15 Things in The Year of The Sheep : An Update

Ahhhh yes. It's that time of year again, that glorious time when I publicly shame myself by revisiting all those things I said I'd do when I had a song in my heart and a skip in my step and a firm delusion belief that this year would be different.

But guess what? With an average grade of B (-ish) things actually aren't looking too shabby so far, despite life throwing its usual hilarious curve balls at us. So, with head held high, I present this update on 15 things in the Year of the Sheep.

1. Read more. Specifically, read at least fourteen books in twelve months. B-. Slow but steady progress. I feel like I'm closer to achieving this than the stats say, because the stats say that I've only actually finished three books. But I'm reading pretty much every day, and I'm reading on flights, and when I'm waiting at the doctors, and when I'm out eating solo, so it feels like more. I've tackled a few doorstoppers to date, but I've got some thinner reads lined up so I'm hoping to make some more ground on this one in the coming months.

If you're interested so far I've read: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (excellent in all kinds of ways); The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (I hate to say it but...disappointing; parts of it are so over the top and hysterical - all that mooning over a girl - but parts of it are heart achingly sad/beautiful - the fish and chip shop scene for one, but on balance, disappointing); and Waiting for Doggo by Mark Mills (a bit of light fluff, completely inoffensive, I forgot it as soon as I read it).

I'm currently most of the way through Questions of Travel by Michelle de Krester, which I'm thoroughly enjoying, especially for the writing on travel and the way it captures the very essence of Sydney. And I'm on the brink of finishing This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett, a collection of essays that I cannot possibly say enough good things about. If you have any interest in writing, or family, or dogs, or friendship, or life, go read it. Go read it now.

I've been on the brink of finishing it for awhile, but I can't quite bring myself to. Not because I don't want to say goodbye to such a great book, but because the second last essay starts "Two days before my dog Rose died..." and I haven't yet been able to make it past that opening sentence.

2. Read more blogs. Randomly quantified with the goal of posting three thoughtful comments a week. D-. Like most things I have good weeks and bad.  Okay, good months and bad. This past month has been a bad one.

3. Blog more. Specifically, blog at least six times per month. A+++. Six posts every month in 2015! Oh yeah! I'm a flipping bloggy superstar, no?

4. Write more. About everything. Specifically, write a My... post every month in 2015. A. I might just squeeze them in on the last day of the month but I've got them done. I've really enjoyed writing them; I hope you've enjoyed reading them. I think my favourite to date as been the one on travel.

5. Related, pitch at least five stories to magazines. F. I made one pitch, which translated into an article on modern lace makers - three profile pieces, plus an introduction, plus a bunch of photos. Ummm, Y to the AY! You'll be able to see it in the upcoming Issue 26 of Uppercase. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy!

I also had the chance to interview the lovely and clever Helena Leslie for Extra Curricular (she did the cover illustration for their Messy issue, which you can find here). Outside of that I've done zip, zero, zilch. And seeing as things are all a bit akimbo in our life right now (yet again! more on that later...) realistically it's probably all I will get to do this year.

6. Finish my 365 project on Instagram. A. Half way through and going strong! You can see some of my favourites here, or follow me on Instagram to get the full shebang!

7. Hit fifty sales in my Etsy shop, Jorpins Vintage. B. On track! I'm sitting on 26 items sold. I've got a ton of amazing stock still to clean and photograph and list. I'm feeling vaguely confident about this one.

8. Finish three walking events. C. I completed the 22km Jabulani Challenge in April (yay me!), and I've signed up for the 9km Bridge Run - not a long distance but it has tight-ish (for a walker!) cut off times, so it'll help me focus on pace. As for the third event...stay tuned!

9. Walk 1500 kilometres by the end of December. C. I was doing really well with this! I was doing a good 25 to 35kms per week, I made it to Forster, and then, well, life happened. The past few weeks I've barely managed 15kms. But, thanks to my cheer squad (aka the Operation Move community!) I'm feeling inspired again. I've got a plan to kickstart things, this goal isn't over yet!

10. Sort my health out. B+. I've been seeing the dentist regularly and we've got a long term plan for a bunch of stuff. I finally got around to getting a pap smear, and discussed contraception pros and cons with a GP. The other day I even visited an optometrist for a full eye health check up. Next on the list - physio.

11. Cook at least one new meal for the family each month. B. I haven't been keeping track of this, but I feel like we've been kicking its arse. I recently refreshed our cookbook shelf - ditched some we'd never used and bought some new-to-us classics (ie. everything by Karen Martini).

We've been cooking at home, heaps. Okay, yes, maybe last night we had tacos, again, but we have been adding some new stuff to our standard repertoire. This sausage ragu has become a firm favourite. We've also tackled mince pies, chicken pot pies, all kinds of stews and soups, and a slow roasted lamb cooked on the BBQ.  Have I told you how much I adore winter cooking? I freaking adore it.

12. Related, attend two cooking classes. F. Nope. The one I had booked got cancelled. Right now unless someone is willing to provide two all expenses paid trips - one to Italy, one to Thailand - I can't see this happening.

13. Watch twelve movies. And blog about them. D-. Well, I am watching loads of new movies this year, but I'm not really blogging about them. I do have some draft posts, just asking to be finished. So maybe.

14. Organise my office, and keep it organised. B+. I had been chipping away at this, little by little, and then last week I spent two whole days on a final push. It's still not there but it's really, really, really close.

15. Do more road trips! F. I've wanted to, I've really wanted to, but I just haven't. I did have one booked, but I had to cancel (for a pretty substantial reason, none of this dog ate my homework stuff). The next six months are looking good though - we've got trips to Canberra, Thredbo,  and the Hunter Valley planned. Oh, and I'm hopefully heading to Cowra to meet this talented lady!

Do you have a list of things you were hoping to achieve this year? How are you tracking?

The Search For The Perfect Winter Wedding Outfit

Weddings and spring and pretty floral frocks just all fit together, don't they? But what about winter weddings? What does one wear that's celebratory but warm? Cosy without being drab? I've got a wedding to go to in August, and when I spied these shoes a month or so ago I thought all my wedding outfit dilemmas were solved - a classic black dress, black stockings, and then BAM! these beauties sparkling on my feet. Perfect, yes? 

But now I'm not so sure. Traditionally one isn't meant to wear black to a wedding, so I've been expanding my options. 

Here's a few of the favourites right now:

1. Claudia Dress | Leona Edmiston   Ecstasy Gold Loafers | Extraordinary Ordinary Day 

2. Donatella Dress | Obus   

3. Kipale Dress | Marimekko 

4. Moon Moth Jacquard Shift | Gorman

5. Wrap Front Crochet Detail Dress | Little Mistress   Carla Patent Leather Pumps | Salvatore Ferragamo 

So - classic and cute black frock from Leona Edmiston with gorgeous gold loafers, clearly a winner (and whilst we're on the topic of Leona Edmiston how ridiculously gorgeous is this frock?). But then just look at the copper metallic goodness that is the Obus dress! Hard to resist for some sparkly fun! (Just quietly I'm quite obsessed with everything Obus right now, they get better with every season.) Sticking with the bronze theme I do love the Gorman shift, so many options for layering too. (Oops, I just clicked over and saw that it's on sale...it may have jumped into my shopping cart...) 

That pale green frock is a bit more traditionally wedding-y; such a pretty colour and cut. It's got longish sleeves plus I reckon it'd look awesome with opaque black stockings, hence it could work for a winter wedding. It's pretty sweet huh? And cheap too...

But then there's the Marimekko dress. It's velvet people, velvet! Swoon! I may have actually bought it six months ago with the justification that I could wear it to this August wedding, but I've worn it so much since then it doesn't feel 'special' enough anymore. Gosh I'm glad I got it though; it was bloody expensive but I already know it's going to be one of those frocks I'll still be wearing out to dinner in ten, twenty years time.

Okay, let's be honest. I'm not really looking for the perfect winter wedding outfit, I'm just using it as a - rather shaky - rationalisation to buy some things I love. And despite all the above at the moment I actually think I'm going to wear this crazy vintage 70s maxi dress that I've had for years. It's shimmery and silvery; floor length with slits up the side, long sleeves, a big collar and a zip down the front. Oh yeah!

Jorpins 365 : May Favourites

Farewell May. You had some highs - seeing my photo in a gallery as part of the awesome Head On Photo Festival; all those gorgeous skies, blue and pink and golden; tasty food and autumn leaves.

But my goodness you also had some lows. In all honesty it's been a pretty tough month for us health wise, and there's a lot of uncertainty loitering about too. Although I should have learnt by now that the only constant in life is uncertainty, I still don't cope well with it. Change I can do, but not knowing - that I can't do so well.

So on balance, I'm not sad to see the back of May. Bring on June I say! Bring on hopefully maybe some certainty; bring on winter with all its comfort cooking and cosy knits and pottering about the house. And bring on trips to Europe, oh yes please!

By the by - I'm finding it interesting this photo a day for a year thing, especially seeing how the colours and tones of my photos change with the seasons, without me consciously intending it. So many golden browns and soft reds in my feed this month, all the colours of autumn. Such a contrast to the brights of summer at the start of the year.

You can see all my 365 photos here, or you can follow me on Instagram here.

My...Travel

It is such an Australian thing, this overwhelming desire to travel. A cliche, but  a cliche because it's true. To be Australian is to travel, from city to city or country to country. We are born knowing we are isolated, knowing we are far far away - from the rest of Australia, from the rest of the world. We grow up accepting long distances, accepting the tedium of travel in order to get someplace else. Travel is just what we do, if we want to do anything at all. And we are a migrant community, so all around us are reminders that there is a big wide world out there filled with sights to see and delicious food to eat and wonderful, intriguing, new people. Just waiting to be discovered. 

I'm no different. I've always wanted to travel.

As a kid, each year during the long summer break we'd pile into the car and do a road trip up the coast, visiting friends and family along the way. Heading north we'd visit country farms, stopping to ride the horses and swim in the creeks; we'd visit homesteads and hippie communes and flash apartments. We stopped in Sydney and the Gold Coast and Corryong and Toowoomba, and Nimbin. 

Despite the odd bout of travel sickness, and what was I'm sure hours and hours of annoying our parents with complaints and niggles, I have very fond memories of these journeys. I have memories of swimming pools and a ukelele under the palm trees; of gorging myself on mangoes, bought by the box-load at roadside stalls; of hand feeding overexcited baby goats in our underwear (Nimbin), of rainforest walks and leeches - eeeek! - and getting bogged in the mud (Nimbin, again); and of watching the most spectacular thunderstorms whip around the gums whilst perched on the outside pit toilet (yep, Nimbin again). 

Road trips are still one of my favourite ways to travel, whether it's an overnight stay in the country or six weeks in Europe. I love the freedom having a car gives you, you can stay or go as you please. I love knowing you've got everything with you in the car - the people you love, your clothes, the wine, the snacks, your toothbrush...

And then there's the music. Some road trips we get organised and create a special playlist. When we drove through Death Valley, from Mammoth Mountain down to Las Vegas, we listened to nothing but Simon and Garfunkel, The Carpenters, Dusty Springfield, and Johnny Cash. But on some drives, when we're a bit disorganised, we're reduced to digging through those cheap CD bins in service stations to find something half decent. This has happened in Italy more times than I can remember. 

So on our Italian road trips we normally end up flicking between unbelievably terrible dance music on Radio 105 and unbelievably soppy love songs on whatever Eros Ramazzotti CD my husband (slightly too excitedly) bought at the last Autogrill. One trip we were lucky enough to find a 5 CD set - Le 100 Canzoni de Sempre Internazionale - packed with gems from Wham!, Patti Smith, Toto, Survivor and Whitney Houston. It's still on high rotation in my iTunes playlist. And then there was the trip where I forced my not-then-husband to listen to Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi. On repeat. I have a feeling I owe my entire marriage to this trip. I'm pretty sure listening to We Belong Together thirty eight times as we drove through the Italian countryside is what finally convinced my husband that we did, in fact, belong together. But that's a whole other tale... 

Anyway, road trips are ace. Unfortunately despite (because of?) dragging them on road trips across all of the continents except for Africa, we are yet to convince the step-sons of this fact. They'd much rather fly / teleport everywhere. Yawn.

For me, part of the joy of travel is the getting there. Which is an odd thing to say because airport queues and flying anxieties and hours in a car seat are not joyous things, are they? But they are part of the ritual, they are sign posts of the fun and adventure to come. And in and of themselves there is something meditative, calming about them - a kind of enforced stillness. I want to get to x, but I have to endure a, b and c to get to x. So I will endure a, b and c. And, strangely, endure them with pleasure. But the step-sons would rather skip a, b and c and go straight to x. 

Maybe I was like that as a kid too, but I don't think so. Is it a generational thing? A result of the just-one-google-away times they live in? Or perhaps it's a result of the ridiculous amount of travel they've done, at such a young age? Maybe there's still room for a little romance when you're catching your third flight ever at age twenty-something, but if you're on your thirtieth flight ever before puberty it all gets a bit ho-hum? 

Anyway, I digress. 

Although I always had the desire to travel I was a bit of a late bloomer in the international stakes. Sure, when I was seventeen I spent a pretty incredible two months with a host family in Nepal. But that was followed by a stretch when - outside of a trip to Fiji - I didn't leave Australia's shores. But then in my middish twenties I cobbled together a six week solo around the world trip and everything changed. I landed in Madrid, my first European city, and fell completely, utterly in love. The Prado! The cobbled lanes! The age of everything - so old, so historic! The late late meals! The croquettes! The pig! Then I caught the train to Barcelona, and swooned. In San Sebastian I wandered, wide eyed and fluttery. And then Prague, how could I not love thee? I was smitten, and I was hooked. 

A few years later I did it all again, but this time I went to San Francisco and New York and Paris. And then I met my husband, and we travelled to Italy. And then we moved overseas and my goodness did we travel, across Asia and America and Europe. I may have been a late bloomer but I sure as heck made up for it. 

I sometimes ponder what this urge is - what this desire to move, to go somewhere, anywhere new is. (As an aside as a teen I used to rearrange my room every year or so. And the three and a half year stint in our apartment in Seoul was the longest I'd lived anywhere, outside of the house I grew up in). 

I could say it's driven by all the noble things. I could say it's driven by a desire for compassion and understanding; history, curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. But it's probably more about escape, about avoiding the mundane (I am so scared of the soul destroying mundane...). It's probably more about that feeling of stepping outside yourself. When you're in a foreign land, a foreign city, there are no preconceptions, there are no known knowns. Everything is an adventure. 

I was lucky enough to listen to one of my favourite authors, Robert Dessaix, speak about why he travels at the Sydney Writers' Festival last year. He talked about travelling to cheat time. We can't ever stop time, but when we travel we somehow manage to stretch it out. When we're at home there are constant reminders that time is ticking by - there are due dates for bills, there are places to be at specific times, there are dinner dates and doctors appointments, and all kinds of things that we must do. But when we travel, all that fades into the background. And it is a most wonderful thing. In the end I think that's why we travel too, to cheat time in a way. 

And to eat, of course.

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The My... posts are a way to get me writing more throughout 2015. There'll be one a month, each with a different My... prompt. You can play along as well, whenever and wherever you want. This month's prompt (May) is My Travel. Next month's prompt (June) is My Neighbourhood. Interpret each prompt however you like - a story or a jumble of thoughts, fact or fiction, personal or not. Don't feel too constrained by the months either, if you like a prompt then have a go. And make sure to let me know if you do join in!

IGEC : Travel

Instagram isn't just a great place to get inspired for your next meal, craft project or photo walk - it's also a perfect cure (or trigger) for itchy feet. So many gorgeous photos of so many far flung destinations. 

I'm constantly drooling over all kinds of sights and cities in my feed, plotting and planning a dream trip that'll somehow include hiking in the great national parks of America, a dip in the hot springs of Finland, a visit to the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia. And that's just the first week... Take it from me - following these accounts may trigger a severe case of wanderlust. You have been warned.

First up, a curated account. I knew nothing about @foundlost_ when I started following them. I was just drawn to the name and the wonderful images they select. Their (infrequent) posts have a focus on wilderness and adventure travel. I love the magical quality of the images they select, often featuring tiny people in grand landscapes. And mist, lots of mist.

It seems the account is attached to a Hong Kong based social enterprise called the Youth Endurance Network which takes young people on some pretty hard core holidays - expeditions with scientific, humanitarian or philanthropic goals. Looking at their website kind of makes me wish I was under 25 years old again... 

Credits for the images I've chosen are -
TL: @gess8    TR: @ldl_jr
BL: @greatwildopen    BR: @joelle_tso

Tim Coulson (@timcoulson) is a Sydney based wedding photographer. He's a family man who loves to take his wife and young kids on all kinds of adventures. Think you can't travel with kidlets in tow? Tim shows that you can (and that you can take some breathtakingly beautiful shots in the process!). His caption for the photo on the top right? Never stop exploring. My new mission in life. Sounds like a pretty great mission to me.

Another curated account, and one well worth following, is @passionpassport. Their regularly updated feed is filled with gorgeous travel shots from all corners of the globe. Passion Passport covers all kinds of travel; their feed is an eclectic mix of architecture, culture and food. You'll find crowded cities and wide open spaces, well known landmarks and isolated country cabins; markets and mountains, castles and canoes, llamas and camels, stretching right across Europe and Asia and the Mid East. It's all pretty great. 

Credits for the images I've chosen are -
TL: @abbeard    TR: @zachspassport (Passion Passport founder)
BL: @zckrf    BR: @forestwoodward

Bonus! If you love to travel (or just to dream of travel) it's also worth having a look at @awol_aus, @travellerau and @tasmania - all full of inspiring images that'll have you checking flight deals (and your bank balance) in no time. Do you follow any great travellers on Instagram? I'd love to know if you do! 

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Instagram is chockfull of the some of the most inspiring, creative, hilarious, clever people I've ever had the pleasure of encountering on the internets. IGEC is my chance to share some of those inspiring, creative, hilarious, clever people with you! Oh and you can find me on Instagram here.