Current Favourites

R.E.M. Photo source unknown. All rights belong to the copyright holder.

1. Spotify Mood Playlists
   I have had spotify for years, but never really strayed into the Browse section til very recently. I'm loving all of the "afternoon chill", "quiet weekend", "morning coffee" style playlists, listening to bands I've never heard of and songs I'd never seek out myself.
   
2. Tea
   I finally bought tea from T2, and I'm kind of obsessed. I was always a coffee girl, but I've just completely switched over. I currently have tins of New York Breakfast and China Jasmine Green teas, and a box of mixed flavoured black teas (which means my wish list now includes French Earl Grey and Creme Brulee). I'm drinking about five cups a day. Send help.
   
3. Painted Nails
   I finally brought my largeish collection of Ulta3 nail polishes (and a smattering of other brands, but mostly Ulta3) out of storage, and I'm loving painting my nails various hues of green, blue, gold and purple. Unfortunately I keep getting called into work, and then I have to take it off. Here's waiting for a job that lets me paint my nails.
   
4. House MD
   It's been a while since I've gotten caught up in a show, but I finally started this one up again on Netflix and now I can't stop.

Reading John Marsden's Tomorrow series

A little less old-school than the other series I've written about, with a completely different style. I love John Marsden's writing style - so very casual, so very Australian, but just captures you completely.

Tomorrow When the War Began. Dir. Stuart Beattie. Ambiance Entertainment, 2010. Film.

The Tomorrow series (so named because the first book is Tomorrow When the War Began) is about a group of Australian teenagers who go away camping in the bus, and come back to find the country has been invaded and they are the only people left who haven't been captured. The series documents their attempts to hide from enemy soldiers, and their eventual transformation into guerilla soldiers.

What I really like about this series is that Marsden creates realistic characters - you believe in them because they react the way you'd react, they're just as scared as you would be, and as brave as you'd hope you would be. It's not always war war war, when Ellie's mind slips from the task, she's thinking about school, about family, friends, her farm and any manner of material things. She falls in and out of love, she has bad moods and laughs at inappropriate times. Something about this story is just so very real that you can't put the book down, in case you miss what happens next.

Usually with these series overviews, I rate each book. I'm not going to do that this time, because none of these books really work on their own. It's a continuing storyline, and there's really no way to skip a book. All I can say is that it seems a lot of people dislike The Night is For Hunting because it really changes the focus of the series for most of the book, but I wouldn't skip it because the end is pretty essential for the flow of the series.

There are seven books in the original series:
Tomorrow When the War Began
The Dead of Night
The Third Day, The Frost **

Darkness, Be My Friend
Burning For Revenge
The Night is For Hunting
The Other Side of Dawn

** also called "A Killing Frost" now apparently? That's how it's listed on Goodreads anyway.

There is also a trilogy set after the war called The Ellie Chronicles:
While I Live
Incurable
Circle of Flight

Whilst I enjoyed the trilogy, I wouldn't call it an essential read. It's a lot less action packed, it's missing most of the group that made the Tomorrow series so good, and deals with a lot more everyday, boring occurrences, some of which really don't seem to add anything to the story. But if you've loved the series, you'll enjoy these.

MAC Sculpt and Shape Powder in Accentuate/Sculpt

My camera and lighting adds a little warmness, so, you know, grain of salt

I have the kind of cheekbones you have to invent whenever you apply makeup - "where would they be, if I had them?", and until now, I've never had a truly great powder contour. Sure, I have Illasmasqua's Hollow pigment, but that's a cream and I find that such a faff, especially with the amount of makeup and concealer it takes to make my skin look passable. Ain't nobody risking buffing that off with what's actually a pretty firm cream. I had been using Sleek's Face Contour Kit in Light, but whilst the highlight is flawless, the contour is actually pretty warm and dark for me.

Thankfully, the MACnificent Me Collection has brought us the MAC Sculpt and Shape Powder in Accentuate/Sculpt (not to be confused with the same products in the Sculpted Face collection, which don't carry this exact shade and wasn't out when I bought this). The contour is perfect for my NW20 complexion. There's no messing this up - it just looks completely natural. The highlight isn't shimmery at all (I'll add another on top after because girl's gotta glitter), but instead highlights in the artist sense (light brings things forward, dark pushes them away). It's actually fairly cheap for a MAC powder product ($44AUD), considering this is the larger face powder size, not blush sized.

If you're looking for a contour, I would definitely recommend checking this out.

Reading 'The Chronicles of Narnia'

I've been slowly getting through my reading challenge by reading a lot of series. There's something about a continuing storyline that really pushes you to keep fighting through, and you're never 'between' books, where you can't decide what to read next.

 One of the series I read this year (and loved just as much as the first fifty times I read them), was C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Because I've read them several times, I read them in chronological order, however if it's your first time, I would definitely go publishing order (or at very least, skip Magician's Nephew until later).

Artwork by Paulline Baynes
 Lewis, C.S. The Silver Chair. London: Geoffery Bles, 1953. Print.

The Magician's Nephew: This isn't a stand-alone novel. I mean, it could be, but so much relies on TLTW&TW, and reading this first takes away a bit of the magical feel from that book. It's a very simple story with not a huge amount of plot - a boy and a girl get tricked by a magician into travelling into another world, accidentally drag an evil witch out of a dying world and into a brand new world. Like Last Battle, you really can't avoid the bible parallels here, as C.S. Lewis has made them about as subtle as a tornado.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: If you haven't read it, you've at least probably watched the movie or the miniseries. At very least, you know the plot. This is the most famous book, and with good reason. The miniseries is wonderful, even if Lucy was cast with one of the more annoying child actors of all time. I would probably rate this as one of the most universally likable of all of the series, but it isn't my favourite.

The Horse and His Boy: When you read older books, you always have to balance incredibly awkward racism/sexism/et cetera with the enjoyability (not a word apparently) of the story itself. And oh boy is Horse and His Boy one of those books. Incredibly racist, with a whole race of people who are clearly based on Muslims being the bad characters. Once you fight past that, it's a really fun adventure tale. It's nice to see the Pevensie children's rule of Narnia from the perspective of other characters, as it's really glossed over in TLTW&TW, and to have talking animals as major characters instead of side characters.

Prince Caspian: It's a good story, it's a short story, but I've always glossed over it when I'm remembering the series. There's some nice characterisation, but there's just not that much to this story.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Starts with the greatest first line of literary history: "There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it". This is basically C.S. Lewis' try at The Odyssey, and you'll either love it or hate it. I enjoy it.

The Silver Chair: Has always been my absolute favourite book of the series. It's not even that I particularly like Jill or Eustace as protagonists (though I absolutely LOVE Puddleglum, so there's that), but it has the best adventure of all the books, great exploration of places outside Narnia, and, well, it's just a really good book. Because, Puddleglum.

The Last Battle: Ugh. I mean, it's not the worst book I've ever read, but it's Lewis' least subtle attempt at religious allegory, and just not a great book. But you've gotta finish the series, and it's short enough. You'll hate Lewis for his treatment of Susan though.

Music Break: I Was Here - Kristin Chenoweth

Reading the Anne of Green Gables series

Anne of Green Gables. Dir. Kevin Sullivan. Sullivan Entertainment, 1985. Television.

I've read Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables a million and one times. I grew up loving the PBS mini series starring Megan Follows (especially the much maligned Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story).

It was only a couple of years ago that I actually read past the first book, and even then I flew through the first five books and then got a couple of chapters into Anne of Ingleside before thinking 'ew this is about the kids no thanks'. This year, encouraged by being super behind my reading challenge, and also having nothing else to do with my time, I decided to force myself to read them all. And you know what? The kids aren't that bad. And I may have found a new favourite book out of it all.

Anne of Green Gables: Obviously the classic. I could read this story a million times and never bore of it, and always come out with a new perspective. It's up there with Jane Eyre as one of the most classic and well-written female bildungsroman novels of all time. If you finish this book without a crush on Gilbert (and let's admit it, Matthew too), you didn't read it properly.

Anne of Avonlea: A little different from the first book, but still... very Anne. I think what I enjoy most about this book is that we seem to get even more Marilla Cuthbert than we got in Green Gables. It's also beautiful to watch Anne and Gilbert's relationship develop, even as Anne remains blissfully unaware.

Anne of the Island: Anne and Gilbert finally get together in this one. And it's wonderful and beautiful and it's what you spent the last three books waiting for. Unlike in the tv world (Gilmore Girls, Dawson's Creek, Veronica Mars, shall I go on...) the college years are not the worst part of this series. It's great to see Anne being able to socialise with people on her intellectual level about intelligent, sensible things. Anne has matured past her everything-is-romantic-and-pretty level, but we don't get to see that when she's with Diana and the girls. Later on, she mostly talks to housekeepers and nosy neighbours. So let's enjoy Anne at probably her best.

Anne of Windy Poplars: Mary Sue of Windy Poplars would be a more fitting title. This is a book written years after all the other books, to fill in the three year gap between Gilbert's proposal and their wedding, and it shows. Oh man, does it show. All that happens in this book is Anne meets people and changes their lives forever. Oh, some people don't like Anne, but then they meet Anne and their lives are improved forever because she is the most wonderful person in the world and so perfect. There would almost be a redeeming factor in the fact that the story is half told through love letters from Anne to Gilbert, but no. We never get any of Gilbert's replies, and he's barely in the book. We have to put up with Anne's flowery prose at length (there's a reason it's charming in the other books - because we're told about it through the much better writing of Lucy Maud Montgomery!) and the romance? THEY OMIT THAT. What is even the point.

Anne's House of Dreams: Wins the award for wankiest title of the series (close follow up: Rainbow Valley), but all in all a great book. Captain Jim is charming, the B Plot with Leslie Moore is wonderful, and we get to see Anne and Gilbert's wedding which is everything you wanted it to be and more. Just wish we could have left out Anne's commentary about how silly she was trying to write silly stories and novels in the past, because she's a mother and a housewife and that's the real goal in life.

Anne of Ingleside: Anne in name only, this is really about the kids - except for a terrible plot near the end where Anne thinks Gilbert doesn't love her anymore because he forgot their anniversary. Honestly, this is mostly only good for character building. This was also written years after the rest of the series, and for some reason Lucy Maud Montgomery chose to throw in a HUGE spoiler for Rilla of Ingleside right at the end, which kinda ruins it if this is your first time reading the series. As a side note, Shirley is the most nothing character ever. I feel like Montgomery kept forgetting he was one of the kids, so every now and then she just threw his name into a scene. This is the same in the next three books. He gets a small going-to-war plot in the last book, and Montgomery can't even be bothered bringing him back from war before the book ends. That's how much she (and you) care about this character.

Rainbow Valley: The kids are old enough to not be really irritating at this point, so this is a far more enjoyable read. We also focus on the Meredith kids of the Manse, and develop them a whole bunch. Basically, this is the better version of Anne of Ingleside way before it was ever written. Let me throw in another side note: dear god, please drop the overdone lisp on Rilla. I have a lisp, and it pissed me off to no end to read the dialogue of this character. Every s is written as a th, including turning 'ears' to 'earth' WHICH IS A WHOLE OTHER WORD. It's painful to read, and it's just unnecessarily.

Rilla of Ingleside: Actually one of the best books of the series. Deals with war, loss, responsibility, and love. And they've dropped the overdone lisp, for the most part. I don't know what to say about this book other than I'm still thinking about it days after finishing it. It's truly an experience. You need to read Anne of Ingleside and Rainbow Valley to really get the full force of this book, but you will love it.

I'm pretty sure The Blythes are Quoted is actually the 9th book, but that's only been released in full very recently and I don't have it yet. And I don't know, I feel like Rilla of Ingleside is exactly where I wanted this series to end.