forgive me if i sound a little too proud of myself but come on! two new year resolutions by the end of january! whootwhoot~

i've been meaning to renovate my room for...awhile now (read: a few years)
and i finally, finally got around to doing it with the help of my mum and miss cherry hoho
it's been so long that the ideas surrounding my bedroom have evolved from painting clouds on the wall to a tangerine/turquoise theme to the grey/yellow theme that i finally settled on

the project took three days, beginning friday when mum and i went down to the local bunnings and spent almost $200 on paint materials
we ended up leaving with (what was essentially) 4L light grey, 2L dark grey, 1L yellow and 1L chalkboard paint. plus a bajillion brushes and rollers and 33048209 rolls of painter's masking tape (three...)

day 1 was spent moving furniture into other parts of the house, attempting and failing to sand down the existing paint splatters on my wall and painting two coats of the base colour.
i slept at 3am that night on the basement couch.

day 2 i woke up around noon, and we yumchaed with cherry at carlingford before returning to my mess
the majority of day 2 was spent taping and painting stripes as well as getting high on chalkboard paint fumes. yummy~
we were epically nerdy when we attempted to line up the stripes, making sure we had at least two data points for each strip of masking tape and when that wasn't possible, we ended up ~eyeballing our data.
cherry left around 11pm and i continued painting the trimming etc etc,
i slept at 3am last night, on the basement couch.

then today, was spent moving everything back into my bedroom and reconfiguring everything.
and now we're done.
and tonight i will sleep at 10, and it will be in my bed, enclosed in new surroundings.
so excited~

donna.

happy chinese new year!
nothing much exciting this week aside from meeting with the good ol' supervisor, getting called joyce and emily, oh! getting my first tute (fear, excitement, denial, etc etc etci)
also met up with jin people for dinner on thursday and found out that joecheung is going back to hk 4EVAH! *sad face
i've been spending the past two days with family, sewing, cooking chinese new year food and cleaning the house in preparation for the new year.
good times.

check out the intensity of my makeup drawer (and the dust, pre-clean)...
i don't understand how i could still want more stuff -.-

also spent the morning baking a simple'n'delicious chocolate cake (recipe here)

i'm convinced the first decent cake i've ever baked, so i'm super proud of myself, even though it's probably still a bit behind in the taste department.

go dragons!

donna.

My current wardrobe is filled with items that...

1. No longer reflect my style
2. Are cheap and falling apart
3. I love but are too well-worn, i.e. threadbare

Every spring I do a massive wardrobe decluttering and there's always a red-white-blue bag full of clothes i end up passing off to charity.
And then of course, my mornings usually involve the ever-present dilemma of "oh my, what shall i wear today?" even though i have a huge wardrobe full of clothes. Most probably due to the reasons listed above.
In addition, although I've muchly (i know this isn't a word) improved over the past few years, there's still the occasional impulse buy in my wardrobe, that i've regretted (though this hasn't happened in over a year, due to my altered mindset in terms of my shopping habits)

As a result, i've been compiling a list of basics that I desire for my wardrobe and hopefully, this will guide this year's spring decluttering and shopping expeditions.

 

This post was inspired by DEAD FLEURETTE and THE FRESH EXCHANGE, and basically took forever to put together. 

 

I have quite a few of these items, but unfortunately, some of them are lesser versions of what i'm after. for example, i've been on the hunt for the perfect breton top for over a year now, to no avail. So i guess i'll need to reconsider how much i'm willing to spend on the one i really want.

right now, i most desire a yellow cardigan.

 

i'm in no hurry to purchase the cropped trousers or khaki pants, reason being, i'm no where near finding a good fitting pair. i definitely want them somewhere down the line though.

this summer, i aim to acquire a pair of dark wash denim shorts and a pair of navy shorts.  

 

i'm still recovering from the loss of my cotton on grey mini, and realise there's a large gaping hole for skirts in my wardrobe

i have like...two that i really wear

of this list, i really want to acquire the red high-waisted skirt and of course, a replacement for my cotton mini

 

long story short, i need some dresses

especially for lazy days, dress + cardi = leave the house 

 

of all the categories, i'm most content with this one

all i'm really missing is a navy boyfriend blazer, which i'm quite confident i'll be able to acquire as long as i'm not too anal about the price point.

burberry trench coat, on the other hand, is a once-in-a-lifetime buy that i'll treat myself to when i finally enter the workforce (lol). 

 

my black ballet flats from topshop suck. but at this stage i'm still unwilling to be more than $30 for a pair so that's definitely something i have to work through. 

this summer, i will be getting sandal happy. strappy tan sandal happy. 

 

 well this is one category that's going to be getting a facelift soon. 

recently convinced myself that spending the extra money will be worth it (*fingers crossed), so now i have a $500 glasses order on its way from the states. super excited for my rayban splurge to arrive in about a week's time.

 

i need a reason to purchase a leather zip wallet, particularly the comme des garcons one pictured above, that i've recently fallen in love with. red + leather = true love~

but at $200+, i need a REALLY good reason, especially considering i've only had my current one for half a year xD

i'm also pretty stoked that backbacks are coming back in, but i'm only going to get one if i come across the perfect one, otherwise i think the fad will fade too fast for me to bother

in addition, i only ever use one bag...so i guess, if i come across a nice feminine tote, i may just allow myself to get it. :)

all these images i got from polyvore and there are too many for me to link individually.

most of them are only guidelines, anyhow.

 

i actually already have a lot of this stuff, because i've been slowly changing my mindset over the past few years. 

so i've become better at parting with money for quality investment items. 

but man, a lot of these ~seemingly basic items are so expensive, i guess partly because i have very specific items in mind and also, chain stores don't carry them-slash-have cheap and tacky versions of the items i want.

i wonder how much of this list i'll be able to accomplish, come summer

wish me luck?

donna.

so unless you've been living under a rock, and thus, not privy to my continuous complaining about my proposal
you know i've been busy with my proposal (lol)
now that that's finally submitted (and hopefully accepted), i've got a little breathing space before the next deadline
had so much trouble going home today, realising i could actually have the weekend off!
my brain couldn't compute it, at all.
guess that's a pretty good indication i've finally stepped into my phD shoes, right?

anyway, changed the look of the blog the tiniest little bit, for no reason at all...
i just felt like it, i guess.

my relationship with albus has pretty much been put on the backburner for a while
so i'm hoping to take him out for a run tomorrow and get re-acquainted
haven't really taken any photos that i've been happy with for a little too long (sadface)
same with moc-dog, poor thing hasn't been washed since the ice age
i'm going to try my hardest to balance work/life during this time and hopefully, set myself up for when life gets hectic again.

starting now...sleeping early!

wish my luck :)

 

donna.

things i chucked today:

 

things i re-organised:

my camera stuff

 

my lace-up shoes

 

 

donna.