Darling Harbour

Yesterday Rydog and I spent the day in Darling Harbour in Sydney City. We went shopping, travelled on the monorail and generally walked around and relaxed in the area. It was a fun and enjoyable day but it made me realise how different Sydney is when the weather is cold during the winter time. I think that Sydney is a very beautiful city during summer with an eventful, happy and holiday atmosphere but at this time of the year it is much less impressive. It makes me wish that the summer holidays were here because I love it then. Here are some scenes that I captured in Darling Harbour:















Next week I am returning to university and I absolutely cannot believe that the start of a new academic semester has almost arrived. I know that holidays always pass quickly but this one has been absolutely unbelievable and I am having trouble comprehending where all the time has gone. I have had an enjoyable holiday but I would do almost anything for it to be longer. I wish I could live like this forever! I'm starting to feel a little nervous about the thought of returning to university and I am scared that my feelings and situation from last semester may return but I am trying my best to overcome this. I am trying to take away some satisfaction from my results from last semester and hopefully the knowledge that I achieved three credits and a distinction when I was so discontent and unsatisfied will help me to relax and believe that I can get through another semester. I am generally going to try and take it a bit easier, not pressure myself and try to ensure that it doesn't take over my life as much as possible. If I pass this semester I would have completed my commerce degree!

Thank you so much for your comments on my last post. I appreciate them all very much! It is exciting to be engaged and I loved sharing this important event with you.

News...

I have some important news and some personal thoughts which I can finally reveal on my blog. I few weeks ago my boyfriend Ryan asked me to marry him in about three years time when I finish university. I said yes so now we are engaged. I know that engagements are usually for much shorter time periods and I am aware of some of the perceptions that people have regarding long engagements but given our personal circumstances then this arrangement works. I am still a student and I would like to finish my degree before getting married so I am not in a financial position to proceed in the very near future. I think that relationships are very personal in nature and that there do not have to be any rules regarding time periods or methods of conduct so we have set a tentative year in which we would like to get married but with fllexibility to extend it if necessary. We are very serious about this so I know we have made the right decision and the long engagement is a symbol of being committed.

Here is my PERFECT ring. It is everything I wanted and far beyond what I ever imagined. Its so sparkly.

I was very surprised and I never expected to be engaged for a very very long time but I am happy. I feel like this whole experience has made me grow up and think more to the future. I was so used to the lifestyle of being a student that I never really thought much about life beyond studies and fully moving into the adult world to be self sufficient. I feel like I have more direction and hopes and goals for the future now and it has challenged my perceptions and made me think beyond my current lifestyle. In many ways it makes me excited.

Outfit

Hello everyone, I hope you are having an enjoyable week. Yesterday I was finally able to visit the park and take some outfit pictures. I have missed posting outfits and I haven't had much of a chance given the cold weather and various other events which have kept me busy but I hope to post outfits more frequently from now on. As you can tell from my last post this outfit is inspired by Kitten D'Amour and the cardigan is one of the items that I received from the store while on holiday in Queensland last week. My shoes are also new and my polka dot skirt is the one that I made with my Mum last year. After browsing the website I was inspired to pair my Kitten D'Amour cardigan with my polka dot skirt and I was so pleased by how well they went together. This is definitely one of my favourite outfits right now.










I recently joined Chicisimo and my username is xchelseax. I'm still very new to the site and finding out how it works. My first look can be found here.

Kitten D'Amour

I arrived back in Sydney from my trip to the Gold Coast on Saturday. I had the most amazing time ever and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. It was easily the best few days that I have had in a very very long time. I loved spending time with Rydog and his family and we all had so much fun together. I wish we could have stayed for longer, even just a couple more days and I feel so sad now that it is over. I'd do anything to be back there right now. I thought the Gold Coast was a very beautiful place. I have been there a few times before but not for a few years so it was good to see it again. The combination of fantastic shops and warm weather makes it a wonderful place in my opinion. Unfortunately I didn't take many photos of the trip. I had intended to but it just didn't happen. I may post a few pictures after I have sorted them out if I have anything worth showing and I will write more about what I did on the trip. On Wednesday we went to Seaworld, Thursday was a day of shopping and mini golf and on Friday we went to Dreamworld.

While shopping last Thursday I discovered a new brand called Kitten D'Amour. There are two boutiques in Queensland and a website which can be accessed here. Unfortunately for me there are no stores in Sydney. The clothes are stunning and very much my style and I loved every single item in the store. They are exclusive and only a very limited quantity of each item are made. I was treated very generously while on the shopping trip. I received two items from Kitten D'Amour and a few pairs of shoes from other shops. I will post them on here soon. I am planning to wear one of my new vintage cardigans to the races next month.

Here is a sample of the Kitten D'Amour collection:

Pictures from Kitten D'Amour

New Shoes and Phone Booth Pictures

There are two parts to my post today- new shoes and some random pictures that I recently found on my computer which I would like to show.

Last week while shopping with Mum I bought some Diana Ferrari velvet ballet flats in red and teal blue. The purple pair I have had for a few months now which I posted here.The reason I bought two more pairs the other day was because they were on sale for the most incredible price of $18. I have watched these shoes come down in price continually for the last couple of months and my rationale was that how could I not buy Diana Ferrari leather shoes for $18? I worked out that the sale price was about 75% off the recommended retail price so I think this is the most amazing bargain I have ever found. I wish the pictures showed them better because they are stunning shoes in person. I hope to take some outfit pictures with them soon.


I bought the purple flats a couple of months ago.


With purple, red and teal blue I almost have the entire collection (minus the black which my sister ownes)


Recently I was sent these pictures from my sister which were taken at my 21st birthday a few months ago in Sydney City. I love these pictures and I just adore the telephone booths so I thought it would be fun to post them.







I'm going on holiday to Queensland on Wednesday and I will be away until Saturday. I didn't expect to be going away this university break and I only found out about this trip a week ago. Although it is a very short trip I still think it will be fun and I am looking forward to it. I will enjoy the chance for some slightly warmer weather than the cold and rain that is frequently in Sydney at the moment. The only downside is that we will be leaving around 5am! which will be a challenge since I usually sleep until 12pm. I will hopefully post while I am away even if it is short but if I don't get the chance then you will hear from me on the weekend.

Also, I recently received my university results and I am so incredibly pleased. I received three credits and a distinction which is far beyond anything that I expected of myself. The struggles and feelings that I posted about frequently during the last academic semester had large impacts on my life and were very real so, given these circumstances, I cannot believe that those were my results. I am still coming to terms with it. I would have been fine with passes so I am extremely happy with three credits and a distinction. It is such a relief to know that so many things are in the past and no longer matter because it has been translated into results with I am so pleased with. This means that I have officially completed half a law degree. I know another two and a half years is a long time but the half way point finally signifies that I am getting somewhere.

Sorry that I have behind in commenting and replying to emails. You will hear from me soon.

Modcloth Dresses Wishlist

Today I was browsing the Modcloth website and I decided to make a wishlist of dresses. Like many other bloggers I absolutely adore Modcloth so there are many items that I wish I could add to my wardrobe. I just wish that Modcloth was more accessible here in Australia because inevitably the shipping costs and time are higher here in comparison with many other countries. I will probably make another Modcloth purchase sometime but for now I will just have to admire them from over the Internet. Pictures are from Modcloth.




Thank you everyone for your comments and emails regarding my last post.

Rydog's 21st Party Part I

I am back from my weekend away for Rydog's 21st birthday party. I had a fabulous time and the night was eventful, fun and very exciting. It was definitely one of the most enjoyable nights that I have had in a long time. I cannot believe how fast the night went and I feel a sense of sadness and disappointment that it is over. I think this is always the case when looking forward to, preparing and planning an event for many months in advance. It's a shame that it was just one night because I wanted it to last for so much longer. As I said last week I also love dressing up for formal events. I have been lucky to attend two in the last couple of weeks but I know there will be a long time until the next one.

The theme of the party was casino so all the decorations incorporated poker chips, dice, cards, red, black and feathers and I thought they were all very effective. Casino equipment was hired for the night so guests could play roulette and black jack. I'm not really sure how the theme was chosen but I think it worked well and made the night more fun.









Rydog's mum made my dress for the party and I am extremely pleased with the way it turned out because it was everything that I had hoped for. We saw a stunning dress while out shopping one day but since it cost $800 she decided to make a version of it for me instead. I love the sparkly top section which I think makes the dress more of a statement and adds glam which fitted in with the theme of the night. The skirt part is tiered with different layers which is hard to see from the pictures and I love the sash which joins the two parts together. As a last minute detail I decided to add the flower that came with my pearl necklace which I received a few weeks ago. I love all the customisations and how it is unique so no one else will ever have exactly the same dress as me. The whole experience was fun and I wish I knew more about sewing so I could make something myself one day. I have wanted to learn how to sew for a long time but I need to become more proactive and actually make it happen. I also wore my sportsgirl shoes that were posted here.






 


 



So my friends...I have had a situation present in my personal life for a long time now and I am unsure on how to adequately deal with it so any advice would be much appreciated. I know this is difficult to explain and I cannot go into full details here but basically the closest people to me in my life ie. those that are important to me, I care about deeply and have significant impacts on my daily life are extremely different people and opposite in almost every possible way imaginable. These different groups of people who are all extremely important to me have opposing views about the important things in life and the paths that are right and desirerable for me. I feel as though I often have one set of people telling me to make one decision and another set advising me to take the opposite path. In most areas it is one of these groups of people that I agree with as opposed to the other and I feel as though there are some significant life decisions that I will make this year and in the next couple of years that will hurt the other group of people in my life. I know that the obvious answer to my situation would be to be true to myself but I'm not sure if its that simple. I feel that this doesn't work when the people that I could potentially hurt or disapoint believe I made my decision based on the unnecessary influence of the other group of people in my life. It doesn't work when one group of people does not think that I am making my decisions based on my own opinion or where the decision is so fundamentally against the life direction and principles that I have been taught. I don't know what to do when I wish to pursue a course of action that one group of people believe was not an independent choice (even thought it actually was) but rather a complete adaption of the other group's lifestyle and opinion. I feel so torn and I dislike that it is often the same group of people that I disapoint when I make a decision and that there is no way that I can chose my life path and satisfy everyone that is close to me. This quote which I found on the Internet appears to be interesting to me:

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another." James Matthew Barrie

I understand that there may have been a life direction and set of values and beliefs that I was brought up to to hold and demonstrate but in many ways that does not appear to be the life that I am leading now. I am personally happier with the way things are now rather than the way they used to be I know that appears hurtful to some of the people around me. There is a decision in my personal life that I will be making in the very near future that one important group of people in my life will believe is wrong and the other groups will believe is right. I don't know how to minimise the hurt to those people. I want to make the decision based on what I believe is right because it is my life but its not that simple when some people in my life refuse to accept that it actually was an independent life choice that I made myself since it deviates so substaintially from the beliefs that they personally expound and the beliefs which I used to hold myself but do no longer.

I hope that made some sense. I guess it is about life choices, the difficulty in satisfying all groups of people in life with the decisions that I make and the extreme opposite beliefs that the people closest to me actually hold. I don't know what to do alot of the time or how to demonstrate who I am and the person that I have become.

Wow! That was a long post. Thanks to everyone who stayed with me.

Talk Next Week

I am going away for the weekend for Rydog's 21st birthday party. Even though we already had celebrations for his birthday a couple of months ago, this is the all important formal party that I have been looking forward to for the entire year. I can't wait and I am so excited. I will write more about it when I return and I will catch up with you all next week.



Have a fun, relaxing and enjoyable weekend.