Happy Halloween

All Hallows Day is November the 1st. "All Hallows Eve" is an Old English term for Hallow-e'en (short for evening). The eve of All Hallows Day. Also recognised in Mexico as the Day of the Dead, Remembering the Dead or the day the dead will rise. I love Halloween. After Christmas, it is my favourite holiday. Not even Easter comes close.

Growing up with parents who recently returned from living in Canada and having my older sister there, Halloween was always celebrated in our household. Overall it was reasonably uncommon to recognise Halloween in NZ in the 1980's. The craze of trick or treating quickly caught on in our street once the other kids in our neighbourhood saw the spoils from our own door-knocking.  The great thing about this was that because our visits were unexpected, our bounties would be generous. Whole packets of chocolate biscuits. An unopened 2L bottle of lemonade. An entire packet of family-sized chips. The pantries of our cul-de-sac would be bare and our knapsacks full.

And of course Mum would make our own costumes.

This picture of the Ghost outfit still gives me a headache. Mum sewed sheets for us. I distinctly remember having to hold my eye holes in alignment the entire night just so I could see. I received three fairly could knocks to the head and consequent "egg" contusions from getting my foot caught and tripping up on the front of the sheet. Of course my arm holes were too big and I couldn't brace my fall. So I fell like timber.

And mandatory cat costume complete with matching white jelly shoes for my older sister and I.


So in keeping with tradition, I decorated my apartment this weekend.

( L - R)

 Skull Lolly Jar
Paper candelabra
Spell Book

Spider Webs from craft store

Window silhouette stencils


And a twilight bath to finish my night...

Sydney Glasshouse Candle in Mimosa and Wild Apple, Festive O.P.I nail polish in "The Show Must go On" and

Golden Wonder, Lush Bath Ballistic turned the bathwater blue.

Do you have any holiday traditions?

Budgie xo

My Top Ten Lush Products

Without further adieu, here we go...

10.   Angels on Bare Skin

Described as a medieval cleansing wash with rose and lavender.  This feels like something you could easily make yourself. Ground almonds, honey, olive oil. But the "mehh" attitude in me makes me too lazy. It is lovely. My face feels like a baby's bottom after I wash with it.

9.   Celebrate Lip Tint

A late entry onto the top ten list. This puppy only came out last week in the holiday collection. It's suppose to taste of pink champagne: cognac, lemon and grapefruit. Then there's the golden lustre popping candy on the top. I do love the pinky shimmer though.

I'm a sucker for anything nude/frosty on the lip. This is my favourite festive lip product and a must in my hand bag at the moment.

8.    Ultrabalm 

A natural moisturising balm made with plant waxes: candelilla wax and jojoba oil. Rose wax soothes irritations. 

Great for chapped lips, dry nose from colds. This is a stable on my coffee table. Love it.

7.  Big

Big hair is making a comeback. I tease the crap out of my hair. I still use my straighteners to smooth the kinks, but goodbye iron-flat and stick-to-my-head roots. 

Big Shampoo is a big old pile of rock salt you wash out. A seaweed infusion to soften and fresh lime juice for shine. Great for volume and massaged into my roots. This would be further up my list if I was blonde, but I'm sure it'll make a comeback shortly.

6,  Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter

Softens cuticles. A thick cream for nourishing your nails. Heaven in a pottle. Say no more. This is a must.

5.   Yummy, Yummy, Yummy Shower Cream

All hail the best shower cleanser AND its now discontinued. (Sob sob) Let's unite and bring this back on the Retro List. Strawberry Creamy deliciousness. 

Did you know that..

Strawberries are considered one of the world's healthiest foods? They are a natural source of minerals, folic acid, omega3 fatty acids and powerful antioxidants. They contain a higher concentration of vitamin C, per weight, than oranges.

I can't talk about it anymore, it makes me too upset.

4,  The Olive Branch Shower Gel

Wraps you in its arms and keep you safe. Oh  who needs a man when you have this bad boy? It smells sweet but masculine.

"The Olive Branch has a welcoming, Mediterranean warmth to it, has fairly traded olive oil, an infusion of vine leaves, mineralising sea salt and the fresh juice of mandarins"  -  Lush.

3.  Grass Shower Gel

A deep scent of freshly mown lawns. It takes me back to my Flower Market soap days .

This concoction has wheat grass juice and citrus oils. Summer in a bottle. Not for the faint hearted, it smells like your lawn mower blades, but I love it.

2,  Dorothy  Bubble Bar

Ylang-ylang and sweet figs. Soothing and harmonious. This is beautiful. What else can I say?  It even has bubbles.

and my number one favourite Lush item is.....

1.  Twilight !   Bath Ballistic

Lavender. It's a common fragrance on my list. I love this, (not just because of the name) for its calming, relaxing fragrances. Perfect for  bathing at twilight. 

And lastly, honourable mentions....

- Vanilla Dee-Lite Body Moisturiser- thought I'd get sick of the sickly, sweet honey smell, but no. It's still going strong like my current addiction to Chai Lattes.

-  Ghost and Twilight Shower Gels. Just came out this week, but already a favourite. I'll keep you posted....

Budgie xo

Career Advice at 30

Career Advice? I'm sorry, I have none.

After a recent discussion with a best friend about that serious moment in your life when you finally realise you ARE grown up, it got me thinking. Time IS running out. And when was it a good idea to have to start your career path at 17? How do we know even who we are at 17, let alone having to start mapping out your career.

Don't think for one moment I have any of this sorted. This is an anonymous blog, but let me let me tell you that my closest friends may think I have that career box ticked, paid of my student loan and climbing the corporate ladder. Yes, I think I do my job well. I'm giving about 80% of my effort and energy towards my version of the daily grind. I'm almost working at my full potential. Don't get me wrong, I do love it. But I'm still giving more than enough of my life, blood, sweat and tears. Any more and I feel it will consume me whole. 

So ten years (plus) on and in-hind sight, what would I have done differently? Well, I would ask my twenty year-old self  "What do other people feel that you do well and what comes naturally to you?" The answer for me would've been a nurse or carer. I'm not interested in the medical side, but do love being a listening ear with sympathy and compassion for others. Which interestingly enough is not too far of the mark in my career choice right now.

And for the issue of that hour glass ticking, well I'm all for a career change / break / holiday in my 40's and 50's. We'll see..

I'll leave you with a perfectly timed picture to ensure that you capture time in it's essence right now.

Budgie xo

How to run a good bath

Let me guess, this is how your bath goes.

Must relax. Must relax. Must relax...
Run more water. Sweaty dribbles. I have only have 15 minutes until...

Must read whilst in bath. Run more water. Toes are wrinkly (doesn't matter that's the sign of a good soak). Run more water. Read another chapter. (Must spend at least half an hour in here). More sweaty dribbles. Magazine is now sticky to turn the pages. Cheeks pink. Head pounding. Steam over-running me, finding it hard to breathe. Worried the flatmates will walk in. Children outside screaming. By now the book is splodged with water or worse, a sopping messy from accidentally dropping it in.   Phew! I'm stressed for you.

That's not even including your prep work. 

De-hairing (ew), scrub cleaning the bath ring off, disinfecting the tub, pre-warning the husband you must NOT be disturbed, ignoring the screaming children outside or hiding from the lawn mowing man out the bathroom window.

No ladies you are doing it all wrong. Here are some tried and true techniques of how to run a good bath.

Compulsory step: clean the bath. And yes, I can appreciate this may take time. But I suggest you clean it in the morning or the day before, preempting your session.

Time-out:   Again I recognise that some of you may have children, and you may not get time out. But try and organise a time that either you are home alone, or said children are busy with instructed, obedient husband. Or you bathe late at night.

Timing: Twilight/ dusk is my favourite time. Why? I love the colours the bathroom goes at dusk. I also hate it when I get out of the bath when it's dark outside. It makes me strangely disorientated so I always try to get out before then.

Temperature: Have a warm bath, not hot. Bordering luke-warm. By the time the water goes tepid, its time to get out. Not add more hot water. (In winter you can afford to be a bit more generous with the temperature). You can have cooler baths in summer. But remember the most important factor is that you mentally relax too.
Not just soak muscles. Throw the window open and breathe fresh air. 

Length: And this is the most important one. No more than 10 minutes. Tops. You may think "What's the point? It took me longer than that to run/clean the tub!"   or... "That's an expensive way to use bath products at $8 a pop". But the point is relaxation. I mean, how often do you have a bath? Once a week at the most? And if you're not doing the usual hygiene activities, you'll be surprised at how long ten minutes actually is.

Lastly, but all equally important: NO shaving.  NO hair-washing. This is a bath. Don't marinade in your filth. Take your make-up off so your skin can breathe. No sharing the bath. Don't read. Drink a delicious glass of cold water instead- okay, sometimes a wine too.

And yes of course, you must include some Lush bath products. My favourites are:-

 Bath Ballistics that are soft, gentle and soothing are:      Twilight, Dorothy, French Kiss
 Fun and festive bath bombs:                                   Dragon's Egg, Cinders, Supernova



As pictured (L-R) Dorothy, Dragon's Egg, Superstar (new), Supernova, Twilight. All  are Lush products.
Bath tub ornament: $15 on sale at Farmers.       Mint pot: model's own.


What are your favourite bath products?



Budgie xo

A creative vent

Melancholic. That's a great word.  

mel·an·chol·ic

  [mel-uhn-kol-ik]

adjective

1.

disposed to or affected with melancholy; gloomy.

2.

of, pertaining to, or affected with melancholia

It's been a long winter and there has been some madness in my life for sure.

But the great thing about getting older, you get to choose how you react to stressful events in your life.
How does that saying go... What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger right?


There are things that make me feel better- not my favourite things. That's another blog entry all together.

1. walking at dusk
2. running/exercise. All winter. No excuses.
3. goal setting
4. ticking off to-do lists
5. going out of my way to help others (need to do this more)
6. projects (not work related)
7. tackling hard tasks first, to get rid of that niggly feeling
8. sighing / at least taking a deep breath
9. recognising I'm not a morning person!
10. being superficial and self-indulgent in moderation.

So, I'm sorry if I offend some of my friends with my frivolous nonsense of conversations at times.

I appreciate that my life is on a completely different path than most of them. I am buying make-up, not nappies. There are countless hours in my day and yes, I know I'm lucky to sleep seven hours straight. Heck, eleven if I was to be honest with you.  But I also know that at some point of my life, I will be on that family track too.  

I am genuinely interested in their concerns as new mums, wives to their working husbands and mortgages to juggle. It's a learning curve for sure and I am lucky to be travelling it alongside them.

But I am at a fork. A cross-roads. And for now, I'm doing what's important to me too.
Me.  And this blog is my creative vent.


So what are your de-stressers?  In no particular order please..


Budgie xo

A lush addiction

When I count how many Lush products I have at any given time,  it is no less than 30 items.
I. Am. Obsessed.

Cue insert of pic of an embarrassing collection.

My addiction started ten years ago with a trip to Sydney when I first purchased Flower Market Soap. It was heaven in a green soapy bar. Beautiful. A store then opened in Wellington when I was at university in which I frequently made trips to. ( By the way I have since emailed them to try and get that soap re-released on their Retro items to no avail... Are you getting the full extent of my addiction yet?  : )

Since then, I do not fail to sniff out the nearest Lush when walking into a new mall. It's hard to miss the pungent aroma waffling throughout the corridors. It makes me so excited. Like a kid in a candy shop, a dog on heat (ew) and the switch in me clicks until I can hone in on my fix.

Lush smells.. well, Lush. Men describe it as a stench. It is definitely a soapy and flowery, but can be overwhelming especially the heavy, herbally concoction that all the aromas blend together make when you first walk into the store. But it is bliss.

So now there is a Lush less than five minutes from where I live. I love it. The girls that work there are always super friendly and nice to me. They understand my addiction well. So much so, that when I left my ring there once after a Lemony Flutter hand treatment, they knew my contact number in their book to ring me back. Well, that's kind of embarrassing! I really should have shares in the business with how much I've invested. Or at least work there. It has been suggested to me before... but I don't think I could handle it.

The reasons why I love Lush: 

1. their products are festive and seasonal. 
2. it is a pricey, but affordable treat. 
3. anything beauty related is lovely and self-indulgent.

That's all.

Do you want to hear my favourite Lush products? Or was this enough whimsical nonsense..

Budgie.

Why Budgie?

Budgie is a drinking name given to me from my travelling days, in my mid twenties, living in London.
The nickname also stems from a terrible time in my teenage years... let me explain.

Glandular fever, or Mono as it is known in the States, is a horrible but thankfully temporary, life-sucking medical condition that renders you lifeless, lethargic and worst of all, unable to consume alcohol for many months.
A small form of torture for any teenager.

So along with a small stint in hospital at 16 years old, 9 kgs of weight loss, jaundice and partial kidney failure,
I am left with a fairly dodgy liver for life.

Fast forward to my twenties and to my university days, I was stoked. Whilst many of my friends were racking up huge bar tabs and alcohol budgets to factor into their student loans, I on the other hand, was one cheap drunk. A drink or two before town, one drink at the bar and I was anyone's. Well, not really.

More like I was the gutter's or nursing a toilet bowl within hours if I wasn't careful.

So back to the Budgie.

Five years on and travelling and living in the U.K. I was still blessed (or cursed depending how you look at it) with a low tolerance to alcohol. My travel fund was mounting and my drinking fund minimal. Sunday sessions were always affordable at the pub. I was quite good at assessing my level of intoxication at this point in my life. Three snakies (read my blog entry on my London days for this explanation) in the late afternoon, followed with a good beer buzz by dinnertime, dancing on the table by 7pm, sobering by 8pm and home and showered in bed by 9pm. Hangover shamangover. Monday morning I was fresh as a daisy.  Well this worked, until sometimes I got drunk enough not to know how drunk that I actually was. So carnage inevitably prevailed. Frequently.

It got a little ridiculous how quickly I got drunk. My friends would buy rounds. I would buy rounds to try and compensate for my lack of drinking. Always declaring "I was one drink ahead" as my liver was trying to chug away processing the backed up alcohol in my system. And within a short time I'd call it quits and either bail out of rounds, or bail off to the bathroom.

A South African travelling buddy of mine declared me the bird in the coalmine. "You know that bird they used to have in cages in the mines" she explained... "the one that hung by the roof so that if gas levels were too high, or oxygen too low, the bird would die and the miners would get out"..

We couldn't quite remember the name of that bird.   (It is a canary for reference).  So hence I am Budgie. 

If I go down, everyone has at least one more drink in them before they end their night too.

and why a balcony? Because that is my perch.