readers for the New Year. And for the New Year 'bah humbugs' this one goes out to you.



Cheers!

Cruise to Ferry Road Diner

Cool cars are for driving cruising so we will think of any good excuse to take them out for a run. Such as a friendly group trip down to the 'not so local' diner. Why the heck not? Riding in cars to get some noms is a darn good combination.



This all happened a while back and it was my first outing after the worst of my wisdom tooth surgery recovery. Matt's front guards of the tank were away on holidays for rust repairs so we scammed a lift in Bundy's car. His XM falcon came with the unexpected perk of a personal lap warmer, Sanchez the english bull terrier.


About 15 of us crammed into 3 cars and off we were off! Sanchez made sure we stayed cozy when the chilly winds came at us through the window on highway.





I had no idea where this joint was but it felt like it took a long time to get there. It wasn't really but when you're hungry a few k's feels like one hundred miles. But then we finally arrived at Ferry Road Diner! The good thing about this place is that there was plenty of parking out front for the old rides.

Nom time!

After scamming some of Rhea & Chuck's nachos I discovered that they were the best I'd ever had. Sweet chilli sauce on nachos, who'd have thought that would be SO good!? I ordered a hot dog but it was no where near as good as it should of been, given I had to dissect it to accomodate my sore mouth. It's just not the same. But all was forgiven with an ice-cream sundae complete with chopped nuts, a corinthian wafer and maraschino cherry! It tasted so good and my poor swollen mouth squealed with joy.

Heaven!



Another thing I should mention is that they stock Wimmer's soda in the most beautiful vintage style glass bottles. Their traditional creaming soda flavour about 10× better than the ubiquitous Boylan 'Creme' Soda that's imported from America. Wimmer's is a home grown Queensland company. So if you're ever faced with the choice you know which one to go for!

If you fancy a nibble yourself, here's their site:
www.ferryroaddiner.com.au

Hopefully we'll cruise back down sometime soon for more gritz now that my mouth is ship shape again. I'll be the one zeroing in on the nachos.

Gettin' Organized. It's easy!

Does it take you about 10 minutes longer to find something that you should?
Does a messy environment around you stress you out without you realising?

I know it does for me. After a year of full-time study and medical dramas I was left with living quarters the resembled a war zone. Looking around I decided that a good portion of the problem was that I just had too much stuff.

And thus I enacted phase 1:
"If you don't use it or don't love it, toss it!"
but not necessarily straight into the bin. That's wasteful!

I made three piles:
- Trash
- The not sure / maybe pile
- Things to sell or give away

If you are having trouble choosing which clothes have to go, turn all the coat hangers in your wardrobe the wrong way around. Come back in 3 - 6 months. Taking seasonal items into consideration, note which garments you did not wear. Now get rid of them!

Ahh. That's better. So much less clutter. But the job's not over yet. I took some valuable advice from the Zen Habits blog. The most valuable thing I learned was this. DON'T SAVE STUFF!. What's the point of 'saving' something if it just sits around gathering dust. For example:

- Quit saving the special watercolour paper. Paint on it!
- Quit saving a piece of clothing for a special event once a year. Just wear it!
- Quit avoiding putting on your favourite shoes for fear of scuffing them.
... ugh, what was the point of buying them? Put them on, go out and look hot!

Next I set about organizing myself by getting a time planner from Kikki.K.



The wonderful things about these diarys is the ring binder which allows for movement and insertion of pages and inserts. A flap in the back allows a pad so my diary is going to double as an A5 sketch pad that will always be on me.
Debden & Filofax offer similar systems.

Remember. Clutter is the enemy!

On and ending note, sheesh! Where has the last few weeks gone? Blink and you will miss it. I think I'd better organize my blogging some more and do a bit of catching up. I'm only just discovered that you can queue blog posts so I'll have to implement this when I'm busy. Stay tuned!

Sweet treats to gift your sweetheart this Christmas

Giftmas is on the horizon. We know this because there is no longer anything half decent to watch on TV!

I'm sure you are all racking your brains for gift ideas. It's not the easiest thing to do when you're looking for something a little different or alternative. But guess what? I LOVE compiling wishlists. But not just for myself, I like making lists of things I think my nearest and dearest would love.



For the Kittens:


Pin-Up Luggage Tags from Pretty in Pink
What girl wouldn't love one of these cute lowbrow art pin-ups to jazz up her bags and help identify her luggage easily at the airport. All these luggage tags are so cute that I find it hard to choose which one I like best.


Retrofuturist Opaque Lipstick at Lime Crime
Let me start off by saying that this is my favourite lipstick ever! It is the most perfect pin-up red, lasts ages, smells divine and feels good on my lips. Any 50's enthusiast or rockabilly girl would be mad not to love it. The only con is that everyone I've shown it to in person thinks I'm trying to show them some kind of a mini vibrator :(



For the Cats:


Hawleywoods Gift Set from Hawleywoods
When it comes to guys who like to pomp or slick their hair, I don't know a guy who doesn't love Layrite. I even have some tub myself as it's perfect for smoothing flyaways when styling up dos. The annoying thing is my boyfriend keeps gouging huge scoops out of my tub. I'd buy him the 9kg tub if the postage wasn't so furping expensive.



Large Tiki Soap scented with Bay Rum from Sailor Mouth Soaps
How cute are these guys? And yet they look and smell manly enough for your guy. I've seen this girl's beautiful handmade soaps around Brisbane here a few times and have been meaning to get some. If you want soap in time for christmas you've got 4 days to order.

And just for fun!


Skel-A-Flamingo Featherless Friend from How Cool
Hee hee! How cool are these. I'm loving this rather macabre take on the traditional kitschy pink garden flamingoes. Put these on my wishlist please :D

FYI I'm not affilated with any of the companies that make this stuff. This is just a list of stuff that appeals to me and I think would appeal to others. Enjoy and happy gifting.

Note: I found the first image in this post on tumblr. If anyone knows who created it please let me know as I would love to credit/check out their other work.

Drea's guide to surviving wisdom tooth removal

So I'm bored, home alone and still recovering from my wisdom tooth extraction. So needless to say I haven't done anything terribly interesting lately. But given that I've been through most of the horror I can impart my advice and experience of this procedure for anyone that is looking at or is needing to have it done.

Don't drive while taking codeine. There is a good chance you're popping pills before your procedure due to utter dental pain. Like me you're probably going to ignore the instructions on the codeine packet. But take heed! I almost crashed into someone whilst in codeine la la land. You might not be so lucky.

What's cooler than cool? Ice cold! Ice yourselves kittens. Non stop! On yer face. Your cheeks are going to puff out like a chipmunk's and they will feel like a Victorian bushfire. The hospital give me this neato thingy-ma-jig that you filled with ice cubes and hung around your face. Everyone that had previously had their wisdom teeth out where jealous of it. They just had ice in a chux cloth!

Keep a bucket on hand This tip isn't for everyone as it depends on your reaction to anaesthesia. If you're like me though you'll be puking for a couple of days. What a joy that was let me tell you. Those travel puke bags are good too. My hospital gave me one and it sure came in handy in the car, though I felt incredibly sorry for the other 3 passengers in the car having to live through the experience with me.

Eat real food. I can't stress this enough. It was pretty rad getting to eat as much jelly, ice-cream, mousse, KFC mash and snack packs as I wanted. But it wasn't long before it just made me feel sick eating so much junk. Eating real food like mashed and cooled roast vegetables with gravy and puree fruit was much more satisfying not to mention healthy.

Movies! Watch lots of them. You can't do much else anyway and they make the time fly by.

Stay at home. It so happens my boyfriend's best friend's engagement party was on the day after my surgery. We were adamant we were going and besides, I needed to go where my carer went. I thought 'well, this will be sweet, I'll sit in the corner with my jelly and everything will be dandy'. If only. I think I lasted 2 hours before I was alternating between being back in bed feeling like Jabba the Hut or in the bathroom hugging Karen and Allen's toilet bowl. FAIL.


I hope this helps anyone out there who is going to live though this experience. Just remember once they're out and healed, it's all over. You'll never have to do it again. If there is any experience to scare you into taking amazingly good care of your remaining teeth this is it.

Tell you what I am looking forward (very much so) to reaching the finish line. But for now, it's mashed p'taters and gravy until then.

The tongue is ever turning to the aching tooth

If you read my last post you might remember I did a fair bit of complaining about my teeth. My wisdom teeth to be exact, which had been giving me a fair bit of pain. Between then and now everything just went from bad to worse. Not content with the current plan of doping up on pain killers and waiting for the term to finish, I booked in to see my dentist. He told me to get an x-ray and referred me to an oral surgeon to see about getting the nasty little suckers out.

It was at the oral surgeon's office I was told that stress of end of semester exams and assignments were aggravating the pain in my teeth as I no doubt would have been clenching and griding my teeth in my sleep. I had the charming choice of having surgery right in the middle of all these assessments or wait over a month.

Not one to wait around in pain I chose the soonest possibly option. Glad I did because the following weekend I experienced the worst pain of my life. The doctor gave me painkillers strong enough to knock out a horse (and give me a stomach ache to boot!. Needless to say I have been incapacitated for most of the week. I've been feeling a tad better today and tomorrow I think I'll try go to TAFE. Hilarious given that the day after I'm going to be knocked out to have my teeth torn out, so I'm going to feel like a trainwreck for the next 5 days there after. Fun times!

Bring on the ice-cream and jelly I say.



Before I leave here is something to freak you out with. An Xray of my teeth. Note the offenders. Also, does it creep you out that you can see my skull ... and jaw bone ... and part of my neck? So gross and cool at the same time. It makes me sad that I wasn't the person to got to do these amazing shots for the Eizo Pin-up Calendar. Hahaha! Enjoy!







See you on the other side of anaesthesia.

Sunshine Coast Getaway

I haven't been around much lately. Did anyone notice I was gone? Part of it was due to hanging out in the sun, sand & surf. Apart from that I've hit snags in the river.

First of all it's the end of the semester and with that comes the turmoil of giant assignments that are drawing to their due date and gulp ... assessments. Then there is my current vexation, my wisdom teeth making themselves known! My bottom wisdom's are getting pushy in there and it's giving me an endless headache, an aching jaw and my ability to chew is being sporadically compromised. So put the two together and you have one big pain in the head.

But there is a happy intermission to this story. Matt and I had a two night stay at Noosaville to use so we scrambled off to relax. The stay was an awesome joint birthday present from the lovely and wonderful Karen & Allen.

We arrived mid afternoon. Luggage was immediately dumped and after sussing out our pad for the weekend we headed out for a walk on the beach. I collected cuttlefish bones for a friend's parrot. It's a habit after years of budgie ownership. A quick costume change later we raced off to dinner, keen for some fresh seafood at The River Deck Restaurant.


The River Deck catch. So good! It was an effort to eat even half of this.


But I still had room for dessert! Friday night ice-cream on Hastings Street is a bit of a tradition I'm told. Gelatissimo is where it's at! I chose scoop of creme caramel with a scoop of coconut. Matt's caramelised fig was more caramel than fig.



60's Rat Fink surfboard at Noosa Longboards. Yours for only $4,900!



The next day we happened upon Noosa Longboard's famous woody wagon on Hastings Street. I've seen this vehicle many times at car shows but it's an entirely different thing when you come across a car like this in it's native habitat. It took a bit of courage to strip off on the busiest street in town, but oh woody wagon, I did it for you!




Once again here I am being a giant poser. This time at the edge of the pacific ocean in Noosa's Laguna Bay. Look at that sky! Perfect weather.



I've never seen bush turkeys on the beach before. They were everywhere. Some of the cheeky buggers were trying to get into the satchels of unaware sunbathers. Even more hilarious was watching a plucky little turkey crossing the road on Hasting's street with the rest of the street folk.



And here is a dead puffer fish I found washed up on the beach while scouting the sand for driftwood to put in my fish tank. Not the find I was looking for but it was interesting enough to take a photo of. We also found some knickers on the beach! Gross.

It wasn't always out and about. Our resort had a heated pool and spa set in a tropical garden that provided much enjoyment. I also slept on the shaded deck chairs beside the pool. Until some ignorant jerk splashed me when he got into the pool that is.

I did a lot of sleeping on the trip home too. It's so good to get away from the stress of life every now and then. You don't realise how refreshing these trips are until you do them. I am going to make sure I chill out more often from now on.