Dreaming of Vintage Treasures

A couple of days before Christmas, it was my sister's 21st birthday. Instead of having a big party, she organised a trip for my family and I to go to Sydney   back in October . I t was so fun,  I wish I had've thought of that for my 21st! On her actual birthday, we went off for a day trip to Hanging Rock. It's a large geological formation, basically a giant rock and you can walk to the top of it. This curly tree greeted us on the way in. It was made famous by the Australian novel and later movie called Picnic at Hanging Rock. I've never read the book or watched the movie, but after learning a bit about the history of it, I'm intrigued. I wish I had've dressed up in something white and flowy, like the actresses did in the recent TV series: Source I love dressing up, so wasn't too thrilled about dressing down for the day. My sister recommended wearing runners for the steep walk, but I'm much more of a boots girl, so I stuck on my t...

Hello!  2018 is almost finished - can you believe it? I thought my family and I were having a quiet Christmas at home, but we got a few invites at the last minute! On Christmas Eve, we went to my uncle's house for lunch, the lamb spit and my mum's stuffed peppers were delicious! The jokes in the Christmas crackers had us laughing this year. What do elves learn at school? The elf-abet! It's the silly season, alright! We stopped off at my nonna's on the way home. I don't get to see her as often as I'd like, as I've been working full time this year, and I miss her.  Now that I've got some time off, I'm happy to see her much more. On Christmas day, my family and I had lunch with my best friend Renee and her family. There's nothing like a good ol' catch up. And they're a clever lot. They hired a hall and everyone brought a couple of plates of food, which saved one person the stress of cooking a huge feast...

Hello! I finished work for the year on Thursday. We had a staff lunch at a cute Italian farm estate. The food was delicious and it was nice to celebrate the end of the year with all the lovely staff. I can't believe I've finished my first year as a teacher! It's been such a challenge and steep learning curve, I'm glad I persevered. I'm hoping that next year is a whole lot easier now that I'm a bit more confident and familiar with everything. Now that I'm on holidays, I get a chance to embrace the holiday spirit. I love how my mum decorates the house for Christmas. We've both  been  slowly collecting decorations over the years. A lot of them must be vintage by now, we've had them for that long! My mum has always told my sister and I stories of how much she adored her grandmother's little gold Christmas tree when she visited her in Italy as a child. So my mum was thrilled to find her very own this year for $2.50, ...

Hello! I've had the strangest feeling all day. I've been feeling so moody, like I could burst into tears at any second. Little things have been bugging me and it's all a bit bewildering to me.  Of course, you wouldn't be able to tell by these pictures I took last week. The red dress is so cheery, can you believe I found it at a market when it was still selling in an Australian store called Valleygirl? I haven't been up to much this weekend, other than doing some work in preparation for parent teacher interviews and spending time with  my family and cousins.  This morning, my dad, Dedo and I went to visit the cemetery  as my Baba's two year anniversary is coming up. Afterwards we hung out in my Dedo's garden, picked some of his homegrown cucumbers and were delighted by a bird nest that's in his grape plant - it has three small blue eggs inside!  In the afternoon, I went with my mum and dad to the city to buy some C...

What a busy weekend it's been!  On Saturday night, my family and I went to a christening, which had some wild performances from Romanian belly dancers - it was like something straight out of the movies! It was a late night, but my mum and I managed to pull ourselves out of bed five hours later to go to the Sunday market. It was last of the year and I found a few things: These brand new sunglasses were $1 and the CD has Queen's greatest hits over 3 discs! A small haul, but that's how it goes when you're vintage or second hand shopping - you never know what you'll find. Later in the day, my family and I spent the day in a country town called Daylesford, with my Dedo. We've been many times before ( here , here and here ) over the years but this was the first time with my grandpa. The first thing we did was stop off at the local honey stall. Once you taste this honey, it's hard to go back to supermarket honey. We had lunch at a ba...

Hello! I've had a weekend full of planning for the last few weeks of school and watching movies. On Saturday night, I started to watch Schindler's List , which I've seen one or two times before. Source I'd been reminded of the film as my mum had been watching a short documentary on director Steven Spielberg earlier in the week.  Schindler's List is  such a sad movie, I'm sure I'll cry my way through it when I get a chance to watch the rest of it (it's quite a long movie). My sister won two free movie tickets again  (she's the queen of it!), so on Sunday, I went to watch Bohemian Rhapsody again. My dad is a fan of Queen and hadn't seen the film yet, so we went together. Source Source There weren't as many people watching it as the first time I went, so the audience's reactions and laughter weren't quite the same. At times, my dad was scratching his head (which he sometimes does when he's thinki...