Critics are lame!

I finally got my kindle last night and loaded it up. So.MUCH.fun :-) - I just have to keep in mind that it's actually a novel on there and there really isn't any point paying for it if I don't want to read it. I purchased 'The Fame Game' by Lauren Conrad and read it in one sitting and after I'd finished it was the strangest thing. I just felt like... now what? With a book I can display it on a shelf, lend it to my friends or pass it on to a charity shop. If it's from the Library I return it but an ebook....... it just....is. It exists without really existing. So.Weird!!! still when there are so many cowboy-romances available for free who am I to question it.  I love cowboy-romances :-)

Any-who the point of this post is a conversation that I had with my flat-mate this morning regarding said Lauren Conrad novel. My thoughts on the book were that I enjoyed it, it was exactly what I thought it was going to be. Easy, light reading that kept me hooked enough to read through the night. I would absolutley recommend this book to the right demographic but do I think its literature or that it's ever going to win a prize... no I don't.  Mz Conrad creates fun and frothy books that will always find an appreciative audience and I think that's an incredibly valuable and important thing. Teen girls will pick up her work and they will read it and enjoy it and a positive experience will hopefully keep reading. TOTAL SCORE for a novel that will garner any amount of derision from book snobs.

Fifty shades of Grey. Hmmm yep another book that will create readers.  This trilogy, much like the Twilight books it's based on, has a secret ingredient that is almost impossible to describe.... some kind of literary crack. Once you start you cant just set the pipe aside! - Is this technically great writing? No it's not.  Is this an awesome book that provides the reader with a fantasy, an escape from daily life and an all around incredibly positive reading experience? Yes it is!  Will exponentially more people read this than which ever books win the fancy pants prizes this year? Yes they will. 

As far as I can see the real value in a book, or any form of art, is that people get it. That it reaches an audience and affects them in some way. Sure I enjoy literature and festival films, I like something that means something from time to time but it's the dance movie that makes me smile for hours after I leave the theatre. It's the love story with a twist that I will talk to my friends about for hours and the pretty people singing pretty songs that will make me happy as I dance around my house like a dork. It's all about perspective really and valuing the things that matter.

Perhaps good writing wins prizes but it's the Great writing that wins hearts and minds....and fans :)

xoxo

so I'm joining the modern age ... only a little reluctantly

My mum got me a Kindle today! how cool is that. I will take possession of my new toy in a week or so and until then I am getting excited about all of the lovely books I'm going to download. It's sooooo fun! - little dangerous maybe :)

I was resistant to a Kindle because apparently the Amazon copy-write laws don't work with the lending terms of the Library and so Kindle people cant be e-book borrowing people.. :(  I was all set to get a Kobo but then I thought about it and realised that if I'm going to borrow from the Library I'm getting books. If I'm sitting on my couch reading, I'm going to be reading a book and not a machine so it really doesn't matter which e-reader I get. 

My plan is to pack it full of awesome YA novels like 'Looking for Alaska' and the fun easy reads like Lauren Conrad books Cecelia Ahern and then stash it in my handbag for the bus and the cafe. A plethora of choices right there at my finger tips! YAY.

My other option is the following.... I found it on Pinterest and as a total Gilmore geek I think it could be another way to go.

The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge...

-This is a compilation of all of the books that Rory was seen reading on the show along with others that were simply referenced.. or mocked. It's easy to see which are which (LOLS)  -  I will NEVER get through even a fraction of these but it's fun to play super intelligent and bookwormy sometimes. Red equals READ

1984 by George OrwelThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainAlice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore DreiserAngela's Ashes by Frank McCourtAnna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. SalingerCharlotte's Web by E. B. WhiteThe Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles DickensA Clockwork Orange by Anthony BurgessThe Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas p�re
Cousin Bette by Honor'e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by DanteThe Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca WellsDon Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary ShelleyFranny and Zooey by J. D. SalingerFreaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. RowlingHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. RowlingA Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry (TBR)
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William ShakespeareHigh Fidelity by Nick HornbyThe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
I'm with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inferno by Dante
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bront�The Joy Luck Club by Amy TanJulius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterleys' Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian AndersenLittle Women by Louisa May AlcottLiving History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Love Story by Erich Segal         
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken's Chrestomathy by H. R. MenckenThe Merry Wives of Windsro by William ShakespeareThe Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It's Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo's Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra WaldoMy Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa LahiriThe Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlinNervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dines
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron SuskindPride and Prejudice by Jane AustenProperty by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert's Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Holiday by Edith WhartonRomeo and Juliet by William ShakespeareA Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann HesseS Is for Silence by Sue GraftonSlaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee WilliamsStuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney's Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie OtsukaWho Moved My Cheese? Spencer JohnsonWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront�
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Phew that's a ton of kind of scary books. Still there are quite a few that are on my "to buy after I buy Lauren Conrads new book" list :-)

xoxo

Where's the brain bleach... anyone???



Almost a year ago now I was at this show!!! It was honestly one of the best things/nights/experiences of my life. I loved every second of it and I could understand why kids cry at seeing their idols. From the first note it was just so amazing to be sharing the same physical space as BRIAN MCKNIgHT and actually hearing him sing and play live, hearing his voice and seeing the way he carries himself when he's not in a music video or playing himself on "my wife and kids". It was Magical. There really is no other word that comes close to containing the amount of awesome that there was....

I don't get to listen to the radio that often so I've been getting my Brian news on Face Book and over the last week or so there has been a bunch of interviews about a song he recorded. It's called "If you're ready to learn".... I just now got around to listening to it and Oh.MY.GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! It kind of broke my heart a little bit and I didn't blush that much when I was reading "fifty shades of grey". Those lips, and that voice should NOT be wrapped around those lyrics. It's criminal and horrible and it's insulting.

The thing is that, after actually reading some of the face book interviews Brian has said that the "song" is a parody, a comment on the state of RnB music today. He claims it's a joke and I am choosing to believe him. I'm choosing to believe that his aim is to wake up the music buying public to the fact that somebody like him, voice and career and all, has to sing something like that to get taken notice of. I'm choosing to believe he's making the point that lyrics don't matter anymore and that music is missing it's heart and soul. I'm choosing to believe that he wants us to know RnB music is a farce these days because that's the level it has sunk to. 

I'm choosing to believe all of this because I actually do think that he's pretty correct but most of all I would rather think him arrogant and judgemental than to think him overtly simple, incredibly low brow and .. well just gross actually.

Please don't do that to me again Mr McKnight. Please stop shattering the years of illusion that I have spun around you. I like you on that pedestal so quit trying to jump off!  I'm off to build a time machine now so I can go back about a half hour and NOT LISTEN TO THAT BLASPHEMY!!!

I need some brain bleach!

xoxo

Working on the 'cooking' thang

I'm doing well on the cooking portion of my winter bucket list. Well..... it's only been about a week and a bit but I count tonight as a BIG success. Lime and mint quinoa salad. YUM! I have enough for lunch tomorrow and dinner as well so that means I can go to my belly dancing class and not worry to much about eating when I get home. SWEET.

Mushroom

Eggplant

Capsicum

Lime Zest

Lime juice

Mint paste

Courgette

Garlic

Orange-Cranberries

Cashew nuts

Quinoa

DELICIOUS

xoxo

Pinterest inspiration



This pic was on my Pinterest ..dashboard? ,... hmm anyway it really made me want to learn how to belly dance. Turns out there's a class reasonably close to my work on Monday evenings.. YAY - watch out world I'm gonna be wearing that soon! LOL

xoxo

Pic from Pinterest

Loving the weekend

I've recently loaded Instagram on my phone. I used to use Lightbox but what can I say I'm part sheep. Honestly I think it's very cool and so easy to use. even the crappy camera on my phone can produce some reasonable pics and they look very spesh when run through some of these filters. LOVING IT. So here's Saturday in Instagram pics :)

I realised this morning how weird my beside is... Anne of Green Gables and an

academic-ish study of Lucy Maude Montgomery's work underneath the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' trilogy on top of a postcard of the beautiful Cathedral in Christchurch framed by a Dream Catcher from Canada.  Oh well I like it

went for a walk this arvo and saw this

and

this..they smelt soooooo goood!

and now it's movie night... all of the above are recommended by someone. Funnily enough though Sabrina is recommended by Rory..Gilmore!!! hahahahah I'm so cool it's amazing :)

Right now though, Ice Road Truckers is on!!! HELL YEAH.

Love those Manly Canadian accents. Wooo

Happy weekend

xoxo



Awesome 34

Happy New Year to MEeeeee !!

Yesterday was my birthday and I had a fantastic time. - Incredible if you will ;-)

I got spoilt completely rotten and I managed to drink like a crazy person without suffering for it today. AWESOME! That doesn't happen anymore so I guess the magic birthday fairy was smiling down on me. So I'm 34 and you know what? I love it. I wouldn't want to be 21 again or 18. I'm really lucky and actually, I'm really happy right now. Only way is up!

The new year (according to me) happens to coincide with the start of winter so I decided to create a winter bucket list. It's a dreary season so an awesome to do list will be a good way to entertain myself and hopefully heat up some of those long cold nights that are fast approaching.

the winter bucket list

1. I got a call from a favourite old uni lecturer of mine and he wants to help me finish my diploma in children's literature. All it would take is ONE paper. MUST.DO.IT
2. Exercise! not like a crazy person and with no measurable goals but feeling fit is going to make everything go better.
3. Cooking. Simple as that. I am absolutely terrible at anything domestic BUT for the winter I want to make a decent meal at least once a week. It's so much easier in winter with soup and casseroles etc. I also want to try doing a bit of baking. The Margarita Cupcakes that I made for my birthday were DELISH :)
4. Help somebody else work on their bucket list
5. Buy a new Camera
6. Start saving for my trip to Argentina- mid 2013 dude!!!!
7. Have a big mid winter Christmas party - since I have awesome friends and am obviously fantastic at throwing get togethers! (hehehe)
8. Start attending more..OK just attending 'meetup.com' events
9. Have a weekend away
10. Organisation BABY! I want to be streamlined and clutter free. I want to have it all down so that I don't have to think I can just DO. -Life AND possessions!
11. Get dressed up and go to High Tea at a fancy hotel
12. Get contacts.... as in contact lenses
13. Have a makeup lesson
14. Keep sending letters to my little buds down the line and go visit them on the farm.
15. Spend some Sundays at the museum and the art gallery

So a social and cultural winter :-) - I guess we'll see how it all goes down. I'll have to be motivated to make this happen! Not really my strong suite... being motivated but some of these are definite doables!

xoxo