Making time for tea (and life evaluations)

The one thing that is keeping me sane after working 5 days straight at Ikea (apart from the organic soy lattes at Plough to Platter) is my evening cup of tea on my balcony. Occasionally this has been swapped for a beer on particularly frustrating days, but for the most it's been a cup of trusty Lipton's. And with the tea comes the deep thoughts, the 'trying to figure out what I want to do with my life' thoughts.

Right now I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do this year now that I'm not at uni and only working part-time. I had grand plans of going to Europe with a friend for a month but we've recently realised that our savings are going down, not up, and it's becoming less and less likely that we'll be able to afford it at all. On the plus side it means I can go to New Zealand with my parents for three weeks instead, which will be really great seeing as we haven't had a family holiday since we went to Queensland when I was in Year 10.

Either way I'm trying not to stress myself out about it but I also know that if I don't do something proactive about it I'll just end up coasting for years without a "real" job like my brother is still doing. The difference is that he can actually get a real job with his degree (Computer Science), I can't. There's a huge part of me that really wants to shake things up and move to the coast or across the world or join the army or something ridiculous, the monotony is starting to get to me here. I also have this feeling that I haven't really found my "crowd" just yet, and while there seems to be plenty of people in this big wide world of the internet who might "get" me, I just can't seem to find people face-to-face who are the same. It's not that I don't love my friends I have, I just feel like there's something missing. Or maybe I'm just being selfish?

What some may call resolutions

1. See more sunrises
2. Drive to the coast occasionally
3. Grow my own vegetables
4. Voice my opinion
5. Make time for tea
6. Spend more time outdoors
7. Picnic
8. Be a guerrilla gardener
9. Attend a film festival
10. Find my own personal style
11. Take responsibility for my own happiness
12. Shop at Farmer's Markets
13. Cook a roast dinner for my friends
14. Learn to run
15. Create and explore

It's an addiction

Now I know what Pia was talking about. Once you Poladroid you can never go back. It even makes really boring photos look good!


Oh and you know what else is fun? Tiltshift. Look, miniature skaters! Too bad I don't have many photos that suit this application, it's still fun though. Click on the picture to see a bigger view.

Jumping on the Poladroid bandwagon

Poladroid has finally gone PC! In case you have been living in a computer-free closet and haven't heard of Poladroid yet it is a magnificent program which allows you to turn your boring old photos into virtual polaroids! Complete with the delightful burring sound and you can watch it slowly develop before your very eyes, genius. For ages there was only a Mac version of poladroid, so I would frequently visit the website eagerly awaiting the release of a PC version.

Ever since getting back from Europe I've been kicking myself for not taking polaroid while I was over there (I had the camera, but the film was dead!), so now I can use the pictures I already took and transform them into beautiful polaroids. The changes in colour and lighting are amazing, making previously dull photos into really pretty shots. Now that I've run out of actual polaroid film and I can't really afford to buy any more for the moment I'll probably be relying on poladroid for a lot of my photos. I know you can tell the difference because my polaroids are normally have more of a hazy-dreamy quality rather than the bright colours, but for the while it will be a fun experiment.

p.s I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year break, I had intended to post more but got a bit lazy with all the festivities. Thanks to Tara for calling me out on my bad blogging ;)