Amy Casey Paintings

I just discovered Amy Casey, I think her work is incredible.
This one is called "Development".

This art resonates with me, as I studied Development Studies at uni. This degree is not centred on town planning as people always assume, rather it focuses on perceptions of what constitutes 'development' contemporarily. In particular, I loved looking at ecological sustainability and complexity theory, resilience and panarchy. (For a really good introduction read this article by C. S. Holling). I've come away from this degree quite critical of how as Australians we seek to impose our way of life upon our neighbouring countries, as our lifestyle is inherently unsustainable in the longterm and has caused irreversible ecological damage in many areas.

In saying this, I am an active participant in this culture, for example, I buy too many shoes, I forget to check where an item has been imported from, and I honestly can't afford to buy organic produce as it is simply too expensive...  On the other hand, I am a vegetarian, and have been for over a decade, I love op-shopping and 'up-cycling' and keep everything 'just in case I need it...'

Anyway, here's a few more of Amy's pictures-Enjoy

Waiting Place

Encroaching Web

Escalating

Neighbourhood Web

Pull up the Slack

Perfect bookshelves

Awesome or what!!

Apartment Gardening....

So its very hard to see pictures like this :

Photo from Martyn Lawrence-Bullard

Because when you live in an apartment, the 'garden' inevitably is more likely to end up looking more like this...

 Photos (except for the top one) are from the 16 House blog which i love... (I'm pretty sure.. eep) it always has cute pics and lovely interiors to salivate over...This tin can bucket thingamy herb garden idea is nice, but we live too close to the beach and get too much rain so they would rust all over the outside rental beige/white/ugly tiles.. 

So instead for our balcony I got a whole heap of terracotta pots from  Bunnings... the cheapest ones they had (helloooo I'm still a uni student technically so i'm allowed to be on a budget and buy mass-produced pots imported from Vietnam OK...ah my carbon footprint sucks these days) Anyway I'm going to be working on our greenspace over the weekend by trying to jazz it up a bit, because, WAIT FOR IT... now we have our supersized caveman he-man BBQ set up (with one plate dedicated to vegetarian ONLY...!!) we're going to be spending a whole lot of time outside!!

It sucks a bit though because although we have three balconies, (I know, I know, we only have three- poor, poor me) one can only be accessed by going through the Spaz's room and is liklik tru (aw I miss you PNG I liked speaking tok pisin again while we were there) (oh liklik tru means really small) so not much good for anything.  The other medium-size but still small balcony is where we have to put our 10 million clothes horses (another downfall of living in an apartment means no washing line...and I am way too eco-conscious *ahem stingey* to let anyone use the clothes dryer- What haven't you heard of global warming???) .

So we are left with one biggish balcony which is really really lovely, faces north plenty of sunlight and sea-breezes... except that when it rains (and it seems to be raining soooooooo much lately, I know I know its Australia think of the bleeping farmers) the whole area gets saturated and windblown, so our poor little plants have to be quite hardy.... but we're giving it a go anyway!!

I love the Twinnings tins on the window sill, so I maybe will steal that idea... although I might have to make do with tomato tins (again the budget!!). Oh yeah BTW its not me in that photo because my watering can is awesome and bright red!! (Oh yeah also from Bunnings...yeahyeah Lulu- I know I'm turning into both my mother AND my grandmother hahaha...)
I randomly found a photo of herb tins (from A Beach Cottage) woohoo, although I guess I'm not so original afterall dammit lol.....

kate and johnny

I like this photo, how young and naive were they....

My fantasy shoe-cupboard...

 

   

Here's what my shoe collection may look like one day if I don't start putting a stop to my bad habit....     Although I can dream right. And I've OCD colour-coded my bookshelves, but I haven't thought about doing it to my shoes... AWESOME idea, I Like... From Martyn Lawrence-Bullard Design

Is it EVER going to warm up?

Its almost November and it's STILL freezing :S I just want summer to hurry up.....

Found these pics on something begining with K blog...

New Shoes....

I got these beautiful babies last night at the new ridiculously big and revamped Charlestown Square...Firstly I hate shopping in malls at the best of times, secondly it was aaaaaaargggh Thursday night- which is when all teenagers in Newcastle hang out there apparently... can you belive they had a 'police presence' at the shops? I counted at least 16 patrolling, and 5 cars out the front... I guess they're calling it Newcastle's parramatta for a reason huh.... anyway, I'm wearing these to our friend's wedding on the weekend and they are super comfy and hopefully won't snap off!!! (Last time I went to a wedding the heel snapped of my shoe, and I had to walk around all night on my tiptoe... so embarrassing!!)