Impressively

Today the weather has been impressively hot. I say impressively because every winter I whine and moan about how I can't wait for summer to come because I have bad circulation and I get cold in winter. I like to disregard the fact that my bad circulation means that I get extra hot in summer as well. I even began planning my 2009/2010 summer wardrobe back in July.
I could have used other words; oppressively hot was springing to mind, interminably hot sounded fancy and disgustingly hot was certainly accurate, but I'm trying to be positive about it all and so I'll stick with impressively for now.

Thing is, with the return of the heat a number of my favourite things are coming back. The first is being able to sleep with windows open. Let me explain. When I was a kid, my bedroom had only one tiny little window to the outside and it was far, far away from my bed. It was so far away that I could hardly even see out of it, and there was no way a breeze was going to reach across to me. I was incredibly jealous of my sister and all of my friends who had windows right next to their beds and were able to stare out at the stars as they fell asleep. I really like looking at stars, proven by the fact that I've even made up a couple of my own constellations, and so I think this was more of an issue for me than it might seem. In my current house, I do have a window above my bed, but the opening end only begins right down near my feet! New House however, is obviously perfect and cosmologically destined to be mine, as my bedroom has both an opening door to the outside and a ceiling fan. Can't beat that.

The second thing that's coming back with the heat is icecream. It's weird, but I think I somehow like icecream so much that people can actually tell without me saying anything. A lot of people seem to buy me icecream. Anyway, I don't actually cease with the icecream in winter, but some people do, so it's more of a celebration for everyone else. And, as I sit here crunching on a piece of ice, I also feel the need to mention that I'm also really happy about the heat because it's now excusable to sit around my house, holding cups full of icecubes and crunching loudly. This, my dentist has told me, is incredibly bad for my teeth, but I enjoy.

So basically what I wanted to say was Yay Summer!

Stay hydrated everybody!

BuzzChild

*11 days till moving

It's nice to dream

Soon I'm going to be living in a house which has no curtains. I'm not sure that this is ok with me, but I don't think there's much I can do about it. I'll have to check.

The first time I can remember really wanting to move out of home was when I was about thirteen years old. It was the beginning of high school and my friend and I were already making plans graduate, move to Sydney, go to NIDA and become famous. My how dreams change. As far as I know, my friend and I are both graduating from university next week, and while neither of us are heading towards becoming the famous actresses we thought we'd be seven years ago, I think things are working out well enough.

Anyway, I get to live in my little unit alone for a before my housemate moves, and so I've been drooling over decorating ideas. Not that we have any allowance to decorate, in either money nor lease terms, but it's nice to dream.

Unfortunately I never recorded where all the images came from, but a mixture of these would probably make somewhere close to my dream house.


BuzzChild

Book Review: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

When I saw the trailer for the upcoming film, I figured that I must've missed the hype about The Lovely Bones, much as I did Lolita or The Virgin Suicides. Now that I've read it though, I wonder if there was a hype, or if Peter Jackson just knows how to pick a damn good story for his films.

Written by Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones is about as beautiful, poignant, funny and heartbreaking as a book can get. The books follows the story of Susie Salmon as she watches her family and friends from heaven after she is murdered at age fourteen. Don't worry; no spoilers here, all these details come in the first sentence. What follows is a novel which seamlessly spans over a decade and follows the journeys of multiple characters with remarkable ease thanks Susie's narration.

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

This novel is captivating and meaty and will challenge your expectations and beliefs on life, death and beyond. As usual, I reckon give it a read before seeing the film, though it too looks extraordinary.

Enjoy!

BuzzChild

Long Time No Write

Dear Blog,

I've missed you!!!

I swear, lamest and most lazy blogger award can land right here. It has been two months?? No lame excuses will suffice, I can only plead that I have been rather busy with uni and work and life lately.

To catch up quickly, here are a few of the things I've been doing lately which are really quite random:

Taking many, many flower photos with an amazingly brilliant but borrowed camera.

Growing spring vegetables and fruits.

Hiding from a couple of red dust storms (they were big BIG exciting news here, but very inconvenient!)

The next few weeks are going to be very exciting and hopefully only marginally stressful. I'm finishing university after three long years, crazily completing all my assignments and exams, celebrating in my class's graduation show, moving cities, beginning new jobs and starting my 'career' and hopefully getting back into this blog full time and posting about it all!

And now it's time to get back to it.

BuzzChildxx

1 Million Women

It's been near impossible over the past couple of years to ignore or avoid all the talk about climate change and carbon emissions. With all the massive coverage, however, it's also been difficult for just regular people to know what they can do to help, and many of us are leaving this issue up to our politicians and scientists to sort because it seems just too difficult for us to do anything.

This is why the 1 Million Women campaign has stepped in; to cut through the confusing statistics and help the general population (so far only Australian women) to really make a difference in the fight against climate change. The aim is to enable 1 000 000 Australian women to each reduce their carbon emissions by 1 tonne over the year, thus reducing 1 million tonnes altogether. Here's what they have to say:

It's a campaign of daughters, mothers, sisters and grandmothers inspiring climate action.

Our goal is to inspire 1 million women of Australia to take practical action on climate change and cut 1 million tonnes of CO2 pollution (the main greenhouse gas causing global warming). That's 1 tonne for each of us involved.

We launched 1 Million Women 1 month ago and already over 4000 women have joined up.

Our first milestone on the way to 1 million is to get to 10,000 members as fast as we can.

We hope you will join us.

Just go to www.1millionwomen.com.au

You don't need to be an expert on climate change. We'll guide you every step of the way. On our website you will be taken to an activity centre that will show you exactly how to cut 1 tonne of CO2 pollution and you will be able to track your progress as you go along.

Great challenges are also great opportunities. They unite people. They inspire us to change our world for the better.

The site is user friendly and so are the tasks which you can pledge to reduce your emissions. I built up my 1000 tonnes of saved carbon by pledging to do small, easy things like switching off electrical appliances at the wall, not taking plastic bags in shops and recycling as much as possible. Every so often I'll go back to the site and update how I've been going with my tasks.

This campaign is putting the power to change the world into our hands, and if you're into challenging yourself and seeing results it's really kind of fun too. So, if you're an Aussie woman check it out, and if not still have a look, because there's nothing to stop you from reducing your own emissions too.

BuzzChildxx

How To: Grow Your Own Little 'bedroom garden'

Materials:

• Teacup (or other such small holding apparatus)
• Marbles (or, novel idea, you could plant your bulbs in soil!)
• Small bulbs (I used Grape Hyacinth bulbs)
• Water
• Slightly greenish thumb

Method:

Firstly, I should say, this was pretty much my mother's idea; she was inspired by a magazine cover she saw where there were many bulbs planted in all types of kitchenware. I happened to have this spare little teacup lying around (I'd bought it for a Mad Hatter's Tea Party Housewarming which, although sounding like tremendous fun, sadly never eventuated).

• 1. Put marbles in cup/container.
• 2. Place bulbs on top.
• 3. Fill with water until it's just touching the bulb bottoms.
• 4. Wait for roots and sprouts!

There are a few little extra tips for success. Firstly, wait for winter until planting your bulbs; you'll get shoots through the winter and then hopefully flowers all spring. Also, if any of your bulbs aren't taking root, put them in a separate container on some damp cotton wool or tissue for a couple of days and you'll soon see some forming. Thirdly, plant your bulbs quite low down in the container. Mine are sitting right up the top and the shoots have grown in all crazy directions, which would probably be guided by the teacup if they were down further.

After the planting all you have to do really is water and wait and tadaa! Your very own little bedroom garden!
Of course, it would be much more of a garden with a few more plants. For next year I'm thinking teapots, egg cups, candles holders...who knows what!

Plant up and enjoy!

BuzzChildxx

sweet saturdays

I've long thought that if you aren't going to do what your supposed to be doing, you may as well do something fun instead, bonus if you're going to make other people happy. So today, when I lost all appetite for my uni study, I decided to make yo-yo biscuits.

You can never have just one colour filling.

mm delicious! This one was bound straight for my tummy!

While baking, I watched Across the Universe, a film which definitely rates in my favourites. How could I not be a fan of a Beatles musical with scenes looking like this?




This is probably the sixth or seventh time I've watched it in just over a year, and I am nowhere near sick of it yet! If you haven't already, I highly recommend you give it a watch.

I hope everyone is having a similarly lovely weekend!

BuzzChildxx