Christmas Lights

I love Coldplay and I love this song.

Merry Christmas! I hope you all enjoy safe and fun holidays :)

Homemade goodies...

My mum, sister and I have just finished making over 500 shortbread biscuits! We've made them for the past few years as little Christmas gifts for my friends, teachers and workmates, and I love a little help from my Mama and Sis. ;) It's sort of becoming a little tradition for us :)

So here they are in all their Christmas-y goodness.

 And this year I packaged them up in cute little paper bags with candy cane print! (Last year I packaged them in little Chinese boxes with Christmas patterns on the outside.) Aren't they cute?

Christmas Wishlist

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas! :)
On Monday we put up our tree and decorated it with all our lovely family treasures. I love this feeling of excitement and anticipation of the good family times to come! And of course the excuse to do my favourite kind of shopping... Christmas shopping! :D 

So I thought that I'd compile a little list of all the gifty goodies that have caught my eye in the last few weeks (as inspired by this crafty lady :)

(I felt a little silly when I was making this list, and a lot greedy saw it as a whole... but it is only my wishlist, okay.. ;)

So here's my Christmas Wishlist 2010!


Versace Versus 50ml

Dawson Boyfriend Shorts from Cotton On

Alfred the Elephant from Sportsgirl
 











The Sims 3 'Ambitions' Expansion Pack

Jim Halpert bobble head (The Office)

A Navman

 Donna Hay's cookbook 'Fast Fresh Simple'

A Recipes+ subscription

And I would love a retro Transformers tee :)

So, what are you crushing on this Christmas?

Mosaic Quiz

Here is my version of the ol' (Flickr inspired) mosaic. It was fun to make, and it's pretty cool to see a little snapshot of me in a collage like that. 
You should give it a go! :)

Instructions:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into a Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into a mosaic maker (I used this one). 

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush? 

6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your blog name (I must admit.. I kinda cheated on this one cause the pics that came up weren't very cute, so I kept trying different things until I found one that I liked... hehe!) 


Let me know (and include a link!) if you decide to play along! :D 

Holiday fun

I arrived home from schoolies today! 

For those of you who don't know, schoolies is an Australian high-school graduate tradition. For me it was simply a well-deserved (and safe!) holiday with 5 great gals :)

We went to Sorrento, and spent 7 days in beachy bliss :)

Exploring beautiful rock pools.

We each took turns cooking dinner for each of the nights we were away, and my gorgeous friend Ashleigh and I combined forces on one lovely Wednesday night.

We had a feast planned friends. A feast.

Ashleigh made a delicious Mexican salad (my FAVE!) and a potato bake. And cooked bubble and squeak (for Ash as she's a vegetarian - which was a frozen packet, but it was oh so yummy anyway!) and 3 different kinds of meats (am I crazy?!)! There was tomato pesto beef burgers, Moroccan seasoned lamb cutlets and saté chicken skewers.

AND! We also made a passionfruit cheesecake topped with fresh mango! Oh so much yummy-ness! :D

Along with cooking up that feast, there was lots of shopping, dining (including a BRILLIANT brunch out at Buckley's Chance! Seriously, go there if you have the opportunity - they have THE fluffiest pancakes!!), swimming, music (Brooke Fraser's Something in the Water was pretty much our theme song!), checking out the Carlton football club (who happened to be training in Sorrento when we were there!), playing board games (including the official Schoolies '10 game: Skip Bo!) and so SO much fun! 

A gorgeous beach all to ourselves!

Beach/soccer ball games.

A storm coming in over the ocean, so beautiful.

Me, looking comfortable..?

And now I'm home again (bittersweet, ya know?). And it's back to reality, as my Mum says..
And I'm officially on the countdown until I get my VCE results! YIPPEE! Only 9 more sleeps to go!!

It's all happening here folks, let me tell you :)

Five Senses Friday

Today is Five Senses Friday, as inspired by Shari Altman via Design is Mine :)

It's such an simple and fun way to share!

Please feel free to play along! 

(and let me know in the comments so I can check out your link!) :)

seeing...

an empty suitcase... that should be full! As I'm leaving for a holiday with some girlfriends in two days! (photo via apartmenttherapy)

hearing... 

the beautiful voice of Brooke Fraser on her new album Flags. She inspires me. (photo via brookefraser.com)

tasting...

fries. Along with marinated chicken for dinner. Yum! (photo via flickr)


feeling... 

excited about said holiday! There will be numerous adventures, beach visits and icy poles :) (photo via weheartit)

smelling... 

the rain beginning to fall in the bush surrounding my house. So fresh. (photo via dressdesigndecor)

Paramore!!!

Dear Paramore,

Thank you!
For welcoming me into your world, and providing awesome tunes for me to dance/rock out to.
For being an excuse to take a road trip with some gorgeous gals and avoid homework.
For selling wicked merch and delish burgers at your concert.
For being hilarious and humbling.
For having your Melbourne concert at an outside venue - at first worrying (due to the threatening rain clouds), but proving to be refreshingly cool (not due to the rain, due to the coolness).
For having Relient K as one of your support bands.
For being worth so much more than $82.95.
For being cool enough to invite a fan up on stage to sing with you guys (damn I wish that was me), and man she sure could air guitar!
For being passionate about our Lord.
For having fireworks - that was cool.
Basically, for one rockin' night! 

Love Sarah. xo

(photography by my beautiful friend and hardcore Paramore fan Brioney)

PS. If you don't know who Paramore are, get out from underneath that rock you're living under dude.. 

PPS. Check out Hayley's hilarious and inspiring tumblr.

PPPS. Playing God video out now! Eeeeperrrs it's awesome!

Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!

Leah Dieterich is awesome, and her blog thnxthnxthnx is also awesome!

I find her posts so hilarious and thought provoking. And I can so often relate!
I'm jealous that my Mum didn't tell me to write thank you notes. And then I want to do it anyway, but that would be unoriginal and nowhere near as interesting. But forgive me if I do teeter a little over the copy-cat line one day.. as I just love this idea too much. 


In summary, bravo to Leah D. And may you never stop sharing your thank yous.

Ahhh... :)

Today is a glorious day.

I can. I really can. 

Hooray! :D

{source: pikaland}

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

Today my Mum totally met this clever little girl. And taught her stuff about Space.

And yes, my Mum was totally smarter than her ;)

(but seriously, isn't she gorgeous?)

Ps. Is this show still on?? I never got to prove that I was smarter...

Procrastinating...

Where have I been lately, you ask?

Well, I've been doing this:

I have been trying to study for my year 12 VCE exams, and this Procrastination Chart represents my productivity perfectly!

But seriously! I do try! And then I look out the window or notice a freckle on my arm, and all concentration is lost. That's how desperate my brain is to think about something else. Anything else.

But I'm nearly done! In just a matter of days I will be finished school forever!! Except I do plan to go to Uni, but that's different because it's voluntary. And after school is finished, I will get to sleep in and eat TimTams and play music and play The Sims 3 and go running and bake cookies and watch all the Ellen I want and do everything I've craved for while studying! :)

Yippee!

Also, if you haven't seen the blog Hyperbole and a Half, check it out now! It's awesomely hilarious, and has been a very welcomed source of rest and funnies in between my studyness. I would also recommend starting with the 'Best of' column down the right hand side. It's like your own personal comedian :)

Anywho.. See you on the other side of freedom! :)

Milk

Milk has gotta be the best drink out there.
I love it with everything, in every flavour (Nesquik lovers holla at me!).
And it rocks the party when it's served with cookies...

(source: kelly shiro events)

Stuff to Buy:

Next year I'm planning to move away from home for uni. (Not my preferred option, but the course I wanna do isn't offered here at home..)

And I've been looking for sweet little things that will help me feel more at home in my little (oh, so little) space where I'll hopefully be living on campus.

So here's a few things that I've been crushing on:

These mugs are simply perfect. They're incredibly cute, and look like they're a really great size (for drinks, cup-a-soups, all the important things you know).

These Thork Boards very cutely match the mugs above, and would be the perfect place to store all my pics and info on upcoming stuff.

And finally, this incredibly cute glassybaby. I really wanna get some flowers so I can recreate that pic. (If you've never heard of glassybaby, check them out asap!)

Blog love!

Making it Lovely.
It is a very, very cool blog.
If you haven't seen it before, kindly check it out now.

I especially love her style boards!

I really wish I had her August style board in my cupboard..

 

I do love it..

..when life just slows down for one moment, and I get to savour the good stuff.
I feel funny even writing that line (cause it sounds far too wise and cliche), but it is just how I feel.
And this weekend, when I got to see my brothers
(who both live far too far away from me) and spend time with our family,
my heart smiled,
as we were together again.

I loved everything.
I could feel the memories being made.
Being our silly old selves, together.
It just felt so incredibly normal, yet surreal, and all together awesome.

We all came together to share a weekend in Melbourne, where we saw Mary Poppins at the theatre. And I was magnificent! If you're a fan of theatre, Mary Poppins or even just singing/dancing, I really recommend that you go to see it immediately! The Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious song and dance was my FAVE! (They were spelling the whole word out with dance moves, super duper fast! Soo cool..) And Matt Lee from So You Think You Can Dance was sooo awesome!.. such a good dancer!!

And that night, two rare events occured..

We were playing monopoly in our little hotel room, and it was an intense game let me tell you! There was 7 players (one was a $2 coin as we ran out of playing pieces.. :P), all huddled so close together around the little board.
Money, properties and numerous stragetic deals were flying around all over the place. And it turned out that two of us won in a draw, and I was one of the winners!

The second rare event happened at 5am that morning..
Our epic monopoly game finished at 1am, and so we had only had 4ish hours sleep (or 'rest' depending on how well you were sleeping..) when we heard a soft beeping noise.. I was sharing a bed with my sis-in-law, and we both dismissed the noise for some time. But then the noise changed from a beeping into a woop-woop kind of noise. We thought it might have been a car alarm, and so I opened the window to see if the noise got louder outside.
It got quieter outside... But we eventually found that it was was coming from the hallway.. it was an alarm of some sort! And then we heard a (very very delayed!) announcement asking us to evacuate.
So we quickly got dressed and started making our way down the stairs/fire escape. Luckily we were met by other hotel-stayers who informed us that it was a false alarm.. (a room alarm was set off by some rowdy boys on the floor below us...)

So it certainly was quite a weekend.
Although quite busy and full of excitement, it was also relaxed and full of memories, joy, family and love.
And I wouldn't have had it any other way :)

It has been announced!

...that Oprah is coming to Australia!! 

She's doing two shows, and one of them is going to be at the Sydney Opera House. And for that one day, it's going to be called The Oprah House!

Ooh I really really really wanna go...
I've always wanted to go to an Oprah show, and when she announced her retirement I started making some serious plans to get myself over to Chicago! So the news of her coming to Australia couldn't be more perfect for me!
The tickets aren't available until October, and they're going to be selling them like a lottery...
Fingers crossed!!!

Here's a glimpse of her reveal, it was epic! In true Oprah style :)
I love how she just keeps shouting and everyone's screaming!

My Teacher

"A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher." 
- Luke 6:40

This is now my verse.
My verse to look to when I'm feeling low in motivation.
These words lift me up, and encourage me.
They encourage me to continually endeavour to be fully trained,
and keep seeking my Jesus.
I want to see his face so badly.
And this verse, is His words.
It's his voice talking to me, telling me to keep chasing after him,
no matter what. 

It excites me!
To keep striving to be a good daughter, His good daughter!
Who brings good things out of the good stored up in my heart!
I want to be known for my good fruit.

 I am so in love with my Jesus.
And my soul desire is to serve him,
and become like my teacher.

Anthropologie Love

If I had a glory box, these babies would be in it.

In fact, I'm really considering starting one and buying them for myself!

Can you do that? :P

This weekend I'm loving:

- This gorgeous scarf

- The amazing photography and fashion by Max Wanger (found on this AWESOME blog!)
- Masterchef Australia!! (GO Adam and Callum!)

- These wooden signs (another for the glory box I reckon ;)

- This design blog, particularly this Sweedish inspiration!

Isaiah 53

Dear God,

Thank you!
Thank you for prophecying that Jesus would come. And for knowing the plans you had for him, and, in turn, for us. Thank you that even though you knew his fate, you still sent him. And thank you for not backing away, but for sticking to your promise. 

I'm so eternally sorry that my rejection, my infirmities, my sorrows, and my sins caused you that pain. Oh thank you so much for dying for me. Thank you, thank you so much. All you went through was for me. Your love for me is unfathomable. 

I pray that I may please you with my life; my offering. All I have to give is myself, and not coincidently, that is all you want. I surrender to you Lord. Great, Almighty, Amazing, Awesome God. Thank you that your reward is my reward. Your portion among the great is my portion among the great.

I admire the faithful servant that you are Jesus. You served God, wholeheartedly... happily! You served God happily, and with no regrets. Oh I love that about you! God, I pray that you will transform me to obey like Jesus did, and to be your good and faithful servant.
I love you!

Love Sarah.

On the hunt..

As a new P plate driver, my current dream is to own a little Hyundai Getz all of my own.

And today, my excitement for this dream was increased tenfold when I went to look at one I found for sale in the paper.

She was beautiful.
It had every feature that I wanted, however, was a little out of my price range.
So she had to stay put.

But the hunt is still on!

I'm eagerly checking carpoint.com.au and newspapers daily, searching for my car-to-be...
And one day (hopefully soon!) I will find her.

In other, less exciting, news,

today I treated myself to this little gem

It's like re-living your childhood,

but with added style.. don't ya think?

The strawberry kiwi flavour was always of fave of mine; I think I reapplied my gloss about 10 times already today!

I'm also really loving the look of these Paul Frank Lip Smackers! Aah so yummy! :)

Pretty.

This one's for those days when you just need something sweet on the eyes, to soothe your tired peepers.

Today I chose these lovelies: