No longer new

When I woke up this morning to the surprising sound of actual rain (the air con system of the office building next door makes a noise that sounds like bad weather), I came across a scary realisation. The year isn’t new anymore. In fact, as many of you may be aware, if you keep a diary or actually follow a calendar, it’s mid-April. And if you’re like me, you may have failed to register that fact because your diary ceased to open past February. We are over one third into 2016 and I don’t believe it.

I’ve been in denial of the year’s progression, but I really should have seen the signs. If we live in the same country (#votedbestcountryagainNZ), you might have added an extra layer or two to your body and bed (like me, last week). You may have picked up a sniffle, or a sore throat (like me, two weeks ago). If you’re in the city of Auckland, you can share in my misery that it’s been bucketing down today for about 80% of sunlight hours (if we could see the sun). Ding, ding, ding! It’s safe to say that summer has well and truly bowed out, and Autumn has come sweeping in, leaving a trail of rusty leaves to clog up our drains. I really should have noticed that the year was getting on.

There’s no place like home

People often ask questions about home: where it is, what it’s like, if you miss it and if you’ll ever go back. It’s a conversation starter, an icebreaker. At the end of 2011, the year I finished high school, if you asked about my home, I would have politely told you, “I love it, and home is home, but I am TOTALLY READY TO MOVE OUT”. On the inside, I was pretty much screaming “CAN I MOVE ALREADY”. I’m sure you all understand me, I just needed a break.

The first time I returned home after I had officially moved out, was when I finished/survived my first semester of university. I had never felt so happy, and so appreciative of the little, but loving home I had grown up in, as I sat by the fire in Dad’s Lazyboy chair and my family milled around me, business as usual. What had felt claustrophobic was now pleasantly familiar, comfortably enclosing me like a mink blanket. What had felt inadequate, dated and confining, now felt just right.

Choosing yo-pro life over travel life

I’m 9 months into yo-pro life (yo-pro: young professional), and I simultaneously love and hate my decision to take on my career fresh out of university. As I write this, I’ve just finished a 51 hour week, and I’m settling into the couch with some leftovers and a movie, #rager. Why am I not having a drink somewhere? Shouldn’t I be going out? What are my plans for the weekend and why, oh why am I not overseas? Silly questions fill my head and then I make the mistake that only someone in this day and age with a smartphone can make- check Snapchat and feel instantly fomo about not choosing to travel (fomo: fear of missing out- but in this case, just mo: missing out).

One Snapstory is from London, under the glittering fairy lights of Oxford St. The other is a tale from Italy, featuring old buildings, beautiful people, and only the best pizza and gelato in the world. The rest are an enticing and jealousy-inducing jumble of South East Asian sunsets, airport terminals captioned #nextstop<insertexoticlocationhere>, and unescapable #squad pics, featuring pop music, alcohol and all the friends that I don’t share the same city with (which makes me feel 1% better that they just didn’t invite me).

My (involuntary) unplugged week*

How long has it been since you unplugged yourself from the Internet? Can you imagine doing it? Unfortunately for me, my *five days of being unplugged was a complete surprise, but I handled it better than I thought I would. I just found other things to do, besides Facebook stalking, Insta-trawling and Netflix binging.

DAY 1

My internet stopped working on Wednesday night. It didn’t matter, because I had a friend up from Wellington, and we caught up over dinner and dessert on a balmy Auckland evening.

DAY 2

On Thursday night, with nothing much to entertain me, I did all my housekeeping. Whilst vacuuming, I found the book I checked out six weeks ago and hadn’t opened yet. I took the opportunity to finally get stuck in, and thought, “it’s just one night, Lennie!”. When I next checked the time, it was 2am and I knew the fast-approaching day at work would be a killer.

From the city to the coast

I’ve lived in Auckland for about 6 months now, and last weekend I finally left ‘the city’. There have been work trips to Rotorua and Queenstown, and home trips to Wellington, but I haven’t strayed very far out of my self-made CBD-Ponsonby-Newmarket network. I’ve taken the bus out to the airport numerous times, crossed the bridge twice, and once travelled south to Papakura for Malaysian food (when the craving hits and colleagues have a car, you’ve got to!). When you live in the shadow of the Sky Tower, on the same street as your 9-5 job, and a carpark costs a quarter of the rent (so you don’t have a car because you’d rather enjoy life’s other offerings), you get pretty comfy with your surroundings.

However, my good friend Eva came through on her chariot and whisked me away for a walk in the weekend, and my grand plan to explore Queen Street went out the window (saving me lots of money but gaining me no new boots). As the motorway became a winding road slicing through a mountain range, I still hadn’t figured out that the walk ahead of me was going to be a two-and-a-half hour trek in the mud.

What to be, when backstage at Fashion Week

Last week, I put my 9-5 job on hold for two days, to take on the role as an #NZFW Backstage Blogger. My sartorial dreams came true as I interviewed designers and their glam squads, sneakily touched the clothes on the dressing racks and sat in the back, middle and front(!) rows at New Zealand Fashion Week. In those whirlwind 48 hours, which felt like forever, I found myself dazed and confused, shy and little, then fab and articulate. Although I was backstage, I definitely wasn’t “in”, and it was a little bit daunting being surrounded by so many industry greats. Somewhere between hour 2 and 4, after a few sweats and shivers (so not #fashion, I know), I gave myself a wee pep-talk, pushed forward and wrote a reminders list.

Fashionably late: the tale of Karen and me

Being a new girl at an all-girls’-school was where I met Karen: last name Walker, and of the fashion persuasion. Five years of high schooling opened my eyes to the world of Walker, as I was literally going to school in it: ‘Karen Walker’s School for Young Ladies’ would have us aptly named. As the years went on, the amount of mini bow earrings, love heart rings and daisy diamante bracelets amongst us almost outshone our academic scores. By our last day of high school, we had enough silver to fashion a life-size Runaway Girl monument and enough KW tees and jerseys for her to wear a different outfit every day of the year.

Once upon a winter

Last winter, I was an Otago undergraduate student, eagerly counting down the days until I could strip away that title and leave the little town of Dunedin behind me. I had a dream, of finally being ‘Lennie, the yo-pro’, living it up in the big smoke, living up large. This vision was the light in every dark I-can’t-believe-I’m-pulling-another-all-nighter tunnel and/or I-have-no-money-and-ASOS-is-having-a-sale moment, and it was also the (very imaginary, very non-existent) warmth getting me through those damp, dreary Dunedin days. This vision has now materialised, and it is officially my first ever winter as a yo-pro. For the record, it’s probably the warmest one I’ve ever had too- thank you Auckland.

That one night, at the Theatre of Fashion

Fashion has always been a passion of mine, and I know many of you can relate. As a young girl, I owned 3 barbie dolls and 5 outfits between them. When I decided that they needed to stop committing the crime of outfit repetition and copycatting, I took to the scissors, scrap fabric and sewing needles and made up my own mini ensembles. As I grew older, I advanced into a sewing machine and made more mess than I did as a child. I made myself two ball dresses and a few skirts, cushion covers, curtains and aprons (as well as started a countless number of other projects!)