Hi all! I just realised I never posted here to say I now have a new home – http://laceandcream.realityescapesher.com I hope to see you all over there 
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Filed under misc
I think that all of us do have creative sides in us – some are just better than others. My grandmother can knit, sew, make dolls and all sorts of wonderful things. I on the other hand? I struggle with the basics. I can barely sew or knit let alone draw but I attempt and it is fun. At the moment I’m working on making jewelry because I for some reason think this can’t be as hard as some of the other things… right? Well only time shall tell.
In the mean time I shall attempt and keep attempting to make jewelry and the like. Perhaps one day I shall be good enough to sell it but I know it will be a long time coming. For me it is just a fun hobby for me though. I encourage all of you to do something like this too. It’s a great way to relax!
This isn’t the only type of creativeness that people can have. I myself am also a writer which is another popular way to let out your creative side. Whether it be original stories, fanfiction, roleplay, poems, all of it is a way to let out your creativeness that everyone should try and develop and express. Even making up your own fashion style works too! Decorate your room how you want it to be and so on. Just let your creative side flow and you have no idea where it shall take you.
Filed under inspirational posts, photography
The Corrs are a Celtic folk rock band from Dundalk, Ireland. The group consists of the Corr siblings: Andrea (lead vocals, tin whistle); Sharon (violin, vocals); Caroline (drums, piano, bodhrán, vocals); and Jim (guitar, piano, vocals).
The Corrs came to international prominence with their performance at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, and their support of Celine Dion on her 1996 Falling into You Tour. Since then, they have released five studio albums and numerous singles, which have reached platinum in many countries.[1] Talk on Corners, their most successful album to date, reached multi-platinum status in Australia and the UK.
The Corrs have been actively involved in philanthropic activities. They have performed in numerous charity concerts such as the Prince’s Trust in 2004 and Live 8 alongside Bono in 2005. The same year, they were awarded honorary MBEs for their contributions to music and charity.[3] The Corrs are on hiatus because Jim and Caroline are raising families, while Andrea and Sharon are pursuing solo careers.
The Corrs was the second band I have ever gotten into and has always been one of my favourites. It was probably in 2001 (even could have been 2000 now that I think of it), I was only ten or eleven at the time when I first discovered them. I’m not sure how I found it but mum had bought their album “The Corrs Talk on Corners” from I think…. Target or some other store (for some reason I have Toys R Us in my head but that makes ZERO sense). None the less though, I put it in my boom box and started to play it – and fell in love in the process. There was just something magical about them that made me grin whenever I listened to them, in fact I could listen to them for hours at a time (as seen by the recent plays on my last.fm account.
In 2001, they came on tour to Australia and dad took me to their concert. Yes we were up the back and didn’t have the best view (it was better than Matchbox 20 though!) but it was my first ever concert and I absolutely loved it. I even remember a lot of it now. I remember seeing them walk down the corridors towards the stage on the big screen, I think I even remember what some of them were wearing! It was also a school night and being up to midnight was amazing deal for me at the time 
That was unfortunately the first and last time I saw them in concert as they never came to Australia again.
None the less, I collected their albums, I listened to them a lot and continued to save them. In 2002, I was on ‘City Camp’ with school and we went to Queen Vic market and apart from food that was the only thing I bought that day – their “In Blue” album. Then their Summer Sunshine album. Then they disappeared as far as I could tell. I wasn’t happy about this at all but I continued to listen to their music and continued to love them.
Unfortunately as it didn’t seem to have been publicised a lot or at all I missed their release of the album “Home” in 2005. Working at the library though, I discovered that album and cursed myself so much for not buying it (something I still need to rectify though I have it on my laptop) and Andrea and Sharon’s solo albums. Even though I know that they went on hiatus to have families and the like, I hang on hope that the rumour is true, that they shall be doing something again as a group this year sometime.
Yes, ten or eleven years after first discovering The Corrs they are still one of my all time favourite groups and I hope they continue to produce music in the future. If not? I shall relgiously continue to listen to the albums they have released.
Filed under music, themed posts
Today I shall take you on a trip to the past. I have always been fascinated by history from Tudors to the First Fleet to American history. One of my biggest area’s of history is Family History though. First off, I will admit in the past few years I haven’t had as much of a chance to work on ours as I would like but it is still a passion. I find it fascinating to see where we come from, what stories our past holds, what secrets we can discover.
It would have had to have been 2000 when I first got into it. I don’t remember exactly how it was but one of the very first things I remember is discovering that I was descended from two of the original settlers of Norfolk Island. In fact the two of them were convicts and quite succesful convicts too at that. They also had thirteen children though two of them died when they were two and still on Norfolk Island. From there we went searching for more information and I got more and more involved with it. Mostly focusing on mum’s side though as dad’s had his tree done quite some time ago, going back to the 700′s though it has some interesting stories to it too.
While there are many people working on family histories around the world – including mine, it can never hurt to do some research of your own! There’s lots of places to start – ancestry.com, ancestry.co.uk, geneology.com and many others websites – just do a google search for family history sites, geneology or something along those lines. Not only are there these websites but there are also magazines such as Family Tree and numerous books about finding and starting on your search. In otherwords there are plenty of rescources out there to help you with your research.
There is a lot that can be discovered in researching your family history, which can be captured some what on shows such as “Who Do You Think You Are?” etc. Perhaps it is just me but watching these shows can show me such interesting stories, how the world and even cities have changed over times, especially when they reveal something surprising and quite unexpected about someone or some place.
For me? Not only did I discover we were descended from two convicts but actually four (if not more!). Two of them were the first married on Norfolk Island even before it was technically allowed. One of them’s sister was supposedly mistress to King George and the other one was supposedly an aristocrat but yet both were convicts? That is probably something we’ll never know for sure but what we know is that there is a lot that doesn’t make sense regarding their past. One of them was a carpenter by trade and built the first Windmill in Australia and worked with Sir Frances Greenway among others projects. The two of them are the ancesters to 40,000 descendants who are alive today and is the largest family in Australia. That is just one of the many things we have discovered about one side of my family.
On the other side? Yes we haven’t really touched it (though my Aunt is working on this side a bit) we have more fascinating stories to discover within the branches of the family tree. Yes I’m just a normal Australian girl, nothing spectacular but did you know I’m descended from William the Conquerer and have other members of the British (English, Scottish royal families and French aristocracy? That Macbeth was a real person though he wasn’t anywhere evil as Shakespeare potrayed him in the play?
It isn’t even back so many generations that we find the interesting stories in our past. My grandfather was apart of the Indian army and actually lived in India as a child. My grandmother lived in Israel from a number of years before coming to Australia from England.
One just never knows what you will discover. Even the stories of where you name comes from can provide clues to your family history and what secrets the past holds for you. Who knows, you could be related to Margaret Thatcher or even Elizabeth I for all you know! Even George Washington! You might even be distantly related to your best friend! I suggest not looking up your significant other though! To quote something I read ‘if you know how closely related you and your partner are its too close’.
Why don’t you go research your past if you don’t know it? It’s interesting and I’m positive you’ll learn something new and exciting!
I’m sure that all of us in one way or another has focused on our health and staying healthy. Oh sure there is a point where we all have to focus on it to stay healthy but so often we take it to an obsessive level. This often results in many illnesses including anorexia and bulimia among other things. None of it is healthy for our body and even for our mind. It can cause stress, it can cause anxiety if you think you are over weight which causes the cycle to start all over again.
It isn’t just that that we focus on. While talking to Rebekkah on twitter we started to talk about why women want to be tall. There is a very stereotype image of what we should be like – woman should be tall, slim, blonde, blue eyes, men should be tall, muscular and manly. I think a lot of this influences the obsession we do have with our weight when it comes down to it. Everyone wants to be perfect, wants to be loved and wants to live up to people’s expectations. Instead of being comfortable with themselves they try and be someone they aren’t, often with disastrous consequences.
Photo by Lilith Lefay on Deviant ARt
Instead people should embrace who they are, what they believe in and just accept themselves as they are. I admit I have had some problems with my weight as well – though while I’m still in the normal, healthy range I admit I could loose about 10kg (22pounds) and still be healthy. That isn’t to say I’m fat though, because I’m not. I’m just a touch on the larger side of average. Despite that I am comfortable with who I am and I accept that. I accept I’m not the stereotype girl that men seem to want and you know what? I don’t give a damn.
It’s about what is capturing what is one the inside and not on the outside.
Even then there are beautiful girls who look completely different.
Photo by Aleksandra88
Filed under deep and meaningful, inspirational posts
Awhile ago (I think it was sometime late 2009 but I could be wrong) I was watching a music quiz show called Spicks and Specks and there was a guest called Charlotte “Charlie” Thorpe. My first thought? She’d make a great Ginny or even Lily pb and then that she was apart of a band with one of her high school friends called Dash and Will. After searching for pictures of them and failing to find them I did find their myspace though and was instantly hooked on their music.
From Wikipedia
Dash (Charlotte “Charlie” Thorpe) and Will (Josie De Sousa-Reay) first met in early 1999, at age nine. The pair both started grade four on the same day at the same new school, Preshil: The Margaret Lyttle Memorial School. Their original relationship was bitter, as Josie recalls the two had “hated each other for quite a few years”. At age twelve, they began performing together and in year nine (age fourteen), Charlie and Josie were awarded a small financial grant to record a professional demo of their original songs.[1]
The following year, in 2005, Josie’s dad was talking to the father of one of the girl’s classmates, Barry Palmer a Melbourne-based producer and former guitarist with Hunters & Collectors and Deadstar. Not long after, Palmer contacted the girls and asked if they would come into the studio for a chat and live performance. He then signed the duo to his music production company, Gigantically Small, and they would eventually sign to Mercury Records through Universal Music Australia.[1]Dash and Will headlined the 2008 Rock the Schools tour across New South Wales in May, as well as supporting Ben Lee, Matt Costa and Faker’s Nathan Hudson.[1][2] Their first single, “Pick You Up”, was released in May 2008, and second single “Fighting Over Nothing” was released in October 2008.
Dash and Will supported British indie rockers The Kooks on their Australian tour in August and September 2008 as well as The Futureheads, End of Fashion and Van She. They were also on the bill to play the long-running summer festivals Homebake and Falls Festival, also playing on The Other Stage at Southbound in 2009.[3]
In September 2008, the duo’s version of The Easybeats’ “Somethin’ Wrong” was released on Easy Fever, a compilation of The Easybeats’ classic songs performed by Australian and New Zealand artists.[4]Dash & Will once again supported The Kooks on their second tour of Australia in January 2009, as well as supporting another UK band, The Ting Tings. The duo found exposure through appearances on numerous Australian television programs, including childrens show Saturday Disney and music quiz shows RocKwiz and ‘Spicks and Specks’. They also hosted four episodes of a music based show for kids, The Go Show, on the Foxtel channel Nickelodeon.
They released their debut studio album, Up in Something, in August 2009.
If you follow me on twitter it would come as no surprise to discover that I’m obsessed with the duo at the moment. There is something about them that is just unique but attractive at the same time. Their music is very well hip-hop-pop alternative is the best way to describe it I think (and I know that isn’t a real genre but it works). They aren’t a very well known band but an excellent one none the less, which everyone would do to get into or at least listen to them once or twice.
Filed under music
Today, January 26 is Australia Day for those in other countries who might not be aware of this fact. Today is the day we celebrate the European’s arriving here in 1788. In that year, today was the day they first set foot on the land of Port Jackson and raised the English flag claiming it as their own. Today is the day we celebrate what makes us Australian.
These things could be in my mind and others
This isn’t everything obviously but they are the first things that come to mind, the important things (or at least some of them!) A lot of people will have barbeques, go swimming, sit around and drink beer (or soft drink or something) and just enjoy themselves.
And today, on a day of mateship my minds go out to my friends – Cat, Jess, Millie Vic, Caitlin, Bee and all the others who I love and adore! ♥
What do you guys do today? Do you celebrate at all (we don’t really)? What do you think makes Australia, Australia?
Filed under deep and meaningful
We all have our own interests and likes that influence us and who we are in varying ways. My main influences are obvious – books, friends and family. All my life I have loved books, my friends and family even if I have shy and have trouble around new people (I am getting better though!) I take great pleasure in who I am and things I love but I haven’t always been that way. While in High School (I attending an all girls private school which should say it all) I hid my online interests, afraid that I would be bullied. I made one mistake while in year ten/form 4/aged 16, where I linked to my livejournal and someone decided to find a graphic harry/severus fanfiction and claimed it was mine. That taught me a lot and led me to hide it though a handful of people were aware, perhaps not to the full extent though. This person? She was a bitch and I’m glad to no longer have anything to do with her as my life is so much better now.
Since leaving High School and moving onto the work place, Uni and meeting some fabulous people I realise that it is a lot harder to hide parts of who you are than be who you are in full. This has lead me to take steps to embrace who I am, not hide parts of me from the world even if I know they won’t fully accept it. To some extents I do keep parts of my life seperate though – I don’t talk about certain things on Facebook, I have two twitters – one focused on Roleplay and the other not. Though apart from the RP tweets on one twitter, both essentially have the exact same tweets. Some might not understand this but at the rate I do talk about RP I figured it was the best so not to bore all the people who aren’t into it.
The point? Be yourself no matter what others thing, it makes you happier and your life better over all. Find what interests you and embrace it. Trust me, while some people might not like it, i the long run it is better for you and all those involved. I have always had a love books (as seen below) and I haven’t kept that a secret but as I discover myself more so I discover that while I am a geek and love gothic things, I love “boy” things – I wondered into EB games the other day and bought Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords and HP 7 computer games I also like girly things too. I have discovered I love jewelry and making it (though I hate spending money on it so cheap is good), I’m getting more into dresses and skirts and clothes and developing my own fashion style that isn’t as mainstream (slowly getting the courage), a love of massages (brilliant!) and even have bought myself some face moisturizer something I would never have dreamed of owning before. I will not touch make up though (or at least at the moment – I have extremely dry and easily irritated skin and just find I rub too much when I wear it).
Not only do I have a love for books, art and crafty stuff I’m discovering, I’m also discovering a deeper love of music. While I have always loved it, I think that since meeting Millie and discovering Last.fm I have developed a bigger love for music and more artists to the point I am obsessed. I often find inspiration from these songs. Songs from The Corrs like Hurt Before, Run Away, Someone for Someone etc all give me hope and inspiration for the future, that there is something good out there and no matter how bad life has been that it can improve. Even songs from Within Temptation, Nightwish and HIM have inspirational themes to them even if at first they might not be obvious (and some songs are just awesome which is awesome).
I am (I hope!) – a geek, a girl, a goth, a princess, a music lover, self confident, friendly, loyal, honest, independent, dependent, trustworthy, writer, failing artist in training but most importantly, I am me.
No matter what happens in your life, remember that you have to maintain your sense of self identity as if not you are no one. With it though, you will be a much more interesting person. Don’t be afraid to step outside of your shell, explore new things, meet new people. Perhaps, just perhaps you shall discover something you excel at but never thought that you would. Remember to, Create your own you, when it comes to life.
Filed under deep and meaningful, inspirational posts
After reading this post by Millie it got me thinking about what my goals are for 2011 etc. I was going to include a bit on my inspirations but I think that will come in another post
This post also somehow captures life and how I perceive parts of it. For those too lazy to click on the link it says:
“Life is what happens to you when you while you’re busy making other plans” – John Lennon
That is exactly what 2010 did to me in some ways. I don’t remember a year passing by so quickly between real life drama, uni, online drama, work and my semi-social life. In fact it some years 2010 was a tough year on me. I’m not going to go into much detail but it was full of lows. It started out a week in with a co-worker dying from an epileptic fit. He was a couple of months from turning 21. As the year progressed though I was determined not to let all of this let me down. In the end the first six months of the year were the worst but it did improve.
I made some new friends, I lost other friends but in the end I think it and I turned out for the best. At the beginning of the year I was too terrified tog out and meet knew people. At the end of the year I went to a party where I only really knew one person and I was fine. I have come along way over the year and in 2011 I would love to keep growing and become ‘me’ and who I want to be, not live to other peoples ideals etc. I won’t let myself be walked all over. I shall stand up for what I believe in.
I admit one of my biggest influences would be my brilliant friend Julia. I’m not going into her story to respect her privacy but to have the courage to go through all she has and still be one of the most brilliant, friendliest people I know? It is one of the things that made me realise that we can get through what is coming our way and come out on top of it all. Just talking to her makes me feel better about myself and that is something I think all of us needs.
So I am sure that you can guess what one of my resolutions will be but for 2011 I aim to (even if I don’t usually keep them)
I’m sure I have more I could probably think of but those are my main things!
Filed under deep and meaningful, inspirational posts
As some of you might be aware of, I participate in journal based roleplay over on Insanejournal. Lately the site has been having a few problems, nothing devastating though it is annoying. This morning in the US the site went offline so they could do some maintenance work to fix the problems. I was asleep while this was happening so I didn’t really notice anything. When I got online though I found on twitter the following:
“The maintenance is mostly done. I was able to safely abort it to get the site back up and running. I will complete what did not get finished at a later time. The site still should be running better as we were able to reindex 90% of the tables in the databases.”
My reaction? WTF?! Why did you stop at 90% and just not finish it? Do you know why they did it? People were complaining so much about how long it was down. So instead of finishing it off completely and properly. This resulted in the site not working for the entire day (still not working properly nearly 24 hours later).
This has got me asking ‘Why do we rely on the internet so much?’ I admit that I am obsessed with it in some ways. Oh I can step back from it and do other things but I’ll come home and go straight on it. It has become as much apart of my life as breathing in some ways. It wasn’t always this way. In fact it probably wasn’t until I was in my teens that I got steady internet access and that was due to the fact that my school required us to have laptops from the age of 11 up. I think this might have played a big part of it. We nearly always used them all day at school and then came home and used them for homework and the like. It only seems natural that that I got onto the internet and discovered other sites on it.
Internet for a lot of people becomes before books as well when it comes to research and the like. Everything is at the tip of our fingers, just a click away. In someways while this can be quite good it is also quite detrimental. It means that not as many people are using books for research and the like, not leaving home, not moving etc. It sometimes comes as no surprise to me that the obesity rate is on the rise. Of course, working in a library makes me realise that books aren’t completely dying out. In fact they are still extremely popular. None the less though when it does come to projects for High School and Uni students are turning to the internet for their projects. Perhaps its because it is easier to find information in such a short amount of time or are we as a race getting so lazy that we can’t be bothered going out to the library and borrowing books to read and take notes from?
In fact, as I’m typing this post I’m talking to Millie and it came up that while she was considering USB internet for her trip away she might not bother as it could do her good to step away from the internet for awhile. The main point of this? It would allow her to do other things such as knit, write and draw etc. All of which is an extremely good point. Even I admit that if I don’t take active steps to do other things I will easily and readily spend all day on the computer surfing the net and the like. I know plenty of other people who do the same too. When I do step out though it is like a fresh of breathe air. It allows me to reconnect with the world as a whole and lets me embrace it again.
All of this brings me back to the question ‘why do we rely on it so much?’ Apart of me thinks I’ll never get a solid answer as who exactly knows why this is the case? I’m quite positive that people have different reasons too which would make finding the answer more complicated. All I know is that we as a race rely on the internet a lot, perhaps more than we should given how addictive in nature it can be. Then again its better to be addicted to it than alcohol or cigarettes.
But I shall leave you with the question, “Why do we rely on it so much?”
Filed under deep and meaningful
